[JURIST] Thailand Defense Minister Boonrawd Somtas said Sunday that former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra [BBC profile] may "come home," but should wait until martial law is revoked. Martial law has been in place since the mid-September bloodless coup [JURIST report] led by Gen. Sondhi Boonyaratkalin [BBC profile]. New Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont [BBC profile] has said Thaksin contacted him about his desire to return to Thailand [JURIST news archive]. Surayud instructed the former PM to wait until the Council on National Security [Bangkok Post backgrounder] addressed the security issues of his homecoming.

Human rights groups and the US government [JURIST reports] have urged Thailand to revoke the martial law imposed [JURIST report] on the country by military leaders after the coup, calling the emergency provisions and the new military-sponsored government a threat to democracy in Thailand. Surayud said Sunday he will evaluate whether martial law can be lifted [Standard report] later this week. Thaksin has been in London since the coup. Xinhua has more.

[JURIST] Chinese human rights attorney Gao Zhisheng [Wikipedia profile] has been charged with inciting subversion of state power [CECC report], according to a statement by his lawyer. Gao has been detained without access to his lawyer, Mo Shaoping, since August and was formally arrested on September 21 with no charges declared. Mo learned of the subversion accusation [Reuters report] only last week, telling Reuters that he was not notified by the public security bureau, as is usual practice, but that he only learned of the charges after going to prosecutors. Subversion charges usually carry a maximum five-year prison sentence, though the sentence is sometimes extended in the most serious cases. Sunday's New York Times has more.

Gao gained international notice by representing controversial clients, including members of the banned sect Falun Gong [group website; BBC backgrounder]. Gao's license to practice was revoked [CECC backgrounder; HRW letter] late last year. There have been several high-profile subversion trials in China this year, including the jailing of several journalists and a ten-year sentence for a teacher [JURIST reports] who posted pro-democracy essays on the Internet.

[JURIST] Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan [BBC profile] told fellow members of his country's ruling party Saturday that French President Jacques Chirac [official profile, in French; BBC profile] has apologized to him for the French National Assembly's passage [JURIST report] on Thursday of a bill [text, in French] making it a crime to deny that mass killings of Armenians in Turkey during World War I [ANI backgrounder] constituted genocide. The disclosure of the apology came a day after the European Union [official website] condemned passage of the bill [JURIST report]. The French Foreign Ministry said Thursday that the bill is unlikely to become national law, as it is not expected to be ratified by either French Senate or Chirac. Reuters has more.

French lawmakers first attempted to pass the bill [JURIST report] in May, but the legislative session ended before parliament could agree on its terms. When the debate came up again earlier this month, the Turkish parliament [official website, in Turkish] threatened retaliation [JURIST report] with lawmakers considering an analogous similar bill [JURIST report] labeling as genocide the colonial killings of Algerians [JURIST report] by the French, and making it illegal to deny French as culpability. France is home to thousands of Armenians and has already recognized the 1915-1919 killings as genocide. Turkey denies the genocide label [JURIST comment], claiming the killings took place during a partisan war in which many Muslim Turks died as well.

[JURIST] Iraq’s Interior Ministry announced [AP report] Saturday that 3,000 members of its Shiite-led police force have been fired since May and top commanders have been reshuffled amid ongoing accusations [JURIST report] of corruption and human rights violations. Up to 600 department employees will face prosecution. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, spokesman for the Interior Ministry, told AP that the steps were taken to help stop the violence between Shiites and Sunnis, which has surged [BBC news report] in the last week.

The police force has long been accused of being dominated by Shiite militias responsible for the slayings of Sunni Arabs. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki [Wikipedia profile] has been slow to take action against the militias because of political ties within his coalition. The International Herald Tribune has more.

[JURIST] Jaafar al-Mussawi, chief prosecutor in the trial [BBC timeline] of Saddam Hussein [JURIST news archive], said Sunday that court proceedings will not resume Monday as scheduled. The Iraqi High Tribunal [JURIST news archive] is instead expected to announce the date the verdict against Hussein and his co-defendants will be delivered on crimes against humanity charges arising from the killing of villagers at the town of Dujail. A verdict in the case was originally expected October 16, but has been postponed [JURIST report]. An anonymous court official told AP that the verdict could be postponed until as late as the beginning of November.

Prosecutors sought the death penalty for Hussein [JURIST report] in June for allegedly killing, torturing and illegally detaining Dujail residents, including 148 Shiites [JURIST report]. Hussein faces separate genocide charges [JURIST news archive] for allegedly killing 100,000 Kurds during the so-called "Anfal" campaigns [HRW backgrounder] of the late 1980s. AFP has more.

[JURIST] Chief US Marine Corps defense counsel Col. Carol Joyce has ordered a top Marine Corps lawyer and a paralegal to refrain from speaking with the press concerning allegations of widespread abuse of prisoners by guards at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive], a military spokesperson confirmed Saturday. The order, initially revealed by Muneer Ahmad [faculty profile], a civilian defense lawyer representing Canadian Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr [JURIST news archive], was described by the spokesperson as being "necessary to ensure all actions of the counsel are in compliance with regulations establishing professional standards for military attorneys."

Lt. Col. Colby Vokey, who serves as Khadr's military counsel [JURIST report], made the allegations [JURIST report] after his paralegal, Sgt. Heather Cerveny, provided a two-page sworn statement that she conversed with a group of off-duty Marines who bragged of beating and abusing detainees. The US Department of Defense Inspector General [official website] has since announced that the armed force's Southern Command [official website] will investigate [press release] the allegations. AP has more.