Guantanamo hunger strikers reported near death News
Guantanamo hunger strikers reported near death

[JURIST] Several detainees involved in the continuing Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] hunger strikes are close to death, according to lawyers acting for the detainees. Despite force-feedings by the US military, there is concern for two emaciated Yemenis and a hospitalized Saudi prisoner. Reprieve [advocacy website], an international prisoners' rights group, is set to release a report Monday on the grave condition of Yemenis Abu Bakah al-Shamrani and Abu Anas. Last week the US military announced [JURIST report] that the number of detainees participating in hunger strikes had reached its lowest point since October 2005 – only 22, with 17 of those receiving nourishment via feeding tubes – but offered no reasons for the dropoff. While force-feeding has been declared humane [American Forces Press report] by medical officials at Guantanamo, lawyers for the detainees dispute [JURIST report] the assertion. The detainees are protesting their indefinite captivity in the US military camp. The London Sunday Times has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.