Egypt police officers sentenced to 7 years for torture death News
Egypt police officers sentenced to 7 years for torture death

[JURIST] An Egyptian court sentenced three police officers to seven years in prison late Tuesday for torturing 38-year-old carpenter Nasr Abdullah to death in July. The sentencing is part of the country's recent crackdown on police brutality. Earlier this month, two police officers were sentenced to three years in prison [JURIST report] for sodomizing and beating Emad el-Kabir in 2006 while videoing the incident on a cell phone. Egyptian bloggers posted the video on the Internet later that year.

Human rights groups have recently expressed concern about the use of torture in Egyptian police stations. In April, Amnesty International released a report [text; JURIST report] criticizing Egypt for systematic human rights abuses of detainees in its police stations, military camps and centers run by State Security Investigations. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Georgia became first US state to ban lynching

On December 20, 1893, Georgia became the first state in the Union to pass a law against lynching, making the act punishable by four years in prison. The statute was not particularly effective—read the text of the 1899 pamphlet Lynch Law in Georgia by anti-lynching activist Ida Wells-Barnett.