Governments in the Middle East were responsible for serious human rights violations over the past year, including harassment and attacks against human rights defenders and organizations that document abuse.

US President Barack Obama has made significant progress in his first year in office toward ending the Bush administration’s abusive counterterrorism policies, but he has also made some serious missteps.

Within days of taking office in January 2009, President Barack Obama issued executive orders that repudiated key elements of the Bush administration's abusive approach to fighting terrorism. By changing course in such a swift and high-profile way, President Obama appeared to signal a new and reformed counterterrorism policy, one consistent with basic US values and with international law. But in the months that followed this promising start, the administration chose to retain a number of the previous administration's most problematic policies, albeit in modified form.

The Obama administration should commemorate Guantanamo’s eighth anniversary tomorrow by renewing its pledge to close the prison quickly and responsibly. Prisoners implicated in crimes should be charged and brought to trial before federal courts, and the remainder should be sent home or resettled in other countries.

Syrian authorities should make public without further delay the fate of all prisoners whose whereabouts and well-being remain a mystery almost 18 months after security forces put down a riot at the Sednaya prison in July 2008.

The Damascus Bar Association should reverse this week's decision to permanently disbar the lawyer and rights activist Muhanad al-Hasani.

Iran hanged juvenile offender Behnoud Shojaie on October 12, 2009, despite an unequivocal international ban on such executions, and an initial pardon by the victim's family.

The award of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to US President Barack Obama should encourage him to apply his stated principles to both foreign and domestic human rights policy.