The European Union’s border and coast guard agency Frontex, the pride of the 27-nation bloc’s vast effort to keep watch over its frontiers and anyone who might try to enter without authorization, is itself under surveillance — and under fire.In the Aegean Sea, Turkish fighter jets and ships have allegedly intimidated Frontex’s boats as they monitor migrant movements in the narrow strip of sea between Turkey and Greece’s eastern islands. Turkish troops also allegedly fired warning shots in the air at the land border, too.In the European Parliament, calls have come for Executive Director Fabrice Leggeri to resign. Some lawmakers say he mishandled allegations that the agency was involved in fundamental violations of migrants’ rights.Charity groups and media outlets accuse Frontex of denying people their right to apply for asylum — which is illegal under EU law and refugee treaties. They say Frontex was also complicit in, or failed to prevent, alleged pushbacks at sea by Greece’s coast guard, where migrants were returned to Turkish waters.The agency was supposed to have hired 40 fundamental rights officers by December, but it still hasn’t.An inquiry found no link between Frontex and Aegean pushbacks. But the Parliament has set up a “scrutiny group” to delve into the reports and human rights concerns. The EU’s anti-fraud office is also looking into the same concerns as well as claims of misconduct by senior managers.Yet even as criticism mounts, Frontex’s powers are growing. In coming years, the agency is projected to grow to a 10,000-strong standing force, with armed officers and high-tech surveillance equipment. Its budget is projected to balloon to 5.6 billion euros ($6.7 billion) over the next seven years.In 2014, the year before the EU’s migrant challenge hit its peak, the agency had an annual budget of about 100 million euros and had to request border staff from member countries.Its role is expanding too. Recently, when the United Kingdom left the EU, it insisted that Frontex handle border controls at the airport in the British territory of Gibraltar rather than Spanish officers.But as Frontex’s powers and duties grow, so does the need for oversight, critics say. “It is, in my view, the most important agency in the whole European Union. And with power and funding comes responsibility, and of course safeguards and scrutiny,” EU Migration Commissioner Ylva Johansson told investigating EU lawmakers on March 4.Moreover, any failures at Frontex are an added embarrassment for nations that for years have been deeply divided over who should take responsibility for people entering without authorization and whether other member states should be obliged to help out.”In the absence of the EU agreeing on migration management, what happens on the ground firmly shapes how the EU is viewed from the outside,” Hanne Beirens, at the Migration Policy Institute, told The Associated Press.One key question is who exactly is at the helm when it comes to Frontex?The agency is supervised by a management board of national interior ministries, police and border officials that establish its work plan and operations. The commission, which supervises the respect of EU laws, has two of the 28 board seats.Leggeri, a French civil servant named executive director in 2015 just as hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees were arriving in Europe, is tasked with carrying out the board’s strategy. Some roles, such as the deputy director and other senior positions, remain unfilled.On paper, Frontex is legally accountable to the 27 member countries and the European Parliament. The commission, through Johansson, has political but not legal responsibility for Frontex’s actions.Out on the sea, or at land borders, though, Frontex operations are controlled by the country whose territory they take place on. In the Aegean, where many pushbacks have been reported, that means the Greek coast guard. This is where the lines of responsibility get muddy.Frontex and Greece vehemently deny carrying out pushbacks, and the inquiry cleared the agency, although it did expose “monitoring and reporting” failures. But Leggeri requested twice last year that Athens probe the conduct of the Greek coast guard.He also told the EU lawmakers that when Turkey waved thousands of migrants through to its border with Greece last March, Athens decided in an emergency measure “to make optimal use of the provisions on interception” to stop the attempted influx.That means, Leggeri said, “that in some cases the migrants’ boats can be instructed not to stay in the territorial waters or not to enter.” To some, that might appear to be the very definition of a pushback and prompts the question: Should Frontex comply when an order to intercept a migrant boat might be breaking the law?These blurred legal definitions, unclear lines of command and the conflicting interests of coastal or inland EU member countries make the Frontex ship a complex one to command.
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Month: March 2021
China, North Korea Loom as Blinken, Austin Head to Asia
Threats from China and North Korea will loom large over the Biden administration’s first Cabinet-level trip abroad, part of a larger effort to bolster U.S. influence and calm concerns about America’s role in Asia.A senior administration official said Saturday that U.S. officials have tried to reach out to North Korea through multiple channels since last month but have yet to receive a response. That makes consultations with the reclusive country’s neighbors, Japan, South Korea and China, all the more critical. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin are heading to Japan and South Korea for four days of talks starting Monday as the new administration tries to shore up partnerships with the two key regional allies. Blinken and Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, will meet with Chinese officials in Anchorage, Alaska, on Thursday. The Cabinet members’ Asia trip is intended to restore what Biden hopes will be a calming and even-keeled approach to ties with Tokyo and Seoul after four years of transactional and often temperamental relations under former President Donald Trump. He had upended diplomatic norms by meeting not once, but three times, with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Blinken and Austin also plan virtual meetings with journalists, civil society members and others. After reassuring their counterparts of U.S. commitments to Japanese and South Korean security, they plan to focus on an increasingly assertive China, the nuclear challenge from North Korea and the coronavirus pandemic.In his first months in office, Biden has signaled his desire to return the Asia-Pacific to the top of the U.S. foreign policy agenda. In keeping with his broader “America is back” diplomatic theme, Biden has pledged to keep stability in the region at the core of his international initiatives.On Friday, Biden participated in a virtual summit with the leaders of India, Japan and Australia.”A free and open Indo-Pacific is essential,” Biden said. “The United States is committed to working with you, our partners and all of our allies in the region to achieve stability.”As part of that effort and “to reduce the risks of escalation,” the senior official said efforts had been made to connect with the North Koreans since mid-February, including through what is known as the “New York channel.” To date, the official said, “We have not received any response from Pyongyang.” The official was not authorized to publicly discuss the diplomatic outreach and spoke on condition of anonymity. Meanwhile, U.S. and South Korean negotiators have overcome years of contentious discussions under Trump to reach a tentative deal on paying for the American troop presence in South Korea. That agreement, along with a similar one for Japan, will be front and center in Blinken and Austin’s meetings. As he had done with allies in Europe, Trump threatened to reduce security cooperation unless host countries paid more. That led to fears of troop withdrawals at a time of particular uncertainty as China boosts efforts to dominate the region and North Korea’s nuclear weapons remain a major source of angst. “Diplomacy is back at the center of our foreign policy, and we are working to strengthen America’s relationships with our allies as well as the relationships among them,” said Sung Kim, who is the top U.S. diplomat for Asia. He served in the Philippines and Indonesia during the Trump administration and was previously the special envoy for North Korea. For all of Biden’s suggestions that he will reverse Trump’s overt hostility to China, he has yet to countermand a single one of his predecessor’s policies. He has, in fact, reaffirmed several of them, including maintaining sanctions in response to human rights abuses in western Xinjiang and Hong Kong and restating a Trump-era decision to reject outright nearly all of China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea.Many of China’s policies that the U.S. finds objectionable — including its crackdown in Hong Kong, stepped up rhetoric against Taiwan and actions in the South China Sea — began during the Obama administration. The previous Democratic administration took office promising a “pivot to Asia” after a period of what many saw as American neglect for the region during George W. Bush’s presidency, which was consumed by the onset of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.In fact, although some obvious circumstances have changed since 2009, Blinken and Austin’s trip mirrors in many ways the initial overseas journey of President Barack Obama’s first secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, when she traveled to Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and then China in a bid to reassert U.S. interests in the Asia-Pacific. Obama’s engagement with China, however, did not produce the desired results, and the North Korean threat grew.Although China is not on Blinken’s itinerary, after wrapping up the stop in Seoul, he will fly back to Washington via Anchorage, Alaska, where he and Sullivan will meet senior Chinese officials. Austin will go from Seoul to New Delhi for meetings with Indian leaders.Still, the administration is convinced that its domestic efforts to revitalize the U.S. economy and step up the fight against COVID-19 have put it in a better position both to blunt Chinese ambitions directly and leverage its partnerships to do the same.”After the work of the past 50 days, Secretary Blinken and I will enter the meeting with senior Chinese representatives from a position of strength,” Sullivan said Friday.
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Biden, Democrats to Tout Coronavirus Relief Benefits
U.S. President Joe Biden and other Democrats are embarking this week on visits to numerous states to promote the benefits of the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package Biden signed into law last week, hoping to make sure voters know how the aid could help them and that it was approved over uniform Republican opposition.On Tuesday Biden is to visit Delaware County, a key suburban Philadelphia jurisdiction in the eastern state of Pennsylvania that he carried over former President Donald Trump in the November election.Biden Signs Coronavirus Relief Package$1.9 trillion measure cleared Congress over uniform Republican opposition Meantime, first lady Jill Biden is headed to the northeastern state of New Jersey on Monday and to New Hampshire on Wednesday. Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, are visiting Colorado and New Mexico in the western United States in the coming days, as well as New Jersey, Georgia and Pennsylvania on the East Coast.The relief package is one of the largest economic assistance packages in U.S. history and the first major legislative victory for Biden. It was approved solely with the votes of Democrats. Republican lawmakers objected to the size of the deal and to the fact that some of the funding is not tied directly to trying to end the pandemic in the U.S., where more than 534,000 Americans have died. Biden said in a speech Thursday night that the first and second couples and members of his Cabinet will spread out across the country to “speak directly to you” about the plan.Biden and the other Democrats plan to highlight that millions of adult Americans, all but those in the upper-income brackets, will receive $1,400 stimulus checks, with tax credits for children. Billions of dollars are being sent to state and local governments and businesses that have been hit hard by the yearlong pandemic in the U.S. Additional aid is being spent to boost vaccinations of millions of Americans.Key Facts About the $1.9T COVID Bill Legislation still needs final passage in House, president’s signature The president and his aides hope to highlight how much assistance is being spent in individual states. National polls have shown that the relief package has wide support, even among Republicans, but Biden is not taking its popularity for granted.Democrats are mindful that in 2009, the last Democratic president, Barack Obama, under whom Biden served as vice president, spent little time promoting the $800 billion economic stimulus package he and fellow Democrats helped push through Congress to help rescue the U.S. economy from the steep recession they inherited from Republican President George W. Bush.Republicans, who mostly opposed the stimulus, went on to capture the House of Representatives in the 2010 elections.Biden press secretary Jen Psaki, a veteran of the Obama administration, told reporters last week: “We didn’t do enough to explain to the American people what the benefits were” in 2009.The White House is planning to make surrogates and senior administration officials available for local television interviews in cities across the country and get more than 400 mayors and governors to talk about what the relief package means for them and their communities.Congresswoman Liz Cheney, the House’s No. 3 Republican, said in a statement that only a small fraction of the $1.9 trillion deal was aimed at the virus and warned that it might eventually lead to tax increases to help pay for it.
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Macedonian Artist Makes Breathtaking Model Replicas of Ships
Dame Zaturoski from Struga, North Macedonia, is a lawyer by training, but his true passion is making models of boats and ships. Reporter Miki Trajkovski went to North Macedonia to see his latest creation and filed this story narrated by Anna Rice.
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Farmers Fight Back Against Ravenous Locust Swarms
A massive locust outbreak continues threatening farmers’ fields in East Africa. Now a Kenyan company says it has a solution to turn the pests into profit. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
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Global Coalition Forms to Expand School Feeding for Vulnerable Children
The World Food Program is leading a project to restore school feeding programs for vulnerable children who have been cut off from this nutritional lifeline because of the COVID-19 pandemic.An estimated 388 million children or one in two worldwide had been receiving school meals when the pandemic struck more than a year ago. The World Food Program says this is the highest number of children in history who had been benefiting from this vital source of nourishment.By April of last year, the U.N. Food agency reports 199 countries were forced to close their schools because of COVID-19 lockdown measures. As a result, it says, 370 million children now no longer receive daily school meals — for many, their only meal of the day.WFP spokesman Tomson Phiri said his agency has begun to assemble a coalition of stakeholders to help governments restore and boost access to school feeding programs for hundreds of millions of poor children worldwide. He said participants are drawn from governments, development agencies, U.N. and private agencies as well as other sectors.“The coalition aims to find sustainable and innovative funding sources for school feeding programs, strengthen evidence and guidance to improve said programs, as well as to bring together multiple sectors to achieve better outcomes for school children globally,” he said.Phiri said this initiative comes at a crucial time. He calls school feeding a game changer for many, not just for the children. Phiri said parents, smallholder farmers and communities as a whole benefit when children are not deprived of food essential for their health and well-being.“Activities help stave off hunger, support longer-term health and help a child to learn and thrive. This is especially true for girls. In places where there is a school meals program, girls attend as well as to stay in school longer. Child marriage rates go down and teen pregnancies decrease,” said Phiri.The World Food Program says it expects more partners will join the coalition over the coming months before the project is launched at the Food Systems Summit on the margins of the General Assembly in September or October.The summit, which will be convened by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, aims to transform the way the world produces and consumes food.
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Millions Face Acute Hunger in Somalia as Drought Widens
The U.N. office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs, OCHA, reports an estimated 2.7 million Somalis will face severe food shortages over the coming months as drought conditions affect more areas in the country. Somalia’s decade-long drought continues to chip away at people’s ability to cope with this seemingly never-ending disaster. The worst has not yet come to pass. The U.N. reports pre-drought conditions already can be seen in parts of Somaliland, Puntland, Hirshabelle, Galmudug and Jubaland states. OCHA spokesman, Jens Laerke, says people in these areas, who have barely recovered from last year’s poor seasonal rains, are facing a similarly grim situation this year. “Tens of thousands of people in Somalia have been forced to leave their homes since November because of extreme water shortages, and forecasts now indicate that the current rainy season, which runs from March to June, will only deliver below average rainfall,” said Laerke. Relief agencies report two consecutive seasons of scant rain results in crop failure, poor livestock production, and acute food insecurity. Laerke says the hunger crisis in Somalia will be at its worst between April and June. Among the estimated 2.7 million Somalis affected he says are 840,000 children under age five. “That is an increase of more than 65 percent compared to current levels,” said Laerke. “Water shortages will also increase the risk of disease outbreaks… The loss of rain-fed pasture is threatening the survival of livestock which is the foundation of many Somalis’ livelihoods. Displaced people have told OCHA that they are moving in search of water and pasture for their animals.” The United Nations has appealed for $1 billion to provide life-saving assistance this year to four million people in Somalia affected by conflict, climate change and COVID-19. Laerke says only 2.5 percent of that funding has been received, a sum well below that needed to help Somalia cope with this emergency.
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We ‘Have the Mind to Win This Battle’ – Myanmar Activist Speaks Out About Coup, Crackdown
Since the Myanmar military overthrew the country’s democratically elected government on February 1, thousands of coup protesters have resisted the junta daily, despite the increasing bloodshed.
The Myanmar military has occupied the streets with armored vehicles, while openly repressing demonstrators by firing live ammunition that has left scores dead.
The protesters re a main defiant, though they don’t have one formal leader, and Myanmar’s high-profile activists have played a prominent role in resisting the military’s overhaul of the country.
Thinzar Shunlei Yi, a youth activist and television host, is a well-known name in Myanmar. Her efforts resisting the coup are widely followed, and they include organizing and leading demonstrations on the ground.
But the 29-year-old told VOA in an audio call, her activism has been a long time coming.
“I’ve been hearing all these news things a long time ago, so I became an activist. The first thing I’ve been hearing was from the civil war. Now I feel like the coup took all of our hopes, put us all in the darkest place, it is totally mentally disheartening, depressing. I felt I couldn’t find a way out of it anymore,” she said.
Thinzar Shunlei Yi says her activism stems from when she was attending university in Yangon. At just 18 years old, she was giving a presentation about voter education before one of her teachers hushed her off stage, insisting she couldn’t talk about politics or parliamentary issues. She remembered feeling “embarrassed,” though it only served to motivate her even more.
“I felt angry to do more,” she said.
Her many advocacy roles have included being a member of various youth forums and of the U.S. Ambassadors Youth Council, which highlights human rights and discrimination issues in Myanmar.FILE – Protester run from police during a protest against the military coup in Yangon, Myanmar, March 8, 2021.But despite her growing international profile, Thinzar Shunlei Yi admits being a female activist has its challenges, and she still feels the discrimination.
“If I’m the organizer that’s OK, because people know who I am. But if I just try to get into a random protest, they will just treat me like a woman—like the woman they believe I should be. I think they are over-protecting, but I think this is a traditional kind of thing,” she said.
Notably, two young women in Myanmar have been killed during the coup that began about six weeks ago, sparking an international outcry.
In February, Mya Thwe Thwe Khaing, 20, was the first protester who was shot and killed during a demonstration in Myanmar’s capital city, Naypyitaw. In early March, Ma Kyel Sin, 19, reportedly was seen running away from the military forces, only to be fatally shot.
Thinzar Shunlei Yi said women might have been targeted by the military in efforts to “scare” other women from taking part in protests.
The military’s tactics have included soldiers raiding households at night, despite night curfews because of precautions against the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Nights are even harder. Every night I’m sleeping in my hideout place, I know I can get arrested. They are shooting around my house, looking for something always, it can be me, it can be someone else. It is mentally painful these days. I cannot eat or sleep well,” she admitted.
The political conflict in Myanmar has spanned more than seven decades. In 1948, Burma as it was formerly known, gained independence from Britain. There has been a series of insurgencies since then, largely ethnic-based hostilities.
In 2015, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, her National League of Democracy (NLD) party won the country’s first open democratic election.But in last November’s general elections, the military contested election results, claiming widespread electoral fraud, without evidence. On February 1, the Myanmar military, also known as Tatmadaw, removed the NLD government. Leader Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint were detained and have since been charged.FILE – Anti-coup protesters carry pictures of deposed Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, in Yangon, Myanmar, March 2, 2021.Thinzar Shunlei Yi was once dubbed “the new Aung San Suu Kyi” and has admitted the NLD leader has been a huge influence.
“I become who I am because of Aung San Suu Kyi. It’s so rare for us to see a woman recognized internationally, and an educated woman, a brave woman. I respect her a lot,” she told VOA.
But with the NLD leader still detained, protests are continuing daily, with news of arrests and deaths now a recurring theme. According to the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners Burma (AAPPB), there have been 2,092 people arrested, charged or sentenced since the coup, with more than 70 fatalities.
And with Myanmar’s Armed Forces Day approaching on March 27, featuring an annual military parade, there are concerns the day could be significant.
“The Tatmadaw is aggressive, we will never underestimate them. I think in terms of their behavior, they already ruined their reputation. They are already in their worst forms, they have already shown their true colors,” says Thinzar Shunlei Yi.
But she admitted the coup has “pushed us to be more united.”
“We have a long-time mission and vision,” she said. “I see a peaceful country, where everyone despite their ethnicity, religions or sexual orientation, can have an equal chance if they want to. It can be accomplished when we agree with a federal democratic nation.
Myanmar’s 2008 Constitution provides the military with a quarter of the seats within the country’s parliament, seen as preventing the nations democratic progression.
“Our future must be defined by the civilians, not by the soldiers. In Myanmar, we have no choice, and we already have the mind to win this battle.”
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UN Condemns Arbitrary Killings of Activists in Philippines
United Nations officials are condemning the arbitrary killing of nine activists in four provinces in the Philippines earlier this week in what they say appear to have been coordinated, simultaneous police-military operations.
This is not the first time such killings have taken place. On December 30, nine Tumandok indigenous peoples’ rights activists were killed in Panay during similar joint operations.
The U.N. human rights office reports eight men and one woman were killed in this latest joint police and military operation. Agency spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said the police obtained search warrants. They were presented as part of the government’s counterinsurgency campaign against the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines.
Shamdasani said security personnel then entered the activists’ homes in the dead of night and shot them.
“So, these search warrants were obtained in this context to conduct searches for weapons held as part of the communist insurgency. However … these operations were carried out in the middle of the night and those who were killed were working on issues such as the rights of fishing communities, indigenous peoples’ rights, housing rights of people rendered homeless or people who have been evicted from urban slums,” she said.
Shamdasani called the near total impunity for the use of lethal force by the police and the military shocking, saying it must end.
“We are deeply worried that these latest killings indicate an escalation in violence, intimidation, and harassment and ‘red-tagging’ of human rights defenders. There is a history of human rights advocates being “red-tagged”—or being accused of being fronts for the armed wing of the Communist Party in the Philippines,” Shamdasani said.
U.N. rights chief Michele Bachelet warned in June of the dangers of such public labeling. She called for the protection of human rights defenders, journalists and others at risk.
However, Shamdasani said Bachelet’s plea has not been heeded. She said dozens of activists and several journalists have been arrested, intimidated and harassed since then.
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Black Scholar: It’s Time France Confronts Its Colonial Past
A Black French scholar and expert on U.S. minority rights movements who’s taking charge of France’s state-run immigration museum says it’s “vital” for his country to confront its colonial past so that it can conquer present racial injustice.
“The French are highly reluctant to look at the dark dimensions of their own history,” Pap Ndiaye told The Associated Press in his museum, initially built to display colonial exploits but now meant to showcase the role of immigration in shaping modern France.
Ndiaye was named to head France’s National Museum of the History of Immigration at a crucial time, as his country is under pressure to reassess its colonial history and offer better opportunities for its citizens of color, in the wake of Black Lives Matter and other racial justice movements.
Following George Floyd’s death in the U.S. last year, thousands took to the streets in Paris and across the country expressing anger at racism and discrimination in French society, particularly toward people from the country’s former colonies in Africa.
What happened in the U.S. “echoes the French situation,” Ndiaye said.
The trial of a former police officer charged in Floyd’s death will be closely monitored in France, Ndiaye said, because “it tells about the reality of police violence, and we would like very much for this reality of police violence to be discussed the same way in France.”
Many young French are increasingly pushing back against a national doctrine of colorblindness, which aims at encouraging equality by ignoring race altogether — but has failed to eradicate discrimination.
They “are disappointed in many ways in the French promise of equality and opportunities for all,” Ndiaye said. “We must go beyond the official discourse and acknowledge reality.”
These issues “have to be discussed. They have to be measured also through the use of statistics,” Ndiaye said, also urging “more effective policies” targeting discrimination in the job and housing markets.
These are bold statements for a top government-appointed official in France, where collecting data based on race or ethnicity is frowned upon, and where the far-right has brought anti-immigrant rhetoric to the mainstream. President Emmanuel Macron has promised more steps to fight discrimination and has treaded carefully on how to address colonial wrongs.
Ndiaye, who was born and raised in France, described his stay in the U.S. from 1991 to 1996 to study as “a personal revelation.” Born to a French mother and Senegalese father, he said his U.S. experience “helped me integrate that Black part of me I had put aside a little bit to make it a source of pride.”
Coming back to France, he specialized on the history of minorities in both countries, and his publication in 2008 of the book “The Black Condition” made him a precursor of Black Studies in France.
From his new post at the immigration museum, Ndiaye hopes to contribute to opening the debate needed so the French confront their collective memories.
“I know many French people would say that slavery is something that happened in the United States when slavery did not really happen in France or on a much smaller scale — which is not the case. The main difference between France and the U.S. is that slavery was overseas [in French colonies], very far from the mainland.”
France and the U.S. have different histories, but they’ve been facing “similar issues, issues of racial domination … issues of racial injustice,” Ndiaye stressed.
The Palais de la Porte Doree, which houses the museum in the east of Paris, is a strong testimony from France’s colonial era.
Built for the Paris Colonial Exposition of 1931, it aimed to present the French colonies in a favorable light.
Amid other propaganda, Ndiaye said, a monumental fresco in the main hall of the museum was meant to convince the public “that colonization is good for the colonized themselves, that they enjoy being colonized by the French because of the civilizing mission of the French Empire.”
The fresco still stands, as a reminder. Visitors will be able to “measure the gap between the official discourse on colonization at that time… and the reality,” he said. “A reality of violence, a reality of oppression, a reality of domination.”
The immigration museum, inaugurated in 2007, is now closed to the public amid the virus crisis and in full renovation, with a reopening expected next year.
It will propose a new approach to the history of immigration to ensure that it is “not a footnote” in France’s history, Ndiaye said. “Immigration is presented in a positive manner of course when we know that one French out of four has at least one grandparent who came from elsewhere.”
The permanent exhibition will start from 1685, when King Louis XIV passed the Code Noir, or Black Code, legislation meant to regulate the conditions of slavery in French colonies. It legalized the brutal treatment of slaves and foresaw capital punishment for offenses including striking a “master.”
The display will focus on France’s colonial Empire that once included a large part of northern and western Africa and other territories in the Caribbean, the Middle East and south-east Asia.
The exhibition will end with the migrant crisis that shook Europe in 2015, when more than 1 million people crossed by land and by sea to reach the continent.
With a growing non-white French population with ancestors coming from colonized areas, Ndiaye said people want “their history, the history of their family, to be better integrated within the general master narrative of French history.”
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Malaysia Uses Emergency Powers to Impose ‘Fake News’ Law
Malaysia is using new powers under emergency rule to increase jail time for spreading what authorities call fake news about the coronavirus pandemic or the emergency itself, sidestepping the usual route through Parliament.
The government says tougher penalties are needed to fight off mounting misinformation about the pandemic, which has hit Malaysia harder than most of its neighbors.
Lawyers, reporters and rights groups fear the tougher penalties portend a crackdown on government critics, calling the measures “dangerous” and “draconian.”
Malaysia joins several other countries with similar regulations.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic more than a year ago, 17 countries have added or beefed-up penalties for “fake news,” according to the International Press Institute, often amid claims from critics of abusing the term to stifle honest dissent. Of the eight countries in Asia, four are in Southeast Asia alone. Malaysia makes it five.
“This is a trend that we’re seeing more and more, especially … associated with the rise in social media and the sort of proliferation of expression online,” said Matthew Bugher, Asia program director for Article 19, a British rights group that advocates for freedom of speech and information.
Devil in the details
Malaysia’s fake news ordinance sets a jail term of up to three years for publishing or sharing any “wholly or partly false” information about either the pandemic or a state of emergency that took effect in January. Jail terms can double for those who help fund the publication of that information. Fines for each offense top out at about $24,000 and $121,000, respectively.
Lawmakers had no say in the new rules as the state of emergency King Al-Sultan Abdullah decreed at Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s request suspended Parliament until August 1. The government announced the new rules Thursday and put them into force Friday.
Public backlash has been swift and strong.
Lawyers and rights groups say they are alarmed both by the details of the order and by the lack thereof. They say the rules are missing a clear definition of fake news and in effect let authorities ignore the standards for prosecuting an alleged crime set out in the country’s Evidence Act.
“That means it would be very easy for them to basically charge anyone under this law,” said Ding Jo Ann, an adviser to Malaysia’s Center for Independent Journalism.
By imposing fines and jail time on anyone who refuses to give passwords or encryption codes to authorities investigating related cases, the ordinance “will create a climate of fear,” Lawyers for Liberty, a local rights group, said in a statement.
The Bar Council of Malaysia told local news outlet Free Malaysia Today that the ordinance lets authorities ignore several fair trial rules, making it a “highly dangerous piece of legislation which has the potential to be abused.”
State-run news outlet Bernama also reported that authorities cannot be sued over how they enforce the ordinance, even for any mistakes they make “in good faith.”FILE – An armed soldier stands guard at a roadblock on the first day of a movement restrictions in downtown Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Jan. 13, 2021.Controlling the narrative
Bugher said the wide berth the new rules give the government to define fake news is a recipe for abuse.
“It sort of allows the government to be the final arbiter of truth. And what we see regularly is that when the governments are given the power to decide what is true and what is false, those powers usually end up in the targeting of government critics,” he said.
Muhyiddin’s government has plenty of those, said Ding, who worries the new rules have more to do with “controlling the narrative” than fighting fake news.
“This government has faced tremendous criticism from the very day they took office, from the manner in which they took office, and henceforth every single day of how they have conducted themselves. People are very critical of the way they have handled or mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic,” she said.
Muhyiddin was appointed prime minister by the king in February 2020 after a sudden shift in political alliances brought the sitting government crashing down, bringing him and his cabinet to power without an election. When Muhyiddin asked the king for the state of emergency, to help him rein in a COVID-19 surge, many saw a prime minister with shrinking support in Parliament desperate to hold on to power by averting the threat of a snap election.
Despite early success keeping the pandemic at bay, Malaysia has now racked up the third-most infections in Southeast Asia, with more than 320,000 confirmed cases.
The prime minister’s public relations office did not answer VOA’s calls or respond to a request for comment by email.
The government defended the fake news ordnance at a press conference Friday.
Communications Minister Saifuddin Abdullah said existing laws were ill-suited to keep up with the spread of fake news on social media and that the new rules would make law enforcement more agile.
“Our interest is in fighting COVID-19 and we will do whatever it takes,” he said. “We take cognizance of the fact that we have to be fair, we have to be just in carrying out our duties.”
Fact from fiction
Ding said the government would be better off countering fake news by doing more to help Malaysians separate fact from fiction online and urging the social media giants to keep misinformation and disinformation from going viral.
Bugher suggested the government step up its own fact-checking and fact-sharing operations rather than risk stifling news that could actually help.
“What’s worrying about laws like these is that it can sometimes tamp down good-faith discussion of issues that need to be discussed, because if people don’t feel that they have the ability to say something wrong without going to jail then they’re not going to discuss matters,” he said.
“In the context of a pandemic, for example, you really want people to share concerns if they think there may be an outbreak or if you think that the government is not doing what it should to address an outbreak in a certain area,” he added. “These types of laws can really chill that type of speech.”
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US Senators Condemn Russia’s ‘Assault’ on RFE/RL
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators has called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop his country’s “state-sponsored assault on media freedom” through the targeting of U.S.-funded news service RFE/RL.
In a March 12 statement, Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee called attention to the deteriorating media environment in Russia and a clampdown on RFE/RL under a controversial “foreign agent” law.
Russia’s state media monitoring agency, Roskomnadzor, has opened 260 cases against RFE/RL’s Russian-language news services for failing to mark written and broadcast materials in accordance with the onerous regulations. A Moscow court has already levied fines totaling some $1 million in 142 cases.
“Long employed to weaken Russian civil society, the Kremlin is now using onerous ‘foreign agent’ laws as a pretext to silence RFE/RL in Russia, pursuing court cases and fines,” Senators Chris Coons (Democrat-Delaware), Mitt Romney (Republican-Utah), Marco Rubio (Republican-Florida), and Bob Menendez (Democrat-New Jersey), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a joint statement.
The senators accused Putin of consolidating control over the media and passing laws to punish critics, while threatening the safety of members of the press.
“In this harsh media environment, RFE/RL has performed an invaluable service to the Russian people, providing them uncensored local news that aims to meet the highest standards of objective journalism,” the senators said.
The string of cases against RFE/RL means that pending appeals, it must pay the fines and come into compliance with regulations or face the potential closure of its operations inside Russia.
‘Foreign Agent’ Law
Earlier this month the U.S. State Department expressed “deep concern” about what it called Russian government efforts “to clamp down on the exercise of freedom of expression.”
The statement came the same day a Moscow judge rejected five appeals by RFE/RL of fines imposed on the operation under the “foreign agent” law.
Russia’s so-called “foreign agent” legislation was adopted in 2012 and has been modified repeatedly. It requires nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign assistance and that the government deems to be engaged in political activity to be registered, to identify themselves as “foreign agents,” and to submit to audits.
Later modifications targeted foreign-funded media.
In 2017, the Russian government placed RFE/RL’s Russian Service on the list, along with six other RFE/RL Russian-language news services, and Current Time, a network run by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA.The blacklist of “foreign agents,” seen here in a screenshot from the Russian Justice Ministry’s website, shows Voice of America (1), Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe (7) and Current Time (5) among others.At the end of 2020, the legislation was modified to allow the Russian government to include individuals, including foreign journalists, on its “foreign agent” list and to impose restrictions on them.
In December 2020, authorities added five individuals to its “foreign agent” list, including three contributors to RFE/RL’s Russian Service. All five are appealing their inclusion on the list.
Roskomnadzor adopted rules last year requiring listed media to mark all written materials with a lengthy notice in large text, all radio materials with an audio statement, and all video materials with a 15-second text declaration.
RFE/RL President Jamie Fly has called the regulations “orders to deface our content platforms and intimidate our audiences.” He added that RFE/RL will continue “to object, protest, and appeal these requirements.”
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No Suspects Arrested in Deadly Inter-communal Attack in South Sudan
Seventeen people were killed in inter-communal clashes in Ngap village in South Sudan’s Lakes State on Wednesday. The killings are the latest in a series of ethnic-based attacks and counterattacks that have left hundreds of people dead and displaced thousands of others, according to the Human Rights Council, a U.N. body documenting human rights violations.No suspects have been apprehended, Lakes State Police spokesperson Captain Elijah Mabor said. The clashes occurred, he said, in an area inaccessible by road.Many residents own firearms, and Mabor urged local, state and national governments to conduct a thorough disarmament campaign in Lakes State and other areas of the country where inter-communal fighting is rampant.“So many attempts that were made before were not comprehensive because the disarmament was done in some parts and other parts still maintained their rifles,” Mabor told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus. He added that, despite disarmament efforts, many “may have access to acquire another gun.”Mabor said cattle may have been stolen during the attack this week, but police have yet to access the area to carry out an investigation and bring perpetrators to justice.Madol Panther, a member of a peace committee in Cueibet County, where the attack happened, condemned the violence and said communities should learn to coexist peacefully. He believes the government is left with no choice but to forcefully disarm civilians after an earlier voluntary disarmament failed. Peace committees in South Sudan were established so that communities could reconcile their differences and build trust.However, Panther said, several young men in the area refuse to surrender their weapons because they want to carry out retaliatory attacks.“Some are saying, ‘We cannot surrender our guns while not taking any revenge because our people have been killed, no arrests have been made, no accountability,” Panther told VOA. “Why do we surrender our guns when the culprits are moving around and no apprehension has been done?’ This is what they are saying on the ground.”Panther said special forces have been established but have yet to assume their duties as they wait for the governor to approve.John Chiejuk, a youth leader in Cueibet County, said most of the elites in the surrounding communities have fled to Juba because of the insecurity.He appealed to Lakes State politicians to return home and find a way to bring an end to the escalating violence.“Most of the intellectuals of Cueibet County including politicians are in Juba, Wau and Rumbek. They are all scattered. They are no longer here and the only solution for politicians who have run away, they have to come,” Chiejuk told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus. “This is their land. They have to come and solve the case.”Inter-communal fighting in Cueibet County has been ongoing for months. Eleven people were killed in revenge attacks between September and October last year.According to the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, revenge attacks and cattle raids remain the biggest cause of insecurity in the country.A recent report by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan said the country’s humanitarian crisis is exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, floods, the highest levels of food insecurity and malnutrition recorded in 10 years, escalating violence, and human rights violations.
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4 Dead as Myanmar Anti-Coup Protests Continue
Protesters took to Myanmar streets again Saturday and security forces responded, firing live rounds into the crowds. At least four demonstrators died in Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city, and in the central town of Pyay.
Amid the continued protests and violence in Myanmar, the United Nations human rights investigator on Myanmar has called for the international community to take a united stand against the military junta that took power in a February 1 coup.
“It is heartbreaking to bear witness to the terror and lawlessness by those who have illegally grabbed power in Myanmar,” which is also known as Burma, Thomas Andrews told the U.N. Human Rights Council Friday.
He added that the international community “must strip away the junta’s sense of impunity.”
A Myanmar official told the council that authorities in the country were using “utmost restraint” toward the protesters.
Andrews called that claim “absurd.”
Since Myanmar’s military seized power from the elected government, he said, security forces have killed at least 70 people and arbitrarily arrested more than 2,000.
Andrews also said there is video evidence of security forces viciously beating protestors, destroying property, looting shops, and firing indiscriminately into people’s homes, and that the junta has been systematically destroying legal protections and crushing freedom of expression and assembly.
Last month, the U.S. announced sanctions on the Burmese military regime.
Earlier this week, the U.S. government placed sanctions on the two adult children of Burmese military commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing.
The United States has called for the immediate release of Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy party, ousted President Win Myint, and protesters, journalists and human rights activists who have been unjustly detained since the takeover.
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New Zealand Marks 2 Years Since Christchurch Mosque Killings
New Zealand on Saturday marked the second anniversary of one of its most traumatic days, when 51 worshippers were killed at two Christchurch mosques by a white supremacist gunman.Several hundred people gathered at the Christchurch Arena for the remembrance service, which was also livestreamed. A similar service planned for last year was canceled at short notice due to the sudden spread of the coronavirus.Kiran Munir, whose husband, Haroon Mahmood, was killed in the attacks, told the crowd she had lost the love of her life and her soulmate. She said her husband was a loving father of their two children. He’d just finished a doctoral degree and was looking forward to his graduation ceremony when she last saw his smiling face.“Little did I know that the next time I would see him the body and soul would not be together,” she said. “Little did I know that the darkest day in New Zealand’s history had dawned. That day my heart broke into a thousand pieces, just like the hearts of the 50 other families.”Temel Atacocugu, who survived being shot nine times during the attack on the Al Noor mosque, said the slaughter was caused by racism and ignorance. “They were attacks on all of humanity,” he said.He said the survivors would never be able to erase the pain in their hearts and would never be the same.“However, the future is in our hands,” he said. “We will go on and we will be positive together.”In the March 15, 2019, attacks, Australian Brenton Tarrant killed 44 people at the Al Noor mosque during Friday prayers before driving to the Linwood mosque, where he killed seven more.Last year Tarrant, 30, pleaded guilty to 51 counts of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder and one count of terrorism, He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.After the attacks, New Zealand quickly passed new laws banning the deadliest types of semiautomatic weapons.During the service, the names of each of the 51 people who were killed were read out. The efforts of first responders, including police and medics, were also acknowledged.Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told the crowd that when preparing her speech, she had been at a loss for what to say because words would never change what happened.“But while words cannot perform miracles, they do have the power to heal,” she said.The Muslim community had experienced hatred and racism even before the attacks, she said, and words should be used for change.“There will be an unquestionable legacy from March 15,” Ardern said. “Much of it will be heartbreaking. But it is never too early or too late for the legacy to be a more inclusive nation.”
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Australian Grants Entry to Fugitive Hong Kong Politician
Fugitive lawmaker Ted Hui has become the first Hong Kong politician allowed into Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic. The move has spurred China to accuse Canberra of interfering in its domestic affairs.Pro-democracy former Hong Kong lawmaker Ted Hui has been at the center of some unruly scenes in Hong Kong’s parliament. He once threw a bag of rotten plants into the Legislative Council chamber to disrupt a debate.He fled Hong Kong while on bail in 2019, in a case related to anti-government protests, but still faces national security charges. He went to Europe but has been granted a visitor’s visa by Australia. Australia closed its borders to foreign travelers a year ago because of the pandemic, but Hui has been given special permission to fly to the northern city of Darwin.He arrived this week with his family and all are in mandatory COVID-19 quarantine.Hui told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that he was grateful for Canberra’s support.“I did explain to the Australian government about my situation and what my family is experiencing as an exile,” he said. “They granted me permission on [the] basis of compelling and compassionate reasons. I could actually get on a repatriation flight with other Australians going home. It was very kind of the Australian government and I am grateful for everything given for me.”Hui believes he is better placed to fight for democracy in Hong Kong in exile in Australia with other like-minded activists. He has called for a stronger international response to national security laws imposed by China in Hong Kong.However, China’s Foreign Affairs Ministry has accused Australia of meddling in its domestic politics and harboring a fugitive.Relations between Australia and its biggest trading partner are at their lowest in decades. The list of disagreements is long. There has been friction over Canberra’s call last year for a global inquiry into the origins of the new coronavirus and allegations of Chinese interference in Australian politics.In a sign of escalating tensions, Beijing has imposed restrictions on several Australian farm exports, including barley and wine, and on coal. China is Australia’s biggest trading partner.Analysts say Hui’s arrival in Darwin will add more friction to an increasingly tense relationship.
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US Communities Declare Racism a Public Health Crisis
A year into the coronavirus pandemic that is disproportionately ravaging African American lives both physically and economically, efforts are underway to target racism as a public health crisis that shortens lives and costs millions of dollars.“Systemic racism defines the Black experience in our nation,” said Virginia Democratic State Delegate Lashrecse Aird, who co-sponsored a resolution approved by lawmakers in February that makes Virginia the first state in the South to declare racism a public health crisis.“It provides the framework for all of us to formally and finally reckon with those injustices so we can build a more equitable and just society for all,” Aird said in a statement to VOA.The Virginia resolution cites more than 100 studies that link racism to negative health outcomes. The research indicates the cumulative experience of racism throughout a person’s life can induce chronic stress and health conditions that may lead to otherwise preventable deaths. Overall life expectancy for African Americans is nearly 3 ½ years shorter than for white people.“Virginians of color, especially Black Virginians, deserve no further delay of the Commonwealth’s public recognition of this centuries-old crisis,” Robert Barnette Jr., president of the Virginia State Conference of the NAACP, told VOA in a virtual news conference.“We know systemic racism manifests itself as a determinant to public health through persistent racial disparities in all areas of our lives,” he said.The Virginia resolution would create a watchdog agency to promote policies that address systemic racism and its impact on public health. It requires state elected officials, their staff, and state employees to undergo training to recognize racism. Community engagement throughout the state will also be promoted to detect racism.The legislation is a big step for lawmakers in Richmond, the former capital of the Confederacy, and a state with a checkered history of racially discriminatory and segregationist activities. Gov. Ralph Northam is expected to approve the declaration soon.Health inequalityVirginia joins Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and dozens of municipalities that have issued similar nonbinding resolutions in the last year. However, some communities are hoping to use the measures to direct additional funding for research and grants to support intervention programs.While some communities addressed racism as a public health emergency before the coronavirus pandemic, COVID-19 has underlined the health disparities among communities of color.FILE – Melissa Brooks, from left, Jordan Brown, Jazmine Brooks, Shari Moore and and Laila Brooks, all of Baltimore, study photographs of Black people killed by police that cover a fence near the White House, Washington, Aug. 25, 2020.“Racism is literally killing Black and brown people. It’s a public health crisis, and it’s beyond time to treat it as such,” said Mayor Pro Tem Natasha Harper-Madison of Austin, Texas, which declared racism a public health crisis in July 2020.“The inequities are countless, and they aren’t because African Americans are inherently inferior. They are the fruits of generations’ worth of explicitly discriminatory and racist policies,” Harper-Madison said.A nationwide poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 70% of African Americans believe people are treated unfairly based on race or ethnicity when they seek medical care. Additionally, 50% of Black people said they do not trust the U.S. health care system.“It’s hard day-to-day when you’re constantly being denied or overlooked. It has an effect on your mental health,” said Janette Boyd Martin, president of the NAACP in Charlottesville, Virginia.According to the American Psychiatric Association, half of African Americans do not seek help for mental health issues, often because they fear the stigma some associate with it. Overall, only one in three Black adults who need mental health care ultimately receives it.Legacy of mistrustHistorically, racism in the U.S. health care system has long left African Americans burdened by chronic illness, reduced access to healthy foods and preventative treatment. As a result, Black people suffer more frequently than white people from diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, maternal mortality and infant mortality.African Americans have also been the subjects of unethical medical research programs.FILE – People wait in line for the COVID-19 vaccine in Paterson, N.J., Jan. 21, 2021.In 1932, the U.S. government launched a medical experiment on the progression of syphilis, studying nearly 400 Black men who suffered from the disease. At the time of the study, there was no known cure for syphilis. The men never gave informed consent or received proper treatment. Even when penicillin was used to treat syphilis in 1947, researchers did not offer it to them. The study ended after 40 years when the research became public and caused a national outcry.Another case involved Henrietta Lacks, a poor Black woman from Baltimore, Maryland, who in 1951 was diagnosed with terminal cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins University. Her unique cells, collected without her consent, were patented by medical researchers who reaped millions of dollars. Called “HeLa” cells, they continue to be used in medical research around the world.Changing the course of historyIn January, U.S. President Joe Biden launched a task force to examine ways to reverse persistent racial and ethnic disparities in health care.“What’s needed to ensure equity in the recovery is not limited to health and health care,” said Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, chairwoman of the COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force.“We have to have conversations about housing stability and food security and educational equity, and pathways to economic opportunities and promise,” she said.The task force plans to target at-risk locations and provide medical resources to vulnerable communities struggling with social and economic inequalities.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Blacks, Latinos and Native Americans are three times more likely to die from COVID-19. In addition, people of color are infected with the disease and hospitalized at higher rates than the white population. Despite the high rates of infection, Black people are being vaccinated at half the rate of white Americans, according to the CDC.In Utah, where racial disparities persist, an effort to declare racism a public health crisis was postponed. State Representative Sandra Hollins withdrew her sponsored resolution at the conclusion of this year’s legislation session.Some Utah lawmakers questioned the policy implications and said they did not understand the link between race and health care.“People don’t know what racism is,” Hollins, the only African American in the state Legislature, said recently in a televised interview.She said she will reintroduce the measure in 2022.“My definition of what racism is as a Black woman who grew up in the South may be different than people who may have grown up in Utah. The definitions are different, and that’s part of the conversation we need to have,” she said.
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US Will Not Resume Aid to Ethiopia for Most Security Programs
The State Department on Friday said Washington has decided not to lift the pause in assistance to Ethiopia for most programs in the security sector, days after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken described acts in Tigray as ethnic cleansing.State Department spokesperson Ned Price said that while the United States has decided to resume certain types of assistance, including that related to global health and food security, assistance for other programs and most programs in the security sector would remain paused.”Given the current environment in Ethiopia, we have decided not to lift the assistance pause for other programs, including most programs in the security sector,” Price said at a news briefing.Blinken has pressed Ethiopia to end hostilities in Tigray and on Wednesday, testifying before Congress, he said he wanted to see forces in Tigray from Eritrea and Amhara be replaced by security forces “that will not abuse the human rights of the people of Tigray or commit acts of ethnic cleansing, which we’ve seen in western Tigray.”Thousands of people have died, hundreds of thousands have been forced from their homes, and there are shortages of food, water and medicine in the region of more than 5 million people.Blinken, in a call with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday, discussed the importance of an international investigation into reported human rights abuses in the region, the State Department said Friday.It said that in the call, Blinken also called for “enhanced regional and international efforts to help resolve the humanitarian crisis, end atrocities, and restore peace in Ethiopia.”The U.N. said last week that Eritrean troops were operating throughout Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region and reports suggested they were responsible for atrocities.The State Department last month said Washington will unlink its pause on some aid to Ethiopia from its policy on the giant Blue Nile hydropower dam that sparked a long-running dispute between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan.But it cautioned that resumption of assistance would be assessed on several factors, including “whether each paused program remains appropriate and timely in light of developments in Ethiopia that occurred subsequent to the pause being put in place,” according to a State Department representative.
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Case of British Woman Who Vanished on Way Home Stirs Grief, Anger
The suspected abduction and murder of a young London woman as she walked home has dismayed Britain and revived a painful question: Why are women too often not safe on the streets?The fate of Sarah Everard is all the more shocking because the suspect charged Friday with abducting and killing her is a British police officer whose job was protecting politicians and diplomats.Everard, 33, a marketing executive, set out on the 50-minute walk home from a friend’s house in south London about 9 p.m. on March 3. She never arrived. On Friday, police confirmed that a body found hidden in woodland 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of the city was hers.London police arrested a member of the force’s Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command on Tuesday as a suspect in the case. Late Friday, police charged the officer, Constable Wayne Couzens, with kidnapping and murder. Couzens, 48, was set to appear in court Saturday.An undated handout picture released by the Metropolitan Police on March 11, 2021, shows Sarah Everard, who went missing in south London on March 3. Police confirmed March 12 that a body found 80 kilometers southeast of London was hers.In a statement issued Thursday, Everard’s family said, “Our beautiful daughter Sarah was taken from us and we are appealing for any information that will help to solve this terrible crime.””I know that the public feel hurt and angry about what has happened, and those are sentiments I share personally,” said Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Nick Ephgrave.Everard’s disappearance and killing has caused a nationwide outcry, with thousands appealing on social media for information to help find her. Women also then began sharing experiences of being threatened or attacked — or simply facing the everyday fear of violence when walking alone.”When she went missing, any woman who has ever walked home alone at night felt that grim, instinctive sense of recognition,” columnist Gaby Hinsliff wrote in The Guardian. “Footsteps on a dark street. Keys gripped between your fingers. There but for the grace of God.”Organizers of a planned vigil in Everard’s memory failed in a legal attempt to win the right to hold the event despite coronavirus restrictions that bar mass gatherings.Police are seen in front of temporary barriers at a home in Deal, southeast England, on March 12, 2021, as officers continue the search for evidence in connection with the killing of Sarah Everard.The Reclaim These Streets organizers want to hold a socially distanced gathering Saturday on Clapham Common, an open space on the route of Everard’s walk home.A High Court judge refused Friday to grant an order saying such a gathering would be lawful, meaning the organizers could face fines of up to 10,000 pounds ($14,000).”I understand this ruling will be a disappointment to those hoping to express their strength of feeling, but I ask women and allies across London to find a safe alternative way to express their views,” said police Commander Catherine Roper.Despite the court ruling, some women said they still planned to protest on Saturday.The case has raised tough questions for the police. Britain’s police watchdog is investigating how the force handled a complaint of indecent exposure against the same suspect, three days before Everard disappeared.The Independent Office of Police Conduct is also investigating how the suspect sustained a head injury while he was in custody. The police force said he was found injured in his cell and taken to a hospital for treatment before being returned to a police station.
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Rohingya Refugees Seeking Protection from UNHCR Detained
Police in New Delhi detained dozens of Rohingya refugees when they came to the office of the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) seeking protection from what they described as harassment by police.More than 200 Rohingya refugees in the northern city of Jammu were detained last week and the police identified the refugees as “illegal immigrants,” according to a statement issued by authorities. The police said the refugees will face deportation to Myanmar, where they had previously fled what has been described by advocates as genocidal violence.After the refugees in Jammu were told that more Rohingya would be detained from the area and that those who hold the UNHCR-issued ID cards would not be spared, some Rohingya families, afraid of being arrested and deported, went to the UNHCR office in Delhi seeking protection.“We have detained 88 Rohingya, including some women and children,” a police officer from the Vikaspuri police station in Delhi told VOA. “Police will act against these illegal immigrants from Myanmar. They could not show their passport and Indian visas. So, we have detained them,” said the officer who refusing to give his name, “they are in police custody now.”The government of Myanmar revoked the citizenship rights of the Rohingya in 1982.Since then, the minority Rohingya Muslims have fled to neighboring Bangladesh and other countries, including India, largely to escape discrimination, violence and poverty. Last year an estimated 40,000 Rohingya refugees lived in India, scattered across several states.However, an anti-Rohingya sentiment has been increasing in predominantly Hindu India after the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept to power in 2014. Leaders from BJP and other Hindu nationalist parties have since been demanding that the Rohingya refugees be expelled from the country.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 7 MB480p | 9 MB540p | 13 MB720p | 34 MB1080p | 56 MBOriginal | 151 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioStateless Rohingyas from Myanmar have no way to travel to any country legally, and their status as refugees is not always recognized, as is the case in India. India did not sign the 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention and thus treats all Rohingya entering the country as illegal immigrants. There are a few hundred Rohingya currently jailed in India. In the past three years, India deported about 100 Rohingya refugees to Myanmar.The UNHCR issues identity cards to registered refugees to help prevent their arbitrary arrest, detention and deportation. However in India hundreds of Rohingya refugees have been arrested and jailed, despite holding valid UNHCR cards. Almost all of the estimated 220 Rohingya refugees who were detained in Jammu last week carried the UNHCR refugee ID cards.A Rohingya community leader in Jammu said the refugees who have been detained in Delhi are afraid of deportation to Myanmar.“One of the arrested Rohingya said to me over the phone that they are being held in a jail-like detention center. ‘To avoid detention in Jammu we came to Delhi seeking protection from the UNHCR,’” the refugee told a community leader who spoke to VOA. The leader who did not want to be identified for fear of reprisal by the police said the refugee told him they are in a state of limbo “‘Now we have been detained in Delhi. We are very anxious, shall we be deported to Myanmar.’”UNHCR has voiced concern over Thursday’s detention of 88 Rohingya refugees who traveled to its office in New Delhi to seek assistance, Indrika Ratwatte, director of the UNHCR regional bureau for Asia and the Pacific, said in a statement.“UNHCR is seeking immediate access to those who have been transferred to a government facility at this stage. We urge the Indian authorities to ensure appropriate care and support to these refugees, among whom are a number of women and children.”Abul Hashim, a Rohingya refugee in Jammu said that everyone in his five-member family had UNHCR ID card but still he was afraid they would all be arrested and deported.“People holding UNHCR cards are also being arrested. We are extremely scared of being arrested and deported to Myanmar. Myanmar is still very unsafe for Rohingya. We cannot return home yet,” Hashim told VOA.“The UNHCR has failed to protect us from being identified as illegal immigrants and arrested in India. This is very disappointing for all Rohingya refugees in India,” he added.
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Prosecutors Expect at Least 100 More Arrests in US Capitol Attack
U.S. prosecutors say they expect at least 100 more people to be charged in connection with the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, bringing to more than 400 the number of people potentially facing prosecution in the attack.The disclosure was made in court papers filed Friday in a wide-ranging case against nine members of the anti-government Oath Keepers who are facing conspiracy charges in the attack. Three other members of the group have been arrested separately.Of an estimated 800 supporters of former President Donald Trump who breached the complex to try to overturn Trump’s defeat in the November presidential election, more than 300 have been charged, with new charges brought nearly every day.Hundreds at largeBut hundreds of others, many captured in photographs and videos, remain at large, as the Federal Bureau of Investigation continues to hunt for them.“The investigation continues and the government expects that at least 100 additional individuals will be charged,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing asking for more time to prepare their case against the Oath Keepers.The Southern Poverty Law Center, a legal advocacy group, calls the Oath Keepers “one of the largest radical anti-government groups” in the United States. It claims tens of thousands of members.Last month, Jessica Watkins, a ringleader of the Oath Keepers members who breached the Capitol, publicly disavowed the group.”Given the result of everything on January 6 and everything that has come out,” Watkins said during a court hearing, “my fellow Oath Keepers have turned my stomach against it. Which is why I’m canceling my Oath Keeper membership.”Oath Keepers Founder Stood Outside While Members Committed Mayhem in US CapitolStewart Rhodes leads group that at its core believes the government is out to take away its rights, especially to carry firearmsThe Friday filing suggests that dozens, perhaps hundreds of individuals who entered the Capitol without committing violence will likely be spared criminal prosecution, as investigators focus on the most violent offenders and others who planned the attack.”Convicting someone of a crime means proving both an act and that the act was committed with a particular state of mind,” said a former law enforcement official who asked not to be named in discussing internal Justice Department deliberations. “I suspect there is some concern about whether the state of mind really can be proven for some of the individuals who entered the Capitol but did not behave violently.”The attack on the Capitol, the seat of the U.S. government, left a police officer and four others dead and more than 100 people injured. It has spawned what prosecutors described in court documents Friday as one of the largest investigations and prosecutions in American history, “both in terms of the number of defendants prosecuted and the nature and volume of the evidence.”Range of chargesAccording to recent analyses of the charges related to the Capitol attack, the vast majority of those charged to date have no known ties to groups such as the Oath Keepers. The charges range from trespassing and violent conduct on Capitol grounds to assaulting police officers and conspiracy against the United States.With evidence growing that members of the Oath Keepers, the pro-Trump Proud Boys and other groups planned the attack weeks in advance, the number of conspiracy charges is expected to grow, according to current and former law enforcement officials. Proud Boys is another far-right group. More than a dozen members of the group have been charged with breaching the Capitol.Who Were the US Capitol Rioters? Nearly five weeks after attack, researchers at University of Chicago have concluded that most rioters were not members of far-right groups but rather ‘normal’ Trump supporters While law enforcement officials say they intend to bring to justice all those responsible for the attack, officials are increasingly distinguishing between Trump supporters who got swept up in the crowd and the more violent offenders who whipped up the rioters.“We’re seeing people that got caught up in the moment, got caught up in the energy, et cetera, and made their way into the Capitol, and those are probably the ones that you’re seeing of charges simply of trespassing,” Jill Shanborn, the FBI’s assistant director for counterintelligence, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.“And then we’re definitely seeing that portion which is small groups and cells now being charged with conspiracy that coalesced either onsite or even days or weeks prior and had sort of an intent that day,” Shanborn said. “And they too probably caught people up in the energy.”The nine members of the Oath Keepers, several of them military veterans, are being prosecuted as a group and face multiple conspiracy charges. They stand accused of forming a tactical formation known as a “stack” to storm the Capitol, an operation allegedly planned weeks in advance of the attack.Several of the accused have pleaded not guilty and disassociated themselves from the organization.
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Turkish Diplomats Angered by Armenian Killer’s California Parole
Turkish diplomats are outraged at California Governor Gavin Newsom’s refusal to appeal a court decision to allow parole for an Armenian-American man convicted in the January 1982 killing of a Turkish diplomat in a Los Angeles neighborhood.Hampig “Harry” Sassounian, now 58, was convicted in 1984, nearly two years after witnesses said he and another assailant approached the vehicle of Turkish Consul General Kemal Arikan while it idled at an intersection in Westwood, shooting the diplomat 14 times.The other suspected shooter, Krikor Saliba, escaped to Beirut, Lebanon, shortly after the killing.Sassounian, an Armenian immigrant, was initially sentenced to life in prison without parole. A federal appeals court then overturned the jury’s special-circumstances finding of murder because of national origin.Sassounian and Saliba were members of an Armenian militant organization, Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide, which carried out a string of attacks on Turkish interests worldwide.In 2002, Sassounian signed a statement renouncing terrorism, and the prosecution agreed not to proceed with a retrial on the special-circumstances finding. He was then resentenced to 25 years to life in prison and has since been denied parole four times and granted parole twice.Both of those paroles were appealed and overturned — once by former Governor Jerry Brown and once by Newsom, who reversed a May 2020 decision to parole Sassounian. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge then vacated that reversal in February, which Newsom is now refusing to challenge.”The governor has carefully weighed the factors in this case and will not pursue an appeal,” said Newsom’s spokesperson.Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Twitter, “We strongly condemn this approach that deeply hurts the conscience of the Turkish nation.”“This grave decision, that could not be reversed despite all attempts of the U.S. administration, is in conflict with the universal principles of law and the understanding of justice,” the ministry said.The statement said Sassounian “has never shown a sign of remorse” over his conviction and the crime “will never be forgotten as a crime that represents a sick and distorted ideology.”The State Department expressed disappointment at Friday’s decision.”Attacking a diplomat is not only a grave crime against a particular individual, it is also an attack on diplomacy itself,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a prepared statement. “To ensure the safety of the dedicated U.S. diplomats serving around the world, it has been the long-standing position of the United States to advocate that those who assassinate diplomats receive the maximum sentence possible, and that they serve those sentences without parole or early release.”
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Schumer, Gillibrand Join Calls for Cuomo to Resign; Governor Remains Defiant
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand called Friday on New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to resign, adding the most powerful Democratic voices yet to calls for the governor to leave office in the wake of allegations of sexual harassment and groping. Both had earlier said an independent investigation into the allegations against Cuomo was essential. FILE – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.Earlier Friday, Cuomo insisted he would not step down in the wake of sexual harassment allegations and condemned the coalition of Democrats calling for his resignation. “I’m not going to resign,” the third-term Democratic governor said during an afternoon phone call with reporters. “I did not do what has been alleged. Period.” The governor’s comments came on the day his party in New York and beyond turned sharply against him following allegations of harassment as well as sweeping criticism of Cuomo for keeping secret how many nursing home residents died of COVID-19 for months. Cuomo’s growing list of detractors now covers every region in the state and the political power centers of New York City and Washington. A majority of Democrats in the state legislature and 21 of the state’s 27 U.S. House members have called on him to step down. The escalating political crisis jeopardizes Cuomo’s 2022 reelection in an overwhelmingly Democratic state. Republicans across the country have seized on the scandal to try to distract from President Joe Biden’s success with the pandemic and challenge his party’s well-established advantage with female voters. Number of critics growingHours earlier, White House press secretary Jen Psaki declined to say whether Biden believes Cuomo should resign. She said every woman who has come forth about harassment by the New York governor “deserves to have her voice heard, should be treated with respect and should be able to tell her story.” FILE – U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.Dozens of Democrats called on Cuomo to resign this week, but the coalition of critics expanded geographically and politically on Friday to include the likes of New York City progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; the leader of the House Democratic campaign arm, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney; and a group of Long Island-based state lawmakers who had been loyal Cuomo allies. “The victims of sexual assault concern me more than politics or other narrow considerations, and I believe Governor Cuomo must step aside,” Maloney said. Ocasio-Cortez said she believes the women who accused Cuomo of wrongdoing. “After two accounts of sexual assault, four accounts of harassment, the Attorney General’s investigation finding the Governor’s admin hid nursing home data from the legislature and public, we agree with the 55+ members of the New York State legislature that the Governor must resign,” she tweeted. FILE – Activists with VOCAL-NY block traffic outside New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office, demanding his resignation, in New York, March 10, 2021.In recent days, Cuomo has been calling lawmakers and supporters asking them to refrain from calling for his resignation and instead support the ongoing investigations. His strategy does not appear to be working. The state Assembly allowed an impeachment investigation into Cuomo on Thursday as lawmakers investigate whether there are grounds for his forcible removal from office. The firestorm around the governor grew after the Times Union of Albany reported Wednesday that an unidentified aide had claimed Cuomo fondled her at his official residence late last year. The woman hasn’t filed a criminal complaint, but a lawyer for the governor said Thursday that the state reported the allegation to the Albany Police Department after the woman involved declined to do so herself. Additionally, Cuomo is facing multiple allegations of sexually suggestive remarks and behavior toward women, including female aides. One aide said he asked her if she would ever have sex with an older man. And another aide claimed the governor once kissed her without consent and said governor’s aides publicly smeared her after she accused him of sexual harassment. Cuomo stands firmThe governor on Friday vowed that he’ll still be able to govern despite a growing list of New York elected officials who say they’ve lost faith in him. Cuomo didn’t address the reality of an increasingly untenable position: He’s seeking a fourth term next year, managing the state’s pandemic response and negotiating a state budget with state lawmakers who’ve lost confidence in his leadership. He again raised questions about the motives of women accusing him of inappropriate behavior. “A lot of people allege a lot of things for a lot of reasons,” he said Friday. “I won’t speculate about people’s possible motives. But I can tell you as a former attorney general who has gone through this situation many times, there are often many motivations for making an allegation. And that is why you need to know the facts before you make a decision.” But dozens of Democrats have already determined the allegations are serious enough to warrant his immediate removal. Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler, who chairs the powerhouse U.S. House Judiciary Committee, said Cuomo has lost the confidence of New Yorkers. “The repeated accusations against the governor, and the manner in which he has responded to them, have made it impossible for him to continue to govern at this point,” Nadler said.
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Nigeria Gunmen Abduct Dozens of Students in College Raid
Gunmen raided a college in northwestern Nigeria and kidnapped 39 students, government officials and parents said Friday, in the latest mass abduction targeting a school.The abductors stormed the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization in Mando, Kaduna state, around 9:30 p.m. (2030 GMT) Thursday, shooting indiscriminately before taking students.The Kaduna college was said to have some 300 male and female students, mostly aged 17 and older, at the time of the attack.Kaduna state commissioner for internal security Samuel Aruwan said 39 of the students were missing while the army was able to rescue 180 people after a battle with the gunmen.”Further checks in the wake of the attack by armed bandits … indicate that 39 students are currently unaccounted for,” including 23 females and 16 males, Aruwan said in a statement late Friday.He had initially said 30 students were unaccounted for.Aruwan said the state government “is maintaining close communication with the management of the college as efforts are sustained by security agencies toward the tracking of the missing students.”The commissioner said some of the rescued students were injured during the operation and were being treated at a military hospital.Appeal to the governmentPolice and military personnel stood guard around the college at the outskirts of Kaduna city on Friday afternoon as anxious parents and families waited for news. A fighter jet flew overhead.People inspect the broken perimeter wall through which gunmen gained access the male and female hostels at the Federal College in Kaduna, Nigeria, March 12, 2021.Government officials said the students were found to be missing after a headcount at the college, and parents said they had been taken by the gunmen.”We have confirmed from her colleagues our daughter Sera is with the abductors,” Helen Sunday told reporters, tears rolling down her face. “I appeal to the government to help rescue our children.””It is unacceptable for parents to send their children to school only to be kidnapped by criminal elements,” said Denis John, who said his brother was among those taken.Heavily armed gangs in northwest and central Nigeria have stepped up attacks in recent years, kidnapping for ransom, raping and pillaging.The bandits have recently turned their focus to schools where they kidnap students or schoolchildren for ransom. Thursday’s attack was at least the fourth since December.Mass kidnappings in the northwest are complicating security challenges facing President Muhammadu Buhari’s forces who are also battling a more than decade-long Islamist insurgency in the northeast.Late night gunfireResidents near the Kaduna college also heard repeated gunshots in the area late Thursday.”We kept hearing gunshots that we ignored as shooting drills from the Nigeria Defense Academy, which is a stone’s throw from the forestry college,” said Mustapha Aliyu, who lives in the area.”It was only when we came out for the morning prayers in the mosque that we learned it was gunmen who took away students from the college,” he said.The area is notorious for banditry and armed robbery, especially along the highway linking the city with the airport.The gangs are largely driven by financial motives and have no known ideological leanings. Victims are often released shortly after negotiations though officials always deny any ransom payments.Last Saturday, criminal gangs known locally as bandits broke into the staff quarters of the nearby Kaduna airport, abducting 12 people, according to airport officials.On February 27, gunmen abducted 279 schoolgirls in nearby Zamfara state.And a week earlier, gunmen seized 42 people, including 27 students from an all-boys boarding school in central Niger state.In December, hundreds of schoolboys were seized in Katsina, Buhari’s home state, while he was on a visit.The U.S. has condemned the recent attacks on schools.”Frankly, we’re disgusted by this pattern of mass abductions of school kids. I can think of nothing more abhorrent,” said Michael Gonzales, deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs, at a press briefing.He said the U.S. “is ready to provide appropriate support to the Nigerian government if requested to do so.”
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