JURIST - Paper Chase: Monday, May 31, 2010

[JURIST] The Lahore High Court (LHC) Monday ordered the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) [official websites] to restore access to the Facebook [corporate website] social networking website. The LHC had blocked access [JURIST report] to the website earlier this month, in response to a page created by a Facebook user which marked "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" [website], encouraging users to submit religiously-prohibited images of the Prophet Mohammed. LHC Judge Ijaz Chaudry said that the government, and not the court, should be responsible for blocking offensive internet content and called on the PTA to create a centralized system [AFP report] to block blasphemous content.

Depicting the Prophet Mohammad is considered blasphemous by Muslims, and has been a source of international controversy since 2005 when a Danish newspaper published caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad in a series of cartoons [JURIST news archive]. After protests in many Muslim countries, lawsuits were filed against those who published or reprinted the cartoons in Yemen, France, and Jordan [JURIST reports]. Earlier this month, a Danish public prosecutor for the Utrecht District Court filed an appeal [JURIST report] against an April ruling [JURIST report] acquitting the Arab European League (AEL) of hate speech charges stemming from posting an inflammatory cartoon on their website insinuating that the Holocaust was fabricated. The court ruled that publishing the cartoon was not a criminal offense because it was intended to be a contribution to public debate regarding a perceived double standard in the distribution of the Danish Mohammad cartoons. In April, US citizen David Headley pleaded guilty [JURIST report] to 12 counts of federal terrorism, including charges related to an alleged plot against the Danish creator and publishers of the controversial cartoons.

[JURIST] Chairman of the US military Joint Chiefs of Staff [official website] Admiral Mike Mullen [official profile] on Sunday urged Congress to delay passing a legislative amendment [press release] to repeal the military's controversial "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy [10 USC § 654; JURIST news archive] until a review of the legislation is completed by the Pentagon. Mullen stated that the review was of "vital importance" in order for the policy to be properly implemented. The review was set to be completed by the end of this year but the amendment has been moving quickly through Congress, with the full House and a Senate committee voting this week to repeal the former law. In an interview with CNN [transcript], Mullen said that he supports the repeal of "Don't Ask Don't Tell" but asks Congress to respect the military's effort to understand the points of view of the troops and families affected by the legislation. The admiral claimed that although repeal is inevitable the completion of the review is necessary to prepare for implementation challenges such as "readiness, unit cohesion, [and] recruiting retention." Mullen stated that the "congressional clock" is often hard to predict, but "[the Pentagon] will complete th[e] review and certainly incorporate what we learned from that into implementation when that time comes." Defense Secretary Robert Gates [official profile] had also initially urged Congress to delay repealing the ban until the completion of the review, but has since backed the amended repeal legislation [POLITICO report].

Last week the US House of Representatives [official website] voted to approve a spending bill containing the amendment to repeal the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy [JURIST report]. The amendment [text, PDF] would prevent the repeal from taking effect until the completion of the Pentagon's review. In order for the repeal to take effect, the President, Secretary of Defense, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff must sign and transmit to congressional defense committees a certification stating that the review has been considered and the recommended policy changes have been implemented. The compromise repeal provision was also approved last week by the Senate Armed Services Committee [official website]. The repeal of the controversial "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy has been an important issue for President Barack Obama since he took office, and its inclusion in the State of Union Address [JURIST report] reaffirmed it as a top priority for the administration.

[JURIST] A Bangladesh High Court has dismissed the last of 15 corruption cases against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina [BBC profile], her lawyer said Monday. The court held that Hasina had not committed a criminal offense [AFP report] when she used government funds to to appoint US lobbyists to represent the Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority [official website] during her 1996-2001 administration. All the cases were brought against Hasina between 2001 and 2008 when she was out of power. Since being sworn into office after her reelection [JURIST report] in December 2008 each charge has either been redacted by the accuser or quashed by the court. Supporters of Hasina claim that the charges filed against her were politically motivated by ex-PM Begum Khaleda Zia [Virtual Bangladesh profile; JURIST news archive], the leader of the military-backed regime displaced by Hasina. In April 2009 Bangladeshi judges explicitly dismissed two cases against Hasina on grounds that they were filed to harass her [JURIST report]. Zia is currently facing her own set of corruption charges. She was taken into custody [JURIST report] in September 2007 for embezzling over 21 million taka (US $305,000) in the Zia Orphanage Trust which is said to be nonexistent.

Hasina faced several legal hurdles before regaining her position as prime minister. She was arrested [JURIST report] in July 2007 on suspicion of extorting more than $1 million from two businesspersons while she was prime minister from 1996-2001. She denied [JURIST report] the accusations. After an investigation by Bangladesh's Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) [governing statute, PDF], she was formally charged with extortion [JURIST report] in January 2008. Five months later, she was indicted [JURIST report] after the ACC accused her of receiving about $440,000 in illegal kickbacks from a power-plant deal during her prior tenure as prime minister. In September 2008, Berlin-based corruption watchdog Transparency International [official website] rated Bangladesh [news release, PDF] the tenth most politically and administratively corrupt country out of 180 countries studied in 2008.