[JURIST] French students and workers took to the streets Saturday in protest over the recent passage of a new labor law which allows employers to fire people at will under the age of 26 during the first two years of their employment. 500,000 protesters gathered in more than 150 demonstrations throughout the country and while protests were mostly peaceful, at least 59 people were arrested [AP report] in Paris when some protesters began throwing rocks. Demonstrations earlier in the week [JURIST report] ended in street fights and clouds of tear gas in Paris, prompting police to deploy forces for Saturday's protests. Strikes over the last two weeks have grown larger and larger, and have impacted 60 of France's 84 universities [JURIST report].

The open-ended contract for people under 26 was passed as part of the larger First Employment Contract (CPE) [FAQ, in French; BBC Q&A], and is supposed to encourage employers to take on young employees by removing some of the inherent financial risks of hiring young adults. The law, which took effect last week and was proposed by Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin [official website] has been criticized as diminishing job security. AFP has more. Le Monde has local coverage.

9:17 PM ET - Late reports say that a total of 156 people were arrested in Paris after protests there turned violent again at the end of the day Saturday, with demonstrators attacking store fronts and a McDonald's. Police used water cannons and tear gas to control and disperse the crowds. Several cars were also burned. AP has more.

[JURIST] Police in Uganda JURIST news archive] have summoned opposition leader Kizza Besigye [BBC profile] to question him about alleged electoral law violations during last month's elections [JURIST report]. Besigye purportedly waved the lid of the ballot box at the polling station where he placed his vote, and if true, violated the law that states that "a person who without due authority, destroys, takes, opens or otherwise interferes with a ballot box…commits an offence." Press photographers captured images of Besigye waving the lid of the ballot box, but questions remain as to why the ballot box was not properly sealed, as required by law. Besigye, meanwhile, has said that the Ugandan Electoral Commission [official website] is frustrating the legal challenge [JURIST report] lodged by the Forum for Democratic Change [party website] against the election results by failing to turn over tally sheets [Daily Monitor report] showing election returns.

Besigye, who has represented the strongest challenge against Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni [BBC profile] over his 20 year rule, has faced other criminal charges recently, including rape and treason. Besigye was acquitted [JURIST report] of the rape charge and the treason charge is still pending [JURIST report] in court. Besigye has said that all of the charges are politically motivated and were aimed at destabilizing Besigye's campaign against Museveni. AFP has more.

[JURIST] US forces abused Iraqi detainees long before the Abu Ghraib scandal broke in 2004, the New York Times reported Saturday. An elite special forces unit formerly known as Task Force 121 and now known as Task Force 6-26 converted one of Saddam Hussein's former military bases near the Baghdad International Airport into a secret detention center and used one of Hussein's torture chambers as an interrogation cell dubbed the "Black Room." Soldiers allegedly beat prisoners with rifle butts, yelled and spit in their faces and used them for target practice with paintball guns. The Black Room, part of Task Force 6-26's secret headquarters at Camp Nama, was often the first stop for insurgents on their way to Abu Ghraib [JURIST news archive]. Army investigators and Army intelligence officials warned the commanders of Camp Nama in August 2003 that some of their interrogation techniques were out of hand. The Central Intelligence Agency then prohibited its officers from participating in harsh interrogations at Camp Nama and secretly barred its officers from working at Camp Nama, but allowed them to provide target information and intelligence to the task force. Camp Nama closed in the summer of 2004 and Task Force 6-26 moved its headquarters to Balad, 45 miles north of Baghdad, where their operations are even more secretive than before.

Information about Camp Nama emerged as a result of a Freedom of Information Act [summary; text] request by the American Civil Liberties Union [advocacy website] and information gleaned from several people involved in Camp Nama at one point. Most of the people who agreed to speak were career government employees with previous military service.

The Pentagon formed Task Force 6-26 in 2003 in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks [JURIST news archive] in New York City and Washington DC, and its main mission is to hunt down Abu Musab al-Zarqawi [BBC profile], the most wanted terrorist in Iraq. The Pentagon refuses to disclose the unit's exact size, the names of its commanders, its operating bases or its specific missions in an effort to shield the unit from public scrutiny. The highly secretive unit, which changes its name often to confuse adversaries, seemingly has had a disproportionate number of troops punished for detainee abuse. Since 2003, 34 task force members have been disciplined, and at least 11 have been removed from the unit. Eric Schmitt and Carolyn Marshall of the New York Times has more.

[JURIST] Saddam Hussein has rejected a suggestion from his lawyers to transfer his trial [JURIST news archive] out of Iraq, claiming "I was born in Iraq and I want to die there," according to Jordanian lawyer Salah al-Armuti in an interview with the Al-Sharqu Al-Awsat newspaper. Hussein's lawyers have repeatedly condemned the Iraqi High Criminal Court [JURIST news archive] trying Hussein as illegitimate because US authorities helped create it. In a report to the UN Human Rights Commission earlier this month, UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers [official website] Leandro Despouy also questioned [JURIST report] the legitimacy of the tribunal and suggested Hussein should answer to an international tribunal with the cooperation of the UN instead. The UN refuses to support the current tribunal partly because of concerns about partiality and the prospect of the death penalty against defendants.

The Iraqi High Criminal Court is in the process of trying Hussein and seven former aides on crimes against humanity charges for the killing of 148 Shiites [JURIST report] in Dujail in 1982. The trial is currently adjourned until April 5 [JURIST report]. AFP has more.

[JURIST] The head of the Philippine army said Saturday that 15 army officers, including Brigadier-General Danilo Lim, commander of the Philippines' elite Scout Ranger regiment, will face courts-martial for violations of the military's Articles of War in conjunction with last month's alleged attempted coup [JURIST report]. Philippines President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo [official website; JURIST news archive] declared a state of national emergency [Proclamation 1017 text] permitting the investigation of the alleged coup plotters. The declaration was lifted [JURIST report] a week later on March 3.

Lim, a West Point graduate, has been under house arrest since February 24, though he has denied responsibility. Following the discovery of the "Oplan Hackle" plot in January, the government has reportedly investigated 59 officers and 37 soldiers in connection with the attempted coup. There have been at least a dozen coup attempts in the Philippines since 1986. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Iranian officials released dissident journalist Akbar Ganji [Wikipedia profile; advocacy website] from jail late Friday evening. It is currently unclear whether Ganji will have to return to prison for a few more days. Though Ganji's lawyer said his sentence ended March 17, a senior judiciary figure said Ganji is currently on leave for only seven days to celebrate the Iranian New Year and his sentence officially ends March 30.

Ganji was jailed in 2000 and sentenced to six years in prison in 2001 for writings that linked powerful Iranian officials, including former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani [Wikipedia profile; official website in Farsi], to the murders of opposition intellectuals and writers. In July, the White House issued a statement [press release] calling for Ganji's release, after he went on hunger strike in June to protest his confinement. Ganji ended the hunger strike [JURIST report] in August after he fell seriously ill. The UN and European Union also issued calls for Ganji's release. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Over 50,000 mourners gathered in front of the parliament building in Belgrade Saturday to mourn the death of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic [JURIST news archive], who last week was found dead in his prison cell [JURIST report] at The Hague where he was on trial for genocide and war crimes [ICTY case materials]. Saturday's farewell ceremony was organized by the Socialist Party of Serbia [Wikipedia backgrounder], Milosevic's own political party, as government authorities refused to grant an official state funeral.

Socialist Party leaders delivered speeches while many of Milosevic's supporters wept and carried photos and banners in support of the former leader. No members of Milosevic's immediate family appear to have attended the farewell, though former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark [JURIST news archive], who previously represented Milosevic and who is currently a member of the Saddam Hussein defense team, was present. Milosevic is scheduled for burial in his hometown of Pozarevac later today.

Commenting on the farewell rally, Serbian Foreign Minister and former Milosevic political rival and assassination target Vuk Draskovic noted that it was a "people's funeral," but ruefully observed that "All of the Belgrade squares would be too narrow to host those killed, crippled, displaced during [Milosevic's] rule." AP has more. From Belgrade, Radio B92 has local coverage.

[JURIST] Judge James Ware of the US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website] Friday ruled [PDF text] that internet search giant Google [corporate backgrounder] must hand over the addresses of 50,000 randomly selected websites indexed by its search engine. The ruling was the latest development in an effort by the US Department of Justice [official website] to gain access to Internet search engine information to support its case for the revival of the Child Online Protection Act [text]. As anticipated [JURIST report] after a Tuesday hearing, however, Ware refused to force Google to hand over search terms used by site visitors as initially demanded by a DOJ subpoena [PDF text].

In a posting to Google's blog after Friday's ruling, Google Associate General Counsel Nicole Wong said the ruling was a victory for the company's ability to protect user privacy. AP has more.

[JURIST] Members of the professional association of Egyptian jurists known as The Judges Club demonstrated in Cairo Friday, calling for greater judicial independence in Egypt [JURIST news archive] and denouncing the government's order to interrogate six judges who were stripped of judicial immunity [JURIST report] after speaking out against December parliamentary election results [JURIST report] they claimed were tainted by fraud. About 1,000 demonstrators, including the judges and their supporters, took part in a silent protest that preceded a general assembly meeting of The Judges Club intended to address the concerns. At the meeting, the judges agreed to support their colleagues' decision to reject the government's interrogation order requiring them to appear before prosecutors.

Under Article 88 of the Egyptian Constitution [text], elections must be judicially supervised. Egyptian judges have been pressing for greater independence [PDF backgrounder] for years, and have used the occasion of recent presidential and parliamentary elections to press their case through boycotts and criticism. AP has more.

[JURIST] Lawyers representing victims of the 9/11 attacks said Friday that Transportation Security Administration lawyer Carla J. Martin, alleged to have coached witnesses [JURIST report] and disclosed part of the government's case in violation of a sequestration order [PDF] in the trial against Zacarias Moussaoui [JURIST news archive], did so to ensure that witness statements did not undermine the defense strategy of United Airlines and American Airlines in a separate civil action brought by 9/11 families. The lawyers noted that the government's case against Moussaoui took the position that gate security could have stopped the hijackers had security personnel been on the look-out for short-bladed knives such as the ones used by the hijackers. This position is completely contrary to the airlines' defense strategy and would substantially undermine their case. Communications between Martin and airline defense lawyers were outlined in a brief [PDF, see especially letter appended] filed by Moussaoui defense lawyers Thursday.

Martin has since been on administrative leave [JURIST report]. Her actions initially prompted trial judge Leonie Brinkema to reject [JURIST report] all aviation evidence presented by the government, but she later revised that order [JURIST report] to cover only the evidence Martin was dealing with. Late Friday, defense counsel for Moussaoui asked the court to hold an additional evidentiary hearing to allow Martin to tell her story [Motion to Reconvene Evidentiary Hearing, PDF] before allowing the trial to proceed with "untainted" evidence on the basis of her revised order. AP has more.

[JURIST] Kinderstart.com [corporate backgrounder], a directory and search engine focused on children zero to seven, filed suit against Google [corporate backgrounder] Friday in federal court in San Jose, accusing the high-profile search engine of unexpectedly dropping the site's search rank, leading to a 70 percent fall in page views and an 80 percent fall in ad revenue for Kinderstart. In its suit, Kinderstart requested the court certify a class of plaintiffs who have been allegedly "blacklisted" by Google's search engine. The suit seeks unspecified economic damages against Google, as well as a court order requiring Google to explain its tightly-guarded PageRank technology [official backgrounder], which ranks a website based in part on how many other websites link to that site.

The suit reflects growing concern in segments of the business, media and academic communities about the economic, social and civic dominance of Google, especially as most Web users come to accept the engine's returns and rankings as definitive, and Google refuses to increase the transparency of its processes while remaining generally unaccountable. Google maintains that the "voting" model of its PageRank technology ensures that its search results are both democratic and as objective as possible. The San Jose Mercury News has local coverage; AP has more.