Protests continue in wake of Saddam hanging News
Protests continue in wake of Saddam hanging

[JURIST] Sunnis demonstrated in the streets of Iraq Monday in continuing opposition to the Saturday execution [JURIST report] of Saddam Hussein [JURIST news archive; BBC obituary], which was captured on camera phone video [JURIST report] taken at the scene. Most notably, Sunni protestors in Samarra stormed into a damaged Shiite Mosque bearing a photograph of Hussein and a fake coffin. At a prison in the northern Iraqi town of Mosul, news of Hussein's execution also prompted rioting by inmates, many believed to be Sunni Arabs. Prisoners clashed with guards after learning of the news during visiting hours Monday, leaving seven prison officials and three inmates injured. AP has more. Reuters has additional coverage.

Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis have responded largely along sectarian lines [JURIST report] to news of Hussein's hanging, with Shiites celebrating in the streets Saturday as many Sunnis mourned the death of the ousted Iraqi president. World leaders have also been divided [JURIST report] on the execution, with many European nations criticizing the imposition of the death penalty.

THIS DAY @ LAW

White supremacists overthrow government in Wilmington, North Carolina

A group of white supremacists overthrew the government of Wilmington, North Carolina on November 10, 1898, killing at least dozens of Black people in the process. The city's Republican government resigned after the 500-2,000 strong white mob burned the offices of a Black-owned newspaper and terrorized black neighborhoods. The new state Democratic government passed laws in 1899 disenfranchising Black voters across North Carolina. Learn more about the 1898 Wilmington Coup.

Supreme Court limited free speech in wartime

On November 10, 1919, the US Supreme Court ruled in Abrams v. United States that the federal government could criminalize speech if it was of a type tending to bring about harmful results, in this case, resistance to the United States war effort. In a powerful dissenting opinion, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes countered that even during wartime, free speech could only be curtailed when there was clear and "present danger of immediate evil or an intent to bring it about."

Leonid Brezhnev dies

On November 10, 1982, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev died of a heart attack. He had served as leader of the USSR from October 1964 until his death. Following his death, the Soviet Union cycled through three more leaders during the 1980s until Mikhail Gorbachev allowed the country to dissolve in 1991. Read an obituary of Leonid Brezhnev from the New York Times.