Courthouse bombing leaves 15 dead in Pakistan News
Courthouse bombing leaves 15 dead in Pakistan

[JURIST] A Pakistani judge, five lawyers, court officials and relatives of prisoners on trial were among 15 people killed when a suicide bomber attacked a district court while it was in session in Quetta, Pakistan on Saturday. Over 24 were wounded and authorities have not yet determined who was responsible for the attack.

On Thursday, Pakistani police announced the arrest of five suspected militants from the southern city of Karachi and Rawalpindi, who were allegedly planning suicide attacks on foreigners and minority Shi'a Muslims in the neighboring Sindh province. Quetta is the capital of Baluchistan province, a region in southwest Pakistan [JURIST news archive] that borders Afghanistan and Iran that has experienced civil strife between the Baloch, Pashtuns and the Pakistani government in Islamabad. AP has more. The Nation has local coverage.

THIS DAY @ LAW

President Johnson signed law against burning draft cards

On August 31, 1965, President Johnson signed a law making the burning of draft cards a federal offense subject to a five-year prison sentence and $1000 fine. In response to the law and in protest of the war in Vietnam, the student-run National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam staged the first public burning of a draft card in the United States on October 15, 1965. The constitutionality of the federal law was upheld in 1968 by the US Supreme Court in US v. O'Brien.

Gdansk Agreement reached

On August 31, 1980, the communist government of Poland and labor leaders settled the Gdansk Agreement. The accord settled a summer of labor strikes at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, Poland. With the Agreement, Poland became the first communist country to allow the creation of an independent labor union, which was called Solidarity. Solidarity then became the driving force that ended communism in Poland. Learn more about the history of Solidarity.