UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak said Tuesday that torture is systematic and widespread in Jordan, especially when used to elicit confessions from suspected terrorists. Nowak found the practice of torture to be routine at the General Intelligence Directorate (GID) , the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Public Security Directorate, as well as [...]
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US Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) re-introduced a bill Monday which would allow US Supreme Court proceedings to be televised, "unless the Court decides, by a vote of the majority of justices, that allowing such coverage in a particular case would constitute a violation of the due process rights of one or more of the parties [...]
The Bangladesh High Court said Monday that it has banned the government from conducting any elections, including this month's upcoming national election, because of political instability in the country. The Chief Election Commissioner of the Bangladesh Election Commission resigned just last week as further evidence of the current political instability in Bangladesh . Earlier this [...]
US President Bush has signed an executive order that places a White House-appointed policy administrator in all federal agencies responsible for developing and enforcing public health and safety, environmental, and civil rights policy. Under the order, which will affect groups such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration , a [...]
The European Union's Court of First Instance on Tuesday upheld a 10.35 million euro fine imposed on telecommunications operator France Telecom by the European Commission for violating EU antitrust rules by charging consumers low prices for high-speed network access in an effort to stamp out rivals. The company began charging consumers artificially low prices in [...]
Argentinean Federal Judge Norberto Oyarbide said Monday that extraditing former Argentine President Isabel Peron from Spain could take more than a year, if it ever happens at all. Argentinean authorities are seeking Peron's return to Argentina for questioning about the Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance (Triple A) , a government-supported death squad. Oyarbide said if Spain refuses [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Chandra Lekha Sriram, Chair of Human Rights at the University of East London School of Law (UK), says that China's economic interests in the Sudan – especially as the consumer of over 60 percent of Sudan's existing oil production and the holder of large concessions for further exploration – make it an [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist David Scheffer, former US Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues (1997-2001), now at Northwestern University School of Law, says that a US troop surge in Iraq could provoke the very atrocities its supporters claim it would prevent, and that a better strategy for saving the lives of Iraqis and Americans alike [...]
The US Marine Corps said Monday that it will launch an investigation into the leak of a Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) report on the killing of Iraqi civilians in Haditha after the Washington Post earlier this month printed photos of the slain Iraqis . Lt. Gen. James Mattis , the top general at Camp [...]
A former US contractor working for the US Department of Defense in Iraq received a nine-year prison sentence Monday and was told he must forfeit the $3.6 million he received for awarding contracts to construction companies owned by an American businessman and through money laundering. Robert Stein, Jr. , who worked as the comptroller and [...]
