position:secretary-general

  • Over 1 Million Settlers Living in 503 West Bank & East Jerusalem Settlements
    June 25, 2019 9:09 PM – IMEMC News
    https://imemc.org/article/over-1-million-settlers-living-in-503-west-bank-east-jerusalem-settlements

    Latest statistics show that the number of Israeli settlements, established on Palestinian lands in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, has reached 503, of which 474 are located in the West Bank and 29 others in Jerusalem, says Hanna Issa, Secretary-General of the PA Islamic-Christian Council for Jerusalem and the Holy Places.

    Issa added, in a press statement on Monday, that the number of settlers residing in these settlements exceeds one million, indicating that “Peace Movement,” in Israel, says that settlement expansion on Palestinian lands in the West Bank is higher than population growth itself, in Israel. (...)

    #colonisation_de_peuplement

  • Carne da cannone. In Libia i profughi dei campi sono arruolati a forza e mandati a combattere

    Arruolati di forza, vestiti con vecchie divise, armati con fucili di scarto e spediti a combattere le milizie del generale #Haftar che stanno assediando Tripoli. I profughi di Libia, dopo essere stati trasformati in “merce” preziosa dai trafficanti, con la complicità e il supporto del’Italia e dall’Europa, sono diventati anche carne da cannone.

    Secondo fonti ufficiali dell’Unhcr e di Al Jazeera, il centro di detenzione di Qaser Ben Gashir, è stato trasformato in una caserma di arruolamento. “Ci viene riferito – ha affermato l’inviato dell’agenzia Onu per i rifugiati, Vincent Cochetel – che ad alcuni migranti sono state fornite divise militari e gli è stati promesso la libertà in cambio dell’arruolamento”. Nel solo centro di Qaser Ben Gashir, secondo una stima dell’Unhcr, sono detenuti, per o più arbitrariamente, perlomeno 6 mila profughi tra uomini e donne, tra i quali almeno 600 bambini.

    Sempre secondo l’Unhcr, tale pratica di arruolamento pressoché forzato – è facile intuire che non si può dire facilmente no al proprio carceriere! – sarebbe stata messa in pratica perlomeno in altri tre centri di detenzione del Paese. L’avanzata delle truppe del generale Haftar ha fatto perdere la testa alle milizie fedeli al Governo di accordo nazionale guidato da Fayez al Serraj, che hanno deciso di giocarsi la carta della disperazione, mandando i migranti – che non possono certo definirsi militari sufficientemente addestrati – incontro ad una morte certa in battaglia. Carne da cannone, appunto.

    I messaggi WhatsUp che arrivano dai centri di detenzione sono terrificanti e testimoniano una situazione di panico totale che ha investito tanto i carcerieri quanto gli stessi profughi. “Ci danno armi di cui non conosciamo neppure come si chiamano e come si usano – si legge su un messaggio riportato dall’Irish Time – e ci ordinano di andare a combattere”. “Ci volevano caricare in una camionetta piena di armi. Gli abbiamo detto di no, che preferivamo essere riportato in cella ma non loro non hanno voluto”.

    La situazione sta precipitando verso una strage annunciata. Nella maggioranza dei centri l’elettricità è già stata tolta da giorni. Acque e cibo non ne arrivano più. Cure mediche non ne avevano neppure prima. I richiedenti asilo sono alla disperazione. Al Jazeera porta la notizia che ad Qaser Ben Gashir, qualche giorno fa, un bambino è morto per semplice denutrizione. Quello che succede nei campi più lontani dalla capitale, lo possiamo solo immaginare. E con l’avanzare del conflitto, si riduce anche la possibilità di intervento e di denuncia dell’Unhcr o delle associazioni umanitarie che ancora resistono nel Paese come Medici Senza Frontiere.

    Proprio Craig Kenzie, il coordinatore per la Libia di Medici Senza Frontiere, lancia un appello perché i detenuti vengano immediatamente evacuati dalle zone di guerra e che le persone che fuggono e che vengono intercettate in mare non vengano riportate in quell’Inferno. Ma per il nostro Governo, quelle sponde continuano ad essere considerate “sicure”.

    https://dossierlibia.lasciatecientrare.it/carne-da-cannone-in-libia-i-profughi-dei-campi-sono-a
    #Libye #asile #migrations #réfugiés #armées #enrôlement_militaire #enrôlement #conflit #soldats #milices #Tripoli

    • ’We are in a fire’: Libya’s detained refugees trapped by conflict

      Detainees at detention centre on the outskirts of Tripoli live in fear amid intense clashes for control of the capital.

      Refugees and migrants trapped on the front line of fierce fighting in Libya’s capital, Tripoli, are pleading to be rescued from the war-torn country while being “surrounded by heavy weapons and militants”.

      Hit by food and water shortages, detainees at the #Qasr_bin_Ghashir detention centre on the southern outskirts of Tripoli, told Al Jazeera they were “abandoned” on Saturday by fleeing guards, who allegedly told the estimated 728 people being held at the facility to fend for themselves.

      The refugees and migrants used hidden phones to communicate and requested that their names not be published.

      “[There are] no words to describe the fear of the women and children,” an Eritrean male detainee said on Saturday.

      “We are afraid of [the] noise... fired from the air and the weapons. I feel that we are abandoned to our fate.”
      Fighting rages on Tripoli outskirts

      Tripoli’s southern outskirts have been engulfed by fighting since renegade General Khalifa Haftar’s eastern forces launched an assault on the capital earlier this month in a bid to wrestle control of the city from Libya’s internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA).

      The showdown threatens to further destabilise war-wracked Libya, which splintered into a patchwork of rival power bases following the overthrow of former leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

      At least 121 people have been killed and 561 wounded since Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) started its offensive on April 4, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

      Both sides have repeatedly carried out air raids and accuse each other of targeting civilians.

      The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), for its part, estimates more than 15,000 people have been displaced so far, with a “significant number” of others stuck in live conflict zones.

      Amid the fighting, refugees and migrants locked up in detention centres throughout the capital, many of whom fled war and persecution in countries including Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan, are warning that their lives are at risk.

      “We find ourselves in a fire,” a 15-year-old detainee at Qasr bin Ghashir told Al Jazeera.
      Electricity outage, water shortages

      Others held at the centre described the abject conditions they were subject to, including a week-long stint without electricity and working water pumps.

      One detainee in her 30s, who alleged the centre’s manager assaulted her, also said they had gone more than a week until Saturday with “no food, [and] no water”, adding the situation “was not good” and saying women are particularly vulnerable now.

      This is the third time since August that detainees in Qasr bin Ghashir have been in the middle of clashes, she said.

      Elsewhere in the capital, refugees and migrants held at the #Abu_Salim detention centre also said they could “hear the noise of weapons” and needed protection.

      “At this time, we want quick evacuation,” said one detainee at Abu Salim, which sits about 20km north of Qasr bin Ghashir.

      “We’ve stayed years with much torture and suffering, we don’t have any resistance for anything. We are (under) deep pressure and stressed … People are very angry and afraid.”
      ’Take us from Libya, please’

      Tripoli’s detention centres are formally under the control of the GNA’s Department for Combatting Illegal Migration (DCIM), though many are actually run by militias.

      The majority of the approximately 6,000 people held in the facilities were intercepted on the Mediterranean Sea and brought back to the North African country after trying to reach Europe as part of a two-year agreement under which which the European Union supports the Libyan coastguard with funds, ships and training, in return for carrying out interceptions and rescues.

      In a statement to Al Jazeera, an EU spokesperson said the bloc’s authorities were “closely monitoring the situation in Libya” from a “political, security and humanitarian point of view” though they could not comment on Qasr bin Ghashir specifically.

      DCIM, for its part, did not respond to a request for comment.

      The UN, however, continues to reiterate that Libya is not a safe country for refugees and migrants to return.

      Amid the ongoing conflict, the organisation’s human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, warned last week of the need to “ensure protection of extremely vulnerable civilians”, including refugees and migrants who may be living “under significant peril”.

      Bachelet also called for authorities to ensure that prisons and detention centres are not abandoned, and for all parties to guarantee that the treatment of detainees is in line with international law.

      In an apparent move to safeguard the refugees and migrants being held near the capital, Libyan authorities attempted last week to move detainees at Qasr bin Ghashir to another detention centre in #Zintan, nearly 170km southwest of Tripoli.

      But those being held in Qasr bin Ghashir refused to leave, arguing the solution is not a move elsewhere in Libya but rather a rescue from the country altogether.

      “All Libya [is a] war zone,” an Eritrean detainee told Al Jazeera.

      “Take us from Libya, please. Where is humanity and where is human rights,” the detainee asked.

      https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/04/fire-libya-detained-refugees-trapped-conflict-190414150247858.html

      700+ refugees & migrants - including more than 150 women & children - are trapped in a detention centre on the front lines, amid renewed clashes in Tripoli. The below photos, taken today, show where a jet was downed right beside them.


      https://twitter.com/sallyhayd/status/1117501460290392064

    • ESCLUSIVO TPI: “Senza cibo né acqua, pestati a sangue dai soldati”: la guerra in Libia vista dai migranti rinchiusi nei centri di detenzione

      “I rifugiati detenuti in Libia stanno subendo le più drammatiche conseguenze della guerra civile esplosa nel paese”.

      È la denuncia a TPI di Giulia Tranchina, avvocato che, a Londra, si occupa di rifugiati per lo studio legale Wilson Solicitor.

      Tranchina è in contatto con i migranti rinchiusi nei centri di detenzione libici e, da tempo, denuncia abusi e torture perpetrate ai loro danni.

      L’esplosione della guerra ha reso le condizioni di vita delle migliaia di rifugiati presenti nei centri governativi ancora più disumane.

      La gestione dei centri è stata bocciata anche dagli organismi internazionali in diversi rapporti, ignorati dai governi europei e anche da quello italiano, rapporti dove si evidenzia la violazione sistematica delle convenzioni internazionali, le condizioni sanitarie agghiaccianti e continue torture.

      https://www.tpi.it/2019/04/13/guerra-libia-migranti-centri-di-detenzione
      #guerre_civile

    • The humanitarian fallout from Libya’s newest war

      The Libyan capital of Tripoli is shuddering under an offensive by forces loyal to strongman Khalifa Haftar, with the city’s already precarious basic services in danger of breaking down completely and aid agencies struggling to cope with a growing emergency.

      In the worst and most sustained fighting the country has seen since the 2011 uprising that ousted Muammar Gaddafi, the Haftar-led Libyan National Army, or LNA, surged into the city – controlled by the UN-backed Government of National Accord, or GNA – on 4 April.

      Fighting continues across a string of southern suburbs, with airstrikes and rocket and artillery fire from both sides hammering front lines and civilians alike.

      “It is terrible; they use big guns at night, the children can’t sleep,” said one resident of the capital, who declined to give her name for publication. “The shots land everywhere.”

      The violence has displaced thousands of people and trapped hundreds of migrants and refugees in detention centres. Some analysts also think it has wrecked years of diplomacy, including attempts by the UN to try to build political consensus in Libya, where various militias support the two major rivals for power: the Tripoli-based GNA and the Haftar-backed House of Representatives, based in the eastern city of Tobruk.

      “Detained migrants and refugees, including women and children, are particularly vulnerable.”

      “Pandora’s box has been opened,” said Jalel Harchaoui, a research fellow at Clingendael Institute think tank in The Hague. “The military operation [to capture Tripoli] has inflicted irreversible damage upon a modus vivendi and a large set of political dialogues that has required four years of diplomatic work.”
      Civilians in the line of fire

      Media reports and eyewitnesses in the city said residents face agonising decisions about when to go out, and risk the indiscriminate fire, in search of food and other essentials from the few shops that are open.

      One resident said those in Tripoli face the dilemma of whether to stay in their homes or leave, with no clear idea of what part of the city will be targeted next.

      The fighting is reportedly most intense in the southern suburbs, which until two weeks ago included some of the most tranquil and luxurious homes in the city. Now these districts are a rubble-strewn battleground, made worse by the ever-changing positions of LNA forces and militias that support the GNA.

      This battle comes to a city already struggling with chaos and militia violence, with residents having known little peace since the NATO-backed revolt eight years ago.

      “Since 2011, Libyans have faced one issue after another: shortages of cooking gas, electricity, water, lack of medicines, infrastructure in ruin and neglect,” said one woman who lives in an eastern suburb of Tripoli. “Little is seen at community level, where money disappears into pockets [of officials]. Hospitals are unsanitary and barely function. Education is a shambles of poor schools and stressed teachers.”
      Aid agencies scrambling

      Only a handful of aid agencies have a presence in Tripoli, where local services are now badly stretched.

      The World Health Organisation reported on 14 April that the death toll was 147 and 614 people had been wounded, cautioning that the latter figure may be higher as some overworked hospitals have stopped counting the numbers treated.

      “We are still working on keeping the medical supplies going,” a WHO spokesperson said. “We are sending out additional surgical staff to support hospitals coping with large caseloads of wounded, for example anaesthetists.”

      The UN’s emergency coordination body, OCHA, said that 16,000 people had been forced to flee by the fighting, 2,000 on 13 April alone when fighting intensified across the front line with a series of eight airstrikes. OCHA says the past few years of conflict have left at least 823,000 people, including 248,000 children, “in dire need of humanitarian assistance”.

      UNICEF appealed for $4.7 million to provide emergency assistance to the half a million children and their families it estimates live in and around Tripoli.
      Migrants and refugees

      Some of the worst off are more than 1,500 migrants trapped in a string of detention centres in the capital and nearby. The UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, said over the weekend it was trying to organise the evacuation of refugees from a migrant camp close to the front lines. “We are in contact with refugees in Qaser Ben Gashir and so far they remain safe from information received,” the agency said in a tweet.

      At least one media report said migrants and refugees at the centre felt they had been abandoned and feared for their lives.

      UNHCR estimates there are some 670,000 migrants and refugees in Libya, including more than 6,000 in detention centres.

      In its appeal, UNICEF said it was alarmed by reports that some migrant detention centres have been all but abandoned, with the migrants unable to get food and water. “The breakdown in the food supply line has resulted in a deterioration of the food security in detention centres,” the agency said. “Detained migrants and refugees, including women and children, are particularly vulnerable, especially those in detention centres located in the vicinity of the fighting.”

      Many migrants continue to hope to find a boat to Europe, but that task has been made harder by the EU’s March decision to scale down the rescue part of Operation Sophia, its Mediterranean anti-smuggling mission.

      “The breakdown in the food supply line has resulted in a deterioration of the food security in detention centres.”

      Search-and-rescue missions run by nongovernmental organisations have had to slow down and sometimes shutter their operations as European governments refuse them permission to dock. On Monday, Malta said it would not allow the crew of a ship that had been carrying 64 people rescued off the coast of Libya to disembark on its shores. The ship was stranded for two weeks as European governments argued over what to do with the migrants, who will now be split between four countries.

      Eugenio Cusumano, an international security expert specialising in migration research at Lieden University in the Netherlands, said a new surge of migrants and refugees may now be heading across the sea in a desperate attempt to escape the fighting. He said they will find few rescue craft, adding: “If the situation in Libya deteriorates there will be a need for offshore patrol assets.”
      Failed diplomacy

      Haftar’s LNA says its objective is to liberate the city from militia control, while the GNA has accused its rival of war crimes and called for prosecutions.

      International diplomatic efforts to end the fighting appear to have floundered. Haftar launched his offensive on the day that UN Secretary-General António Guterres was visiting Tripoli – a visit designed to bolster long-delayed, UN-chaired talks with the various parties in the country, which were due to be held this week.

      The UN had hoped the discussions, known as the National Conference, might pave the way for elections later this year, but they ended up being cancelled due to the upsurge in fighting.

      Guterres tried to de-escalate the situation by holding emergency talks with the GNA in Tripoli and flying east to see Haftar in Benghazi. But as foreign powers reportedly line up behind different sides, his calls for a ceasefire – along with condemnation from the UN Security Council and the EU – have so far been rebuffed.


      https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news/2019/04/15/humanitarian-fallout-libya-s-newest-war

    • Detained refugees in Libya moved to safety in second UNHCR relocation

      UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, today relocated another 150 refugees who were detained in the #Abu_Selim detention centre in south Tripoli to UNHCR’s #Gathering_and_Departure_Facility (#GDF) in the centre of Libya’s capital, safe from hostilities.

      The Abu Selim detention centre is one of several in Libya that has been impacted by hostilities since clashes erupted in the capital almost a fortnight ago.

      Refugees at the centre told UNHCR that they were petrified and traumatised by the fighting, fearing for their lives.

      UNHCR staff who were present and organizing the relocation today reported that clashes were around 10 kilometres away from the centre and were clearly audible.

      While UNHCR intended to relocate more refugees, due to a rapid escalation of fighting in the area this was not possible. UNHCR hopes to resume this life-saving effort as soon as conditions on the ground allow.

      “It is a race against time to move people out of harm’s way. Conflict and deteriorating security conditions hamper how much we can do,” said UNHCR’s Assistant Chief of Mission in Libya, Lucie Gagne.

      “We urgently need solutions for people trapped in Libya, including humanitarian evacuations to transfer those most vulnerable out of the country.”

      Refugees who were relocated today were among those most vulnerable and in need and included women and children. The relocation was conducted with the support of UNHCR’s partner, International Medical Corps and the Libyan Ministry of Interior.

      This relocation is the second UNHCR-organized transfer since the recent escalation of the conflict in Libya.

      Last week UNHCR relocated more than 150 refugees from the Ain Zara detention centre also in south Tripoli to the GDF, bringing the total number of refugees currently hosted at the GDF to more than 400.

      After today’s relocation, there remain more than 2,700 refugees and migrants detained and trapped in areas where clashes are ongoing. In addition to those remaining at Abu Selim, other detention centres impacted and in proximity to hostilities include the Qasr Bin Ghasheer, Al Sabaa and Tajoura centres.

      Current conditions in the country continue to underscore the fact that Libya is a dangerous place for refugees and migrants, and that those rescued and intercepted at sea should not be returned there. UNHCR has repeatedly called for an end to detention for refugees and migrants.

      https://www.unhcr.org/news/press/2019/4/5cb60a984/detained-refugees-libya-moved-safety-second-unhcr-relocation.html

    • Libye : l’ONU a évacué 150 réfugiés supplémentaires d’un camp de détention

      L’ONU a annoncé mardi avoir évacué 150 réfugiés supplémentaires d’une centre de détention à Tripoli touché par des combats, ajoutant ne pas avoir été en mesure d’en déplacer d’autres en raison de l’intensification des affrontements.

      La Haut-commissariat aux réfugiés (HCR) a précisé avoir évacué ces réfugiés, parmi lesquels des femmes et des enfants, du centre de détention Abou Sélim, dans le sud de la capitale libyenne, vers son Centre de rassemblement et de départ dans le centre-ville.

      Cette opération a été effectuée au milieu de violents combats entre les forces du maréchal Khalifa Haftar et celles du Gouvernement d’union nationale (GNA) libyen.

      « C’est une course contre la montre pour mettre les gens à l’abri », a déclaré la cheffe adjointe de la mission du HCR en Libye, Lucie Gagne, dans un communiqué. « Le conflit et la détérioration des conditions de sécurité entravent nos capacités », a-t-elle regretté.

      Au moins 174 personnes ont été tuées et 758 autres blessés dans la bataille pour le contrôle de Tripoli, a annoncé mardi l’Organisation mondiale de la Santé (OMS).

      Abu Sélim est l’un des centres de détention qui ont été touchés par les combats. Le HCR, qui avait déjà évacué la semaine dernière plus de 150 migrants de centre de détention d’Ain Zara, a indiqué qu’il voulait en évacuer d’autres mardi mais qu’il ne n’avait pu le faire en raison d’une aggravation rapide des combats dans cette zone.

      Les réfugiés évacués mardi étaient « traumatisés » par les combats, a rapporté le HCR, ajoutant que des combats avaient lieu à seulement une dizaine de km.

      « Il nous faut d’urgence des solutions pour les gens piégés en Libye, y compris des évacuations humanitaires pour transférer les plus vulnérables hors du pays », a déclaré Mme Gagne.

      Selon le HCR, plus de 400 personnes se trouvent désormais dans son centre de rassemblement et de départ, mais plus de 2.700 réfugiés sont encore détenus et bloqués dans des zones de combats.

      La Libye « est un endroit dangereux pour les réfugiés et les migrants », a souligné le HCR. « Ceux qui sont secourus et interceptés en mer ne devraient pas être renvoyés là-bas ».

      https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1166761/libye-lonu-a-evacue-150-refugies-supplementaires-dun-camp-de-detentio

    • Footage shows refugees hiding as Libyan militia attack detention centre

      At least two people reportedly killed in shooting at Qasr bin Ghashir facility near Tripoli.

      Young refugees held in a detention centre in Libya have described being shot at indiscriminately by militias advancing on Tripoli, in an attack that reportedly left at least two people dead and up to 20 injured.

      Phone footage smuggled out of the camp and passed to the Guardian highlights the deepening humanitarian crisis in the centres set up to prevent refugees and migrants from making the sea crossing from the north African coast to Europe.

      The footage shows people cowering in terror in the corners of a hangar while gunshots can be heard and others who appear to have been wounded lying on makeshift stretchers.

      The shooting on Tuesday at the Qasr bin Ghashir detention centre, 12 miles (20km) south of Tripoli, is thought to be the first time a militia has raided such a building and opened fire.

      Witnesses said men, women and children were praying together when soldiers they believe to be part of the forces of the military strongman Khalifa Haftar, which are advancing on the Libyan capital to try to bring down the UN-backed government, stormed into the detention centre and demanded people hand over their phones.

      When the occupants refused, the soldiers began shooting, according to the accounts. Phones are the only link to the outside world for many in the detention centres.

      Amnesty International has called for a war crimes investigation into the incident. “This incident demonstrates the urgent need for all refugees and migrants to be immediately released from these horrific detention centres,” said the organisation’s spokeswoman, Magdalena Mughrabi.

      Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said a review of the video evidence by its medical doctors had concluded the injuries were consistent with gunshot wounds. “These observations are further supported by numerous accounts from refugees and migrants who witnessed the event and reported being brutally and indiscriminately attacked with the use of firearms,” a statement said.

      The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said it evacuated 325 people from the detention centre after the incident. A statement suggested guns were fired into air and 12 people “endured physical attacks” that required hospital treatment, but none sustained bullet wounds.

      “The dangers for refugees and migrants in Tripoli have never been greater than they are at present,” said Matthew Brook, the refugee agency’s deputy mission chief in Libya. “It is vital that refugees in danger can be released and evacuated to safety.”

      The Guardian has previously revealed there is a network of 26 Libyan detention centres where an estimated 6,000 refugees are held. Children have described being starved, beaten and abused by Libyan police and camp guards. The UK contributes funding to humanitarian assistance provided in the centres by NGOs and the International Organization for Migration.

      Qasr bin Ghashir is on the frontline of the escalating battle in Libya between rival military forces. Child refugees in the camp started sending SOS messages earlier this month, saying: “The war is started. We are in a bad situation.”

      In WhatsApp messages sent to the Guardian on Tuesday, some of the child refugees said: “Until now, no anyone came here to help us. Not any organisations. Please, please, please, a lot of blood going out from people. Please, we are in dangerous conditions, please world, please, we are in danger.”

      Many of the children and young people in the detention centres have fled persecution in Eritrea and cannot return. Many have also tried to cross the Mediterranean to reach Italy, but have been pushed back by the Libyan coastguard, which receives EU funding.

      Giulia Tranchina, an immigration solicitor in London, has been raising the alarm for months about the plight of refugees in the centres. “I have been in touch with seven refugees in Qasr Bin Gashir since last September,. Many are sick and starving,” she said.

      “All of them tried to escape across the Mediterranean to Italy, but were pushed back to the detention centre by the Libyan coastguard. Some were previously imprisoned by traffickers in Libya for one to two years. Many have been recognised by UNHCR as genuine refugees.”

      Tranchina took a statement from a man who escaped from the centre after the militia started shooting. “We were praying in the hangar. The women joined us for prayer. The guards came in and told us to hand over our phones,” he said.

      “When we refused, they started shooting. I saw gunshot wounds to the head and neck, I think that without immediate medical treatment, those people would die.

      “I’m now in a corrugated iron shack in Tripoli with a few others who escaped, including three women with young children. Many were left behind and we have heard that they have been locked in.”

      A UK government spokesperson said: “We are deeply concerned by reports of violence at the Qasr Ben Ghashir detention centre, and call on all parties to allow civilians, including refugees and migrants, to be evacuated to safety.”

      • Amnesty International, Médecins Sans Frontières and other NGOs are suing the French government to stop the donation of six boats to Libya’s navy, saying they will be used to send migrants back to detention centres. EU support to the Libyan coastguard, which is part of the navy, has enabled it to intercept migrants and asylum seekers bound for Europe. The legal action seeks a suspension on the boat donation, saying it violates an EU embargo on the supply of military equipment to Libya.

      https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/25/libya-detention-centre-attack-footage-refugees-hiding-shooting

    • From Bad to Worse for Migrants Trapped in Detention in Libya

      Footage (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/25/libya-detention-centre-attack-footage-refugees-hiding-shooting) revealed to the Guardian shows the panic of migrants and refugees trapped in the detention facility Qasr bin Ghashir close to Tripoli under indiscriminate fire from advancing militia. According to the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR more than 3,300 people trapped in detention centres close to the escalating fighting are at risk and the agency is working to evacuate migrants from the “immediate danger”.

      Fighting is intensifying between Libyan National Army (LNA) loyal to Khalifa Haftar and the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) around the capital Tripoli. There have been reports on deaths and forced enlistment among migrants and refugees trapped in detention centres, which are overseen by the Libyan Department for Combating Illegal Migration but often run by militias.

      Amid the intense fighting the EU-backed Libyan coastguard continues to intercept and return people trying to cross the Mediteranean. According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) 113 people were returned to the Western part of the country this week. In a Tweet the UN Agency states: “we reiterate that Libya is not a safe port and that arbitrary detention must end.”

      Former UNHCR official, Jeff Crisp, calls it: “…extraordinary that the UN has not made a direct appeal to the EU to suspend the support it is giving to the Libyan coastguard”, and further states that: “Europe has the option of doing nothing and that is what it will most likely do.”

      UNHCR has evacuated 500 people to the Agencies Gathering and Departure Facility in Tripoli and an additional 163 to the Emergency Transit Mechanism in Niger. However, with both mechanisms “approaching full capacity” the Agency urges direct evacuations out of Libya. On April 29, 146 refugees were evacuated from Libya to Italy in a joint operation between UNHCR and Italian and Libyan authorities.

      https://www.ecre.org/from-bad-to-worse-for-migrants-trapped-in-detention-in-libya

    • Libia, la denuncia di Msf: «Tremila migranti bloccati vicino ai combattimenti, devono essere evacuati»

      A due mesi dall’inizio dei combattimenti tra i militari del generale Khalifa Haftar e le milizie fedeli al governo di Tripoli di Fayez al-Sarraj, i capimissione di Medici Senza Frontiere per la Libia hanno incontrato la stampa a Roma per fare il punto della situazione. «I combattimenti hanno interessato centomila persone, di queste tremila sono migranti e rifugiati bloccati nei centri di detenzione che sorgono nelle aree del conflitto - ha spiegato Sam Turner -. Per questo chiediamo la loro immediata evacuazione. Solo portandoli via da quelle aree si possono salvare delle vite».

      https://video.repubblica.it/dossier/migranti-2019/libia-la-denuncia-di-msf-tremila-migranti-bloccati-vicino-ai-combattimenti-devono-essere-evacuati/336337/336934?ref=twhv

    • Libia, attacco aereo al centro migranti. 60 morti. Salvini: «E’ un crimine di Haftar, il mondo deve reagire»

      Il bombardamento è stato effettuato dalle forze del generale Khalifa Haftar, sostenute dalla Francia e dagli Emirati. Per l’inviato Onu si tratta di crimine di guerra. Il Consiglio di sicurezza dell’Onu si riunisce domani per una sessione d’urgenza.

      Decine di migranti sono stati uccisi nel bombardamento che ieri notte un aereo dell’aviazione del generale Khalifa Haftar ha compiuto contro un centro per migranti adiacente alla base militare di #Dhaman, nell’area di #Tajoura. La base di Dhaman è uno dei depositi in cui le milizie di Misurata e quelle fedeli al governo del presidente Fayez al-Serraj hanno concentrato le loro riserve di munizioni e di veicoli utilizzati per la difesa di Tripoli, sotto attacco dal 4 aprile dalle milizie del generale della Cirenaica.

      https://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2019/07/03/news/libia_bombardato_centro_detenzione_migranti_decine_di_morti-230198952/?ref=RHPPTP-BH-I230202229-C12-P1-S1.12-T1

    • Le HCR et l’OIM condamnent l’attaque contre Tajoura et demandent une enquête immédiate sur les responsables

      Le nombre effroyable de blessés et de victimes, suite à l’attaque aérienne de mardi soir à l’est de Tripoli contre le centre de détention de Tajoura, fait écho aux vives préoccupations exprimées par le HCR, l’Agence des Nations Unies pour les réfugiés, et l’Organisation internationale pour les migrations (OIM), concernant la sécurité des personnes dans les centres de détention. Ce tout dernier épisode de violence rend également compte du danger évoqué par l’OIM et le HCR concernant les retours de migrants et de réfugiés en Libye après leur interception ou leur sauvetage en mer Méditerranée.

      Nos deux organisations condamnent fermement cette attaque ainsi que toute attaque contre la vie des civils. Nous demandons également que la détention des migrants et des réfugiés cesse immédiatement. Nous appelons à ce que leur protection soit garantie en Libye.

      Cette attaque mérite davantage qu’une simple condamnation. Selon le HCR et l’OIM, une enquête complète et indépendante est nécessaire pour déterminer comment cela s’est produit et qui en est responsable, ainsi que pour traduire les responsables en justice. La localisation de ces centres de détention à Tripoli est bien connue des combattants, qui savent également que les personnes détenues à Tajoura sont des civils.

      Au moins 600 réfugiés et migrants, dont des femmes et des enfants, se trouvaient au centre de détention de Tajoura. La frappe aérienne a causé des dizaines de morts et de blessés. Nous nous attendons de ce fait que le nombre final de victimes soit beaucoup plus élevé.

      Si l’on inclut les victimes de Tajoura, environ 3300 migrants et réfugiés sont toujours détenus arbitrairement à Tripoli et en périphérie de la ville dans des conditions abjectes et inhumaines. De plus, les migrants et les réfugiés sont confrontés à des risques croissants à mesure que les affrontements s’intensifient à proximité. Ces centres doivent être fermés.

      Nous faisons tout notre possible pour leur venir en aide. L’OIM et le HCR ont déployé des équipes médicales. Par ailleurs, une équipe interinstitutions plus large des Nations Unies attend l’autorisation de se rendre sur place. Nous rappelons à toutes les parties à ce conflit que les civils ne doivent pas être pris pour cible et qu’ils doivent être protégés en vertu à la fois du droit international relatif aux réfugiés et du droit international relatif aux droits de l’homme.

      Le conflit en cours dans la capitale libyenne a déjà forcé près de 100 000 Libyens à fuir leur foyer. Le HCR et ses partenaires, dont l’OIM, ont transféré plus de 1500 réfugiés depuis des centres de détention proches des zones de combat vers des zones plus sûres. Par ailleurs, des opérations de l’OIM pour le retour volontaire à titre humanitaire ont facilité le départ de plus de 5000 personnes vulnérables vers 30 pays d’origine en Afrique et en Asie.

      L’OIM et le HCR exhortent l’ensemble du système des Nations Unies à condamner cette attaque et à faire cesser le recours à la détention en Libye. De plus, nous appelons instamment la communauté internationale à mettre en place des couloirs humanitaires pour les migrants et les réfugiés qui doivent être évacués depuis la Libye. Dans l’intérêt de tous en Libye, nous espérons que les États influents redoubleront d’efforts pour coopérer afin de mettre d’urgence un terme à cet effroyable conflit.

      https://www.unhcr.org/fr/news/press/2019/7/5d1ca1f06/hcr-loim-condamnent-lattaque-contre-tajoura-demandent-enquete-immediate.html

    • Affamés, torturés, disparus : l’impitoyable piège refermé sur les migrants bloqués en Libye

      Malnutrition, enlèvements, travail forcé, torture : des ONG présentes en Libye dénoncent les conditions de détention des migrants piégés dans ce pays, conséquence selon elles de la politique migratoire des pays européens conclue avec les Libyens.

      Le point, minuscule dans l’immensité de la mer, est ballotté avec violence : mi-mai, un migrant qui tentait de quitter la Libye dans une embarcation de fortune a préféré risquer sa vie en plongeant en haute mer en voyant arriver les garde-côtes libyens, pour nager vers un navire commercial, selon une vidéo mise en ligne par l’ONG allemande Sea-Watch et tournée par son avion de recherche. L’image illustre le désespoir criant de migrants, en grande majorité originaires d’Afrique et de pays troublés comme le Soudan, l’Érythrée, la Somalie, prêts à tout pour ne pas être à nouveau enfermés arbitrairement dans un centre de détention dans ce pays livré au conflit et aux milices.

      Des vidéos insoutenables filmées notamment dans des prisons clandestines aux mains de trafiquants d’êtres humains, compilées par une journaliste irlandaise et diffusées en février par Channel 4, donnent une idée des sévices de certains tortionnaires perpétrés pour rançonner les familles des migrants. Allongé nu par terre, une arme pointée sur lui, un migrant râle de douleur alors qu’un homme lui brûle les pieds avec un chalumeau. Un autre, le tee-shirt ensanglanté, est suspendu au plafond, un pistolet braqué sur la tête. Un troisième, attaché avec des cordes, une brique de béton lui écrasant dos et bras, est fouetté sur la plante des pieds, selon ces vidéos.

      Le mauvais traitement des migrants a atteint un paroxysme dans la nuit de mardi à mercredi quand plus de 40 ont été tués et 70 blessés dans un raid aérien contre un centre pour migrants de Tajoura (près de Tripoli), attribué aux forces de Khalifa Haftar engagées dans une offensive sur la capitale libyenne. Un drame « prévisible » depuis des semaines, déplorent des acteurs humanitaires. Depuis janvier, plus de 2.300 personnes ont été ramenées et placées dans des centres de détention, selon l’ONU.

      « Plus d’un millier de personnes ont été ramenées par les gardes-côtes libyens soutenus par l’Union européenne depuis le début du conflit en avril 2019. A terre, ces personnes sont ensuite transférées dans des centres de détention comme celui de Tajoura… », a ce réagi mercredi auprès de l’AFP Julien Raickman, chef de mission de l’ONG Médecins sans frontières (MSF) en Libye. Selon les derniers chiffres de l’Organisation internationale pour les migrations (OIM), au moins 5.200 personnes sont actuellement dans des centres de détention en Libye. Aucun chiffre n’est disponible pour celles détenues dans des centres illégaux aux mains de trafiquants.

      L’UE apporte un soutien aux gardes-côtes libyens pour qu’ils freinent les arrivées sur les côtes italiennes. En 2017, elle a validé un accord conclu entre l’Italie et Tripoli pour former et équiper les garde-côtes libyens. Depuis le nombre d’arrivées en Europe via la mer Méditerranée a chuté de manière spectaculaire.
      « Les morts s’empilent »

      Fin mai, dans une prise de parole publique inédite, dix ONG internationales intervenant en Libye dans des conditions compliquées – dont Danish Refugee Council, International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, Première Urgence Internationale (PUI) – ont brisé le silence. Elles ont exhorté l’UE et ses Etats membres à « revoir en urgence » leurs politiques migratoires qui nourrissent selon elles un « système de criminalisation », soulignant que les migrants, « y compris les femmes et les enfants, sont sujets à des détentions arbitraires et illimitées » en Libye dans des conditions « abominables ».

      « Arrêtez de renvoyer les migrants en Libye  ! La situation est instable, elle n’est pas sous contrôle ; ils n’y sont en aucun cas protégés ni par un cadre législatif ni pour les raisons sécuritaires que l’on connaît », a réagi ce mercredi à l’AFP Benjamin Gaudin, chef de mission de l’ONG PUI en Libye. Cette ONG intervient dans six centres de détention dans lesquels elle est une des seules organisations à prodiguer des soins de santé.

      La « catastrophe ne se situe pas seulement en Méditerranée mais également sur le sol libyen ; quand ces migrants parviennent jusqu’aux côtes libyennes, ils ont déjà vécu l’enfer », a-t-il témoigné récemment auprès de l’AFP, dans une rare interview à un média. Dans certains de ces centres officiels, « les conditions sont terribles », estime M. Gaudin. « Les migrants vivent parfois entassés les uns sur les autres, dans des conditions sanitaires terribles avec de gros problèmes d’accès à l’eau – parfois il n’y a pas d’eau potable du tout. Ils ne reçoivent pas de nourriture en quantité suffisante ; dans certains centres, il n’y a absolument rien pour les protéger du froid ou de la chaleur. Certains n’ont pas de cours extérieures, les migrants n’y voient jamais la lumière du jour », décrit-il.
      Human Rights Watch, qui a eu accès à plusieurs centres de détention en 2018 et à une centaine de migrants, va plus loin dans un rapport de 2019 – qui accumule les témoignages de « traitements cruels et dégradants » : l’organisation accuse la « coopération de l’UE avec la Libye sur les migrations de contribuer à un cycle d’abus extrêmes ».

      « Les morts s’empilent dans les centres de détention libyens – emportés par une épidémie de tuberculose à Zintan, victimes d’un bombardement à Tajoura. La présence d’une poignée d’acteurs humanitaires sur place ne saurait assurer des conditions acceptables dans ces centres », a déploré M. Raickman de MSF. « Les personnes qui y sont détenues, majoritairement des réfugiés, continuent de mourir de maladies, de faim, sont victimes de violences en tout genre, de viols, soumises à l’arbitraire des milices. Elles se retrouvent prises au piège des combats en cours », a-t-il dénoncé.

      Signe d’une situation considérée comme de plus en plus critique, la Commissaire aux droits de l’Homme du Conseil de l’Europe a exhorté le 18 juin les pays européens à suspendre leur coopération avec les gardes-côtes libyens, estimant que les personnes récupérées « sont systématiquement placées en détention et en conséquence soumises à la torture, à des violences sexuelles, à des extorsions ». L’ONU elle même a dénoncé le 7 juin des conditions « épouvantables » dans ces centres. « Environ 22 personnes sont décédées des suites de la tuberculose et d’autres maladies dans le centre de détention de Zintan depuis septembre », a dénoncé Rupert Colville, un porte-parole du Haut-Commissariat de l’ONU aux droits de l’Homme.

      MSF, qui a démarré récemment des activités médicales dans les centres de Zintan et Gharyan, a décrit une « catastrophe sanitaire », soulignant que les personnes enfermées dans ces deux centres « viennent principalement d’Érythrée et de Somalie et ont survécu à des expériences terrifiantes » durant leur exil. Or, selon les ONG et le HCR, la très grande majorité des milliers de personnes détenues dans les centres sont des réfugiés, qui pourraient avoir droit à ce statut et à un accueil dans un pays développé, mais ne peuvent le faire auprès de l’Etat libyen. Ils le font auprès du HCR en Libye, dans des conditions très difficiles.
      « Enfermés depuis un an »

      « Les évacuations hors de Libye vers des pays tiers ou pays de transit sont aujourd’hui extrêmement limitées, notamment parce qu’il manque des places d’accueil dans des pays sûrs qui pourraient accorder l’asile », relève M. Raickman. « Il y a un fort sentiment de désespoir face à cette impasse ; dans des centres où nous intervenons dans la région de Misrata et Khoms, des gens sont enfermés depuis un an. » Interrogée par l’AFP, la Commission européenne défend son bilan et son « engagement » financier sur cette question, soulignant avoir « mobilisé » depuis 2014 pas moins de 338 millions d’euros dans des programmes liés à la migration en Libye.

      « Nous sommes extrêmement préoccupés par la détérioration de la situation sur le terrain », a récemment déclaré à l’AFP une porte-parole de la Commission européenne, Natasha Bertaud. « Des critiques ont été formulées sur notre engagement avec la Libye, nous en sommes conscients et nous échangeons régulièrement avec les ONG sur ce sujet », a-t-elle ajouté. « Mais si nous ne nous étions pas engagés avec l’OIM, le HCR et l’Union africaine, nous n’aurions jamais eu cet impact : ces 16 derniers mois, nous avons pu sortir 38.000 personnes hors de ces terribles centres de détention et hors de Libye, et les raccompagner chez eux avec des programmes de retour volontaire, tout cela financé par l’Union européenne », a-t-elle affirmé. « Parmi les personnes qui ont besoin de protection – originaires d’Érythrée ou du Soudan par exemple – nous avons récemment évacué environ 2.700 personnes de Libye vers le Niger (…) et organisé la réinstallation réussie dans l’UE de 1.400 personnes ayant eu besoin de protection internationale », plaide-t-elle.

      La porte-parole rappelle que la Commission a « à maintes reprises ces derniers mois exhorté ses États membres à trouver une solution sur des zones de désembarquement, ce qui mettrait fin à ce qui passe actuellement : à chaque fois qu’un bateau d’ONG secoure des gens et qu’il y a une opposition sur le sujet entre Malte et l’Italie, c’est la Commission qui doit appeler près de 28 capitales européennes pour trouver des lieux pour ces personnes puissent débarquer : ce n’est pas viable ! ».

      Pour le porte-parole de la marine libyenne, le général Ayoub Kacem, interrogé par l’AFP, ce sont « les pays européens (qui) sabotent toute solution durable à l’immigration en Méditerranée, parce qu’ils n’acceptent pas d’accueillir une partie des migrants et se sentent non concernés ». Il appelle les Européens à « plus de sérieux » et à unifier leurs positions. « Les États européens ont une scandaleuse responsabilité dans toutes ces morts et ces souffrances », dénonce M. Raickman. « Ce qu’il faut, ce sont des actes : des évacuations d’urgence des réfugiés et migrants coincés dans des conditions extrêmement dangereuses en Libye ».

      https://www.charentelibre.fr/2019/07/03/affames-tortures-disparus-l-impitoyable-piege-referme-sur-les-migrants

    • « Mourir en mer ou sous les bombes : seule alternative pour les milliers de personnes migrantes prises au piège de l’enfer libyen ? »

      Le soir du 2 juillet, une attaque aérienne a été signalée sur le camp de détention pour migrant·e·s de #Tadjourah dans la banlieue est de la capitale libyenne. Deux jours après, le bilan s’est alourdi et fait état d’au moins 66 personnes tuées et plus de 80 blessées [1]. A une trentaine de kilomètres plus au sud de Tripoli, plusieurs migrant·e·s avaient déjà trouvé la mort fin avril dans l’attaque du camp de Qasr Bin Gashir par des groupes armés.

      Alors que les conflits font rage autour de Tripoli entre le Gouvernement d’union nationale (GNA) reconnu par l’ONU et les forces du maréchal Haftar, des milliers de personnes migrantes enfermées dans les geôles libyennes se retrouvent en première ligne : lorsqu’elles ne sont pas abandonnées à leur sort par leurs gardien·ne·s à l’approche des forces ennemies ou forcées de combattre auprès d’un camp ou de l’autre, elles sont régulièrement prises pour cibles par les combattant·e·s.

      Dans un pays où les migrant·e·s sont depuis longtemps vu·e·s comme une monnaie d’échange entre milices, et, depuis l’époque de Kadhafi, comme un levier diplomatique notamment dans le cadre de divers marchandages migratoires avec les Etats de l’Union européenne [2], les personnes migrantes constituent de fait l’un des nerfs de la guerre pour les forces en présence, bien au-delà des frontières libyennes.

      Au lendemain des bombardements du camp de Tadjourah, pendant que le GNA accusait Haftar et que les forces d’Haftar criaient au complot, les dirigeant·e·s des pays européens ont pris le parti de faire mine d’assister impuissant·e·s à ce spectacle tragique depuis l’autre bord de la Méditerranée, les un·e·s déplorant les victimes et condamnant les attaques, les autres appelant à une enquête internationale pour déterminer les coupables.

      Contre ces discours teintés d’hypocrisie, il convient de rappeler l’immense responsabilité de l’Union européenne et de ses États membres dans la situation désastreuse dans laquelle les personnes migrantes se trouvent sur le sol libyen. Lorsqu’à l’occasion de ces attaques, l’Union européenne se félicite de son rôle dans la protection des personnes migrantes en Libye et affirme la nécessité de poursuivre ses efforts [3], ne faut-il pas tout d’abord se demander si celle-ci fait autre chose qu’entériner un système de détention cruel en finançant deux organisations internationales, le HCR et l’OIM, qui accèdent pour partie à ces camps où les pires violations de droits sont commises ?

      Au-delà de son soutien implicite à ce système d’enfermement à grande échelle, l’UE n’a cessé de multiplier les stratégies pour que les personnes migrantes, tentant de fuir la Libye et ses centres de détention aux conditions inhumaines, y soient immédiatement et systématiquement renvoyées, entre le renforcement constant des capacités des garde-côtes libyens et l’organisation d’un vide humanitaire en Méditerranée par la criminalisation des ONG de secours en mer [4].

      A la date du 20 juin 2019, le HCR comptait plus de 3 000 personnes interceptées par les garde-côtes libyens depuis le début de l’année 2019, pour à peine plus de 2000 personnes arrivées en Italie [5]. Pour ces personnes interceptées et reconduites en Libye, les perspectives sont bien sombres : remises aux mains des milices, seules échapperont à la détention les heureuses élues qui sont évacuées au Niger dans l’attente d’une réinstallation hypothétique par le HCR, ou celles qui, après de fortes pressions et souvent en désespoir de cause, acceptent l’assistance au retour « volontaire » proposée par l’OIM.

      L’Union européenne a beau jeu de crier au scandale. La détention massive de migrant·e·s et la violation de leurs droits dans un pays en pleine guerre civile ne relèvent ni de la tragédie ni de la fatalité : ce sont les conséquences directes des politiques d’externalisation et de marchandages migratoires cyniques orchestrées par l’Union et ses États membres depuis de nombreuses années. Il est temps que cesse la guerre aux personnes migrantes et que la liberté de circulation soit assurée pour toutes et tous.

      http://www.migreurop.org/article2931.html
      aussi signalé par @vanderling
      https://seenthis.net/messages/791482

    • Migrants say militias in Tripoli conscripted them to clean arms

      Migrants who survived the deadly airstrike on a detention center in western Libya say they had been conscripted by a local militia to work in an adjacent weapons workshop. The detention centers are under armed groups affiliated with the Fayez al-Sarraj government in Tripoli.

      Two migrants told The Associated Press on Thursday that for months they were sent day and night to a workshop inside the Tajoura detention center, which housed hundreds of African migrants.

      A young migrant who has been held for nearly two years at Tajoura says “we clean the anti-aircraft guns. I saw a large amount of rockets and missiles too.”

      The migrants spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

      http://www.addresslibya.com/en/archives/47932

    • Statement by the Post-3Tajoura Working Group on the Three-Month Mark of the Tajoura Detention Centre Airstrike

      On behalf of the Post-Tajoura Working Group, the European Union Delegation to Libya issues a statement to mark the passing of three months since the airstrike on the Tajoura Detention Centre. Today is the occasion to remind the Libyan government of the urgency of the situation of detained refugees and migrants in and around Tripoli.

      https://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/libya/68248/statement-post-tajoura-working-group-three-month-mark-tajoura-detention-

    • Statement by the Spokesperson on the situation in the #Tajoura detention centre

      Statement by the Spokesperson on the situation in the Tajoura detention centre.

      The release of the detainees remaining in the Tajoura detention centre, hit by a deadly attack on 2 July, is a positive step by the Libyan authorities. All refugees and migrants have to be released from detention and provided with all the necessary assistance. In this context, we have supported the creation of the Gathering and Departure Facility (GDF) in Tripoli and other safe places in order to improve the protection of those in need and to provide humane alternatives to the current detention system.

      We will continue to work with International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency) in the context of the African Union-European Union-United Nations Task Force to support and protect refugees and migrants in Libya. We call on all parties to accelerate humanitarian evacuation and resettlement from Libya to third countries. In particular, we are supporting UNHCR’s work to resettle the most vulnerable refugees with durable solutions outside Libya, with around 4,000 individuals having been evacuated so far. We are also working closely with the IOM and the African Union and its Member States to continue the Assisted Voluntary Returns, thereby adding to the more than 45,000 migrants returned to their countries of origin so far.

      The European Union is strongly committed to fighting traffickers and smugglers and to strengthening the capacity of the Libyan Coast Guard to save lives at sea. Equally, we recall the need to put in place mechanisms that guarantee the safety and dignity of those rescued by the Libyan Coast Guard, notably by ending arbitrary detention and allowing the UN agencies to carry out screening and registration and to provide direct emergency assistance and protection. Through our continuous financial support and our joined political advocacy towards the Libyan authorities, the UNHCR and IOM are now able to better monitor the situation in the disembarkation points and have regular access to most of the official detention centres.

      Libya’s current system of detaining migrants has to end and migration needs to be managed in full compliance with international standards, including when it comes to human rights. The European Union stands ready to help the Libyan authorities to develop solutions to create safe and dignified alternatives to detention in full compliance with the international humanitarian standards and in respect of human rights.

      https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage/65266/statement-spokesperson-situation-tajoura-detention-centre_en

    • 05.11.2019

      About 45 women, 16 children and some men, for a total of approximately 80 refugees, were taken out of #TariqalSikka detention centre by the Libyan police and taken to the #UNHCR offices in #Gurji, Tripoli, yesterday. UNHCR told them there is nothing they can do to help them so...
      they are now homeless in Tripoli, destitute, starving, at risk of being shot, bombed, kidnapped, tortured, raped, sold or detained again in an even worst detention centre. Forcing African refugees out of detention centres and leaving them homeless in Tripoli is not a solution...
      It is almost a death sentence in today’s Libya. UNHCR doesn’t have capacity to offer any help or protection to homeless refugees released from detention. These women & children have now lost priority for evacuation after years waiting in detention, suffering rape, torture, hunger...

      https://twitter.com/GiuliaRastajuly/status/1191777843644174336
      #SDF #sans-abri

  • Reporter’s Diary: Heal Somalia’s former child soldiers, heal a nation

    Even by Mogadishu standards, late September was particularly violent.

    Amino Hussein Hassan, a female law student, was shot dead on her university campus. Yahye Amir, a prominent economics professor and political analyst, escaped an assassination attempt when a bomb strapped to his car exploded, killing his brother. And Ahmed Mukhtar Salah, from the long-marginalised minority Bantu community, was beaten and burnt to death by a mob after his nephew married an ethnic Somali woman.

    Violence has been a way of life in Somalia since the outbreak of the civil war in 1991, seeping deep into the nation’s marrow as clan conflict gradually morphed into an all-out war against the al-Qaeda affiliated Islamist group #al-Shabab. “The layers of violence that people have had to digest is one of the key problems for building a peaceful and healthier society,” Laetitia Bader, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW), told me recently.

    Most often, those who bear the life-long consequences are the poor, the politically marginalised, and young people. In particular, the thousands of children who must deal with the trauma of years on the front lines.

    In May, I travelled to the capital, Mogadishu – as I have done regularly since 2012 – to report on a crisis that, save for some international NGOs and human rights organisations, few seem to talk about: child soldiers.

    There, I met Abdi, 16, a former child soldier. Intelligent and eloquent, he had been a star pupil at the Koranic school in his home town, about 55 miles from the capital. In 2009, at the age of seven, his teacher took him and seven other boys to join al-Shabab.

    For two years, Abdi lived in a camp with about three dozen other young recruits. By the time he was eight, he had learned how to drive a car and shoot a gun. By nine, he took part in his first raid in the village of Darussalam Mubarak, where he witnessed an assassination: a man killed by three bullets to the back.

    As horrific as that experience was, the image that has most haunted Abdi for years is that of the severed head of a young man his al-Shabab camp commander brandished before the recruits as a warning: this is what happens to informants.

    “Even now after all these years, I have nightmares,” Abdi told me. “Sometimes I wake up screaming in the middle of the night.”
    A disposable front line

    While al-Shabab’s use of children as soldiers is nothing new, in the last several years the number of child soldiers has increased markedly.

    In al-Shabab’s heyday around 2010, when it controlled vast swaths of the country, including a sizable chunk of the capital, persuasion and indoctrination were enough to ensure a steady supply of young fighters. Since 2016, increased attacks by the Somali national army and US and African Union troops have resulted in a loss of territory for the group. Most recently, on October 16, the US military announced that it had carried out one of the deadliest airstrikes against al-Shabab, killing 60 militants in the Mudug region.

    So, desperate for more foot soldiers, al-Shabab has turned to the abduction and forced recruitment of minors. Accurate numbers are difficult to come by. Child Soldiers International calculates that there has been a 269 percent increase in the number of children within the ranks of armed groups in Somalia between 2015, when there were 903 documented cases, to 2017, with 3,335 cases. Meanwhile, according to a May report on children and armed conflict presented by the UN secretary-general to the General Assembly, 1,770 children were recruited as soldiers in 2017 alone, with al-Shabab doing the vast majority of the recruitment. The overall number is likely even higher: UNICEF Somalia estimates that as many as 6,000 children and youths are part of armed groups in the country.

    In a single military operation carried out by the Somali National Army and US troops in January on a base near the town of Baledogle, 70 miles northwest of Mogadishu, for instance, 36 child soldiers between the ages of eight and 13 were rescued.

    Often untrained and ill-equipped, these child soldiers make for a disposable front line on the battlefield, protecting older, more experienced fighters. This makes them more likely to suffer physical wounds and psychological trauma.
    Young defectors

    I first met Abdi and other boys through a man I’ll call Hussein. I am not using his real name, or identifying his location, since in addition to running an orphanage he manages a centre that works with young al-Shabab defectors. About 120 boys now live there, two hours’ drive from the capital, but at one point it housed as many 520.


    https://www.irinnews.org/opinion/2018/10/22/heal-somalia-former-child-soldiers-heal-nation-al-shabab
    #enfants-soldat #Somalie #guerre

  • As the World Abandons Refugees, UNHCR’s Constraints Are Exposed

    The U.N. refugee agency lacks the funding, political clout and independence to protect refugees in the way that it is supposed to, says former UNHCR official and refugee policy expert #Jeff_Crisp.

    Over the past three years, the world has been confronted with a number of major new refugee emergencies – in Myanmar, Nigeria, South Sudan, Yemen and Venezuela, as well as the Central American region. In addition, existing crises in Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia and Syria have gone unresolved, making it impossible for large exiled populations to return to their own country. As a result, the global refugee population has soared to more than 25 million, the highest figure ever recorded.

    This means that the role of the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, which is supposed to protect and find solutions for this growing population, is more important than ever. But is it up to the task? The proliferating crises have stretched it to the limit. Funding, most of which comes from a dozen key donor states, has not kept up with the rising numbers the agency is expected to support. In April, UNHCR said it had received just $2.3 billion of the $8.2 billion it needed for its annual program.

    Things look unlikely to improve. UNHCR is losing the support of the United States, traditionally the organization’s most important government partner, whether under Republican or Democrat administrations. Since Donald Trump’s election, the country has slashed the number of refugees it admits through its resettlement program. In his final years in office, Barack Obama had raised the annual quota to 110,000 refugees. That is now down to 45,000 and may yet be reduced to 25,000.

    There is also the prospect that the Trump administration will demonstrate its disdain for the U.N. and limited interest in the refugee issue by reducing its funding to the agency, as it has already done with UNRWA, a separate agency that supports Palestinian refugees. Given that the U.S. currently contributes almost 40 percent of the UNHCR budget, even a modest reduction in its support will mean serious cuts in expenditure.

    The agency therefore has little choice but to look for alternative sources of funding and diplomatic support, especially from the European Union and its member states. But that may come at a price. One of the E.U.’s top priorities is to halt the arrival of refugees and asylum seekers who have transited through nearby countries such as Libya, Morocco and Turkey. Populist political parties throughout much of the E.U. are reaping the electoral benefits of taking a hard line on the issue of refugees and migration. Several European governments have shown little hesitation in violating the international refugee laws they have signed in their desperation to seal Europe’s borders.

    The E.U. thus looks to UNHCR for two things: first, the expertise and operational capacity of an organization that has years of experience in responding to mass movements of people; and second, the legitimacy that E.U. policies can acquire by means of close association with an agency deemed by its founding statute to be “entirely non-political and humanitarian.” In this context, it should come as no surprise that E.U. foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini has been at pains to point out that the E.U. and UNHCR “work together” and have a “close partnership” – and that the E.U. remains “the strongest supporter of UNHCR.”

    But this partnership (which involved $436 million in funding from Brussels alone in 2017) also involves an important element of compromise on the part of UNHCR. In the Mediterranean, for example, the E.U. is funding the Libyan coast guard to intercept and return any refugees who try to leave the country by boat. Those people are subsequently confined to detention centers where, according to Amnesty International, they are at risk of torture, forced labor, extortion and murder at the hand of smugglers, bandits or the Libyan authorities.

    The U.N. high commissioner for human rights has publicly chastised the E.U. for its failure to improve the situation of migrants in Libya. By contrast, UNHCR has kept very quiet about the E.U.’s role in the process of interception, return and detention, despite the fact that these actions violate a fundamental principle of refugee protection: that no one should be returned to a country where their life or freedom would be threatened.

    This reveals a fundamental tension in the organization’s character. Ostensibly, UNHCR enjoys a high degree of independence and moral authority. As part of the U.N. system, it is treated with more respect by states and other actors than NGOs doing similar work. It has regular access to heads of state, government leaders, regional organizations, the U.N. security council and the secretary-general himself (who was previously UNHCR chief).

    But in practice, the autonomy enjoyed by UNHCR is at best a relative one. Almost 90 percent of the agency’s funding is provided by states, much of it earmarked for specific programs, projects and countries. UNHCR’s governing board consists entirely of states.

    The organization can operate in a country only if it has the agreement of the government, which also has the ability to shape the scope of UNHCR’s operational activities, as well as the partners it works with. In countries such as Ethiopia, Pakistan, Sudan and Syria, for example, the organization is obliged to work with government departments whose priorities may well be different from those of UNHCR.

    Almost 90 percent of the agency’s funding is provided by states, much of it earmarked for specific programs, projects and countries. UNHCR’s governing board consists entirely of states.

    The tensions at the heart of UNHCR seem unlikely to diminish. Throughout the world, governments are closing their borders to refugees and depriving them of basic rights. Exiled populations are being induced to repatriate against their will and to countries that are not safe. As epitomized by the E.U.’s deal with Turkey, asylum seekers have become bargaining chips in interstate relations, used by political leaders to extract financial, political and even military concessions from each other.

    Given the constitutional constraints imposed on the organization, UNHCR’s options are now limited. It can try (as it has done for many years) to diversify its funding base. It could assume a more assertive stance with states that violate refugee protection principles – and in doing so risk the loss of its already diminished degree of diplomatic support. And it can hope that the recently completed Global Compact on Refugees, a nonbinding declaration of principles that most U.N. member states are expected to sign, will have some effect on the way that governments actually treat refugees.

    A final option available to UNHCR is to be more transparent about its limitations, to moderate the relentless self-promotion of its branding and marketing campaign and give greater recognition to the efforts that refugees are making to improve their own lives. In that respect, UNHCR’s favourite hashtag, “We Stand #WithRefugees,” could usefully be changed to “Refugees Are #StandingUpForThemselves.”

    #UN #ONU #HCR #UNHCR #crise #indépendance #fonds #financement #it_has_begun

  • Saudi-led coalition assault on Yemen port would be disaster - aid agencies | Agricultural Commodities | Reuters
    https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL5N1T31C3

    • Senior aid officials fear bloodbath that closes down lifeline
    • Coalition forces about 20 kms from main port city of Hodeidah
    • “We cannot have war in Hodeidah”, Jan Egeland says

    By Stephanie Nebehay
    GENEVA, June 1 (Reuters) - As forces of the Saudi-led military coalition close in on the main Yemeni port city of #Hodeidah, aid agencies fear a major battle that will also shut down a vital lifeline for millions of hungry civilians.

    Senior aid officials urged Western powers providing arms and intelligence to the coalition to push the mostly Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab allies to reconvene U.N. talks with the Iran-allied Houthi movement to avoid a bloodbath and end the three-year war.

    A coalition spokesman said on Tuesday that forces backed by the coalition were 20 kms (12 miles) from the Houthi-held city of Hodeidah, but did not specify whether there were plans for an assault to seize the Red Sea port, long a key target.

    The coalition ground forces are now at the doorstep of this heavily-fortified, heavily-mined port city,” Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, told Reuters. “Thousands of civilians are fleeing from the outskirts of Hodeidah which is now a battle zone.

    We cannot have war in Hodeidah, it would be like war in Rotterdam or Antwerp, these are comparable cities in Europe.

    Troops from the United Arab Emirates and Yemeni government are believed to lead coalition forces massing south of the city of 400,000, another aid official said, declining to be named.

    Last week U.N. aid chief Mark Lowcock urged the Saudi-led coalition that controls Yemen’s ports to expedite food and fuel imports. He warned that a further 10 million Yemenis could face starvation by year-end in addition to 8.4 million already severely short of food in the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

    • Suite logique (!) de

      Saudi-led coalition closes in on Yemen port city Hodeidah | Reuters
      https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security/saudi-led-coalition-closes-in-on-yemen-port-city-hodeidah-idUSKCN1IT21K

      Forces backed by a Saudi-led coalition are closing in on Yemen’s Houthi-held port city Hodeidah, a coalition spokesman said, but did not specify whether there were plans for an assault to seize the western port, long a key target in the war.

      Hodeidah is 20 km (12.43 miles) away and operations are continuing,” spokesman Colonel Turki al-Malki said at a press briefing in the Saudi capital Riyadh late on Monday, detailing gains made against the Iran-aligned Houthi movement.

      The Western-backed military alliance last year announced plans to move on Hodeidah, but backed off amid international pressure, with the United Nations warning that any attack on the country’s largest port would have a “catastrophic” impact.

      The renewed push towards Hodeidah comes amid increased tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which are locked in a three-year-old proxy war in Yemen that has killed more than 10,000 people, displaced three million and pushed the impoverished country to the verge of starvation.

      Yemeni officials told Reuters earlier this month that troops were advancing on Hodeidah province but did not plan to launch an assault on densely populated areas nearby.

      Coalition-backed troops have now reached al-Durayhmi, a rural area some 18 km from Hodeidah port, residents and the spokesperson for one military unit told Reuters on Monday.

    • Ça se rapproche encore, par le sud, cette fois-ci

      Fighting rages near Yemen’s Hodeidah airport
      http://www.arabnews.pk/node/1313041/middle-east

      As joint forces of the Arab coalition rapidly moved closer to Hodeidah, fighting in areas six kilometers away from the city’s airport intensified on Wednesday, military sources said.
      Yemen’s army said units from the “rapid intervention forces” were currently positioned in Al-Durayhmi and were ready to enter the strategic port city of Hodeidah from the south.

      Yemeni army spokesman Abdo Abdullah Majali told Asharq Al-Awsat on Wednesday that the rapid intervention forces are trained to fight inside small neighborhoods and hunt down Houthi militias hiding in fortified buildings. He added that they would work to clear these buildings in preparation for the army’s entry into Hodeidah and its liberation while ensuring that residents remained safe.

      Majali added that the liberation of Hodeidah would help the army to advance on several other Yemeni cities because of its strategic position as a port city and its proximity to Taiz, Ibb, Al-Mahwit, Dhamar, and Hajjah.

      At least 53 rebels died in fighting in Hodeidah on Wednesday while seven pro-government fighters were killed and 14 wounded, according to medical sources.

      A military source told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Houthi militias experienced heavy losses on fronts in the province of Saada as a result of confusion and panic.

  • The Latest: Palestinian journalist dies from gunshot wounds
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/the-latest-palestinian-journalist-dies-from-gunshot-wounds/2018/04/06/858450c8-3a13-11e8-af3c-2123715f78df_story.html

    The United States for a second week in a row has blocked a U.N. Security Council statement supporting the right of Palestinians to demonstrate peacefully and endorsing Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ call for an independent investigation into deadly protests in Gaza.

    Palestinian U.N. Ambassador Riyad Mansour told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York Friday evening that 14 of the 15 council nations agreed to the statement, but the United States, Israel’s closest ally, objected.

    Mansour called the U.S. rejection “very irresponsible,” saying it gives Israel “the green light to continue with their onslaught against the civilian population” in Gaza.

  • UN Releases Guidelines for Team Investigating ISIS Crimes in Iraq
    Death Penalty Debate Dodged
    https://www.justsecurity.org/52628/iraqi-investigative-team-terms-reference-released-death-penalty-debate


    https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/2018-02-09-TORs-UN-iraq-investigative-mechanism.pdf

    The Security Council complied on the basis of a resolution drafted by the United Kingdom and asked the Secretary-General to establish an Investigative Team, headed by a Special Adviser, to:

    support domestic efforts to hold ISIL (Da’esh) accountable by collecting, preserving, and storing evidence in Iraq of acts that may amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide committed by the terrorist group ISIL (Da’esh) in Iraq, to the highest possible standards … to ensure the broadest possible use before national courts, and complementing investigations being carried out by the Iraqi authorities, or investigations carried out by authorities in third countries at their request…

    In this regard, the resolution has a singular focus on crimes committed by ISIL, with no mandate to look into crimes attributable to governmental forces, at the federal or regional level (e.g., Kurdistan Regional forces); militia such as the Popular Mobilization Forces; or international forces for that matter. In fact, the resolution suggests that Iraq will be in a position to dictate “any other uses” of the evidence generated “on a case by case basis.” Although having Baghdad’s consent will be crucial to the Investigative Team’s ability to operate in the country, it comes at the expense of an impartial investigation that follows the evidence rather than focuses on a single armed group, no matter how heinous.

    The newly released ToR instruct the Investigative Team to:

    Collect evidence to the highest possible standards to ensure the broadest possible use before national courts in Iraq.
    Establish standard operating procedures for collection, analysis, and archiving of potential evidence.
    Organize, preserve, and catalogue all evidence in accordance with international criminal law standards and Iraqi domestic law and establish an uninterrupted chain of custody and a system of data protection.
    Adopt procedures to obtain the informed consent of, and for the protection of, victims and witnesses.
    Enter into agreements with member states and organizations to support its work.
    Provide capacity building and legal assistance to the Government of Iraq.
    Liaise with an Iraqi Steering Committee, which will provide the necessary assistance and security to fulfill the team’s mandate free of interference.

  • Afghanistan: 10,000 civilian casualties in 2017 - UN report suicide attacks and IEDS caused high number of deaths and injuries | UNAMA
    https://unama.unmissions.org/afghanistan-10000-civilian-casualties-2017-un-report-suicide-attac

    KABUL - More than 10,000 civilians lost their lives or suffered injuries during 2017, according to the latest annual UN report documenting the impact of the armed conflict on civilians in Afghanistan.

    A total of 10,453 civilian casualties - 3,438 people killed and 7,015 injured - were documented in the 2017 Annual Report released today by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the UN Human Rights Office. Although this figure represents a decrease of nine per cent compared with 2016, the report highlights the high number of casualties caused by suicide bombings and other attacks using improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

    “The chilling statistics in this report provide credible data about the war’s impact, but the figures alone cannot capture the appalling human suffering inflicted on ordinary people, especially women and children,” said Tadamichi Yamamoto, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan.

    Yamamoto, who also heads UNAMA, expressed deep concern at the increased harm to civilians caused by suicide attacks. “I am particularly appalled by the continued indiscriminate and unlawful use of IEDs such as suicide bombs and pressure-plate devices in civilian populated areas. This is shameful,” he said.

    The second leading cause of civilian casualties in 2017 was ground engagements between anti-government elements and pro-government forces, although there was a decrease of 19 per cent from the record levels seen in 2016.

    The report attributes close to two-thirds of all casualties (65 per cent) to anti-government elements: 42 per cent to the Taliban, 10 per cent to Daesh / Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISIL-KP), and 13 per cent to undetermined and other anti-government elements.

    Pro-Government Forces caused a fifth of civilian casualties: 16 per cent were attributed to the Afghan national security forces, two per cent to international military forces, one per cent each to pro-Government armed groups and undetermined pro-Government forces. Unattributed cross-fire during ground engagements between anti-government elements and pro-government forces caused 11 per cent of civilian casualties.

    Women and children remained heavily affected by conflict-related violence. UNAMA documented that, in 2017, 359 women were killed - a rise of five per cent - and 865 injured. Child casualties - 861 killed and 2,318 injured - decreased by 10 per cent compared with 2016.

  • The Song Sisters Facts
    http://biography.yourdictionary.com/the-song-sisters

    By marrying men of political distinction and adhering to their own political pursuits, the Song sisters— who included Ailing (1890-1973), Meiling (born 1897), and Qingling (1892?-1981) Song— participated in Chinese political activities and were destined to play key roles in Chinese modern history.

    Charlie Song and Guizhen Ni had three daughters and three sons, all of whom received American educations at their father’s encouragement. Though dissimilar political beliefs led the Song sisters down different paths, each exerted influence both on Chinese and international politics; indeed, Meiling’s influence in America was particularly great.

    In childhood, Ailing was known as a tomboy, smart and ebullient; Qingling was thought a pretty girl, quiet and pensive; and Meiling was considered a plump child, charming and headstrong. For their early education, they all went to McTyeire, the most important foreign-style school for Chinese girls in Shanghai. In 1904, Charlie Song asked his friend William Burke, an American Methodist missionary in China, to take 14-year-old Ailing to Wesleyan College, Georgia, for her college education. Thus, Ailing embarked on an American liner with the Burke family in Shanghai, but when they reached Japan, Mrs. Burke was so ill that the family was forced to remain in Japan. Alone, Ailing sailed on for America. She reached San Francisco, to find that Chinese were restricted from coming to America and was prevented from entering the United States despite a genuine Portuguese passport. She was transferred from ship to ship for three weeks until an American missionary helped solve the problem. Finally, Ailing arrived at Georgia’s Wesleyan College and was well treated. But she never forgot her experience in San Francisco. Later, in 1906, she visited the White House with her uncle, who was a Chinese imperial education commissioner, and complained to President Theodore Roosevelt of her bitter reception in San Francisco: “America is a beautiful country,” she said, “but why do you call it a free country?” Roosevelt was reportedly so surprised by her straightforwardness that he could do little more than mutter an apology and turn away.

    In 1907, Qingling and Meiling followed Ailing to America. Arriving with their commissioner uncle, they had no problem entering the United States. They first stayed at Miss Clara Potwin’s private school for language improvement and then joined Ailing at Wesleyan. Meiling was only ten years old and stayed as a special student.
    The First and Second Revolutiona

    Ailing received her degree in 1909 and returned to Shanghai, where she took part in charity activities with her mother. With her father’s influence, she soon became secretary to Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the Chinese revolutionary leader whose principles of nationalism, democracy and popular livelihood greatly appealed to many Chinese. In October of 1911, soldiers mutinied in Wuhan, setting off the Chinese Revolution. Puyi, the last emperor of China, was overthrown and the Republic of China was established with Sun Yat-sen as the provisional president. Charlie Soong informed his daughters in America of the great news and sent them a republican flag. As recalled by her roommates, Qingling climbed up on a chair, ripped down the old imperial dragon flag, and put up the five-colored republican flag, shouting “Down with the dragon! Up with the flag of the Republic!” She wrote in an article for the Wesleyan student magazine:

    One of the greatest events of the twentieth century, the greatest even since Waterloo, in the opinion of many well-known educators and politicians, is the Chinese Revolution. It is a most glorious achievement. It means the emancipation of four hundred million souls from the thralldom of an absolute monarchy, which has been in existence for over four thousand years, and under whose rule “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” have been denied.

    However, the “glorious achievement” was not easily won. When Qingling finished her education in America and went back in 1913, she found China in a “Second Revolution.” Yuan Shikai, who acted as president of the new Republic, proclaimed himself emperor and began slaughtering republicans. The whole Song family fled to Japan with Sun Yat-sen as political fugitives. During their sojourn in Japan, Ailing met a young man named Xiangxi Kong (H.H. Kung) from one of the richest families in China. Kong had just finished his education in America at Oberlin and Yale and was working with the Chinese YMCA in Tokyo. Ailing soon married Kong, leaving her job as secretary to Qingling, who firmly believed in Sun Yat-sen’s revolution. Qingling fell in love with Sun Yat-sen and informed her parents of her desire to marry him. Her parents, however, objected, for Sun Yat-sen was a married man and much older than Qingling. Charlie Soong took his family back to Shanghai and confined Qingling to her room upstairs. But Qingling escaped to Japan and married Sun Yat-sen after he divorced his first wife.

    Meanwhile, Meiling had transferred from Wesleyan to Massachusetts’s Wellesley College to be near her brother T.V. Song, who was studying at Harvard and could take care of her. When she heard of her parent’s reaction to Qingling’s choice of marriage, Meiling feared that she might have to accept an arranged marriage when she returned to China; thus, she hurriedly announced her engagement to a young Chinese student at Harvard. When her anxiety turned out to be unnecessary, she renounced the engagement. Meiling finished her education at Wellesley and returned to China in 1917 to become a Shanghai socialite and work for both the National Film Censorship Board and the YMCA in Shanghai.

    Ailing proved more interested in business than politics. She and her husband lived in Shanghai and rapidly expanded their business in various large Chinese cities including Hongkong. A shrewd businesswoman, who usually stayed away from publicity, Ailing was often said to be the mastermind of the Song family.

    Qingling continued working as Sun Yat-sen’s secretary and accompanied him on all public appearances. Though shy by nature, she was known for her strong character. After the death of Yuan Shikai, China was enveloped in the struggle of rival warlords. Qingling joined her husband in the campaigns against the warlords and encouraged women to participate in the Chinese revolution by organizing women’s training schools and associations. Unfortunately, Sun Yat-sen died in 1925 and his party, Guomindang (the Nationalist party), soon split. In the following years of struggles between different factions, Chiang Kai-shek, who attained the control of Guomindang with his military power, persecuted Guomindang leftists and Chinese Communists. Qingling was sympathetic with Guomindang leftists, whom she regarded as faithful to her husband’s principles and continued her revolutionary activities. In denouncing Chiang’s dictatorship and betrayal of Sun Yat-sen’s principles, Qingling went to Moscow in 1927, and then to Berlin, for a four year self-exile. Upon her return to China, she continued criticizing Chiang publicly.

    In 1927, Chiang Kai-shek married Meiling, thereby greatly enhancing his political life because of the Song family’s wealth and connections in China and America. Whereas Qingling never approved of the marriage (believing that Chiang had not married her little sister out of love), Ailing was supportive of Chiang’s marriage to Meiling. Seeing in Chiang the future strongman of China, Ailing saw in their marriage the mutual benefits both to the Song family and to Chiang. Meiling, an energetic and charming young lady, wanted to make a contribution to China. By marrying Chiang she became the powerful woman behind the country’s strongman. Just as Qingling followed Sun Yat-sen, Meiling followed Chiang Kai-shek by plunging herself into all her husband’s public activities, and working as his interpreter and public-relation officer at home and abroad. She helped Chiang launch the New Life Movement to improve the manners and ethics of the Chinese people, and she took up public positions as the general secretary of the Chinese Red Cross and the secretary-general of the commission of aeronautical affairs, which was in charge of the building of the Chinese air force. Under her influence, Chiang was even baptized.

    Meiling’s marriage to Chiang meant that the Song family was deeply involved in China’s business and financial affairs. Both Ailing’s husband Kong and her brother T.V. Song alternately served as Chiang’s finance minister and, at times, premier. In 1932, Meiling accompanied her husband on an official trip to America and Europe. When she arrived in Italy, she was given a royal reception even though she held no public titles.
    The Xi-an Incident

    In 1936, two Guomindang generals held Chiang Kaishek hostage in Xi-an (the Xi-an Incident) in an attempt to coerce him into fighting against the Japanese invaders, rather than continuing the civil war with Chinese Communists. When the pro-Japan clique in Chiang’s government planned to bomb Xi’an and kill Chiang in order to set up their own government, the incident immediately threw China into political crisis. In a demonstration of courage and political sophistication, Meiling persuaded the generals in Nanjing to delay their attack on Xi-an, to which she personally flew for peace negotiations. Her efforts not only helped gain the release of her husband Chiang, but also proved instrumental in a settlement involving the formation of a United Front of all Chinese factions to fight against the Japanese invaders. The peaceful solution of the Xi-an Incident was hailed as a great victory. Henry Luce, then the most powerful publisher in America and a friend to Meiling and Chiang, decided to put the couple on the cover of Time in 1938 as “Man and Wife of the Year.” In a confidential memo, Luce wrote "The most difficult problem in Sino-American publicity concerns the Soong family. They are … the head and front of a pro-American policy.

    "The United Front was thereafter formed and for a time it united the three Song sisters. Discarding their political differences, they worked together for Chinese liberation from Japan. The sisters made radio broadcasts to America to appeal for justice and support for China’s anti-Japanese War. Qingling also headed the China Defense League, which raised funds and solicited support all over the world. Ailing was nominated chairperson of the Association of Friends for Wounded Soldiers.
    Meiling’s Appeal to United States for Support

    The year 1942 saw Meiling’s return to America for medical treatment. During her stay, she was invited to the White House as a guest of President Franklin Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor. While there, she was asked by the President how she and her husband would deal with a wartime strike of coal miners, and she was said to have replied by drawing her hand silently across her throat. In February of 1943, she was invited to address the American Congress; she spoke of brave Chinese resistance against Japan and appealed to America for further support:

    When Japan thrust total war on China in 1937, military experts of every nation did not give China a ghost of a chance. But, when Japan failed to bring China cringing to her knees as she vaunted, the world took solace ….Letusnot forget that during the first four and a half years of total aggression China had borne Japan’s sadistic fury unaided and alone.

    Her speech was repeatedly interrupted by applause. In March, her picture again appeared on the cover of Timeas an international celebrity. She began a six-week itinerary from New York to Chicago and Los Angeles, giving speeches and attending banquets. The successful trip was arranged by Henry Luce as part of his fund-raising for United China Relief. Meiling’s charm extended past Washington to the American people, and the news media popularized her in the United States and made her known throughout the world. Indeed, her success in America had a far-reaching effect on American attitudes and policies toward China.

    Soon afterward, Meiling accompanied Chiang to Cairo and attended the Cairo Conference, where territorial issues in Asia after the defeat of Japan were discussed. The Cairo Summit marked both the apex of Meiling’s political career and the beginning of the fall of Chiang’s regime. Corruption in his government ran so rampant that—despite a total sum of $3.5 billion American Lend-Lease supplies—Chiang’s own soldiers starved to death on the streets of his wartime capital Chongqing (Chungking). While China languished in poverty, the Songs kept millions of dollars in their own American accounts. In addition to the corruption, Chiang’s government lost the trust and support of the people. After the victory over Japan, Chiang began a civil war with Chinese Communists, but was defeated in battle after battle. Meiling made a last attempt to save her husband’s regime by flying to Washington in 1948 for more material support for Chiang in the civil war. Truman’s polite indifference, however, deeply disappointed her. Following this rebuff, she stayed with Ailing in New York City until after Chiang retreated to Taiwan with his Nationalist armies.

    Ailing moved most of her wealth to America and left China with her husband in 1947. She stayed in New York and never returned to China. She and her family worked for Chiang’s regime by supporting the China Lobby and other public-relations activities in the United States. Whenever Meiling returned to America, she stayed with Ailing and her family. Ailing died in 1973 in New York City.
    Differing Beliefs and Efforts for a Better China

    Meanwhile, Qingling had remained in China, leading the China Welfare League to establish new hospitals and provide relief for wartime orphans and famine refugees. When Chinese Communists established a united government in Beijing (Peking) in 1949, Qingling was invited as a non-Communist to join the new government and was elected vice-chairperson of the People’s Republic of China. In 1951, she was awarded the Stalin International Peace Prize. While she was active in the international peace movement and Chinese state affairs in the 1950s, she never neglected her work with China Welfare and her lifelong devotion to assisting women and children. Qingling was one of the most respected women in China, who inspired many of her contemporaries as well as younger generations. She was made honorary president of the People’s Republic of China in 1981 before she died. According to her wishes, she was buried beside her parents in Shanghai.

    Because of their differing political beliefs, the three Song sisters took different roads in their efforts to work for China. Qingling joined the Communist government because she believed it worked for the well-being of the ordinary Chinese. Meiling believed in restoring her husband’s government in the mainland and used her personal connections in the United States to pressure the American government in favor of her husband’s regime in Taiwan. Typical of such penetration in American politics was the China Lobby, which had a powerful sway on American policies toward Chiang’s regime in Taiwan and the Chinese Communist government in Beijing. Members of the China Lobby included senators, generals, business tycoons, and former missionaries. In 1954, Meiling traveled again to Washington in an attempt to prevent the United Nations from accepting the People’s Republic of China. After Chiang’s death and his son’s succession, Meiling lived in America for over ten years. The last remaining of three powerfully influential sisters, she now resides in Long Island, New York.
    Further Reading on The Song Sisters

    Eunson, Roby. The Soong Sisters. Franklin Watts, 1975.

    Fairbank, John. China: A New History. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992.

    Hahn, Emily. The Soong Sisters. Greenwood Press, 1970.

    Li Da. Song Meiling and Taiwan. Hongkong: Wide Angle Press, 1988.

    Liu Jia-quan. Biography of Song Meiling. China Cultural Association Press, 1988.

    Seagrave, Sterling. The Soong Dynasty. Harper and Row, 1985.

    Sheridan, James E. China in Disintegration. The Free Press, 1975.

    #Chine #USA #histoire

  • Israel sets up secret firm with top ex-generals, envoys for online ’mass awareness’ campaign ’to fight delegitimization’

    Among the shareholders are former UN ambassador Dore Gold and ex-generals Amos Yadlin and Yaakov Amidror. The new initiative will not be subject to the Freedom of Information Law

    Noa Landau Jan 09, 2018 3:26 PM
    read more: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.833817

    The Strategic Affairs Ministry has set up a public-benefit corporation to engage in what it calls “mass awareness activities” as part of “the struggle against the delegitimization campaign” against Israel internationally.
    Haaretz has obtained a list of the shareholders and directors of the company, Kella Shlomo, who include former Israeli ambassadors to the United Nations.
    The government recently allocated 128 million shekels ($37 million) to the initiative, in addition to the 128 million shekels it will raise from private donors around the world.
    The new initiative will not be subject to the Freedom of Information Law, in accordance with the secrecy policy of the ministry, which refuses to release detailed information about its activities.
    The shareholders and directors include former ministry director general Yossi Kuperwasser; former UN ambassador Dore Gold, who is also a former adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; and former UN ambassador Ron Prosor.

    Reuven Rivlin with Amos Yadlin. Mark Neiman

    FILE PHOTO: Protestors march behind a banner of the BDS organization in Marseille, southern France, on June 13, 2015George Robert / AP
    They also include businessman Micah Avni, whose father, Richard Lakin, was killed in a 2015 terror attack in Jerusalem; Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin, who heads the Institute for National Security Studies; and Col. (res.) Miri Eisin, who served as the prime minister’s adviser on the foreign press during the Second Lebanon War.
    skip - Israel Publishes BDS Blacklist

    Also on the list are a former National Security Council chief, Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror, and Sagi Balasha, a former CEO of the Israeli-American Council, which has casino magnate Sheldon Adelson as a major supporter.

    Most refused to discuss the initiative and referred questions to the office of Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan.
    The most recent data from the Companies Authority shows that the last report the company submitted to the authority came this past October. On December 28, the cabinet approved an allocation of 128 million shekels to the company over three years. The decision to provide the funding was made by the special procedure under which a government resolution is distributed to the ministers and goes into effect automatically if no one objects or demands a discussion.
    According to the government resolution, the funding was granted “to implement part of the ministry’s activities related to the struggle against the phenomena of delegitimization and boycotts against the State of Israel.” It says the agency will work to raise its portion of the financing for the initiative (around half) from “philanthropic sources” or “pro-Israel organizations.” A steering committee will be appointed for the initiative to comprise government representatives and representatives of the other funding partners.

    Ron Prosor at the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon oath ceremony forr his appointment as the Secretary-General of the United Nations for second termShachar Ezran
    Itamar Baz of the media watchdog website The Seventh Eye has been covering the Strategic Affairs Ministry, most of whose activities are concealed from the public. He reported Monday that while ministry officials have for months been advancing legislation that would exclude the company from being subject to the Freedom of Information Law, the law in any case does not apply to this new agency so its activities will be easy to hide.
    He also revealed that Liat Glazer, the ministry’s legal adviser, wrote in a legal opinion that the activities conducted through the company would be “those that require ‘non-governmental’ discussions with various target audiences.”
    According to a ministry document, Kella Shlomo people would work via social networks because “the enemy directs most of its awareness and motivating efforts to this area.” Similarly, the document, published by The Seventh Eye, says the organization was expected to carry out “mass awareness activities” and work to “exploit the wisdom of crowds,” an activity defined as “making new ideas accessible to decision-makers and donors in the Jewish world, and developing new tools to combat the delegitimization of Israel.”
    A report in the daily Yedioth Ahronoth the day after the cabinet approved the funding described the initiative positively, saying it would “raise the level of efforts in the struggle against BDS” — the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. Yedioth said the new company would “provide a speedy and coordinated response to efforts to stain Israel’s image around the world,” for example, in the event of a military operation, terror attacks or UN votes against government policies.
    This would be done by launching online campaigns, lobbying, engaging organizations abroad and bringing delegations to Israel.
    The Strategic Affairs Ministry declined to clarify whether the company would act in accordance with the principles of the Freedom of Information Law.
    “This is a joint initiative that meets all the requirements of the law for this type of engagement and is similar to other government initiatives like Taglit [Birthright] and Masa,” the ministry said.
    “In the agreement with [the company] there are distinct control procedures, as defined by the Finance Ministry and the Justice Ministry during the joint work with them on setting up the project. It will be subject to auditing by the state comptroller,” it added.
    “In addition, as the ministry leading the initiative, one that attributes great importance to it as part of the campaign against the delegitimization of Israel, the ministry has allocated additional control tools and functions to what is required. Both the ministry’s legal adviser and its controller will sit on the steering committee managing the project.”
    skip - WTF is BDS?

  • Why is the West praising Malala, but ignoring Ahed?

    When 15-year-old Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by a member of Tehrik-e-Taliban, the reaction was starkly different. Gordon Brown, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, issued a petition entitled “I am Malala.” The UNESCO launched “Stand Up For Malala.”

    Malala was invited to meet then President Barack Obama, as well as the then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and addressed the UN General Assembly. She received numerous accolades from being named one of the 100 Most Influential People by Time magazine and Woman of the Year by Glamour magazine to being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013, and again in 2014 when she won.

    State representatives such as Hillary Clinton and Julia Gillard as well as prominent journalists such as Nicholas Kristof spoke up in support of her. There is even a Malala Day!

    But we see no #IamAhed or #StandUpForAhed campaigns making headlines. None of the usual feminist and rights groups or political figures has issued statements supporting her or reprimanding the Israeli state. No one has declared an Ahed Day. In fact, the US in the past has even denied her a visa for a speaking tour.

    http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/west-praising-malala-ignoring-ahed-171227194606359.html

  • Iran’s Soleimani sends message of defiance in calls to Hamas
    https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/12/palestine-factions-iran-soleimani-hamas-islamic-jihad-call.html

    Also on Dec. 11, the Beirut-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen News reported that in the telephone call, Soleimani stated that all the Arab resistance movements, such as Hezbollah and other groups that emerged during the Syrian war, are prepared to defend Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque. He expressed Iran’s full support for the Palestinian resistance forces.

    The call came a few hours before a speech by Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah urging the axis of resistance to develop a unified strategy to confront Israel. Meanwhile, Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh also called Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to discuss Trump’s decision. In a statement by Hamas, Haniyeh described the US decision as an act of aggression against the Palestinian people and the Islamic world.

    Commenting on these phone conversations to Al-Monitor, Hamas’ representative in Iran, Khaled al-Qaddumi, emphasized the ties between the resistance factions and the Iranian Republic. He explained that Soleimani’s phone call to military leaders in Gaza comes in the context of an ongoing partnership against the common enemy, Israel.

    Qaddumi further asserted that the Iranian people, represented by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Rouhani, reject Trump’s decision. Emphasizing Jerusalem’s Arab and Muslim identity, he said Iran fears the move will further inflame the Middle East region.

    In turn, Islamic Jihad leader in Gaza Khader Habib denied news reported by some Israeli media outlets that Soleimani ordered the Palestinian factions to escalate militarily against Israel. “Iran never ordered resistance activities or interfered in the resistance’s field activities,” he told Al-Monitor. Notably, the rocket fire from the Gaza Strip targeting the Gaza envelope settlements increased in the wake of the decision.

    Habib noted that t

    Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/12/palestine-factions-iran-soleimani-hamas-islamic-jihad-call.html#ixzz51sh

  • The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب: The UN Secretary-general: who does he work for?
    http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-un-secretary-general-who-does-he.html

    #Guterres said in the report to the U.N. Security Council circulated Friday that allegations of arms transfers to Hezbollah continue “on a regular basis,” which the U.N. takes seriously. But it “is not in a position to substantiate them independently , he said. Guterres said #Israel informed UNIFIL of the alleged presence of Hezbollah weapons and infrastructure in three specific locations in that zone, which the U.N. force closely monitored, including by aerial reconnaissance, satellite imagery and patrols. But he said” no evidence to confirm the allegations was established .” (thanks Basim)

    http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/chief-warns-risk-israeli-hezbollah-conflict-51369567

    #ONU

  • Saudi Arabia’s Footprints in Southeast Asia | The Diplomat
    https://thediplomat.com/2017/10/saudi-arabias-footprints-in-southeast-asia

    A 2016 New York Times report noted that Saudi teachings have “shifted the religious culture in a markedly conservative direction” in Southeast Asia. One has to look no further than the recent case of a launderette in Johor, Malaysia declaring that it would only serve Muslim customers for proof of increasing Islamization. Only at the behest of the Sultan of Johor did the launderette owner apologize and reverse the exclusive policy. The incident so concerned Malaysia’s nine sultans that they issued a rare statement a few days later, saying that such actions “can undermine the harmonious relations among the people of various races and religions” and that “[u]nity among Malaysia’s multi-ethnic and multi-religious people is key to ensuring the country’s ongoing stability.”

    Similarly, in Indonesia, the contentious election of Anies Baswedan as Jakarta governor in April 2017, in part due to the support of hardline Muslim groups, demonstrates their growing significance in the world’s largest Muslim country. Douglas Ramage of the public policy consultancy BowerGroupAsia told The Diplomat that the influence of more moderate Islamic institutions in Indonesia like Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama “has waned a bit.” Even Jokowi himself was criticized by the Ulema Council’s deputy secretary-general for saying that “politics and religion should be well separated so that people could differentiate between political and religious matters.” With the fresh injection of Saudi funds, the growing conservatism in the region looks likely to continue.

    Najib’s diatribe against Myanamr’s Aung San Suu Kyi was one window into how ASEAN leaders have had to respond to this cultural development. If religiously-driven voters are to serve as a key part of Najib’s base, he will likely continue to position himself as a defender of Muslims across the region, awakening a heretofore dormant force in Southeast Asian relations that will outlive his tenure. This will probably cause significant tensions with countries where sizable Muslim minorities are present, including Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. These countries are already on edge after a spate of recent attacks and foiled terrorist plans, and they will certainly advocate for the Muslim-majority countries to embrace a more moderate brand of Islam.

    Finally, Najib’s diatribe was bizarre given ASEAN’s steadfast adherence to the principle of non-interference in other member states’ affairs. ASEAN’s founders were explicit in their insistence that each state should be given the latitude to govern as they saw fit, stemming from a desire to send a message to the then-superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States, that sovereignty was sacrosanct. In this instance, Najib was able to evoke a response from Myanmar and ASEAN but it sets a dangerous precedent.

    Saudi Arabia’s engagement with Southeast Asia signals the uncertainty and instability characteristic of today’s global order. With the United States absolving itself of international leadership and calling into question the very tenets of the postwar world, a host of state actors have devised various means to protect their nations’ interests, including other Middle Eastern states. Saudi Arabia is no different in that respect but its renewed engagement – and the increasing religious influence it wields as a result – poses difficult questions for an already-weakened ASEAN.

    #Asie_du_sud-est #Arabie_saoudite #wahabbisme

  • OPEC Chief Says Floating Storage Is Shrinking - Bloomberg
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-09/opec-chief-says-floating-storage-shrinking-as-market-rebalances

    Crude oil in floating storage is declining, showing that the market is rebalancing, OPEC Secretary-General Mohammad Barkindo said.

    Crude in tankers has fallen by an estimated 40 million barrels this year, according to a transcript of a speech delivered by Barkindo on Monday. The drop has been helped by the return of backwardation — when near-term prices are higher than those in later months, indicating tighter supply.

    This trend will obviously make it unprofitable to continue to store crude,” Barkindo said.

  • The unfolding humanitarian crisis around Lake Chad: UN report falls short of naming environmental dimensions | SIPRI
    https://www.sipri.org/commentary/expert-comment/2017/unfolding-humanitarian-crisis-around-lake-chad-un-report-falls-short-naming-e

    It is encouraging to see that the United Nations Security Council is beginning to acknowledge the transboundary dimensions of fragility and conflict, as demonstrated by its newly launched Report of the Secretary-General on the situation in the Lake Chad Basin region. The report, which was presented in the Security Council on 13 September 2017, emphasizes the need for regional responses and the enhanced cooperation of different UN and humanitarian agencies as important steps to addressing the unfolding humanitarian crisis. However, while regional responses to address the regional security challenge are desirable, the report would have been stronger if it had highlighted the underlying environmental contributions of the region’s fragility.

    #lac_tchad #afrique #environnement #eau #tchad

  • #Cambodia: Appeal Court should overturn unfair conviction of land rights defender #TepVanny, say international CSOs

    We, the undersigned, call on the Court of Appeal to overturn the unjust conviction of Ms. #Tep_Vanny on charges of intentional violence with aggravating circumstances based on her peaceful activism at a 2013 protest, for which she received a draconian sentence of two years and six months’ imprisonment on 23 February 2017. The Court of Appeal will hear Ms. Tep Vanny’s appeal against conviction tomorrow, 27 July 2017. On 15 August 2017, Ms. Tep Vanny will have spent one year in detention; her imprisonment is a clear attempt to silence one of Cambodia’s most fearless and outspoken defenders of human rights ahead of the national elections in July 2018.
    Tomorrow’s appeal is one of three previously dormant years-old cases punitively reactivated against Ms. Tep Vanny. In August 2016 the prosecutor of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court reactivated the long-
    dormant charges of intentional violence with aggravating circumstances against Ms. Tep Vanny while she was in pre-trial detention prior to her spurious conviction on other charges for taking part in a “#Black_Monday” protest to call for the release of the “#Freethe5KH” detainees,1 who were being held in arbitrary
    pre-trial detention at the time.2 The case under appeal dates back to Ms. Tep Vanny’s participation in a 2013 peaceful protest in front of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s house, during which a group of #Boeung_Kak_Lake activists called for the release of a detained fellow community member. This protest had ended in violence against protesters at the hands of Daun Penh security guards, in which Ms. Tep Vanny herself was injured.
    On 23 February 2017, Ms. Tep Vanny was convicted on these charges and sentenced to 30 months in prison and a fine of five million riel (about US$1,250), as well as being ordered to pay compensation totaling nine million riel (about US$2,250) to the plaintiffs, two Daun Penh security guards.
    Ms. Tep Vanny’s trial did not comply with international standards for fair trial rights: no credible evidence was presented to justify the charges against her and neither the plaintiffs nor any prosecution witnesses gave live testimony at either of the two hearings; instead only written statements were provided, preventing cross-examination. Community members outside the court faced unprovoked violence from para-police and, following delivery of the verdict, riot police entered the court room and physically restrained a number of defense witnesses.3
    The re-opening of these charges appears to be a politically motivated attempt to restrict and punish Ms. Tep Vanny’s work as a land activist and human rights defender, as part of the Cambodian authorities’
    ongoing crackdown on dissenting voices. Peaceful assembly and free expression are not crimes, and human rights defenders should not be penalized for peacefully exercising their fundamental freedoms. We call on the Court of Appeal to exercise its independence and rectify the injustice of Ms. Tep Vanny’s flawed trial by overturning her conviction and sentence. We call on the Cambodian authorities to cease their judicial harassment of Ms. Tep Vanny, as well as other Boeung Kak Lake activists, and to release her from prison.


    http://cchrcambodia.org/index_old.php?title=-CSOs-call-on-Appeal-Court-to-overturn-the-unjust-conviction-of-land-activist-and-human-rights-defender-Tep-Vanny&url=media/media.php&p=press_detail.php&prid=668&id=5&lang=eng
    #Cambodge #droits_humains #détention #détention_arbitraire #répression #résistance

  • Hamas hedging its bets in region
    http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/06/hamas-israel-egypt-iran-hezbollah-hassan-nassrallah.html

    Senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk met in mid-June in Beirut with Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. Abu Marzouk arrived in Beirut following the expulsion from Qatar of several other top Hamas officials, most of whom had settled in the Gulf state after being freed from Israeli jails in the 2011 prisoner exchange for the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Qatar had recently ordered them to leave, under pressure from Sunni Muslim states that regard the emirate as supporting terror.

    Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/06/hamas-israel-egypt-iran-hezbollah-hassan-nassrallah.html#ixzz4kjIYecFL

  • UN sees spike in meetings between Israeli army, Syrian rebels, warns of escalation -

    Israel says the meetings are held for humanitarian purposes, but the UN warns they could trigger clashes between rebels and the Syrian army

    Barak Ravid Jun 19, 2017
    read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.796536

    During the last seven months, the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force has noted a significant escalation in contact and interactions between Israeli armed forces and rebel organizations along Israel’s border with Syria, chiefly in the area of Mt. Hermon, says a report released in recent days by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to the members of the UN Security Council.
    The report expressed Guterres’ concern, for the first time, that the interactions between the Israelis and the rebel organizations could lead to escalation, causing harm to UN observers.
    Published on June 8, the United Nations report describes the activity of the UN observers from March 2 to May 16. Every few days during that time, they observed meetings and contacts between the Israel Defense Forces and the rebels in the area of the border, including by the Hermon. Altogether they listed at least 16 such meetings in that time.
    The meetings took place in proximity to UN outposts in the Mt. Hermon area, in the area of Quneitra and in the central Golan Heights, near moshav Yonatan.
    “Relative to the previous reporting period, there has been a significant increase in interaction between Israel Defense Forces soldiers and individuals from the Bravo side, occurring on four occasions in February, three in March, eight in April and on one occasion in May,” the report stated, referring to the Syrian side of the border.

    Members of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) ride armored personnel carriers (APCs) in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights before crossing into Syria, August 31, 2014.Reuters
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    That increase in the number of interactions between Israeli soldiers and representatives of the rebels continues a trend evident in the previous report, which had been published on March 17. That report covered the period between November 18, 2016, and March 1, 2017, and listed at least 17 interactions along the Golan border, including in the vicinity of the Hermon.

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    According to both reports, UN observers saw 33 interactions between Israeli and rebel representatives over the last seven months.
    In comparison, only two such meetings took place from August 30 to November 16 of last year according to UN reports, and they were only by the border, not by the Hermon.
    One topic addressed in the latest report was meetings that took place in the area of the Hermon in the last three months. It stated that all such meetings happened in the vicinity of one of the IDF outposts there and all followed the same pattern: Unidentified people apparently affiliated with the rebel organizations, some of them armed, arrived at the IDF outpost accompanied by mules, and were greeted by the soldiers.
    “In some instances, personnel and supplies were observed to have been transferred in both directions. On all occasions, the unknown individuals and mules returned to the Bravo side,” the report stated.
    The UN secretary general clarified in the report that the nature of the interactions could not be observed.
    “The Israel Defense Forces have stated that the interactions were of a humanitarian and medical nature,” the report said.
    Israel contends that all the interactions with rebel representatives on the Syrian side were for humanitarian reasons, but in recent months the UN has started to view these interactions askance and began to warn they could lead to escalation. The report especially noted concern about the meetings around the Hermon, which the UN secretary-general defined as an area of strategic importance.
    “Interaction between the Israel Defense Forces and unidentified individuals from the Bravo side, including in the area of Mount Hermon, has the potential to lead to clashes between armed elements and the Syrian Arab Armed Forces. I reiterate my call to both parties to the Disengagement of Forces Agreement regarding the requirement to maintain stability in the area. All military activities in the area of separation conducted by any actor pose a risk to the ceasefire and to the local civilian population, in addition to the United Nations personnel on the ground,” the secretary-general wrote in the report.
    The UN secretary-general’s latest report on the activities of the UN observers on the Golan Heights, as well as the three preceding reports, criticized the Syrian army for bringing heavy weapons to the area of the border, violating the disengagement agreement. The UN also criticized Israel for the same thing.
    According to the last four reports, in the last year the IDF has kept one or two batteries of the Iron Dome system in the Golan, and also holds heavy 155mm cannons and rocket launchers in the area, in violation of the disengagement agreement with Syria. UNDOF has protested the violations to both sides.
    On Sunday, The Wall Street Journal reported Israel has been secretly providing aid to Syrian rebels in the Golan Heights for years, with the goal of maintaining a buffer zone of friendly forces to keep ISIS and forces aligned with Iran at bay.

  • Israel averts one crisis with end of Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike. Now Gaza looms large

    Strike leader Marwan Barghouti can chalk up achievement of putting prisoners’ plight back in Palestinian public consciousness

    Amos Harel May 28, 2017
    read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.792263

    The announcement heralding the end of the Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike on Friday night was met with a sigh of relief by Israel’s defense establishment.
    >> Get all updates on Israel and the Palestinians: Download our free App, and Subscribe >>
    The strike’s end, on the eve of Ramadan, removed a huge risk that had been lingering for the past six weeks: the potential for deterioration following the death of one of the prisoners, or an Israeli attempt to force-feed the strikers, both of which would have agitated Palestinians across the territories.
    The gap in the conflicting commentaries from both sides regarding the details of the agreement and the question of who won are inevitable, given the circumstances. Israel doesn’t want to admit it negotiated with the strike leaders – and certainly not that it made any concessions while members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet were competing with each other in their forceful declarations against the prisoners.
    The Palestinians, meanwhile, have to present any Israeli concessions, no matter how trivial, as an achievement – otherwise questions will be raised about why the lives of prisoners were put at risk and whether the demands met actually justified everything the prisoners sacrificed.

    Despite Israel’s denials, it’s clear that talks were held with the strike leaders, at least indirectly. Two weeks ago, Palestinian sources reported meetings between senior officials in the Palestinian Authority’s security apparatus and Israel’s Shin Bet security service, with the aim of ending the strike.

    The details of any arrangement that would induce the prisoners to call off their strike were crystal clear: The key issue for them was the restoration of family visits to the previous number – twice a month. The Red Cross had halved this a year ago. An agreement on this matter was reached on Friday.
    The other demands were extras. The strike leaders knew that given the current public mood in Israel, the cabinet or prison authorities would not allow the resumption of academic studies – certainly not as long as the bodies of two Israeli soldiers are being held in Gaza and two Israeli citizens are missing there.
    An improvement in specific prison conditions – an issue that isn’t a focus of media attention – can be agreed upon later. Israel ensured this would happen at a later date and wouldn’t be seen as a direct achievement of the hunger strike.
    The strike’s leaders were already handicapped by the limited response of Fatah members to join the strike. Jailed Hamas leaders didn’t take a stand, either, failing to instruct most Hamas members to join in. Outside the prison walls, senior PA officials tried to undermine the strike, fearing it would strengthen the status of senior Fatah prisoner (and strike leader) Marwan Barghouti.
    The latter can chalk up an achievement from the strike, though: it brought the prisoners’ plight to the forefront of the Palestinian agenda, and he is once more being seriously mentioned as a possible successor to President Mahmoud Abbas.
    In Israel, the sting operation in which the Israel Prison Service planted snacks in Barghouti’s cell, and recorded him eating them, served as a rich source of satire. On the Palestinian side, though, it only strengthened his image as a leader who is feared by Israel – which resorts to ugly tricks in order to trip him up. However, Barghouti still faces an internal challenge from fellow Fatah leaders, who were likely unimpressed by the fact he fell into this trap twice.
    The strike’s end resolves one Israeli headache, but two others remain in the Palestinian arena: that the religious fervor associated with Ramadan will find an outlet in the form of “lone-wolf” stabbing or car-ramming attacks, as it did last year; and the deteriorating conditions in the Gaza Strip.
    In the monthly report submitted to the UN Security Council on Friday by Nickolay Mladenov, the UN secretary-general’s special envoy to the Middle East wrote: “In Gaza we are walking into another crisis with our eyes wide open.”
    Mladenov warned the Security Council that if urgent steps are not taken to de-escalate matters, “the crisis risks spiraling out of control with devastating consequences for Palestinians and Israelis alike.”
    Mladenov reminded the Security Council that the source of the deterioration, with a reduced power supply and cuts to PA employees’ salaries in the Strip, is the political conflict between the Fatah-run PA and Hamas. Most residents in Gaza now receive electricity for only four hours a day, and this might be reduced to two hours, with the humanitarian crisis worsening. No one is interested in a military confrontation, Mladenov told Security Council members, adding that the PA, Hamas and Israel all share responsibility to prevent one.

    #Gaza #Palestine #Israël

  • Are Hezbollah, Israel heading for a third war?
    http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/05/lebanon-hezbollah-israel-war-iran-us.html

    Yet the most important development in Hezbollah’s military capability is the unprecedented opportunity that came with its participation in the Syrian war. It now has the ability to train thousands of its fighters, who are rubbing shoulders with Syrian, Iranian and Russian elite special forces, while also developing its telecommunications, logistics, and command and control capabilities to handle a situation where hundreds of its fighters can fight nonstop for weeks and months in a vast, hostile environment. This is a huge leap from 2006, when Hezbollah only deployed independent small fire teams and squads in defensive fortified positions, in a friendly environment, while awaiting the advance of Israeli infantry and armor units.

    Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah’s threat in 2011 to invade northern Israel is no longer so far-fetched, neither are his threats to hit the nuclear facility in Dimona. Israel takes these threats very seriously, hence the fortification works along the Blue Line. Hezbollah’s plan is simple and bold: Saturate Israel’s multi-layered air defense with hundreds of rockets and missiles while its fighters go on the offensive across the Blue Line — and perhaps even the Golan Heights.

    According to sources familiar with Hezbollah, “A wider front will force Israel to spread out thinner, so now having the front expanded from Naqoura on the sea all the way to the end of the Golan Heights will prove to be more difficult for Israel in the event of a war.”

    Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/05/lebanon-hezbollah-israel-war-iran-us.html#ixzz4gwyhSx85

  • Palestinian NGOs denounce UN chief for removing report on Israeli apartheid
    March 21, 2017 4:39 P.M. (Updated: March 21, 2017 5:37 P.M.)
    http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?ID=776043

    GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Palestinians demonstrated outside the United Nations Special Coordinator Office (UNSCO) in Gaza City on Tuesday, in protest of the UN’s decision to withdraw a report prepared by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), which accused Israel of apartheid policies.

    Protesters expressed support for ESCWA chief Rima Khalaf, who resigned from her post on Friday, after she said she was pressured by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to remove the report.

    A joint statement issued Tuesday by Palestinian Human Rights Organizations (PHROC) addressed to Guterres said the groups were “dismayed” by his decision to withdraw the report, and vowed to “adopt the analysis and conclusions contained therein in an effort to achieve justice for the Palestinian people.”

    “It is our belief that the withdrawal of this report will contribute to the commission of further violations by Israel, the occupying power, especially in light of a continued politicization of the application of international law.”

    PHROC said the report “professionally” addressed the reality that Palestinians have been subjected to “under the Israeli occupation and its colonial policies that have been based on racial discrimination” since the state of Israel was established in 1948.

    “““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““
    Subject: PHROC Letter for Mr António Guterres, Regarding the withdrawal of the UN-ESCWA Report
    Date: 21 March 2017
    http://www.badil.org/en/publication/press-releases/86-2017/4745-pr-en-210317-21.html

    #ONU #António_Guterres

  • UN official resigns after pressure to withdraw Israel apartheid report | The Electronic Intifada
    https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/un-official-resigns-after-pressure-withdraw-israel-apartheid-rep

    A senior United Nations official has resigned, following pressure from Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to withdraw the landmark report published earlier this week finding Israel guilty of apartheid.

    Rima Khalaf, the head of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) which published the report, announced her resignation at a press conference in Beirut on Friday.