Month: October 2017

Three-quarters of the world’s people live in countries that either restrict the right to religion or belief or have “a high level of social hostility involving religion or belief,” the U.N. special investigator on religious rights said Tuesday.

Ahmed Shaheed told the General Assembly’s human rights committee that religious intolerance is prevalent globally – and rising around the world.

He said over 70 countries currently have anti-blasphemy laws that can be used to suppress dissenting views, in violation of international human rights standards.

Shaheed, a former politician and human rights expert from the Maldives, urged those countries to repeal the blasphemy laws.

He also called for the repeal of all laws that undermine the exercise of the right to freedom of religion or belief – or discriminate against that right.

Shaheed urged countries to adopt and enforce “adequate criminal sanctions penalizing violent and particularly egregious discriminatory acts perpetrated by state or non-state actors against persons based on their religion or belief.”

He said governments must also pay “particular attention” to uphold the obligation to protect religious minorities.

“Increases in unlawful government restrictions against religious groups remain one of the primary and most fundamental factors resulting in higher levels of religious intolerance in any given society,” Shaheed said.

Some forms of discrimination are direct, such as prohibiting some or all religions or beliefs, he said. But others may be indirect, like zoning laws that prevent construction of certain houses of worship or bans on refugees or immigrants, “ostensibly for national security reasons, from countries where majority populations belong to particular faith communities,” he said.

The special investigator, or rapporteur, on freedom of religion or belief is an independent expert appointed by the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council. Shaheed previously served for almost six years as special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran.
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Serbia’s defense minister on Tuesday criticized remarks by the top U.S. diplomat in the region, who recently called on Belgrade to choose between aligning itself with either Washington and Brussels or Moscow if it intends to secure European Union status.

Addressing Serbian news outlets, Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin, who has been known to advocate a pro-Russian stance, said comments by U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Hoyt Brian Yee represent “the greatest pressure against Serbia yet.”

The “statement was not made by a friend or a person respecting Serbia, respecting our right to decide independently,” Vulin said, calling Yee’s remarks “very undiplomatic.”

It was late Monday when Yee, speaking at the Serbian Economic Summit in Belgrade, said EU candidate countries should clearly demonstrate their desire to become members, and not seesaw between two sides.

Calling the U.S. Serbia’s partner on the country’s path toward the EU membership, “the EU hopefuls should clearly demonstrate that they really want to become members,” Yee said. “You cannot sit on two chairs, especially if those chairs are too far apart.”

Among the six Western Balkan countries aiming to join the EU — Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Albania — Serbia may be closest to securing membership. Still recovering from a decade of wars and economic turmoil in the 1990s, however, Serbia also maintains unusually close ties with Russia.

Serbia received MIG-29 jet fighters as a “gift” from Russian president Vladimir Putin just days ago.

Yee expressed concerns that Serbia has turned only halfway toward the EU, and the other half toward Russia, adding “that countries should pick one side regardless of how difficult that might be.”

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic’s office said that during a meeting Tuesday, the U.S. envoy expressed “perception that Serbia is with one foot on an EU path, and another in a union with Russia.”

Vucic’s office later issued a statement saying the president carefully listened to Yee’s concerns and responded to his remarks “very directly.”

“[Vucic] will make his answer public in the coming days,” the statement said.

Jaksa Scekic, a Belgrade-based pundit and journalist who has covered Balkan affairs for more than three decades, called the statement “mixed,” adding that it was “probably the best sign that it was a joint product with opinions from both sides.”

“Serbia has been playing this game for a while now and this is nothing new,” Scekic told VOA’s Serbian Service. “The country risks staying in isolation and it has to decide. Usually after harsh rhetoric, we will probably see gifts and bribes coming from all sides. We will have to wait and see which gift Serbia will take.”

Under pressure from its historic Slavic ally Russia, Serbia, like some of its Balkan neighbors, has been pressured by Russia to stay out of NATO and other Western bodies.

“It is clear from Russia’s actions that it wants to have disjointed Balkans, not strong and united,” Yee said.

This story originated in VOA’s Serbian Service. Some information is from AP.
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Russia used its U.N. veto Tuesday to block a resolution extending the mandate of the investigators probing chemical weapons attacks in Syria.

In a Security Council vote, 11 countries supported extending the mission for another year, while Russia and Bolivia voted against the measure, and China and Kazakhstan abstained.

The investigating team, known as the Joint Investigative Mechanism or JIM, is expected to make public a report on Thursday that could identify the party responsible for a deadly April 4 attack in the rebel-controlled town of Khan Sheikhoun in southern Idlib that killed and sickened scores of civilians.

Three days later, the United States launched an airstrike on a Syrian air base which Washington accused the regime of Bashar al-Assad of having used to launch the poison gas attack.

Accountability

While the question of whether sarin or a sarin-like substance is not disputed, who used it still has to be officially confirmed, and it is anticipated the JIM’s report could shed light on the matter.

It would be politically embarrassing for Russia, a staunch ally of President Assad, if evidence shows that the regime — and not, for example, Islamic State militants — are responsible for the attack. In Syria, the government is the only party to the conflict that possesses air capabilities. Russia has previously suggested that the gas was released from a bomb on the ground and not in the air.

Russia’s U.N. envoy, Vassily Nebenzia, first sought to postpone Tuesday’s vote through a procedural measure until after the release of the JIM’s report, saying the hastily-called vote was an effort by Washington to embarrass Moscow.

“You need to show up Russia and show that Russia is guilty of not extending the JIM, in fact you are the one who is begging for confrontation,” Nebenzia said of the U.S. delegation, which drafted the text and pushed for the vote.

While the procedural vote had the support of China, Kazakhstan and Bolivia, it fell short of the required eight-vote majority and failed to prevent the other vote going ahead, forcing Russia to use its veto.

Eighth veto on Syria

“I want to underscore that today’s voting is senseless also, because it won’t have any impact on the future of the JIM,” Nebenzia said after casting his veto — the eighth time Russia has done so on Syria. “We will return to the issue of extension in the future — we have not stopped it.”

The mission’s mandate does not expire until November 16, so the council has three weeks to approve an extension without disrupting the team’s work, as happened last year when consensus could not be reached on the JIM’s extension.

“The question we must ask ourselves is, whether the JIM is being attacked because it has failed in its job to determine the truth in Syria, or because its conclusions have been politically inconvenient for some council members,” said U.S. envoy Michele Sison.

“Russia called for the formation of the JIM, they negotiated its terms, they agreed its mission, and yet when faced with the prospect of the JIM revealing the truth, why has Russia alone chosen to shoot the messenger?” asked British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft.

Some diplomats said the move for the vote now was intended to avoid politicizing whatever conclusions the report draws and avoiding having them affect votes for the extension.

All council members expressed the hope that they could return to the issue and reach consensus on extending the JIM’s mandate before it expires next month.
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A trial begins in Istanbul Wednesday for eleven prominent human rights activists, including two foreign nationals, in a case that is drawing criticism from international human rights organizations who say it is part of a campaign by the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to silence criticism and scrutiny in Turkey in the wake of last year’s coup attempt.  

The defendants face prison sentences of up to 15 years in prison.

Amnesty International’s chairman in Turkey, Taner Kilic, and Idil Eser, Amnesty International’s Turkey director, are among those on trial. The case centers on a digital security seminar that was held on Buyukada, an island on the Sea of Marmara near  Istanbul, that focused on security and coping with stress. In a 15-page indictment, prosecutors allege the meeting was part of a conspiracy to unseat the government by inciting civil unrest

“It’s a completely baseless case, there is not a shred of evidence,” said Andrew Gardner, Amnesty International’s Turkey researcher. “It’s an attempt to scare and silence human rights civil society. That’s why Turkey’s most prominent human rights defenders and human rights organizations have been swept up in this case,” he said.

Key members of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly, one of Turkey’s most respected and oldest human rights groups, are among those on trial Tuesday.

Erdogan has vigorously defended the charges against the activists, portraying the case as an example that no one is above the law and evidence that Turkey faces a threat by international conspirators and unidentified countries following the failed coup. Erdogan on Tuesday lashed out at EU nations whose leaders have been critical of his crackdown and what they see as tightening controls on free speech.   “We expect European leaders to stop targeting Turkey and to return to common sense,” the Turkish leader said at an event in the capital, Ankara, on Monday.  

Mounting tensions with Europe

Tuesday’s trial is likely to further ratchet up tensions between Turkey and Europe. Two of the defendants are European nationals:  Swedish national Ali Gharavri and German Peter Steudtner, both of whom were giving seminars at the meeting where the human rights advocates were arrested.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel has strongly criticized the arrests, saying “Innocent people are caught up in the wheels of justice,” in Turkey.”

“Linking the work of Steudtner and other human rights activists, who are on trial with him, to the support of terrorism, to imprison and prosecute them, is highly absurd,” wrote European Parliamentarian Rebecca Harms in a statement released Tuesday. “The arbitrary detention of foreign citizens in Turkey proves to be more and more a measure by which the Turkish leadership wants to pressure the home countries of those concerned,” she said.

Under emergency rule introduced last year following the botched military coup, more than 50,000 people have been arrested and 150,000 others have lost their jobs.

Critics point to what they see as a lack of evidence to justify many of the prosecutions.

“If you look at the evidence, for example, against Idil Eser, Amnesty International’s director, it’s all to do with an Amnesty International campaign and public documents,” said Gardner. “The prosecutors have had three months of investigations to come up with evidence against human rights defenders and came up with nothing.”

Among the evidence against the defendants is a Tweet telling participants to turn off their phones and “enjoy the boat ride” to the island where the seminar was being held.

Courts as intimidation tool

There is a growing suspicion among observers that the trial is part of a campaign to intimidate wider civil society.

“The arrests of the human rights activists, I think, gives us a very bleak picture of the Turkish civic society, or what the regime means by ‘civic society,'” observes political scientist Cengiz Aktar. “It’s not very different from what we see in Russia, completely curtailed and diminished.”

Tuesday’s prosecution of human rights advocates comes amid a rash of arrests and trials of journalists. Media freedom groups have dubbed Turkey the world’s worst jailor of journalists, claiming more than 150 reporters are imprisoned.

On Tuesday, six more journalists went on trial for reporting on leaked emails that allegedly were written by Berat Albayrak, son-in-law of President Erdogan, and Turkey’s energy minister. The emails are considered to be in the public domain, yet observers note the journalists are being prosecuted for publishing state secrets.

The clampdown on media and freedom of expression is drawing further condemnation among Europeans already skeptical of Turkey’s readiness to continue its bid to some day join the EU.

“There cannot be an effective political debate when journalists cannot report or question political leaders without fear of harassment or arrest,” said Tanja Fajon, a Slovenian politician with the Social Democrats and member of the European Parliament. “As Turkey’s political situation worsens, it remains imperative to offer support to, and speak about, those imprisoned for their journalism.”

 
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The international aid group Save the Children is suspending its efforts to rescue migrants making the dangerous Mediterranean Sea crossing from Libya.

Tuesday, the organization said the combination of falling numbers of crossings and worsening security forced it to stop sending its ship, the Vos Hestia, out from its port in Italy.

Save the Children said the ship rescued as many as 10,000 migrants over the past year after the smugglers’ vessels they were in foundered at sea.

The announcement comes just a day after Italian authorities searched the Vos Hestia as part of Rome’s efforts to deter people smuggling across the Mediterranean. Save the Children said the decision to suspend operations wasn’t related to the search and it told journalists that Italian prosecutors had given assurances it is not under investigation. It seems the search might be linked, however, to crew members on the boat.

In August, police seized a boat operated by a German aid organization, saying there was evidence some people smugglers escorted migrants to that boat. Save the Children says it has nothing to do with that case.

Save the Children was one of the first aid groups to sign a voluntary code of conduct with the Italian government to ensure they aren’t colluding with or encouraging smuggling.

The number of arriving migrants is down about 25 percent so far this year from last year, to around 110,000. And the drop will get worse as the winter closes in. Very few rescue boats are heading out into the Mediterranean now because of falling need.

Tens of thousands of migrants from Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere have struggled to sail from Libya to Italy over the past few years. Hundreds of thousands of migrants have also trekked through Turkey to Europe.

Thousands have died in the sea crossing, prompting both rescue efforts by private aid groups and efforts by the Italian government to staunch the flow.

Rome, with the EU’s backing, has helped Libya with efforts to police its vast desert land borders and to patrol its coast to prevent migrants from entering.
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As far as political revolutions go the independence bid by Catalan separatists to tear away from Spain must rank as one of the most surreal in recent memory.

There are no Molotov cocktails or barricades or other trappings of insurgency. In fact, there is no geographical flashpoint — no Maidan or Tahrir Square.

But there are hordes of tourists thronging the alleys of the Gothic Quarter, sampling the flavors of Barcelona, a prosperous, sun-blessed city — and that despite a reported 20 percent drop in tourist numbers.

Wedged between the Mediterranean and the Montserrat, a multi-peaked mountain range, Barcelona boasts a unique cuisine combining fish and meat — from butifarra, uncured spiced sausage, to fideua, a seafood noodle paella. There’s a throbbing nightlife packing a party punch that attracts the world’s glitterati, and only gets going when most north Europeans are long in bed, ending as dawn breaks.

No change in pace

The tourism, as well as bustling shopping thoroughfares like the tree-lined kilometer-long La Rambla, offer a jarring backdrop to a political crisis that will have not only major repercussions for the Spanish and Catalans but also for a Europe fearful of other nationalisms unpicking the map of a continent that can ill afford volatile border disputes, which can quickly escalate with unforeseen consequences.

As the separatists of Spain’s restive northeast region and the politicians in Madrid traded threats this week, the manicured grounds of Catalonia’s parliament in Parc de la Ciutadella were full of school parties and adult tourist groups picking their way past television camera crews and reporters rehearsing on-air lines.

“Eleanor, stop feeding the pigeons,” a bearded, tanned British teacher shouted at one of his wayward teenage charges.

When asked by this reporter, whom he eyed with rising suspicion, if his British teenagers had expressed any opinions about the to-and-fro struggle between Catalan separatists and Madrid, he answered, “No.”

“We steer clear of that sort of thing,” he sniffed. He then broke off to scream again at his teenagers as they began to wander off, discarding their picnic boxes as they went and snapping selfies. “Girls. Where are you going?”

Nearby, crocodile lines of Catalan primary school kids twisted into the regional parliament, an imposing building, once a military arsenal, dating back to the 18th century.

Separatists have pledged to throw up walls of non-violent protesters to meet any squads of national police Madrid dispatches to shutter the parliament, possibly this weekend. Then, there will be no room for wayward picnicking teenagers or primary-school kids.

The imposition of direct rule by Madrid over rebellious Catalonia risks creating the very geographical flash-points the independence bid now lacks — the parliament and the region’s public broadcaster could quickly transform into Tahrir Squares, if Madrid is heavy-handed.

But for now there is nothing to suggest history is being made in Parc de la Ciutadella, except for loitering TV crews eager for a major development and a bit more swiftness to this drawn-out chess game of a political standoff. It is all a far cry from “La Pasionaria,” a Spanish Republican heroine of the Spanish civil war, and the international bridges.

For foreign news desks this stop-start crisis has been frustrating to cover. When to send in reporters and cameramen, and when to withdraw them has exercised editors, who fear not having a presence when something blows up, but are reluctant to waste money keeping crews on the ground when all is quiet.

Such questions aren’t worrying the tourists crowding the streets of the Gothic Quarter. Their biggest dilemma is which restaurant to pick. The most ubiquitous, echoing sound in the neighborhood’s narrow alleys is the clippety-clop of rolling luggage being heaved across paving stones.

A divided society

But for all of the sense of normality, behind the scenes in private Catalans are angry, alarmed and argumentative. The independence crisis has had real impact, especially in terms of dividing Catalan society — a polarization that starts at the kitchen table, throwing up issues of identity and pride.

“What can’t be forgotten is the effect the crisis has had within families and between friends. When old pals start throwing accusatory fingers at each other and politics is banned from family meals, you know you’ve got a problem, irrespective of what the politicians end up doing,” says Jaz Allen-Sutton, a British writer who lives in the countryside outside Barcelona.

The International media focuses more on the split between Catalonia and the rest of Spain. But the divide between Catalans is as wide.

For many there is real fear of the economic consequences of secession. Some Catalans have been transferring their bank accounts to other regions of Spain as a precaution, fearing what may befall their savings should Catalonia declare independence, which would mean exiting, despite the naive denials of separatist leaders, the European Union also.

“Separatists think everything will be so happy and perfect after we leave, but it won’t. We are going to have the euro or what? People are really afraid and they are going to the banks. I am worried about our money in the bank — tomorrow it may not be there,” says Alba, a mother of one.

Another surreal aspect of the independence crisis is how little serious debate there has been about the likely economic impact of secession — even less than in the run-up to Britain’s Brexit vote last year. Fearful of suddenly being outside the EU, more than a thousand businesses have relocated their headquarters outside Catalonia, including major banks.

The lack of economic debate is especially ironic considering the roots of this latest surge in Catalan nationalism can be found in the financial crash of 2008-2010. Catalonia may be prosperous, but not for all. The region has suffered from severe austerity cuts — and even before resources become more scarce many had already been left behind in the good times.

Swiss journalist Raphael Minder notes in a new book on Catalan rebel politics, “The Struggle for Catalonia,” that the ongoing Catalan separatist challenge is “without doubt linked to the financial crisis.” He adds: “The more scarce resources are, the more people tend to bolster their self-esteem through national pride.”

Many Catalans, though, are worried that pride can come before a fall.

 
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