The killing of a 12-year-old boy sparked calls for justice and action to counter human rights violations of black African refugees in Egypt
Dozens of Sudanese refugees and migrants have been arrested after protests over the murder of a young boy in Cairo.
Amnesty International said about 70 people, including children, were arrested by Egyptian security forces after what it said were two peaceful protests on 29 October.
Continue reading...Met police counter-terror unit has been asked to investigate allegations, court hears
Counter-terrorism police have been asked to investigate claims that witnesses and claimants in a terror-funding case were intimidated by officials working for the state of Qatar, the high court has been told.
Allegations of perverting the course of justice emerged at the hearing in London on Wednesday in a case involving compensation claims submitted originally by eight Syrian refugees against Doha Bank, the headquarters of which are in the Gulf state.
Continue reading...France condemns ‘cowardly attack’ at Jeddah ceremony for foreign diplomatic staff
Several people have been wounded in an explosion in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah during a ceremony to commemorate the end of the first world war attended by staff from foreign diplomatic missions, officials have said.
“The embassies involved condemn this cowardly attack, which is wholly unjustified,” the French foreign ministry said. “They call on the Saudi authorities to shed as much light as they can on this attack, and to identify and hunt down the perpetrators.”
Continue reading...James Le Mesurier died a year ago today. The Guardian’s Martin Chulov describes the immense pressure the co-founder of the White Helmets was under, as he saw the organisation he built appear to be slipping away from him
In November 2019, James Le Mesurier, the British co-founder of the Syrian rescue group known as the White Helmets, fell to his death in Istanbul.
The Guardian’s Middle East correspondent, Martin Chulov, knew James well and had spoken to him the week before his death. He tells Anushka Asthana how he began investigating one of the most difficult stories of his career: what led his friend, an internationally celebrated humanitarian, to take his own life?
Continue reading...Hanan al-Barassi was an outspoken critic of abuses in areas controlled by the Libyan National Army
Gunmen have shot dead a prominent female dissident on a busy street in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, in the latest killing of a critic of military strongman Khalifa Haftar.
Hanan al-Barassi, an outspoken critic of abuses in the eastern areas controlled by Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA), was shot dead in her car in broad daylight on 20th Street, a busy artery in Benghazi’s city centre, rights groups and security officials said.
Continue reading...Key PLO figure and advocate for two-state solution dies aged 65
Saeb Erekat, the veteran Palestinian peace negotiator and one of the most high-profile figures in its leadership since the early 1990s, has died after contracting coronavirus.
Erekat, a lawmaker from Jericho in the occupied West Bank, was a senior adviser to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and also worked for Abbas’s predecessor, Yasser Arafat. He served as the secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
Continue reading...Analysis: With defence secretary’s firing and potential new Iran sanctions, Trump raises fears over impact of a vengeful president
The abrupt dismissal of the US defence secretary, Mark Esper, and reported plans for multiple layers of new sanctions on Iran have made clear that Donald Trump’s last 10 weeks in office could still prove a very bumpy ride for the rest of the world.
Trump is refusing to concede his loss to Joe Biden and, while he launches a quiver of baseless legal challenges to the results, he is also seeking to demonstrate he is still in charge of foreign and defence policy – fueling fears about the impact a vengeful president might have on the US role on the world stage over the coming 10 weeks of transition.
Continue reading...Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping stay silent while Iran waits to see how US will compensate for Trump sanctions
Most world leaders rushed to congratulate Joe Biden on his election, but Russia and China, two likely losers from the defeat of Donald Trump, remained silent, perhaps waiting for the outgoing president to concede defeat.
The president of the Maldives, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, is thought to be the first to have congratulated Biden, tweeting his welcome within 24 minutes of the US networks declaring Biden victorious. By contrast, Vladimir Putin, accused of collusion in Trump’s 2016 victory, and Xi Jinping kept their counsel.
Continue reading...Zehra Doğan spent nearly three years in Turkish jails and smuggled out her works as dirty laundry
An exiled artist who spent almost three years in jail in Turkey is shining a light on Kurdish feminism with a daring exhibition of works she created while behind bars.
Zehra Doğan was among the thousands of people who have been caught up in arrests and detentions in Turkey since the 2016 attempted coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government. Those detained are accused of either supporting the Gülenist movement, blamed for the failed putsch, or the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), a militant group, both of which are outlawed.
Continue reading...Country also ends lenient punishments for ‘honour’ killings as part of reforms
The United Arab Emirates has ended lenient punishments for so-called “honour” killings, lifted a ban on unmarried couples living together and decriminalised alcohol, in reforms to personal laws.
Foreigners living in the Gulf state will also be able to follow their home country’s laws on divorce and inheritance, rather than using UAE legislation based on Islamic religious law, government-linked media reported.
Continue reading...Country to end lenient punishments for ‘honour’ killings and decriminalise alcohol amid reforms
The United Arab Emirates has ended lenient punishments for so-called “honour” killings, lifted a ban on unmarried couples living together and decriminalised alcohol, in reforms to personal laws.
Foreigners living in the Gulf state will also be able to follow their home country’s laws on divorce and inheritance, rather than using UAE legislation based on Islamic religious law, government-linked media reported.
Continue reading...Release follows warnings about her health after six-week hunger strike
Iran has temporarily released Nasrin Sotoudeh, a prominent lawyer who was jailed two years ago on spying and propaganda charges, the judiciary’s news agency reported.
Sotoudeh’s release followed warnings last month by human rights groups that her health had severely deteriorated after she staged a six-week hunger strike to demand the release of political prisoners and rights activists.
Continue reading...Black people in the north African country suffer hardship and disadvantage, and many still carry the label of ‘liberated’ slaves
Many within Tunisia greeted the news that 81-year-old Hamden Dali had won his two decade-long campaign to have “atig” removed from his name with little more than bemusement.
But for Dali atig – meaning “liberated by” – in his name was a painful reminder of his family’s heritage as former slaves.
Continue reading...Trump administration moves against Gibran Bassil for alleged corruption
The Trump administration has imposed Treasury sanctions on one of Lebanon’s most influential politicians as it intensifies attempts to defang the militia and political powerhouse Hezbollah.
The move against Gibran Bassil for alleged corruption was announced on Friday as Trump’s chances of re-election continued to dip, and marks a sharp escalation of efforts to limit Hezbollah’s influence in Lebanese affairs. Crucially, it is a direct challenge to the country’s president and Bassil’s father in law, Michel Aoun, who Washington has considered an ally.
Continue reading...6 November 1995: prime minister shot at close range by 25-year-old Yigal Amir who told police ‘I acted alone on God’s orders and I have no regrets’
Israel, forced to confront its divisions by a Jewish assassin’s bullets, today buries the prime minister who promised peace, and looks ahead to a future suddenly filled with new fears of conflict.
Related: Yitzhak Rabin: ‘He never knew it was one of his people who shot him in the back’
Continue reading...Demolitions used as a ‘key means’ to ‘coerce Palestinians to leave their homes’
Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank have razed a Palestinian village, leaving 73 people – including 41 children – homeless, in the largest forced displacement incident for years, according to the United Nations.
Excavators escorted by military vehicles were filmed approaching Khirbet Humsa and proceeding to flatten or smash up tents, shacks, animal shelters, toilets and solar panels.
Continue reading...Andrea Riseborough stars as a war-zone medic going through a low-key mid-life crisis as she tries to recover by visiting the famous archaeological site
Slow, delicate and sparse, Luxor is coming out on digital this week just as all the cinemas close down again. If you have a chance to see it, try to view it in the dark, without distractions, on the biggest screen you can in order to approximate a cinema setting and to best appreciate its deep-breath pacing and dry-heat beauty.
Writer-director Zeina Durra’s feature, her second after the evocatively titled The Imperialists Are Still Alive!, follows English surgeon Hana (an unusually subdued Andrea Riseborough, giving a great, slow-burn performance) as she recovers from the horrors of working in a Syrian war zone for an aid organisation. As she rests up at a plush hotel in Luxor, the open-air museum of a town in Egypt she used to live in years 20 before, she passes the time visiting the sights and having polite interactions with other guests and tourists, all the while considering what may be an even more traumatic assignment in Yemen.
Continue reading...Robert Fisk would have been amused, if unsurprised, by the plethora of reactions, from the adulatory to the sharply critical, prompted by the news of his death, at the age of 74. As a journalist, commentator and author, in a five-decade career that focused overwhelmingly on the Middle East, Fisk expressed strong views about who was responsible for the region’s agonies, and provoked equally strong responses.
Even a partial list of his postings and assignments reads like the battle roll of the post-colonial wars he despised: post-revolution Lisbon, Belfast, Tehran, Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad, Algiers, Kabul, Sarajevo.
Continue reading...Afghan government declares day of mourning after incident in which attackers shot dead
At least 22 people were killed and 22 wounded after Islamic State-affiliated gunmen stormed Kabul University as it was hosting a book fair attended by Iran’s ambassador to Afghanistan, taking hostages and fighting gun battles with security forces for more than five hours.
The Afghan government has declared Tuesday a national day of mourning following the attack. Three attackers shot at fleeing students and gunned down others in their classrooms in what was the second assault on an educational facility in the country in recent weeks. The gunmen were shot dead by Afghan security forces, authorities said.
Continue reading...The drowning of a family of five in the Channel and a fire on a ship off the coast of Senegal should prompt action – ‘thoughts and prayers’ are not enough
“We don’t see migration as a problem at all: we see people dying at sea as a problem and the existence of the mafias as a problem.” Such was the view expressed last week by Hana Jalloul, secretary of state for migration in Spain. Days earlier, more than 140 people had died off the coast of Senegal, after their ship caught fire and capsized, in the deadliest shipwreck recorded this year. Ms Jalloul spoke of efforts to support the regional government of the Canary Islands, which is struggling to cope with the number of arrivals, and stressed her determination to combat organised crime. She also pointed to migrants’ crucial role in Spanish life, including as care workers during the pandemic.
British politicians could profit from studying her example in the aftermath of the drowning of a family of four Kurdish Iranians in the Channel. (A fifth member of the same family, aged 15 months, is missing and presumed dead.) Reports of the deaths of Rasul Iran Nezhad, Shiva Mohammad Panahi and their children drew forth platitudes from the home secretary, Priti Patel, about “thoughts and prayers”. But nothing said by her or Boris Johnson did anything to dispel the impression that their attitude to people trying to reach the UK to seek asylum is chiefly antagonistic. While Ms Patel repeated her opposition to “callous criminals exploiting vulnerable people”, there was no serious attempt to sympathise with the migrants’ desperation – or acknowledge that their reliance on smugglers is a matter not of accident but of political choice.
Continue reading...