Mexico human rights commission warns of continuing torture News
Mexico human rights commission warns of continuing torture

[JURIST] Mexico's National Commission for Human Rights [official website, in Spanish] on Tuesday said that the country's police and prosecutors continue to use torture [JURIST news archive] despite pledges by President Vicente Fox [official website, in Spanish] to halt such tactics. Jose Luis Soberanes [IIJ profile], president of the commission, said that officials were increasingly resorting to psychological rather than physical forms of torture. He urged the government to be more vigilant in its efforts to eliminate abuses. According to the commission, threats, simulated executions and forcing victims to watch others being tortured were forms that had been used by authorities in Mexico [JURIST news archive]. Soberanes said 12 complaints had been filed thus far this year, although that number did not include state level reports of torture. In the past 15 years, 7,000 torture complaints had been filed. Reuters 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.