Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said Monday that he favors amending the controversial Article 301 of Turkey's penal code without eliminating the provision altogether. The article makes "insulting the Turkish identity" a crime. Gul expanded on his previous call to change the Article, offering his support to a proposal by a group of trade unions [...]

Giovanni Di Stefano : "The decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit in the recent case of Shawqi Omar confirms the submissions we made in the cases of Saddam Hussein, Barzan Al Tikriti and Awwad Al Bandar; namely that the US government cannot use the question of jurisdiction to preclude [...]

The cabinet of the Somali transitional government approved a new anti-terrorism law allowing sentences of life imprisonment or execution for engaging in or funding terrorist activity, Somalia's Information Minister Madow Nunow Mohamed announced Monday. The law, which must still be approved by President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed , is a reaction to recent violence that the [...]

A Sudanese Foreign Ministry official said Monday that Sudan will prevent a UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) investigation team from entering the country unless the UN agrees to replace team member Bertrand Ramcharan . As a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ramcharan has previously accused the Sudanese government of violating human rights in [...]

The Assets Examination Committee in Thailand , charged with investigating allegations of corruption by former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his family, recommended Monday that criminal tax evasion charges be filed against Thaksin's wife, Pojaman Shinawatra, as well as her secretary and her brother, Bhanapot Damapong. The recommended tax evasion charges stem from an alleged [...]

A German state court in Stuttgart ruled Monday that Brigitte Mohnhaupt , a second-generation member of the ultra-left German group Red Army Faction , also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang, will be granted parole on March 27 after being imprisoned for 24 years. The court did not grant Mohnhaupt a pardon, but determined that she [...]

International donors urged Cambodia Monday to finally pass an anti-corruption law that has been in the works for more than a decade. US Ambassador to Cambodia Joseph Mussomeli expressed disappointment on behalf of donors such as Japan, France and the United States that Cambodia has failed to enact the long-delayed anti-corruption law. The law is [...]

Egyptian officials on Sunday released from detention Muslim cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr , the man at the heart of Italian judicial proceedings against US and Italian intelligence agents implicated in his alleged 2003 kidnapping and extraordinary rendition from Milan. Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, claims he was tortured after being grabbed off a [...]

The Philippines government has pledged to cooperate fully with the UN rights official who arrived in the country Monday to investigate the surge of political murders. In a statement on behalf of Philippines President Gloria Arroyo , Secretary Ignacio Bunye stated that the Philippines welcomes the UN team "in the spirit of truth and justice [...]

The Iraqi High Tribunal (IHT) sentenced former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan to death by hanging Monday in connection with crimes against humanity committed in the town of Dujail in 1982. Three other defendants in the case were sentenced to 15 years in prison; one was acquitted. Ramadan's case will automatically be appealed to [...]