The confusion and lack of transparency for several days over whether the executions actually took place, and accompanying uncertainty about the identity of those executed, is unacceptable, particularly for the family members of those killed. Secretly executing individuals without informing their families amounts to inhuman treatment. ... The statement by President Yahya Jammeh that all remaining death sentences would be carried out by mid-September is extremely worrying, and raises serious questions about the motivation behind the sudden rush to execute.

The issue of the death penalty [JURIST news archive] continues to be debated on an international level as well as in individual states in the US. In July Singapore announced it planned to relax mandatory death sentences in certain cases [JURIST report]. Just one week before UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon [official profile] called for an end to capital punishment [JURIST report]. In April an initiative in California dealing with overhauling death penalty laws in the state made it on to the ballot for a November vote.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] rejected the Texas law [JURIST report] in April, noting that SB 14 would have a disproportionate impact on the state's Latino voters, and that the law is potentially discriminatory. The charge came only a month after the DOJ sent a letter [JURIST report] claiming that the law violated Section 5 of the VRA. There are currently 33 US states [NCSL backgrounder] that have passed legislation requiring voters to present some form of ID at the polls, including 17 states requiring photo ID. The issue remains legally controversial, most notably in South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Minnesota [JURIST reports].

The effort to end same-sex classes is part of the ACLU's Teach kids, not stereotypes [ACLU backgrounder] initiative. The ACLU had previously sent a letter [text, PDF] to the Wood County School District outlining their case for reintegration in which they claim the segregated classes violate federal Title IX [text], which bars schools from discrimination on the basis of sex.

These sworn charges allege that al Darbi joined a terrorist conspiracy with al Qaeda by the year 1997. In furtherance of this conspiracy, al Darbi is alleged to have attended the Khalden training camp in Afghanistan, to have received personal permission from Usama bin Laden to train at al Qaeda's Jihad Wahl training camp, and to have worked as a weapons instructor at al Qaeda's al Farouq training camp, both in Afghanistan. From approximately 2000 through 2002, al Darbi is also alleged to have committed multiple overt acts in support of a plot to bomb civilian oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz and off the coast of Yemen.

Al Darbi dodged similar charges in 2009 when the Obama administration contemplated closing Guantanamo Bay. Those proceedings were delayed several times before being dismissed, but not before al Darbi announced his plan to boycott [JURIST reports] the military commission as a "sham" and a "crime against humanity." The original two charges were filed in 2008 [JURIST report] after it was alleged that the Saudi detainee had formerly conspired in support of terrorism. Al Darbi received his first infamous attention in 2007 when the Department of Defense revealed that he is the brother-in-law [JURIST report] of Khalid al Mihdar, a 9/11 hijacker. Al Darbi was captured in Azerbaijan in 2002.

The arrest of the chief justice and the resulting unrest in Maldives sparked weeks of tension and unrest that drew international attention. A court in the Maldives last month refused to hear a case [JURIST report] about the illegal arrest of the chief justice against Nasheed, saying it does not have jurisdiction. Earlier that month the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) claimed that press freedom in the country has been deteriorating [JURIST report] since Nasheed's resignation in February. In April the Maldives Police Service referred the case against Nasheed to the Prosecutor's General Office two months after an arrest warrant [JURIST reports] was issued for him. Nasheed has claimed that the arrest and charges against him were politically motivated. A group of Maldives lawyers in January asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) to review the legality of the arrest of Chief Justice Abdulla Mohamed [JURIST report]. During the same month, the Maldives Minister of Foreign Affairs had asked [JURIST report] the UN to help them to resolve the unrest arising out of the arrest of the chief justice.

Iran's nuclear program continues to raise international concern. Earlier this month, US President Barack Obama announced two new economic sanctions [JURIST report] on Iran's oil exports that aim to cut the country's financial transactions with the Chinese and Iraqi banks allegedly doing business with Tehran. In the first of these orders Obama explained that the penalties were imposed to prevent funding for "Iran's illicit proliferation activities." In March, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) upheld a lower court decision [JURIST report] that a UK subsidiary of Bank Melli Iran (BMI) can be included in a list of entities engaged in nuclear proliferation. A 2007 UN Security Council Resolution [Resolution 1337 text] requires member states to freeze the assets, funds and economic resources of entities and their subsidiaries that are determined to be "engaged in, directly associated with or providing support for Iran's proliferation sensitive nuclear activities or the development of nuclear weapon delivery systems."

Florida has recently faced numerous legal challenges to its controversial voting laws. Two weeks ago the US District Court for the District of Columbia [official website] declined to approve changes to Florida's voting law that limits the number of early voting days, saying that the changes would disproportionately affect minority voters [JURIST report]. Earlier in August a Florida administrative law judge heard a challenge to the law [JURIST report]. Florida has also recently faced challenges to its purging policy from the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida (ACLU-FL) [official website; JURIST report] and a coalition of rights groups [JURIST report] on behalf of several Florida citizens. In June the state said continue to search for ineligible voters even after receiving a letter from DOJ ordering them to stop the practice, prompting DOJ to sue the state. Also that month a federal judge blocked [JURIST report] part of Florida's new election law that required any group that conducts a voter registration drive to turn in registration forms within 48 hours of collecting them or else face a $1,000 per day fine. Last October the state submitted a request [JURIST report] to a federal court challenging the Voting Rights Act (VRA) [text].

In short, this is a case of terrorist attack from across the border. It has a magnitude of unprecedented enormity on all scales. The conspiracy behind the attack was as deep and large as it was vicious. The preparation and training for the execution was as thorough as the execution was ruthless. In terms of loss of life and property, and more importantly in its traumatizing effect, this case stands alone, or it is at least the very rarest of rare to come before this Court since the birth of the Republic. Therefore, it should also attract the rarest of rare punishment.

In October the Indian Supreme Court stayed the execution after Kasab filed an appeal challenging the death sentence [JURIST reports]. In February 2011 an Indian appeals court upheld [JURIST report] Kasab's conviction and death sentence. In January 2010 a judge denied [JURIST report] Kasab's request for an international trial after Kasab claimed that he would not receive a fair trial in India. In March 2010 US citizen and Chicago resident David Headley pleaded guilty [JURIST report] to 12 counts of federal terrorism stemming from the Mumbai terror attacks and a terror incident in Copenhagen. A federal jury acquitted Tahawwur Hussain Rana [JURIST report], a Chicago resident with Canadian citizenship, of participating in the Mumbai terror attacks in June, but convicted him on two counts of planning to attack a Copenhagen newspaper after Headley testified at his trial. In December, Spanish authorities arrested seven men [JURIST report], including six Pakistanis and one Nigerian, in Barcelona suspected of aiding in the Mumbai terror attacks by allegedly stealing passports and other identification documents belonging to male tourists between the ages of 20 and 30, then sending the documents to Thailand where they would be forged and then forwarded to terrorist groups.

The environmental impact of power plants has been at issue in Chile recently. In April the Supreme Court of Chile ruled that a hydroelectric dam in Patagonia does not violate the constitutional rights [JURIST report] of the environmental groups opposing the project. The HidroAysen [project website, in Spanish], a private Chilean venture, seeks to build five dams whose construction was approved [Huffington Post report] by the Chilean government in May 2011. In June 2011 a Chilean appeals court ordered the temporary suspension [JURIST report] of the USD $10 billion HidroAysen project, approving three petitions challenging government authorization of the dam construction and granted the plaintiffs' petition for injunction. The court lifted the temporary suspension [Reuters report] in October 2011 allowing work on the project to move forward and spurring a constitutional challenge by environmentalists.

In March Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] accused the US Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) [official website] of discrimination and rights abuses [JURIST report] along the border between Mexico and the US. AI claims that discriminatory practices and harsh policies responding to immigration by US officials results in the deaths of hundreds each year, and that as many as 5,287 died crossing the border between 1998 and 2008. The report comes as a general movement has been sweeping the country toward tougher enforcement of immigration policy. The trend began with a controversial law in Arizona [JURIST news archive], and similar legislation has passed in Alabama, Georgia, Utah, South Carolina and Indiana [JURIST reports]. The US Supreme Court partially upheld [JURIST report] Arizona's law in June.