Tag: InternationalNews

{While the Nakba Law threatens publicly-funded institutions, there are signs of optimism at the grassroots level.}

Last week, as Israelis celebrated their Independence Day, Palestinians in the country’s south held the annual March of Return, walking to the site of one of hundreds of Palestinian villages destroyed between 1947 and 1949.

This mass displacement and dispossession, known as the Nakba (catastrophe), is commemorated internationally each May. But in recent years, Israeli authorities have attempted to clamp down on events to mark the Nakba – most notably through a 2011 change to legislation pertaining to budget allocations.

What became known as the Nakba Law introduced a new condition to the criteria for eligibility for state funding, stipulating that funding could be denied if the body in question – such as a Palestinian municipality – marked Israel’s Independence Day as a day of mourning.

In 2012, Israel’s Supreme Court rejected a petition against the Nakba Law, saying that it was too early to assess the impact of the legislation.

“The law is very vague, and does not set clear definitions, including for what constitutes ‘mourning’,” said Sawsan Zaher, a lawyer at Adalah, the legal centre for Arab minority rights, who litigated the unsuccessful petition. The ambiguity of the criteria “creates a huge chilling effect”, with local councils choosing not to sponsor Nakba events so as to avoid the risk of sanctions, Zaher told Al Jazeera.

The Nakba Law is not the only example of recent efforts by the Israeli government to legislate against political activism. The Anti-Boycott Law, passed by the Knesset in 2011 and upheld almost in its entirety by the Supreme Court in 2015, allows for civil lawsuits against those calling for boycotts, including of West Bank settlement products.

Culture Minister Miri Regev, meanwhile, has made clear her wish to deny funding to those deemed “disloyal” to the state. Last week, she declared a new initiative to force state-funded sporting and cultural institutions to fly the Israeli flag. To Zaher, such moves send “a very dangerous political message”.

Meanwhile, this year marked the first time that the March of Return took place in the Negev/Naqab, a decision heavy with political significance. The specific village where it occurred, Wadi Zubala, was destroyed in 1948 and its land given to kibbutzim. Its residents were ultimately forcibly displaced by the Israeli military to Umm al-Hiran – a village that is now also under threat, with the state planning to destroy it and establish a Jewish community in its place.

The “nucleus” of future residents for the new town comes from Eli, a West Bank settlement. According to an Israeli government website, the goal of their relocation is to “build a faithful community dedicated to …contributing meaningfully to the demographic balance, out of a Zionist vision of settlement”.

Holding this year’s March of Return in the Naqab “links it with the ongoing Nakba, a process of displacement that continues to this day”, said Nadim Nashif, the director of Baladna, a youth organisation and one of the groups that supported the march.

“The Naqab is the main area that suffers from home demolitions and oppression on a daily basis,” Nashif told Al Jazeera. The region is also a focal point for efforts to resist, such as the 2013 campaign to stop a government plan to expel tens of thousands of Bedouin Palestinian citizens.

The annual march is organised by the the Association for the Defense of the Rights of the Internally Displaced in Israel, which was founded in 1995 and represents an estimated 300,000 internally displaced Palestinian citizens of Israel.

The march has garnered support from a number of other political groups and NGOs, including Zochrot, an organisation whose work is focused on educating the Jewish Israeli public about the Nakba, and the Palestinian refugees’ right of return.

If the size and strength of the annual march is anything to go by – last week’s march drew several thousand attendees – efforts by the Israeli government to intimidate Palestinian citizens have been effective. But according to Nashif, there has been an increase in recent years in Nakba-focused activism all year round – especially by the younger generation.

In Kafr Birim, a village ethnically cleansed during the Nakba, former residents have set up camp, renovating the local church and holding various community events. In al-Ghabisiyya, as in other villages, young Palestinians have been returning, holding summer camps and discussing what it would look to rebuild their community.

Thus, while the Nakba Law remains a threat to publicly-funded institutions, there are signs of optimism at the grassroots level.

“The quantity of activities that are held annually, and participated in by thousands, reflects a more general growth in Palestinian patriotism and consciousness,” said Maria Zahran, a political activist and online fundraising techmaker at Adalah.

“It is a clear challenge to an Israeli establishment that seeks to restrict our political rights and freedom of speech.”

{PM says political climate of dispute has given the fighters space to operate in areas under nominal government control.}

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group has claimed responsibility for killing 70 Iraqi soldiers and a policeman in Ameriyat Fallujah, just west of the capital Baghdad.

The fighters stormed a compound in the city on Saturday with armoured vehicles. About 22 suicide bombers wearing explosive vests carried out the attacks.

The attack began around 4am (01:00 GMT) when at least nine ISIL fighters, including four suicide attackers, infiltrated the town, police sources said.

The fighters took up positions in a disused residential complex and exchanged fire with army, police and Sunni tribal fighters charged with holding areas retaken from ISIL.

A police colonel said the attack was aimed at distracting security forces from closing in on Fallujah, which Iraqi forces have ringed for more than six months.

Police sources said all the assailants were killed in a battle lasting about three hours, but Shakir al-Essawi, the mayor, told Reuters news agency that security forces were searching for one fighter they suspected was still hiding out.

{{Factory takeover plot}}

In the latest development, Iraqi forces announced on Sunday they foiled an attack aimed at taking control of a gas-cylinder factory in Taji, a town north of Baghdad.

Describing the incident, Brigadier-General Saad Maen, spokesperson for the interior ministry, said: “Iraqi forces, in the early hours of this morning, foiled an attack carried out by a suicide car bomber and followed by six suicide bombers wearing explosives-packed vests who targeted the gas-cylinders factory in Taji town, north of Baghdad.

“Iraqi forces managed to killed and destroy from a distance the suicide car bomber and engage with the six suicide bombers and kill them before they could reach the factory.”

Against this background of deadly bombings, especially in Shia-dominated areas of Baghdad, Haider al-Abadi, Iraq’s prime minister, has blamed the ongoing political crisis for hampering the fight against ISIL.

Abadi’s government has been crippled for weeks since many political parties resisted a cabinet reshuffle aimed at fighting corruption.

{{‘Climate of dispute’}}

In a televised speech on Saturday, Abadi said a “climate of dispute” had given the ISIL fighters space to operate in areas under nominal government control.

“The political conflict among politicians and their impact on the brave security forces permits acts of terrorism to occur,” he said.

Besides the Ameriyat Fallujah attack, an explosion on Saturday in southern Baghdad’s farm district of Madain killed two people and wounded seven, police sources said.

On Friday 16 people, mostly civilians, were killed north of Baghdad, a day after 17 soldiers died in blasts in the western city of Ramadi.

On Wednesday, suicide bombers killed at least 80 people, the highest daily toll in Baghdad this year.

Abadi dismissed claims that rival political parties were behind the violence and pinned the blame squarely on ISIL, which has been pushed out of key cities in recent months but still controls large areas it seized in 2014.

“This enemy is like an epidemic: no matter how hard you fight it, one or two cases remain that may show up and cause injury,” he said.

{{“This is what is happening.” }}

Iraqi security analyst Hisham Hashimi told Al Jazeera that Abadi’s hands are tied when it comes to making military and security decisions.

Most key security leaders are a product of the political system that depends on the sectarian and ethnic quota system, he said, and thus tend to be more loyal to their own affiliated groups as opposed to the state.

“Abadi therefore finds himself unable to replace those leaders or even speak to them without getting permission from their political parties or groups,” said Hashimi.

“Political crisis in Iraq will, for sure, prolong the fight against ISIL because of this kind of political environment,” Hashimi added.

{Arrest of “Ansarullah Bangla Team member” comes three weeks after Xulhaz Mannan and Mahbub Tonoy were killed in Dhaka.}

Bangladesh police have arrested a suspect over the murder of two gay-rights activists, part of a series of murders of intellectuals, writers and religious minorities.

The arrest of Farabi Shafiur Rahman on Monday came three weeks after six attackers carrying machetes and guns killed Xulhaz Mannan, editor of a magazine for Bangladesh’s lesbian, gay and transgender (LGBT) communities, and fellow activist Mahbub Tonoy in a Dhaka apartment last month.

“We’ve arrested one man in connection with the murder of Xulhaz Mannan,” Maruf Hossain Sorder, Dhaka police spokesman, told AFP news agency.

“He is a member of the Ansarullah Bangla Team.”

Police said Shihab – who has denied carrying out the killings – owned one of two guns that were used in the murders.

{{Conflicting claims}}

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group has claimed a number of the killings, but authorities insist there is no evidence of the group’s presence in the country, saying homegrown groups are behind the attacks.

An al-Qaeda-affiliated group said it was behind the killings of Mannan and Tonoy, saying the two men had worked to “promote homosexuality” in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh police chiefs have said their murders bear the hallmarks of local armed groups, while the secular Awami League-led government of Sheikh Hasina, the prime minister, has blamed the opposition.

Sunday’s arrest comes after an elderly Buddhist monk was found hacked to death on Saturday in a temple in the southeastern district of Bandarban – the seventh such killing since the start of last month.

Last year four secular bloggers and a publisher were hacked to death. Christians, Hindus and Sufi, Ahmadi and Shia Muslims have also been killed since.

No one has yet been convicted over those deaths, despite a number of arrests.

{Editors of RBC media group resign after running articles on the business affairs of the president’s family.}

Three editors at a Russian media group have resigned after one of its newspapers ran reports on the business interests of President Vladimir Putin’s family.

The RBC group’s daily newspaper recently published a number of high-profile investigations, including on the financial dealings of people close to Putin, among them his son-in-law.

The editors left their posts after weeks of pressure on the outlet including an office raid by police officials, the Reuters news agency reported.

A Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, denied that the group had been put under any pressure, according to Interfax news agency.

The three editors are Elizaveta Osetinskaya, editor-in-chief of the RBC media group; Roman Badanin, editor-in-chief of the group’s news agency; and Maxim Solyus, editor-in-chief of its daily newspaper.

“Recently we have talked a lot about how to develop RBC further and in these conversations we have been unable to reach a common opinion on important issues,” RBC general director, Nikolai Molibog, said in a statement. “That is why we have decided to part ways.”

The group declined to comment on whether the editors left under pressure from the Kremlin.

Friday’s resignations were the latest blow to what many analysts and rights groups see as beleaguered media industry. Several other RBC journalists said on Facebook they would also quit soon.

Critics say that many previously independent media outlets have been forced to tone down their criticism or change editorial policies altogether. Others have shut down or moved abroad.

{Panel against torture voices grave concerns that solitary confinement can be applied to minors.}

A United Nations panel against torture has expressed concerns about allegations of “excessive use of force”, including deadly force, by Israeli security forces in Palestinian areas, and warned authorities about barring access to detained suspects, including minors.

The Committee Against Torture, which works under the office of the UN human rights chief, released its “concluding observations” about Israel and five other countries as part of regular reviews by the panel.

The panel, which generally conducts reviews of assenting countries every four or five years, does not have investigative or fact-finding powers of its own and relies mostly on information from the media, advocacy groups, UN and other sources in drawing up its findings.

In a 12-page segment on Israel, the committee pointed to “allegations of excessive use of force, including lethal force, by security forces” at demonstrations, in response to attacks or alleged attacks against Israelis and it took aim at Israel’s controversial policy of administrative detention, under which it can arrest suspects and hold them without charge for months at a time.

{{Administrative detention}}

The committee said 700 people – including 12 minors – were reportedly in administrative detention even as its members were discussing the issue with Israeli officials. Panel co-chairman Jens Modvig of Denmark said administrative detentions can last “for months or even years”, with almost no access to those detained.

The committee also said that it was “gravely concerned that solitary confinement and separation can be applied to minors”.

Israel has defended the system of administrative detention as a necessary tool in preventing Palestinian attacks.

Human rights groups and Palestinians have alleged that Israeli forces have often been quick to pull the trigger, rather than trying to subdue suspects.

Israel says the violence is fuelled by a campaign of incitement by Palestinian religious and political leaders, compounded on social media sites.

Palestinian officials say it is the result of despair living under Israeli occupation and frustration over the prospect of ever reaching statehood.

{Turkey blames EU for setback and threatens to back out, as Brussels remains desperate for refugee deal to succeed.}

Turkey has said that talks with the European Union on a deal providing visa-free travel in return for stopping a flow of refugees into Europe had reached a deadlock.

The comments on Friday by Turkey’s EU Affairs Minister Volkan Bozkir followed talks with senior EU officials on ways of ending an impasse over part of the EU’s deal with Turkey.

“I am not very optimistic about the outcome of the talks we held in Brussels today. It’s essential that the European Commission find a new formula,” Bozkir told reporters in Brussels, in comments broadcast live on Turkish television.

Bozkir also said that it was not possible for Turkey to make changes to its “anti-terror” law given the security situation in the country, pointing to a spate of recent bomb attacks, Reuters news agency reported.

He said Turkey’s law was “no worse” than other countries’ “anti-terror” laws, and called on the European Commission to reconsider its stance.

{{‘New hurdles’}}

Bozkir’s comments come after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ratcheted up pressure on Europe over the deal, accusing the bloc of setting new hurdles for visa-free travel and threatening that Turkey may go its own way if they failed to agree.

Addressing a large crowd on Friday in northwest Turkey, the Turkish president said that western countries care more about gay and animal rights than the fate of conflict-stricken Syrians.

“Shame on those who don’t show sensitivity … to the women and children who reach out to them for help,” he said. “Shame on those who deny the sensitivity they show to … the whales, the seals and the turtles in the sea to 23 million Syrians.”

Erdogan also accused the West of possessing a mindset “remnant of slavery and colonialism”.

While Brussels is desperate for the deal to succeed, it also insists that Turkey meet 72 criteria, including reining in its broad “anti-terror” laws.

Turkey has suffered a series of bombings this year, including two suicide attacks in tourist areas of Istanbul blamed on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL – also known as ISIS) and two car bombings in the capital, Ankara, which were claimed by a Kurdish armed group.

Eight soldiers and 22 Kurdish fighters have been killed in clashes over the last two days, authorities said on Friday, as violence widened following two bombings.

The visa waiver is an incentive – along with up to $6.8bn and fast-track EU membership talks – for Turkey to stop refugees reaching Europe and take back thousands more.

{Murder of 75-year-old whose body was found in a temple follows spree of similar killings in the country.}

A 75-year-old Buddhist monk has been hacked to death inside a temple in Bangladesh, police said.

The body of Mongsowe U Chak was found on Saturday at the isolated temple where he lived alone in Naikkhangchhari village in Bandarban, about 338km (211 miles) southeast of the capital Dhaka, police said.

Police said they did not know the motive of the killing and no one had been arrested.

The killing of the Buddhist monk follows similar murders of two prominent gay activists, a law student, a Hindu tailor and a university professor in April.

“His body was found with a slit throat. Police are saying he was most likely killed on Friday night,” Al Jazeera’s Tanvir Chauwdhury said, reporting from Dhaka.

“From 2013 until now we have seen a spree of murders in similar fashion … This is a major concern for the Bangladesh government.”

Chauwdhury said that the government was adament that local “extremist groups” carried out such attacks, adding that in some cases blame was pointed at opposition groups.

“[But] very few are brought to justice,” Chauwdhury said.

The Muslim-majority nation of 160 million people has seen a surge in violent attacks over the past few months in which liberal activists, members of minority Muslim sects and other religious groups have been targeted.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) has claimed responsibility for some of the killings. The government, though, denies the group has a presence in the country, saying homegrown groups are behind the attacks.

{Lebanese group says that top commander Badreddine killed by fire from from a Sunni armed group in Syria.}

Hezbollah has said its top military commander Mustafa Badreddine died as a result of artillery shelling by a Sunni armed group in Damascus.

The Lebanese Shia group announced Badreddine’s death on Friday and a military funeral was held for him on the same day in southern Beirut.

“Investigations have showed that the explosion, which targeted one of our bases near Damascus International Airport, and which led to the martyrdom of commander Mustafa Badreddine, was the result of artillery bombardment carried out by takfiri groups,” Hezbollah said in a statement.

“Takfiri” is a word used by the group to refer to armed Sunni groups.

Hezbollah earlier said it was working to “define the nature of the explosion and its cause, and whether it was the result of an air strike, or missile [attack] or artillery”.

Badreddine, 55, was one of the highest ranking officials in the group, and believed to be responsible for its operations in Syria, where thousands of its members are fighting alongside Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut, said Badreddine was the most senior Hezbollah commander to have been killed in Syria since the conflict began.

“Hezbollah has suffered heavy losses in Syria, with some sources estimating that at least 1,200 fighters have died since the group started its involvement in the war,” she said.

“Hezbollah’s military intervention in Syria caused a divide in Lebanon. Some say it was totally wrong as it exposed Lebanon to threats. However, Hezbollah sees this as an existential decision because the Syrian government provides a lifeline to the group.”

{Amnesty International report says rebels may have used chemical weapons and “hell cannon” rockets.}

A Syrian rebel group that is laying siege to a Kurdish district in Aleppo may have used chemical weapons, as well as so-called “hell cannon” rockets made from gas canisters, according to a rights group.

Amnesty International said groups fighting under an alliance known as Jaish al-Fatah have been carrying out indiscriminate attacks on the predominantly Kurdish Sheikh Maqsoud district of the city.

The rebels may have used chemical weapons to target civilian homes, markets and mosques, killing and injuring civilians, Amnesty said on Friday.

Among the weapons used by the groups were unguided projectiles, which cannot be accurately aimed, such as mortars, home-made ‘Hamim’ rockets, and the gas cannister rockets, the report said.

“Hell cannon” projectiles are usually made with cooking gas canisters, which are packed with explosives and fitted with a fin before being fired from home-made canons.

“Two of the armed groups conducting attacks on Sheikh Maqsoud – Ahrar al-Sham and Army of Islam – have sent representatives to the UN-brokered negotiations on Syria in Geneva, while the others have approved delegates to represent them at the talks,” Amnesty said.

“There are around 30,000 civilians living in Sheikh Maqsoud, a district controlled by the Kurdish People’s Protection Unit (YPG) forces, and the area has come under sustained attack from opposition armed groups who control areas to the north, east and west of the district,” the report said.

Taj Kordsh, a spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance which includes the YPG, Jaish al-Thuwar and other Kurdish groups, told Al Jazeera there have been several such attacks in recent months.

“These attacks targeted civilians in Sheikh Maqsoud. We have proof that these rebel groups obtained these weapons and used them to target residential areas,” Kordsh said.

Amnesty said it obtained the names of at least 83 civilians, including 30 children, who were killed by attacks in Sheikh Maqsoud between February and April.

One man, Mohamad, lost seven members of his family when his home was struck by an improvised “Hamim” rocket launched by an armed group on 5 April, the group said.

“There are no [military] checkpoints near my house. It is a residential street and there are even people displaced by fighting or who fled airstrikes in Aleppo city living on the same street,” he told Amnesty.

Saad, a pharmacist, told Amnesty that April 5 was “the bloodiest day the neighbourhood had witnessed”. He said that shelling from armed groups went on for nine hours.

Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director Magdalena Mughrabi said that Sheikh Maqsoud was on the brink of a humanitarian crisis.

“It is critical that the Syrian government and armed groups urgently allow unfettered access for humanitarian aid and allow civilians who wish to leave the area to do so,” Mughrabi said.

{{Aleppo ceasefire}}

On Monday, government forces and rebels in Aleppo agreed to extend their truce for a second time, according to the Syrian army.

The cessation of hostilities was initially to last for two days but was later extended until Tuesday at 00:01 am (21:01 GMT Monday).

Announcing a further extension, the army command said: “The ‘regime of silence’ in Aleppo and its province has been extended by 48 hours from Tuesday 01:00 am [local time] to midnight on Wednesday.”

A tenuous ceasefire has been in place since February, brokered by Russia and the United States, but Damascus has continued to bomb rebel-controlled parts of Aleppo. Nearly 300 people have been killed in a recent surge of violence.