Uzbek rights activist arrested, held on extortion charges News
Uzbek rights activist arrested, held on extortion charges

[JURIST] Uzbek police have arrested activist Mukhtabar Tojibaeva [HRW press release], hours before she was expected to attend a human rights conference. Tojibaeva, who heads up the human rights organization Fiery Hearts, has been a vocal critic of the Uzbek government's alleged massacre [JURIST report] of 200 Uzbek citizens during an uprising [JURIST report] in the town of Andijan on May 13. She is currently being held on charges of extortion, New York-based Human Rights Watch announced Thursday. Human rights groups believe the charges against Tojibaeva were fabricated, and the arrest calculated to silence her vocal criticism of the Uzbek government. The Guardian has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.