Rice urges Syria to release jailed activists, cooperate with Hariri probe News
Rice urges Syria to release jailed activists, cooperate with Hariri probe

[JURIST] US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice [official profile] Saturday criticised [press release] Syria [JURIST news archive] for its "arbitrary detention" of human rights activists "including Kamal Labwani and all the prisoners of conscience from the Damascus Spring" during a conference in Bahrain attended by Arab leaders. The Damascus Spring [Wikipedia backgrounder] followed the June 2000 death of President Hafez al-Assad, and was a period when Syrians began to actively discuss politics and society as never before; Labwani, a doctor and an activist highly critical of Syria's human rights record, was arrested by Syrian officials following a trip to the US where he met with senior officials. On Friday, the first day of her Middle East trip, Rice told reporters that Syria "should stop trying to negotiate and cooperate" with the ongoing investigation of the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri [JURIST news archive]. On Wednesday, Syria invited [JURIST report] Detlev Mehlis, the head of the UN investigation [UN materials] into the assassination, to Damascus to discuss Syria's cooperation with the UN probe. Reuters has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Pope Urban II sparks First Crusade

Pope Urban II threw his support behind what would become the First Crusade on November 27, 1095 during the Council of Clairmont. The Pope urged the council's participants to render aid to the Byzantine Empire, which was being attacked by the Seljuks. Pope Urban called for a wide coalition of rich and poor to combat the threat, which eventually resulted in the conquest of much of the Muslim-controlled Levant by the Crusaders and the establishment of the Crusader States. Read Pope Urban's address.  

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