The Pakistani government and police forces have been criticized before for their part in Bhutto's assassination. In April, the independent UN commission formed to investigate the assassination issued a report [JURIST report] holding the Pakistani government and police forces responsible for failing to provide adequate security. The report also accused the government of failing to launch a proper investigation into the assassination. The three-member commission was formed [JURIST report] in June 2009. Members included former Chilean Ambassador to the UN Heraldo Munoz, former attorney general of Indonesia Marzuki Darusman, and Peter Fitzgerald, a former deputy police commissioner in the Irish National Police who has served with the UN in other capacities. Bhutto was killed in a suicide attack in December 2007 that claimed the lives of at least 20 other people. At that time, Bhutto was the head of the opposition Pakistan People's Party, which was challenging then-prime minister Pervez Musharraf's Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) [party websites] in the lead-up to parliamentary elections.

• Bring to justice those responsible for the gross abuses, both in connection with election-related violence, and the killings of more than 150 opposition supporters and rapes of 100 women by security forces in September 2009; ...
• Establish a truth-telling mechanism to uncover the roots of ethnic violence, investigate the historical persecution of particular ethnic groups, explore the dynamics that gave rise to and sustained cycles of successive authoritarian and abusive regimes, and make recommendations to ensure better governance and prevent a repetition of past violations; ... and
• Ensure that those responsible for inciting and carrying out violence are investigated and held accountable, including members of both political parties.

After the first presidential election in June, no candidate received enough votes to claim a majority [JURIST report], and a runoff was held between former prime minister Cellou Dalein Diallo and Conde. The election came at the conclusion of 18 months of governance by a military junta, which took power in a 2008 coup. The coup followed the death of Lansana Conte [BBC profile], who had ruled the West African country since 1984. In May, the International Criminal Court (ICC) sent a delegation from the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) [official websites] to Guinea to further investigate the killing [JURIST report] of more than 150 pro-democracy protesters in Conakry [BBC backgrounder] in September 2009. The protesters had rallied against Guinean military leader Moussa Dadis Camara [BBC profile], who announced in October that he intended to push elections forward three months and stand for election, breaking a promise not to run made shortly after he took power. An assassination attempt on Camara two months later eventually drove him into exile.

WikiLeaks is a website which purports to be a not-for-profit media organization that anonymously publishes leaked classified government documents. It has recently come under controversy due to a string of leaked documents. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Defense (DOD) [official websites] said last week they were conducting criminal investigations [JURIST report] into WikiLeaks over its release of confidential government communications. Last month, Google urged the international community to ensure the free flow of online information [white paper text; JURIST report] by establishing new rules to protect against limitations on the Internet. In September, the State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China [official website, in Chinese] released a position paper [JURIST report] claiming that it has heightened Internet freedoms and describing how the Internet has become a tool for the Chinese government to promote transparency and consult the public before developing certain policies. While the government said freedom of speech is protected on the Internet, it also attached value to the Internet's role in supervision. In July, a Chinese government official said that Google had agreed to follow Chinese censorship laws [JURIST report] to gain a license renewal that would still prevent users from accessing sites that threatened national security, while not requiring Google to censor its China or Hong Kong based websites. This agreement was reached [JURIST report] in June after a dispute concerning Google's practice of redirecting mainland users to the Hong Kong-based website as a means of working around censorship laws. China responded by reiterating its commitment to open Internet [JURIST report], but stressing that international Internet companies must follow Chinese law. In February, the government announced new regulations [JURIST report] further restricting Internet use by requiring Chinese citizens to submit identity cards and meet with regulars before registering a website, prompting many to register sites overseas to avoid regulation.