[JURIST] The US military said Monday that the number of Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainees participating in a hunger strike has increased from 3 to about 75. Navy Cmdr. Robert Durand described the strike as an effort to attract attention. He speculated that it may be related to the events of May 18 [JURIST report], when 4 detainees supposedly attempted to commit suicide and several other detainees attacked US soldiers who tried to intervene. According to Durand, quoted by AP, “The hunger strike is consistent with al-Qaida practice and reflects detainee attempts to elicit media attention to bring international pressure on the United States to release them back to the battlefield.” Rights lawyers suggest, however, that the action may be a sign of increased frustration and desperation by inmates at the camp, only 10 of whom have been charged to date.

The latest wave of hunger strikes at Guantanamo began in July 2005, with fifty-two detainees reported to be on strike [JURIST report]. By September the numbers had burgeoned to 128 or more [JURIST report]. In February 2006, faced with aggressive force-feeding measures [JURIST report], including strapping prisoners into restraint chairs for extended periods of time to enable them to be fed through tubes and to prevent them from deliberately vomiting afterward, the numbers had dwindled to 3 or 4. The military has maintained that such measures were “safe and humane” [AFPS report]. The World Medical Association opposes the use of forced feeding as coercive [policy statement]. AP has more.

[JURIST] A UN official Monday warned members of fundamentalist Islamic and secular warlord militias fighting for control of the Somali capital of Mogadishu “that any deliberate attempt to prevent wounded or civilians receiving assistance and protection during fighting in the city may constitute elements of future war crimes.” Fighting between various factions has intensified in the past days and weeks, forcing hundreds of civilians to flee Mogadishu and prompting Somali MPs to call on the Somali prime minister to expel several warlords from the Somali cabinet [JURIST report].

Eric Laroche, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, said [UNCT Somalia report] he was shocked at the targeting of hospitals [IHL backgrounder] in the course of the fighting, an action that blatantly violates the basic rules of international humanitarian law. “The fighting does have the potential to spread into other areas of southern Somalia, leading to further aggravation of the humanitarian crisis at a time when stability is needed for the success of the humanitarian-drought response in the region,” he said, emphasizing that it is “ethically unacceptable for fighting to be occurring in Mogadishu at a time when Somalia is experiencing a humanitarian emergency.” On Friday, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a statement [text] expressing grave concern about the resumption of fighting between the fundamentalist Islamic faction and the secular Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism in Mogadishu, and calling for an unconditional ceasefire.

Somalia has not had an effective government since 1991, when warlords overthrew long-time dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. The current outbreak of fighting threatens the interim government [JURIST report] formed in 2004 after over a decade of anarchy. South Africa's Mail & Guardian has more. Shabelle News has local coverage.

[JURIST] US Marine Corps General Peter Pace [official profile], chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff [official website], declined comment Monday on the Pentagon's investigation into the November 2005 killings of up to two dozen Iraqi civilians [JURIST report] in the troubled city of Haditha, in the western Anbar province of Iraq. Pace emphasized that if service members are found responsible for the atrocity, they “have not performed their duty the way that 99.9 percent of their fellow Marines have.” Responding to a question as to how such a thing could have happened, Pace said “Fortunately, it does not happen very frequently, so there’s no way to say historically why something like this might have happened. We’ll find out.”

Pace’s interview on CBS’s The Early Show [program website] occurred a day after Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), appeared [JURIST report] on ABC’s This Week and described the Haditha incident as “worse than Abu Ghraib” for the US, and said the killings had been committed "in cold blood." A defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AP on Friday that the evidence gathered to date strongly indicates that the Haditha killings were unjustified [JURIST report]. AP has more.

4:15 PM ET - In a parallel appearance Monday on CNN's American Morning program, Pace said that two investigations were in fact under way, one relating to the November 2005 incident and another to determine why senior officials remained unaware of it until February this year. Pace promised to make the results of the investigations public. The commander of Multinational Corps Iraq [official website], Army Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, began a preliminary probe Feb. 14 [AFPS report] after officials learned details of the Haditha incident from reporters; that probe was extended in mid-March when the TIME report began to surface. In the meantime Pace said that he would wait before saying anything else: "If the allegations, as they're being portrayed in the newspaper, turn out to be valid, then of course there will be charges. But we don't know yet what the outcome will be. It'll take its course. It will be made public, and we'll all be able to make our own judgments." AFPS has more.

[JURIST] A Bangladesh court in Dhaka Monday sentenced seven Islamic militants, including leaders Shayek Abdur Rahman of Jamaat-ul Mujahideen [SATP backgrounder] and Siddikul Islam Bangla Bhai of Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh [SATP backgrounder], to death for the murder of two judges [JURIST report] in a bomb attack last year. Both men shouted "All praise to Allah" as the verdict was read; earlier in the trial they had said that they would not appeal any convictions because they were prepared to die. Bangladeshi lawyers boycotted the courts [JURIST report] for two days in November in response to the murders.

As part of a string of attacks last year stemming from the militants' desire to see Islamic Sharia law [CFR backgrounder] implemented in Bangladeshi law, militants also bombed a court complex [JURIST report] in December, wounding 25 people. Reuters has more.

[JURIST] The defense team for Saddam Hussein [JURIST news archive] on Monday called several witnesses to testify on behalf of Awad al-Bandar [Wikipedia profile], head of the court responsible for sentencing 148 Shiites to death [execution order] after a 1982 assassination attempt against the former Iraqi leader in the town of Dujail [JURIST report]. Though the trial of the Shiites included only one defense lawyer for all 148 defendants and lasted just 16 days, Al-Bandar himself claimed in testimony [JURIST report] in April that it was conducted fairly and all those convicted had admitted taking part in the attempt on Saddam's life.

The three witnesses presented on al-Bandar's behalf Monday all acknowledged they had no direct connection to the Dujail case, an admission that prompted admonishment from Judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman [BBC profile] who said that witnesses who worked with al-Bandar on the Shiite trial should have been presented. AP has more.

5:02 PM ET - One of the witnesses, former Saddam-era Interior Minister Mohammad Zaman Abdel Razeq Saadoun, told the court that "US forces had applied pressure on us to testify against President Saddam Hussein.' Testimony is expected to resume Tuesday and Wednesday. DPA has more.

[JURIST] EU foreign ministers wrapping up a two day meeting [JURIST report] in Austria Sunday agreed to extend the "period of reflection" on the stalled European constitution [JURIST news archive] for another year through the end of the German presidency of the EU in June 2007, but floated the possibility of re-naming the instrument in an effort to allay fears over loss of national sovereignty and push along the ratification process. So far the charter has been approved by 15 of the 25 EU states, but rejections in referenda in France [JURIST report] and the Netherlands [JURIST report] last year have forced a rethink on how to proceed.

Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja told reporters "Everybody agrees it was a mistake to call it a constitution, so that would be a sensible change", with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier adding "We in Germany live with a 'Basic Law', which does not carry the title 'constitution' but has the same legal quality. It's a possible starting point." European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso was somewhat less sanguine, however, saying "If someone finds a better name, great. But what is important is to recommit ourselves to this vision of Europe." The Scotsman has more.

[JURIST] US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales [official profile] and FBI Director Robert Mueller [official profile] held a private meeting with representatives from major internet service providers late last week urging them to retain customer internet activities to combat child pornography. The meeting, reported by CNET, follows a speech [text; JURIST report] by Gonzales last month at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, during which he called on ISPs to retain records for a "reasonable amount of time". At Friday's meeting he advocated a more concrete period of two years.

Although the US Department of Justice is currently framing the data retention issue in terms of its fight against child porn, data retention is also potentially important to counter-terrorism efforts. Earlier this year European Union justice and interior ministers meeting in Brussels approved [European Council proceedings, PDF; JURIST report] a controversial data retention directive [DOC] passed by the European Parliament [JURIST report] in December 2005 designed to track down terrorists, paedophiles, and criminal gangs and calling for EU member states to store citizens' phone call and internet service data for 6 to 24 months without stipulating a maximum time period. CNET has more.