Last month, Council of Europe Commissioner on Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg [official profile] criticized an agreement [JURIST report] reached between Germany and Kosovo that would return to Kosovo thousands of refugees who fled to Germany during the Kosovo war. The agreement called for Germany to repatriate up to 2,500 refugees per year [AFP report] and ensured that refugees from all ethnic groups will face repatriation. Hammarberg worried that Kosovo does not yet have the infrastructure [DW report] to care for the returning refugees or to protect them from ethnically motivated violence. Also last month, Swedish police arrested a Serbian man [JURIST report] suspected of committing war crimes in the Kosovo village of Cuska during the war. In March, a spokesperson for Serbia's Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor [official website] announced the arrest of nine individuals [JURIST report] suspected of being members of the Serbian paramilitary group [B92 report] Sakali and accused of the systematic murders of 41 ethnic Albanians in May 1999.

I will ask my Commission colleagues to join me in soon launching a public process seeking comment on this narrow and tailored approach. ... As we move forward, my focus will be on the best method for restoring the shared understanding of FCC authority that existed before the Comcast decision and for putting in place a solid legal foundation for achieving the policy goals that benefit consumers and our economy in the most effective and least intrusive way.

Last month, the FCC vowed to move ahead [JURIST report] with its National Broadband Plan after the previous week's court ruling that it lacked the power to enforce net neutrality [JURIST news archive]. Net neutrality, which is unanimously supported [JURIST report] by the FCC's commissioners, was thought essential to the goal of an open flow of information over the Internet regardless of the amount of revenue generated by the information. The FCC sent the plan [JURIST report] to Congress for approval in March, seeking approval to enact regulations to update the communications infrastructure in the US and make broadband service available to millions more Americans. Telecommunications companies Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast [corporate websites] argue that net neutrality would inhibit their ability to effectively manage Internet traffic.

Ghailani faces charges for his alleged involvement in the 1998 bombings of US embassies [PBS backgrounder; JURIST news archive] in Tanzania and Kenya, which killed 224 people. In January, Ghailani's lawyers argued that the charges should be dismissed [JURIST report] because he was denied his right to a speedy trial. In November, Kaplan ruled that Ghailani does not have a right to be represented by his military defense lawyers [JURIST report] in a civilian court. In July, Ghailani's military lawyers requested access [JURIST report] to the CIA "black sites" at which their client was held prior to his transfer to Guantanamo Bay and was allegedly subjected to cruel interrogation methods. Ghailani was the first Guantanamo detainee to be brought to the US for prosecution. Having been held at the Guantanamo facility since 2006, Ghailani was transferred [JURIST report] to the SDNY in June to face 286 separate counts, including involvement in the bombings and conspiring with Osama bin Laden and other members of al Qaeda to kill Americans worldwide. He pleaded not guilty [JURIST report] at his initial appearance.

Militia groups such as the Hutaree are reportedly on the rise in the US. A recent report by the Simon Wiesenthal Center [advocacy website] suggests that a lack of regulation on the Internet [JURIST report] is fueling this increased prevalence. A report by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) [advocacy website; JURIST comment], released last year, noted that these groups are making a comeback [JURIST report] after declining in number for several years. The SPLC said that such groups are generally anti-tax, anti-immigration, and increasingly racially motivated since the election of the country's first African-American president, Barack Obama. The SPLC also warned that these groups could soon pose a security risk to the country, quoting one official as saying "[a]ll it's lacking is a spark. I think it's only a matter of time before you see threats and violence."

Earlier this week, former Argentine military junta leader Jorge Rafael Videla [Trial Watch profile; JURIST news archive] was charged [JURIST report] with an additional 49 counts of murder, kidnapping, and torture for crimes allegedly committed during Argentina's Dirty War. The charges are the latest in the ongoing investigation against Videla, who led Argentina as de facto president from from 1976 to 1981. Last month, a federal court in Argentina sentenced [JURIST report] former president and military general Reynaldo Bignone [JURIST news archive] to 25 years in prison for human rights abuses during his 1982 to 1983 presidency. During the Dirty War, an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 people were forcibly kidnapped or "disappeared" in a government-sponsored campaign against suspected dissidents.

The international community is supporting actions taken against piracy. Last month, the UN Security Council approved a resolution [JURIST report] calling on member states to criminalize piracy under their domestic laws and urging Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon [official website] to consider an international tribunal for prosecuting piracy. The Security Council resolution came the same week the UN announced that a trust fund established to combat piracy will be funding five projects [UN News Centre report] aimed at piracy committed in the waters around Somalia. The US is also involved in the prosecution of pirates. Earlier this month, nine Somali men accused of piracy and other charges by federal prosecutors pleaded not guilty [JURIST report] at their arraignment. Trials for the accused pirates are scheduled for July [AP report] but may be delayed until September.

In 2005, Guatemala formally apologized [JURIST report] for a separate government-ordered massacre that occurred during the country's civil war in July 1982, taking the lives of 226. Vice President Eduardo Stein made the acknowledgment in a small town north of Guatemala City, expressing remorse for the army's action that "wipe[d] out an entire community." The apology came in response to an order from the Inter-American Human Rights Court requiring an apology and payments to survivors totaling almost $8 million. Earlier that year, Guatemala's Constitutional Court ordered charges dropped [JURIST report] against soldiers accused of participating in a 1982 massacre of more than 300 civilians, citing the country's National Reconciliation Law. The law is a type of amnesty the Guatemalan Congress approved in November 1996, a few weeks before the government and ex-guerrillas signed peace accords ending the country's 36-year civil war. It forbids amnesty for those implicated in cases of forced disappearance, torture or genocide, but fails to address extra-judicial executions that took the lives of countless Guatemalans during the 36-year armed conflict.

Judge ML Tahiliyani, who was specially appointed [PTI report] in January 2009 to preside over the trial of three suspects detained after the attacks, heard closing arguments [JURIST report] in Kasab's case in March. In January, Tahiliyani denied [JURIST report] Kasab's request for an international trial. Kasab claimed that he would not receive a fair trial in India. In December, Kasab withdrew his confession [JURIST report], claiming he was tortured and framed by police. Kasab originally pleaded not guilty last year, but interrupted his trial to confess and change his plea to guilty [JURIST reports] in July. Tahiliyani continued the trial [JURIST report] despite Kasab's confession, ruling that it was incomplete but should be entered into the record. Kasab claimed that he is not the man [Times of India report] seen in a photograph holding an assault rifle in the train station. Kasab testified that he had been arrested by police days before the attacks for being Pakistani and that police shot him to make it look like he had been injured during the attacks.