US, EU renew calls for release of Belarus political prisoners News
US, EU renew calls for release of Belarus political prisoners

[JURIST] The US Embassy in Minsk [official website] and European Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighborhood Policy Benita Ferrero-Waldner [official profile] issued renewed calls Monday for Belarus to release all political prisoners currently in custody. US and EU officials specifically urged the release of opposition politician Alexander Kozulin [CFR profile and interview], who was sentenced [JURIST report] to over five years in prison in July 2006 for leading unauthorized protests [JURIST report] over the controversial re-election [JURIST report] of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko [official website; BBC profile] earlier that year. Kozulin has reportedly been on a hunger strike since prison authorities refused to allow him to attend the funeral of his wife who died Saturday. AP has more.

The Supreme Court of Belarus last Friday ordered the release of a former newspaper editor who had been sentenced [JURIST reports] to three years in prison for reprinting cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad [JURIST news archive], a move interpreted as an attempt to improve relations with the West. Lukashenko has recently sought to improve his country's ties with western nations, but the US and the European Union have imposed sanctions on Belarus pending the release of all political prisoners.

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.