[JURIST] Lawyers for the US Department of Justice [official website] defended the six-year detention of Huzaifa Parhat, a Chinese Uighur Muslim, at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] in oral arguments before the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit [official website] Friday. The US claims Parhat is an "enemy combatant" due to his ties with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) [MIPT backgrounder], a militant group that calls for separation from China and was designated as a terrorist group by the US government in 2002. The DOJ acknowledged that Parhat did not fight against the US and that there is no evidence that he intended to do so, but said he can still be held under the Authorization for Use of Military Force Act of 2001 [SJ Res 23 materials] because ETIM is affiliated with al Qaeda.

In 2006, five Chinese Uighur detainees were released to Albania [JURIST report], where officials reviewed applications for asylum. The transfer, which was criticized by China, ended a court challenge against the detainees' indefinite detention [JURIST reports]. In December 2006, lawyers for seven Uighur detainees filed a lawsuit [JURIST report], arguing that the process by which they were determined to be enemy combatants was flawed. AP has more.

[JURIST] Zimbabwean opposition party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) [party website] filed a lawsuit in the Harare High Court Friday to compel the country's Electoral Commission [official website] to release the results of last Saturday's elections [JURIST report]. The commission has not yet announced a winner in the presidential election, although independent observers say that opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai [BBC profile] won the most votes but not enough to win the election outright. Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] and his Zanu-PF party Friday agreed to a runoff election with Tsvangirai.

On Thursday, Zimbabwe security forces detained journalists [CPJ press release; JURIST report] working for the New York Times and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and raided offices belonging to opposition candidates in what some see as indications that Mugabe may refuse to relinquish power if he is found to have lost last Saturday's general election. Zimbabwe opposition parties allege that the government rigged the country's local, senate, assembly and presidential elections. Mugabe's administration has denied any improper delays in the vote count, with Electoral Commission officials attributing the lag to the task of tallying all the results together for the first time in the country's history. AP has more.

[JURIST] Tibetan courts will swiftly prosecute demonstrators involved in protests against Chinese rule in Tibet [BBC backgrounder] last month, according to Friday state media reports. A top Tibet official was quoted as saying that over 1,000 protesters will face prosecution before May 1. Chinese officials have blamed the exiled Dalai Lama [personal website] for organizing the protests by Buddhist monks in the capital of Lhasa last month. Chinese officials and state media have also accused Western media of falsely portraying the protests as peaceful and of defaming Chinese efforts to develop Tibet.

China says that 19 people died after skirmishes between pro-Tibet protesters and Chinese authorities last month, but the Tibetan government-in-exile [official website] said that 130 had died [JURIST report]. The Dalai Lama has denied accusations that he was behind the riots and has said that he supports true autonomy for Tibet, not outright independence. Reuters has more. VOA has additional coverage.

[JURIST] A Montana death row inmate filed a lawsuit [PDF complaint; press release] Thursday asserting that the lethal injection protocol used by Montana's Department of Corrections constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under both Article 2 of the Montana Constitution and the Eighth Amendment [texts] to the US Constitution. American Civil Liberties Union of Montana [advocacy website] lawyers representing Ronald A. Smith, who was sentenced to death for the murder of two men in 1982, argued that Montana executioners receive little training, making it highly likely that they may improperly administer the three-drug execution cocktail and cause the condemned inmate intense pain during the execution.

Last year, the Democratic-controlled Montana Senate voted to give second-reading approval to a bill [PDF text; JURIST report] that would eliminate the death penalty [JURIST news archive] in Montana, but the bill stalled [JURIST report] in the Republican-controlled state House of Representatives. Several US states, including Florida, California, and New Jersey [JURIST reports], have recently suspended the death penalty pending review of the manner in which it is administered. The Billings Gazette has more.

[JURIST] Serbian officials Friday condemned the Thursday war crimes acquittal [judgment summary; JURIST report] of former Kosovo Prime Minister and Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) commander Ramush Haradinaj [BBC profile] by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website; JURIST news archive]. In a television interview, Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica called the ruling "truly worrisome." Serbian officials said the decision could heighten tensions in Kosovo and decrease the likelihood that fugitive war crimes suspects Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic [BBC profiles] would be caught.

Haradinaj was a senior commander of the KLA, the ethnic Albanian guerrilla force that opposed Slobodan Milosevic [JURIST news archive] during the 1998-1999 Kosovo war [BBC backgrounder]. He and two co-defendants, Idriz Balaj and Lahi Brahimaj [Trial Watch profiles], were charged [JURIST report] with 37 counts of war crimes, including murder, persecution, and rape [amended indictment, PDF]. Balaj and Haradinaj were acquitted on all charges, but Brahimaj was convicted of mistreating a detainee and ordering the mistreatment of another, and was sentenced to six years in jail. AP has more.

[JURIST] Russian President Vladimir Putin [official website] Friday renewed assurances that Russia was ready to resume participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE) [text; backgrounder], so long as Western nations ratify the 1999 version of the treaty. Speaking at a NATO-Russia Council summit [NATO materials, PDF] held in Romania, Putin said Russia is "ready to return to the treaty but [we] expect a mutual step." The 1999 treaty restricts the number of troops and heavy weapons that can be stationed between the Atlantic coast and Russia's Ural mountains. Xinhua has more.

The NATO-Russia Council released a statement [text] last week urging Russia to end its moratorium on the CFE and pledging to address the country's national security concerns. Russia suspended [JURIST report] its responsibilities under the CFE in November 2007 amid tensions between the US and Russia over US plans for an anti-missile defense shield in central Europe.

[JURIST] South Korean prosecutors Friday questioned Samsung [corporate website] Chairman and CEO Kun-Hee Lee [corporate profile] about allegations of corruption, including accusations that Samsung maintained a $200 million slush fund to bribe prosecutors, judges and civil servants. Former Samsung lawyer Yong-Chul Kim first raised the allegations in November 2007, but Samsung and Lee have denied that such a fund exists. Prosecutors are expected to complete their investigation later this month. BBC News has more. AP has additional coverage.

Samsung, South Korea's largest corporation, has been the center of numerous legal battles over the past few years. In May 2007, a South Korean appellate court upheld the conviction of two Samsung executives connected with illegal stock trading [JURIST reports]. In April 2007, another Samsung executive pleaded guilty [US DOJ press release; JURIST report] to US charges of conspiring to artificially inflate the cost of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), affecting the price of personal computers worldwide. In 2005, Samsung reached an agreement [JURIST report] with the US Department of Justice to plead guilty to charges that it conspired with other technology companies to fix prices on DRAM chips.

[JURIST] The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) [official website] Friday called on 12 countries, including Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Lebanon, to join the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) [PDF text] as the organization prepared to hold a review conference [OPCW materials] next week. So far, 183 countries [OPCW list] have joined the treaty, which prohibits the use or undeclared storage of chemical weapons by member nations. The CWC required that banned weapons, including nerve and mustard gases, be destroyed by June 2007, though countries may apply for a five-year extension. Reuters has more.

Last fall, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said Iraq would join the treaty [JURIST report]. Several Arab countries have so far refused to accede to the CWC because Israel has not signed the treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons [PDF text]. Israel is one of six countries [OPCW list] that have signed the CWC but not yet ratified it.

[JURIST] The Russian State Duma [official website, in Russian], the country's lower house of parliament, voted 363-8 Friday to approve new restrictions on national referendums, despite a universal walk-out by all 57 Communist Party [party website, in Russian] members. Referendums are binding under Russian law, and the new restrictions effectively bar referendums on issues including the national budget, taxes and treaties. Communist party members objected to the proposal, saying it deprives Russian citizens of their right to voice their opinion on important national issues.

The bill will move on to the Federation Council [official website, in Russian], Russia's upper house, and then go to Russian President Vladimir Putin [official website] for signature. AP has more. Kommersant has local coverage.

[JURIST] Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani [official profile] said Friday that he will restore Pakistan's constitution [text], ensure the supremacy of the country's parliament, and preserve judicial independence [JURIST report]. Speaking at a news conference commemorating the death of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto [BBC backgrounder], the former civilian PM and founder of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) [party website] executed in 1979 under the authority of military ruler General Zia ul-Haq, Gilani promised to bring Pakistan's government back into the hands of citizens and in line with Bhutto's vision. Gilani heads the new coalition government formed by the PPP and the Pakistan Muslim League-N [party website].

Last week, Gilani told parliament during his first major policy speech since taking office that he would "work for the reinstatement" of superior court judges [JURIST report] purged by President Pervez Musharraf last fall. Also last week, Gilani ordered the release [JURIST report] of former Pakistani Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry [JURIST news archive] and several other judges from months-long house arrest. Following his release last week, an associate of Chaudhry said Friday that Chaudhry has decided not to leave Islamabad [AP report] to make appearances around the country to advocate for his reinstatement as chief justice. The decision was prompted by a desire to avoid seeming as though Chaudhry is pressuring the new government. Pakistani Attorney General Malik Qayyum has said reinstating the ousted judges would require a constitutional amendment [JURIST report] with a two-third majority vote. PTI has more.

[JURIST] The UN disability rights treaty [JURIST news archive] will take effect on May 3, 30 days after the 20th country ratified the treaty. Ecuador became the 20th signatory [press release; ratification list] of the pact Thursday after it opened for signature [JURIST report] last March. The treaty protects the 650 million persons living with disabilities worldwide [UN fact sheet] and is expected to be signed by more than 70 countries, albeit not the US [JURIST report], which insists that US domestic measures on the federal, state and local levels are already adequate for the purpose. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities [official website; text] holds that all disabled people should be treated as full-fledged citizens and completely integrated into society. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon applauded the treaty's ratification [statement text], saying the signatories are committed to combating the "dehumanizing practices" against people with disabilities.

The treaty also includes an Optional Protocol [Protocol text], which is expected to be signed by 40 countries; 13 have ratified it so far. The Protocol grants individuals the right to petition a committee of experts for violations of the Convention after all national procedures have been exhausted. Reuters has more. The UN News Centre has additional coverage.

[JURIST] The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers [advocacy websites] announced in a joint statement Thursday that they have teamed up to provide experienced defense attorneys [press release] to defend seven or more specific detainees at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] facing trials before a US Military Commission. The two groups are preparing an $8 million program because they claim the US military has not provided adequate financing to defend the detainees with the military lawyers appointed to them. In addition to their defense, the two groups plan to use information they obtain from the defense proceedings to attack the Bush administration's war crimes system. Col. Steven David, the chief defense lawyer for the Guantanamo cases, welcomed the additional resources, telling the New York Times that the detainees will have the right to accept or refuse the additional counsel.

Among the detainees chosen by the ACLU and Criminal Defense Lawyers is Khalid Shaikh Mohammed [BBC profile; JURIST news archive], who has claimed under oath that he masterminded the 9/11 attacks [JURIST report] and is responsible for 29 other terrorist attacks. In February, the US government announced plans to seek the death penalty [JURIST report] for Mohammed and five other Guantanamo detainees accused of involvement in the 9/11 incidents. The New York Times has more.

[JURIST] US Attorney General Michael Mukasey, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff joined forces Thursday to speak out against the Free Flow of Information Act of 2007 [S 2035 materials] in separate letters [Chertoff letter, PDF; Mukasey and McConnell letter, PDF; Gates letter, PDF] to US senators, arguing that the bill poses a threat to national security [DOJ backgrounder]. The bill would prevent courts from compelling reporters to disclose confidential sources, and generally allow reporters to refuse to testify as to their sources without being subject to contempt of court, but nonetheless contains exceptions for situations where the information sought is needed to prevent a terrorist act or to protect national security. Mukasey and McConnell said the bill's definition of journalists is broad enough to include potential terrorists and criminals, while Chertoff noted that it would include not only regular journalists, but those he said could "claim" to be journalists, such as bloggers, and Internet service providers. Gates added that the bill will make the US more vulnerable by allowing the bill to shield journalists, possibly allowing terrorist organizations to recruit journalists because of their immunity under the bill. AP has more.

The US House of Representatives approved the bill [JURIST report] last fall. The Bush administration and the US Department of Justice have continuously opposed the enactment of a federal reporter shield law [JURIST news archive] citing national security concerns, while proponents, including media outlets, argue the legislation is necessary to protect freedom of the press. The most recent case raising the issue directly in the courts is that of former USA Today reporter Toni Locy [JURIST news archive], currently appealing a contempt of court ruling [JURIST report] imposed on her for refusing to disclose government sources who provided information about former US Army germ-warfare researcher Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, initially identified as a "person of interest" in the investigations of the 2001 anthrax attacks [GWU backgrounder].