This long-running dispute between Greece and Turkey, which are both NATO members, shows no sign of abating.
Tensions have heated up as Turkish crews search for gas in the waters off Greek islands in the eastern Mediterranean. The Turkish research vessel “Oruc Reis” is probing for deposits south of the Turkish coast in waters which Athens claims jurisdiction.
To add muscle to their prospecting endeavours, the Turkish energy ship has been shadowed by powerful naval vessels.
Ankara argues that the area is part of its continental shelf. To make matters worse, Greece has complained of Turkish Air Force jets making an incursion into its airspace.
There is a similar conflict playing-out near Cyprus, an island where rich natural gas reserves have already been discovered.
In an effort to calm nerves, the German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has warned that any small spark ‘could lead to catastrophe.’
Germany has been trying to mediate in the dispute for weeks with Chancellor Angela Merkel speaking on the phone several times with Turkish President Tayipp Erdogan and the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
For its part, the European Union has called on Turkey to immediately halt energy exploration in the disputed waters, dangling the threat of new sanctions if tensions don’t simmer down.
Last week, the Greek Foreign Minister endorsed that call for sanctions against Turkey by the EU – of which Greece is a member. He said Turkey represented a ‘neo-Ottoman ideology’ and was attempting ‘unlimited expansionism’ in the eastern Mediterranean.
However, despite the calls for calm, there seems to be no sign of tensions calming. As it stands, both Greece and Turkey are ratcheting up the tension by staging large naval drills.
Military drills
Turkey said it would carry out live-fire military exercises until mid-September in a zone off the southern Turkish town of Anamur, just north of Cyprus. This comes in addition to a bulletin that Ankara would also hold military exercises in a zone further east.
The European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Brussels was determined to show solidarity with Greece and Cyprus.
“We must walk a fine line between preserving a true space for dialogue and, at the same time, showing collective strength in the defence of our common interests,” he told reporters.
The heads of European states will discuss fraught relations with Ankara in an upcoming summit next month.
Abu Dhabi-listed investment firm Waha Capital has launched an income-focused Islamic fund to attract over $500 million (Dh1.83 billion) to invest in Shariah-compliant assets across sukuk and equity markets which will have a global outreach for investments.
The open-ended “Waha Islamic Income Fund SP” adds to Waha Capital’s existing three funds and is targeted at large regional institutions.
Its Waha Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa Credit Fund has achieved a cumulative return of over 180 per cent since its inception in 2012 and the end of 2019. The Waha Mena Equity Fund, launched in 2014, has achieved a cumulative return of 175 per cent since inception while Waha’s Mena Value Fund SP fund produced a return of 25.34 per cent in 2019 and overall by 56.1 per cent since its launch in 2015.
Amr Al Menhali, CEO of Waha Capital, said the new fund will invest in entities that have relatively low gearing.
“While our existing funds have some Shariah-compliant elements in them, there has been a steadily growing demand from our existing clients over the past couple of years for us to develop such a fully-fledged Islamic fund. We are confident that the new fund will be well received because it avoids investment in prohibited or controversial activities or assets and business sectors that may be considered as particularly risky or potentially volatile,” said Al Menhali.
On August 22, Waha Capital invested Dh184 million ($50 million) in New York-listed company online travel firm Despegar.com. It plans to invest $150 million in US-listed companies.
Waha Capital posted net profit of Dh267.2 million in Q2 2020 as compared to net loss of Dh124.4 million in Q2 2019 as total impairments fell from Dh109.3 million to Dh10 million. Its share price increased 0.51 per cent to Dh0.990 on Sunday on Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange. – [email protected]
“Aug. 29, the National Day of Fight Against Terrorism, is the time to remember Prz Rajai & PM Bahonar who, 39yrs ago today, were martyred in a bombing by the MEK terrorist group,” the ministry tweeted.
“Despite assassinating 1000s Iranians & fighting alongside Saddam, MEK is sheltered by the U.S. & EU.”
The tweet comes on the occasion of the 1981 assassination of then-president Mohammad Ali Rajaei and prime minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar.
The two and several other officials had convened at the Tehran office of the Iranian prime minister in a meeting of Iran’s Supreme Defense Council when a bomb explosion ripped through the building. Survivors recounted that an aide, identified as Massoud Kashmiri, had brought a briefcase into the conference room and then left. It was revealed later that he was an MEK operative, who had infiltrated the then-prime minister’s office disguised as a state security official, according to Press TV.
The MEK terrorist group has conducted numerous assassinations and bombings against Iranian statesmen and civilians since the 1979 victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution. Its members fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq, where they enjoyed Saddam’s backing. Out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist assaults since the Revolution, about 12,000 have fallen victim to the MEK’s acts of terror.
A few years ago, MEK elements were relocated from their Camp Ashraf in Iraq’s Diyala Province to Camp Hurriyet (Camp Liberty), a former US military base in Baghdad, and later sent to Albania.
MEK terrorists enjoy freedom of activity in the US and Europe and even hold meetings with American and EU officials.
… three decades of dominance by Europe’s most enduring leader.
President … parties vying to join the European Union to euroskeptics and pro … elections.
Read More: Why EU’s Balkan Expansion Faces Long … approval of a law on religious groups that may strip the …
“Now more than ever, we must heed the wisdom of indigenous peoples. This wisdom calls upon us to care for the earth so that not only our generation may enjoy it, but that future generations may as well.”
This wisdom is passed down to us through stories and spirits. Consider the example of Nawal, a supernatural spirit of harvests that can take on animal forms, according to Mesoamerican beliefs. On certain days in the indigenous calendar, people call on Nawal for a good harvest. It is a fine thing to have one good harvest. It is even better for the earth to yield its bounty again and again. To enjoy such repeated success, farmers in the area know they must respect the seasons, to plant, to sow, to let the land lay fallow for a time.
This wisdom was also articulated in a declaration from 2012, on an auspicious date in the Mayan calendar. It was Oxlajuj B’aktun or a “change of era,” the end of a cycle that lasts more than 5,000 years. On that date, the three UN entities working with indigenous peoples came together in Guatemala, their first joint meeting outside the UN’s New York headquarters.
Together, they issued a declaration pleading with humanity to respect human rights, promote harmony with nature, and pursue development that respects ancestral wisdom. These three bodies included the Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues, the Mechanism of Experts on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
This wisdom found its way into “K’atun: Our Guatemala 2032”, the national plan which has guided sustainable development of three successive administrations. It serves as the compass for the country’s UN Cooperation Framework for Sustainable Development 2020-2024, created in collaboration with the Government of Guatemala.
WFP
The UN in Guatemala has been supporting K’iche’ indigenous farmers during the pandemic.
Indigenous Guatemalans hit hardest by coronavirus pandemic
To pursue K’atun, we must look at the status of indigenous peoples. In Guatemala, they are amongst the most vulnerable people because they are constantly displaced from their ancestral lands. Data from recent years show that the poverty rate among indigenous people was 79 per cent, almost 30 points above the national average. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic eight out of every 10 indigenous girls, boys and adolescents, live in poverty. Only six finish primary school, only two go to secondary school, and one goes to university. Six in 10 indigenous children under five years of age suffer from chronic malnutrition.
COVID-19 is devastating for all of Guatemala. Many people are sick, some are dying, and countless others are losing their livelihoods because of the disease itself and because the quarantine prevents them from working and earning money.
However hard the pandemic hits Guatemala, it will hit the indigenous peoples even harder. They were already the furthest left behind, and now they will be set back even more. The situation of indigenous women, who are often the main providers for their families, is even more worrisome.
UN Women/Ryan Brown
The knowledge held by indigenous people in Guatemala is passed on through stories and art.
Indigenous people hold key to collective survival
And yet, indigenous people are seeking their own solutions, drawing on their own ingenuity. They are using traditional knowledge and practices to contain the disease.
We all must concern ourselves with the wellbeing of indigenous peoples, for their sake. We must respect their wisdom, for their sake. We must protect their human rights, for their sake. We must include them in decision-making, for their sake. It is only right.
But we must also do this for the sake of all Guatemalans. All of Guatemala, indeed, the whole world, has much to learn from indigenous peoples. It is a painful irony that they have been so exploited and oppressed, and yet they may hold a key to our collective survival. It is a painful irony, too, that indigenous people are among those most affected by climate change, and yet they contribute the least to it.
Without indigenous people, neither Guatemala nor the rest of the world will achieve sustainable development. Without indigenous people we cannot enjoy the gifts of the earth and maintain them for all those who will come after us. This is and must be the work of all governments and all people.
75 years ago, the signatories of the United Nations Charter reaffirmed “the dignity and worth of the human person.”
Now, let us reaffirm that belief once more. And let us ensure that indigenous people are included in it.”
Five years ago the olive grove of Moria on the Greek island of Lesbos was a sanctuary for asylum seekers. Today it is a jungle, overcrowded, threatening and all too often in flames.
Destroying an olive tree in Ancient Athens could lead to banishment, now it is the needs of the banished which have seen constant burning back of the sacred olive trees to make more space for the ramshackle tents and makeshift shelters.
Other fires regularly spring up, sometimes lit by migrants for heating or cooking, sometimes by angry inhabitants prompting the sirens of the firefighters to mingle with the voice of the muezzin, leading evening prayers.
Moria is home to nearly 13,000 asylum seekers.
Five years ago, the largest camp in Europe was intended to accommodate no more than 2,770.
Asylum seekers disembarking on the northern coasts of the island, close to the Turkish shores, were just passing through, registering, before moving their journey on.
Moria was but a stopover on their way to Northern Europe.
Back then, Lesbos was the island of solidarity, a welcoming refuge where fishermen came to the aid of drifting boats loaded with migrants, and grandmothers who bottle-fed migrant babies were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
A year later, Pope Francis arrived with Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, mixing with the migrants and holding a mass to bless those who had died trying to reach Europe.
That all now seems a distant memory.
“At first, asylum seekers came and went but now the borders are closed,” Ilias Pikoulos, who, with his travel agency, hires buses to transport refugees, told AFP.
“The islanders have the impression that they have been facing this migration crisis on their own for years.
An aerial photograph, taken in June 2020, showing the extent of the improvised camp at Moria
ARIS MESSINIS, AFP
“And this feeling has created division, even revolt.”
In 2015, the island of Lesbos and its 85,000 inhabitants saw more than 450,000 people pass through in the space of a year.
The EU-Turkey agreement signed in March 2016 aimed to change that.
Its objective was to stop the flow coming from the Turkish coasts and send back the Syrians for whom Turkey was considered a “safe country”.
But the arrivals did not dry up and the Moria camp was quickly overwhelmed.
‘The refugees have ruined us’ –
Ioanna Savva, from the village of Eressos, birthplace of the ancient poet Sappho, took part in rescuing refugees and “cried” when she saw them.
“But in everyone’s eyes, Lesbos has become the island of refugees,” she says.
“The refugees have ruined us. The money that comes from organisations and the European Union amounts to millions, but the inhabitants of the island have to tighten their belts just to live.”
On top of this frustration, there is the violence against people who come to the aid of migrants.
Migrants pray during Muharram celebrations at the refugee camp of Moria
ANGELOS TZORTZINIS, AFP
In March, Astrid Castelein, the representative in Lesbos of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, was targeted.
When angry residents prevented migrants from disembarking from their overloaded canoe in the port of Thermis, Castelein tried to calm the crowd but was assaulted.
“Has solidarity given way to xenophobia in Lesbos?” she asks in comments to AFP.
“In recent months, the tolerance of the population has decreased because it feels abandoned by the central (Greek) government and by Europe.”
At the end of July, Stratos Kaniamos, a hotelier who wanted to accommodate asylum seekers, also fell victim to violence.
“Individuals set fire to all my air conditioners, to the facades of the building, and to the van which I used to transport customers,” he says.
In 2020, Moria’s megastructure has become, according to several NGOs, “a disgrace for the whole of Europe.”
Prostitution, sexual assault, disappearances of minors, drug trafficking and fights occur almost daily in the camp, where dozens of people have been stabbed, burnt to death in their tents or have committed suicide.
From January to the end of August, five people were stabbed in more than 15 attacks.
‘Screams and fights’ –
The coronavirus epidemic, which led to confinement in Moria from March 21, brought a new threat to the most vulnerable.
“For a woman, even the use of the toilet here is a test,” Monire, an Afghan refugee, told AFP.
Even going to the toilet is a ‘test’ for women in Moria as rapes and attacks have increased
ANGELOS TZORTZINIS, AFP
“Every day, we cover our ears so as not to hear the screams and fights. I’m afraid to leave my tent because there are rapes regularly,” continues the 30-something.
Lorraine Leete, a lawyer for the NGO Legal Centre Lesbos, said: “Greece, with the support of the European Commission, clearly continues to apply a policy of containment aimed at curbing migration.”
Now, in hotspots like Moria, Leete says “people are trapped sometimes for years, without sufficient access to water, sanitation, education and medical care”.
Even for those who have been granted asylum in Greece and decided to stay there, the road is still strewn with thorns.
Amir Ali, a 32-year-old Afghan who arrived in Greece in 2016, has won several local track and field championships, and made friendships on the island.
But, despite everything, he feels he still suffers from racism.
“At the supermarket, everyone treats me like a beggar,” he says. “But I work, I pay taxes here.”
Michal is a mild-mannered 19-year-old. He describes himself as ‘a bit of a nerd’, plans a career making videos and came out as gay before leaving school last year.
‘I did not make a big deal of it and tell everyone, but just started incorporating talk about my boyfriend in conversations,’ he told me as we sat in the sun.
His parents were supportive and his classmates seemed unbothered.
Yet Michal lives in a small market town in southern Poland that has declared itself an ‘LGBT-free zone’, sparking a furore that has sent shockwaves throughout Europe.
Michal says: ‘I did not choose to be gay. But the ruling party chose to make an enemy of people like me, which is very sad’
Tuchow, a town of 6,500 people that lies 65 miles east of Krakow, is among a wave of Polish communities making such declarations after the country’s ruling Right-wing party ramped up rhetoric against ‘the cult of LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] ideology’.
Politicians, priests and popular newspapers have called on people to stand firm against ‘a rainbow plague’ invading from abroad, even comparing its threat to the Communists and Nazis that so devastated their country last century.
Yet as Michal says: ‘I did not choose to be gay. But the ruling party chose to make an enemy of people like me, which is very sad.’
Tuchow, a town of 6,500 people that lies 65 miles east of Krakow, is among a wave of Polish communities making such declarations after the country’s ruling Right-wing party ramped up rhetoric against ‘the cult of LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] ideology’
The LGBT-free zone decision, taken by a small commune in the conservative rural heartlands of a Catholic country, strikes at the principles of the EU – of which Poland has been a member since 2004 – which was founded on shared values of democracy, freedom and tolerance.
One prominent politician called it a chilling echo from previous times in a town barely 100 miles from Auschwitz.
‘I learned in history books about Jew-free schools and shops and now they talk of LGBT-free towns,’ said Robert Biedron, a gay MEP from the liberal Left. ‘It reminds us of terrible times in the past.’
In a highly symbolic move, Tuchow and five other towns making similar anti-gay declarations had funding requests for twinning projects rejected last month by Brussels.
One horrified French commune has also suspended ties after 25 years.
But fears remain that Brussels is avoiding taking tougher action against both Poland and Hungary, despite seeing the two countries’ hardline populist leaders chip away at some core values of democracy such as freedom of the press, human rights and judicial independence.
‘Europe must defend its values,’ said Biedron.
‘But the trouble is our government is Eurosceptic so it will say the horrid West will not protect our children in Poland.’
This issue flared up last year after Rafal Trzaskowski, the centrist mayor of Warsaw, signed a landmark pledge of support for LGBT citizens that included anti-discrimination lessons in schools.
With elections looming, this was seized upon by the ruling Right-wing Law and Justice party in conjunction with the Catholic Church.
They claimed it was a threat to family values, arguing that it would sexualise children and ‘propagate paedophilia’.
As the issue found traction with conservative voters, the rhetoric became cruder with ‘imported LGBT ideology’ compared to the social engineering of Nazis and Communists.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the party leader who really runs Poland, calls homosexuality ‘a threat to Polish identity, to our nation, to its existence and thus to the Polish state’
Marek Jedraszewski, archbishop of Krakow, even used last year’s 75th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising that tried to liberate the capital from the Nazis to denounce ‘a rainbow plague…born of the same neo-Marxist spirit’ as Bolshevism ‘that wants to control our souls, our hearts and minds.’
Then the Law and Justice party made this subject a central issue in last month’s presidential election, with its incumbent candidate Andrzej Duda claiming gay ‘ideology’ was more destructive than Communism and being ‘smuggled’ into schools.
He beat Trzaskowski by a small margin.
Meanwhile, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the party leader who really runs Poland, calls homosexuality ‘a threat to Polish identity, to our nation, to its existence and thus to the Polish state’.
Others claim Poland – which decriminalised homosexuality almost a century ago, before other European nations – is trying to protect family values against ‘alien’ concepts such as gay marriage and gender fluidity.
‘It’s not fashionable to talk about Christian and traditional values but people see them as being disrupted in a way that is as alien to their country as Communism,’ said one sympathetic analyst, adding: ‘This is not to say that we are anti-homosexuals.’
Such thoughts were echoed by party officials in Tuchow.
‘I don’t think homosexuals are worse than other people,’ said Grzegorz Niemiec, 32, a city councillor.
‘But the Polish model of family, with men and women being married, is a traditional one we should defend.’
He said ‘LGBT-free zones’ were designed to protect children in schools, claiming there was international pressure to enforce sex education and inflict gender choice on primary school pupils as young as four.
One man in the town who firmly agrees with the policy is Henryk Trebaczkiewicz, 75.
He said: ‘Communism was a plague and now we have the LGBT plague. This ideology is a danger not just to Poland but the whole world.’
The former factory worker, who I found reading in a rosary garden funded by the EU, said Brussels had made a mistake by cutting some of the town’s funding.
His solution? ‘We should treat these people medically to help them become heterosexual.’
Then the Law and Justice party made this subject a central issue in last month’s presidential election, with its incumbent candidate Andrzej Duda claiming gay ‘ideology’ was more destructive than Communism and being ‘smuggled’ into schools
It was depressing to hear talk of homosexuality as a disease, especially in a state where more than two-thirds of LGBT citizens say they have suffered hate attacks.
‘We are witnessing the manifestation of ignorance,’ said one activist.
The mother of a gay man who killed himself in June warned a newspaper that there would be more victims if political leaders did not desist from hate-filled rhetoric.
‘Such people destroyed my son – day by day and step by step,’ said Katarzyna Koch. ‘Every day I ask myself: What is this country where you have to die to be happy?’
Earlier this year Poland was branded the worst country in the EU for LGBT people by a Brussels-based advocacy group.
A gay pride march in the city of Bialystok last summer ended in violent clashes after it was attacked and stoned by opponents.
One Krakow teacher told me she could not tell colleagues she was lesbian for fear of being sacked – yet ironically since her partner had come out as transgender, she could start talking about having a boyfriend.
Most people I met in Tuchow opposed the town’s anti-gay declaration.
‘I am ashamed,’ said Magdalena Pawlak, a school teacher sitting near the town hall with her daughter Amelia, nine.
‘I don’t know why this hatred has to be spread so much.’
Taxi driver Piotr Wojtanowski said almost all his friends were opposed to the stance. ‘
There is so much scaremongering about adoption and sexualisation of children.
‘I know a lesbian couple living here illegally with children and they seem fine.’
He said he had stopped going to church because of anti-gay propaganda from the pulpit.
An anti-LGBT banner is seen during the 76th Anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising on August 01, 2020 in Warsaw, Poland
‘When an archbishop compares LGBT ideology to a plague, that is unacceptable. I’m religious but was taught to love my neighbours, not hate them.’
Equality campaigners argue that the Catholic Church’s stridency on the issue is a cynical attempt to cover up its culpability in failing to tackle appalling cases of paedophilia by priests.
Certainly the eruption of the furore last year coincided with a damning TV documentary that sparked uproar in Poland by exposing how church leaders for decades had buried complaints of abuse and disgracefully moved accused priests to new parishes.
Yet it was also triggered after Trzaskowski – the first Warsaw mayor to attend the LGBT equality parade in this culturally conservative country – entered the presidential race as the candidate for the centrist Civic Platform party and his poll ratings surged.
‘This government is quite cynical,’ said Trzaskowski. ‘They thought they could stir up voters over LGBT issues by portraying it as this foreign ideology threatening decent Polish families.’
Trzaskowski also told me it had been a mistake to talk about LGBT, an unfamiliar term in Poland, rather than phrases such as equality for gay and transgender citizens. ‘These are new issues here, so it is hard to discuss them in an informed way.’
Yet as he argues, populism is on the rise in many places – and the Law and Justice party is crudely exploiting social divisions seen in several other democracies, including Britain and the United States, between cities and countryside, old and young, rich and poor.
Poland has had a remarkable run of economic success since Communism ended in 1989, with growth stretching back 28 years aided by huge Brussels handouts.
I noticed, for instance, they funded the road I drove along from Krakow to Tuchow.
Yet Trzaskowski admits his party shares some responsibility for some disenchantment in struggling communities from its time in government between 2007 and 2015. ‘We were changing the country so rapidly,’ he said.
‘But some people said they’d had enough of paternalistic elites telling them to be happy when gaps were widening.’
Or as Nina Gabrys, who heads the equality committee on Krakow city council, says: ‘We were building bridges but left behind the people who wanted their country back. Now this is being done in the most horrible way.’
The Law and Justice party cleverly exploited such concerns under its leader Kaczynski, a wily 71-year-old political operator who started out as an anti-Soviet activist.
Protesters wear protective face masks and shout slogans as they take part in a protest against discrimination of the LGBT community two days before the Presidential elections runoff at Krakow’s UNESCO listed Main Square on July 10, 2020 in Krakow, Poland
A lifelong bachelor and strong nationalist, Kaczynski has never owned a computer, only opened his first bank account in 2009 and has taken just one holiday outside Poland to visit cousins in neighbouring Ukraine.
His party’s stance on several other issues has sparked alarm across Europe, especially its bid to control the judiciary with purges and pack sympathisers on key courts.
‘We’re still a democracy but democracy is under attack,’ said Warsaw mayor Trzaskowski.
There have also been concerns over the politicisation of the security services, turning state-owned media into propaganda organs, putting pressure on charities with foreign links and anti-German rhetoric, including demands for huge war reparations.
In recent days, there have been fresh threats made against German-owned media along with an outcry over Berlin’s appointment of a new ambassador whose father was one of Hitler’s military aides.
‘I can remember Communist times and it was much more subtle in terms of propaganda than it is now,’ said one leading political figure.
However, the situation is not nearly as bad as in Hungary, where autocratic prime minister Viktor Orban poses as a defender of traditional Christian values, takes pride in creation of the ‘illiberal state’ and scorns EU elites while his wealthy cronies milk the system.
Hungary, and now Poland, have shown Brussels’ weakness in face of aggressive threats to the EU’s core values.
Last month, the two nations fought off attempts to link spending by Brussels to compliance with the rule of law.
Police remove a protester wearing a shirt saying ‘love’ with rainbow colours as he protests during Duda’s swearing in ceremony on August 6
Eight months ago, the European Parliament condemned bigotry against LGBT citizens and told Poland’s government to revoke the hostile declarations being made by towns such as Tuchow.
Its demand was ignored.
Then the Warsaw government gleefully stepped in to make up the town’s loss of income after Brussels rejected its application for a grant of up to £22,000 under its twinning programme – and handed it more than twice that sum.
‘We are supporting a municipality that promotes support for well-functioning families and fights against the imposed ideology of LGBT and gender, which is being pushed by the European Commission,’ said Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro.
The courts’ failed attempts to stand up to the Polish government’s hardline agenda have dismayed activists such as Artur Barbara Kapturkiewicz, a transgender doctor and co-founder of a Christian group called the Faith and Rainbow Foundation.
‘These people think that Poland is the only moral country that will reawaken the West and renew Christian values,’ he says.
‘But this is the politics of discrimination and dehumanisation – and it soils our nation.’
EU, US, UK, and Switzerland urge Belarusian authorities to observe their international obligations, particularly those in the sphere of human rights, the joint statement by the missions of the United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and the European Union on behalf of the EU Member States published on the British government website said.
“We call on the Belarusian authorities to respect the country’s international obligations on fundamental democratic and human rights,” the statement said, as quoted by TASS news agency. The countries also urged to investigate crimes and abuses committed during protest rallies and “hold those responsible to account.”
Additionally, Brussels, Washington, London, and Bern declared “solidarity with the people of Belarus who demand respect for fundamental freedoms and basic human rights through free and fair elections” and “are struck by the continued peaceful demonstrations across Belarus.” “They show the determination and courage of the Belarusian people to seek democratic change,” these countries assert.
The statement also contains the call for Belarusian authorities “to stop the violence and the threats to use military force against the country’s own citizens” and the demand to “release immediately and unconditionally all those unlawfully detained.”
(Photo: Private collection / D. Mukwege)Dr. Denis Mukwege, who gave a keynote speech at the Lutheran World Federation Assembly in Namibia on May 11, 2017.
The UN human rights chief is deeply concerned over the recent death threats directed at the Congolese human rights defender and Nobel Prize laureate Dr. Denis Mukwege, who bases his work on his Christian faith.
“Dr. Mukwege is a true hero – determined, courageous and extremely effective,” said High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet.
“For years, he helped thousands of gravely injured and traumatized women when there was nobody else to take care of them, and at the same time he did a great deal to publicize their plight and stimulate others to try to grapple with the uncontrolled epidemic of sexual violence in the eastern DRC,” she said on Aug. 28.
Mukwege has been a strong and consistent voice calling for those responsible for sexual violence to be brought to justice said the rights office.
He was a staunch supporter of the 2010 ‘Mapping Report’ by the UN Human Rights Office which chronicled hundreds of serious human rights violations and abuses that occurred in the eastern DRC between 1993 and 2003, in many cases identifying the groups and entities believed to be responsible for perpetrating the crimes.
However he has received deaths threats in the past and survived a major assassination attempt in October 2012.
“The recent alarming surge of threats against Dr Mukwege, which have been conveyed via social media and in direct phone calls to him and his family, followed his condemnation of the continued killing of civilians in eastern DRC and his renewed calls for accountability for human rights violations and abuses,” said the UN office.
Human Rights office spokesman Rupert Colville said, “It difficult to say at this point precisely who’s behind these death threats. But it seems they may be connected to the conflict in the high plateau of South Kivu, which is pitted the Banyamulenge a community against three other communities.
“The threats also may be connected to his repeated calls for accountability for past and present grave human rights violations in these two years.”
“It is up to us, the heirs of Martin Luther, through God’s word, to exorcise all the macho demons possessing the world so that women who are victims of male barbarity can experience the reign of God in their lives,” said Mukwege in that speech.
SON OF A PASTOR
The son of a pastor, Mukwege said his involvement with the voiceless is rooted in his family history and when he was with his father on a visit to the sick one day he asked him, “Dad, you pray to the sick, but why not give them medicine?”
His father replied, “I’m not a doctor.”
His vocation was born that day and he studied pediatric medicine to assist in the eradication of infant mortality.
“Alas, during my first year of medical practice, I discovered the very high incidence of maternal mortality.”
The Congolese doctor noted that violence against women, rape and misogyny are not only found in Africa, but all around the world. Mukwege spoke of the incessant conflict in the DRC, creating massive upheaval “motivated by the need to control the Congolese subsoil.
“This war, which initially engaged seven African states, and the so-called first great African war is not ethnic,” and does not embroil religious fanatics.
“It is an economic war that has already caused more than five million deaths and thousands and thousands of women being raped.”
The Congolese doctor said the first response to “this barbarity” was to try to treat women who were victims of physical and psychological sexual violence.
Eurocrats have torpedoed the sale of ‘cruelty-free’ cosmetics by insisting that chemicals used in many popular High Street brands must be tested on animals.
Protesters say the decision by the European Chemicals Agency effectively destroys the EU-wide ban on animal experiments for cosmetics.
The two chemicals involved are used in hundreds of ‘cruelty-free’ products such as sunscreens, face moisturisers and lip balm, including products from Body Shop, Dove, L’Oreal and Estée Lauder.
Eurocrats insist chemicals used in many ‘cruelty-free’ cosmetics must be tested on animals, as protesters say it destroys EU-wide ban on animal experiments for cosmetics (file photo)
Julia Baines, the science policy manager at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta), said: ‘As a direct result of these rulings, more than 5,500 rats, rabbits and fish are required to be used in new tests.
‘Yet consumers and the European Parliament have consistently demanded the cosmetics ban on animal testing must not be compromised.’
Under the testing regime, hundreds of pregnant rabbits or rats will be fed the chemicals before being killed and, in some cases, their unborn offspring dissected. The results will be shared with chemical companies which supply the cosmetics industry.
Animal testing for cosmetics and their ingredients was prohibited in the UK in 1998.
The ban became EU-wide in 2013 but the European Chemicals Agency, a branch of the EU, now claims that separate regulations on the use of chemicals means substances still must be tested, even if exclusively for cosmetic use, to assess any risks to workers on the production line.
The two chemicals involved in this case are the ultra-violet filters homosalate and 2-ethylhexyl salicylate, also known as octisalate. Both have already been approved by EU safety watchdogs for use in cosmetics and are widely used in hundreds of popular cosmetic products.
Consumer giant Unilever last night condemned the European Chemicals Agency’s decision and warned it may now be forced to reformulate some of its cosmetic products.
Its safety chief Julia Fentem said: ‘We don’t agree that animal testing is necessary to protect workers and the environment, and strongly encourage the use of non-animal data.
Brands such as The Body Shop have long campaigned against animal testing, recruiting celebrity ambassadors such as Leona Lewis (above) who share their concerns
‘We support calls for a global ban on animal testing for cosmetics and a growing number of our brands, including Dove, are certified by Peta. If animal testing becomes a requirement for any existing ingredient used in our products, it will be necessary to reformulate.’
And brands such as The Body Shop have long campaigned against animal testing, recruiting celebrity ambassadors such as Leona Lewis who share their concerns.
Last year, the company delivered a petition with 8.3 million signatures to the United Nations, calling for a global end to animal testing in cosmetics.
The European Chemicals Agency first issued its ruling, which required the German cosmetics manufacturer Symrise to conduct animal tests on the two chemicals, in March 2018.
The firm lodged an appeal saying the ruling breached the EU animal testing ban, but that has just been rejected. Andrew Fasey, a member of the board of appeal, conceded: ‘I don’t expect that everyone will agree entirely with these decisions.’
The regulations will apply in the UK during the Brexit transition period, which ends on December 31, after which the Government intends to put in place its own rules.
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