Pakistan: Ahmadi man accused of blasphemy shot dead before judge in Peshawar courtroo

Press Trust of India Peshawar UPDATED: July 30, 2020


Tahir Ahmad Naseem was arrested two years ago on blasphemy charges. (Photo: Twitter/BilalMahmoodUK)

An elderly man from the minority Ahmadi community, facing trial for blasphemy, was shot dead on Wednesday in front of the judge in a local court situated in a high-security zone in Pakistan's Peshawar city, police said. Tahir Ahmad Naseem, who was arrested two years ago on blasphemy charges, died on the spot in the court of Additional Session Judge Shaukatullah Khan, they said.

The court is situated in a high-security zone in the cantonment area where the provincial assembly building, the Peshawar High Court, chief minister's secretariat and Governor House are also situated. Security at the main gate and inside the judicial complex is also high. It was not clear how the armed attacker managed to get into the court amid tight security.

Man under trial for #blasphemy shot dead inside a courtroom in Peshawar. Shooter said he 'defended Islam' by killing accused. Tahir Ahmed was booked for claiming to be a prophet in 2018. He had told the court that he suffered from mental illness & was unaware of the consequences. pic.twitter.com/MoF37nkaSU— Naila Inayat (@nailainayat) July 29, 2020

The police arrested the killer, identified as Khalid Khan, from the courtroom. A lawyer, who was present in the courtroom when the incident occurred, said a case had been registered against the deceased under blasphemy laws.

The accused was brought to the court from Peshawar Central Jail. Police shifted the body of the deceased to the Khyber Medical University for post-mortem. Blasphemy is a hugely sensitive issue in Pakistan, with even unproven allegations often prompting mob violence.

Anyone convicted, or even just accused, of insulting Islam, risks a violent and bloody death at the hands of vigilantes. Rights groups have said the blasphemy laws are routinely abused to seek vengeance and settle personal scores. There had been a number of incidents in different parts of Pakistan in which members of the Ahmadi community were targeted by religious zealots in the past. Pakistan's Parliament in 1974 declared the Ahmadi community as non-Muslims.

A decade later, they were banned from calling themselves Muslims. They are banned from preaching and from travelling to Saudi Arabia for pilgrimage. In Pakistan, around 10 million out of the 220 million population are non-Muslims. According to the 2017 census, Hindus constitute the largest religious minority in Pakistan.

Christians make up the second-largest religious minority. The Ahmadis, Sikhs and Parsis are also among the notable religious minorities in Pakistan.

#ABOLISHBLASPHEMYLAWS 

Egypt is cracking down on women's freedoms on and offline. But they are fighting back
The conviction of five young TikTok influencers on vague charges is the authorities' latest attempt to control women and girls

Activists say that women are being targeted by vague laws for their social media content (Social media screengrab/AFP)

By Nadda OsmanPublished date: 29 July 2020

The jailing of five Egyptian influencers on charges of "violating public morals" over videos they published on TikTok has set a new precedent for controls that women face online, as well as the social limits increasingly placed upon them.

But though the internet is now apparently a place unsafe for Egyptian women to express themselves, it is also a platform where they are rallying - both to defend those convicted over their TikTok posts and to raise awareness for abuse meted out to them by men.

On Monday, five young women were sentenced by a court to two years in prison and each fined 300,000 Egyptian pounds ($18,750). Their alleged crime was to publish content that was morally problematic for the public and Egyptian family values.

The content, however, would seem to many as innocent and innocuous and has raised alarm bells for both women's rights activists and proponents of free speech.


'These women were simply being targeted for being women who dare to be different or autonomous'

- Reem Abdellatif, journalist

One of the women, Mowada al-Adham, used the app to share a video with her three million followers of the influencer dancing, lip-syncing and posing in a convertible car while listening to music.

Another, Haneen Hossam, who has a following of one million, uploaded footage detailing how others could use the app to earn money.

The videos are reminiscent of many of the trends TikTok users around the word take part in, including comedy sketches and voiceover skits. However, the Egyptian authorities' response has been swift and severe.

According to Egyptian media, Adham was asked to submit to a virginity test which was requested for the investigation, but refused to do so. The United Nations has previously called for a ban on virginity testing, which violates human rights and can cause pain, health issues and trauma.

Reem Abdellatif, an Egyptian-American journalist who has previously used social media to campaign for women's empowerment and education, said women in Egypt were afforded little freedom of speech, especially those who come from the working class.

“It is unfortunate but common for vague and loosely worded laws to be constantly used to repress women and sometimes activists in Egypt … These women were simply being targeted for being women who dare to be different or autonomous,” she told Middle East Eye.

Egypt's al-Azhar poised to be stripped of its powerRead More »

“Women and girls in Egypt are still struggling to have their basic rights, such as bodily autonomy and personal freedoms, but working class women from low-income backgrounds struggle with this for more obvious reasons.”

Much of the backlash against the influencers has come from Egypt's state-backed media.

In a teary video posted to Instagram in April, days before the five were arrested, Hossam said the media had taken her content and shared it out of context, claiming that what she is doing is inappropriate.

She said many do not understand how people can make money through social media, and stressed it is no different from presenters and public figures earning a living on TV.

“Rumours have ruined lives. I have never said anything bad in my videos, I never said I wanted girls to do inappropriate things to earn money. I said respectable girls could earn money on social media. No one works without getting paid in return, so how is this different?” she said.

In another video, which has been viewed over 800,000 times, Hossam added that she had been on the receiving end of an onslaught of harassment, which had caused her significant distress.

“What are you benefiting from by destroying someone? Beating someone when they are down is wrong… there are people doing much worse things, why are people focussing on me? Bloggers are not hurting anyone, why are people creating rumours with no evidence?” she said.
Egyptian influencer Haneen Hossam has been sentenced to two years in jail on charges of violating public morals (AFP)

According to Amr Magdi, a Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch, the recent wave of arrests reflect the current state of the country, which is heavily monitored and censored by authorities.

Since the 2013 military coup that brought President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to power, human rights abuses have skyrocketed. Tens of thousands of Egyptians accused of being critical of the government have been imprisoned under Sisi.

Social controls are becoming ever more prevalent and punitive.

“It’s very concerning and it’s an abusive campaign of arrests and persecution mainly of women and girls, based on what they wear and how they behave… it shows what direction the country is heading in,” Magdi told MEE.

“The Egyptian law is very vague and broad. They talk about acts which undermine family values, but the law does not define what these acts are, so citizens do not know when they are violating the law," he added.

"The punishments for these acts are also extremely disproportionate. It can be up to five years in prison, or sometimes more, with large fines.”
Mowada al-Adham was jailed and fined for her TikTok content, which included videos of her singing and dancing (Screengrab/TikTok)

All five of the TikTok influencers were prosecuted under Egypt's 2018 cybercrime law, legislation that has been widely criticised by human rights campaigners and activists for being vague and used to unfairly target people.

Not only can authorities imprison and fine people for content posted online deemed to be inconsistent with family principles or the values of Egyptian society, the law allows any social media accounts with more than 5,000 followers to be monitored.

Like Abdellatif, Magdi believes that the recent wave of arrests have unjustly targeted people from lower social classes, suggesting that the government allows wealthy Egyptians to behave in certain ways, but not the general public.


'What these women did you can see every day on TV and in high-class resorts, beaches, but no one goes there to arrest them'

- Amr Magdi, HRW

“This perpetrates another type of discrimination against social economic status, because what these women did you can see every day on TV and in high-class resorts, beaches, but no one goes there to arrest them,” he said.

The arrests have brought into question what the Egyptian government perceives as public morals and the role of women in Egyptian society. Magdi described the message being sent to society as "deeply chilling and frightening", predicting more crackdowns to come.

“We have seen Sisi himself talking about women in derogatory ways on several occasions, for example the role of women at home and how they should support their families and husbands at home,” he said.

Under Sisi, the Egyptian government has seized close control of the country's media. Not only does it heavily regulate how outlets are run, the government also influences the way people are presented in films and the arts.

“Egyptian intelligence has moved to monitor and monopolise the media. One of the motives behind this has been to dictate how women should behave and look in TV dramas," Magdi said. "There are many indications that there is a coordinated effort by actors in the government to oppress women and strip women of some of their rights.”
Women fight back

With traditional media closely regulated and street protests non-existent after the government's deadly crackdown on Egyptians demonstrating against the 2013 coup, women have been forced to turn their discontent online.

Activists and social media users have been using the hashtag "If the Egyptian family allows" to decry women's treatment and highlight the ease with which they can be arrested on such charges.



(1) Today, you'll find many tweeting #بعد_اذن_الاسرة_المصرية. They started at 1 pm (Cairo time) & will continue through the day to raise attention ahead of 2 expected verdicts this week for 3 Egyptian female TikTok users: Haneen Hosam & Mawada El-Adham (7/27) & Manar Samy (7/29). pic.twitter.com/fxoTvRewmN— Mai El-Sadany (@maitelsadany) July 26, 2020

Meanwhile, a petition has been started online, where over 2,800 people have signed to call for authorities to stop targeting women on TikTok, and for the National Council for Women to provide legal support for the women currently detained.

The petition questions what the “family values” that are allegedly being violated are, and denounces the authorities for targeting and detaining women.

“We fear and worry about this systematic crackdown which targets low-income women. We can't ignore the underlying guardianship over TikTok women. Because of their class, they are being punished and denied their own right to their bodies, to dress freely and to express themselves," the petition states.

Social media has taken particular prominence for Egyptian women in recent weeks, as thousands have used the platforms to highlight harassment and sexual assault, in what has been called Egypt’s #MeToo movement.

Waves of allegations and accusations have flooded social media, with women calling out their harassers and demanding for them to be held accountable.


'The online space has become almost unsafe for women, ironically, who are utilising social media to create awareness and press for change'

- Reem Abdellatif, journalist

It has shown that online pressure can work. The outpouring of accusations and solidarity online prompted an anonymity bill to be passed in Egypt, allowing victims of abuse to have their identity protected.

The bill came days after authorities arrested a 22-year-old who was accused by around 100 women of sexual crimes, including blackmail, rape and online sexual harassment.

That being said, as the TikTok case shows, the internet is far from a safe space for women. Recent reports show that women in the Middle East and North Africa region are facing increased harassment and abuse online, with little legislation to protect them.

According to Abdellatif, women in Egypt and around the Middle East are being targeted for the messages they post online, particularly when they go against societal norms or a patriarchal society.

“The online space has become almost unsafe for women, ironically, who are utilising social media to create awareness and press for change," she said, adding that abuse has intensified in recent weeks due to the Egyptian MeToo movement and the coronavirus lockdown.

"What happens online is very similar to what happens offline: systemic silencing of women who dare go against the grain, or simply have an opinion that is independent of society's misogynistic mainstream teachings.”

Masks to Sharia: QAnon is spreading anti-Muslim ideology via coronavirus opposition
'The coronavirus anti-mask movement is like a recruitment tool for this right now,' one university professor tells MEE

Supporters of President Donald Trump hold up their phones with messages referring to the QAnon conspiracy theory at a campaign rally at Las Vegas Convention Center on 21 February (AFP/File photo)

By Sheren Khalel Published date: 29 July 2020


A secret plan orchestrated by Muslims to bring Sharia law to the United States by way of coronavirus restrictions is the latest theory backed by the increasingly popular QAnon conspiracy.

The movement, believers in a collection of far-right conspiracy theories, is based on the idea that a network of "deep state" actors is working behind the scenes to control the world. In 2019, an FBI field office in Pheonix, Arizona, was so concerned, it deemed the group a domestic terrorism threat.

Despite its wildly xenophobic rhetoric and threat designation, the group has gained more traction in recent months, with at least 11 Republican congressional candidates expressing support.

Heavily backed by a fringe section of US President Donald Trump's base, QAnon believers have been further united by opposition to coronavirus restrictions and galvanised by this year's presidential election.

The group started as an online following surrounding a person going only by the name "Q", who first appeared on internet message boards during the 2016 presidential elections. Q claimed to be a government employee with top-level security clearance, dropping anonymous "information" online - what followers call "breadcrumbs".

The first theory to grow out of QAnon was dubbed "pizzagate". It accused a "satanic cabal of elites" - made up of Hollywood figures and world leaders - of running a secret global paedophile ring while working to create a new world order.

Its latest agenda revolves around challenging the legitimacy of the coronavirus threat, including spreading the unfounded claim that 5G cellular networks were behind the pandemic - or "Plandemic", as one conspiracy film released this year calls it.
Muslims, QAnon's latest go-to villains

Coupling the group's hatred of coronavirus restrictions with its anti-Muslim rhetoric, one of QAnon's most recent memes depicts an imagined trajectory that takes place over the course of four years. The first panel in the image shows a woman wearing a surgical mask, the next a cloth mask, and so on, before ending with a woman wearing a full burka, a covering often worn by Muslim women in the Gulf.

https://t.co/BbV3DwHn8X pic.twitter.com/gu5kwNFDlT— GMONEY 🇺🇸 (@pappyG45) June 28, 2020

"That masks leads to a burqa and then goes to Sharia law image... is part of the constructed narrative that people in the conspiracy world are using via the coronavirus to extend and expand their pre-existing perspectives," said Richard Hanely, a journalism professor who has for several years taught a class on the spread of disinformation at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut.

"The coronavirus anti-mask movement is like a recruitment tool for this right now," he said.

Twitter has worked to take down the image, but it continues to circulate, along with others that link mask-wearing to some imagined Muslim conspiracy.

QAnon's ideology also backs the old and tired antisemitic trope that a Jewish "shadow network" controls the United States.

While anti-Jewish conspiracies can be traced in American culture to the early 20th century, "anti-Islam is a relative newcomer to the realm of conspiracy theories" in the United States, Hanley said.

Before coronavirus, a favourite QAnon villain was the Muslim Brotherhood, which the group believes controls large parts of the Democratic party, particularly those affiliated with former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

"There certainly is an element of anti-Islam that runs through QAnon conspiracies," Jason Blazakis, former director of the State Department's Counterterrorism Finance and Designations Office, told Middle East Eye.

QAnon conspiracies that vilify Islam were adapted by the group as a way to create "us-versus-them narratives", said Blazakis, who is now the director of the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism at Middlebury College Institute.

Vilifying Muslims, in particular, is seen as fair game in QAnon circles, Blazakis said, because President Trump's stance on Islam and its followers is clearly negative, with the president once calling for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States".

"QAnon generally will look at policies of previous administrations that are perceived to have been more pro-Islam and more sensitive to immigration-related issues at large," Blazakis said. "The Trump administration is trying to roll that back, right, and so I think it plays into the QAnon theory that before the 'white knight', represented by Donald Trump, came into the picture, the so-called 'deep state' was 'pro-Muslim Brotherhood'."

Blazakis pointed to QAnon theories that surrounded Hillary Clinton during her campaign in 2016, such as one that targeted her long-time adviser Huma Abedin.

Abedin was accused by the group as being part of the pizzagate paedophile ring, as well as part of some "deep state" support for the Muslim Brotherhood, simply due to her being Muslim.

Seemingly aware of concerns believed to be fuelled by anti-Muslim conspiracies such as those of QAnon, one question among dozens asked in a survey launched on Trump’s re-election campaign website in 2018 was "are you concerned by the potential spread of Sharia Law?"
QAnon goes mainstream

A central tenet of the conspiracy is that the "deep state" network is working tirelessly to take down President Trump. And the group's unwavering support for him has been mirrored, with the president once meeting and taking a photo with QAnon social media personality Michael "Lionel" Lebron in the Oval Office.

Trump has also, on many occasions, retweeted QAnon followers and theories, giving even more legitimacy to the movement.

Last year, Trump retweeted a post from a QAnon page named "Deep State Exposed", which said: "The 'elite' proclaim America must submit to Islam or else!!!".

The President of the United States amplified this video a few weeks after dozens of Muslims were executed while they prayed.

The account this is coming from is also one of the leading Q lunacy spreaders. https://t.co/pqbqLK9uMp— Ethan Embry (@EmbryEthan) May 4, 2019

Within the tweet was a link to a video featuring a man who said Muslims would "kill Americans" if they did not allow them to follow their religion. The video has since been removed by Twitter.

With the help of Trump and social media, the QAnon movement has garnered so much attention that it has broken through into mainstream American politics.

"It's created this complex mythology that people believe in, almost as if they're believing in a religion," Hanely said. "And there are various rituals now associated with it".

One such ritual is publicly pledging allegiance to the movement. Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, over the 4th of July weekend posted a bizarre video of himself and five others standing around a backyard fire, taking what is considered a QAnon oath.



#TakeTheOath 🇺🇸
Happy 4th of July 🇺🇸
God Bless America 🇺🇸
⁦@SidneyPowell1⁩
⁦@molmccann⁩
⁦@BarbaraRedgate⁩
⁦@JosephJFlynn1⁩
⁦@GoJackFlynn⁩
⁦@flynn_neill⁩
⁦@lofly727⁩
⁦@TJHproject⁩
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/Z2LCsgHLkw— General Flynn (@GenFlynn) July 5, 2020

While the oath is the same used to swear-in new members of Congress, the group ends the pledge by saying: "So help me God, where we go one, we go all."

Abbreviated to the hashtag #WWG1WGA, the saying is a vow well-known to QAnon-believers. Since posting the video, Flynn added #TakeTheOath to his Twitter bio. In a search on the platform, both hashtags bring up hundreds, if not thousands, of others vowing loyalty to QAnon.

While QAnon has been generally believed to be a US-based movement, Blazakis said his research on the group has suggested that there is a good chance the conspiracy network could actually be the work of the Russian government, seeking to spread disinformation for its destabilising effect.

If Russia were behind the movement, its anti-Islamic tendencies would line up with the country's historical persecution of Muslims, Blazakis continued.

"I think it's really interesting to see what the primary themes are within QAnon and how they may track with things that the Russian Federation and the Putin regime, specifically, may tout," he said.

"The Russian Federation generally has not taken well to Islam in any sense - in the context of the conflict in Chechnya and the persecution of individuals who subscribe to the Islamic faith - trying to create those divisions is in the Russian Federation's interests, generally speaking."
Curbing the spread

Regardless of how it started, stopping the spread of QAnon's disinformation campaign will be no easy task.

With free speech being a main tenet of democracy, the responsibility to mitigate the spread of QAnon's conspiracies lies within the hands of social media platforms, not the government, both Blazakis and Hanley said.

According to Hanley, QAnon accounts have been encouraged by Facebook's algorithm to such an extent that he believes the platform is almost exclusively to blame for the ideology's wide reach.

"It's Facebook, specifically" that is the problem, Hanley said. "Facebook's algorithms promote QAnon because if you 'like', for example, an [anti-vaccination] page, you're going to get a recommendation to 'like' a QAnon page - because the two are closely linked and allied, based on the machine-learned part of the algorithm. So once it gets into the recommendation engine, it spreads wildly."

In an email to MEE, a spokesperson from Facebook said the company had been trying to quell the group's messaging on its platform by "closely monitoring" its activity and taking down accounts, in addition to re-thinking how its policies apply to the issue.

"In April, we took down accounts, Groups, and Pages tied to this conspiracy theorist movement for violating our policies," the spokesperson said, adding that Facebook was also working to demote such groups in its search results.

Still, even without algorithms that actively encourage the distribution of the conspiracies, social media in general has caused "a quantum leap, in terms of the capacity to spread" these ideas, Hanley said, because online peer networks provide a platform for ordinary people to share information with their own personal friendship groups.

"So it still grows tremendously and their story gains credibility and percolates up to the level of politics. Politicians run for office to win, so if they see a certain constituency believing in a certain thing, they will of course sign on to it," Hanley said.

Censorship of disinformation on social media websites has led to outrage from the far-right, leading to the creation of platforms such as Parler. Created in 2018, the platform, increasingly popular among Trump supporters, has dubbed itself a "free speech social network" that refuses to censor disinformation.

The creation of such a platform is great news, according to Hanley, who said censorship on mainstream platforms could lead to a shift that would see problematic users move to sites such as Parler, where the disinformation would be contained within an echo-chamber instead of spreading to those still unaware of the group's various conspiracies.

While taking down accounts on mainstream social media platforms may help to mitigate the spread of QAnon theories, repairing the damage that has already been caused is set to be a massive undertaking.

"It's impossible to get them to unbelieve it, because once that idea is embedded, it becomes part of their cognitive bias spectrum," Hanley said, comparing QAnon believers to cult victims.

Blazakis, meanwhile, warned that any government effort to mitigate QAnon risked furthering the effectiveness of the movement.

Those who follow the theory feel empowered by having some secret knowledge that others are not aware of, Blazakis said, so if the government were to try and refute the theories "they're going to say 'look, we're right. The government is trying to counter us'".

Instead, he said the most that can be done by civil society is to continue to point out failed conspiracy theories, for example, following the pandemic, pointing out that protective masks did not prove to be a stepping-stone to Sharia law.

"Hopefully over time, those who are adherents will just see that, time and again, these conspiracies are not happening, these theories are wrong, and then they'll just eventually get tired of feeling like they're always wrong and then disaffiliate from the QAnon movement. Over time people do walk away from cults," Blazakis said. "And that's what QAnon is, it's a cult."

Gaza 2020: Worsening conditions lead more Palestinians to take their own lives
An increase in suicides in the first half of 2020 illustrates the dire psychological impact of the Israeli siege on Gaza residents
A Palestinian man mourns outside the morgue in the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City in January 2016 (AFP)
By
Maha Hussaini in
Gaza Strip
Published date: 28 July 2

Twenty-three years after he was released from an Israeli prison, Jamal Wadi still struggled with the aftermath of his experience. After three decades of suffering from severe psychological trauma and mental health issues, the 54-year-old Palestinian took his own life on 1 June.



What Palestinians experience goes beyond the PTSD labelRead More »



The Gaza Strip has been witnessing a surge in suicide rates as it entered its 14th year under a crushing Israeli-led blockade.

The Gaza-based Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights reported that at least 16 people have taken their own lives and hundreds of others attempted suicide in Gaza in the first half of 2020.

Whether influenced by economic difficulties, the traumatic impact of Israeli occupation policies or other factors, rights groups say the surge in suicide attempts is very concerning.

In 2012, the United Nations cautioned that Gaza would be "unlivable" by 2020 given the strains of the crippling siege and the devastation caused by three wars since 2007, numerous smaller military altercations and a brutally repressed protest movement.

Halfway through the year, the sad rise in suicides shows that for many, this warning has taken on another tragic meaning.
'If I don't die, they will kill me'

"Since we got married more than 20 years ago, I do not remember seeing Jamal emotionally and mentally stable except during the three months that followed our wedding," Wadi's wife, Mervat, told Middle East Eye. "He was a totally different person back then."

Soon after their wedding in the early 1990s, Wadi was detained by Israeli forces.

"I thought his imprisonment would last for a couple of days or weeks, but he was imprisoned for seven years," Mervat said.

Mervat started to notice changes in Wadi's mental health during prison visits every two weeks, but did not expect that this would lead to severe psychological trauma that would change their entire life.



'We are more tired than afraid': Finding strength amid darkness in GazaRead More »



"Almost every time I visited him, I would notice that he had been beaten. They used to keep him in solitary confinement for long periods of time," she recalled. "I could see that he was not the same anymore. His eyes and the way he looked around him, he was not the same person I married a few months earlier."

After he was released in 1997, Wadi’s family started a long journey of medical tests and hospital visits to treat what they thought was "only a trauma", before they were informed that he was suffering from long-term mental and psychological disorders, including schizophrenia, grand mal seizures, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Despite having found employment working for the Palestinian Authority, achieving an often elusive degree of financial stability for Gaza, Wadi struggled to adjust to life after prison.

"He always repeated that he was afraid to go back to prison, and had hallucinations that Israeli forces would break in the house and detain him at any moment," Wadi's brother, Sami, told MEE. "No matter how much we tried to reassure him, he would never believe us. He would always scream 'if I don't die, they will kill me'.

"But we did not expect such trauma would lead to suicide."

His relatives believe Wadi took his own life as he saw it as the only way to "rest reassured that he would not return to prison" again.

"We were in complete shock. We have never expected that this would actually happen," Sami said.

But, Sami pointed out, "Jamal is not the only case. I know many freed prisoners who also attempted to commit suicide".

According to prisoners' rights organisation Addameer, some 4,700 Palestinians are currently incarcerated by Israel - including 267 from the Gaza Strip.
Growing desperation

Palestinians have attributed the increase in suicide attempts to the worsening humanitarian and economic situation in the Gaza Strip.


'No other party is responsible for the occupation's silent killing of Palestinians'

- Sami, brother of Jamal Wadi

According to the European Union, the blockade and recurrent hostilities in the coastal enclave have weakened the local economy to the point where some 1.5 million people - around 80 percent of the total population of Gaza - remain aid dependent.

Since the imposition of the siege in 2007, the number of businesses in Gaza has decreased from 3,500 to 250, according to the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor. Today, nearly 54 percent of families in the Gaza Strip live below the poverty line.

Measures taken to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic have further exacerbated the economic crisis in Gaza, with nearly 26,500 people losing their jobs in the first three months of 2020.

In the first quarter of 2020, the unemployment rate reached 46 percent, compared to around 42.7 percent in the last quarter of 2019, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), revealing how dire the situation was before 2020 - a year that has seen economies across the world mark major losses.

The worrying numbers are "a testament to the desperation and severe mental health impacts of the closure", said Nuriya Oswald, the international legal and advocacy director at Al Mezan, adding that those working in the once thriving fishing and agriculture sectors in Gaza are particularly vulnerable due to the threats of Israeli military violence and restrictions impacting their livelihoods.

Haitham Arafat, a 37-year-old father of four, has found himself in dire financial straits after being unable to repay his debts.



The occupation in my office: Speaking sense to power in therapeutic workRead More »



In early July, he attempted to set himself on fire, but was saved by passersby.

"I receive a monthly salary from the Palestinian Authority, but nothing of it remains for me and my children due to my heavy debts," Arafat said. "I tried to work in many fields to secure another salary but I could not. I have a health problem with my hand that hospitals and doctors in Gaza could not diagnose. I cannot hold anything heavy."

"I got fed up of feeling helpless. My children are always hungry and I cannot do anything but watch them cry," Arafat told MEE.

Israel and its allies - including, most recently, US officials in the United Nations - have repeatedly blamed Gaza's economic, security and psychological woes on the enclave's de facto leadership, helmed by the Hamas movement.

But many Palestinians, including Wadi's family, strongly reject these accusations.

"The occupation is to blame; no other party is responsible for the occupation's silent killing of Palestinians," Sami said. "My brother and hundreds others who committed or attempted to commit suicide once loved life. But life under occupation has been suffocating to the extent people are starting to prefer death."
Unlivable conditions

Arafat, who was the only member of his family to survive the Sabra and Shatila massacre in 1982 as an infant, says he feels left alone to face an "unbearable situation".


Resources exist in Gaza to help people struggling with mental health issues and suicidal thoughts - including the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme

Although there is indeed a rise in the number of suicide attempts, Dr Youssef Awadallah, a psychologist based in the Gaza Strip, told MEE that he was refraining from classifying it as a broad trend in Gaza.

"In 2019, 22 suicides were registered in all of the Strip, where some two million residents live," he explained. "We cannot call this a phenomenon, but it is true that the dire economic and social conditions in the Strip are main factors that contribute to exacerbating the problem."

Awadallah noted that, contrary to some perceptions, suicide attempts often stem from long periods of personal struggle.

"The idea of suicide does not just suddenly pop into someone's head and then they commit suicide; it is a result of days and months of deep thinking, when the suicidal (person) becomes convinced that ending their life is indeed a way of relief," he explained.

Resources exist in Gaza to help people struggling with mental health issues and suicidal thoughts - including the helpline of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme.

While the causes of suicidal thinking are complex and varied, residents of Gaza repeatedly point to the context in which they live as contributing to people’s struggle with mental health.

"If only there was no occupation. Who would think of suicide in Gaza then?" Arafat asked. "We are capable of being independent and leading successful lives, but sleeping and waking up to the same suffocating situation is draining."

American University of Beirut president defends mass firing of staff 

(AFTER ALL HE GETS TO KEEP HIS JOB)

President of Lebanon's most prestigious university said the 'exceptionally difficult' decision to axe 850 staff could not have been avoided

Lebanese activists and former staff demonstrate outside the AUB Medical Center in the capital Beirut on 20 July (AFP)


By MEE staffPublished date: 21 July 2020

The American University of Beirut (AUB) should have better managed the abrupt firing of 850 staff members on Friday, the university's president has said in a letter to staff and students.

In a dramatic development of Lebanon's spiralling economic crisis, AUB, one of Lebanon's most prestigious universities, posted private security and members of the Lebanese military around the medical campus when the layoffs were announced last week.

The university's president, Fadlo Khuri, said in a letter on Monday that the "exceptionally difficult" decision could not have been avoided but "could and should have" been handled better.

"The reality is that letting this many people go from the AUB family was never going to be easy," Khuri said, adding that better management would have avoided "confusion and pain".

Khuri defended the military presence at the university, citing "credible external threats" from earlier in the week.



Lebanon economic crisis: American University of Beirut fires hundreds under army guard Read More »


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"The safety of the personnel, the patients, the students, and the general public was and will always be of paramount priority. We therefore reluctantly abided by these recommendations," Khuri said.

"We recognise that this security presence should have been better managed. We will learn from this experience but as we always do, these are things we own and will build on."

A letter attributed to Samer Nassif, an assistant professor at the AUB Medical Centre (AUBMC), which was significantly affected by the cuts, was posted to Twitter, comparing images at the university on Friday to "scenes from some gruesome and depressing movie".

Nassif said the staff were not given prior warning, with some locked out of their online accounts before they even received the news of their layoffs. He also said that soldiers and private security personnel had been posted inside the medical school's hallways.

On Friday, interviews with the former employees went viral on Lebanese social media.

"My mother has cancer. My brother died," a sobbing woman said, as reported by The National. "I had nothing but this institution. What will I do now?”

On Monday, employees organised a protest outside the AUBMC. The protest, documented on social media, included the reading out of Khuri and other top AUB administrators' salaries, which demonstrators said added up to nearly $1m a year.
Lebanon's financial crisis

Khuri expressed sympathy with the fired staff members' plight, particularly given "the disastrous state of Lebanon’s economy".

"But it was precisely those circumstances that made it impossible for AUB to avoid this severe measure," he said.



Broken Lebanon: Economic crisis takes its toll on country's mental healthRead More »



Still, Khuri said that the 150-year-old university remained at fault for not preparing its financial reserves for such a crisis.

"[AUB] did not maximise accrual of adequate reserves over the past decade and mobilised slowly to sufficiently control costs once the Lebanese financial crisis began to accelerate in 2019,” he wrote.

The medical centre in particular also had "a substantial overstaffing problem in many units, which is unsustainable and needs to be urgently addressed".

Lebanon is grappling with a crisis caused by decades of state corruption and bad governance, which has been exacerbated by the coronavirus crisis.

Between October and February alone, at least 220,000 jobs in the private sector were lost, a survey by research firm InfoPro showed.

A hard currency liquidity crunch has also led to an 80 percent devaluation of the Lebanese pound since October, meaning even those who have not lost their jobs are working for a salary worth significantly less than before the economic freefall.

Lebanon Economic Crisis
Children 'will start dying from hunger' in Beirut, Save the Children warns
More than half a million children in Lebanon's most populous city are going without enough food, charity says

Two children, aged 2 and 4, stand outside a shelter in Beirut, where Save the Children distribute food parcels to those in need, 8 July (Baraa Shkeir/Save the Children Lebanon)

By MEE staff
Published date: 29 July 2020


Lebanon's financial crisis has pushed nearly one million people to the brink, with soaring food prices likely to cause children to die of starvation, Save the Children has warned.

At least 910,000 people in the capital, Beirut, including 564,000 children, were eating insufficient amounts of food because of the economic crisis, according to a report released on Wednesday.

'I couldn't handle it and broke down in tears. My [nine-year-old] daughter wants to work just to carry some of the burden with us. Just to help us so her siblings don’t starve. I fear such a fate for my daughters'
- Lama, 27-year-old mother of three

"These numbers [are] likely to be just the tip of the iceberg as families across Lebanon struggle to cope with the soaring prices of food, rent and other necessities," the group said.

Jad Sakr, the acting country director of Save the Children in Lebanon, said the crisis was affecting everyone, from Lebanese families to Palestinian and Syrian refugees.

"We will start seeing children dying from hunger before the end of the year," he warned.

"Children, even those from Lebanese middle-income families, are increasingly eating less or nothing at all for a whole day just to make ends meet. In some cases, children are working to help with the family income, keeping them away from their education."
'Just to make ends meet'

Lebanon's economy began slipping out of control in September, but the crisis has been compounded in recent months by losses in income caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The currency has lost more than 80 percent of its value in the past ten months, and the government estimates that some 75 percent of the population are currently in need of aid.

According to a report issued this month by the World Food Programme (WFP), prices for basic items such as food and shelter had increased by 169 percent in the same timeframe, while unemployment had risen by 35 percent in the formal sector, and up to 45 percent in the informal sector.



Food prices are so high not even shops can afford them Read More »



Last month, WFP said that two-thirds of households in Lebanon faced a loss of income during the crisis, forcing many to spend less on food, go into debt, or dig into their savings.

"An astonishing 50 percent of Lebanese, 63 percent of Palestinians and 75 percent of Syrians were worried they would not have enough to eat," Wednesday's report by Save the Children said.

Lama, a 27-year-old Syrian refugee, told the charity that one of her daughters offered to sell tissues on the highway so her other siblings would not starve.

"If we have something to eat, we eat. If we don't have [food], then we don't eat," said Lama, who only provided her first name.

"There are times when we borrow money just to eat. What can we do? There are days my daughters cry themselves to sleep. Sometimes from hunger, sometimes [because of] the coronavirus. This crisis has deeply affected them."

Turkey accused of deporting Uighurs back to China via third countries
Uighur Muslims fear their relatives have been deported to Tajikistan, from where Beijing can more easily secure their extradition

Turkey has denied that it has deported Uighurs back to China via third countries (AFP/File photo)
By Areeb Ullah
Published date: 27 July 2020
Turkey has been accused of deporting Uighur Muslims back to China via third countries that neighbour the western Chinese province of Xinjiang, where hundreds of thousands are said to be held in concentration camps.

Uighur Muslims who spoke to the UK's Sunday Telegraph newspaper said they feared their relatives had been taken to Tajikistan before they were extradited to China.

The relatives of Almuzi Kuwanhan, a 59-year-old mother of two who fled to Turkey, fear she has been taken back to China.

Her family told the Sunday Telegraph that Kuwanhan had been detained in Izmir deportation centre before she was taken to Tajikistan, a country she has no ties to.


Uighurs call on MBS to condemn persecution of Muslim minority during China visit

Read More »

Ankara denies that it has deported Uighur Muslims to China, but activists fear that Turkey has sent them back via third countries such as Tajikistan, where it is easier for Beijing to secure their extradition.

Fears over Kuwanhan's fate comes as Istanbul's Uighur community continues to live on edge after Middle East Eye reported that Turkey had threatened to deport Uighur refugees back to China.

Documents obtained by MEE show that Turkey had rejected several applications for Uighurs hoping to obtain long-term residency inside the country.

Some refugees had applied for their long-term residency in 2017 and had been told about the outcome a month ago. The rejection papers state that the refugees could reapply but only from their country of origin.

Going back to China could mean possible imprisonment for Uighurs, who have reportedly been the victims of various abuses by the Chinese authorities.
Safe haven

Turkey has historically been a safe haven for Uighurs, a Turkic minority, fleeing religious persecution in China since the 1960s, with thousands living in cities across the country.

While Ankara has criticised Beijing over its treatment of Uighurs, Turkey was not among 22 countries which called for an investigation into abuses inside China at the United Nations Human Rights Council earlier this month.

In 2019, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said he was "deeply concerned" by China's "persecution of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang".

Cavusoglu, however, did not comment on the re-education camps that have imprisoned an estimated one million Uighurs and other Muslims.

Critics, however, claim that Turkey's support for the Uighur minority had been watered down after Ankara sought out better trade relations with Beijing.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan did not address the issue in public remarks during a visit to Beijing last month.

A Turkish presidential spokesperson said Erdogan and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping discussed the Uighurs in private talks.

Turkey passes law granting government broad powers over social media
Critics say the country is entering a 'dark era of online censorship', though the AKP insists it will protect privacy

General view of Turkish MPs wearing a protective facemask as a preventive measure against the spread of Covid-19 in parliament (AFP)
By Ragip Soylu in Istanbul Published date: 29 July 2020 11

The Turkish parliament on Wednesday passed a new law that forces social media networks such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to assign legal representatives in Turkey and immediately enforce court orders or face penalties.

Critics say the new law will increase censorship and help silence dissent. Yet the government and the supporters of the new regulation argue that it will accelerate the legal process to protect personal data and privacy, and remove libellous content.

The new law has been in the pipelines for a while but it was quickly brought to the parliament after some users insulted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s newborn grandson and daughter on Twitter. An angry Erdogan appeared on TV earlier this month and threatened to completely ban social media sites.

The new law requires social media networks that host over 1 million daily users to assign a legal representative or a Turkish citizen to handle the court requests. If not, the government could step-by-step fine the networks up to $4.3m, limit their advertisement and throttle their user access by up to 90 percent, effectively banning them.


'Social media is a lifeline for many people who use it to access news, so this law signals a new dark era of online censorship'

- Tom Porteous, HRW

The law will come into in force in October.

Yaman Akdeniz, a professor of law and leading cyber activist in Turkey, said in a series of tweets that Turkey was entering a “new dark era.” He said that the new law would also grant power to the government to go after news websites that criticise the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and remove their content from the search engines as part of protecting personal privacy under “right to be forgotten”.

According to the statistics compiled by the activist group Engelli Web, there are already thousands of court orders that ban access to more than 400,000 websites, 130,000 URL links, 7,000 Twitter accounts, 40,000 tweets, 10,000 YouTube videos and 6,200 Facebook posts.

Naci Bostanci, a ruling AKP whip, told Haberturk daily on Wednesday that major social networks had agreed to appoint a legal representative to Turkey except Twitter. “There is only Twitter that didn’t respond positively. There is a problem there,” he said.

Human Rights Watch earlier this week criticised the law as something that government could use to get content removed at will and to arbitrarily target individual users.

“Social media is a lifeline for many people who use it to access news, so this law signals a new dark era of online censorship,” said Tom Porteous, deputy program director at Human Rights Watch.

‘This isn’t funny’: CNN hosts shame Trump for praising quack ‘alien DNA’ doc as COVID deaths hit 150,000
July 29, 2020 By Brad Reed

CNN hosts John Berman and Alisyn Camerota on Wednesday pounded President Donald Trump for promoting a quack doctor who believes certain women’s health problems are caused by having sex with demons.

Berman started off by noting that Trump has continued to vouch for the reputation of pro-hydroxychloroquine physician Dr. Stella Immanuel despite her outlandish views on demon sex and alien DNA.

“I want people to get a full understanding of this doctor that is being promoted by the president of the United States,” Berman said. “Not just on Twitter, to 84 million followers, but you heard it at the podium yesterday. The president called Dr. Stella Immanuel ‘spectacular.'”

He then played a video clip of Immanuel giving a lecture about the dangers of modern medicine.

“They use all kinds of DNA, even alien DNA, to treat people, mixing human beings with demons!” she said in the clip. “Nephilims exist these days!”

Co-host Camerota jumped in to ask a snarky question about Immanuel’s medical recommendations.

“Just to be clear, we’re not supposed to have sex with demons while we’re asleep?” she asked. “Does she think that’s bad? I get lost.”

“Here’s the thing, you know no one loves a demon sperm show more than I do, but this isn’t funny,” Berman replied. “It really isn’t. It would be laughable except for the fact that so many people are dying and this is what the president chooses to lean into.”

Watch the video below.

100 million-year-old deep-sea microbes awake from their slumber
Shane McGlaun - Jul 29, 2020, 

Scientists routinely gather sediment samples from beneath the seafloor to get a better understanding of ancient climates, plate tectonics, and the deep marine ecosystem. A recently published study reveals that the researchers have found that microbes collected from sediments beneath the seafloor that are as old as 100 million years can revive and multiply. These microbes have been lying dormant since dinosaurs roamed the earth.

The ancient sediment samples covered in the new study were gathered ten years ago during an expedition to the South Pacific Gyre, which is part of the ocean with the lowest productivity and fewest nutrients available for marine life. The researchers say their main question was whether life could exist in such a nutrient-limited environment or if the region was a lifeless zone.

Scientists also wanted to determine how long the microbes were able to sustain their life in the near-absence of food. Microbes become trapped in the seafloor sediment, where there may be no food to support them. The sediment cores used in the study were sourced 100 m below the seafloor and nearly 6000 m below the ocean surface.

One surprise was that the researchers found that oxygen was present in all of the cores, which suggested that the sediment accumulated slowly at a rate of no more than a meter or two every million years. Oxygen will penetrate from the seafloor to the rocky basement under the sediment with conditions supporting aerobic microorganisms requiring little oxygen to live.

The researchers incubated samples of the microbes to get them to grow. The results showed that rather than being fossilized remains of life, the microbes in the sediment were alive incapable of growing and dividing. The team says that up to 99.1% of the microbes in the sediment deposited 101.5 million years ago were active and ready to eat.