[JURIST] Discharging key campaign pledges on his third day in office, US President Barack Obama expressly banned US use of torture [JURIST news archive] in interrogations and directed the immediate shutdown of CIA detention facilities in a third executive order [text] on US detention practices issued Thursday. Declaring its overall intent to

improve the effectiveness of human intelligence gathering, to promote the safe, lawful, and humane treatment of individuals in United States custody and of United States personnel who are detained in armed conflicts, to ensure compliance with the treaty obligations of the United States, including the Geneva Conventions, and to take care that the laws of the United States are faithfully executed...

Consistent with the requirements of the Federal torture statute, 18 U.S.C. 2340 2340A, section 1003 of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, 42 U.S.C. 2000dd, the Convention Against Torture, Common Article 3, and other laws regulating the treatment and interrogation of individuals detained in any armed conflict, such persons shall in all circumstances be treated humanely and shall not be subjected to violence to life and person (including murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment, and torture), nor to outrages upon personal dignity (including humiliating and degrading treatment), whenever such individuals are in the custody or under the effective control of an officer, employee, or other agent of the United States Government or detained within a facility owned, operated, or controlled by a department or agency of the United States.

[JURIST] Turkish police on Thursday arrested approximately 30 more people, including eight army officers, nine policemen, and a union leader, in an investigation of an alleged plot to overthrow the government [JURIST news archive] of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) [party website]. The latest arrests [Al Jazeera report] included journalist Unal Inanc, political polling analyst Erhan Goksel, Turkish Metal Union Chairman Mustafa Ozbek and several other union officials, and numerous members of a police special operations unit whose leader was arrested earlier this month [BBC report]. Police are reportedly continuing to search additional suspects' homes and businesses, including television station ART. Also Thursday, Turkish prosecutors announced an investigation [Hurriyet report] into a program televised on the state-run TRT-2, which included interviews with a witness in the Ergenekon [BBC backgrounder] group case. The group is allegedly responsible for bombing the headquarters of the newspaper Cumhuriyet [media website, in Turkish], assassinating Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink [BBC obituary], and planning other attacks to provoke a military coup to topple the AKP.

Thursday marked the third wave of arrests connected to the alleged plot this month, with approximately 40 arrested January 7 and 12 more on January 11 [JURIST reports]. There are currently more than 100 suspects in custody, including journalists, academics, and Turkish Workers' Party [party website, in Turkish] leader Dogu Perincek [JURIST report]. All were outspoken opponents of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan [BBC profile], whose AKP party narrowly escaped a ban [JURIST report] last year for purportedly undermining the country's secular principles. In October, the High Criminal Court in Istanbul began the trial [JURIST report] of 86 defendants in the coup investigation. The accused are said to belong to the secular Ergenekon group, which critics allege has been improperly investigated by the AKP as part of a drive to impose Islamic principles [Haaretz report] on the country in violation of the its secular constitution [text].

[JURIST] A Chinese court on Thursday sentenced two people to death and several to life imprisonment for their involvement in the melamine-tainted milk scandal [JURIST news archive] that sickened almost 300,000 children and killed at least six. Chairwoman of the now-bankrupt [NYT report] Sanlu Group [Research and Markets profile] Tian Wenhua pleaded guilty [JURIST report] in December and received a life sentence Thursday. The Shijiazhuang court ordered [Xinhua report] the death penalty for Zhang Yujun for producing the supposed protein additive that contained melamine [FDA backgrounder]. Geng Jinping, a Sanlu employee, was also ordered to receive the death penalty for his involvement in the scandal.

Despite the sentences, the victims of the scandal are not appeased. Some victims feel that sentences should be more severe and that the scandal is larger than just the dairy companies. In December, a court ordered at-fault dairy companies to pay $160 million [JURIST report] in compensation to the victims' families although some have been advised to wait for a larger settlement. On Friday, lawyers for the families of 213 Chinese children sickened or killed by the contaminated milk petitioned [JURIST report] the Supreme People's Court [official website, in Mandarin], China's highest court, to hear a class action lawsuit against 22 dairy companies involved in the contamination, seeking more than $5 million in damages.

[JURIST] US President Barack Obama [official website] issued an executive order [text, PDF] Thursday directing that the Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] military prison be closed "as soon as practicable, and no later than 1 year from the date of this order." The order also instructed Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to immediately halt military commission [DOD materials; JURIST news archive] proceedings pending a comprehensive review of all Guantanamo detentions under the supervision of the Attorney General. The instrument stressed the link between closure and review:

Some individuals currently detained at Guantanamo have been there for more than 6 years, and most have been detained for at least 4 years. In view of the significant concerns raised by these detentions, both within the United States and internationally, prompt and appropriate disposition of the individuals currently detained at Guantanamo and closure of the facilities in which they are detained would further the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and the interests of justice. Merely closing the facilities without promptly determining the appropriate disposition of the individuals detained would not adequately serve those interests. To the extent practicable, the prompt and appropriate disposition of the individuals detained at Guantanamo should precede the closure of the detention facilities at Guantanamo.

to conduct a comprehensive review of the lawful options available to the Federal Government with respect to the apprehension, detention, trial, transfer, release, or other disposition of individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations, and to identify such options as are consistent with the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and the interests of justice.

[JURIST] A judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois [official website] on Wednesday ruled [opinion, PDF] that an Illinois state law requiring a moment of silence in public schools is unconstitutional. Judge Robert Gettleman held that the Illinois Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act [text], which requires state schools to observe a moment of silence each day, is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion in public schools. In issuing a permanent injunction against the law's enforcement, Gettleman wrote:

the Statute has the effect, as discussed above, to compel every classroom teacher to ensure that each student consider prayer as one of the two options to observe during the period of silence. The conclusion is inescapable that this is precisely what the General Assembly intended. The Statute is a subtle effort to force students at impressionable ages to contemplate religion.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] on Wednesday ended a decade-long battle by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] to have the Child Online Protection Act of 1998 (COPA) [text] declared constitutional by denying certiorari [order list, PDF] in the case of Mukasey v. ACLU [docket; cert. petition, PDF]. By denying review, the Court has decided that the law, which imposes civil and criminal penalties on website operators for making sexually explicit materials available to minors over the Internet, will not be enforced. Free speech advocates, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website], lauded [press release] the Court's decision. Chris Hansen, the ACLU's lead counsel on the case, said:

For over a decade the government has been trying to thwart freedom of speech on the Internet, and for years the courts have been finding the attempts unconstitutional. It is not the role of the government to decide what people can see and do on the Internet. Those are personal decisions that should be made by individuals and their families.

[JURIST] US President Barack Obama [official profile] retook the presidential oath of office [text and materials] Wednesday, administered by Chief Justice John Roberts [official profile, PDF], following minor mistakes the two made in the wording of the oath during Tuesday's inauguration ceremony [text and video; JURIST report]. White House lawyer Greg Craig addressed the issue on Wednesday, maintaining that Obama was already properly sworn in [NYT report] despite the errors and that the retaking of the oath was only being done "out of the abundance of caution."

The oath of office is set down in Article II, section one, clause eight of the US Constitution [text] and has been taken by every US president [materials] beginning with George Washington. Chester A. Arthur and Calvin Coolidge [official profiles] are the only other Presidents to retake their oaths, although they both did so only because their initial oaths were sworn in private. Under the Twentieth Amendment [text], ratified in January 1933, the presidential transition actually takes place at Noon on the 20th day of January, regardless of whether the oath is sworn correctly or at all.

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Uganda [official website] on Wednesday ruled that the death penalty [JURIST news archive] is not prohibited by Uganda's constitution [text, PDF] because it does not constitute cruel and inhuman punishment. The decision comes on an appeal by over 400 inmates on death row of a 2005 ruling [JURIST report] of the Constitutional Court that held the death penalty was legal. The Supreme Court also upheld two other portions of the lower court ruling which held that laws mandating the death penalty are unconstitutional and that it is unlawful to keep an inmate on death row for longer than three years. The decision allows prisoners who have been on death row for longer than three years to have their sentences commuted to life in prison. Additionally the Supreme Court refused to ban death by hanging [Daily Monitor report], saying that parliament should pass laws governing methods of execution.

The death penalty is retained in several key African states, including (apart from Uganda) the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan and Zimbabwe. In October, Amnesty International (AI) and the Nigerian Legal Defense and Assistance Project (LEDAP) [advocacy websites] condemned Nigeria's capital punishment practices in a joint report [text, PDF; JURIST report], claiming that death row inmates are being denied their rights to proper representation and appeal and calling for a moratorium on executions. The death penalty was most recently abolished in Burundi [government website, in French; JURIST news archive] after that country's parliament passed abolition laws [JURIST report] in November.

[JURIST] US President Barack Obama [official profile] on Wednesday issued the first executive orders of his presidency, focusing on White House ethics and transparency. The executive order on Presidential Records [text] grants broader public access to the records of previous presidential administrations, reversing restrictions implemented by former President George W. Bush. The second executive order on Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel [text] bans those individuals from accepting gifts from lobbyists and implements so-called "revolving door bans" to restrict personnel movement between related public and private sector jobs within certain time frames. Obama also issued a memorandum [text, PDF] calling for new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) [text] agency guidelines and a presumption of transparency:

All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open Government. The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA.

The presumption of disclosure also means that agencies should take affirmative steps to make information public. They should not wait for specific requests from the public. All agencies should use modern technology to inform citizens about what is known and done by their Government. Disclosure should be timely.

I direct the Attorney General to issue new guidelines governing the FOIA to the heads of executive departments and agencies, reaffirming the commitment to accountability and transparency.

[JURIST] A military judge on Wednesday suspended for 120 days [order, PDF] the military commission proceedings at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] against five alleged 9/11 co-conspirators [DOD materials], including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [BBC profile; JURIST news archive], granting a request [motion, PDF; JURIST report] by lawyers acting at the behest of President Barack Obama [official website]. In a separate case, another military judge suspended proceedings [order, PDF] Wednesday against Canadian detainee Omar Khadr [DOD materials; JURIST news archive]. Also Wednesday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates [official profile] ordered a suspension [DOD press release] of all active military commission processes.

Advisers to Obama have said he plans to issue an executive order [JURIST report] during his first week in office closing the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, and speculation is that the order could come Thursday. On Saturday, the Department of Defense (DOD) announced it had transferred six detainees [JURIST report] out of Guantanamo Bay. Last week, a judge on the US District Court for the District of Columbia granted habeas [JURIST report] to Chadian detainee Mohammed El Gharani and directed his release. An ongoing hunger strike [JURIST report] at Guantanamo now involves 42 detainees.