A Karachi judge, ignorant of the fact that Islamic law distinguishes between rape (a crime of aggression) and zina (a sex crime), rejected DNA evidence of rape as mere “medical facts” without forensic meaning, but a recent Supreme Court ruling orders routine DNA collection and assigning female officers to cases:
- Pakistan Grapples with Discontent over Rape Prosecutions (Christian Science Monitor)
Hamid Karzai was in the midst of negotiating a security agreement with the United States when he met a 4-year-old girl who had lost half her face in an American airstrike. … ‘I wished she were dead, so she could be buried with her parents and brothers and sisters’ — 14 of whom had been killed in the attack”:
- Interview: Karzai Says 12-year Afghanistan War Has Left Him Angry at U.S. Government (Washington Post)
“This … reconstruction — based on eyewitness interviews, visits to the scene, first-hand observation on Aug. 14, and an examination of video and photographic evidence — shows that thousands of peaceful demonstrators were trapped inside the camp as security forces mounted often indiscriminate attacks” …
… while two policemen whose murder of an activist in 2010 is “seen as the spark that led to the uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak” have had their previouly cancelled sentence of seven years in prison upped to ten years…
… but in the courtroom of the Mubarak and Mursi trials, while the engraving on the judge’s desk says “‘Justice is the Foundation of Governing,’ … foreign journalists can’t be accompanied by translators. Family members of the accused have been barred from attending” …
- Revolution on Trial (New Yorker)
China blames Uigher separatists for the terrorist attack, but Uighers condemn the attack:
Palestinian filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad was influenced by “One Flew over the Cuckoos’ Nest” to never give up on fighting oppression. “They can make your life miserable if you don’t obey the rules, but they can’t kill your spirit,’ he says. ‘It awoke my spirit'”:
- Oscar-nominated ‘Omar’ Shines Spotlight on Film Mecca of Nazareth (Christian Science Monitor)
“Amnesty International has said he is a ‘prisoner of conscience’ but the UAE government says he is connected to a group plotting its overthrow…. Â His son Hassan told the BBC: ‘My father is innocent. There is no evidence against him except what was secured under torture'”:
As the recently retired diplomat warns “that a fractured rebellion, the presence of Al Qaeda inspired fighters on the battlefield, and the fears of the country’s minorities are a recipe for prolonged conflict” …
- US Ambassador Ford on What’s Gone Wrong in Syria and Where It’s Headed (Christian Science Monitor)
… the Saudi Cabinet demands that foreign forces “face international justice if they committed war crimes there.” Aware “that Saudi militants in Syria could turn their weapons on the kingdom” it ‘renews its firm position condemning terrorism in all its forms’:
- Saudi Calls on All Foreign Fighters to Leave Syria (AP / abc News)
The federal law that prohibits religious infringement by zoning regulations requires victims to first exhaust all other remedies, but the Washington state laws make religious exemptions optional, not mandatory. Appellants may win in federal court, but who will pay the $23,000 bill from the state litigation?
- Muslim Family Fights Small Town in Court for Religious Exemption (Spokesman-Review)
“It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack, which came two days after the Pakistan Taliban announced a month-long ceasefire aimed at restarting stalled peace talks with the government”:
