Friday, June 6, 2008
Turkey's AKP discusses hijab ruling
Turkey's ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party has held an emergency meeting after the country's highest court overturned a government move lifting a ban on Muslim headscarves at universities.
Thursday's ruling by the Constitutional Court is the most serious setback for the party since it was elected in 2002 and may threaten its survival.
The defeated amendment is set to play a central role in a separate case that seeks to close the AK Party for anti-secular activities, and ban 71 members, including the prime minister and the president, from belonging to a political party for five years.
Friday's AK Party meeting was chaired by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister.
The meeting took place as hundreds of Turkish women wearing the hijab (headscarf) protested against the court ruling. (Al Jazeera)
Labels: Freedom of Religion, Judiciary, Turkey
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Interview with Tahar Boumedra from Penal Reform International
Is Islamic law -- Sharia'a -- the only legal instrument regulating the death penalty in Arab and Muslim countries?
"No, the death penalty in most Arab and Muslim countries is regulated and applied according to positive laws -- man made law -- and not according to Sharia'a," says Tahar Boumedra, Penal Reform International's (PRI) Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
In an interview with IPS journalist Baher Kamal, Boumedra explains how this issue was debated during a three-day regional conference on the death penalty, which ended in Alexandria on May 14.
"Some delegates -- they came from nine Arab countries -- tried to use Islamic law to argue against the abolition of the death penalty," says Boumedra. "But actually death penalty laws go far beyond anything Sharia'a law ever sought to impose."
The conference, co-organised by PRI and the Swedish Institute in Alexandria, issued the "Alexandria Declaration" calling for a moratorium on executions as a step towards abolishing the death penalty in the Arab region.
IPS: The "Alexandria Declaration" calls on Arab states to comply with the U.N. General Assembly's resolution on the death penalty of last December. This called for states that have not yet abolished the death penalty to establish a moratorium on executions and work progressively towards abolishing capital punishment. Did your discussions in Alexandria achieve any development in this regard?
TAHAR BOUMEDRA (TB): Well, to a certain extent, our discussion in Alexandria reflected somehow the diversity of opinion on the death penalty expressed in the Third Committee of the U.N. General Assembly during the drafting of the moratorium resolution. (IPS)
Labels: Judiciary
Marine 'lied' over Haditha deaths
A US marine lied to cover up a squad's killings of 24 civilians in Iraq's city of Haditha in 2005, a US prosecutor has said at the officer's court martial.
The prosecutor's comments came during opening statements in the trial of Lt Andrew Grayson in California.
Lt Grayson is charged with obstructing justice and making false statements in connection with the case. He rejects the allegations.
He is the first of three defendants to go on trial.
Four marines were initially charged with killing of the 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians, including women and children, in Haditha. Another four were charged with failing to investigate the deaths.
But five of the marines have now had charges dismissed.
Lt Grayson lied to investigators to help cover up the killings in Haditha, prosecutor Lt Col Paul Atterbury told a seven-member jury at the court martial in Camp Pendleton. (BBC)
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Rights group says 18,000 held arbitrarily in Egypt
About 18,000 people are being held in Egyptian jails without charge or trial, Amnesty International said on Wednesday, two days after emergency laws allowing their continued detention were renewed. "Some 18,000 people continue to be detained without charge or trial on the orders of the Interior Ministry under the emergency law," the London-based right group said in its annual report. Most are held in conditions amounting to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, with hundreds reportedly sick with ailments including tuberculosis and skin diseases, it said. Amnesty said that many detainees were still being held despite their acquittal by courts and repeated orders for their release. Egypt on Monday extended for another two years the 27-year-old state of emergency that allows detainees to be held without charge or trial, in a move slammed by rights groups as anti-constitutional. The state of emergency was first imposed in 1981 after the assassination by Islamists of President Anwar Sadat and has been repeatedly renewed since then despite protests from rights groups and regime opponents. Last year, Judicial and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mufid Shehab said the state of emergency would end in 2008, even if a new anti-terror law meant to replace it was not ready. An Egyptian inmate told AFP on Sunday that 280 prisoners at Borg al-Arab jail, near the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, had started a hunger strike over their continued detention despite repeated court orders for their release. (AFP)
Labels: Amnesty International, Egypt, Human Rights, Judiciary
Guantanamo protesters in court
A group of protesters have appeared in a US court in Washington DC after their arrest at a demonstration against the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
The 35 protesters, from the group Witness Against Torture, were arrested during a protest at the US Supreme Court in January to commemorate the sixth anniversary of the camp.
In court on Tuesday the group, some wearing orange jumpsuits, waived their rights to a lawyer and represented themselves under the names of various real-life Guantanamo detainees.
They face charges of either "unlawful free speech" or "causing a harangue" or both, and could face a maximum of 60 day in jail.
Prosecutors had offered to drop the charges, but the protesters said they used the detainees' names in a symbolic move.
"When we were arraigned [it] was the first time their names had ever been spoken in a US court, today will be the second," Chris Brant, one of the protesters, told Al Jazeera. (Al Jazeera)
Labels: Guantanamo, Judiciary, U.S.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Merchant recounts brother's 1992 arrest, execution as testimony begins in Aziz trial
An Iraqi trader told a Baghdad court how his businessman brother was executed in 1992 when former Deputy Premier Tareq Aziz was part of Saddam Hussein's regime, as witness testimony in Aziz's trial started on Wednesday. Aziz, 72, is on trial along with seven other defendants over the execution in 1992 of 42 Baghdad merchants accused of racketeering while Iraq was under UN sanctions. They could be sentenced to death if convicted.
Jasseb Saber Dhamen said he was spared because he was an amputee, but his brother Karim was rounded up from Jamila market in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood and executed in July 1992.
"I pleaded and they released me because I am disabled, but the next day I was told that my brother had been executed," he told the court in Baghdad's highly fortified Green Zone.
Aziz, a former foreign minister and deputy prime minister who surrendered to US forces in April 2003 shortly after the invasion that toppled Saddam, charges that people who had tried to assassinate him in the past were out to finish the job.
The session began with Aziz protesting that his Iraqi lawyer was unable to attend because the authorities were trying to arrest him. He already remains without the foreign lawyers he had asked for when the trial opened in April. According to his son, they have been denied visas by the Iraqi authorities. (AFP)
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Iraqi court resumes trial of Tariq Aziz
Tariq Aziz, one of Saddam Hussein's best-known lieutenants, asked an Iraqi court on Wednesday to help annul an arrest warrant against his lawyer so that he can defend him in his trial on charges of crimes against humanity.
Aziz and seven other defendants could face the death penalty if convicted in connection with the 1992 executions of dozens of Baghdad merchants accused of driving up food prices.
"The (Iraqi) government has issued an arrest warrant against my lawyer and we are seeking your help to step in," Aziz asked judge Raouf Abdul-Rahman. Aziz is being represented by court-appointed defense lawyers in his trial, which began April 29.
Abdul-Rahman told him to present a written request, but added that his court had nothing to do with such government measures.
Aziz's lawyer, Badee Izzat Aref, said the arrest warrant was issued in 2006 when he was defending Ali Hassan al-Majid, who gained the nickname "Chemical Ali" for gassing the Kurds in the late 1980s. Aref was accused of insulting the court.
"This court is an illegal one and it only seeks the killing of the defendants rather than achieving justice," Aref told The Associated Press in a phone interview from Amman on Wednesday, referring to the special tribunal that is trying cases against members of Saddam's regime. (AP)
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Tough penalty urged in Aziz trial
The prosecutor at the trial of the former Iraqi deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, has called for a tough penalty to be handed down.
Prosecutor Adnan Ali called for a punishment which would "ease the hearts of widows".
Mr Aziz, once the public face of Saddam Hussein's government abroad, is accused over the deaths of 42 traders executed for sanctions profiteering in 1992.
If found guilty, he could face the death penalty or be jailed for life.
The BBC's Caroline Wyatt in Baghdad says there were sharp exchanges in court as the trial resumed.
Mr Aziz, 72, said his accusers were motivated by vengeance:
"I know it is a plot of personal revenge because the people who are governing Iraq now tried to kill me on the first of April 1980."
He insisted he was still proud to have served the Saddam Hussein's Baath party, and to have been a member of his ruling Revolutionary Command Council. (BBC)
Monday, May 19, 2008
Azizi's European lawyers denied visas to enter Iraq
A group of French and Italian lawyers will not be able to defend Iraq's former Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz, whose trial resumes on Tuesday, because they still have no visas from Iraqi authorities, the accused's son, Ziad Aziz, told AFP in Amman. And his Iraqi defense lawyer said on Saturday he too will not attend the trial because he has "no protection from the Iraqis."
"No one from the Iraqi government has spoken to me about this and I will not risk my life without receiving guarantees," Badie Izzat Aref said.
Several lawyers in previous trials of other members of Saddam Hussein's regime have been assassinated in Baghdad.
Aziz, 71, surrendered to US troops in Iraq in April 2003, a month after the invasion. He went on trial on April 29 on charges linked to the execution of 42 Baghdad merchants for hiking food prices when Iraq was under UN sanctions. Prosecutors say the businessmen were arrested in Baghdad's wholesale markets and executed after a speedy trial in 1992.
Aziz could face the death penalty if convicted. (AFP)
Monday, May 5, 2008
Yemeni court overturns closure of daily
A Yemeni court Saturday overturned a government decision to shut down an independent weekly newspaper, the official Saba news agency said. The court in Sanaa said Al-Wassat newspaper could resume publication, reversing the closure order handed down by the Information Ministry. Publication of Al-Wassat had been suspended for the past month. The court also ordered the ministry to pay the newspaper's legal costs and banned it from withdrawing operating licenses for other Yemeni publications, Saba reported. The ministry said it had based its decision to close the newspaper over its failure to adhere to administrative procedures, including the listing of its editorial staff and failure to provide notice of the relocation of its offices. (AFP)
Labels: Free Media, Free Speech, Judiciary, Yemen
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Egypt jails 25 Islamists for up to 10 years
An Egyptian military court on Tuesday jailed 25 members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood for up to 10 years for financing a banned organisation and acquitted 15 others, a court official said.
The Brotherhoood's number three Khayrat al-Shater and fellow leader Hassan Malek were jailed for seven years while seven other Islamists were jailed in absentia for 10 years.
Sixteen others were jailed for between 18 months and five years, the source said.
The Islamists were sentenced following a repeatedly delayed verdict that has no right of appeal because it is issued by a military tribunal. (AFP)
Labels: Egypt, Free Speech, Judiciary
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Afghan Detainees Sent Home to Face Closed-Door Trials
Afghan detainees held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are being transferred home to face closed-door trials in which they are often denied access to defense attorneys and the U.S. evidence being used against them, according to Afghan officials, lawyers and international rights groups.
Since October 2006, the United States has transferred approximately 50 detainees out of Guantanamo to the custody of the Afghan government, part of a policy aimed at reducing the prison population and ultimately closing the facility. Once home, many of the Afghans have been left in a legal limbo not unlike the one they confronted while in U.S. custody.
"These people have been thrown into a deeply flawed process that convicts people on inadequate evidence and breaks numerous procedural rules of Afghan law and human rights standards," said Jonathan Horowitz, an investigator at One World Research, a public interest investigation firm that works with attorneys and advocacy groups on human rights cases and has monitored some of the detainees' trials. (Washington Post)
Labels: Afghanistan, Judiciary, U.S.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Rights Group: Afghan Trials Unfair
A human rights group charged on Thursday that Afghanistan is prosecuting detainees transferred from U.S.-run prisons in arbitrary and unfair trials with little evidence.
Human Rights First lauded the Afghan government's decision to try the detainees, formerly held in the prisons at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Bagram, Afghanistan, in a court of law. But the New York-based group said in a new report that the legal proceedings are unfairly based on little more than allegations by American officials.
"Where there is evidence of criminal activity, persons should be tried in proceedings that comport with international fair trial standards," Human Rights First said in its report. "In Afghanistan, the trials of former Bagram and Guantanamo detainees being conducted since October 2007 fall far short of this mark."
In trials that last between 30 minutes and an hour, defendants have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from three to 20 years, it said.
An Afghan official overseeing the cases said he believes the proceedings have been transparent and fair. (AP)
Labels: Afghanistan, Judiciary, U.S.
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