The deportation of alleged Nazi collaborators has recently become a contentious legal issue around the world. Last month police in Slovakia announced [JURIST report] their plan to launch an investigation of a 97-year-old Hungarian man suspected of abusing and transporting Jews to Auschwitz [JURIST news archive] during the Holocaust. In July Slovakian authorities announced that they would seek extradition [JURIST report] of the same man, Laszlo Csatary, who was sentenced to death in absentia by a court in Czechoslovakia in 1948. The country, however, abolished the death penalty before dividing into Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Also in July Hungarian prosecutors charged Csatary [JURIST report] with the "unlawful torture of human beings," a war crime that carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. In January German prosecutors filed a motion [JURIST report] to jail Klaas Faber, a Dutch native who fled to Germany after being convicted in the Netherlands in 1947 of Nazi war crimes. Last year Germany reopened investigations into several former Nazi death camp guards, which stemmed from the conviction of John Demjanjuk [JURIST reports], a former guard at a camp in Poland who was deported to Germany to stand trial for his alleged Nazi crimes. Last September, alleged Nazi Sandor Kepiro died while he awaited an appeal [JURIST report] on his acquittal on war crimes charges.

The ECHR was established under the Convention in 1959 to hear complaints that any Council of Europe [official website] member state has violated human rights as defined in the Convention. Earlier this month the recently freed member of the controversial Russian feminist rock collective Pussy Riot [RASPI backgrounder; JURIST news archive] filed a complaint with the ECHR claiming violations of her right to freedom of speech and that she was illegally detained and prosecuted as one of three band members
sentenced to two years in prison [JURIST reports] for hooliganism in connection with a "guerrilla performance" of a protest song in February at the altar of downtown Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral. Also in October the court ruled that a gay man was detained in violation of Articles 3 and 14 [JURIST report; JURIST comment] of the Convention when he was harassed and mistreated for his sexual orientation while held in a Turkish prison. In August the court held a hearing on the appeal [JURIST report] of convicted former Ukraine prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko [personal website; JURIST news archive].

The Syrian government has been in conflict with the Free Syrian Army [official website] since 2011, and the international community has become increasingly concerned about the violence. Ban and League of Arab States Secretary-General Nabil El Araby [official website] originally called for a ceasefire [JURIST report] between the conflict's parties last Friday, notably in light of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha. Also last week, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official website] called on the international community to work to bring an end to the Syrian conflict [JURIST report]. Her statement came after Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] reported earlier this month that the Syrian government was using cluster bombs [JURIST report] against opposition forces. In September, UN investigators reported [JURIST report] that the number and frequency of human rights violations committed by both sides of the conflict were increasing rapidly.

Both were designed to complement each other, providing valuable information about aspects of the nation's crime problem, but users should not compare crime trends between the two programs because of methodology and crime coverage differences. The UCR Program provides a reliable set of criminal justice statistics for law enforcement administration, operation, and management, as well as to indicate fluctuations in the level of crime, while the NCVS provides previously unavailable information about victims, offenders, and crime... including crimes not reported to police.

It is the fifth year in a row that violent crimes decreased according to the UCR-based report. The trend continued from the Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report [JURIST report] released in June and the Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report [JURIST report] released in December. The report for 2010 showed a decrease of 6.0 percent in violent crime and a decrease of 2.7 percent in property crime compared to 2009 statistics [JURIST reports]. The decrease began after 2006 and 2005 statistics [JURIST reports].

Former president Arroyo has been a target of anti-corruption efforts by President Benigno Aquino [BBC profile]. Arroyo was arrested [JURIST report] last November on fraud and corruption charges in the hospital before she was able to leave the country to seek medical treatment. In April Arroyo and her husband Jose Miguel pleaded not guilty [JURIST report] to corruption charges before a special anti-graft court in the Philippines. The non-guilty plea came a month after a Philippines court issued an arrest warrant [JURIST report] against Jose on bribery charges. He was accused of accepting bribes to support the $329-million national broadband network deal with ZTE Corporation. Arroyo faced the same charges in December when the country's authorities filed a second criminal complaint [JURIST report] against her alleging that she approved a $329-million national broadband network deal with the Chinese company in return for millions of dollars in kickbacks in 2008.

The violence that followed the 2010 election claimed approximately 3,000 lives. In August the ICC dismissed a jurisdiction challenge [JURIST report] by Gbagbo, ruling that the court has the authority to hear the case. Also that month ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I again postponed Gbagbo's confirmation of charges hearing [JURIST report] in order to determine if the former president remains fit to stand trial. Three medical evaluations of Gbagbo fitness were submitted on July 19, around three weeks after the Chamber appointed three medical experts following a defense request. The court first postponed Gbagbo's confirmation of charges hearing in June, after his lawyers asked the court more time to prepare [JURIST reports], complaining that they did not have enough resources to build their case in the amount of time given. Gbagbo's original hearing date was set [JURIST report] in December during his pre-trial hearing in ICC Pre-Trial Chamber III.