Attorney General vows to protect voters' civil rights

The US attorney general has vowed to enforce civil rights protections for voters in next year's US elections.

Eric Holder's speech in Texas took aim at new voting laws passed in a number of US states that critics say are designed to suppress minority turnout.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16171491

DEMOCRACY

Arab nations need to ensure sustainable transition to democracy – UN rights chief

The top United Nations human rights official today stressed the need to ensure that the “promising” first steps taken by some countries in the Middle East and North Africa in response to calls for reform are followed up with measures to ensure a sustainable transition to democracy.

“Experience shows that democratic transition is incomplete if it fails to include appropriate institutional reforms,” High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in her opening statement to the 17th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

She said the necessary reforms include transitional justice processes, which are indispensable for the proper functioning of a democratic system, primarily an independent and impartial judiciary, effective national human rights institutions, and security forces which are subjected to civilian oversight, so that they act as guarantors of the rule of law.

“Failure to adequately strengthen new institutions tends to lead not only to impunity for past human rights violations but to further violations, corruption and organized crime,” she warned.

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=38541&Cr=protests&Cr1=