English LCCC Newsbulletin For
Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For January 11/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
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Bible Quotations For today
Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the
prophet?’John answered them, ‘I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom
you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the
thong of his sandal.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint
John 01/19-28/:”This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests
and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, ‘Who are you?’He confessed and did not
deny it, but confessed, ‘I am not the Messiah.’And they asked him, ‘What then?
Are you Elijah?’ He said, ‘I am not.’ ‘Are you the prophet?’ He answered, ‘No.’Then
they said to him, ‘Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us.
What do you say about yourself?’He said, ‘I am the voice of one crying out in
the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord” ’, as the prophet Isaiah
said. Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, ‘Why then are
you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?’John
answered them, ‘I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know,
the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his
sandal.’This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.”
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials
published on January 10-11/2022
Aoun: Dialogue Doesn't Aim to Achieve Partisan Interest
President Aoun receives Druze Sheikh Aql, briefed by Defense Minister on outcome
of his Baghdad visit
Mikati at World Youth Forum in Sharm El Sheikh: Upcoming parliamentary elections
are an opportunity for Lebanon’s youth to have...
Berri receives Druze Sheikh Aql, MP Baarini, cables newly elected Speaker of
Iraq Parliament
Lebanese Army: Pakistani plane loaded with 40 tons of aid arrives in Beirut
Telecoms Minister says sector’s sole salvation either tariff hike or subsidies
Sisi Voices 'Full Solidarity' with Lebanon in Talks with Miqati
Aoun: Dialogue Doesn't Aim to Achieve Partisan Interest
FPM MP Says Hizbullah Committing ‘Crime’ against Lebanese
Why Lebanon’s elections may be canceled/Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib/Arab
News/January 10/2022
No country for women/Your weekly Lebanon roundup from NOW./Ana Maria Luca/Now
Lebanon/January 10/2022
Is Saad Hariri staying away from Lebanon’s March election/Sami Moubayed/Gulf
News/January 10, 2022
Titles For The Latest English LCCC
Miscellaneous Reports And News published on
January 10-11/2022
Corona - Pope backs COVID immunisation campaigns, warns of ideological
misinformation
Halbousi re-elected Iraqi parliament speaker amid pro-Iran parties' disruptive
challenge
No breakthrough after eight-hour talks between US, Russia on Ukraine
Syria’s Assad regime on trial in Europe
Iranian couple sues top officials over jet downing
Kazakhstan President Says 'Attempted Coup' Defeated
UAE reiterates support for stability in Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan Says Militants from Central Asia, Afghanistan, Mideast behind Unrest
Arab coalition kills 270 Houthis in Yemen airstrikes
Libyan security forces break up protest sit-in by migrants
UN starts talks in Sudan to resolve post-coup crisis
Israel weighs extending detention of sick Palestinian teen
El-Sisi meets Mahmoud Abbas on sidelines of World Youth Forum
Statement from Minister Joly on so-called inauguration in Nicaragua
Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC
English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on
January 10-11/2022
Torture in Turkish Prisons: Systematic and Widespread/Uzay Bulut/Gatestone
Institute/January 10/2022
Predicting 2022 – China's Year of the Tiger/Pete Hoekstra/Gatestone
Institute/January 10, 2022
Normalization is the new normal for the UAE and Israel/Hussain Abdul-Hussain &
Shany Mor/Arab News/January 10/ 2022
Iranian clerics no longer wield control/Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami/Arab News/January
10/ 2022
The world must prevent Sudan from descending into war/Dnyanesh Kamat/The Arab
Weekly/January 10/2022
The Latest English LCCC Lebanese &
Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on January 10-11/2022
Aoun: Dialogue Doesn't Aim to Achieve
Partisan Interest
Naharnet/January 10, 2022
President Michel Aoun on Monday announced that his call for national dialogue
concerns all Lebanese and is “not aimed at achieving a partisan or personal
interest.” “As for our call for dialogue, we first received position reactions,
but some reservations have started to emerge,” Aoun said in a meeting with Druze
spiritual leader Sheikh Sami Abi al-Muna. “The program of this dialogue
conference is based on three key points of contention in Lebanon, and we are not
seeking to resolve them before elections but at least to pacify the debate about
them,” the President added. He also stressed that “the country is for everyone”
and “development and prosperity are also for everyone.”
President Aoun receives Druze Sheikh Aql, briefed by
Defense Minister on outcome of his Baghdad visit
NNAJanuary 10, 2022
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, asserted the importance of the
dialogue meeting he called for, and stressed the need for this dialogue to
transcend simple political differences. The President pointed out that the
political dispute should not lead us to a national dispute over fundamental and
basic principles such as identity and existence, which may threaten Lebanon's
unity, its sovereignty and independence.
In addition, President Aoun hoped to support these meetings, "Because dialogue
concerns all of us, and its goal is not to achieve a partisan or personal
interest. The homeland is for all, and development and prosperity are for all as
well, and we must cooperate to preserve this common life in the shadow of peace
and security”.
President Aoun’s stances came while meeting, Sheikh Al-Aql of the Unitarian
Druze sect, Sheikh Dr. Sami Abi Al-Muna, at the head of a delegation that
included Judge Faisal Nasser Al-Din, head of the Druze sectarian appeals court,
Sheikh Gandhi Makarim, the judge of the sect, Major General M. Shawqi Al-Masry,
Head of the Communication Committee, Lawyer Nizar El-Baradei, Prince of Secret
of the Sectarian Council, Professor Naji Saab, Treasurer of the Sectarian
Council, and Lawyer Nashat Hilal, Head of the Legal Committee of the Sectarian
Council.
At the beginning of the meeting, Sheikh Dr. Abi Al-Muna gave a speech in which
he said: “I am honored to meet your Excellency today in the Presidential Palace,
on a visit of thanks and appreciation for your congratulations to us on the
position of the Sheikh of Aql and the presidency of the confessional council of
the Druze community. Today, we and our brothers in the confessional council, the
Druze courts, and the board of directors in the confessional council are
visiting you to assure you, as an institutional and fundamental sect in this
country, that we are always with the approach of dialogue, convergence and
openness.
Dialogue is our logic and our approach, and this is what you always call for.
You are calling for dialogue today, it is a national dialogue that will lead to
the regularity of the government's work, this is what is required.
You realize today that the main demand is the convening of the Council of
Ministers, to approach people's issues and address their problems. This is what
we hope for, because the difficult living situation today is no longer bearable,
and Lebanon It is affected by international, regional and local tensions, which
impede the reform process in it. Your role is essential in saving the country,
and we are with you, by your side, and by all the loyal, in order to stand by
our people and society”.
Abi lmona added: "From our position in the Sheikhdom of Aql, we stress the
necessity of regular work in this country to solve people's problems, and to
negotiate with the International Monetary Fund, to approach public sector
issues, living and educational issues, which are many, and the burden is great,
but you are keen as we always strive to address the situation and save the
country, of course, there are big and important matters that need a dialogue
table, and a discussion of Lebanon’s fate and reality, the defense strategy and
how we can save this country.
The issues are great, but the people’s issues today are the most important, as
you realize, and we also stress on a second point the importance of coexistence
because we come from the mountain, which is the heart of Lebanon, and the model
of coexistence where no authority contradicts this coexistence, which is the
basis and our permanent demand, through the reconciliation that took place in
the mountain, and through our work and our constant call for dialogue.
Parliamentary and fateful entitlements that need to fortify this coexistence,
for we do not want and do not want, of course, that political differences and
quarrels be a factor that negatively affects this coexistence. As spiritual
presidencies, we assume our moral, spiritual, social and national
responsibilities. This is our call and our discourse, in order to contribute,
through these spiritual and moral responsibilities, to creating a favorable
atmosphere and a positive climate in this country.
This is our mission as spiritual leaders. I hope, from this first presidential
residence, that all the spiritual presidencies should be hand in hand, and our
discourse is unified in order to create this positive atmosphere in the country.
This is our mission and this is our discourse in the confessional council and in
the Sheikhdom of Aql, and this is our role as a fundamental, caring and unifying
sect in this country”.
In addition, Abi Lmona stressed that "Lebanon is a message and is greater than a
homeland, and this message stems from coexistence among its various components,
to emphasize the message of Christian love, the Islamic message of mercy, and
the message of monotheistic human brotherhood. We have moved away from Lebanon,
and we are with you, Mr. President, in one boat and with one mission, and one
goal is to salvage this message and emphasize its importance”.
President Aoun:
For his part, President Aoun responded welcoming the delegation and said: "With
regard to our invitation to dialogue, positive reactions came first, but some
reservations began to appear. The program of this dialogue meeting is based on 3
main points of contention in Lebanon, and we seek not to resolve them before the
elections, however we aim at least to reduce the intensity of talking about it.
We do not want to continue a verbal struggle from time to time. The first point
is the issue of economic recovery and the distribution of losses. We all want
economic recovery, but the distribution of losses we want is fair. Banks today
deduct about 80% of the withdrawn funds when withdrawing the dollar. If this
situation continues, small depositors will lose all their deposits”.
“The second point is the extended administrative and financial decentralization.
Administrative decentralization does not abolish the link with the central
state, but it allows for the achievement of development and prosperity in the
various regions” the President added.
“As for the third point, which is the defense strategy plan that must be
studied, because Lebanon is a country that is almost able to defend itself
within its surroundings in order to preserve its independence and sovereignty.
We must deal with discipline with the problems and disputes in our surroundings,
and not go to more than that” President Aoun said.
"We hope to support these meetings, which should transcend political
differences, because dialogue concerns us all. Its goal is not to achieve a
partisan or personal interest. Political disagreement should not lead us to a
national dispute, i.e. a dispute over identity and existence. Sometimes it is
about a specific law or project and not on fundamental and basic principles in
the life of the nation, which may threaten its unity, sovereignty and
independence” the President added.
Moreover, President Aoun emphasized the importance of national integration in
the Jabalregion, and the Christian-Druze dichotomy that established Lebanon's
independence and its extension throughout history, stressing that it was and
still is with the cohesive unity that forms the roots despite the presence of
political differences. The President stated that the unity of the mountain is
not numerical, but rather it is the essence of common life and participation in
all matters that we must preserve. “The homeland is for all, and development is
the same as prosperity for all, and we must cooperate to preserve this common
life in the shadow of reassurance and safety” President Aoun concluded.
Defense Minister:
The President received National Defense Minister Maurice Sleem.
Minister Sleem briefed the President on the results of his official visit to
Baghdad and the talks he had with Iraqi officials, who "Expressed every
readiness to cooperate and help Lebanon at various levels, especially military
issues”.
Minister Sleem also said that he discussed with President Aoun the difficulties
facing the army during the performance of their duties as a result of the
difficult economic and financial conditions facing the country. The meeting also
tackled the relationship between the army and the UNIFIL forces in the south and
the measures to be adopted to prevent the recurrence of exposure to
international soldiers during the performance of their missions, especially
since the relationship between these forces and the people of the south is a
strong and good relationship. The National Defense Minister pointed out that the
conversation with President Aoun also dealt with the situation of the
institutions affiliated with the Ministry of Defense. -- Presidency Press Office
Mikati at World Youth Forum in Sharm El Sheikh:
Upcoming parliamentary elections are an opportunity for Lebanon’s youth to
have...
NNA/January 10, 2022
Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, on Monday said that the upcoming parliamentary
elections set to take place next spring will constitute an opportunity for
Lebanon's youth to have their say and define their options in line with their
vision of engaging in the desired national rescue workshop. Premier Mikati ‘s
fresh words came in his delivered speech at the 4th “World Youth Forum”
organized by Egypt in Sharm El Sheikh, at the invitation of Egyptian President
Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. The event takes place in the presence of a number of
presidents, politicians, diplomats, media figures and a panel of Arab and
foreign youth.
In his delivered word, Premier Mikati thanked President El-Sisi for his great
efforts in holding this forum, “which constitutes an important and essential
gathering to draw a unified vision for the future of youth in the Arab countries
and across the world.”Addressing the Lebanese youth, Mikati said: “I am proud of
all the young men and women of Lebanon, and I see in their eyes the hope for a
better tomorrow for our people and our country. I also call on them not to
despair despite the painful reality, and not to consider that immigration is the
solution, and to preserve their faith in Lebanon, which has faced, throughout
its history, many hardships that were more severe than the ones we endure today;
Yet we overcame and withstood them and surpassed all dangers, and set out again
to build a Lebanon worthy of our youth.”
The PM added: ‘’Beirut has been chosen this year to be the capital of Arab
youth, and I take this opportunity to say that Beirut will open its doors to all
young people in the Arab world to reassure you that you are in the heart of
Beirut and that of Lebanon.”Mikati concluded by wishing this forum every success
in translating the desired common goals that meet the aspirations of our Arab
youth and push joint Arab action forward and fulfill the aspirations of our Arab
youth and future generations. It is to note that Premier Mikati and his wife
reached at 11.00 a.m. the headquarters of the World Youth Forum in Sharm
El-Sheikh, where they were received by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi
and Egypt's First Lady. The official Lebanese delegation included Minister of
Youth and Sports, George Kallas, and Lebanon's Ambassador to Egypt Ali Al-Halabi.
Berri receives Druze Sheikh Aql, MP Baarini, cables
newly elected Speaker of Iraq Parliament
NNA/ January 10, 2022
House Speaker, Nabih Berri, on Monday received at the Second Presidency in Ain
El-Tineh, Druze Sheikh Aql Sami Abil Mona, at the head of an accompanying
delegation. Discussions reportedly touched on the current general situation and
the most recent developments. On emerging, Sheikh Aql said that the visit had
been an occasion to discuss current national issues, based on our keenness on
national unity and coexistence, as well as the message of affinity and
brotherhood. Speaker Berri also met with MP Walid al-Baarini. On the other hand,
Berri cabled newly elected Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament, Mohammed al-Halbousi,
congratulating him on his election.
Lebanese Army: Pakistani plane loaded with 40 tons
of aid arrives in Beirut
NNAJanuary 10, 2022
The Lebanese Army on Monday said via its Twitter account: "This morning, a
Pakistani plane loaded with 40 tons of medical and food supplies donated by the
Islamic Republic of Pakistan to the Lebanese Army arrived at Rafic Hariri
International Airport.”
Telecoms Minister says sector’s sole salvation
either tariff hike or subsidies
NNA/January 10, 2022
Minister of Telecommunications, Johnny Corm, on Monday made it clear that within
the framework of the new state budget, the Telecoms Ministry’s budget would be
based on “two figures” instead of one.
He explained that the first figure took into consideration the possibility of
continuing to charge consumers the same current tariff, which is based on the
official rate of LBP 1500 per USD, whilst the second figure sought an increase
in the tariff rate from LBP 1500 per USD to LBP 9000 per USD.
However, interviewed by Al-Hurra news channel’s show the “Lebanese Scene", Corm
warned that the first figure, which is based on the current LBP 1500 per USD
rate, meant recording a massive annual loss of approximately LBP 350 billion.
"The break even figure for the ministry of telecoms at the present time is
within the range of LBP 9000,” he added. Regarding the possibility of
exempting some sectors or segments of the Lebanese society from a likely
increase in telecoms tariffs, Corm said that exceptions might include workers in
the military, security institutions, and students.
“Alfa mobile operator can continue its services until April-May 2022 if we don’t
immediately raise the tarrif rates. As for Touch mobile operator, it’s services
will last for a month before that [till March 2022]; its services will keep
deteriorating and eventually be suspended,” Corm explained. “The sole solution
is to either raise the tariff, or to have the state support the sector via
subsidies, yet the second strategy has proven to be a a big failure in the long
run,” the Minister warned. Regarding the operating expenses of the
telecommunications sector, Corm explained that the soaring cost of fuel and gas
constituted 64% of the operating expenses. Salaries constituted 10%, and the
value of rented buildings constituted 3%. Corm then affirmed that the issue of
illegal internet would begin to be addressed within two weeks, explaining the
state has been incurring huge losses amounting to approximately LBP 600 billion
a year caused by 650 to 700 thousand illegal subscribers.
Sisi Voices 'Full Solidarity' with Lebanon in Talks
with Miqati
Naharnet/January 10, 2022
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Monday expressed his “full
solidarity” with Lebanon in a meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh with Prime Minister
Najib Miqati. Al-Sisi also voiced Egypt’s “readiness to contribute to delivering
the Egyptian gas” to Lebanon “according to the signed treaties,” giving
instructions to “facilitate the issue and speed up its implementation.”“Lebanon
is in my heart personally and in the conscience of Egypt,” al-Sisi added. The
meeting between al-Sisi and Miqati was held on the sidelines of the World Youth
Forum. Miqati meanwhile stressed “Egypt’s role” and thanked it for “supporting
Lebanon.” He also called on Egypt to “sponsor the process of general Arab
revival.” Miqati later held talks with his Egyptian counterpart Mustafa Madbouli.
The meeting tackled "the issue of importing Egyptian gas to Lebanon and it was
agreed to sign the preliminary agreement between Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and
Syria soon, to pave the way for obtaining a final exemption from the sanctions
of the Caesar Act," Lebanon's National News Agency said. Madbouli also told
Miqati that Egypt will "prepare a quantity of medical and food aid to send it to
Lebanon by sea" as the two sides agreed on "addressing some issues related to
exporting agricultural products to Egypt."
Aoun: Dialogue Doesn't Aim to Achieve Partisan
Interest
Naharnet/January 10, 2022
President Michel Aoun on Monday announced that his call for national dialogue
concerns all Lebanese and is “not aimed at achieving a partisan or personal
interest.” “As for our call for dialogue, we first received position reactions,
but some reservations have started to emerge,” Aoun said in a meeting with Druze
spiritual leader Sheikh Sami Abi al-Muna. “The program of this dialogue
conference is based on three key points of contention in Lebanon, and we are not
seeking to resolve them before elections but at least to pacify the debate about
them,” the President added. He also stressed that “the country is for everyone”
and “development and prosperity are also for everyone.”
FPM MP Says Hizbullah Committing ‘Crime’ against
Lebanese
Naharnet/January 10, 2022
Free Patriotic Movement MP Asaad Dergham said that “Amal and Hizbullah are
committing a crime against the Lebanese.”Dergham stated, on al-Jadeed TV, that
the Cabinet not convening is a “crime.” “Amid the collapse, the country needs
Cabinet to approve a state budget and a plan for financial and economic
recovery,” Dergham said. He added that “people are starving” and that it is not
possible for the FPM to maintain its relation with Hizbullah when the latter is
adopting “such a policy.”“No resistance in the world has persisted without
people’s support,” Dergham went on to say. The lawmaker also slammed Hizbullah
for its “enmity with KSA,” saying that “the FPM supports Hizbullah’s fight
against terrorism but doesn’t support Hizbullah in Yemen.”
Why Lebanon’s elections may be canceled
Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib/Arab News/January
10/2022
Lebanon’s president, prime minister and parliament speaker on Thursday succeeded
in putting together another scheme covered and polished by Lebanese law.
President Michel Aoun has agreed to open an exceptional parliamentary session.
This will effectively protect the politicians from being summoned by Judge Tarek
Bitar to appear before the Beirut blast investigation. The quid pro quo is that
the politicians will be shielded from any questioning in return for Amal and
Hezbollah removing their block on the government’s workflow. Hence, the Council
of Ministers will be able to convene and decide on the budget, as well as to
proceed with a plan to hold talks with the International Monetary Fund.
However, skeptics argue that the exceptional session could also be used to
cancel the elections that are scheduled for May. Lawmakers could put on the
table a measure to restrict the expatriate vote to just six seats. This would
basically neutralize the expatriate vote, which is vehemently against Aoun’s
Free Patriotic Movement and Hezbollah. Such a law would undoubtedly create
unrest — and unrest would be the perfect excuse to cancel the elections
altogether.
Some see the elections as a golden opportunity for the “sulta” (people in power)
to renew their legitimacy in front of the Lebanese people and, most importantly,
the international community. Polls show that the protest groups can expect to
win 23 seats out of 128, meaning the elections will not uproot the ruling class.
This is especially true for Hezbollah, despite the general discontent, as the
group still has a grip over the Shiite faction.
Nevertheless, the elections, though they will not bring drastic change, will
alter the majority — this is a threat to Hezbollah. In order to understand this
threat, we need to examine why Hezbollah is in the government in the first
place. Prior to the 2005 assassination of Rafik Hariri, Hezbollah was not
involved in any government. It did not need to be because the Syrian regime was
protecting the group and its arms. This changed with the death of Hariri and the
subsequent massive protests that led to the expulsion of Syrian forces from
Lebanon. Hezbollah’s guarantor was no longer there, so it needed to take control
of the government to make sure it would not be subjected to any pressure that
might lead to it being disarmed or delegitimized.
The elections, though they will not bring drastic change, will alter the
majority — this is a threat to Hezbollah
Following the death of his father, the Lebanese were sympathetic to Saad Hariri.
The anti-Syria and anti-Hezbollah camp, under the name of the March 14 Alliance,
subsequently won a parliamentary majority. Hezbollah was very uncomfortable with
this result. Toward the end of 2006, Hezbollah, along with Amal, Suleiman
Frangieh’s Al-Marada and the Free Patriotic Movement, orchestrated protests
aimed at toppling the premiership of Fouad Siniora. They set up tents to
encircle the government’s headquarters in downtown Beirut. The main point of
contention was the control of the government. Hezbollah asked for a
“guaranteeing” third of ministerial votes, which was in fact a blocking third.
It wanted to have the right to veto government decisions, particularly any
measure that came close to threatening its right to keep its arms.
If we go back in time, we see that the Israelis left Lebanon unilaterally in
2000. Since then, many questions have been raised over the arms of Hezbollah and
its privilege of having weapons while other factions do not. When the civil war
was ended by the Taif Agreement in 1989, the militias were asked to surrender
their arms. An exception was made for Hezbollah because the group was fighting
the Israeli occupation. However, this excuse faltered after the Israeli
withdrawal.
In May 2008, when the government decided to end Hezbollah’s control of the
communication network and fire an officer in airport security who was loyal to
the group, all hell broke loose, with Hezbollah taking to the streets and using
its arms against its political opponents. The attack by Hezbollah was ended by
the Doha Agreement, under which Hezbollah got what it wanted: A blocking third.
While opponents of Hezbollah look at the events of May 7, 2008, as an assault on
the state, the group looks at it as a necessary action to secure its survival.
The uncovering of its communication network could have endangered all of
Hezbollah’s leaders. These events show the extremes to which the group is
willing to go to keep its control over the government. For Hezbollah, it is more
than an issue of two or three ministers, it is a matter of survival.
While the forecasts do not show a drastic change in the make-up of parliament,
the US, Europe and the Arab Gulf states are banking on a change in the majority,
with Samir Geagea gaining popularity over his Christian opponent Aoun to weaken
Hezbollah. According to Lebanese law, as in any democracy in the world, the
majority chooses the prime minister and confirms the Cabinet — a Cabinet that
might be hostile to the resistance axis.
What if the new government deems that Hezbollah’s interventions in Syria and
Yemen are illegitimate? What if it changed the speaker of the parliament? Can
Hezbollah do without long-term ally Nabih Berri, the head of Amal? In a
nutshell, the elections will bring about too many unknowns that Hezbollah is
better off avoiding.
*Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib is a specialist in US-Arab relations with a focus on
lobbying. She is co-founder of the Research Center for Cooperation and Peace
Building, a Lebanese nongovernmental organization focused on Track II. She is
also an affiliate scholar with the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and
International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.
No country for women/Your weekly Lebanon roundup from
NOW.
Ana Maria Luca/Now Lebanon/January 10/2022
Lebanese women hold placards as they protest against the country's political
paralysis and deep economic crisis in Beirut on the occasion of Mother's Day, on
March 20, 2021. Photo: Anwar Amro, AFP.
There is literally no woman in Lebanon who hasn’t been cat-called, followed on
the way home or to work by some relentless random “admirer”, who wasn’t stalked
or hasn’t received unsolicited messages from unknown numbers in the middle of
the night.
But gender-based violence and sexual harassment are pervasive in Lebanon. What’s
more, the economic crisis combined with the pandemic lockdowns have led to
spikes in domestic violence, women’s rights NGOs warned last year, and the trend
probably continued in 2021.
The curious case of Marwan Habib (curious for how he got away with it for so
long) has taken the spotlight in Lebanon after he was arrested and appeared in
court in Florida last weekend, after he broke into a woman’s hotel room and
assaulted her. But that is just an exponent of the reality on the ground.
The story, worthy of a horror movie, becomes more incredible as the perpetrator
masterminded a detailed plan to convince the hotel personnel to give him the key
to the room. The details are shocking. And the most shocking thing is that this
could have been prevented if Lebanese law enforcement did their job properly
when scores of women across the country reported him. But they didn’t.
The problem is not just harassment. It is the way society in general treats
women. It is the fact that the country’s predominantly male politicians
disregard women’s rights, and the way state institutions ignore legislation that
aims to protect women and turn a blind eye to heinous crimes committed against
women.
Women are just lesser people. They have fewer citizen rights, are allowed less
social space. This inequality is not always, or only, in the law, but enforced
or perpetuated by social practices. In Lebanese society, women are allowed
limited control over their own bodies and their consent, be they born in Lebanon
or expats. Women are still murdered in Lebanon by male members of the family in
honor killings. Domestic violence is widespread and largely accepted by
communities and ignored by law enforcement.
Sexual harassment was finally outlawed in December 2020 and the legislation on
domestic violence has been relatively updated. However, within the conjugal
space, law enforcement has no place: the new law does not criminalize marital
rape. Civil law is still enforced by religious courts that discriminate against
women when it comes to divorce and child custody.
Lebanese society in general limits women’s free will and shapes them to be
dependent on men (be they fathers, brothers or husbands).
Women, even in the extremely rare occasions when they reach positions of power,
have restricted space for professional maneuver and those restrictions sometimes
come disguised as a way of shielding them from a cruel and toxic environment
full of predators.
Former Interior Minister Mohammad Fahmi, told journalists a little over a year
ago that a woman could not do his job because it meant “stooping too low”.
Predators are produced by the same toxic system that supposedly shields women
from the toxic world. Predators in turn reinforce the system that restricts
women’s social space in order to “protect them”.
The root is in the culture of purity that categorizes women as pure or impure
removing the notion of consent from social norms. Purity is not necessarily a
question of morality, but also of social status. Women from well-off families
are to be valued, regardless of their morality. The consent is not theirs, it’s
the families’. Women of lower status, including domestic workers, are
disregarded regardless of their morality. They don’t have the right to consent.
This same toxic system that allowed Marwan Habib’s behavior to go unpunished for
so long also allowed a man to drag a woman by her hair in full daylight, where
all his neighbors could see him. No remorse.
Sure, it’s the society, the consequences of centuries of patriarchy and weakness
of state institutions.
But the answers to all these problems have to come from the political sphere.
Without the political will to meet the civil society halfway and adopt
legislation to empower women, allow their access to all walks of life and
properly punish crimes against women, there can be no progress.
The Lebanese political scene, however, remains dominated by patriarchal figures
and dynasties. It’s a place where women are never taken seriously as
politicians, therefore their perspectives are discarded as unimportant. There is
proof enough in the fact that an entirely male committee that designed a
now-defunct subsidy system to cope with the economic crisis did not deem fit to
include sanitary pads in the list of necessities, but included razors.
Yes, Lebanese women are empowered, educated, fit to run for political office and
make a difference. So many of them have been most active in the civil society,
they organized protests and were most prominent in the anti-establishment
movements in 2015 and 2019.
But they have no access to state-level decision making, and they have been
refused that access with disdain. State affairs are for men to handle, be they
government or Parliament.
“We don’t have time for this stuff” we’ve heard Lebanese politicians say, even
last year. PM Najib Mikati dismissed gender representation in the government as
a marginal issue. The parliament committee discussing amendments to the
electoral law also rudely dismissed a bill on women’s quota in the Lebanese
general elections this year. The bill, which emerged from the civil society,
written by political science and gender experts, has been dismissed by a
78-year-old MP as “we don’t have time for these new details.” None of his male
commission colleagues questioned his statement and the issue was only covered in
a few short news pieces in the mainstream media before being abandoned
altogether.
The problem is that, if these major political issues are treated as details at
the state level, sexual harassment, marital rape, women getting beaten to death
or simply shot to death are also details in the eyes of the male politicians who
decide the fate of the country and reject bills. Period (sic!).
In other news
Hezbollah, as always: Lebanon continues to be caught in the middle of the rift
between Saudi Arabia, Iran and its Lebanon-based proxy, Hezbollah.
The Kingdom, as well as several other Gulf countries, cut ties with Lebanon at
the end of November over statements by former Information Minister George
Kordahi on the Saudi involvement in the war in Yemen against the Iran-backed
Houthis. But the reasons ran much deeper, according to the Saudi Minister of
Foreign Affairs: Hezbollah’s grip on the Lebanese state.
Who’s the terrorist: Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Beirut Walid Bukhari said on
Thursday that Hezbollah was a threat to Arab security.
The statement came three days after Hassan Nasrallah called King Salman a
“terrorist” in a speech on the anniversary of Iranian Revolutionary Guards
commander Qassem Suleimani, assassinated in 2020 in Baghdad.
Meanwhile: The country’s government remains paralyzed also because Hezbollah and
its ally, the Amal Movement, are opposing the probe into the August 4, 2020
Beirut port blast that killed 227 people and wounded thousands. Hezbollah says
the probe is influenced by Washington and only targets Hezbollah’s allies.
Mikati said he is determined to call for a cabinet session, but nothing concrete
has happened since October.
“For God’s sake, have mercy”: PM Mikati has made headlines last week too after
he told Nasrallah to stop inflaming things. “Nasrallah’s comments do neither
represent the Lebanese government nor the majority of Lebanese,” Mikati said.
“For God’s sake, have mercy on Lebanon and the Lebanese, and stop the hateful
sectarian and political rhetoric.”
Dialogue on the renewal of the National Dialogue: President Aoun called on
December 28 for the relaunch of the National Dialogue Conferences. The National
Dialogue is a tool meant to gather all political stakeholders and negotiate
spikey issues: rights of Palestinian refugees, security situations, Hezbollah’s
weapons. Over the years, the meetings have arrived at some negotiated
conclusions, such as disarming Palestinian factions outside the camps, or
re-establishing diplomatic relations with Syria after the 2005 withdrawal. But
it has always failed to address the UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which
requires disarming Hezbollah. The last National Dialogue Conference –
which only included leaders of sectarian factions, but not members of the civil
society- happened in 2014 at Baabda Palace. Another session was held in 2016 at
Nabih Berri’s residence.
One question, though: Aoun announced that he wants the conference to happen
before the end of January, and met with PM Mikati in preparation. He is
reportedly scheduled to start meetings with other stakeholders on Tuesday,
January 11.
Judging by his December 28 speech, Aoun would like to put on the table the
renegotiation of the defense pact (e.i. Hezbollah’s weapons), one of the hard
questions that were never addressed back in the day.
But it’s no longer 2014. The Lebanese political scene has changed, and the
political culture has changed after October 2019. The relevant political leaders
back in 2014 no longer hold the same credibility and the dialogue is not
inclusive of the new political forces in the country. So what’s the point?
Protests: A few hundred Lebanese anti-vaxxers staged a protest to refuse
mandatory Covid-19 vaccine pass, in the center of Beirut on Friday.
The rally took place as the Ministry of Health announced a vaccination marathon
targeting the education system – educators and students, amid a spike in cases
of COVID-19. On January 8, Lebanon counted 7,547 new cases and 17 deaths.
More protests: Demonstrators angered by the blackouts stormed an Electricite du
Liban substation in the Aramoun region north of Beirut on Saturday, EDL said in
a statement. The company announced more power cuts caused by the incident.
Lebanon +:
Jasad magazine is back: Empowering women is not enough, the time has come to
empower, educate, and tackle the roots of where violations occur, author and
activist Joumana Haddad told NOW last year, when Jasad was still a project.
Launched in 2009, Jasad is a pioneer when it comes to questions of body, gender
and sexuality in the region, Joumana Haddad’s Jasad is advertised as a platform
for freedom and unapologetic self-expression, but it is more than that. You can
find it online here together with Joumana’s editorial.
Podcasts:
Sarde after Dinner hosted stand-up comedian Hussein Kaouk and playwright Mohamad
Dayekh, both the targets of social media harassment campaigns for “smearing the
Resistance”. Watch the podcast here.
Jad Ghosn recorded a 25-minute episode of his Reflections, looking at 2021 and
the political “rhetoric of hypocrisy to cover up the void of any political
proposal”.
Till next week, we’ll keep an eye on President Aoun’s National Dialogue
initiative.
*Follow NOW Lebanon on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and subscribe
to our weekly newsletter.
Is Saad Hariri staying away from Lebanon’s March
election/Even if Future Movement doesn’t take part in polls, members may run as
independents
Sami Moubayed/Gulf News/January 10, 2022
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/105515/sami-moubayed-gulf-news-is-saad-hariri-staying-away-from-lebanons-march-election-%d8%b3%d8%a7%d9%85%d9%8a-%d9%85%d8%a8%d9%8a%d8%b6-%d8%ba%d9%84%d9%81-%d9%86%d9%8a%d9%88%d8%b2-%d9%87%d9%84/
All the Lebanese parties are bracing themselves for the upcoming parliamentary
elections, scheduled for 27 March 2022. Politicians are appearing daily on
television programs, making their usual campaign promises, promising
accountability for corruption, unlocking of locked depositor bank accounts, and
electricity. Party flags are being hoisted in their respective constituencies:
orange for the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) of Gibran Bassil, yellow for
Hezbollah, green for the Amal Movement. The blue flag of the Future Movement is
visibly absent from early campaigning in Beirut, amid high speculation that its
leader, Saad Al Hariri won’t be running for office next March.
This has prompted his friend and ally, ex-Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, to visit
him, seeking clarifications. Hariri said that he will make an announcement upon
returning to Beirut this month. He has made it clear to supporters, however,
that even if the Future Movement doesn’t take part in the elections, they are
free to nominate themselves as independents. His sudden withdrawal from
politics, comes just four months after he declined to form a government, and it
has left the Sunni community that he heads both confused and worried.
No familiar names
If Hariri doesn’t run for parliament then nor will Fouad Siniora or any of the
prominent Sunnis from the Future Movement, like ex-Interior Minister Nouhad
Machnouk. Former Prime Minister Tammam Salam, scion of a leading Sunni family in
Beirut, will also refrain from returning to Parliament. The only Sunni figures
campaigning next March will be either independents, members of Prime Minister
Najib Mikati’s Azm Movement, or those affiliated with the Hezbollah-led March 8
Coalition, like Faisal Karami of Tripoli and ex-Defense Minister Abdul Rahim
Murad.
Lack of funds
There are many reasons behind Hariri’s decision to walk-out on the elections,
high among which is lack of funds to bankroll a nationwide campaign for him and
his followers. Last summer he said it bluntly during an interview with Al Jadeed
TV: “I used to be a billionaire but I no longer am.” Much of that wealth was
spent on domestic politics after he decided to become his father’s political
heir and successor, back in 2005.
The rise of Bahaa Al Hariri
But more worrying than both restrictions is the mushrooming political ambition
of his elder brother Bahaa, who is entering Lebanese politics next March through
a list of Sunni figures—some being former members of the Future Movement.
Unlike Saad, Bahaa has not wasted his inheritance from the business empire of
their father, the late Rafik Al Hariri. According to Forbes, his net worth
stands currently at $2 billion, with plenty of funds at his disposal to lure
voters and market himself as the new leader of Lebanese Sunnis, just like his
father did when he debuted in the early 1990s.
Unlike Saad, the Boston University-educated Bahaa has taken a particularly tough
position on Hezbollah, which is music to the west and to Saudi Arabia. His
ambition has been rising steadily since he debuted politically two years ago,
supporting citywide protests that toppled his brother’s third cabinet, back in
October 2019. His current campaign list “Sawa Li Lubnan” is already raising
billboards across Beirut, ahead of the March elections. While Saad has closed
down his media outlets like Future TV and al-Mustaqbal newspaper, which were
essential for previous campaigns (due also to shortage of funds) Bahaa is
campaigning through his online Sawt Beirut International platform, which is
broadcasting on satellite television via LBC.
He has also hired an Australian political consulting firm called CT Group to
plan his campaign strategy, and Sawa li Lubnan has already set up ten offices
across the country, with headquarters in Downtown Beirut—a posh neighborhood
rebuilt by Rafik Al Hariri and long considered his pride and joy.
Bahaa Al Hariri won’t be running for office in March, however, preferring
instead to usher a list of supporters and allies into parliament. When that
happens, Bahaa will become a force in Lebanese politics, a small but developing
one, driving a wedge both within the Sunni community and inside his brother’s
Future Movement. These are hard times for Saad Al Hariri and it might be better
for him to sit back and watch, rather than immerse himself in a confrontation
that he might no longer be capable of winning.
The Latest English LCCC
Miscellaneous Reports And News published on
January 10-11/2022
Corona - Pope backs COVID immunisation
campaigns, warns of ideological misinformation
Reuters/January 10, 2022
Pope Francis on Monday condemned "baseless" ideological misinformation about
COVID-19 vaccines, backing national immunisation campaigns and calling health
care a moral obligation. Francis spoke in his yearly address to the diplomatic
corps accredited to the Vatican, sometimes called his "State of the World"
address because it is a broad survey of the global situation. His words to
diplomats from nearly 200 countries marked the closest he has ever come to a de
facto backing of vaccine mandates, which have become controversial in Italy and
other European countries. “We have realised that in those places where an
effective vaccination campaign has taken place, the risk of severe repercussions
of the disease has decreased," he said. "It is therefore important to continue
the effort to immunise the general population as much as possible". Francis, who
dedicated about a fifth of his six-page address to the pandemic, warned against
ideological statements regarding vaccinations. "Sadly, we are finding
increasingly that we live in a world of strong ideological divides. Frequently
people let themselves be influenced by the ideology of the moment, often
bolstered by baseless information or poorly documented facts," he said.
"Vaccines are not a magical means of healing, yet surely they represent, in
addition to other treatments that need to be developed, the most reasonable
solution for the prevention of the disease," he told the diplomats gathered in
the Vatican's frescoed Hall of the Benedictions.
Halbousi re-elected Iraqi parliament speaker amid
pro-Iran parties' disruptive challenge
The Arab Weekly/January 10/2022
Iraq's new parliament re-elected Sunni lawmaker Mohammed al-Halbousi as a
speaker on Sunday, marking an important step in an uncertain process towards
establishing a new government three months after a national election.
Pro-Iranian parties, which had lost the legislative elections, last October,
refused to concede defeat claiming they constituted the largest parliamentary
bloc. Amid the disruption caused by these parties, the acting speaker, Mahmoud
al-Mashahadani, suddenly fell ill and was taken to hospital, forcing the session
to be briefly adjourned. When the session resumed Halbousi was elected for a
second term as speaker, defeating Mashahadani, a former speaker of the first
parliament which sat in 2006. Halbousi won with 200 votes, according to a
statement from the 329-seat chamber. Parliament now has 30 days from the first
session to elect the country's new president, who will then ask the largest bloc
in parliament to form a government.
Challenging Sadr
There were heated debates and shouting among lawmakers over which party had the
most number of seats. Pro-Iran Shia political coalition Fatah (Conquest) and the
State of Law coalition, which is led by former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki,
submitted a document to the acting speaker requesting that their coalition be
determined the largest bloc in parliament. Lawmakers from Moqtada al-Sadr's
Sadrist Movement, which came first in the October election, strongly opposed the
request, defending their position as the largest bloc. The Fatah Alliance, the
political wing of the pro-Iran paramilitary coalition Hashed al-Shaabi, won only
17 seats in the legislative polls, compared with 48 in the previous parliament.
"The debate between Shia parties over which bloc is the largest in parliament
has disrupted the session and forced a brief delay," said Jamal Kojar, a Kurdish
lawmaker. Sadr's bloc, already the biggest in parliament before the October
election, has expanded from 54 to 73 seats. Moqtada Sadr, is the likely
kingmaker of the next government. He is expected to have the key say in who will
serve as the next prime minister, a post now held by Mustafa al-Kadhimi. Some
experts and politicians see a new governing team in place by March for the
oil-rich but war-battered country of 40 million. Sadr has repeatedly said he
wants to break with the established Iraqi political quota-based system of
"consensus" government and build instead a "national majority" government. He
has hinted that he prefers an alliance with Sunni groups Azm and Taqadom and
Kurdish parties, including the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP).
A first for Iraq
That would mean securing a ruling majority that would appoint a premier and
cabinet from within its ranks. Forming a majority government would be "new" for
Iraq, said political scientist Ihsan al-Shammari, noting that all Shia parties
had participated in previous administrations. However, some lawmakers could yet
switch allegiances and parliament's presidency will ultimately decide which is
the biggest faction. Hakim al-Zamili, who ran for Sadr's party, was elected as
Halbousi's first deputy-speaker. Shakhwan Abdulla from the Kurdistan Democratic
Party (KDP), was voted for as a second deputy. The political process remains
shrouded in uncertainty and could face further turbulence. Pro-Iran Shia parties
rejected the elections of the parliament speaker and deputies, pledging to
resort to the supreme court to contest the legality of the appointments. "What
happened today inside the parliament is illegal and will have dire consequences
on the state level," said Fatah lawmaker Humam al-Tamimi. Under Iraq's governing
system in place since the post-Saddam Hussein constitution was adopted in 2005,
the prime minister is a member of the Shia majority, the speaker is a Sunni and
the largely ceremonial role of president is held by a Kurd.
No breakthrough after eight-hour talks between US,
Russia on Ukraine
Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English/10 January ,2022
Highly anticipated talks between the US and Russia ended Monday after a
seven-and-a-half-hour consultation in Geneva between the State Department’s
number two diplomat and her Russian counterpart failed to result in any
immediate breakthrough on tensions over Ukraine.
Military officials were also present as tensions simmer over Moscow’s threats to
invade Ukraine. Washington and Europe, led by NATO, have warned that there would
be severe consequences if Russia followed through. Tens of thousands of Russian
troops are lined up on the border; Moscow claims it has no intentions of
military escalation. While US officials have said that Monday’s talks were a
continuation of the “Strategic Security Dialogue,” which started last summer
between US President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, the
recent discussions focused primarily on Ukraine. “One country cannot change the
borders of another by force or dictate the terms of another country's foreign
policy, or forbid another country from choosing its own alliances,” US Deputy
Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said in a call after Monday’s meeting. “We will
not allow anyone to slam closed NATO's open-door policy, which has always been
central to the NATO alliance.” For his part, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister
Sergei Ryabkov said it was “absolutely mandatory to make sure that Ukraine
never, never, ever” became a member of NATO. Asked if Russia answered on plans
to escalate with Ukraine, Sherman said: “I don’t think we know the answer to
that. We made it very clear that it’s very hard to have constructive, productive
and successful diplomacy without de-escalation.”Before the talks, Russia
released a list of demands, which guaranteed that Ukraine would not be admitted
to NATO. But the US issued a strong response, voiced by Secretary of State
Antony Blinken, last week saying some of the demands were absolute “non-starters.”NATO
also said it was up to each country to make sovereign decisions. Nevertheless,
Blinken said the best way forward was through dialogue and a diplomatic
solution. “We came up with a number of ideas where our two countries could take
reciprocal action that would be in our security interest and improve strategic
stability,” Sherman said on Monday. The US has proposed suggestions to ease
Russia’s fears include limiting US and NATO military exercises near Russian
borders in Eastern Europe. US officials have said that the presence of specific
missile systems in Ukraine could also be discussed. The Biden administration has
turned its attention to threats from Russia and China as the most pressing
issues facing US national security interests.
Syria’s Assad regime on trial in Europe
AFP/January 10, 2022
PARIS: A growing number of cases are being brought in Europe, and especially
Germany, against loyalists of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime on
accusations of state-sponsored torture. In the latest case, a court in the
German city of Koblenz is set on Thursday to rule on the case of former Syrian
intelligence agent, Anwar Raslan, who is accused of crimes against humanity, for
which prosecutors are demanding a life sentence. In February 2021, the court
jailed a lower-ranking former Syrian intelligence agent, Eyad Al-Gharib, for
being an accomplice to crimes against humanity in the world’s first prosecution
over the abuses.
Here is a snapshot of the cases:
Germany has used the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows a foreign
country to prosecute crimes against humanity, including war crimes and genocide,
regardless of where they were committed, after receiving complaints from Syrians
who claim to have been tortured in regime jails.
In March 2017, seven Syrian torture survivors and a human rights group filed a
criminal complaint in Germany against Syrian secret service officials. Later
that year nearly 27,000 photos taken by a former Syrian military photographer
known as Caesar, who documented torture and death in regime jails, were also
turned over to German courts, according to German rights group ECCHR. In
November 2017, the ECCHR announced that two new complaints for crimes against
humanity and war crimes had been filed by 13 Syrians over alleged acts of
torture. Seven other Syrian men and women who claimed to have suffered or
witnessed rape and sexual abuse in Assad’s detention centers also submitted a
complaint to German prosecutors, the group revealed in June 2020. They named
nine senior government and air force intelligence officials, including top
Syrian intelligence officer Jamil Hassan, already the subject of an
international arrest notice. The trial of a Syrian doctor accused of torture,
murder and crimes against humanity is due to start in Frankfurt on January 19.
In September 2015, a Paris prosecutor opened a preliminary inquiry against
Assad’s regime for crimes against humanity over allegations of abduction and
torture. The following July the family of a Syrian doctor who died in a
government prison lodged a complaint in Paris over his torture and murder.
Another French court opened an investigation in 2016 into the disappearance of
Mazen Dabbagh and his son Patrick, two French-Syrian nationals who had been
arrested in Syria three years earlier. France issued its first international
arrest notices for Syrian intelligence officials in 2018 for “complicity in acts
of torture” related to the case as well as “complicity in crimes against
humanity” and “complicity in war crimes.” The warrants were for National
Security Bureau director Ali Mamluk, Air Force Intelligence chief Jamil Hassan
and Abdel Salam Mahmoud, who was in charge of the Damascus branch of the Air
Force Intelligence investigative branch. In April 2021, three NGOs that had
lodged civil complaints managed to get a probe opened into chemical attacks in
2013 blamed on the Syrian government. The case, already filed in Germany, was
lodged on behalf of victims of the 2013 attack and a 2017 attack using sarin
gas. In December 2021, a Franco-Syrian man was jailed, suspected of providing
material to the Syrian army which could be used to make chemical weapons.
It is the first time that someone had been found charged in France with
supporting Assad’s troops, judicial officials said. In July 2017, a Spanish
court rejected a complaint filed by a Spanish woman of Syrian origin against
nine Syrian government officials over the forced detention, torture and alleged
execution of her brother in 2013. Legal proceedings have also been launched in
Austria, Norway and Sweden which was in 2017 the first country to sentence a
former soldier for war crimes. In Sweden, four NGOs lodged a complaint in April
2021 against Assad and several top officials after two chemical attacks in 2013
and 2017. In 2016, the United Nations set up its International, Impartial and
Independent Mechanism, which is preparing war crimes charges against individuals
over the Syrian conflict. Since April 20 the body has been gathering evidence
for use in possible future trials.
Iranian couple sues top officials over jet downing
AFP/January 10, 2022
TEHRAN: An Iranian couple has filed a rare lawsuit against three senior
officials over the death of their children in the 2020 downing of a Ukrainian
passenger plane, a newspaper reported Monday. Mohsen Assadi-Lari told reformist
daily Shargh the lawsuits targeted Ali Shamkhani, Major General Hossein Salami
and Brig. Gen. Amirali Hajjizadeh. Shamkhani is the secretary of Iran’s Supreme
National Security Council, Salami heads the elite Revolutionary Guard Corps,
while Hajjizadeh is commander of the Guards’ aerospace force. “We have lodged a
complaint against Shamkhani, Salami and Hajjizadeh,” said Assadi-Lari, a former
director general of international affairs at the health ministry. He and his
wife Zahda Majd, a university professor, lost their son Mohammad-Hossein, 23,
and daughter Zeinab, 21, in the downing of Ukraine International Airlines flight
PS752. It was shot down shortly after take-off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini
airport on January 8, 2020, killing all 176 people on board. Most were Iranians
and Canadians, including many dual nationals. Three days later, the Islamic
republic’s armed forces admitted to downing the Kyiv-bound plane “by
mistake.”Iranian families of victims last week marked the second anniversary of
the tragedy by gathering at the crash site near Tehran airport, demanding
justice for those who died. They held up pictures of their loved ones, laid
flowers and lit candles in their memory, while calling for “Justice! Truth!,”
videos shared on social media showed. And in another rare move, state television
has run an interview with the mother of Zahra Hassani Saadi, who also died in
the crash, questioning the authorities’ handling of the case. “We have several
questions, who will answer us? Why wasn’t the flight canceled? Why was the
cruise missile fired? We don’t know and no one has explained it to us,” she
said. Last week, Iranian officials said payments of $150,000 have started to be
made to victims’ families. Separately, a Canadian court said it has awarded more
than $80 million in compensation to the families of six of the victims. At the
time of the downing two years ago, Iranian air defenses were on high alert for a
US counterattack after Tehran fired missiles at a military base in Iraq that was
used by American forces.Those missiles came in response to the killing in a US
drone attack in Baghdad of Major General Qassem Soleimani who headed the Guards’
foreign operations arm.
Kazakhstan President Says 'Attempted Coup' Defeated
Agence France Presse/January 10, 2022
Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said Monday his country had
defeated an attempted coup d'etat during historic violence last week, and
insisted that Russian-led troops called in to help quell the unrest would go
home "soon."
During a video conference of leaders from several ex-Soviet countries in a
military alliance that sent in the troops, Tokayev's Russian counterpart
Vladimir Putin confirmed they would leave as soon as their mission ended. The
Central Asian country is reeling in the wake of the worst violence in its recent
history, but life in Kazakhstan's largest city Almaty appeared to be returning
to normal Monday, with internet coverage restored as the nation observed a day
of mourning for dozens killed in the clashes. Tokayev told the video conference
that "armed militants" had used the backdrop of protests to try to seize power.
"The main goal was obvious: the undermining of the constitutional order, the
destruction of government institutions and the seizure of power. It was an
attempted coup d'etat," Tokayev said. The Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO) has deployed just over 2,000 troops and 250 pieces of
military hardware, the Kazakh leader said, vowing that the detachment soon would
leave the country.
'Limited time period'
Some have voiced concerns that Moscow could leverage the mission to shore up its
influence in Kazakhstan, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warning last
week that "once Russians are in your house, it's sometimes very difficult to get
them to leave". Putin told Monday's meeting that "a contingent of CSTO
peacekeeping forces has been sent to Kazakhstan -- and I want to emphasize this
-- for a limited time period." He said measures taken by the CSTO showed that
its members would not allow "so-called color revolutions" to break out in
Russia's backyard. Large protests, Putin added, were "used by destructive forces
from outside and inside the country." Kazakhstan's authoritarian government has
accused "armed bandits" and terrorists of being behind the unrest, which began
with protests over a fuel price hike. The government said Monday that foreign
media reports had created "the false impression that the Kazakhstan government
has been targeting peaceful protesters". Tokayev said in the meeting that his
country's security personnel "have never fired and will never fire on peaceful
demonstrators." He wrote on Twitter later Monday that he had a "productive"
phone conversation with European Council President Charles Michel, during which
he dismissed claims force was used against unarmed protesters and said
Kazakhstan will "continue to strengthen (its) partnership with (the) EU."
Internet restored Almaty, the country's main city and former capital, had
been nearly completely offline since Wednesday. Local and foreign websites were
accessible again Monday morning but connections were far from stable. AFP
correspondents saw public transport operating there for the first time since the
violence, which left government buildings burned and gutted and many businesses
looted. The internet's restoration came as Putin criticized social media's role
in fomenting the unrest and called on the CSTO to work together on cybersecurity
and terrorism to combat "destructive foreign interference". Kazakh authorities
have struggled to provide a clear and full picture of the unrest. On Sunday, the
information ministry retracted a statement that said more than 164 people had
died in the unrest, blaming the publication on a "technical mistake". Officials
previously said 26 "armed criminals" had been killed and that 16 security
officers had died. In total, nearly 8,000 people have been detained for
questioning, the interior ministry said Monday. Tokayev dismissed his cabinet
last week in an effort to placate the protesters and was expected to present a
new government to parliament Tuesday. On Saturday, authorities announced the
arrest on treason charges of Karim Masimov, a high-profile ally of founding
president Nursultan Nazarbayev who was dismissed from his post as security
committee chief at the height of the unrest. Nazarbayev, 81, who was widely
regarded as holding the strings in country despite stepping down from the
presidency in 2019, has not spoken in public since the crisis began.
Nazarbayev's press secretary said Saturday that Nazarbayev was in "direct
contact" with Tokayev and called on Kazakhs to "rally around" the president.
Nazarbayev hand-picked Tokayev as his successor when he stepped down after more
than a quarter-century as head of state. Tokayev's spokesman said Sunday that
the president was "taking decisions
UAE reiterates support for stability in Kazakhstan
Arab News/January 10, 2022 22:13
LONDON: Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed stressed the UAE’s
support for stability in Kazakhstan and for preserving its peace, security, and
institutions. His comments came during a call with Kazakh President
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on Monday, where he was briefed on the latest developments
in Kazakhstan and the measures taken to establish security and protect the
country’s institutions, state news agency WAM reported. Nearly 8,000 people in
Kazakhstan were detained by police during protests that descended into violence
last week and marked the worst unrest the former Soviet nation has faced since
gaining independence 30 years ago, authorities said on Monday. During the call,
Sheikh Mohammed “expressed his confidence in the ability of the Kazakhstan
government and people to overcome this difficult period quickly,” the statement
said. Tokayev thanked the Emirati crown prince for his support for Kazakhstan,
praising the strong ties between the two counties in various fields.The two
leaders also discussed bilateral relations and ways to develop them. (With AP)
Kazakhstan Says Militants from Central Asia, Afghanistan,
Mideast behind Unrest
Agence France Presse/January 10, 2022
Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said Monday that militants from
Central Asia, Afghanistan and the Middle East were behind historic violence that
hit the country last week, the presidency reported. The Central Asian country is
reeling in the wake of the worst violence in its recent history, as the nation
on Monday observed a day of mourning for dozens killed in the clashes. "I have
no doubt that it was a terror attack," Tokayev told European Council President
Charles Michel by phone, his office said. Tokayev said the attack was "well
organized" and involved "foreign fighters" from Central Asian countries,
Afghanistan and the Middle East. He accused the militants of seeking to create a
"zone of controlled chaos" in order to seize power. Separately, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi also discussed the
situation in Kazakhstan and voiced their "firm support" for efforts by the
Kazakh authorities to restore order, Moscow said. Both ministers "stressed their
concern about the intervention of external forces, including the participation
of foreign mercenaries in attacks on civilians and law enforcement officials,
the seizure of state institutions and other facilities," the Russian foreign
ministry said in a statement. Both Kazakhstan's authoritarian government and
Moscow have repeatedly blamed the unrest on forces outside the country, without
offering evidence. During the talks with Michel, Tokayev also said that economic
damage could total $2-3 billion, citing preliminary estimates.
Following a request from Tokayev, the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO) has deployed troops and military hardware. Tokayev told
Michel that CSTO troops were in Kazakhstan only to protect strategic facilities.
"They will remain in Kazakhstan until the situation fully stabilizes," Tokayev
added. Kazakh authorities have until now struggled to provide a clear and full
picture of the unrest. On Sunday, the information ministry retracted a statement
that said more than 164 people had died in the unrest, blaming the publication
on a "technical mistake."
Arab coalition kills 270 Houthis in Yemen airstrikes
Arab News/January 10, 2022
RIYADH: The Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen said on Monday that 220
Houthi militants were killed in airstrikes on Shabwa province, Saudi state TV
reported. The coalition added that 29 military vehicles were also destroyed
during 38 operations targeting the Iran-backed Houthi militia over the last 24
hours. In a separate statement, the coalition said it had carried out 11 other
operations targeting the Houthis in Marib, killing 50 fighters and destroying
seven vehicles. Meanwhile, pro-government forces in Yemen backed by the
coalition said they had seized control of the northern oil-rich Shabwa province
from the Houthis rebels. The pro-government Giants Brigade announced in a
statement the “liberation of the district of Ain” after a 10-day assault, which
it said had been the last area of the province left in Houthi control. The
militia began a major push to seize the government’s last northern stronghold in
Marib and Shabwa last February and, after a lull, they renewed their offensive
in September, when they seized districts in Shabwa. But the Giants Brigade, a
force of an estimated 15,000 fighters, had launched a pushback, announcing last
month that troop reinforcements had been sent to bolster positions in
Shabwa.“All the districts of the province of Shabwa have been totally
liberated,” the statement added. “We thank the heroes of the Giants Brigade...
and we thank the Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the support of the
United Arab Emirates.”(With AFP)
Libyan security forces break up protest sit-in by
migrants
AP/January 10, 2022 23:59
SHARM EL-SHEIKH: Libyan security forces raided and violently broke up a protest
sit-in by migrants outside a shuttered UN community center in the capital of
Tripoli, activists and migrants said on Monday. The troops came on Sunday night,
smashed up the protest site and arrested hundreds, said activist Tarik Lamloum.
Those detained were sent to a detention center in the nearby town of Ain Zara.
Others managed to flee from the raid, he said. Lamloum, who works with the local
Belaady Organization for Human Rights, said at least one migrant community
leader was shot during the raid. The migrants, including women and children, had
camped outside the center in Tripoli since October, seeking protection following
a massive crackdown on migrants, and demanding better treatment at the hands of
Libyan authorities. Aiysha, a Sudanese migrant, was part of the sit-in protest
along with her family since October. The mother of two said police beat and
detained migrants. She was among those detained. “We were caught off guard,” she
said, speaking by phone from the detention center in Ain Zara. She gave only her
first name, fearing for her safety. “They burned the tents, burned everything.”
The Norwegian Refugee Council and the International Rescue Committee said more
than 600 migrants were detained in the raid. “This is the culmination of a
disastrous situation that has deteriorated” since the mass detention of migrants
in October, said Dax Roque, the NRC’s Libya director. Both groups urged Libyan
authorities to immediately release those detained and provide them protection
from further violence. A government spokesman did not answer phone calls and
messages seeking comment. In the October crackdown, Libyan authorities rounded
up more than 5,000 migrants, including hundreds of children and women — dozens
of them pregnant, according to the United Nations. Authorities at the time
described it as a security operation against illegal migration and drug
trafficking. The detained migrants were taken to overcrowded detention centers,
prompting an outcry from the UN and human rights groups. Libya has been engulfed
in chaos since a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed Muammar Qaddafi in
2011. The country has in recent years emerged as the dominant transit point for
migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East, hoping for a
better life in Europe. Traffickers have exploited the chaos and often pack
desperate families into ill-equipped rubber or wooden boats that stall and
founder along the perilous Central Mediterranean route. Thousands have drowned
along the way, others have been intercepted and returned to Libya.
Those detained on land and others returned to shore are often taken to
government-run detention centers, rife with torture, sexual assault and other
abuses. UN-commissioned investigators said in October that abuse and ill
treatment of migrants at sea, in detention centers and at the hands of
traffickers in Libya amount to crimes against humanity.
UN starts talks in Sudan to resolve post-coup crisis
Reuters/January 10, 2022
KHARTOUM: The UN said it was starting consultations in Sudan on Monday to try to
salvage the country’s move to democracy after a military coup.
UN officials were contacting parties to look for a way forward, and the army had
raised no objections to the initiative, UN special representative Volker Perthes
told reporters. “We want to move quickly,” he said. The UN plan amounts to the
only substantial effort at present to resolve the political crisis. The military
takeover in October wrecked a power-sharing arrangement with civilian leaders
that was meant to pave the way to elections after the overthrow of leader Omar
Al-Bashir in 2019. The coup also halted a Western-backed opening up of the
economy after decades of isolation and sanctions. Protesters have regularly
taken to the streets demanding civilian rule, and medics aligned with the
protest movement say more than 60 people have died in clashes with security
services. “I do hope that these consultations can become something like a
confidence-building measure and would help to at least reduce the violence,”
Perthes said. Protest groups and the political parties ousted by the coup have
so far refused to negotiate directly with the military. So the United Nations
would start by approaching groups individually, in the hope of moving onto to a
second phase of direct or indirect negotiations, Perthes said. The first
sessions on Monday afternoon would involve civil society groups. “We will have
every day a mix of stakeholders we are talking to,” he said. UN officials have
asked the groups to present their visions for a way forward, with the aim of
producing a consensus on points of agreement and disagreement at the conclusion
of talks. In a statement late on Monday, the military-led Sovereign Council
welcomed the initiative and called on the inclusion of the African Union.
Perthes said that only Bashir’s former ruling party and the Sudanese Communist
Party had rejected the initiative outright. He said it would be tricky to set a
timeframe for concluding talks and starting negotiations and that if one or two
more weeks were needed, hard deadlines would not be imposed. “Time is precious,
we know that. There’s a lot of pressure on the situation in Sudan and on
us.”Unless a new course for the transition and a path to credible elections is
found, Sudan’s economic plight could worsen and instability could spread inside
and outside its borders, analysts and diplomats say. Perthes told Reuters he
would find ways to make use of offers of support from international players
including the US and Saudi Arabia, both key donors, and that others including
European states and Kenya had also offered backing. “The US, the Saudis, and a
couple of others are very heavily involved, they helped in developing some
ideas,” he said. More mass protests against the military are planned, with
another round expected on Wednesday.
Israel weighs extending detention of sick
Palestinian teen
AP/January 10, 2022
JERUSALEM: Israel is considering whether to extend the detention of a
17-year-old Palestinian with a rare neuromuscular disorder who has been held
without charge for nearly a year in what authorities refer to as administrative
detention, his father said on Monday. The use of administrative detention has
galvanized demonstrations across the occupied West Bank in recent months as
several adult prisoners have gone on hunger strike to protest being held for
months or years without charge. Some have secured their release after months of
fasting that left them hospitalized and at risk of permanent neurological
damage. Israel says administrative detention, which is rarely used for minors,
is needed to prevent imminent attacks or to detain dangerous militants without
disclosing sensitive intelligence. Rights groups say it further denies due
process to Palestinians already living under military rule. Amal Nakhleh, who
was detained in January 2021, is one of just a handful of minors being held in
administrative detention. He had a tumor removed from his lung in 2020 and
suffers from myasthenia gravis, a nerve disorder that causes severe muscle
fatigue. His father, Muamar, says Israel has renewed Amal’s detention three
times over the past year without saying why he is being held or accusing him of
any crime. “There’s no legal justification to hold him, there’s been no charge,”
he said. “They just say they have secret files.”He says his son requires regular
hospital visits for testing and needs a calm environment. At a court appearance
on Monday, he was told that authorities need a few more days to decide whether
to renew his son’s detention. “I saw him today,” he said. “He couldn’t move his
lips, he couldn’t move his eyes, he couldn’t smile. These are symptoms of the
disease ... We are very worried about his health situation.” The Israeli
military and Israel’s Shin Bet internal security service did not immediately
respond to requests for comment. Jessica Montell, the director of HaMoked, an
Israeli rights group that advocates for Palestinian detainees, says Israel was
holding six minors in administrative detention as of September, when her group
received a response to a freedom of information request. Around 500 Palestinian
adults are currently being held in administrative detention. “Administrative
detention should be reserved for extremely rare cases,” Montell said. “It should
not be used in this wholesale way that Israel makes use of it, not for adults
and definitely not for a sick child.”
El-Sisi meets Mahmoud Abbas on sidelines of World Youth Forum
Yassin Mohammad/Arab News/January 10, 2022
CAIRO: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi met Palestinian leader Mahmoud
Abbas ahead of the launch of the World Youth Forum in Sharm El-Sheikh on Monday.
Diab Al-Louh, Palestine Ambassador to Egypt and permanent representative to the
Arab League, said that Abbas held a “special session of talks” with President
El-Sisi on the sidelines of the forum. The pair discussed Palestinian issues,
efforts to advance the peace process and end the Israeli occupation, and steps
by Egypt to repair sections of the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian president was
accompanied by Fatah Central Committee member and head of the General Authority
for Civil Affairs Hussein al-Sheikh; head of the General Intelligence Service,
Maj. Gen. Majed Faraj; the Palestinian chief justice; Mahmoud Al-Habbash,
presidential adviser for religious affairs and Islamic relations; and diplomatic
affairs adviser Majdi Khaldi.
The two sides also held a meeting by telephone several days ago, and a
Palestinian-Egyptian-Jordanian meeting was held in Cairo at the end of last
month, with senior political and security officials discussing ways to launch a
Palestinian-Israeli political track under international auspices.
The World Youth Forum is an annual global event held in Sharm El-Sheikh under
the patronage of El-Sisi. It aims to gather influential youth from around the
world to promote dialogue and understanding.
Statement from Minister Joly on so-called
inauguration in Nicaragua
January 10, 2022 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada
The Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today issued the
following statement:
“Over the past 4 years, the Ortega regime has dismantled democratic institutions
in Nicaragua. It has manipulated the electoral process to cling to power by
arresting and detaining political opponents, repressing independent media and
forcing journalists and civil society leaders into exile. As a result,
Nicaragua’s November 7 elections lacked democratic legitimacy as does the
inauguration taking place today.
“Canada repeats its call for the Ortega regime to reverse its destructive course
and seek a peaceful and democratic resolution to the ongoing crisis.
“This reversal would start with the regime immediately releasing all political
prisoners. Canada also calls on the regime to accept the Good Offices Mission
from the Organization of American States (OAS) with the aim of encouraging a
national dialogue that would lead to holding early elections, under credible
international observation, that are free, fair and transparent. As well, Canada
calls on the regime to take steps to adhere to the principles of the
Inter-American Democratic Charter.
“The Government of Canada previously implemented targeted sanctions under the
Special Economic Measures Act in response to the ongoing, gross and systematic
violations of human rights in Nicaragua. We will continue to use all our
diplomatic tools to hold this oppressive regime and its enablers to account.
“Canada welcomes the decisive actions taken by its international partners,
including the United States and the European Union, and will continue to work
with them to leverage support and put pressure on the regime to restore
democracy and respect human rights.
“Canada will continue to work with democracies in the region and around the
world, including at the OAS and UN Human Rights Council, to support the
aspirations of the Nicaraguan people for a more peaceful, just and democratic
future.”
The Latest The Latest LCCC English
analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published
on January 10-11/2022
Torture in Turkish Prisons: Systematic and Widespread
Uzay Bulut/Gatestone Institute/January 10/2022
On December 9, several national and international anti-torture organizations –
the Centre for Social Support, Rehabilitation and Re-adaptation for Victims of
Torture, War and Violence; Civil Society in the Penal System; Foundation for
Society and Legal Studies; Human Rights Association; Human Rights Foundation of
Turkey, and the Europe Branch of the World Organization Against Torture --
issued a joint press release stating that "torture remains widespread" in
Turkey:
"Five years have passed since the Special Rapporteur on torture conducted his
visit to Turkey to assess the prevailing situation.... Although the officials in
Turkey had stated at the time their commitment to investigate, prosecute and
punish those responsible for the use of torture and other forms of
ill-treatment, the grim reality on the ground tells a different story. In fact,
several regressive measures have been implemented that are considered as a
significant backslide....
"A rise in incidents of torture, ill-treatment, and cruel and inhuman or
degrading treatment in police and military custody and in prison over the past
years has overshadowed Turkey's earlier progress in this area. This has been
due, among others, to the violation of procedural guarantees, long-term custody
periods, and willful negligence that have become a common practice at various
levels of the State.
"There is also a steady increase in the use of the anti-terrorism law against
individuals by public prosecutors. The concept of 'terrorism offences', which is
highly problematic regarding its broad and vague definition, has been
instrumentalized and misused as a pretext to silence, oppress and criminalize
political dissidents.
"According to the data provided by the Council of Europe, Turkey has the largest
population of inmates convicted for terrorism-related offences. The country's
prison population rate has increased by 115.3 percent in the last 10 years; this
has led to Turkey having the highest incarceration rate of the 47 Council of
Europe member countries in 2020."
"Torture has remained the most dominant human rights problem in 2021 in
Turkey... in spite of the fact that it is a crime against humanity and is
absolutely prohibited by the Constitution and universal law, which Turkey is a
part of."
Political prisoners in Turkey are systematically mistreated and even tortured
for having the "wrong" political thoughts or for being labelled by the
government as "enemies" or "terrorists". The situation of sick political
prisoners is rarely covered in the mainstream Turkish media. Sadly, the
pro-government media seems to view dissident prisoners as traitors or terrorists
who deserve death.
Many prisoners are incarcerated solely based on false statements by "protected,"
often anonymous witnesses (called in Turkish a "secret witness"). Thousands of
innocent people are rotting in Turkish prisons for being or supporting
"terrorists" when there is no actual evidence against them.... Attempts at
defense are also undercut.
Garibe Gezer, a female Kurdish political prisoner who was in solitary
confinement in Turkey, recently died in prison after months of torture and rape.
Political prisoners in Turkey are systematically mistreated and even tortured
for having the "wrong" political thoughts or for being labelled by the
government as "enemies" or "terrorists". (Image source: iStock. Picture is for
illustration purposes and does not represent any person in this article.)
Garibe Gezer, a Kurdish political prisoner who was in solitary confinement in
Turkey, recently died in prison after months of torture and rape.
On December 9, the administration of Kandıra Prison called the Gezer family and
informed them that their daughter was found dead in her cell. Kandıra, located
in the city of Kocaeli, is where many politicians, journalists and human rights
activists are imprisoned.
The prison administration allege that Gezer "committed suicide". Through her
letters and conversations with her lawyers and family members, however, Gezer
had said that she was kept in a solitary cell where she was systematically
tortured and raped by prison guards. The city's prosecutor's office has imposed
a gag order on the investigation of her death. A disciplinary investigation was
also launched against Gezer's fellow prisoners for protesting her death by
applauding.
Gezer's lawyers went to Kandıra Prison to take the video footage of the moment
of Gezer's death in her prison cell and to meet the prison authorities. However,
her body had already been taken to the Kocaeli Forensic Medicine Institute and
an autopsy carried out. The authorities did not wait for the lawyers to arrive.
Hence, Gezer's cause of death was not stated in the preliminary autopsy report.
On January 4, prosecutors dismissed an investigation into Gezer's claims of
torture and sexual assaults.
Even after Gezer's death, governmental aggression against her did not end. Her
body was taken from the hospital under police blockade. On December 10,
activists from various human rights and women's rights organizations went to
Kocaeli's hospital to collect Gezer's body for her funeral. The women chanted "Şehid
namirin" (a slogan in Kurdish meaning "martyrs are immortal"), as they carried
the coffin on their shoulders, but the police officers aggressively reacted,
yelling: "What martyr? No chanting! No yelling!"
As Gezer was born in the city of Mardin, her body needed to be taken there for
burial. While the coffin was expected to be taken by a hearse belonging to the
Mardin Metropolitan Municipality, the vehicle that arrived at the airport was
stopped and sent back by the police. The police told Gezer's family to "take the
coffin to Mardin through their own means". As a result, her body was placed on
the bed of a pickup truck and driven to her home in Mardin. According to the
Mesopotamia News Agency, the police set up checkpoints along the road where the
hearse was to pass.
In December alone, six other Kurdish political prisoners who were ill -- Bangin
Muhammed, Abdülerezak Suyur, Halil Güneş, Salih Tuğrul, Ilyas Demir and Vedat
Erkmen -- died in Turkish prisons. The administration of Tekirdag Prison, where
Erkmen was incarcerated, also said the prisoner had "committed suicide". His
brother, Saim Erkmen, however, said he believed his brother had been executed:
"My brother's funeral was abducted from us by the police. My brother was not one
to commit suicide. The state killed him. To cover it up, they took him to the
Forensic Medicine Institute without first informing us and his lawyers... And
because they killed him, the autopsy was done in secret from us."
These political prisoners are not the only victims of abuse in Turkish prisons.
As reported in a December 22 article in the newspaper Birgun, political
prisoners in Turkey are subject to many human rights violations including
prolonged solitary confinement, strip searches, torture, ill-treatment, and book
bans, which collectively are "dragging political prisoners into trauma". The
article states:
"104 detainees and convicts have lost their lives in prisons since 2020, and at
least 7 people have died this month. According to rights defenders and many
lawyers, the reasons for these deaths include the pressure on prisoners in
prisons and the failure to deliver sick detainees to health services on time....
Rights defenders point out that many of these deaths are 'suspicious'."
The findings of the "Rights Violations in Prisons in 2021" report by the
Diyarbakir Bar Association issued on December 30 confirmed Birgun's report:
"Prisons in Turkey have almost become sites of torture where all kinds of
inhuman and degrading treatment, especially violations of the right to life, are
practiced... [including] deaths [killings], [unlawful] transfers to other
prisons, torture and ill-treatment, solitary confinement and isolation,
obstacles before seeing families, obstruction of communication rights,
disciplinary investigations, and keeping sick prisoners in prison."
Meanwhile, Aysel Tuğluk, a former vice chair and MP of the pro-Kurdish Peoples'
Democratic Party (HDP) and a former co-chair of the Democratic Society Congress
(DTK), has been behind bars since December 2016.
Despite being a member of legal political organizations, Tuğluk was sentenced 10
years in prison in 2018 for "being an executive of a terrorist organization".
Last year, she was sentenced to an additional prison sentence -- 1 year and 8
months -- for "propagandizing for a terrorist organization.". Tuğluk now suffers
from severe memory loss and is evidently incapable of tending to her most basic
needs.
In 2017, Tuğluk was exposed to physical and verbal attacks during her mother's
funeral in Ankara as reported by Raffi Bedrosyan. She was released from her
prison cell for the occasion, but eventually prevented from burying her mother,
who practiced the Alevi religion:
'[A]]group of 30 fanatical ultranationalists showed up at the grave site with a
tractor, chanting slogans such as 'These are Turkish lands, these are not
Armenian lands,' 'Burial of Alevis, Armenians, and Kurds is not allowed here,'
'Seeds of Armenian[s] not allowed in a Turkish cemetery,' and more ominously,
'If you don't remove this coffin, we will shred it to pieces.'
"Soon the mob increased to 100 people, and they started throwing stones at the
mourners, including Tuğluk. Although many police officers were present, they
simply watched the mob without interfering. In fact, several attackers seemed to
know the officers and addressed them by name."
The funeral was moved, but without Tuğluk, who was sent back to prison.
Tuğluk's lawyer, Reyhan Yalçındağ, says that the attack at her mother's funeral
marked the beginning of the decline of her health and eventually led to the
memory loss from which she currently suffers.
Meanwhile, doctors at the Kocaeli School of Medicine examined Tuğluk for eight
months and stated that, due to her chronic disease, the serving of her sentence
should be deferred. The government-funded Forensic Medicine Institute announced,
however, that Tuğluk could get medical treatment in prison. On September 3,
based on the report by the Forensic Medicine Institute, Kocaeli Chief Public
Prosecutor's Office rejected the request for a deferral. As a result, Tuğluk
remains in prison.
The Istanbul branch of the Human Rights Association issued a statement calling
for her release:
"In the Kocaeli University Forensic Medicine report dated July 12, 2021, it was
clearly stated that Tuğluk has 'dementia' and that she needs the help of others
to survive. The life of Tuğluk, whose disease is rapidly progressing, is put at
risk."
On December 9, several national and international anti-torture organizations --
the Centre for Social Support, Rehabilitation and Re-adaptation for Victims of
Torture, War and Violence; Civil Society in the Penal System; Foundation for
Society and Legal Studies; Human Rights Association; Human Rights Foundation of
Turkey; and the Europe Branch of the World Organization Against Torture --
issued a joint press release stating that "torture remains widespread" in
Turkey:
"Five years have passed since the Special Rapporteur on torture conducted his
visit to Turkey to assess the prevailing situation and challenges concerning
torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Although
the officials in Turkey had stated at the time their commitment to investigate,
prosecute and punish those responsible for the use of torture and other forms of
ill-treatment, the grim reality on the ground tells a different story. In fact,
several regressive measures have been implemented that are considered as a
significant backslide in terms of tackling impunity and guaranteeing basic human
rights.
"A rise in incidents of torture, ill-treatment, and cruel and inhuman or
degrading treatment in police and military custody and in prison over the past
years has overshadowed Turkey's earlier progress in this area. This has been
due, among others, to the violation of procedural guarantees, long-term custody
periods, and willful negligence that have become a common practice at various
levels of the State.
"There is also a steady increase in the use of the anti-terrorism law against
individuals by public prosecutors. The concept of 'terrorism offences', which is
highly problematic regarding its broad and vague definition, has been
instrumentalized and misused as a pretext to silence, oppress and criminalize
political dissidents. According to the data provided by the Council of Europe,
Turkey has the largest population of inmates convicted for terrorism-related
offences. The country's prison population rate has increased by 115.3 percent in
the last 10 years; this has led to Turkey having the highest incarceration rate
of the 47 Council of Europe member countries in 2020."
On December 10, which is also internationally known as Human Rights Day,
Turkey's Human Rights Association and Human Rights Foundation of Turkey issued a
joint statement, saying:
"Torture has remained the most dominant human rights problem in 2021 in Turkey
as well in spite of the fact that it is a crime against humanity and is
absolutely prohibited by the Constitution and universal law, which Turkey is a
part of. Acts of torture and ill-treatment at official custodial places as well
as extra-custodial places, in the streets and outdoors or in spaces like homes
and offices along with the "extreme and disproportionate interference" of the
law enforcement amounting to the level of "torture" in assemblies and
demonstrations have come to bear a novel dimension and intensity. One can argue
that the whole country has virtually become a space of torture today as a result
of the political power's mode of government based on repression and control.
"It is also quite alarming that enforced disappearances/abductions, which
account for one of the most disgraceful human rights violations in recent
history and qualify as a crime against humanity, have also been witnessed in
2021 and the number of such cases has gone up again since 2016 when the state of
emergency was declared.
"Prisons, which are an unmediated sign of a state's respect for human rights,
have become extremely overcrowded today as a result of the political power's
abuse of law as an instrument of repression and intimidation in Turkey. Prisons
are places where gross and serious violations are committed ranging from the
right to life to torture, and to right of access to healthcare."
Political prisoners in Turkey are systematically mistreated and even tortured
for having the "wrong" political thoughts or for being labelled by the
government as "enemies" or "terrorists" The situation of sick political
prisoners is rarely covered in the mainstream Turkish media. Sadly, the
pro-government media seems to view dissident prisoners as traitors or terrorists
who deserve death.
Even the dead bodies of political prisoners are not respected by the government.
In many cases, autopsies are done without the presence of the prisoners' lawyers
or family members. Many prisoners are incarcerated solely based on false
statements by "protected," often anonymous witnesses (called in Turkish a
"secret witness"). Thousands of innocent people are rotting in Turkish prisons
for allegedly being or supporting "terrorists" when there is no evidence against
them that could reasonably be considered "terrorism." The "terrorism" charges
brought against those defendants are extremely vague and imprecise. Attempts at
defense are also undercut. According to Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on
the situation of human rights defenders:
"In Turkey human rights lawyers are particularly targeted for their work
representing human rights defenders, victims of human rights violations, victims
of police violence and torture, and many people who simply express dissenting
opinions."
These oppressive measures, which operate systematically across Turkey, appear
primarily designed to lead to the punishment and destruction of those who might
criticize or challenge the government.
*Uzay Bulut, a Turkish journalist, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the
Gatestone Institute.
© 2022 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do
not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No
part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied
or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
Predicting 2022 – China's Year of the Tiger
Pete Hoekstra/Gatestone Institute/January 10, 2022
For too long, American government and business leaders have sat quietly and
allowed China and the Chinese Communist Party to run roughshod over our nation
and our values.
As Americans see the large number of container ships waiting off the West Coast
to unload cargo, they realize that much of the material on those ships comes
from China. The reasonable question they are increasingly asking is, why is
America doing business with a country that our own government says practices
genocide and steals U.S. intellectual property and jobs?
More and more of Americans' anger is being targeted towards the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP), which has attempted to deflect blame and make baseless
accusations against America and the West.
US President Joe Biden right before Christmas signed into law the Uyghur Forced
Labor Prevention Act, approved by a voice vote in the Senate and by a 428 -1
margin in the House. This law will prevent the importation of goods and products
produced in Xinjiang unless it can be proved they were not made with forced
labor.
American politicians will not be the only target of the American public. The
public also will target American companies that worship at the altar of sales
and profits from China. They will demand that companies respond to the CCP's
genocide in Xinjiang, political repression in Hong Kong, and threats against
Taiwan.
American politicians typically lag behind where the American people are.
America's politicians will therefore need to go big against China or in November
of 2022, their constituents will send them home.
As Americans see the large number of container ships waiting off the West Coast
to unload cargo, they realize that much of the material on those ships comes
from China. The reasonable question they are increasingly asking is, why is
America doing business with a country that our own government says practices
genocide and steals U.S. intellectual property and jobs? Pictured: Container
ships wait offshore for entry to the Port of Los Angeles on October 6, 2021.
According to the Chinese calendar, 2022 is the Year of the Tiger. 2022 is the
year where America finally goes big against China. China will also go big
against the U.S. and Taiwan. Here are the developments that will push America to
confront China's malign and dangerous behavior and, in an upcoming article,
those that will push China to go big.
Most likely, 2022 will finally be the wake-up call Americans need. For too long,
American government and business leaders have sat quietly and allowed China and
the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to run roughshod over our nation and our
values. In 2001, politicians such as President George W. Bush welcomed China
into the World Trade Organization and promised that not only would it benefit
global trade, but strengthen China's adherence to the rule of law and that China
would "introduce certain civil reforms." At this point, it is clear that things
have not turned out quite that way.
There are signs that Americans are finally waking-up to the multitude of threats
emanating from China. Americans are struggling through the omicron wave and year
three of the coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China. By covering up the
human-to-human transmissibility of the virus, China has already killed more than
800,000 of our fellow countrymen. Americans are frustrated and angry that
instead of being forthcoming about the virus, China's regime hid it while
hoarding medical supplies and personal protective equipment, and insisting that
their citizens travel and spread the virus abroad. More and more of Americans'
anger is being targeted towards the Chinese Communist Party, which has attempted
to deflect blame and make baseless accusations against America and the West. New
revelations about the CCP's complicity in the global spread of the virus can
only worsen the situation.
A July 2021 poll by Harvard and Politico shows that a majority of Americans,
including majorities of both Republicans and Democrats, believe that the virus
escaped, probably accidentally, from a Chinese laboratory. In March 2020, only
29% of Americans had believed this. While the U.S. is deeply divided politically
on most issues, the bipartisan agreement that a Chinese government laboratory
with military ties is responsible for the COVID pandemic demonstrates that on
the most serious issue impacting America, political partisans on both sides of
the aisle see the CCP as the root cause of the catastrophe that, more than two
years later, is still devastating their lives.
In addition, both Republicans and Democrats believe, after watching China's
repeated refusal (eg: here and here) to allow any investigation into the origins
of its virus, that China's regime has been less than transparent in sharing what
it knew -- and knows -- about the virus. House Intelligence Committee Chairman
Adam Schiff, D-Calif., stated:
"Beijing's continued obstruction of a transparent, comprehensive examination of
the relevant facts and data about the source of the coronavirus can only delay
the vital work ..."
The White House and Republican House members also have called jointly for more
transparency and sharing of information -- further indicating bipartisan
agreement about the lack of transparency by the Chinese government.
As Americans see the large number of container ships waiting off the West Coast
to unload cargo, they realize that much of the material on those ships comes
from China. The reasonable question they are increasingly asking is, why is
America doing business with a country that our own government says practices
genocide and steals U.S. intellectual property and jobs?
China's standing in the U.S. is eroding rapidly, American companies are moving
out of China, and in the upcoming election year, China will be a central focus
of the political landscape. From 2020 to 2021 the number of Americans who see
China as the greatest threat to America doubled, from 22% to 45%. A whopping 63%
of Americans see China's economic power as a threat. In 2018, that number was
only 40%. As these views span the American political spectrum, it is worth
noting that US President Joe Biden, right before Christmas, signed into law the
Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, approved by a voice vote in the Senate and
by a 428-to-1 margin in the House. This law will prevent the importation of
goods and products produced in China's Xinjiang region unless it can be proved
they were not made with forced labor.
American politicians will not be the only target of the American public. They
also will target American companies that worship at the altar of sales and
profits from China. They will demand that companies respond to the Chinese
Communist Party's genocide in Xinjiang, political repression in Hong Kong, and
threats against Taiwan.
American politicians typically lag behind where the American people are.
America's politicians will therefore need to go big against China or in November
of 2022, their constituents will send them home. Politicians will go big as they
seek to one-up each other as to who is the strongest against China, both through
their rhetoric and votes on legislation that confront China's dysfunctional
behavior. President Donald Trump and the America First agenda may have triggered
much of this shift the last few years, but both Republicans and Democrats will
embrace it in 2022. In the Year of the Tiger, America will go big against China.
*Peter Hoekstra was US Ambassador to the Netherlands during the Trump
administration. He served 18 years in the U.S. House of Representatives
representing the second district of Michigan and served as Chairman and Ranking
member of the House Intelligence Committee. He is currently Chairman of the
Center for Security Policy Board of Advisors.
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Normalization is the new normal for the UAE and Israel
Hussain Abdul-Hussain & Shany Mor/Arab News/January 10/ 2022
Conventional wisdom holds that the normalization of relations between Israel and
the UAE is, at most, an expression of mutual antagonism toward Iran, driven by
concern about Tehran’s nuclear program and its support for terrorist militias
throughout the Middle East.
This month’s historic meeting of Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and
Emirati Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed puts paid to that conventional wisdom.
For one thing, the UAE and Israel have differing approaches to the Iran issue.
For another, the cooperation the countries seek goes far beyond security and
shared enemies.
An examination of the leaders’ joint statement after their meeting, together
with a close look at who the Israeli prime minister did and did not meet in Abu
Dhabi, suggests that it is the economy, rather than security, that is pulling
the two sides closer together. Bilateral trade between the two nations reached
close to $800 million by the end of September. In March, the UAE announced a $10
billion fund to “invest in strategic sectors in Israel.”
According to the joint statement, Bennett and MBZ discussed “private- and
public-sector cooperation in R&D, technology, food security, climate, water,
energy, environment, health and tourism.” Security was not listed as one of the
topics.
The nations said they plan to create “a joint research and development fund,”
alongside “a corresponding joint business council,” that would wed startup
nation Israel to the entrepreneurial UAE, with its advanced banking and
marketing industries, and allow the two to deal with problems that vary from
“climate change and desertification” to “clean energy and future agriculture.”
Bennett and his hosts also explored the possibility of reaching a “comprehensive
economic partnership agreement.” In September, the UAE’s state-owned Mubadala
bought a $1 billion stake in an Israeli natural gas field.
In addition to meeting MBZ and Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed, Bennett met
Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology Sultan Al-Jaber, and Minister of
Culture Noura Al-Kaabi.
Note that he did not have a one-on-one with National Security Advisor Tahnoun
bin Zayed, the third man from the top in the UAE. Tahnoun had just returned from
a visit to Iran last week, a meeting that raised eyebrows in the Israeli
security establishment.
Bennett’s meeting with officials in charge of industry and culture but not
security and intelligence suggests that — at least publicly — the UAE and Israel
do not wish to be seen as creating an anti-Iran front or alliance.
True, during their one-on-one meeting, which lasted more than two hours, MBZ and
Bennett must have talked about Iran. If so, no one knows what they said — but we
can speculate that Bennett updated MBZ about Israeli Defense Minister Benny
Gantz’s trip to Washington, and also on reports that Israel is preparing a
strike against nuclear targets in Iran, given that the Vienna talks are going
nowhere.
While MBZ might have expressed private support for a possible Israeli strike on
Iran, he must have told his guest that the UAE cannot be publicly supportive of
any such action. The UAE is a stone’s throw from Iran and might want to sit out
any military conflagration for fear that Iranian missiles could wreak havoc on a
country whose prosperous economy depends on stability.
The UAE and Israel share many of the same concerns about Iran and many of the
same commitments and strategies — but not all. They are separate countries with
differing interests and differing priorities. They don’t need to have identical
interests and policies on Iran for a deepening of ties, just as they did not
need normalization to cooperate on the Iranian threat.
In effect, the UAE faces the same dilemma that South Korea does regarding the
nuclear weapons of its northern neighbor. Seoul, a densely populated city with
an extremely advanced and developed economy, is within the range of North Korean
missiles and fears that, in case of war over the North’s nukes, the South’s
capital might suffer if missiles start flying.
Iran’s situation is slightly different. Tehran is unlikely to hit the UAE, or
any of its neighbors, unprovoked. Unless the fighter jets that strike Iran take
off from the UAE, Tehran will not drag its southern Gulf neighbor into a war.
Just like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait, the UAE would most likely be rooting
for Israel in private and offering intelligence and other discreet logistical
support if war was to break out between the Jewish state and Iran. Yet Gulf
states remain cognizant of their Achilles heels — geographic proximity to Iran.
While security must have been one of the top priorities in the budding
partnership between the UAE and Israel, it certainly has not been the only one.
If and when the Iranian threat has been dealt with, peace between the two
countries will prove to be durable, while economic cooperation will continue to
fuel their strong relationship.
This expanding partnership, and even apparent disagreements on security, should
be seen as reassuring. The UAE and Israel are two countries in the region with
mostly overlapping security interests, but some notable differences. They are
both wealthy, developed economies but radically different in their comparative
advantages. They can cooperate in some fields to mutual benefit, compete in
others, agree discreetly on some issues, and disagree politely on others.
A year on from the initial agreement, and despite all the sour grapes from
critics and cynics, normalization seems to be, well, the new normal.
• Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of
Democracies, where Shany Mor is an adjunct fellow. Follow Abdul-Hussain on
Twitter @hahussain.
• Follow Mor on Twitter @ShMMor. The FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan
research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
Iranian clerics no longer wield control
Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami/Arab News/January 10/ 2022
At a time when parties and organizations associated with political Islam face
rejection and criticism from the peoples of Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Sudan and
Iraq, the Iranian clerics are also increasingly facing severe criticism,
domestically as well as regionally, and becoming targets of the Iranian people’s
anger and rebuke.The situation is so volatile that the clerics now avoid
appearing in public at certain places and times to avoid the people’s rage. This
situation prompts us to attempt to determine the reasons behind the significant
shift in the Iranian people’s attitude toward the clerics, whose former great
prestige among the masses has now plummeted.
It is self-evident that the first reason why the Iranian people despise the
clerics is their politicization of faith, whose rituals and sanctity the mullahs
cynically exploit for their own political ends. The people can see the gaping
gulf between the clerics’ lofty words on morality and their practices in
reality.
The second reason is the religious seminarians’ blind loyalty to the Guardian
Jurist, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, whose predecessor stripped the seminaries
and the clerics of their historical autonomy and separation from the state,
which they maintained prior to 1979. Subsequent to that, the role of Guardian
Jurist, occupied previously by Ayatollah Khomeini and now by his successor
Khamenei, was greatly expanded in scope so that judicial guardianship
encompassed all the clerics, not only the masses. As a result, the clerics are
obliged to unquestioningly follow the Guardian Jurist and accept his
jurisprudential judgments in the public sphere.
These are not the only reasons for the decline in the clerics’ popularity and
stature. Another important reason is the clerics’ increasingly apparent attempt
to keep the Iranian people isolated from the fast-moving modern world and
deliberately cut them off from the global interactions taking place in the
social, political and economic spheres. The clerics are constantly criticizing
and fearmongering about modernity and Western civilization, vilifying and
prohibiting anything deemed Western.
This has led to widespread resentment, particularly among the younger, more
internationalist post-revolutionary generation, and created a backlash,
including violent reactions against the clerics. Young Iranians see the
theocratic elite as old and out of touch, unaware of how times have changed.
They see the urgent need for a paradigm shift to lead the country away from its
present misery, which is the inevitable result of fundamentalist theocracy,
endless wars, sectarian conflicts and support for extremist militias.
This comes at a time when Iran’s neighbors, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the
UAE, Qatar and India, are making impressive economic advances and experiencing
transformations in various sectors, including education, health and
infrastructure. The Iranian people have been deprived of these because of the
Guardian Jurist’s regressive policies and the clerics preferring an
isolationist, premodern society.
This widespread anger against the clerics is exemplified in a recent video that
was widely circulated on social media and in other media outlets. It shows an
angry young Iranian man slapping a cleric in the face on the street, accusing
him of destroying the youth’s future. He yells at the cleric, “You’ve blown up
our future,” and adds, “There’s no life or work.”
In another incident also caught on video, a young woman is seen attacking a
cleric in the city of Qom after he criticized the way in which she was wearing
her hijab. Rather than listen to the lecture in silence to avoid further trouble
from the authorities, the young woman turned on the cleric, tearing his turban
off and throwing it to the ground.
This growing phenomenon is another sign that all the manifestations of political
Islam are facing rejection throughout the region
These incidents are not unusual or isolated but are part of a rapidly growing
phenomenon that is concerning Iran’s leadership. Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi
said in a remarkable statement a month ago: “If the revolution is to be stabbed,
women will be the ones to do so.”
Seminaries and clerics face violence at the hands of the Iranian people as
protests and popular anger grow. Protesters recently attacked a seminary in the
city of Karaj, chanting slogans against the clerics and the Guardian Jurist,
including “Death to the dictator.” Even the homes of some clerics have been
attacked by protesters.
Hard-line cleric Mohammed Reza Zaeri said in a post on Instagram last week that
he had been spat on and sworn at on more than one occasion in the previous 10
days. He also said that a taxi driver refused to pick him up and told him: “I
will not give rides to mullahs.” Also in recent days, footage circulated online
shows clashes between the Iranian people and clerics.
The significance of these incidents lies in the increasing realization among
Iranians that the root of their problems is the clerics, their policies and
their antiquated worldview. This steady increase in public anger is sending a
firm message to the hard-line regime of President Ebrahim Raisi and emphasizing
that any further pressure on the people could lead to a tremendous explosion —
especially amid the miserable economic and social conditions and the religious
elite’s hostility to the West.
We must also remember that there is a spat within the religious seminary itself
between a poor segment of clerics, who see that they have been denied privileges
and senior positions within state institutions, and another group that has
seized the state’s financial resources and positions. This spat has sparked
family disputes in many seminary students and clerics’ households due to their
low income and living problems, according to cleric Fazel Maybodi.
Maybodi believes that the Iranian people’s confidence in the clerics has been
shattered because of their inability to meet them directly. The clerics must
adhere to extensive security protocols when they move from one place to another,
making it virtually impossible for the people to interact with them face to
face. As a result, the people’s questions to the clerics have decreased and they
have turned to alternative sources. This has impacted the clerics’ reputation
and prestige. Many of them now fear showing up wearing their religious uniform
at markets for fear that they may be insulted or beaten by angry members of the
public.
In the end, this growing phenomenon is another sign that all the manifestations
of political Islam are facing rejection throughout the region and its authority
is quickly eroding in Iran. If it had not been for the regime’s excessive use of
violence, repression and continued intimidation, the Iranian people would have
toppled it, as has been the case with many of the region’s governments based on
political Islam.
It is likely that this tense relationship between society and the clerics will
continue as long as the internal economic conditions remain unchanged and
religion is mixed with politics and used to enhance the regime’s legitimacy and
stigmatize its foes.
But the regime is betting on its networks of corruption — made up of the clerics
and their families, the police, the army, traders and the powerful state
apparatuses — to stay in power. They are estimated to be in the millions among
the people. In addition, the regime relies on its repressive militias, such as
the Hezbollah group, which is seasoned in killings and assassinations, the Basij
and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It has never hesitated to use
excessive violence and repressive force against the people in all the protests
that posed an existential threat to it. Cleric Mohammed-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi even
once issued a fatwa that stated it was lawful to kill 90 percent of the people
if they posed a threat to the Islamic regime.
*Dr. Mohammed Al-Sulami is head of Rasanah, the International Institute for
Iranian Studies. Twitter: @mohalsulami
The world must prevent Sudan from descending into war
Dnyanesh Kamat/The Arab Weekly/January 10/2022
Abdalla Hamdok’s resignation as prime minister of Sudan is a remarkable failure
of the transition process with potentially dangerous consequences. The
international community, particularly the US, EU, Egypt and Arab Gulf states,
must ensure Sudan does not descend into civil war.
When Hamdok stood down on January 2, it removed the civilian fig leaf that
masked the fact that the Sudanese government was being entirely controlled by
the military. In that sense, his resignation has not come as a shock for the
Sudanese people.When the military took over in October, on the pretext that it
wanted to maintain order in the face of protests, the Sudanese pro-democracy
movement regarded it as a coup.
Despite Hamdok and several of his cabinet colleagues being put under house
arrest, he eventually signed a deal with the generals in November that saw him
reinstated as prime minister, but with very few concessions from the military.
This marked the moment at which Hamdok became thoroughly discredited in the eyes
of the pro-democracy movement.
His decision, which he explained at the time as motivated by the need to prevent
further violence, also stands thoroughly exposed for what it is; a failure.
Since Hamdok’s deal with the military in November, the generals have responded
with force to protests by the pro-democracy movement, leading to nearly 60
deaths. In December, UN reports indicated women and girls suffering horrific
sexual violence at the hands of the military during protests.
Hamdok, who has never had an independent political base of his own, failed to
become a bridge between the military and the pro-democracy movement. He failed
in extracting concessions from the military, specifically in getting it to agree
to relinquish power in however staggered a fashion. The military’s takeover in
October was proof that it could not see the merits of giving up control. Perhaps
it was fearful that calls for transitional justice would see its senior
leadership arrested or handed over to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and
its significant economic interests in Sudan watered down.
This is also a failure of the international community.
Despite opposition from the pro-democracy movement, the acquiescence of foreign
powers to Hamdok’s deal with the generals in November betrayed their lack of
interest in the country. Since then, the outside world has not applied strong
pressure on the military to deliver on its side of the bargain. As things stand
now, Sudan will be an issue that will concentrate minds in the EU, US, and
neighbouring states. For sure, the international community’s interests in Sudan
do not fall neatly on the side of the pro-democracy movement.
For example, at the Paris conference on Sudan in June, Hamdok’s government said
it would lift subsidies on essential goods as part of an agreement with the
International Monetary Fund (IMF). This further inflamed public anger against
the government and gave the generals a perfect excuse to dismiss Hamdok and his
ministers in October. The military itself has backers among regional states,
chiefly for geopolitical reasons. Yet Hamdok’s resignation is also a failure of
the military, for it can no longer camouflage its control of the state.
With Hamdok’s departure, the scene is now set for a direct clash between the
pro-democracy movement and the generals, with neither side showing any sign of
compromise. It is incumbent upon the international community to step in and
manage the political transition at this stage.
The November deal between Hamdok and the generals, which now lies in tatters,
was nevertheless welcomed in a joint statement by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, the US
and the UK. This level of coordination suggests a way out of the current
imbroglio.
This could entail the generals agreeing to give up power in return for an
amnesty for all but the most egregious human rights violations.
A transition may also include a gradual, protracted withdrawal of the Sudanese
military from the country’s economy. It is crucial here that the international
community, which controls access to funding for Sudan, can use it as a lever to
coax the generals to give up power.
It is also necessary for the pro-democracy movement to reach out to regional
actors that may be on good terms with the generals and impress upon them that a
civil war in Sudan would be more catastrophic for the region than the emergence
of a democratically-elected government.
With Hamdok’s departure, the pro-democracy movement must also begin efforts to
develop a political vision for what the transition looks like and how to ensure
it keeps elements of the military on-side during the process. The Sudanese
military itself is not a monolith and is faction-ridden.
The pro-democracy movement could possibly negotiate with junior officers within
the military. None of this will be possible without the international
community’s shepherding of the process. The fact that Middle Eastern states are
currently going through their own processes of rapprochement with each other is
a good omen for Sudan. It is still not too late. Sudan can become a template for
successful political transitions elsewhere if managed well. The alternative is
simply too dangerous for the Sudanese and the wider world.
*Dnyanesh Kamat is a political analyst who focuses on the Middle East and South
Asia. He also consults on socio-economic development for government and
private-sector entities.
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