[JURIST] The City of Chicago [official website] is willing to pay $20 million to settle lawsuits filed by four former death row inmates who claim to have been tortured by Chicago Police [official website] officers during interrogations before being wrongly convicted, local media reported Saturday. The settlement is contingent upon approval by the city's aldermen next week. The four men were among many who reported being brutally tortured by Chicago police during police interrogations in the 1970's and 80's. The settlement announced by the city's Law Department [official website] comes as Chicago attempts to ease tensions between the Chicago Police Department and residents. Last week, Mayor Richard Daley announced a new police chief [press release] for the force, the former head of the FBI's Philadelphia office. Chicago lawmakers hope the settlement and police reorganization will help improve racial relations in the city.

The four men were pardoned in 2003 by then-Illinois governor George Ryan [JURIST news archive]. An investigation into Chicago police torture began in 2002, when the Chief Criminal Judge of Cook County appointed the two special prosecutors to investigate 64 reports of torture and cover-ups. In May 2006, the same judge ordered the public release of the report [AP report], holding that the privacy rights of the accused officers are outweighed by the public's need to know. In 2005, several human rights groups, including the MacArthur Center, asked [JURIST report] the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights [official website] to investigate the allegations. The New York Times has more. The Chicago Sun Times has local coverage.

[JURIST] US Marine Sgt. Jermaine A. Nelson was charged Friday with the November 2004 murder of an Iraqi detainee in Fallujah [JURIST news archive]. This is the second time Nelson has been charged with the murder. The original charges against him were initially dropped, but upon review of the case, the military decided to proceed. Nelson faces an Article 32 pretrial hearing [JAG backgrounder] to determine whether there is enough evidence to go forward with a full court-martial. If convicted of murder, Nelson faces life in prison. The alleged murder took place during a bloody battle [CNN report] between US troops and Iraqi insurgents over the city of Fallujah.

In July, the Naval Criminal Investigation Service (NCIS) [official website] announced investigations of at least 10 Marines [JURIST report] in connection with the Fallujah offensive after former Marine Corporal Ryan Weemer admitted during a polygraphed job interview with the US Secret Service that he had witnessed indiscriminate killings in Fallujah. Military journalist Nathaniel Helms afterwards corroborated that account, reporting that he witnessed Marines execute subdued Iraqi prisoners, whose bodies were later buried under rubble from an air strike. The charges against Nelson follow those against former Marine Sgt. Jose Nazario, who pleaded not guilty [JURIST report] in September to voluntary manslaughter in connection with the same incident. AP has more.

[JURIST] A federal judge Friday dismissed a lawsuit challenging a new Arizona law aimed at preventing employers from knowingly hiring illegal immigrants [JURIST news archive]. The Legal Arizona Workers Act [AZHB 2779 PDF, Arizona Republic backgrounder], enacted [JURIST report] in July, gives the Superior Courts of Arizona power to suspend or revoke the business licenses of businesses that intentionally or knowingly employ illegal immigrants. Under the law, employers will be required to check the legal status of new hires using E-Verify [official DHS website], a free online federal program that checks names and identification documents to determine employment eligibility. The plaintiffs, a coalition of advocacy groups and business interests [JURIST report], had hoped to block the legislation before it takes effect on Jan. 1, 2008. US District Court Judge Neil V. Wake wrote [opinion text, PDF] that the lawsuit was premature because the law had not gone into effect and no one had been harmed, and also that the plaintiffs were wrong in suing the governor and the attorney general, because under the law, only county prosecutors, who were not defendants, have the power to enforce the law.

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano has called the law "the most aggressive action in the country against employers who knowingly or intentionally hire undocumented workers." Napolitano urged similar national legislation in a July letter [PDF text] to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in which she also urged Congress to review the Basic Pilot Program [USCIS materials], the federal database used to verify the status of new employees. AP has more.

[JURIST] Six French charity workers accused of complicity in an abortive effort by French charity Zoe's Ark [advocacy website, in French] to airlift so-called "Darfur orphans" out of Chad [JURIST news archive] to Europe went on a hunger strike in the Chadian capital of N'Djamena Saturday to protest the way the Chadian legal probe into their case has been conducted, according to AFP. The six are said to be refusing food, although they are taking water and cigarettes. A lawyer for the group told AFP that the workers felt they had been abandoned by the French government; last month, French President Nicholas Sarkozy flew to Chad and brought out a number of freed journalists and flight crew [JURIST report] allegedly involved in the airlift.

Last week investigators in Chad completed their investigation [JURIST report] of the airlift and transferred the case to Chadian prosecutors, who are expected to decide this week whether the case should proceed on misdemeanor charges to a correctional court, as the defendants have requested, or on more serious charges to a criminal court. Four Chadian nationals also face criminal charges [JURIST report] over their alleged involvement in the attempted airlift, including the mayor, secretary-general, deputy governor and neighborhood chief of the Chadian border town of Tine. AFP has more.

[JURIST] German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble and his 16 regional counterparts have consider Scientology [church website] "an organization that is not compatible with the constitution", and will work to ban it in Germany, Schäuble said at the end of a two-day ministerial meeting Friday. The German government regards Scientology as a money-making organization, not a faith [German Embassy backgrounder]; a recent report of the interior ministers on terrorism criticized Scientology for breaching the human rights of its members, "such as the right to develop one's personality and the right to be treated equally." Scientology has about 6000 adherents in Germany and is closely monitored. The US State Departments' 2007 International Religious Freedom report on Germany [text] chided the German government for its treatment of Scientologists, noting that:

The Church of Scientology remained under observation (as it has been since 1997) by the federal and seven state OPCs [Offices for the Protection of the Constitution], based on a stated concern that the Church's teachings and practices are opposed to the democratic constitutional order or violate human rights. However, in recent years many state OPCs have opted to stop their observations of Scientology; exceptions included Baden-Wuerttemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, Bremen, Hamburg, and Lower Saxony.

Several states publish pamphlets about Scientology (and other religious groups) that detail the Church's ideology and practices. States defend the practice by noting their responsibility to respond to citizens' requests for information about Scientology as well as other subjects. The pamphlets warn of the dangers the Church poses to democracy, the legal system, and human rights.

In response to concerns about Scientology's ideology and practices, government agencies at the federal and state level and private sector entities established rules or procedures that discriminate against Scientology as an organization and/or against individual members of the Church.

[JURIST] UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro [official profile; JURIST news archive] has concluded that at least 31 people were killed in a crackdown on anti-government protesters this September, according to UN sources [UN News Service report] Friday. The total is significantly higher than the figure of 10 originally claimed by the government, later upped to 15. Pinheiro cites the figure in an as-yet-unreleased report [JURIST report] to be presented to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday. The Special Rapporteur, who had been barred from Myanmar [JURIST news archive] since 2003, was allowed to return there in the wake of the crackdown to report on the state of human rights there as the country's military junta tried to adopt a reconciliatory stance with the UN and critical Western states, including the US. Pinheiro also found that between 3,000 and 4,000 people were arrested in September and October, of whom anywhere from 500 to 1,000 are still being held. Some 1,150 political prisoners detained by the government prior to the protests have similarly not been released.

Pinheiro met with several prominent political prisoners during his November visit to Myanmar [JURIST report], but his request to see opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was denied by the ruling junta. BBC News has more.

[JURIST] US Department of Justice lawyers advised the CIA's general counsel in 2003 not to destroy videotapes showing the "harsh interrogations" of high-value terror detainees Abu Zubaydah [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri [GlobalSecurity profile; JURIST news archive], according to unnamed officials cited by the New York Times in a report Saturday. Scott W. Muller allegedly raised the option of destroying the tapes with the DOJ attorneys and then-White House deputy chief of staff Harriet Myers, who also advised against destruction. A number of lawmakers advised of the existence of the tapes - including US House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Peter Goss and and ranking Democratic minority member Jane Harman - also weighed in against destroying them, although Muller suggested they had no intelligence value and could put at risk US intelligence personnel shown on the tapes. In the short-term the CIA decided not to destroy the videos, but in 2005 as the interrogation program was coming under increased legislative and public scrutiny that stance was reversed by CIA Directorate of Operations head Jose A. Rodriguez Jr. The CIA's general counsel at that time, John Rizzo, was not informed of the destruction of the tapes beforehand. The New York Times has more.

US Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) sent a letter [JURIST report] to US Attorney General Michael Mukasey Friday, asking that the DOJ launch an investigation into whether the CIA's destruction of videotaped recordings of two terror suspects in 2002 could be considered obstruction of justice. Existence of the videotapes was verified in November after the CIA admitted it had mistakenly denied [JURIST report] that it had recorded interrogations, and in a letter to CIA employees on Thursday, CIA Director Michael Hayden confirmed that the tapes had been destroyed in 2005 [JURIST report].

In US government documents released in March al-Nashiri claimed that his confession to responsibility for the 2000 USS Cole bombing was coerced through five years of torture [JURIST report]. In a transcript of testimony before a US Combatant Status Review Tribunal released in April Zubaydah made similar allegations of being subjected to torture prior to his transfer [JURIST report] to Guantanamo Bay. Both men were questioned at CIA secret prisons [JURIST news archive], the existence of which was only officially acknowledged by US officials late last year.

[JURIST] An emerging deal to select a new Lebanese president ran into a roadblock Friday as political factions in Lebanon's parliament failed to agree on mechanisms for changing a problematic constitutional provision. The favored candidate to replace now ex-president Emile Lahoud is Gen. Michel Suleiman [Xinhua report], but under the present Lebanese constitution [text, in French] the presidency cannot be held by a sitting military commander. Anti-Syrian and pro-Syrian groups in parliament disagree on how to address the problem: the pro-Syrian groups refuse to endorse any government-sponsored amendment to the constitution as they feel such an endorsement would be seen as a legitimation of the anti-Syrian government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, and supporters of Siniora do not want to leave the matter to parliament generally as they fear that would weaken Sinoria's already somewhat marginal position.

Lahoud purported to declare a "state of emergency" and hand security responsibility to the army November 23 in a vaguely worded statement [JURIST report] issued just before leaving office at midnight that day at the end of his term without an elected successor in place. The emergency was immediately rejected by the the Siniora government, which noted through a spokesman that Lebanon's constitution did not permit the president to declare a state of emergency without obtaining the approval of the government under Article 65. Its Article 62 moreover provides that presidential powers revert to the government if the office of president falls vacant. AP has more