A Guantanamo Bay detainee from Yemen involved in a clash with guards in May told his defense lawyer that guards had instigated the incident when they tried to handle Korans owned by detainees, the defense lawyer said Wednesday. The Yemen detainee's account contradicts reports given by Guantanamo guards and Navy Cmdr. Robert Durand, spokesman for [...]

A military court in Syria has sentenced writer Mohammad Ghanem to six months in prison for "insulting the Syrian president, discrediting the Syrian government and fomenting sectarian unrest," a human rights group said Wednesday. The charges stem from Ghanem's articles published on a website he edits, Surion , that call on the Baathist ruling party [...]

Alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers involving Council of Europe member states, Legal Affairs Committee of the Council of Europe, June 7, 2006 . Read the full text of the report. Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

The disciplinary committee of Spain's General Judicial Council said Wednesday that it will investigate why Spanish judge Juan Del Olmo failed to apply for an extension of the detainment of a suspect in the March 11, 2004 Madrid train bombings . As a result of Del Olmo's failure to ask for the extension, a High [...]

Washington's gay civil rights act took effect on Wednesday, after opponents of the legislation failed to collect enough signatures to put the bill before voters. The law rewrites Washington's Civil Rights Act to include the phrase "sexual orientation" among the classes of people protected from housing discrimination, lending, and employment. Opponents of the bill failed [...]

The US Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday revived debate on the Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act (FAIR) at a Judiciary Committee hearing to discuss changes to the bill. The asbestos compensation bill outlines a plan that would create a $140 billion trust fund financed through revenues from companies facing asbestos litigation and their insurers, [...]

The Chinese government has postponed the trial against former New York Times researcher Zhao Yan , which was scheduled to begin Thursday, Zhao's lawyer said Wednesday. Zhao was indicted for "providing state secrets to foreigners" following a 2004 New York Times report that revealed the resignation of Jiang Zemin as head of the military before [...]

A Dutch court convicted arms dealer Guus Kouwenhoven of violating the UN embargo against former Liberian President Charles Taylor's government, but found him not guilty of war crimes, saying he did not have direct knowledge of the atrocities committed during the Liberian civil war. Kouwenhoven was generally accused of trading guns for timber to assist [...]

Fourteen European countries collaborated with the US Central Intelligence Agency by taking an active or passive role in a "global spider's web" of secret prisons and rendition flights, Swiss legislator Dick Marty said Wednesday in a report from the Legal Affairs Committee of the Council of Europe , as part of the CoE's investigation into [...]

French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said Monday that he supports changing a proposed immigration bill now under debate in the French Senate to allow some children of illegal immigrants currently attending French schools to remain in the country. According to administration officials, as many as 800 residency permits will be made available on a case-by-case [...]