JURIST - Paper Chase: Monday, October 10, 2011

[JURIST] The Egyptian Supreme Council of the Armed Forces [NYT backgrounder] on Saturday amended election rules to ban the use of religious slogans in campaigning. The Supreme Council stated that "[e]lectoral campaigns based on the use of religious slogans or on racial or gender segregation are banned," adding that violators could be fined and face up to three months in jail. The new decree will have an immediate effect on the Muslim Brotherhood [party website; JURIST news archive] whose traditional slogan, "Islam is the solution," will be banned under the new electoral guidelines. A Muslim Brotherhood official noted that while the "[t]he slogan is a way of life for us ... it isn't necessarily an electoral slogan." However, the official also said the Muslim Brotherhood leadership is reconsidering their use of the phrase. Voting in a parliamentary election starts in the country on November 28.

In March, Supreme Council of the Armed Forces announced that it would lift the state of emergency [JURIST report] before parliamentary polls were to be held. The election announcement came a week after an overwhelming majority of Egyptians voted to approve several constitutional amendments [JURIST report] in a national referendum. The majority approval is considered by some to be a milestone [JURIST comment] for Egypt during its transition to a democratic society following the national uprising [JURIST news archive] against former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak [Al Jezeera profile]. Both the National Democratic Party and the Muslim Brotherhood supported the amendments to the Egyptian Constitution [text], which include lowering the presidential term limit and mandating new criteria for potential presidential candidates.

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of India [official website] on Monday stayed [text] the execution of a Pakistani national convicted for his participation in the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive]. The stay was issued after Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab [NDTV profile] filed an appeal challenging the death sentence [JURIST reports]. Kasab was convicted [JURIST report] in May 2010 of waging war against India, multiple murders and conspiracy for his participation in the Mumbai attacks during which gunmen targeted hotels, Mumbai's main railway station and a Jewish cultural center. The attacks resulted in 166 deaths, including nine other gunmen. Kasab carried out the attack on the train station which killed 52 people. Two alleged Indian accomplices tried with Kasab were acquitted on all charges of helping to plan the attacks. Kasab is the only surviving gunman from the Mumbai attacks.

In February, an Indian appeals court upheld Kasab's conviction and death sentence [JURIST report]. In January 2010, a judge denied [JURIST report] Kasab's request for an international trial after Kasab claimed that he would not receive a fair trial in India. In March, US citizen and Chicago resident David Headley pleaded guilty [JURIST report] to 12 counts of federal terrorism stemming from the Mumbai terror attacks and a terror incident in Copenhagen. A federal jury acquitted Tahawwur Hussain Rana [JURIST report], a Chicago resident with Canadian citizenship, of participating in the Mumbai terror attacks in June, but convicted him on two counts of planning to attack a Copenhagen newspaper after Headley testified at his trial. In December, Spanish authorities arrested seven men [JURIST report], including six Pakistanis and one Nigerian, in Barcelona suspected of aiding in the Mumbai terror attacks by allegedly stealing passports and other identification documents belonging to male tourists between the ages of 20 and 30, then sending the documents to Thailand where they would be forged and then forwarded to terrorist groups.

[JURIST] Prisoners in some Afghan-run detention facilities have been beaten and tortured, according to a report [text, PDF; executive summary] released Monday by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) [official website]. The prisoners interviewed for the study had been detained by the National Directorate of Security (NDS) or Afghan National Police (ANP) forces for national security crimes. Nearly half of the 273 detainees interviewed reported that they had undergone interrogation that amounted to torture. UNAMA also alleged that NDS and ANP officials committed due process violations and arbitrarily detained arrestees but did acknowledge that the abuse was not the result of official government policy. The report contends that torture and arbitrary detention undermine reconciliation and reintegration of former Taliban members into Afghan society and compromises national security:

Torture, ill-treatment and arbitrary detention by the NDS and ANP are not only serious violations of human rights and crimes they also pose obstacles to reconciliation and reintegration processes aimed at ending the armed conflict in Afghanistan. UNAMA's research along with the findings of other experts who have analysed the emergence and growth of the insurgency post-2001, highlights that such abuses in many cases contributed to individual victims joining or rejoining the Taliban and other anti-Government armed groups.

UNAMA recommended that the Afghan government, the NDS and ANP adopt and implement measures to reduce abuse in detention facilities.

Afghanistan has received much criticism for its human rights record. Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] reported in September that the Afghan Local Police (ALP) force is committing serious abuses [JURIST report], and the Afghan government is doing little to hold the officials accountable. Corruption, abuse of power and a focus on short-term security goals in Afghanistan have intensified the issue of poverty [JURIST report] affecting more than two-thirds of the population, according to a March 2010 report [text, DOC] from the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) [official website]. Earlier that same month, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official profile] delivered a report [JURIST report] to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) [official website] that said Afghanistan's human rights progress has been thwarted by armed conflict, censorship, abuse of power and violence against women.

[JURIST] A German judge at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) [official website; JURIST news archive] resigned [press release] on Monday over statements made by the Cambodian foreign minister. Cambodian government officials have put pressure on the international court to turn the cases over to Cambodia, with the Cambodian foreign minister purportedly stating, "On the issue of the arrest of more Khmer Rouge leaders, this is a Cambodian issue. ... This issue must be decided by Cambodia." ECCC Judge Siegfried Blunk resigned from the panel of judges in an effort to maintain the "integrity of the whole proceedings," though he indicated that he would not have been influenced by such statements. Both Blunk and co-judge You Bunleng of Cambodia have been criticized for allegedly failing to conduct impartial investigations. Last week, Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] demanded the resignation [JURIST report] of the two judges responsible for indictments at the Cambodian tribunal on Khmer Rouge [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive] war crimes. In April 2011, the judges declared that they had concluded their investigation into Case 003 [materials] and a formal closing order is expected to be issued soon. The judges are also expected to close and dismiss Case 004 [materials]. Should closing orders be issued in either case, the prosecutor can appeal to the pre-trial chamber.

In July, the UN denied reports [JURIST report] it instructed the ECCC to close further investigations into war crimes committed under the Khmer Rouge regime after the controversial closing of Case 003. Doubts about the legitimacy and independence of the ECCC have been raised since the decision to close ECCC Case 003. In May, a coalition of more than 30 rights groups and development organizations in Cambodia issued an open letter [JURIST report] urging the ECCC to embrace a greater degree of transparency. Earlier that week, ECCC judges ordered Co-Prosecutor Andrew Cayley to retract public statements requesting further investigation [JURIST report] into Case 003. Cayley said the information was released pursuant to tribunal rules "to ensure that the public is duly informed about ongoing ECCC proceedings." The judges, however, said Cayley breached the tribunal's confidentiality and ordered the retraction. The only ECCC conviction since its founding in 2006 is of Kaing Guek Eav [ECCC backgrounder; JURIST news archive], better known as "Duch," a former prison chief at the notorious Toul Sleng prison under the Khmer Rouge. In March, he appealed his 35-year sentence for war crimes and crimes against humanity handed down by the ECCC [JURIST reports] last July. The Khmer Rouge have been blamed for the deaths of some 1.7 million people [PPU backgrounder] from starvation, disease, overwork and execution between 1975 and 1979.