Cuba continues to face criticism for its human rights record including claiming that the Cuban government repressed dissidents and violated fundamental civil liberties. In November, Havana released the only other dissident who was permitted to stay in Cuba [JURIST report], reportedly because of advanced age. In October, dissident Guillermo Farinas was awarded the Sakharov Prize [JURIST report], given to those who work for human rights and fundamental freedoms. In July, the first of the prisoners was released [JURIST] a few days after the original deal was brokered.

Sabir was not prosecuted for performing routine duties as a hospital emergency room physician, treating admitted persons who coincidentally happened to be al Qaeda members. Sabir was prosecuted for offering to work for al Qaeda as its on-call doctor, available to treat wounded mujahideen who could not be brought to a hospital precisely because they would likely have been arrested for terrorist activities.

Sabir, a US citizen, was convicted [JURIST report] on the terrorism-related charges by a federal court in 2007. He was arrested and charged [JURIST report] in May 2005 following several meetings with an undercover FBI agent posing as an al Qaeda recruiter, during which Sabir pledged his loyalty to al Qaeda and agreed to provide medical assistance to wounded terrorists in Saudi Arabia. A second defendant, Tariq Shah, who was also caught in the FBI sting pleaded guilty in 2007 to providing material support to al Qaeda. Shah, who had agreed to teach hand-to-hand combat to al Qaeda operatives, is serving a 15-year sentence. Sabir is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence.

[T]he complaint alleges an intricate and vindictive plot, orchestrated by the defendants, that ultimately led to the assassinations of the [plaintiffs'] fathers. If true, such conduct establishes a violation of international law sufficient for purposes of triggering ATS liability. It is thus no surprise that the Northern District of Alabama concluded in prior litigation against these defendants that this misconduct would constitute a violation of the law of nations sufficient to fit within the ATS.

In April, victims of paramilitary violence in Colombia filed suit against Chiquita Brand International [JURIST report], which has admitted to funding the AUC. In the complaint filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida [official website], 242 Colombians alleged that they had been seriously injured or had family members killed by the group. The AUC has been accused of mass killings during the Colombia guerrilla warfare movement before disarmament in 2003. The plaintiffs, who are seeking over $1 billion in damages, brought suit under the TVPA. Last February, a federal judge allowed a lawsuit to go forward [JURIST report] accusing Chiquita of assisting Marxist rebels who killed Colombian missionaries. Chiquita admitted it had paid AUC for protection of its workers but it argued that it did not condone the killings. In 2007, Chiquita was fined $25 million [JURIST report] after it admitted to making payments of around $1.7 million from 1997 to 2004 to AUC. Following that admission, hundreds of family members of Colombians killed by FARC filed lawsuits in the US against Chiquita under the ATS.

Westergaard's 2005 picture of the Muhammad was one of a series of caricatures published by a Danish newspaper that infuriated Muslims around the world. Many Muslims consider depictions of Muhammad offensive, and when other newspapers reprinted the caricatures in 2006 it triggered violence in several countries, leading to multiple deaths, the burning of Danish embassy buildings[JURIST reports], and boycotts of Danish goods. In April, a Dutch court acquitted [JURIST report] the Arab European League (AEL) on charges of making discriminatory and defamatory statements against Jews when they posted a cartoon on their website that insinuated that the Holocaust was fabricated. The AEL argued that they posted the cartoon in response to what they saw as double standard in the distribution of Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad even though they did not actually deny the historical facts of the Holocaust.

Awal Gul's death illustrates too well what Guantanamo has become - a prison where Muslim men are held indefinitely until they die because the president lacks political courage to release or charge them in any forum. President Obama must close Guantanamo lest more detainees die there, including roughly 90 men who are approved for transfer at some undetermined point in the future.

As the number of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay facility decreases, the issue of what to do with those remaining in US custody continues to be a significant issue. In January, Human Rights Watch criticized President Barack Obama [JURIST report] for failing to shut down the facility as he promised during the 2008 presidential campaign. Earlier last month, Obama signed a defense authorization bill that prohibits the transfer of detainees to the US for trial [JURIST report], further confusing the future of the 177 men currently at the facility. In an effort to reduce the population at the facility, the US has been transferring detainees [JURIST report], some to their native countries.

Governments should listen to their people, and start addressing their human rights deficits immediately. Waiting until unrest actually happens is, as we have seen in Tunisia and are now seeing in Egypt, not only perpetuating systems that to a greater or lesser degree transgress international laws and standards, it is also a classic case of acting too little, too late. We now see there is an intense hunger for human rights in the Middle East and North Africa - and of course in other countries in other regions. Governments who ignore these extremely loud and clear warning signals, are doing so at their own peril.

Demonstrations against the 30-year reign of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak [Al Jazeera profile] began last week [JURIST report] and have become more violent since Mubarak announced Tuesday that although he will not seek re-election [speech transcript], he does not plan on stepping down nor leaving Egypt. Some reports allege as many as 300 deaths and 1,500 injuries [Ria Novosti report] as a result of the protests. Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Egyptian opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei [Nobel Prize profile] last week expressed his willingness to lead a transitional government [BBC report], has returned to Egypt and is reported to have joined the protests. According to some commentators, the unrest in Egypt is closely related to the recent civil unrest in Tunisia [JURIST op-ed] that culminated last month with the resignation of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali [JURIST report].

Each step the government took following the Court's imposition of a preliminary injunction showcases its defiance: the government failed to seek a remand; it continually reaffirmed its intention and resolve to restore the moratorium; it even notified operators that though a preliminary injunction had issued, they could quickly expect a new moratorium. Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the reimposition of a second blanket and substantively identical moratorium and in light of the national importance of this case, provide this Court with clear and convincing evidence of the government's contempt of this Court's preliminary injunction Order.

Feldman refused to reinstate the moratorium [JURIST report] last year at the request of advocacy groups such as the Defenders of Wildlife [advocacy website], which also argued that the judge should be disqualified from the case because he owned stock in several oil and drilling companies. Feldman refused to recuse himself [JURIST report]. Earlier in July, the Obama administration asked a federal appeals court to reinstate the original six-month drilling moratorium [JURIST report], arguing that the ban should be upheld because the government would likely win its appeal of the lower court's ruling. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] originally asked the court of appeals to stay the preliminary injunction [JURIST report] in June, on the basis that another deepwater spill could overwhelm the ongoing efforts to clean up the spill with catastrophic results. Lawyers for the DOJ also claimed that that the district judge abused his discretion in issuing the injunction. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was a result of an oil well blowout that caused an explosion 5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf. More than 120 million gallons of oil leaked from the rig's broken pipe causing the spill to surpass the Exxon Valdez [JURIST news archive] as the worst oil spill in US history.