Month: July 2024

Pakistan’s messaging app for secure communication among officials ready to launch

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ISLAMABAD — Pakistani engineers have developed and successfully tested a government messaging app for secure communication among officials, authorities said Tuesday, even as Islamabad restricts social media use and regularly shuts down internet and mobile phone networks to prevent dissent. 

Should the government approve it, the messaging platform could eventually also be available to millions of citizens, said Baber Majid, chief executive officer at the country’s National Information Technology Board. 

Enter “beep,” a chat application that Pakistani authorities say is exclusively homegrown. 

“Beep has already successfully undergone trial runs since 2023 and is now ready for launch,” Majid said. 

Meanwhile, ordinary Pakistanis have been struggling to access the social networking platform X, which authorities blocked ahead of the February 8 parliamentary elections earlier this year, a vote overshadowed by violence, an unprecedented national shutdown of all mobile phone services and allegations of vote rigging. 

Authorities later insisted that the phone service suspension was necessary for security reasons, but critics and Pakistan’s imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan have said the real intention was to disable communication to allow for vote rigging — a charge the government denies. 

There have also been frequent internet restrictions in southwestern Baluchistan province and elsewhere. Pakistan every year suspends phone services during the Ashoura, an Islamic commemoration when minority Shiite Muslims hold processions. 

Pakistan imposed five separate internet restrictions during and after the elections, according to research by the Netherlands-based cybersecurity company Surfshark B.V., which offers VPN services and data leak detection. It also tracks cases of government-imposed internet and social media disruptions. 

“Such actions taken by the government undermine the very aspect of democracy and make it impossible for fair elections to take place,” it said. 

Pakistan’s phone and internet suspensions have also affected communication between officials and security forces. Hence “beep,” which Majid said would ensure uninterrupted communication among officials. 

He said the app has been designed to share text, audio, and videos and hold conference calls. It requires an internet connection but Majid did not elaborate on measures that would restrict internet availability to just Pakistani officials — or possibly whoever else gets approval to use the app. 

“Beep is safer than other messaging apps,” he said.
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Russia set to postpone World Friendship Games, once seen as rival to Paris Olympics

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Paris — A Russian sports event widely regarded as an attempt to rival the Paris Olympics is set to be postponed to next year, organizers said Tuesday.

The World Friendship Games had been due to take place in Russia in September but will now move back to unspecified dates in 2025, the International Friendship Association, a body set up to organize the games, said in a statement. It added the decision is subject to approval by the Russian government.

“The main reason for reconsidering the Games dates is the insufficient recovery time for top athletes participating in major international tournaments in the summer of 2024,” the statement said, without mentioning the Paris Olympics by name.

There would have been just over a month between the end of the Paris Olympics and the proposed start of the World Friendship Games.

The International Olympic Committee was strongly opposed to any rival event. It said in March the proposed Russian event was “a cynical attempt by the Russian Federation to politicize sport” and called on governments and sports bodies “to reject any participation in, and support of, any initiative that intends to fully politicize international sport.”

Moscow-based organizers had tried to attract athletes with prize money. A graphic on the event’s website indicates winners at the World Friendship Games would get $40,000, second-place athletes $25,000 and third-place competitors $17,000. The IOC doesn’t pay prize money for Olympians.

There are 15 Russian athletes competing at the Paris Olympics under the name of Individual Neutral Athletes without the national flag or anthem.

The IOC set up the neutral program as a pathway back to competition for athletes from Russia and its ally Belarus who do not have ties to the military or security services and who have not publicly supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Some Russian athletes were also invited by the IOC to the Paris Olympics but declined to compete.
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3rd child dies after stabbing attack on UK dance class

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LONDON — A 9-year-old girl wounded in a stabbing attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance and yoga class in northwestern England died Tuesday, bringing the death toll to three, as police questioned a 17-year-old suspect arrested minutes after the rampage.

The girl was identified as Alice Aguiar by Portuguese Secretary of State for Communities Jose Cesario. He said her family, who were originally from the Madeira region, were in a state of shock.

Merseyside Police said the other fatalities were girls ages 6 and 7.

Eight children and two adults remain hospitalized after the attack in Southport. Both adults and five of the children are in critical condition.

Swift said she was “completely in shock” and still taking in “the horror” of the event.

“These were just little kids at a dance class,” she wrote on Instagram. “I am at a complete loss for how to ever convey my sympathies to these families.”

A 17-year-old boy was arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder.

Local people left flowers and stuffed animals in tribute at a police cordon on the street lined with brick houses in the seaside resort near Liverpool — nicknamed “sunny Southport” — whose beach and pier attract vacationers from across northwest England.

Witnesses described scenes “from a horror movie” as bloodied children ran from the attack just before noon on Monday. The suspect was arrested soon after on suspicion of murder and attempted murder. Police said he was born in Cardiff, Wales, and had lived for years in a village about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from Southport. He has not yet been charged.

Police said detectives are not treating Monday’s attack as terror-related and they are not looking for any other suspects.

“We believe the adults who were injured were bravely trying to protect the children who were being attacked,” Merseyside Police Chief Constable Serena Kennedy said.

People posted online tributes and messages of support for teacher Leanne Lucas, the organizer of the event, who was one of those attacked.

A group of Swift’s U.K. fans calling themselves “Swifties for Southport” launched an online fundraiser to help families of the victims. It raised over 100,000 pounds ($129,000) within 24 hours.

The rampage is the latest shocking attack in a country where a recent rise in knife crime has stoked anxieties and led to calls for the government to do more to clamp down on bladed weapons, which are by far the most used instruments in U.K. homicides.

Children ages 6 to 11

Witnesses described hearing screams and seeing children covered in blood emerging from the Hart Space, a community center that hosts events ranging from pregnancy workshops and meditation sessions to women’s boot camps.

The Swift-themed yoga and dance workshop was a summer vacation activity for children ages about 6 to 11.

“They were in the road, running from the nursery,” said Bare Varathan, who owns a shop nearby. “They had been stabbed, here, here, here, everywhere,” he said, indicating the neck, back and chest.

Richard Townes, a children’s entertainer from Southport, said parents in texting groups are terrified now to send their children to summer programs.

“I have a 5-year-old daughter who could have just as easily been at the class,” Townes said. “I feel helpless and like I can’t do anything.”

Official condolences

Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the attack “horrendous and deeply shocking.” King Charles III sent his “condolences, prayers and deepest sympathies” to those affected by the “utterly horrific incident.”

Prince William and his wife, Catherine, said that “as parents, we cannot begin to imagine what the families, friends and loved ones of those killed and injured in Southport today are going through.”

Colin Parry, who owns a nearby auto body shop, told The Guardian that the suspect arrived by taxi.

“He came down our driveway in a taxi and didn’t pay for the taxi, so I confronted him at that point,” Parry was quoted as saying. “He was quite aggressive, he said, ‘What are you gonna do about it?'”

Parry said most of the victims appeared to be young girls.

“The mothers are coming here now and screaming,” Parry said. “It is like a scene from a horror movie. … It’s like something from America, not like sunny Southport.”

Britain’s worst attack on children occurred in 1996, when 43-year-old Thomas Hamilton shot 16 kindergartners and their teacher dead in a school gymnasium in Dunblane, Scotland. The U.K. subsequently banned the private ownership of almost all handguns.

Mass shootings and killings with firearms are rare in Britain, where knives were used in about 40% of homicides in the year to March 2023.

Other mass stabbings

Although mass stabbings are also rare, several in recent years have generated fear and outrage and received a tremendous amount of attention.

In London in April, a man with a sword killed a 14-year-old boy walking to school and seriously injured four other people, including two police officers.

In Nottingham in central England in June 2022, a paranoid schizophrenic man fatally stabbed two college students walking home from celebrating the end of the school year and then killed a 65-year-old man, stole his van and used it to hit three pedestrians.

In Reading, west of London, in June 2020, a failed Libyan asylum seeker fatally stabbed three men and wounded three others.
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Taliban disavow many Afghan diplomatic missions abroad

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ISLAMABAD — The Taliban on Tuesday disavowed many Afghan diplomatic missions overseas, saying it will not honor passports, visas and other documents issued by diplomats associated with Afghanistan’s former Western-backed administration.

It’s the Taliban’s latest attempt to seize control of diplomatic missions since returning to power in 2021. Many Taliban leaders are under sanctions, and no country recognizes them as Afghanistan’s legitimate rulers.

The country’s seat at the United Nations is still held by the former government that was led by Ashraf Ghani, but the Taliban wants it.

In a statement posted to social media platform X, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that documents issued by missions in London, Berlin, Belgium, Bonn, Switzerland, Austria, France, Italy, Greece, Poland, Australia, Sweden, Canada and Norway are no longer accepted and that the ministry “bears no responsibility” for those documents.

The documents affected include passports, visa stickers, deeds and endorsements.

The ministry wrote that people in those countries will need to approach embassies and consulates controlled by the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan government instead. “All Afghan nationals living abroad and foreigners can visit the IEA political and consular missions in other countries, other than the above-mentioned missions, to access consular services,” it said.

The Taliban did not immediately respond to questions.

One Afghan national living in London, Asad Mobariz, expressed disappointment and frustration with the decision. The master’s student called it unfair and impractical to expect Afghans in affected countries to travel abroad for consular services.

“This decision disregards our needs and places an undue burden on us,” he told The Associated Press. “These services are crucial for my ability to travel, work and maintain my legal status in the U.K.”

The decision would create immense hardship for the Afghan population in Europe and lead to increased financial strain and potential legal issues for those unable to access consular services locally, he said.

Another Afghan national, Adnan Najibi, who lives in Germany, said discrediting embassies was unlikely to benefit the Taliban.

“I live in a small town with a relatively low population; however, I still see that there are hundreds of Afghans living here,” Najibi said. “If someone previously obtained an Afghan passport, marriage certificate or any other document in a day, it may now take weeks or even longer.”

In March 2023, the Taliban said they were trying to take charge of more Afghan embassies abroad. Their chief spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, said the administration had sent diplomats to at least 14 countries.

The new developments mean the closest available Afghan embassies for people in Europe are likely to be in Spain and the Netherlands. In October, those two countries said they were working with Taliban authorities in Kabul after the Taliban suspended consular services at the embassies in London and Vienna over their “lack of transparency and cooperation.”

Some countries retain an active diplomatic mission in Afghanistan, including Pakistan and China.

Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute, said the Taliban were confident and emboldened, buoyed by the informal recognition they have received from many countries.

They appeared to be working to force Afghans to engage with the Taliban instead of with diplomats loyal to the former administration, he said.

“It’s about giving the Taliban more diplomatic clout abroad and consigning the pre-Taliban holdouts to irrelevance. The fact that many of these missions aren’t very active anyway makes Taliban efforts easier to pull off. It’s like pushing on a door that’s already open,” Kugelman said.

The Taliban have received informal recognition through bilateral ties with countries such as Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan, including high-level meetings with those countries. This past month, the Taliban were the Afghan representatives at United Nations-hosted talks on Afghanistan in Doha, although the U.N. stressed that this did not amount to official recognition.

UN mission closed

Also on Tuesday, the U.N. mission in Afghanistan said local intelligence officials in May forcibly closed the office of a women-led nongovernmental group for allowing some of its female employees to physically report to work.

The NGO was allowed to reopen days later after signing a letter saying it would not allow women employees to come to the office, according to the mission’s latest report on human rights in Afghanistan. The report did not disclose the location for “protection reasons.”

Restrictions on women and girls are a major obstacle to the Taliban gaining official recognition as the country’s legitimate government. They have stopped female education beyond grade six and banned women from many jobs and most public spaces.

The Taliban were not immediately available for comment on the report.
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36 dead, hundreds feared trapped in India landslides

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Bengaluru, India — Landslides in India triggered by pounding monsoon rains have killed at least 36 people with hundreds more feared trapped under mud and debris, officials said Tuesday.

The southern coastal state of Kerala has been battered by torrential downpours, and the collapse of a key bridge at the disaster site in Wayanad district has hampered rescue efforts, according to local media reports.

“Thirty-six deaths have been confirmed in connection with the landslide in Wayanad,” district official D.R. Meghasree told reporters.

Kerala state health minister Veena George told the Press Trust of India news agency that “many” others had been injured and were being treated in hospital. 

Images published by the National Disaster Response Force show rescue crews trudging through mud to search for survivors and carry bodies on stretchers out of the area.

Homes were caked with brown sludge as the force of the landslide’s impact scattered cars, corrugated iron and other debris around the disaster site.

India’s army said it had deployed more than 200 soldiers to the area to assist state security forces and fire crews in search and rescue efforts.

“Hundreds of people are suspected to have been trapped,” it said in a statement. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he had assured the Kerala government of “all possible help” with the situation. 

“My thoughts are with all those who have lost their loved ones and prayers with those injured,” he said in a post on social media platform X. 

His office said families of victims would be given a compensation payment of $2,400.

More rainfall and strong winds were forecast in Kerala on Tuesday, the state’s disaster management agency said.

‘Deeply anguished’

Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, who until recently represented Wayanad in parliament, said he was “deeply anguished” by the disaster.

“I hope those still trapped are brought to safety soon,” he added. 

Several people injured in the landslides were brought to a hospital in the district for treatment. 

Monsoon rains across the region from June to September offer respite from the summer heat and are crucial to replenishing water supplies.

They are vital for agriculture and therefore the livelihoods of millions of farmers and food security for South Asia’s nearly two billion people.

But they also bring destruction in the form of landslides and floods. 

The number of fatal floods and landslides has increased in recent years, and experts say climate change is exacerbating the problem.

Damming, deforestation and development projects in India have also exacerbated the human toll.

Intense monsoon storms battered India earlier this month, flooding parts of the financial capital Mumbai, while lightning in the eastern state of Bihar killed at least 10 people. 

Nearly 500 people were killed around Kerala in 2018 during the worst flooding to hit the state in almost a century. 

India’s worst landslide in recent decades was in 1998, when rockfall triggered by heavy monsoon rains killed at least 220 people and completely buried the tiny village of Malpa in the Himalayas. 
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Meloni seeks better terms for Italian firms in China 

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BEIJING — Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni came to China to boost co-operation with the world’s second-largest economy and reset trade ties, she said on Tuesday, during a visit to burnish relations after leaving the Belt and Road scheme.

Meloni, making her first visit to China as prime minister, which comes after Italy left Chinese President Xi Jinping’s flagship initiative last year, said the euro zone’s third-largest economy wanted to rebalance ties with Beijing.

“Today, Italian investment in China is about three times as much as Chinese investment in Italy,” Meloni told reporters. “We clearly want to work to remove obstacles for our products to access the Chinese market.”

Asked what the right-wing government she has led since 2022 hoped to gain from her visit, Meloni said Italy sought to “strengthen our co-operation with a view to … clearly rebalancing trade.”

Italy is of strategic importance to China as it has struck out on its own with Beijing before.

It could prove to be a moderating voice within the European Union, as the bloc’s 27 members weigh up backing the Commission over tariffs on Chinese electric cars.

EU members will vote in October whether to impose more tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. Italy is one of the countries to have indicated it will back the motion.

In 2019, Italy became the only member of the Group of Seven industrialized democracies to join Xi’s Belt and Road infrastructure investment scheme that aims to resurrect the ancient Silk Road trade route, in a diplomatic coup for China.

Although Rome eventually exited the program under U.S. pressure last year, it signaled that it still desired to develop its trade ties with the $18.6 trillion economy.

Balanced trade and investment

Asked whether she had specifically discussed with Xi Chinese automakers opening factories in Italy during her Monday meeting, Meloni said “no” but added: “The issue of electric mobility is one of the topics included in our memorandum of industrial cooperation.”

Meloni on Monday told Xi that Italy plays an important role in China’s relations with the EU, which are currently dominated by talk of tariffs, but continued to say that she hoped for trade relations that are “as balanced as possible.”

“As I have said many times, we were the only nation among the great nations of Western Europe to be part of the Silk Road. But we were not the nation that had the best trade with China? Far from it,” Meloni told reporters on Tuesday, referring to the Belt and Road Initiative.

“There are other nations in Europe that have had a much higher volume of Chinese investment.”

 
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Protesters and military in standoff in Pakistani city home to China-built port

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ISLAMABAD — The Pakistani city of Gwadar, home to a key Chinese-built deep seaport, is the scene of a tense stand-off between the military and Baloch protesters demonstrating against alleged human rights violations.

Thousands of people led by the Baloch Unity Committee or BYC, an ethno-nationalistic rights movement, arrived in the southwestern city Saturday for a so-called Baloch National Gathering. They are demanding the recovery of victims of enforced disappearances and meaningful involvement in Chinese-funded projects in the resource-rich yet impoverished Balochistan province.

In a statement Monday, the Pakistani military said one of its personnel was killed when a “violent mob in the garb of Baloch Raji Muchi [Baloch National Gathering] attacked security forces’ personnel.” Pakistani military controls security in Gwadar.

The statement also said 16 other personnel were injured in “unprovoked assaults by violent protesters” and vowed, “those responsible will be brought to justice.”

In a video statement to media, BYC leader Mahrang Baloch said authorities have arrested nearly 1,000 protesters in the last three days in an effort to derail the protest movement.

On Sunday, Baloch and other activists addressed the crowd of protesters in Gwadar that had gathered despite attempts by authorities to block them. The event received virtually no coverage in mainstream media.

BYC later announced the protest would transform into a sit-in, vowing to remain until those prevented from coming to Gwadar to join the protest were given access and all the detained protesters were released. 

“Those who are trying to march, they are not letting them go. They are not letting them enter Gwadar,” Sadia Baloch, a unity committee member not related to Mahrang Baloch, told VOA Monday from the provincial capital Quetta.

Inaugurated in 2016, the seaport in Gwadar is the flagship project of the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Known by its acronym CPEC, the project is central to Beijing’s global Belt and Road Initiative.

“Gwadar is being called a game-changer for Pakistan and China, so it was important to tell them and the international media that this land belongs to us,” Sadia Baloch said.  “The crackdown shows Baloch are not allowed to enter Gwadar.”

According to BYC, at least one person has died and several were injured as authorities continue to crack down on protesters in Gwadar. At least 14 people were injured in the town of Mastung on Saturday as they attempted to move towards Gwadar. 

In many cities and towns, protesters blocked from moving forward also staged sit-ins.

Speaking Monday on the floor of the Provincial Assembly of Balochistan, Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti accused the demonstrators of engaging in anti-state propaganda and spoiling efforts to bring more Chinese investment.

Bugti and BYC activists have said they are ready to negotiate.

Authorities have suspended internet and cellular services in and around Gwadar since at least Friday, making it difficult for media to ascertain facts independently and to speak to local officials. Amnesty International urged Pakistani authorities Sunday to end the communication blackout.

Late last year, BYC led a 1,600-kilometer march to Islamabad with families awaiting the return of their loved ones gone missing in the fight between the state and Baloch separatists. Protesters faced severe police action as they tried to enter the capital. Demonstrators, braving the cold for days, eventually left after authorities warned of an imminent security threat.

 

As Pakistan deals with a resurgent wave of terrorism lead by Islamist militants and Baloch separatists, the state is struggling to ensure Chinese personnel and projects remain safe.

On Monday, Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi apprised Zhao Shiren, China’s Consul General in Lahore, of security measures Islamabad is taking to protect Chinese nationals in the country.
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Morocco pardons 3 journalists held for years

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Rabat, Morocco — Morocco’s King Mohammed VI on Monday pardoned three journalists detained for years, as hundreds of prisoners saw their sentences commuted to mark the monarch’s 25th anniversary on the throne.

Omar Radi, Soulaimane Raissouni and Taoufik Bouachrine, as well as historian and rights advocate Maati Monjib, were among the 2,476 people pardoned, a government official said on condition of anonymity.

Rights groups, including Reporters Without Borders (RSF), had denounced the jailings of Radi and Raissouni, detained since 2021 on charges of sexual assault they deny.

Human Rights Watch has accused Morocco of using criminal trials, especially for alleged sexual offenses, as “techniques of repression” to silence journalists and government critics.

The country’s top court rejected in July 2023 the final appeals of two journalists.

Morocco ranked 129th out of 180 countries on RSF’s 2024 World Press Freedom Index.
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Russia’s alleged sabotage attacks stoke fear among refugees in Europe

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London police in April said they had charged two British men with aiding Russian intelligence following a suspected arson attack on a business with ties to Ukraine. This and other incidents have shaken Ukrainians who feel targeted in places where they have sought refuge. Henry Wilkins reports.
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Russia’s top spymaster falsely claims Kremlin does not interfere in other countries’ affairs

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To project influence, Moscow habitually goes beyond diplomacy, using malicious hybrid strategies and, in some instances, wars of aggression.
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Armenia steps up its push to pivot away from Moscow, look West

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Armenia’s military exercises with the United States in July and increased diplomatic contacts with Western Europe suggest Yerevan continues its efforts to pivot away from Moscow. As Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul, the success of those efforts depends largely on Armenia’s rival, Azerbaijan, and ongoing U.S.-backed peace efforts.
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South Africa’s African National Congress expels ex-president Zuma

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Johannesburg — Former South African president Jacob Zuma has been expelled from his longtime political home, the African National Congress, after throwing his support behind a rival political party and campaigning for it ahead of May’s game-changing elections.

Zuma was a member of the African National Congress, or ANC, for 65 years. 

The octogenarian politician joined the anti-apartheid movement as a young man in 1959. Like fellow ANC stalwart Nelson Mandela, he was jailed on Robben Island for his part in the fight against white minority rule. 

Also like Mandela, Zuma went on to serve as president after the advent of South Africa’s democracy. 

But his association with the storied movement saw an ignoble end on Monday. 

“Jacob Zuma has actively impugned the integrity of the ANC and campaigned to dislodge the ANC from power,” ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula said, explaining the party’s decision to expel Zuma. 

Zuma, 82, was forced to resign in disgrace near the end of his second term as president in 2018 amid numerous corruption scandals. He is widely accused of enabling what is known in South Africa as “State Capture” — basically the handing over of state-owned enterprises and even some ministries to his businessmen friends. He denies wrongdoing. 

Bitter at the ANC, Zuma threw his weight behind the newly-formed uMkhonto weSizwe, or MK party, in December 2023. Despite his suspension from the party, he remained a member of the ANC while acting as the public face and leader of the populist MK party. 

While Zuma himself was barred from running for office due to a prior criminal conviction, he campaigned for MK using vicious rhetoric against his successor, President Cyril Ramaphosa. 

Despite the corruption allegations against him, Zuma has retained massive support in his home province of Kwa Zulu-Natal. MK did very well there in May 29 elections, which saw it become the third biggest party in South Africa with almost 15 percent of the vote. 

Despite MK’s success, Zuma rejected the results, falsely claiming voting irregularities without any evidence. Mbalula also referenced this when announcing the expulsion. 

“Furthermore, former president Zuma has been running on a dangerous platform that casts doubt on our entire constitutional edifice,” Mbalula said. “He has meted out a host of anti-revolutionary outbursts, including mischievously calling into question the credibility of our electoral processes without cause.” 

Official election results saw the ANC lose its parliamentary majority for the first time since the start of democracy in 1994, forcing it to form a coalition in order to govern. MK is now the official opposition in parliament, led by a Zuma-aligned disgraced former judge. 

Professor David Everatt of Johannesburg’s Witwatersrand School of Governance said he was surprised it took the ANC so long to expel Zuma. 

“It shows very clearly that the balance of forces has swung very clearly against Jacob Zuma and he doesn’t have the support inside the ANC to try and defend himself,” Everatt said. 

But political analyst Sandile Swana noted that the ANC had protected Zuma for years. 

“All of them have supported Jacob Zuma in one form or another and tolerated the decay in the ANC, so Zuma is one of the stars of the decay and demise of the African National Congress, that is his legacy,” Swana said. 

Zuma is due in court next year to face corruption charges over a 1999 arms deal.
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Prosecution calls for 25 death sentences in DR Congo rebellion trial

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Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo — A Congolese prosecutor Monday requested death sentences against 25 defendants accused of belonging to the M23 rebel group in a high-profile trial in Kinshasa. 

The prosecution called for a 20-year jail term against a 26th defendant. 

The Tutsi-led M23, backed by Rwanda, has seized huge swathes of territory in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo since late 2021. 

Only five of the accused are present for the trial in a military court, with the rest being tried in absentia. They face charges of war crimes, participation in an insurrection and treason. 

The most prominent is Corneille Nangaa, a former president of the Congolese electoral commission. In December, he announced in Nairobi the creation of the Alliance Fleuve Congo (AFC), a political-military movement of rebel groups including the M23. 

Other major M23 figures are on trial including its President Bertrand Bisimwa, military chief Sultani Makenga, and spokespersons Willy Ngoma and Lawrence Kanyuka. 

Yet none of the five defendants in court are widely known. 

Two admitted being members of the AFC. One of them, Nkangya Nyamacho, alias Microbe, told the court he joined the AFC “because there is injustice and discrimination in this country.” 

The defendant against whom the prison sentence was requested maintained he was innocent, saying he was arbitrarily arrested due to his surname Nangaa. 

The trial opened last week with 25 defendants, of whom 20 were on the run, but a former M23 spokesperson has also been charged. 

The defense is expected to make their case on Tuesday. 

In March, the Congolese government defied criticism from human rights organizations and lifted a moratorium on the death penalty that had been in place since 2003, aiming to target military personnel accused of treason. 

Around 50 soldiers have been sentenced to death in the east of the country since the start of the month for “cowardice” and “fleeing the enemy.” 

M23 is one of dozens of rebel groups active in the DRC’s restive east, many are the legacy of the regional conflict that erupted from the 1990s onward after the fall of longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.
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Pakistan arrests radical Islamist leader for placing bounty on chief justice

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ISLAMABAD — Police in central Pakistan on Monday arrested a leader of a far-right Islamist party on charges of ordering the assassination of the country’s top judge over his alleged support for minority Ahmadis. 

Zaheerul Hassan Shah, deputy chief of Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan, or TLP, was taken into custody under the anti-terrorism law in Punjab, the country’s most populous province, according to an official police complaint. 

The arrest came a day after Shah was seen in a viral video on social media announcing to a crowd of TLP supporters that he would personally give 10 million rupees ($36,000) to anyone who beheads Supreme Court Chief Justice Qazi Faez Esa.  

The radical leader delivered the speech in the provincial capital of Lahore, accusing the 65-year-old top judge of “desecrating the law of the country.”  

The rally was one of a series of public gatherings organized by TLP in recent days in parts of Pakistan to condemn Esa for granting bail to a member of the minority Ahmadi community, who was accused of posting material against Islam on social media.   

Hours before Shah’s arrest, the federal defense minister told reporters in the national capital, Islamabad, that the government would sternly deal with those making false allegations against the chief justice and issuing death threats in the name of the Islamic religion. 

“No group can incite violence in the name of faith or politics. We will use the full force of the law to bring them to justice,” Khawaja Asif said. “The state will not allow you to issue a fatwa [decree] to kill someone,” he added.  

TLP leaders routinely use offensive anti-Ahmadi language in public rallies and gatherings, inciting followers to attack members of the minority community and their places of worship in the country. 

Ahmadis are followers of the Ahmadiyya community, a contemporary messianic movement founded in 1889 who profess to be Muslims. 

Pakistan’s constitution declared Ahmadis non-Muslim in 1974 and subsequently prohibited them from acting or representing themselves as Muslims. They are also barred under the law from publicly propagating their faith and building places of worship. 

The constitutional restrictions are primarily blamed for the spike in deadly attacks and hatred against Ahmadis in the years that followed.  

Last week, a United Nations panel of independent experts said in a joint statement they “are alarmed by ongoing reports of violence and discrimination against Ahmadis” and urged Pakistani authorities to take immediate action to address the situation.  

“Urgent measures are necessary to respond to these violent attacks and the broader atmosphere of hatred and discrimination which feeds it,” the panel, reporting to the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council, stated Thursday.
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