[JURIST] Two members of Haiti's nine-member Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) [official website] supervising the country's presidential election claimed late Sunday that the vote was being manipulated after discrepancies appeared on the election website. Figures reported on the site showed leading candidate [JURIST report] and former president Rene Preval [Wikipedia profile] holding only 49.1% of the vote, too low to avoid a runoff election against the second-place candidate (currently another ex-president, Leslie Manigat, with 11.7% support), but a computer-generated graphic on the same site showed him with 52%. Preval told reporters: "I went to school and the CEP has given two figures, 52 percent and 49 percent. Now there is a problem... Forty-nine percent I don't pass. Fifty percent I pass." CEP member Pierre Richard Duchemin, in charge of the voting tabulation center, is quoted by Reuters as saying "The percent which is given by the graphic is done by the computer according to figures entered by a data operator and the computer can't lie...There is an unwholesome manipulation of the data. Nothing is transparent." Duchemin and fellow commissioner Patrick Fequiere blamed CEP director-general Jacques Bertrand for the problem.

Preval, a champion of Haiti's poor and a close ally of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] who was removed from power and transported out of the country in a US-backed coup in 2004, is regarded with some concern by wealthier Haitians who supported the change in government which led to the insertion of a UN Stabilization Force [official website] to quell ongoing violence. Despite some delays and early allegations of vote rigging [JURIST report], international monitors have to this point concluded that the February 7 poll was a success [IMMHE statement]. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Montenegro [government website] has set April 30th [RFE report] as the date for a nationwide referendum for independence from Serbia. Serbia and Montenegro [JURIST news archive] are the only two surviving republics of the former Yugoslavia, which broke apart in the 1990s during the regime of former president Slobodan Milosevic [JURIST news archive]. Since then, the nations have become a loose union and Montenegro started taking steps towards independence [BBC report] last year. Since both nations have started negotiations to join the European Union [official website], EU officials have launched [BBC report] two separate negotiations with Belgrade and Podgorica. EU officials have also asked [press release] that Montenegro reach a consensus with Serbia on the rules of the referendum, in order to ensure the legitimacy of the vote and maintain EU support. Serbia has no plans to hold a similar referendum.

Speaking of what he called the "renewal" of Montenegrin statehood, Montenegro Foreign Minister Miodrag Vlahovic has said [press release] that "the world will recognize the outcome of the democratic referendum process. This confirmation we have from all the diplomatic factors." Montenegro was nominally independent for several hundred years before joining Serbia in 1918 and becoming a part of post-World War II Yugoslavia in 1945.

[JURIST] German officials are in talks with their US counterparts for the release of a German-born man who has been held in Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] for almost four years. Murat Kurnaz [Amnesty International case sheet; chronology, PDF], a Turkish national, was detained in Pakistan in 2001 on suspicion of terrorism and later handed over to US forces, arriving at Guantanamo in 2002. Negotiations began when Chancellor Angela Merkel [official website in German, BBC profile] met with President Bush [JURIST report] last month. The German government hopes to obtain the release by the summer.

If Kurnaz is released, Germany would need to give the US "guarantees of security", such as continued surveillance of Kurnaz at all times. Last year, Kurnaz claimed [JURIST report] that he had been subjected to torture, physical abuse and sexual humiliation by US interrogators. Reuters has more. Deutsche Welle has local coverage.

[JURIST] China [JURIST news archive] Sunday issued it first guidelines on HIV/AIDS [JURIST news archive], banning discrimination against those infected by the virus and providing for free treatment. The new guidelines were promulgated in response to the already-large number of people with HIV/AIDS in the country [Avert.org backgrounder] - currently estimated by the government at 650,000 - and warnings by international experts that the numbers of infected individuals could rise due to the lack of government support and lack of information about the disease.

The Regulation of AIDS Prevention and Control [Xinhua report] was approved by the State Council, China's cabinet, and signed by Premier Wen Jiabao [BBC profile] and is due to take effect March 1. While the UNAIDS China office [official website] sees the guidelines as good progress, other international experts warn the rules do not go far enough and fear that social stigma could still prevent many from seeking treatment. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Insisting his was a country where freedom prevailed, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan [Prime Ministry website] Saturday expressly condemned a new ruling by Turkey's high administrative court that a teacher should be refused promotion because of her decision to wear a religious headscarf outside of her classes. Religious dress [JURIST news archive] has been a controversial issue in Turkey, with the Islamic-oriented Justice and Development Party [party website in Turkish] government demanding that the ban on women wearing headscarves in schools and other public accommodations be lifted while the courts and the military, harking back to secularist policies [backgrounder] set in the era of state founder Kemal Ataturk [profile], continue to restrict Islamic influence on the nation.

The Council of State [official website] held that teacher Aytac Kilinc was setting a bad example for her students and had violated secular principles rooted in the Turkish constitution [text] which prevents the state from showing a preference for a particular religion. Kilinc plans to appeal the denial of her promotion to the European Court of Human Rights [official website]. In November 2005, the ECHR ruled [press release] that Turkey can ban [JURIST report] the wearing of headscarves in public and private universities in an effort to minimize extremist political movements. AP has more.

[JURIST] The government of Yemen [official website] has announced it will prosecute the editors of three privately owned Yemeni newspapers, the Yemen Observer [media website in English], al-Ra'i el-Am and al-Huriya, for offending Islam after the newspapers reprinted caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad [JURIST news archive] that have prompted worldwide Muslim protests. The newspapers' licenses have also been suspended [Article 19 protest letter, PDF]. The Yemen Observer reports in its Internet edition - not yet explicitly prohibited - that its editor, Mohammed al-Asadi, has been detained indefinitely and denied bail. Last week, the editors of Jordan's Shihan and al-Mehwar newspapers were arrested and charged [BBC report] with similar offenses in Jordan after reprinting the cartoons. NCTV has more. A Malaysian English-language paper was shut down [JURIST report] Thursday over re-publication, and the editor of an Indonesian tabloid has also been taken into custody. AP has more.

Meanwhile, protests over the publications have continued around the world, including a Saturday gathering in Philadelphia of several hundred Muslims outside the offices of the Philadelphia Inquirer [local coverage], one of the few American news outlets that chose to publish one of the controversial drawings. Inquirer editors have explained [editorial] that their intention was "to inform our readers, not to inflame them," and met with protesters outside the building. Reuters has more. A peaceful demonstration of about 5000, aimed at setting out the views of moderate Muslims, was also held in London [BBC report] on Saturday.

2:17 PM ET - Late reports say that the managing editors of two Algerian weeklies have also been jailed for republishing the Prophet cartoons and will face trial. Berkane Bouderbala of the weekly Essafir [media website in Arabic] and Kamel Boussad of the Panorama weekly are being held under a provision of the Algerian penal code which states "any person who offends the prophet and the emissaries of god or denigrates the dogma or precepts of Islam" faces three to five years in prison. AFP has more. From Algeria, L'Expression has local coverage [in French].

[JURIST] Saddam Hussein chief defense counsel Khalil Dulaimi [JURIST news archive] and an associate told reporters Sunday that Saddam and his seven co-defendants would begin a hunger strike Monday to protest the legitimacy of the proceedings against them but shortly thereafter retracted the statement, saying a strike was discussed but would not begin. Dulaimi told Reuters "We have now checked and it seems almost certain that the president no longer plans a hunger strike at least tomorrow as we thought earlier ... though some of his colleagues may."

The trial [JURIST news archive] is set to resume Monday and while Saddam and some co-defendants have boycotted [JURIST report] the last two sessions in response to events at the January 29 hearing [JURIST report] presided over by new chief judge Ra'uf Rasheed Abdel-Rahman, an anonymous source from the Iraqi High Criminal Court [official website] said all defendants would be forced to attend Monday's proceedings. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] Britain's Ministry of Defense [official website] has said it will launch an investigation into video images published Sunday in the British News of the World [report; full video] tabloid which show British soldiers beating four young Iraqi men they detained after a street disturbance in southern Iraq in 2004. The video was apparently filmed by another soldier heard on audio in the background and was turned over to the newspaper by what it described as a whistleblower. Prime Minister Tony Blair [official profile], speaking from South Africa to the BBC, said "We take seriously any allegation of mistreatment and these will be investigated very fully indeed."

This is not the first allegation of abuse by British soldiers in Iraq; a number are already facing court-martial [JURIST report], although abuse charges against seven soldiers in connection with a 2003 incident were dropped [JURIST report] in November. In December 2005, the House of Lords ruled [JURIST report] that British law forbids UK soldiers in Iraq from subjecting Iraqi prisoners to cruel or degrading treatment while in their custody. BBC News has more.

2:26 PM ET - The British MOD has now confirmed that an urgent Royal Military Police [official website] investigation is underway after what it called "recent and very serious allegations of abuse by British Soldiers in Iraq". The Department said:

British troops are not above the law, and it has always been MOD policy to initiate a Service police investigation where there are any grounds to suspect that a criminal act has, or might have been, committed. This case is no different.