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Throng of Occupy protesters appear in NY courts
Legal Line News |
2011/12/14 13:05
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Nearly 200 people arrested during Occupy Wall Street-related protests were in New York courtrooms hundreds of miles apart Wednesday, answering charges that stemmed from a march on the Brooklyn Bridge and a demonstration in a Rochester park.
In Manhattan, arraignments were under way for 166 people, most of them among the more than 700 picked up in an Oct. 1 march that marked the biggest mass arrest of the New York protest so far. Hundreds of other protesters arrested on the bridge and during other Occupy demonstrations in the city have already been to court, but this week's numbers are some of the biggest.
Meanwhile, 28 Occupy Wall Street supporters were set to appear in a Rochester court on charges of trespassing by staying in a park past its curfew.
Some wearing their Occupy Wall Street allegiance on buttons — and in one case, a hand-painted oxford shirt — lined hallways and an overflow courtroom in a Manhattan courthouse that handles low-level offenses. Many had been arrested on the bridge after police said protesters ignored warnings not to leave a pedestrian path and go onto the roadway.
The demonstrators were generally charged with disorderly conduct and blocking traffic, both violations. Many took a judge's offer Wednesday to get their cases dismissed if they avoid getting arrested again for six months. |
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Court tells UK to release Pakistani in US custody
Law Firm News |
2011/12/14 13:05
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An appeals court issued a landmark ruling Wednesday ordering the British government to free a Pakistani detainee who has been held in U.S. custody for nearly eight years without charge.
It was unclear whether Yunus Rahmatullah would be released as required, however, because the U.S. government is not bound by the ruling. It announced that it was reviewing the ruling.
Britain has seven days to produce Yunus Rahmatullah, who is being held by American forces in Afghanistan, according to the Appeals Court's ruling.
Although Rahmatullah, 29, is not a British national, the UK-legal charity Reprieve filed a habeas corpus petition claiming that his detention lacked sufficient cause or evidence, and that British forces violated international law when they rendered him to U.S. custody.
British forces in Iraq seized Rahmatullah in 2004, but then handed him over to the Americans who sent him to the U.S. Air Base in Bagram, Afghanistan — a sprawling base that includes the Parwan detention facility where some 1,900 detainees are being held.
Wednesday's ruling marks one of the first times that a habeas corpus petition has been successful for a detainee at the U.S. base. It puts the United States and Britain in an awkward position — Britain is bound by the ruling, but the United States is not because the decision was handed down by a foreign court. |
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Next ICC prosecutor warns against sex crimes
Legal News |
2011/12/13 13:05
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The next chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court pledged Tuesday to strengthen efforts to bring to justice the perpetrators of sexual and gender crimes.
A day after her election by the 119 countries that support the tribunal, Gambian lawyer Fatou Bensouda said too often gender crimes go unreported and unpunished and the victims are trivialized, denigrated, threatened and silenced, which enables the abuses to continue unimpeded.
In its first cases, she said, the ICC has sent the message that this is no longer acceptable and must stop.
The International Criminal Court, which began operating in 2002, is the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal. It is a court of last resort, stepping in only when countries are unwilling or unable to prosecute alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
At the moment, the ICC is dealing with cases from Congo, the Central African Republic, Uganda involving the Lord's Resistance Army, the Darfur conflict in Sudan, the recent Libyan uprising, and post-election violence in Kenya and Ivory Coast.
At present, crimes such as rape, sexual slavery, and forced prostitution and pregnancy are alleged in some cases before the court in all of these situations except Libya, where an investigation of alleged gender-based crimes is still under way. |
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High court to look at state immigration laws
Legal News |
2011/12/12 11:12
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The Supreme Court has agreed to rule on Arizona’s controversial law targeting illegal immigrants.
The justices said Monday they will review a federal appeals court ruling that blocked several tough provisions in the Arizona law. One of those requires that police, while enforcing other laws, question a person’s immigration status if officers suspect he is in the country illegally.
The Obama administration challenged the Arizona law by arguing that regulating immigration is the job of the federal government, not states. Similar laws in Alabama, South Carolina and Utah also are facing administration lawsuits.
The court now has three politically charged cases on its election-year calendar. The other two are President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul and new electoral maps for Texas’ legislature and congressional delegation. |
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