Andrzej Duda: Polish president loyal to ruling right-wing

THAT FELLA THAT VISITED TRUMP THIS WEEK

FIGURED YOU MIGHT WANT TO KNOW ABOUT HIM

Issued on: 28/06/2020 -

Andrzej Duda on the campaign trail JANEK SKARZYNSKI AFP/File

ANTI-LGBTQ RIGHTS , ANTI-ABORTION,

ANTI-FEMINIST ANTI-HUMANIST ANTI-SEMITE

ANTI JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE 

Warsaw (AFP)

Polish President Andrzej Duda, the frontrunner in an election Sunday that was delayed several weeks because of the coronavirus pandemic, is a loyal ally of the EU member's ruling conservatives.

Though Polish presidents wield limited power, a second five-year term for the 48-year-old lawyer would likely cement the governing right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party's chances of moving ahead with its agenda.

Duda, who is predicted to be forced into a second-round run-off, has rarely said no to powerful PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski and is known for waving through government policies like generous social benefits and controversial judicial changes.


"He's a party man, carrying out its orders," Warsaw-based political analyst Stanislaw Mocek said.

The one time Duda broke from the party came in 2017, when he vetoed two judicial reforms he believed gave too much power to the attorney general, who is also the justice minister, and curtailed his own.

The surprise veto left the PiS stunned and earned Duda applause from the liberal opposition and the European Union.

- Spiritual heir -

Born in 1972 to a family of professors in the southern city of Krakow, Duda was a choir boy and Boy Scout before earning a law degree from the Jagiellonian University in 1996.

When PiS first came to power in 2005, Duda was named deputy justice minister, a job he gave up in 2008 to become an aide to then president Lech Kaczynski, Jaroslaw's twin.

A devout Catholic, Duda was close to Lech Kaczynski -- who in 2010 died when his presidential jet crashed in Smolensk, Russia -- and often calls himself his "spiritual heir".

Duda also has the backing of the present-day incarnation of the Solidarity trade union that brought a peaceful end to communism at home in 1989.

He was elected to the Polish parliament in 2011, then to the European Parliament in 2014. But he only became well-known after Jaroslaw Kaczynski crowned him presidential candidate.

Duda went on to win the presidential election in May 2015, after promising voters social benefits galore in fiery campaign speeches always featuring his ready smile.

- Judicial changes -

Like Poland's powerful Catholic Church, Duda opposes in-vitro fertilisation and the 2011 Istanbul Convention, the world's first binding legal instrument to prevent and combat violence against women, which Poland ratified in 2015.

He is also in favour of tightening tPoland's anti-abortion law -- already among Europe's most restrictive -- and recently likened "LGBT ideology" to communism, drawing criticism at home and abroad.

On Duda's watch the retirement age for men was lowered from 67 to 65. The PiS also began giving parents a monthly allowance of 500 zloty (110 euro, $130) for every child.

In terms of foreign policy, Duda has worked on strengthening ties with NATO. Since he became head of state, the Western defence alliance and the United States have deployed their troops in the region in response to Russia's activity in neighbouring Ukraine.

Just four days before the election, Duda visited US President Donald Trump, who was lavish with his praise of his Polish "friend' -- the first foreign leader invited to the White House since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Without going so far as to call himself a eurosceptic, Duda has in the past described the European Union as an "imaginary community from which we don't gain much."

Duda's critics fault him for his role in bringing to heel the Constitutional Court and other judicial institutions.

In 2017, the EU launched unprecedented proceedings against Poland over "systemic threats" posed by the reforms to the rule of law that could see its EU voting rights suspended.

An avid skier, Duda is married to German language teacher Agata. They have an adult daughter.

© 2020 AFP

Poles choose president in election delayed by pandemic
Issued on: 28/06/2020 -

Polish President Andrzej Duda is a key ally for the government Wojtek RADWANSKI AFP/File

Warsaw (AFP)

Concerns over democratic standards and bread and butter issues top the agenda as Poles vote on Sunday in round one of a tight presidential race that had to be postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Incumbent Andrzej Duda, 48, is campaigning for re-election in a vote that could determine the future of the right-wing government that supports him.

Ten candidates are vying to replace him, but opinion polls show that Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, a liberal from the main Civic Platform (PO) opposition party, will enter a neck-and-neck run-off on July 12.

Victory for Trzaskowski, also 48, would deal a heavy blow to the Law and Justice (PiS) government, which has relied on its ally Duda to endorse polarising legislation, especially judicial reforms.

While the PiS insists the changes are needed to weed out judicial corruption, critics and the European Union insist they erode judicial independence and democracy just three decades after Poland shed communism.

US President Donald Trump, who regards the populist PiS administration as a key European ally, gave Duda his blessing this week.

Trump invited him to the White House on Wednesday as the first foreign leader to visit since the coronavirus pandemic began, just four days ahead of election day.

Originally scheduled for May, the ballot was postponed due to the pandemic and a new hybrid system of postal and conventional voting will be in place on Sunday in a bid to stem infections.

While official figures show over 33,000 confirmed cases and more than 1,400 deaths, the health minister has admitted that there are likely up to 1.6 million undetected cases in Poland, an EU country of 38 million people.

- Anti-gay rhetoric -

Duda has promised to defend the governing party's raft of popular social benefits, including a child allowance and extra pension payments -- a key factor behind the populists winning a second term in October's parliamentary election.

Bread and butter issues are weighing heavily on voters' minds as the economic fallout of the pandemic is set to send Poland into its first recession since communism's demise.

"I'm happy. I can't complain; I get an extra pension payment and children are getting 500 zloty," Irena, a 63-year-old pensioner, told AFP in the central Polish town of Minsk Mazowiecki.

"I'd like this to continue," she added, declining to provide her surname.

Duda has also echoed PiS attacks on LGBT+ rights and Western values, something analysts see as a bid to attract voters backing a far-right candidate.

Campaigning with the slogan "Enough is Enough", Trzaskowski promises to use the experience and contacts he gathered as a former European affairs minister to "fight hard" for a fair slice of the EU's 2021-27 budget, and to repair tattered ties with Brussels.

He has however vowed to keep the PiS's popular welfare payments.

While many see his PO party as a weak and ineffectual opposition, Trzaskowski supporters regard him as a bulwark against the PiS's drive to reform the courts, something they insist risks destroying any notion of an independent judiciary.

"I'm a lawyer and this (PiS justice reforms) affect me directly," Marek, 60, told AFP in Minsk Mazowiecki, also declining to provide his surname.

"It's as if a blacksmith would go to a watchmaker's shop and try to put things in order. People might support it, but in the long run these reforms will have to be reversed."

- 'Budapest model'? -

Since winning power in 2015, both Duda and the PiS have in many ways upended Polish politics by stoking tensions with the EU and wielding influence through state-owned companies and public broadcasters.

Some analysts view the election as a crucial juncture: a second five-year term for Duda would allow the PiS to make even more controversial changes while defeat could unravel the party's power.

FASCISM BY ANY OTHER NAME 

A win for Duda would pave the way to "bolstering 'Eastern' tendencies, like the rise of oligarchs... and a drift to the Budapest model (of Hungary's Viktor Orban) – that's the danger," Warsaw University political scientist Anna Materska-Sosowska told AFP.

Polling stations will be open between 7:00 am and 9:00 pm (0500-1900 GMT) with an exit poll expected as soon as voting ends.

© 2020 AFP

Israeli settlers back annexation, oppose Palestinian state

ILLEGAL ZIONIST COLONIAL OCCUPATION FORCE

Issued on: 28/06/2020 -

Above the West Bank settlement of Itamar, the wildcat outpost Givat Arnon is home to 27 Israeli families, both secular and observant Jews MENAHEM KAHANA AFP

Givat Arnon outpost (Palestinian Territories) (AFP)

The 450,000 Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank are a diverse group, ranging from ultra-Orthodox to secular moderates, who hold varying views on Israel's impending decision on annexation.

From July 1, the Israeli government aims to take its first steps toward implementing part of a US-proposed Middle East peace plan that paves the way for annexing key parts of the West Bank, including settlements long considered illegal by the majority of the international community.

The controversial plan also envisions the creation of a Palestinian state, but on reduced territory and the Palestinians have rejected it outright.


From Yitzhar to Efrat, AFP asked Israeli settlers how annexation would change their lives.

- Yakov Sela, settlements 'fulfil destiny' -

Above the West Bank settlement of Itamar, the wildcat outpost Givat Arnon is home to 27 Israeli families, both secular and observant Jews.

The peace plan put forward by the United States could see it annexed by Israel, but surrounded by an independent Palestine.

Yakov Sela, a 33-year-old father of three, said living in an outpost fulfils a "destiny to build the land and settle it".

Part of the outpost site is owned by the Israeli state and part is private Palestinian land, Sela said.

"As far as we're concerned, it's all ours."

Sela described his "elation" in January when US President Donald Trump unveiled his controversial plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace, which opened the door to Israel annexing West Bank settlements and the Jordan Valley.

"We were thrilled," he said.

But Sela is concerned that Israel will be compelled to approve the establishment of a Palestinian state, which would turn the outpost into an Israeli enclave.

"We can't really accept the recognition" of Palestinian statehood, he said.

- Tzvi Succot, opposes Palestinian statehood -

To Tzvi Succot, an Israeli presence in the biblical Jewish homeland, including his settlement Yitzhar, goes beyond temporal politics.

"We're here because of the bible, because of the belief that God gave us this territory," he said from his backyard, where his four young daughters played on swings and a trampoline.

The 29-year-old son of an ultra-Orthodox family in a West Bank settlement near Jerusalem, Succot wears a knitted skullcap, curly sidelocks and a short beard.

Yitzhar, on a hill just south of the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Nablus, is notorious for residents' clashes with the neighbouring Palestinians and also occasional confrontations with Israeli security forces.

"We want this place to be owned by Jews," he said of what brought him to Yitzhar some 15 years ago.

Relations with the Palestinians in the towns below are tense and often violent.

"They don't want us to be here, we don't want them to be here, but meanwhile we're both here," Succot said with a chuckle.

As for annexation, "we're obviously in favour", he said, while remaining opposed to Palestinian statehood.

"I don't think there's one person in the world who thinks there will be a Palestinian state here, in two days or two years."

- Shmil Atlas, favours dialogue -

Shmil Atlas, 51, works for the Efrat local council.

A government-recognised settlement in the southern West Bank, Efrat is adjacent to the Palestinian city of Bethlehem and about 15 kilometres (9 miles) south of Jerusalem.

Efrat is home to about 11,000 Israelis. Like the residents of Givat Arnon, they are a mix of secular and observant Jews.

Atlas has lived in Efrat since leaving Jerusalem in 2015, lured by the settlement's lower property prices.

The father of three said he bought a four-bedroom house in Efrat for the price of a studio apartment in the city.

"My wife and I work in Jerusalem, we were looking for a place close to the city," he said.

Atlas favours annexation but also dialogue with the Palestinians.

"I firmly believe that if we can sit down and negotiate on a common future, life will be better for them and for us," he said.

- Carine Suissa, fears further bloodshed -

French-born Carine Suissa, 53, immigrated to Israel in 1992 and moved the following year to the West Bank settlement of Kfar Adumim.

"I came... with the aim of being able to raise my children in a place with nature, with a quality of life, living in a small village, nothing ideological," she said.

Kfar Adumim lies on the edge of the Judean desert between Jerusalem and the ancient Palestinian city of Jericho.

The location, she said, has few reminders that it is in occupied territory.

"Here it's a bit like living on the moon with empty spaces like landscape paintings... I would never have gone to live in a locality with barriers or surrounded by Arab villages."

But she remains ambivalent about the potential fallout from annexation.

"This plan is not going to lower tensions and I do not see how it could advance peace," she said.

"I fear that we are on the verge of years of fresh conflict and that the blood will continue to flow on both sides."

© 2020 AFP

Tough choices for Hamas over Israeli annexation plans

Issued on: 28/06/2020 -

In recent weeks the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip has seen almost daily protests against US President Donald Trump's Middle East peace plan which foresees Israeli annexation of its settlements in the occupied West Bank and the Jordan Valley SAID KHATIB AFP/File

Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP)

Hamas has warned that Israeli annexation in the occupied West Bank would be a "declaration of war", but the Islamist group must weigh the cost of a new fight, analysts said.

In recent weeks, there have been almost daily protests in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip against US President Donald Trump's Middle East peace plan.

The proposals envisage Israeli annexation of its West Bank settlements and the Jordan Valley, Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 and located around 50 kilometres (31 miles) from the enclave of Gaza.


The Israeli government is expected to decide from July 1 on the implementation of the Trump plan and as the clock ticks Hamas, which has fought three wars against Israel since 2007, is seeking to define its strategy in the face of the latest challenge.

"There is no doubt that Hamas' options are complex because any response to the annexation will have consequences for the Gaza Strip," said Palestinian analyst Adnan Abu Amer.

Despite a 2018 truce, Hamas and Israel still trade fire from time to time, with rockets or incendiary balloons launched from Gaza and reprisal strikes by Israel.

"Tensions at the border fence may resume, with the launch of incendiary and explosive devices," said Mukhaimar Abu Saada, professor of political science at Al-Azhar University in Gaza.

But he ruled out "the option of military activities" against Israel by Hamas, which rules over a territory already impoverished and under a crippling Israeli blockade.

The movement "does not want Gaza to pay the price, and wants to wait to see what is going on, organise popular protests and not have to engage in confrontation with Israel," he added.

On Friday Israeli air force jets struck Hamas positions in Gaza after rockets were fired from the territory towards Israel for the first time since early May.

The previous day, Hamas's military wing had warned that annexation would prompt a war.

"The resistance considers the decision to annex the West Bank and the Jordan Valley to be a declaration of war on our people," said spokesman Abu Ubaida.

And an Islamist official told AFP that Hamas was in talks with other factions in the coastal enclave to "coordinate the resistance and resume the 'return marches'".

- 'More pragmatic' attitude? -

In March 2018, the Palestinians launched weekly protests along Gaza's border with Israel calling for "the right of return" of Palestinians chased from their lands or who fled when Israel was created in 1948.

They also demanded the lifting of the strict Israeli blockade imposed by Israel over a decade ago on Gaza to purportedly contain Hamas.

Attendance at the rallies waned late last year, then restrictions related to the new coronavirus pandemic added further complications.

If Israel goes ahead with its annexation plan, Hamas may take a "more pragmatic" attitude and perhaps allow other factions to fire rockets at Israel or engage in clashes along the border, said analyst Abu Amer.

But it would do everything to prevent a major response from Israel, he added.

Abu Amer said that Hamas wants armed attacks against Israel in the West Bank instead, in order to spare the Gaza Strip.

But for that, there would need to be a dialogue between Hamas and the rival Fatah party of West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmud Abbas.

The two parties have been at loggerheads since the Islamist movement wrested control of the Gaza Strip from the PA in 2007 after a near-civil war, a year after winning parliamentary elections.

Since then, all efforts at inter-Palestinian reconciliation have failed.

In mid-June, a senior Hamas official, Salah al-Bardawil, called for Palestinian political unity.

"We call on our people to turn this ordeal into an opportunity to get the Palestinian project back on track," he said.

Abu Amer, however, said an agreement between the PA and Hamas is very slim, even "impossible because of the lack of confidence" on both sides.

"The Palestinian Authority continues to hunt down and arrest Hamas activists in the West Bank on a daily basis," fearing Hamas will resume operations in the West Bank and oust it, as it did in Gaza, he said.

© 2020 AFP

Millions of children in Yemen face starvation amid aid shortfall, UN says
Issued on: 27/06/2020

Yemeni men unload medical aid at a hospital warehouse in the war-torn country's second city of Aden in early May, 2020. © Saleh Al-Obeidi, AFP

Text by:NEWS WIRES|

Video by:Luke SHRAGO

Millions of children could be pushed to the brink of starvation as the coronavirus pandemic sweeps across war-torn Yemen amid a "huge" drop in humanitarian aid funding, the U.N. children’s agency warned Friday.

The stark prediction comes in a new UNICEF report, “Yemen five years on: Children, conflict and COVID-19.” It said the number of malnourished Yemeni children could reach 2.4 million by the end of the year, a 20% increase in the current figure.

“As Yemen’s devastated health system and infrastructure struggle to cope with coronavirus, the already dire situation for children is likely to deteriorate considerably,” warned UNICEF.

Yemen's poor health care infrastructure is unprepared to battle the coronavirus pandemic after five years of war between a Saudi-led military coalition and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels. The war, which has mostly stalemated, has also triggered the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The conflict erupted in 2015, when the Saudi-led coalition stepped in on behalf of the internationally recognized government, which the Houthis had forced into exile when they overran the capital, Sanaa, and much of the north the previous year.

The situation in Yemen is only expected to get worse as donor countries recently cut back on aid. Yemen has officially recorded more than 1,000 cases of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, including 275 deaths. However, the actual tally is believed to be much higher as testing capabilities are severely limited.

“If we do not receive urgent funding, children will be pushed to the brink of starvation and many will die,” said Sara Beysolow Nyanti, UNICEF's representative to Yemen. “The international community will be sending a message that the lives of children ... simply do not matter.”

Pledging conference raises $1.35 billion

UNICEF also warned that unless $54.5 million are disbursed for health and nutrition aid by the end of August, more than 23,000 children will be at increased risk of dying because of acute malnutrition. It also said that 5 million others under the age of 5 will not have access to vaccines against deadly diseases.

International relief agencies are alarmed by the significant decline in humanitarian funding promised earlier by donor countries. A virtual pledging conference for Yemen hosted by the U.N. and Saudi Arabia on June 2 saw 31 donors pledge $1.35 billion for humanitarian aid — a billion dollars short of what aid agencies needed and half of what countries had pledged in 2019.

UNICEF could only secure 40% of the $461 million it appealed for to cover its humanitarian response to the crisis in Yemen, and less than 10% of the $53 million it needs to handle the impact of COVID-19 on children, said the report.

“UNICEF is working around the clock in incredibly difficult situations to get aid to children in desperate need, but we only have a fraction of the funding required to do this,” said Nyanti.

The UNICEF report came on the heels of a warning by U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock who told a closed U.N. Security Council meeting that Yemen could “fall off the cliff” without massive financial support.

Lowcock added that COVID-19 is spreading rapidly across the Arab world's poorest country, killing about 25% of confirmed cases — five times the global average.

Half of Yemen’s health facilities are dysfunctional and 18% of the country’s 333 districts have no doctors. Water and sanitation systems have collapsed resulting in recurrent cholera outbreaks. Around 9.6 million children do not have sufficient access to safe water, sanitation, or hygiene and two-thirds of the country’s roughly 30 million people rely on food assistance.

(AP)

'Ayouni', the documentary film that puts a face to Syria's forcibly disappeared

Issued on: 26/06/2020 -

The bus of the NGO 'Families for freedom', which calls for the release of prisoners forcibly disappeared in Syria at the hands of the regime or various armed groups. © Ayouni, Yasmin Fedda 2020

Text by:Sarah LEDUC

Award-winning Palestinian director Yasmin Fedda's latest documentary, "Ayouni", sheds light on Syria's forced disappearances through the intimate stories of Noura, widow of cyber-activist Bassel Safadi, and Machi, sister of Italian priest Paolo Dall'Oglio, who was abducted in Raqqa in 2013 and whose whereabouts are unknown.

"I don't know if he's alive. I can't be sure he's dead. Until I see his body, I can't mourn him," said Noura Ghazi, who learned in August 2017 that her husband, Bassel Khartabil Safadi, had been executed, five years after he was detained in Damascus and two years after he disappeared. But she knows nothing else. Not where, nor when, nor how: "With a gun? Day or night?” she demanded. For years, the 38-year-old Syrian lawyer and human rights activist has been travelling around the world in search of answers and the "most basic right to say goodbye to my husband".

Ghazi shares the questions that haunt her in "Ayouni", Fedda's latest documentary, which will be available for streaming on July 1. The Palestinian filmmaker, nominated for a Bafta and the maker of several films about Syria, where she spent her childhood, filmed Ghazi in her quest to find answers about her absent husband. Fedda also followed Immacolata – known as "Machi", the sister of Father Paolo Dall'Oglio. The latter is the Italian priest who in the 1980s founded the Syrian Catholic monastery of Mar Mûsa, north of Damascus, and was later kidnapped in Raqqa by the Islamic State group on July 27, 2013. He has not been heard from since.

Like Safadi and Dall’Oglio, approximately 100,000 people have been forcibly disappeared after being arrested by Bashar al-Assad's regime or abducted by various armed militias, including the Islamic State group, since the beginning of the conflict in Syria in 2011, according to Amnesty International.

""Machi" Dall'Oglio holds a photo of his brother, Father Paolo Dall'Oglio, kidnapped in Syria in 2013 by the Islamic State group and missing ever since. © Ayouni, Yasmin Fedda 2020

An auteur's film about the complexity of emotions

For six years, Fedda filmed these two women, who did not know each other but were brought together by a common tragedy. "I had started a project on Father Dall'Oglio, a friend of mine, when we learned of his kidnapping. My film then took a different turn," the director told FRANCE 24. From Iraq to Italy through Lebanon and the United Kingdom, she recorded their secrets, their tears and their questions, and filmed their struggle for truth and justice.

"I tried to capture the complexity of their emotions. In six years, there have been different stages, ranging from anger to hope, but the search for truth has always kept them going," Fedda said. As Machi told her brother's kidnappers in a video posted in 2014, "we hope to hug Paolo, but we are ready to mourn his death."

Neither a journalistic investigation – although the facts are verified – nor a human rights campaign film - though the film’s release partners include Amnesty International and pro-democracy NGO The Syria Campaign, “Ayouni” is the film of an auteur. It is a thought-provoking documentary about war crimes seen through the lens of intimate stories.

"It's not just a film about Syria and forced disappearances, it's a film that touches on universal themes," said Fedda.

The "bride and groom of the revolution"

"'Ayouni' means eyes in Arabic," Fedda explained. "But it's also a term of affection for the people you love. It can therefore be read in two ways: either what people see or as a testimony of love.”

It’s this second meaning that unites Noura and Bassel, "the bride and groom of the revolution". The couple met in 2011 during an anti-Assad demonstration in Douma. Through video archives, Fedda introduces us to Bassel, a Palestinian-Syrian activist and open-source developer who played a leading role in the free Internet movement, notably by creating Arabic versions of Wikipedia and the Firefox web browser. "I wanted to make him a presence before filming his absence," she said.

The couple got engaged in 2011, before the revolution turned into war. Although Assad has already ordered his armies to fire on demonstrators, Noura and Bassel still believed in change. "We have come such a long way..." they said in archive footage. But in March 2012, Bassel was arrested by the regime. Nevertheless, the couple got married in Adra prison on January 7, 2013, hiding from the guards. Then Bassel disappeared from the radar in 2015, the year in which he was allegedly executed. Allegedly. Noura has learned to learn to live with the uncertainty but has been relentless in her attempts to find out what happened.

A plea against violations in Syria

Ghazi, a lawyer and founder of the NGO Nophotozone, which provides legal assistance to the families of the disappeared, has become the voice of tens of thousands of Syrian families who have seen their loved ones vanish into the jails of the Damascus regime. Since the beginning of the conflict in Syria in 2011, an estimated 100,000 people have been forcibly disappeared. On June 16, Ghazi pleaded their case again before the UN Security Council, at the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron.

"I'm here to tell you about the suffering of the families of the forcibly disappeared, mostly men, leaving us women to raise children without fathers," she said in a video conference. "I am here to talk to you about the violations of Bashar al-Assad who flouts our laws and our Constitution. (...) I am here to talk to you about the lack of political will to put an end to it. I demand justice and I am ready to pay the high price for it."

Fedda relayed the plea in her generous and empathetic documentary. "I would be happy if my film could make a modest contribution to making their struggle known," the director concluded.

This has been translated from the original article in French.

‘A woman’: Wikipedia page records trials and achievements of invisible women

Issued on: 19/06/2020 -

Masked protesters dressed as feminist icon Rosie the Riveter pictured in Paris on June 11, 2020. © Anne-Christine Poujoulat, AFP

Text by:Benjamin DODMAN

Building on the success of the hashtag #unefemme (a woman), which aims to call out everyday sexism in the media, a satirical Wikipedia page in French has begun recording the many accomplishments of women lumped together in news headlines under the anonymous label “a woman”.

It’s been a busy month of June for “a woman”, rich in thrills, debuts and promotions, judging by headlines in the French press.

A week after taking charge of France’s aviation academy, “a woman” piloted her first stealth aircraft into combat on June 12, the same day she was appointed head of NASA’s human spaceflight programme. Somehow, “a woman” still found time to lead a fire brigade in France’s rural Creuse department, preside over a Swiss cancer charity, become the world’s best paid executive and win the “young economist of the year” award, while also brewing “green tea-flavoured beer, 100% Catalan.”

These are just a sample of the most recent news headlines that defined their subjects as “a woman”, without naming them. They are catalogued in the French-language Wikipedia page “Une femme” (A woman), the latest in a string of recent online initiatives aimed at exposing and ridiculing sexism in the media.

Encore une période très faste pour « Une femme ».
Félicitations à elle. pic.twitter.com/o7VBECkT5l— Guillaume Blardone ☀️ (@gblardone) June 6, 2020

The satirical page “brilliantly exposes the absurdity of this situation,” says activist Sherine Deraz, who has authored a series of web-based videos on feminism. “After years of being silenced, the achievements of women are rendered invisible by the phrase ‘a woman’ (...). We never really get to know who has done what, and are therefore unable to give these women due credit.”

The page is “funny, original, clever and incisive,” adds Marlène Coulomb-Gully, a professor at the University of Toulouse who has written extensively about women in the media. “Humour has always been the tool of the oppressed, a means to wittily expose what cannot be said.”

‘Tragi-comic’

Wikipedia’s “a woman” has numerous nationalities, multiple professions and an array of skills that, in 2016, saw her head Germany’s best-selling Bild newspaper, lead Japan’s main opposition party and take over as minister of happiness in the United Arab Emirates, all at once. Her scientific achievements have earned her five Nobel prizes in medicine “but only one Fields Medal”, the top distinction for mathematics.

While little is known about her childhood, it appears her mother was also “a woman”. More recently, her CV has been embellished with a slew of prestigious postings, often bestowed by men. Thus, at the start of the year, “a woman” was appointed president of Greece, “on the suggestion of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mytsotakis”. As the French weekly that ran the story noted, her post is “essentially ceremonial” and “her dark hair is cropped into a bob”.

While adopting a tongue-in-cheek tone throughout, the Wikipedia page is deadly serious when it comes to the obituary section. “A woman”, it points out, dies every two and half days in France at the hands of her partner.

>> Tackling domestic violence: ‘If you ask the right questions at the right time, you will save lives’

According to activist Marion Vaquero, who launched the collective @pepitesexiste (sexist nugget) to call out sexism on social media, the “tragi-comic” tone of the page is “a useful way to expose the difference in the way women and men are treated in the media.” In an interview with Le Monde, she added: “While women are still under-represented, the fact that they are not named when referring to their accomplishments only makes them even more invisible.”

Anonymous trailblazers

“No one would ever dream of writing a headline that reads ‘A man elected president of so and so’, it would be seen as ridiculous,” adds Professor Coulomb-Gully. “That’s because women are always treated as having a specific quality, whereas men are seen as having a universal one,” she argues, noting that media headlines that comfort this specificity often do so involuntarily.

Many of the articles catalogued in the Wikipedia page adopt the traditional “First woman…” phrase, stressing the novelty of a woman’s breakthrough in a given field. In doing so, however, they risk reinforcing the notion of an exceptional occurrence, almost an anomaly, in a world dominated by men — while also rendering the person invisible.

“It’s a complex question, because in some cases ‘a woman’ can define and render invisible at once,” says Professor Coulomb-Gully. “Highlighting the role of female pioneers can have an educational utility, provided it is accompanied by an examination of the systemic nature of gender-based discriminations that explains why the wait for a female pioneer has been so long.”



#unefemme tant que ça reste en famille ça passe @lemainelibre

😤😤😤 pic.twitter.com/n3zYrwYuTm— Yves ⚫⚪ ❤💛 ⭐⭐ (@YvesVerfaillie) June 11, 2020

The trouble, says Deraz, is that most readers read no further than the title.

“News organisations quite rightly want to stress the fact that women have had to wait a long time for recognition, but they do so in a clumsy fashion,” she says, noting that many readers get their information from headlines alone. She believes the media should proceed the other way round, first naming the women and then providing context and analysis for those who wish to learn more.

#unefemme

Supposedly positive stories about women’s empowerment often come with a catch, the Wikipedia page points out, noting that newly appointed women are required to juggle between jobs and other chores, unlike their male counterparts.

“Much to the amazement of French media, in 2019 a woman is allowed to referee her first Ligue 1 football match ahead of the women’s football World Cup [organised on French soil],” the page reads. “She does so in a semi-professional capacity, which leaves her with three full days per week to fulfill her [other] professional obligations.”

Even before the page’s launch, Twitter users had adopted the #unefemme hashtag to draw a parallel between the numerous activities the media attribute to “a woman” and the disproportionately heavy workload bearing on women in general — an imbalance highlighted by the fallout from the latest iteration of the deadly coronavirus, which, the Wikipedia page notes, “a woman” first discovered back in 1964.

>> The women fighting Covid-19: Pandemic highlights lack of female representation

Already, there are signs the campaign is having some effect, as one Twitter user noted on Wednesday. Two days after running the headline, “A woman leads 850 firefighters in the Creuse”, local daily La Montagne quietly amended its title to give the titular protagonist her name and surname… followed by “a woman”.

Il y a quelques heures c'était "une femme", depuis celle-ci a un nom et un prénom ! Bravo pour la réactivité @lamontagne_fr Stéphanie Duchet, une femme à la tête de 850 pompiers en Creuse https://t.co/GQFCcW1qRD— Martin PIERRE (@MartinPIERRE14) June 17, 2020

‘They are human too’: Indonesia locals rescue Rohingya refugees barred by Covid fears

Issued on: 26/06/2020 -

Rohingya refugees off the coast of Indonesia on Thursday, June 25, 2020. © AFP / FRANCE 24

Text by:FRANCE 24Follow|

Video by:Sam BALL

Locals in Aceh province, Indonesia, rescued a group of Rohingya refugees stranded at sea on Thursday after authorities refused to let them come ashore for fear they may be carrying the Covid-19 coronavirus.

The 94 refugees, including 30 children, were reportedly found earlier this week in a sinking cargo ship, adrift in the water off the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

They were initially rescued on Wednesday by local fishermen who brought them closer to shore. But authorities refused to let the boat they were in land and on Thursday morning said they would send the refugees back out to sea.

Locals then took matters into their own hands, however, towing the boat to shore and helping to carry emaciated passengers and small children to land.

“If the government is incapable, us the community will bring help to them, because we are human beings and they (the Rohingya refugees) are human too and we have a heart,” local resident Syaiful Amri told Reuters.

In the face of protests by angry locals, authorities then said the refugees will now be given temporary accommodation and health checks to make sure they are virus-free.

Indonesia is a common destination for Muslim Rohingya fleeing persecution in mostly Buddhist Myanmar and overcrowded refugee camps in Bangladesh, and hundreds have died attempting perilous sea crossings in recent years.

The crisis has worsened this year with many countries shutting their doors amid the coronavirus pandemic.

MAURITANIA / POLICE BRUTALITY - 

Photo of a police officer pressing a knee into the neck of the “Mauritanian George Floyd” sparks anger

'Without George Floyd, this might have gone unreported'

06/26/2020 FRANCE24/OBSERVER 

People across Mauritania have expressed shock and outrage over a photo showing a police officer holding a man on the ground by pressing his knee into his neck – using the exact same move that a police officer used to kill George Floyd in the American city of Minneapolis, sparking a global movement against police violence and racism. This movement has had particular resonance in Mauritania, where the Black community has faced a long history of slavery, violence and oppression.The incident took place on June 21 in El-Minaa, a suburb located to the southwest of the capital, Nouakchott. The photo was taken by a witness who self-identifies as an activist on social media. It shows two Mauritanian police officers holding a Black man on the ground, facedown. One of the officers has his knee pressed into the man’s neck.

Bloggers sympathetic to the Mauritanian government claimed the man was a "thief", an “armed individual who had attacked the authorities”. However, none of the posts contained specific information about the crimes he was alleged to have committed.
On the other hand, many Mauritanian social-media users were quick to draw a parallel with how US police officer Derek Chauvin restrained and ultimately killed George Floyd during an arrest in Minneapolis. Many people denounced it as a racist act carried out in a suburb that is home to a majority Black community.

'An arrest using US police tactics, this is disrespectful treatment and must be condemned. Leadership within the (national) security forces should severely punish these two officers.'

'I think the only explanation is that the police planned this as a way to provoke the community'

Hamza Jaafar is a human rights activist and a member of the Sahel Foundation for Human Rights (in French: la fondation Sahel pour la Défense des Droits de l'Homme). Jaafar says that there is nothing new about the Mauritanian police using excessive force towards civilians, especially if those civilians are Black.

In the midst of an international movement against racism and police violence, the police used the same method that caused George Floyd’s death in a community that is 90 percent Black. I think the only explanation is that the police planned this as a way to provoke the community.

Slavery wasn’t banned in Mauritania until 1980 and reports by human rights organisations such as Amnesty International show that it hasn’t been totally eradicated. And racism against the Black community in Mauritania is still rampant.

A few days before the incident, Mauritanian TV channel Al-Arabii broadcast a documentary about the enslavement of Black people, which is a sensitive topic in Mauritania. After the documentary was broadcast, the Minister of Culture contacted correspondents for international media outlets and told them that their work permits would be revoked if they reported on topics that “threatened social cohesion” in the country.

'Without George Floyd, this might have gone unreported'Jaafar believes that the ministry’s threat to correspondents proves that the authorities want to shut down any debate on this topic:

Without George Floyd, this incident might have gone unreported. The security forces here make a habit of assaulting citizens during arrests. Even this time, blogs with close links to the authorities justified this brutal arrest by saying that the man was a criminal who had attacked the officers before trying to flee. They even posted photos that they claimed showed how one of the officers had sustained a hand injury.
Hamid Oueld Mohammed, who has 38,000 Facebook followers, posted a photo that he claims shows the injured hand of one of the police officers who was allegedly attacked by the arrestee.

Other pro-authorities bloggers, like Mohamed Lamine Abd Eddayem, claimed that the security forces were victims of a smear campaign.

'Is this young man dead? No, he isn’t dead. This is [just] a method used to arrest thieves, whether they are white or black. It isn’t reasonable to compare this image with what happened to George Floyd. And it’s a crime to compare Mauritania with the United States,' reads a post written by a blogger who Jaafar says has close links to the police.
CLAIMS BY POLICE SUPPORTER THAT THIS IS A COPS INJURED HAND 

HE GOT IN THE INCIDENCE ALLEGEDLY

Police arrested the person who took the photo of the incident, according to Mauritanian news site Al-Akhbar.

“It’s a warning to anyone who tries to film similar scenes in the future,” says Jaafar.

The Mauritanian Ministry of the Interior sent the FRANCE 24 Observers team a document stating that the two officers had been transferred to the far east of the country in the wake of this brutal arrest.

According to a source in the same Ministry, who wished to remain anonymous, officials considered the incident an “internal affair” and their decision to transfer the officers to be just an "ordinary procedure".

Several social-media users with close links to the Mauritanian government, like Hamid Oueld Mohammed, posted on Facebook that the officers were jailed for three days before being transferred.

A document signed by the Director General of Mauritanian National Security, Mesgharou Ould Sidi, and published by the Mauritanian news site Nawafedh, states that the two police officers involved were transferred to districts in the far east of the country.

Article by Omar Tiss.

https://observers.france24.com/en/20200626-mauritania-photo-police-mauritanian-george-floyd-brutality

Bitter reminders of colonialism remain as Madagascar celebrates 60 years of independence

Issued on: 26/06/2020 -

Text by:FRANCE 24Follow|

Video by:FRANCE 24Follow

As Madagascar celebrates the 60th anniversary of its gaining Independence from France, some citizens still bear the scars of colonialism.

Randriamamonjy can point to the marks on his legs and back, reminders of the manual labour French and Senegalese riflemen forced him to perform as a 20-year-old in 1947, the year the Malagasy Uprising began. When he refused, he was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Others suffered worse fates. As many as 90,000 Malagasies died during the the two-year uprising, which was one of the earliest revolts in the French colonies and was brutally shut down. Madagascar wouldn’t gain its independence until 1960.

Some in the country say that with the nation’s dependence on France, Madagascar is still not free.

Germany: Catholic Church sees record drop in membership

More than half a million people officially left the Catholic and Protestant churches in Germany in 2019, new figures show. Just over half the population now belongs to one of the two main denominations.

Germany's top Catholic body said Friday that a record 272,771 people left the country's Catholic Church in 2019, and that the number of baptisms and weddings taking place in churches also dropped sharply.

The number compares with some 216,000 people canceling their membership in 2018, and beats the previous record of around 218,000 in 2014 by a large margin.

The chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, Georg Bätzing, said the statistics could not be made to look good in any way and that the drop in baptism and wedding ceremonies showed the "erosion of a personal attachment to the church" particularly clearly.

The German Protestant Church (EKD) also had cause to be concerned about its membership numbers, with 270,000 people leaving in 2019, an increase of 22% on the year before. The figure equals that of 2014.

Read more: German church at the center of over 100 coronavirus cases

Heinrich Bedford-Strohm (far left) and Bishop Georg Bätzing (far right) at a mass commemorating the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II
'Painful' losses

EKD head Heinrich Bedford-Strohm said that every person lost to the church was a painful blow, as church workers were all "highly motivated."

Churches in Germany also suffer financially when they lose members, as a church tax is deducted from people's incomes if they are registered as being either Catholic or Protestant.

Read more: Germany's churches reimagined: Practicing faith in a pandemic

No reason for leaving a church has to be given. Bedford-Strohm said the reasons for the increase in departures would be examined in a special study. Last year, both churches published a study in which they predicted that membership numbers would be halved by 2060.

With deaths outnumbering births in recent years, the fall in membership goes beyond the number of people leaving. There are now around 22.6 million Catholics in Germany, a drop of 400,000 in 2019, and 20.7 million Protestants, 427,000 fewer than the year before.

Altogether 52.1% of people in Germany still officially belong to one of the two main Christian denominations.

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Pandemic leads to rise in Canada fatal drug overdoses

Issued on: 28/06/2020

A pedestrian walks past a passed-out drug user on June 25, 2020 in Ottawa, Canada; an emergency government pandemic payment has been used by some addicts to buy drugs, and overdoses have surged Lars Hagberg AFP/File

Ottawa (AFP)

A homeless Canadian with a drug addiction, Luc Laplante has lost three friends -- Dave, Emily and Pat -- to opioid overdoses in the last three months of the coronavirus pandemic.

Partly to blame, he said, is a government emergency program that put temptation in the way of users by giving them a sudden cash infusion with few questions asked.

"People have been applying for the government COVID-19 aid, using it to binge on drugs and overdosing," he said, just hours after surviving a dangerously high dose of fentanyl himself.

It left him with a painful reminder: he fell while high, suffering a bloody scrape along the right side of his face.

Addicts and outreach workers say several factors have contributed to a surge in overdoses during the pandemic: physical isolation amid lockdowns, reduced access to addiction services such as safe injection sites, and shifts in health care resources from serving addicts to treating COVID-related illnesses.

- 'People went on benders' -

The Trudeau government introduced a monthly Can$2,000 ($1,500) emergency benefit in March to help Canadians left jobless by the pandemic, as businesses were ordered closed to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

The government simplified the application process to quickly funnel payments to Canadians in need.

Applicants are required only to answer a few questions and certify their veracity.

"With Can$2,000 in their pocket, people just went on benders," Laplante said.

"They had access to quick cash and it killed them."

The Ontario coroner estimates fatal overdoses have shot up by 25 percent in the last three months. In British Columbia, deaths increased by 40 percent over the same period last year.

- Clusters of overdoses -
"Tragically, other jurisdictions across the country are reporting similar trends," Canada's chief public health officer Theresa Tam said last month.

She pointed to "clusters of overdoses due to unknown or unusual mixes of toxic illicit substances" in several cities, including Toronto and Calgary.

Bonnie Henry, the chief public health officer in British Columbia, broke down in tears at a recent briefing while describing a record 170 overdose fatalities in May, more than the number of coronavirus deaths in the province.

"COVID-19 is not our only health crisis," Henry said.

Three safe injection sites in Ottawa's Lower Town neighborhood slashed in half the number of spaces available to drug users, in keeping with new social distancing rules.

As a result, some people have been using drugs and overdosing in the streets.

- Outside a 'safe' site -

An AFP journalist observed paramedics responding to several overdoses right outside a safe injection site.

Laplante, 37, a bent cigarette dangling from his lips and with dirt wedged beneath his fingernails, said he was alone in an empty parking lot when he shot up Monday night.

He said he was looking to relieve pain in his knee, aggravated by walking around in poor footwear while lugging all his worldly possessions in a large backpack.

It was a "stronger batch of drugs" than he was used to that did him in, he insisted.

Luckily for him, a passerby spotted him lying on the ground and alerted paramedics.

"They got me back on my feet and sent me on my way. I rested up and did more drugs," he said.

Anne Marie Hopkins of Ottawa Inner City Health said some of her clients had used payments to rent hotel rooms and died of an overdose -- alone.

"It's very sad, and devastating for everyone involved," she told AFP.

"We were already dealing with a lot, with the opioid crisis, but we were making headway. And then the pandemic hit and it made things worse," she said.

A University of British Columbia study released Thursday found that a disproportionately high number of Canadians with mental health issues (59 percent versus 33 percent) had experienced a decline in their emotional, psychological and social well-being during the pandemic. Many have ended up homeless and addicted.

"People who were already experiencing mental health challenges and... marginalization appear to be the hardest hit," researcher Emily Jenkins said in a statement.

Hopkins said she fears people with drug addictions could suffer "severe withdrawal effects" when the government funds run out.

Too, some who had used the money for better housing could be back on the streets.

And if people are found to have wrongly tapped into the emergency benefit, the government might claw it back from future financial aid, she said.

"It's a frightening time for a lot of people already suffering from trauma in their lives," she said.

© 2020 AFP