Newly elected Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said Monday that he will ask President Pervez Musharraf to immediately lift house arrest orders against former Pakistani Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry and other judges. Gilani, addressing the parliament shortly after his election, added that he will also support a parliamentary resolution requesting a UN investigation [...]

Turkish authorities Monday charged Turkish Workers' Party leader Dogu Perincek for his alleged involvement with a secular extremist group suspected of plotting to overthrow the ruling government headed by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) . Percincek, a staunch Turkish nationalist who was convicted last March by a Swiss court for denying that the mass [...]

A Chinese court sentenced land rights activist Yang Chunlin to five years in prison Monday on charges of "inciting subversion of state power" for circulating a petition declaring "we want human rights, not the Olympics," which was signed by over 10,000 people before Yang was arrested in July 2007. The Beijing Olympics are scheduled to [...]

Three Indonesian Islamic militants sentenced to death for their roles in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings withdrew their second appeal Monday, after the Cilacap district court refused to grant a change of venue and transport the militants to a district court in Bali. The Indonesian Attorney General's Office said that the militants, Mukhlas, Amrozi, and [...]

A Pakistani court has cleared Asif Ali Zardari of charges related to his alleged involvement in the 1996 assassination of a retired judge and his son due to lack of evidence, a government prosecutor said Monday. Zardari, the new leader of the Pakistan People's Party and widower of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto , [...]

The National Parliament of East Timor voted Sunday in favor of a further extension of the national state of emergency imposed after assassination attempts against President Jose Ramos Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao . Horta was critically wounded and rebel leader Alfredo Reinado was killed during the attacks, but Gusmao escaped unharmed. Acting President [...]

Former US Army Pfc. Steven D. Green should be prosecuted in civilian court under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act , and not under the military system of justice as urged by the defense, federal prosecutors argued in a motion filed late Friday night. Green faces capital charges for his role in the rape and murder [...]

JURIST Special Guest Columnist Sharon Bradford Franklin, senior counsel at the Constitution Project, amicus in the US Supreme Court in support of habeas petitioners Mohammed Munaf and Shawqi Omar in Munaf v. Geren and Geren v. Omar, says that American citizens should be able to challenge their detentions in federal court whenever they are held [...]

Zimbabwean opposition group Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) on Sunday accused President Robert Mugabe of plotting to commit election fraud by printing millions of surplus ballot papers in advance of the March 29 presidential vote. MDC Secretary General Tendai Biti said that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission leaked information showing that at Mugabe's request, 9 million [...]

An estimated 6,000 protesters rallied on the island of Okinawa, Japan, Sunday calling for tighter controls on US military personnel in Japan in the aftermath of the alleged rape of a local 14-year-old girl by a US Marine in February. The rally's executive committee authored a resolution calling for a drastic revision of the US-Japan [...]