[JURIST] The Myanmar military government should investigate allegations that police opened fire on panicked prisoners during last month's devastating cyclone, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar Tomas Ojea Quintana [official website] said Friday. In a report [PDF text] to the UN Human Rights Council [official website], Ojea Quintana alleged soldiers and riot police began shooting prisoners who became agitated after the cyclone tore the roof off the main prison hall. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) (AAPP) [advocacy website] estimated that 36 prisoners were killed and 70 were injured [AAPP press release]. Reuters has more.

Nearly 130,000 people are dead or missing as a result of the cyclone, but the ruling junta refused to delay a constitutional referendum in the country, a move harshly criticized [JURIST reports] in the international community. Myanmar state media reported that the junta-backed draft constitution was overwhelmingly approved [JURIST report] by a vote of 92 percent, although observers expressed skepticism about the legitimacy of the vote.

[JURIST] The US should not try children under the age of 18 in military tribunals, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child [committee website] said in a report [PDF, text] released Friday as part of a periodic review of compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child [text]. The committee also called on the US to investigate allegations of abuse against minors detained at facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since 2002, the US military has detained approximately 2,500 minors as illegal enemy combatants, according to a US government report [DOC, text; JURIST report] prepared in anticipation of the review. As of April 2008, the US is reportedly holding 10 juveniles in Afghanistan and 500 juveniles in Iraq.

The UN committee also urged the US to raise its minimum recruiting age for military service from 17 to 18. Last month, the American Civil Liberties Union released a report [PDF, text] criticizing the US military for targeting minors under the age of 17 in its recruitment drives despite official stated policy against the practice. AFP has more.

[JURIST] A panel of three international judges in the ethnically-divided town of Mitrovica [municipality website, in Albanian] sentenced an ethnic Albanian man Friday to 40 years in prison for a 2001 bus bombing [UNMIK press release; CNN report] that killed 11 Serbs on a religious trip. Florim Ejupi was indicted [UNMIK press release, PDF] in 2005 on charges related to the bus bombing and the killings of two police officers in 2004. The district court convicted [Balkan Insight report] him on 11 counts of murder, as well as counts of attempted murder, terrorism, discrimination and unlawful possession of explosives. Reuters has more.

In 2000, the UN implemented a system of international judges and prosecutors [USIP report] aimed at keeping ethnic discrimination from affecting the judicial process, but the Kosovo Judges' Association expressed concern last month over the effectiveness of courts in the northern provinces [JURIST report] following Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia [text; JURIST report] earlier this year. Kosovo Serbs held protests in front of the courthouse after the declaration, and for several days in March, hundreds of Serbs took control of a UN courthouse [JURIST report] in Mitrovica in the northern part of the country. Serbs consider the territory of Kosovo to be Serbia's historic and religious heartland [advocacy website] and the Serbian government in Belgrade has insisted that Kosovo's declaration of independence is illegal under international law.

[JURIST] A federal grand jury has indicted two former executives of Silicon Valley technology firm Broadcom [corporate website] in connection with a scheme to backdate company stock options. According to the indictment [PDF text] unsealed in federal court Thursday, firm co-founder Henry T. Nicholas III and former CEO William J. Ruehle engaged in a "conspiracy to disguise, conceal, understate, and mischaracterize compensation expenses Broadcom was required to recognize in connection with its stock options." Nicholas was also indicted separately on drug charges [indictment, PDF]. In May, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a civil complaint [JURIST report] against Broadcom for stock option back-dating. AP has more. The Los Angeles Times has local coverage.

The practice of backdating involves setting an option-holder's stock price at a day when stock prices were low instead of the price on the day the option was granted. Although the practice itself is not illegal, it usually involves a violation of SEC and other federal reporting requirements [SOX guide]. Broadcom is the latest technology-related firm to come under SEC scrutiny for stock option backdating. In January, the former CEO of Brocade Communication Systems was sentenced [JURIST report] to 21 months in prison and fined $15 million for the improper backdating of stock options. In October 2007, Mercury Interactive settled [JURIST report] a similar case for a record $117.5 million. In February 2007, the US Department of Justice indicted [JURIST report] the former general counsel of McAfee systems for stock option backdating. In January 2007, the US Attorney's office in San Francisco, CA opened a criminal probe [JURIST report] into backdating at computer maker Apple Inc.

[JURIST] A UK High Court judge has ordered [Reprieve press release] an expedited hearing on whether the UK government must turn over documents allegedly showing that the last British resident detained at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] was tortured. US military prosecutors last week charged [charge sheet, PDF; JURIST report] Ethiopian London resident Binyam Mohamed [Reprieve profile; JURIST news archive] with conspiring to commit terrorism. Mohamed was originally arrested in Pakistan and turned over to US officials; he says that in 2002 the US transferred him to Moroccan agents, who tortured him before he was sent to Guantanamo Bay in 2004. Last month, he sued the UK government [Reprieve press release, PDF; JURIST report] for refusing to turn over evidence allegedly needed for his defense. On Tuesday, the judge rejected arguments by government lawyers that turning over the requested evidence could force the eventual disclosure of more sensitive security information. The New York Times has more. BBC News has local coverage.

For most of 2007, Mohamed was one of five UK residents detained at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive]. Three of those were released [press release; JURIST report] from US custody in December. A fourth British resident, Shaker Abdur-Raheem Aamer, a Saudi Arabian national, was to be returned there but his current status is unclear.

[JURIST] A spokesman for the Japanese cabinet said Friday that the government would officially recognize the Ainu [backgrounder] - an ethnic minority mainly concentrated on Japan's Hokkaido island who traditionally lived by hunting, gathering and fishing - as an indigenous population after both houses of the country's parliament unanimously endorsed a non-binding resolution urging the move. The spokesman added that the government will establish a committee to discuss measures to protect members of the group. The long-resisted official recognition comes in response to Japan's obligations under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People [PDF text], passed [JURIST report] by the UN General Assembly last September with Japan's support. This will be the first time that Japan has recognized a group as indigenous. Bloomberg has more. The Mainichi Daily News has local coverage.

The Japanese government has long been accused of discriminating against the Ainu, despite a 1997 law [text] meant to protect Ainu rights. Previous to that, the Ainu fell under the 1899 Hokkaido Former Aborigine Protection Law, which promoted their assimilation with mainstream Japanese society. Experts say that the government's traditional assimilation policy [CWIS backgrounder] and wide-spread discrimination have reduced the Ainu population and has led to the group trailing behind the rest of the nation in education and income.

[JURIST] The Department of Homeland Security's internal investigations department has reopened an investigation into the extraordinary rendition [JURIST news archive] of Canadian engineer Maher Arar [advocacy website; JURIST news archive], DHS Inspector General Richard Skinner [official profile] told a congressional subcommittee Thursday. Skinner said that new information contradicts an earlier conclusion [congressional testimony, PDF] clearing US agencies of wrongdoing in the extradition. Arar was detained in the US in 2002 on suspicion of being affiliated with al-Qaeda after flying to New York from Tunisia on his way home to Canada. He was later deported to Syria, where he says he was tortured. Internal investigators initially concluded [DHS report, PDF] that the decision to send him to Syria was proper. The Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility [official website] is also investigating DOJ officials' role in Arar's rendition. AP has more. CBC has additional coverage.

In October 2007, US lawmakers apologized [JURIST report] to Arar during a joint hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee [official website]. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice testified [recorded video] in front of the same committee that Arar's rendition was not "handled as it should have been," but stopped short of apologizing. Rice added that the US government has told the Canadian government that it will "try to do better in the future." That was the first time that the US government has admitted any mistakes in its handling of Arar's case. In January 2007, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized to Arar [JURIST report] on behalf of the Canadian government and announced a settlement with him of $10.5 million (CAD) compensation for pain and suffering.

[JURIST] Japan's Ministry of Justice [official website] indicated Thursday that it would revise a law which denied Japanese citizenship to the illegitimate children of Japanese fathers and foreign mothers. The Supreme Court of Japan [official website] ruled [JURIST report] Wednesday that Article 3 of the Nationality Law violated equal protection guarantees in Article 14 of the Japanese Constitution [text]. Japanese Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama Thursday instructed local legal offices to accept citizenship applications [Mainichi Daily News report] from children born to one Japanese and one foreign parent in accordance with the Supreme Court's ruling. The Japan Times has more.

The Supreme Court's decision came in two cases brought by children born out of wedlock to Japanese fathers and Filipino mothers. Under Japanese law, a child born to a Japanese father and a foreign mother could only gain Japanese citizenship if the father admits paternity before the child is born or if the parents were to marry. Mainichi Daily News has local coverage.

[JURIST] The US Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) [official website] released two new reports Friday detailing increased populations in American jails and prisons [BJS reports, PDF; BJS press release]. The reports show that the US prison population increased by 1.5 percent from mid-year 2006 to mid-year 2007, compared with 2 percent growth in the previous reporting period. Approximately 2.3 million Americans were incarcerated as of June 30, 2007, with over 700,00 detained in local jails and over 1.5 million being held in federal and state prisons. The reports also noted that African-American males aged 30-34 had the highest incarceration rate of any race, age, or gender group. Human Rights Watch US program director David Fathi reacted to the reports, saying [HRW press release] "Americans should ask why the US locks up so many more people than do Canada, Britain, and other democracies."

The DOJ inmate statistics follow a May HRW report [text, PDF; HRW press release] alleging that the US war on drugs disproportionately targets urban minority neighborhoods. That report also alleged that in 34 states, an African-American man is 11.8 times more likely than a white man to be sent to prison on drug charges, and an African-American woman is 4.8 times more likely to be sent to prison on drug charges than a white woman.

[JURIST] The US Department of Justice filed a complaint [PDF, text; press release] Thursday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia against Honeywell International Inc. [corporate website], alleging that the company knowingly sold more than 1,700 defective bulletproof vests to US law enforcement and military agencies during a five-year period. The DOJ also accused Honeywell of hiding knowledge that its patented Zylon [NASA backgrounder] fabric, which was used in the vests, would deteriorate over time, alleging that Honeywell pressured vests manufacturer Armor Holdings [corporate website] not to warn customers of this defect. Honeywell has denied the allegations. AP has more.

The lawsuit comes as part of a larger investigation by several government agencies, including the FBI and the Army Criminal Investigative Division, into various companies involved in the manufacture and sale of the flawed vests. In April, the DOJ reached an agreement [Govpro report] with Protective Products International Inc. (PPI) [corporate website], wherein PPI agreed to pay $960 million and to cooperate with the ongoing investigation. In total, the US government spent approximately $20 million on faulty Zylon vests purchased from various vendors. 

[JURIST] A Texas Court of Criminal Appeals judge announced [press release, DOC] Wednesday the creation of an oversight committee designed to increase the effectiveness of the state criminal-justice system and to ensure its procedures are both reasonable and legal. Judge Barbara Hervey
[official profile] said that the Texas Criminal Justice Integrity Unit would help reform the state's criminal justice system, which has the highest execution rate among the states [AP report] and the most exonerations by DNA evidence. The Unit aims to improve interrogation, investigation and prosecution procedures; increase attorney quality and accountability; and provide adequate compensation to the wrongly-convicted. Executions were not specifically mentioned, and Hervey stressed that the integrity unit will help reform all areas of the justice system, not just those that are the most troubling to the public. Unit meetings may start as early as next month. AP has more. The Houston Chronicle has local coverage.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) [advocacy website] there were 42 executions in the US last year, 26 of which took place in Texas. There have been 405 executions in Texas since 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated. In the US, the Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether the lethal injection procedure [DPIC backgrounder] now used in most states meets the constitutional test for cruel and unusual punishment. Until the Supreme Court ruling in Baze v. Rees (07-5439) [docket; JURIST report], expected before the Court adjourns for the term this month, courts have stayed executions from taking place in several states, including Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida [JURIST reports].

[JURIST] Mexico urged the International Court of Justice (ICJ) [official website] Thursday to stay the US executions [press release, PDF] of Mexican citizens until the Court can rule on the applicability of its holding in Avena and Other Mexican Nationals (Mexico v. United States of America) [ICJ materials], in which the ICJ ruled that 51 Mexican nationals tried in US courts had been denied their right under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations [PDF text] to contact their consulate for legal assistance, and that the US was obligated to grant review and reconsideration of their cases. In the case of Mexican national and Texas prisoner Jose Ernesto Medellin [ASIL backgrounder; JURIST news archive], the US Supreme Court ruled that President Bush has no authority to direct state compliance [JURIST report] with Avena. AP has more.

Medellin was sentenced to death for raping and murdering two teenage girls, and is scheduled to be executed [JURIST report] on August 5. He appealed a 2006 Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruling [text; JURIST report] that Bush had "exceeded his constitutional authority" by ordering state court rehearings [JURIST report] for the 51 Mexican nationals convicted in US courts. The President's February 2005 memorandum [text] instructed the Texas courts to follow Avena.