Syria Tries to Defend Its Record to United Nations

Ambassador Bashar Jaafari, the Syrian envoy, repeated the government’s claim that the unrest at home was the work of as yet unidentified foreign agitators trying to undermine Syria’s stability and that armed infiltrators were responsible for the shooting of protesters.

“This unrest and riots in some of their aspects have hidden agendas,” Mr. Jaafari told reporters. “Some armed groups take advantage of the demonstrations; they get within the demonstrators and start shooting on the military men and the security forces. This is why there are many casualties.”

Mr. Jaafari also defended President Bashar Assad’s record, saying that more political reforms were coming on the heels of Mr. Assad’s decision to lift the emergency law.

“President Assad is a reformer himself, and he should be given the chance to fulfill his mission in reforming the political life in the country,” he said.

Government opponents openly mock both assertions. Syrians, not foreign agitators, are demanding basic freedoms that have been denied them for the 40 years in which the Assad family has run the country, they say. Although Mr. Assad, 45, promised reform when he inherited the presidency from his father 11 years ago, he has put none in place — instead, they say, the government has strangled any nascent reform movement by jailing its leaders for years.

But efforts by the Security Council to issue the mildest of statements criticizing Syria was postponed until at least Wednesday afternoon. Several member states — Russia, China and Lebanon — seemed firmly opposed, diplomats said, although the ambassadors of China and Lebanon would only note that further discussion was scheduled.

Russia has been adamant that the use of force in Libya far exceeds the Security Council resolution that authorized efforts to protect Libyan civilians; statements by its senior leaders indicate that Russia will not contemplate anything similar elsewhere in the restive region. Diplomats from other countries also noted certain differences over military actions in Libya.

While the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, threatened to search from alley to alley to root out opposition, Mr. Assad has spoken of reform in Syria and blamed outsiders for the unrest. That stance is influencing some members, diplomats said, although not all.

“The outrageous use of violence to quell protests must come to an end — and now,” the United States Ambassador, Susan E. Rice, told reporters. “The Syrian government’s actions to repeal the decade’s old emergency law and allow for peaceful demonstrations were clearly not serious, given the continued violent repression against protesters.”

Ms. Rice repeated the Obama administration’s contention that Iran was helping Syria to suppress the demonstrations.

Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, reiterated his demand for an international investigation into the hundreds of deaths in Syria.

“I condemn, utterly, the continuing violence against peaceful demonstrators, most particularly the use of tanks and live fire that have killed and injured hundreds of people,” Mr. Ban said.

Mr. Jaafari belittled the idea of any investigation other than one already initiated by the Syrian government.

Other world leaders also weighed in on Tuesday.

In Britain, the foreign minister, William Hague, said the European Union was considering sanctions against Syria. “Its government can still choose to bring about the radical reform which alone can bring about peace and stability,” he told the House of Commons. “Or it can choose ever more violent repression.”

 

Law Firm Won’t Defend Marriage Act

Gay rights groups had fiercely criticized the law firm, the 126-year-old King & Spalding of Atlanta, saying that its agreement to defend the law, which prohibits federal recognition of same-sex marriages, would hurt its ability to recruit and retain lawyers. The firm’s chairman, Robert D. Hays Jr., said in a statement Monday morning that the firm would no longer defend the law.

“In reviewing this assignment further, I determined that the process used for vetting this engagement was inadequate,” he said. “Ultimately I am responsible for any mistakes that occurred and apologize for the challenges this may have created.”

The firm’s abrupt reversal highlights the continuing potency of same-sex marriage as a complicated issue that has scrambled traditional political calculations in Washington. President Obama has often called the marriage act “abhorrent,” but his Justice Department defended it for more than a year before declaring it unconstitutional. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced in February that the administration would no longer defend the act in court.

Theodore B. Olson, a solicitor general under President George W. Bush, has joined gay rights groups and Democrats as a leading advocate for same-sex marriage. And several high-profile Republicans, including Mr. Bush’s wife and his daughter Barbara, have said publicly that they support gay people’s right to marry. But House Republicans, led by Speaker John A. Boehner, have vowed to defend the law in court.

Paul D. Clement, another solicitor general under Mr. Bush and the King & Spalding lawyer hired to lead the Republican case, resigned after his firm’s decision to withdraw. In a letter, Mr. Clement said the firm had a duty to resist pressure and complete the job for which it was hired.

“I resign out of the firmly held belief that a representation should not be abandoned because the client’s legal position is extremely unpopular in certain quarters,” he wrote. “Defending unpopular clients is what lawyers do. I recognized from the outset that this statute implicates very sensitive issues that prompt strong views on both sides. But having undertaken the representation, I believe there is no honorable course for me but to complete it.”

Mr. Clement wrote that his personal opinions about the marriage act were irrelevant — and he did not indicate what they were. But he said he intended to represent the House in its defense of the law as a partner at Bancroft P.L.L.C., his new employer.

King & Spalding, founded in 1885, is one of the nation’s largest and most successful law firms, with offices around the world. American Lawyer magazine ranks it as the nation’s 34th-largest, measured by gross revenue.

Griffin B. Bell, who was attorney general in the Carter administration, was managing partner at the firm. Its partners have included Senator Dan Coats, Republican of Indiana, and two former senators, ?Sam Nunn,? a Georgia Democrat, and Connie Mack, a?Florida Republican.?The firm? represents the top ranks of corporate America, including General Motors, Google and? Wal-Mart, and it has had a long relationship with the Coca-Cola Company.

The firm has been the subject of criticism before. A sex discrimination case against it in the 1980s went to the Supreme Court before eventually being settled. ?

It remains unclear why the leadership of King & Spalding chose to withdraw from the contract to defend the constitutionality of the marriage act, which would have paid the firm up to $500,000 for its services, at a rate of $520 per hour.

The statement from Mr. Hays did not cite pressure from gay advocacy groups as a reason for the change. His stated reason — that the approval process for taking on the assignment was inadequate — could refer to a clause in the contract with House Republicans that prohibited the firm’s lawyers from any advocacy for or against bills that would change or repeal the marriage act.

Legal experts said that clause is broader than most restrictions in contracts and could have severely limited the activities of the firm’s partners and employees.

“It would be one thing for the lawyers to agree not to pursue litigation on the other side of the matter,” said Andrew M. Perlman, a law professor at Suffolk University in Boston and an expert on legal ethics. “But this would have prohibited any lawyer in the firm from even writing a letter criticizing the Defense of Marriage Act.”

Gay rights groups claimed victory, saying their criticism of the firm had its intended effect.

Richard Socarides, the president of Equality Matters, an advocacy group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, said Monday: “Mr. Clement’s statement misses the point entirely. While it is sometimes appropriate for lawyers to represent unpopular clients when a important principle is at issue, here the only principle he wishes to defend is discrimination and second-class citizenship for gay Americans.”

But Stephen Gillers, an expert in legal ethics at the New York University law school, said the firm caved in, adding that the “firm’s timidity here will hurt weak clients, poor clients and despised clients.”

In a statement, a spokesman for Mr. Boehner, Brendan Buck, said: “The speaker is disappointed in the firm’s decision and its careless disregard for its responsibilities to the House in this constitutional matter. At the same time, Mr. Clement has demonstrated legal integrity, and we are grateful for his decision to continue representing the House.”

Democrats, including Representative Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader, have criticized Mr. Boehner for seeking public funds to defend the law. A spokesman for Ms. Pelosi said in a statement that she “vigorously opposes” using “any taxpayer resources to defend discrimination, at a time when Republicans in Congress are cutting critical initiatives like education and infrastructure.”

Michael D. Shear reported from Washington, and John Schwartz from New York.

 

Police defend Newry alert cordon

 11 April 2011 Last updated at 05:37 ET Hundreds of motorists drove past the van containing the bomb on Friday after cones cordoning it off were removed A senior police officer has defended the PSNI's handing of a security alert in Newry, which led to the discovery of a 500lb bomb.

The PSNI were criticised after hundreds of motorists drove past the van containing the bomb after cones cordoning it off were removed.

Chief Superintendent Alasdair Robinson said a full cordon was put in place when the suspect vehicle was located.

He said police were hampered by two "ambiguous" bomb warnings.

Mr Robinson said they had hindered their search for the bomb.

"No location"

"The warning came in to a local charity and it said the following: 'This is the IRA, there is a bomb under the underpass'," he said.

"No location was given and there was nine seconds of recording.

"The previous one, the first one said: 'This is the IRA, we've planted a bomb on the underpass at the Berliss Road and it is to go off in 45 minutes'.

"Now there is no Berliss Road on the M1. The M1 goes from Belfast to the west.

"The M1 of course, is the A1 / M1 which is the national north south route, so that was the level of ambiguity."

He said police did not at that stage know where the bomb was.

"It wasn't until almost an hour later that we could confirm that we had a suspect vehicle. At that point, we put a full cordon in place," he added.

Police cordon breached

"We closed the roads, both with police and the Roads Service, who kindly helped us with that. We had the whole scene completely secure and locked down for the evening."

Chief Superintendent Robinson said some members of the public had "breached" the police cordon.

"You can't blame all of the people who drove past because they came to what they thought was an open road," he said.

"We checked the cordon and we put police back in to close them down."

He said the PSNI would review their use of signage.

"It is not part of anyone's plan to allow any member of the public to go anywhere near what was a suspect device.

"Sophisticated and substantial"

"The police were on the ground but as far as we were concerned the cordon was complete."

Police said the bomb, which was left on the Belfast to Dublin road, was "sophisticated and substantial".

The Secretary of State Owen Paterson said the community was "fed up" with the recent spate of alerts and condemned the incident.

However, he refused to be drawn on how the police dealt with the bomb and said police handling of the security alert was an "operational matter."

"There are questions that need to be answered and I will put them to the chief constable and the justice minister when I meet with them next week," Mr Paterson said.

"I am not going to comment until I have spoken to them."

Acting Policing Board chairman Brian Rea said the police had done all they could to make the area safe.

"I had a briefing on Sunday from the district commander in the area who reassured me they were doing all in their power to keep that road closed," he said.

"The police operate in that area under a constant threat. We have heard in the past where a device has been planted as a come on or trap.

"Police have to be extremely careful when they enter into this type of situation and often they have to leave it some time before it is safe for them to do so."

The alert, which started on Thursday night, was less than a week since the murder of PSNI constable Ronan Kerr in Omagh, County Tyrone.

Police believe that the van containing the bomb was abandoned in the underpass because of increased police activity in the wake of the murder last Saturday.

Army bomb experts carried out several controlled explosions on the vehicle on Friday night.