US President Barack Obama on March 7 issued an executive order allowing military commissions for Guantánamo Bay detainees to resume. New charges in the military commission system have been suspended since shortly after Obama took office in 2009. The new order also establishes a procedure for establishing a review process for detainees who have not been charged, convicted or designated for transfer. In a statement, Obama said:

Muslim student Yasir Afifi and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) filed a lawsuit against the FBI on March 2 after Afifi discovered a global positioning system (GPS) device on the undercarriage of his car. The suit, filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that Afifi's rights were violated when FBI agents attempted to retrieve their tracking device, without explanation for why Afifi was being tracked. Afifi's suit alleges civil rights and constitutional violations, specifically unlawful search under the Fourth Amendment, chilling and recording of First Amendment activities, and unlawful agency action:

A special court in India sentenced 11 Muslims to death Feb. 28 in connection with the Godhra train burning in 2002 that killed 59 Hindu nationalists and started the 2002 Gujarat riots. Special judge PR Patel handed down death sentences for 11 of 31 convicted last week of murder, attempted murder and/or criminal conspiracy. The remaining 20 all received sentences of life imprisonment, and 63 others were acquitted. The convictions were for setting on fire the S6 coach of Sabarmati Express, killing 59 people, mostly Vishwa Hindu Parishad members, returning from Ayodhya. The incident triggered riots in Gujarat in which more than 1,200 people were killed, mostly Muslims, in some of the worst violence between Hindus and Muslims in India since independence in 1947. The prosecution had sought the death penalty for all 31 convicted. The defense plans to appeal the death sentences and is prepared to take the matter to India's highest court.

An Argentine court on Feb. 28 commenced the trial of former dictators Jorge Videla and Reynaldo Bignone for allegedly overseeing a systematic plan to steal babies born to political prisoners during the nation's 1976-1983 "Dirty War." The two are accused in 34 separate cases of infants who were taken from mothers held in clandestine torture and detention centers, the Navy Mechanics School and Campo de Mayo army base. The case was opened 14 years ago at the request of Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, and includes as defendants five military judges and a doctor who attended to the detainees. The trial is expected to hear 370 witnesses and last up to a year. With the help of the Grandmothers' DNA database, 102 people born to vanished detainees have recovered their true identities.

The Algerian Council of Ministers on Feb. 22 approved a draft ordinance repealing the country's 19-year state of emergency, delivering on a promise made the week before. The draft ordinance will have the force of law upon publication in the Official Journal of Algeria, which the Council of Ministers said would be "imminent." The state of emergency, which has been in place since a series of decrees in 1992, gave the government power to limit political freedoms and even peaceful protests. Opponents also claimed that the state of emergency gave rise to arbitrary detentions.

A judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Feb. 18 denied a petition for writ of habeas corpus of a Yemeni man currently detained at Guantánamo Bay. Judge Ricardo Urbina held that the government proved by a preponderance of the evidence that Mashour Abdullah Muqbel Alsabri provided material support to the Taliban, al-Qaeda or associated enemy forces. The court found that the petitioner traveled to Afghanistan to fight with the Taliban or al-Qaeda, stayed at Taliban or al-Qaeda guesthouses, received military training at an al-Qaeda facility, traveled to the battle lines and was captured during armed conflict. The court found no evidence that the petitioner dissociated with these enemy forces at any point prior to his capture. These findings taken together, the court said, support the government's contention that the petitioner was lawfully detained. The petitioner was arrested in 2002 and filed his habeas corpus petition in October 2006.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said at a congressional hearing Feb. 17 that Guantánamo Bay is unlikely to be closed because of security concerns. Responding to a question from the Senate Armed Forces Committee, Gates said that the odds of closing the detention facility are "very, very low," particularly because of congressional opposition, the difficulty in predicting which detainees are likely to return to terrorist activities and restrictions on detainees being brought to the US for trial under the Ike Skelton National Defense Authorization Act of 2011. Gates made his comments one day after CIA Director Leon Panetta told Congress that, if captured, Osama bin Laden and his second-in-command would probably be sent to Guantánamo Bay. At his first press briefing on Feb. 16, press secretary Jay Carney said that President Barack Obama still aims to close Guantánamo, despite Panetta's comments.

Three Turkish journalists allegedly involved with aiding the Ergenekon coup plot were jailed Feb. 18 amid foreign concerns for the treatment of journalists within the country. Members of the Ergenekon plot allegedly planned to assassinate prominent members of Turkey's Christian and Jewish minority groups, blame Islamic terrorists for the deaths and use this to delegitimize the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Soner Yalcin, the owner of Oda TV, an online news website that has been critical of the Turkish government, and two of his colleagues were formally arrested following several days of interrogations. The three were detained during a police raid that followed an eight-month investigation by authorities. US officials have voiced concerns over the treatment of journalists in Turkey, while Turkish officials have warned other countries not to become involved in their domestic matters.