Category Archives: News

The Demise of Middle East Borders

A common theme running through much of the leading commentary on the Syrian crisis is the idea that the principal borders of the modern Middle East, created by the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, are about to be fundamentally altered if not erased completely. In mid-March, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu gave a university speech in which he said that the political order in the Middle East created by the Sykes-Picot Agreement was coming to an end. He envisioned Turkey’s influence returning to those areas which were once under its sovereignty but were lost to the European colonial powers.

It seems that everyone is talking about the end of the Sykes-Picot Agreement. In mid-May, David Ignatius of The Washington Post warned the Russians that they would suffer most from “the dissolution of the Sykes-Picot boundaries in the Middle East.” At the same time, Elliot Abrams, who served as the deputy national security adviser under former U.S. President George W. Bush wrote about “the unraveling” of the Sykes-Picot agreement. Several weeks earlier, one of France’s leading commentators in the Middle East, Antoine Basbous, wrote in Le Figaro on April 21 that the “artificial boundaries” established by Sykes-Picot were about to receive their final blow from what he called “the Arab tsunami and its aftershocks.”

It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of this change should it transpire. In October 1916, during World War I, Sir Mark Sykes, representing Britain, and Charles Francois Georges-Picot, representing France, reached a secret understanding dividing the Asian territories of the Ottoman Empire into spheres of influence that would be dominated by both countries. When the League of Nations established mandates over the former Ottoman territories that the allies subsequently captured, the mandate for Syria and Lebanon went to France while the mandate for Iraq went to Britain. These mandatory regimes in the years that followed led to the empowerment of the Alawite minority over the Sunni majority in Syria and the establishment of the domination of the Sunni minority in Iraq over the Shiites.

The Sykes-Picot Agreement also separated what would become British mandatory Palestine, which had been known among its Arab residents prior to WWI as Surya al-Janubiyya (Southern Syria) from French mandatory Syria to its north. In 1916, Russia, still under the Czar, supported the Sykes-Picot agreement in exchange for its territorial demands being recognized by the British and the French in what became Turkey. Thus the borders of at least five Middle Eastern states would eventually be determined by the original Sykes-Picot Agreement.

Presently, the Middle Eastern border that most observers are focusing on is the 600 kilometer (370 mile) border separating Syria from Iraq. On the Syrian side, important newspapers, like the Financial Times, have been writing this week about the “disintegration of Syria.” Similarly, The New York Times asserted that the Syrian state is “breaking up.” It suggested that at least three different Syrias are now emerging: one loyal to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, another loyal to the opposition, and a Kurdish Syria with ties to Northern Iraq and Kurdish groups in Turkey.

Particularly accelerating the demise of the Sykes-Picot borders are events on the Iraqi side of the border. Incidents during the last year point in the direction of the eventual breakup of the Iraqi state. This coming September, a new pipeline carrying Kurdish oil through Turkey, will link Iraqi Kurdistan to its Turkish market instead of to the rest of Iraq. This development is seen in the West as the first step toward the independence of Kurdistan. Indeed, the Kurds are cutting separate deals with international oil companies and circumventing the central Iraqi government in Baghdad. A spokesman for U.S. President Barack Obama’s National Security Council has stated on the record that the U.S. opposes oil exports from any part of Iraq “without the appropriate approval of the Iraqi federal government.” Washington opposes Kurdish economic initiatives that could lead to the dissolution of Iraq into at least three states: Kurdish, Shiite, and Sunni.

Kurdistan may be ready to become independent. What about the rest? The Shiite areas of Iraq south of Baghdad to the Kuwaiti border will be dominated one way or another by Iran. But what will happen to the Sunni sectors of Iraq, like the al-Anbar Province? In the last year, the Sunni Arab tribes in Iraq that span the Syrian-Iraqi border have joined the war against the Assad regime. Tribes like the Shammar, who migrated from the Arabian Peninsula to the Jazira plain between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in the 17th century, have been regularly crossing the Iraqi-Syrian border back and forth for many years.

The prospect that their Sunni cousins in Syria will eventually defeat the Assad regime, or at least take over part of the Syrian state, has energized the Sunni Arabs of Iraq, who felt previously that the 2003 Iraq War had lead to the defeat of their Sunni-dominated regime under Saddam Hussein and a victory for Iraq’s Shiite majority. Now, they sense they can take back their autonomy from Baghdad.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker (serving between 2007 and 2009) wrote in The Washington Post on May 1 that al-Qaida-Iraq has re-established itself in areas in which it was defeated by U.S. and Iraqi forces over the last five years. It should come as no surprise that Crocker defines the leading jihadist force fighting Assad’s army, Jabhat al-Nusra, as a front group for al-Qaida in Iraq. In March, the executions of eleven Syrian soldiers in a public square in the town of al-Raqqa, inside northern Syria, were carried out under the flag of Iraqi al-Qaida. The old Sykes-Picot border was clearly meaningless for affiliates of al-Qaida. An Iraqi commentator noted that since 2011, there have been religious calls for erasing the old Iraqi-Syrian border and unifying the Sunni regions on both sides.

Should the fragmentation of Syria combine with the Balkanization of Iraq, what will the Middle East look like? The Sunni Arabs are the likely candidates to look for mergers with their neighbors. If they are politically dominated by the same branch of al-Qaida, then the emergence of a new Afghanistan in the heart of the Arab world might be the result. If more moderate forces among the Iraqi Sunnis emerge, then it should not be ruled out that they might consider some federal ties with their western Sunni neighbor, Jordan, which would give them an outlet to the Red Sea.

But however the political systems in Syria and Iraq evolve, it is clear that the map of the Middle East is likely to be very different from the map that the colonial powers fixed during World War I and which has endured for roughly 97 years since British and French officials first put it on paper. The only boundary in the Middle East that Western diplomats have become rigidly obsessed with, despite the far more profound changes that are occurring across the region, is not even formally an international border under international law, but only an armistice line from 1949 — what is inappropriately called the 1967 border. While a solution to this territorial dispute must be addressed, the final borders drawn between Israel and it’s neighbors will have to take into account the current dramatic strategic shifts.

By Dore Gold
http://www.israelhayom.com

Assyrian International News Agency

Bosnia President Freed From Jail

The president of Bosnia’s Muslim-Croat federation has been freed from jail following his arrest last month on corruption charges.

The Constitutional Court ruled on May 24 that Zivko Budimir and four co-accused aides all be released immediately.

Budimir was arrested along with 19 other officials in late April in the most high-profile anti-corruption drive in Bosnia since independence more than two decades ago.

A court had order Budimir and his four aides to be held in detention because some of them held Croat passports, raising the risk they might try to flee.

Budimir left the prison in the southern town of Mostar late in the evening on May 24 and was welcomed by dozens of supporters and relatives.

He has been charged with accepting bribes to grant amnesty to a number of convicts.

Budimir denies the charges.

Based on AFP and AP reporting

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Iraq Vows Action Against Kurdish Crude Sales

SYDNEY (Reuters) — Iraq has vowed to take legal action against companies to halt Kurdistan’s crude oil sales to Turkey.

“Any oil that is taken out of the country and payments not made to the Iraqi people through the central government is considered to be taking Iraq’s national wealth,” said Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Hussain Al-Shahristani.

“There are a number of means the Iraqi government is considering, and any responsible government would have the same priority to protect the wealth of the people,” said the deputy prime minister, who is also an adviser to the prime minister on energy matters and was attending a conference.

Crude exports from the Taq Taq oil field in the autonomous northern region of Kurdistan to Turkey’s Mersin port started at a trickle in early January and have risen to just over 40,000 barrels per day (bpd).

They are expected to hit around 60,000 bpd by the end of June as trucks unload at the neighboring Dortyol terminal in southern Turkey.

Oil lies at the heart of a feud between the central government and Kurdistan. Baghdad says it alone has the right to control exports and sign deals, while the Kurds say their right to do so is enshrined in Iraq’s federal constitution.

In retaliation, Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organisation (SOMO) sent letters warning customers not to touch any oil that had not been marketed by SOMO and the ministry intends to sue producers, namely Anglo-Turkish firm Genel Energy.

Turkish intermediary Powertrans has found a steady stream of customers in Northwest Europe for its crude and condensate sales. Major oil firms with interests in southern Iraq have opted not to participate in tenders.

Germany’s Select Energy lifted the first two Taq Taq cargoes in April. The grade is a light sour crude, a highly sought after quality.

Select is loading a third larger 80,000 ton cargo.

Austria’s OMV, already black-listed by Baghdad due to upstream stakes in Kurdistan, also bought one cargo in May, sources said.

Iraq’s central government says Kurdistan is expected to provide 250,000 bpd towards Iraq’s 2013 oil export target of 2.9 million bpd.

Assyrian International News Agency

Dividing Iraq: Now is the Time to Split the Country in Half

Currently Iraqi commentators seem to think there are two options for ending current protests and ensuing violence: civil war between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Or a new Iraq with various autonomous regions.

Over the years since the US-led invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein, there has often been discussion about whether it would be a good idea to split Iraq up, mainly dividing the country into the two sects of Islam that make up most of the population: that is, Sunni and Shiite Muslim.

And every now and then the idea has seemed a credible solution to Iraq’s troubles, when violence between the two sects and other ethnicities has continued to threaten the general public’s well being and lives. Now is such a time too — and mainly because of the protests comprised mainly of Sunni Muslim demonstrators in certain parts of the country.

The Sunni Muslim protestors say they are discriminated against and marginalised by the current Shiite Muslim-led government in Baghdad, headed by Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki.

Recently things became even more tense when Iraqi army forces, acting on behalf of the Shiite Muslim-led government, turned on mostly Sunni Muslim protestors in Hawija in the north of the country, killing around 50 demonstrators. Since then there have been a number of deadly incidents around the country.

Recent events in Iraq indicate an escalation [of sectarian tensions],” Harith Hassan, an Iraqi political researcher, wrote on his personal blog. “The increased tensions may lead to the failure of the current political process and the increased levels of violence could ignite a new civil war. Social divides in the Iraq would become even more established. All this would put an end to any opportunity for peaceful coexistence.”

Hassan believes that current protests have seen the Sunni Muslims of Iraq starting to form their own ethnic identity even more strongly, which takes them even further from Iraqi nationality. He also warned against the increasing influence of extremist groups within the ranks of the protestors as well as growing links between them and similarly radical groups fighting in Syria. Recently there’s been evidence that the so-called Islamic State of Iraq, a particularly violent group with links to the Sunni Muslim extremist group, Al Qaeda, has been fighting among Sunni Muslims in Syria.

At a May 19 press conference Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said that his government was considering new strategies for domestic security. Partially this was because some of the recent attacks used methods security personnel had not seen before. For example a senior police officer in Baquba, the capital of Diyala province, explained that at a bomb attack outside the Sunni Muslim Sariyat al-Jadid mosque, extremists had used two bombs. After the first had gone off, it was followed by a second explosion which killed those who had rushed to the aid of the first bomb’s victims.

“In both attacks, armed groups also used new forms of explosives,” the police officer said.

In terms of the escalation of sectarian conflict, there is evidence that both sects have been forming their own militias in response to the growing violence. And neither side has been short of emotional rhetoric either. In a statement issued by Lebanese-based Hezbollah in mid-May, the Shiite Muslim group wrote that, “they murdered us for centuries before Saddam Hussein and they continued to do so when Saddam ruled the country. Even today, they don’t stop murdering us. Nothing will stop them. They don’t believe in a partnership, they believe they are our superiors. We, the political majority, should be prepared for the clash.”

Similar speeches have been made by Iraq’s Sunni Muslims. “Some of the tribal leaders here have agreed that things cannot go backwards,” Hamid al-Jibouri, one of the leaders in Sunni Muslim protests in the central Iraqi city of Samarra, told NIQASH. “That’s why they and their men have agreed to carry arms and joined the protestors’ group that is against the government.”

All of this is why the idea of splitting Iraq into regions based on their sectarian populations is being revived again. At the same May 19 press conference even the Prime Minister seemed to welcome the idea.

“Anyone who wants to form a region in Iraq should express that intention openly,” al-Maliki said. “And we will welcome it. However, we won’t tolerate the use of force. These demands can only be achieved through constitutional mechanisms.”

Meanwhile local politician Hamid Majid Mousa, the Secretary General of the Iraqi Communist Party, believes that his colleagues must take some of the blame for the current escalation. “These unfortunate calls for revenge and retaliation are the reason behind the exacerbation of the problem and the increased violence, and are the basis for the formation of armies, militias and armed gangs. And they’re being repeated by politicians,” Mousa complained. “We cannot solve the problem this way. By doing what we always do, we’re only making things worse and removing any possibility for a peaceful solution.”

By Daoud al-Ali
http://www.niqash.org

Assyrian International News Agency

How Iraq Can Pull Back From the Brink

The Samarra terror attack in February 2006 sparked more than a year of sectarian violence that threatened to rip Iraq apart.

Last month violence erupted between troops and demonstrators in the northern town of Hawija. Many now ask if history is about to repeat itself.

There is certainly much to worry about. Violence increased after Hawija, with more bombings and firefights between security forces and armed opposition groups.

There also seems to be a qualitative shift in political rhetoric. Sunni Arabs of western Iraq are today more prepared than ever to talk about creating their own federal region or regions. They also are spending far more time courting regional powers such as Turkey and Qatar than talking to the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

With the tense situation in Syria polarising the whole region along sectarian lines, it is no exaggeration to say that the political problems in Iraq may be at their most acute since the tumultuous civil war period between 2005 and 2007.

At the same time, it is important to take notice of the factors that continue to make the situation in Iraq quite different from what the Balkans experienced in the 1990s, and to avoid rushing to conclusions about partition fixes for political problems for which non-territorial solutions may provide more sustainable arrangements.

For example, it seems significant that the Iraqi army soldiers that have been killed during the latest uptick of violence come from all parts of the Iraqi population and do not represent any particular sect. As an institution, the Iraqi army is vastly stronger today than it was in 2006. Similarly, in the Sunni areas that have seen the most marked change of political rhetoric, a considerable number of moderate politicians continue to urge against violent protest and often speak against the most radical political solutions, such as federalism.

Without making light of Iraq’s current problems, it seems prudent to take into account the degree to which our perception of the situation there is – to some extent – the result of punditry by people who have promised mayhem ever since the early days of the Iraq War, and who came to life again with the recent 10th anniversary of the US-led invasion after having had relatively little to write about during the past few years.

Many of the western and Arab critical comments on Iraq converge with respect to attacks on prime minister Nouri Al Maliki and his centralisation of power. This is a time-honoured theme that materialised when Mr Maliki had managed to reestablish a sense of order and security in Iraq in 2008 following years of upheaval. Less attention seems to be given to the question of what the alternative to Mr Al Maliki would be, and whether a return to pre-2008 conditions is really what Iraq and the region needs. Change Mr Al Maliki and everything will be wonderful – as it was in, well, 2005?

Particularly important seems the fact that the Shiite competitors to Mr Al Maliki with whom secularists, Sunnis and Kurds like to flirt are in fact often the ones that push him to make the very decisions to which the opposition takes exception – including unpopular moves in sensitive areas of national reconciliation such as de-Baathification of officials of the Saddam Hussein regime.

Mr Al Maliki’s ability to maintain some ties with Sunnis and secularists even in times of crisis is also noteworthy. Amid the recent escalation, the Sunni agriculture minister returned to cabinet whereas an emergency session of parliament designed as an anti-Maliki demonstration failed to attract more than 141 deputies, quite despite the presence of some Shiites including Sadrists. That is significantly less than the 163 MPs needed to depose him.

Perhaps critics of Mr Al Maliki should wait to see how the formation of new provincial councils across the Shiite-majority parts of southern Iraq will shape up over coming weeks and months. In many of those places, Mr Al Maliki is in intense competition with challengers from other Shiite Islamist parties. Recently, Mr Al Maliki has for the first time also indicated preparedness to accept federalism in Sunni areas if legal procedure is adhered to – apparently a conciliatory move that could prompt a more open debate about what the priorities of citizens of those areas really are. It is far from clear that federalism is universally espoused among the Sunnis of northwestern Iraq.

Ironically, in the midst of the deteriorating security situation, local elections in the two Sunni governorates bordering Syria that had been postponed until July because of security problems have actually been moved forward again, this time to June 20. These elections are by their very nature intra-Sunni competitions and, hopefully, they will play out as contests about the provision of local services rather than competitions in Sunnism.

The people of Anbar have chosen pragmatism over extremism before, not least when they expelled Al Qaeda from their own areas in 2006. Perhaps if they study carefully what sort of political forces speaking in the name of Sunnism have been propelled to the forefront in certain parts of Syria lately, Iraqi Sunnis may once more choose pragmatism at the ballot box.

By Reidar Visser
http://www.thenational.ae

Assyrian International News Agency

UPCOMING: Briefing With Author Philip Shishkin

Eurasia Foundation, RFE/RL and Foreign Policy’s “Democracy Lab”
invite you to a briefing and Google Hangout:

“Restless Valley:
Revolution, Murder and Intrigue in the Heart of Central Asia”

 
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
9:00-10:15 AM
 
RFE/RL – Washington
1201 Connecticut Ave NW, 4th Floor
[entrance on Rhode Island Ave NW, next to St. Matthew's Cathedral]
 
Please RSVP by email to
dc-response@rferl.org

Featuring author
   Philip Shishkin
   Former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Fellow at the Asia Society

Discussants (by videolink from Prague)
    Aida Kasymalieva
    Correspondent, RFE/RL Kyrgyz Service

    Alisher Sidikov
    Director, RFE/RL Uzbek Service

Moderated by
    Joshua Foust
    Young Professionals Network, Eurasia Foundation and Freelance Writer

Restless Valley has the makings of a gripping thriller: revolutions, massacres, civil war, drug-smuggling, brazen corruption, contract hits and larger-than-life characters who may be villains…or heroes…or possibly both. Yet Philip Shishkin’s new book is not a novel.
 
Join Shishkin, two top RFE/RL experts on Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, and moderator Joshua Foust in a discussion of this firsthand account of Central Asia’s unfolding history from 2005 to the present.
 
Come and be a part of the live audience or watch the discussion on Google+ and YouTube.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Iran Prepares Itself for June Presidential Vote By Stepping Up Security Measures

Iran’s clerical establishment has made it clear that it will not condone the insubordination that marked the country’s last presidential contest, and has taken steps over the interim to ensure the 2013 election goes as planned.

Touting the importance of a “peaceful” vote on June 14, officials have said in recent months that “sedition,” a term they use to refer to the mass demonstrations that followed the 2009 election and the political forces that organized them, will not be tolerated.

Any semblance of political opposition has been marginalized or eliminated since the last vote, with prominent opposition leaders Mehdi Karrubi and Mir Hussein Musavi under house arrest, and reformist parties banned.

Warnings were also directed toward the “deviant current” — a term used to describe the close circle around President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

The outgoing president’s preferred successor, Esfandiari Mashaei, was taken out of the running this week by the powerful Guardians Council, which approves the final list of candidates.

Likewise, the proposed candidacy of former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a pillar of the establishment who gave some support to the opposition camp following the controversial 2009 election, was denied.

Should anyone object, the regime has a number of tools at its disposal to hammer home its message, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the Intelligence Ministry, and the Basij militia.

“Due to the preparedness of intelligence bodies and security forces, the events that took place in 2009, will not be repeated,” Ahmadi Moghadam, Iran’s Police chief, said in comments reported by the ISNA news agency on May 22.

‘A Decisive Response’

Hossein Aryan a U.K. based military and security expert, shed some light on what Moghadam was referring to.

“In pursuit of [their] aim, [the authorities] have been quite active in terms of gathering information, gathering intelligence, and preparing themselves for likely unrest following the election or before that,” he said. “In doing that, as it has been practiced in the past, the IRGC has been using its intelligence wing and also the paramilitary force Basij to gather information.”

Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi, on the sidelines of an April 9 cabinet meeting, said no mercy would be shown to anyone — domestic or foreign — who tries to disrupt the election.

“Certain groups and streams, as well as intelligence agencies from outside the country, may intend to take action to create problems for us,” the semiofficial Fars news agency quoted him as saying. “And if this happens they will meet with a decisive response.”

ALSO READ: Candidate Offers ‘Contrasting Accounts’ Of Crackdown

Moslehi said heavy monitoring was being conducted to prevent possible seditionist moves.

Also in April, IRGC Intelligence officer Mohammad Javad Khoshnavaz said the corps was eyeing the “enemy’s movements” carefully. “We are ready to intelligently counter a new sedition,” he said, while expressing the hope that new protests would not take place.

This week, Colonel Rasool Sanaeirad, who heads the IRGC’s political office, was quoted by Fars as saying that the election would be “unpredictable,” and warning that a “possible riot” could spread from Tehran to other regions of the country.

Underlining the efforts to prevent such unrest, Iranian media this month published pictures of a training maneuver held in Tehran on May 14 by a unit affiliated with the IRGC.

The “Ale Mohammad Security brigade” was shown engaging in what appeared to be mock street battles against rioters, adding to similar exercises carried out in the capital since the 2009 protests.

Disrupting News And Information

There are signs that the Iranian authorities are also attempting to hamper Iranians’ ability to obtain and send news and information.

In recent weeks, Iranian authorities have disrupted the use of most circumvention and privacy tools that allow users to bypass state-imposed Internet filtering already in place.

On May 10, Mohammad Saleh Jokar, a member of the parliamentary committee of national security and foreign policy, said the government would block attempts to “instigate people as we witnessed in 2009,” according to the Cairo’s “Al-Ahram Online.”

Washington D.C.-based researcher Collin Anderson believes Iran will maintain a slow and heavily filtered Internet connectivity.

“What they try to do is have as much control as possible without collateral damage or economic cost,” he said. “So I think that, if they feel for the most part they can cut off the things that they don’t want people going to — such as independent media or international broadcasters or social networks — that [those people] won’t feel compelled to.”

Pressure on the press intensified several months ago, with the January arrest of more than a dozen journalists from at least six media outlets. Intelligence Minister Moslehi said the arrests were an attempt to “prevent the emergence of sedition prior to the elections.”

More recently, the “Kalame” news outlet reported this month that the Intelligence Ministry had summoned the editors of newspapers and instructed them about “red lines” they shouldn’t cross in their election coverage.

Among the no-no’s listed by the opposition website were interpreting the supreme leader’s comments and presenting a dark picture of the situation in the country.

“Kalame” also reported that the Intelligence Ministry had given its approval to criticism of Ahmadinejad.

RFE/RL’s Guide To Iran’s Presidential Election

Reza Moini, an Iran expert with the French media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, suggested that other methods to constrain the media are also being employed.

“The pressure includes, according to our information, the summoning, interrogation, and arrest of journalists and also threats against them,” he said. “We also have information that some journalists have recently been sent into internal exile, meaning that [the authorities] have forced some journalists to leave Tehran or other cities where they work.”

The formation of a new election-monitoring unit called Fajr has also been announced, with the task of monitoring satellite networks, opposition websites, and social-networking sites.

In late April, Deputy Culture Minister Mohammad Jafar Mohammadzadeh said that the surveillance of media would increase in the run-up to June 14.

“We are of course hoping that the press will also have greater self-control and publish the news responsibly,” Mohammadzadeh was quoted by Fars as saying.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Iranian Filmmaker Presents Secret Film At Cannes

An Iranian director sentenced to prison in 2010 for antigovernment propaganda has appeared at the Cannes film festival for the screening of a new film about censorship, which he shot in secret in Iran.

The circumstances of Mohammad Rasoulof’s visit to Cannes on May 24 and the location where he now lives remain strictly confidential.

He was arrested with fellow director Jafar Panahi after they tried to make a documentary on the unrest that followed the disputed 2009 reelection of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

Rasolouf was jailed for six years for acting against national security and antiregime propaganda, he was also banned from making films for 20 years.

The sentence was reduced to one year on appeal.

Because of Iranian censorship, his new film, “Manuscripts Don’t Burn”, has no credits.

It received a standing ovation at a press screening in Cannes on May 24.

Based on reporting by Reuters and AFP

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

In Moldova’s Breakaway Transdniester, A Tale Of Two Cities

CHISINAU — When Ukraine took on the rotating chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) this year, it pledged to use the post to resolve one of the region’s most intractable issues — Moldova’s breakaway region of Transdniester.

But as negotiators conclude a second day of talks in the Ukrainian city of Odesa, hopes of a breakthrough appear increasingly distant.

The so-called 5+2 group – bringing together officials from Russia, Ukraine, the United States, the European Union, and the OSCE, as well as Moldovan and Transdniestrian authorities – has been barely able to agree on an agenda for the talks, let alone negotiate a final settlement to the 21-year-old frozen conflict.

The talks come just days after Transdniester’s pro-Moscow leader, Yevgeny Shevchuk, made a startling proposal to move the region’s legislature, the Supreme Council, from Tiraspol to the territory’s second-largest city, Bender.

The choice of Bender was clearly symbolic: the city is the site of one of the bloodiest battles in the 1990s war that ended with Transdniester declaring independence from the Republic of Moldova.

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Transdniestrian leader Yevgeny Shevchuk

The proposed move would also take the significant step of carrying Transdniester’s political center of gravity across the Dniester River, which geographically separates the bulk of the breakaway region from Moldova proper. Bender is one of the few regions on the Dniester’s western bank that is under Transdniester’s de facto jurisdiction.

Bender also lies within the security zone established after the war, a narrow strip that includes Transdniestrian and Moldovan exclave territories on both banks of the river.

The terms of the 1992 cease-fire agreement prohibit either party from taking actions that would deliberately aggravate tensions between the two sides.

In this light, the Bender proposal has been interpreted by some as the kind of land grab that has been seen in other territorial conflicts in the former Soviet Union and the post-war Balkans.

Shevchuk and his supporters say the move is meant to stop “aggressive moves” by Chisinau to build up its presence in Bender, where Moldova has managed to maintain a police headquarters and several institutions since the war.

The Transdniestrian administration has already put the squeeze on Moldovan law-enforcement structures in Bender, most recently by limiting their use of uniforms.

Chisinau has reacted angrily to the Transdniestrian moves, calling the proposal to relocate the Supreme Council an attempt by Tiraspol to unilaterally shift “local realities.”

Moscow Maneuvers Or An Internal Squabble?

The Bender issue comes as Moldova is grappling with its own political crisis, following the collapse of its pro-European governing coalition earlier this year.

Oazu Nantoi, a political analyst based in Chisinau, sees two possible explanations for the proposal.

“The first possibility is that these initiatives arose in Tiraspol,” he says. “The second is that Moscow isn’t happy about the partnership between Moldova and the EU, in spite of the political turbulence right now in Chisinau, and they’re looking to destabilize situation by unleashing some kind of provocation in Bender.”

Ukraine’s ambassador to Chisinau, Serhiy Pirozhkov, has argued that Shevchuk’s move puts the current stability in the security zone at risk.

Observers inside Transdniester, however, suggest that the proposal has more to do with internal politics than a strategic move against Chisinau.

Andrei Safonov, a Tiraspol-based political analyst, suggests that Shevchuk, in power since the end of 2011, is looking to build his own power base by isolating the Supreme Council, which is dominated by opposition lawmakers.

““The bottom line is simple: He’s saying, ‘Although you’re all elected, your actual weight is zero and I can drive you away whenever I want, to wherever I want.,’” Safanov says. “That’s the first thing. And the second, of course, is the desire to disrupt the work of the Supreme Council and thereby remove it from the political arena.”

Undermining Ukraine?

Supreme Council lawmakers rejected the proposal on May 23, voting to pass a resolution stating that the Transdniestrian parliament should remain in the territory’s de facto capital, Tiraspol.

In neighboring Ukraine, however, not everyone is buying the notion that an internal political squabble is at the root of the Bender proposal.

Noting the timing of Shevchuk’s proposition just days before the Odesa talks, Oleksandr Sushko of the Kyiv-based Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation maintains that Tiraspol frequently manufactures unforeseen political tempests to blow diplomatic sessions off course.

Shevchuk notoriously pulled out of Lviv talks in February, setting back Ukrainian hopes for a 2013 Transdniester resolution. 

Sushko believes such moves suggest that Moscow, which is determined to maintain a dominant presence in its near abroad, is colluding with Transdniester to undermine Ukraine’s tenure at the helm of the OSCE.

“It’s no secret to anyone that right at the start of this year, the Russian side took steps with the Tiraspol leadership that pushed them into a tougher stance,” he says. “One of the indirect goals of this was to torpedo the Ukrainian chairmanship of the OSCE in order to make any progress on this issue impossible.”

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Podcast: Kremlin ‘Cold War’ Heats Up

They’re as different as night and day. One’s a cerebral economist with a talent for balancing budgets even amid mind-bending corruption. The other is a suave, flamboyant political operator whose hand was behind much of the political intrigue over the past decade.

Both were key inside players during Vladimir Putin’s first stint in the Kremlin and each played a major role in making it look successful. Both had strained relations with Putin’s siloviki allies.  Both, in their own way, went off the reservation.

And both Aleksei Kudrin and Vladislav Surkov were back in the news this week.

Amid mounting speculation in the Russian media that Putin was going to name him prime minister, Kudrin gave two speeches slamming the government’s economic policies and calling for more pluralism in the political system.

And a week after his resignation from the government, Surkov popped up in a rather odd way: Photos posted on the Internet showed him fishing with the powerful Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov — who went on to praise Surkov. Those photos surfaced days before press reports claimed Surkov was in the Investigative Committee’s crosshairs and suspected of funneling state funds to the opposition.

As different as they are, Surkov and Kudrin are on one side in the struggle that has been raging in the Russian elite — pitting technocrat managers like themselves who want the system to change and security service veterans fighting hard to maintain the status quo.

And their appearance in the news this week is the latest evidence that this battle is heating up.

In the latest edition of the Power Vertical podcast, I discussed these issues with co-hosts Kirill Kobrin of RFE/RL’s Russian Service,  Mark Galeotti of New York University, and Sean Guillory of the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Russian and Eastern European Studies.

Enjoy…

Power Vertical Podcast: Kremlin ‘Cold War’ Heats Up — May 24, 2013

Listen to or download the podcast above or subscribe to “The Power Vertical Podcast” on iTunes.
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Islamabad Remains Opposed To Drones After Obama Address

The Pakistani government has reiterated its view that U.S. drone attacks on its territory remain illegal, after President Barack Obama unveiled new rules for their use.

Islamabad said on May 24 that it welcomes some aspects of Obama’s speech, particularly his recognition that “force alone cannot make us safe”, but said it remained firm that “the drone strikes are counter-productive, entail loss of innocent civilian lives, [and] have human rights and humanitarian implications.”

The statement by the Pakistani Foreign Ministry added that drone attacks “violate the principles of national sovereignty, territorial integrity and international law.”

The Foreign Ministry says a minimum of 330 drone strikes have been carried out in Pakistan since 2004, causing at least 2,200 deaths.

The attacks typically target suspected Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants but are believed to have killed some civilians.


Based on reporting by AFP, AP, and dpa

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Peshawar Bomb Attack Kills Two

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — At least two people have been killed and several more injured in a bomb attack in Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar.

The attack apparently targeted the vehicle of local religious leader Haji Hidayatullah.

The explosion struck outside the Jamia Uloom al-Islamia religious school right after Friday Prayers.

Peshawar city police superintendent Khalid Hamdani told journalists that Hidayatullah survived the attack but that his driver and bodyguard were killed.

It was immediately unclear if a suicide bomber was to blame.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.


With reporting by Dawn.com

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Russian Priest Who Spoke Out On Pussy Riot Granted Czech Asylum

A Russian Orthodox priest who stood up for jailed members of the all-female punk-rock  collective Pussy Riot says he has been granted political asylum in the Czech Republic.

Sergei Baranov, who served as a deacon in the city of Tambov, caused a stir in Russia last year when he published an open letter to the Moscow patriarchate voicing outrage at the church’s unforgiving stance against Pussy Riot.

Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and Yekaterina Samutsevich were sentenced to two years in prison for staging an anti-Kremlin performance in Moscow’s largest cathedral in February 2012.

Samutsevich was later released on probation.

Baranov, who has since been defrocked, told Czech media that his asylum came into force on April 23.

He said he planned to convert to the Greek Catholic Church.

Based on reporting by Novinky.cz, and Radio Praha

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Central Asian Youths Found Among Fighters In Syria

DUSHANBE — Officials from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have confirmed that nationals from both those countries have been found recently fighting on the side of the rebels in Syria’s ongoing civil war.

The government in Dushanbe says three Tajiks fighting on the side of Islamist rebels in Syria were recently killed.

Tajik State Committee for National Security spokesman Emom Melikov also said on May 23 that authorities have managed in recent years to bring back some 2,000 Tajik youths from Islamic schools abroad.

FEATURE: Families Fear Kyrgyz Sons Are Making Way To Syrian Battlefield

Officials in neighboring Kyrgyzstan meanwhile said the following day that two Kyrgyz men who were fighting with Islamist rebels were brought back from Syria by Kyrgyz security officers this week.

Kyrgyzstan’s State Committee for National Security says the leadership of the Spiritual Directorate of Kyrgyz Muslims has been asked to focus on prevention of radical Islam propaganda among youth.

Kyrgyz media reports say there are many Kyrgyz nationals in Syria fighting on the side of Islamist antigovernment forces.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Russia Says Syria Government Agrees In Principle To Conference

Russia’s Foreign Ministry says Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government has agreed in principle to attend an international peace conference in Geneva proposed by Russia and the United States.

However, ministry spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich said on May 24 that it is impossible to set the date for the conference at this point because there is “no clarity about who will speak on behalf of the opposition and what powers they will have.”

Meanwhile, the opposition Syrian National Coalition was continuing talks in Istanbul on May 24 on whether to take part in the prospective Geneva talks with members of Assad’s regime.

One day earlier, a coalition spokesman said attending such a gathering is possible only if Assad first signals he is on his way out.

More than 80,000 people have been killed in the two-year-old conflict.

Based on reporting by AP and Reuters

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Syrian Opposition Leader Says he Doesn’t Know Bishops’ Whereabouts

The leader of the Syrian opposition coalition is backing away from previous reports that he is certain of the location and condition of two Syrian Orthodox bishops kidnapped April 22.

George Sabra, president of the Syrian National Coalition, told World Watch Monitor on May 21 he is not informed of the movement of the bishops from day to day, or of the identity of the captors. This is a change from May 7 statements attributed to Sabra during a meeting of Middle East leaders in Beirut.

Sabra also told World Watch Monitor the coalition is “doing our best” to expel the handful of Muslims who have come from Europe at the urging of jihadist groups with al-Qaeda links who count themselves among the broader Syrian opposition movement.

Yohanna Ibrahim, head of the Syriac Orthodox Church in Aleppo, was kidnapped alongside his counterpart from the Greek Orthodox Church, Boulos Yaziji, after travelling to the Turkish border in an attempt to secure the release of two priests kidnapped in February. Their driver, Fathallah Kaboud, later was killed.

Apart from an early flurry of erroneous reports that the clerics had been released, little was heard about their whereabouts, who snatched them, or why.

That changed May 7 when Amin Gemayel, former president of Lebanon and current leader of its Kataeb Party, held a meeting in his Beirut office.

“The bishops are in good health and are being held by a small group in a town called Bshaqtin, 20 kilometers northwest of Aleppo,” Sabra told Gemayel by phone during the meeing, according to the Lebanon Star.

Attending the meeting were Deputy Bishop of Aleppo Joseph Shabo, Mount Lebanon’s Syriac Orthodox Bishop George Saliba, Beirut’s Bishop Daniel Koriyeh and Syriac League President Habib Afram.

Afram told World Watch Monitor the group had sought the meeting with Gemayel to seek his help securing the bishops’ release. Instead, he said, they heard Sabra tell them he was powerless to help.

“During our meeting, Syrian opposition leader George Sabra spoke with both Cheikh Gemayel and Bishop Saliba over the phone. Sabra claimed that he knows where the abducted bishops are and who the kidnappers are. I find it outrageous that one of the most powerful leaders of the Syrian opposition says he knows where they are but can’t do anything to release them.”

Afram, Secretary General of the Union of Lebanese Christian Leagues and a prominent defender of the fate of Christians in the Middle East, said Sabra’s inability to secure the release of the bishops has troubling implications for the future of Christians in Syria.

“Sabra said things like: ‘This is not giving a good impression of our revolution and we promise to take all possible actions to get them released’. But that is only words,” Afram said. “We emphasized that if he can’t control his own area — the place where the bishops were kidnapped — then how can he claim that he can change Syria for the better? And how will he be able to make Christians remain in Syria?”

Contacted May 21 by World Watch Monitor, Sabra gave a less certain accounting of the bishops than he was reported to give May 7.

“You know that the bishops are moved always day by day or from week to week. So therefore we don’t know the place exactly,” he said.

He also said the coalition isn’t sure who is behind the kidnappings.

“About this we have different information, we have new news that we will check. We have news that they are in Aleppo. We can’t say that this information is real; we have to check.”

When asked how he knows the bishops are moved, if anyone has spoken to them, and if there is any evidence they are alive, he replied: “you know, by our people inside Syria that interrogated the groups.”

“Really we believe that they are alive,” he said. “But there is no clear picture of that. We are doing our best, but right now we didn’t succeed.”

Thousands of Christians have fled the violence in Syria, and church leaders say the abductions have accelerated the exodus. Sabra said he wants Syrian Christians to remain courageous.

“We are aware of the impression this gives to our revolution,” he said. “But we are doing our best. Syrian Christians have been living in the country for thousands of years. And they should be courageous enough to stay in their homeland.”

Sabra, himself a Christian, insisted there is no evidence Syrian Christians are under pressure because of their religion, despite testimony to the contrary from Christians inside Syria and those that have fled to Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.

“Maybe there are some small events here and there,” he said, “but we have not the right to exaggerate with these events to tell it as a fact, as a truth, of the life in Syria. Really it is not true. And the only way to protect Christians, as to protect other Syrians, is to push Bashar al-Assad’s regime out of power and start a new era in Syria with a civil state, a democratic state, with elections, constitution, a law. This is the only thing which will help all people in Syria to be protected in their country.”

Sabra also rejected any comparisons of the impact of Syria’s drawn-out civil war on Christian nationals to the flight of Christians from neighboring Iraq.

“We have two major principal differences here in Syria,” he said. “Iraq was occupied by foreign troops, and also they have a neighbour considered an enemy to Iraqis for many years: I mean Iran. So the effect of the occupation and the effect of Iranians inside Iraq caused the situation. In Syria we have something different. I’m sure that Christians will stay and live in Syria as they did for hundreds of years. It’s their country. In Syria we have thousands of churches and nobody can prove or give one example of a church being persecuted by Muslims.”

Still, when pressed, Sabra acknowledged one similarity to Iraq of grave concern to resident Christians: the presence of imported Islamist militants, some of them aligned with al-Qaeda. An April report by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, at London’s King’s College, estimates that somewhat less than 10 percent of the opposition fighters are from outside Syria, and that between 7 percent and 10 percent of that fraction come from Europe.

“We are sorry to hear about that,” Sabra said. “We were informed about two young people from Belgium. Believe me, we are doing our best to contact these people and to operate with the European community and the European governments to save their lives and send them back home to their countries safely.”

Meanwhile, Afram said he meets with Christians that have fled Syria every day in his office in Lebanon. “People are kidnapped on a daily basis for ransom or just to scare them to leave,” he said. “Christians are systematically targeted by kidnappings.”

He said if the bishops are alive, Sabra should employ the power of his position to win their release.

“George Sabra should act and he should show leadership capability, or leave,” Afram said. “He should exercise direct involvement, even take risks to go himself with the army of the opposition to negotiate the release of the bishops; make a clear statement regarding his [objection] that bishops were treated like this.”

By Nuri Kino
http://www.worldwatchmonitor.org

Nuri Kino, of Assyrian (Syriac Orthodox) background, is an award-winning TV/radio journalist now living in Sweden. In January 2013 he wrote a report, ‘Between the Wire’, in which he conducted more than 100 interviews with Syria’s minority Christian community. He is co-author of the independently published political thriller, ‘The Line in the Sand.’

Assyrian International News Agency

Kazakh Journalist Jailed Over Unsanctioned Protest

ASTANA — A court in Astana has sentenced a journalist to 15 days in jail for taking part in an unsanctioned protest.

Berik Zhaghyparov’s lawyer told RFE/RL that her client was sentenced late on May 23.

Zhaghyparov pleaded not guilty, saying he was at the protest as an independent journalist to cover the event.

Police detained Zhaghyparov along with several demonstrators.

The protests began on May 21 when dozens of homeowners from around Kazakhstan demonstrated in front of the government and parliament buildings in Astana.

They demanded the government intervene over what they say are excessive mortgage interest rates and frequent foreclosures.

Two organizers of the protest were sentenced to several days in jail and two demonstrators were fined for their actions.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Russia, Serbia To Sign Strategic Agreement

Serbia and Russia are due to sign an agreement later in the day on strategic partnership.

The document is scheduled to be signed by President Vladimir Putin and his Serb counterpart Tomislav Nikolic in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

Serbian media say the agreement calls on the bolstering of ties across a spectrum of areas, including business, trade, and infrastructure projects.

It also backs closer political cooperation, especially on the issue of Kosovo, whose 2008 declaration of independence has been recognized by neither Serbia nor Russia.

Serbian First Deputy PM and Defense Minister Aleksandar Vucic will also travel to Russia and meet with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

Based on reporting by B92 and ITAR-TASS

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Where is President Obama As Egypt’s Coptic Christians Die and Churches Burn?

KNOXVILLE, TN (Catholic Online) – According to Asia News, Coptic Christians are experiencing an escalation of attacks by Islamists, and they are becoming a daily occurrence. Asia News reported two attacks that occurred last week. Furthermore, as Copts continue to suffer and die and their churches and property are destroyed, Christians have begun to notice President Obama’s silence.

On May17, over 20 thousand Muslims attacked the church of St. Mary in Alexandria. They set fire to the entrance of the building and shattered the windows. In response to the attack, hundreds of courageous Copts formed a human wall around the perimeter of the church, effectively using their bodies as shields against the huge mob. Some Islamists were armed with guns and knives. They shot at the Copts, causing some serious injuries.

The attack on the church apparently began because of a dispute between two neighbors. According to one report, Basem Ramzy Michael, a Coptic Christian, behaved inappropriately towards the sister of a Muslim man, Alloshy Hamada. Another report stated that Basem leaned over his “balcony to gaze at the flat of Alloshy’s sister, who lives on the ground floor.”

The Assyrian International News Agency (AINA) reported that a 36-year-old Coptic man, a father of three children, died during the attack. His name is Sedky Sherif. While witnesses said his body was covered with bruises and marks from bird shot, it is believed he may have died from a heart attack.

A 19-year-old Coptic man, Mina Milad Saber, was severely injured in the attack and required brain surgery. AINA reported that the police shackled him to his bed after his surgery for fear he might escape, although he was still in a coma. They also reported that “most Christians who were injured during the attack either went privately for treatment or quietly left the hospital, ‘as it will end by them being arrested too,’ said Weesa Fawzy.”

Another incident occurred on May 13 in the village of Menbal, north of the Minya province. This time, a Muslim mob attacked a church named Tadros el-Mashreki. They threw stones at the church, forced their way into it, trashed it, and assaulted one person. The mob then looted Christian shops, set cars on fire, and beat up Copts caught outside. The Coptic minority was also threatened with expulsion from the village.

This incident apparently began when a group of Coptic girls, who were going to church, ignored the advances from a group of young Muslims. According to the report, the Muslims waited for the Coptic girls to come out of church. Then they threw bags filled with urine at the girls. This provoked an argument between the girls’ Coptic friends and the Muslims.

As a result of the escalating violence against the Coptic Christian community in Egypt, but prior to these two incidents, on April 18, American Copts gathered in Washington D.C. in front of the White House seeking justice for their fellow Copts. They wanted the United States government to do more to persuade the new Islamist government in Egypt to protect its Christian minority from attacks. One demonstrator shouted, “We need justice! Obama, Obama, where are you?”

Of course, the answer to this question seems to be clear. By all accounts, President Obama and his administration have positioned themselves in the same camp as President Morsi of Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood.

President Obama denounces violent attacks against the oppressed Christian minority in Egypt and throughout the Muslim world, but he chokes on the word “terrorism” when Muslim’s commit acts of terror. Yet, he had no problem this past Monday telling the new leader of Myanmar, Thein Sein, that the predominately Buddhist nation needs to end its violence against its Muslim minority.

It is right that President Obama, and all of us, should be concerned about the ongoing violence in Myanmar and the tragic displacement of its Muslim minority; however, this concern should go both ways, and it apparently does not for President Obama. Take the attacks on the U. S. embassies in Egypt and Libya on September 11, 2012, which are currently under investigation, although the attack in Benghazi, Libya is the main focus.

Right from the start, the Obama administration blamed these attacks on an obscure, 14-minute video clip about the Prophet Muhammad that was made by an American Coptic Christian. Before the attacks even began, the U.S. embassy in Cairo released a statement condemning “misguided individuals [who] . . . abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.” About two weeks later, the administration flooded Pakistani television with an ad featuring President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denouncing the video in anticipation of the “Love the Prophet Day” protests.

In the ad, President Obama says, “Since our founding, the United States has been a nation that respects all faiths. We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.” Secretary of State Clinton says, “Let me state very clearly, the United States has absolutely nothing to do with this video. We absolutely reject its contents. America’s commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation.”

The President and key members in his administration continued to blame the embassy attacks on the video for weeks. In the process, they caused massive unrest in many Muslim countries resulting in numerous injuries, deaths and wide-scale property damage. What’s more, the aftershocks of this lie about the video are still being felt.

For instance, it has undermined efforts to establish goodwill between the Copts living in Egypt and their Muslim neighbors; it has endangered the Copts and other Christians living in Muslim countries; it has damaged the relationship between the United States and some Muslim nations; and it has left the American Copt who made the video in jail on a technicality, a victim of Machiavellian politics.

Last week, hundreds of Egyptian Copts stood up to a mob of 20 thousand Muslims. They risked their lives to protect their church, their religious freedom and each other. Last month, members of the American Coptic community stood up to our government. They called on President Obama, and all they got was silence. He was not there for them.

We wonder where President Obama is, but where are we? The American Coptic community also asked for our prayers and if we would stand with them. Our Christian brothers and sisters in Egypt and Muslim countries around the world need our help. Their blood is crying out to us. Will they get silence from us too? Will we be there for them?

One thing is certain, there will be no peace in the world while arrogant leaders incessantly lie to the people, manipulate them and deny them religious freedom. For this reason, I believe it is imperative for Christians in the United States to be there for the Copts and all persecuted Christians. We need to stand up for religious freedom everywhere, even in our own country.

With these thoughts in mind, let us always pray for those being persecuted for their faith and for religious freedom in our own country. Let us also write to our leaders. If they do not listen, then let us go to Washington D. C. and form a human wall around the perimeter of religious freedom for all the world to see.

By Michael Terheyden
http://www.catholic.org

Assyrian International News Agency

Turkey’s Chaldeans Heed Erdogan’s Call for Minorities to Return

The first to respond to Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s call for Turkey’s non-Muslims to return to their homes with the launching of the peace process were the Chaldeans. They are coming back to their villages in Silopi.

In the Silopi district of the Sirnak province, a new Chaldean village is rising. The Chaldeans, who emigrated from the village of Silopi in 1991, following clashes in the region, are returning to their homeland. Until now, 27 Christian Chaldean families who were living abroad have applied to return to their villages.

Petros Karatay, a Chaldean who emigrated from Silopi to France, said that they are now working on resurrecting Aksu, the second largest village of the Silopi district. Karatay said their village was expropriated by Turkish coal companies between 1980 and 1990, and they were allocated new lands for their villages by the government. However, before they could move clashes in the region intensified, the Chaldeans refused to become village guards for the government and emigrated. About 4,000 Chaldeans from Aksu currently live in France, Belgium, Germany and Iraq. Karatay said if only 5% of them return, they will have 200 people in their village. He said, “We want to create a village that can be a bridge between the region and Europe, with its standards of life, arts, culture and language.”

Karatay said Chaldeans support the peace process with the Kurds. He added: “We find the calls of state officials for the non-Muslim population living abroad to return as very positive and valuable. The state now has positive approaches to Syriacs, Chaldeans and Armenians. In the old days, we were subjected to many unfair and wrong policies. State officials are aware of that. What is important is to repair the damages that can be repaired and avoid their repetition. Sadly, we can’t say that the local attitudes match those of the state.”

Karatay said for the time being three houses were under construction in their village. “With more houses, social facilities will be built. We expect officials to help with infrastructure work.”

Who are the Chaldeans?

The Chaldeans belong to the Chaldean Catholic Church and use the Syriac language in their religious assemblies. Originally called Nestorians, they aligned with the Catholic Church in 1304. Some say the name Chaldean did not follow their joining the Catholic Church, but has its roots in the Chaldean people of southern Mesopotamia. Today, some of their church masses are partially held in Arabic. For a long time, Chaldeans recognized Konak village in the Hakkari province as their patriarchate, but following their clashes with the Kurds in 1915-1918, they emigrated to Iran and then to Iraq.

AL Monitor

Translated from Taraf (Turkey).

Assyrian International News Agency

British Soldier’s Gory Slaying Yields More Arrests, Searches, Questions

London (CNN) — Why did Lee Rigby have to die?

That’s what people around Britain — its officials, its authorities, its citizens — asked themselves Thursday, a day after the soldier was hit with a car, then hacked to death on a London street in broad daylight.

There’s been no indication that the 25-year-old machine gunner, drummer and father of a 2-year-old boy knew the men who attacked him with meat cleavers. One of them who approached a man filming the gory scene in southeast London’s Woolwich neighborhood suggested Rigby had been targeted only “because Muslims are dying daily” at the hands of British troops like him.

That man and another who suffered gunshot wounds in a confrontation with police minutes after Rigby’s killing spent Thursday in stable condition at separate South London hospitals.

Even with those two suspected attackers under guard, authorities pressed for answers — and to determine if others might have been somehow involved and, if so, why.

Six residences have been searched, and two people — a man and a woman, both of them age 29 — were arrested Thursday on “suspicion of conspiracy to murder,” London’s Metropolitan Police said.

“This is a large, complex and fast-moving investigation which continues to develop,” added police.

The attack, which Prime Minister David Cameron and others called an act of terror, stirred anxiety and alerts in Britain not seen since the summer of 2005, when coordinated bomb attacks struck London’s public transport network.

An additional 1,200 police are now on London’s streets to reassure the public, Assistant Commissioner for Specialist Crime and Operations Mark Rowley said, with extra patrols at key locations such as religious institutions and transport hubs. Steps were also taken to further protect military installations and personnel, he added.

Abu Barra blamed Wednesday’s attack not on his friend Michael Adebolajo — who he says is the bloody, cleaver-wielding man shown talking in the video aired by CNN affiliate ITN — but on the British government and predicted there may be more attacks.

“As long as (British) foreign policy is engaging in violence, they’re only inviting violence in retaliation,” Barra told CNN.

By sharp contrast, Cameron said “the fault lies solely with sickening individuals who carried out this attack,” adding that “nothing in Islam … justifies this truly dreadful act.”

“This was not just an attack on Britain and on the British way of life; it was also a betrayal of Islam and of the Muslim communities who give so much to our country.”

Suspect knew British Muslim radical leader

Friends, acquaintances and British media identified Adebolajo as the suspect seen on the ITN video, though the identities of the other man and the two people arrested Thursday aren’t known.

British Muslim radical leader Anjem Choudary told CNN on Thursday that he knew Adebolajo, noting that the suspect attended demonstrations and a few lectures organized by Choudary’s group Al-Muhajiroun.

In fact, an ITN video from April 2007 shows Adebolajo standing behind Choudary at a rally protesting the arrest of men who allegedly made inflammatory speeches inside a mosque.

Barra described his friend as a “very caring” man who “just wanted to help everybody.” He was also “very vocal” about his feelings that Muslims were being oppressed, injustices he pinned, in part, on the British government.

“I wasn’t surprised that it happened,” Barra said of Wednesday’s attack. “… Britain is only responsible, the government. And I believe all of us, as a public, we are responsible. We should condemn ourselves, why we did not do enough to stop these wars going on in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

The Woolwich bloodshed spurred concerns not only about violence by Islamic extremists but also about attacks targeting Muslims by people angry about Rigby’s killing.

“People can only take so much. And people will break,” said Victor Easdown, a construction worker who heard shots ring out in Woolwich as police took on Rigby’s attackers.

In Kent, police arrested a man on suspicion of “racially aggravated criminal damage” at a religious building. And Wednesday night in Essex, a man with two knives was arrested after throwing a smoke grenade at the Al Falah Braintree Islamic Center and demanding someone come outside to answer to the Woolwich slaying, the mosque’s secretary Sikander Sleemy said.

Members of the far-right English Defence League clashed with police late Wednesday, with a tweet from its official account touting that “it’s fair to say that finally the country is waking up!:-) NO SURRENDER!”

“Don’t listen to the Government cover ups, The lies about Islam being peaceful,” read another EDL tweet Thursday.

Political and social commentator Mohammed Ansar appealed for “a sense of calm (and) perspective” after what he called “a really, really heinous act of, I would say, criminality, … not terrorism.”

“What we don’t need are knee-jerk reactions … to really ratchet up tensions and really stoke and inflame anxieties within communities,” he told CNN.

The attack may have wide-ranging repercussions in Britain, including possibly enflaming sectarian tensions and leading to more violence.

But it’s already have an impact on people who live and work in Woolwich — the working-class, multicultural neighborhood where the mutilation took place — and witnessed the carnage firsthand.

A man who identified himself as James told London’s LBC 97.3 radio station that he saw two men standing by the victim, who was on the ground.

At first, James thought they were trying to help the man. But then he saw two meat cleavers, like a butcher would have.

“They were hacking at this poor guy, literally,” he told the radio station. “These two guys were crazed. They were just not there. They were just animals.”

Amid the horror, an individual story of courage emerged Thursday in the person of a Cub Scout leader named Ingrid Loyau-Kennett.

Loyau-Kennett told Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper that she had jumped off a bus to try to revive a man — later determined to be Rigby — she thought had been hurt accidentally.

She swiftly realized the man was dead, and it was no accident.

“When I went up, there was this black guy with a revolver and a kitchen knife. He had what looked like butcher’s tools, and he had a little ax, to cut the bones, and two large knives, and he said, ‘Move off the body,’ ” she told the newspaper.

“So I thought, ‘OK, I don’t know what is going on here,’ and he was covered with blood. I thought I had better start talking to him before he starts attacking somebody else.”

Unarmed police — like most in Britain — arrived at 2:29 p.m. Wednesday, nine minutes after the first call came in police. Armed officers were on site five minutes later. Witnesses recounted the suspects then ran at the police, who responded with gunshots.

By Greg Botelho and Laura Smith-Spark

CNN’s Laura Smith-Spark reported and wrote from London, and CNN’s Greg Botelho did the same from Atlanta. CNN’s Dan Rivers, Jonathan Wald, Carol Jordan, Atika Shubert, Erin McLaughlin, Richard Allen Greene, Ed Payne and Nic Robertson contributed to this report.

Assyrian International News Agency

In Brotherhood’s Egypt, Blasphemy Charges Against Christians Surge Ahead

A blasphemy trial against a Christian teacher in this Egyptian city renowned for its Pharaonic monuments is among a wave of cases that have Egyptian Christians worried they can be jailed for insulting Islam on the flimsiest of evidence.

Dozens of lawyers crowded a small, hot courtroom yesterday, eager to participate in the case against Dimyana Abdel Nour, a primary school teacher from a village near Luxor. Three students accused her of insulting Islam while teaching a social studies class last month. Such blasphemy cases have become much more frequent since the 2011 uprising that brought Islamists to power in Egypt.

Ms. Abdel Nour is now in hiding, and did not attend the court hearing. Her lawyers and local activists say the case is unjust, and local Christians are watching the proceedings with worry. They say the Islamists’ rise to power, including the election of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi, has encouraged extremists to discriminate against Egyptian Christians, known as Copts, who make up around 10 percent of the population.

To them, Abdel Nour’s case is an example of an increasingly grim reality.

“This case is not just about Dimyana,” says Sarabamon El Shayeb, head of the All Saints Monastery in the village of Tud, near Abdel Nour’s family home. “It’s about organized repression of the Copts. The Islamists are giving out the accusations of blasphemy generously and openly, mostly against Christians.” Editor’s note: This paragraph has been edited to correct Sarabamon El Shayeb’s title.

Blasphemy cases occurred under former president Hosni Mubarak too, but they have increased since the uprising that toppled him. Egypt’s new constitution, drafted last year by an Islamist-led committee, criminalizes blasphemy, bolstering a pre-existing law against insulting religions. Rights groups say blasphemy laws restrict freedom of expression and are often used against minorities, but most Egyptians support such laws.

From 2011 to 2012, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) tallied 36 accusations of blasphemy that were dealt with extra-legally, sometimes with village residents forcing the accused Christians to leave their village. In Cairo, several cases against prominent figures ended in acquittals. But in southern Egypt, where Luxor is located, all recent cases that have gone to trial have ended in convictions, according to EIPR. Throughout Egypt, most cases are brought against Christians.

EIPR’s Ishak Ibrahim says there were six blasphemy convictions in the last two years in Upper Egypt (as southern Egypt is called because of the direction the Nile flows). Last year a Coptic teacher in the city of Sohag was sentenced to six years in prison for insulting Islam and the president. During his trial, Islamist lawyers surrounded the courthouse, chanting and trying to block the defendant’s lawyers from entering. Fallout

Abdel Nour began working as a substitute teacher at the Naga El Sheikh Sultan primary school in April. Soon after she started, three students accused her of insulting Islam during a social studies lesson. They say she put her hands to her throat while mentioning Islam, as if she wanted to vomit, and then said that the late Coptic Orthodox Pope Shenouda III was better than the Prophet Mohamed.

Mostafa Mekki, the school principal, says he conducted an immediate investigation. According to his handwritten report, he questioned all students in her class, and all but the three who originally accused her denied the accusations.

Speaking in his home in the small village where the controversy began, Mr. Mekki calls the parents of all three children who accused her “extremists.” At least one of them is known for inciting sectarian strife in the past, he says. The principal said the parents were not happy with Abdel Nour, partly because she wore jeans instead of skirts, and didn’t cover her hair.

Mekki decided that the accusations against Abdel Nour were unfounded, but he canceled her temporary contract at the school anyway to calm tensions. He thought this would take care of the matter, he says. But the parents were not satisfied, and they complained to officials above Mekki. He was removed from his post as principal and transferred to an administrative job.

Mekki, who is Muslim, continues to defend Abdel Nour, despite losing his position and facing intense scrutiny himself. “If I wanted to please anyone, I would say she said it, and they would carry me on their shoulders,” he says. Local Christian activists said yesterday that he received threats because of his stance.

The public prosecutor soon filed charges against Abdel Nour for insulting Islam and inciting sectarian strife. She was imprisoned for nearly a week before she was released on $ 2,862 bail, which her lawyers say is an extravagant sum for this type of case. In a recent similar blasphemy case in Cairo, bail was set at less than $ 150. In that case, however, the defendant fled before he was convicted and sentenced.

Tharwat Bakhet Eysa, one of Abdel Nour’s lawyers, says the prosecutor questioned the three students who accused her, but did not question the 10 who denied the accusations. ‘Class-A sectarian case’

But where Abdel Nour’s lawyers see irregularities, those on the other side say the case is solid. One of the lawyers pressing the case against Abdel Nour is Abdel Hamid Senoussi, a Muslim Brotherhood leader in Luxor and former member of parliament with the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party. He said Mekki’s investigation was flawed, and that the principal declared Abdel Nour innocent simply to end the crisis.

“The law says we should punish whoever commits blasphemy,” he says. The consequences of not taking such accusations to court are “fatal,” he adds. “It leads to tension within society. That creates dissatisfaction with the parents, which leads to violence.”

He is convinced of Abdel Nour’s guilt after reviewing the prosecutor’s investigation and talking to the families of the accusers, he said. “When the principal delayed the matter, the kids were crying because of it and because of the insult to the prophet,” he said. “Children do not lie. They don’t make up stories.”

Mr. Senoussi says he would prefer the case to end in reconciliation instead of punishment, with Abdel Nour admitting guilt and apologizing.

The father of one of the students who accused Abdel Nour of blasphemy, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, says he is also convinced that the accusations are true. He teaches at a school run by Al Azhar, the seat of Sunni Islamic learning, and also runs a small institute teaching Quranic memorization.

Speaking to the Monitor yesterday, he said that the day after the alleged blasphemy, the children were upset about the incident, calling Abdel Nour “Dabbana,” which means “fly,” in a play on her given name Dimyana.

He and Senoussi say the case has nothing to do with tensions between Christians and Muslims. “We have good relations with Christians,” Senoussi says.

RECOMMENDED: How much do you know about Egypt? Take this quiz.

But Christians in Luxor and surrounding villages say otherwise. “All Coptic teachers are scared here now that any child who fights with them could accuse them of blasphemy and drag them to court,” says Safwat Samaan Yasaa, a local rights activist.

El Shayeb, the head of the All Saints Monastery, calls Abdel Nour’s trial a “class-A sectarian case.”

“It’s a huge mistake to take this out of its sectarian context,” he says.

The night before the trial, he wore the black robes and black embroidered cap of Coptic priests as he sat in the ancient monastery. A heavy silver cross hung on a chain around his neck. “Today, despite this repression, we can live. But tomorrow, what will we do? The coming days will be much worse.”

By Kristen Chick
Christian Science Monitor

Assyrian International News Agency

Intelligence Analyst: Obama Made ‘A Promise He Can’t Keep’

Anthony Cordesman is a former director of intelligence assessment for the U.S. secretary of defense’s office and a recipient of the Department of Defense Distinguished Service Medal. He now holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He gave RFE/RL Washington Bureau Chief Heather Maher his thoughts about U.S. President Barack Obama’s May 23 national security speech. 

WASHINGTON, May 23, 2013 (RFE/RL) 

RFE/RL: Did this speech do what President Obama hoped, which was recast America’s fight against terrorists and make his policies more transparent to Congress and the country?

Anthony Cordesman: I think the president opened a debate. The fact is that people who see terrorism as a serious threat, and particularly as a serious threat in very simplistic terms, are going to have to listen to more than one speech to change their perspective. The people who want an instant end to any kind of U.S. action that involves the use of force obviously didn’t listen during the president’s speech because they interrupted the president towards the end of it.

But if you look at what he said, I think he focused on issues which many people in the counterterrorism world would agree with. You can’t focus on a monolithic Al-Qaeda anymore. It is a matter of looking at extremism, and extremism that is sometimes violent. It has to be nuanced. You are talking about targeting individual movements. You do need partners because you are dealing with such a complex world and you can’t act militarily everywhere, and you do need diplomatic engagement. But is this going to end all of the president’s problems in communicating with the Congress or the issue of terrorism? The answer is very clearly ‘no.’ 

RFE/RL: Are the new, higher standards for U.S. drone strikes – someone must be a ‘continuing, imminent threat” versus just “a significant threat” — going to make that much difference? 

Cordesman: I think the problem that is raised in the president’s speech, which is raised every time that you go to a specific [issue], [is] whenever you talk about individual [terrorist] movements, you have to ask yourself, ‘What is it the movement is trying to do?’ And the difference between “imminent” and ‘non-imminent” is something where you never really know. [Osama] bin Laden was not seen as an imminent threat in terms of a direct, specific threat, until [Al-Qaeda] actually attacked and hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

And I think this is going to be the problem. The president perhaps put more restraints on the use of drones, but as he pointed out in his speech, they often are the best mechanism for striking terrorist groups that otherwise would have a sanctuary. And you’re really going to have to apply those rules movement by movement and case by case. I think that is one of the themes of his speech that people won’t pay enough attention to, because if you are going to target, you can’t be generic. 

RFE/RL: How significant is it that he appeared to signal his willingness to establishing an independent review board or special court to oversee the choice of U.S. targets? 

Cordesman: Well, there already has been a great deal of oversight. I think the problem is here, what kind of oversight. One problem you have is when the environment consists of the people who want to do it, in which case, it’s inherently permissive. It is a nightmare for anybody in the special operations world to try to deal with anything that attempts to be a legal process. Combat – and the president made this point in his speech  – [and[ dealing with foreign threats does not allow you to assemble the equivalent of case law and people who have legal backgrounds simply are not prepared to deal with much of anything else. Can you make the review process better? Probably, but then the problem gets to be how serious -- and in this case, how imminent -- is the threat going to be? Because assembling too much evidence means often missing the target or reacting too slowly. 

RFE/RL: Obama called closing the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay a matter of national security and asked opponents in Congress to see it that way. He’s already decided to lift the moratorium on sending Yemenese detainees home – will he take more unilateral action on this matter if Congress won’t cooperate?

Cordesman: The problem he faces is the problem in law – that is the question you really have to ask both senior [lawyers] on [Capitol] Hill on the committees that oppose this, and then the White House counsel. Of course there is the Congressional power of the purse, and that really matters. It’s not something where I believe the president can simply act on his own without it creating a legal problem. Whether he chooses to do that is another question entirely.

But I think he made a good case that this is not the way to deal with the problem. Essentially, parking people indefinitely with no clear procedure for either reintroducing them to the country involved or punishing them legally, at a cost of $ 1 million a prisoner a year, is not going to be a major step forward in fighting terrorism. 

RFE/RL: The president said that someday this war against terrorists, like all wars, must end. Will there come a day when the United States isn’t fighting terrorist groups, and if so, how far off is it?

Cordesman: So far we have no idea when it’s going to happen. The truth is that the forces at work here have not gotten better. He talked in a way about dealing with the causes of terrorism. Well, the problem is that every measure he outlined can’t work. You can’t deal with the massive pressures of population increase, the sectarian tensions between Sunni and Shiite, there isn’t something U.S. diplomats or U.S. aid can do that can deal with the fact that young men in many developing countries face something like a 40 percent unemployment rate. You can’t deal with the whole problems of simply hyper-urbanization, just to name one of the many causes involved.

The fact is that extremism is likely to be with us for decades. It will change in form, it will be a threat that is intense or limited depending on factors we can’t predict today. You can talk about it ending, but the fact is that history doesn’t end, violence doesn’t end, war doesn’t end, and extremism doesn’t end, and I think the president made a promise which neither he nor history can keep.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Target: Surkov

When photos of Vladislav Surkov hanging out and fishing with the powerful Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov appeared online recently, it raised some eyebrows but was viewed mainly as an odd curiosity.

Kadyrov said Surkov, whose resignation as deputy prime minister and government chief of staff was made public on May 8, spent this past weekend with him in Chechnya’s Itum-Kalinsky district, where the photos were taken.

Surkov “remains on the president’s team and is ready to fulfill the tasks Vladimir Putin might give him” and “could be useful for the state in any role,” Kadyrov added.

The two men are longtime allies, so Kadyrov’s public demonstration of support wasn’t exactly shocking. But in light of recent news reports, it has become more interesting — and appears to be much more than a kind gesture to an old friend.

Surkov, according to the latest round of media speculation, could soon become a target in the ongoing criminal probe into alleged corruption at the Skolkovo scientific and innovation center — the flagship project Dmitry Medvedev initiated during his presidency to spur the modernization of Russia’s economy. As deputy prime minister, Surkov was responsible for overseeing the center.

“The Investigative Committee is very interested in the activities of former Deputy Prime Minister Vladislav Surkov,” Gazeta.ru reported this week, quoting unidentified Kremlin and law-enforcement sources.

The report added, quoting Skolkovo officials who have been called in for interrogation, that investigators appear particularly interested in “Surkov’s role in administering the distribution of funds” from the center. “The nature of the questioning suggests that the goal is to prove he was involved with embezzlement,” the publication wrote.

If Surkov is indeed in the Investigative Committee’s crosshairs, it would represent a significant escalation in the Kremlin’s war on dissent — expanding it from the opposition to also include their alleged collaborators among the elite. It would also mark a significant escalation in the cold war between the siloviki and technocratic wings of the elite that has been simmering since the Medvedev presidency.

As the Kremlin’s chief ideologist during Putin’s first two terms, Surkov was a key member of the president’s inner circle. He was instrumental in devising both Putin’s tough-guy image and the faux system of “sovereign democracy” that legitimized his authoritarian rule.

Surkov fell out of favor with Putin during the period of the so-called tandem, when he endorsed keeping Medvedev in power for a second term as president and the introduction of more pluralism into the political system — things the powerful siloviki clan of security-service veterans surrounding Putin hotly opposed.

For the time being, the criminal probe into Skolkovo alleges that the center’s senior vice president, Aleksei Beltyukov, illegally paid opposition politician Ilya Ponomarev $ 750,000 for lectures and research projects. But media reports suggest that this is just one piece of a larger case in which investigators are seeking to show that since his estrangement from Putin, Surkov has been involved in covertly funneling state funds to the opposition.

Kremlin-friendly political analyst Sergei Markov told Gazeta.ru that when antiregime protests broke out in December 2011, anti-Putin elements in the bureaucracy and the business elite used Skolkovo for precicely this purpose.

“Those who were in charge of this project are of course now falling under suspicion,” Markov said. “Putin cannot give the impression that he will stand by quietly while people betray him behind his back.”

Moreover, Surkov’s relations with the siloviki faction of the elite, particularly powerful figures like Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin and Kremlin chief of staff Sergei Ivanov, have always been frosty at best. And now, it seems, they are out for revenge.

But going after a fish as big as Surkov would escalate the conflict within the elite to unprecedented levels and would require Putin’s go-ahead. It is unclear whether he has given it.

Which puts those photos of Surkov and Kadyrov in context.

– Brian Whitmore

NOTE TO READERS: Be sure to tune in to the Power Vertical podcast on May 24, when I will discuss the issues raised on the blog this week with co-hosts Kirill Kobrin of RFE/RL’s Russian Service, Mark Galeotti of New York University, Sean Guillory of the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Russian and Eastern European Studies.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Islamist Militants Kill More Than 20 People In Niger

More than 20 people have been killed and dozens have been injured in attacks by Islamist militants in Niger.

The attacks in the western African country on May 23 were claimed by one of the Islamist militant groups that seized control of northern Mali last year before being driven out by French-led African troops.

At least 20 soldiers were killed when a car bomb exploded at an army camp in the northern city of Agadez.

One person was killed in another attack which hit a uranium mine in the northern town of Arlit operated by French company Areva.

The Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) group said the attacks were revenge for France’s offensive against the Islamists in neighboring Mali, and for Niger’s involvement in the operation.

Based on reporting by AFP, dpa, and BBC

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Obama Charts New Counterterrorism Course

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is delivering a major national security speech in which he is outlining a new course in U.S. counterterrorism efforts.

Obama, in his remarks at the National Defense University, announced new limits on the use of drone strikes against suspected terrorists and a shift of control of lethal force operations from the CIA to the military.

“Neither I nor any president can promise the total defeat of terror,” Obama said. “We will never erase the evil that lies in the hearts of some human beings nor stamp out every danger to our open society. But what we can do — what we must do — is dismantle networks that pose a direct danger to us, and [we must] make it less likely for new groups to gain a foothold, all the while maintaining the freedoms and ideals that we defend.”

Obama signed a presidential order this week that allows lethal force to be used against someone who represents a “continuing, imminent threat to Americans.” Until now, the lower standard was a “significant threat.”

On the eve of Obama’s speech, the U.S. administration had revealed for the first time that four American citizens have been killed in drone strikes outside war zones. Attorney General Eric Holder made the admission in a letter to Congress.

In his May 23 speech, Obama defended those targeted killings as both effective and legal but said he was “haunted” by civilians unintentionally killed.

Obama also reiterated his desire to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.

He announced his decision to lift a moratorium on relocating Guantanamo inmates to unstable Yemen.

He derided the detention center at Guantanamo as a facility that “never should have been opened.”

White House aides had said the speech would be aimed at creating more transparency with the American people, outlining how terrorist threats have changed since 2001, and envisioning a day when the country “is no longer on a war footing.”

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Ukraine Court Bans Planned Gay-Pride Rally

A court in Kyiv has banned what would have been Ukraine’s first Gay Pride parade.

The court on May 23 upheld a suit by Kyiv authorities, who say the rally, which gay rights activists had planned to hold on May 25, would disrupt celebrations for the annual Kyiv Day that will take place on the same day.

The court said the rally also risked sparking violence.

Last year, Gay Pride organizers had to cancel the event at the last minute after skinheads gathered at its planned location in protest.

Although Ukraine decriminalized homosexuality in the early 1990s, hostility against gays and lesbians remains rife there and in other former Soviet nations.

The Orthodox Church has also taken a strong stand against homosexuals.

Based on reporting by AP, Interfax, and Unian

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Is Christian Persecution Just a ‘myth’?

One of the traditional purposes for studying History has been to learn from it, to see how past events can shed light on the present. This is possible assuming the history presented is true.

Unfortunately, in our postmodern era of relativism, history has become a malleable tool to justify one’s philosophical and/or political inclinations–with all the wild anachronisms, projections, and conjectures that entails.

Happily, there is a little known antidote to these distorted revisionist histories. Ironically we can often learn about the past by looking at the present–for the patterns of human nature do not change.

Consider the book The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom, by one Candida Moss. Despite the fact that Christian martyrdom under the militant Roman Empire has long been an unquestioned historical fact, Moss claims that it was largely a “myth,” that many of history’s best known narratives of Christian martyrs were entirely fabricated.

This thesis, as most modern-day academic theses concerning early history, is fundamentally based on conjecture, projections, and above all, anachronisms–the sort that earlier turned Christ into a homosexual hippie and Muhammad into a humanitarian feminist. Neither Moss nor anyone else can prove or disprove what the primary historical texts say–that Roman persecution of Christians was very real, widespread, and brutal.

We weren’t there.

But from an objective point of view, is it not more reasonable to accept the words of contemporary eyewitnesses, than it is the conjectures of a politically charged book that is separated from its subject by 2,000 years?

Among other ideas unintelligible and inapplicable to the ancient world, Moss invokes “T-shirts,” “favorite athletes,” and “brands of soda” to “prove” that the ancient narrative of Christians tortured and killed for their faith was all a gag to make a profit: “Martyrs were like the action heroes of the ancient world,” Moss says. “It was like getting your favorite athlete endorsing your favorite brand of soda. …Of course, the prices were completely jacked up.”

In short, the merit of Moss’ thesis rests in the fact that it satisfies a certain anti-Christian sentiment–that it satisfies a modern-day political perspective–and not that it offers any facts or serious arguments. Indeed, by projecting cynical postmodern perspectives onto the mentalities of people, both Romans and Christians, who lived worlds and centuries away, the thesis is ultimately farcical.

Even so, let’s tackle the myth charge from a different angle. Let’s leave the question of eyewitnesses, texts, and traditions, and instead rely on common sense–that which is in short supply in the academic community–by considering the following question: If at least 100 million Christians are currently being persecuted today, in an era when Western ideas of humanitarianism and religious tolerance have permeated the rest of the world, thanks to globalism, is it not reasonable to conclude that 2,000 years ago, when “might made right” and brutally prevailed, that Christians were also being persecuted then, especially when contemporary sources clearly indicate as much?

Consider the modern Islamic world alone, where today’s overwhelming majority of horrific Christian persecution occurs, as documented in my new book Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians. Today in the 21st century, Christians under Islam are still being tortured, imprisoned, enslaved, and killed; their churches and Bibles are routinely banned or burned.

Why is that? Because Islam is a supremacist cult, which brooks no opposition and demands conformity, one way or the other: Islamic law (see Koran 9:29) teaches that those who come under its hegemony must either convert, or keep their faith but live as ostracized third-class citizens (dhimmis), or die.

The supremacist culture of the Roman Empire–an even older martial cult devoted to the gods of war–was not much different and demanded compliance from the subjugated, regardless of how modern, armchair historians try to romanticize it.

If today’s Muslims–who are acquainted with modern ideas of humanitarianism and tolerance–are still brutally persecuting the Christian minorities in their midst, are we seriously to believe that the warlike Roman Empire, which existed at a time when brutality and cruelty were the expected norm, did not persecute Christians, especially when the records say it did? The Roman punishment of crucifixion alone sheds light on the ruthless severity of the ancient empire.

Moreover, Christianity was and still is the one religion that refuses to comply with its supremacist overlords, that puts its beliefs above the preservation of life. Unlike other religions which approve of dissembling and outward conformity–Islamic law permits Muslims to outwardly renounce Muhammad, if doing so will save their lives–Christians have long had a habit of “annoying” their superiors by refusing to comply, even to save their lives.

Thus, just as Christ irked Pilot, the representative of the supremacist Roman Empire, by refusing to utter some words to save his life, his disciples and countless other ancient Christians did the same; and today, countless modern day Christians are doing the same. And in all cases, their supremacist overlords–whether pagan Romans or modern Muslims–persecuted, and continue to persecute, them for it. (Most recently in Iran, Islamic authorities are trying to force an American citizen to abjure Christ, even as he resists under torture.)

Historical texts aside, today’s Christian persecution is a clear indicator of yesterday’s Christian persecution–for those who exercise some common sense, that is.

By Raymond Ibrahim
Human Events

Assyrian International News Agency

Banned Rafsanjani Blasts Iran’s Leadership

Iran’s former president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, has taken a parting shot at the country’s leadership days after he was disqualified from running in the upcoming presidential election.

The Guardians Council, the powerful election watchdog, omitted Rafsanjani from its final shortlist of candidates. The eight men approved by the 12-member council, which vets all nominees, were mostly conservative candidates loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

NO RIGHT OF APPEAL: What’s A Disqualified Iranian Candidate To Do?

The 78-year-old Rafsanjani, addressing members of his campaign team on May 22, accused Iran’s ruling elite, who had opposed his candidacy, of being “ignorant” and incompetent.

“I think it is not possible to run the country worse than this, even if it had been planned in advance,” Rafsanjani was quoted as saying by opposition websites Kaleme and Rah-e-Sabz. “I don’t want to stoop to their propaganda and attacks, but their ignorance is worrying. Do they even understand what they’re doing?”

ALSO READ: Rafsanjani Disqualification Paves Way For Khamenei To Install Loyalist

Rafsanjani, a moderate conservative, had filed a last-minute application for candidacy in the June 14 presidential election. He had received backing from the country’s marginalized reformists and moderates who hoped the elder statesman could fix Iran’s faltering economy and mend fences with the West.

Ruffled Feathers

But Rafsanjani’s candidacy infuriated hard-liners who believed he would undermine the authority of the supreme leader. His opponents had accused him of “sedition,” a reference to the aftermath of the 2009 disputed presidential election, when Rafsanjani criticized the treatment of detainees and implicitly voiced support for the opposition Green Movement.

While addressing his campaign staff, Rafsanjani was also quoted as saying he never thought his candidacy would “bring so much hope to the people.” He said if Iran’s establishment had any “wisdom” they would have granted him the right to run for office.

WHO’S WHO: Iran’s Shortlisted Presidential Candidates

Rafsanjani, who served as president from 1989 to 1997, added that Iranians should not feel distress over his failed bid to run for the presidency again. “People should not despair at all. There will come a day when those who are destined to come, will come.”

The influential Rafsanjani reiterated that he had joined the presidential race only after receiving a flood of support from high-ranking clerics, youths, and academics. He also said Khamenei, with whom Rafsanjani is reported to have a tense relationship, had not opposed his candidacy.

Rafsanjani said his past policies — including economic liberalization, better relations with the West, and empowering Iran’s elected bodies — was what the Islamic republic needed.

During his address, the former president also made reference to the United States and Israel, calling them the country’s “true foreign threats.” He accused the two countries of waging “psychological warfare” against Tehran, a reference to Israel’s threat to use military action if Iran does not halt its disputed nuclear program.

Rafsanjani also suggested that Washington was keen to spur separatism among the ethnic Azeri population living in northwest Iran and the country’s volatile Sistan-Baluchistan Province, a Sunni majority region that has been the scene of sporadic attacks by Baluch separatists.

Won’t Challenge Exclusion

Rafsanjani’s remarks came as Iranian media reports suggested he had accepted his disqualification. His campaign manager, Eshagh Jahangiri, told the semiofficial ISNA news agency on May 22 that Rafsanjani “will not protest” the decision despite his stature as one of the leaders of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

But that did not stop an outpouring of support for Rafsanjani.

Sayed Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic republic, sent a letter to Rafsanjani on May 22 expressing his “shock” that the former president had been disqualified. Kaleme quoted Khomeini, a cleric, as saying in the letter that Rafsanjani had “revived people’s hopes” by putting his name forward.

Zahra Mostafavi Khomeini, the former supreme leader’s daughter, had already sent an unprecedented letter to Khamenei on May 21, urging the supreme leader, who has the final say on all state matters, to reinstate Rafsanjani as a candidate to “prevent dictatorship” from taking grip in Iran.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Gulnara Karimova Takes To Twitter Following Critical Report

Gulnara Karimova and her supporters have taken to Twitter to respond to an investigative report linking the Uzbek president’s daughter to large-scale bribery.

The report, published May 22 by RFE/RL and Sweden’s “Mission: Investigation” television program, is based on leaked documents that appear to bear Karimova’s handwriting.

Among other things, the documents offer new evidence that the Stockholm-based telecom giant TeliaSonera has paid millions of dollars in bribes to enter and remain in the Uzbek market.

Karimova, the flamboyant elder daughter of Uzbekistan’s autocratic leader Islam Karimov, has never officially commented on the case.

She rarely grants interviews, but has become an enthusiastic if sporadic presence on Twitter, which she uses to collect compliments from admirers and occasionally engage in barbed exchanges with her critics. 

In the heated volley of tweets and retweets that has followed the RFE/RL-Swedish report, she ignores the claims, using the story as an opportunity to lash out at perceived enemies in Uzbekistan and beyond.

ALSO READ: Fresh Evidence Of TeliaSonera Ties To Karimova

“It’s clear that Ozodlik” — a reference to RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service – “received a strict ‘order from above’ to sully the name of Gulnara Karimova by any means necessary,” said a message by @meclarck retweeted by Karimova.

She also indulges in speculation that the report was aided by MTS, TeliaSonera’s former mobile-phone rival, which was forced out of Uzbekistan in the summer of 2012 after a raid by tax police.

Falling Out With A Former Ally?

The former head of MTS in Uzbekistan, Bekzod Akhmedov, is a one-time ally of Karimova’s and is under investigation in Sweden and Switzerland in connection with money-laundering on behalf of the ruling family. Tweets suggest the two now appear to have fallen out.

“It’s becoming clear that it’s Akhmedov’s protectors who are the ones who ordered all this dirt,” one Karimova supporter, @AbdunazarovaM, tweeted.

“MTS earned millions in Uzbekistan, and now they’re sitting all covered in dirt,” @UlushMirab added.

“Aha! And because Gulnara Karimova didn’t buy into their deals and blackmail, they’re going to pressure her more than anyone else,” wrote @hellsuffer.

“Pressure me!” Karimova weighed in. “What a joke. Outlets like Ozodlik and the Swedes are just mom and pop operations.”

Karimova also noted that Akhmedov — whose whereabouts have been the source of much speculation since his apparent fall from grace — is “always moving around and he’s located now in Moscow $ $ $ $ )))).”

Many of the tweets also focus on Karimova’s rumored ambition to succeed her aging father as president.

One supporter, @amalprosto, tweeted: “The main goal [of the Swedish-RFE/RL report] is to see Gulnara Islamovna withdraw from the race! The closer the elections get, the more ‘kompromat’ there will be” – a reference to the Russian term for “compromising material.”

Another tweet, from @RasidJamamurato, speculated, “Some political forces are putting pressure on Gulnara Karimova because of her growing popularity among the people.”

@meclark added: “It’s true that for those waging a geopolitical war over Uzbekistan” — an apparent reference to Russia and the United States — “they need a person who’s stupid and obedient.” “Those kinds of people exist, believe me!)))”

Karimova playfully tweeted back, adding later, “Thank you, my dears, for the support and understanding. I’m proud of the fact that I can look people in the eye.”

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

What’s A Disqualified Iranian Candidate To Do?

When Iran’s powerful election watchdog, the Guardians Council, announced its official list of presidential candidates this week, it omitted two prominent hopefuls from the June 14 presidential race.

The disqualification of former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, President Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s preferred successor, has sparked outcry from supporters, who have called on the two men to be reinstated.

The decision by the unelected Guardians Council, which vets all nominees and determines the official shortlist of candidates, has raised the question of what recourse, if any, is available to disqualified candidates who wish to challenge the decision.

FLASH ANALYSIS: What the disqualifications tell us

According to the Guardians Council, which is under no obligation to explain its decision, barred candidates cannot appeal. Iran’s election laws grant the council sweeping powers that mean it may prohibit any presidential hopeful for almost any reason.

Images of approved and disqualified presidential candidates for the June election appear on the front pages of newspapers at a kiosk in Tehran on May 22.

Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, the spokesman for the Guardians Council, said in an interview with Iran’s state TV on May 21 that there was “no provision in the election law for candidates to appeal.” Kadkhodaei also said that there would be no period for appeals as official campaigning gets under way.

The only recourse candidates have to overturn the council’s decision is to appeal directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has immense influence over the 12-member council, all of them directly or indirectly appointed by him. Khamenei can overrule the council’s decision by passing a decree.

In fact, Khamenei did so in the 2005 presidential race when he intervened and reinstated Mostafa Moin and Mohsen Mehralizadeh, two reformist candidates.

Under Iran’s Islamic system of government, known as “velayat-e faqih,” a top cleric serves as supreme leader and has the final authority on all matters of state. The supreme leader’s legal and political authority over the country is also enshrined under Article 110 of the Iranian Constitution.

PERSIAN LETTERS: Disqualification Of Rafsanjani Paves Way For Khamenei To Install Loyalist

It came as no surprise then when Ahmadinejad said on May 22 that he would appeal directly to the supreme leader to reinstate his protégé, Mashaei.

“I will pursue this case through the supreme leader until the last moment and I hope this problem will be solved,” he said in remarks published on the presidency’s website, president.ir

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A combo photo of two prominent disqualifications: the former head of Iran’s presidential office, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie (left), and former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani

Ahmadinejad, who cannot stand for reelection after serving two consecutive terms, called Mashaei a “pious, rightful, and competent man” who had been “a victim of injustice.”

Mashaei called the decision to bar him from contesting the election unfair and said he would appeal to the supreme leader.

“We ask the Supreme Leader to review the Guardian Council’s decision, which clearly seems to be a violation of the law. We also appeal to the President to use his legal position as the executive power of the constitution to correct this injustice,” Mashaei was quoted as saying by the “Guardian” newspaper.

But Ahmadinejad has little power to intervene. In Iran, the president is the second-highest-ranking official, with his powers limited by the clerics in the country’s power structure and by the authority of the supreme leader.

Rafsanjani, meanwhile, appears to have accepted his disqualification. That’s despite a plea from Zahra Mostafavi Khomeini, the daughter of the founder of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. In an unprecedented letter to Khamenei, Mostafavi urged him to put Rafsanjani back on the official shortlist.

Rafsanjani’s campaign manager, Eshagh Jahangiri, told the semiofficial ISNA news agency on May 22 that Rafsanjani “will not protest” the decision despite his stature as one of the leaders of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and his 1989-97 tenure as president.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Two Georgian Orthodox Priests Charged With Antigay Violence

TBILISI — Two Georgian Orthodox Church clerics have been charged in connection with antigay violence that broke out last week in Tbilisi.

The Interior Ministry announced on May 23 that one priest at the Holy Trinity Cathedral, Antimoz Bichinashvili, and another at the Ioane-Tornike Eristavi Monastery, Iotam Basilaia, have been charged with using or threatening the use of force to hinder the right to demonstrate or assemble.

Thousands of antigay activists, including Orthodox priests, attacked dozens of people preparing to mark International Day Against Homophobia on May 17.

At least 17 people were injured.

Four men who took part in the incident were found guilty on May 21 of hooliganism and fined 100 laris ($ 61) each.

The European Union office in Tbilisi said it “was dismayed by the scenes of brutal intolerance and violence.”

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Police Raid Company Working On 2014 Sochi Olympics

SOCHI, Russia — Armed and masked police have searched the offices of a company involved in developing sports facilities for the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Russian city of Sochi.

The general director of the Mostovik Construction Company, Oleg Shishov, told journalists that police blocked off the whole area surrounding his company’s offices on May 23.

An RFE/RL correspondent said he saw law-enforcement officers seizing company documents.

Shishov denied reports that the search might be connected with an investigation launched last year into allegations that company executives embezzled 2 billion rubles ($ 64 million).

According to Shishov, the search has nothing to do with the earlier investigation.

Sochi will host the 22nd Winter Olympics in February 2014.

Russia’s Finance Ministry is providing funding worth billions of U.S. dollars for the development and hosting of the Olympics.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Ukrainian Journalists Protest Decision To Bar 10 From Cabinet Coverage

About 100 journalists have demonstrated in front of the Ukrainian government building, protesting the prime minister’s decision to bar 10 reporters from covering cabinet meetings.

Kyiv-based lawyer Ihor Rozkladay, who represents the journalists, said that depriving the reporters of their accreditations is in violation of Ukraine’s law on media.

Prime Minister Mykola Azarov ordered the withdrawal of the accreditations on May 22 after the journalists stepped in front of television cameras at a cabinet session and turned their backs on the ministers.

The reporters were protesting an earlier attack on two journalists, a husband and wife.

The beating took place on May 18 when supporters and opponents of President Viktor Yanukovych clashed in Kyiv.

The journalists had signs pinned to their backs that read, “Today, it’s a female journalist [beaten up], tomorrow– your wife, sister, daughter. Do something!”

Based on reporting by UNIAN and Interfax

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Cameron Returns To U.K. To Coordinate Response After Brutal Killing

British Prime Minister David Cameron has returned to London to coordinate his government’s response after a man was butchered to death by two attackers shouting Islamic slogans near an army barracks in London on May 22.

Cameron condemned the attack before cutting short a visit to France.

“Tonight our thoughts should be with the victim, with their family, with their friends,” Cameron said. “People across Britain, people in every community I believe, will utterly condemn this attack. We have had these sorts of attacks before in our country and we never buckle in the face of them.”

Cameron said indications suggest the attack was a “terrorist attack.”

Footage shot at the scene just minutes after the killing showed a man with hands covered in blood, holding a bloodied meat cleaver and a knife.

Eyewitnesses said the two alleged attackers remained at the scene after the killing, encouraging people to film and photograph them.

Police shot the two suspects while trying to arrest them. The wounded men were taken into custody.

No information has been released yet as to the identity of the suspects.

The identity of the victim was also unclear, although local media reports said he was believed to be a member of the British military.

The victim was wearing a T-shirt saying “Help for Heroes,” the name of a charity formed to help wounded British veterans.

Britain has had troops deployed in Afghanistan since 2001 and had troops in Iraq from 2003-09.

The United States condemned the attack and expressed support for the family of the victim and the British people.

Hours after the attack, some 100 supporters of the far-right English Defense League took to the streets to protest, some wearing balaclavas and carrying England’s flag. They were contained by riot police.

Meanwhile, two men were arrested in connection with separate attacks on mosques outside London. No one was hurt.

With reporting by Reuters and AP

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Car Bomb Kills 12 In Pakistan’s Southwest

Police in Pakistan say a car bomb in the southwest of the country has killed 12 people, including 11 police officers.

Police officials said the attack just outside Quetta also wounded more than 20.

Police said the car bomb targeted a vehicle carrying members of the police’s special forces.

Quetta is the capital of southwestern Balochistan Province, which has been a center of insurgency for years by nationalists who want a greater share of the region’s natural resources.

The nationalists also opposed the Pakistan parliamentary elections that were held May 11.

Based on reporting by AP and AFP

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

U.S. Says Four Americans Killed In Drone Strikes

The U.S. government has admitted that it has killed four Americans in drone strikes.

In a letter to Congress, Attorney General Eric Holder defended the Obama administration’s decision to target and kill radical Muslim cleric and U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki in a 2011 drone strike in Yemen.

Holder called it “clear and logical that U.S. citizenship alone” does not give someone immunity from being targeted for death if they meet certain terrorist criteria.

Holder said the strike that killed al-Awlaki also killed American Samir Khan. Awlaki’s son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was killed in Yemen, and Jude Mohammed was killed in Pakistan.

Holder said unlike al-Awlaki, the three were not deliberately targeted for death.

The revelations emerged one day before President Barack Obama is set to deliver a major speech on national security.

Based on Reuters, AP and AFP reporting

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Scholar: Turkey’s Rejection of Genocide Evolves Into Mythmaking Process

Turkey has ‘condemned’ a move by the New South Wales Parliament to recognize as genocide the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek deaths during the Ottoman rule, the Assyrian International News Agency reported.

The Turkish Consul General in Sydney Gulseren Celik said “it’s not up to individual governments to pass judgment on historical events that occurred outside of Australia.”

Meanwhile, professor Vrasidas Karalis of The University of Sydney said Turkey’s stance fails to bring justice to the millions of victims.

“Who is going to bring some justice and closure to the victims and the descendants of the victims?” he said. “I think Turkey at this very moment, with its very sterile rejection of every allegation, evolves into a sort of mythmaking process for the state instead of looking to the past with a fair and honest appreciation of what happened.”

http://www.panarmenian.net

Assyrian International News Agency

Amnesty Report Notes Worldwide Abuses, As Well As Courage Of Activists

In a new report, the global rights group Amnesty International (AI) documents abuses in 159 countries and territories that it says were “inflicted by those in power on those who stand in the way of their vested interests.”

The findings were published on May 23 in Amnesty International’s annual report, “The State of the World’s Human Rights,” for 2012.
 
It reports numerous cases of torture, poor prison conditions, persecution of rights activists, and the suppression of freedom of speech.
 
The assessment highlights the courage of rights activists to effect change.
 
Amnesty International Secretary-General Salil Shetty, speaking in a video released by her organization, says abusive governments can no longer use the issue of sovereignty to justify their actions.
 
“Governments have been created to protect the rights of their citizens, but we then have governments who are actually doing exactly the opposite, who are actually violating the rights of their own citizens and people who are living inside their boundaries,” Shetty says. “So I think in this day and age the excuse of national sovereignty, that these are internal affairs, is simply not acceptable.”
 
‘Dozens Tortured, Jailed’

Amnesty International’s program director for the Middle East and North Africa, Philip Luther, spoke to RFE/RL about the many rights abuses in Iran.
 

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Amnesty International’s Salil Shetty

“Amnesty International has been documenting waves of arrests in both 2012 and 2013 in Iran. Those arrests have targeted lawyers, students, journalists, political activists and their relatives, filmmakers, and also people with international connections, particularly to foreign media, such as BBC Persian,” Luther says. “Dozens have been tortured and jailed, among them prisoners of conscience, and many others have been banned from traveling abroad.”
 
The report documents a crackdown on the media after violent antigovernment protests, resulting in the suspension of licenses of 10 satellite channels.
 
Amnesty International’s Afghanistan researcher, Horia Mosadiq, tells RFE/RL that the situation for women is deteriorating in that country.
 
“The report] also covers cases and issues of violence against women and it documented, only during seven months of 2012, more than 4,000 cases of violence against women, which shows a 28 percent increase compared to the previous year,” Mosadiq says.
 
The researchers say that there has been a suppression of freedom of expression to varying degrees in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan.
 
They say that in Russia, increased peaceful political protests have prompted “repression,” including restrictive new laws and the harassment of rights activists, journalists, and lawyers.
 
Ethnic Discrimination

David Diaz-Jogeix, Amnesty International’s deputy program director for Europe and Central Asia, tells RFE/RL that Kyrgyz authorities were guilty of ethnic discrimination after deadly clashes between ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz three years ago.
 
“We have reported a pattern where ethnic Uzbeks continue to be targeted disproportionately for detention and prosecution in relation to the June 2010 events,” he says.
 
In Georgia, Diaz-Jogeix says the new government is dealing with a delicate political balancing act.
 
“The new government faces the challenge of both revamping the criminal justice system and the judiciary and addressing the wrongdoings committed under the previous administration without using the process of retribution against political rivals,” he says.
 
The Amnesty report calls on Belarus to abolish the death penalty, which it says has been carried out in a “cruel and inhuman” way.
 
It criticizes Moldova for not doing enough to prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation.
 
The assessment mentions the importance of new media and video-capable mobile phones.
 
Amnesty International says it “wants to make sure everyone has the tools to access and share information and to challenge power and sovereignty when it is abused.”

Here is a synopsis of the Amnesty report, focusing on RFE/RL’s broadcast countries:
 

AFGHANISTAN
 

Amnesty says thousands of Afghan civilians continue to suffer from “targeted and indiscriminate attacks” by armed militant groups. Amnesty’s report quotes figures from the UN, which held militants responsible for 80 percent of the 2,700 civilians killed last year. The assessment of Afghanistan says torture remained common in detention facilities, despite government efforts to reduce ill-treatment. The report also says violence and discrimination against women and girls remained commonplace. Tougher government controls on the media were also reported.

ARMENIA

Amnesty says public hostility in Armenia remains high toward attitudes perceived as “unpatriotic.” It says people expressing such views occasionally faced violence, while police and local authorities failed to properly investigate the attacks and at times appeared to be colluding in them. The assessment also says that conditions in prisons were reported to amount to inhuman treatment. It notes that by the end of the year, more than 30 men were serving prison sentences for refusing to perform military service on grounds of conscience.
 

AZERBAIJAN

Amnesty criticizes Azerbajian for its continued intimidation and imprisonment of people and groups critical of the government in 2012. The assessment says President Ilham Aliyev’s government targeted human rights defenders and journalists and subjected them to intimidation, harassment, and arrest. The report highlights the case of RFE/RL correspondent Khadija Ismayilova, who was spied on, blackmailed, and threatened because of her investigative reports. The assessment notes that freedom of association continues to be targeted by the government, with NGOs working on human rights and democracy being subjected to pressure and harassment. It says public protests continued to be banned in Baku and torture and ill-treatment against activists remained widespread.

BELARUS

Amnesty says Belarus has seen a serious decline in human rights since 2010. The assessment notes the country has six people in prison in connection with a demonstration against the reelection of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka in December 2010, four of whom are considered prisoners of conscience. The government is also criticized for violations of the rights of expression, association, and assembly. Minsk executed three people in 2012. The report says executions are conducted in “utmost secrecy” with neither the condemned nor their relatives being informed in advance.
 

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

Amnesty says nationalist rhetoric by the main political parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina increased in 2012, while challenges to the integrity of the state intensified. The assessment says that the nationalist rhetoric, including “increasingly secessionist remarks” by Bosnian Serb leaders, weakened state-level institutions, particularly the judiciary. It says that while prosecution of  war crimes under international law continued before domestic courts, progress remained slow and impunity persisted. It says many civilian victims of the 1992-95 war were still denied access to justice and reparations.

GEORGIA

Amnesty says rampant violations of free speech rights took place in Georgia in 2012. The assessment cites reports of harassment, intimidation, and even beatings of opposition supporters in the run-up to the October parliamentary elections that led to Bidzina Ivanishvili’s appointment as prime minister. Amnesty says many opposition sympathizers, particularly schoolteachers, were reportedly fired from their jobs for their political views. Following the election, a number of high-ranking officials close to President Mikheil Saakashvili were charged with crimes, prompting international concerns about the possibility of selective prosecution. Amnesty also notes cases of harassment against Muslim worshippers and gay-rights activists by Orthodox Christians.
 

MOLDOVA

Amnesty calls on Moldova to do more to combat reported torture and ill-treatment of detainees and to protect citizens from discrimination. The assessment criticizes the government for responding slowly to allegations of abuse by police. There were 143 complaints filed against the police in connection with demonstrations in 2009. Only three police officers had been convicted in connection with them by the end of 2012. All were given suspended sentences. Moldova was also cited for a law mandating the chemical castration of violent child abusers.

 
IRAN

Amnesty says Iranian authorities continued to impose “severe restrictions” on freedoms of expression, association, and assembly in 2012. It says Iranian dissidents and human rights campaigners were arbitrarily arrested, imprisoned after unfair trials, tortured, and banned from traveling abroad. Amnesty condemns what it described as discrimination against women, religious and ethnic minorities, and homosexuals. It condemns the use of judicial punishments such as flogging, amputation, and execution, and voices regret that new amendments to the Penal Code prohibited neither the death penalty for juvenile offenders nor executions by stoning. The report also criticizes the disqualification of thousands of prospective candidates from the March 2012 parliamentary elections.

 
IRAQ

Amnesty says authorities in Iraq detained thousands of people in 2012, sentencing hundreds to death or prison terms. It says many were convicted after unfair trials. The assessment says many defendants alleged they were tortured during interrogation in pretrial detention and forced to confess. The assessment says at least 129 prisoners were executed, more than in any year since executions resumed in 2005. Meanwhile, armed groups opposed to the government killed hundreds of civilians in suicide and bomb attacks.

 
KAZAKHSTAN

Amnesty says reports of torture and other ill-treatment by security forces “continued unabated.” The assessment says authorities used “excessive force” to break up strikes and public protests by oil and gas workers in southwestern Kazakhstan from May through the end of 2012. Hundreds of employees were dismissed, dozens of protesters, trade unionists, and opposition activists were detained, and at least 16 people were killed during clashes between protesters and police in December. The report also says refugees were forcibly returned to China and Uzbekistan, despite international protests.
 

KYRGYZSTAN

Amnesty says Kyrgyzstan “failed to fairly and effectively investigate” the 2010 violence between ethnic Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbeks. The assessment says reports of torture and other ill-treatment in the aftermath of the June 2010 violence in southern Kyrgyzstan, which left hundreds dead, continued throughout 2012. The document adds that prosecutors “regularly failed to thoroughly and impartially investigate” such allegations and bring those responsible to justice. It also says lawyers defending ethnic Uzbeks “continued to be threatened and physically attacked.”

 
PAKISTAN

Amnesty says Pakistan’s human rights defenders and journalists face “serious risks” amid widespread rights abuses. The assessment singles out the October shooting of the teenage activist Malala Yousafzai as an example of the dangers faced by rights campaigners. The report says that armed groups and the military continue to engage in abuses in northwestern tribal areas and the southwestern Balochistan Province. It says that “enforced disappearances, abductions, torture, and unlawful killing” continued in these restive regions. Amnesty notes that attacks on health workers have a negative impact on access to medical services. The report says that religious minorities in the Muslim nation continue to suffer persecution with “targeted killings.”

 
RUSSIA

Amnesty says that in Russia, increased peaceful political protests have prompted “repression,” including restrictive new laws and the harassment of rights activists, journalists, and lawyers. The assessment of Russia notes that trials in Russia fall short of acceptable standards and the number of apparently politically motivated verdicts is on the rise. The situation is said to be particularly bad in the volatile North Caucasus, where Amnesty says Russia often fails to properly investigate claims of abuses by law enforcement officials. The assessment says torture and ill-treatment of detainees remain a problem.

SERBIA & KOSOVO

Amnesty criticizes Serbia for violations of the rights of ethnic and sexual minorities. It also chides Kosovar authorities for their continued failure to prosecute war crimes

allegedly committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army in 1999.

The assessment of Serbia mentions the forcible eviction of some 1,000 Belgrade Roma from their homes and the continued ban on an annual gay-pride parade in Belgrade. The report notes the start of the war crimes trials in The Hague of former Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic and Croatian Serb leader Goran Hadzic and the acquittal by the same court of former Kosovo Premier Ramush Haradinaj.

It also criticizes the use of excessive force by Kosovar police.

 
TAJIKISTAN

Amnesty says torture and ill-treatment remains widespread in Tajikistan while impunity for perpetrators continued. The assessment says independent monitoring bodies were given “no access to detention facilities.” It notes that children, elderly people, and witnesses in criminal cases endured torture that included “the use of electric shocks, boiling water, suffocation, beatings and burnings with cigarettes.” The report noted that suspects involved with banned Islamic groups “were at particular risk of torture.” Amnesty says that in a climate of impunity, victims of torture were afraid to lodge official complaints, fearing reprisals. The report says that Tajik authorities continued to restrict the freedom of expression of human rights activists and journalists in 2012.

 
TURKMENISTAN

Amnesty says harassment of the opposition and the media remain widespread in Turkmenistan, despite the adoption of a law which allows opposition parties to register. It mentions that the 2012 reelection of autocratic President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov with an overwhelming majority was criticized by international rights watchdogs, which did not send observers, citing Turkmenistan’s limited political freedom. The assessment notes that torture and other forms of ill-treatment of those suspected of criminal offenses remain widespread in Turkmenistan. It cites electric shocks, rape, and the forcible administration of psychotropic drugs among the methods employed by authorities against suspects. It said freedom of movement remained drastically restricted.
 

UKRAINE


Amnesty says Ukraine is plagued by failings in its criminal justice system and a lack of safeguards for detainees. The assessment of Ukraine notes that an international delegation that visited in 2011 was “inundated with allegations from detained people.” Kyiv has ignored a UN recommendation that it establish an independent body to investigate torture allegations. The AI report for 2012 notes the apparently politically motivated prosecutions of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and members of her government. It also said the rights of homosexuals and transgenders are at risk because of pending legislation.
 

UZBEKISTAN

Amnesty says Uzbekistan has restricted the freedom of expression because human rights campaigners and journalists are continually harassed. It says that in 2012, some 10 journalists and human rights defenders remained imprisoned in “cruel, inhuman, and degrading conditions.” The assessment says that authorities routinely monitor rights activists and journalists and frequently question them and place them under house arrest. Amnesty says it is concerned over the “frequent use of torture and other ill-treatment to extract confessions” against opposition figures and government critics. The report says that suspected members of banned religious groups are a particular target of ill-treatment by Uzbek authorities.
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Syrian Christians’ Safety Threatened By Extremism and Instability, Says Catholic Bishop

Syrian Christians’ Safety Threatened By Extremism and Instability, Says Catholic Bishop

Syriac Catholic Bishop Gregoire Melki said the current situation in Syria is very sad and has left people very anxious, and fears the same thing that happened to Christians in Iraq will happen to Christians in Syria.

“Growing extremism in Syria could jeopardize the safety of all Christians,” Melki told the Assyrian International News Agency. “Those who can, escape … For more than two years there has not been a solution (to the violence) we have to pray.”

Though the situation in Syria is grim for all, it is even worse for minorities, such as Christians.

“It is always the minority which is attacked first,” Bishop Melki noted, adding that he hoped this would not mark the beginning of the end of Syria’s Christian community.

“The church in Syria continues to be a victim of the total chaos and war,” Bishop Melki said to a large crowd during the 10th prayer service for reconciliation, unity and peace at the Syriac Catholic Church, attended by the heads of Christian churches in Israel.

Church leaders in attendance participated in the special Syriac blessing of the water ceremony recited over small bottles of water, later distributed to the worshippers, AINA reported.

“We pray fervently day and night for (Christian) unity and peace, especially in Syria, and for the two bishops who have been kidnapped and their release and for others kidnapped elsewhere in the Middle East,” Bishop Melki said to the audience.

Syriac Orthodox Bishop Swerios Malki Murad of Jerusalem also helped lead the prayer service.

“We, both bishops, and all churches here in Jerusalem, are concerned about the civil war in Syria and the terrible impact it is having on the population and also of course on the Christians,” Bishop Melki said.

While the congregation prayed for peace, two members held up a large banner displaying a picture of the two Aleppo archbishops, kidnapped by unknown assailants on April 22.

After the prayer service, Franciscan Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa, said, “we are powerless and the only thing to do is to pray and give moral and spiritual support to the Christians there to be strong.”

“We have to remember we can’t always be in winter, it can’t rain continuously. Sooner or later the rain will come to an end, and we have to pray to be strong during this period so we can be ready when the sun comes out,” he concluded.

http://global.christianpost.com

Assyrian International News Agency

RFE/RL’s Turkmen Correspondent Released From Custody

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RFE/RL Turkmen Service correspondent Rovshen Yazmuhamedov

Rovshen Yazmuhamedov, RFE/RL’s Turkmen Service correspondent who spent two weeks in police custody in Turkmenabat, was released today under circumstances that have yielded little information about his ordeal.

Acting RFE/RL President and CEO Kevin Klose welcomed Yazmuhamedov’s release, saying, “We’re very happy he’s safe, and I thank the governments, international organizations, media outlets and NGOs that challenged his detention and pressed for his release.” 
 
The EU, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Reporters Without Borders all issued statements on Yazmuhamedov’s behalf.
 
Klose pointed out that RFE/RL had taken the bold step of trying to regularize its relations with the Turkmen government by applying to accredit Yazmuhamedov earlier this year. “We ask the Turkmen government to answer for Rovshen’s detention and treatment, and stop responding to independent expression with intimidation and imprisonment,” Klose added.
 
Yazmuhamedov was originally taken into custody on May 6 to the Interior Ministry’s Department 6, which oversees cases involving organized crime and extremism. He was detained not long after publishing several reports for Radio Azatlyk, as the service is known locally, that generated active discussion on the service’s website.

Tags: Turkmenistan, Journalists In Trouble, Turkmen Service, Radio Azatlyk, Azatlyk Radiosy

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

RFE/RL’s Turkmen Correspondent Released From Custody

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RFE/RL Turkmen Service correspondent Rovshen Yazmuhamedov

Rovshen Yazmuhamedov, RFE/RL’s Turkmen Service correspondent who spent two weeks in police custody in Turkmenabat, was released today under circumstances that have yielded little information about his ordeal.

Acting RFE/RL President and CEO Kevin Klose welcomed Yazmuhamedov’s release, saying, “We’re very happy he’s safe, and I thank the governments, international organizations, media outlets and NGOs that challenged his detention and pressed for his release.” 
 
The EU, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Reporters Without Borders all issued statements on Yazmuhamedov’s behalf.
 
Klose pointed out that RFE/RL had taken the bold step of trying to regularize its relations with the Turkmen government by applying to accredit Yazmuhamedov earlier this year. “We ask the Turkmen government to answer for Rovshen’s detention and treatment, and stop responding to independent expression with intimidation and imprisonment,” Klose added.
 
Yazmuhamedov was originally taken into custody on May 6 to the Interior Ministry’s Department 6, which oversees cases involving organized crime and extremism. He was detained not long after publishing several reports for Radio Azatlyk, as the service is known locally, that generated active discussion on the service’s website.

Tags: Turkmenistan, Journalists In Trouble, Turkmen Service, Radio Azatlyk, Azatlyk Radiosy

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Are the Dark Days Returning to Iraq?

London (CNN) — According to the United Nations’ mission in Iraq, 712 Iraqis were violently killed in April 2013. This is both normal and extraordinary. It is normal because it pales into comparison beside the monthly death toll in the worst years of the country’s civil war. It is extraordinary because it is the highest such figure since that civil war subsided five years ago. Understanding the violence requires grasping three confluent trends: the increasingly authoritarian streak of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, the rise of both peaceful and violent protest among Iraq’s aggrieved Sunni minority (a fifth of the population), and, finally, a regional trend of worsening sectarian tensions between Shia and Sunni Muslims.

Each of these strands is tightly woven together. It was the invasion of Iraq a decade ago and the subsequent empowerment of its Shia majority that sparked fears of what Jordan’s King Abdullah famously called a “Shia crescent” from Syria to Iran. Prime Minister al-Maliki spent his years of exile under Saddam in both those countries, and is widely seen as having aligned Iraq more closely to Iranian interests — for instance, allowing Iranian over-flights of arms to the Assad regime. This diplomatic shift compounded a political one. Al-Maliki has undermined political institutions that were designed to be independent, such as the central bank and election commission. He has seized personal control of key army and intelligence units, many of them CIA-backed, including the 6,000-strong Iraqi Special Forces.

When the last American troops left Iraq at the end of 2011, al-Maliki pounced. Vice-President Tareq al-Hashemi, the most senior Sunni figure in the government, was forced to flee Iraq and was later sentenced to death. A year later in December 2012, hundreds of bodyguards and staff of Finance Minister Rafi al-Issawi, another senior Sunni, were arrested, triggering major protests. And on April 23, the situation worsened when Iraqi forces backed by helicopters killed dozens of peaceful Sunni protesters in the town of Hawijah. The town was seen by nearby Kurds as a conduit for suicide bombers, and the government claimed that the protesters were harboring militants from a Sunni militant group called the Naqshbandia Order.

Maliki established a ministerial committee to look into the Hawijah episode and has made a few other concessions, but the damage was done: a previously peaceful movement has grown angrier and, in places, more violent. Taken together, Maliki’s heavy-handed and sectarian actions have fanned flames that were never really extinguished. The result is a powerful sense of Sunni victimhood with many policies, such as de-Baathification (the removal of Saddam’s party loyalists from positions of influence), seen as little more than collective punishment of Sunnis.

The new wave of Iraqi protest embodies this trend. The protests are concentrated in Sunni-majority provinces. Protesters frequently excoriate Iran’s influence in Iraqi politics and acclaim the Sunni-majority Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighting the neighboring Assad regime. Sometimes, their slogans are nakedly and belligerently sectarian. This naturally alienates many Iraqi Shias, who resent being associated with a foreign power and see the FSA as retrograde, Saudi-backed jihadists rather than freedom fighters. They are also likelier to see Maliki’s various power-grabs as necessary steps to bring order and security to Iraq in the face of a growing regional and domestic threat from Sunni extremists such as al Qaeda and its ideological brethren. Iraq’s increasingly autonomous Kurds, buoyed by potentially vast oil reserves, share some of these fears and sit in uneasy alliance with Shia political groups.

Indeed, the Syrian civil war has widened Iraq’s sectarian divisions and created a source of major instability. In March, around 50 Syrian soldiers who had fled into Iraq were ambushed and killed. The single most powerful Syrian rebel group, Jabhat al-Nusra, is an offshoot of al Qaeda in Iraq, and its personal and logistical networks run across the Syria-Iraq border. If al-Assad were to fall, this would have a catalytic effect on parts of Iraq, amplifying Sunni militancy and resulting in a flood of weapons of fighters across the border.

Does this mean that Iraq is fated to return to the dark days of 2006-2007, when death squads were run in the heart of government and Baghdad faced waves of ethnic cleansing? It is important to note that while Iraq itself bleeds, the Iraqi state is strong. Al-Maliki is vulnerable in Sunni-majority areas where the Sunni militias of the al-Sahwa movement provide security, but his large and cohesive security forces serve as a buffer against wider chaos. Moreover, many Sunni groups are eager to keep the violence in check, having previously suffered greatly at the hands of al Qaeda in Iraq. It is certainly too early to talk about the country’s break-up.

Next year’s parliamentary elections will be a pivotal moment. At the last elections in 2010, the Sunni-dominated but secular Iraqiya bloc won more seats but couldn’t form a government, and eventually let Maliki take the top spot.

This time round, it will be harder for Maliki to outmaneuver his political rivals: they have learnt that power sharing is a sham, and the Kurds are in a stronger position. In provincial elections held last month, Maliki’s coalition saw its vote share decline, with many of his harder-line Shia Islamist rivals faring better.

Another victory for Maliki under contested conditions would produce severe political instability, especially if present levels of violence continue. The imperative is for political accommodation, reconciliation, and compromise. Yet Maliki is unlikely to opt for this route as long as he feels he can keep his grip on power with the help of his swollen army, paramilitary, and intelligence apparatus. There is no obvious way out for Iraq.

By Shashank Joshi

Shashank Joshi is a research fellow at the London-based think tank Royal United Services Institute and a doctoral student of international relations at Harvard University’s Department of Government. He specializes in international security in South Asia and the Middle East.

Assyrian International News Agency

Suicide Bomber Kills Anti-Taliban Elder

A suicide bomber has killed an anti-Taliban village elder and at least three other people in Afghanistan’s central Ghazni Province.

Police said Habibullah Khan was killed along with two bodyguards and a civilian bystander when a teenage attacker on foot detonated his explosives in a busy marketplace in the district of Muqur.

Other officials said at least seven people were killed and more than a dozen were injured.

Khan reportedly led a tribal militia against the Taliban in his district.

Taliban insurgents have carried out a campaign of assassinations of pro-government figures and warned Aghans to distance themselves from the government.

Based on reporting by AP and AFP

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Muslim Kills Soldier With Meat Cleaver on London Street

London (CNN) — A man thought to be a serving British soldier was killed by two armed men in a frenzied attack on a London street Wednesday, in what the government is treating as a suspected act of terrorism.

Witnesses told of a gruesome scene in which the man was hit by a car, then hacked with cleavers and his body dumped in the middle of the road in Woolwich, southeast London.

The two suspects in the killing were injured in a confrontation with police and have been taken to two hospitals, where they are being treated.

CNN affiliate ITN aired a video showing a man with bloody hands and holding a meat cleaver, who says, “We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you.”

The man, who is black and appears to have a London accent, carries on: “The only reasons we killed this man this is because Muslims are dying daily. This British soldier is an eye for an eye a tooth for tooth.

“We apologize that women had to see this today but in our lands our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your government. They don’t care about you.”

The victim is believed to be a serving soldier who was based at a nearby barracks, Nick Raynsford, a member of Parliament, told CNN.

The soldier had apparently been on duty in central London and was returning to the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich when he was attacked, Raynsford said.

Speaking in Paris, Prime Minister David Cameron said there were “strong indications” that the man’s killing was a terrorist incident.

He said he would be returning early from the official trip to handle the situation and will be back in London Wednesday night.

“It is the most appalling crime,” he said, speaking alongside French President Francois Hollande, who pledged solidarity with Britain in the face of terrorist threats.

Cameron declined to confirm whether the man killed was a serving soldier, while Britain’s defense ministry said it was investigating to see whether that’s the case. But the prime minister vowed the United Kingdom would stand firm in the face of threats to its security and “will not buckle.”

UK Home Secretary Theresa May led a meeting of the country’s civil emergency committee, known as COBRA, on Wednesday evening, and Cameron will chair another such meeting on Thursday.

Afterward, authorities increased security around Woolwich and all military barracks in London, a British government source said.

British Defense Secretary Philip Hammond said the killing was a “very shocking incident” and that the UK takes the safety of its troops “very seriously,” as he headed into the COBRA meeting.

London Mayor Boris Johnson tweeted: “This afternoon’s attack in Woolwich is a sickening deluded and unforgivable act of violence. My thoughts are with the victim and his family.”

That sentiment was echoed by many others — such as May, the Home Secretary, who described it as a “a sickening and barbaric attack,” and Labour Party leader Ed Millband, who predicted the “whole country will be horrified” by what he called the “appalling events.”

Commander Simon Letchworth told reporters in Woolwich that local officers had responded when an assault was reported at 2:20 p.m. Wednesday and a firearms unit was called to the scene. British police do not usually carry firearms.

“Two men, who we believe from early reports to have been carrying weapons, were shot by police,” he said. “They have both been taken to separate London hospitals and are receiving treatment for their injuries.”

‘They were hacking at this poor guy’

Eyewitnesses have given gruesome details of the killing.

One, Michael Atlee told CNN he and friends heard gunshots and when they turned the corner saw a pool of blood on the sidewalk and a trail of blood leading into the road.

The man killed appeared to be wearing a T-shirt for Help for Heroes, a charity that helps military veterans, he said.

Another witness, who gave his name only as James, told London’s LBC 97.3 radio station that he saw two men standing by the victim on the floor.

At first he thought they were trying to help the man but then saw two meat cleavers, like a butcher would have.

“They were hacking at this poor guy, literally,” he told the radio station, as if they were trying to remove his organs.

“These two guys were crazed. They were just not there. They were just animals.”

The men appeared to want to be filmed, he said, saying that one of the attackers went over to a bus and asked people to take photos of him as if he wanted to be on TV.

He said the two men had rushed at the police when they arrived, at which point shots were fired and both men went down.

Lauren Collins told CNN: “I still am quite shaken at what I’ve seen — I’ve seen a victim of an awful attack, and I’ve seen a body of a young man.”

Another witness, Woolwich Theatre owner Adrian Green, said the incident was “shocking” but did not reflect the true nature of the area.

Raynsford said the military based at the centuries-old barracks had a close relationship with the local community. Woolwich is a mixed, multicultural area, he added.

By Laura Smith-Spark

CNN’s Mariano Castillo, Joshua Levs, Atika Shubert, Stephanie Halasz, Kim Chakanetsa and Pierre Meilhan contributed to this report.

Assyrian International News Agency

IAEA: Iran Expanding Nuclear-Enrichment Technology

A new report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says Iran has improved its capacity to rapidly refine uranium by installing hundreds more centrifuges.

The IAEA report noted that Tehran was going ahead with the building of a new research reactor.

Western experts see it as a possible second venue for producing material for a nuclear weapon.

The report, however, showed limited increase in the country’s most sensitive atomic stockpile.

The report says that the rise is still considered below an Israeli “red line.”

Israel has threatened military strikes if diplomacy and sanctions fail to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Critics see Tehran trying to achieve the capability to make nuclear weapons. But Iran says its nuclear program is entirely peaceful and is pushing for its “right” to enrich uranium recognized.

Based on reporting by dpa, AP, and Reuters

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Turkish-Armenian Writer Handed Jail Sentence for Blasphemy

ISTANBUL (Reuters) — An Istanbul court has sentenced a Turkish-Armenian author and blogger to more than a year in prison for insulting the Prophet Mohammad, local media reported on Wednesday, weeks after a similar case caused alarm among secularists.

Sevan Nisanyan, who has authored several books and who runs a blog on what he describes as “history, religion and a (little) politics”, posted a link to the offending blog on his Twitter account following the ruling.

The accompanying message read: “Let’s share the article that brought a sentence of 13.5 months from the Istanbul 10th Criminal Court for insulting religious bla bla bla.”

Just over a month ago, world-renowned concert pianist Fazil Say was handed a suspended jail sentence for insulting religious values on Twitter, including one tweet poking fun at a muezzin, someone who makes the Muslim call to prayer.

Say’s sentence stirred passions about the role religion should play in Turkish public life and highlighted how much has changed since Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party, which has roots in Islamist politics, swept to power a decade ago.

Erdogan’s AK Party has witnessed unprecedented prosperity and is admired among Western allies keen to portray NATO member Turkey as a beacon of political stability in a troubled region.

But Erdogan’s opponents have increasingly accused him of posing a threat to the modern, secular republic founded by Kemal Ataturk on the ruins of the Ottoman empire 90 years ago.

They also say a judiciary once renowned for defending the secular republic against Islamist influence now finds itself answering to religious conservatives.

Nisanyan was sentenced to one year and 45 days for a blog post last year entitled “Hate speech needs to be combatted” in which he wrote:

“It is not hate speech to make fun of an Arab leader who claimed he had contacted Allah hundreds of years ago and received political, financial and sexual benefits accordingly.

“It is a test of freedom of expression at an almost kindergarten-level.”

Media reported that the sentence could not be converted to a financial penalty but that Nisanyan had a right to appeal. The court could not be immediately reached for comment.

Writing by Ece Toksabay; Editing by Jonathon Burch and Mike Collett-White.

Assyrian International News Agency

Khomeini’s Daughter Calls On Supreme Leader To Reinstate Rafsanjani

The daughter of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of Iran’s Islamic republic, has emerged among those stunned and angered by the exclusion of former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani from next month’s presidential race.

Zahra Mostafavi Khomeini addressed an unprecedented letter to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urging him to put Rafsanjani back on the official shortlist.

In the passionate letter, sent to Khamenei on May 21 and published by the Jamaran website, she urges the supreme leader, who has the final say on all state matters, to reinstate Rafsanjani as a candidate to “prevent dictatorship” from taking grip in Iran.

WHO MADE THE GRADE? Iran’s Shortlisted Presidential Candidates

“This decision will create a gulf between my father’s two friends [Rafsanjani and Khamenei],” Mostafavi writes. “It also shows disrespect to the wishes of the people on the street. This separation will cause great harm to the revolution and to the regime. As the Imam [Khomeini] always said, ‘It is best when the two of you work together.’”

Mostafavi then reminds Khamenei what her father had said about the position of the supreme leader, which, she says, is to “ensure nobody does whatever they want and to prevent dictatorship.”

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Zahra Mostafavi Khomeini

Mostafavi adds that her wishes reflected those of “a lot of people who care about the regime and are concerned about the situation in Iran. Their hearts long to hear the echo of unity in this country.”

The best chance of recourse for candidates who are ruled out of the vote by the Guardians Council is through the supreme leader, who has the power to reinstate a candidate. The supreme leader has immense influence over the 12-member council, all of them directly or indirectly appointed by him.

But Rafsanjani’s campaign manager, Eshagh Jahangiri, was quoted on May 22 by Iran’s ISNA news agency as saying that the former president would not protest his disqualification.

WATCH: In a Flash Analysis, RFE/RL Regional Director Mardo Soghom says the exclusion of two major presidential aspirants suggests “acute fear” within Iran’s leadership:

The 78-year-old Rafsanjani was a close adviser to Khomeini and was instrumental in Khamenei’s approval as the supreme leader in 1989. For much of the 1980s and 1990s, Rafsanjani was a close confidant of Khamenei. Supreme Leader Khomeini backed Rafsanjani for the presidency in 1989, a post he then held until 1997.

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Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani

But the pair fell out when Rafsanjani lost to President Mahmud Ahmadinejad in the 2005 presidential election. The rift between the two widened after Ahmadinejad’s disputed reelection in 2009, which provoked mass popular protests and a harsh government crackdown.

Rafsanjani at the time denounced the government’s crackdown and implicitly voiced support for the country’s opposition Green Movement. Khamenei rejected Rafsanjani’s comments and stood firm by Ahmadinejad and denied any claims of vote-rigging.

In the past four years, Rafsanjani has seen his influence wane. He has been banned from leading Tehran’s Friday Prayers, lost his role as the head of the influential Assembly of Experts, and been physically and verbally assaulted at public events.

ALSO READ: Disqualification Paves Way For Khamenei To Install Loyalist

Meanwhile, Rafsanjani’s daughter served a six-month sentence in connection with the chaos that ensued after the election, while his son is to stand trial in the coming weeks for his alleged role in the protests.

But Rafsanjani did manage to keep his post as head of the Expediency Council, an advisory body that mediates disputes between the parliament and the Guardians Council.

Rafsanjani’s last-minute entry had raised hope among reformers and moderates but infuriated hard-liners and loyalists to Khamenei who believed his candidacy would undermine the supreme leader’s authority.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

10% of Young People in UK Are Muslims

Demographic conquest using a high reproducing group sneaks up on you. One minute the numbers don’t look so bad, because you’re looking at the overall population. But the real test is the under 30s and under 18s. When the numbers tilt there, then the trouble is very big.

A new analysis of the 2011 census shows that a decade of mass immigration helped mask the scale of decline in Christian affiliation among the British-born population — while driving a dramatic increase in Islam, particularly among the young.

Meanwhile almost one in 10 under 25s in Britain is now a Muslim.

At the same time the number of Muslims in England and Wales surged by 75 per cent — boosted by almost 600,000 more foreign born followers of the Islamic faith.

While almost half of British Muslims are under the age of 25, almost a quarter of Christians are over 65. The average age of a British Muslim is just 25, not far off half that of a British Christian.

And the demographic gap is quite devastating. The number of immigrants arriving is only half the story. It’s their birth rate that really counts.

By Daniel Greenfield
Frontpage Magazine

Assyrian International News Agency