[JURIST] More than 300 inmates were released Sunday from the US-run Abu Ghraib prison [Wikipedia article] on the outskirts of Baghdad. About 800 prisoners have now been released since the start of the year, and almost 4000 since August, when Iraq's Human Rights Ministry joined an American-run review board to determine prisoners' status. More than 8000 people are still being held in facilities throughout Iraq, with 1000 of them charged with crimes in Iraqi courts. Most of the remaining detainees are being at the US Camp Bucca facility in southern Iraq, where Iraqi prisoners rioted [JURIST report] last week, resulting in four deaths. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg [official website] said Saturday that the city will appeal Friday's state court ruling [JURIST report; PDF text] that denying same-sex couples the right to marry violates the state constitution. Bloomberg had previously made conflicting statements about the issue. He said city lawyers had told him the state constitution does not allow for gay marriage, but also clearly stated a personal belief that people should have the right to marry whoever they choose. Political rivals have accused Bloomberg of trying to court both sides in the upcoming election. But the reason for an appeal is clear, he said -- to have the state's highest court make a definitive determination. A court in Albany previously made an opposite ruling [AP report] in a similar case in December. The New York Times has more.

[JURIST] A Cook County (Chicago) judge has ruled that a couple may file a wrongful death suit against the fertility clinic that accidently discarded their embryos. Judge Jeffrey Lawrence held Friday that "a pre-embryo is a 'human being' ... whether or not it is implanted in its mother's womb." He relied on Illinois's Wrongful Death Act [text; FAQ] and another state law declaring an unborn child a legal person in allowing the suit. The plaintiffs had stored nine embryos in January 2000 at the Center for Human Reproduction {official website] in Chicago. Their doctor told them one looked promising, but six months later they were told the embryos had been accidently discarded. The clinic said it will likely appeal. The American Civil Liberties Union says that no appellate court has ever declared a fertilized egg a human being in a wrongful death suit. AP has more.

[JURIST] New US Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice [official website], currently on an eight-day get-acquainted junket through Europe and the Middle East, said Saturday in Turkey that Russia needed to improve its track record on democracy. She told reporters:

It is important that Russia make clear to the world that it is intent on strengthening the rule of law, strengthening the role of the independent judiciary, permitting a free and independent press to flourish... These are all the basics of democracy.

[JURIST] Martin Mubanga [Cageprisoners.com profile], one of four British nationals recently released from the US terror suspect detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, says he plans to sue the British government for its role in his 3-year incarceration without charge or trial. Mubanga, who is also a Zambian citizen, claims that an British MI6 intelligence officer who interrogated him in Zambia after he left Afghanistan in 2001 was largely responsible for having him turned over to US authorities and sent to Cuba, where he claims he was repeatedly tortured and abused by US personnel. Following his release Mubanga told his story to the British Observer newspaper, which published it over the weekend. BBC News has more.

[JURIST] Military prosecutors have dropped a principal charge against former US army reservist Sabrina Harman [Wikipedia profile], one of several US soldiers accused of abusing Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The dropped charge pertains to viewing and failing to prevent the sexual abuse of prisoners. Several other charges against Harman were dropped in August, but she still faces prosecution on five remaining counts of maltreatment, one of conspiracy and one of dereliction of duty for which she could serve a maximum sentence of six and a half years. Harman was seen posing in a number of the photos that set off the Abu Ghraib scandal in spring 2004; in another instance she is also said to have attached wires to a hooded prisoner standing on a box, telling him he would be electrocuted if he fell off. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Top Shiite clerics in Iraq have called for Islam to be the sole source of legislation for the county's new constitution, set to be drafted by the members of the country's Transitional National Assembly chosen in the recent elections. The call is said to be supported by Shiite spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani [official website; English version] and hearkens back to a dispute during the last stages of dtafting the interim Iraqi constitution; the Transitional Administrative Law ultimately said only that Islam was "a source" of law, although it accepted that nothing that "contradicts the universally agreed tenets of Islam" would be legally acceptable. According to Article 7A:

Islam is the official religion of the State and is to be considered a source of legislation. No law that contradicts the universally agreed tenets of Islam, the principles of democracy, or the rights cited in Chapter Two of this Law may be enacted during the transitional period. This Law respects the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi people and guarantees the full religious rights of all individuals to freedom of religious belief and practice.

[JURIST] Sudan's state-run news agency Saturday quoted the country's vice-president as saying that Sudan [official government website; English version] would not extradite any Sudanese suspected of war crimes for trial in foreign courts. Vice President Ali Osman Mohammed Taha said that such trials, possibly at the International Criminal Court [official website] in The Hague or in a special regional tribunal, would constitute "something we will not accept as a government" and that Sudan had its own courts in which human rights cases might be brought. Last week a UN report which declined to characterize the situation in the western Darfur region of the country as genocide [JURIST report] nonetheless recommended that 51 Sudanese - including high ranking officials and militia leaders - be charged with committing crimes against humanity. The Darfur conflict has displaced over 2 million people and led to the deaths of over 70,000. AP has more.

[JURIST] Hundreds of thousands of French workers took to the streets Saturday to protest pending legislation that would allow for extensions of France's 35-hour workweek. The legislation, first announced in December [JURIST report] and scheduled for first reading in the National Assembly [official website] this week [legislative materials in French], would permit companies to negotiate with workers for increased overtime. The reduced workweek law was adopted in 1998 as part of an effort to reduce French unemployment levels, but the government has since regarded it as a failed effort that has driven up labor costs. AFP has more. The French Prime Minister's website offers additional information on the workweek initiative (in French). From Paris, Le Figaro provides local coverage in French.