The Colombian army this week admitted that a man killed weeks earlier in the eastern department of Arauca—originally reported to be a "financial leader" of the FARC guerillas, identified by the alias "Humberto Peroza Wampiare"—was actually a leader of a local indigenous community, and a noncombatant. The fallen man is now identified as a member of the cabildo (community council) of the resguardo (indigenous reserve) of La Vorágine, of the Hitnu people, located near La Ilusión pueblo, Arauca municipality. Col. Óscar Cardona originally reported the death, which occurred June 10 at Santa Ana vereda (hamlet), Arauquita municipality, as that of a guerilla killed in combat. The army now calls this a "military error."

Some 40 exiled Tibetans have been arrested in Nepal over the past week, in a crackdown against refugees attempting to celebrate the Buddhist religious festival of Saka Dawa in the capital Kathmandu. Hundreds of Tibetan refugees gathered to celebrate Saka Dawa; the birthday of Buddha, in the capital Kathmandu. The festivities, which were repeatedly shut down by the police, included candle-light vigils for Tibetans recently detained in a new wave of protests within the People's Republic of China.

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)

UN Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers Gabriela Knaul warned July 2 that a new law in El Salvador requiring its high court to issue unanimous judgments is an "attack" on judicial independence and the separation of powers. The law, passed by the Legislative Assembly and issued by the president (as Decree 743), places requirements on the judgments of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court. Knaul said that requiring unanimous rulings will harm the judges' ability to function effectively. She stated:

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.