[JURIST] Canadian Foreign Minster Maxime Bernier [official profile] said Saturday that the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade will remove the US from an internal document that lists countries that employ interrogation methods that amount to torture [JURIST report] and where prisoners risk being tortured. The document was part of a manual given to Canadian diplomats in a training course on torture awareness. In a statement [press release], Bernier said:

I regret the embarrassment caused by the public disclosure of the manual used in the department's torture awareness training. It contains a list that wrongly includes some of our closest allies. I have directed that the manual be reviewed and rewritten. The manual is neither a policy document nor a statement of policy. As such, it does not convey the Government's views or positions.

[JURIST] UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories John Dugard [academic profile] said Friday that Israel's recent attack on a Hamas government office in Gaza which injured around 50 civilians and the killings of some 40 Palestinians in the past week should be considered war crimes [statement], noting that the attacks violate the Fourth Geneva Convention's ban on collective punishment. Dugard also called for the prosecution of those responsible for the attacks:

The killing of some forty Palestinians in Gaza in the past week, the targeting of a Government office near a wedding party venue with what must have been foreseen loss of life and injury to many civilians, and the closure of all crossings into Gaza raise very serious questions about Israel's respect for international law and its commitment to the peace process. Recent action violates the strict prohibition on collective punishment contained in the Fourth Geneva Convention. It also violates one of the basic principles of international humanitarian law that military action must distinguish between military targets and civilian targets. Israel must have known about the wedding party in Gaza near to the interior ministry when it launched missiles at the ministry building. Those responsible for such cowardly action are guilty of serious war crimes and should be prosecuted and punished for their crimes.

[JURIST] A Belarus court on Friday sentenced a former newspaper editor to three years in prison for reprinting cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad [JURIST news archive]. Alexander Sdvizhkov was the deputy editor of Zhoda, a small Belarus newspaper, when in February 2006 it republished the cartoons that had originally appeared in a Danish newspaper in 2005 and sparked protests in Muslim countries throughout the world. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko [official website; BBC profile] ordered the paper shut down immediately following the incident, and Sdvizhkov was arrested and charged with "inciting religious hatred" in November 2007. In a statement Friday, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe [official website] criticized the court's handling of the closed door trial and demanded Sdvizhkov's release [press release]. AP has more.

Reproduction of the cartoons has resulted in a number of international lawsuits and arrests alleging defamation of character and disruption of the peace. A French court in March 2007 dismissed charges [JURIST report] against Charlie-Hebdo magazine and its director after the court found that the defendants had not purposely meant to offend Muslims. In September, Bangladeshi authorities arrested [JURIST report] cartoonist Arifur Rahman and suspended the publication of weekly satire magazine Alpin after it reprinted the cartoon.

[JURIST] Lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr [JURIST news archive] on Friday argued that he was a child soldier when he was captured in Afghanistan and that the US military commission responsible for trying him lacks jurisdiction over the case. In the motion, filed with US military judge Col. Peter Brownback, Khadr's lawyers asked for the case to be dismissed saying that it violates the Optional Protocol of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child [text], which gives special protection to children under 18 involved in armed conflicts. Khadr's lawyers also argued that the US Congress did not grant Guantanamo Bay military commissions the authority to hear cases involving child soldiers charged with juvenile crimes. A ruling on the motion is expected early next month. The Canadian Press has more.

Khadr, now 21, faces life imprisonment after allegedly throwing a grenade that killed one US soldier and wounded another while fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2002. He was charged [charge sheet, PDF; JURIST report] in April 2007 with murder, attempted murder, conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism, as well as spying. In November, UN Special Representative for the Children and Armed Conflict Unit Radhika Coomaraswamy [official profile] warned the US that prosecuting Khadr for alleged war crimes committed while he was a minor could set a dangerous precedent [JURIST report]. Human rights groups have also criticized the US for proceeding with the trial.

[JURIST] Libya's plan to begin the mass expulsion of illegal foreign residents violates international human rights law [press release], Amnesty International said Friday, noting that "collective expulsions are inherently arbitrary and those seeking refuge from persecution risk being sent back to face torture and other serious human rights violations in such a sweeping measure." Earlier in the week, the government said it was taking steps to immediately deport all foreign residents who don't have a legal visa. An estimated 2 million foreigners currently live in Libya, but only some 60,000 have proper documentation.

In the Amnesty statement, Philip Luther, deputy programme director for the Middle East and North Africa said:

We call on the Libyan authorities not to implement what appears to be a rushed decision as it would violate the rights of potentially hundreds of thousands of people, including women and children.... The Libyan authorities must ensure that no deportation is carried out in an arbitrary manner and no person in need of international protection is expelled.... We urge Libya to ensure that all migrants, asylum-seekers, and refugees detained in the country are protected from torture and other ill-treatment and are treated humanely. They should be provided with adequate medical treatment and allowed to challenge the lawfulness of their detention.

[JURIST] Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge [official profile] told the Associated Press Friday that he has "no doubt" that the controversial interrogation technique waterboarding [JURIST news archive] should be considered torture. Ridge noted that he didn't have specific information about interrogation techniques used by intelligence agents while he served as head of the Department of Homeland Security, but stressed that "waterboarding was, is - and will always be - torture."

Earlier this month, US Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell [official profile] stated in an article published in the New Yorker that waterboarding was torture as far as he was concerned [JURIST report]. The question of whether waterboarding is in fact illegal torture dogged now-Attorney General Michael Mukasey in his recent confirmation hearings, and he ultimately refused to take a definitive stand [JURIST report] on the matter. In December 2007, former CIA agent John Kiriakou confirmed the use of waterboarding [JURIST report] during interrogations of terror suspects. In response to the controversy over waterboarding, the US House of Representatives voted 222-199 [roll call] in December to pass an intelligence funding bill [HR 2082 materials] that would restrict CIA interrogators to using only those interrogation techniques explicitly authorized by the 2006 Army Field Manual. The bill is currently stalled in the Senate due to GOP resistance [JURIST report]. AP has more.

[JURIST] Chinese company Zhongyi Electronic [corporate website] sued Microsoft [corporate website; JURIST news archive] Friday in Beijing No.1 Intermediate People's Court claiming that Microsoft has been using a technology that converts Roman characters to Chinese characters without paying Zhongyi a license fee for the program. Microsoft has denied the allegations, saying Friday that it has fully performed its obligations and complied with its license agreements with Zhongyi.

The new lawsuit against Microsoft comes just days after the European Commission announced that it was investigating two new allegations [JURIST news archive] that Microsoft abused its dominant market position regarding a range of Internet and operating system software. The European Union investigation extends principles from the EC's 2004 landmark ruling [JURIST report] requiring the software giant to share technical information with competitors. Microsoft has subsequently dropped its appeal to the 2004 ruling and plans to fully comply with the new investigation. Microsoft has also faced significant antitrust investigations in South Korea, and in October 2007, the company said it would drop its appeal [JURIST report] of penalties assessed for Microsoft's abuse of its dominant position in that market. Reuters has more.