NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, ((eds.: pronounced ROO-tuh)) who took up the role this week, visited Ukraine Thursday and pledged to prioritize the alliance’s support for Kyiv. But Rutte faces daunting challenges in his new job, as Henry Ridgwell reports.
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Category: European Union
European Union news. The place name Euros was first used by the ancient Greeks to refer to their northernmost province, which bears the same name today. The principal river there – Euros (today’s Maritsa) – flows through the fertile valleys of Thrace, which itself was also called Europe, before the term meant the continent
Belarus court sentences activists for attempted sabotage of Russian plane
moscow — A court in Minsk sentenced a dozen individuals to prison terms of between two and 25 years Friday for helping commit what Belarus has called an “act of terrorism” at a military airfield outside the capital last year.
A group of Belarusian anti-government activists said in February 2023 that they had blown up a sophisticated Russian military surveillance aircraft in a drone attack at the base.
Russia and Belarus dismissed the assertion as fake, with Belarusian state television publishing footage showing what it said was the undamaged Beriev A-50 surveillance craft.
About a week later, Minsk said it had detained a “terrorist” and more than 20 accomplices over attempted sabotage at the airfield.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin, alleged at the time that Ukrainian security services and the U.S. Central Intelligence agency were behind the operation. He said the aircraft had suffered only superficial damage in the attack, which was carried out using a “small drone,” the Belta news agency reported.
On Friday, Belarus’ general prosecutor’s office said the Minsk City Court had sentenced 12 individuals after finding them guilty of terrorism, extremism and other serious crimes.
The main defendant, Ukrainian national Nikolai Shvets, was sentenced in absentia to 25 years in prison. Shvets, who gave an interview to Belarusian state television last April in which he detailed how he planned the attack, was released in a prisoner exchange with Ukraine in June, according to Belarusian rights group Viasna.
It was not clear how many of the others were sentenced in absentia.
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Despite obstacles, new NATO leader aims to increase support for Ukraine
london — With an escalating war in the Middle East, uncertainty over Western military aid for Ukraine, and the U.S. presidential election looming next month, new NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has no time to settle in.
The former Dutch prime minister was appointed to the role at a ceremony at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Tuesday, where he told delegates that “there can be no lasting security in Europe without a strong, independent Ukraine,” and affirmed that “Ukraine’s rightful place is in NATO.”
On Thursday, Rutte was welcomed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Kyiv.
Zelenskyy wasted no time in relaying his demands.
“We have discussed the most urgent needs of our troops, the weapons and the recruitment to the brigades,” Zelenskyy said at a news conference alongside Rutte on Thursday. “We will have more time today to discuss more details on how to strengthen Ukraine’s positions on the front so that we can exert more pressure on Russia in order to support just and realistic diplomacy. That is why we need sufficient quantity and quality of weapons, including long-range weapons, the decision on which, in my opinion, our Western partners are delaying,” he told reporters.
Ukraine wants to use Western long-range missiles on targets inside Russia. The U.S. and other allies are holding back, fearing escalation with Moscow.
NATO’s new secretary-general made his position clear.
“Ukraine obviously has the right to defend itself and international law is on the side of Ukraine, meaning that this right does not end at the border. Russia is pursuing this illegal war … targeting Russian fighter jets and missiles before they can be used against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure can help save lives,” Rutte told reporters.
Ukraine’s president was asked whether he feared the world was forgetting about his country, amid the escalating conflict in the Middle East.
“I wish that Ukraine is not forgotten,” Zelenskyy said. “And the best way to show this is by giving particular weapons, by giving particular permissions. And help to shoot down hostile drones — by the way, the same Iranian rockets and drones — to shoot them down the same way as they are shot down in the sky of Israel. Do the same over the skies of Ukraine.”
Rutte is a longtime ally of Ukraine, noted analyst Armida van Rij, a senior research fellow at the London-based think tank Chatham House.
“While he was prime minister of the Netherlands, he was very supportive of Ukraine. He’s the one who signed off on the F-16s [fighter jets] deal for Ukraine as well. So, there is that history of support,” van Rij told VOA.
However, Rutte is facing headwinds as he tries to boost military support for Ukraine among NATO allies.
Next month, U.S. voters will choose a new president: Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. Rutte said he would work with whoever is elected — but neither outcome will be straightforward, said van Rij.
“There is a real risk for Ukraine that Trump may try to force Ukraine’s hand and force Ukraine to capitulate to Russia, which would be terrible for European security. That’s the first challenge. But the second challenge is even if Vice President Harris were to win the U.S. elections, she may still face a divided Congress and she may still struggle to pass aid packages in support for Ukraine through Congress.”
Either scenario would require European NATO allies to step up their military aid.
“And there again, there’s challenges because many countries have depleted their stocks. They’ve given as much as they feel comfortable with at this point. What I would like to see is to think through some of the practical ways in which we can advance EU and NATO collaborations specifically on this issue of developing a European defense industrial base,” van Rij told VOA.
There are fears in Europe that a victory for Trump could upend the United States’ relationship with NATO.
“Like [former NATO Secretary-General Jens] Stoltenberg, Rutte is known as a ‘Trump whisperer.’ He is one of the few European politicians who developed a good working relationship with Donald Trump. However, a potential second Trump term could prove much more disruptive, with less U.S. aid to Ukraine, more concessions to Russia and further questioning of the value of NATO,” said Oana Lungescu, a distinguished fellow at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and a former NATO spokesperson, in an email to VOA.
The Kremlin said this week that Russian President Vladimir Putin knew Rutte well from his time as Dutch prime minister.
“At that time there were hopes of building good pragmatic relations,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters in a phone call Tuesday. “But we know what followed — the Netherlands adopted a rather defiant attitude to fully exclude all contacts with Russia. So, we don’t think that anything new or significant will happen with the policy of the [NATO] alliance,” Peskov said.
Meanwhile, Rutte takes the helm of NATO as it faces an increasingly assertive China.
“On Ukraine, everyone’s very much on the same line. On China, there’s still some allies saying, ‘We’re not sure we need to quite go into the Indo-Pacific theater.’ In a scenario where U.S. resources and capabilities are drawn elsewhere, i.e., the Indo-Pacific, Europeans have to be able to fend for themselves — including look after Ukraine in the current short-term scenario,” van Rij told VOA.
Rutte said another priority would be to strengthen NATO’s partnerships with allies outside the alliance in an interconnected world.
His primary focus must be on keeping NATO members safe, said Lungescu of RUSI.
“As NATO secretary-general, Rutte must take the lead in arguing for more defense spending across the alliance,” Lungescu said. “He should make a strong case not just about figures and percentages, but about the concrete capabilities that are needed to keep NATO nations safe in a dangerous world.”
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Exiled media fight to keep Belarusian language alive
washington — While the Belarusian government continues a long-running clampdown on use of the Belarusian language, exiled news outlets are leading the fight to keep their language — and cultural identity — alive.
Although Belarusian has been the country’s official language since Belarus declared independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991, there has been an ongoing process of Russification since President Alexander Lukashenko came to power in 1994.
That process has only accelerated since 2020 when Lukashenko — seen by some to be a puppet of Russian President Vladimir Putin — declared victory in an election that was widely viewed as fraudulent. Since then, the Belarusian government has grown increasingly hostile toward Belarusian as the language has become more and more associated with resistance toward Lukashenko’s rule.
As Minsk continues to grow closer to Moscow, Belarusian media outlets that left the country following the 2020 elections see it as their duty to help keep the Belarusian language alive through their reporting, multiple media leaders told VOA.
“It’s a strategic move to preserve the language, to preserve the culture, which is being actively attacked,” said Natalia Belikova, head of international cooperation at Press Club Belarus in Poland’s capital Warsaw.
Belarusian not illegal, but unwelcome
Speaking Belarusian isn’t illegal in Belarus, but the government has long made clear its preference for Russian, which has been the other official language in Belarus since 1995. Belarusian is more similar to Ukrainian than Russian.
Instead of outlawing Belarusian entirely, the government has taken steps like targeting Belarusian-language newspapers and bookstores. Classes in school are more often taught in Russian, and there aren’t any universities where Belarusian is the primary language. Government officials tend to speak Russian, and government documents are often in Russian, too.
“The presence of Belarusian language is vividly vanishing,” Belikova said. “‘Upsetting’ is probably a milder word for this. It’s really devastating.”
A 2019 census found that around 60% of the population consider Belarusian their native language, but only about 28% use the language at home.
Still, since Belarusian isn’t banned, speaking it is one of the few remaining ways for people to safely signal their political beliefs and opposition to Lukashenko, multiple journalists said.
However, multiple analysts said doing so in public is likely to draw negative attention from authorities because the language is so closely associated with the resistance.
“Formally, it’s safe. It’s OK to speak Belarusian in Belarus. But in practice, well, it’s not safe,” Pavel Sviardlou, editor-in-chief of European Radio for Belarus, told VOA from Warsaw.
The Belarusian foreign ministry did not reply to VOA’s email requesting comment.
As the Belarusian government works to suppress the Belarusian language in favor of Russian, leaders from prominent exiled outlets like European Radio for Belarus, Nasha Niva and Zerkalo say their outlets are prioritizing coverage in the Belarusian language.
In the case of Nasha Niva, one of the oldest Belarusian newspapers, the outlet’s mission has long been to popularize the Belarusian language, culture and history, according to the newspaper’s director Nastassia Rouda. That mission has become more important since the contested 2020 election, after which hundreds of journalists fled the country to escape harassment and censorship.
“Who, if not us? This is the question,” Rouda told VOA from Lithuania.
Nasha Niva’s primary language is Belarusian, but the outlet also translates everything into Russian. European Radio for Belarus operates similarly.
“This is a chance to, for example, listen to Belarusian every day, to read in Belarusian every day. And, of course, to feel that the language is not dead,” Sviardlou said.
The fight to preserve the Belarusian language goes hand in hand with the more obvious role that exiled media play — ensuring people still inside Belarus can access independent news about what’s happening.
“Only media like us, who are working from exile right now, can give some truthful information about the political situation. No one inside can do this,” Nasha Niva’s Rouda said.
Although Belarusian authorities block access to independent news sites, Belarusians still access them with circumvention tools like virtual private networks, or VPNs.
Despite the risks and the fact that the government spent about 50 million euros ($55 million) on propaganda in 2023 alone, it’s clear that many people inside Belarus, which has a population of about 9 million, still regularly access banned news sites.
The five biggest sites had over 17 million visits in December 2023, according to a 2024 JX Fund report. The news outlet Zerkalo, for instance, receives about 3 million unique visitors each month, with about 60% of them located inside Belarus, according to a 2024 Press Club Belarus report.
Zerkalo is the successor outlet of Tut.by, which was the largest independent news site in Belarus until authorities shut it down in 2021.
As the Belarus government grows ever closer with Russia amid the ongoing war in Ukraine, exiled Belarusian media view their efforts as critical to maintaining a distinct Belarusian identity. The stakes are high, according to Aliaksandra Pushkina, a board member of Zerkalo.
“If we lose our culture, our language, we really will be a part of Russia,” she told VOA from Austria.
While exiled outlets are prioritizing Belarusian language coverage, Belarusian propaganda outlets inside the country primarily use Russian, according to Sviardlou.
“They don’t even try to work in Belarusian because they understand that no one will listen to them,” he said.
He asserted that Belarusian has taken on a different meaning, saying, “It is a language of truth.”
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Nobel Prizes will be announced against backdrop of wars, famine and artificial intelligence
stavanger, norway — Wars, a refugee crisis, famine and artificial intelligence could all be recognized when Nobel Prize announcements begin next week under a shroud of violence.
The prize week coincides with the October 7 anniversary of the Hamas-led attacks on Israel, which began a year of bloodshed and war across the Middle East.
The literature and science prizes could be immune. But the peace prize, which recognizes efforts to end conflict, will be awarded in an atmosphere of ratcheting international violence — if awarded at all.
“I look at the world and see so much conflict, hostility and confrontation, I wonder if this is the year the Nobel Peace Prize should be withheld,” said Dan Smith, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
As well as events roiling the Middle East, Smith cites the war in Sudan and risk of famine there, the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and his institute’s research showing that global military spending is increasing at its fastest pace since World War II.
“It could go to some groups which are making heroic efforts but are marginalized,” Smith said. “But the trend is in the wrong direction. Perhaps it would be right to draw attention to that by withholding the peace prize this year.”
Withholding the Nobel Peace is not new. It has been suspended 19 times in the past, including during the world wars. The last time it was not awarded was in 1972.
However, Henrik Urdal, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, says withdrawal would be a mistake in 2024, saying the prize is “arguably more important as a way to promote and recognize important work for peace.”
Civil grassroot groups, and international organizations with missions to mitigate violence in the Middle East could be recognized.
Nominees are kept secret for 50 years, but nominators often publicize their picks. Academics at the Free University Amsterdam said they have nominated the Middle East-based organizations EcoPeace, Women Wage Peace and Women of the Sun for peace efforts between Israelis and Palestinians.
Urdal believes it’s possible the committee could consider the Sudan Emergency Response Rooms, a group of grassroots initiatives providing aid to stricken Sudanese facing famine and buffeted by the country’s brutal civil war.
The announcements begin Monday with the physiology or medicine prize, followed on subsequent days by the physics, chemistry, literature and peace awards.
The Peace Prize announcement will be made on Friday by the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo, while all the others will be announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. The prize in economics will be announced the following week on October 14.
New technology, possibly artificial intelligence, could be recognized in one or more of the categories.
Critics of AI warn the rise of autonomous weapons shows the new technology could mean additional peace-shattering misery for many people. Yet AI has also enabled scientific breakthroughs that are tipped for recognition in other categories.
David Pendlebury, head of research analysis at Clarivate’s Institute for Scientific Information, says scientists from Google Deepmind, the AI lab, could be among those under consideration for the chemistry prize.
The company’s artificial intelligence, AlphaFold, “accurately predicts the structure of proteins,” he said. It is already widely used in several fields, including medicine, where it could one day be used to develop a breakthrough drug.
Pendlebury spearheads Clarivate’s list of scientists whose papers are among the world’s most cited, and whose work it says are ripe for Nobel recognition.
“AI will increasingly be a part of the panoply of tools that researchers use,” Pendlebury said. He said he would be extremely surprised if a discovery “firmly anchored in AI” did not win Nobel prizes in the next 10 years.
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Handful of residents remains in Ukrainian village destroyed by Russia
Viktor Kalyberda, 63, lives in the village of Sulyhivka with no running water or electricity. The village, 170 kilometers from Kharkiv, was destroyed during the Russian invasion in 2022, not a single house was spared. All of the residents fled the village, yet Kaliberda chose to return and rebuild his life. Anna Kosstutschenko met with him in his home. Camera: Pavel Suhodolskiy
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Ukraine says Russia attacked its critical infrastructure with 19 drones
KYIV, Ukraine — The Ukrainian air force said on Friday that Russia attacked critical infrastructure in the country with 19 drones overnight.
Air defenses shot down nine drones, with seven more likely impacted by electronic jamming, it said in a statement, without saying what happened to the other three.
Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said an apartment building was damaged in the capital but reported no casualties. The fire was promptly extinguished there, he added.
The attack also damaged a business administrative building in the central region of Kirovohrad, causing light injuries to one of the employees, governor Andriy Raykovych said.
Russian forces also hit critical infrastructure, utility facilities and 35 private residences in the past day in the southern Kherson region, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin. Various attacks there killed one and injured four more, he said.
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Denmark jails 2 Swedish teens over blasts near Israeli Embassy
COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Two Swedish teenagers were jailed Thursday in pretrial detention in connection with two predawn explosions in the vicinity of the Israeli Embassy in Copenhagen a day earlier. Prosecutors said investigators were establishing “whether the motive could be a terror attack.”
No one was injured in the blasts on early Wednesday in a neighborhood with several foreign diplomatic missions, although the nearby Jewish school was closed following the explosions.
The pair, who cannot be identified under a court order, were ordered held for 27 days. They faced preliminary charges of possessing illegal weapons and carrying five hand grenades. Two of the grenades blew up when the suspects threw them at a house near the embassy, prosecutor Soren Harbo said.
“This was pretty close to the Israeli Embassy,” Harbo said before Thursday’s court hearing. The explosions caused damage to a roof terrace of a nearby house. The diplomatic mission was not harmed.
Thursday’s hearing was held behind closed doors after the preliminary charges were read. Reporting from inside the court room, Danish broadcaster DR said the teenagers, ages 16 and 19, are suspected of acting “in association and together with prior agreement with one or more perpetrators.”
Both denied the charges, local media reported.
The two suspects were arrested Wednesday shortly before noon on a train at Copenhagen’s central station. Danish media ran photos of a man in a white hazmat suit being taken away by police on a train platform at the station. A third suspect, age 19, who had been arrested near the embassy, has been released, police said Thursday.
In Denmark, the charges are one step short of formal charges and allow authorities to keep criminal suspects in custody during an investigation.
Separately, shots were fired late Tuesday at the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm. No one was injured. No arrests have been made.
The Danish domestic security service, known by its acronym PET, said that “Swedish authorities have assessed that at least one specific act directed at the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm, which was carried out by young criminals in Sweden, has links to Iran.”
In May the Swedish domestic security agency SAPO accused Iran of using established criminal networks in Sweden as a proxy to target Israeli or Jewish people. The announcement came after the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm was sealed off in late January after what was then described as “a dangerous object” was found on the grounds of the diplomatic mission. Swedish media said the object was a hand grenade.
In a statement, PET said, “If we have a state actor who gets young criminals to carry out actions aimed at Jewish targets in our neighboring country, then we can be concerned that this will also happen in Denmark.”
In Stockholm, the operative of Sweden’s domestic security agency SAPO, Fredrik Hallstrom, said, “The latest incident at the Israeli Embassy is not classified as a terrorist crime at the moment.”
His counterpart at the Swedish police’s National Operations Department, Johan Olsson, told the same press conference that the charges were of “aggravated weapons offenses, causing danger or other serious illegal threats and damage.”
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Georgian parliament speaker signs anti-LGBTQ+ law after president refuses to
Tbilisi, Georgia — The speaker of the Georgian parliament signed into a law Thursday a bill that severely curtails LGBTQ+ rights in the country and mirrors legislation adopted in neighboring Russia.
Shalva Papuashvili, the parliament speaker, said on social media that the legislation does “not reflect current, temporary, changing ideas and ideologies, but is based on common sense, historical experience and centuries-old Christian, Georgian and European values.”
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili had refused to sign the bill and returned it to parliament on Wednesday. It was introduced by the governing Georgian Dream party and approved by lawmakers last month.
The bill includes bans on same-sex marriages, adoptions by same-sex couples and public endorsement and depictions of LGBTQ+ relations and people in the media. It also bans gender-affirming care and changing gender designations in official documents.
“This law protects the rights of all citizens, including freedom of expression, so that the rights of others are not violated, which is the essence and idea of true democracy,” Papuashvili wrote.
Parliament gave the legislation its final approval as Georgia, a largely conservative country where the Orthodox Church wields significant influence, prepares to vote in a parliamentary election. The law has been widely seen as an effort by the governing party to shore up support among conservative groups. It was decried by human rights advocates and LGBTQ+ activists, who said it further marginalized an already vulnerable community.
By signing the law, Georgian Dream “have taken homophobia to a new level, and that is political and institutional homophobia,” said Ana Tavadze, an activist with Tbilisi Pride, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group.
Georgian Dream’s aim is to “fabricate” problems ahead of the election to distract people from “their failure” to solve issues involving unemployment, education and healthcare, Tavadze told The Associated Press.
The law has drawn comparisons with Russia, where the Kremlin has been highlighting what it calls traditional family values. Russian authorities in the last decade have banned public endorsement of “nontraditional sexual relations” and introduced laws against gender-affirming care, among other measures. Its Supreme Court effectively outlawed LGBTQ+ activism by labeling what the authorities called the LGBTQ+ “movement” operating in Russia as an extremist organization and banning it.
In Georgia, the LGBTQ+ community has struggled even before the legislation was introduced. Demonstrations and violent outbursts against LGBTQ+ people have been common, and last year hundreds of opponents of gay rights stormed an LGBTQ+ festival in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, forcing the event’s cancellation. This year, tens of thousands marched in Tbilisi to promote “traditional family values.”
A day after parliament gave its final approval to the anti-LGBTQ+ bill, transgender actor and model Kesaria Avramidze was stabbed to death in her apartment in Tbilisi. Rights advocates had worried that the bill would stoke more violence.
Papuashvili, the parliament speaker, said that by not signing the bill, President Zourabichvili and the Georgian opposition “did not have enough courage to openly express their opinion regarding this law.”
Some analysts say parts of the Georgian opposition are walking a fine line ahead of the Oct. 26 election between condemning the move to curtail LGBTQ+ rights and not wanting to alienate some voters.
Zourabichvili has long been at odds with the governing party and vetoed a “foreign influence” law adopted by parliament earlier this year. She was overridden by parliament, where Georgian Dream dominates.
The measure requires media and nongovernmental organizations to register as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power” if they receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad. It ignited weeks of protests and was widely criticized as threatening democratic freedoms. Those opposing the law compared it to similar legislation in Russia which is routinely used to suppress dissent, and accused the governing party of acting in concert with Moscow, jeopardizing Georgia’s chances of joining the European Union.
The South Caucasus nation of 3.7 million formally applied to join the EU in 2022, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but the bloc halted its accession in response to the “foreign influence” law and froze some of its financial support. The United States imposed sanctions on dozens of Georgian officials in response to the law.
Georgian Dream was set up by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a shadowy billionaire who made his fortune in Russia and served briefly as Georgia’s prime minister in 2012. It promised to restore civil rights and “reset” relations with Moscow, which fought a brief war with Georgia in 2008 over the breakaway province of South Ossetia. Russia then recognized the independence of South Ossetia and another breakaway Georgian province, Abkhazia, and established military bases there.
Many Georgians backed Ukraine as Kyiv battled Russia’s invasion in 2022. But the Georgian government abstained from joining sanctions against Moscow, barred dozens of Kremlin critics from entering the country, and accused the West of trying to drag Georgia into open conflict with Russia. The opposition has accused the governing party of steering the country into Russia’s orbit to the detriment of its European aspirations.
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Far-right gains in Europe drive debate on migration, Ukraine aid
London — A surge in support for far-right parties in Europe is driving calls for a toughening of migration laws, while also raising questions over the future of military aid to Ukraine.
Austria’s Freedom Party, which was founded by former Nazis after World War II, is the latest European far-right party to score a shocking win, taking just under 29% of the vote in Sunday’s parliamentary election, ahead of the second-place People’s Party with 26.3%.
‘Fortress Austria’
The Freedom Party, led by Herbert Kickl, campaigned on a platform of ending migration by creating what it called “Fortress Austria,” carrying out the “remigration of uninvited foreigners” and suspending the right to asylum. The party also opposes military aid for Ukraine and wants to end sanctions on Russia.
Kickl successfully appealed to voters’ frustrations over recent years, said Austrian pollster and political analyst, Peter Hajek.
“Elections are won in those four and a half years before, by taking a position which is clearly distinguishable and good from the point of view of the target audiences,” Hajek told The Associated Press. “And quite simply that’s what the Freedom Party managed to do with two big topics: on the one hand migration, and on the other — still — the coronavirus.”
Far-right success
Far-right, anti-immigration parties have won parliamentary elections in the Netherlands in 2023, Italy and Hungary in 2022, a state election in Germany in last month and the European parliamentary elections in France in June.
Hans Kundnani, an adjunct professor at New York University and the author of the book Eurowhiteness, said centrist parties in Europe are alarmed by the rise of the far right.
“Another election in Europe, another far right success. The response of the center-right in Europe to that has been to say we have to get even tougher on immigration. The center right has increasingly been mimicking far right parties, especially far right ideas on these questions around identity and immigration and Islam,” Kundnani told VOA.
EU summit
Immigration is likely to top the agenda at an EU summit on October 17, as European leaders from across the political spectrum have called for a toughening of asylum laws amid growing domestic political pressures.
“A shift in the EU towards thinking much more in terms of a ‘Fortress Europe’ — that’s building a wall essentially around the EU,” Kundnani said.
The hardening of attitudes marks a sharp turnaround from 2015 when more than 1 million irregular migrants entered the EU, many of them destined for Germany. In 2023, the number had fallen by 75%, to 280,000 people.
The 27-member bloc has agreed to a new pact on asylum and migration, due to come into force in 2026. It’s unlikely to calm Europe’s debate on immigration any time soon, according to Raphael Bossong, a migration expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
“This package that has been agreed upon is about 10 laws. Multiple investments are needed across 27 member states, and an implementation plan with 10 sectors of implementation,” he told VOA. “So it’s a lot of stuff. And to get that into place to really work as a system, as it’s intended, is — even in two years — highly ambitious.”
Ukraine
While strong opposition to immigration unites Europe’s far-right parties, they are divided over support for Ukraine following Russia’s 2022 invasion.
Austria’s Freedom Party, the Alternative for Germany party and Hungary’s Fidesz party under Viktor Orban all oppose military aid for Kyiv and want to end sanctions on Moscow.
Yet other European far-right parties, such as the ruling Brothers of Italy party under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Poland’s Law and Justice party — which was in power until last year — are strongly pro-Ukrainian.
The issue is clouding European politics, argues analyst Hans Kundnani of New York University.
“Precisely what divides these two groups of far-right parties to a large extent is the question of Russia and Ukraine,” Kundnani said. “If you’re on the far right but you’re pro-Ukrainian, then I think a lot of European centrists have no problem with that. And they’re willing to turn a blind eye to almost anything else that these far-right parties do, especially on questions like immigration.”
Much of European Union foreign policy, including aid for Ukraine, requires a unanimous vote from all 27 members, making it easy for individual governments to veto EU decisions. Hungary’s Viktor Orban has repeatedly blocked EU aid packages for Ukraine.
Coalition talks
Despite its shocking victory, Austria’s Freedom Party is still well short of a majority. Rival parties are refusing to join them in government and could form their own coalition. The tactic has been used by other more centrist parties in Europe to keep the far-right from power — with mixed results, said Kundnani.
“They form these incoherent coalitions in response to the rise of the far right,” he told VOA. “Those coalitions then aren’t really able to do very much or offer citizens very much, which further empowers the far right. So it just gets worse and worse.”
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4 Russian journalists accused of working for Navalny group go on trial
TALLINN, Estonia — Four Russian journalists went on trial in Moscow on Wednesday after being accused of working for an anti-corruption group founded by the late Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny, which was designated by authorities as an extremist organization in 2021.
Antonina Favorskaya, Artyom Kriger, Sergey Karelin and Konstantin Gabov were arrested earlier this year and charged with involvement with an extremist group, a criminal offense punishable by up to six years in prison. All four have rejected the charges.
The trial, which is being held behind closed doors, is the latest step in the Kremlin’s unrelenting crackdown on dissent that has reached unprecedented levels after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago. The authorities have targeted opposition figures, independent journalists, rights activists and ordinary Russians critical of the Kremlin with criminal and misdemeanor charges, jailing hundreds and prompting thousands to leave the country, fearing prosecution.
The four journalists were accused of working with Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption, which was designated as extremist and outlawed by the Russian authorities in 2021. That designation has been widely seen as politically motivated.
Navalny was President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest and most prominent foe and relentlessly campaigned against official corruption in Russia. In February, Navalny died in a remote Arctic prison while serving a 19-year sentence on a number of charges, including running an extremist group, which he had rejected as politically driven.
Favorskaya and Kriger worked with SotaVision, an independent Russian news outlet that covers protests and political trials. Gabov is a freelance producer who has worked for multiple organizations, including Reuters. Karelin is a freelance video journalist who has done work for Western media outlets, including The Associated Press.
As they were led into the courtroom on Wednesday, a crowd of supporters greeted them with applause. In the courtroom, the four smiled at their loved ones from a glass defendant’s cage.
Addressing reporters from behind the glass, Kriger cast the case against him and his fellow journalists as a cautionary tale and urged journalists still in Russia to leave the country: “It is not a joke. Any person can be charged with anything.”
Favorskaya, in turn, spoke about hope: “Everything that is happening now, the darkness that surrounds us, it is not forever, and we will definitely see the country that Alexei [Navalny] dreamed of, we will definitely live in a country where rights and freedoms will be [respected] and journalists and other people will not be jailed for their views.”
Shortly after the hearing began, the judge ordered that the proceedings be held behind closed doors upon a request from the prosecution, even though the defense objected to it.
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A year after Gaza war started, Turkey battles isolation
Israel’s campaign against Hamas in the aftermath of the October 7 attack has seen Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the forefront of condemning Israel. However, analysts say Turkey is becoming increasingly sidelined from efforts to end the crisis in a region where Erdogan once sought to play a leading role. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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Russian authorities systematically torture Ukrainian POWs, UN says
Geneva — Russian authorities have subjected hundreds of Ukrainian prisoners of war to “widespread and systematic torture” while supervisors in detention facilities aware of that treatment did nothing to stop the abuse, according to a report published by the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
“We have interviewed 174 Ukrainian prisoners of war, and this includes five medics since March of last year, and almost every single one provided credible and reliable and detailed accounts of torture and severe ill-treatment,” Danielle Bell, head of the U.N. human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine, told journalists in Geneva.
Speaking Tuesday via video link from the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, Bell said the POWs described “severe beatings, electric shocks, sleep deprivation, dog bites, mock executions” and other threatening and degrading treatment.
She said 68% of the POWs reported that “sexual violence, torture and ill treatment occurs at all stages of captivity under appalling internment conditions” across multiple facilities in the occupied territory and the Russian Federation.
She said the routine nature of the abuse, which occurred on a daily or weekly basis and continued throughout the period of internment — sometimes as long as up to three years — “indicated knowledge of faculty supervisors.”
“When external officials of the Russian Federation visited internment sites, in many instances, the torture and ill treatment temporarily ceased and conditions improved, indicating that those responsible for these facilities were aware of the mistreatment,” she said.
“Russian public figures have openly called for the inhumane treatment and execution of Ukrainian POWs,” she said, adding that “these factors, combined with the adoption of broad amnesty laws for Russian service persons, have contributed to a climate of impunity.”
The United Nations report, which describes conditions of detention as poor, “with most POWs reporting food shortages, lack of medical care, overcrowding and poor hygienic conditions,” says 10 Ukrainian POWs have died due to “torture, lack of medical care and dire health conditions.”
Of the 205 Russian POWs interviewed since March 2023, the report says 104 were subjected to torture or ill-treatment by Ukrainian authorities “during the initial stages of their captivity,” including severe beatings, threats of death and physical violence.
“However, in nearly all cases, torture and ill-treatment stopped when prisoners arrived at official places of internment, where conditions appeared generally compliant with international standards,” it says.
Bell underlined differences in the scope and scale of the treatment meted out to Ukrainian and Russian POWs by their captors.
She observed that the torture or ill treatment of the Russian POWs by Ukrainian authorities takes place during their initial capture, in the early days.
She said these practices stop and the captives “are safe once they are inside the internment facilities,” whereas the abusive treatment of Ukrainian POWs in Russian detention centers “happens throughout the duration of their internment.”
Bell attributes the better treatment of Russian POWs in large part to the monitors having unrestricted access to Ukrainian sites where they are held, noting that U.N. officials are “able to carry out a very open dialogue with Ukrainian authorities on where to make improvements.”
She added, however, that the mission cannot look out for the welfare of Ukrainian POWs because it does not have access to them in the Russian Federation, “though we have been asking for access for a long time.”
Other human rights developments
Besides delving into the torture experienced by POWs since Russian armed forces’ full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the 30-page U.N. report also covers key human rights developments in the country from June 1 to August 31, 2024.
The report finds civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure have increased significantly during that period, noting that 589 civilians have been killed and 2,685 injured. That represents “a 45% increase in casualties on the previous three months” and brings the total number of civilians killed since the start of the war to 11,743, with 24,614 injuries.
“During the reporting period, Russian armed forces continued to target energy infrastructure across Ukraine, affecting essential services and deepening concerns about the plight of the civilian population with winter approaching,” Liz Throssel, spokesperson for the U.N. human rights office, said at the release of the report.
She also said intensive military attacks by Russian armed forces against cities across Ukraine such as Sumy, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia “have damaged and destroyed civilian property and infrastructure, including schools, hospitals and even a geriatric care home.”
“And we have documented even more attacks against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure,” said Throssel.
Bell said the Russian Federation has launched nine waves of large-scale, coordinated attacks between March and August targeting Ukraine’s energy generation facilities, primarily thermal, hydroelectric and heating plants.
“The cascading damage from these attacks has affected essential services like electricity, water, heating, sewage and public education,” she said. “Vulnerable populations — for example, older persons, persons with disabilities, lower income households and children — have been disproportionately affected.
“Rolling blackouts are expected to resume this winter,” she said. “But let me emphasize, significant efforts are underway to restore Ukraine’s generation capacity and to mitigate the risks of a harsh winter. But this situation is exacerbated by ongoing attacks.”
The High Commissioner’s report will be submitted to the U.N. human rights council next week.
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Blasts, shooting happen near Israeli embassies in Nordic capitals
Copenhagen — Police in Denmark and Sweden said on Wednesday they were probing explosions and gunfire around Israeli embassies in their capitals that took place amid spiraling Middle East tensions.
In Denmark, police said three Swedish nationals had been arrested after two blasts were reported in the “immediate proximity” of the Israeli Embassy in Copenhagen early Wednesday.
Swedish police said the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm had been targeted in a shooting on Tuesday just before 6 p.m.
No injuries were reported from the incidents, but both came amid heightened international fears as Iran fired missiles at Israel, which has vowed to respond to the attack.
“Two explosions occurred at 3:20 a.m. at the Israeli Embassy. It is our preliminary assessment that it was due to two hand grenades,” Jens Jespersen of the Copenhagen police said at a press conference.
He added that three Swedes between the ages of 15 and 20 had been arrested.
The police officer explained that one suspect was arrested shortly after the incident near the crime scene and that the other two had been arrested later.
Police said in an earlier statement that two suspects had been arrested on a train at Copenhagen Central Station.
“It’s too early to say if there is a link” between the blasts and the Israeli Embassy, Danish police spokesperson Jakob Hansen said of the Copenhagen incidents.
By midmorning, the area in Copenhagen was cordoned off and police were working at the scene, an AFP correspondent observed.
Denmark’s intelligence service, PET, said it was monitoring events “closely” and assisting the police investigation.
“We are also in dialogue with the Israeli embassy about security, and are constantly assessing the scale of the security measures already implemented in relation to a number of Jewish locations,” PET said in a statement to AFP.
Writing on X, Israeli Ambassador to Denmark David Akov said he was “shocked by the appalling incident near the embassy a few hours ago.”
Swedish police said in a statement that information indicated the Israeli Embassy building had been hit by shots on Tuesday evening.
“We’ve made finds that indicate a shooting at Israel’s Embassy, but we don’t want to disclose exactly what finds have been made since there is an ongoing investigation,” Rebecca Landberg, Stockholm police press officer, told AFP.
Landberg added that an investigation had been opened into an aggravated weapons offense, endangerment of others and unlawful threats.
Police had made no arrests, but Landberg said police were actively gathering and analyzing material from the many surveillance cameras in the area.
Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023, several incidents apparently targeting Israeli interests in Sweden have been reported.
In February, police found a grenade in the Israeli Embassy compound grounds, which the ambassador said was an attempted attack.
In May, gunshots were fired outside the Israeli Embassy, which prompted Sweden to boost security around Israeli interests and Jewish community institutions.
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OPEC+ unlikely to change output policy
LONDON/DUBAI — An OPEC+ panel is unlikely this week to recommend any changes to its current deal to reduce production and to start unwinding some cuts from December, despite recent sharp declines in oil prices, five sources from the producer group told Reuters.
Top ministers from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies led by Russia, or OPEC+ as the group is known, will hold an online joint ministerial monitoring committee meeting on Wednesday.
“Although the oil market situation is a bit complicated, I do not expect a new decision or any change to the OPEC+ agreement in Wednesday’s meeting,” one of the sources said, declining to be identified.
Oil prices have fallen in 2024 with Brent crude last month slipping below $70 a barrel for the first time since 2021, pressured by concern about global demand and rising supply outside OPEC+. Brent was trading near $71 on Tuesday.
OPEC+ is currently cutting output by a total of 5.86 million barrels per day (bpd), or about 5.7% of global demand, in a series of steps agreed since late 2022.
Its latest agreement calls for OPEC+ to raise output by 180,000 bpd in December, part of a plan to gradually unwind its most recent layer of voluntary cuts during 2025. The hike was delayed from October after prices slid.
Compliance by countries with cuts will also be in focus at the meeting and in coming weeks, particularly that of Iraq and Kazakhstan which have promised so called compensation cuts of 123,000 bpd in September and more in later months to make up for past over-production.
An OPEC+ source told Reuters last week that when it becomes clearer that the compensation cuts are being made in September, this will allow the December increase to go ahead as the net supply addition to the market will be minimal.
However, a lack of compliance could prompt Saudi Arabia and others to unwind their cuts faster from December, analysts said.
“If they fail to comply, we can envision a swifter sunsetting of the voluntary cuts,” Helima Croft of RBC Capital said in a report.
The JMMC, which groups the oil ministers from Saudi Arabia, Russia and other leading producers, usually meets every two months and can make recommendations to change policy.
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Swiss glaciers are receding again after 2 punishing years
GENEVA — The volume of Switzerland’s glaciers shrank again this summer, compounding the negative impact of climate change after a devastating two-year run that depleted the ice by more than 10%, scientific experts reported Tuesday.
The cryosphere observation team at the Swiss Academy of Sciences reported that high temperatures in July and August, combined with the heat-absorbing impact of reddish-yellow dust blown northward from the Sahara Desert onto Swiss glaciers, led to a loss of 2.5% of their volume this year.
The shrinkage came despite “extremely favorable” conditions through June, the academy said, thanks to 30% more snowfall in the preceding winter compared to average levels, meaning that the glaciers had an extra layer of protective covering of snow — before temperatures rose.
“August saw the greatest loss of ice recorded since measurements began,” the academy said in a statement summarizing the findings.
“The retreat of the glacier tongues and their disintegration continue unabated as a result of climate change,” it said, adding that the 2.5% loss of volume was higher than the average levels over the last decade.
Experts at the Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland network, known as GLAMOS, said that more than half of the glaciers it monitored completely lost their snow coverage throughout the summer.
Several topmost measurement points on glaciers, such as Plaine Morte and Gries in the south and Silvretta in the east, recorded melt rates of a meter or more, the network said in a report for the Swiss Academy of Sciences.
GLAMOS cited three factors: “very high” average air temperatures in July and August; good weather in those months in which there was no fresh snow; and southwesterly winds in the winter and spring that dumped the Saharan dust onto the Alps, causing a warming effect on the ice.
Switzerland is home to the most glaciers of any country in Europe, and saw 4% of its total glacier volume disappear last year. That was the second-biggest decline in a single year on top of a 6% drop in 2022.
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British justice at Hong Kong’s top court declines to renew term
London — Another overseas, nonpermanent judge at Hong Kong’s top court, 86-year-old Briton Nicholas Phillips, has chosen not to renew his term after it ended on Sept. 30, becoming the fifth foreign judge to step down from the Court of Final Appeal this year.
Phillips told VOA through his chamber, Brick Court Chambers, in an email Monday, “I have declined the invitation to serve for a further 3 year term on the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong for personal and not political reasons.”
According to the chamber, he would not comment further.
The Hong Kong Judiciary thanked him in a statement sent to online media The Witness for his contribution to the work of the Court of Final Appeal and his support for the rule of law in Hong Kong during his tenure over the past 12 years. It added that “the recent changes in court personnel will not affect the operation of the Court of Final Appeal.”
It went on to say despite the departure of the judges this year, the majority of serving and outgoing nonpermanent judges have publicly reaffirmed their continued confidence in Hong Kong’s independent judicial system and the courts’ commitment to upholding the rule of law.
The Court of Final Appeal is formed by the chief justice, three local permanent judges, and 10 nonpermanent judges. The nonpermanent judges include four local judges and six overseas judges.
Anthony Gleeson, an 85-year-old former chief justice from Australia, did not renew his term in March, citing his advanced age. Canadian judge Beverley McLachlin also said she would not renew her term after July because she was 80 and hoped to spend more time with family.
In June, two British judges, Lawrence Collins, 83, and Jonathan Sumption, 75, resigned from the court, saying it was because of the city’s worsening political situation and “profoundly compromised” rule of law.
Rights activists say Hong Kong’s government is using the foreign judges to lend credibility to its crackdown on rights and freedoms since Britain returned the financial hub to China in 1997.
The Washington-based Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong (CFHK) Foundation issued a report in May criticizing overseas judges in Hong Kong for undermining its freedoms and called for them to quit. The foundation said it was shocked that it took Phillips so long to quit despite a series of high-profile cases targeting Hong Kong’s pro-democracy groups, which prompted at least two judges to resign.
Alyssa Fong, public affairs and advocacy manager for CFHK Foundation, said the more foreign judges that resign, the less the Hong Kong government can use them to justify rights abuses.
“I urge Phillips’ fellow common law judges from the U.K. and Australia to immediately follow suit. It is dumbfounding that some judges continue to choose to ruin their reputations and their integrity for the Hong Kong authorities and Chinese Communist Party,” she told VOA.
After Phillips’ departure, six overseas judges remain in the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal — Leonard Hoffmann and David Neuberger from Britain and William Gummow, Robert French, Patrick Keane, and James Allsop from Australia.
Hoffmann, 90, has been a nonpermanent judge of the Court of Final Appeal since 1998, and his term will end in mid-January next year. Gummow’s term will expire next July, while the terms of the other three Australian judges will expire in 2026 or 2027.
At the end of June, Neuberger heard Hong Kong’s case accusing Apple Daily newspaper founder Jimmy Lai of unauthorized assembly and agreed with the controversial verdict. Neuberger came under criticism, then resigned as chairman of an expert panel of the Media Freedom Coalition.
Kevin Yam, a Hong Kong activist-lawyer now based in Australia, pointed out on social media X that Phillips could have left office on the grounds of age, but he chose to use personal reasons, which he notes would invite some speculation.
“When even Phillips does this, the four remaining Australian judges on the HKCFA stick out even more like sore thumbs,” Yam said on X.
The Hong Kong government awarded Phillips the Gold Bauhinia Star in July last year and described him as “a strong supporter of the rule of law in Hong Kong and very much a friend of Hong Kong.”
Beijing agreed to uphold Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” political structure when colonial ruler Britain transferred the city back to China in 1997.
Critics say Beijing has violated that deal by forcing harsh security laws on Hong Kong that have seen independent media shut down or leave the city and dissidents face arrest or flee abroad.
Beijing says Hong Kong’s 2020 National Security Law was needed to maintain stability after a series of pro-democracy protests in the past decade, but has used it to arrest, jail and try hundreds of activists, stifling Hong Kong’s once vibrant civil society.
In March, Hong Kong lawmakers unanimously and quickly approved their own sweeping national security law known as Basic Law Article 23, strengthening the government’s ability to silence dissent.
Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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British justice at Hong Kong’s top court declines to renew term
London — Another overseas, nonpermanent judge at Hong Kong’s top court, 86-year-old Briton Nicholas Phillips, has chosen not to renew his term after it ended on Sept. 30, becoming the fifth foreign judge to step down from the Court of Final Appeal this year.
Phillips told VOA through his chamber, Brick Court Chambers, in an email Monday, “I have declined the invitation to serve for a further 3 year term on the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong for personal and not political reasons.”
According to the chamber, he would not comment further.
The Hong Kong Judiciary thanked him in a statement sent to online media The Witness for his contribution to the work of the Court of Final Appeal and his support for the rule of law in Hong Kong during his tenure over the past 12 years. It added that “the recent changes in court personnel will not affect the operation of the Court of Final Appeal.”
It went on to say despite the departure of the judges this year, the majority of serving and outgoing nonpermanent judges have publicly reaffirmed their continued confidence in Hong Kong’s independent judicial system and the courts’ commitment to upholding the rule of law.
The Court of Final Appeal is formed by the chief justice, three local permanent judges, and 10 nonpermanent judges. The nonpermanent judges include four local judges and six overseas judges.
Anthony Gleeson, an 85-year-old former chief justice from Australia, did not renew his term in March, citing his advanced age. Canadian judge Beverley McLachlin also said she would not renew her term after July because she was 80 and hoped to spend more time with family.
In June, two British judges, Lawrence Collins, 83, and Jonathan Sumption, 75, resigned from the court, saying it was because of the city’s worsening political situation and “profoundly compromised” rule of law.
Rights activists say Hong Kong’s government is using the foreign judges to lend credibility to its crackdown on rights and freedoms since Britain returned the financial hub to China in 1997.
The Washington-based Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong (CFHK) Foundation issued a report in May criticizing overseas judges in Hong Kong for undermining its freedoms and called for them to quit. The foundation said it was shocked that it took Phillips so long to quit despite a series of high-profile cases targeting Hong Kong’s pro-democracy groups, which prompted at least two judges to resign.
Alyssa Fong, public affairs and advocacy manager for CFHK Foundation, said the more foreign judges that resign, the less the Hong Kong government can use them to justify rights abuses.
“I urge Phillips’ fellow common law judges from the U.K. and Australia to immediately follow suit. It is dumbfounding that some judges continue to choose to ruin their reputations and their integrity for the Hong Kong authorities and Chinese Communist Party,” she told VOA.
After Phillips’ departure, six overseas judges remain in the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal — Leonard Hoffmann and David Neuberger from Britain and William Gummow, Robert French, Patrick Keane, and James Allsop from Australia.
Hoffmann, 90, has been a nonpermanent judge of the Court of Final Appeal since 1998, and his term will end in mid-January next year. Gummow’s term will expire next July, while the terms of the other three Australian judges will expire in 2026 or 2027.
At the end of June, Neuberger heard Hong Kong’s case accusing Apple Daily newspaper founder Jimmy Lai of unauthorized assembly and agreed with the controversial verdict. Neuberger came under criticism, then resigned as chairman of an expert panel of the Media Freedom Coalition.
Kevin Yam, a Hong Kong activist-lawyer now based in Australia, pointed out on social media X that Phillips could have left office on the grounds of age, but he chose to use personal reasons, which he notes would invite some speculation.
“When even Phillips does this, the four remaining Australian judges on the HKCFA stick out even more like sore thumbs,” Yam said on X.
The Hong Kong government awarded Phillips the Gold Bauhinia Star in July last year and described him as “a strong supporter of the rule of law in Hong Kong and very much a friend of Hong Kong.”
Beijing agreed to uphold Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” political structure when colonial ruler Britain transferred the city back to China in 1997.
Critics say Beijing has violated that deal by forcing harsh security laws on Hong Kong that have seen independent media shut down or leave the city and dissidents face arrest or flee abroad.
Beijing says Hong Kong’s 2020 National Security Law was needed to maintain stability after a series of pro-democracy protests in the past decade, but has used it to arrest, jail and try hundreds of activists, stifling Hong Kong’s once vibrant civil society.
In March, Hong Kong lawmakers unanimously and quickly approved their own sweeping national security law known as Basic Law Article 23, strengthening the government’s ability to silence dissent.
Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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