In a decision dated March 11, US District Judge Dean Pregerson in Los Angeles ruled that the family of Salvadoran immigrant Francisco Castañeda can continue to pursue a lawsuit against individual government officials for violating Castañeda's constitutional rights and can ask a jury to award punitive damages. Pregerson determined that the immigration agency's decision to withhold critical medical treatment from Castañeda while detaining him was "beyond cruel and unusual" punishment. The government had argued that its employees were immune from the lawsuit, and that federal law allowed only a suit against the government, with a nonjury trial and a $250,000 limit on damages. A spokesperson for the US attorney's office said the Justice Department might appeal Pregerson's ruling.

In a March 2 petition addressed to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Attorney General Michael Mukasey, 93 immigration detainees at Middlesex County jail in New Jersey complained about inadequate medical treatment for two fellow detainees, including a man named Arturo Alvarez who died earlier that same day. According to authorities the Cuban detainee died on March 2 at St. Peter's University Hospital in New Brunswick after suffering a heart attack at the jail on Feb. 29. In the letter, titled "Re: Crime Against Humanity," the detainees said Alvarez asked for help and was given Tylenol and his own medication, "but no doctor was available to see him." The letter states that Alvarez "passed away in this jail" and was not sent to the hospital. The petition also charges that a detainee named Cemar Koc complained of pain to a first shift duty officer, got no help, and after complaining to a second-shift officer lost consciousness. (Home News Tribune, March 15; copy of petition made available by New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee)

On March 7, a group of Indian welders, pipe-fitters, and marine fabrication workers employed under the federal H-2B visa program filed a federal lawsuit against Signal International, alleging that they were lured to work at the company's shipyards in Pascagoula, Miss., and Orange, Tex., with false promises of permanent US residency. Once in the US, the workers say they were forced into involuntary servitude and overcrowded labor camps. The class action lawsuit, David v. Signal Int'l LLC, was filed in US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, in New Orleans, by several organizations including the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Sri Lankan cabinet minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle was among 12 people killed outside Colombo April 6 in a blast blamed on a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber. At least 90 people were wounded in the explosion minutes before the start of a traditional marathon race held as part of a Hindu new year celebration at Waliweriy. Indo-Asian News Service called the event "Hindu-Sinhala," as it was attended by minority Hindu members of the mostly Buddhist ethnic Sinhalese majority on the island. Marathon gold medallist K.A. Karunaratne was also among the dead. (IANS, April 6)

Protesters arrested in West Papua

On March 13, Indonesian police arrested twelve people in Manokwari, West Papua, during a demonstration against a 2007 law banning the display of separatist symbols, including the Morning Star Flag. The demonstrations also called for a referendum regarding the political status of West Papua and expressed opposition to the 2001 Special Autonomy Law that they claim has failed to bring improvement to the lives of Papuan people. As Human Right Watch has reported, one of the twelve arrested in Manokwari is reported to be a 16-year-old boy. As of March 25 there were reports that he had been released from custody but he may still face charges. On March 19, Indonesian security officials in Jayapura arrested four more Papuans in a similarly peaceful demonstration that opposed the same 2007 law. On March 25, security authorities arrested Eli Kaiway in connection with the peaceful demonstrations of March 13 and 19.

Lawyers for the US Department of Justice defended the six-year detention of Huzaifa Parhat, a Chinese Uighur Muslim, at Guantanamo Bay in oral arguments before the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit April 4. The US claims Parhat is an "enemy combatant" due to his ties with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a group that calls for independence from China and was designated a terrorist organization by the US State Department in 2002. The DoJ acknowledged that Parhat did not fight against the US and that there is no evidence that he intended to do so, but said he can still be held under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force Act because ETIM is affiliated with al-Qaeda.

Hidden mural of the Dalai Lama in Lhasa

Troops from the paramilitary People's Armed Police (PAP) and Public Security Bureau (PSB) fired on hundreds of protesters led by Buddhist monks at Kardze in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of China's Sichuan province April 3, leaving eight dead. The protest began when monks of Tongkor Monastery in Zithang township, Kardze County, marched to demand the release of two monks arrested the previous day for defying China's official "Patriotic Education" campaign, which requires monks to denounce the Dalai Lama, according to the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD). Scores of Tibetans were injured and arrested, the TCHRD said. China's official Xinhua news agency reported one government official was seriously injured in what it called a riot.

Judges at the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague April 3 found two former commanders of the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA), Kosova's ex-prime minister Ramush Haradinaj and Idriz Balaj, not guilty on all charges. A third ex-KLA defendant, Lahi Brahimaj, was sentenced to six years imprisonment. The three were accused of murders, rapes, torture and persecution of Serbs and perceived collaborators during the KLA guerilla struggle in 1998. (VOA, Kosova Live, April 3)