[JURIST] The identities of two former Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainees who were released to Portugal [JURIST report] last week were revealed Monday in papers filed with the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website]. Mohammad Khan Tumani [transfer notice, PDF], who claims that his father is still detained [Miami Herald report] at Guantanamo Bay, accused the US and Pakistan governments of harsh interrogation methods amounting to torture. Tumani, detained for about 10 years, was among five detainees listed in a letter [text] by Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] to US Attorney General Eric Holder [official profile] in March urging him to give the five special attention and expedited trials due to their status as juveniles when they were detained. In addition to the harsh interrogation practices, the letter cites claims from Tumani's lawyers that Tumani attempted suicide while at Guantanamo Bay. The other detainee was Moammar Dokhan [transfer notice, PDF], a former Syrian army recruit. Both men are Syrian nationals and neither was ever charged with a crime.

The agreement to transfer the detainees was made earlier this month at the request of the US government [JURIST report], making Portugal the third European nation to formally agree to accept Guantanamo detainees. Last month, Ireland announced [JURIST report] that it would take two detainees. In May, Algerian Guantanamo detainee Lakhdar Boumediene was released and accepted by France [JURIST report]. Last month, Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said that the Netherlands would be willing to consider [JURIST report] accepting Guantanamo Bay detainees, despite earlier statements to the contrary. In June, the Council of the European Union reached an agreement [JURIST report] setting forth the terms of accepting detainees in a way that would minimize any danger posed to other member states.

[JURIST] The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] plans to expand its Civil Rights Division [official website] and more actively enforce anti-discrimination laws, Attorney General Eric Holder [official profile] told the New York Times [media website] in an interview [NYT report] published Monday. The increased focus on civil rights marks a change in focus from the previous administration, which, according to the New York Times [NYT report; JURIST report], shifted resources from preventing racial discrimination to protecting religious rights. Among the new measures described by Holder are President Barack Obama's plan to add more than 50 lawyers to the Civil Rights Division and increased enforcement of anti-discrimination laws in areas in which minorities are often adversely affected, including housing and employment.

Holder has implemented a number of changes to the DOJ in regards to civil rights since being confirmed [JURIST report] in February. In June, Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee [official website] that hate crime legislation [JURIST report] is one of the DOJ's top priorities. Also in June, the DOJ rejected [JURIST report] as discriminatory a Georgia law requiring voters to have identification. At his swearing in ceremony, Holder pledged [JURIST report] to restore the traditions of fairness and neutrality to the department. In January, a report [text, PDF; JURIST report] released by the Office of the Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility [official websites] found that under the Bush administration, DOJ applicants faced discrimination in the hiring process if they did not have conservative views.

[JURIST] Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] denied the habeas corpus petition of Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainee Fawzi Khalid Abdullah Fahad Al Odah in a partially redacted opinion [text, PDF] made public Monday. Kollar-Kelly denied Al Odah's habeas petition last week, finding that the government had shown that it was more likely than not that he "became part of Taliban and al Qaeda forces" after traveling to Afghanistan and attending a terrorist training camp. Despite refusing to give the government's hearsay evidence authoritative weight, Kollar-Kotelly concluded:

At bottom, this evidence reflects that Al Odah made a conscious choice to ally himself with the Taliban instead of extricating himself from the country. His explanation that he chose to avoid the fighting in Afghanistan but mistakenly ended up carrying a weapon in the Tora Bora mountains during the Battle of Tora Bora becomes increasingly incredible each time the evidence reveals that he moved ever closer to the fighting and repeatedly accepted directions from those affiliated with the Taliban. Based on all of the evidence in the record, the Court concludes that the only reasonable inference is that Al Odah made a conscious decision to become a part of the Taliban's forces, and not that he became innocently ensnared in fighting after unsuccessfully attempting to leave the country.

[JURIST] Several US tobacco companies, including R.J. Reynolds and Lorillard [corporate websites], filed a federal lawsuit [complaint, PDF] Monday challenging a new tobacco regulation law on First Amendment grounds. The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Kentucky [official website], challenges portions of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act [text, PDF], which contains several provisions that the tobacco companies allege restrict or ban truthful speech in violation of the First Amendment. The complaint alleges among other things that the act:

severely restricts Plaintiffs' ability to communicate with adult consumers through advertising in magazines, on packaging, through direct mail, and at retail points of sale throughout the country. It also restricts almost every other remaining thoroughfare of speech, such as brand name sponsorship of artistic events in adult-only venues. Indeed, the Act even compels Plaintiffs to carry anti-tobacco messages drafted by the Government by appropriating a large portion of their packaging, simultaneously violating the Plaintiff manufacturers' First Amendment rights and taking their property rights. And many of the Act's provisions are not even limited to commercial speech, but go so far as to prohibit Plaintiffs from participating in core scientific and policy debates regarding their lawful products.

[JURIST] The death of an Iranian prisoner in police custody was determined to have been caused by beatings and poor prison conditions [MNA report] in the wake of the post-election turmoil [JURIST news archive], according to the semi-official Mehr News Agency Monday. Mohsen Rouhalamini, son of the adviser to defeated presidential candidate Mohsen Rezai [Iran Focus profile] was said by police authorities to have died of meningitis. The medical report by a state forensic doctor stated that Rouhalamini's death was not caused by meningitis but was caused by multiple blows [AP report] and severe injury to his body after being kept in a detention center and then transferred to a prison. Rouhalamini was arrested as part of the Iranian government's attempts to control the protests [JURIST report] that broke out after the June 12 presidential election.

Last week, Iran began the fourth mass trial [JURIST report] of election protesters and reformists. Earlier in August, three UN human rights experts called on Iran's Revolutionary Court to reject protesters' confessions obtained through torture [JURIST report]. Also this month, Iran's Prosecutor General Ghorban Ali Dorri Najafabadi acknowledged [JURIST report] that some protesters arrested after the election were tortured. In July, Iran released [JURIST report] some 140 detainees arrested during the election aftermath after Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] and other groups alleged that some protesters were beaten, deprived of sleep, and threatened with torture in an effort to force false confessions [JURIST report]. Earlier that month, opposition leaders called for the release [JURIST report] of those detained for their alleged involvement in the protests. Also in July, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHRI) [advocacy website] reported that the number of deaths that occurred at the protests exceeded government reports [JURIST report].

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit [official website] on Friday struck down [opinion, PDF] a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) [official website] rule preventing cable companies from controlling more than 30 percent of the US market. In a challenge brought by Comcast [corporate website], the nation's largest cable company, the court found the rule to be arbitrary and capricious. The court held that "the 30% subscriber limit is arbitrary and capricious because the Commission failed adequately to take account of the substantial competition cable operators face from non-cable video programming distributors." FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said [press release] "[t]he FCC staff is currently reviewing the Court's decision with respect to the limit previously adopted and the Commission will take this decision fully into account in future action to implement the law."

In 2001, the DC Circuit struck down a previous version of the FCC rule that also set a 30 percent cap but used a different formula to calculate market share. The rule was reinstated [press release] in 2007. The FCC originally set the rule in 1993 under the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992 [47 USC § 533(f)(1) text], which directed the FCC to "prescrib[e] rules and regulations ... [to] ensure that no cable operator or group of cable operators can unfairly impede ... the flow of video programming from the video programmer to the consumer." Cable companies have long objected to the rule, arguing that it violates their First Amendment right to free speech.