Posts

Showing posts from April 19, 2020

China didn’t spare the Uyghurs even in times of pandemic, pushed them to Covid frontlines

I n a controversial decision the UN has  appointed China  to its Human Rights Council panel, where the communist nation with scant record for human rights will play a key role in selection of the UN’s investigators to monitor global civil and human rights violations. The investigations will look into freedom of speech, health, enforced disappearances and arbitrary detention-related human rights violations, of which, China is perhaps the world’s most guilty nation. Shockingly, the news of the aforementioned appointment has ironically came at a time when China has been accused of heightened abuse of human rights of the Uyghur Muslims in its Xinjiang province and also increased forced organ harvesting of the minority Muslim community to save the lives of coronavirus-infected Han population. According to reports, China has  sent thousands of Uyghurs  to its manufacturing powerhouses at Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangzi and Zhejiang to keep its factories running post the evacuation of the regular wor

DR Congo arrests separatist cult leader after shoot-out

Police in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has arrested Ne Muanda Nsemi, a self-styled prophet and leader of a separatist religious sect, following heavy gunfire in the capital Kinshasa. The arrest of Nsemi on Friday took place after clashes with police on Wednesday in a neighbouring province, in which 14 BDK members died Nsemi, a former member of parliament  whose Bundu dia Kongo (BDK) group dreams of restoring the Kongo kingdom that thrived for centuries before the colonial era around the mouth of the Congo River , has a strong following in western Congo and has been a thorn in the side of successive governments. He was arrested in March 2017 after leading deadly protests against former President Joseph Kabila, only to be  broken out of prison by his supporters  two months later. Police announced his arrest on Twitter in an operation on Friday, saying: "Mission accomplished, it's done." Kinshasa police chief Sylvano Kasongo said several officers were injured in the

Report exposes 'environmental racism' suffered by Europe's Roma

Image
Stejar Stan's family home was demolished a day after he was relocated from the Roma community of El Gallinero, on the outskirts of Madrid in 2018 [File photo: September 2018/Susana Vera/Reuters] London, United Kingdom -  Roma communities across Europe are often forced to live on polluted wastelands while deprived of essential utilities - such as clean running water - as a result of systemic "environmental racism", a new report has concluded. Released on Wednesday to coincide with International Roma Day, the European Environmental Bureau (EEB)  study  highlights the long-standing discrimination experienced by Roma people throughout the continent. More: Skopje's Roma recycling collectors try to step out of the shadows Without safe homes or jobs, Italy's Roma fear coronavirus impact Roma Holocaust: Amid rising hate, 'forgotten' victims remembered Researchers found 32 cases of "environmental racism" in five eastern and central European countries - Hu

‘An important day’: Yezidi activists welcome German trial of ISIS suspect

FRANKFURT, Germany – “Today is an important day for the women who were enslaved by ISIS,” Yezidi activist Duzen Tekkal said at the opening of a trial of an Iraqi man accused of committing crimes against humanity in the death of a Yezidi child in Iraq.  The man, identified as Taha al-J, is accused of “mass murder, crimes against humanity and committing war crimes. We believe that he has committed all these crimes as a member of the terrorist organization ISIS [Islamic State],” explained public prosecutor Anna Zabeck at the opening of Taha al-J’s trial on Friday.  Taha al-J and his spouse, a German woman named Jennifer Wenisch, are accused of enslaving a five year old Yezidi girl and her mother. Court documents allege the accused chained the young girl to a window as “punishment” in Fallujah in the summer of 2015. The girl died of thirst in the heat.  Wenisch’s trial began last year and Friday was Taha al-J’s first  appearance  in court.  Some 400,000 Yezidis were displaced from their ho

Kashmir Police Begin Burying Slain Terrorists, Won’t Hand Over Bodies to Kin ‘to Stop Pro-Jihad’ Gatherings

Image
Four jihadists, who police said belonged to al-Qaeda’s Kashmir-region affiliate - Ansar Ghazwa’tul Hind - were buried in a government-managed graveyard on April 22, documents seen by Network 18 record. New Delhi:  The Jammu and Kashmir Police has decided to cease handing over the bodies of slain terrorists to their families, highly-placed government sources have told Network18, after they faced growing crowds of protestors chanting Islamist slogans at the funerals. Instead, the sources said, the burials are being conducted by local authorities, under the supervision of a magistrate. “Every effort is being made to conduct burials in a respectful manner, in the presence of their families and in full compliance with religious requirements,” a senior officer of the Jammu and Kashmir Police said. “DNA samples are also being maintained to ensure transparency”. “There is no legal obligation to hand over bodies of terrorists killed in combat to their families”, the officer said. “Recall that e

German Isis supporter bought five-year-old Yazidi girl as slave then let her die of thirst, court hears

Image
While devoted followers of the  Islamic State  group, a man and woman bought a 5-year-old  Yazidi  girl in  Iraq  to use as a slave, then let her die of thirst in the scorching heat, German authorities contend. The trial of the woman began Tuesday — one of the highest-profile cases against a female member of the terrorist group. The prosecution stems largely from the words of the defendant, who was desperate to return last year to Isis, and found someone willing to drive her to the Middle East. Unknown to her, the driver was working with the German security services, and he recorded their conversations as she told him all about her life in the organisation. The 27-year-old German woman, identified only as  Jennifer W . in keeping with German privacy law, showed no emotion during the 15 minutes it took a judge in  Munich  to read out the charges against her, which include murder, war crimes, membership in a foreign terror organisation and weapons violations. Download the new Independent

Iraqi raids kill 10 ISIS militiants as terrorist attacks continue

Source:  https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/b4fd3859-5902-42d2-a5a6-bff39441373a ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Iraqi military announced on Thursday that it had killed 10 “terrorist“ in two separate operations targetting hidden Islamic State positions in rural areas of Diyala and Nineveh provinces in the latest anti-terror campaign to root out suspected members of the group still lurking in various parts of the country. In the first incident, a Diyala Operations Command unit “trapped terrorist elements inside a hideout and clashed with them in the area bordering Lake Hamrin,” an area where Islamic State sleeper cells have long taken refuge, said the Iraqi military communications center known as the Security Media Cell. Located to the east of Lake Hamrin are the sprawling Hamrin Mountains, a rugged ridge located in Diyala province near the Iranian border and westward to the eastern banks of the Tigris River, straddling the borders of Salahuddin and Kirkuk provinces. The area has long been

Pandemic may revive Islamic State and hurt Iraq’s minorities, say NGOs

Rome Newsroom, Apr 22, 2020 / 12:00 pm MT ( CNA ) .- For Iraqi Christian and Yazidi communities still recovering from the destruction wreaked by the Islamic State, the coronavirus poses significant risks, NGOs have said in a joint statement.  “The public health system in Sinjar and the wider Nineveh Governorate was decimated by ISIS during its brutal occupation and genocidal campaign in Iraq, beginning in 2014,” the letter stated. “An impending humanitarian and security disaster looms large in Iraq. … There is a significant attendant threat to global security if ISIS uses this opportunity to regroup and return, but it does not have to be this way. Iraqi authorities and the United Nations must act now,” it continued. Twenty-five NGOs working in northern Iraq issued a joint statement April 16 calling on the World Health Organization to undertake an assessment mission in the area, where testing has been limited, and urging Iraqi authorities to prevent the Islamic State from regrouping. Si