AFP – He was the spitting image of the killer, had the same first name and was near the scene of the crime at the fateful hour: Carlos DeLuna paid the ultimate price and was executed in place of someone else in Texas in 1989, a report out Tuesday found. Even “all the relatives of both Carloses mistook them,” and DeLuna was sentenced to death and executed based only on eyewitness accounts despite a range of signs he was not a guilty man, said law professor James Liebman. Read Article
Guardian – Russian riot police have broken up an Occupy-style protest against President Vladimir Putin, forcing dozens of people out of a central Moscow park where they had staged a sit-in for a week and detaining at least 15. The dispersal of the makeshift encampment is the latest step in a government crackdown on protests over Putin’s return to the presidency on 7 May for a six-year term following four years as prime minister. Read Article
The Nation – Willice Onyango is an enterprising university student in western Kenya who is traveling the country with an unusual offer for women living with HIV. It goes like this: you join a cohort of ten to fifteen other HIV-positive women, together you come up with a viable plan for a small business, and you get an intrauterine device (IUD) to serve as long-term birth control. In return, you will be paid $40. Read Article
NYTimes – Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails ended a hunger strike on Monday that had lasted for weeks, signing an agreement with the Israeli authorities that promised improved conditions, according to officials. The end of the strike calmed fears of widespread unrest in the event of a prisoner’s death. Read article
Washington Post – Seems no one is immune from the tender mercies of the TSA pat-down. First, we learned that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was subjected to a handsy search. And now we learn of the latest high-profile search-ee: former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Yeah, the guy who was once an advisor to presidents, the one who helped negotiate the end to the Vietnam War…and, oh yeah, he’s got a Nobel Peace Prize. Read Article
Guardian – Nato air strikes killed 72 civilians in Libya last year, Human Rights Watch has said, accusing the western alliance of failing to acknowledge the scope of collateral damage it caused during the campaign that helped to oust Muammar Gaddafi. In a report based on investigations at bombing sites during and after the conflict, the New York-based HRW said Nato strikes killed 20 women and 24 children. It called on the alliance to compensate civilian victims and investigate attacks that may have been unlawful. Read Article
Guardian – Demonstrations in the West Bank and Gaza in support of about 2,000 Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike are escalating amid efforts by Egyptian mediators to broker a deal to avoid protests spiralling out of control if a detainee dies. Two prisoners, who have refused food for 77 days, are thought to be close to death with another six in a critical condition, say Palestinian groups. The Israeli prison service (IPS) says no one’s life is at risk. Read Article
NY Times – Police officers stopped people on New York City’s streets more than 200,000 times during the first three months of 2012, putting the Bloomberg administration on course to shatter a record set last year for the highest annual tally of street stops. Data on the 203,500 street stops from January through March — up from 183,326 during the same quarter a year earlier — was sent to the City Council from 1 Police Plaza late on Friday under a legal requirement spawned by public outrage over the 1999 fatal police shooting in the Bronx of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed black street peddler. Read Article
AFP – About 4,000 accused supporters of former dictator Moamer Kadhafi are still being held in Libyan militia detention centers, often in secret and many are tortured, a UN envoy said Thursday. Ian Martin, head of the UN mission to Libya, said good progress was being made toward the country’s first democratic election, but militia prisons were one of a number of “serious obstacles” to establishing the rule of law. Read Article
PressTV – UK police mistreatment of people held in their custody has come under spotlight as a new incident captured on CCTV emerges of County Durham police “torture” assault. Two British police staff who twisted and grabbed the arms of a man in order to make him answer their questions after his arrest at Peterlee Police Station in March 2011, have been ordered to pay him £50 each in compensation, with the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) condemning the violent act as “a form of torture”. Read Article
Sun Sentinel – Criminals, beware the gardener. This city has a new way of fighting crime: Employees who are out and about, trimming trees or picking up litter on the beach, are officially on the lookout for signs of a crime. A group of about 70 landscapers and garbage truck drivers got training from the Broward Sheriff’s Office this week so they know what to look for. Another group of about 35 will train next week. Read Article
Wired – Since the Patriot Act broadly expanded the power of the government to issue National Security Letters demanding customer records, more than 200,000 have been issued to U.S. companies by the FBI. But the perpetual gag orders that accompany them are rarely challenged by the ISPs and other recipients served with such letters. Just how rare these challenges are became more evident following the recent release of a 2010 letter from the Justice Department to a federal lawmaker. Read Article
PressTV – Bahraini Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa has met with US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Washington amid Manama’s continued repression of anti-regime protests in the sheikdom. Read article
BBC – The United States is resuming sales of some weapons to Bahrain, but says it will not supply the Gulf state with any crowd control equipment. The US State Department says the shipment will help Bahrain “maintain its external defence capabilities.” Arms sales were frozen last year after the Bahraini government suppressed pro-democracy demonstrations. Read Article
Business Insider – What happens to your Facebook account when you die? Or your Twitter? Who gets the rights to the thousands of songs in your iTunes library? Or access to your email? These are questions the U.S. government is hoping Americans will begin to consider, and Uncle Sam is now suggesting that every web-savvy citizen create a “social media will” to lay out what exactly your loved ones ought to do with your online accounts in the event of your death. Read Article
Daily Mail – A Georgia policeman has come under fire for kicking a pregnant woman so hard she was forced to have an emergency C-section. Raven Dozier said that when officer Jerad Wheeler came to her house to quell her brother’s dispute with her mother, Wheeler used a Taser on him. She cried out and Wheeler pounced, kicking the nine-month pregnant woman in the stomach and charging her with obstruction. Read Article
Newser – An Iranian cartoonist has been sentenced to 25 lashings for drawing a member of parliament wearing a soccer jersey, reports MSNBC’s Cartoon Blog. Mahmoud Shokraiyeh illustrated a caricature of the politician as part of a news story involving the relocation of a soccer team to a different city. It could be the sign of a heightening of Iran’s already strict censorship. Read Article
Daily Mail – Police fired Tasers at a terrified Alzheimer’s sufferer in a troubling incident that reopens the debate on the controversial weapon. Six officers were called to take the unarmed 58-year-old man to hospital but he had no idea what was going on and lashed out at them. What happened next left his wife ‘heartbroken’ and his neighbours in tears. Read Article
Guardian – Police in New York City disproportionately stop black and Latino people even in low-crime areas, leading to a “two-tiered” policing system that divides along racial lines, according to civil rights campaigners. A new analysis of NYPD figures by the New York Civil Liberties Union challenges the police’s assertion racial disparities in stop-and-frisks reflect the geography of New York’s high-crime areas. Read Article
Guardian – The home secretary, Theresa May, is to make a renewed attempt to deport Abu Qatada after judges at the European court of human rights rejected his appeal to the Strasbourg court. May said: “I am pleased by the European court’s decision. The Qatada case will now go through the British courts. I am confident the assurances we have from Jordan mean we can put Qatada on a plane and get him out of Britain.” Read Article
Reuters – Opposition leaders Alexei Navalny and Sergei Udaltsov are detained again while leading a peaceful demonstration in Moscow against political leaders. Read article
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