[JURIST] The Federation of Arab Journalists (FAJ) [advocacy website, in Arabic] on Monday issued a statement declaring its opposition to a draft publications law in Egypt [JURIST news archive], which the group said politicians could use to stifle journalists with the threat of jail. The FAJ asserted that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak [official profile, English version] promised two years ago to repeal laws that could result in prison sentences for journalists. Although the draft law removes some provisions that threaten journalists' freedom, according to the FAJ, it also adds new restrictions in other provisions.

The legislation is only one example of what critics see as attacks on the press by Egypt's government. Human rights groups have condemned last week's court decision [JURIST report] to sentence a controversial newspaper editor to a year in prison for criticizing Mubarak, and three journalists are among those on trial [JURIST report] for allegedly slandering a local election commission chief by alleging fraud in parliamentary elections. The Kuwait News Agency has more.

[JURIST] British Home Secretary John Reid [official profile] asked the Court of Appeal [official website] on Monday to overturn a ruling that terrorism suspects cannot be detained without charge under so-called control orders [BBC backgrounder], arguing that a judgment last week by a High Court judge contained "misunderstandings and errors." Mr. Justice Sullivan ruled [JURIST report] that the orders authorizing the electronic monitoring or house arrest of terror suspects based on insufficient evidence to try them violate the European Convention on Human Rights [PDF text]. Sullivan also ruled against control orders in a related judgment [JURIST report] in April. On Monday, a lawyer for Reid told the Court of Appeal that Sullivan had misapplied the language of the convention and that Parliament tailored the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 [text], which authorizes the orders, to pass muster under the convention.

Control orders allow the government to impose house arrest and electronic surveillance on suspects and to forbid them from using mobile phones and the Internet. BBC News has more.

[JURIST] Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute [official website, in Spanish] is set for Wednesday's start of the official legal count of ballots cast in Sunday's disputed presidential election [BBC Q/A] after preliminary results [El Universal coverage] led to the two main candidates each declaring themselves the winner. Conservative candidate Felipe Calderon [campaign website, in Spanish; Wikipedia profile], of the National Action Party (PAN) [party website, in Spanish; Wikipedia backgrounder] said Monday that his 370,000-vote lead is insurmountable [AP report], but leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador [campaign website, in Spanish; Wikipedia profile] of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) [party website, in Spanish; Wikipedia backgrounder] has refused to concede the election, saying he has the right to challenge the results [Reuters report]. The latest preliminary results Monday afternoon indicate that Calderon has received 36.37 percent of the vote, with Lopez Obrador trailing at 35.37 percent. Lopez Obrador has alleged fraud in the elections and said that by his calculation he has won by 500,000 votes.

The preliminary numbers released by the Federal Electoral Institute are based on a sampling of votes, but the legal count to begin Wednesday will include all ballots and will be observed by all major political parties - PAN, PRD and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) [official website; Wikipedia backgrounder]. Local district councils will calculate returns based on reports attached to sealed ballot boxes. If the report is unclear or if the ballot box appears to have been tampered with, officials will recount the individual ballots. There is a Thursday deadline to allege irregularities at polling places and parties have until next week to lodge a complaint against the district counts. Any dispute would ultimately be heard by the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary [official website], and analysts are predicting that the court will ultimately consider the disputed presidential election [AP report].

Several allegations of voting irregularities [AP report] have already popped up throughout the country, with the most prominent complaints stemming from Mexican citizens living in the US who crossed the border to vote in Sunday's elections. Last year, Mexico's Congress passed a law extending suffrage to expatriates and set up 86 special polling stations for them to vote on election day. Each special polling station, however, had only 750 ballots to prevent voter fraud, thus disenfranchising thousands that crossed the border to vote at the special polling stations. Though expatriates streamed into Mexico to vote and Mexican citizens abroad cast absentee ballots for the first time, their voting bloc is not expected to have an impact on the election, primarily because many Mexican citizens live abroad illegally and feared alerting US authorities to their status. The Washington Post has more.

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [JURIST news archive] on Monday stayed a lower court's order that a 29-foot cross honoring Korean War veterans [background] be removed from city-owned property in San Diego. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy [official profile], who oversees appeals from the Ninth Circuit, granted without comment the temporary delay requested [docket] by the San Diegans for the Mt. Soledad National War Memorial [advocacy website], which argued that removing the 55-year-old cross would amount to "destruction of a national treasure." City officials had planned to remove the cross as soon as Wednesday. In May, US District Judge Gordon Thompson Jr. [official profile] of the Southern District of California ordered [Union-Tribune report] that the cross be removed by Aug. 2 and that the city be fined $5,000 a day if it was not. Thompson found that the cross was a state endorsement of religion that violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment [text].

The lawsuit was brought by Philip Paulson, an atheist and Vietnam War veteran who has been challenging the cross for more than 15 years. The Supreme Court declined [docket] to consider an appeal in other litigation over the Mt. Soledad cross three years ago. AP has more. SCOTUSblog has additional coverage. The San Diego Union-Tribune has local coverage.

[JURIST] Nepal's Maoist communist party announced Monday it is suspending its "People's Courts" that have been running in urban areas of Nepal, including the capital Kathmandu. Maoist supreme commander Prachanda [eKantipur interview] announced the suspension in a statement amidst national and international criticism of the panels that have run parallel to the government's regular courts, are not recognized by the state, and lack competent authority to pass verdicts.

It is not known how many such courts are in operation in Nepal. Their activity - officially undisclosed prior to this time - has, however, led to a decrease in cases at the regular courts of Nepal and has cost lawyers jobs [eKantipur report].

Kiran Chapagain is a special correspondent for JURIST writing from Nepal. He is an Assistant Senior Reporter for the Kathmandu Post.

[JURIST] Iraqi Shiite leader Abdel Aziz al-Hakim [SourceWatch profile], head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq [party website], said Monday that he would like the amnesty provision of the proposed national reconciliation plan [text and press release; JURIST report] to also cover insurgents who may have killed US servicemen. Al-Hakim's comments contrast sharply with those made by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki [BBC profile] last week when he clarified his vague plan by saying that amnesty would apply only to insurgents who did not kill anyone [JURIST report]. Al-Hakim, however, added that he opposes negotiations with loyalists from Saddam Hussein's former regime and extremist Sunni Arab militants.

Al-Maliki's plan prompted immediate denuciations by several US senators [JURIST report] who feared that it would apply to insurgents who killed US personnel. Last week, Iraq's Council of Ministers elaborated on al-Maliki's plan [JURIST report] by saying the government would make every effort to return detainees granted amnesty to their lives before their detention, including giving back government jobs and returning students to school, considering their jobs and education uninterrupted. AFP has more.

[JURIST] A Chinese Cabinet official said Monday that a draft law imposing fines on media organizations [JURIST report] for covering sudden emergencies without approval from the local government would also apply to international news organizations. It is not clear, however, whether he was expressing his own views or those of the government. The official, Wang Yongqing, the vice minister of the legislative affairs office [official website] of China's State Council [official backgrounder], indicated that the law is meant to punish government officials that poorly manage sudden emergencies and that the press clause would prevent the news media from willfully misleading the public. The Chinese government proposed the law last week and said it could take effect by October. The law, which has been sent to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress [official website; government backgrounder], would fine media organizations up to $12,000 for reporting on emergencies such as riots or natural disasters. A spokesman for the State Council's legislative office said the draft law seeks to prevent the publication of "false or bias[ed] news reports," adding that reports lacking detailed information cause public concern. Journalists fear that the draft law will give the government broad powers to restrict coverage of social and political events that may embarrass the Chinese government.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists [advocacy website] has condemned the proposed law [press release] and has urged the Chinese government to abandon it, saying "the proposal furthers attempts by the administration of Chinese President Hu Jintao to restrict reporting by China's increasingly market-driven press." The New York Times has more.

[JURIST] A US military lawyer for David Hicks [JURIST news archive] said the US government cannot legally prosecute the Australian-born Guantanamo detainee again because a trial would constitute double jeopardy under the Fifth Amendment [text] to the US Constitution. The lawyer, Maj. Michael Mori, told the Sydney Morning Herald on Monday that a trial for Hicks had begun in 2004, when a jury was empaneled for a military commission [JURIST news archive] that was later aborted. The US Supreme Court ruled [JURIST report] last week in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld [opinion text] that the commissions as constituted are illegal under military law and the Geneva Conventions. Hicks has been held at the US detention center in Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] since late 2001, when he was captured in Afghanistan – where he allegedly fought for the Taliban – and turned over to US forces. Accused [charges, PDF] of conspiracy to commit war crimes and attempted murder, Hicks is one of ten Guantanamo detainees facing trial by a military commission.

President Bush has pledged to work with Congress [JURIST report] to "determine whether or not the military tribunals will be an avenue in which to give [Guantanamo detainees] their day in court." In a radio interview last week, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said [JURIST report] that Hicks should still be tried in American courts and that he cannot be tried in Australia because supporting al Qaeda was not illegal under Australian law in 2001. The Sydney Morning Herald has more.

[JURIST] Former Chadian president Hissene Habre [HRW materials; JURIST news archive] will face trial in Senegal on charges that he committed torture, mass killings, and other abuses in the 1980s, leaders of the African Union [official website] decided at an assembly [draft agenda] in Gambia this past weekend. Senegal's president, Abdoulaye Wade [official profile, in French; BBC profile], said his country is "best-placed" to try Habre, who has been in exile there since a coup forced him from power in 1990. The assembly's decision follows an AU panel's recommendation [JURIST report] that Habre be tried in Senegal, Chad or another African nation that has adopted the international Convention Against Torture, rather than in Belgium, which issued an arrest warrant [JURIST report] for the ex-dictator and requested his extradition under its universal jurisdiction laws.

Human Rights Watch [advocacy website] has already expressed concern that Senegal will not try Habre promptly, pointing out that the country had twice refused to allow the prosecution to proceed. AFP has more. IRIN has additional coverage.

[JURIST] Federal prosecutors in Charlotte charged former US Army soldier Steven Green with murder and rape Monday in connection with the death of an Iraqi woman and three family members in Mahmudiya in March. US Army Maj. Gen. James Thurman, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, ordered a criminal investigation [JURIST report] into the four deaths after two soldiers were abducted and killed [London Times report] near Baghdad when at least one member of their platoon revealed the alleged rape and murder in Mahmudiyah. Four other US soldiers have been confined to a US base near Mahmudiyah as the investigation continues. Green, who was honorably discharged due to a personality disorder before the probe began, was arrested in North Carolina over the weekend. In a press release [text], the US Attorney for Western Kentucky, where Green was based at Fort Campbell, said:

The charges allege that on March 12, 2006, while stationed in Mahmudiayh [sic], Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division, Green and three other individuals went to a house in the vicinity of Traffic Control Point 1, near Mahmudiayh, to rape one of the adult females living there. Green allegedly shot and killed an adult male, an adult female and a female child who were present in the house. The charges also allege that after participating in the rape of the second adult female, Green shot and killed her.

[JURIST] Bolivian President Evo Morales [official website; BBC profile] may be forced to compromise with a special assembly that will rewrite the country's constitution after Morales' Movement Toward Socialism Party (MAS) [party website, in Spanish; Wikipedia backgrounder] apparently failed to gain a full two-thirds majority in an election held Sunday [JURIST report]. A television network's survey of actual votes from all polling places indicated that the leftist party had won 132 of the 255 seats. Morales had predicted that MAS, which advocates policies favorable to the majority indigenous population [JURIST report], would win a much larger majority. Podemos, the main opposition party, had accused Morales of using the constitutional process to amass power in the presidency and of allowing Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez to direct the constitutional reform. The constitutional assembly, which begins work on August 6, must approve all changes by a two-thirds vote and then submit the draft to a nationwide referendum.

Voting on a separate ballot question, majorities in at least four of nine Bolivian states favored increased local autonomy on political and economic matters, according to unofficial results. AP has more. La Patria has local coverage, in Spanish.

[JURIST] Rear Admiral Harry Harris [official profile], commander of the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive], said in remarks published Sunday that as many as 75 percent of Guantanamo inmates no longer provide the US with useful intelligence. Speaking to TIME magazine before the US Supreme Court ordered the Bush administration to halt military tribunals for detainees [JURIST report] last week, Harris said [TIME report] that those detainees - some of whom have been at Guantanamo for four years - no longer face regular questioning and that some had not been questioned for six months or more.

A European inspection team evaluating Guantanamo reported Friday that there may be only 30-40 "real" cases of terrorism [JURIST report] there and recommended that the facility be shut down by the end of 2007. The London Times has more.

[JURIST] Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres [official profile] said Sunday that some two dozen members of the Palestinian cabinet and legislature from the governing Hamas faction detained by Israeli forces [JURIST report] in West Bank raids last week will be prosecuted and put on trial for "participating, supporting terroristic acts against the civilian government." The arrests were made Thursday as tensions mounted between Israel and the Palestinians over last Sunday's abduction of Israeli soldier Cpl. Gilad Shalit in Gaza. Aljazeera has more.

Early speculation had suggested that Israel would perhaps trade some of the arrested Hamas leaders for the captured Shalit. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) [official website] said Monday, however, that in response to a call for Israel to release Palestinian prisoners for Shalit it would support a deal to release terror suspects that have not been involved in planning or implementing terror attacks, but not those "with blood on their hands." UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan meanwhile warned in the face of increased violence - including a weekend Israeli attack on the office of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh [Bloomberg report] - that it is important to preserve Palestinian institutions [UN News report] and infrastructure in order to support an eventual two-State solution of the Palestinian question. Haaretz has more.

[JURIST] Seventeen Cambodian judges and 10 others from Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Japan, Poland, Sri Lanka, the Netherlands, and the US who will serve on the Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal [official task force website; timeline] were sworn in Monday in a symbolic ceremony at Phnom Penh's Silver Pagoda in the royal palace. The tribunal, which will prosecute former leaders of the Khmer Rouge [JURIST news archive], is expected to begin holding trials by mid-2007 and last for three years. Judges and prosecutors [official list] were selected [JURIST report; official appointment decree, PDF] in May, but Youk Chhang, director of the Document Center of Cambodia (DC-CAM) [advocacy website], which has been collecting evidence against the Khmer Rouge and preparing for the trials since 1995, noted that Monday's ceremony formally establishes the Khmer Rouge tribunal.

The deteriorating health of many surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge, which ruled over Cambodia from 1975-1978, has prompted the UN to call for their trials to begin as soon as possible [JURIST report]. Ta Mok [Trial Watch profile], the former Khmer Rouge military chief, was hospitalized [JURIST report] last week and former Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary [Wikipedia profile] was hospitalized due to a heart condition [JURIST report] earlier this year. Former Khmer Rouge health minister Thiounn Thioeunn [DC-CAM profile] died in June. AFP has more.

Andrew Wood is an Associate Editor for JURIST working in Cambodia this summer.

ALSO ON JURIST  Topic: Cambodia | Op-ed: High Time for Justice: The US and the Khmer Rouge Tribunal

[JURIST] Six Frenchmen who were released from the US detention center in Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] went on trial Monday in Paris, where they stand accused of attending combat training at an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan. France freed five of the suspects after their repatriation to France from Guantanamo in July 2004 and March 2005 [BBC reports]. The prosecution alleges that the six suspects were recruited by Rachid Boukhalfa, an Algerian held in a British prison also known as Abu Doha. France formally charged the six defendants [JURIST report] in April.

In an op-ed [text] for the New York Times last month, one of the suspects, Mourad Benchellali, admitted to attending the training camp but claimed that friends compelled him to join. A verdict in the case is expected in mid-July. Reuters has more. BBC News has additional coverage.

[JURIST] The UK parliament's Home Affairs Committee [official website] has warned that the 28-day limit for police to detain terror suspects without charge, mandated under the Terrorism Act 2006 [PDF text; Home Office backgrounder], may need to be extended. In a report [text] released Monday, the committee also said, however, that in order to increase the 28-day detention limit MPs will have to ensure greater safeguards of detainees' rights, including a requirement for compelling evidence against the terror suspect. While Prime Minister Tony Blair's proposed 90-day detention limit was rejected, the report recognizes that the "growing number of cases and the increases in suspects monitored by the police and security forces make it entirely possible" that compelling evidence for a longer detention period will become available. The report clearly stated, however, that recent cases have not given cause for a lengthier detention period.

The Terrorism Act 2006 became law in April [JURIST report], with the majority of its provisions taking effect immediately. The detention period limit became a point of contention last year when the House of Commons handed Blair his first defeat last November, substituting 28 days maximum detention for the initially-proposed 90-day limit [JURIST report]. The House of Lords later rejected a proposed 60-day detention [JURIST report] limit in January. BBC News has more.

[JURIST] US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales [official profile] and several Republican US senators expressed optimism over the weekend that the administration and Congress will be able to strike an agreement on legislation to establish military commissions to try Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainees in the wake of Thursday's last week's US Supreme Court [official website] ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld [JURIST report]. Gonzales said the Court's decision "hampered" the administration's ability to deal with terrorists [CNN report] but insisted the administration was hopeful that Congress would authorize trying enemy combatants through a military commission process. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) [official website], speaking on Fox News Sunday [transcript; podcast], opined that Article 3 of the Geneva Convention [ICRC materials], which the Supreme Court declared applicable to terror detainees at Guantanamo, is "far beyond" domestic law, saying Congress should "rein it in," adding that Congress will work with Bush to create "competent military commissions" for the detainees [press release]. Senate Republican Whip Mitch McConnell (KY) [official website], speaking on NBC's Meet the Press [transcript; recorded video] referred to the Hamdan decision as disturbing [press release] and expressed concern that US servicemen could be accused of war crimes. On ABC's This Week [ABC report; recorded video], Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) [official website] said that the "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo should not be afforded the same justice as servicemen. McCain said that though Bush and many in Congress have said they would like to close Guantanamo Bay, the real issue is the status of detainees held without charge and allegedly under harsh conditions. On CBS' Face the Nation [transcript, PDF], Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) [official website] said that Congress must harmonize the Bush administration's military commissions [DOD materials; JURIST news archive] with the Supreme Court's new guidelines.

Top Senate Democrats, meanwhile, called for more review of President Bush's war powers after the Hamdan decision, with Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) [official website] saying on Fox News Sunday that the decision implies that Bush may have again overstepped his powers, as it has with the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program, alleged CIA rendition flights [JURIST news archives] and the recently exposed financial tracking program [JURIST report]. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) [official website] on NBC's Meet the Press accused the Bush administration of acting like they have "infinite" power, while Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) [official website] warned Republicans not to politicize the Hamdan decision on ABC's This Week [ABC report; recorded video]. AP has more. Reuters has additional coverage.