Controversial cleric’s ‘modesty call’ to Turkish volleyball team bounces back at him

Following a victory by the Turkish women's volleyball team over China at the Tokyo Olympics, the all-too-familiar debate on women’s decency and clothes raised its head when a cleric urged the players to observe modesty in dress and behavior.

Turkey's women's volleyball team celebrates after defeating China in a Women's Pool B match at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Ariake Arena on July 25, 2021, in Tokyo. - Toru Hanai/Getty Images

Nazlan Ertan
@NazlanEr
July 27, 2021

The 3-0 victory over China by Turkey's “Sultans of the Net,” the national women’s volleyball team, on July 25 at the Tokyo Olympics lifted national spirits and gave Turks a much-awaited victory on the international sports scene after a series of disappointments in soccer, the country’s most popular sport.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the team captain, Eda Erdem Dundar, to congratulate her and the team and promised to watch their next match, against Italy, which is ranked among the best globally. The Sultans lost 3-1. All eyes are now on their next game — against the United States — scheduled to take place July 29.

Amid the jubilation, however, an all-too-familiar debate on women’s decency and clothes raised its head when arch-conservative theologian Ihsan Senocak urged the volleyballers to observe modesty in dress and behavior.

“Daughter of Islam! You are the sultan of faith, chastity, morality and modesty .. not of sports fields,” he tweeted. “You are the child of mothers who refrain from showing their nose [out of modesty]. Don’t be … the victim of popular culture. You are our hope and our prayer.”

His tweet went viral immediately, with 47,000 likes and just as many protesting his words for bigotry and misogyny. Some blamed Senocak's words for the Sultans' defeat by Italy, saying they had been demoralized.

Senocak, a media-savvy figure with over 926,000 followers on Twitter, is no stranger to controversy with his fiery advocacy of a conservative lifestyle. In 2017, he criticized fathers who allowed their daughters to go to the university in “tight jeans” and “with plucked eyebrows” and said they were doomed. “Doesn’t your heart burn when you see your daughter, entrusted to you by God, like that? If it does not, you are destined for hell,” he had said.

The remark brought him a three-month suspension from Turkey’s General Directorate of Religious Affairs, known as Diyanet. He was restored to duty in early 2018, though he was given a peripheral post as “education expert” in the Black Sea city of Sinop.

Diyanet and its powerful leader, Ali Erbas, carefully refrained from comment on Senocak's remarks, but support for him came from Mehmet Boynukalin, the former imam of Hagia Sophia. “The hijab is the command of Allah; the dignity of Muslim women and the symbol of Islam. In many places like Maras [the southeastern city occupied by France at the end of the First World War], our War of Independence started because of the attack on the veil. Those who remind us of Allah's command and Ihsan Senocak are not alone,” he tweeted under the viral hashtag #IhsanSenocakisnotalone.

Pro-secular Twitter users shot back with a photo of Dundar taken during the game by photojournalist Mert Bulent Ucma, showing the team captain raising a determined index finger to an opponent.

Faced with a barrage of reactions, Senocak sought to explain himself both via Twitter and on TV, saying his intention was to “recall that the winning team was a team of Muslim women” and a reminder of what women “should and should not be in Islam.”

“What I have said is nothing new or out of line,” he told journalist Cuneyt Ozdemir. “I have even written a book titled ‘To the Daughter of Islam.' ... I am simply saying that they should practice sports but dress according to Islamic code of dress. … I have nothing against women playing volleyball or practicing sports.”

Attacks, verbal or physical, on women wearing shorts are growing common in Turkey. In 2016, a young Turkish woman, Aysegul Terzi, was attacked by a man on an Istanbul public bus for wearing shorts. Conservative pundits periodically criticize sportswomen for wearing body-revealing clothes; conservative papers such as Yeni Akit use photos that obscure sportswomen’s legs, prompting mirth in the pro-secular media.

But verbal attacks against women’s clothes do backfire. Last year, Birol Sahin, the mayor of the Black Sea town of Kaynasli from the far-right Nationalist Movement Party, faced disciplinary action when he referred to the Sultans as “exhibitionists” for wearing shorts. “Islam allows women to practice sports among each other … not while wearing scanty costumes in front of men,” he said when the team beat Germany last year to pave their way to the Tokyo Olympics. The party’s chairman, Devlet Bahceli, who had congratulated the team the day before, asked for Sahin’s resignation from the party.

“Volleyball is traditionally one of the fields where women excel ever since the 1970s,” Ahu Ozyurt, the editor-in-chief of WomenTV.com, told Al-Monitor. “Today, there are many good teams sponsored by giant corporations, from [pharmaceutical company] Eczacibasi to [state-owned bank] Vakifbank.”

In the last two years, Vakifbank in particular has been combing Anatolia to recruit talent. Giovanni Guidetti, who is the chief coach of both the National Women’s Volleyball Team and the Vakifbank team, heads the “Sultans of Tomorrow” platform that aims to empower girls in socioeconomically disadvantaged regions of Turkey through sports and to remove obstacles to their becoming professional athletes. Guidetti and his volleyball player wife, Pinar Toksoy, were named advocates for gender equality of the United Nations Development Program in Turkey in June 2020.

“Volleyball is more of a sport for urban women,” said Ozyurt. “But in Anatolia, there is another trend among girls. Girls from modest families start taking lessons in martial sports, sometimes given by some of the municipalities. For many, it is their ticket to travel, a scholarship, to friends and freedom.”

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Russia tries to compete with US in Mideast weapons market

Russia's prospects in the Middle East arms market will depend on its ability to master fast production of the latest models of military equipment.

A prototype of Russia's new Sukhoi Checkmate Fighter is on display during the presentation at the MAKS 2021 International Aviation and Space Salon, in Zhukovsky, outside Moscow, Russia, July 20, 2021. - Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images

Kirill Semenov
@IbnRasibi
TOPICS COVERED
Military Industry
August 2, 2021


The MAKS-2021 International Aviation and Space Salon, held in the Russian city of Zhukovsky just outside Moscow, concluded July 25 with over $3.5 billion in contracts awarded to attendees. Modern samples of Russian military equipment were presented throughout the six days of the show, including combat aircraft, helicopters, drones and anti-aircraft missile systems. The greatest interest was aroused by the demo model of the newest Russian tactical fighter, the Sukhoi LTS, which has already received the unofficial nickname of “Su-75 Checkmate.” Russia has especially emphasized that the countries of the Middle East could become its potential buyers. In terms of its characteristics and dimensions, Moscow is marketing the fighter as a close analogue of the American F-35.

While the list of states with which military weapons contracts were concluded has not been disclosed, it was announced that Russia reached preliminary agreements with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the supply of civilian helicopters.

Although the first recipient of the Sukhoi LTS fighters will be the Russian Ministry of Defense, there is indication that there are plans for a focus on export. It has already been reported that deliveries of the fighter abroad could begin in about 5½ years. The point price of a new fighter for a foreign customer will be about $30 million, excluding any additional costs. Yet the contract price of the aircraft may turn out to be significantly higher, in the range of $55 to $70 million. This fighter will be able to compete in price not only with the much more expensive fifth-generation aircraft of the F-35 type, but also with the remaining so-called “generation 4+” fighters of the F-type, including the latest F-16.

The Su-75 may indeed garner interest in the Middle East, where many states are in need of modern 5th generation fighters. The states that produce such jets, primarily the United States and China, are extremely reluctant to export them. Therefore, for the time being, most countries in the region with the appropriate financial capabilities are forced to be content with aircraft of the 4+ generation. The only exception is Israel, which has received F-35s. While a deal to sell F-35s to the UAE was announced in the final days of the Trump administration, it has faced difficulties and no date has been set for delivery.

The absence of a Russian-made new 5th generation fighter — ready for full-scale production and export — reduces Moscow's ability to gain a foothold in the arms markets and those Middle Eastern countries where Russia has already been able to supply certain samples of its modern weapons. The sale of S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems to Turkey was an absolute success of Russia. This has already caused controversy between Ankara and Washington, and led to the United States expelling Turkey from the F-35 program. However, Russia was unable to take full advantage of this development, since it could not offer Turkey an alternative to this American fighter jet.

The Russian fifth-generation aircraft Su-57 is still far from the start of mass production. The jet is still produced in individual copies, a time-consuming process that is unlikely to be able to satisfy the needs of the Russian Aerospace Forces themselves in the near future. The aircraft has not been accepted into service in the Russian military. Moreover, it is prohibitively expensive. In this situation, there are hardly any buyers who would want to get a combat aircraft that is not used by the manufacturing country itself. However, if the Su-57 were launched into mass production, it cannot be ruled out that Ankara could purchase a small batch of these aircraft in order to put additional pressure on Washington to lift the blockage of F-35 sales to Turkey.

In addition to the United States, Russia is also competing with China, which is ahead of Russia in the development and production of fifth-generation aircraft and may bring its jets to the Middle East arms market earlier than Russian ones. We are talking about the heavy Chinese fighter Chengdu J-20, which is used by the Chinese military but will not be exported until the needs of the Chinese armed forces are met. Also in China, a lighter 5th generation fighter — Shenyang FC-31 — has been developed and, unlike the Russian Su-75, it has already passed several stages of flight tests.

Russia's difficulty in accessing the arms markets of the rich Middle Eastern states, primarily the Persian Gulf countries, is explained by the absence of mass production of any modern types of weapons that go beyond modernized Soviet models.

In the 1990s, Russia had strong military-technical ties with the states of the Persian Gulf, since at that time it possessed types of weapons that were modern for this period, created in the last years of the USSR, which were of interest to the Arab monarchies. It was then that Russia was able to deliver large batches of BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles, Smerch and Uragan MLRS, Pantsir air defense missile systems and other weapons systems to the UAE and Kuwait. However, in Russia itself the creation and design of new types of weapons ceased until the 2000s.

Thus, Russia will likely return to the arms market of the Gulf states only after new types of weapons enter full-scale mass production in Russia itself. In addition to the above-mentioned Su-57 and Su-75 combat jets, this applies to the T-14 Armata tank, the T-15 and Kurganets infantry fighting vehicles, the Boomerang wheeled combat armored vehicles, the coalition artillery systems, among others. Although these weapons have been shown at parades and exhibitions for many years and Moscow has announced the start of their serial production, in fact they have not yet been made in any noticeable volume and are still a rather experimental series. It is premature to talk about the start of their export.

Also, the statements by various Russian representatives claiming that modern types of Russian-made weapons were successfully tested in Syria, which will now find their buyer, are also far from reality. Russia failed to use its military operation in Syria to promote its own weapons for export to the countries of the Middle East.

In the Syrian campaign, Russia used mainly equipment based on Soviet developments. So the newest attack aircraft Su-34, which Russia used in Syria, is a modernization of the Su-27 fighter and began to be designed back in the USSR, as an analogue of the American F-15E aircraft with similar characteristics. At the same time, the F-15E has been in service with many states for more than 30 years and has significantly more experience in various conflicts than the Su-34. It thus has no export prospects in the Middle East, despite unverified rumors about Algeria's interest in this aircraft.

Recent large-scale deliveries of Russian weapons to Egypt also did not result from high assessments of their use during the Syrian campaign. The contracts through which Cairo began to buy large consignments of weapons from Moscow were signed in 2014, even before the start of the Syrian operation by the Russian armed forces. Such an arms deal was the result of a change of power in Egypt, when the government of President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi decided to diversify its military ties due to fears of a decrease in the volume of military cooperation with the United States and European countries, after a military takeover in Egypt in 2013. This allowed Moscow to significantly increase its arms exports by supplying Egypt with MiG-29 and Su-35 fighters, Ka-52 attack helicopters, S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems, T-90 tanks, and so on. At the same time, Russian military equipment was purchased by Egypt in parallel with Western equipment.

In addition to Egypt, Algeria is a major importer of Russian military equipment in the Middle East. In particular, in 2019 at the MAKS-2019 exhibition, Algeria signed a contract for the purchase of 16 Su-30MKI (A) fighters and 14 MiG-29M / M2 fighters from Russia. These aircraft supplemented the country's fleet, which already had these types of fighters. In addition, Terminator tank support combat vehicles, T-90 tanks and other equipment were supplied to Algeria.

Among the operators of Russian military equipment, Iraq should also be noted, which, after being subjected to aggression by the Islamic State, has noticeably intensified its military-technical cooperation with Russia. Since 2014, Moscow has supplied Baghdad with Su-25 attack aircraft, Mi-28NE attack helicopters, T-90 tanks and BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles.

At the same time, it is too early to talk about the resumption of Russian arms exports to Iran. Tehran needs modern offensive models such as Su-30 fighters, but Moscow would not want to spoil relations with the Gulf countries and Israel and will probably refrain from supplying Iran with such equipment.

Thus, on the whole, Russia's prospects in the Middle East arms market will depend on the ability of the Russian military industry to master the production of the latest models of military equipment and begin delivering it to the Russian armed forces. Only then will export orders for this equipment be possible. At the same time, as in the case of Egypt or Algeria, there is still the possibility of supplying older types of weapons for those states that will try to diversify their ties in the field of military-technical cooperation.

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Why a Turkish dictator let himself lose an election

Turkey's second president Ismet Inonu surprised the world by stepping down in 1950. Could Erdogan do the same after the 2023 elections?

Ismet Inonu at the Republican People's Party congress in the late 1930s. - Wikicommons

Nicholas Danforth
@NicholasDanfort
August 6, 2021

Would President Recep Tayyip Erdogan actually allow himself to lose an election? And could pressure from Turkey’s Western allies help ensure that he does? These are two of the most pressing questions confronting Turkish political commentators in the years leading up to Turkey’s 2023 presidential elections. They also mirror the still unanswered questions surrounding the origins of Turkish democracy 71 years ago. Looking back on this history doesn’t offer any certain predictions about the future, but it can help better frame the stark challenge Turkey is facing today.

In 1950, just a decade or so after he inherited uncontested authoritarian rule from Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Turkish President Ismet Inonu beat back opposition within his own government to hold free, multiparty elections. He expected to win. When he didn’t, he dismissed offers from his security services to reverse the result and simply stepped down. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, with fascist dictatorships ruling the Iberian Peninsula and Communist dictatorships ruling Eastern Europe, this act of liberal statesmanship appeared truly remarkable. Indeed, it may have appeared all the more remarkable to those who had experienced the brutality of Inonu’s policies — whether Kurdish villagers who lived through the 1938 Dersim massacre or Istanbul Christians who had been exiled after failing to pay a confiscatory wealth tax in 1942.

Erdogan has always been unrelenting in his criticism of Inonu, calling him both a drunk and a fascist, and drawing attention to the undeniable Hitler mustache he wore for a number of years. For Erdogan, Inonu represents the worst of the Kemalist regime — all its authoritarianism and secularism without the heroic and patriotic aura of Mustafa Kemal himself. Moreover, the personal contrast between the two men is striking. Erdogan is tall, charismatic and proudly provincial; Inonu was short, hard of hearing and seen by many of his European peers as a savvy and sophisticated statesman.

Inonu came to power as a dictator and left as a Democrat. After coming to power as a Democrat, Erdogan is now on the reverse trajectory. The next few years will determine whether Erdogan will ultimately display the best or the worst qualities of the man he hates.

Washington to the rescue?

Neither liberal academics nor Erdogan supporters credit the US government with a great deal of sincerity when it comes to supporting democracy in the Middle East. So it is surprising that so many members of both groups largely agree US pressure was a central factor in Turkey’s democratization. This shared assumption, which can be traced all the way back to the 1950s, reflects widespread amazement at the dramatic and otherwise inexplicable transformation that occurred in Turkey at the outset of the Cold War. It is also a tribute to the enduring hostility Erdogan and many of his followers feel toward Inonu that they are willing to give Washington the benefit of the doubt in order to deny him credit for his most principled achievement.

Turkey’s democratic transition occurred at the outset of its alliance with the United States, at a moment when Ankara was desperately trying to secure membership in NATO as a guarantee against the Soviet Union. Democracy was central to US rhetoric during this period and “free institutions” were specifically cited in Article 2 of NATO. In this idealistic context, seeing a causal relationship between US values and Inonu’s actions made sense. Moreover, Washington was perfectly happy to take its share of the credit. Turkey’s Democratic Party, which came to power in 1950, was also happy to perpetuate the idea that it enjoyed the support of the country’s new superpower ally.

And yet, the closer you look, the harder it is to believe that the United States really deserves credit for Turkey’s turn toward democracy. Declassified State Department records from the period provide little evidence of US policymakers pressuring Ankara to democratize, and ample circumstantial evidence suggesting that Inonu knew he could have had both one-man rule and US support if he had wanted. Which in turn raises the more elusive, and perhaps unanswerable question, of why he ultimately made the decision that put Turkey on its real if tortuous path to democracy.

“A strongman of the right sort”

In 1947, President Harry S. Truman called on Congress to provide aid to Turkey and Greece in order to help both countries resist the threat of Soviet expansion. In his speech, which became the basis of the Truman Doctrine, he described Greece, with several caveats, as an imperfect democracy. Turkey, by contrast, was “an independent and economically sound state” whose future was “important to the freedom-loving peoples of the world.”

Indeed, at the end of World War II, the reigning US attitude toward Inonu was perhaps best characterized by the description of Ataturk in a contemporary guide for US soldiers: “Many accused him of being a dictator. If so, he was a strong man of the right sort.” When the US-Turkish relationship began, this was the status quo US officials assumed would continue indefinitely, and they did not seem unduly perturbed by it. Moreover, when Portugal, under the Salazar dictatorship, became a founding member of NATO in 1948, Inonu had every reason to believe his government was democratic enough for the Western alliance as well.

But even assuming Inonu would have been susceptible to US pressure, Washington never gave him a chance to feel it. Finding evidence of absence is difficult, but US State Department records from 1945 to 1950 have not, so far, divulged any examples of US officials actually trying to convince their Turkish counterparts that free or fair elections were necessary to secure American backing. To the contrary, on one of the few occasions the subject came up, officials of the Republican People's Party (CHP) appeared remarkably confident in their position.

In December 1948, a member of the US military mission discussed with Naci Perkel, head of the Turkish National Security Service, rumors that the United States had abandoned Chiang Kai-shek because of his undemocratic behavior. The American colonel drew Perkel’s attention to “remarks by some of the Turkish opposition members that the United States would realize that Turkey is also not democratic and would take similar action here to withdraw US aid.”

“Naci’s response,” the colonel reported, “was to laugh and say that since aid is still coming in, the US evidently is convinced that Turkey is democratic.” Perkel then went on to explain that “Turkey could not be democratic until the level of education is much higher, and such a condition is many, many years away.”

When Turkey’s parliamentary elections were scheduled for May 1950, State Department officials and CIA analysts largely expected Inonu to once again use ballot rigging and intimidation at the polls to achieve victory. Tellingly, in private conversations with Inonu about US-Turkish cooperation in the months before the elections, US participants made it clear they expected relations to continue apace.

Nine foxes, no clear answers

So if America did not force Inonu’s hand, what prompted him to take a step that countless dictators have promised but all too few have actually followed through with? And can this tell us anything about the prospects for democratic change in Turkey today?

Ismet Inonu was described as a man with “nine foxes running about inside his head” whose “tails did not even touch.” Perhaps to truly understand his motives it would have been necessary to ask the foxes. But a few observations seem relevant.

As an individual, Inonu earned a reputation for embracing the Kemalist project with greater personal sincerity than many of his fellow revolutionaries. One story involves him listening to classical music records in his tent while on a campaign in order to teach himself to enjoy them. Another involves Ataturk’s companions, who continued to use the Ottoman script in private after the 1928 alphabet reform, hiding their handwritten notes in embarrassment on hearing Inonu approaching. It is possible that, at a personal level, he also took Kemalist rhetoric about democracy more seriously, and was more prepared to make real sacrifices in service of it.

More importantly, Turkey’s democratic change was also facilitated by the considerable political and ideological continuity it belied. Celal Bayar, who replaced Inonu as president, had also served, like Inonu, as Ataturk’s prime minister. (Democratic Party newspapers were happy to remind readers of this by printing pictures of Ataturk and Bayar together on every appropriate occasion.) Adnan Menderes, like the other founders of the Democratic Party, had been a parliamentarian in Inonu’s government during the '40s.

Famously, before giving Bayar and Menderes permission to create a new party, Inonu asked for assurances that they would continue to support his government’s anti-Soviet foreign policy and defend the principle of secularism. And — as minority voters who supported the Democrats seeking respite from the CHP’s heavy-handed nationalism soon discovered — the new government proved eager to preserve some of the most problematic aspects of Kemalist nationalism as well.

Certainly, it must have been easier for Inonu to hand power to a government made up of men who broadly shared his vision for the country and who had served by his side in both war and peace. But again, these factors have seldom been enough to convince other dictators they can comfortably surrender control.

Years later, Inonu was asked by an American social scientist whether he had held elections in response to US pressure. He responded to the effect that, regardless of the reason, it had nevertheless been the right decision. Looking back today, this may be the best verdict possible.

What now?

Could the same thing happen today? The circumstances in Turkey in 2021 are so different as to make comparisons difficult. On the positive side, Erdogan, despite his best efforts, does not enjoy the same degree of consolidated authoritarian power Inonu did. Seven decades of competitive elections have also created powerful public expectations, which even previous military juntas ultimately deferred to. As a result, the choice of whether to honor election results may not be entirely Erdogan’s own, as it was for Inonu.

If it is, though, neither the similarities nor differences with 1950 are particularly encouraging. The United States remains rhetorically committed to democracy. But the limits of this rhetoric were already apparent in the 1950s, and decades of US support for Middle Eastern dictatorships now make it all the more difficult for any leader to believe free elections are a requirement for good ties with Washington. Like Inonu, Erdogan clearly shares a broadly nationalist worldview with many of his political opponents. But his unrelenting efforts to demonize them as traitors and enemies of the nation mean that this is unlikely to play the same positive role that it did during the early Cold War.

In 1950, a man with well-honed authoritarian instincts displayed an unexpected and historically exceptional commitment to democracy. Despite the relatively conducive domestic and international circumstances of the time, this was impossible to predict and remains hard to explain even now. It can only be hoped, in the absence of any compelling historical grounds for optimism, that the man running Turkey today might behave in an equally unexpected way.

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As Syria’s foreign jihadis eye Afghanistan, new challenges arise for Moscow

The potential that foreign fighters may move from Syria’s Idlib province to Afghanistan could pose major threats to Russia and its Central Asian allies.

A van belonging to members of Syria's top jihadi group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), led by al-Qaeda's former Syria affiliate drives with a banner congratulating the Taliban on their takeover of Afghanistan during a parade through the rebel-held northwestern city of Idlib on Aug. 20, 2021. - OMAR HAJ KADOUR/AFP via Getty Images

Kirill Semenov
@IbnRasibi
August 27, 2021

The situation in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, escalated sharply Thursday after a suicide attack by militants from the local affiliate of the Islamic State killed over 100 Afghan civilians and 13 US troops at a gate to Hamid Karzai International Airport.

US Central Command head Gen. Kenneth "Frank" McKenzie said American military leadership is in a state of readiness for new attacks in Kabul by the Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K) terrorist group. “We’re prepared to continue the mission,” he told reporters at a briefing Thursday. According to him, the United States has shared limited intelligence with the Taliban — who are guarding the airport — about threat assessments and preparations by IS to commit terrorist attacks. “We believe attacks have been thwarted by [the Taliban],” he added.

These attacks demonstrated that after the United States and its allies ceased their anti-terrorist activities in the country due to the rapid advance of the Taliban and their capture of the capital, the security situation began to deteriorate sharply.

The situation also poses new challenges for Russia and its Central Asian allies such as Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. While the Americans were present in Afghanistan, they could provide counterterrorism measures that benefitted Afghanistan’s Central Asian neighbors. But after the arrival of the Taliban, a security vacuum may emerge, and the Taliban may face serious difficulties in solving this problem. After the Americans left, Russia hoped that the Taliban would be able to take control of the security situation and destroy terrorist cells in Afghanistan, something Taliban representatives had repeatedly assured the Russians they could do.

However, it should be borne in mind that the main reason for the rapid advance of Taliban forces was not so much the group’s military power as it was the collapse of the government in Kabul, which was unable to fight without external support. Such a quick establishment of power by the Taliban suggests that the group was able to easily take full control of all areas from which government troops fled practically without a fight, and where fighters from other radical groups — including the Islamic State — could now find refuge.

Thus, it remains possible that Afghanistan will once again become a base for international Salafi jihadism. And the reason for this may be not only "gaps" in the activities of the Taliban to exert their power, but also the purposeful position of some groups within the Taliban that have their own views different from the leadership of the movement. For example, this concerns the Taliban’s so-called Peshawar shura, or council, which became a cover for the activities of the shadowy Haqqani Network. The latter is the subgroup of the Taliban most ideologically close to al-Qaeda and has used suicide bombers to attack civilian targets.

Despite statements by the Taliban that Afghanistan will no longer serve as a base for the activities of terrorist groups that threaten other states from its territory, in addition to the Islamic State there are still al-Qaeda militants who may try to start taking advantage of the security vacuum. These could be, for example, international jihadis remaining in the Taliban structures from the so-called 055 Brigade, an organization entirely composed of al-Qaeda militants who committed numerous crimes against peaceful Afghans. The brigade was integrated into the Taliban army between 1995 and 2001.

Anton Mardasov, a nonresident scholar in the Middle East Institute's Syria Program, told Al-Monitor that over the past years the Taliban have actively been in contact with the core of al-Qaeda as well as its rather autonomous branch al-Qaeda on the Indian Subcontinent. According to Mardasov, members of al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent are present in 13 provinces of the country, including Helmand and Kandahar. Al-Qaeda, he noted, has also strengthened its presence in Badakhshan, a province in the east of the country that borders Tajikistan. There are other areas of al-Qaeda presence, including Barmal County in the eastern Afghan province of Paktika where the Haqqani Network dominates, and more generally on the Afghan-Pakistani border where al-Qaeda operates in close cooperation with the Haqqani Network with the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba.

There is also the potential for Afghanistan to see the arrival of radical groups from Syria’s Idlib province. Recently Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the terror group that controls Idlib, began to pursue a policy aimed at eradicating non-Syrian jihadis from its territory. In this regard, it is highly probable that under pressure from HTS, a number of such groups may move to Afghanistan. This could happen both with the approval of some structures within the Taliban and in spite of them.

Such factions capable of transit from Syria to Afghanistan may include, for example, Katibat al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad (not to be confused with the Iraqi group of the same name), consisting of fighters from the Central Asian republics, primarily Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, many of whom came from Russia where they were looking for work. Abu Salah al-Uzbeki (Sirojiddin Mukhtarov), the leader of this group, was arrested by HTS’s security services back in June. Another Uzbek radical Islamist, Abu Rofik al-Tartarstani (Sukhrob Baltabaev), was killed in action by HTS militants.

Thus, the activities of the remaining radicals from Katibat al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad in Idlib are threatened and they could try to infiltrate the territory of Afghanistan.

Imam Bukhari Jamaat is a fairly large Uzbek group fighting in Idlib. Although at the moment the group has no conflict with HTS, nevertheless — based on HTS leader Abu Muhammad al-Jolani’s conviction of the need to "cleanse" the region from non-Syrian factions — it is another candidate for transfer to Afghanistan.

In addition, the local branch of the Uyghur Islamic Party of Turkestan, whose cells are also located in Afghanistan, remains active in Idlib. It is possible that under pressure from the HTS, this group may also move to the Afghan regions. The same applies to the Caucasian jihadist groups — Junud al-Sham and Ajnad al-Kavkaz. In particular, Junud al-Sham has already been disbanded by the HTS, and its militants are looking for opportunities to continue their activities directed primarily against Russia in other countries.

Of course, much will depend on Turkey's position on this issue and its readiness to provide a corridor for the transfer of foreign fighters from Syria to Afghanistan. Considering the current level of relations between Ankara and Moscow on the one hand and the Central Asian republics on the other, it’s unlikely Turkey will provide assistance to these groups. But their presence in Idlib and the potential for them to move to the Turkish-controlled zones in Syria also threatens Ankara’s security interests.

The areas where militants from Idlib could potentially move are the Afghan provinces of Badakhshan, Kunar and Nuristan. These regions became known as the Afghan Waziristan and were not completely controlled by either the former Afghan authorities or the Taliban. This is where branches of various radical Salafi groups have found their refuge.

For example, in Badakhshan, fragments of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) are still operating — namely, the part of them that refused to be part of the local branch of IS-K. The latter also retains its presence there.

The Tajik radical group Jamaat Ansarullah, which split from the IMU and has carried out terrorist attacks in Tajikistan, is also operating in this region. There are allegations that Ansarullah is closely cooperating with the Taliban, and that it was even given the task of securing part of the Afghan-Tajik border. The Taliban denies these accusations.

In addition, these regions are a refuge for local Salafis with whom the Taliban have quite serious ideological contradictions (the Taliban are Hanafis from the Deobandi school). But it was in the regions of Kunar and Nuristan that the Taliban were forced to allow the activities of Afghan Salafis, some of whom operate under the flags of the Taliban but at the same time have their own goals and objectives. Others, meanwhile, create independent Salafi groups not controlled by the Taliban.

Thus, the rise to power of the Taliban leaves more questions not only concerning the plans of the group itself but also its ability to solve tasks entrusted to it by states working to develop ties and contacts with this movement.

MORE FROM KIR

'Cancel culture' show in Warsaw stirs controversy


By AFP
Published August 27, 2021

Swedish artist Dan Park refers to the Holocaust in some of his work - Copyright AFP Aamir QURESHI

Jewish groups have issued an open letter voicing criticism of an exhibition opening in Warsaw on Friday that includes works by the Swedish artist Dan Park, who has been convicted for hate speech.

One of Park’s works on display at the “Political Art” show depicts the Norwegian right-wing extremist killer Anders Behring Breivik as a fashion model for the Lacoste clothing brand.

“We do not agree to support for people who spread hatred, intolerance and hostility,” read the letter signed by, among others, Poland’s chief rabbi Michael Schudrich and Zygmunt Stepinski, director of the POLIN museum of the history of Polish Jews.

The letter said it was “astonishing and sad” that Park should be featured in an exhibition.

“In Poland — a country where as a result of Nazi policy six million citizens were killed — the activities of such creators as Dan Park insults the feelings of all Poles,” it said.

Park has been convicted several times for his provocative words and actions, including in 1996 when he wore a bomber jacket featuring a swastika, bearing the words ‘Heil Hitler’ and ‘SS’ and the skull-and-crossbones Totenkopf symbol.

He told the court he wore it as a provocation, not because he sympathised with Nazism.

Park is popular with far-right movements.

The exhibition at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art is described by organisers as a celebration of free speech and a platform for artists who fall victim to “cancel culture”.

“Artists who contradict these tendencies and advocate unrestrained expression and anti-mainstream ideas often pay the highest price for testing the limits of tolerance and confronting political dogmas,” the museum said.

The museum’s director Piotr Bernatowicz was installed in 2019 by Poland’s populist right-wing ruling party, Law and Justice (PiS) — a controversial appointment that drew accusations of the government attempting to coopt cultural institutions into its conservative agenda.

The show, which is funded by the Polish culture ministry, features 28 artists, including Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, who in 2007 sparked controversy with his drawing of Muslim Prophet Mohammad.

He has been the target of several attempted assaults, the latest in Copenhagen in February 2015 during a conference dubbed “Art, blasphemy and freedom”.

The exhibition also includes a conceptual art project by Danish artist Kristian von Hornsleth, who paid 340 impoverished villagers in Uganda to legally change their names to “Hornsleth”.

Read more: https://www.digitaljournal.com/world/cancel-culture-show-in-warsaw-stirs-controversy/article#ixzz74o9b8vBC

Experts estimate endangered Galapagos pink iguana population at 211

By AFP
Published August 27, 2021


Handout photo released by the Galapagos National Park of a Galapagos pink iguana at Wolf Volcano on Isabela Island in the Galapagos archipelago, Ecuador - Copyright PARQUE NACIONAL GALAPAGOS/AFP Freddy Jiménez

Scientific experts sent to the Galapagos Islands to count a critically endangered lizard species estimate there to be just 211 pink iguanas left, local authorities said Friday.

Around 30 scientists and Galapagos park rangers took part in the expedition this month on Wolf Volcano, in the north of Isabela Island — the largest on the archipelago.

“In the census, 53 iguanas were located and (temporarily) captured, 94 percent of which live more than 1,500 meters (4,900 feet) above sea level,” said the Galapagos National Parks (PNG) in a statement.

That allowed the experts to “estimate a population of 211 pink iguanas.”

The pink iguanas were first discovered in 1986 and identified as a separate species from the Galapagos land iguana in 2009.

They live exclusively in a 25 square kilometer (9.5 square miles) area on the Wolf Volcano, where the PNG has set up cameras to study the iguanas’ behavior and the threats they face.

Prior to the census, Ecuadoran expert Washington Tapia told AFP that there could be as many as 350 pink iguanas.

So far, “no juveniles have been discovered,” said Tapia, the director of the American Galapagos Conservancy NGO that took part in the expedition.

In quotes released by PNG on Friday, Tapia said “being restricted to one single site makes the species more vulnerable.”

“Urgent action is required to guarantee their preservation.”

The Galapagos Islands are a protected wildlife area and home to unique species of flora and fauna.

They lie 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) west of Ecuador.

The archipelago was made famous by British geologist and naturalist Charles Darwin’s observations on evolution after visiting the islands.

Read more: https://www.digitaljournal.com/world/experts-estimate-endangered-galapagos-pink-iguana-population-at-211/article#ixzz74o93nZQc

Pandemic pushes new homeless onto Sao Paulo streets

By AFP
Published August 27, 2021


A homeless family in downtown Sao Paulo, Brazil, August 27, 2021 

- Copyright AFP John OKUNYOMIH

Rodrigo ALMONACID, Fernando MARRON

When Monica’s landlord suddenly doubled the rent on the room where she lived with her three daughters in Sao Paulo, she says they had little choice but to go live on the streets.

Like a growing number of poor people in Brazil’s economic capital, Monica has fallen on bitter times during the Covid-19 pandemic, forcing her to choose between feeding or housing herself and her girls, ages 12, nine and three.

“If we spend everything on the rent, how are we going to fill our stomachs? People need more than just a roof over their heads, right?” said Monica, 33, who set up an impromptu camp for the family a week ago at Republic Square, in the heart of this sprawling concrete jungle of 12 million people.

She spends her days collecting and selling recyclable materials, earning around 20 to 30 reais (about $4 to $6) a day, before picking her daughters up at school, she said.

Surging unemployment and rising prices, especially for housing, during the pandemic have pushed numerous people like her into the streets.

“There’s been a very big increase in the number of people living on the streets for the first time,” said Kelseny Medeiros Pinho, of the University of Sao Paulo’s human-rights clinic.

“If you lose your job and you don’t have any alternative, the street is your only answer.”

It hasn’t helped, she said, that President Jair Bolsonaro’s government cut emergency Covid-19 assistance to the poor from 600 reais to 150 reais (around $28) this year.

The far-right president and Sao Paulo’s governor both vetoed legislation that would have put a moratorium on evictions during the health crisis.

Across Brazil, at least 14,300 families were evicted from March 2020 to June 2021, and another 85,000 are threatened with eviction, according to the organization Zero Evictions (Despejo Zero).

In Sao Paulo state alone, nearly 4,000 have been evicted, with 34,000 more threatened with eviction, it found.



– ‘A shocking number’ –



Anderson Lopes Miranda of the National Homeless Movement (MNPR) called the situation in Sao Paulo unprecedented in his 30 years living and working with the homeless.

“We used to see mainly elderly people or workers who lost their jobs ending up on the street. Now, you see families, women with children,” he said.

The last official census put Sao Paulo’s homeless population at 24,344 in 2019, 85 percent of them men.

Organizations that work with the homeless say that is an underestimate.

Monica and her daughters share a mattress they are borrowing from a “neighbor” on the square.

He watches over their few belongings while Monica works and the girls attend school.

“I’m trying to live a normal life. Bathe, take the girls to school. But when you wake up, you don’t look very good, you know? And everyone’s looking at you,” she said.

“My biggest fear is getting sick and not being able to take care of my daughters,” she added.

“I dream of getting off the street. I’m not giving up. I’m just working and trying to get through this.”

She says she does not want to go to a homeless shelter, because she is afraid of drugs and violence there.

A few blocks away, Marcio Machado of the Power of God World Church, a Brazilian Evangelical mega-church, oversees the handout of 800 free breakfasts for the poor — double what the church was distributing before the pandemic.

“It’s a terrible situation,” he said.

“A shocking number every day. Men, women, children, entire families living on the street.”

The city has opened 2,393 new shelter beds to deal with the increase, and raised the number of free meals distributed daily from 7,500 to 10,000.

Daniela Rosa Neves, 24, who is seven months pregnant with her second child, watched as her almost-two-year-old son played with a scrap of banana on the street.

They have been homeless for three months.

“I worry about my kids,” she said.

Read more: https://www.digitaljournal.com/world/pandemic-pushes-new-homeless-onto-sao-paulo-streets/article#ixzz74o8EkpSq

Ancient vicuna wool shearing tradition lives on in Peruvian Andes


By AFP
Published August 27, 2021

At daybreak on a freezing cold day high in the Andes, dozens of Peruvian peasants clamber up a mountainside to carry out a centuries-old tradition of shearing the highly-prized wool off vicunas, which are relatives of the llama.

One week each year, the peasants of Totoroma, a village 50 kilometers (30 kilometers) to the southwest of Lake Titicaca, join forces for a process of herding and shearing known locally as the “chaccu”.

They trudge up the mountainside and herd around 500 vicunas back down the slope into a pen made of posts and three-meter high mesh — a necessary precaution to keep the agile members of the camelid family from escaping.

The comuneros — men and women, some even carrying children — wrap up against the cold and wear wide-brimmed hats to protect them from the sun.

This year, they’re also wearing face masks to protect against Covid-19.

“It’s an ancestral activity that has been going on since time immemorial and now we’re helping out as a public state administration,” vet Jaime Figueroa told AFP.

Jesus Pilco Mamani is following in the footsteps of his father and grandfathers.

“I started working as a comunero in 1986,” he told AFP.

The vicuna appears on Peru’s national coat of arms and there are an estimated 200,000 of the Andean camelid in the country.

The annual chaccu helps support families in 290 communities in the Peruvian Andes.

Vicuna wool is highly-prized for its soft qualities and is one of the most expensive in the world.

The vicunas live at least 3,500 meters above sea level so getting their wool — by rounding up and shearing them — is a difficult task.

The communities in the Peruvian Andes produce around 10 tons of vicuna wool a year.

Unlike llamas and alpacas, amongst Andean camelids, vicunas and guanacos have not been domesticated.

Alpaca wool is far more common, while llama wool can be used to make rugs and carpets but is considered too rough for clothing.

Guanaco wool is also highly-prized, although not as soft as vicuna.

Inside the pen, the comuneros hold each brown vicuna down on a blanket on the ground while an expert quickly shears them using a machine powered by a portable generator.

The wool of each vicuna is collected and placed inside individual plastic bags.

Once shorn, the vicuna is immediately released from the pen and runs at top speed back up the mountain.

A kilogram (2.2 pounds) of unprocessed vicuna wool sells for $400 — much more than alpaca wool.

But a single sheared alpaca produces three kilograms of wool, compared to “150 to 180 grams” from the much smaller vicuna, Erick Lleque Quisoe, an official in the regional Puno government, told AFP.

He said that in Totoroma the locals “took off 35-40 kilograms” of wool from the 500 vicunas.

In 2019, Peru made $3 million exporting seven tons of vicuna wool, whereas alpaca exports bring in around $300 million, according to official figures.

Read more: https://www.digitaljournal.com/world/ancient-vicuna-wool-shearing-tradition-lives-on-in-peruvian-andes/article#ixzz74o7QSGsO

Hunt on for monarch butterfly eggs in
the gardens of Canada

By AFP
Published August 27, 2021


Hundreds of Canadian volunteers are taking part in a program to find monarch butterfly eggs, to help researchers determine environmental zones in need of protection -Copyright AFP John OKUNYOMIH


Marion THIBAUT

When Canadian conservation enthusiasts head out to find monarch eggs, it’s always with a magnifying glass and a notebook. They are volunteers taking part in a summer census of the iconic, endangered butterflies.

July and August are the best months, when the monarch is visible in Canada at all stages of its development: eggs, caterpillar, chrysalis and adult butterfly.

It is also the reproduction period for the generation which will take off in a few weeks for a 4,000 kilometer (2,500 mile) journey to Mexico.

But it’s complicated research. “The monarch lays one egg per leaf. There are insects which can lay a dozen eggs all together while the monarch lays one. So we are looking for something very small,” explains Jacques Kirouac, who is among the hundreds of people who take part in the citizen science program Mission Monarch.

The eggs of these creatures known for their striking orange and black colors are off-white or yellow and about the size of a pinhead, with ridges that run from the tip to the base.

The species’s dire situation led to the creation five years ago of this program set up by the Montreal Insectarium to document monarch breeding grounds. The data is used by researchers, in particular to determine zones in need of protection. There are similar programs in the United States.

Monarchs of the eastern side of the continent are in a difficult situation: their population has decreased by more than 80 percent in two decades. Western monarchs — which hibernate in California — are even worse off: fewer than 2,000 were reported in the last census by Western Monarch Count, down 99.9 percent since the 1980s.

More generally, the disappearance of insects — less spectacular and less striking for the public than that of large mammals — is just as worrying, say the scientists.

They are essential to ecosystems and economies because they pollinate plants, recycle nutrients and serve as staple food for other animals.

– ‘Not enough data’ –

“It’s a beautiful butterfly. It would be a real loss to lose it,” says Renald Saint-Onge, also a volunteer for Mission Monarch.

This 73-year-old former carpenter and ornithologist feels driven to “save this butterfly.” So he decided to let grow at his home as many milkweed plants as possible. Often considered a weed, this perennial plant is the only one on which the monarch butterfly lays. But we find it less and less.

“The natural fields where we had milkweed and nectar-bearing plants are increasingly rare,” says Alessandro Dieni, coordinator of the Mission Monarch program. And the plants are “of lower quality because we have fields with monocultures everywhere” and an intensive use of pesticides in the country that killed them off.

Logging has also devastated forests in Mexico where the monarchs spend the winter.

Faced with the catastrophic decline of this insect, the Canadian government has decided to get involved in helping the monarch by seeking to protect its breeding grounds. “However, there was not enough data in Canada to know where to go to protect the monarch,” says Dieni.

The decline of insects, which represent two-thirds of all terrestrial species, dates back to the beginning of the 20th century, and accelerated in the years 1950-60 to reach alarming proportions over the last 20 years.

“Thanks to the censuses, we can now do more precise research,” explains Marian MacNair of McGill University.

“This allows us to better determine the routes taken, the conditions that the monarch particularly like,” adds the biologist who expresses amazement over this small, emblematic butterfly’s ability to fly thousands of kilometers.

The monarch butterfly makes a good study for scientists because often “we have great difficulty in observing the evolution” of populations of insects. But the monarch’s territory is rather small and therefore it is easy to do calculations and observations and document “the extent of the disaster,” explains MacNair.
Read more: https://www.digitaljournal.com/tech-science/hunt-on-for-monarch-butterfly-eggs-in-the-gardens-of-canada/article#ixzz74o5s2vVX

Digital dissent: Hong Kongers race to
archive democracy movement


By AFP

Published August 27, 2021

Hong Kong's pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily was forced to cease operations in June. — © AFP

Su Xinqi

Hong Kong activists are working in the shadows to preserve digital backups of their democracy movement as the physical symbols of their resistance, including an opposition newspaper and a museum, are purged from the city’s streets.

In the end, it was food safety inspectors that finished Hong Kong’s museum to those killed in the Tiananmen Square protests — the only memorial of its kind within China to victims of the 1989 crackdown.

Its exhibitions documented Beijing’s decision to use tanks to quell democracy protests in the Chinese capital and Hong Kong’s three-decade history of holding annual candlelight vigils for those killed.

But officials from the city’s Food and Environmental Hygiene Department visited in early June and declared the venue — which had operated on and off for years — did not have the correct license.

With the city’s Tiananmen vigils already effectively banned by authorities since last year, the move came as little surprise to many.

Which is why dissident Chinese author Chang Ping, a former student leader back in 1989, spent the past year leading a group of anonymous activists to create an online version of the museum.

“We hope to save the spirit of 30 years’ candlelight commemoration in Hong Kong, which was an unparalleled act of resistance in human history,” Chang told AFP by phone from his home in Germany.

– ‘We needed to race the clock’ –

The online museum project is just one of many where cyberspace has become a place to preserve remnants of a city that is being remoulded in authoritarian China’s own image after huge democracy protests two years ago.

The Hong Kong Alliance, which ran the museum and organised the annual Tiananmen vigils, knew they might not survive, especially after China imposed a security law last year that criminalised much dissent.

Most of the group’s leaders have since been arrested and the coalition is on the verge of disbanding — but not before it fundraised HK$1.6 million ($215,000) to build a virtual Noah’s Ark for their movement.

Other projects had far less lead time to prepare.

Chris Wong, a software developer who asked to use a pseudonym, scrambled to mobilise coders earlier this year to preserve what they could of the city’s outspoken pro-democracy Apple Daily tabloid.

Its millionaire owner Jimmy Lai was already in jail and facing national security charges over campaigning for sanctions against China.

But in early June police used the national security law to freeze the paper’s assets and within little more than a week it collapsed.

“We needed to race the clock,” Wong recalled after Apple Daily announced the printing of its final edition and the removal of its online presence for later that month.

Wong went to LIHKG — a Reddit-like forum that was instrumental in coordinating Hong Kong’s 2019 democracy protests — and found tech-savvy volunteers willing to scrape the tabloid’s website.

They harvested over two million pages and archived them on the searchable website collection.news by writing around 10,000 lines of code, Wong said.

“Being the more tech-savvy guys, we feel we have more obligation to help preserve the history of Hong Kong,” Wong told AFP.

“But everyone can and needs to play a part in sharing the past with your friends, your next generation.”

– ‘Proud to play a part’

Similar digital backups have been created for reporting by RTHK, the city’s public broadcaster. Over the last six months, it has been overhauled to be more like China’s state media.

Critical journalists have lost their jobs and current affairs programmes have been axed while much of its social media content, including many reports critical of authorities, have disappeared.

An activist, using the pseudonym “Freeman”, said their group had harvested 14 terabytes of video reports from both RTHK and Apple Daily for a planned online backup.

Such digital activism is not without risks.

In recent weeks Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing media have suggested moves to preserve online records of the Tiananmen Museum and annual vigils are illegal under the national security law.

Police action usually follows such editorials.

Days after the Apple Daily back-up site launched it was hit by a distributed denial of service, a type of cyber-attack where a website is deliberately flooded with hits by a network of computers to try and bring it offline.

But Chang Ping says he and other digital activists remain unbowed.

“If building a museum is a crime, then the whole history of human civilisation is illegal,” he said. “I am proud to be part of it.”

Read more: https://www.digitaljournal.com/social-media/digital-dissent-hong-kongers-race-to-archive-democracy-movement/article#ixzz74o4NlGht