Thousands of protesters again took to the streets of Morocco on July 3 to push for democratic reforms despite voter approval two days earlier of a constitutional reform that curbs the near-absolute powers of King Mohammed VI. More than 5,000 protesters rallied in Morocco's main economic hub Casablanca, chanting "For Dignity and Freedom!" The February 20 Movement, which has organized weeks of demonstrations calling for reforms in the Arab world's oldest reigning monarchy, denounced the reform as inadequate and called its reported 98% approval a sham.

Hundreds of debt-ridden small merchants and farmers in northern Nicaragua launched a human blockade on the main road between the Caribbean coast and the capital at Río Blanco municipality, Matagalpa department, on July 2. The "No Pago" movement, led by Omar Vílchez, the former Sandinista mayor of Jalapa, is demanding renegotiation of local business' debts to micro-financing lenders. They are also demanding that the Supreme Court of Justice issue an order to halt the eviction of 2,500 local families whose homes have been repossessed. The government has pledged to send a negotiating team, but the protesters say they will launch new roadblocks until their demands are met. (EFE, July 3; Nuevo Diario, Managua, July 2)

Hundreds of Palestinian detainees at Ashkelon prison, in Israel's south, continued their hunger strike into a second day July 2 following attacks by prison security forces. Units of Israeli Prison Service raided the facility the day before, firing tear-gas and beating detainees with batons and hoses. Prisoners were later subject to abusive interrogations, strip searches, and other abuses. Following this attack, the inmates decided to go on a three-day hunger strike to protest against the repression, which is part of a policy aimed at pressuring Hamas to release the captured Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit.

A Tibetan writer was sentenced to four years in prison last month after helping edit a publication critical of Chinese policy in the restive region, the UK-based International Campaign for Tibet said July 1. Tashi Rabten, an editor of banned journal Eastern Snow Mountain (Shar Dungri), was sentenced on June 2 by a court in Aba prefecture, a largely ethnic Tibetan part of Sichuan province. The literary magazine was suppressed after running a series of essays on the unrest and repression in Tibet in 2008. Copies of the journal were among books seized and burnt by security personnel at a school in the Ngaba area in April of this year. (Reuters, July 2; International Campaign for Tibet, July 1)

The captain of a US boat carrying activists seeking to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza was jailed July 2 in Athens, flotilla organizers said. John Klusmer, who was handcuffed and jailed after arriving at a police station that afternoon, is being charged with two felonies, organizers told reporters at a news conference in the Greek capital. He and the organizers understood the charges to be misdemeanors, but authorities later accused him of two felonies. The captain’s four-member crew is being detained on the boat. While passengers are free to go, they are staying on the Audacity of Hope as a show of solidarity with their captain and crew.

Israeli Defense Forces troops arrested 23 Palestinians, including a Hamas legislator and a member of Palestine National Council (PNC), in operations across the West Bank June 28. Among the detained is Hamas legislator Nasser Abduljawad, who was taken from his home in the village of Deir Ballout, to the west of Salfeet. Um Owais, Abduljawad’s wife, said that soldiers broke into the house at 3 AM, searched their bedroom, and ordered her husband to get dressed before taking him away. Abduljawad was among dozens of Hamas officials who Israel arrested in June 2006 in response to the abduction of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit by Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip. He was released in September 2010.

Security forces in Syria are reported to have killed 24 civilians in Friday protests on July 1, as tens of thousands marched to demand the resignation of President Bashir Assad in some of the biggest demonstrations of the three-month uprising. Lawyer Razan Zaitouna told Reuters by phone that the 24 dead included seven protesters in the central city of Homs, and 14 villagers in the northwestern province of Idlib, where troops backed by tanks and helicopters have been deployed. "Bashir get out of our lives," read placards carried by thousands of Kurds who marched in the northeastern city of Amouda, according to a video taken by resident.

Venezuela's National Telecommunications Commission announced June 30 that it has opened sanction proceedings against Caracas-based news channel Globovision, which it accuses of spreading "anxiety in the population" by broadcasting images of the recent deadly violence at El Rodeo prison. Globovision faces charges of violating the country's Law of Social Responsibility in Radio and Television. Peter Maldonado, director of the telecommunication agency, said that Globovision could be subject to a fine of 10% of gross income obtained in the previous fiscal year, and may have its transmission suspended for up to 72 hours.