[JURIST] Kosovo's parliament voted 100-1 Thursday in support of a UN plan to establish an independent Kosovar state under UN supervision. The plan was drafted by UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari [advocacy profile], who believes independence from Serbia with international supervision "the only viable option" for Kosovo.

The plan needs the approval of the UN Security Council [official website] before it can progress. Ahtisaari went before the Security Council on Tuesday, where he faced skepticism from the Russian delegation that the plan would protect the rights of Kosovo's Serbian population. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, however, said [press release] the UN plan was a "fair and sustainable solution to Kosovo’s future status." Ahtisaari's plan calls for the creation of a constitution which would theoretically protect the rights of all ethnic groups [JURIST report], emphasizing their cultures, languages and religions. Kosovo's two million inhabitants consist of roughly 1.5 million ethnic Albanians, 100,000 Serbs, and smaller populations of Bosnians, Turks and other ethnic groups. These groups would all be represented in the judiciary, police and political institutions, which would be monitored by an EU Mission in Kosovo[official website]. AP has more.

[JURIST] Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] said Thursday that Mexico's now-closed Special Prosecutor's Office [JURIST report] failed in its effort to address past human rights abuses stemming from the "Dirty War" of the late 1960s to 1970s [GWU Mexico Project report; JURIST news archive]. The office was created by former Mexican President Vicente Fox [BBC profile] to investigate potential human rights violations that included more than 600 "disappearances" and two still-unsolved student massacres: the Tlatelolco Massacre [Wikipedia backgrounder; GWU Mexico Project report] and the Corpus Christi Massacre [GWU Mexico Project report].

HRW said that only limited progress was made into uncovering the fates of the hundreds of missing people, and while the office is now gone, "the need to address the legacy of past abuses remains." The Special Prosecutor's Office brought charges against numerous former officials, but never secured any convictions as judges threw out many charges on technical grounds or because the statute of limitations had expired. HRW praised many South American countries for advances in prosecuting similar past abuses, but faulted Mexico for its unwillingness to do the same. HRW has more.

[JURIST] Three men arrested [JURIST report] last month in connection with the July 7, 2005 London transit bombings [JURIST news archive; BBC News timeline] were charged [press release and press conference statement] Thursday with unlawfully and maliciously conspiring with the suicide bombers to cause explosions on London's transportation system and tourist attractions in London. The men, Mohammed Shakil, 30, Waheed Ali (formerly known as Shipon Ullah), 23, and Sadeer Saleem, 26, all have connections to the Beeston, West Yorkshire area. For 8 months before the attack, the three allegedly obtained reconnaissance information and assisted in planning the bombings, which, including the bombers, killed 56 people and injured more than 700 others. The men will appear before the City of Westminster Magistrates' Court [HMCS court information] this weekend.

In making the announcement at Scotland Yard [official website], the head of the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command [official backgrounder], Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, asked anyone who has information about the three charged, or the suicide bombers themselves, to call the police tip-line. He also said more arrests would likely come in the future. BBC has more.

[JURIST] A Turkish parliamentary committee okayed legislation Thursday that would censor websites seen as insulting to the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Atatürk [Turkishnews profile]. Legislators debated whether Turkey [JURIST news archive] should also have the right to censor sites that questioned the unity of the Turkish state, or the legitimacy of Turkey's secular government. It is unknown when the legislation will come up to a vote.

The legislation stems from a recent political fracas set off by a YouTube [corporate website] video that alluded to the famed Turkish leader being homosexual. A court injunction banned access to YouTube countrywide [JURIST report]. Turkey lifted the ban [JURIST report] when the original offensive video was removed. Critics have decried Turkey's use of censorship as a political tool. In Turkey it is illegal to insult Atatürk or insinuate that Turkey should be broken up ethnically. Many prominent Turkish journalists, authors, and academics have been investigated and tried for insulting "Turkishness" [JURIST report] under Article 301 [Amnesty backgrounder; JURIST news archive] of Turkey's penal code [text, in Turkish]. Although the original video is gone, many copycats are uploading their own offensive videos [YouTube archive] The entire affair has inflamed longstanding tensions between Turkish and Greek citizens into a "virtual war" on YouTube messageboards. On Wednesday, Thailand too censored YouTube for allegedly hosting insulting videos of the Thai king [JURIST report]. AP has more.

[JURIST] The England and Wales Court of Appeals (Civil Division) [official website] on Wednesday ruled [judgment text] that three Africans formerly living in the Darfur region of Sudan [JURIST news archives] could be granted asylum in the UK, overruling a decision by the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal (AIT) [official website] to send the appellants back to Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. The UK Secretary of State had initially denied asylum to the appellants, saying they could safely return to Khartoum without risk of persecution. The appellants alleged they would be in danger of persecution by the Janjaweed [Wikipedia backgrounder] even in Khartoum, and that sending them back to Sudan would go against the rules of internal relocation. The Court of Appeals agreed that "it would be unduly harsh to require internal relocation to Khartoum," although it found there was little evidence that Sudanese returning to Khartoum would be ill-treated. BBC News has more.

Wednesday's decision will aid hundreds of other Africans from Darfur seeking asylum in the United Kingdom. Aegis Trust [advocacy website] Chief Executive Dr. James Smith responded to the decision:

In light of this judgment, and in light of fresh evidence of the torture of Darfuris removed to Khartoum, brought to light by the Aegis Trust last week, we call for a Home Office moratorium on the further removal of any Darfuri African asylum seekers to Khartoum.

[JURIST] Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko [official website; BBC profile] said Thursday that officials who refuse to comply with his decree [statement] ordering new elections could face criminal prosecution [press release]. Yushchenko issued the decree Monday, ordering parliament dissolved and new elections in May over what Yushchenko has called "systemic violations of the constitution by the parliamentary majority." Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych [BBC profile], Yushchenko's main political rival, has refused to comply with the decree until the country's constitutional court can rule on his court appeal [JURIST report] over the president's decree. Parliament, the Verkhovna Rada [official website] has said it will withhold the funding necessary to hold elections and has also voted to fire the current Central Elections Commission of Ukraine [official website] and reinstate the previous commission. AP has more.

Yushchenko and Yanukovych were fierce rivals in the 2004 presidential election [JURIST report], the results of which were invalidated by the country's Supreme Court [JURIST report] following fraud allegations. Yushchenko was sworn in as Ukraine's president [JURIST report] in January 2005 on the wings of the populist Orange Revolution [BBC timeline] after winning a re-vote. Yushchenko reluctantly accepted Yanukovych as prime minister last June and the two have since clashed over parliamentary attempts to expand the cabinet's power [JURIST reports] at the expense of the presidency.

[JURIST] Ecuador's Constitutional Tribunal [official website, in Spanish] on Wednesday upheld last month's decision by the country's Supreme Electoral Tribunal [official website, in Spanish] to dismiss 57 members of the legislature. The lawmakers, who oppose a planned April 15 referendum to amend the constitution [JURIST report], had been reinstated by a judge [JURIST report] last Thursday. The Supreme Electoral Tribunal responded immediately by firing the judge [BBC report], calling his actions illegal, and upholding the March 21 swearing-in of replacement legislators [JURIST report]. In its decision on Wednesday, the Constitutional Tribunal ignored a petition brought by the dismissed legislatures seeking reinstatement.

Ecuador President Rafael Correa [official website, in Spanish; BBC profile], who assumed office in January as the eighth president in a decade, has called the Ecuadoran Congress a "sewer of corruption." The latest political controversy began when Correa and the unicameral Congress [official website, in Spanish] submitted to the tribunal differing versions of a referendum on amending the constitution. The tribunal accepted Correa's version, which permitted the constitutional assembly to retroactively fire legislators. In turn, the 57 legislators voted to dismiss four of the tribunal members, prompting the tribunal to fire the 57 for illegally interfering with their decision. Ecuador's Constitutional Tribunal then rejected the lawmaker's appeal [JURIST report], leading to violence between the fired lawmakers and police. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Florida Board of Executive Clemency [official website] on Thursday voted 3-1 to change the Rules of Executive Clemency [PDF text] so that non-violent felons will automatically have their civil rights restored upon release from prison, and released violent offenders can have theirs restored after a board hearing or other type of review. The changes take effect immediately. Board member and Governor Charlie Christ [official website] made clemency for felons part of his campaign platform [Herald Tribune review] during the 2006 elections and called a special board meeting [Miami Herald report] on Monday to present the rule changes. State procedures for restoring voting rights to Florida felons after release have been discussed and debated [JURIST report] for several years now.

In December, California restored voting rights to felons [JURIST report] after a state appeals court found the prohibition unconstitutional. AP has more.

[JURIST] New Hampshire's House of Representatives [official website] passed a bill [HB 437 text] Wednesday to allow civil unions for gay and lesbian couples, placing the state in line to become fourth in the country to allow such relationships. The large Democratic majority in the House propelled the 243-129 vote [official roll call], but Democrats hold only a narrow majority in the state Senate [official website]. Experts believe that the bill will pass there as well, but it must also be approved by New Hampshire Governor John Lynch [official website], a Democrat who opposes gay marriage and has not publicly indicated if he will sign the bill into law. Lynch's press secretary told Reuters that the governor will discuss the bill with lawmakers before taking any action.

Last month, Washington's State Senate passed a domestic partnership bill [JURIST report], but that state's governor has indicated more enthusiasm about signing it into law. Reuters has more. The Concord Monitor has local coverage of Governor Lynch's views.

[JURIST] John M. "Mike" McConnell [official profile], who succeeded John Negroponte as US Director of National Intelligence in February, delivered a policy address [PDF text] to the 2007 Excellence in Government Conference [website] Wednesday criticizing federal surveillance laws as outdated and unresponsive to terrorist threats. McConnell, who previously served as the director of the National Security Agency (NSA) [official website] from 1992 to 1996 before working for private consulting firm Booz Allen [firm website] until February, said:

The laws that we had coming out of Vietnam, Watergate, Church-Pike hearings of the ’70s served us well. But it also set up barriers and cultures and processes that did not make us well suited to combat a new “ism,” in this case terrorism.

What do I mean by that? When someone enters this country, they are considered a US person. They have all the rights and privileges – let me restate that – most of the rights and privileges of a US citizen. So if the intelligence community is tracking someone of suspected terrorism and they arrive in this country in a legal status, they’re now off limits to the intelligence community. Switch to law enforcement. The rules and regulations on law enforcement are much more stringent with regard to conducting surveillance of either US citizens or US persons. So the terrorists that came here and operated here prior to 9/11, so long as they were here legally and so long as they did not break the law, they were mostly invisible to us.

[JURIST] The Constitutional Court of Uganda [JURIST news archive] Thursday rejected a law criminalizing adultery by women and parts of an estate law according greater rights to surviving husbands than to surviving wives. The adultery legislation effectively permitted married men to engage in extramarital affairs with unmarried women, but punished married women with fines or up to 12 years' imprisonment for adultery. Attorney General Kiddhu Makubuya [official profile] had urged the Court to modify the law to provide equal treatment for men and women if it was found unconstitutionally discriminatory, but the Court noted that it did not have such authority. Makubaya criticized the decision, saying it would spur an increase in promiscuity.

The Law and Advocacy Group for Women in Uganda [WOUGNET profile], a women's rights advocacy group, also challenged the estate legislation as discriminatory because it prevented women from inheriting the entirety of their deceased husband's estate, despite the total disposition of property to the husband upon his wife's death. The rejected portion of the law also allowed husbands to appoint guardians for their children without consent by the mother. BBC has more. Reuters has additional coverage.

[JURIST] Iraq has lost $8 billion through corruption over the past three years, Radi al-Radhi, the head of Iraq's public corruption commission, told AP Wednesday. Al-Radhi said his office has investigated 2,600 cases of wasted or stolen public funds, and blamed a clause of the Iraqi constitution [PDF text] for allowing cabinet ministers to block investigations. The Commission on Public Integrity [ICAC backgrounder] was established [press release; US State Department backgrounder] in 2004 and has the power to investigate complaints, refer criminal violations to the courts, and propose legislation to address corruption. Al-Radhi also said that 20 commission members have been murdered since the organization began, and that he himself has received death threats. AP has more.

In one high-profile case brought by the commission, former Iraqi Ministry of Electricity head Ayham al-Samaraie [Wikipedia profile] was sentenced last year to two years in prison on corruption charges [AP report] before he escaped from prison [JURIST report] and fled to Chicago. He still faces another 12 corruption charges stemming from over $2 billion in funding for Iraq's electrical infrastructure which has gone missing.

[JURIST] Amnesty International [advocacy website] decried worsening conditions at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] in a report [text; press release] released Thursday, claiming detainees have "suffered harsh treatment throughout their detention, confined to mesh cages or maximum security cells" and that the new facility opened late last year subjects detainees to "even harsher and apparently more permanent conditions of extreme isolation and sensory deprivation." Blaming an upswing in security on last summer's rash of hunger strikes, the report alleges that 80 percent of detainees are held in isolation, including windowless cells, and that restrictions on communication with legal counsel and family members have severely affected detainees' psychological health. The report renews the organization's call for the facility to be closed and detainees to be released or charged and tried under international law norms instead of the current military tribunal system established by the 2006 Military Commissions Act (MCA) [PDF text; JURIST news archive]. Provisions of the MCA strip detainees' habeas rights and were upheld [JURIST report] by the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit [official website] in February and the US Supreme Court denied certiorari [JURIST report] in the case earlier this week. BBC News has more.

Also this week, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) President Jakob Kellenberger [official profile] traveled to the US [ICRC press release] for talks with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates [official profile], who has supported shutting down the Guantanamo Bay facility [JURIST report]. An ICRC spokesman said the organization is not pressuring the US to close Guantanamo, but talks have included discussion of the legal system in place for detainees and whether there is opportunity to be tried and charged without indefinite detention. Australia's ABC News has more.

[JURIST] The family of John Walker Lindh [CNN profile; JURIST news archive] said Wednesday that a clemency petition has been filed on their son's behalf, seeking to reduce his 20-year sentence in light of the nine-month sentence handed down to Australian David Hicks [JURIST report] last week. Lindh, the American caught fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, pleaded guilty in 2002 to supplying services to the Taliban under a plea agreement [PDF text] with prosecutors. His lawyer said Wednesday that the plea agreement was the best deal possible at the time, as Lindh was not charged with any of the terrorism-related activities alleged in his indictment [text], but that given the favorable plea deal struck by Hicks, President Bush should commute the sentence in the name of proportionality.

Lindh has petitioned Bush on two other occasions for clemency, in 2004 and 2005 [JURIST reports]. Both were denied. AP has more. The Chicago Tribune has additional coverage.

[JURIST] Virginia [JURIST news archive] became the first US state to require by statute that girls be vaccinated against human papillomavirus [JURIST news archive; US CDC materials] when its General Assembly [official website] voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to accept the governor's proposed amendment to a previously passed bill [legislative materials]. The amendment [text] makes it easier for parents and guardians to opt girls out of the vaccinations by striking a requirement that they use a state-mandated form. The House of Delegates concurred with the governor's recommendation by an 83-17 vote; the Senate, 39-0.

Gov. Tim Kaine (D), who originally announced his intention to sign the bill as passed [PJEPHL report], proposed the amendment [JURIST report] after expressing concerns about the adequacy of the opt-out provision [Virginian-Pilot report]. The Virginia Constitution [text] allows the governor to return a passed bill to the General Assembly for reconsideration of one or more "specific and severable amendments." If the General Assembly agrees to the governor's recommendations, the bill does not need to be sent back to the governor before becoming law.

This report was prepared in partnership with the Pittsburgh Journal of Environmental and Public Health Law.