#DISARM   #DEFUND  #DISBAND

France’s Senate approves the right of police to carry weapons off duty

Issued on: 20/03/2021 

French gendarmes (national police) are equipped with the SIG Sauer SP 2022 9mm pistol, pictured here at the German-Swiss company’s stand at the European Police Congress in Berlin, Germany on February 15, 2011. © John MacDougall, AFP

Text by: Aude MAZOUE

France’s Senate passed Thursday Article 25 of a security law that allows off-duty police officers to carry their firearms into public establishments such as theatres and shopping centres, and forbids the management of such places from preventing it. The article drew opposition from across the political spectrum despite its passage.

Not as well known as the same security law’s Article 24, which aimed to criminalise the dissemination of images of police officers that could harm their “physical or mental integrity” and sparked widespread protests in France, Article 25 provides that local officers and gendarmes (national police) who carry their weapons while off-duty can no longer be refused access to places like museums, cinemas, shopping centres and schools, which France classifies as ERP – establishments open to the public.

While French senators passed Article 25 by a vote of 214 to 121 without any changes to the version already approved by the lower-house National Assembly, the article raised questions and provoked an outcry from senators of all political persuasions.

French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin pointed out during the Senate’s debate that police officers carrying weapons while off-duty is not a new phenomenon. Since 2016, officers have had the right to carry their firearms outside working hours if they have requested it from superiors. Today, more than 30,000 officers in France bring their firearms home.

“We’re not setting the world on fire,” Darmanin said of Article 25.

“There is simply a custom that the owner of the establishment receiving the public can refuse entry” to an off-duty officer carrying a gun, Darmanin said to senators. To end this custom, “we are proposing to introduce legislation … which should please the legislators that you are.”

But not all present were pleased. A series of amendments aimed at eliminating Article 25 was defended by lawmakers from the Socialist and Green parties, as well as senators from the communist-majority CRCE and European Democratic and Social Rally groups. Furthermore, more than 20 senators among the chamber’s centrists, right-of-centre Les Républicains and Independents also backed the amendments.

‘Not a trivial matter’

“Deciding to carry a weapon is not a trivial matter," said Laurent Lafon, a centrist senator from the Val-de-Marne département (administrative area) in the Paris region. “First of all, for the police and the gendarmes themselves. But also for others. How would we feel if we saw a person in a theatre wearing civilian clothes and carrying a weapon sitting next to us? Would we feel reassured, or would we feel worried?”

Lafon’s arguments were shared by Sylvie Robert, a Socialist senator from the western Ille-et-Vilaine département. “Nothing proves that an armed policeman makes an ERP more secure.”

“We must move away from this simplistic logic," Robert added, bringing up the possibility of an "accident" if a weapon is dropped or stolen.

Anne-Sophie Simpere, an advocacy officer at Amnesty International France, said that “all measures that further facilitate the carrying of weapons are regressive” in an interview with FRANCE 24.

“This measure places a heavy responsibility on police and gendarmes, who must always be ready to act even in a place of celebration. What would happen if one of them were to drink while carrying their weapon?” Simpere said. “It would have been good to carry out a study to determine whether this type of measure is truly necessary.”

Festival organisers also fear that security staff will now be forced to let armed plainclothes officers in with a simple police identity card, which can be easily falsified.

‘False debate’

But Denis Jacob, the secretary general of Alternative Police, a union associated with the CFDT labour federation, told FRANCE 24 that concerns about Article 25 constitute a “false debate”.

“Since 2016, police officers have been going to public places with a hidden firearm in a holster or a bag in the summertime, and it’s never been a problem,” Jacob said. “On the contrary, it is an additional security guarantee to know that police officers and gendarmes can intervene in case of an attack.

“French police officers are still far from their American counterparts, who have full authority to use their weapons. In France, weapons’ use remains extremely restricted, and weapons can only be used in the strict context of legitimate defence.”

Frédéric Ploquin, a police specialist and the author of the book Les Narcos français brisent l'omerta (French narcotics agents break the code of silence) also has a positive view of Article 25.

"Firstly, there is no obligation for officers to carry a weapon off duty,” Ploquin said to FRANCE 24. “And it’s only a question of intervention in a terrorist context like the Bataclan,” he said, referring to the Paris concert hall where armed Islamist militants killed 90 people on November 13, 2015.

“Many [officers] confided to me that they don’t want to hide with others under the tables in case of an attack. They prefer to intervene for the love of the job,” Ploquin said. STRANGE LOVE

Whether reassuring or alarming, the French Senate has spoken on Article 25. Since it was adopted by both chambers of parliament on the first reading, the article cannot be amended in the National Assembly.

This article was translated from the original in French.

Morocco’s cannabis farmers: ‘Poor and living in fear’

In Morocco’s impoverished Rif mountains, cannabis farming provides an essential economic lifeline. Now, the Moroccan government looks set to legalise the drug’s use, cultivation and export for medicine and industry. But many farmers, who say they face poverty, the fear of arrest and exploitation by dealers and traffickers, are not convinced the law change will do much to improve their lives.

Myanmar’s fleeing police officers put India in a tight spot

Issued on: 19/03/2021 - 

Myanmar nationals who say they are fleeing policemen display the three-finger salute in a temporary shelter at an undisclosed location in India's northeastern state of Mizoram on March 13, 2021. 

© Sajjad Hussain, AFP

Text by: Leela JACINTO


The arrival in India of Myanmar nationals, who say they are police officers fleeing junta orders to shoot at unarmed demonstrators protesting against the February coup, has put India in a sensitive position. The popular mood in India’s border Mizoram state to help ethnic kin across the border must be balanced with regional geostrategic interests.

When Myanmar’s military seized power in a February 1 coup, authorities and residents in the northeast Indian state of Mizoram immediately knew their state – which shares a 404-kilometre border with Myanmar – would catch a cold from the junta’s latest sneeze.

The Mizos of Mizoram have ethnic and cultural ties with the Chins across the border in Myanmar’s western Chin state. Both Mizos and Chins belong to the Zo ethnic group, which was divided by colonial borders that were accepted by postcolonial administrations in India, Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Mizoram’s residents were unequivocal about which side they supported in the oncoming clash between Myanmar’s military – called the Tatmadaw – and its citizens. Just two days after the shock coup announcement, students in Mizoram’s capital, Aizawl, held demonstrations where banners demanding the restoration of democracy and proclaiming solidarity with “our Zo brothers in Myanmar” were displayed.

Mizo artists and musicians got on the job, producing artworks and songs assuring their fellow Zos in Myanmar that their protests against the dreaded Tatmadaw – which has cracked down against the ethnic Chin minority in the past – would not go unheard across the border.

“To all my brothers and sisters of Myanmar, I just want to let you know that you are not alone in the struggles you’re facing right now,” intoned Mizoram’s best-known singer, Rebecca Saimawii, in a YouTube clip, before singing the revolutionary Burmese song, Kabar Ma Kyay Bu, which has turned into an anthem of sorts of the 2021 civil disobedience movement.

The discourse of Mizoram’s state authorities mirrored the popular mood. “If the people of Myanmar have to flee the military, Mizoram will welcome them with open arms and give them food and shelter,” Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga – who uses one name – told the state assembly on February 25.

So, when small groups of Chins began crossing the shallow Tiau River into India’s remote northeastern border districts, it was an expected development that would have gone largely unnoticed by the Indian national, and certainly the international, media.

But by the end of February, reports emerged that the refugees included less than a dozen police officers who said they were fleeing Tatmadaw orders to shoot at unarmed demonstrators protesting the coup.

Their arrival coincided with a toughening response by Burmese security forces after an initial period of relative restraint following the February 1 coup. With world attention focused on Myanmar’s civil disobedience movement, news teams from India’s capital, New Delhi, started arriving in the country’s overlooked border districts to cover “the first reported case of police fleeing Myanmar”.

The development was “not surprising” but certainly “politically important”, according to Avinash Paliwal of London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies. “It shows that police officers are defecting, that there is resistance within Burmese institutions. They don’t want to shoot and kill unarmed protesters,” he explained.

It wasn’t long before Myanmar asked India to return the police officers. A district official in Mizoram told Reuters she received a letter from her counterpart in Myanmar’s Chin state that they had information about eight police officers who had crossed into India. “In order to uphold friendly relations between the two neighbour countries, you are kindly requested to detain eight Myanmar police personnel who had arrived to Indian territories [sic] and hand over to Myanmar,” the letter said.

The development put Indian authorities in a sensitive situation, one they would have preferred to handle quietly, away from the international media gaze, as they have in the past.

But the 2021 civil disobedience movement in Myanmar is unlike any of the previous protest movements in the 1980s and 1990s.

Asian giants compete for hearts, minds, markets

As the Tatmadaw unleashes a vicious crackdown on an unarmed citizenry, the bloodshed is unfolding in plain sight on social media, captured by tech-savvy young protesters manoeuvering Internet blackouts, and disseminated by activists and diaspora groups incensed by the human rights abuses.

Statements by regional and global powers, as well as multilateral bodies such as the UN, are parsed by concerned communities frustrated by the world’s incapacity to stop the brutality as death tolls rise with the junta showing no signs of bowing down to international opprobrium.

The outrage is also brewing in a region of intense strategic competition, where a soft power battle for hearts and minds – and markets – of the world is being waged in a pandemic age.

Myanmar’s location between India and China puts a spotlight on Asian powers that welcomed the Tatmadaw’s 2011 experiment with “tutelage democracy”, investing in massive infrastructure projects with little regard for the lack of scrutiny and civil rights guarantees in the country.

>> Read more on Myanmar’s ‘tutelage democracy’

With China and India, the world’s most populous nations, waging a great game of strategic influence in Myanmar, the country’s opposition movement is intensely focused on how their giant Asian neighbours respond to the current crisis.

Protesters staged demonstrations outside the Chinese embassy in Myanmar’s commercial capital, Yangon, weeks after the coup, accusing Beijing of supporting the military junta despite Chinese denials.

Meanwhile the Indian embassy in Myanmar earlier this month was forced to put out statements on Facebook and Twitter blasting “mischievous and biased” reports that India was among a group of nations – including China, Russia and Vietnam – that watered down a draft UN Security Council resolution that included the removal of any reference to a “coup”.

As Myanmar’s opposition movement clamours for international sanctions to cripple the Tatmadaw’s coffers, once shadowy border regions – where trafficking continued as national authorities managed cross-border ethnic insurgencies – are now getting unprecedented attention

New Delhi constrains Mizoram’s ‘open arms’

The recent request by a Chin state official to his Indian counterpart in Mizoram asking for the return of the police officers sparked a prompt response from the Indian central government in New Delhi.

Amid reports of hundreds of refugees, including women and children, crossing the frontier, India’s home [or interior] ministry last week issued a communiqué to officials in four states bordering Myanmar to take steps to prevent an illegal influx from the neighbouring country.

Law enforcement officials were directed to take “prompt steps in identifying the illegal migrants and initiate the deportation processes expeditiously and without delay", according to Indian media reports.

“The Mizoram state government had a more humanitarian approach that people with social linkages and historic ties across the border were in distress and fleeing persecution. Their stance was pretty clear, they didn’t mean to try to undermine India’s foreign policy towards Myanmar. But it puts New Delhi in an awkward position especially since Myanmar asked New Delhi to extradite the police officers,” explained Paliwal.

Vulnerable refugee groups at the mercy of national, regional interests

The plight of the Myanmar migrants in Mizoram was taken up by the New Delhi-based NGO, the National Campaign Against Torture (NCAT), which filed a complaint to India’s National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on March 8, urging it to process asylum applications. “The 11 Myanmar police personnel who refused to obey orders to crack down on the peaceful pro-democracy activists face certain torture and possibly death sentences in case of refoulement to Myanmar by the Government of India,” said NCAT coordinator, Suhas Chakma, in a statement.

But a week later, Chakma had still not received replies to the complaint or any word from local authorities on asylum applications. The National Human Rights Commission failed to respond to FRANCE 24’s queries despite repeated attempts.

“The government of India has directed the state government of Mizoram not to speak about the issue or about standard operating protocols because India and Myanmar have a very delicate relationship in terms of insurgent groups on both sides of the border,” explained Chakma in a phone interview with FRANCE 24 from New Delhi. “I hope the NHRC will take a decision that’s fair and impartial and also timely without delaying it to wait for the situation to cool down.”

India is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, a fact emphatically noted in the Indian home ministry’s letter to local authorities in the border states requesting them to “take appropriate action as per law to check illegal influx from Myanmar into India”.

“The fact that India doesn’t have a law to assist applications for naturalisation and refugee status leaves victims at the mercy of the central government,” explained Chakma. “If it’s a politically, or a geopolitically, important group, such as the Tibetans, nobody touches them.”

India is home to hundreds of thousands of refugees primarily from South Asia, and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) supports the Indian government with programmes assisting refugees fleeing conflicts and natural disasters.

But the fates for vulnerable refugee groups, such as the Rohingya Muslims, in India are precarious, subject to domestic religious nationalism or regional geopolitical concerns.

Joint India-Myanmar army operations in border areas

The Indo-Myanmar border region has been host to myriad armed ethnic groups on both sides of the 1,400-kilometre frontier for decades.

The Tamadaw’s troubled relationship with Myanmar’s diverse ethnic minorities has swung from deadly “pacification” operations to ceasefires that open resource-rich border areas to infrastructure projects and investments in what some experts call “ceasefire capitalism”.

>> Read more on Myanmar’s troubled union and ‘ceasefire capitalism’

However, the ceasefire deals tend to be precarious as locals – deprived of their lands while deriving little or no advantage from projects that enrich the Tatmadaw – join militant splinter groups, keeping up low intensity insurgencies in Myanmar’s border areas.

India has also faced a low intensity insurgency problem along its Myanmar border that has subsided in recent years. While any problem along India’s western border with Pakistan will dominate the national news for weeks, the insurgencies in India’s northeastern states however tend to be overlooked.

In early 2019, for instance, while the media was focused on India-Pakistan tensions following an attack on Indian soldiers in Kashmir, the Indian and Myanmar armies conducted major joint operations targeting ethnic militant groups along the India-Myanmar border. The insurgents were targeted for threatening the Kaladan Project that will link Myanmar’s Sitwe seaport to India’s Mizoram to the north and Calcutta to the west, according to Indian media reports.

A year later, the Tatmadaw handed over 22 militants captured in Myanmar to India in what was described as a “huge message” to insurgent groups “that Naypyidaw is in sync with New Delhi”.

Playing off India and China

Myanmar is strategically important for New Delhi, particularly under the current administration’s “Act East” policies aimed at extending India’s economic relations with Southeast Asia.China, which has a bigger political and economic footprint in Myanmar, considers its southern neighbour part of its historic zone of influence, one that is increasingly important for Beijing’s maritime access to the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea.

Aware of the competition, the Tatmadaw has effectively played off its competing neighbours, drawing in Indian investments in a bid to decrease China’s strategic hold on Myanmar.

Both India and China cooperated with Myanmar’s ousted leader, Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party before the February 1 coup. But with senior NLD leaders – including Suu Kyi – behind bars since the military takeover, Beijing and New Delhi have to play a delicate balancing act in Myanmar.

“India is very concerned that the junta doesn’t go exclusively in the hands of China, so Myanmar’s refugees are a very sensitive issue,” explained Chakma.

“China and India are unhappy with the coup because it affects stability and their economic interests in the region. But every country knows they have to deal with the Tatmadaw. New Delhi has a delicate balancing act maintaining pressure on the Tatmadaw while ensuring stability, the safety of the Indian community in Myanmar, and its interests,” explained Paliwal. “But these regional powers risk becoming truly redundant in a political sense if they don't work together to find a quick solution to the crisis. Indian and Chinese infrastructural connectivity projects will suffer hugely with acute instability and civil violence in Myanmar.”

 

More than five million people have fled Syria since the start of the country's decade-long war, with little or no prospect of returning home. While the vast majority live in neighbouring countries, such as Turkey and Lebanon, others have crossed oceans and continents to start a new life far from their loved ones. FRANCE 24 brings you some of their stories.

Meeting the Syrian refugees exiled by war - FRANCE 24

Algerians demonstrate in their thousands to demand free press, judiciary

Issued on: 19/03/2021 - 

Algerians march during a demonstration in Algeria's capital, Algiers, 

on March 19, 2021. © Ryad Kramdi, AFP

Text by: NEWS WIRES

Thousands protested in Algiers Friday to demand press freedom and judicial independence, as the Hirak pro-democracy movement keeps up its weekly demonstrations, despite a ban on gatherings due to the coronavirus pandemic

The Hirak protest movement was sparked in February 2019 over then-president Abdelaziz Bouteflika's bid for a fifth term in office.

The ailing strongman was forced to step down weeks later, but the Hirak continued with demonstrations, demanding a sweeping overhaul of a ruling system in place since Algeria's independence from France in 1962.

"Freedom means expressing myself how I want and not how you want," one placard on Friday read.

Press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranked Algeria 146 out of 180 countries and territories in its 2020 World Press Freedom Index, a 27-place drop from 2015.

Several journalists were assaulted at the demonstration a week earlier, and Algerian authorities have threatened to permanently withdraw international broadcaster FRANCE 24's media accreditation.

"Nothing justifies attacking a journalist or any other person," said Ali, a retired teacher in his sixties who declined to provide his surname.

He told AFP he hoped for "free, professional and above all objective and impartial press".

Protesters also called for an "independent judiciary".

Since the movement's second anniversary on February 22, thousands have taken to the streets for weekly protests, which had been suspended for almost a year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Friday's demonstration came as Algeria marked the anniversary of the March 19, 1962, ceasefire that ended its war of independence from France.

"19 March 1962: ceasefire, 19 March 2021: cease repression," one protest sign read.

"Return the power to the people," protesters demanded, addressing the ruling class.

Demonstrators also criticised President Abdelmadjid Tebboune's decision to call early elections on June 12 in an attempt to assuage the country's political and economic crisis.

Tebboune has reached out to the protest movement while also seeking to neutralise it.

"No elections with the mafia gang (in power)," protesters chanted.

Local media reported demonstrations in several other cities, despite poor weather.

 

Is this a tipping point? Protests in UK and Australia calling for end to gender violence

A tide of anger sweeps across the English-speaking world as women in Australia and the UK take to the streets to demand an end to gender violence. Annette Young talks to Tabitha Morton, the deputy leader of the UK's Women's Equality Party as to whether this massive outcry is set to become a tipping point.

Also a ban on girls singing in public imposed by Afghanistan's government is overturned. This after a social media campaign called #IamMySong has women sharing videos of themselves belting out their favourite tunes.

Plus we meet South Africa's first female helicopter pilot who's established a foundation to train hundreds of young women in aviation.

Turkey quits landmark Istanbul Convention protecting women from violence

Issued on: 20/03/2021 - 

Women protest against Turkey's withdrawal from Istanbul Convention, an international accord designed to protect women, in Ankara on March 20, 2021. © AFP - Adem Altan

Text by: NEWS WIRES|

Video by: Sanam SHANTYAE

Thousands protested in Turkey on Saturday calling for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to reverse his decision to withdraw from the world's first binding treaty to prevent and combat violence against women.

Erdogan’s overnight decree annulling Turkey’s ratification of the Istanbul Convention is a blow to women’s rights advocates, who say the agreement is crucial to combating domestic violence. Hundreds of women gathered in Istanbul to protest against the move on Saturday.

The Council of Europe's Secretary General, Marija Pejčinović Burić, called the decision "devastating."

“This move is a huge setback to these efforts and all the more deplorable because it compromises the protection of women in Turkey, across Europe and beyond,” she said.


04:17

The Istanbul Convention states that men and women have equal rights and obliges state authorities to take steps to prevent gender-based violence against women, protect victims and prosecute perpetrators.


Some officials from Erdogan’s Islam-oriented party had advocated for a review of the agreement, arguing it is inconsistent with Turkey's conservative values by encouraging divorce and undermining the traditional family unit.

Critics also claim the treaty promotes homosexuality through the use of categories like gender, sexual orientation and gender identity. They see that as a threat to Turkish families. Hate speech has been on the rise in Turkey, including the interior minister who described LGBT people as “perverts” in a tweet. Erdogan has rejected their existence altogether.

Women’s groups and their allies who have been protesting to keep the convention intact immediately called for demonstrations across the country Saturday under the slogan “Withdraw the decision, implement the treaty.” They said their years-long struggle would not be erased in one night.

Rights groups say violence against and killing of women is on the rise in Turkey but the interior minister called that a “complete lie” on Saturday.

77 women killed since start of the year

A total of 77 women have been killed since the start of the year, according to the We Will Stop Femicide Platform. Some 409 women were killed in 2020, with dozens found dead under suspicious circumstances, according to the group.

Numerous women's rights groups slammed the decision. Advocacy group Women's Coalition Turkey said the withdrawal from a human rights agreement was a first in Turkey. “It is clear that this decision will further encourage the murderers of women, harassers, rapists,” their statement said.

Turkey's justice minister said the government was committed to combating violence against women.

“We continue to protect our people's honor, the family and our social fabric with determination," Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul tweeted.

Erdogan has repeatedly stressed the “holiness” of the family and called on women to have three children. His communications director, Fahrettin Altun, said the government's motto was ‘Powerful Families, Powerful Society."

Many women suffer physical or sexual violence at the hands of their husbands or partners, but up-to-date official statistics are unavailable. The Istanbul Convention requires states to collect data.

Hundreds of women and allies gathered in Istanbul, wearing masks and holding banners. Their demonstration has so far been allowed but the area was surrounded by police and a coronavirus curfew begins in the evening.

They shouted pro-LGBT slogans and called for Erdogan's resignation. They cheered as a woman speaking through a megaphone said, “You cannot close up millions of women in their homes. You cannot erase them from the streets and the squares.”

Turkey was the first country to sign the Council of Europe’s “Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence” at a committee of ministers meeting in Istanbul in 2011. The law came into force in 2014 and Turkey's constitution says international agreements have the force of law.

Some lawyers claimed Saturday that the treaty is still active, arguing the president cannot withdraw from it without the approval of parliament, which ratified the Istanbul Convention in 2012.

But Erdogan gained sweeping powers with his re-election in 2018, setting in motion Turkey changing from a parliamentary system of government to an executive presidency.

The justice minister wrote on Twitter that while parliament approves treaties which the executive branch puts into effect, the executive also has the authority to withdraw from them.

Women lawmakers from Turkey’s main opposition party said they will not recognize the decree and called it another “coup” on parliament, which had unanimously accepted the treaty, and a usurpation of the rights of 42 million women.

(AP)

Turkey quits Istanbul Convention on violence against women

Protests erupted in Turkey after President Erdogan decided to pull out of the landmark international convention which aims to protect women from violence


Erdogan's move prompted an outcry from activists

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has triggered nationwide protests for withdrawing Turkey from an international agreement to prevent violence against women.

The decision comes amid increasing calls in Turkey to combat domestic violence as femicide rates rise.

Turkish officials argue that national regulations are enough to ensure protection against gendered violence.

"The guarantee of women's rights are the current regulations in our bylaws, primarily our Constitution. Our judicial system is dynamic and strong enough to implement new regulations as needed," Family, Labour and Social Policies Minister Zehra Zumrut Selcuk said on Twitter.

How are women's rights groups responding today?

Women's rights activists reacted with dismay and called for street marches.

"I’m utterly appalled to learn that tonight Turkish government has officially announced they are withdrawing from Istanbul Convention. This in a country where three women are killed daily and femicide is a huge crisis," prominent Turkish author Elif Shafak wrote on Twitter.

Reporting from a rally in Istanbul, DW's Julia Hahn said many women responded to the decision with "anger and outrage."

Last year, senior politicians in Erdogan's conservative party, the AKP, "started arguing that this convention encourages immoral lifestyles like homosexuality. They were met with massive protests by women at the time," Hahn said.

But now "Erdogan has bowed in to pressure from hardliners in his coalition," Hahn continued, noting that the Turkish president is trying to use this issue "to re-energize his voter base amidst a period of economic downturn," she said.

Watch video 03:02 DW’s Julia Hahn reports from protest rally in Istanbul

As thousands rally across the nation today, organizers are expecting more protests in the next days and weeks to come, she added.

"Since even conservative women are in favor of the convention, there must be some kind of political rational from President Erdogan to come up with this decision at this time," reported Hahn

What is the Istanbul Convention?

The 2011 agreement, commonly referred to as the Istanbul Convention, was drafted by the Council of Europe in the Turkish city in 2011. It is a legal framework seeking to protect women and promote gender equality through legislation, education and spreading awareness.

According to the accord, signatories had to "take the necessary legislative and other measures to adopt and implement state-wide effective, comprehensive and coordinated policies encompassing all relevant measures" to prevent violence against women.

The convention was signed by 45 European countries, plus the EU as an institution.

Some conservatives in Turkey say the deal threatens family structures and promotes homosexuality, citing its principle of non-discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.

What is the situation for women in Turkey?

Women's rights groups had said Turkish authorities were not applying the legal norms of the Istanbul Convention nor providing the intended assistance and protective measures for women.

Watch video 05:00 Turkey: Violence against women

Activists also said the pullout was pushing Ankara further from aligning with the European Union's values, which Turkey remains a candidate to join.

At least 38% of women in Turkey are subject to domestic violence, according to the World Health Organization. The 'We Will Stop Femicide' platform reported 300 femicides in Turkey in 2020.

Hundreds of thousands of women had downloaded a smartphone app that Turkey created for them to report domestic violence, according to a Reuters report.

mb/dj (dpa, Reuters)

Turkey's Erdogan quits European treaty on violence against women

3/19/2021

ANKARA (Reuters) - President Tayyip Erdogan pulled Turkey out of an international accord designed to protect women, the country's official gazette said on Saturday, despite calls from campaigners who see the pact as key to combating rising domestic violence.

© Reuters/PRESIDENTIAL PRESS OFFICE 

Turkish President Erdogan talks to media after the Friday prayers in Istanbul

The Council of Europe accord, forged in Istanbul, pledged to prevent, prosecute and eliminate domestic violence and promote equality. Turkey, which signed the accord in 2011, saw a rise in femicides last year.

No reason was provided for the withdrawal, but officials in Erdogan's ruling AK Party had said last year the government was considering pulling out amid a row over how to curb growing violence against women.

"The guarantee of women's rights are the current regulations in our bylaws, primarily our Constitution. Our judicial system is dynamic and strong enough to implement new regulations as needed," Family, Labour and Social Policies Minister Zehra Zumrut said on Twitter, without providing a reason for the move.

Many conservatives in Turkey say the pact undermines family structures, encouraging violence. They are also hostile to the principle of gender equality in the Istanbul Convention and see it as promoting homosexuality, given its principle of non-discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation.

Critics of the withdrawal from the pact have said it would put Turkey further out of step with the values of the European Union, which it remains a candidate to join. They argue the deal, and legislation approved in its wake, need to be implemented more stringently.

Turkey is not the first country to move towards ditching the accord. Poland's highest court scrutinised the pact after a cabinet member said Warsaw should quit the treaty which the nationalist government considers too liberal.

Erdogan has condemned violence against women, including saying this month that his government would work to eradicate violence against women. But critics say his government has not done enough to prevent femicides and domestic violence.

Turkey does not keep official statistics on femicide. World Health Organization data has shown 38% of women in Turkey are subject to violence from a partner in their lifetime, compared to about 25% in Europe.

Ankara has taken measures such as tagging individuals known to resort to violence and creating a smartphone app for women to alert police, which has been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times.

Erdogan's decision comes after he unveiled judicial reforms this month that he said would improve rights and freedoms, and help meet EU standards. Turkey has been a candidate to join the bloc since 2005, but access talks have been halted over policy differences and Ankara's record on human rights.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Jane Wardell and William Mallard)

Senegalese youth inspired to work the land thanks to reality TV show

By: Nathalie GEORGES| Éric BERGERON

19 min

In a few weeks, the second season of the immensely popular reality TV show “Ferme Factory” (Farm Factory) will air across Senegal. But in contrast to the glitter and glamour usually associated with such shows, Ferme Factory is far from that: For four months, 20 contestants compete to get their hands as dirty as possible, facing various farming challenges, including both sowing and plowing. The winner is awarded with his or her very own farm, along with three years of agricultural training.

Aside from the entertainment value, the show is part of the government’s push to popularise the agriculture sector among the country’s youths, encouraging them to work the land rather than replacing the countryside with the city, or set out on the dangerous route of illegal migration.

Documentary by Arte

 Nowruz, the Persian New Year marking the start of spring, has been celebrated for millennia in West Asia, the Caucasus, the Balkans, the Black Sea Basin and South Asia. But in a pandemic year, a group of Franco-Iranians have taken the celebrations online, using technology to mark an ancient festival.

VIDEO Persian New Year 'Nowruz' festivities go online - France 24

Transfer of Stasi records agency closes a chapter of East German history

The Stasi Records Agency is a legacy of the peaceful revolution in the GDR. Now its name is disappearing, but its spirit is to live on elsewhere.

The Stasi Records Agency stored the secret service files from communist East Germany

This 
number is impressive enough, if not downright colossal: Since 1991, Germany's Stasi records agency received some 7,353,885 requests for access to the files of the Ministry for State Security (MfS) in former East Germany.

Almost half of these (46%) came from people who wanted to find out what the German Democratic Republic's (GDR) secret police, popularly known asthe "Stasi," knew about them personally: Their private lives, their political views, possible escape plans. All this and much more is contained in the informants' reports, which totaled 111 kilometers (68 miles) of files over the course of 40 years in the GDR.

During the peaceful revolution of 1989/90, East German civil rights activists prevented this Stasi legacy from being destroyed. And despite strong reservations in the West, it was thanks to their tireless commitment that the files were opened. A new office was created for this purpose in reunified Germany, with a name that was anything but catchy: the Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former German Democratic Republic. Colloquially, it became known as the Stasi Records Agency.

Watch video 03:45 Germany: Looking back on Stasi surveillance

Anniversaries triggered greater interest

Now its head, Roland Jahn, has presented his final report in Berlin. The 15th "activity report" marks the end of an era: in early summer the agency will disappear and the files will be moved to the federal archives, 31 years after they were saved — a decision made by parliament last November after years of discussion.

Jahn revealed that there were 23,686 requests for file inspection in 2020, significantly undercutting the previous year's figure (35,554). But the comparatively high number for 2019 may also have been due to the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The same phenomenon was observed on the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Wall. It seems that stronger media coverage of this historic event triggers a desire among many people to take a closer look at their own past.

The Stasi often played a painful role in many lives. "Some need a long time to deal with their biographies," said Roland Jahn. Among the applications, he said, 20% are now from relatives of deceased people seeking to confront the lives of their parents and grandparents in divided Germany.

Watch video 03:00 Recalling the occupation of the Berlin Stasi office

Requests from all over the world

The fact that the Stasi was and is far more than a purely East German issue can be seen from other figures. For example, well over 400,000 applications to inspect files came from western German states; more than 12%. The statistics also reflect a worldwide interest in the Stasi files: a good 21,000 requests come from 100 countries. The Stasi Records Agency has no information about who is behind them, though clearly many could be from former East Germans who emigrated.

But despite its imminent end, the Stasi Records Agency was for many a success story that has been admired around the world, serving as a model for many countries in Eastern Europe, as well as in Latin America and the Middle East, for how to confront past dictatorships. Once files are opened, perpetrators are often found and prosecuted. In some cases, victims find evidence of how their careers were obstructed for political reasons, and then financial reparations may be possible.

Roland Jahn, Marianne Birthler and Joachim Gauck were the heads of the Stasi archive
Check for Stasi past still possible

This will not change after the integration of this unique institution into the Federal Archives. Although it will lose its independence, the files will remain accessible, for the many victims of the GDR system as well as for researchers and journalists. It will also remain possible to research the past of state officials for potential Stasi ties until 2030, thanks to a legal amendment made in 2019.

Such spectacular revelations about Stasi history are now rare. This was of course different in the first decade of the agency, under the leadership of GDR civil rights activist, and future German President Joachim Gauck.

Some critics, such as the former press spokesman of the office, Christian Booss, consider the incorporation into the federal archives a mistake. "Stasi research was effectively wound up," the historian told DW, adding that claims to the contrary are a "labeling fraud."

He considers it a serious problem that the computer-assisted reconstruction of torn Stasi files is, as he puts it, "de facto dead."

Booss now heads the "Citizens' Committee January 15," an association that has set itself the goal of reappraising and preserving the former Stasi headquarters in Berlin.

Roland Jahn, however, believes that the "visibility of the Stasi Records Agency with its exemplary international function will remain even after its integration into the federal archive."

Jahn's term of office ends on June 17, a date chosen with care: It marks the anniversary of the popular uprising in the GDR in 1953, which was put down with the support of Soviet soldiers. The second revolution in divided Germany in 1989/90 was successful. It led to the end of the communist dictatorship and ultimately to Germany's reunification.

This article has been translated from German.