Uighur exiles living in fear in Turkey

Tens of thousands of Uighurs have fled to Turkey to escape Chinese persecution. Yet life in exile is challenging.


Ömer Faruk and some of his family have found asylum in Turkey


"I lost touch with my family five years ago; I only learned of my father's death one year later," a teary-eyed Abdüsükür tells DW. The 32-year-old is based in Istanbul's Zeytinburnu neighborhood, where most of the city's Uighur immigrants live and work. He earns a living working in a secondhand shop for mobile phones.

Abdüsükür is one of approximately 50,000 Uighurs who have recently fled China seeking safety in Turkey. The Chinese government has been persecuting the ethnic minority, with witnesses reporting that Uighurs have been detained in inhumane conditions in reeducation camps. Many of them, including minors, are picked up and deported without warning.

Abdüsükür fled China's northwestern Xinjiang province five years ago. "We were constantly persecuted in East Turkestan [Xinjiang province]," he tells DW. "Many people were jailed, or taken to reeducation camps, just for praying."

VIDEO China's treatment of Uyghurs exposed

The Uighurs are a Turkic-speaking ethnic group, most of whom are Muslim. Many have fled to Turkey as they have much in common with Turks culturally, and Turkey's government has promoted their migration for years. Today, the country's hosts the largest community in the Uighur diaspora.

"I was scared not only for myself but also my family," Abdüsükür explains his decision to leave China. "That's why I decided to flee to Turkey." But he has paid a steep price for his new life abroad, saying he has only spoken to his mother once since leaving. "Uighurs living in Turkey are prohibited [by Chinese authorities] from speaking to their relatives back home," he says. Millions of fellow Uighurs have been placed in reeducation camps, Abdüsükür says. There are no official records documenting how many have been detained, though some estimates put the figure at several hundred thousand.
Fearing deportation from Turkey

He only found out his father had died when a friend informed him. Abdüsükür then immediately called his mother in Xinjiang. After confirming his father's death, she told him not to call again, saying "if they [Chinese authorities] find out, they will come after us." That was the last time he spoke to his mother.

Abdüsükür, 32, is concerned about reprisals against his family in China

Abdüsükür regularly joins protest marches against the persecution of China's Uighurs and is using social media to raise awareness for the problems in his home country. He was arrested several times by Turkish authorities for participating in rallies. He got very scared when they launched an investigation into his actions; without Turkish citizenship, he could get deported. In 2017, after all, Ankara and Beijing agreed a repatriation agreement which could speed up deportations, though Turkey's parliament is yet to ratify the deal.

Ömer Faruk moved to Turkey in 2016. The 31-year-old Uighur immigrant possesses Turkish citizenship, which means he cannot be deported. Still, life in exile has been a struggle. Faruk, who has five children, had to leave his two daughters behind when he moved to Turkey.

Watch video 05:22 China's campaign against Uyghur culture

Many Uighur emigrants — including Faruk — find that their relatives, including young children and even seniors, vanish without trace in China. Faruk remembers receiving a call from his wife when he worked as a labor migrant in Saudi Arabia several years ago. She told him Chinese police had come to their home, wanting to confiscate their passports. He then urged her to tell the police she would deliver the documents in a little while.

He told her to book flights to Turkey and leave the country immediately. But their young daughters — 1 1/2 and 3 years old — did not yet have passports. Faruk's wife and two young daughters were forced to remain in China, while he met his other three children in Turkey.

Missing daughters

Faruk's wife later flew out to join him in Turkey, leaving their young daughters with his mother-in-law. He says his brothers then wanted to help his daughters reach Turkey but were arrested. Faruk's mother-in-law was placed in a reeducation camp.

Ömer Faruk is worried about his two youngest daughters, who had to stay behind in China

"I don't know where my daughters are at this moment," he says, distraught. He cannot even say whether they are still alive, as he has lost touch with family members still in China. According to Faruk, Uighurs who move to other countries, such as Austria or Egypt, have a much easier time reuniting with family members abroad.

"My wife is at her wit's end, she can't sleep at night, and my children are constantly thinking about their sisters," Faruk tells DW. They want to know when they will finally be reunited. "I am desperate; did they put them in camps? Nobody knows."

At least, he says, he cannot be deported as a Turkish citizen. That's why he often joins protest rallies outside China's Ankara embassy, and its Istanbul consulate, to draw attention to the Uighurs' plight.

This article has been adapted from Turkish and German.

MAKING THE STATE ILLEGAL

‘A nation of prosecutors’: Why the French are suing the state to drive social change

Issued on: 28/02/2021 - 

A demonstrator holds a placard reading "No justice no peace" at a rally against police racism and brutality in Paris on June 13, 2020. © Benoit Tessier, Reuters

Text by: Benjamin DODMAN

The French, France's President Emmanuel Macron recently lamented, have become “a nation of 66 million prosecutors”. He may have a point. Whether battling climate change or racial profiling by police, activists and ordinary citizens are pushing groundbreaking legal action to force Macron's government into action.

When France’s government hosted a roundtable on relations between the police and the public earlier this month as part of the consultations aimed at bolstering confidence in law enforcement, the panel invited to the interior ministry in Paris raised more than a few eyebrows.

There was no shortage of officials in attendance, including senior police officers and gendarmes, union representatives from both forces, four members of parliament and four mayors, and even a guest from Canada’s Royal Mounted Police.

But somehow organisers did not think to invite the public. There were no ordinary citizens, no community representatives, no activists or grassroots campaigners, and none of the academics whose investigations into the chronic problems affecting French policing have been dismissed and ignored over the years.

As a veteran campaigner for community outreach, Omer Mas Capitolin, a founder of the grassroots Community House for Supportive Development, would have been a useful addition to the ministry’s panel. Instead, his NGO counts among six organisations, including Amnesty International, which have launched France’s first class-action lawsuit aimed at forcing the government to tackle systemic discrimination by the police.

For Mas Capitolin, the lawsuit marks a new step in a decades-long struggle to raise awareness of racial profiling that targets France’s “visible minorities”, as non-white citizens are commonly referred to.

“I’ve been to all the rallies, spoken to countless politicians, and listened, time and time again, to their empty promises. But nothing ever changes,” he says in an interview with FRANCE 24. “The law is a pillar of our democracy and a precious tool,” he adds. “We’ve seen around the world that many great social advances result from legal action.”

‘Attack’ the state

While France famously does not compile official statistics based on religious faith, ethnicity or skin colour, racial discrimination by law enforcement – particularly in immigrant-rich city suburbs – has been widely documented.

A study conducted by France's National Centre for Scientific Research has shown that Blacks are 11.5 times more likely to be checked by police than Whites, and those of Arab origin are seven times more likely. In a landmark 2016 case, France’s highest court ruled for the first time that police had illegally stopped three men based on racial profiling, setting more specific rules to ensure checks are not discriminatory.

At the height of mass protests against racism last summer, Jacques Toubon, then France's human rights ombudsman, raised the alarm over widespread discrimination and a "crisis of public confidence in the security forces" in a report that made for grim reading. He urged a reversal of what he described as a "warring mentality" in law enforcement.

The difficulty, says lawyer Slim Ben Achour, a protagonist of the 2016 ruling and one of the lawyers involved in the current class-action lawsuit, is to get governments to act upon these injunctions and bring about “systemic change”.

Huge crowds converged on the Paris courthouse on June 2, 2020, 

calling for an end to police violence and impunity. 

© Gonzalo Fuentes, Reuters

Using a law introduced in 2016 by the former justice minister, Christiane Taubira, Ben Achour and his colleagues have served the government with formal legal notice of demands for concrete steps to end racial profiling by police. The law gives French authorities four months to talk with the plaintiffs about how they can meet the demands. If the plaintiffs are left unsatisfied, the case will go to court.

“Past lawsuits involved only individual plaintiffs and resulted – when successful – in damages being paid,” Ben Achour tells FRANCE 24. “In this case, we’re not looking for damages. We want judges to force the government into meaningful reforms.”

Ben Achour credits Taubira’s 2016 law with giving “vulnerable parties” unprecedented access to the judiciary, allowing them to team up with bigger players, like Amnesty, in class actions. He says it has also brought about a change in both tactics and thinking.

“So far, racial profiling complaints have mostly been used in a defensive capacity, when the police dragged our clients to court,” he explains. “Now we can go on the offensive, we can sue the state,” he adds, using the French word attaque, which translates as both “sue” and “attack”.

Broken promises

Turning to the courts is not an instinctive reaction in France, a nation more accustomed to street protests, canvassing and petitioning lawmakers. “It is not in our culture like it is in the US,” Ben Achour concedes, pointing to changes forced upon the New York Police Department as a model for France.

The largest police department in the US underwent major reform following a 2013 class-action lawsuit brought by a dozen Black and Brown New Yorkers who said they were stopped solely because of their race. A federal judge ruled the NYPD had violated the civil rights of tens of thousands of New Yorkers, dismissing claims that police checks were a necessary crime-fighting tool. Stops dropped precipitously under the new regime, but crime did not rise.

“Class actions allow us to change society through legal means,” says Ben Achour, particularly when politicians fail to deliver on promised change. He points to former president François Hollande, who famously reneged on a campaign pledge to introduce a form of written receipt for all identity checks – a measure long advocated by campaigners against racial profiling.

“Hollande’s promised reform offered a ‘traditional’ path towards meaningful change,” the lawyer explains. “That path was interrupted, now legal action offers an alternative route.”

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

 

The alternative route’s growing popularity has prompted academics in a variety of fields to take an interest in litigation. Reflecting on the declining effectiveness of traditional forms of activism, such as strikes and street protests, the left-wing sociologist Geoffroy de Lagasnerie has stressed the importance of pursuing legal avenues to push certain causes – and lamented a French backwardness in the field.

In his 2020 book, Comment sortir de notre impuissance politique (How to end our political impotence), Lagasnerie notes that court action to uphold the rights of migrants has often resulted in defeat for the government. He points to recent rulings that vindicated activists who helped migrants illegally cross the border from Italy and compelled the French state to provide migrant camps in Calais with basic sanitation.

“The law is one of the few powers that can compel a government to back down or act – perhaps the only one,” Lagasnerie writes, urging activists to “multiply legal ‘guerilla actions’, summon European and international law, be imaginative in our use of the law.”

‘The case of the century’

In recent years, many of the most sensational attempts to hold governments accountable through the courts have involved climate campaigners, leading to convictions in countries as diverse as Pakistan, the Netherlands and Colombia.

In a first for France, a court ruled earlier this month that the French state was guilty of failing to keep its promises to slash carbon emissions under the 2015 Paris climate accord. Hailed as a “historic win for climate justice”, the ruling set a two-month deadline for the government to come up with concrete measures to further cut emissions.

While France is likely to appeal the verdict, a Dutch precedent has given environmental campaigners reason to be confident. In 2019, the Dutch government lost its appeal against a landmark ruling that ordered it to slash greenhouse emissions. Officials are now scrambling to cut emissions, for instance by closing fossil-fuel plants ahead of schedule.

Urgenda, an environmental group, fought the successful case on behalf of some 900 Dutch citizens. The same model inspired the French lawsuit, dubbed the “Affaire du siècle” (Case of the Century) and spearheaded by four NGOs following a petition signed by 2.3 million people.

Carole-Anne Sénit, a political scientist who specialises in civil society activism at the University of Utrecht, says such cases signal the emergence of “new coalitions of mobilised players”, bringing together ordinary citizens and a variety of non-state actors, from Greenpeace to smaller groups with experience of litigation, such as the French group Notre affaire à tous.

“When two million people sign a petition in less than a month, it counters the notion of an increasingly apolitical and apathetic public,” she tells FRANCE 24, stressing that online mobilisations complement other forms of activism, including street protests and lobbying. Cases like the Affaire du siècle, Sénit adds, also help to “restore the people’s faith in their ability to bring about change” — particularly in the “repressive context” of a health emergency that has led governments to drastically curtail civic space.

Covid lawsuits

The devastating social and economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have generated a surge in legal complaints levelled at government officials, prompting President Emmanuel Macron to liken the French to “a nation of 66 million prosecutors” in one of the trademark “petites phrases” that infuriate his critics.

As early as March 4, 2020, two weeks before the first nationwide lockdown, a group of health workers asked France’s highest administrative court to force the government to provide them with FFP2 face masks. Dozens more legal complaints soon followed, calling for stricter lockdown measures, the requisitioning of factories to produce masks and antiseptic gel, or improved sanitation in overcrowded prisons.

“Lawsuits targeting the state seldom succeed; but when they do, they encourage others to come forward,” says lawyer Julien Lalanne, noting that one undesired effect is to “overburden courts that were already stretched”.

Lalanne says a key aim of the increased litigation is to set legal precedents on issues that had not previously been brought before the courts, thereby expanding both the judges’ area of competence and the state’s liability.

“France has long privileged the political arena,” he tells FRANCE 24. “We’re now witnessing a shift towards leaning on judges in order to put pressure on politicians.” To meet the challenge, the judiciary is having to step up its communication, Lalanne adds, bringing the arcane world of litigation “outside of the courtrooms and into the public domain”.

‘Concrete solutions’

Writing in the Conversation, Jessy Bailly, a political scientist at the University of Aix-Marseille, notes that lawsuits brought against the state need not always be successful in court to be considered a success – at least not when it comes to communication.

“Lawsuits have a spectacular character simply by targeting the giant that is the state and by inspiring copycats,” Bailly writes. “This ability to catch the media’s attention enables them to put pressure on the government, which is well aware that an intransigent public opinion is watching.”

Protesters call for more action on climate change in Bordeaux, 

southwestern France, on October 13, 2018. © Nicolas Tucat, AFP

By coinciding with the start of the interior ministry’s highly-publicised consultations on police reform, the class-action lawsuit against racial profiling was able to undercut the government’s communication and catch the public eye, at least briefly.

Mas Capitolin is hoping the case will help raise awareness of rampant injustice and of a growing divide that hurts both the police and the public, alienating youths even as the country ponders how to tackle “separatist” ideologies

“People need to realise what it means to be Black or Arab in parts of the country, to fear the police when you have done nothing, to tell your own son to look down and keep it shut when he meets an officer,” says the veteran activist. “They also need to challenge a policing culture that leads so many officers to take their own lives,” he adds, referring to the scourge of suicides among French officers.

But Mas Capitolin and his fellow plaintiffs will not be satisfied with a mere PR victory. Their aim is to foster social change through the courts.

“We’re not only denouncing the problem; we’re offering concrete solutions – that’s what democracy is about,” he says, pointing to proposed reforms put forward by the six NGOs in conjunction with the lawsuit. They include a change in the penal code to demand accountability in stops, and an end to the longstanding practice of gauging police performance by the number of tickets issued or arrests made, benchmarks that encourage baseless identity checks.

“We could have opted for a criminal lawsuit, but we’re not after a few bad apples in the police,” adds Ben Achour, the lawyer. “We’re aiming at the heart of the problem; and that means going for the state.”

ANOTHER TIN POT DICTATOR

El Salvador's Bukele poised for broad victory in mid-term elections
Issued on: 28/02/2021 -

Electoral workers handle boxes containing empty ballot forms to be used by voters at a polling station in a school ahead of the municipal and parliamentary elections in San Salvador, El Salvador, February 27, 2021. © Jose Cabezas, Reuters

Text by: NEWS WIRES

Salvadorans went to the polls on Sunday to vote in legislative and municipal elections that could give a broad victory to President Nayib Bukele's party, consolidating his overhaul of traditional politics. 

Opinion polls show that Bukele's party, New Ideas, could win more than half of the mayoral positions, and enough seats to hold at least a simple majority in Congress.

A two-thirds majority in Congress would let the party appoint high-level government officials, such as the attorney general and five of the 15 Supreme Court justices.

Bukele, a 39-year-old publicist and city mayor, took office in 2019 promising to root out corruption and upend the two-party politics - led by the Nationalist Republican Alliance and the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front - that has dominated since the end of the civil war in 1992.

Despite garnering popularity by providing economic support during the pandemic and curbing homicides, Bukele has clashed with both the legislature and the Supreme Court, and rights groups say he has shown authoritarian tendencies.

Wilson Sandoval, coordinator of El Salvador's Anticorruption Legal Advisory Center, said it would be important to maintain a counterweight to the executive branch.

Voting Bukele would essentially take away an entity that can control the executive, Sandoval said, and so "we are giving them a blank check so they can do whatever they want."

Bukele has said his rivals are fearful because his policies threaten their privileges.

Polls opened at 7 a.m. (1300 GMT) and are slated to close at 5 p.m. (2300 GMT), with voters set to vote for 84 lawmakers and 262 mayors.

(REUTERS)

LONG LIVE !

THE BOURGEOIS REVOLUTION!

Hong Kong detains dozens of pro-democracy activists for violating new national security law

Issued on: 28/02/2021 -

Pro-democracy activist Benny Tai was charged after

 reporting to a Hong Kong police station, on February 28, 2021 

REUTERS - TYRONE SIU

Text by: NEWS WIRES

Video by: Camille NEDELEC


Forty-seven Hong Kong democrats and activists were charged on Sunday with conspiracy to commit subversion, in the largest single crackdown on the democratic opposition under a China-imposed national security law.


Sam Cheung, a young activist and a participant in an unofficial primary election last summer, was charged after reporting to a local police station, dressed in a black mask and accompanied by his wife.

“Hong Kongers have a really tough time these days,” he told reporters before entering the station. “I hope everyone won’t give up on Hong Kong ... (and) fight on.”

Cheung was arrested in a dawn raid along with more than 50 other democrats on Jan. 6 in the largest national security operation since the law’s passage last June.

They were accused of organising and participating in an unofficial “primary election” last July aimed at selecting the strongest candidates for a legislative council election.

The Hong Kong police said in a statement they had laid a charge against 47 persons with the single count. They will appear in court tomorrow morning, the statement added.

The democrats were detained at the time, questioned, and some had their mobile phones and computers confiscated, then released pending further investigations.

“My chance of bail won’t be too great,” wrote Benny Tai in an earlier social media post. He was also charged and accused by Chinese authorities of being a key tactician for the pro-democracy movement in the former British colony.

Those also called in by Hong Kong police include a group of younger “resistance camp” democratic activists including Lester Shum, Sam Cheung, Ventus Lau and Fergus Leung.

The democrats denounced the arrests as political persecution for the informal, peaceful poll that drew 600,000 votes in a city of 7.5 million.

A rights advocacy group, “Power for Democracy”, that co-organised the primary elections, said in a Facebook post it had disbanded.

The Hong Kong police say 99 individuals have been arrested for suspected violations of the security laws so far.

Some of these have been denied bail, including media mogul and prominent China critic Jimmy Lai, despite protracted legal appeals.

The sweeping national security laws - seen by critics as a threat to Hong Kong’s freedoms and autonomy - punish acts of subversion, secession, collusion with foreign forces and terrorism with possible life imprisonment.

(REUTERS)

Thousands of Argentinians take to streets to protest ‘VIP vaccinations’ scandal



Issued on: 28/02/2021 -

People protest against the government of President Alberto Fernandez, following a scandal over coronavirus vaccine queue-jumping that forced his health minister to resign, in front of the Casa Rosada presidencial palace in Buenos Aires, on February 27, 2021 © Alejandro Pagni, AFP

Text by: NEWS WIRES

Thousands of people demonstrated in cities across Argentina on Saturday to protest the “VIP vaccinations” scandal that forced the health minister to resign.

Gines Gonzalez Garcia quit a week ago at the president’s request after it emerged that his friends had been able to skip the line for coronavirus inoculation.

Protesters carrying signs reading “Give me my vaccine” and “Stop wasting our money” gathered outside the government headquarters in Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires.

“They started by vaccinating friends of the government. It is not appropriate. They are stealing someone else’s life,” protester Irene Marcet told AFP.

Since Argentina began vaccinating its people, only healthcare workers had received the jab until Wednesday, when over-70s in Buenos Aires province were also invited to be immunized.

On Monday, the government released a list of 70 people who received the vaccine outside of the official campaign, which included the 38-year-old economy minister and former president Eduardo Duhalde, his wife and their children.

On the railings in front of the Casa Rosada, the seat of the government and the president’s office, protesters hung mock black body bags with the names of pro-government leaders vaccinated.

President Alberto Fernandez condemned their actions.

“The way to demonstrate in a democracy cannot be to display mortuary bags with names of political leaders in front of the Casa Rosada,” he tweeted.

“This regrettable action only shows how many opponents see the Republic. Let us not be silent before such an act of barbarism.”

The demonstrations took place without incident apart from some friction between protesters and union activists in front of the president’s official residence.

Protesters also rallied in other cities including Cordoba, Rosario and and Mar del Plata.

With a population of 44 million, Argentina has registered more than two million infections and about 52,000 deaths from coronavirus.

One million people have already been inoculated, according to the government.

Argentina has received 1.22 million doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, around 580,000 doses from Covishield, from India’s Serum Institute, and 904,000 shots from China’s Sinopharm.

(AFP)

LONG LIVE THE BOURGEOIS REVOLUTION

Thousands rally in Tunisia to support moderate Islamist party’s push for govt reshuffle


Issued on: 27/02/2021 - 

A supporter of the moderate Islamist party Ennahdha carries a placard that reads "the revolution is staying" during a rally in Tunis on February 27, 2021. © Fethi Belaid, AFP

Text by: NEWS WIRES

Tunisia's main parliamentary bloc Ennahdha rallied thousands of people Saturday in a demonstration of support for the government amid a tug-of-war with President Kais Saied

The Islamist-inspired Ennahdha and liberal Qalb Tounes parties pushed for a reshuffling of the government by Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi in mid-January, introducing 11 new ministers.

Saied has strongly criticised the reshuffle -- which was confirmed by parliament -- saying he had not been consulted and charged that some ministers were suspected of corruption and conflicts of interest.

He also refused to confirm the new ministers, including interior, justice and health, leaving the government paralysed, in a country already reeling from economic hardship and the coronavirus pandemic.

Saturday's protest in the capital Tunis was called for by Ennahdha, and several protesters said they rallied in support of the moderate Islamist party as well as for unity and democracy.

"We have a parliamentary system and it is not up to the president to decide who will govern," said protester Mohamed Khlif, who travelled from the coastal city of Sfax to take part in the rally.

"Democracy and the constitution must be respected," he added.

Around him protesters chanted "the people want national unity".

Ennahdha head Rached Ghannouchi addressed the protesters Saturday, calling for dialogue and unity among political forces.

Saied, an independent academic and constitutional law expert, has also castigated the procedure for naming the new ministers, saying it was unconstitutional.

"I won't back down from my principles. I swore before God by putting my hand on the Koran to respect the constitution," Saied was quoted as saying earlier this month.

Tunisia's constitution does not require parliamentary approval for regular reshuffles.

But in the absence of a constitutional court in Tunisia, the political crisis has dragged on for six weeks with no solution in sight to ease tensions between the president, parliament and the government.

>> Taking stock of Tunisian democracy, 10 years after the revolution


The political standoff comes as Tunisia has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic and its social and economic repercussions.

A report published Friday by the International Monetary Fund said the "Covid-19 crisis is exacerbating Tunisia's socio-economic fragilities" and "led to an unprecedented economic downturn”.

The IMF called for urgent reforms to reduce the fiscal deficit, which it said was estimated to have reached 11.5 percent of GDP in 2020.

It also made a series of recommendations, including for limits on energy subsidies and lowering the wage bill.

(AFP)

SUPERSPREADER EVENT

‘Not a good idea:’ Experts concerned about pope trip to Iraq

By NICOLE WINFIELD and SAMYA KULLAB

1 of 10
A Christian priest holds a Vatican flag as he walks by a poster of Pope Francis during preparations for the Pope's visit in Mar Youssif Church in Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, Feb. 26, 2021. (AP/Photo/Hadi Mizban)

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Infectious disease experts are expressing concern about Pope Francis’ upcoming trip to Iraq, given a sharp rise in coronavirus infections there, a fragile health care system and the unavoidable likelihood that Iraqis will crowd to see him.

No one wants to tell Francis to call it off, and the Iraqi government has every interest in showing off its relative stability by welcoming the first pope to the birthplace of Abraham. The March 5-8 trip is expected to provide a sorely-needed spiritual boost to Iraq’s beleaguered Christians while furthering the Vatican’s bridge-building efforts with the Muslim world.

But from a purely epidemiological standpoint, as well as the public health message it sends, a papal trip to Iraq amid a global pandemic is not advisable, health experts say.

Their concerns were reinforced with the news Sunday that the Vatican ambassador to Iraq, the main point person for the trip who would have escorted Francis to all his appointments, tested positive for COVID-19 and was self-isolating.

In an email to The Associated Press, the embassy said Archbishop Mitja Leskovar’s symptoms were mild and that he was continuing to prepare for Francis’ visit.

Beyond his case, experts note that wars, economic crises and an exodus of Iraqi professionals have devastated the country’s hospital system, while studies show most of Iraq’s new COVID-19 infections are the highly-contagious variant first identified in Britain.

“I just don’t think it’s a good idea,” said Dr. Navid Madani, virologist and founding director of the Center for Science Health Education in the Middle East and North Africa at Harvard Medical School’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

The Iranian-born Madani co-authored an article in The Lancet last year on the region’s uneven response to COVID-19, noting that Iraq, Syria and Yemen were poorly placed to cope, given they are still struggling with extremist insurgencies and have 40 million people who need humanitarian aid.

In a telephone interview, Madani said Middle Easterners are known for their hospitality, and cautioned that the enthusiasm among Iraqis of welcoming a peace-maker like Francis to a neglected, war-torn part of the world might lead to inadvertent violations of virus control measures.

“This could potentially lead to unsafe or superspreading risks,” she said.

Dr. Bharat Pankhania, an infectious disease control expert at the University of Exeter College of Medicine, concurred.

“It’s a perfect storm for generating lots of cases which you won’t be able to deal with,” he said.

Organizers promise to enforce mask mandates, social distancing and crowd limits, as well as the possibility of increased testing sites, two Iraqi government officials said.

The health care protocols are “critical but can be managed,” one government official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity.

And the Vatican has taken its own precautions, with the 84-year-old pope, his 20-member Vatican entourage and the 70-plus journalists on the papal plane all vaccinated.

But the Iraqis gathering in the north, center and south of the country to attend Francis’ indoor and outdoor Masses, hear his speeches and participate in his prayer meetings are not vaccinated.

And that, scientists say, is the problem.

“We are in the middle of a global pandemic. And it is important to get the correct messages out,” Pankhania said. “The correct messages are: the less interactions with fellow human beings, the better.”

He questioned the optics of the Vatican delegation being inoculated while the Iraqis are not, and noted that Iraqis would only take such risks to go to those events because the pope was there.

In words addressed to Vatican officials and the media, he said: “You are all protected from severe disease. So if you get infected, you’re not going to die. But the people coming to see you may get infected and may die.”

“Is it wise under that circumstance for you to just turn up? And because you turn up, people turn up to see you and they get infected?” he asked.

The World Health Organization was diplomatic when asked about the wisdom of a papal trip to Iraq, saying countries should evaluate the risk of an event against the infection situation, and then decide if it should be postponed.

“It’s all about managing that risk,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead on COVID-19. “It’s about looking at the epidemiologic situation in the country and then making sure that if that event is to take place, that it can take place as safely as possible.”

Francis has said he intends to go even if most Iraqis have to watch him on television to avoid infection. The important thing, he told Catholic News Service, is “they will see that the pope is there in their country.”

Francis has frequently called for an equitable distribution of vaccines and respect for government health measures, though he tends to not wear face masks. Francis for months has eschewed even socially distanced public audiences at the Vatican to limit the chance of contagion.

Dr. Michael Head, senior research fellow in global health at the University of Southampton’s Faculty of Medicine, said the number of new daily cases in Iraq is “increasing significantly at the moment” with the Health Ministry reporting around 4,000 a day, close to the height of its first wave in September.

Head said for any trip to Iraq, there must be infection control practices in force, including mask-wearing, hand-washing, social distancing and good ventilation in indoor spaces.

“Hopefully we will see proactive approaches to infection control in place during the pope’s visit to Baghdad,” he said.

The Iraqi government imposed a modified lockdown and curfew in mid-February amid a new surge in cases, closing schools and mosques and leaving restaurants and cafes only open for takeout. But the government decided against a full shutdown because of the difficulty of enforcing it and the financial impact on Iraq’s battered economy, the Iraqi officials told AP.

Many Iraqis remain lax in using masks and some doubt the severity of the virus.

Madani, the Harvard virologist, urged trip organizers to let science and data guide their decision-making.

A decision to reschedule or postpone the papal trip, or move it to a virtual format, would “be quite impactful from a global leadership standpoint” because “it would signal prioritizing the safety of Iraq’s public,” she said.

___

Kullab reported from Baghdad. Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed.

HEPHASTEUS WORKSHOP

Explainer: Mount Etna puts on its latest spectacular show
By FRANCES D'EMILIO

February 25, 2021


Flames and smoke billowing from a crater, as seen from the southern side of the Mt Etna volcano, tower over the city of Pedara, Sicily, Wednesday night, Feb. 24, 2021. Europe's most active volcano has been steadily erupting since last week, belching smoke, ash, and fountains of red-hot lava. (AP Photo/Salvatore Allegra)


ROME (AP) — Mount Etna, the volcano that towers over eastern Sicily, evokes superlatives. It is Europe’s most active volcano and also the continent’s largest.

And the fiery, noisy show of power it puts on for days or weeks, even years every so often, is always super spectacular. Fortunately, Etna’s latest eruption captivating the world’s attention has caused neither injuries nor evacuation.

But each time it roars back into dramatic action, it wows onlookers and awes geologists who spend their careers monitoring its every quiver, rumble and belch.

WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW?



On Feb. 16, Etna erupted, sending up high fountains of lava, which rolled down the mountain’s eastern slope toward the uninhabited Bove Valley, which is five kilometers (three miles) wide and eight kilometers (five miles) long. The volcano has belched out ash and lava stones that showered the southern side.

The activity has been continuing since, in bursts more or less intense. The flaming lava lights up the night sky in shocking hues of orange and red. There’s no telling how long this round of exciting activity will last, say volcanologists who work at the Etna Observatory run by the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology.

While public fascination began with the first dramatic images this month, the explosive activity began in September 2019, becoming much stronger two months ago. The current activity principally involves the south-east crater, which was created in 1971 from a series of fractures.

HARD TO MISS

Etna towers 3,350 meters (around 11,050 feet) above sea level and is 35 kilometers (22 miles) in diameter, although the volcanic activity has changed the mountain’s height over time.

Occasionally, the airport at Catania, eastern Sicily’s largest city, has to close down for hours or days, when ash in the air makes flying in the area dangerous. Early in this recent spell of eruptive activity, the airport closed briefly.

But for pilots and passengers flying to and from Catania at night when the volcano is calmer, a glimpse of fiery red in the dark sky makes for an exciting sight.




LIVING WITH A VOLCANO

With Etna’s lava flows largely contained to its uninhabited slopes, life goes in towns and villages elsewhere on the mountain. Sometimes, like in recent days, lava stones rain down on streets, bounce off cars and rattle roofs.

But many residents generally find that a small inconvenience when weighted against the benefits the volcano brings. Lava flows have left fertile farmland. Apple and citrus trees flourish. Etna red and whites are some of Sicily’s most popular wines, from grapes grown on the volcanic slopes.

Tourism rakes in revenues. Hikers and backpackers enjoy views of the oft-puffing mountain and the sparkling Ionian Sea below. For skiers who want uncrowded slopes, Etna’s a favorite.

IT CAN BE DEADLY

Inspiring ancient Greek legends, Etna has had scores of known eruptions in its history. An eruption in 396 B.C. has been credited with keeping the army of Carthage at bay.

In 1669, in what has been considered the volcano’s worst known eruption, lava buried a swath of Catania, about 23 kilometers (15 miles) away and devastated dozens of villages. An eruption in 1928 cut off a rail route circling the mountain’s base.

More recently, in 1983, dynamite was used to divert lava threatening inhabited areas. In 1992, the army built an earthen wall to contain the lava, flowing from Etna for months, from hitting Zafferana Etnea, a village of a few thousand people. At one point, the smoking lava stopped two kilometers (just over a mile) from the edge of town.

Over the last century, a hiccup in geological time, low-energy explosive eruptions and lava flows, both fed from the summit and side vents, have characterized Etna.

After oil spill, Israel’s fishermen net catch despite ban

By ILAN BEN ZION and ALON BERNSTEIN

February 25, 2021


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Fishermen remove fish from nets after returning from a fishing trip on the Mediterranean Sea, in the Israeli Arab village of Jisr al-Zarqa, Israel, in the early morning of Thursday, Feb. 25, 2021. After weathering a year of the coronavirus pandemic, an oil spill in the Mediterranean whose culprits remain at large delivered another blow for the fishermen of Jisr al-Zarqa.

 (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

JISR AL-ZARQA, Israel (AP) — After weathering a year of the coronavirus pandemic, the fishermen of an Arab village in central Israel have been dealt another blow by a mysterious oil spill in the Mediterranean.

Grappling with its worst ecological disaster in years, the government this week ordered a precautionary ban on selling seafood.

Despite the ban, Jisr al-Zarqa’s fishermen went to sea Thursday to bring in their catch.

Sami Ali, a representative for the village’s fishermen, insisted it was safe to keep on fishing.

“The tar floats on the sea, on the water, it doesn’t penetrate deep. It does damage to the reefs, maybe also seaweed, the beach and many facilities. Also it damaged our equipment,” he said. “But the fish do not eat things that are not natural.”

Scientists disagree, and say it’s far too risky to keep fishing as they continue to analyze the disaster.

Over 90% of Israel’s 195 kilometer (120 mile) Mediterranean coastline was covered in an estimated 1,000 tons of black tar, the result of an oil spill out at sea earlier this month. The pollution has swept north to neighboring Lebanon and has caused extensive damage to the ecosystem, killing seabirds, endangered green sea turtles and other marine life.

The government has not yet identified who it believes is responsible for the spill, and has blocked publication of details of the investigation, saying doing so could jeopardize its efforts to bring those responsible to justice. The clean-up is expected to take months.

Authorities have banned people from visiting beaches because of the tar’s toxicity, and on Wednesday the Health Ministry issued a ban on the sale of all Mediterranean seafood until further notice.

The ministry said that although it had yet to receive evidence indicating a health risk, the ban was meant as a precautionary measure. It said fish were being tested to determine the level of pollution, and that it had notified fishermen and fishmongers of the ban.

Jisr al-Zarqa, an impoverished Arab village on Israel’s coast south of Haifa, is already feeling the pains of the coronavirus pandemic’s economic fallout. The community is one of Israel’s poorest and has long protested what it considers discriminatory treatment by the Israeli government. Only half of the village’s fishermen, around 20 people, went to sea Thursday to bring in the morning catch in spite of the ban.

While Ali isn’t worried about pollution contaminating the fish, he is worried about how plunging sales this week have deepened the community’s financial struggles.

“We didn’t manage to sell much. Some of it we ate with our families,” Ali said.

Thousands of volunteers have taken up the task of cleaning the poisonous tar off Israel’s coast. But every day the sea belches up fresh batches.

“No one knows how much tar is out there, at the bottom of the sea or other places,” said Arik Rosenblum, director of EcoOcean, the organization leading the volunteer efforts.

Along with government authorities, EcoOcean has launched instruments into the sea that can detect the presence of oil and give researchers a better picture.

The oil spill’s impact on the coastal ecosystem has yet to be fully assessed, but is estimated to be enormous, said Noa Shenkar, a marine biologist from Tel Aviv University’s school of zoology.

“We have a very solid database of how it was before the oil spill,” she told The Associated Press. “But we have learned from oil spills in other places in the world that the damage to biodiversity is usually very significant, and for several years you can see the impact.”

The Environmental Protection Ministry says it received no prior warning of the oil spill from international agencies, and that it is doing its utmost to contend with the disaster. Environmental groups and scientists in Israel have charged that the ministry was slow to take action to prevent the petroleum from reaching Israel’s shoreline.

For fishermen like those in Jisr al-Zarqa, the oil spill’s impact will be long term.

“We have suffered the heaviest and most immediate blow,” Ali said, while complaining that polluting industries like offshore gas rigs have received “legitimacy in the seascape.”

“For us, the sea is not just a source of income, it’s our heritage,” he said.

SEE

Oil spill threatens to be ecological disaster for Lebanon coast

“Disaster”: Oil spill stains Israel’s coastline, reaches Lebanon

In oil-rich Iraq, a few women buck norms, take rig site jobs

HOW MANY WOMEN ON THE RIGS IN ALBERTA

By SAMYA KULLAB

Ayat Rawthan, a petrochemical engineer, poses for a photo near an oil field outside Basra, Iraq, Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2021. Rawthan is among just a handful of women who have eschewed the dreary office jobs typically handed to female petrochemical engineers in Iraq. Instead, they chose to become trailblazers in the country’s oil industry, taking up the grueling work of drilling. (AP Photo/Nabil al-Jourani)

BASRA, Iraq (AP) — It’s nearly dawn and Zainab Amjad has been up all night working on an oil rig in southern Iraq. She lowers a sensor into the black depths of a well until sonar waves detect the presence of the crude that fuels her country’s economy.

Elsewhere in the oil-rich province of Basra, Ayat Rawthan is supervising the assembly of large drill pipes. These will bore into the Earth and send crucial data on rock formations to screens sitting a few meters (feet) away that she will decipher.

The women, both 24, are among just a handful who have eschewed the dreary office jobs typically handed to female petroleum engineers in Iraq. Instead, they chose to become trailblazers in the country’s oil industry, donning hard hats to take up the grueling work at rig sites.


They are part of a new generation of talented Iraqi women who are testing the limits imposed by their conservative communities. Their determination to find jobs in a historically male-dominated industry is a striking example of the way a burgeoning youth population finds itself increasingly at odds with deeply entrenched and conservative tribal traditions prevalent in Iraq’s southern oil heartland.

The hours Amjad and Rawthan spend in the oil fields are long and the weather unforgiving. Often they are asked what — as women — they are doing there.

“They tell me the field environment only men can withstand,” said Amjad, who spends six weeks at a time living at the rig site. “If I gave up, I’d prove them right.”

Iraq’s fortunes, both economic and political, tend to ebb and flow with oil markets. Oil sales make up 90% of state revenues — and the vast majority of the crude comes from the south. A price crash brings about an economic crisis; a boom stuffs state coffers. A healthy economy brings a measure of stability, while instability has often undermined the strength of the oil sector. Decades of wars, civil unrest and invasion have stalled production.

Following low oil prices dragged down by the coronavirus pandemic and international disputes, Iraq is showing signs of recovery, with January exports reaching 2.868 million barrels per day at $53 per barrel, according to Oil Ministry statistics.

To most Iraqis, the industry can be summed up by those figures, but Amjad and Rawthan have a more granular view. Every well presents a set of challenges; some required more pressure to pump, others were laden with poisonous gas. “Every field feels like going to a new country,” said Amjad.

Given the industry’s outsized importance to the economy, petrochemical programs in the country’s engineering schools are reserved for students with the highest marks. Both women were in the top 5% of their graduating class at Basra University in 2018.

In school they became awestruck by drilling. To them it was a new world, with it’s own language: “spudding” was to start drilling operations, a “Christmas tree” was the very top of a wellhead, and “dope” just meant grease.

Every work day plunges them deep into the mysterious affairs below the Earth’s crust, where they use tools to look at formations of minerals and mud, until the precious oil is found. “Like throwing a rock into water and studying the ripples,” explained Rawthan.



To work in the field, Amjad, the daughter of two doctors, knew she had to land a job with an international oil company — and to do that, she would have to stand out. State-run enterprises were a dead end; there, she would be relegated to office work.

“In my free time, on my vacations, days off I was booking trainings, signing up for any program I could,” said Amjad.

When China’s CPECC came to look for new hires, she was the obvious choice. Later, when Texas-based Schlumberger sought wireline engineers she jumped at the chance. The job requires her to determine how much oil is recoverable from a given well. She passed one difficult exam after another to get to the final interview.

Asked if she was certain she could do the job, she said: “Hire me, watch.”

In two months she traded her green hard hat for a shiny white one, signifying her status as supervisor, no longer a trainee — a month quicker than is typical.

Rawthan, too, knew she would have to work extra hard to succeed. Once, when her team had to perform a rare “sidetrack” — drilling another bore next to the original — she stayed awake all night.

“I didn’t sleep for 24 hours, I wanted to understand the whole process, all the tools, from beginning to end,” she said.

Rawthan also now works for Schlumberger, where she collects data from wells used to determine the drilling path later on. She wants to master drilling, and the company is a global leader in the service.

Relatives, friends and even teachers were discouraging: What about the hard physical work? The scorching Basra heat? Living at the rig site for months at a time? And the desert scorpions that roam the reservoirs at night?

“Many times my professors and peers laughed, ‘Sure, we’ll see you out there,’ telling me I wouldn’t be able to make it,” said Rawthan. “But this only pushed me harder.”

Their parents were supportive, though. Rawthan’s mother is a civil engineer and her father, the captain of an oil tanker who often spent months at sea.

“They understand why this is my passion,” she said. She hopes to help establish a union to bring like-minded Iraqi female engineers together. For now, none exists.

The work is not without danger. Protests outside oil fields led by angry local tribes and the unemployed can disrupt work and sometimes escalate into violence toward oil workers. Confronted every day by flare stacks that point to Iraq’s obvious oil wealth, others decry state corruption, poor service delivery and joblessness.

But the women are willing to take on these hardships. Amjad barely has time to even consider them: It was 11 p.m., and she was needed back at work.

“Drilling never stops,” she said.