Month: December 2018

In China, 2018 has been a year that rights defenders worldwide say was extremely repressive, particularly when it comes to religious persecution.

China’s communist party leadership has strongly defended its actions amid growing calls that its actions may constitute crimes against humanity.

Those actions include the internment of hundreds of thousands – perhaps more than a million – Muslims in Xinjiang, the demolition and shuttering of Christian churches nationwide and the systemic crackdown on dissidents.

“2018 has been a year of human rights disasters in China, where all walks of people have paid a dear price over rights abuses. In the past year, China has systemically enforced the most audacious ever persecution policies,” said Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the exile Germany-headquartered World Uighur Congress.

After months of denying their existence, China admitted that the camps do exist and launched a global propaganda campaign defending its interment of ethnic Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in the western region of Xinjiang.

Beijing has yet to confirm how many have been detained and calls the “vocational centers” a necessary part of their fight against terrorism and religious extremism. The reality, rights advocates argue, is that Muslim minorities are being detained and made to work overtime and without pay in factories for so-called job training.

China is also reportedly planning Xinjiang-style “re-education” camps in Ningxia  home to the Hui minority Muslims. Such moves highlight the communist party’s drastic efforts to wipe out ethnic Muslims and extend control over religious groups, Raxit said.

Bob Fu, the founder of China Aid, agrees. His group, based in the U.S. state of Texas, is committed to promoting religious freedom in China.

“This is a 21st century concentration camp, like Nazi Germany in 1930s and 1940s, so, the international community should unequivocally condemn and urge the Chinese regime to immediately stop this crime,” he said.

Call for sanctions

Rights advocates have called on governments worldwide to impose sanctions on Chinese officials involved in human rights abuses.

U.S. senators including Marco Rubio have denounced Xinjiang’s internment camps and other alleged abuses as possible crimes against humanity.  In November, Rubio and a group of bipartisan lawmakers introduced legislation to address the situation and urged American policymakers to be clear-eyed about the global implications of China’s domestic repression.

The bipartisan bills urge President Donald Trump’s administration to use measures including economic sanctions to defend Uighurs and other Muslim minorities. If that happens, China has said it will retaliate in proportion.

Intensified persecution

It is not just Muslims who have found themselves caught in the communist party’s crosshairs. China Aid’s Fu said China has also escalated its crackdown on Christian communities.

Authorities have torn down houses of worship and in some places, there is a push to ensure that anyone under the age of 18 cannot attend church or be under the influence of religion. China is officially atheist, but says it allows religious freedom.

In early December, Chinese police arrested Pastor Wang Yi, along with more than 100 members of his Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, Sichuan.

The arrests may have been triggered by his manifesto, titled “Meditation on the Religious War,” in which he condemns the communist party and urges Christians to perform acts of civil disobedience.

“It’s just really the tip of the iceberg of overall religious persecution in China since the president, Xi Jinping, took power,” Fu told CNN recently about the case.

Political dissidents

If convicted, Wang could face a jail term of up to 15 years and he has vowed not to plead guilty or confess unless physically tortured, said Jonathan Liu, a priest with the San Francisco-based Chinese Christian Fellowship of Righteousness.

Liu said the pastor’s detention serves the dual purpose of suppressing Christians and silencing political dissidents in China as Wang is a follower of Calvinism  a branch of Protestantism that emphasizes social justice.

“Deeply affected by Calvinism, he cares for those who are socially disadvantaged or rights defenders. So, his church has formed many fellowships to provide care for those people,” Liu said, “In the eyes of the Chinese government, his church has become a hub for [political] dissidents.”

No prospects for improvement

During the United Nations’ periodic review of its rights record, China defended itself, arguing that criticism was “politically motivated” with UN members deliberately disregarding China’s “remarkable achievements.”

For critics, the outlook for 2019 isn’t promising.

“I can see no prospect that there would be any improvement in the coming year. And in fact, the last year, the most horrible thing is to see that the government is openly and fragrantly acting against the law, in total contempt of the [judicial] system they’ve set up,” Albert Ho, chairman of China Human Rights Concern Group in Hong Kong.

The fact that rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang is still being held incommunicado proves that China has little respect for its own laws, Ho said.

Among more than 300 rights lawyers and activists ensnared in China’s 2015 crackdown, lawyer Wang is the last awaiting trial.

After almost three and a half years of arbitrary detention, Wang was finally put on trial in a closed-door hearing in Tianjin on December 26. He reportedly fired his state-appointed lawyer “in the first minute” of his trial,signs of his refusal to cooperate with the authorities.

His wife, Li Wenze, and supporters, as well as western diplomats and journalists, were all barred from attending the hearing, which the court said involved “state secrets,” but rights activists denounced as a blatant violation of China’s own judicial principles.

The court said on its website that a verdict will be announced on a later date. Rights activists argued that Wang would be a blatant case of political persecution shall he be convicted with a maximum 15-year sentence.

Li and three other wives of lawyer victims who have been carrying out a long and loud campaign to secure Wang’s release as well as others, recently shaved their hair to protest his detention for more than three years.

“They (the authorities) keep on shamelessly breaking the law. So today we are using this act of shaving our heads in protest, to show they are persistently and shamelessly breaking the law,” Li said.
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The German government says it is in talks with various countries to improve the transparency of foreign financing of mosques and prevent the funding of extremist facilities.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Christofer Burger said Friday that Germany has been cooperating with Kuwait at the latter’s initiative since last year, and that Kuwait’s government is working to “examine particularly thoroughly” the funding of projects in Germany. He wouldn’t name other countries with which Germany is talking, citing confidential diplomatic discussions.

The daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and public broadcasters NDR and WDR reported that the ministry had asked Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others to report planned financing of religious facilities in Germany.

Germany’s interior minister has said that he would like to see German mosques become as independent as possible from foreign financing.
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The leaders of Germany and France are pressing Russia to release Ukrainian sailors captured over a month ago in time for the new year and Orthodox Christmas.

In a joint statement Friday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron also vowed to keep up pressure to implement a 2015 peace deal for eastern Ukraine.

The long-simmering conflict between Russia and Ukraine that started with Russia’s annexation of Crimea escalated November 25 when the Russian coast guard fired upon and seized three Ukrainian naval vessels and their crews.

In Friday’s statement, Merkel and Macron renewed calls for the “safe, free and unhindered passage of all ships” through the Kerch Strait that separates Crimea from mainland Russia and urged the “immediate and unconditional release of all illegally detained Ukrainian sailors.”

 
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A French septuagenarian, armed with a block of foie gras and a couple of bottles of wine, has set sail across the Atlantic in a barrel.

Jean-Jacques Savin, 71, set off from El Hierro in Spain’s Canary Islands and hopes to end his 4,500-kilometer journey to the Caribbean in about three months, relying only on ocean currents and trade winds.

“The weather is great. I’ve got a swell of one meter and I’m moving at 2 to 3 kilometers an hour. … I’ve got favorable winds forecast until Sunday,” Savin told AFP shortly after he set off. 

He described his journey as a “crossing during which man isn’t captain of his ship, but a passenger of the ocean.”

Savin spent several months building his bright orange, barrel-shaped capsule of resin-coated plywood that is strong enough to withstand the constant battering of waves and possible orca attacks.

The barrel, measuring 3 meters long and 2.10 meters across, is equipped with a kitchen area, and a mattress with straps to keep him from being tossed around by rough seas.

He is also carrying a bottle of Sauternes white wine and a block of foie gras for New Year’s Eve, and a bottle of Saint-Émilion red wine for his birthday in January, according to AFP.

Portholes on either side of the barrel and another looking into the water will provide the entertainment. It also has a solar panel that generates energy for communications and GPS positioning.

As he drifts along, Savin will drop markers in the ocean to help oceanographers study ocean currents. Savin will be studied by doctors for effects of solitude in close confinement.

He will also post daily updates including GPS coordinates, tracking the journey on a Facebook page. 

Savin’s adventure, which will cost a little more than $65,000, was funded by French barrel makers and crowdfunding.

Savin hopes to end his journey on a French island, such as Martinique or Guadeloupe. “That would be easier for the paperwork and for bringing the barrel back,” he told AFP.
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Istanbul’s new airport will be fully operational on March 3, Turkey’s Milliyet newspaper reported Thursday, after the $12 billion project was twice hit by delays.

The airport, which officials say will be one of the world’s busiest, was declared open in October by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan but only a handful of flights have been operating from the new site since then.

Its full operation was first delayed to January, in a setback for the government which has hailed it as a centerpiece of the construction boom that has driven strong economic growth under Erdogan’s 15-year rule.

Citing a letter sent by airport authorities, Milliyet said the date had been pushed back again until early March.

The airport will be able to handle 90 million passengers a year, and can be expanded to accommodate as many as 200 million, Erdogan said at the opening ceremony.

Videos posted on social media since then have shown rain leaking heavily into a waterlogged passenger terminal, and a flooded car park at the new airport.
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A Belgian judge has issued an order for the repatriation of half a dozen children and their Belgian mothers from a Kurdish-controlled camp in northeast Syria.

The children are all under the age of 6. They and their mothers, Tatiana Wielandt and Bouchra Abouallal, both in their mid-twenties, have been held in the al-Hol camp, one of several housing about 584 jihadi brides and 1,250 children, the offspring of Islamic State fathers, most of them foreign fighters.

Like other European countries, Belgium has been reluctant to take back foreign fighters or their captured wives and children. A small number have been repatriated to their countries of origin, but hundreds are awaiting political or legal resolution of their cases as their appeals for repatriation have been ignored. There’s little sympathy for the plight of the women and their children back in their home countries, where governments fear the women and their offspring could become security risks.

The ruling Wednesday is restricted only to the two mothers and their children, but it is likely to trigger more cases both in Belgium and in the courts in other European states, say legal analysts. An estimated 160 children of Belgian origin are currently in Kurdish-controlled camps.

​The decision overturned the ruling of a lower court rejecting a repatriation plea lodged by the two women. The Flemish-speaking Court of First Instance in Brussels ordered Belgium’s government to take “all necessary and possible measures” to return them. The order gave the state 40 days to comply or face fines of $5,715 per day per child.

“They have no freedom of movement,” Anouk Devenyns, a court spokeswoman and magistrate, told AFP. Belgian officials say they are considering an appeal. As a proportion of its population, Belgium was one of the main sources of Europeans traveling to fight for Islamist militant groups in Syria and Iraq.

At least 400 Belgian adults have left to join Islamic State or al-Qaida since 2013.

Rights groups say most of the women who left Europe to join the militant groups should be seen as victims rather than criminals, arguing that many were misguided or manipulated by men or recruiters. Some were teenagers when they traveled to Syria.

Belgian national Kasandra Bodagh moved to Syria to live under Islamic State. Bodagh told a Kurdish news outlet in September that she made a mistake joining her Belgian husband in Syria. She soon wanted to leave the caliphate, she claimed, but her husband, who was a bomb maker, wouldn’t let her go. In quick succession, she married three IS fighters, all of whom died on the battlefield. 

“I have left IS now and demand my country come and take me,” she told the Rudaw news outlet. “I want to tell my country that I have made a mistake. I want my country to help me and come to take me [home]. I do not want my country to do nothing. I want my country to come and take me.”

Using an Arab acronym for IS, she added, “We escaped from Daesh so that countries would take us. Previously, the coalition would drop papers [from the air] in Daesh territories, telling people, ‘If you escape Daesh, we will help you.’ Now we have escaped Daesh for about a year, but we are still staying here. A promise has to be kept.”

U.S. troop withdrawal

U.S. President Donald Trump’s abrupt announcement of the withdrawal of American ground troops from northern Syria has focused increased attention on what will happen to an estimated 800 captured IS foreign fighters and to the hundreds of wives and children.

A critical question is whether Kurdish forces will be able to keep control of them. Kurdish officials have warned French President Emmanuel Macron’s representative to Syria, Francois Senemand, that if Turkey attacks them, as it has pledged, it would create a chaotic situation in which they might not be able to spare the guards to make sure IS detainees are secure.

The IS prisoners include two Britons accused of being members of the so-called “Beatles” murder cell, responsible for the torture and beheading of Western journalists and aid workers, including American reporters James Foley and Steven Sotloff.

‘Ticking time bombs’

French and other European officials have said for more than a year that they won’t accept the repatriation of IS foreign fighters or their wives, despite appeals by the Kurds and the Trump administration. European officials say they represent security risks and that there would be technical and legal difficulties in prosecuting them. Repatriated foreign fighters and their wives would try to use the courts for propaganda purposes, if prosecutions were mounted, they fear.

“Prosecutions are going to be difficult because the collection of evidence may well be impossible to secure on the battlefields,” said a French diplomat, who has been involved in high-level discussions on the issue with U.S. and European counterparts.

French citizens are estimated to be among the biggest contingent of overseas fighters who joined the Islamic State terror group and other jihadist factions in the Levant. More than 300 French jihadists are thought to have died fighting in Syria or Iraq, leaving an estimated 500 to 600 unaccounted for or detained mainly in Syria by the Kurds.

Earlier this year, the then-head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency warned the country is facing grave risks from “kindergarten jihadists.” In a media interview, Hans-Georg Maassen said he was alarmed at the risks posed by returning IS women and their children, whom he claimed posed a “massive danger” to the country.

He described the children of jihadist parents as “ticking time bombs.” An estimated 1,000 German recruits joined IS. Only a handful of the 290 children and toddlers who left Germany with IS parents — or who were born in Syria or Iraq — have returned to Germany.
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Russia has successfully conducted its final test of a hypersonic glider capable of carrying nuclear warheads, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

Putin, who oversaw the test Wednesday, said the weapon is impossible to intercept and will ensure Russia’s security for decades to come.

He called it an “excellent New Year’s gift to the nation.”

The weapon, dubbed Avangard, detaches itself from a rocket after being launched and glides back to Earth at speeds faster than the speed of sound.

On Wednesday, the Avangard was launched from the Dombarovskiy missile base in the southern Ural Mountains. Putin said it hit its designated target at a shooting range 6,000 kilometers away.

“The Avangard is invulnerable to intercept by any existing and prospective missile defense means of the potential adversary,” Putin said after the test.

He said the weapon will become part of Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces next year.

The Pentagon is also working on hypersonic weapons, but U.S. officials have warned they lag behind Russia.

The test comes at a time of heightened tensions between Moscow and Washington over allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, conflict in Ukraine and the war in Syria.
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European Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said on Thursday there is still a chance that Britain’s parliament will vote in favor of the Brexit agreement in January and that there was no public support for a disorderly Brexit or another referendum.

 

Prime Minister Theresa May has struck a withdrawal agreement with Brussels but she was forced to postpone a parliamentary vote on it earlier this month after admitting she would lose by a large margin. 

Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29. 

“It is not entirely unlikely that the British parliament will vote for the divorce agreement in January,” Oettinger told Funke Media Group in an interview. “There is certainly no majority for a disorderly Brexit or for a new referendum.”

Oettinger said that the likelihood of Britain remaining in the EU had increased slightly over the past few months.

“Nevertheless, I assume that it will come to an exit at the end of March,” said Oettinger, the EU’s budget commissioner.
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The Russian military on Wednesday criticized an alleged Israeli airstrike near the Syrian capital, saying it has endangered civilian flights.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said that six Israeli F-16 jets launched a “provocative” raid at the moment when two civilian airliners were preparing to land in Damascus and Beirut, creating a “direct threat” to the aircraft.

Lebanon’s acting Transport Minister Youssef Fenianos later on Wednesday confirmed Konashenkov’s account, saying the two airplanes in Lebanese airspace “narrowly” escaped Israeli warplanes, averting a “human catastrophe.”

Fenianos didn’t provide details, but said he reported the incident to the prime minister-designate. He said the Lebanese government will present a complaint to the U.N. Security Council.

The Syrian military didn’t fully engage its air defense assets to avoid accidentally hitting the passenger jets, Konashenkov said. He added that Syrian air traffic controllers redirected the Damascus-bound plane to the Russian air base in Hemeimeem in Syria’s coastal province of Latakia.

Konashenkov said the Syrian air defense forces shot down 14 of the 16 precision-guided bombs dropped by the Israeli jets, while the remaining two hit a Syrian military depot 7 kilometers (about 4.3 miles) west of Damascus, injuring three Syrian soldiers.

It wasn’t clear if the Syrian military used any of the advanced S-300 air defense missile systems that Russia delivered in October to beef up its air defenses. The move followed the Sept. 17 downing of a Russian reconnaissance plane by Syrian forces responding to an Israeli air raid, an incident that strained previously warm ties between Russia and Israel.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry in a statement Wednesday accused Israel of exacerbating the crisis in the country and standing in the way of the government’s war on terrorism.

In messages sent to the U.N. secretary-general and the president of the Security Council, the ministry said the Israeli airstrike wouldn’t have been launched if it wasn’t for what it called “unlimited” U.S. support for Israel.

Israel has carried out dozens of airstrikes in Syria, most of them believed to have been aimed at Iranian arms shipments to the Hezbollah militant group. Both Iran and Hezbollah have been fighting alongside the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly warned that he will not allow archenemy Iran to establish a permanent military presence in postwar Syria.

Speaking at a military ceremony Wednesday, Netanyahu did not directly mention the alleged airstrike. But he repeated his position that he will not allow archenemy Iran to establish a permanent military presence in Syria, and said Israel’s air force has unmatched capabilities and can reach arenas “near and far, very far.”

“We are not prepared to accept the Iranian military entrenchment in Syria, which is directed against us. We will act against it vigorously and continuously, including during the current period,” he told a graduation ceremony of new air force pilots.

He said President Donald Trump’s decision to pull U.S. forces out of Syria “will not change our policy.”

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said Tuesday’s Israeli strike targeted three positions south of Damascus that are arms depots for Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group and Iranian forces.
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