Clarence Hill , a convicted murderer on death row in Florida , filed a petition Monday asking the US Supreme Court to stay his execution scheduled for Wednesday. The petition follows Friday's decision by the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit denying a motion to stay the execution while Hill pursues an appeal [...]
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France will grant amnesty to 6,924 illegal immigrants with school-age children, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy announced Monday. Even though thousands more had applied for amnesty , Sarkozy said in a television interview that the applications approved represent the "final figure." The Education Without Borders Network (RESF) and other groups criticized the amnesty plan as [...]
US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told a press conference Monday that specification of banned interrogation methods in military commissions legislation drafted by the Bush administration currently under consideration in Congress is vital to US counterterrorism efforts and is necessary to provide CIA interrogators with clear guidance on acceptable practices. Gonzales reiterated his previous contentions that [...]
A Serbian war crimes court on Monday sentenced Anton Lekaj , a former member of the Kosovo Liberation Army , to 13 years in prison for the murder of four Kosovo gypsies, as well as several instances of torture, rape and sexual molestation committed in 1999. The court determined that Lekaj abducted the group of [...]
The European Data Protection Supervisor , the European Union's data watchdog official, on Monday condemned a now-voided agreement between the EU and the US forcing European airlines to share passenger data with US authorities for transatlantic flights, saying it lacked sufficient rights safeguards. Peter Hustinx said in a press conference that a new passenger data [...]
The second Saddam Hussein trial resumed in Baghdad Monday with more testimony from prosecution witnesses in the case involving the "Anfal" operation that killed 180,000 Kurds in northern Iraq in the 1980s. One former Kurdish rebel testified that he was temporarily blinded as a result of chemical attacks allegedly launched on the village by Iraqi [...]
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told delegates at the opening of the second session of the UN Human Rights Council Monday that the Council should pay more attention to the Darfur crisis and not focus exclusively on the situation in Lebanon . Urging delegates to "not disappoint the hopes of humanity," Annan said: The world is [...]
Ben Davis : "Back in 1994 when the US ratified the Convention Against Torture and Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment ("CAT") it included reservations, understanding, and declarations ("RUD's) as regards the prohibitions against cruel, inhuman and degrading ("CID") treatment. Those RUD's interpreted CID to mean the US constitutional standard – the so called "shocks the [...]
The British government Monday proposed closing off the possibility of overturning criminal convictions on legal technicalities where the guilt of accuseds is clear. In a new consultation paper the Home Secretary, the Lord Chancellor, and the Attorney General argue that if the Court of Appeal is convinced that the defendant in fact committed the offense [...]
The Turkish parliament, the Grand National Assembly , is scheduled to meet Tuesday, two weeks earlier than usual, to work on passing reform measures aimed at gaining membership to the European Union . The EU has cautioned Turkey that its EU bid will not be accepted unless the country improves its record on torture and [...]
