Dozens of Palestinian prisoners announced an end to their two-month hunger strike, despite not winning any pledge by the Israeli government to end use of "administrative detention." Shawqi Eissa, the Palesitian minister of prisoners affairs, said June 25 that 63 prisoners agreed a deal and suspended their protest shortly after midnight. Under the terms of the deal, the hunger-strikers will be returned to their original prisons. Many had been moved around as punishment, with some kept in isolation. "This is not a huge victory, but a modest step forward," said Qadura Fares of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Prisoners' Society. Some detainees are continuing to refuse food, however. Ayman Tbeish, an "administrative detainee" who has been fasting for 118 days, did not suspend his strike. Some 5,000 Palestinians are currently being held in Israeli prisons, with nearly 200 in administrative detention—a number expected to double in the coming days as recent arrests are processed. Israel pledged in 2012 to limit its use of the practice, as part of an agreement to end a previous hunger strike, but detainees charge the government has reneged on the deal. (Al Jazeera, June 25)

Amnesty International has issued a statement protesting the charges brought against Edward Snowden under the US Espionage Act. "No one should be charged under any law for disclosing information of human rights violations by the US government," said Amnesty's international law director Widney Brown. "Such disclosures are protected under the rights to information and freedom of expression." Snowden (now without a valid passport) is apparently at the Moscow airport, awaiting a flight to (depending on the account) Ecuador, Venezuela or Cuba. There is a delicious irony to countries usually portrayed as authoritarian offering refuge while the ostensibly "democratic" United States is thusly chastised. "Regardless of where Snowden ends up he has the right to seek asylum," said Brown. "Even if such a claim failed, no country can return a person to another country where there is a substantial risk of ill-treatment. His forced transfer to the USA would put him at great risk of human rights violations and must be challenged."

Eritrea's government says the capital Asmara is "calm" a day after some 200 disaffected soldiers with two tanks surrounded the Ministry of Information, forcing the radio broadcast of a statement calling for the release of political prisoners and for the country's 1997 constitution to be reinstated. State TV and radio were reportedly cut off shortly after the soldiers took control of the complex, and government websites were shut down. The site for the ruling People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) was also inaccessible. "All is calm today, as it was indeed yesterday," said Yemane Gebremeskel,  the director of President Issaias Afeworki's office, in seeming denial that the incident had happened. 

We are heartened to learn that President Obama is staying away from the funeral of Ethiopia's late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, whose death was announced last week, instead sending a comparatively low-level delegation led by the US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice. (Nazret, Sept. 2) This may indicate a long-overdue distancing of Washington from Meles' odious regime, which we fear may change little with his passing. Meles, who ruled (either as president or prime minister) since 1991, made himself very useful to Washington, "renditioning" terror suspects for brutal "interrogations" in his prisons, and even now providing a military proxy force in Somalia. After Ethiopia invaded Somalia in 2006 (with a US "green light," and probably military advisors), Meles' forces were shortly accused of war crimes by international human rights groups. (NYT, Aug. 16, 2007) Yet this now gets virtually no play in the overwhelmingly and sickeningly favorable media coverage of his legacy—contrary to Julius Ceasar, the evil Meles did is being interred with his bones.