In my view, it is not in line at all with our Constitution, Islam, or 'Maldivianness' that we refuse to help especially Muslims, especially those wrongly imprisoned.

The Obama administration continues its push to close the Guantanamo Bay facility, despite missing its self-imposed one-year deadline [JURIST report] in January. The administration has run into several hurdles in closing the prison, including opposition from members of Congress and the suspension of detainee transfers to Yemen [JURIST report]. Earlier this month, Spain and Bulgaria each accepted [JURIST report] their second detainees in response to a June request [AFP report] by the Obama administration. If they agree to accept the detainees, the Maldives will be part of a growing list of countries that have recently accepted transfers, including Bulgaria, Spain, Georgia, Albania, Latvia, Switzerland, Slovakia, Algeria, Somaliland, Palau, Belgium, Afghanistan, and Bermuda [JURIST reports].

Last month, the IHEC ordered a manual recount of the ballots in Baghdad, where 68 seats of the 325-seat parliament were up for election, but did not begin the recount [JURIST reports] until the review panel defined more precisely what a recount entailed. Earlier in April, an IHEC review panel nullified the votes of 52 candidates for alleged ties to Saddam Hussein's Baath Party [BBC backgrounder], including two candidates that had won seats in the Iraqi Council of Representatives [official website], at least one of which coming from Iraqiya. In February, an Iraqi appeals panel ruled [JURIST report] that 28 of the 500 candidates previously banned due to allegations of ties to the Baath Party could stand in the election. The initial ban was characterized by the Iraqi government as illegal and was reversed [JURIST reports] when the panel acknowledged that it did not have to rule on all 500 candidates at once. This came as a reversal of a previous decision, where it held that the candidates could stand in the coming elections, but would have to be cleared of the allegations against them before taking office. The amount of time being taken to set up the new government may leave Iraq vulnerable to the violence that erupted after the 2005 parliamentary elections when the government took five months to negotiate a new government.

The conflict in Bangkok [JURIST news archive] over the last two months has left more than 25 dead and nearly 1,000 injured in connection with increasingly violent anti-government protests. Last month, Thailand's pro-government People's Alliance for Democracy Network [party website, in Thai; BBC backgrounder], known as "yellow shirts," called for a declaration of martial law [JURIST report] to quell the anti-government movement spearheaded by the red shirts. Earlier in April, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva [official website; BBC profile] announced that he is prepared to negotiate [JURIST report] with red shirt protesters once they cease their illegal conduct. Internal divisions have been mounting steadily in Thailand since the 2006 ouster [JURIST report] of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive], whose progressive policies engendered the support of the poor rural class that largely constitutes the reds today. The yellows, primarily consisting of the urban middle-class, considered Shinawatra, as well as the reds, disloyal to the monarchy. Because of the mounting violence, Abhisit has imposed a state of emergency [JURIST report] in Bangkok and neighboring provinces.