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WASHINGTON – A federal judge ruled on Thursday that prisoners in the war on terror can use U.S. civilian courts to challenge their detention at a military air base in Afghanistan. U.S. District Judge John Bates turned down the United States' motion to deny the right to three foreign detainees at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have the right to challenge their detention in court. But the government had argued that it did not apply to those in Afghanistan.

(LEAD) N. Korea says it is holding, investigating two Americans SEOUL, March 21 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's state news agency said Saturday that the country detained two Americans earlier this week and is investigating them for allegedly intruding into North Korean territory illegally. The Korea Central News Agency report, monitored in Seoul, said that authorities detained two Americans on March 17 while they were "illegally intruding the territory of the DPRK by crossing the DPRK-China border." DPRK stands for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The report came as two female reporters from Current TV, an...

(2nd LD) N. Korea detains two American journalists By Lee Chi-dong SEOUL, March 19 (Yonhap) -- North Korea and the United States are in talks over the fate of two American journalists detained by the communist nation, a diplomatic source here said Thursday. "Two reporters working for a U.S.-based Internet news media outlet, including a Korean-American, were detained by North Korean authorities earlier this week, and they remain in custody there," the source said. The journalists, who are both women, were videotaping a scene near the North's border with China despite repeated warnings by North Korean border guards, according to...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush can order the imprisonment of an al Qaeda suspect in the United States but the detainee must be able to challenge his status as an "enemy combatant," a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday. The court, based in Richmond, Virginia, was split 5-4 on both issues in a mixed ruling about a Qatari national, Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, the only foreign national held in the United States as an "enemy combatant." If the government's allegations about Marri are true, then the U.S. Congress gave Bush the power to detain him as part of...

STRASBOURG: European Union lawmakers voted Wednesday to allow countries in the bloc to hold undocumented migrants in detention centers for up to 18 months and ban them from EU territory for five years. Approved in this medieval French border city, which is home to a significant population of North Africans and Turks, the legislation establishes common rules for expelling foreigners who are detained on EU territory without permission to be there. Described by critics like Amnesty International as "severely flawed" and an erosion of human rights standards, but by supporters as a balanced approach, the so-called return directive passed in...

DEL RIO -- Many enforcement hawks in Congress are counting on border walls to discourage illegal immigration and drug smuggling. In Del Rio, authorities are using prison walls instead. The ever-expanding Val Verde County Jail is filled with illegal immigrants ranging from would-be yard workers and maids to hardened gang members. They've been caught in a law enforcement dragnet known as Operation Streamline, a zero-tolerance program that began here and has spread east and west along the border. The lock-'em-up approach has its share of critics. They question the skyrocketing costs, complain of poor conditions in the detention facilities and...

WASHINGTON, March 24, 2008 – The U.S. troop surge in Iraq and increased community involvement have helped improve coalition detention operations there, the U.S. commander in charge of those operations said yesterday. Since the troop surge, the coalition has seen positive trends in the capture and release rates among Iraqi detainees, in detainee-on-detainee violence in coalition facilities, and in recapture rates among detainees who have been released from custody, Marine Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, Multinational Force Iraq’s commander of detention operations, told reporters in Iraq. The coalition has more than 23,000 detainees in custody, Stone said. This population size...

Resistance movements, hunger strikes, starting fires, auto-mutilations.., "I can't do more," admitted a man from the Maghreb showing his gashed and sutured hands. The man who spoke was behind bars surmounted with barbed wire in one of the two centers of administrative retention (CRA) in Vincennes. The League of the Rights of Man, the Magistrates' Union and the Lawyer's Union fo France announced on Monday, February 25, the launching of their clean inquiry on the violence arising in the center of retention in Vincennes on the night from 11 to 12 February. A double inquiry, both administrative and judiciary, of...

The parents of all 2,550 Palm Bay High School students received a phone call informing them that their child was due for weekend detention. No, there was no coordinated uprising at the school. An accidental push of a button sent the automated call to the homes of the entire student body instead of the intended 16. One parent didn't believe her son's protests that he had done nothing wrong and took him to school Saturday morning anyway. When they learned of the glitch, Amy Stewart took her son Jimmy to breakfast to make up for it. Assistant superintendend Steve Muzzy...

Houston-based KBR was awarded an initial $385 million contract in January 2006 for one year, with four one-year options extended into 2007. KBR held a previous emergency detention contract with ICE from 2000 to 2005. ICE spokeswoman Jamie Zuieback told Corsi the primary intent of the contract was to build temporary detention facilities that could be used in the event of a mass migration crisis, but she confirmed the facilities could be employed in national emergencies, including natural disasters.

A mundane, state-of-the-art building outside of Austin has stirred the hearts of two radio-television-film students, numerous immigrant rights groups on campus, the UT Immigration Law Clinic and the American Civil Liberties Union. The facility under scrutiny is the privately owned T. Don Hutto Residential Center, a for-profit immigrant detention facility in Taylor, Texas. Inside, approximately 200 immigrant children and their families live in what some people are calling inhumane conditions while awaiting their court hearings. Nine-year-old Canadian Kevin Yourdkhani wrote a message to his prime minister pleading for rescue."I don't like to stay in this jail. I'm only nine years...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. troops detained the eldest son of Iraq's most influential Shiite politician for nearly 12 hours Friday as he crossed back from Iran — the same route Washington believes is used to keep powerful Shiite militias flush with weapons and aid. Even though the U.S. ambassador issued a rapid apology, the decision to hold Amar al-Hakim risks touching off a backlash from Shiite leaders at a time when their cooperation is needed most to keep a major security sweep through Baghdad from unraveling. It also highlights the often knotty relationship between U.S. military authorities and Iraq's elected...

Several legal advocacy groups asked a judge to order the immediate release of four immigrants who have been detained for months or years without receiving a hearing on why they're being held so long. The motion filed Friday in federal court in Los Angeles asks U.S. District Judge Terry Hatter to release the detainees under conditions of supervision or grant them hearings. The move followed a class-action lawsuit filed Sept. 25 on behalf of six detainees by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project and the Stanford Law School Immigrants' Rights Clinic. Two detainees...

NEW YORK - A public school is requiring detention for parents who get their kids to school late. Under the new rule at the Manhattan School for Children, parents who don’t drop off their children by 8:25 a.m. have to pick up late slips from the principal’s office and go to the auditorium to serve 20 minutes of detention with them.Read more...

Pelosi: 'Permitting Indefinite Detention Under Conditions that Cannot be Challenged in Court is Contrary to Our History and Values'Wed Sep 27, 3:45 PM ET To: National Desk Contact: Brendan Daly or Jennifer Crider, 202-226-7616, both for House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 /U.S. Newswire/ -- House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi spoke on the House floor this afternoon in strong opposition to H.R. 6054 -- Military Commissions Act. Three major amendments offered by Democratic Members were rejected by the Rules Committee. Below are Pelosi's remarks: "It's been five years since 9/11, yet not one person who has been directly...

The US government has called regrettable an incident with Venezuelan foreign minister and apologized to the official Caracas. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called the detention in the New York airport another provocation by George Bush.

Venezuelan official detained at JFK By IAN JAMES, Associated Press Writer 19 minutes ago Venezuela's foreign minister said he was illegally detained for 90 minutes by officials at a New York airport and accused them of treating him abusively by trying to frisk and handcuff him. U.S. officials called Saturday's incident regrettable and said they had apologized to Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro. Maduro called that insufficient and said Venezuela would seek a legal challenge through the U.N. to what he called a "flagrant violation of international law" and his diplomatic immunity. "We were detained for an hour and a half,...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 7, 2006 – In addition to ensuring humane treatment of all detainees, a new policy directive and field manual released yesterday hold all servicemembers involved in or familiar with detainee operations accountable to ensure they are enforced. DoD Directive 2310.01E, “The Department of Defense Detainee Program,” describes core policies critical to ensuring that all detainees -- lawful and unlawful enemy combatants alike -- are treated humanely and within the law, explained Cully Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, during a Pentagon briefing yesterday. But the policy also provides safeguards to ensure these standards are enforced,...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 6, 2006 – A new policy directive and field manual released today establish crystal-clear guidelines on U.S. military detention and interrogation policies and further the Defense Department’s longstanding policy of humane treatment for all detainees, defense officials told Pentagon reporters today. DoD released two new documents today: DoD Directive 2310.01E, which provides overarching guidance on DoD’s detainee operations worldwide, and Army Field Manual 2-22.3, which lays out specific guidelines for those directly involved in detention and interrogation efforts. The new DoD directive, “The Department of Defense Detainee Program,” describes core policies critical to ensuring detainees are treated humanely...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A federal appeals court on Monday rejected a government request to deny the release of a top fundraiser for an Islamic charity that authorities say has ties to terrorism, his attorneys said. The move by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco came days after a federal district judge ordered the release of Abdel-Jabbar Hamdan, 45. Hamdan was to be released Monday evening, said Ranjana Natajaran of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. Hamdan has been held at the Terminal Island federal detention facility in San Pedro for more than two...