A PIL In the Gujarat High Court Wants Use of Loudspeakers for Azaan Banned
New Age Islam News Bureau
29
Jul 2020
• Hagia Sofia
Move Historically and Factually Justified: Malaysian Group
• Pakistan
Admits Land Grabbers of a Religious Shrine Tried to Encroach Upon Gurdwara
Shahidi Asthan
• Taliban
Executes Female Prison Guard, and U.N. Raises Concern Over Afghan Violence
• Saudi
Ambassador in UK Glorifies Drinking Culture in Interview
• Turkey’s
Social Media Draft Bill Presages ‘New Dark Era’ Of Censorship, Say Critics
• Wiser Elements
in Washington Establishment Get Iran’s Message: Analyst
India
• A PIL In the
Gujarat High Court Wants Use of Loudspeakers for Azaan Banned
• Karnataka Govt
Scraps Chapters on Tipu Sultan, Constitution, Islam; Congress Says BJP Trying
to Change History
• Telangana HC
Seeks List of Muslim Graveyards, Encroachments
• Can mosque,
temple stand together? Rao asked before Babri demolition: Architect
• Pak attempts
to bring back Geelani as Hurriyat head in Kashmir
• Rift in NC
over Omar Abdullah stand, influential Shia leader quits
• Family of Sikh
refugees in Amritsar says told to go to Afghanistan to get documents for visa
extension
• J&K:
Hizbul poster warns women to stop posting dance videos on social media
• Babri mosque
case: Special CBI court completes recording of statements
• Muslim leaders
including litigant get Ram Mandir ceremony invite, no opposition leader on list
• Punjab Chief
Minister Condemns Attempts To Convert Gurdwara Into Mosque In Pakistan
• 2 Lashkar
infiltrators killed, another injured in J-K’s Rajouri
--------
Southeast Asia
• Hagia Sofia
Move Historically and Factually Justified: Malaysian Group
• Amanah MP
Proposes Religion Misuse Act To Prevent Preachers From Spewing Hate
• Muslims in
Jakarta’s red zones told not to attend Idul Adha mass prayers
• Malaysia’s
Unwelcoming Shore for Refugees Fleeing Religious Persecution
• MUI calls on
Muslims to comply with health protocols during Idul Adha
--------
Pakistan
• Pakistan
Admits Land Grabbers of a Religious Shrine Tried to Encroach Upon Gurdwara
Shahidi Asthan
• Pakistan
Church Urges Combined Worship at Hagia Sophia
• Defence
preparation to ensure ‘peace within, peace without’, says Gen Bajwa
• Urge Pak Sikh
Community to Wait for Govt To Act On Gurdwara Shahidi Asthan Issue, Says
Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee
• NA committee
slams ‘non-serious’ attitude to meeting FATF conditions
• Talks on FATF,
NAB legislation hit a snag
--------
South Asia
• Taliban
Executes Female Prison Guard, and U.N. Raises Concern Over Afghan Violence
• US welcomes
Afghan ceasefire, urges quick start to talks with Taliban militants
• Afghan
president expects talks with Taliban ‘in one week's time’
• Taliban
announce Eid Al-Adha ceasefire in Afghanistan
--------
Europe
• Saudi
Ambassador in UK Glorifies Drinking Culture in Interview
• Europe Warned
of ISIS Radicalisation Threat in Prisons
• Swedish
Islamic school accused of gender segregation takes over building linked to ISIS
• British-Australian
scholar moved to Iran’s Qarchak prison amid COVID-19 outbreak
• Jihadist plots
used to be U.S. and Europe's biggest terrorist threat. Now it's the far right.
--------
Mideast
• Turkey’s
Social Media Draft Bill Presages ‘New Dark Era’ Of Censorship, Say Critics
• US Democratic
Party’s Platform On Iran ‘Positive’ Step: Tehran
• Opposing sides
in Yemen accept Saudi proposal to implement Riyadh agreement
• Islamic Relief
to contest Israeli 'terrorism' allegations in court
• Iran:
Prisoner, Kamil Ghaderi-Aghdam Executed in Naghdeh
• Iran continues
execution of Kurdish prisoners to little international outcry
• Iran:
21-year-old Majid Choupani executed in Qazvin Prison
• Iranian
Supreme Court Upholds Death Sentence for 5 Protesters in Isfahan
• Iran: UN
experts call for the urgent release from prison of human rights defender with
COVID-19 symptoms
• Iran Jails 20
Protesting Downing of Ukrainian Plane, None Sentenced from Military
• Envoy
Underlines Iran’s Readiness for Further Security Cooperation with Iraq
• Khamenei-controlled
organization acquires part of Iran’s highest mountain
• Iran,
Hezbollah are unable to fully respond to increase in Israeli attacks: Experts
• Yemen
government, STC deal to implement Riyadh Agreement ‘positive step:’ Saudi FM
--------
North America
• Wiser Elements
in Washington Establishment Get Iran’s Message: Analyst
• US
acknowledges killing civilian, wounding 3 others in Somalia
• US forces
asked to stay in bunkers as Iran fires missiles amid drills: Reports
• State
Department declares 'unwavering' commitment to seeking 'justice for the
families' of US citizens killed by ISIS
• Anti-fascists
linked to zero murders in the US in 25 years
--------
Arab World
• Third Iraqi
Protester Dies Of Tear Gas Canister Wound This Week In Baghdad
• Egypt’s
al-Sisi says Ethiopia’s Nile dam saga to ‘drag on’
• UAE's Gargash
welcomes Saudi-Egyptian cooperation after meeting on Libya
• Saudi Arabia
Crown Prince’s efforts united Yemeni government, STC: Khalid bin Salman
• EU lawmakers
concerned bin Salman may kill ex-rival in Saudi jail
• Israel Says It
Thwarted a Hezbollah Raid at Lebanon Border
--------
Africa
• UN, AU Urge
Darfur Troop Deployment To Protect Civilians After Wave Of Deadly Attacks
• Libya’s LNA:
Turkey sending mercenaries of various nationalities, not only Syrians
• Turkey still
mobilizing forces in Libya, LNA ready on frontlines: LNA spokesperson
• 3 migrants
shot dead in Libya after failed crossing to Europe
• Mali's
opposition rejects West African leaders' plan to end deadlock
• Boko Haram
Currently Attacking Borno Community
• Caught between
climate crisis and armed violence in Burkina Faso
Compiled by New
Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islamic-world-news/a-pil-gujarat-high-court/d/122496
--------
A PIL In the
Gujarat High Court Wants Use of Loudspeakers for Azaan Banned
Jul 29, 2020
A Muezzin, person appointed
to call Muslims to prayers, recites the aazan. (Photo|AFP)
-----
Ahmedabad: A
Gandhinagar-based doctor has filed a PIL in the Gujarat high court seeking a
ban on use of loudspeakers for the Azaan (call to prayer) at mosques across
Gujarat contending that it creates noise pollution and violates the fundamental
rights of citizens.
Dharmendra
Prajapati, a resident of Sector 5C in Gandhinagar, complained that even though
not many persons turn up to pray at the mosque in his neighbourhood, the
muezzin uses a loudspeaker five times a day to recite the azaan. This causes
great inconvenience and disturbance to the people living nearby. He contended
that people have a right to peace and tranquility.
Basing the
arguments on the Allahabad high court’s order with regard to denial of
permission recite the azaan on loudspeakers against the local authorities’
decision during the lockdown, the petitioner stated that he complained about
this to the local authority but to no effect.
The PIL contends
that the sound from the loudspeaker is very loud and is unbearable. Such noise
pollution “causes severe mental illness, physical problems to aged persons and
small children and it also affects the work efficiency of the public at large.
In short, it is not good for health”.
Citing legal
provisions, the PIL claims that use of loudspeaker without permission from
local authorities violates the law. “There is no valid written permission
obtained by the persons of Muslim community while using loudspeaker while offering
prayers,” the PIL reads. It also cited an order by the Supreme Court to assert
that no religion prescribes that prayers should be performed by disturbing the
peace of others nor does it preach that they should be through voice amplifiers
or beating of drums.
The petitioner
further claimed that use of loudspeakers is not an integral part of Islam
because in the olden days when the technology did not exist, the azaan was
recited and namaz used to be offered regularly in mosques. Muslims cannot
explain why namaz cannot take place without the azaan through a loudspeaker.
The petitioner
further argued that the use of the loudspeaker five times a day disturbs
people’s sleep and students’ education. “Sleep is a fundamental and basic
requirement without which the existence of life itself would be in peril. To
disturb sleep, therefore, would amount to torture which is not accepted as a
violation of human right,” the PIL says.
The PIL is
likely to come up for hearing later this week.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/pil-wants-use-of-loudspeakers-for-azaan-banned-at-mosques/articleshow/77229060.cms
--------
Hagia Sofia Move
Historically And Factually Justified: Malaysian Group
Riyaz ul
Khaliq
Malaysian group, Indonesian
scholars hail reopening of Hagia Sophia Mosque
----
28.07.2020
The move to
re-open the Hagia Sophia as mosque is "historically and factually
justified," a Malaysian group said Tuesday.
In a statement,
the Movement for an Informed Society Malaysia or WADAH said it "celebrates
the return and opening of Hagia Sophia as a Masjid [mosque]."
In an online
statement, WADAH President Ahmad Azam Ab Rahman said that even with the opening
of the mosque, both Christian and Islamic symbols would continue to be
preserved.
Rahman pointed
out that the Turkish government used curtains and folding screens to cover the
Hagia Sophia’s many Christian mosaics, icons, motifs and symbols during Muslim
prayers, and that these would not be removed or permanently covered up.
On July 24,
Friday’s prayers in the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque marked the first acts of
worship there in 86 years.
"We commend
and laud President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for his leadership, his audacity and
courage heralding long awaited inspiration for the Muslim world," said
Rahman.
Some 350,000
Muslims took part in Friday prayers on July 24 both inside and outside the
historical mosque in Istanbul, Turkey's largest metropolis.
On July 10, a
Turkish court annulled a 1934 Cabinet decree that turned Hagia Sophia into a
museum, paving the way for its use as a mosque.
Hagia Sophia
served as a church for 916 years until the conquest of Istanbul, and a mosque
from 1453 to 1934 -- nearly 500 years -- and most recently as a museum for 86
years.
In 1985, during
its time as a museum, Hagia Sophia was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Besides being a
mosque, Hagia Sophia is also among Turkey’s top tourism destinations and will
remain open for domestic and foreign visitors.
- Hagia Sophia
Mosque 'boosts Muslims' prestige'
Separately, a
Muslim clerical body in Indonesia's northernmost province of Aceh also hailed
the opening of the Hagia Sophia Mosque.
Tengku Bulqaini
Tanjungan, the vice-chairman of Ulema Consultative Assembly, on Monday said
Turkey, under the leadership of President Erdogan, has shown its concern for
the Islamic world, helping the weak in various parts of the world.
"Then,
there is no reason not to support him on the Hagia Sophia move," he told
Anadolu Agency.
Highlighting
that the Istanbul landmark had been a mosque for centuries before being turned
into a museum, Tanjungan said his group welcomed Turkey's decision.
Tanjungan said
the decision could be seen as an effort to boost Muslims' international
prestige.
"Muslims in
Turkey were able to get rid of foreign intervention that has been shackling the
determination of Muslims to rise."
Teuku Zulkhairi,
an academic at the State Islamic University of Ar-Raniry, said Turkey was now
slowly recovering from a long downturn.
"Now,
Turkey is an important country and cannot be ordered by other states,
especially in the case of the Hagia Sophia," Zulkhairi told Anadolu
Agency.
He said the rage
displayed by Greece against Turkey over the decision showcased a very
intolerant way of thinking in the West.
"Greece and
other Western countries have questioned Turkey for turning the Hagia Sophia
back into a mosque, but at the same time, they had turned hundreds of Ottoman
heritage mosques into churches," he added.
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/hagia-sofia-move-factually-justified-malaysian-group/1924907
--------
Pakistan Admits
Land Grabbers of a Religious Shrine Tried to Encroach Upon Gurdwara Shahidi
Asthan
Gurdwara Shahidi Asthan Bhai
Taru Singh, Pakistan’
-----
Jul 28, 2020
AMRITSAR: While
admitting that a ‘focal person’ of a religious shrine had tried to encroach
upon the Gurdwara Shahidi Asthan Bhai Taru Singh, Pakistan’ Evacuee Trust
Property Board (ETPB) has come out with a clarification and assurance to take
action against the ‘delinquent’s but only after the issue was raised by New
Delhi.
ETPB secretary
Sanaulla Khan informed on Tuesday that Sohail Butt Attari, a ‘focal person ‘ of
Darbar Hazrat Shah Kaku Chisti and his accomplice including Raza Butt, Umair
and others were conspiring to provoke people against the historical Gurdwara
Taru Singh and occupy the attached vacant plot which was situated in Landa
Bazar, Lahore
The gurdwara is
the site of martyrdom of Bhai Taru Singh where he had made supreme sacrifice in
1745. Pakistan has claimed the place as the place of Masjid Shahid Ganj and
tried to convert it into a mosque.
Notably, New
Delhi had lodged a strong protest with the Pakistan High Commission on Monday
on the reported incident.
Spokesperson of
the ministry of external affairs Anurag Srivastava in a release said “India
expressed its concerns, in strongest terms on this incident and called upon
Pakistan to investigate the matter and take immediate remedial measures.
Pakistan was also called upon to look after the safety, security, well-being of
its minority communities including protection of their religious rights and
cultural heritage."
Sanaullah said
that Butt had tried to defame Pakistan by uploading a ‘baseless’ propaganda
video against Sikh community of Pakistan.
He further
admitted that multiple conspiracies of anti-state elements were being hatched
to malign Pakistan’s image especially after the success of Kartarpur Corridor
project.
Shifting the
whole responsibility of encroaching upon gurdwara land on Butt and his
associates, the ETPB secretary said that Butt was damaging the image of
Pakistan at international level strict disciplinary action against the
delinquents.
Meanwhile, sources
here informed that it was not the first time that Pakistan government-backed
land grabbers had encroached upon gurdwara land but in past also they had been
doing the same in connivance with some of the officials of ETPB.
Meanwhile,
chairman ETPB Aamer Ahmad informed that some unscrupulous elements wanted to
occupy the land. “We are fully aware of the incident and have informed the
local law and enforcement agencies, rest assured we will look after the
interests,” he said.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/pakistan-admits-land-grabbers-tried-to-encroach-upon-gurdwara/articleshow/77216123.cms
--------
Taliban Executes
Female Prison Guard, and U.N. Raises Concern Over Afghan Violence
By Mujib Mashal
and Najim Rahim
July 27, 2020
KABUL,
Afghanistan — The Taliban abducted and executed a female prison guard in the
eastern Afghan province of Ghazni, officials and relatives said Monday, as the
United Nations expressed concern over the war’s unending toll on civilians.
Fatima Rajabi,
23, who had trained as a police officer, was pulled out of a civilian minibus
on her way to her home village in the Jaghori district two weeks ago. After
holding her captive for two weeks, the Taliban executed the young woman and
sent her body to her family, her brother, Samiullah Rajabi, said.
“My sister was
shot eight times,” Mr. Rajabi said. “When we opened the coffin, her hands were
behind her, together and stiff — you could tell her hands were first tied and
they had only untied them after they sent the body.”
The United
Nations, in a report released on Monday on civilian harm in the Afghan conflict
in the first six months of the year, expressed particular concern about the
rise of abductions and executions by the Taliban. There has been an increase of
more than a fivefold in civilian casualties tied to abductions since last year,
it said.
Nearly 1,300
civilians have been killed and close 2,200 others wounded in the first six
months of the year, according to the United Nations, which attributed 43
percent of the civilian casualties to the Taliban and 23 percent to Afghan
forces.
It said the
insurgent violence had grown deadlier, with a 33 percent increase in deaths
caused by the Taliban over the same time period last year.
Women and
children made up about 40 percent of the overall dead and injured, with
pro-government forces responsible for the death of more children than the
Taliban, the United Nations said. Civilian casualties from airstrikes by Afghan
forces tripled from the first half of 2019.
“The reality
remains that Afghanistan continues to be one of the deadliest conflicts in the
world for civilians,” the report noted. “Each year, thousands of civilians are
killed and injured, abducted, displaced and threatened by parties to the
conflict in Afghanistan.”
The numbers
still marked an overall 13 percent reduction in civilian casualties — which
accounts for injuries and deaths — from the same period last year.
That is largely
attributed to a major drop in casualties from United State airstrikes and
attacks by the Islamic State branch in the country, which has shrunk
significantly after major military operations. As part of a withdrawal deal
signed with the Taliban in February, the United States is no longer deploying
its air power against the group except in extreme cases, such as when their
Afghan allies are being routed.
Although the
United States has reduced its troops in the country to about 8,600 — it is on
schedule to complete a full withdrawal over a 14-month period laid out in the
agreement — other elements of the peace agreement, mainly direct negotiations
between the Afghan sides over future power-sharing, have stalled as the
violence continues.
“At a time when
the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban have a historic opportunity to
come together at the negotiating table for peace talks, the tragic reality is
that the fighting continues inflicting terrible harm to civilians every day,”
said Deborah Lyons, the U.N. secretary-general’s special representative for
Afghanistan.
Zalmay
Khalilzad, the United States’ special envoy for peace in Afghanistan, has begun
another trip to meet with the Taliban’s negotiating team, based in Doha, and
Afghan leaders in Kabul and push for direct negotiations, the State Department
said. Those negotiations were expected to begin in March, but were delayed by
disagreements over a prisoner swap under which the Afghan government was
expected to free 5,000 Taliban fighters in return for 1,000 of its forces.
Jaghori, where
Ms. Rajabi was traveling to see her family at the time of her abduction, was
long considered one of the safest districts in a volatile region inhabited by
the Hazara ethnic group. But in 2018, the Taliban launched an assault on the
area and nearly took control, before being pushed back.
The insurgents
have increasingly threatened the highways and main roads across Afghanistan,
taxing commercial vehicles and searching buses for anyone suspected of working
for the government.
Mr. Rajabi said
his sister would often travel home unannounced to reduce the risk of being
detained. Her family found out she was taken by the Taliban only after five
days had passed.
Zabihullah
Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, denied that the group was behind the
execution.
But local
officials said the Taliban had been using Ms. Rajabi to pressure local leaders
into resolving certain outstanding issues, possibly including taxes that the
Taliban believe they are owed. “The Taliban were angry that despite repeated
notices, the leaders hadn’t reported to them,” said Mohamad Ayub Bahonar, the
district governor of Jaghori.
Ms. Rajabi’s
70-year mother, Mariam Akbari, traveled to the Taliban-held area to beg for her
daughter’s release. The Taliban told her she must bring 15 district leaders who
they wanted to talk to — something that was out of her power, she said.
“I went and
begged, I lowered myself at their feet, so my sweet daughter could come back to
me alive,” Ms. Akbari said. “They told me ‘You are old, we respect you, but
don’t come again.’”
Ms. Akbari had
already lost one son, a police officer, to the war about ten years ago. One of
her two remaining sons lives with her and has a heart condition, and the other
has lived in Iran for years without much contact with the family.
“I really loved
my daughter,” she said. “She had joined the police out of poverty. Fatima was
my only breadwinner.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/27/world/asia/taliban-executes-guard-afghanistan.html?utm_source=iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1394155_
--------
Saudi Ambassador
in UK glorifies drinking culture in interview
28 July 2020
The Saudi
Arabian ambassador to the UK has brazenly admitted to keeping a “pub” at his
plush residence in the English countryside.
Prince Khalid
bin Bandar bin Sultan made the admission in a wide ranging interview with the
UnHerd website, which describes itself as bridging the liberal and reactionary
divides in politics and journalism.
Prince Khalid
was being interviewed by UnHerd’s executive editor, Freddie Sayers.
The ambassador’s
admission to not only drinking alcohol but going much further by celebrating
and glorifying drinking culture (by maintaining a “pub” at home) is bound to
raise eyebrows with Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
After all, the
Saudi rulers describe themselves as the custodians of the two holy mosques,
effectively the guardians of Islam’s holiest sites.
The admission of
glorifying drinking culture by the Saudis’ man in London will be viewed by many
as validating the hypocrisy and double standards at the heart of the regime in
Riyadh.
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/07/28/630625/UK-Saudi-Arabia-Ambassador-London-Pub
--------
Turkey’s social
media draft bill presages ‘new dark era’ of censorship, say critics
28 July 2020
A proposed law
that Turkey says will make social media companies more accountable to local
regulations will rather increase censorship and accelerate a trend of
authorities silencing dissent, critics including a UN body said this week.
The Turkish
parliament was to begin debate on Tuesday on the bill that is backed by
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AK Party, which has a majority with an
allied nationalist party.
It is expected
to pass this week.
As an
overwhelming majority of the country’s mainstream media has come under
government control over the last decade, Turks have taken to social media and
smaller online news outlets for critical voices and independent news.
For all the
latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app.
Turks are
already heavily policed on social media and many have been charged with
insulting Erdogan or his ministers, or criticism related to foreign military
incursions and the handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
The law would
require foreign social media sites to appoint Turkish-based representatives to
address authorities’ concerns over content and includes deadlines for its
removal.
Companies could
face fines, blocked advertisements or have bandwidth slashed by up to 90
percent, essentially blocking access.
“Social media is
a lifeline... to access news, so this law signals a new dark era of online
censorship,” said Tom Porteous, Human Rights Watch deputy program director. It
would damage free speech in Turkey “where an autocracy is being constructed by
silencing media and all critical voices”, he added.
Presidential
spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said the bill would not lead to censorship but would
establish commercial and legal ties with platforms.
“What is a crime
in the real world is also crime in the digital world,” he said on CNN Turk,
adding that these included terrorism propaganda, insults and violation of
personal rights.
Turkey was
second globally in Twitter-related court orders in the first six months of
2019, according to the company, and it had the highest number of other legal
demands from Twitter.
Erdogan has
repeatedly criticized social media and said a rise of “immoral acts” online in
recent years was due to lack of regulations.
A spokesperson
for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said the draft law “would give
the state powerful tools for asserting even more control over the media
landscape.”
It “would
further undermine the right of people in Turkey to freedom of expression, to
obtain information and to participate in public and political life”, said
spokeswoman Liz Throsell.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/media/digital/2020/07/28/Turkey-s-social-media-draft-bill-presages-new-dark-era-of-censorship-say-critics.html
--------
Wiser elements
in Washington establishment get Iran’s message: Analyst
28 July 2020
By Kevin Barrett
Iran's military
has just held a bunch of war games in the Strait of Hormuz featuring a mock-up
of US aircraft carrier, which of course would be the prime target if the US
ever attacked Iran—its fleet in the Persian Gulf would face serious problems.
I think Iran is
sending a message that if Bibi Netanyahu and Donald Trump think that they need
to start a big Middle East war to try to keep them out of prison and keep them
in power, well, they need to think again, because that war might not go the way
that they would hope that it would.
I think Iran is
demonstrating that it is entirely capable of actually winning this kind of war,
and that's not really sort of an empty boast or display from the Iranian side.
Even the American side has had to admit over the past decade and a half, that
it very likely would lose a war with Iran, and that's the reason the US has not
attacked Iran.
The plan after
911, as we know from General Wesley Clark, was to take out seven countries in
five years with the seventh and most important country being Iran, after Iraq
and Afghanistan had been occupied and US bases in those two countries
surrounding Iran could be used to attack Iran.
So that was the
plan. But the problem was twofold. First there was pushback after the 911
neoconservative coup d'etat from people who had opposed it or had certainly not
supported it. That is the Realist School of American policy. And those people,
led by people like Brzezinski were actually horrified that the extremist
Israeli Likudinik Zionists had hijacked the United States on 9/11, in order to
use its military to destroy their opponents in the region.
And so those
realists saw that this policy of letting America's forces be hijacked by Israel
was bad for the US. And that pushback was the first factor that stopped this
push to war with Iran, which is really what 9’11, and the 9/11 wars were all
about.
So the second
factor and perhaps the most important factor is that Iran's defenses are quite
formidable. And in fact, in 2002, the US military held a fictional war-game
scenario in which the US had mocked up a war with Iran. And guess what, Iran
won. And they didn't just win by attrition, or in a small way, they won a huge
victory by sinking the entire American fleet five minutes after the war began.
The Iranian mock
up side -- the red team in the exercise -- was led by General Van Riper, who
used the kinds of tactics that Iran would use. That is not playing the
conventional war game, but using sneak attack, speedboats and things like that
targeting the American carriers, and then using its advantage of geography,
where the mountains on the shore of the Persian Gulf house all kinds of
anti-ship missiles that are dug in so deep that they can never be taken out.
And so
essentially the US military has known ever since then that a war with Iran
would not be a good idea. And now, today we have Trump and Netanyahu both in a
position where they might think that that war actually would be a way to stay
out of prison.
I think the
Iranians have just sent a very strong message to both Trump and Netanyahu, to
not think that way. And I do think that the wiser elements in the
establishments in Washington and Tel Aviv will very likely be paying attention.
Kevin Barrett is
an American author, journalist and radio host with a Ph.D. in Islamic and
Arabic Studies. He has been studying the events of 9/11 since late 2003. He
recorded this article for Press TV website.
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/07/28/630630/Wiser-elements-in-Washington-establishment-get-Iran%E2%80%99s-message
--------
India
Karnataka Govt
Scraps Chapters on Tipu Sultan, Constitution, Islam; Congress Says BJP Trying
to Change History
Nolan Pinto
July 28, 2020
After the
Karnataka education department reduced syllabi of classes 1 to 10 by 30 per
cent as part of efforts to cut working days during the Covid-19 pandemic, the
BS Yediyurappa government has come under fire for the scrapping of chapters on
Tipu Sultan, Islam, Christianity and the Constitution.
In Social
Science, chapters on the Drafting Committee of the Constitution and salient
features of the Constitution have been dropped for Class 7. The reason given is
'pupils will study the same in Class 9'.
For Class 6, the
chapter that deals with Christianity and Islam has been dropped stating that
'students learn the same topics in Class 9.' But in Class 9, chapter 1 on
Christianity and Islam, teachers have been asked to only 'summarise briefly'
since it erroneously claims student have studied the topics in class 6.
Similarly,
chapter 5 of Class 7 that deals with Haider Ali, Tipu Sultan, historical places
of Mysuru, and the administration of Commissioners has been reduced citing 'The
unit requires no separate class, introduced thought assignments.'
Even in Class
10, chapter 4 that deals with opposition to British rule in Karnataka,
involving lessons on Haider Ali and Tipu Sultan, Rebellion of Halagali Bedas
and Rebellion of Kittur Chenamma-Rayanna will be taught through 'chart
preparation.'
CONGRESS, JD(S)
SLAM SYLLABI REDUCTION
The revision of
these particular topics has brought strong criticism from the opposition in the
state.
Karnataka
Congress chief DK Shivakumar alleged the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
"wants to make their personal agenda as historical agenda and this cannot
be accepted".
"But
history is history so the committee that is trying to change the text needs to
be debated. You cannot change history. We will not agree and will take this up
seriously,' DK Shivakumar said.
The mention of Tipu
Sultan in history books has been a constant source of friction between the BJP
and the Congress in Karnataka. BJP MLAs had petitioned the Yediyurappa
government to drop academic content on the ruler but a committee had overruled
the plea.
Congress MLA and
former minister Priyank Kharge told India Today TV, "Especially when it
comes to subjects that do not fall in line with their [RSS and BJP] line of
thought such as nationalism, secularism, the constitution itself in certain
ways and this is nothing new."
"The
problem is if this continues, you are ensuring that the next few generations
will be robbed of the idea of India, the ideals that our founding fathers stood
for and more importantly. We are eroding the intellectual capital that we have
built over the last 50-60 years,' Priyank Kharge said.
JD(S) leader
Tanveer Ahmed said that the agenda of the BJP is to divide the nation and to
fulfil what their understanding of India is. He added, "I don't think the
BJP understands India on a broader perspective. The beautiful thing for them to
do is... Christians and Muslims and historical characters of any other
community do not exist at all."
Even the
Archbishop of Bengaluru, Dr Peter Machado, said that the aspect of religions
which is most important for communal harmony has been removed.
"This is
very sad. It looks like a prefabricated agenda that is behind this in order not
to show in the limelight the contribution, the greatness and the religious
tenets of Islam and Christianity," he told India Today TV.
However,
Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister Ashwathnarayan did not comment on this saying
he needs to consult with the concerned department and will definitely look into
this.
The controversy
stirred after the Department of Public Instruction on Monday announced it had
reduced syllabi by 30 per cent as part of efforts to cut working days for
classes 1 to 10 to 120 days from the standard duration of around 200 days.
https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/karnataka-govt-scraps-chapters-tipu-sultan-constitution-islam-congress-bjp-change-history-1705370-2020-07-28
--------
Telangana HC
seeks list of Muslim graveyards, encroachments
Jul 28, 2020
HYDERABAD:
Telangana HC on Monday directed the state and its Wakf Board to furnish by
August 18 a list of Muslim graveyards in Hyderabad, Secunderabad and Rangareddy
district along with the details of their encroachments.
A bench of Chief
Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice B Vijaysen Reddy gave this
direction while hearing a petition filed by Mohammed Ilyas of Asifnagar, who
complained about graveyards encroached upon on one hand and were not catering
to the needs of the dead on the other.
Petitioner’s
counsel Vladimer Khatoon told bench about how some muthawalis were not even
allowing bodies to be buried and also about their failure to protect the
graveyards’ land. She also brought to notice of court certain incidents where
Muslim clergy refused burial of some bodies. Wakf board counsel Mirza Saifullah
Baig told the bench that in one case, the clergy’s refusal was on account of
the fact that body was brought by third parties and not family members. “It was
an unidentified body,” he said. Bench asked him whether muthawali was entitled
to refuse burial if body was brought by third parties.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/telangana-hc-seeks-list-of-muslim-graveyards-encroachments/articleshow/77216239.cms
--------
Can mosque,
temple stand together? Rao asked before Babri demolition: Architect
Jul 29, 2020
LUCKNOW: Before
the demolition of Babri Masjid, the then PM Narasimha Rao had asked the
Gujarat-based chief architect of the Ram temple project Chandrakantbhai Sompura
whether the mosque, too, could be part of the plan and whether the Babri Masjid
and a Ram temple could stand next to one another, reports.
According to
Sompura (77), Rao, in seeking his opinion, had been hinting that the mosque
could remain where it was and the temple could be constructed from beyond the
Ram Chabutra. But the idea could not be realised as Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP)
opposed it.
“The PM called
me up and asked if the mosque, with its three iconic domes, could be part of
the design along with the temple. I communicated the idea to VHP, who had roped
me in for the project, but it opposed it and the idea got buried in time,”
Sompura told TOI over the phone from Ahmedabad.
“VHP was adamant
if the 6-foot-by-3-foot space of the khatiya (bed) where Bhagwan Ram was born
is not the centre of the Ram mandir, it wouldn’t matter where the temple came
up. The Ram mandir had to be built at the very spot where the structure
(mosque) was as they believed Lord Ram was born in the area right under the
central dome,” he added.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/can-mosque-temple-stand-together-rao-asked-before-babri-demolition-architect/articleshow/77231928.cms
--------
Pak attempts to
bring back Geelani as Hurriyat head in Kashmir
Jul 28, 2020
SRINAGAR: The
Pakistan National Assembly’s resolution to confer the Nishan-e-Pakistan, its
highest civilian award, on separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani and to name an
engineering university in Islamabad after him is being seen by Hurriyat
activists here as an attempt by Islamabad to woo the ailing 91-year-old Geelani
back into the Hurriyat fold.
Syed Ali Geelani
had quit as head of his Hurriyat faction a month ago and nominated 55-year-old
Abdullah Geelani as his successor for the PoK chapter of the separatist
amalgamation. He left the Kashmir Hurriyat seat vacant, ostensibly for reasons
of corruption within the Hurriyat cadre here.
The move rattled
Pakistan’s ISI and they, according to Hurriyat insiders, managed to get Geelani
the Nishan-e-Pakistan and to have the engineering university named after
Geelani. His "life and struggle for the separation of J&K" is to
be introduced into the Pakistani academic curriculum.
Though the
Kashmir-based Jamaat-e-Islami has been banned by the authorities here as most
of its leaders are in jail, activists associated with the Jamaat and other
separatists are thrilled by the Pakistan NA adopting the resolution tabled by
the Jamaat provisional head, Senator Mustaq Ahmad Khan of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,
after the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf’s MoS for parliamentary affairs Ali
Mohammad Khan seconded the resolution on Monday in the assembly with a majority
voice vote.
The recent
lukewarm response to the general strike call given by the Geelani’s Hurriyat
faction on the death anniversary of Hizb commander Burhan Wani and subsequent
denial by Geelani’s family of a press release issued in the name of Syed Ali
Geelani also prompted Pakistan to try to bring Geelani back as the face of the
Hurriyat in the Kashmir valley, a senior Hurriyat insider said.
"Pakistan
has gone into damage-control mode by honouring Kashmir's tallest leader with
the Nishan-e-Pakistan because the same Pakistan had recently dumped Geelani
Sahib, who subsequently resigned from the Hurriyat," Majid Hyderi, a
political analyst, said, adding that Pakistan believes that it has now got a
chance to internationalise the Kashmir issue yet again after the abrogation of
JK’s special status.
"Also,
Geelani Sahib is not the first Indian to get it, former PM Morarji Desai had
also received it," Hyderi said.
A veteran
hardline Hurriyat leader who did not want to be named said "It is
heartening to learn that Syed Ali Geelani was conferred Pakistan’s highest
civilian award."
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/pak-attempts-to-bring-back-geelani-as-hurriyat-head-in-kashmir/articleshow/77227486.cms
--------
Rift in NC over
Omar Abdullah stand, influential Shia leader quits
Jul 28, 2020
SRINAGAR: Taking
note of the “ripples” created within his party over his write-up in a national
daily, National Conference vice-president Omar Abdullah on Tuesday backtracked
from his earlier demand of statehood for J&K.
Omar tweeted:
“I’ve simply said that having been CM of the STATE of J&K I will not fight
an assembly election to the assembly of the UT of J&K. That’s it. No more
no less! That’s a far cry from saying I’m demanding statehood be restored.”
He made this
clarification after former NC minister Agha Ruhullah Mehdi, an influential Shia
leader from Budgam in central Kashmir, who was chief spokesman of the party, on
Tuesday resigned in protest against “Omar’s remarks for restoration of
statehood for J&K”.
Omar, in his
article, had mentioned the restoration of statehood to J&K as a
pre-condition for contesting assembly polls in future.
Senior NC
leaders, including Mehdi, disapproved Omar’s remarks and blamed him for
“forgetting to demand” the restoration of Articles 370 and 35A, party insiders
said.
In an Op-Ed
piece published on Monday, Omar for the first time spoke out on Kashmir
politics since his release in March after eight months in detention. He
censured the Centre for scrapping Article 370 and also announced that he would
return to electoral politics only after J&K’s statehood was restored.
In response to
this, Mehdi said, “What happened on August 5, 2019 is beyond statehood and it
should be the last demand. I feel for what happened to my fellow citizens as it
was a coup on the population of J&K.” The restoration of statehood should
be the last demand while our main demand should be restoration of special
status, he added.
Omar, however,
blamed journalists for putting words in his mouth. “I have no problem being
disagreed with for what I say or do but when you invent things & put words
in my mouth to attack me then that’s more about you than about me. All you lazy
journalists & commentators please show me where I’ve demanded statehood be
restored,” he tweeted.
“Haters will
hate & nothing will change that. There are a few people from whom I
expected better but disappointment is part of politics & one has learnt to
live with it. Life goes on,” he tweeted again.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/omar-abdullahs-article-creates-ripples-nc-chief-spokesman-quits/articleshow/77227470.cms
--------
Family of Sikh
refugees in Amritsar says told to go to Afghanistan to get documents for visa extension
by Kamaldeep
Singh Brar
July 28, 2020
It was in 1992
that Sardar Singh fled Afghanistan with his wife and three children due to
alleged religious persecution. In years that followed, he made Amritsar his
home. His fourth child, Arvinder Singh, was born here in 1994. While Sardar
Singh died in 2015 as an Afghan refugee, his family has continued to stay in
India on a visa extension that they get renewed every year. But this year, they
have been asked to procure additional documents from Afghanistan for the visa
extension to be processed.
Arvinder Singh
(26), who has been camping Delhi to get the family’s application processed,
said that first they were orally told by the Foreigner Regional Registration
Office (FRRO) in Amritsar to get his father’s 28-year-old passport renewed. The
Afghan embassy in Delhi, he added, later told them that the passport can only
be renewed with help of documents that can only be arranged by visiting
Afghanistan. According to him, the passport in his deceased father’s name was
the only official document that the family brought with them and it recorded
the names of his mother, and his three siblings born before him. So far,
identity cards provided to all of them by the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees had proved enough to get visa extensions year after year.
“My parents and
their three children had come to India on single passport to take refuge in
India. Every year, we have to move from pillar to post to get visa extension
for another year as refugees. But this year, we have been told to renew my
father’s passport. It is 28-year-old document. We never renewed that passport.
We had identity cards of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. We
would get a year’s extension on these cards. But now we have been told to renew
the passport to get an extension,” said Arvinder Singh.
However, FRRO
officials in Amritsar refused to confirm to The Indian Express that any such
demand had been made. “We are not even obliged to give information under RTI,”
said top official at FRRO Amritsar, while refusing to share any details.
But Arvinder,
who approached the Afghan Embassy in Delhi for renewal of the passport, said:
“I reached Afghan Embassy to renew passport where Afghan officials told me that
I need to go to Afghanistan to get some official papers on the basis of which
passport can be renewed. It is an impossible demand. Our visa extension has
already expired. We are in the lurch,” said Arvinder.
He added: “We
were very happy after Citizenship Amendment Act was passed last year. We
thought that it would end our suffering. My father died in hope of getting
permanent citizenship of India. We thought at least we would get it. But
nothing happened after that. In fact, our suffering has doubled this year and
there has been no immediate solution in sight.”
BJP-led union
government had passed CAA in December 2019. However, Congress government in
Punjab had passed resolution against CAA in January this year.
Amritsar
district administration officials said they have not received any notification
from state or central government for the implementation of the CAA.
The district has
several Hindu and Sikh refugees, who have come from Pakistan and Afghanistan
alleging religious prosecutions.
“We haven’t
received any notification related to CAA from Centre or state government. Right
now we have been processing requests for permanent citizenship of India
according to the old provision available in the law,” said Himanshu Aggarwal,
Additional Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar.
Arvinder’s elder
brother, Surber Singh, said, “There are around seven Afghan families in
Amritsar and 30 Pakistani Sikh families. We all had applied under the old
provision in law to get citizenship. But that was like an impossible law. Under
old law, we were able to apply for citizenship only after 11 years of living as
refugees. Then there was long process to apply for citizenship. I don’t know
anyone who got citizenship under old law.”
Suber, who runs
a tyre repair shot, added: “We were at the mercy of bureaucrats. They can make
any demand. This year we have been asked to renew an old passport. We are tired
living as refugees. We can’t buy property here without citizenship. We had some
good friends and relatives who helped us to survive all these years. But there
is uncertainty in our lives.”
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/family-of-sikh-refugees-in-amritsar-says-told-to-go-to-afghanistan-to-get-documents-for-visa-extension-6527583/
--------
J&K: Hizbul
poster warns women to stop posting dance videos on social media
July 28, 2020
The Jammu and
Kashmir police on Tuesday seized two posters in Kishtwar town of the Chenab
Valley region, one of which said women would be shot on the feet if they did
not stop posting dance videos on social media and the other asking residents to
stay away from security forces.
Both posters
bear the name of terror group Hizbul Mujahideen.
Written in
English, one of the posters was pasted on the main door of a house in Ghureeyan
area. It read: “Those girls who are uploading their dancing videos on social
media are warned either stop doing these evil deeds or be ready for legshot”.
The other
poster, written in Urdu, was pasted on the windscreen of a vehicle in Nagini
locality. It asked people to stay away from security forces and police
personnel as they were the constant target of the terror group.
Kishtwar SSP
Harmeet Singh said they have registered a case in the matter and that an
investigation is in progress.
The posters
appeared nearly two months after the J&K Police and security forces, in a
major setack to Hizbul Mujahideen, killed one militant in Doda and arrested
another from Kishtwar in May this year.
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/jk-hizbul-poster-warns-women-to-stop-posting-dance-videos-on-social-media-6528026/
--------
Babri mosque
case: Special CBI court completes recording of statements
Jul 28, 2020
A special CBI
court here completed on Tuesday the recording of statements of the accused in
the Babri mosque demolition case.
Deposing before
CBI special judge S K Yadav through video conferencing from Thane in
Maharashtra, former Shiv Sena MP Satish Pradhan claimed that he was falsely
implicated in the case due to political vendetta and maintained that he was
completely innocent. Of the 32
accused in the case, Pradhan was the penultimate on the list.
The judge
separated the case against the last accused Om Prakash Pandey, who is not
traceable as his family told the CBI that he had become a monk 15-16 years ago
and did not return home since then.
The court
completed the proceedings under Section 313 of CrPC which gave the accused an
opportunity to refute the prosecution evidence against them. BJP veterans L K
Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi had recorded their statements last week.
The mosque in
Ayodhya was demolished on December 6, 1992 by ‘kar sevaks’ who claimed that an
ancient Ram temple stood at the same site.
The court is
conducting day-to-day hearing in the case to complete its trial by August 31 as
directed by the Supreme Court.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/babri-mosque-case-special-cbi-court-completes-recording-of-statements/story-7yR7cgQ8O3cIW3INvCYEKO.html
--------
Muslim leaders
including litigant get Ram Mandir ceremony invite, no opposition leader on list
MOUSHUMI DAS
GUPTA
28 July, 2020
New Delhi: A
host of senior BJP, RSS and VHP leaders associated with the Ram Temple
movement, prominent Muslim leaders, one of the main litigants in the Babri
Masjid demolition case, Baba Ramdev and saints from across the country – these
are among the invitees for Ram temple’s bhoomi pujan (ground-breaking) ceremony
at Ayodhya on 5 August.
Prime Minister
Narendra Modi is confirmed to participate in the ceremony being organised by
the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra Trust.
According to senior
members in the trust, the invited Muslim leaders include Zafar Farooqui,
chairman of Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Wakf Board, and Wasim Rizvi, chairman
of UP Shia Central Waqf Board.
Iqbal Ansari,
one of the litigants in the Ayodhya land dispute case, has also been invited.
Ansari is the son of Mohammad Hashim Ansari, one of the original litigants in
the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute.
L.K. Advani and
Murli Manohar Joshi are among the BJP-Sangh leaders who have confirmed their
presence. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, general secretary Suresh Bhaiyyaji Joshi,
and Yoga guru Ramdev are among the other invitees who have confirmed their
participation, said the sources.
Opposition
leaders not invited
The trust has
not invited opposition leaders from any political party, including Congress
president and Rae Bareli MP Sonia Gandhi.
We are deeply
grateful to our readers & viewers for their time, trust and subscriptions.
Quality
journalism is expensive and needs readers to pay for it. Your support will
define our work and ThePrint’s future.
SUBSCRIBE NOW
“We have not
sent an invite to any political party as we don’t want to differentiate between
parties. We can’t pick and choose. Lord Ram is a holy figure for all. We are
appealing to all those who have not been invited to pray wherever they are,”
Swami Govind Dev Giri, treasurer of the trust, told ThePrint from Pune.
The only
exception is BSP MP Ritesh Pandey, who represents Ambedkar Nagar. “We have
invited all MPs and MLAs representing Faizabad, Ayodhya and adjoining areas,”
Giri said.
This list
includes BJP MP Lallu Singh, who represents Faizabad, BJP MLA Baba Gorakhnath
from Milkipur, and BJP’s Ayodhya MLA Ved Prakash Gupta. Senior civil servants
from Ayodhya will also be present.
Giri added that
the trust has not sent an invite to any central ministers due to the pandemic.
“Because of the
Covid pandemic, the trust is inviting only a limited number of people. We are
not aware if Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath, who will be present at the
ceremony, has sent special invites to some people,” he added.
The UP chief
minister will be accompanied by his two deputies, Keshav Prasad Maurya and
Dinesh Sharma, Tourism Minister Neelkanth Tiwari, among others. UP Governor
Anandiben Patel will also be present, said the sources.
Figures involved
in Ram Janmabhoomi movement to be present
All prominent
BJP and VHP leaders who were part of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement have
confirmed their participation at the ground-breaking ceremony, said the
sources.
These include
BJP patriarchs L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, former UP CM Kalyan Singh,
and leaders Uma Bharti, Vinay Katiyar and Sadhvi Rithambhara.
BJP president
J.P. Nadda, RSS women’s wing chief Shanti Akka, and Puneet Dalmia, son of
senior VHP member late Vishnu Hari Dalmiya, have also been invited.
Saints from
across the country and heads of ‘akharas’ that represent different Hindu sects
have invited too. “We have also invited prominent Buddhist monks and
representatives from Chinmaya and Ram Krishna missions,” Giri said.
‘All protocols
to be followed’
Amid the Covid
pandemic, the trust has gone ahead with its arrangements for the
ground-breaking ceremony.
“It’s a historic
moment for which we have been waiting for all these years. But we are aware of
the situation in the country because of the pandemic. We are taking all the
necessary precautions. All safety protocols will be followed to the hilt,” said
Kameshwar Chaupal, a member of the trust, which was formed in February
following the Supreme Court’s 9 November 2019 order.
The construction
work on the Ram temple will officially start soon after the ceremony. The trust
has set a 2024 deadline for completing the temple.
News media is in
a crisis & only you can fix it
You are reading
this because you value good, intelligent and objective journalism. We thank you
for your time and your trust.
You also know
that the news media is facing an unprecedented crisis. It is likely that you
are also hearing of the brutal layoffs and pay-cuts hitting the industry. There
are many reasons why the media’s economics is broken. But a big one is that
good people are not yet paying enough for good journalism.
We have a
newsroom filled with talented young reporters. We also have the country’s most
robust editing and fact-checking team, finest news photographers and video
professionals. We are building India’s most ambitious and energetic news
platform. And we aren’t even three yet.
At ThePrint, we
invest in quality journalists. We pay them fairly and on time even in this
difficult period. As you may have noticed, we do not flinch from spending
whatever it takes to make sure our reporters reach where the story is. Our
stellar coronavirus coverage is a good example. You can check some of it here.
This comes with
a sizable cost. For us to continue bringing quality journalism, we need readers
like you to pay for it. Because the advertising market is broken too.
If you think we
deserve your support, do join us in this endeavour to strengthen fair, free,
courageous, and questioning journalism, please click on the link below. Your
support will define our journalism, and ThePrint’s future. It will take just a
few seconds of your time.
https://theprint.in/india/muslim-leaders-including-litigant-get-ram-mandir-ceremony-invite-no-opposition-leader-on-list/469485/
--------
Punjab Chief
Minister Condemns Attempts To Convert Gurdwara Into Mosque In Pakistan
July 28, 2020
Chandigarh:
Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh today condemned the attempts being made
to convert a famous gurdwara in Pakistan's Lahore into a mosque.
"Strongly
condemn attempts being made to convert holy Gurdwara Sri Shahidi Asthan in
Lahore, site of martyrdom of Bhai Taru Singh Ji, into a mosque."
"Urge
@DrSJaishankar to convey Punjab's concerns in strongest terms to Pakistan to safeguard
all Sikh places of reverence," Mr Singh said in a tweet.
Gurdwara Shahidi
Asthan is a historical shrine where Bhai Taru Singh made the supreme sacrifice
in 1745.
India on Monday
lodged a strong protest with the Pakistan High Commission over reports of
attempts being made to convert the gurdwara at Naulakha Bazaar into a mosque.
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/punjab-chief-minister-condemns-attempts-to-convert-gurdwara-into-mosque-in-pakistan-2269967
--------
2 Lashkar
infiltrators killed, another injured in J-K’s Rajouri
Jul 29, 2020
Two Pakistani
infiltrators from Lashkar-e-Taiba were killed and one of their injured
associates fled back to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) along the Line of
Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district late on Monday, officials
said.
Lt Col Devender
Anand, the defence spokesperson, said the suspected terrorists had not entered
Indian territory and the anti-personnel mine was planted by Pakistan on their
side.
“Around 11pm on
Monday, three infiltrators were trying to infiltrate into our territory
opposite Kalal area of Nowshera sector. One of them stepped over a landmine and
as a result two of them got killed while the third one was injured,” Anand
said.
“During monsoon,
these mines being light in weight drift away from their place and it seems
infiltrators stepped on one such mine. The troops had seen the bodies lying in
their territory,” said the officer.
One of the
killed terrorists has been identified as Abid Hussain, son of Khadim Hussain of
Naali village in Bhaagsar area of Bhimber district in PoK.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/2-lashkar-infiltrators-killed-another-injured-in-j-k-s-rajouri/story-p5NFynfbMbN66RAQiaZdjK.html
--------
Southeast Asia
Amanah MP
proposes Religion Misuse Act to prevent preachers from spewing hate
27 Jul 2020
BY YISWAREE
PALANSAMY
KUALA LUMPUR,
July 27 — Pulai MP Datuk Seri Salahuddin Ayub today proposed for a Religion
Misuse Act (Akta Penyalahgunaan Agama) to prevent Muslim religious leaders from
using sacred verses and words of Prophets to spread hate.
Salahuddin
referred to the situation faced by former Religious Affairs minister and
current Parit Buntar MP Datuk Seri Mujahid Yusof Rawa, contrasting the
situation he was in with that of his successor, former Federal Territories
mufti, Datuk Seri Zulkifli Mohamad, over a similar statement on the treatment
of the sexual minorities.
“I hope an Act
is formulated. The Religion Misuse Act.
“Datuk Speaker,
my friend Parit Buntar, when we were in government as ministers, he was the
Religious Affairs minister, and the former mufti who is now Religious Affairs
minister (Senator Datuk Zulkifli Mohamad Al-Bakri), when he commented about the
LGBT group, for instance, Parit Buntar issued a statement that we have to
understand them, be wise in facing these people.
“However, the
attacks he was faced with; inilah dia liberal (look, here is a liberalist), ini
kalau mati besok kubur masuk neraka (if he dies tomorrow, he would go to hell),
kubur besok berasap (your grave would emit smoke) and many others in which
Allah’s words and the wahyu (revelation) were read together, and when the
(current) Religious Affairs minister gives the same comment like Parit Buntar,
that is not wrong.
“That is what I
meant. Please do not use approaches with
Allah’s words whimsically,” he said adding that one does not have to label
members of his party with derogatory words such as “kafir” and rain curses on
them, simply because of disagreement over the stand taken by Parti Amanah
Negara (Amanah) leaders.
Salahuddin also
hoped for a watershed over the issue, and called for the promotion of the
rahmatan-lil-alamin concept of Islam, adding that non-Muslims too would feel
contented and would be able to live peacefully, if such an ideology is
preached.
“I hope there
can be a clear guideline so that no religious leaders use the words of Allah
and the Prophet’s hadith to demean another if they do not agree with the
group,” he added.
On July 10,
Zulkifli Mohamad had announced on Facebook that he was empowering the Federal
Territories Islamic Religious Department (Jawi) to arrest transgender persons
and “educate” them so that they “return to the right path”.
Zulkifli’s
remark appeared to be in response to risqué photos on social media by cosmetics
entrepreneur Nur Sajat, which prompted the ire of some Muslim hardliners.
This led calls
for the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government to take action on the transgender
businessperson.
Transgender
rights group Justice for Sisters (JFS) had also lambasted the minister, saying
the remark will have hampered the religious affairs minister’s previous efforts
in engaging with trans persons when he was a mufti.
In 2018, when he
was then Federal Territories mufti however, Zulkifli had called on religious
authorities to revisit a fatwa, or Islamic edict declaring transgenderism as
un-Islamic, adding that the phenomenon is not inherently wrong.
His stand at
that time, had also earned him accolades and praises from NGOs and the
public. — —
https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2020/07/27/amanah-mp-proposes-religion-misuse-act-to-prevent-preachers-from-spewing-ha/1888614
--------
Muslims in
Jakarta’s red zones told not to attend Idul Adha mass prayers
July 29 2020
The Jakarta
administration has called on all Muslims living in Jakarta’s red zones not to
attend mass prayers during Idul Adha (Day of Sacrifice), which is expected to
fall on Friday, to prevent the spread of COVID-19. This strengthens previous
statements from the Religious Affairs Ministry and Muslim group Muhammadiyah,
which are reinforcing such a restriction nationally. The Jakarta Bureau of
Mental and Spiritual Education (Dikmental) warned of massive spread of the
coronavirus if worshipers ignored the call as they would potentially be in
close contact with virus carriers. “For people in red zones, please pray at
home together with your respective families. This is for the collective health
and safety,” Dikmental head Hendra Hidayat said on Tuesday, as quoted by
kompas.com. Based on the city’s website for COVID-19, corona.jakarta.go.id, as
of last T...
https://www.thejakartapost.com/paper/2020/07/28/muslims-in-jakartas-red-zones-told-not-to-attend-idul-adha-mass-prayers.html
--------
Malaysia’s
Unwelcoming Shore for Refugees Fleeing Religious Persecution
By Gayle Manchin
and James W. Carr
July 28, 2020
Several airlines
offer direct flights from Myanmar to Malaysia, but many Rohingya Muslims like
Sharifah Shakira can only make the journey by using human traffickers. At the
age of five, Shakira’s mother had her smuggled out of Myanmar to protect her
from the military’s ongoing genocidal campaign against Rohingya Muslims. In the
trunk of a car, trekking through jungles, and at the bottom of a boat, Shakira
made the journey for her life to the shores of Malaysia.
Unfortunately,
while she made safe passage, she received a far from warm welcome. Xenophobia
and discrimination are distressingly common occurrences for refugees fleeing to
Malaysia to escape religious persecution.
According to the
UN Refugee Agency, Shakira is one of what are now approximately 101,280
Rohingya Muslim refugees and asylum seekers in Malaysia.
Malaysia is not
a signatory of either the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status
of Refugees or the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees.
Nevertheless, the government had long guaranteed the safety of thousands of
refugees and asylum seekers — especially those fleeing religious and
ethnic-based violence. That, however is now changing.
Public attitudes
have turned against migrants. Businesses have fired or refused to hire
Rohingya. Malaysian authorities recently rounded up 2,000 migrants, around 800
of whom were from Myanmar. Under the guise of preventing new COVID-19
outbreaks, Malaysian authorities have turned away boats filled with Rohingya
refugees. Survivors from the boats who do make it ashore tell of horror at sea,
where dozens die and are thrown to a watery grave. The refusal of Malaysian
authorities to admit the boats harkens back to 2015, when hundreds died out at
sea in what the United Nations dubbed “floating coffins.” Hundreds more could
die now.
Unfortunately,
the Rohingya are not alone; 6,650 Ahmadi Muslim refugees from Pakistan also
face increased hostility in Malaysia. The Pakistani constitution declares the
Ahmadiyya faith to be “non-Muslim” and Ahmadis are at risk of being prosecuted
for blasphemy. Yet, the Malaysian government views these Ahmadis as “illegal
migrants,” not refugees. If Malaysia deports them back to Pakistan, they face
very real threats to their physical safety merely based on their religion.
Even if they are
permitted to remain, Ahmadis face the same state and societal discrimination in
Malaysia as native-born Ahmadis. The Malaysian constitution enshrines Sunni
Islam as the official state religion. Authorities regularly place a hateful Ahmadi
slur, Qadiani, outside Ahmadi faith centers, and state-issued Friday sermons
often denounce the Ahmadiyya faith. Yet, the living conditions for Ahmadi
Muslims in Malaysia are still safer than in Pakistan, where the persecution
goes beyond such hateful slurs and denouncement.
During a global
summit of Muslim leaders held in Kuala Lumpur last December, then-Prime
Minister Mahathir Mohamad bemoaned the plight of millions of Muslim refugees.
Yet neither his administration nor the current government of Prime Minister
Muhyiddin Yassin has made a concerted effort to take in the refugees,
predominantly Rohingya and Ahmadi Muslims, fleeing persecution. The 36th ASEAN
Summit, held virtually on June 26, also failed to mention the ongoing Rohingya
refugee crisis, even as Malaysia continued to turn away boats. While we urge
the Malaysian leadership to take action, the United States also has an
important role to play.
In our 2020
Annual Report, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)
recommended that the U.S. government expand capacity-building programs and
religious freedom trainings for Malaysian government officials, especially
security authorities. It would be particularly helpful for USAID and the U.S.
Department of State to provide humanitarian support and funding to help cover
the handling and processing of refugee cases in Malaysia.
In addition, the
United States should make advocacy for the rights of refugees and asylum
seekers abroad a core part of its religious freedom diplomacy. We strongly urge
the administration to extend its admirable commitment to advancing religious
freedom to its global refugee resettlement policy by once again resettling
95,000 of the most vulnerable refugees to the United States each year, the
previously typical number. Refugees are some of the most vulnerable victims of
religious freedom violations and we must work to ensure that they are safe and
free from persecution.
Gayle Manchin is
the Chair on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
James W. Carr is
a Commissioner on the United States Commission on International Religious
Freedom.
https://thediplomat.com/2020/07/malaysias-unwelcoming-shore-for-refugees-fleeing-religious-persecution/
--------
MUI calls on
Muslims to comply with health protocols during Idul Adha
July 29, 2020
To contain the
spread of COVID-19, the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) has called on all
Muslims nationwide to maintain health protocols when celebrating and praying on
Idul Adha (Day of Sacrifice), which falls on Friday.
Repeating
previous calls from the Religious Affairs Ministry and Muslim groups, the MUI
fatwa commission secretary, Asrorun Niam Sholeh, advised people living in areas
at high risk of COVID-19 transmission to pray at home.
“Those living in
considerably safer areas are allowed to perform mass prayers in mosques but
they must comply with strict health protocols. Use masks, perform wudhu
[ablution rituals] at home, bring our own sajadah [praying mat] and maintain a
physical distance,” Asrorun said through a written statement on Tuesday.
“We need to
focus on our health. If we are unfit or carrying preexisting diseases, it is
advisable for us to pray from home.”
Residents who
wish to perform qurban (animal sacrifice) for Idul Adha are suggested to go to
abattoirs in order to prevent crowds during the ritual. In addition, the MUI
recommended that qurban be done by professionals.
“We must pay
attention to the cattle’s health conditions,” Asrorun said, adding that the
cattle should meet the requirement for qurban – proper age and good health.
He also called
on qurban procession committees or religious social institutions to distribute
the qurban meat directly to those in need and prevent any large crowds from
forming during the qurban.
The MUI had
previously warned that, given the current pandemic, distributing the meat
immediately after the ritual might pose a health risk. Thus, it suggested the
qurban meat be processed into canned food or cooked as rendang before being
distributed.
The council
through its fatwa permits the distribution of qurban meat at a later time after
Idul Adha, suggesting that any excess meat should be preserved instead of
thrown out.
During this
year’s Idul Adha, Indonesia’s second-largest Islamic group, Muhammadiyah,
encouraged Muslims to convert their qurban into sadaqah (alms) to help those
who have been hit hard by the pandemic.
https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/07/29/mui-calls-on-muslims-to-comply-with-health-protocols-during-idul-adha.html
--------
Pakistan
Pakistan Church
urges combined worship at Hagia Sophia
Kamran Chaudhry
July 28, 2020
Catholic and
Protestant leaders are calling on Turkish President Recep Erdogan to open Hagia
Sophia for both Muslim and Christian worship.
Father Abid
Habib, former president of the Major Superiors Leadership Conference of
Pakistan, voiced his concern following the first Muslim prayers at Istanbul's
Hagia Sophia since its reconversion to a mosque this month.
“As a museum, it
was a neutral place keeping Christians and Muslims at peace with each other.
While the Muslim world is rejoicing over this decision, the feelings of
Christians worldwide have been hurt. I am also not happy,” he said.
“In interfaith
dialogue programs, I often hear Muslim scholars quoting a hadith [prophetic
tradition] when Prophet Muhammad allowed a delegation of Christians to use
Masjid-e-Nabvi [in Madinah, Saudi Arabia] for Christian worship. A cathedral in
Boston is used by Muslims for their Friday prayers,” he added.
“Learning from
these examples, I propose Hagia Sophia be a house of worship not only for the
Muslims but also for the Christians. Allow the Christians to pray on Sundays
and the Muslims can pray on Fridays. This will surely enhance the image of the
Turkish people.”
Hagia Sophia was
built as a cathedral during the Christian Byzantine Empire and converted into a
mosque after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. In 1934, modern
Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk ordered it be turned into a museum.
President
Erdogan issued a decree to hand over control of Hagia Sophia to the Directorate
of Religious Affairs after Turkey's highest court revoked its status as a
museum July 10.
Church of
Pakistan Bishop Azad Marshall of Raiwind Diocese posted a photo of a Jesus
mural in a July 14 tweet.
The president of
the National Council of Churches in Pakistan also condemned the move in a press
statement.
“Several
countries and all international church bodies, including the World Council of
Churches, the Vatican, the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Church in Russia,
have urged President Erdogan to reverse his decision in the larger interest of
interfaith harmony. We would like to propose that the Hagia Sophia be opened
for worship for both Muslims and Christians and should remain accessible to all
visitors for the rest of the week,” said Bishop Marshall.
“We believe that
this is a workable solution and would help in promoting mutual understanding,
respect, dialogue and cooperation. Pakistani church leadership hopes that the
government of Pakistan would convey their concerns to the Turkish leadership
and play its due role in promoting interfaith harmony.”
https://www.ucanews.com/news/pakistan-church-urges-combined-worship-at-hagia-sophia/88926
--------
Defence
preparation to ensure ‘peace within, peace without’, says Gen Bajwa
29 Jul 2020
RAWALPINDI:
Reiterating the need for bolstering defence and operational preparedness, Chief
of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa has said that armed forces’
defence preparation and operational readiness are “to ensure peace within and
peace without.”
“However, if
provoked we shall respond and respond with all our might,” added the army chief
while addressing the handing over ceremony of Tank Al Khalid-I to Armoured
Corps Regiment (ACR) on Tuesday.
The ceremony was
held at Heavy Industries Taxila (HIT) and the Army Chief was chief guest on the
occasion, said the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR).
General Bajwa
expressed his confidence, satisfaction and appreciation for HIT’s
state-of-the-art products and capabilities. He lauded the efforts of HIT
towards attainment of self-reliance and manufacturing of world class indigenous
defense products, direly needed in evolving security environment.
Tank Al Khalid-I
is a joint venture with friendly countries China and Ukraine. During the
ceremony Tank Al Khalid-I displayed some of its outstanding capabilities
including mobility, speed, Bi-axis gun stabilization of the control system and
use of smoke screen to mask movement.
Al Khalid-I will
be handed over to formations, which have a critical and decisive role during
war.
HIT
Chairman,Major General Syed Aamer Raza highlighted the ongoing projects,
achievements of HIT and its contribution in defence industry by pursuing
self-reliance.
https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/07/28/defence-preparation-to-ensure-peace-within-peace-without-coas/
--------
Urge Pak Sikh
Community to Wait for Govt To Act On Gurdwara Shahidi Asthan Issue, Says
Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee
TNN | Jul 28,
2020, 09.39 PM IST
AMRITSAR: While
indicating that an individual has occupied the land of Gurdwara Shahidi Asthan
Bhai Taru Singh, Lahore, the president of Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak
Committee, (PSGPC) Satwant Singh, feared that any imminent action by the local
Sikh sangat could jeopardize the Sikh-Muslim brotherhood and has urged the
community to have patience and wait for Pakistan government to take action and
resolve the issue.
While talking to
TOI, Satwant said Sikhs across the globe were extremely hurt with the act of an
individual who attempted or ‘could have taken possession’ of the gurdwara land
.
“Sikh’s can’t
tolerate it and if we take some step on our own or go there and do something
that will deteriorate the relations between Sikh and Muslims which we don’t want
at any cost since Pakistan is a land of pure and belong to us” he said.
He said there
was a vacant plot adjacent to the gurdwara which belonged to the gurdwara, on
which an individual or a group of people had tried to wrest control.
PSGPC president
said that he had personally taken up the matter with the chairman of Evacuee
Trust Property Board and with other government departments.
“We should have
patience and wait for the government to react as it has always helped Sikhs in
past," said Satwant.
He said all the
Sikh leadership of Pakistan, including former president of PSGPC, Pak Sikhs
scholars, politicians etc. were in touch with Pak government and were trying to
resolve the issue amicably and within the ambit of law.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/urge-pak-sikh-community-to-wait-for-govt-to-act-on-gurdwara-shahidi-asthan-issue-says-psgpc-president/articleshow/77224988.cms
--------
NA committee
slams ‘non-serious’ attitude to meeting FATF conditions
29 Jul 2020
ISLAMABAD: With
deadlines looming next month, Pakistan’s compliance with 27-point action plan
and 40 recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) stands at 14
and 10 respectively.
With this
update, the government on Tuesday came under severe criticism from the National
Assembly’s Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue led by MNA Faiz Ullah of
the PTI for wasting precious time of the nation without making tangible
progress.
While the
committee decided to refer three proposed bills — Anti Money Laundering,
Limited Liability Partnership and Companies Bill — relating to the FATF to
another parliamentary meeting on legislative business, Committee Chairman Faiz
announced that he would resign from his position if Adviser to PM on Finance Dr
Abdul Hafeez Shaikh maintained his continued abstention from the panel.
Hafeez’s refusal
to appear stirs anger
The committee
expressed serious concern over non-serious attitude of the government to settle
matters relating to the FATF and showed displeasure over continuous absence of
Dr Shaikh from meetings. Finance Secretary Naveed Kamran Baloch told the
committee that the adviser had to miss the meeting because of the cabinet
meeting but members were unimpressed as Shaikh has not attended a single
meeting of the panel since he joined the government last year.
Financial
Monitoring Unit (FMU) Director General Lubna Farooq told the meeting that laws
relating to accountants, lawyers and jewellers were being improved. She said
the country had complied with 10 out of 40 overall recommendations proposed by
the FATF. Talking specifically about Pakistan’s action plan to get out of the
grey list, Ms Farooq said Pakistan had complied with 14 of the 27-point action
plan it had committed with the FATF.
She said the
entire country would have to work hard and all the institutions and
stakeholders were working on the issue and the country was now in a good
position but obviously the final outcome would depend on the FATF assessment.
She said that
Pakistan had made good progress on remaining 13 points of the action plan. She
said stakeholders were working on the remaining 13 action points and 30
recommendations of the FATF.
She said
Pakistan would submit its progress report on the FATF recommendations by August
6 while the submission deadline for Asia Pacific Group (APG) — a regional
affiliate of FATF – is September 30 as the country was also under review by the
APG. She said Pakistan will complete required legislation by August 15.
She said
anti-money laundering laws were also being tightened and the chance of
Pakistan’s exit from the grey list would increase on the completion of required
legislation but obviously the government would also have to ensure
implementation of these laws. She said weaker enforcement and non-compliance
with the FATF recommendations on terror financing were some of the key reasons
for the grey listing and punishments and fines had been increased in all these
laws. Meanwhile, laws relating to the Pakistan Post and National Saving Schemes
were also being improved.
PMLN member
Aisha Ghaus Pasha said the manner in which the government was handling the
entire affair was not encouraging as it pertained to the future of the country
and the destiny of 220 million people.
She said the
parliamentary committee should not be expected to act like a rubber stamp when
the government was not taking up the matter seriously and those responsible to
improve the situation were nowhere to be seen. “This is make or break issue for
Pakistan but look at the seriousness of the government”, she said.
PPP Member Hina
Rabbani Khar lamented that the government wasted three months while the
international community provided an opportunity during the Covid-19 situation
and this showed how serious the government was in running the country. She
wondered why the anti-money laundering law was brought before the committee so
late and at the eleventh hour.
Another PTI MNA
Faheem Khan also announced that he would also stage a walk out of the committee
if PM’s Finance Adviser Dr Shaikh did not turn up in the committee’s next
meeting.
PMLN Member Ali
Pervez Malik said the meeting of the committee had been convened on a very
short notice of less then 24 hours and such short notice was unreasonable. PPP
Member Syed Naveed Qamar said the government was doing legislation on the FATF
and he did not even receive a notice for the meeting and had come to the panel
after coming to know about it through his colleagues. Such haste gives an
impression that the government was trying to bulldoze everything.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1571755/na-committee-slams-non-serious-attitude-to-meeting-fatf-conditions
--------
Talks on FATF,
NAB legislation hit a snag
Malik Asad |
Amir Wasim
29 Jul 2020
ISLAMABAD: The
fate of crucial and much-delayed legislation related to the Financial Action
Task Force (FATF) and changes in the accountability laws hangs in the balance
as both the sides continue to stick to their positions, with the government
rejecting most of the opposition-proposed amendments to the National
Accountability Ordinance (NAO) and the opposition refusing to accept the
government-introduced FATF bills in the present form.
When the
opposition members announced their decision to boycott a meeting of the special
parliamentary committee at a press conference, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood
Qureshi, who is also head of the committee, chose the National Assembly floor
to explain the government’s stance after breakdown of the talks between them.
Mr Qureshi spoke
on the day when main leaders of the two major opposition parties — the Pakistan
Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) — were busy in
parleys in Lahore.
The minister
alleged that the opposition wanted to have a “package deal” whereas the
government had requested it to delink the two issues in the larger national
interest.
The foreign
minister categorically announced that a majority of the 35 proposals jointly
made by the PPP and the PML-N regarding changes in the accountability laws were
not acceptable to the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and Prime Minister
Imran Khan as these were against the party’s core principle of eliminating
corruption.
The PTI’s Amjid
Ali Khan adjourned the sitting soon after the foreign minister’s speech without
providing an opportunity to the opposition leaders to respond.
Meanwhile, the
government has extended the National Assembly session for another day, which
was scheduled to be prorogued on Monday, and also changed the time of the
Senate sitting from Wednesday morning to the evening, apparently in a move to
get the four bills related to the FATF passed from the two houses without the
support of the opposition, considering it a conducive time as most of the
opposition members have already left for their native areas ahead of Eidul
Azha.
Sources in the
opposition told Dawn that many opposition members had already left the capital
city as the Senate was earlier scheduled to be prorogued on Monday. They said
as many as 10 senators from Balochistan had left Islamabad in a single flight
on Tuesday.
“We are
expecting that the government will make an effort to get the bills passed today
(Wednesday) from the two houses, but we will resist it with full force,”
declared a senior PPP leader who was a part of the negotiations between the
government and the opposition.
According to the
sources, the talks between the two sides broke down when a government team
comprising Mr Qureshi and Law Minister Farogh Naseem, during an informal
meeting before the start of the meeting of the parliamentary committee, told
the opposition leaders in categorical terms that their proposals regarding
changes in the NAO were unacceptable to them.
At the same
time, the opposition members told the government team that they were ready to
support the FATF legislations, but the bills in the present form were not
acceptable to them as, they alleged, the government wanted to achieve some
other objectives through these bills which contained some “anti-democratic”
clauses and which had nothing to do with the FATF conditions.
Those present in
the meeting from the opposition side included the PPP’s Sherry Rehman and
Naveed Qamar and Khawaja Asif, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Rana Sanaullah from the
PML-N.
Law Minister
Naseem while talking to media confirmed the deadlock in discussion and said the
FATF related legislation had to be passed before Aug 6 as it was a requirement
for removing Pakistan from the grey list. He declared that the government would
introduce the bills on its own before the deadline.
Speaking in the
National Assembly after cancellation of the committee’s meeting, Mr Qureshi
said the opposition wanted to have a “package deal” through clubbing of the
FATF and NAO bills.
“The FATF
legislation is time-bound whereas we have been discussing changes in NAB laws
for the past 10 years,” he said.
“We have to
legislate on four time barred bills and the report will go to the Asia Pacific
Group of the FATF which will do its analysis and submit the report to the FATF
plenary which will meet in October,” he added.
Highlighting the
opposition’s proposals regarding changes in the NAO, the minister said the
opposition wanted applicability of the accountability law to start from 1999,
reduction in NAB chairman’s tenure, removal of money laundering from the list
of cognisable offences, allowing the convicted persons to remain members of the
parliament till disposal of appeals and confining the time of taking cognisance
by NAB of any wrongdoing to five years.
He ridiculed the
opposition’s proposal that allegations of corruption of less than Rs1 billion
should not come under the NAB’s scope.
“The government
does not believe in revenge but these changes are not acceptable to it,” he
said, adding that with such changes the institution and the process of
accountability would become meaningless.
Mr Qureshi said
India had a clear policy and it was conspiring against Pakistan and trying at
every forum to push Pakistan from the grey to the black list.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1571713/talks-on-fatf-nab-legislation-hit-a-snag
--------
South Asia
US welcomes
Afghan ceasefire, urges quick start to talks with Taliban militants
29 July 2020
The United
States on Tuesday welcomed a new ceasefire between Afghanistan’s government and
Taliban insurgents, and voiced hope that they can quickly open talks.
“I welcome the
announcements of an Eid ceasefire. Afghans deserve to celebrate the holiday in
peace,” said Ross Wilson, the top US diplomat stationed in Kabul.
“I look forward
to both sides fulfilling their commitments and moving quickly to intra-Afghan
negotiations,” he wrote on Twitter.
Three-day
ceasefire for Eid al-Adha: Taliban
Taliban
militants announced on Tuesday that they will observe athree-day ceasefire for
the Muslim religious holiday of Eid al-Adha, starting on Friday, offering some
respite from weeks of increasing violence.
Disagreements
over a prisoner exchange and the violence havedelayed peace talks between an
Afghan government-mandated
committee and
the Taliban, as envisaged in an agreement signed between the United States and
the militant group in Doha in
“In order for
our people to spend the three days of Eid inconfidence and happiness, all
fighters are instructed not to
carry out any
operations,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid tweeted.
However, he
added that if Taliban fighters come under attack from government forces, they
will retaliate.
Peace talks
could begin “in a week’s time”: Ghani
President Ashraf
Ghani said on Tuesday that peace talks with the Taliban could begin “in a
week’s time”, following the completion of a crucial prisoner exchange.
“To demonstrate
the government’s commitment to peace, the Islamic Republic will soon complete
the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners,” Ghani told senior officials at the
presidential palace.
“With this
action, we look forward to the start of direct negotiations with the Taliban in
a week’s time,” he added, speaking in English.
The Afghan
president's spokesman, Sediq Sediqqi, said the government welcomed the
ceasefire announcement but added that Afghans wanted enduring peace and the
start of direct peace negotiations.
Attacks by
militants
Since the
US-Taliban agreement, 3,560 Afghan security forces personnel have been killed
in attacks by militants, President Ghani said in a speech on Tuesday.
The UN
Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in a report on Monday that more
than 1,280 Afghan civilians had been killed in the first six months of the
year, mainly as a result of fighting between Afghan government forces and the
Taliban.
The US State
Department said last week that US Special Representative for Afghanistan Zalmay
Khalilzad would travel to the region to push for an agreement on prisoner
exchanges and a reduction in violence.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/world/2020/07/29/US-welcomes-Afghan-ceasefire-urges-quick-start-to-talks-with-Taliban-militants-.html
--------
Afghan president
expects talks with Taliban ‘in one week's time’
Tuesday, 28 July
2020
Afghan President
Ashraf Ghani says negotiations between his government and the Taliban militant
group are expected to begin “in a week’s time,” following the completion of a
prisoner exchange between the two sides.
In an address at
the presidential palace on Tuesday, Ghani said the crucial prisoner swap with
the Taliban was almost complete.
“To demonstrate
the government’s commitment to peace, the Islamic Republic [of Afghanistan]
will soon complete the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners,” Ghani said on
Tuesday, using the official name of Afghanistan. “With this action, we look
forward to the start of direct negotiations with the Taliban in a week’s time.”
The prisoner
swap has been an Afghan government obligation under a deal between the United
States and the Taliban that was struck in February. Kabul was excluded from the
talks, and the obligation was imposed on it.
The exchange has
been regarded as a first step toward broader talks between the Afghan
government and the Taliban. Its implementation had faced hurdles since the deal
was signed, and Ghani’s announcement of both the imminent completion of the
swap and the start of talks was unexpected.
The deal
envisages a complete withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, and the Taliban
pledged not to attack American and other foreign forces. They made no such
pledge in relation to the Afghan government and people.
The Afghan
president also called on the Taliban to agree to a “permanent and comprehensive
ceasefire” during the talks. “The ball now is in the court of the Taliban and
the international community,” Ghani said.
Later in the
day, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid in a statement declared a three-day
ceasefire for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, starting Friday. But any
attack by “the enemy” would be met with force, he said.
Sediq Sediqqi,
the main spokesman for Afghanistan’s president, greeted the announcement with a
note of caution.
“The Afghan
government welcomes the announcement of a ceasefire by the Taliban in Eid days,
but the Afghan people wanted a lasting ceasefire,” the spokesman said. “The
Afghan government has taken all necessary steps to show its commitment for the
peace process and calls on the Taliban to show commitment too. The Afghan
people are tired of war and it must end.”
The militants
declared a similar three-day ceasefire at the end of the holy fasting month of
Ramadan in May. That truce prompted widespread relief across Afghanistan, but
it was short-lived, with the militants resuming deadly attacks straight
afterwards.
Official data
shows that bombings and other assaults by the Taliban have surged 70 percent
since the militant group signed the deal with the United States.
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/07/28/630617/Afghanistan-Ghani-talks-Taliban-one-weeks-time
--------
Taliban announce
Eid Al-Adha ceasefire in Afghanistan
July 28, 2020
KABUL:
Afghanistan's Taliban militants announced on Tuesday that they will observe a
three-day ceasefire for the Muslim religious holiday of Eid Al-Adha, starting
Friday, offering some respite from weeks of increasing violence.
Disagreements
over a prisoner exchange and the violence have delayed peace talks between an
Afghan government-mandated committee and the Taliban, as envisaged in an
agreement signed between the US and the group in Doha in February.
“In order for
our people to spend the three days of Eid in confidence and happiness, all
fighters are instructed not to carry out any operations,” Taliban spokesman
Zabihullah Mujahid tweeted.
However, he
added that if Taliban fighters come under attack from government forces, they
will retaliate.
The Afghan
president’s spokesman, Sediq Sediqqi, said the government welcomed the ceasefire
announcement but added that Afghans wanted enduring peace and the start of
direct peace negotiations.
Since the
US-Taliban agreement, 3,560 Afghan security forces personnel have been killed
in attacks by militants, President Ashraf Ghani said in a speech on Tuesday.
The UN
Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in a report on Monday that more
than 1,280 Afghan civilians had been killed in the first six months of the
year, mainly as a result of fighting between Afghan government forces and the
Taliban.
The US State
Department said last week that US Special Representative for Afghanistan Zalmay
Khalilzad would travel to the region to push for an agreement on prisoner
exchanges and a reduction in violence.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1711321/world
--------
Europe
Europe warned of
ISIS radicalisation threat in prisons
Nicky Harley
July 27, 2020
European
countries could face a major radicalisation threat within their prison systems
from returning ISIS fighters, reports on terrorism reveal.
Researchers from
the International Centre for the Study of Radicalism analysed the risks posed
by extremists in 10 major European countries.
The individual
reports, published on Monday, highlight the dangers posed by returning ISIS
fighters and concerns over them radicalising others within the prison system.
A report on
Belgium reveals that if all extremists who left return to the country and are
jailed, one in 10 women in prison will be an ISIS fighter.
It says that
almost half the country’s current extremist inmates are former ISIS fighters
and nearly a quarter of those showing signs of radicalisation are serving
sentences for non-terrorism crimes.
“Some of the
women who remained with ISIS until the last battle in Baghuz have been
proselytising in the Kurdish camps, chiefly in al-Hoi, and they could seek to
achieve the same in Belgium,” the report warns.
“The ability of
female penitentiary institutions to properly handle these returnees (in terms
of monitoring or differentiated detention regimes, for example) would largely
depend on the pace of returns: a massive return would be much more challenging
than a progressive, limited inflow of returnees.
“Radicalisation
or terrorist recruitment in prison are not new phenomena in Belgium, but they
have reached unprecedented magnitude in the aftermath of the Syrian conflict
and the mobilisation of foreign fighters from Europe.
“This has
created serious concerns among Belgian security services and policymakers, who
since 2015 have adopted a series of measures to improve the monitoring of
terrorist and radicalised inmates as well as minimise the risk of
radicalisation of other inmates.”
It goes on to
say that half of the extremists serving sentences in Belgium are due for
release shortly.
A separate
report on France, cites prison overcrowding as a major issue in the spread of
ISIS propaganda and reveals that 148 ISIS prisoners are due for release in the
next two years.
A report
focusing on the Netherlands praises the separation of extremists into
specialist wings, away from other prisoners, to prevent them spreading
extremist ideas.
But it said the
country would have to consider how to deal with returning women and children
from ISIS because it will not have the room to accommodate all of them.
“When assessing
the Dutch approach to managing extremist offenders, the choice to concentrate
offenders in special terrorism wings and designate specific staff to deal with
this offender group in prison and post-release has been effective for quite
some time,” the report said.
“Separating
extremists has prevented this group from radicalising or recruiting other
inmates. It also allowed prison staff to develop in-depth [knowledge] about and
expertise with this group of offenders, which has led to highly professional
and well-trained staff.”
The immediate
challenge of repatriating Dutch women and children from Syria might force the
Netherlands’ government to decide soon whether further action is needed, it
said.
“If and when
this group returns, it is a given that they cannot all be held in the current
terrorism wings and, as such, the Dutch approach to terrorist offenders will
likely continue to be characterised by policy thinking on paper and pragmatic
solutions in practice.”
Last week, the
ICSR issued a warning that European governments urgently needed to adopt a
uniform plan for the repatriation of ISIS fighters, thousands of whom are
expected to return or are due for release from prison.
It revealed that
if ISIS fighters from the West were to soon return, prisons across Europe would
be overwhelmed.
Peter Neuman,
the report’s author, said many such militants had been convicted of lesser
charges to get them into custody. As a result, many are serving only short
sentences.
“Our report is
very urgent because within the next two to three years some countries will have
a significant number of people in prison being released back into society and
that is something to prepare for,” Mr Neuman said.
“Rehabilitation
is really important in view of how many people will be released. There needs to
be linking up between prison and probation. This is urgent.”
The UN Security
Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate issued a report
warning European governments of the “great risks” posed by returning female
ISIS recruits and urging them to “urgently” examine their prosecution and
rehabilitation policies.
https://www.thenational.ae/world/europe-warned-of-isis-radicalisation-threat-in-prisons-1.1055403?utm_source=iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1394155_
--------
Swedish Islamic
school accused of gender segregation takes over building linked to ISIS
Nicky Harley
July 28, 2020
A Muslim school
in Sweden that sparked controversy earlier this year is set to expand into an
education building that was shut down after allegedly employing former ISIS
fighters as teachers.
The
Romosseskolan school, which runs Muslim independent schools, has gained a
permit to open a new school in the former state-funded Islamic Vetenskapsskolan
school in Gothenburg, which was closed last year after it was accused of hiring
ISIS fighters as teachers after their return from Syria.
Only four months
ago the Romosseskolan school was accused of gender segregation in lessons and
faced criticism over its policy of not allowing pupils a choice over whether
they attended prayer sessions.
“My opinion is
that a school whose management has been criticised for counteracting basic values
in the Education Act should not receive approval at all,” Sweden's Liberal
party school policy spokesman Roger Haddad told Dagens Nyheter magazine.
“The Swedish
Schools Inspectorate must put an end to this.”
The granting of
the permit has also been met with criticism as it was originally awarded to
Romosseskolan in 2015 and was due to expire in 2017.
The new school
is not set to open until later this year.
The Swedish
Schools Inspectorate says the permit expiry date is merely a guide.
Fredrika Brickman,
from the inspectorate, told Expressen that it believed it would fail in a court
bid to reject the continued use of the permit as it had not made the timetable
for its use clear.
“As it was not
clear from the decisions that the permit then expires, we have not considered
that we have been able to prevent principals from starting schools even after
the conditional period,” she said.
“We did not
think we could win in court if we said that ‘no, now you cannot do it’. It is a
shortcoming that we have not been clear enough in our previous decisions. We
have now remedied this from 2018 so that it is clear in all our decisions that
the permit expires two years after the decision date.”
In 2018
Romosseskolan successfully appealed in court against a decision by the
inspectorate to reject its request to open a school in the city of Boras.
Officials had
argued that the school would increase segregation and would counteract the
initiatives it had introduced to improve integration.
There are still
radicalisation concerns in Gothenburg, where the new school will be located, as
more than one third of Sweden’s ISIS fighters originated from the area.
In February
Swedish authorities gave a warning that Islamic extremists were still focusing
on the city.
The
Vetenskapsskolan school was closed in December and had its permit withdrawn
over radicalisation concerns.
It was claimed
that one member of the school’s new board had shared ISIS propaganda online and
four former ISIS fighters allegedly taught in the school, along with another
man who had been accused of soliciting funds for terrorism.
https://www.thenational.ae/world/swedish-islamic-school-accused-of-gender-segregation-takes-over-building-linked-to-isis-1.1055932
--------
British-Australian
scholar moved to Iran’s Qarchak prison amid COVID-19 outbreak
28 July 2020
Jailed
British-Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert has been moved to Iran’s
Qarchak prison, known as the most dangerous and worst prison in the country,
amid a reported coronavirus outbreak in the prison, according to the Guardian
on Tuesday.
Concerns have
been raised after reports that coronavirus has been detected in the prison,
with sources telling the British newspaper “social distancing is impossible,
and access to soap is often limited.”
Independent
sources inside Iran confirmed to the Guardian that the academic had been moved
to the prison controlled by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“Isolated and
overcrowded, Qarchak has a reputation as one of the most hostile prisons in the
country,” reported the publication.
“I can’t eat
anything. I feel so very hopeless,” Moore-Gilbert is quoted by the Guardian as
telling Reza Khandan, husband of jailed human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, in
a phone call. “I am so depressed. I don’t have any phone card to call. I’ve
asked the prison officers, but they didn’t give me a phone card. I [was last
able to] call my parents about one month ago.”
For all the
latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app.
In June, the
United States Department of State reportedly listed the prison as an entity
responsible for “extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of
internationally recognized human rights.”
The Middle East
scholar is serving a 10-year sentence on espionage charges in the Islamic
Republic and was being held in Evin prison, another notorious institution.
Moore-Gilbert’s
arrest was confirmed in September 2019 but her family said she was detained
months before that date, according to AFP.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/coronavirus/2020/07/28/British-Australian-scholar-moved-to-Iran-s-Qarchak-prison-amid-COVID-19-outbreak.html
--------
Jihadist plots
used to be U.S. and Europe's biggest terrorist threat. Now it's the far right.
July 27, 2020
LONDON — The
threat of terrorism — particularly from the far right — should be a major
concern for governments on both sides of the Atlantic as coronavirus
restrictions continue to ease, according to multiple experts and former law
enforcement officials who have experience monitoring violent extremist
activity.
High
unemployment levels due to the pandemic, poor economic prospects and the spread
of disinformation through the internet and social media could accelerate
radicalization, they said.
And after a
major drive by law enforcement agencies to disrupt the organizing potential of
violent Islamist movements in the United States and in Europe, where hundreds
of people have returned from the battlefields in Iraq and Syria, recent
analysis suggests far-right groups now pose the most significant threat to
public safety.
"We see an
increasing percentage of plots and attacks in the United States shifting over
the past couple of years from jihadist motivations, increasingly, to far-right
activity," said Seth Jones, who directs the Transnational Threats Project
at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C.,
think tank.
Jones defined
right-wing extremists as "sub-national or non-state entities" with
goals that could include ethnic or racial supremacy. They can also be marked by
anger against specific policies like abortion rights and government authority,
as well as hatred toward women, or they may be members of the "involuntary
celibate," or "incel," movement.
A report he
co-authored recorded 14 terrorist incidents, including attacks and disrupted
plots, from Jan. 1 to May 8. Thirteen of them were classified as right-wing,
and the other was recorded as being religiously motivated in the context of
jihadism.
The report found
that the comparable figure for right-wing attacks and plots in 2019 was a
little more than 60 percent, which itself was the highest level of such
activity since 1995, the year of the Oklahoma City bombing of a federal
building, which killed 168 people. And in both 2018 and 2019, right-wing attackers
caused more than 90 percent of the terrorism-related deaths in the United
States.
Jones said the
threat of terrorism had probably increased in the U.S. during the COVID-19
pandemic because of the combined activities of those opposed to lockdowns and
other restrictions, anti-federal militia members and their backers, and
far-right activists energized by the country's polarized politics or angered by
the Black Lives Matter movement.
The
highest-profile recent attacks came in late May and early June, when California
police officers and security personnel were ambushed in separate attacks,
leaving two people dead and three others injured. The FBI said one of the
suspects who was arrested was associated with a loosely organized far-right
"Boogaloo" movement.
"There is a
growing trend of right-wing extremism in the U.K., but it is not as significant
as the rising right-wing extremism in America," said retired Maj. Gen.
Clive Chapman, the former head of counterterrorism for Britain's Defense
Ministry.
He said that, in
the almost two decades since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York
and Washington, D.C., more Americans — 335, according to data compiled by the
Center for Strategic and International Studies — have been killed by adherents
of a form of right-wing extremism than any other terrorist ideology.
He said
terrorists need more than just an ideology to act — they often nurse grievances
of some kind and typically have encountered what he termed a "recruitment
environment." That could be a social activity in a real-life community, he
said, or it could be online.
But Thomas
Hegghammer, a senior research fellow at the Norwegian Defence Research
Establishment in Oslo, said that while the recent shift to far-right terrorist
activity has not passed unnoticed by law enforcement internationally, the kind
of websites that might radicalize right-wing actors have been subject to far
less scrutiny than has been accorded to the equivalent jihadist literature.
"The threat
hasn't been perceived as sufficiently severe," he said. "To put it
bluntly, there hasn't been enough mass casualty terrorism from the far right
for Western governments to put the full weight of their intelligence apparatus
into this."
The limited
censorship and law enforcement surveillance of "hard-core far-right
extremist propaganda" on the internet has made it easier for users to
access such material without inviting attention from government intelligence
agencies, Hegghammer said — at least for now.
Meanwhile, the
clampdown on online jihadist activity has significantly affected the ability of
organizations like the Islamic State militant group to reach new audiences
online and to recruit adherents, he said. After a spate of high-profile attacks
in Brussels, Paris and London several years ago, the frequency of such
incidents has fallen recently.
"In a
sense, we've kind of taken away their communication platform. And now the
coronavirus is taking away the analogue 'in real life' platform," together
with the media attention that Hegghammer described as the "lifeblood"
of modern jihadist terrorist attacks.
"The net
effect of the corona crisis is negative for the militants, for the
radicals," he said. "I would be kind of frustrated if I were a jihadi
strategist in this time. And I would be looking forward to the post-corona
era."
Internet
activity may have spiked during the lockdowns among would-be jihadists who are
no longer interacting with people in person and who may have struggled to get
involved in Islamic extremist networks in the past. But that now comes with
clear pitfalls because of the heightened surveillance, said Raffaello Pantucci,
a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a British
think thank.
In a video call
from Singapore, he pointed to a Moroccan man who was arrested in Spain last
month after authorities observed what they described as his constant activity
on social media and his anonymized access to radical jihadist content.
He was suspected
of disseminating "jihadist terrorist propaganda" through the
internet, according to a Europol notice published shortly after his arrest,
"and demonstrated a full adherence to the postulates of terrorist groups,
fully justifying their violent actions."
Pantucci said of
the man's self-radicalization: "It seemed to be very linked to the fact
that he was locked in because of coronavirus. Those kinds of cases, I think,
are going to be ones that we're going to see more problems with going
forward."
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jihadist-plots-used-be-u-s-europe-s-biggest-terrorist-n1234840?utm_source=iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1394155_
--------
Mideast
US Democratic
party’s platform on Iran ‘positive’ step: Tehran
28 July 2020
The United
States Democratic Party’s draft platform for the 2020 election which opposes
regime change in Tehran is a “small but positive” step, Iran’s government
spokesman Ali Rabei said on Tuesday.
“We believe that
[the Democratic Party’s 2020 platform] is a small but positive step in
understanding the realities of Iran, but it is still ambitious,” the
semi-official ISNA news agency quoted Rabei as saying.
For all the
latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app.
“Overall, we do
not care about words on paper. We are waiting for practical steps aimed at
correcting past mistakes,” said Rabei.
US Democratic
presidential candidate Joe Biden says he would deal with Iran through diplomacy
and re-enter the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran known as the Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action (JCPOA), but only if Iran first returned to compliance with the
deal’s restrictions on its nuclear program.
US President
Donald Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Tehran
as part of a “maximum pressure” campaign against the Iranian regime.
The Trump
administration says it wants a more comprehensive deal that would cover nuclear
issues, Iran’s ballistic missile program and Iranian activities in the Middle
East.
Trump’s “maximum
pressure” policy toward Iran has failed, Rabei claimed.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2020/07/28/US-Democratic-party-s-platform-on-Iran-positive-step-Tehran.html
--------
Opposing sides
in Yemen accept Saudi proposal to implement Riyadh agreement
July 29, 2020
RIYADH: An
official source on Tuesday night said that the Yemeni government and the
Southern Transitional Council (STC) have accepted a proposal by Saudi Arabia
designed to accelerate the implementation of the Riyadh Agreement.
The proposal includes
the continuation of the ceasefire that came into effect on June 22, and an
announcement by the STC that it is abandoning self-rule in favor of the
power-sharing Riyadh Agreement, and will appoint a governor and security
director for Aden governorate. The Yemeni prime minister will form a government
that includes representatives of both northern and southern Yemen within 30
days. In addition, opposing military forces will leave Aden governorate and
retreat from Abyan.
The STC
spokesperson Nizar Haitham confirmed the announcement “that it (the STC) is
abandoning its self-rule declaration” to allow the implementation of the deal,
in a statement on his Twitter account on Wednesday.
Saudi Deputy
Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman thanked Yemeni President Abdrabbuh
Mansur Hadi and the STC for their support of the Saudi effort to accelerate the
implementation of the Riyadh Agreement.
“I am optimistic
and confident about its implementation and the parties coming together to put
the interests of the Yemeni people first,” he said.
The Kingdom’s
efforts in encouraging political leaders to talk to each other, resolve their
differences and reach a consensus on the implementation of the agreement shows
the potential for resolving the disagreements in Yemen peacefully through
dialogue, he added.
“A major goal of
the coalition to support the legitimate Yemeni government is the security,
stability and return of Yemen as an active member of the Gulf and the Arab
world. The Riyadh Agreement is a key factor in reaching this, in addition to
supporting the efforts of the UN envoy to Yemen,” said Prince Khalid.
“The consent of
the Yemeni parties to accelerate the implementation of the agreement reflects a
serious desire for dialogue, the resolution of disputes, acceptance of each
other, the pursuit of political partnership, and support for a comprehensive
political solution to end the crisis.”
Saudi Minister
for Foreign Affairs Adel Al-Jubeir Tweeted: “The mechanism to accelerate the
implementation of the Riyadh agreement represents an important step towards
activating state institutions to serve all Yemeni citizens, in addition to
supporting UN efforts to reach a comprehensive political solution to the crisis
in Yemen.”
Meanwhile, Saudi
Foreign Minister, Faisal bin Farhan said the agreement would strengthen “trust
between parties” and allow the Yemeni government to work from Aden.
“The agreement
by the Legitimate Yemeni government and the Southern Transitional Council to
accelerate the implementation of the Riyadh Agreement is a positive step
towards reaching a wholistic and sustainable political solution in Yemen under
the auspices of the UN,” Farhan tweeted.
The source said
that with the assistance of the UAE, representatives from the two Yemini sides
met in Riyadh and agreed to the proposal as an acceptable solution to the
obstacles that have prevented the implementation of the Riyadh Agreement, which
was signed on Nov. 5, 2019.
They also agreed
to prioritize the interests of the Yemeni people, make preparations for the
government to operate from Aden, launch development projects in liberated
areas, and work to end the crisis in Yemen in cooperation with the UN and its
envoy.
The source added
that the Saudi authorities welcomed the positive responses from the Yemeni
president and the delegations of the government and the STC, while stressing
the importance of both sides adhering to the agreement.
He also
reaffirmed the continued support of the Saudi-led Arab coalition for the
legitimate Yemeni government and the continuation of UN efforts to reach a
comprehensive political solution to the crisis, in accordance with the wishes
of the Yemeni people.
The United
Nations Security Council welcomed Saudi Arabia’s efforts to implement the
Riyadh Agreement and affirmed its support for the political process in Yemen.
Council members
expressed their support for the United Nations Special Envoy to Yemen, calling
on the parties to agree to mediation proposals, and expressing support for the
United Nations Secretary-General's call to end hostilities.
Members called
on all donors to speed up donations, spend their pledges and save lives,
expressing deep concern about the lack of funding that exacerbates the risk of
acute malnutrition in the war-torn country.
The council also
addressed the Safer tanker crisis, expressing deep concern at the increased
danger that might lead to the cracking or explosion of the tanker in the Red
Sea.
The security
council called on the Houthis to approve entry permits for UN technical experts
to assess the tanker as soon as possible. The role of the experts would be to
make suggestions on any possible urgent repairs need and make recommendations
for safe oil extraction.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1711511/saudi-arabia
--------
Islamic Relief
to contest Israeli 'terrorism' allegations in court
27 Jul 2020
A Tel Aviv court
is to hear a petition from the charity Islamic Relief to restart its aid work
in the occupied West Bank, six years after the Israeli government labelled it a
“terrorist organisation”.
Islamic Relief
Worldwide (IRW) said the designation had left more than 70,000 Palestinians
without vital support. It will argue that allegations linking it to the
militant group Hamas were unfounded.
“There is no
credible evidence that we have seen, and we have got to challenge it,” Naser
Haghamed, IRW’s chief executive, said in an interview. “We cannot accept to be
designated and keep quiet about it.”
A one-day high
court hearing was scheduled for Monday afternoon but postponed to an
unspecified later date just before it was due to start. The delay is believed
to be related to the coronavirus pandemic, rather than the case itself.
The charity,
which has its headquarters in the UK, works in more than 40 countries and has a
reputation for delivering aid to some of the world’s most hard-to-operate-in
conflict zones, including Yemen and Somalia.
In 2014, Israeli
authorities seized 3.6m shekels (£820,000), banned the group from operating in
the West Bank, and raided its offices. However, most of the information to back
up its claims is described as confidential intelligence.
After the
designation, IRW commissioned an independent inquiry, which it said found no
wrongdoing. Haghamed added that the charity – which receives funds from the UK,
US and EU – has been audited more than 500 times in the past decade.
One focus of the
case has been on aid provided to Palestinian minors, some of whom Israel said
were the children of deceased Hamas militants. In response, IRW said its
humanitarian work is strictly based on need.
“We do not
discriminate against anyone. We do not ask for the background of those
children, where their parents come from, or whether their fathers have died or
anything like that,” said Haghamed. “They are orphans, and like anybody else,
they deserve to be looked after.”
Avigdor Feldman,
a prominent Israeli civil and human rights lawyer, said it was hard to judge
the chances of success for IRW, who he was representing. He said he expected a verdict
within the next three to six month.
“The whole
attitude [from the Israeli government] towards IRW is quite strange and
unexplainable,” Feldman said.
“This is the
duty of an occupying power to help the population – to help them economically,
with health, with schools. And the government is not doing it. There is a
vacuum which IRW and other organisations fill and try to help.”
The Guardian has
contacted the Israeli ministry of defence for comment.
Israel has a
tense relationship with many humanitarian groups operating in the Palestinian
territories. In a separate but similar case, the Gaza director of a Christian
charity, World Vision, was accused of diverting funds to Hamas. The claims were
also based on secretive testimony from intelligence officials, and internal
World Vision investigations and an inquiry by the Australian government found
no evidence that money had been misused.
As well as the
high court case in Israel, IRW has been fighting to uphold its reputation on
other fronts.
In 2012, one of
its founders, Essam al-Haddad, resigned from IRW and joined the then Muslim
Brotherhood presidential candidate Mohamed Morsi in Egypt, leading the charity
to reiterate that it had no political agenda.
Two years later,
the United Arab Emirates, a country deeply suspicious of the Muslim
Brotherhood, also designated IRW, along with 85 other organisations, as
terrorist groups – a case the IRW also criticised as flawed by a lack of
available evidence.
Most recently,
the charity announced last week that a trustee had resigned after he was found
to have made antisemitic comments on Facebook, including labelling Israeli
authorities as “grandchildren of monkeys and pigs”.
The IRW chief
executive, Haghamed, said he had been “appalled” by the “unacceptable” posts.
Ask if the scandal had come at a particularly bad time ahead of the Israeli
court case, he replied: “To be honest, for any charity, there is no good time
for bad news … any bad news, any time, is really bad.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/27/islamic-relief-to-contest-israeli-terrorism-allegations-in-court?utm_source=iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1394155_
--------
Iran: Prisoner,
Kamil Ghaderi-Aghdam Executed in Naghdeh
22 July - A
prisoner sentenced to retribution in kind (death) for "premeditated
murder" has been executed in Naghdeh Prison.
According to
Iran Human Rights, a prisoner on death row was executed in Naghdeh Prison this
morning. The identity of the prisoner has been established as Kamil
Ghaderi-Aghdam, who was sentenced to retribution in kind for "premeditated
murder".
An informed
source told IHR: "Many efforts were made to save Kamil Ghaderi, and two
nights ago, a large number of local elders went to the victim's family home to
request their consent. A group of civil activists also gathered outside the
prison gates last night, but the victim's family did not consent."
According to the
Kurdpa website, which first broke news of the execution, Kamil Ghaderi-Aghdam
was from the village of Dilzeh in Piranshahr, West Azarbaijan Province.
At the time of
publication, the execution of this prisoner has not been announced by local
media or officials.
According to
Iran Human Rights Annual Report on the Death Penalty in Iran, at least 225 of
the 280 of those executed in 2019 were charged with "premeditated
murder."
As there are no
legal distinctions made between murder and manslaughter, whether voluntary or
involuntary in Iran, those charged under the umbrella term of “premeditated
murder” will receive the death penalty regardless of intent (mens rea) and the
circumstances.
--------
Iran continues
execution of Kurdish prisoners to little international outcry
22 July – While
Iran halted this week the executions of three young men linked to deadly fuel
protests in November, the government continued to carry out death sentences of
Kurds without much apparent notice among the international community.
"Unfortunately,
five Kurds were executed in the prisons of Urmia and Kermanshah in the past few
days. Another inmate, Hussein Osmani, who is sentenced to 30 years of
imprisonment, was threatened with the death penalty," Jila Mostajer,
manager of the human rights watchdog Hengaw, told Kurdistan 24 on Tuesday.
Her organization
later specified in a report that Osmani had been told he would be put to death
this week.
She said that
this threat was particularly concerning because it fits a pattern of events
that have ended in the death of other political prisoners like Mansour Arvand,
whom the courts initially handed a life sentence but was later executed.
A relative of
Osmani told Kurdistan 24 that authorities had arrested him along with Sabir
Sheikh Abdullah and Diyako Rasoulzadeh, both of whom were executed on July 14
after being convicted of involvement in a bombing attack in Mahabad in a trial
rights groups have widely described as "unfair."
Read More: Iran
executes Kurdish political prisoners convicted in ‘unfair’ trial: Reports
"He was
tortured into giving a false confession," the relative said, adding that
the family now fears that Osmani could face the same fate.
Multiple human
rights groups credibly charge that Iranian interrogators routinely obtain
confessions from prisoners through the use of torture, including for alleged
crimes for which they are later executed.
On Wednesday,
after Mostajer's comments to Kurdistan 24, Hengaw also reported that another
ethnic Kurd named Kamil Qaderi Aqdam who was arrested two years ago on charges
of murder that the organization claims were trumped up, was hanged in the
central prison in West Azerbaijan province on July 22.
This brings the
total number of executions of Kurdish prisoners in just a week up to at least
six, according to Hengaw.
These
executions, said Mosajer, "lead us to one critical point: Discrimination
again Kurds. Kurds make the majority of those executed in the recent years, yet
they have been reported in the media rarely."
She explained
that the government and Persian-centric media leaves Kurdish views and even
Kurdish deaths woefully underreported.
"Meanwhile,
the Kurds have no independent media outlet. Most of the outlets are owned by or
affiliated with political parties, which has made them rather loyal to the
party political lines."
Another rights
group, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN), said in a tweet that the
death sentences of two prisoners, Asad Keshavarz and Amin Safarkesh, were
carried out in Orumiyeh Central Prison on July 20.
"Due to the
fact that Iran is a dictatorship now, executions and politically motivated
death penalties have become a tool for their oppressions," Mostajer said,
noting that that at least 12 Kurds were executed during the Islamic month of
Ramadan and several more remain on death row.
"Iran is
both internally and internationally under a huge pressure, and that could lead
to a massive public protest across the country at any given moment," she
said.
"The
government in Tehran believes that such collective executions or rapid hangings
could spread fear among people and prevent them from taking to the
streets."
She puts the
blame not only on Iran's government and media, however, saying "Kurds
themselves have not worked efficiently on this issue," adding that the
majority of Kurdish executions have not even been reported to international
human rights group like Amnesty International, which has often actively
publicized them after receiving such information
Amnesty called
on the UN and its member states in a report last week to quickly intervene to
save the lives of those at risk of execution and urge Iran to stop using the
death penalty to sow fear and silence political opposition. It also expressed
concerns that death row prisoners from Iran's disadvantaged ethnic minorities
such as Kurds are at particular risk, given the authorities' pattern of
executing prisoners from these groups when concerned about the eruption of
civil unrest.
"Iran's
increasing use of the death penalty as a political weapon for repression is
alarming and warrants the immediate attention of the international
community," read the report.
The nation
consistently ranks among those with the highest number of deaths sentences it
issues and implements, with minority groups being significantly overrepresented
among those killed.
This week, however,
Iran's judiciary halted the executions of three young men convicted in
connection with November's mass anti-government protests following a massive
social media campaign.
The Persian
hashtag #do_not_execute was used five million times after it was announced on
Tuesday that the Supreme Court had upheld their death sentences, the BBC
reported.
Conversely, the
execution of Kurdish prisoners and the 10-year jail sentence handed to Kurdish
language teacher Zahra Mohammadi last week does not appear to have gotten much
attention from the wider Iranian public.
Arash Saleh, the
Washington Representative of the Kurdish opposition group known as the
Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), told Kurdistan 24 that the
structural oppression of Kurds is not limited to policies of the current
government.
"There are
strong tendencies in current mainstream Persian media, Persian civil society,
Persian journalists, and Persian activists to suppress the voice of Kurds in
all levels," he charged, adding, "These tendencies are still strongly
under the effect Persian supremacism and cannot let the upper hand position of
Persian culture go in Iran."
As a result, he
said, near-daily persecution of Kurds "never make the headlines... while a
less severe situation such as the three months imprisonment of a Persian
activist will stay on headlines of almost all leading Persian news agencies and
websites across various political aisles for a long time."
https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/7cdc5034-7596-475a-a995-499b639e91a5
--------
Iran:
21-year-old Majid Choupani executed in Qazvin Prison
25 July - A
prisoner, sentenced to qisas (retribution in-kind) for "premeditated
murder" was executed in Qazvin Central Prison (Choubindar) on July 14,
making him the second person to have been executed in Qazvin Prison that day.
According to
Iran Human Rights, on the morning of Tuesday, July 14, a 21-year-old prisoner
on death row was executed in Qazvin Central Prison. The identity of the
prisoner has been established as Majid Choupani, who was sentenced to
retribution in kind for "premeditated murder".
"Majid
Choupani was sentenced to death for the murder of a Nissan driver," an
informed source told IHR. "In his confession, he said that the man
intended to sexually assault him." The source also said that the incident
took place in an abandoned field in Takestan, Qazvin and that the murder weapon
was a piece of rock.
The source
added: "Majid had said that I didn’t strike him with the intention of
killing him and only intended to hit him to get rid of him, but was forced to
flee. When he realised that he didn’t have a pulse and was dead, he was scared
and shocked and ran away. After 40 hours, in his own words, he felt guilty and
surrendered and confessed at the Qazvin police station."
Majid Choupani
was a Qazvin native and was working as a labourer prior to his arrest.
On July 15, Iran
Human Rights published news of the execution of Ali Tavousi, a 35-year-old
prisoner who had also been sentenced to retribution in kind for "premeditated
murder”. News of Majid’s execution makes him the second person to have been
executed in Qazvin Prison that day.
The execution of
these two prisoners has not been announced by domestic media and or officials
at the time of publishing this article.
According to
Iran Human Rights’ annual report, at least 225 of the 280 of those executed in
2019 were charged with "premeditated murder."
As there are no
legal distinctions made between murder and manslaughter, whether voluntary or
involuntary in Iran, those charged under the umbrella term of “premeditated
murder” will receive the death penalty regardless of intent (mens rea) and the
circumstances.
https://iranhr.net/en/articles/4348/
--------
Iranian Supreme
Court Upholds Death Sentence for 5 Protesters in Isfahan
26 July - The
Supreme Court has upheld the death sentences of five protesters arrested at the
nationwide December 2017/January 2018 demonstrations in Khomeini Shahr,
Isfahan. Referring to the history of Islamic Revolutionary Courts violating the
principle of a fair trial and the use of torture to obtain forced confessions,
Iran Human Rights (IHR) strongly condemns the issuance and approval of these
sentences by the Revolutionary Courts and the Supreme Court.
IHR Director,
Mahmood Amiry Moghaddam, said: "In addition to the inhumanity of the death
penalty itself, we condemn the use of executions as a means of repressing
protesters and creating fear in society. We call on the international community
to put pressure on the Iranian authorities to stop these executions.” Referring
to the unprecedented mass “don’t execute” hashtag campaign, which was started
by social media users, Amiry Moghaddam also stressed the need for collective
action to echo the voice of the protesters to the world.
The five
protesters sentenced to death are: Mehdi Salehi Ghaleh Shahrokhi, Mohammad
Bastami, Majid Nazari Kondari, Hadi Kiani and Abbas Mohammadi. Confirming the
news, one of the defendant’s lawyers said that their death sentence had been
issued in February by Branch Two of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Isfahan.
According to the
judgment obtained by IHR, the Supreme Court has upheld the death sentences of
the five protesters on charges including “baghy”(rebellion) through effective
efforts and activities to advance the rioters’ goals, “moharebeh” (waging war
against God) through using firearms and intending to deprive the community of
security and shooting at officials, “Ifsad-fil-arz” (corruption on earth)
through disrupting public security and directing the rioters to disrupt public
order and safety and disturbing public opinion.” In addition, they have also
been convicted of other less serious charges including drug possession.
According to IHR
sources, the defendants had told the court that they had been tortured to make
false confessions.
Iran Human
Rights (IHR) previously warned of the possibility of protesters being sentenced
to death and executed after Isfahan’s chief justice, Mohammad Habibi announced
convicting eight protesters arrested over the last three years of “corruption
on earth” during a Friday Prayer sermon.
The
"corruption on earth" charge is one of the most ambiguous and serious
charges in the Islamic Penal Code, which carries the death penalty.
A more detailed
report on the case of the five men will be published on the IHR website, as
soon as some additional information has been confirmed.
https://iranhr.net/en/articles/4350/
--------
Iran: UN experts
call for the urgent release from prison of human rights defender with COVID-19
symptoms
GENEVA (22 July
2020) – Iran must release human rights defender Narges Mohammadi, reportedly
ill with coronavirus symptoms, and other arbitrarily detained individuals
before it is too late, a group of UN human rights experts* said today.
The group of 16
experts expressed grave concerns that Ms. Mohammadi appears to have contracted
COVID-19 in Zanjan Prison. Ms. Mohammadi has been in detention since 2015 on
charges that stem from her human rights work. She received a combined 16-year
prison sentence in May 2016, of which she will need to serve 10 years under
Iranian law.
“We are
extremely concerned for Ms. Mohammadi’s well-being. We previously raised
concerns that she and other individuals in Iranian prisons are at great risk if
they contract COVID-19 and we called for their immediate release,” the experts
said. “For those with underlying health conditions, such as Ms. Mohammadi, it
may have life-or-death consequences. The Iranian authorities must act now
before it is too late.”
They also called
on authorities to give Mohammadi the results of the COVID-19 test she took on 8
July, and to move her to a hospital for proper care. She showed the first
symptoms of COVID-19 on 29 June 2020 and her condition soon deteriorated and
led to a loss of consciousness on 5 July
2020.
Despite these
symptoms, and her repeated requests for medical attention, prison authorities
reportedly failed to provide such assistance. On 8 July 2020, her family went
to the Zanjan prosecutor’s office to request she is provided medical care, and
the same day she was tested for COVID-19. She has been denied access to the
results, despite one of her cellmates having been tested positive and others
having displayed symptoms of the disease.
“We also deplore
the publishing of a video by State-affiliated media which claims to portray Ms.
Mohammadi receiving a medical check-up by a doctor, reportedly to suggest that
she is in good health. This video represents a violation of Ms. Mohammadi’s
privacy rights and has no value as its content cannot be verified in any way”,
the experts stressed
The experts are
also worried that there may be more cases in prison, as prisoners previously
released on furlough are returned to prison, and a second wave of COVID-19 hits
Iran. There are longstanding concerns
over Iran’s ability to contain disease outbreaks in overcrowded and unhygienic
prisons.
On 16 April
2020, the experts commended Iran’s policy to grant temporary release to
prisoners to mitigate COVID-19 in prisons. However, the experts also raised
concerns that many human rights defenders like Ms. Mohammadi, as well as human
rights lawyers, dual and foreign nationals, conservationists and other
prisoners of conscience held without sufficient legal basis had not benefitted,
and urged the initiative be extended to them.
“Ms. Mohammadi should
not be in prison in the first place,” the experts said. “The Working Group on
Arbitrary Detention found that her detention is arbitrary and called for her
immediate release in 2017. Not only do the Iranian authorities continue to
imprison her, they have in the past year denied her contact with her family,
and are also seeking to prosecute her under new charges in order to continue
her unlawful imprisonment.”
“We yet again
call on Iran to immediately release Ms. Mohammadi, as well as all others who are
currently denied their right to liberty in contravention of Iran’s obligations
under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.”
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=26118&LangID=E
--------
Iran Jails 20
Protesting Downing Of Ukrainian Plane, None Sentenced From Military
25 July - Iran's
Revolutionary Courts have in the past six months sentenced twenty individuals
who participated in peaceful protests against the downing of a Ukrainian
passenger plane in January to prison terms totaling more than 23 years.
However, none of the people responsible for the incident have yet been named or
put on trial.
In the most
recent instance, Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran sentenced
women's rights and student activist Bahareh Hedayat to 4 years and 8 months in
prison.
Hedayat was
previously the spokesperson of the Central Council of Tahkim Vahdat -- an
Islamic student association -- and actively campaigned to gather one million
signatures for a petition to change discriminatory laws against women.
On January 8 a
few hours after Iranian missile attacks on two military bases in Iraq and while
the Iranian military was expecting an American counterattack, the Revolutionary
Guard fired two missiles at a Ukrainian airliner taking off from Tehran. The
attack killed all 176 onboard the plane.
The bases in
Iraq that were targeted before downing the plane hosted U.S. and other
coalition troops. Iran said the attacks were in retaliation for the targeted
killing of Qods Force Commander Qassem Soleimani near Baghdad Airport five days
earlier, on January 3.
After three days
of popular protests in various cities and the authorities' consistent denial of
any role in the tragic incident, the Revolutionary Guard finally accepted
responsibility for the attack on the plane but attributed it to "human
error". Iranian officials still maintain that one individual's
misjudgement caused the tragedy.
According to the
official reports of the Judiciary, tens of people were arrested in various
cities for participating in the peaceful protest rallies that only called for
the real reason for the crash to be announced.
In a tweet on
Saturday Hedayat said she received a four-year sentence for "participating
in the rallies outside Amir Kabir University and 8 months for "propaganda
against the regime" as well as her tweets.
Before her,
Mostafa Hashemizadeh, a student of Tehran University, had been sentenced to six
years in prison, 74 lashes and deprivation from certain social privileges for
participating in the same protests.
Some of the
families of the victims of the crash who live in Iran have said that they have
no hope of getting justice for their loved ones but some others who live abroad
have formed an association to bring the culprits to justice through
international courts.
https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iran-jails-20-protesting-downing-of-ukrainian-plane-none-sentenced-from-military/30746940.html
--------
Envoy Underlines
Iran’s Readiness for Further Security Cooperation with Iraq
Jul 28, 2020
Masjedi made the
remarks in a meeting with newly-appointed Iraqi National Security Advisor Qasim
al-Araji late on Monday, and emphasized the two neighboring countries'
commonalities.
Al-Araji, for
his part, appreciated Iran’s assistance to Iraq in fighting ISIL terrorists and
voiced pleasure over Iran's recent welcome to Iraqi high-ranking delegation
headed by Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi.
He said more
cooperation between the two countries will benefit both sides.
In a relevant
event in early July, Iran’s Military Attaché to Iraq Mostafa Moradian and
Senior Iraqi Lawmaker Mohammed Redha Al-Haidar in a meeting in Baghdad on
Friday explored avenues for expanding security and defense cooperation.
During the
meeting, the two sides underlined the need to implement the already signed
military and defense agreements, urging the need to promote further cooperation
in these areas.
Al-Haidar, also
Head of the Security and Defense Committee in the Iraqi parliament, appreciated
Iran’s support for Iraq during that country's fight against ISIL terrorist
group, and said that it was an example of brotherliness between Iran and Iraq.
The Iranian
military attaché voiced his country's continued support for the Iraqi nation
and government.
https://en.farsnews.ir/newstext.aspx?nn=13990507000284
--------
Khamenei-controlled
organization acquires part of Iran’s highest mountain
28 July 2020
An organisation
directly controlled by Iran’s supreme leader has acquired part of Mount
Damavand, the country’s highest mountain, according to an Iranian daily,
sparking criticism amongst Iranians.
The state-run
daily Hamshahri reported on Sunday that Iran's Endowments Organization has
acquired one eleventh of Mount Damavand and the slopes leading to the summit.
For all the
latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app.
The organization
is part of the Culture Ministry, but its head must be personally approved by
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Mount Damavand,
a potentially active volcano 5,600 meters high, is the highest mountain in Iran
and the highest volcano in Asia. It was registered as a national monument in
2008.
The acquisition
was completed with the consent of the country’s highest judicial authority, the
Supreme Court of Iran, Hamshahri said.
The ruling has
sparked criticism from Iranians on social media as well as from some officials.
The supreme
court issued the ruling without consulting the Forests and Pastures Organization,
Mohammad Rajab Ali Pisheh, an official at the Natural Resources Office of
Mazandaran Province, told Hamshahri.
“The country’s
natural resources are no longer enough, they have now come for Damavand,”
Iranian political analyst Alihossein Ghazizadeh tweeted.
“When the
regime’s pockets get empty, it will knock on every Iranian’s door and demand
something more. If we don’t act soon enough, all of Iran will be dedicated
towards keeping the regime in power,” Ghazizadeh added in the same tweet.
“The Islamic
Republic is plundering Iran’s natural resources and national lands with an
insatiable onslaught,” another user tweeted.
As with most
Iranian organizations under Khamenei’s direct supervision, the Endowments
Organization is accused of lack of transparency regarding its financial status.
The organisation
has never released a transparent report about its transactions, according to
Radio Farda.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2020/07/28/Khamenei-controlled-organization-acquires-part-of-Iran-s-highest-mountain.html
--------
Iran, Hezbollah
are unable to fully respond to increase in Israeli attacks: Experts
28 July 2020
Iran and its
proxies in Syria and Lebanon do not have the maneuverability to respond to
increasing Israeli attacks against them and are unlikely to carry out a
large-scale retaliation, said experts, ahead of the border skirmish between
Hezbollah and Israel on Monday.
Israel has upped
its attacks on Iranian targets in the region in recent months, striking Iranian
and Hezbollah positions in Syria. But Iran and its proxies still seem to be
following a strategy of non-escalation when it comes to Israel, said experts,
pointing to Iran’s limited capabilities in Syria.
For all the
latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app.
A month after
Israel last struck Iranian targets in Syria, fresh airstrikes attributed to
Tel-Aviv targeted on July 20 several Iranian interests near the capital
Damascus.
The alleged
Israeli attacks came in two waves, destroying weapons and ammunition warehouses
while killing five Iranian-backed non-Syrian and Syrian militiamen and wounding
four others in south and southwest Damascus, according to the Syrian Human
Rights Observatory.
Seven members of
the regime’s air-defense forces were injured, with two suffering serious
injuries.
“Hezbollah
announced one martyr at least but more could follow as Hezbollah rarely
releases names in one go,” said one source close to the party. Hezbollah’s
fallen fighter Kamel Mohsen was known by his nom de guerre Jawad. The Syrian
Ministry of Defense also announced that several soldiers were wounded as a
result of the Israeli airstrikes on the southwestern suburbs of Damascus.
The geographic
targets Israel chose for this strike were similar to previous attacks, namely
falling in the vicinity of Sayeda Zeynab, Qeswa, Mazzeh, Daraya, Quneitra
regions, on a regular basis, Syria expert Naswar Shaaban from the Omran Dirasat
Center told Al Arabiya English.
“The first
conclusion that can be drawn is that Iran does not have the capability to move
its equipment and fighters around freely, which means that its margin of
maneuver is severely limited by the Russians, within the capital Damascus,
which leaves it vulnerable to Israeli attacks,” Shaaban said.
In recent years,
Russia has established the rules of engagement for Iran and Israel in Syria,
turning a blind eye to Israeli strikes on Iranian interests in Syria while
preventing any retaliation by Iran or Hezbollah.
The Israeli
strategy in Syria primarily seeks to target equipment and weapons, rather than
military personnel and commanders, but the July attack appears to have been
different from a strategical standpoint, Middle East Strategy Intelligence
analyst Avi Melamed said.
Seeing an
opportunity to escalate strikes in Syria before the upcoming US elections, Israel
has upped its war on Iran and its proxies in Syria, said Brahim Beyram, a
Lebanese expert close to Hezbollah circles.
The November
presidential elections could usher in a US president less amenable to the
Israeli cause, and in the last few months dozens of attacks have targeted
Iranian interests there, said Beyram.
The most recent
attacks that took place in Syria, Beyram added, are part of the ongoing war
taking place between Iran, backed by its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah, and Israel.
“Israel wants to
stop Iran and Hezbollah from entrenching themselves in Syria. Iran is working
on creating a line of confrontation similar to the one it created in Lebanon.
Hezbollah also has several bases in Aleppo, Homs, Damascus and close to the
Lebanese border that it will not abandon,” Beyram said.
Beyram and
Melamed agree that Syria’s escalation cannot be dissociated from the covert war
taking place in Iran in the form of mysterious explosions and fires, the most
lethal of which being the recent blast at the Natanz enrichment site.
It is difficult
for Iran and Hezbollah to retaliate at this time given complex conditions at
home and around the region, Melamed said.
Hezbollah’s
mysterious retaliatory operation showed that both Iran and its Lebanese proxy
are treading carefully in these uncertain times, and that they want to maintain
any military operation’s scope and nature as limited as possible, so that they
will not find themselves in a full blown conflict.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2020/07/28/Iran-Hezbollah-are-unable-to-fully-respond-to-increase-in-Israeli-attacks-Experts.html
--------
Yemen
government, STC deal to implement Riyadh Agreement ‘positive step:’ Saudi FM
29 July 2020
The agreement
between Yemen’s government and the separatists Southern Transitional Council
(STC) to accelerate the implementation of the Riyadh Agreement is a “positive
step,” Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said in a tweet
Wednesday.
For all the
latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app.
“The agreement
by the Legitimate Yemeni Government and the Southern Transitional Council to
accelerate the implementation of the Riyadh Agreement is a positive step
towards reaching a wholistic and sustainable political solution in Yemen under
the auspices of the UN,” Prince Faisal said on his official Twitter account.
“This will strengthen trust between parties, allow the government to conduct
its affairs in Aden, and activate key institutions that will serve the Yemeni
people.”
Earlier in the
day, the Kingdom's Foreign Ministry announced that Saudi Arabia had proposed to
the Yemeni government and the STC a mechanism to accelerate the implementation
of the Riyadh Agreement which includes maintaining a ceasefire and de-escalation
between the government and the STC.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/gulf/2020/07/29/Yemen-government-STC-deal-to-implement-Riyadh-Agreement-positive-step-Saudi-FM.html
--------
North America
US acknowledges
killing civilian, wounding 3 others in Somalia
29 July 2020
The United
States says one of its airstrikes in Somalia earlier this year killed one
civilian and wounded three others.
“This admission
is the third case they have substantiated in 13 years of airstrikes in the
country,” Brian Castner, Amnesty International's senior crisis adviser for arms
and military operations, said in a statement. “Now that there has been an
acknowledgment of their actions, there must be accountability and reparations
for the victims and their families.”
The US Africa
Command (AFRICOM) made the announcement in its second quarterly report on
civilian casualties Tuesday.
“Our goal is to
always minimize impact to civilians. Unfortunately, we believe our operations
caused the inadvertent death of one person and injury to three others who we
did not intend to target,” AFRICOM Commander Army Gen. Stephen Townsend said in
a statement.
The airstrike on
February 2 was allegedly aimed at al-Shabab militants.
“We are getting
after a mutual threat in al-Shabab,” AFRICOM spokesman Air Force Col. Chris
Karns was cited as saying. “If we’re
found to have made a mistake, we will admit to it because accountability and
trust is key.”
The United
States las year acknowledged killing five civilians and wounding six others in
three separate airstrikes only after Amnesty International released an
investigation into its airstrikes in Somalia.
Under US
President Donal Trump, the number of airstrikes allegedly against al-Shabab and
Daesh militants has dramatically increased in the Somali peninsula.
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/07/29/630639/US-acknowledges-killing-civilian-in-Somalia
--------
US forces asked
to stay in bunkers as Iran fires missiles amid drills: Reports
28 July 2020
US military
forces deployed to the Persian Gulf kingdoms were reportedly asked to stay in
bunkers as Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) fired ballistic
missiles during normal military drills off the strategic Hormuz Strait.
Citing her
“sources” and those of the CNN, a reporter for the BBC wrote in a post on her
official page on Tuesday that US troops based in the United Arab Emirates
(UAE), Kuwait and Qatar had been briefly put on “high alert” due to “concerns”
over Iran’s missile activities.
Other sources
identified the facilities as al-Dhafra base in the UAE and al-Udeid air base in
Qatar, saying the American troops deployed there had been asked to stay in
bunkers.
US forces in
Qatar and the UAE “went on high alert early Tuesday and were asked to stay in
bunkers, due to intelligence indicators showing an Iranian ballistic missile
had been fired and possibly headed their way, US defense officials tell CNN,” a
Twitter user said, indicating that the US forces had misread the trajectory of
Iranian missiles.
The reported
high-alert notice came as Iran’s IRGC started the final phase of large-scale
aerial and naval drills, codenamed Payambar-e A’zam (The Great Prophet) 14,
involving the elite force’s Aerospace Division and Navy.
The maneuvers
were held in the general area of the Hormozgan Province, west of the strategic
Hormuz Strait, and the Persian Gulf.
The drills
featured missiles, vessels, drones, and radars, and are designed to practice
both offensive and defensive missions.
Tuesday saw the
Corps stage strikes against the life-size replica of a Nimitz-class US aircraft
carrier, which the American navy usually sails into the Persian Gulf through
the Strait of Hormuz.
The high-alert
notice came a week after Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali
Khamenei said Iran would definitely deliver a “counterblow” to the United
States over the assassination of top anti-terror commander Lieutenant General
Qassem Soleimani in January.
“The Islamic
Republic of Iran will never forget this issue and will definitely deal the
counterblow to the Americans,” Ayatollah Khamenei said in a meeting with
visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi in Tehran last week.
General
Soleimani, former commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force, was assassinated in a US
airstrike at Baghdad airport on January 3 upon an order by US President Donald
Trump.
The
assassination pushed Iran and the US to the brink of war.
Shortly after
the atrocity, the Leader warned about a pending “harsh revenge.”
The IRGC fired
volleys of ballistic missiles at two US bases in Iraq on January 8. According
to the US Defense Department, more than 100 American forces suffered “traumatic
brain injuries” during the counterstrikes.
The Corps,
however, says Washington uses the term to mask the number of the Americans, who
perished during the retaliation.
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/07/28/630624/US-troops-asked-to-stay-in-bunkers-as-IRGC-holds-massive-drills-in-southern-Iran-Report
--------
State Department
declares 'unwavering' commitment to seeking 'justice for the families' of US
citizens killed by ISIS
July 27, 2020
The State
Department said it has an "unwavering" commitment to bringing Islamic
State fighters who killed U.S. citizens to justice.
The agency sent
this message as the families of the dead renew calls for captors, some of whom
are being held in the Middle East, to be put on trial in the United States.
“Seeking the
safe return of U.S. citizens held hostage abroad and justice for the families
of those murdered by their captors is a hallmark of this administration’s
policy,” a State Department spokesperson told the Washington Examiner. “The
Department of State’s commitment to these goals is unwavering.”
Last week, the
parents of ISIS victims Kayla Mueller, James Foley, Peter Kassig, and Steven
Sotloff — all abducted and killed by members of ISIS — penned a joint op-ed in
the Washington Post urging the Trump administration to take action.
Recommended For
You
Poll warns
Republicans of North Carolina shellacking
“Some of the men
who allegedly committed these atrocities are now in U.S. military custody in
the Middle East. We implore President Trump, Attorney General William P. Barr,
and the Justice Department to have the detainees brought to the United States
to face trial,” the families wrote. “Like any grieving relatives, we want to
know the full truth about what happened to our loved ones, and we want to see
our children’s murderers held accountable. These things can happen only if the
suspects are put on trial before a jury in an American court of law.”
The families
said that ISIS terrorists such as Mohammed Emwazi, also known as “Jihadi
John," and ISIS founder Abu Bakr al Baghdadi have already been killed but
that "others are being held, right now, on U.S. bases in the Middle East.”
The families pointed to detainees such as El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda
Kotey, two British citizens known as “the Beatles” ("Jihadi George"
and "Jihadi Ringo") who have been linked to the imprisonment,
torture, and execution of U.S. hostages.
Elsheikh and
Kotey, currently being held in Iraq by the U.S. military, were part of an ISIS
terrorist cell responsible for the murders of U.S. humanitarian aid workers
Mueller and Kassig, U.S. journalists Foley and Sotloff, British humanitarian
aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, and others.
Last week, NBC
News reported Elsheikh and Kotey, who had previously denied knowing Mueller,
now admitted they had been involved in her imprisonment in Syria, with emails
showing that they also sent a ransom note demanding the Mueller family pay 5
million euros with a threat that if the money wasn’t paid, ISIS would send her
family “a picture of Kayla's dead body.”
Elsheikh and
Kotey still deny being involved in torture and executions, claiming to be
hostage “liaisons” while admitting they beat captives. The two men feigned
ignorance about who Mueller was in a 2018 interview with the BBC.
It is believed
that Baghdadi himself raped Mueller before she was killed. The Special Forces
team who took out Baghdadi in October 2019 dubbed their mission “Task Force
8-14," named for Mueller's birthday of Aug. 14, 1988.
“We implore the
Trump administration: Please, for the sake of truth, for the sake of justice,
order these Islamic State suspects transferred to the United States to face trial,”
the families of Mueller, Foley, Kassig, and Sotloff wrote last week.
Last year, FBI
Director Christopher Wray told the Senate that the FBI is “not giving up” on
bringing “the Beatles” to the U.S. to be prosecuted but warned that a
complicating factor is that, as British citizens, the courts must first
greenlight their transfer to U.S. custody.
Lady Hale of the
British Supreme Court ruled in March that the government should cease assisting
the U.S. with its case against Elsheikh and Kotey as long as the death penalty
remains on the table, since the United Kingdom has abolished capital
punishment.
“No further
assistance should be given for the purpose of any proceedings against Mr. El
Sheikh in the United States of America without the appropriate death penalty
assurances,” the U.K. court ruled.
Mueller’s
mother, Marsha, told NBC News that Elsheikh and Kotey “did so much horror to so
many people” and said that “they need to be brought here — they need to be
prosecuted.”
The Justice
Department did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
ISIS’s
short-lived reign in Syria and Iraq was marked by attempted genocide, extreme
violence, crucifixions, beheadings, slavery, the subjugation of women, and the
inspiration of like-minded terrorists worldwide. ISIS attracted thousands of
foreign fighters, including many from the U.S.
The State
Department told the Washington Examiner that there are approximately 2,000
foreign ISIS fighters currently detained in northeast Syria by the Kurdish-led
Syrian Democratic Forces and that the U.S. “continues to call on countries
around the world to follow our example and repatriate, prosecute when
appropriate, rehabilitate when possible, and reintegrate their Foreign
Terrorist Fighter nationals.” The State Department said that the U.S. has
repatriated eight adult citizens — five men and three women — and 15 minors
from Iraq and Syria. The spokesperson said, “We are aware of a very small
number of U.S. citizens present in camps in northeast Syria” and that the State
Department “is looking into these cases.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/state-department-declares-unwavering-commitment-to-seeking-justice-for-the-families-of-us-citizens-killed-by-isis?utm_source=iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1394155_
--------
Anti-fascists
linked to zero murders in the US in 25 years
27 Jul 2020
Donald Trump has
made warnings about the threat of antifa and “far-left fascism” a central part
of his re-election campaign. But in reality leftwing attacks have left far
fewer people dead than violence by rightwing extremists, new research
indicates, and antifa activists have not been linked to a single murder in
decades.
A new database
of nearly 900 politically motivated attacks and plots in the United States
since 1994 includes just one attack staged by an anti-fascist that led to
fatalities. In that case, the single person killed was the perpetrator.
Over the same
time period, American white supremacists and other rightwing extremists have
carried out attacks that left at least 329 victims dead, according to the
database.
More broadly,
the database lists 21 victims killed in leftwing attacks since 2010 , and 117
victims of rightwing attacks in that same period – nearly six times as much.
Attacks inspired by the Islamic State and similar jihadist groups, in contrast,
killed 95 people since 2010, slightly fewer than rightwing extremists,
according to the data set. More than half of these victims died in a a single
attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in 2016.
‘Leftwing
violence has not been a major terrorism threat’
The database was
assembled by researchers at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
(CSIS), a centrist thinktank, and reviewed by the Guardian.
Its launch comes
as Trump administration officials have echoed the president’s warnings of a
violent “leftwing” revolution. “Groups of outside radicals and agitators are
exploiting the situation to pursue their own separate, violent and extremist
agenda,” the attorney general, William Barr, said amid nationwide protests
following the death of George Floyd. A new justice department taskforce on
violent anti-government extremists listed “antifa” as a major threat, while
making no mention of white supremacy.
Defining which
violent incidents constitute politically motivated acts of terrorism, and
trying to sort political violence into leftwing and rightwing categories, is
inherently messy and debatable work. This is particularly true in the US, where
highly publicized mass shootings are common, and some have no clear political
motivation at all.
Stated political
motives for violent attacks often overlap with other potential factors,
including life crises, anger issues, a history of violent behavior and, in some
cases, serious mental health conditions.
While
researchers sometimes disagree on how to categorize the ideology of specific
attacks, multiple databases that track extremist violence, including data
maintained by the Anti-Defamation League, and from journalists at the Center
for Investigative Reporting, have found the same trend: It’s violent rightwing
attacks, not “far-left” violence, that presents the greater deadly threat to
Americans today.
“Leftwing
violence has not been a major terrorism threat,” said Seth Jones, a
counter-terrorism expert who led the creation of CSIS’s dataset. .
Categorizing
‘leftwing’ extremist attacks
Advertisement
Most of the
deadly extremist attacks the CSIS researchers categorized as “leftwing” were
killings of police officers by black men, many of them US military veterans,
who described acting out of anger or retribution for police killings of black
Americans.
These shooting
attacks include the murder of two police officers in New York City in 2014,
after Michael Brown and Eric Garner’s killings; and the murders of five
officers in Dallas, Texas, and three officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in
2016.
Some of the
gunmen who killed police had connections to black nationalist groups, which
extremism researchers at CSIS and elsewhere said they typically categorize as
leftwing, largely because in the 1960s, influential black nationalist groups
like the Black Panther party were anti-capitalist and considered part of the
New Left.
Making that
categorization is less straightforward today, some researchers acknowledge,
since some prominent black nationalist organizations express homophobic,
misogynistic and antisemitic views, values that set them in opposition to the
current American left.
Mark Pitcavage,
a senior fellow at the ADL’s Center on Extremism, noted that Gavin Eugene Long,
who staged an attack on police in Baton Rouge, had ties to black nationalism
and was also part of an offshoot of the sovereign citizens movement, an
anti-government ideology that is typically categorized as rightwing.
In several of
the high-profile leftwing attacks included in the CSIS list the only fatality
was the perpetrator. A mass shooting attack on a group of congressional
Republicans during a baseball practice outside of Washington DC, in 2017 left
the Republican congressman Steve Scalise seriously injured, and three other
people shot.
The gunman,
James Hodgkinson, 66, was the only one killed in the attack. Hodgkinson had
deliberately targeted Republicans and had expressed disgust with Trump.
Many of the
other leftwing attacks or plots in the CSIS database, including by anarchists,
environmental groups and others, resulted in no deaths at all. Often, leftwing
plots, particularly by animal rights activists, have targeted businesses or
buildings, “and their primary weapons have been incendiaries designed to create
fires or destroy infrastructure – not kill people,” said Jones, the researcher
who led the creation of the data set.
The one deadly
anti-fascist attack listed in the database occurred in July 2019, when Willem
von Spronsen, a 69-year-old white man, was shot dead by police outside an Ice
detention center in Tacoma, Washington. Authorities said von Spronsen had been
throwing molotov cocktails, setting flares, that he set a car on fire and that
he had a rifle. Local activists told media outlets they believed he had been
trying to destroy buses parked outside the facility that were used to transport
people who were being deported.
Von Spronsen,
who had previously been arrested at a protest outside the detention center, was
involved in a contentious divorce, and both a friend and his ex-wife had
described him as suicidal. In a letter he wrote to friends before his death,
Von Spronsen called detention centers “concentration camps” and said he wanted
to take action against evil, BuzzFeed News reported. “I am antifa,” he
reportedly wrote.
No one was
harmed in the attack except Von Spronsen, according to media reports.
Researchers who
monitor extremist groups at the Anti-Defamation League and the Global Project
Against Hate and Extremism said they, too, were not aware of a single murder
linked to an American anti-fascist in the last 20 to 25 years.
Heidi Beirich, a
co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, said some leftwing
groups were known for more radical and violent tactics in the 1960s, adding:
“It’s just not the case today.”
Mark Pitcavage
said he knew of only one killing, 27 years ago, that might potentially be
classified as connected to anti-fascist activism: the shooting of a racist
skinhead, Eric Banks, by an anti-racist skinhead, John Bair, in Portland,
Oregon, in 1993.
‘A false
equivalence’
Given the
discrepancies between the deadly toll of leftwing and rightwing violence,
American law enforcement agencies have long faced criticism for failing to take
the threat of white supremacist violence seriously, while at the same time
overstating the risks posed by leftwing protesters. After a violent rally in
California in 2016, law enforcement officers worked with neo-Nazis to build
criminal cases against anti-fascist protesters, while not recommending charges
against neo-Nazis for stabbing the anti-fascists.
Antifa activists
have been the targets of domestic terror attacks by white supremacists,
including in a terror plot early this year, in which law enforcement officials
alleged that members of the neo-Nazi group the Base had planned to murder a
married couple in Georgia they believed were anti-fascist organizers.
“Antifa is not
going around murdering people like rightwing extremists are. It’s a false equivalence,”
said Beirich.
“I’ve at times
been critical of antifa for getting into fights with Nazis at rallies and that
kind of violence, but I can’t think of one case in which an antifa person was
accused of murder,” she added.
The new CSIS
database only includes attacks through early May 2020, and does not yet list
incidents connected with the massive national protests against police violence
after Minneapolis police killed George Floyd, including the killings of two
California law enforcement officers by a man authorities say was linked to the
rightwing “boogaloo” movement.
Today, Jones
said, “the most significant domestic terrorism threat comes from white
supremacists, anti-government militias and a handful of individuals associated
with the ‘boogaloo’ movement that are attempting to create a civil war in the
United States.”
Daily
interpersonal violence and state violence pose a much greater threat to
Americans than any kind of extremist terror attack. More than 100,000 people
have been killed in gun homicides in the United States in the past decade,
according to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. US
police officers shoot nearly 1,000 Americans to death each year. Black
Americans are more than twice as likely to be shot by the police as white
Americans, according to analysis by the Washington Post and the Guardian.
But the
president’s rhetoric about “antifa” violence has dangerous consequences, not
just for anti-fascists, but for any Americans who decide to protest, some
activists said.
Yvette Felarca,
a California-based organizer and anti-fascist activist, said she saw Trump’s
claims about antifa violence, particularly during the George Floyd protests, as
a message to his “hardcore” supporters that it was appropriate to attack people
who came out to protest.
“It’s his way of
saying to his supporters: ‘Yeah, go after them. Beat them or kill them to the
point where they go back home and stay home afraid,’” Felarca said.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/27/us-rightwing-extremists-attacks-deaths-database-leftwing-antifa?utm_source=iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1394155_
--------
Arab World
Third Iraqi
protester dies of tear gas canister wound this week in Baghdad
28 July 2020
An Iraqi
protester died Tuesday after being shot with a tear gas canister in overnight
skirmishes with police in the capital, medical and security sources told AFP.
The clashes came
just hours after Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi instructed security forces
not to “fire a single bullet” at demonstrators, following the deaths of two
other protesters Monday morning in Baghdad.
But by Monday
evening, the confrontations in the capital’s main anti-government protest camp
of Tahrir Square had started anew.
For all the
latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app.
“He was shot in
the head and chest, and more than a dozen others were wounded. He was in
intensive care and died this morning,” a medic said.
The protests
began Sunday night in Baghdad and several southern cities, expressing fury at
poor public services as temperatures topping 50 degrees Celsius (122
Fahrenheit) have swelled demand for air-conditioning and overwhelmed
dilapidated power grids.
The protests
quickly turned violent in the capital, with two men dying on Monday morning
after being hit directly by tear gas canisters that are otherwise fired in
arced and less powerful trajectories to disperse protesters.
The deaths
threaten to reignite an unprecedented protest movement against government graft
and incompetence that erupted across Baghdad and southern Iraq in October.
Violence at
those grassroots rallies had left around 550 people dead and more than 30,000
wounded, and prompted the resignation of then-premier Adil Abdul Mahdi.
Abdul Mahdi was widely
criticized for failing to hold security forces to account and al-Kadhimi, who
came to power in May, vowed to be different.
He pledged to
carry out an investigation into protester deaths and promised dialogue with the
movement, which had largely died down following a surge in wider geopolitical
tensions and amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Following the
first two deaths, al-Kadhimi gave a rare televised address to say he had
ordered a probe into the violence and expected the results within 72 hours.
“Security forces
are not permitted to fire a single bullet against our brothers, the
demonstrators,” al-Kadhimi warned.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2020/07/28/Third-Iraqi-protester-dies-of-tear-gas-canister-wound-this-week-in-Baghdad.html
--------
Egypt’s al-Sisi
says Ethiopia’s Nile dam saga to ‘drag on’
28 July 2020
Egypt’s
president said Tuesday that talks over Ethiopia’s Nile dam would “drag on”, but
voiced hope for a negotiated settlement to the dispute.
“We are
negotiating and these negotiations will be a long battle,” President Abdel
Fattah al-Sisi said.
But, he added,
“we will succeed, God willing.”
For all the
latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app
Al-Sisi’s
comments, in a speech broadcast on state TV, came amid heightened tensions
between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia over the vast Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam
on the Blue Nile.
For nearly a
decade, talks between the three countries over the operation and filling of the
mega-dam have faltered.
Last week,
Ethiopia announced it had reached its first-year target for filling the
reservoir, a move that sparked anxiety in downstream Egypt and Sudan, who fear
for their vital water supplies.
Speaking at the
opening of an industrial park in eastern Cairo, al-Sisi said Egyptians’ fears
over the dam are “legitimate and natural” but warned the media against making
“threats” of military action.
“Be careful, you
are addressing public opinion,” he said.
The long-running
dispute has recently overflowed online, with Egyptians and Ethiopians sparring
in online posts over their rights to the Nile’s waters.
Cairo fears
Ethiopia’s dam would severely cut into its share of the Nile, which provides 97
percent of the water needs of more than 100 million Egyptians.
Ethiopia, which
began building the dam in 2011 and hopes it will produce vast amounts of
electricity for its slightly larger population, says it is vital for its
development.
It insists
downstream countries’ water supplies will not be affected.
Sudan hopes the
dam will help regulate flooding, but in June it warned that millions of lives
would be at “great risk” if Ethiopia unilaterally fills the dam.
The Nile, the
world’s longest river, is a lifeline supplying both water and electricity to
the 10 countries it crosses.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2020/07/28/Egypt-s-al-Sisi-says-Ethiopia-s-Nile-dam-saga-to-drag-on-.html
--------
UAE's Gargash
welcomes Saudi-Egyptian cooperation after meeting on Libya
29 July 2020
The United Arab
Emirates welcomes Saudi Arabia and Egypt’s decision to intensify their
cooperation in the region, according to a tweet by the UAE Minister of State
for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash on Wednesday.
Saudi Arabia’s
Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan voiced the Kingdom’s support for
Egypt after visiting Cairo and meeting with the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah
al-Sisi on Tuesday.
Egypt recently
permitted the deployment of ground troops to Libya, where Cairo, along with the
UAE, Russia, and France, backs the Libyan National Army (LNA) against its
Turkish-backed rival, the Government of National Accord (GNA)
The Egyptian
move came in response to Turkey sending thousands of Turkish and foreign
mercenary fighters to support the GNA, tilting the balance of power and
allowing the GNA to lift the siege of Tripoli and threaten the strategic
positions of Sirte and Jufra.
“The decision to
intensify Saudi-Egyptian cooperation to counter attempts by regional powers to
expand their influence in the Arab arena is promising,” said Gargash on
Twitter.”
“The growing
Arab tendency to regain the initiative after our field became positive and
permissible. The road is still bumpy, but the battle to fortify the Arab
regional system is getting stronger every day,” he added.
The GNA has
rejected the Cairo Initiative, a peace plan proposed by Egypt's President
al-Sisi and LNA commander Khalifa Haftar.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/gulf/2020/07/29/UAE-s-Gargash-welcomes-Saudi-Egyptian-cooperation-after-meeting-on-Libya.html
--------
Saudi Arabia
Crown Prince’s efforts united Yemeni government, STC: Khalid bin Salman
29 July 2020
Saudi Arabia’s
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s efforts successfully resulted in the Yemeni
government and the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) accepting a
resolution to implement the Riyadh Agreement, Vice Minister of Defense Prince
Khalid bin Salman said on Tuesday.
The Kingdom
announced on Monday that the two warring Yemeni parties agreed on a resolution
that stipulated the STC rescind its self-rule and appoint a governor for Aden,
the formation of a new government which will equally represent the north and
the south of Yemen, and tasking the Yemeni Prime Minister with forming a
government within 30 days, Saudi state news agency SPA reported citing the
official.
For all the
latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app.
The STC
spokesman Nizar Haitham later announced on Twitter that the council’s
“abandonment of self-rule so that the Arab Coalition can implement the Riyadh
Agreement.”
Prince Khalid
said in a series of tweets: “The Crown Prince's efforts have succeeded in
bringing together the Yemeni government and the Southern Transitional Council
in accepting the proposed mechanism by the Kingdom to implement the Riyadh
agreement, and achieve lasting peace, security, and prosperity for Yemen.”
He added: “KSA's
efforts in bringing together Yemeni political leaders and their points of view
closer, and reaching consensus on the mechanism for implementing the Riyadh
Agreement shows the possibility of resolving Yemeni differences through
dialogue without the use military force.”
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/gulf/2020/07/29/Saudi-Arabia-Crown-Prince-s-efforts-united-Yemeni-government-STC-Khalid-bin-Salman.html
--------
EU lawmakers
concerned bin Salman may kill ex-rival in Saudi jail
29 July 2020
The largest bloc
at the European Parliament says it has concerns that Saudi Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman may attempt to kill his predecessor and onetime rival,
Mohammed bin Nayef, in custody.
In a statement,
the European People’s Party (EPP) called for the immediate disclosure of the
fate of bin Nayef and his protection from murder by the heir to the Saudi
throne, the Doha-based Al Jazeera broadcaster reported on Tuesday.
The group said
it has obtained evidence suggesting that bin Nayef’s health condition has
deteriorated in Saudi jail.
The EPP
described bin Nayef’s continued detention as a source of concern for Europe,
urging bin Salman to refrain from eliminating his critics and political rivals.
Bin Salman
became Saudi Arabia’s crown prince on the back of a 2017 palace coup that
ousted bin Nayef.
Since his
ouster, bin Nayef has effectively been under house arrest and prevented from
leaving the kingdom.
In March, he was
arrested as part of a renewed purge of royal family members over an alleged
coup attempt to unseat King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and his son.
The Washington
Post revealed earlier this month that bin Salman was preparing a set of
corruption and disloyalty charges against bin Nayef to demand a $15-billion
settlement from the detained prince.
Meanwhile, just
last week a campaign was launched on Twitter, with users posting thousands of
tweets all of which blamed bin Nayef and his long-time aide for wide-spread
corruption, in an apparent bid to discredit him ahead of a possible indictment.
Some reports
predict that bin Salman — the kingdom’s de facto leader — will ascend to the
throne before the 2020 US presidential election amid uncertainty over the
health condition of his hospitalized 84-year-old father.
Nabeel Nowairah,
an independent researcher of the Persian Gulf Arab states, told Asia Times
newspaper recently that the Saudi crown prince would take control of the
kingdom by the end of the year.
“Almost everyone
is in detention, the important guys,” he said. “Bin Nayef himself is in
detention – they’re all not allowed to leave. And there are dozens of princes
who are not allowed to travel outside the country and whose movement is
monitored. I think everything is under control at the moment.”
Bin Salman is
the architect of Saudi Arabia’s bloody war on Yemen and the prime suspect in
the brutal killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the kingdom’s
consulate in Istanbul in October 2018.
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/07/29/630647/EU-Saudi-Arabia-bin-Nayef-bin-Salman-
--------
Israel Says It
Thwarted a Hezbollah Raid at Lebanon Border
By Isabel Kershner
July 27, 2020
JERUSALEM — The
Israeli military said Monday that it had thwarted a raid by a Hezbollah
“terrorist squad” in a disputed area along its northern border with Lebanon,
resulting in an exchange of fire that capped days of mounting tension there.
An Israeli
military spokesman said that a small squad armed with assault rifles had
crossed an unfenced section of the boundary into Israel by a few yards.
Israeli forces
responded, firing small arms, tank guns and then artillery, the spokesman, Lt.
Col. Jonathan Conricus, said. The squad fled back into Lebanon, he said, and
then fired back at Israel.
Hezbollah, the
Lebanese militant organization, denied that there had been an exchange of fire,
saying the only firing had come from the Israeli side.
“Everything that
the enemy’s media is claiming in terms of foiling an infiltration operation” is
“absolutely not true,” Hezbollah said in a statement. “It is an attempt to
invent false and mythical victories.”
No casualties
were reported by either side.
Israel had been
bracing for retaliation from Hezbollah since the killing of one of its
operatives in a strike in Syria last week that was attributed to Israel.
Hezbollah said
Monday that retaliation was still coming, as well as retaliation for the
shelling on Monday. Lebanese television reported shelling near the Lebanese
village of Kafr Shuba.
“The Zionists
only need to continue waiting for the punishment for their crimes,” the
Hezbollah statement said.
On Monday
afternoon, amid preliminary reports of explosions, smoke and cross-border fire,
the Israeli military instructed residents of northern Israel to remain indoors
and closed roads in the area. But the restrictions were lifted less than two
hours later, a sign that calm had been restored and an apparent indication that
Israel did not intend to prolong the confrontation.
The events took
place in the vicinity of Shebaa Farms — known in Israel as Mount Dov — a strip
claimed by Israel, Lebanon and sometimes Syria near the intersection of all
three nations and adjacent to the Golan Heights.
Israel’s defense
minister, Benny Gantz, had visited the northern border on Sunday as
anticipation of a retaliatory attack by Hezbollah grew.
Syria’s
state-run news agency, SANA, reported that Israeli aircraft had fired rockets toward
southern Damascus last Monday night, July 20. Though Israel rarely takes
responsibility publicly for specific strikes, it has acknowledged carrying out
scores of attacks aimed, it says, at preventing the transfer of sophisticated
weapons from Iran to Hezbollah via Syria.
After last
week’s strike on an ammunition depot near the Damascus airport, Hezbollah said
that one of its operatives, Ali Kamel Mohsen, was killed in an act of “Zionist
aggression.”
The killing
appeared to violate informal rules of engagement between Israel and Hezbollah.
In recent years,
Hezbollah has refrained from killing Israelis while Israel has largely avoided
killing Hezbollah fighters in Syria. Both sides want to press their points
while avoiding a war that could devastate Lebanon and Israel.
In a television
interview on Sunday, Naim Qassem, the deputy secretary general of Hezbollah,
described the Hezbollah fighter killed in Syria as a martyr and said the group
would uphold the rules of engagement.
“The deterrence equation
with Israel is standing,” he said on the Arabic news channel Al Mayadeen.
“Amending or changing the rules of engagement or the deterrence equation are
not on our agenda.”
Israel contends
that Hezbollah, with Iran’s help, is trying to build a fleet of
precision-guided missiles, which Israel considers a red line. Last August, an
Israeli drone struck a building near Beirut that Israeli officials said
contained machinery for making those missiles.
Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that officials were closely monitoring the
situation in the north.
“Hezbollah needs
to know that it’s playing with fire,” he said. “Every attack against us will be
answered with great might.”
He said that
Israel “will not allow Iran to entrench itself militarily on our border with
Syria” and warned that “Lebanon and Hezbollah will bear responsibility for any
attack” originating from Lebanese territory.
Israel and
Hezbollah fought a devastating, monthlong war in 2006. There have only been
sporadic clashes across the Israel-Lebanon border in recent years.
Monday’s events
came as many Israelis, largely barred from traveling abroad because of a spike
in coronavirus infections, were vacationing in the north.
Adam Rasgon
contributed reporting from Jerusalem, and Vivian Yee from Beirut.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/27/world/middleeast/israel-hezbollah-lebanon-fighting.html?utm_source=iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1394155_
--------
Africa
UN, AU urge
Darfur troop deployment to protect civilians after wave of deadly attacks
29 July 2020
The joint
UN-African Union mission in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region urged the government
Tuesday to deploy troops there “as soon as possible” following a wave of deadly
attacks on civilians.
The UNAMID call
came a day after the United Nations reported a massacre of more than 60 people
in the impoverished region.
On Sunday, Prime
Minister Abdalla Hamdok said the government would send security forces to the
western desert region to “protect citizens and the farming season.”
UNAMID said
Tuesday that it “hopes that this force will be fully deployed as soon as
possible and will be adequately equipped and trained to protect all residents
of Darfur without exception.”
“The civilian
population in Darfur has endured enough suffering, and they deserve to live in
peace and tranquility without fear of being attacked,” it said in a statement.
For all the
latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app.
Conflict broke
out in the region in 2003 when ethnic minority rebels staged an uprising
against the government of then-president Omar al-Bashir, citing marginalization
and discrimination.
Khartoum
responded by unleashing the feared Janjaweed militia, mainly recruited from
Arab pastoralist tribes, in a scorched earth campaign that left 300,000 people
dead and displaced 2.5 million.
Violence in
Darfur has eased since al-Bashir’s ouster by the army amid mass protests
against his rule last year.
The new
government and a coalition of rebel groups including Darfur factions had signed
a preliminary peace deal in January.
But the UN’s
humanitarian coordination office OCHA has reported a wave of violence over
recent days, with villages burned and markets and shops looted.
The attacks have
sparked protests by residents demanding authorities step in to protect them.
Interior
Minister Altraifi Idriss said Sunday that troops based in Khartoum would be
sent to Darfur with a mandate to “use force to protect civilians and their
properties.”
Analysts say the
new wave of deadly violence is an attempt to sabotage the country’s fragile
transition after the fall of al-Bashir, who is accused of genocide over the
conflict.
In Saturday’s
assault, hundreds of armed men in pickup trucks descended on Masteri, a town
largely inhabited by farmers from non-Arab minority groups, some 50 kilometers
(30 miles) from the West Darfur state capital El Geneina.
The attackers
looted and torched houses, killing more than 60 people, including eight women,
mostly from the Masalit ethnic group, it said.
The vast arid
region has seen persistent conflict over land and water, with nomadic Arab
herding tribes clashing with minority African farming communities that largely
depend on cereals, tobacco and oranges.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2020/07/29/UN-AU-urge-Darfur-troop-deployment-to-protect-civilians-after-wave-of-deadly-attacks.html
--------
Libya’s LNA:
Turkey sending mercenaries of various nationalities, not only Syrians
29 July 2020
Turkey is not
only sending Syrian fighters to Libya but mercenaries of various nationalities,
Libyan National Army (LNA) spokesman Khaled al-Mahjoub told Al Arabiya on
Tuesday.
He added that
the LNA was continuing its reinforcements to defend the country’s “oil
crescent,” the central region that contains over 60 percent of Libya’s oil,
stressing that Turkey, Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood were mainly focused on
the “oil crescent.”
For all the
latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app.
A recent report
by Somali media said that Turkey and Qatar recruited thousands of Somali
mercenaries to fight in Libya alongside the Government of National Accord (GNA)
which Ankara supports.
Turkey had sent
thousands of Syrian fighters to support the GNA, according to the Syrian
Observatory, a war monitor.
Libyan conflict
Libya has
plunged into chaos since the 2011 toppling of dictator Moammar Gaddafi.
Clashes between
the two main warring parties in the country, the LNA, commanded by Khalifa
Haftar and the GNA, led by Fayez al-Serraj, have intensified recently.
Many foreign
powers have backed different sides of the conflict with varying degrees of
support, with the most prominent countries being Turkey backing the GNA and
Egypt backing the LNA.
The possibility
of further escalating the conflict in the North African country increased after
Egypt’s parliament authorized the deployment of troops outside the country,
allowing Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to act on his threat of
military action against Turkish-backed forces in Libya.
Turkish media
outlets said Ankara put in place a plan to increase its forces and military
equipment in Libya to confront Egyptian forces in case Cairo decides to
intervene.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/north-africa/2020/07/29/Libya-s-LNA-Turkey-sending-mercenaries-of-various-nationalities-not-only-Syrians.html
--------
Turkey still
mobilizing forces in Libya, LNA ready on frontlines: LNA spokesperson
27 July 2020
Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is still mobilizing forces, including both
Turkish troops and foreign mercenaries, in Libya, and he wants to impose his
power and normalize his involvement in the Libyan crisis before any upcoming
negotiations, the spokesperson of the Libyan National Army (LNA) Major General
Ahmed al-Mismari said on Monday.
Turkey backs the
Government of National Accord (GNA), which has been battling with the LNA for
control of the country in a conflict that has sucked in regional players.
For all the
latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app
According to
al-Mismari, Ankara continues to send thousands of fighters to Libya ahead of an
expected upcoming confrontation over the key strategic positions of Sirte and
Jufra in the center of the country.
Turkey is
“moving thousands of mercenaries and terrorist fighters, as well as thousands
of Turkish soldiers, into [Libya’s] western region. Erdogan wants to impose his
power in Libya, or involvement in the Libyan crisis, as a reality that should
be accepted in any upcoming negotiations,” al-Mismari said.
The Major
General also said the LNA is ready on the frontlines and has sent the
appropriate reinforcements to its forces.
“We are
reinforcing all our forces present there with all kinds of arms. The latest was
[sending reinforcements to] the coastal defense system for ship control,” he
added.
Turkey has put a
military plan into place in anticipation of a possible Egyptian intervention in
Libya, according to a report published last week which cited unnamed government
officials.
The escalation
took place after Egypt’s parliament authorized last week the deployment of
troops outside the country, allowing Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to
act on his threat of military action against Turkish-backed forces in response
to their eastward advances in Libya.
Al-Mismari also
said that LNA Commander Khalifa Haftar “is personally supervising all the
forces’ movements, as well as the reinforcements and arms that have been moved
to Jufra, Sirte, and the al-Hilal oil region.”
Libya has
plunged into chaos since the 2011 toppling of dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
Clashes between
the LNA and the GNA, led by Fayez al-Serraj, have intensified recently.
Many foreign
powers have backed different sides of the conflict with varying degrees of
support, with the most prominent countries being Turkey backing the GNA and
Egypt backing the LNA. Turkey has been widely accused of using its position in
Syria to channel thousands of Syrian mercenaries to support the GNA in Libya.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/north-africa/2020/07/27/Turkey-still-mobilizing-forces-in-Libya-LNA-ready-on-frontlines-LNA-spokesperson.html
--------
3 migrants shot
dead in Libya after failed crossing to Europe
29 July 2020
Libyan
authorities shot dead three Sudanese migrants trying to flee detention late on
Monday, as they disembarked from a failed attempt to cross the Mediterranean to
Europe, a UN agency said.
“Staff from the
International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Khums, reported that local
authorities started shooting when the migrants attempted to escape from the
disembarkation point,” IOM said in a statement.
Reuters could
not immediately reach Libya’s interior ministry for comment.
The migrants
were among 70 disembarking from a vessel that was intercepted and sent back by
the Libyan coast guard, one of many such voyages undertaken during the summer.
War-ravaged
Libya is a major route for migrants seeking to reach Europe and now has an
estimated 654,000 of them, often living in cramped conditions with little
access to healthcare.
In recent
months, hundreds of migrants have been stopped at sea and their vessels sent
back to Libya despite the risk of violence there.
Both IOM and the
UN refugee agency UNHCR have said Libya should not be classified as a safe port
for migrants and that they should not have to disembark there. They want an
alternative scheme to take people rescued or intercepted at sea to safe ports.
IOM Libya chief
Federico Soda said 31 of the 70 migrants who disembarked were taken into
detention and the others were reported to have escaped. Two migrants died at
the scene of the incident and a third on the way to hospital.
“The use of
excessive violence results yet again in the senseless loss of life, amid a lack
of action to change a system that often fails to provide any degree of
protection,” Soda said in a statement.
In May, 30 mostly
Bangladeshi migrants were abducted in Libya and shot dead in a southern city by
an armed group.
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/07/29/630659/Libya-migrants-shot-dead
--------
Mali's
opposition rejects West African leaders' plan to end deadlock
28 July 2020
Mali’s
opposition coalition on Tuesday formally rejected a plan proposed by West
African leaders for ending a political crisis, raising the prospect of more
mass anti-government demonstrations in the coming weeks.
Tens of
thousands of people answered opposition calls for protests in early June over
contested local elections, perceived government corruption and incompetence.
Police killings of protesters further inflamed anger against President Ibrahim
Boubacar Keita, who the opposition insists should resign.
Heads of state
of members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) proposed
on Monday that the members of parliament whose elections were contested should
step down and that by-elections be held. It also called for a government of
national unity and an inquiry on the deaths.
President Keita
responded with a cabinet reshuffle late on Monday, naming six ministers to core
positions, including Tiebile Drame as foreign minister and General Ibrahim
Dahirou Dembele as defense minister. They are tasked with negotiating with the
opposition to form the government of national unity.
But the plan was
unlikely to be accepted by the M5-RFP opposition coalition, which has
spearheaded anti-Keita protests and already flatly rejected an earlier version
of the proposals from the bloc.
“The M5-RFP
states with regret that the conclusions of the Heads of State Summit do not
take into account the depth and gravity of the sociopolitical crisis that has
Mali’s future hanging in the balance,” it said in a statement.
It said the
proposals did not “correspond to the expectations and aspirations of the people
of Mali and violate the laws and constitution of Mali.”
The coalition
has said it would restart the protests on August 3 if their demands are not
met.
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/07/28/630594/Mali-opposition-reject-plan-West-African-leaders
--------
Boko Haram
Currently Attacking Borno Community
JUL 27, 2020
Boko Haram
terrorists are currently attacking Magumeri town in Borno State, multiple
security sources have told SaharaReporters.
Magumeri is
about 50km from Maiduguri, the state capital.
SaharaReporters
gathered that the insurgents came into the village in trucks and on motorcycles
around 2:15pm, shooting sporadically.
“Magumeri is
currently under Boko Haram attack, they came into the town few minutes ago and
started shooting sporadically,” said one of the sources.
The attack comes
days after the insurgents killed over 10 soldiers along the Maiduguri-Damboa
Highway.
Boko Haram
insurgency had caused over 35,000 deaths since 2009.
The terror group
wants an Islamic caliphate in Northern Nigeria.
http://saharareporters.com/2020/07/27/breaking-boko-haram-currently-attacking-borno-community?utm_source=iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1394155_
--------
Caught between
climate crisis and armed violence in Burkina Faso
by Sam
Mednick
27 Jul 2020
Ouahigouya,
Burkina Faso - Growing up in a community of farmers in northern Burkina Faso,
KI, who prefers that his full name not be used for safety reasons, never wanted
for much. His family ate what they sowed and bred enough cattle to feel
financially secure. But now, for the first time in his life, the 65-year-old
does not know how he is going to survive the months ahead.
Decades of
climate change and years of increasing violence by armed groups linked to
al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS), as well as local defence forces - a combination of
community volunteers armed by the government and groups who have taken up arms
on their own - have pushed KI's once comfortable family into poverty. Chased
from his farm by gunmen in November, he has been unable to cultivate.
Meanwhile, his herd of 30 cows, most of which scattered and got lost during the
attack, has been reduced to just two.
Now displaced,
his family lives between Titao town where the two cows remain and Ouahigouya,
Yatenga province's largest urban centre - a dry and dusty town with a buzzing
market surrounded by what was once a dense forest but is now just arid desert.
KI grew up approximately 65km (40 miles) from the town but this is the first
time he has ever lived there.
"I've never
been in this situation before," he explained, sitting in a dimly lit
office owned by a relative in Ouahigouya. "It's devastating," the
stoic father of 15 added in a rare show of vulnerability.
Seated upright
on the edge of a couch, KI allowed only occasional glimpses during the
hours-long conversation into the pain he felt after losing almost everything he
had spent his life working for.
The Sahel
region, an arid expanse below the Sahara Desert where Burkina Faso is located,
is one of the hardest-hit areas in the world by climate change. About 80
percent of the Sahel's farmland is degraded with temperatures rising 1.5 times
faster than the global average, according to the World Economic Forum.
Burkina Faso has
been affected by an increase in the scale and intensity of droughts, rain, heat
waves, strong winds and dust storms, according to a government report. The
country is the 20th most vulnerable to climate change and the 35th least ready
in the world, said Richard Munang, the Africa regional climate change
coordinator for the United Nations Environmental Programme. More than one-third
of Burkina Faso's land is degraded with degradation expanding at a rate of
360,000 hectares (889,579 acres) a year, he explained.
Climate change
has played a part in the "genesis of the crisis affecting the Central
Sahel" according to the International Crisis Group. Droughts in the 1970s
and 1980s changed agro-pastoral dynamics in favour of the grain and vegetable
farmers who were less harshly affected than the marginalised herder
communities.
Years of drought
devastated the cattle of herdsmen, who depended on moving their livestock from
one grazing ground to another. While farmers were also hit hard, they continued
producing food and with the surplus money, they invested in livestock and
employed the now impoverished herdsmen. According to the International Crisis
Group, this period was the origin of the marginalisation of pastoral
communities.
The climatic and
economic devastation in Burkina Faso has been compounded by armed conflict in
the region. Following the 2012 military coup in neighbouring Mali, armed groups
capitalised on the instability and captured parts of that country's north.
Since then, regional violence has reached unprecedented levels and sparked a dire humanitarian crisis in Mali, Niger
and Burkina Faso. More than one million people are internally displaced
across all three countries, according to
the UN.
Attacks linked
to al-Qaeda and ISIL have recently made Burkina Faso the epicentre of the
crisis. For years, the once peaceful nation largely stayed out of the conflict
inflicted on its neighbours. But in 2014, the overthrow of the country's
longtime president, Blaise Compaore, which also saw the dismantling of the
special forces unit, created a path for attacks. Violence that began in the
Sahel and northern regions has since spread across the country to the east and
west displacing almost one million people and killing almost 2,000 last year.
Armed groups exacerbate existing grievances over land, resources and ethnicity,
perpetrating violence and driving communities like KI's into desperation.
In better days
For as far back
as he can remember, KI's life was defined by farming.
As a young boy,
he helped his father cultivate maize, rice, sesame and millet in his small
village of Bouna in the country's Loroum province, where he lived until armed
men attacked it in November.
In the early
1960s, little effort on small plots yielded immense results, he recalled. One
harvest could produce food for a year, even providing enough crops to give as
gifts to less well-off neighbours.
"We didn't
use any pesticides, no special techniques or even donkeys or oxen, we'd do it
by hand," KI said.
Smiling
nostalgically, he remembered the harvests, where 30 to 40 extra staff were
needed to carry overflowing baskets of fruit and vegetables on their heads and
into the house from the farm. There was so much yield that each person had to
walk the approximately 5km (3 miles) several times in order to transport
everything, he said.
Back then,
people rarely needed money, they just lived off the land. The farm produced
more than enough for him and his 10 siblings to eat, and sufficient cotton for
the women to sew clothes. If anyone wanted to travel, people would either walk
or use a donkey.
Even though
school was free, most families only sent one child to be educated as the only
schools were in larger towns and education was not yet seen as a priority, he
recalled. KI's older brother went to school in Ouahigouya, while the rest of
the children remained on the farm.
Even when money
was needed, it did not exist like it does today. Until just after KI was born,
people paid for goods in seashells rather than paper money, he said.
But spotting an
old shell today is rare. Most have been bartered for goods, although some can
still be found in store windows - a reminder of easier, simpler times.
"When I
think about that period compared to now, people weren't suffering the way they
are suffering now," KI said.
'The harvest was
so bad'
Years of climate
change and violence have triggered a dire humanitarian crisis in the Sahel. In
April, the World Food Programme warned that the situation was "spiralling
out of control", with more than five million people facing severe food
insecurity across the Central Sahel region.
In Burkina Faso
there are more than two million severely food insecure people - from more than
680,000 at the same time last year - a greater number than in neighbouring Mali
and Niger.
In northern
provinces, such as Loroum, where KI has his farm, the nutritional situation is
expected to remain serious through July, according to a report from the UN's
Food and Agriculture Organization.
For years, KI
watched his family's economic and food security gradually decline. What began
as less consistent rainfall led to soil degradation and a shortage of crops.
Unable to
remember specific months or years, KI pegs all significant moments to who was
leading the country at the time. He recalls that when things took a stark turn
for the worse, Prime Minister Gerard Kango Ouedraogo was in office. That was in
the early 1970s.
One hundred
thousand people were killed in the Sahel as a result of droughts and famine in
the 1970s and 1980s.
"The
harvest was so bad that people had to look for leaves and fruit to eat in the
bush," recalled KI.
On at least one
occasion, the government flew food into the town of Titao, the largest near
KI's village, to try and alleviate the hunger. KI remembers lugging bags of red
millet back to his family via a cart pulled by a cow.
But when asked
how the hunger affected him, he felt more comfortable talking about its effect
on the other villagers. "We knew people during that time who only had one
meal a day … It was hard to watch the village suffer," he said.
As the years
went by, the land dried up, the trees disappeared and the rain became sparser.
Rains that used to begin in May now started in June or July. "It wouldn't
rain enough or sometimes when it rained you could go outside after and the
ground was dry," KI said.
By the time his
father died in 1985, the life he had known as a boy was gone. He and his older
brother took charge of the farm and became responsible for ensuring everyone
had enough to eat.
"After our
father died there was a lot of pressure to provide food," he said. KI
started rationing and storing crops to prepare for hard years and bought
fertiliser to moisten the soil.
Around this
time, some of his uncles who were struggling with their own farms moved to the
western town of Bobo-Dioulasso, where the government was distributing fertile
plots of land. But KI did not want to leave his family's farm and chose to
stick it out, some years producing plenty and others nothing at all, each year
having to save enough for the inconsistency that lay ahead.
Over time, it
became harder to find fertile land to cultivate and farmers had to venture
deeper into the bush to grow food.
Unlike when he
was a boy working with his father when good farmland was right beside his
house, KI's son would spend two months sleeping on the farm during the
harvests, because viable farmland was so much further away.
Sprawled on the
couch across from his father in the office in Ouahigouya, 26-year-old Soumaila
said he spent 10 years living on the farm during harvests.
"It's hard
if you go to the field, there's less security than sleeping at home and there
are snakes and bush animals," he said.
When Soumaila
left his village to attend school in Ouahigouya in 2014, one of his siblings
replaced him during the harvests. This continued until the family was chased
from the farm by gunmen last November.
Threats of armed
attacks
Located in one
of the epicentres of the violence, KI's community is one of many being squeezed
between the encroaching threats of climate change and violent attacks.
On May, 30 the
government said "terrorists" killed at least 15 people, including
children in an attack on a group of traders travelling between towns in the
north, not far from KI's village. On April 28, four women, one of whom was pregnant,
were killed by an improvised explosive device on their way from the market in
Titao commune, the same area as KI's farm, according to an internal security
report for aid organisations seen by Al Jazeera. It was the second explosion in
that area in a month.
The further
people have to go in search of land, the more exposed they are to the risk of
being kidnapped by armed men, said Mamoudou Ouedraogo, founder of the
Association for Education and Environment, a local aid group.
In October, a
mechanic from Titao town was kidnapped by "terrorists" while
searching for good terrain, said Ouedraogo. "We haven't heard anything
from him up till now," he added.
Ouedraogo has
also heard that women have been kidnapped and sometimes raped while searching
for firewood. Climate-related kidnappings are more prevalent in the rainy
season - beginning around May or June - because people travel further to
cultivate, he said. In 2019 abductions increased from the year before, although
he was not able to provide specific numbers.
With more than
20 years of experience working on environmental issues across the country,
Ouedraogo has noticed a direct correlation between climate change and people
being recruited into armed groups.
"When you
have lost everything, even food, you are on the edge of despair and as a
consequence [people] will be ready to find a solution wherever possible,
including terrorists," he said.
A lot of
recruits come from the most impoverished parts of the country, he added.
Yet some people
who have been attacked by them say that no matter how desperate they become
they would never join.
"If you're
being chased by people in these groups why would you join them? Even if they're
providing money or food," said Soumaila. "I would rather die."
KI has a small
house in Titao with his three wives and children, but he said it is too small
to hold everyone, yet he does not have enough money to build a bigger one.
Unable to farm, they are living off the food from last year's harvest and
relying on handouts from friends and family.
But when asked
about what happened when their village was attacked, KI does not want to
discuss it. Nor does he want to talk about the country's growing volatility,
which has forced him off his land and crippled his livelihood.
Instead, he sits
quietly, staring straight ahead, struggling to find solutions.
The lack of
financial stability has prevented him from building a new house, fixing his
motorbike and buying updated machinery such as an electric hoe, which would
make it easier to grow crops, he said. But most of all, it has made him worry.
This is the first year the family is unable to access their farm due to
insecurity. While they are farming on a smaller plot in the town they have been
displaced to, they will not cultivate enough to last the year and KI is worried
his family will not have enough food to survive.
Adapting to
climate change
Violence in the
Sahel has been largely linked to competition over natural resources, yet
international observers warn that when the government and aid groups provide
communities with climate change solutions, they need to come at it from a
different perspective.
"It is
essential to fight climate change and its effects, which include increased land
pressure, particularly in rural areas. But resource scarcity is neither the
only nor the determining factor behind rising insecurity," said
International Crisis Group in a report in April.
There are often
plenty of resources but authorities lack the ability or the legitimacy to
mediate conflicts over access to them, said the report. Climate policies should
focus more on adaptation rather than on the premise that resources are not
plentiful enough.
In an attempt to
take an adapted and stronger approach to climate change, approximately five
years ago, Burkina Faso's government altered the ministry of environment's name
to include the words "green economy and climate change", said Colette
Kabore, the ministry's director for the promotion of action for climate
resilience.
The ministry is
focusing on combining forestry and agriculture, something Kabore calls natural
regeneration.
If people want
to cut down trees, the government is advising not to cut down every tree in the
vicinity but to leave a few standing, she said. The ministry is also helping
people in climate-affected industries adapt to drought by encouraging them to
plant trees that can survive with less water as well as fruit trees, such as
Ballantines, to provide the population with more food.
It is also
promoting practices that do not pollute the environment, such as using
renewable energies like solar pumps, said Kabore.
In the past 10
years, pollution has had a devastating impact, particularly for cattle
breeders. Thirty percent of cattle die from ingesting plastic, said Ouedraogo
who runs the local environmental group.
Cows are an
important source of revenue for farmers, providing milk, meat and manure for
fertiliser. One cow can sell for approximately $300, so when farmers have fewer
cows, they have less financial stability.
Four years ago,
Ouedraogo lost nine out of 10 cows who died from ingesting plastic when they
grazed too close to the city, he said. "When you opened them up, their
stomachs were full of plastic."
His organisation
works with local communities in Titao and the neighbouring commune of
Ouindigui, to collect and transform plastic bags into floor tiles, handbags and
shopping bags. They plan to start making tables and benches.
The group also
tries to plant trees in areas where they have all been chopped down, but it is
hard. Many of the trees die because there is not enough water.
During a trip to
Ouahigouya in April, Al Jazeera visited an area that residents said was a plush
forest full of wildlife four decades ago. Today, it is an arid patch of land
marked with a few shrubs.
Over the years,
cattle breeders forced from the Sahel due to desertification came further south
and many parts of Ouahigouya suffered from overgrazing.
Cattle breeders
like KI say the lack of grass has made it impossible to care for as many cows
as they used to.
"In the
past if you had 10 cattle, now you can manage five," he said.
Since losing
almost all of his cows during the attack in November, KI does not want to
entertain the idea of selling the only two he has left. But if he cannot
produce enough food for the family this planting season, he might not have a
choice.
"If there's
no food, I'll have to sell them," he said, darting his sad eyes to the
floor.
"But I'm
still hoping some of them might return."
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/caught-climate-crisis-armed-violence-burkina-faso-200529144536869.html?utm_source=iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1394155_
--------
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islamic-world-news/a-pil-gujarat-high-court/d/122496