Tokyo

Japan to restrict information on Internet

Japan announced measures Wednesday aimed at preventing Web sites from carrying illegal or harmful information such as on group suicides and homemade bombs.

One of the proposed measures includes creation of a procedure for police to demand providers reveal information on webmasters of sites encouraging suicide, and promotion of filtering software to prevent children from seeing sites with harmful content.

An information-technology safety committee set up by the related governmental bodies is expected to decide on the measures officially as early as this week to reflect them on fiscal 2006 budget requests.

The measures also include enhancement of the so-called cyber patrol, or monitoring of information on the Internet by police in an attempt to identify those planning group suicides.

Kuwait

Former Guantanamo inmate acquitted

A Muslim extremist who spent nearly three years imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay was acquitted Wednesday of all terrorism-related charges by a court in Kuwait.

Nasser al-Mutairi, who was released in January only to face trial at home, was acquitted of joining foreign military forces without permission, harming Kuwait by serving the interest of a “foreign country” and undergoing illegal weapons training.

The charges do not name any particular country or force.

“The lawyer always told me I am innocent, and I expected to be acquitted,” said al-Mutairi, 27, who had been free on bail.

Eleven other Kuwaitis are still being held at Guantanamo Bay, along with hundreds of others from more than 40 countries.

Spain

Gay marriage opponents petition Parliament

A Catholic lay group opposed to gay marriage presented lawmakers Wednesday with a petition bearing 600,000 signatures, a day before Parliament was expected to legalize same-sex unions in Spain.

The Spanish Family Forum said the signatures were in addition to half a million others presented last month to press the Socialist government to call a referendum on whether Spain should institute gay marriage.

“We are asking for a referendum, and then we’ll know what Spaniards really want,” said Luis Carbonel, president of a group that is part of the forum.

The organization also wants conservative Spanish lawmakers opposed to gay marriage to file a lawsuit seeking to have it declared unconstitutional on grounds that marriage can only be the union of a man and a woman.

Pakistan

Travel ban lifted for rape victim

Pakistan’s president said Wednesday he had lifted a ban on travel abroad for the victim in a high-profile rape case, a restriction that was strongly condemned by Washington.

The statement by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf came one day after Pakistan’s Supreme Court overturned the acquittals of 13 men and ordered their re-arrest in the gang rape of Mukhtar Mai, whose plight has cast a glaring light on the treatment of women in this conservative Muslim nation.

“Let me make it absolutely clear that Mukhtar Mai is free to go wherever she pleases, meet whomever she wants and say whatever she pleases,” Musharraf said in a message on his Web site. “I have full faith in her and in her patriotism.”

Austria

Expert: U.N. looking for secret U.S. facilities

U.N. human rights experts have started questioning former terrorist suspects released from U.S. detention as they investigate prison conditions and allegations that some people are being held in secret locations, a top U.N. official said Wednesday.

Manfred Nowak, the U.N.’s special expert on torture, said some undeclared holding areas could include U.S. ships in international waters. He said there were “serious” allegations to that effect from Amnesty International and other non-governmental human rights groups.

“I have heard these rumors, and we have to follow them up,” he told The Associated Press, urging the U.S. government to cooperate with the inquiry.

U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. John Skinner, a Pentagon spokesman, said the Defense Department “does not operate detainee detention facilities on Navy warships.”

The department’s “detainee detention facilities are in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo,” Skinner said.