UN envoy arrives in Myanmar to push for release of opposition leader News
UN envoy arrives in Myanmar to push for release of opposition leader

[JURIST] Ali Alatas, former Indonesian foreign minister, went to Myanmar Thursday as a special envoy of the UN to help push for the release of jailed opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi [advocacy website; Wikipedia profile]. Alatas was appointed to the position in 2003, but this is his first visit to the country. Myanmar's military leaders have not allowed such a visit from any special envoy since March 2004. National League for Democracy leader and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest since May 2003, despite international pressure for her release. Last month Myanmar turned down the rotating Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) [official website] chairmanship in response to US and EU boycott threats [JURIST report] about its human rights record. AFP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Ku Klux Klan founded

The US hate group known as the Ku Klux Klan was founded on December 24, 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee as a reaction to reconstruction efforts following the Union victory in the American Civil War. The group would later become notorious for its attacks on Black Americans, being targeted by the Enforcement Act of 1871, which imposed civil and criminal liability for deprivation of constitutional rights. Read the Enforcement Act of 1871.  

Hamid Karzai born

On December 24, 1957, Hamid Karzai was born in Karz, Afghanistan. He would go on to become in 2004 his country's first elected president after the end of Taliban rule in 2001.