Human Rights Watch calls for Iraqi prisoners to be charged: It is unlawful for the United States to hold detainees in Iraq without charge or trial while claiming it has transferred sovereignty to an Iraqi government, Human Rights Watch said today. On June 14, the U.S. military in Baghdad said that the United States will continue to detain without charge some 4,000 to 5,000 prisoners deemed a threat to the coalition even after the declared transfer of sovereignty on June 30. The 1949 Geneva Conventions permit the detention without charge of prisoners of war and other detainees only in the case of an international armed conflict—which by definition is between governments—or an occupation. Washington says that both will come to an end on June 30, meaning that the ongoing conflict between the Iraqi government and Iraqi insurgents would become a civil war. That a sovereign government may seek assistance from foreign governments does not transform a civil war into an international conflict. In the absence of an occupation or an international conflict, no one can be detained under international humanitarian law without being charged with a recognized crime. Those not charged must be released and repatriated “without delay.”