COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS

Opinion:

 Protecting press freedom needs to be priority for U.S. and EU

CPJ's Tom Gibson and Kerry Paterson reflect on how 2020 has shown the need for governments to collaborate in order to strengthen press freedom.


Alaa Abdelfattah is still waiting. For a brief window in 2019, there was hope for the smiley, curly-haired Egyptian blogger, celebrated for his work on human rights and politics, as he was released from prison. This hope vanished when he was arrested again shortly after without charges. Like dozens of journalists jailed in Egypt, Alaa is in prison simply for speaking out against those in power. And like so many other jailed journalists, there is no end in sight.

For global leaders on press freedom, coordinated diplomacy is not without limitations. However, at a time when COVID-19 has already claimed the life of at least one imprisoned journalist in Egypt, for others like Alaa, it may be their only hope.

For the four years of the Trump Presidency, the EU has been isolated as an international force looking to defend press freedom. To strengthen its hand, it should seek the support of a renewed US foreign policy and make press freedom a priority for discussions when President-elect Joe Biden visits Brussels in early 2021.

Alaa Abdelfattah was imprisoned in Egypt for allegedly organising  political unrest

The global situation facing journalists is bleak. Last week, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued our prison census. This year saw 274 journalists languishing in prisons around the world: a record number for CPJ and the fifth consecutive year with at least 250 journalists behind bars.

Countries like Egypt, China, or Turkey have shown the EU’s limits for holding autocrats to account. The EU’s policy of silent diplomacy with President al-Sisi in Egypt has shown little impact in reversing the repression of critical journalists in the country. EU calls for the freeing of Turkish journalists have been dwarfed by the drilling crisis in the Eastern Meditarrean and the need to cooperate with President Erdogan on migration. And the bloc routinely fails to hold China to account for its rights record, as it seeks to build trade relations with the repressive superpower.

In 2015, a CPJ special report noted how the EU’s international diplomacy lacked consistency and was open to accusations of double standards, for being too soft on repressive governments who are at the same time trade partners or strategic allies. Five years on and it seems not much has changed.

Human rights advocates in Egypt face severe repression for their work

Finding fresh support from the U.S. could help unblock the path for more robust international diplomacy. This year, as social unrest erupted around the globe, EU leaders struggled to deal with fresh clampdowns. 

Protests following the presidential election in Belarus underscored that EU statements and sanctions must be accompanied by a further, long-term support strategy for journalists on the ground. In Ethiopia, the emergence of inter-ethnic violence raises the question of how to balance conflict resolution with the need to protect large numbers of journalists at risk. EU advocacy is being forced to be at once flexible in complex environments, and sustainable over the long term. U.S. diplomacy can help to shoulder this weight.

In order for renewed cooperation to bear fruit however, the U.S. must first contend with its own recent record on press freedom. The conspicuous lack of U.S. leadership and the open attacks on the press by President Trump have significantly increased the vulnerability of journalists. The U.S. press freedom tracker, of which CPJ is a founding member, reports a total of 311 journalists attacked and 110 journalists arrested or criminally charged so far in 2020 (although none are in prison, some still face charges).


The Press Freedom Tracker has counted more than 900 press freedom violations this year in the United States

The worsening environment for US journalists in part explains the neglect of U.S. foreign policy: Trump has allowed autocrats to hide from traditional U.S. scrutiny of press freedom. The President has turned a blind eye to the inflamed rhetoric of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, and to the ongoing impunity enjoyed by the Saudi authorities for the gruesome 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

But in a year like no other, one where a devastating global pandemic underscored the essential role of the press, the promise of a new administration brings with it a new opportunity for engagement.

Both the U.S. and the EU should now examine where international coordination can yield the greatest impact, including by pressuring some of the world’s most intransigent autocrats. CPJ’s recent recommendations to the incoming Biden administration include establishing a Special Presidential Envoy for press freedom and strengthening the State Department’s support for press freedom.

Biden’s entry to the international scene should spell a new beginning and allow both sides of the Atlantic to prioritize press freedom in their international diplomacy- together. Journalists like Alaa Abdelfattah may not be able to wait much longer.

Kerry Paterson, CPJ Deputy Advocacy Director

Tom Gibson, CPJ EU representative

Journalists under threat: December's 10 most urgent cases

Every month, the One Free Press Coalition draws attention to unresolved cases of crimes against journalists. This month, the list focuses on violations of press freedom and freedom of expression relating to COVID-19.

'2020 has brought home the reality that there has never been a more dangerous time to be a journalist.'

"There have been a number of concerning developments in recent months." In a DW interview, Courtney Radsch of the Committee to Protect Journalists talked about press freedom violations around the world.

Violence against women journalists: ‘It is about silencing women’

Female journalists worldwide are experiencing violence and harassment, impacting them physically and psychologically. Online abuse and hate speech increasingly influence their work. How can they protect themselves?

UN Special Rapporteur Šimonovic: 'Gender-based violence forms part of women journalists' daily routine'

Dubravka Šimonovic spoke to DW about the reality and implications of gender-based violence against female journalists.

Norway rejects Greenpeace appeal over Arctic oil exploration

In a landmark case, Norway's top court has approved oil exploration in the Barents Sea. Greenpeace had argued that oil licenses violated the Norwegian constitution, which guarantees the right to a healthy environment.



The environmental groups argued that oil licenses violated an article in the Norwegian constitution

Norway's supreme court on Tuesday approved government plans for oil exploration in the Barents Sea off the country's northern coast, rejecting a lawsuit by environmental groups.

The groups, including Greenpeace, had claimed the oil licenses breached an article in the Norwegian constitution which guarantees the right to a healthy and viable environment.

"The supreme court is rejecting the appeal," Chief Justice Toril Marie Oeie said as she announced the verdict on Tuesday.

The Nature and Youth advocacy group denounced the ruling in a tweet: "This means today's youth lacks fundamental legal protection from environmental damage jeopardizing our future... This is shocking and we are furious."

Norway 'must be held accountable'

The verdict upheld rulings made by two lower courts, dismissing the arguments by Greenpeace and the Nature and Youth group that a 2015-2016 oil licensing round giving awards to Equinor and others had violated the constitution.

The environmental groups sued the Norwegian state in 2016, saying the "Norwegian government must be held accountable." The Grandparents Climate Campaign and Friends of the Earth Norway subsequently joined the case

Watch video 26:06  Beneath the waves

The groups also argued that new oil activities in the region would be contrary to the 2015 Paris climate accord, which seeks to limit average global warming to under 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

Curbing emissions

Norway is western Europe's top oil and gas producer with a daily output of around 4 million barrels of oil equivalent. That has enabled the country to amass the world's biggest sovereign wealth fund valued at more than $1 trillion.

The oil and gas industry is also the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide (CO2), which has been linked to dangerous climate warming.

The environmental groups launched the lawsuit as part of an emerging branch of environmental law around the world, where plaintiffs seek to use a country's founding principles to make the case for cutting emissions.

In the Netherlands last year, the Dutch supreme court supported a case led by environmental group Urgenda aimed at forcing the Dutch government to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

mvb/rt (dpa, Reuters, AFP)

Doggerland: How did the Atlantis of the North Sea sink?

For a long time, scientists believed that a powerful tsunami destroyed Doggerland 8,200 years ago. Sediment analysis now suggests that the land once connecting Great Britain with the rest of Europe had a later demise.

Latest research indicates that Doggerland did not completely vanish in one tsunami

Around 10,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age, the sea level in northern Europe was still about 60 meters (197 feet) below what it is today. The British Isles and the European mainland formed a continuous landmass.

Relatively large rivers crossed this landmass, but in a different way than we know today. The Elbe, for example, flowed into a large inland lake. The Rhine flowed from east to west over long distances. Before it reached the sea at the latitude of Brittany, the Thames flowed into it.


Where the North Sea is today, there were fertile meadows and forests through which hunter-gatherers roamed. The coast ran about 300 kilometers (186 miles) further north along an area of about 30,000 square kilometers (11,580 square miles) that received the name of "Doggerland" in the 1990s, called after a sandbank now located in the region.
First finds in nets

We do not yet know much about life on this sunken tract of land. Every now and then, fishermen have found mammoth teeth and bones of now-extinct land animals, such as aurochs, in their nets.

In 1931, fishermen discovered a 21.6-centimeter-long (8.5-inch-long) prehistoric harpoon made of bone with ornate decorations in their trawl nets, which has been dated to 11,740 BC. In 1988, a stone disc ax from the Mesolithic was recovered. For a long time, however, Doggerland remained a seeming myth.

Systematic mapping of the seafloor

It is only in the last 20 years that researchers from the UK in particular have been using special ships to systematically examine the seabed for traces. Most of the investigations focus on the area of Brown Bank, also known as Brown Ridge, a shoal about 30 kilometers long between the UK and the Netherlands. Today, the sea there is between 18 and 20 meters deep.

The scientists are compiling geophysical data and analyzing cores from the sediment layers there. Using artificially generated seismic waves, archaeologists at the University of Bradford have been able to map the geological makeup of the seabed fairly accurately.
Paradisiacal conditions

In the sedimentary layers, they have found the genetic material of animals and plants, which suggests there were extensive mixed forests and sprawling hilly landscapes with wild cattle and pigs, reindeer and other mammals — ideal conditions for the Stone Age hunter-gatherers.

Many of today's Halligen, or small islands without protective dikes, in the North Sea also barely peek out of the water

However, this fertile land became smaller and smaller over time, because with the end of the ice age, the sea level rose — by 35 meters in two millennia, or almost 2 centimeters per year. Gradually, only the higher parts of Doggerland still rose out of the sea. But the remaining island was still about as large as today's Wales, with an area of some 23,000 square kilometers.

Deadly monster waves

An apocalyptic catastrophe far off the Norwegian coast put an end to the shrinking island. About 8,200 years ago, huge parts of the continental slope broke off in the sea far below the surface in several phases during the so-called "Storegga Slides". Over a stretch of about 290 kilometers, an estimated 3,500 cubic kilometers of rock and debris plunged into the water's depths.
The resulting tsunami, at least 10 to 12 meters high, raced across the sea. On the Shetland Islands north of Scotland, sediment data have indicated a tidal wave that was more than 20 meters high. Even in England, the effects of this wave can still be traced 40 kilometers from the present-day coast.

Destroyed, but not sunk

For a long time, scientists assumed that a tsunami of this kind also caused the Dogger Bank, which was still protruding from the sea, to sink completely. According to a study by researchers at the University of Bradford, however, there was no single, all-destroying tsunami.



Rather, by examining sediments, the researchers were able to prove that only the northern part of Doggerland was submerged after the tsunami and that the destructive force of its floods was probably slowed down by hills or forests on the island.

New life after the flood

It is true that large parts of the forests were destroyed, that people and animals perished in the floods, that the seawater salinized the soils and that, in many places, only marshlands were left behind.

However, after the water receded, the flooded area recovered over the years, as is demonstrated by the fact that evidence of plants and animals can be found again in the sediment layers above the disrupted tsunami layer.

The rocks of Helgoland may be the last visible remains of the former Doggerland

So life probably continued on the Dogger Bank for some centuries after the tsunami,.

It was not until 700 years after the Storegga landslides — around 5500 BC — that the sea level rose so much that the North Sea engulfed the rest of the Dogger Bank. At that point, the island was completely submerged, and all traces of it vanished into the waves of the rough North Sea.

Does Haaland pick show Biden commitment to public lands fracking ban?

While Joe Biden was certainly not the climate movement's first pick during the Democratic primary, his position on ending fossil fuel drilling on public lands was crystal clear: "No more drilling on federal lands, period. Period, period, period." Biden has the power to act on this as soon as he takes office in January, and now that he has chosen an Interior secretary who supports this goal, it will be the first test of his climate commitment.

© Getty Does Haaland pick show Biden commitment to public lands fracking ban?

While much of his domestic policy agenda rests on Congress, Biden does not need to corral the slim Democratic majority to pass a bill that would please the Senate. He has the executive power to require the federal agencies that manage our public lands to prioritize protecting our air and water and slashing greenhouse gas emissions that are creating climate catastrophe.

This would be a substantial and necessary shift from the profoundly destructive practices of the Trump era. On his way out of his town, Trump has been conducting a federal lands fire sale, handing the fossil fuel industry land that belongs to all of us - including a frantic, legally dubious scheme to auction drilling rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge right before Biden is inaugurated. This was shocking, the Trump years have seen a massive rush to lease public land for oil and gas drilling.

That's one reason why a halt to new oil and gas leases on public lands would be a substantial first step for Biden. Another reason is simple climate math: Almost a quarter of our country's total greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel activities occur on public lands. Any serious plan to slash emissions must start on public land.

While there will be pressure to get Biden to keep his word, some lawmakers will likely push a less ambitious approach. Last year, Democrats pitched a 'net zero' public lands bill. That benchmark is suddenly popular with major corporations too; even oil companies are patting themselves on the back for setting 'net zero' goals. The problem is that it is mostly an illusion; net zero creates loopholes for fracking companies to continue business-as-usual, while claiming that climate-destroying emissions from new drilling are 'offset' by improved land use practices, carbon capture technologies or unrelated renewable energy projects.

This is a familiar type of climate accounting scheme, where the existence of beneficial and necessary projects are used as cover for continued fossil fuel extraction. Drilling companies are more than happy to find creative ways to portray new fracking wells as a win for the climate simply because a solar array is being built somewhere else.

The policy choice is Biden's to make, but his choice of Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) as his next Interior secretary sends an unmistakably strong signal. As she put it recently, "If I had my way, it'd be great to stop all gas and oil leasing on federal and public lands because those lands belong to all of us."

When it comes to creating climate policies that actually make a difference, our guiding principle should be simple: We must do everything we can to immediately and substantially restrict the supply of fossil fuels. That means no more drilling, no more pipelines, and no more fossil fuel power plants. Anything less than that represents a failure of ambition.

We can - and must - commit to this strategy everywhere, sooner rather than later. There is no easier place to start than on public lands. This policy shift must be combined with a federal government commitment to provide financial support for states like New Mexico, whose budget is heavily dependent on fossil fuel revenue. Relying on dirty energy development to pay for public schools creates terrible incentives to continue oil and gas drilling forever. It is time to end these fossil fuel Faustian bargains.

Navigating the path to meaningful climate action will be treacherous, and at all points there will be pressure to accept less-than-ideal policies for the sake of politically expediency. But bipartisan compromise will not deliver climate justice. The Biden administration has the opportunity to deliver on a key promise with an ironclad ban on fracking and fossil fuel development on public lands.

Wenonah Hauter is the executive diretor of the national advocacy group Food & Water Watch.

BACKGROUNDER

Kashmir elections: A rebuff to Narendra Modi's government?

The victory in local elections of a coalition of parties opposed to New Delhi's policies in Kashmir is being seen in the region as a wakeup call for the Indian government.

Activists of Jammu and Kashmir National Conference party listen to their party chief during a meeting held a day after the local elections in the region


The People's Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD), an amalgam of seven political parties that is pro-India but favors self-governance in Kashmir, won 112 out of a total of 280 seats in District Development Council elections, which were held in a staggered eight-phase process from November 28 through December 19.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 74 seats. Independent candidates won 49 seats.

The BJP has a very small base in the Kashmir Valley, the heart of the decades-old anti-India insurgency, where it got only three seats. Most of the other BJP seats come from four Hindu-majority districts in the Jammu area where it has significant support.

Over 51% of nearly 6 million eligible voters across the region's 20 districts cast their ballots, the Election Commission said, calling the vote "the biggest festival of democracy." Results for a few remaining seats will be announced later.

"This election was dominated by an ideological battle rather than local issues. It is a resounding rejection of all that New Delhi has purportedly done in Jammu and Kashmir this time," Nissar Ahmad Sheikh, an independent candidate, told DW.

Watch video 11:28  How India reshaped Kashmir by revoking Article 370

First vote after contentious status change

The vote was the first democratic political exercise in the region after Modi's administration revoked its special constitutional status in August 2019 and split the area into two union territories directly governed by the federal government in New Delhi. The government also removed protections for locals when it comes to land acquisition and jobs in Kashmir.

The election for local bodies is part of a process in which residents directly elect their village representatives, who then vote to form development councils for clusters of villages. Members for the larger District Development Councils are also directly elected but they have no legislative powers and are only responsible for economic development and public welfare.

Many of the BJP opponents in the alliance accused the government of preventing them from campaigning and detaining some of them. Officials have denied the allegations.

Modi's party flew some of its top national leaders and cabinet ministers to the troubled region and organized dozens of rallies to bolster its campaigning and broaden its base mainly in the Kashmir Valley. The BJP declared the results as a referendum in favor of its August 2019 changes.

A rejection of Delhi's move

Some regional politicians and observers say the results of the vote signaled rejection of New Delhi's constitutional changes in Kashmir and a rebuff to the Modi government, which has labeled the PAGD alliance a "gang" and its leaders "anti-nationals" and "looters."

"The verdict is an important development. We are fighting a democratic battle to undo New Delhi's August 5, 2019, measures. The people have now spoken and it's for those who believe in democracy to pay heed to these voices," Omar Abdullah, Kashmir's former top elected official and an alliance leader, told DW. Abdullah's National Conference party managed to secure 67 seats.

Mehbooba Mufti, the leader of the Peoples Democratic Party, said the results made it clear that the people have voted for the Gupkar alliance and rejected New Delhi's "unconstitutional" decision to revoke the region's special status.

Calling the victory "hard earned," Mufti tweeted: "I was illegally detained thrice over the course of a fortnight. PAGD candidates were locked up in a government building while others barred from canvassing. Despite all these obstacles PAGD emerged as winner."

Srinagar-based political analyst Sheikh Hussain shared a similar view. "The PAGD alliance stood firm against the strong-arm tactics of the ruling BJP. The message sent out is loud and clear and the people have spoken," he told DW.

A win for democracy?

For its part, the BJP described the election outcome as a win for democracy and said that it had managed to significantly increase its share of the vote.

"The people of Jammu and Kashmir have spoken out against terrorism and separatism and voted in favor of democracy and nationalism," federal minister Anurag Thakur, who was actively involved in the BJP campaign, told reporters in Jammu.

Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan and both rivals claim the region in its entirety. Rebels have been fighting against Indian rule since 1989. New Delhi accuses Pakistan of sponsoring Kashmiri militants, a charge Pakistan denies. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.


INDIA-PAKISTAN RIVALRY: KASHMIRIS PAY A HIGH PRICE
An unprecedented danger?
On February 27, Pakistan's military said that it had shot down two Indian fighter jets over disputed Kashmir. A Pakistani military spokesman said the jets were shot down after they'd entered Pakistani airspace. It is the first time in history that two nuclear-armed powers have conducted air strikes against each other.
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The scrapping of the region's special status last year sparked widespread unrest, prompting Indian security forces to enforce strict curfews and curtail public movement.

PM Modi insisted that the decision was needed to halt conflict and boost economic development in Kashmir. However, many Kashmiris consider the policy to be part of a systematic campaign of minority oppression by India's Hindu nationalist government.

According to a government report, incidents of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir have declined by over 35% since the special status was scrapped.

Officials say the discriminatory and unjust state laws have either been repealed or modified and the administration listed its achievements for its concept of a "New Kashmir" to ensure social development, economic revival and employment generation.

Despite the election, locals remain pessimistic about the region's future and expect little change on the ground. They argue that surveillance and repression have increased over the past year. And the feeling of being disenfranchised by New Delhi's moves to alter the region's status without consulting them and subsequently to deny basic rights to justice, freedom of speech, access to education and the internet, has left them in despair.

It's uncertain how things will pan out in India-administered Kashmir in the coming months, but many say the outcome of the recent elections was an expression of the popular will of the people.

BACKGROUNDER
Indian farmers intensify protests, testing Modi's promised market miracle

Issued on: 09/12/2020 - 

A policeman stands in front of protesters during a nationwide strike called by farmers in Mumbai, India, on December 8, 2020. AFP - INDRANIL MUKHERJEE

Text by: Leela JACINTO

If Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government calculated that the pandemic would enable it to rush through reforms deregulating the agricultural sector, it was a miscalculation. Protesters have descended on the capital in an extraordinary mobilisation that presents the Hindu nationalist government with one of its biggest challenges.

In late March, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi enacted the world’s toughest nationwide coronavirus lockdown, it sparked a deadly mass exodus from Indian cities to villages that shocked the nation. With no work, money or ability to survive in shutdown cities, millions of migrant workers took to their feet, setting off on the only path out of destitution available: long journeys back to their villages.

Rural India has consistently provided a counter narrative to the headlines trumpeting the country’s economic boom for decades. More than half of India’s 1.3 billion people still depend in some way on farming, but agriculture accounts for only 17 percent of the economy. Shrinking farm plot sizes, poverty, harvest uncertainties and indebtedness drive tens of thousands of Indian farmers to suicide every year and forces millions to migrate to cities.

But when a harsh lockdown was suddenly imposed, millions of Indians calculated that their villages – with tiny plots of cultivable land and informal networks of support and loans – were their only survival option.

Months later, some of the highways that led migrant workers in New Delhi to their villages to weather the lockdown are blocked by a reverse wave of farmers descending on the Indian capital to protest against three new farm laws.

Driving mud-splattered tractors, trailers, trucks and minivans packed with produce, pots, pans and blankets, tens of thousands of angry farmers, mainly from the northern states of Punjab and Haryana, have blocked the arterial roads into the country’s capital since November 26.

Setting up a giant sit-in, the farmers have braved the North Indian winter and defied government attempts to move them to outlying grounds, while protests have spread to neighbouring states, presenting one of the biggest challenges to the Modi administration since it came to power in 2014. India’s ruling Hindu nationalist government has a record of brutally stifling dissent. But farmers are a critical voting bloc in India and though the government and its supporters have tried to vilify and downplay the protests, they have not succeeded.

On Tuesday, railways and highways were blocked across India as farmers, trade unions and opposition parties answered a nationwide solidarity shutdown call. The widespread action saw Home Minister Amit Shah call for a meeting with farming leaders late Tuesday, ahead of a sixth round of talks on Wednesday.

Protesters are demanding a total repeal of the new laws, which make farmers sell their produce on the open market – including agribusiness corporations and supermarket chains – instead of through state-run institutions that guarantee a minimum price.

Modi maintains the “reforms are needed for development,” warning that, “we cannot build the next century with the laws of the previous century."

But as the curtain falls on a year that saw a pandemic ravage lives and livelihoods, India’s farmers are not persuaded by the promise of markets providing next-generation solutions to longstanding problems.

The resolve of the farmers and their extraordinary mobilisation, gathering supporters across sectors, has caught the Modi administration by surprise and is a cautionary tale for governments managing post-pandemic economic recoveries.

Using ‘the cover of the pandemic’

The latest crisis was sparked in September, when the government crammed complex legislative changes into three new laws and pushed them through parliament during an opposition walkout. They were passed as Covid-19 rages through India, with the country reporting the world’s second-highest number of cases.

“In the midst of a pandemic, laws with far-reaching impact on more than 50 percent of the population and on 100 percent of the food security of India were passed. The government used the cover of the pandemic to push through the laws, believing they would not be resisted. This has been bulldozed through parliament with no debate, no discussions,” explained Amandeep Sandhu, a writer who documented agricultural practices in Punjab in his book, “Panjab: Journeys Through Fault Lines”.

Since he came to power in 2014, Modi has opted for shock announcements with little preparedness that have left the populace scrambling to cope with the fallout – humanitarian and economic – of his populist moves.

On November 8, 2016, for instance, the prime minister made a surprise evening television appearance to announce that, starting after midnight, the nation’s 500 and 1,000-rupee notes would be demonetised or no longer considered legal tender. Economists estimate the move wiped at least one percent off India’s GDP and cost at least 1.5 million jobs.

Four years and a pandemic later, Indian farmers are sceptical of the Modi administration’s rushed, pro-business panaceas. “Neoliberalism has hollowed out state sectors. The health sector has collapsed, the education sector has collapsed. Now the government is fronting a crony capitalist move to agriculture,” said Sandhu.

‘Villainous’ state markets and middlemen

Economists agree India’s agricultural sector needs repair. The pressure of a growing population is shrinking land holdings, with more than 68 percent of farmers owning less than one or two hectares of land. Yields are often so low that economists estimate more than half of India’s farmers do not cultivate enough to sell.

But the urban manufacturing and service sectors have not produced enough jobs to get the working age population off the land. With unemployment rising in the aftermath of the pandemic, the situation is likely to deteriorate.

The new laws promise farmers freedom from “villainous and exploitative” government-regulated wholesale markets – called mandis – and commissioning agents who act as middlemen, managing sales, storage, transportation and even finance deals.

These middlemen – known as arhtias – also extend credit to farmers, serving as “bankers of the last resort” for desperate farmers, but levying crippling interest rates and repayment conditions in the process.

Loans for night trips to hospitals

News footage in recent days of farmers demonstrating to retain arhtias – viewed by the urban middle class as loan sharks driving the most hapless to suicide – has been another shocker for Indians not living off the land.

But Sandhu – who spent childhood vacations making trips to mandis with farming family members – explains that arhtias are part of the social and economic landscape in rural Punjab.

“They provide easily accessible credit for farmers that banks do not: if a sudden crop disease needs pesticides, a family illness in the middle of the night requires money to go to hospital, an urgent vet call for a sick cow... they play a pivotal role,” said Sandhu.

“What we need is regulation of interest rates and a recovery course for middle men who are extending credit. There is a need for ombudsmen,” he explained. “Now the entire system is being discarded for what, we don’t know. What we do know for sure is it would throw out millions of people from their livelihoods.”

Slick presentations with no answers

The government has attempted to downplay the protests as outbursts by poorly educated farmers who do not understand what’s in their best interests.

But in media interviews after successive rounds of talks, farm union members have proved to be better informed than the government.

In an interview with a Punjabi language TV station earlier this month, for instance, Rajinder Singh, vice president of a farmers union, explained how Indian Agriculture Minister Narendra Tomar displayed a slick presentation to union representatives at recent talks. But when asked about details of the laws, including implementation across states, the minister was unable to provide answers.

Tuesday’s nationwide blockade has triggered another round of negotiations, but with both sides unwilling to back down so far, few can predict how the latest crisis will end.

“The government is really worried because farmers are an important vote bank, North Indian farmers are unhappy and the government didn’t gauge their resilience. Now it’s a deadlock and it’s a matter of who blinks first,” explained Sandhu. “Modi sees himself as a strongman, he has never backed down on anything – it’s part of his strongman image that appeals to voters.”

But the people of Punjab and Haryana also have a long, celebrated history of toughness and bloody-minded intransigence that is gaining increasing respect in a country with a vast appetite for strongmen. The winter of discontent in North India looks set to be a long one.

‘A lack of public trust’: France mulls reform of country’s police watchdog

Issued on: 07/12/2020 

Police officers drag a man on the ground during a protest against government plans to give the police wider powers in Paris on November 28, 2020. © Ameer Al-Halbi, AFP

Text by:Jean-Luc MOUNIER

Outrage over high-profile cases of police brutality has revived talk of a culture of impunity in French law enforcement and heightened scrutiny of the country’s police watchdog, the IGPN, which critics say is hamstrung by a lack of independence.

In June of this year, at the height of protests against violence and racism in the police, France’s outgoing human rights ombudsman raised the alarm over a "crisis of public confidence in the security forces" in a wide-ranging report that made for grim reading.

In a parting shot after five years in the job, Jacques Toubon urged a reversal of what he described as a “warring mentality” that has driven a wedge between the police and the public. He denounced a culture of impunity in the force, lamenting the lack of accountability in French law enforcement.

Long-standing grievances over French policing returned to the fore in recent weeks following a string of high-profile incidents and a hugely controversial government proposal that critics say will make it more difficult to document cases of police abuse.

The incidents, which included the brutal clearing of a migrant camp in Paris and the beating of Black music producer Michel Zecler, have heightened scrutiny of the Inspection générale de la police nationale (IGPN), the police’s widely criticised internal disciplinary body. 

Amid a fierce backlash that has seen tens of thousands rally in cities across the country calling for greater police accountability, government members – including the hardline interior minister, Gérald Darmanin – have been forced to concede shortcomings in the IGPN and examine ways to reform the police watchdog.

Accountable to the top cop

According to Mathieu Zagrodzki, a researcher at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin, the IGPN’s problems stem largely from a concurrent deficit of independence and public trust.

“There’s widespread suspicion that the agency does not carry out its investigations as thoroughly and diligently as it should,” Zagrodzki explained in an interview with FRANCE 24.

“As a result, there’s a lack of public trust in the watchdog,” he added. “A lot of people don’t even bother complaining to the IGPN because they figure it is pointless.”

When it comes to cases of police brutality, the IGPN is routinely accused of downplaying the facts and siding with the police. Critics point to a flawed structure that inherently creates bias. The agency’s head is directly appointed by – and accountable to – the interior minister, who is frequently referred to as the “premier flic de France” (the top cop).

>> Racism, sex abuse and impunity: French police’s toxic legacy in the suburbs

It’s not just the leadership that is exposed to accusations of bias. The entire agency is largely composed of police officers. In 2019, they accounted for 72 percent of its 285 staff members.

“You essentially have police officers investigating other officers: That’s why people are suspicious of the IGPN, because they sense that abuses are settled in private,” Jean-Michel Schlosser, a sociologist at the University of Reims who formerly served in the police, told FRANCE 24.

Brigitte Jullien, the current head of the IGPN, has vehemently rejected criticism of her agency, describing it as an “insult to the ethics and professionalism” of her colleagues. In June, days after the release of Toubon’s report, she assured that the disciplinary body was “dreaded by all officers in France”.

“All professions, whether lawyers, doctors or journalists, have internal control mechanisms, and they never get criticised,” Jullien told French media, claiming that her agency is no less independent than others.

‘No power to punish’

Founded more than a century ago, the IGPN performs a number of duties with limited powers and resources. It inspects police services, evaluates practices and rules of engagement, and investigates complaints of abuse.

As Schlosser said, “it can make recommendations, but does not have the power to punish.”

IGPN investigations are either administrative or judicial. Administrative inquiries can be requested by the national police chief, the interior minister or the prefect (the local head of police). In judicial investigations, on the other hand, the agency can act on its own initiative or at the request of prosecutors and magistrates.

Ordinary citizens can also petition the disciplinary body via an online platform, though it is not obliged to act upon their complaints.

The trouble, said Schlosser, is that the IGPN’s powers are strictly curtailed during administrative inquiries.

“It can do little more than oblige officers to face questioning, which often results in a highly incomplete investigation,” the sociologist explains. “In contrast, judicial inquiries offer the IGPN much greater latitude. It can issue search warrants, for instance, and is only accountable to a magistrate.”

According to its latest annual report, the police inspectorate completed 1,322 judicial investigations in 2019. A further 238 administrative inquiries were carried out, leading to 276 “sanction proposals”. While the report does not specify how many of those “proposals” actually led to penalties, it notes that IGPN-recommended sanctions accounted for just 16 percent of all punishments meted out by the police.

A French exception

As critics are quick to point out, France’s police watchdog differs considerably from its counterparts elsewhere in Europe, both in its composition and its assignments.

Sebastien Roché, a political analyst and police expert, compared the French model with the practice in countries including the United Kingdom, Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands.

In those countries, Roché told French weekly Télérama, “[T]he first thing the authorities did was to appoint a magistrate – not a police officer – to head their police watchdogs.”

Schlosser noted that police watchdogs in such countries are headed by independent figures, who are often appointed by local legislatures. They operate as independent administrative authorities and are not answerable to the interior ministry.

“Furthermore, their investigators are not police officers, but most often legal experts and magistrates,” Schlosser added. “Police officers are present in a consultative capacity, based on their knowledge of their job.”

He pointed to the case of the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), in England and Wales, as emblematic of this culture of independence. The IOPC’s director is legally required to have never worked for the police. Its investigative units are mixed, including retired officers – who never make up more than a quarter of staff – and legal experts.

“The advantage with such a system is that you get a comprehensive understanding of situations,” said Zagrodzki. “On the one hand, there’s the police officer who knows the system and is familiar with procedural matters. And on the other, you get the perspective from the outside. That way, an action that may seem proportionate to officers can be flagged as socially unacceptable in a democracy.”

Greater autonomy ... within the interior ministry

In its most recent 12-month report, relating to 2018-19, the IOPC registered a total of 31,097 complaints from members of the public – more than three times the number recorded by France’s IGPN over the same period. It’s a significant discrepancy for countries with comparable population sizes, one that experts attribute to different cultures of interaction with the public.

“UK police officers are no more violent than their French counterparts,” Zagrodzki observes. “The difference is that there is far greater trust in the institution [in England and Wales], meaning people are more inclined to file complaints.”

He says appointing an independent head of the IGPN – an idea recently mooted by French Prime Minister Jean Castex – would mark a step in the right direction, though it would not be enough to change the culture of the French watchdog.

“Changing the leadership alone will not alter the structure of the agency, even though it could improve its image and encourage people to step forward with their complaints,” he explains.




For substantive change to take place, Zagrodzky added, the entire IGPN would need to become an independent body – a move the French government is unlikely to push for.

Challenged on the subject in an interview last week, President Emmanuel Macron advocated “greater transparency” in investigations and more scope for the IGPN to penalise malpractice.

However, he remained vague on the subject of the watchdog’s institutional independence, suggesting it should remain closely linked to police authorities and its tutelary minister, “top cop” Darmanin.

This article was adapted from the original in French.

French parliament drops controversial draft law curtailing right to film police

Issued on: 30/11/2020 - 

The President of the LREM Parliamentary Group, Christophe Castaner, 

on November 30, 2020 in Paris, France. © Anne-Christine Poujoulat, AFP

Text by: FRANCE 24

The French parliament has dropped a controversial bill that would have curbed the right to film police officers in action, the speaker of parliament and leader of President Emmanuel Macron's ruling party announced on Monday.

In an apparent effort to quell criticism, Christophe Castaner, head of Macron's LREM (La République en marche) party, said Monday that “there is a need to clarify the measure”.

"The bill will be completely rewritten and a new version will be submitted," he told a news conference. 

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin had refused to simply withdraw the controversial article, saying before a parliamentary commission on Monday that police “are not protected enough". 

The draft bill had prompted protests across the country called by press freedom advocates and civil rights campaigners. Tens of thousands of people marched Saturday in Paris calling for the government to drop the measure, including families and friends of people killed by police. 

Critics feared that the proposed law would have deprived journalists and others of a potent weapon against police misconduct – including videos of police actions – and threaten efforts to document cases of police brutality, particularly in immigrant neighbourhoods.

A provision in the draft law known as Article 24, which factored into Macron’s plans to court right-wing voters with a law-and-order message ahead of his 2022 re-election bid, had sparked outrage in the media and on the left flank of his own party.

Article 24 did not completely ban sharing images of the police, but made it a crime to share them with an “obvious intention to harm” – such as inciting violence against officers – punishable by a year in prison and a €45,000 ($54,000). 

The bill aimed to prevent recognisable images of police officers from appearing on social media for fear they would face retribution for doing their jobs. The proposed "global security" law, as it was called, was partly a response to demands from police unions, who said it would provide greater protection for officers.

But the importance of documenting police activity was underscored again last week by the brutal beating of a Black man in Paris. 

“I was lucky enough to have videos, which protected me,” said Michel Zecler, a Black music producer who was beaten by at least four police officers. Videos first published Thursday by French website Loopsider have been seen by more than 14 million viewers, resulting in widespread outrage.

Two officers remain in custody but two others have been released on bail as the investigation continues. 

Controversial security bill: 'Macron and the French government blinked'

Hardening of police tactics in France

Abdoulaye Kanté, a Black police officer with 20 years of experience in Paris and its suburbs, is a supporter of the proposed law who also strongly condemns police brutality.

“What people don’t understand is that some individuals are using videos to put the faces of our colleagues on social media so that they are identified, so that they are threatened or to incite hatred,” he said.

“The law doesn’t ban journalists or citizens from filming police in action ... It bans these images from being used to do harm, physically or psychologically,” he argued, adding: “The lives of officers are important.”

A “tiny fraction of the population feeds rage and hatred” against police, said Jean-Michel Fauvergue, a former head of elite police forces and an LREM lawmaker who co-authored the bill, in comments at the National Assembly (lower house). 

“We need to find a solution."

Critics noted a hardening of police tactics during protests or while arresting individuals. Hundreds of complaints have been filed against officers during the Yellow Vest movement for economic justice that erupted in 2018 and saw weekends of violent clashes.

Interior Minister Darmanin has countered that, out of 3 million police operations per year in France, some 9,500 end up on a government website that denounces abuses – a mere 0.3 percent.

"Protecting police and preserving freedom of the press are not in competition," he told deputies in his remarks to parliament on Monday.

(FRANCE 24 with AP and REUTERS)

France debates human rights at home while still selling weapons to oppressive regimes

“France is one of the least scrupulous arms sellers on earth, even the US is a little more restrictive about their arms sales.”

Issued on: 11/12/2020 - 

Technicians work on French made Rafale jet fighter at the workshops of Dassault-Aviation in Merignac near Bordeaux on October 8, 2019. © Georges Gobet, AFP

Text by: Monique El-FaizyFollow


As the French President Emmanuel Macron faces accusations that he is moving to curtail the civic rights in his country and reduce transparency, the recent state visit of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi underscored France’s longstanding willingness to turn a blind eye to systemic oppression in the countries it sells weapons to.

When Sisi came to France for a state visit this week, less than a month after prominent human rights workers in Egypt were arrested and slapped with terrorism-related charges following a meeting with French and other European diplomats, Human Rights Watch called for arms sales to Egypt to stop and activists were looking to French President Emmanuel Macron to make a strong statement.

They had, perhaps, reason to be hopeful. After the November arrests, the French Foreign Ministry issued a statement expressing its “deep concern” about developments in the Arab nation. “France maintains a frank, exacting dialogue with Egypt on human rights issues, including individual cases,” the statement said.

In the end, not only were activists disappointed by Macron’s reception of Sisi, they were outraged by it. Far from taking a firm line on abuses and demanding that Egypt do better if it hoped to continue receiving military aid, Macron went out of his way to disassociate the purchase of arms with the respect of human rights.

“I will not condition matters of defence and economic cooperation on these disagreements [over human rights],” Macron said in a press conference. "It is more effective to have a policy of demanding dialogue than a boycott that would only reduce the effectiveness of one of our partners in the fight against terrorism."

“The whole way he framed the human rights debate in the press conference was horrific,” said Timothy Kaldas, Nonresident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy. “Arresting human rights workers and oppressing Egyptians is not fighting terrorism. Quite the contrary.”

A double standard

Macron’s stance was particularly salient given that his own government has been under fire over a proposed security law that critics charge would limit civic liberties in France. At the same time that he has defended France’s commitment to freedom of speech in the wake of the killing of a teacher who showed his class caricatures of the prophet Mohammed. Macron called the teacher, Samuel Paty, a “quiet hero” dedicated to preserving French values.

Macron’s position with Sisi this week was notably softer than the one he took in January 2019, when he told his Egyptian counterpart that security could not be considered separately from human rights, noting that oppression jeopardises stability rather than enhance it.

“It’s a double standard,” said Rim-Sarah Alouane, a Researcher in Public Law, University Toulouse Capitole. “We are in the middle of this hypocrisy about how we are supposed to be the country of the enlightenment, of human rights – we are supposed to have basically created human rights – and yet we have no problem making deals with the devil and closing our eyes to what should be the most important thing: the protection of the human.”

Kaldas agreed: “[Macron] will be adamant about how much France cherishes its values in one context and then be completely unwilling to prioritise those values in his relations with authoritarians.”

Marcon has shown himself similarly willing to ignore abuses in other parts of the region as well. When several European countries, including Germany, called for the suspension of arms sales to Saudi Arabia after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Macron dismissed those concerns as “demagoguery”, saying the weapons had nothing to do with the murder. “I understand the connection with what’s happening in Yemen, but there is no link with Mister Khashoggi,” he said.

Saudi Arabia leads a coalition that has been engaged in a war in Yemen that has had devastating effects on the humanitarian situation there. “The only reason [Macron] cites Yemen is to dismiss the other argument, but then he continues to provide the arms that fuel the war in Yemen,” Kaldas said.

Key to sovereignty

France has a vested interest in batting away the issue of rights abuses. Arms sales are big business for the country, which is third in global military exports, coming behind the United States and Russia. The defence sector in France employs 200,000 people, roughly 13 percent of the total industrial workforce, according to a report by the country's parliament.

France is one of the few countries in the world capable of independently producing advanced military systems, and arms sales are key to the survival of the defence sector.

“It’s important for France to maintain its own arms industry,” both to be a significant player on the world stage and to be self-sufficient, said Pieter D. Wezeman, Senior Researcher in the Arms and Military Expenditure Programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. “To be able to do that, you need to have export clients, because otherwise you won’t be able to afford it.”

As Minister of the Armed Forces Florence Parly put it in 2018: “Arms exports are the business model of our sovereignty.”

And the industry is growing. Arms sales can vary widely from year to year, so researchers look at extended periods of time. Comparing the years 2015-2019 with 2010-2014, French arms exports grew 72 percent, representing 7.9 percent of the global arms market. Over the past decade, the Middle East has accounted for roughly 48 percent of French exports, said Guy Anderson, Associate Director of the Industry and Markets division at Jane's, publisher of Jane's Defence Weekly.

“France has been very prolific in providing weapons to a wide range of people,” Wezeman said.

France has been known to ignore arms embargos as well. In his autobiography “No Room for Small Dreams,” the late Israeli politician Shimon Perez said that France secretly sold weapons to Israel back in the 1950s, when few nations would. And it was the French who gave Israel its nuclear capacities, Perez wrote.

The illicit arms sales have continued. The French found ways to supply weapons to the apartheid regime in South Africa despite restrictions on such exports and press reports said that military material found in Libya in 2019 indicated that France had violated the arms embargo there.

“France is one of the least scrupulous arms sellers on earth,” said Kaldas. “Even the US is a little more restrictive about their arms sales.”

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‘It’s our turn!’ French youths unite against anti-Semitism, racism

Hanna ASSOULINE

40 min

Two years ago, a group of young French Jews and Arabs decided to put up a united front against anti-Semitism and racism, through an SOS Racisme initiative. Through their different backgrounds and religions, they set out on a nationwide awareness campaign in a bid to open up an unfiltered dialogue in communities where these topics have become completely taboo. Reporter Hanna Assouline followed the youths on their mission to make people open up and talk.

Pope says fraternity the watchword 'at this moment in history'

LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

THE PAPCY OPPOSED THESE IDEAS WHEN THEY WERE EXPRESSED IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

Issued on: 25/12/2020 -

Pope Francis highlighted the plight of children caught up in war, singling out victims in Syria, Yemen and Iraq in his Christmas message Handout VATICAN MEDIA/AFP

Vatican City (AFP)

Pope Francis said in his Christmas message Friday that fraternity was a watchword for these unusually troubled times exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.

"At this moment in history, marked by the ecological crisis and grave economic and social imbalances only worsened by the coronavirus pandemic, it is all the more important for us to acknowledge one another as brothers and sisters," he said in his "Urbi et Orbi" message.

He said this call for solidarity was especially aimed at "people who are the most fragile, the sick and all who at this period find themselves without work or in grave difficulty due to the economic consequences of the pandemic and to women who have been subjected to domestic violence during these months of confinement."

The pontiff also touched on the plight of children caught up by war, singling out victims in Syria, Yemen and Iraq in his Christmas message.

"On this day, when the word of God became a child, let us turn our gaze to the many, all too many, children worldwide, especially in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, who still pay the high price of war," he said.

"May their faces touch the consciences of all men and women of good will, so that the causes of conflicts can be addressed and courageous efforts can be made to build a future of peace," he said.

Pope Francis will make a historic visit to Iraq in March, the Vatican said Monday, the first ever by a pontiff and which will include a trip to the city of Mosul, a former jihadist stronghold.

The pope has long spoken of his desire to visit the Middle Eastern country, where two decades of conflict has taken a heavy toll on Christian communities.

The Argentinian-born pope called for peace and reconciliation in Libya and Iraq, "particularly to the Yazidis, sorely tried by these last years of war."

© 2020 AFP

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