The Turkish Armed Forces, which has avoided involvement in any action which would be interpreted as an intervention in an ongoing judicial process, has repeatedly explained what that seminar is, what it included and who joined the seminar with which instruction by delivering statements and informing the related authorities in a way so as not to affect the judiciary. ... While the picture is like this, it is hard to understand the continued detention of 163 active and retired Turkish Armed Forces personnel.

Trials of military and naval officials have been ongoing since December 2010 and June 2009, while detainment and trial of some suspects has been continuous since 2008 [JURIST reports]. Suspects are accused of attempting to overthrow the government and establish military rule in another plot planned by a group called Ergenekon. The group allegedly planned to assassinate prominent members of Turkey's Christian and Jewish minority groups, blame Islamic terrorists for the deaths and use this to delegitimize the AKP. Prosecutors in the case will attempt to link defendants to a plan to detonate a bomb in an Istanbul museum and the deaths of a Catholic priest, Protestant missionaries and journalist Hrant Dink. The investigations have strained relations between the religiously-inclined government and the secular military, which has been responsible for four coups in the last 50 years. Since the founding of the modern republic in 1923, the military has regarded itself as the defender of the secular legacy of founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk [Turkish News profile].

Last week, Kenya submitted requests [JURIST report] to the ICC to dismiss the cases [motion, PDF] against the six Kenyans. Kenyan authorities emphasized that "the ICC's jurisdiction [is] complementary to national criminal jurisdictions" and argued that, with its new constitution and reformed judicial system, Kenyan officials are capable of prosecuting the cases domestically. However, the ICC summoned the six suspects [JURIST report] last month after determining that Kenyan authorities had failed to try the cases at home. On Thursday, presiding judge Ekaterina Trendafilova echoed earlier warnings by ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo [official profile] to the six Kenyan suspects that the summonses would be altered and arrests would ensue if they did not comply [JURIST report] with the court's conditions, including prohibitions on speeches that may incite more bloodshed in Kenya.

The original suit was filed after the law was criticized for effectively denying all gay couples the right to adopt or foster a child because Arkansas does not recognize gay marriage. The lower court made its decision to strike down Act 1 last year after the law was passed by ballot initiative in November 2008 following certification [JURIST reports] the previous August. The measure followed a 2006 Arkansas Supreme Court decision [text, PDF] that struck down an administrative regulation [JURIST report] specifically prohibiting homosexuals from rearing foster children. Reacting to that decision, then-governor Mike Huckabee suggested that such a ban be implemented through legislation [JURIST report]. Arkansas, like many states, has amended its constitution to prohibit the recognition of same-sex marriages [JURIST news archive].

In November, a federal jury in Virginia convicted [JURIST report] five Somali men on charges of piracy for their roles in an April attack on the USS Nichols. In August, piracy charges against Ibrahim and five other defendants were dismissed [JURIST report] when federal Judge Raymond Jackson ruled that piracy, as defined by the law of nations, does not include violence or aggression committed on the high seas, and rejected the government's argument for an expanded reading of the statute. Piracy remains an issue of international concern, as few countries have been willing to prosecute suspected pirates. The few that have attempted to do so include Germany, Seychelles, the Netherlands, Mauritius, Yemen, Somalia and Spain [JURIST reports].

Amnesty International considers that the Serbian government has failed to comply with its obligations under international and regional human rights treaties to prohibit, prevent and end forced evictions. These forced evictions have primarily affected Roma communities living in informal settlements, one of the most marginalized communities in Serbia. ... Some forcibly evicted Roma have not been offered any alternative housing, while others have been provided with inadequate housing, which fails to meet international standards.

The Roma have faced discrimination [JURIST comment] throughout Europe. In March, AI released a similar report alleging rights violations against Roma in Slovenia [JURIST report]. In November, rights groups Open Society Justice Initiative, European Roma Rights Centre and Greek Helsinki Monitor [advocacy websites] issued a complaint [text, PDF] alleging that the Czech government had failed to comply [JURIST report] with a European Court of Human Rights [official website] decision [JURIST report] which determined that the Czech Republic government was discriminating against Roma children. In October, the League of Human Rights [advocacy website, in French] accused the French government of improperly collecting DNA samples [JURIST report] from Roma that had not been either arrested or charged with a crime. In September, AI urged EU members to stop forcibly deporting [JURIST report] Roma migrants to Kosovo. In August, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination [official website] released a report [text; JURIST report] "express[ing] concern over the difficult situation members of the Roma community were facing with regard to their economic, social and cultural rights" in EU countries.

Ohio's Senate bill is part of a wave of acts passed by state legislatures since the November elections aimed at restricting abortions in the wake of disputed medical evidence that suggests that fetuses can feel pain after 20 weeks [Reuters report]. On Tuesday, the Idaho legislature [official website] gave final approval to a bill [SB 1165 text, PDF] that would prohibit most abortions after 20 weeks. Last week, the Iowa House of Representatives [official website] approved a bill [JURIST report] that would prohibit doctors from performing late-term abortions in the state. Last month, the Kansas Senate [official website] approved legislation restricting late-term abortions, after the House of Representatives approved the measure [JURIST reports] in February. Also last month, South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard [official website] signed into law [JURIST report] a bill requiring women to seek counseling at a pregnancy center and wait three days before obtaining an abortion. The Missouri House of Representatives [official website] in March voted in favor of legislation restricting late-term abortions [JURIST report] and imposing penalties on doctors who fail to comply with the new restrictions. The legislation, which is slated to become effective at the end of August, bans abortions of "viable" fetuses. The Oklahoma House of Representatives [official website] also voted in March to approve a bill that would ban abortion after 20 weeks of gestation [JURIST report].

[The] five fraudulent schemes, which formed a large part of the basis for the Government's proof at trial, all represent efforts by Skilling and his coconspirators to manipulate Enron's reported earnings or conceal Enron's losses from the investing public with the intent and result of affecting Enron's stock price. Because they are supported by overwhelming evidence, we find that the honest-services instruction was harmless error beyond a reasonable doubt.

In June, the US Supreme Court [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] in Skilling v. United States [Cornell LII backgrounder] that the "honest services" doctrine [18 USC § 1346 text] is not unconstitutionally vague [JURIST report] under a limited construction of the statute and that the district court adequately "detected and diffused" juror prejudice in the pre-trial publicity of Skilling. In February 2009, the Fifth Circuit denied [JURIST report] a petition for an en banc rehearing for Skilling after a three-judge panel upheld [JURIST report] his previous convictions and ordered him to be resentenced due to error in the lower court. Skilling's appeal was based on a previous Fifth Circuit ruling [JURIST report] that overturned convictions for other Enron executives based on "honest services theft" because they had acted in Enron's best interest by direction and did not profit from their actions. The panel ruled that Skilling's case differed from these previous rulings because "no one at Enron sanctioned Skilling's improper conduct" and because Skilling's compensation structure was aligned with Enron's earnings. In 2006, Skilling was convicted [JURIST report] of 19 counts of conspiracy, insider trading and securities fraud. He is currently serving a 24-year sentence. Skilling initially appealed [JURIST report] his conviction in September 2007 claiming prosecutorial and judicial errors.

Several states have enacted or proposed legislation [JURIST reports] similar to the controversial Arizona immigration law. Last month, the Oklahoma State Senate [official website] approved [JURIST report] a bill that would give police officers the authority to question the citizenship status of any person lawfully stopped for a traffic violation and arrest them without a warrant if the officer has probable cause to believe the person is in the country illegally. Also in March, Utah Governor Gary Herbert [official website] signed into law [JURIST report] a package of bills aimed at both reforming the state's immigration laws and challenging the federal government to take action for reform nationally. In February, the Indiana Senate [official website] approved a bill [JURIST report] that would require individuals suspected of being illegal to provide proof of their legal status and calls for all public meetings, websites and documents to be in English only. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] filed suit [JURIST report] in July against Arizona Governor Jan Brewer [official website] seeking to permanently enjoin the state's immigration law. The complaint states that the law is preempted by federal law and therefore violates the Supremacy Clause [text] of the US Constitution. The Arizona law criminalizes illegal immigration and requires police officers to question an individual's immigration status if the officer has a "reasonable suspicion" to believe an individual is in the country illegally. It has been widely criticized in regard to the law's constitutionality and alleged "legalization" of racial profiling.