Angela C. Wu : "The Netherlands, seeking to address concerns about security and cultural integration, is in the final stages of banning the burqa in schools and government offices, with a fine of up to 3,350 euros or 12 days in jail. The parliament has passed the ban, which will be discussed at next Friday's [...]

Cara Horowitz : "Care about the National Environmental Policy Act? Then read on. Early in January, in a case challenging naval mid-frequency sonar training exercises off the coast of southern California, environmentalists (including my organization, NRDC) won a major victory when a federal court issued an injunction requiring the most comprehensive suite yet of measures [...]

Afghan Ambassador to Canada Omar Samad said Friday that his country still considers its agreement with Canada regarding the transfer of detainees to be in effect and is working closely with NATO forces to ensure the safety of prisoners in Afghan custody. The statement comes two days after reports surfaced that Canada had ceased turning [...]

Suspected Russian crime lord Semyon Y. Mogilevich has been arrested in Moscow on tax evasion charges, Russian officials said Friday. Mogilevich was arrested late Wednesday and a court approved his arrest on Thursday. Mogilevich is also wanted in the US on unrelated charges for allegedly manipulating the stock of the billion dollar Pennsylvania corporation YBM [...]

Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed concern Saturday about "gross and systematic abuses of human rights" taking place in Kenya in the wake of last month's disputed presidential election . Annan is in the country to help mediate the conflict between Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and opposition candidate Raila Odinga . Annan acknowledged that the [...]

The military government of Myanmar continues to arrest political dissidents despite assurances given by Prime Minister Thein Sein in November that the arrests had stopped and no more would take place, Amnesty International reported Friday. There have been 96 arrests since November and at least 700 of those arrested during September protests and 1,150 political [...]

Sharon Bradford Franklin : "The State Secrets Protection Act (S. 2533), introduced this week by Senators Kennedy and Specter, would bring much needed reform to the state secrets privilege. The doctrine has been problematic since it was first recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1953 in United States v. Reynolds. In that case, the [...]

Amrit Singh : ""Ours is a government of laws." "No one is above the law: not the executive, not the Congress, and not the judiciary." With these words, on September 15, 2004, a federal judge in New York ordered the CIA to produce or identify all records responsive to the ACLU's Freedom of Information Act [...]

Hanih Saleh Rashid Abdullah et al., v. George W. Bush et al., US District Court for the District of Columbia, January 24, 2008 . Read the full text of the memorandum order . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

A senior Spanish official said Friday that Spanish authorities have initiated legal proceedings to ban two Basque political parties for ties to ETA , the armed Basque separatist movement. Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said the government has evidence that both the Basque Nationalist Action Party (ANV) and the Communist [...]