Iran judiciary chief says abuse by Iranian police as bad as "what the Americans do" News
Iran judiciary chief says abuse by Iranian police as bad as "what the Americans do"

[JURIST] Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi [BBC profile], head of the Iran Judiciary [official website] took the unusual step Thursday of criticizing the treatment of criminal detainees by Iranian police, and compared their interrogation techniques to those employed by US soldiers at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison [JURIST news archive]. Shahrudi denounced what he called cases of the police issuing summons, making arrests, carrying out interrogations without authorization, and extracting confessions from suspects in violation of the republic’s constitution [text, english]. Under the constitution, in order for a confession to be proper it must occur in front of a judge. Shahrudi’s statements come one week after four Iranian webloggers arrested last year [Human Rights Watch backgrounder] wrote Shahrudi to report they have been subjected to physical and moral pressure to confess. Iran has also been involved in an ongoing dispute with the Canadian government over the death of Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi [CBC backgrounder] who is said to have been tortured and raped [JURIST report] during her 2003 detention by Iranian authorities. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.