Destruction of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem goes to ICC

Israel is taken to the International Criminal Court as it continues to demolish Palestinian homes in the occupied territories.

Mahmoud Salhiyeh with his daughter Aya, 9, who is traumatised and suffering nightmares from the eviction and destruction of their home [Al Jazeera]

By Al Jazeera Staff
Published On 29 Jan 2022

Beit Hanina, Occupied East Jerusalem – Nine people were injured and journalists were attacked by Israeli security forces this week as the Jerusalem Municipality demolished a two-story building and home of the Karameh family in the East Jerusalem suburb of Abu Tor on the pretext of being constructed without a building permit.

The family of 15 was forcibly evicted by Israeli police while six of those injured required hospitalisation, according to the Red Crescent. Hundreds of Palestinians are facing forced expulsion from homes in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians want to be their future capital.

But one family, the Salhiyehs, is taking the Israeli authorities to the International Criminal Court (ICC) after they were evicted from their home in Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem last week, and the subsequent destruction of their home by the Jerusalem Municipality.

“There is no justice, as an Israeli I don’t believe in my country any more. They have destroyed my life,” Lital Salhiyeh, 40, told Al Jazeera.

Last week Lital’s husband Mahmoud, 43, several of their sons and their friends staged a demonstration on the roof of their house in Sheikh Jarrah, threatening to blow themselves up with a gas canister after the Israeli authorities attempted to evict them from the home they have lived in for decades.

Several days later, during a cold and rainy night, Israeli special forces raided their home, arrested them at gunpoint, and beat them up. They were taken to prison for several days before their lawyer secured their release on bail.

Adel Salhiyeh holds a photo showing the neighbourhood of his family home that was taken before 1967 [Al Jazeera]

Homes destroyed

While Mahmoud was in jail their home was destroyed by the municipality, leaving 18 people homeless.

“The police drove me past my destroyed home the next morning and showed me what they had done. We were not informed that the home would be destroyed,” Mahmoud told Al Jazeera.

“Mahmoud and I knew that the eviction order was against us personally but not the rest of the family and neither was there a demolition order against our home,” said Lital from the home they have temporarily rented in the East Jerusalem suburb of Beit Hanina.

“We lost everything and left with only the clothes on our back. I don’t even have pictures of my children,” Lital, who has been married to Mahmoud for 23 years, said. The couple has six children.

A family agricultural nursery, where Mahmoud worked, and ancient olive trees on their plot of land were also destroyed.

Lital, an animal lover, managed to rescue some of the family pets who were left stranded in the rain and cold after the family’s home was demolished.

It was the second time the Salhiyeh family has been made refugees. In 1948 they were expelled from their home in the village of Ein Karem during the Arab-Israeli war.

In 1984 Jerusalem Municipality’s district planning committee approved a building plan for the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood and designated the plot on which the family home and nursery were built for public building – even though other public areas can be found for this purpose without requiring the eviction of a family home.

In July 2017, the municipality announced the expropriation of the plot of land, which Mahmoud’s parents purchased in 1958.

The landowners filed an objection to the expropriation, but the court approved the expropriation and dismissed the objection.

‘Looking at all the details’

Critics argue the Israeli authorities are trying to Judaise East Jerusalem in favour of a higher Jewish demography.

However, the Salhiyeh family is defiant and plans to take the Israeli authorities to the ICC in addition to launching an international campaign highlighting the case and those of other Palestinians facing eviction and home demolitions in East Jerusalem.

“On Monday afternoon we held a Zoom meeting with our lawyers in London, Bindmans Solicitors, who are partnering with the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians [ICJP], in representing several other Palestinian families from Sheikh Jarrah,” family lawyer Walid Abu-Tayeh told Al Jazeera.

“They are studying the documents and looking at all the details before deciding the next step and have been working on the case since October after we first consulted them. We don’t know when the case will be brought before the ICC but it could take a long time,” he said.

“What made this all possible was an announcement in 2019 by the ICC prosecutor of the opening of an investigation into whether crimes committed in Palestine after June 2014 fell within the jurisdiction of the court,” said Abu-Tayeh.
Expectations from ICC

In 2021 the Pre-Trial Chamber of the ICC concluded the court’s territorial jurisdiction extended to the territories occupied by Israel since 1967: Gaza and the West Bank including East Jerusalem.

“The ICC can now pursue Israel for war crimes,” said Abu-Tayeh.

“The ICC could rule that Israel needs to rebuild the demolished house; that senior Israeli government officials involved in the demolition and eviction could be arrested if they travel abroad; and that all Israel’s actions in the West Bank such as land theft, the behaviour of the settlers, and other human rights abuses could also fall under the ICC’s jurisdiction so that individual settlers can be sued as well as collectively.”

The Salhiyehs are taking other legal action as well.

“We have also been in contact with several American senators in both the Senate and the Congress in regards to taking up our case to kick off an international campaign against the home demolitions and the evictions, and my brothers in the US are in contact with several law firms there too,” Abu-Tayeh said.

East Jerusalem is illegally occupied under international law. The “extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly” amounts to a grave breach of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and is considered a war crime, according to the 1998 Rome Statute of the ICC.

Tensions have been building elsewhere in East Jerusalem, where Palestinians are either in the process of being displaced or have already been made homeless.

Last week Israeli and Palestinian peace activists were attacked by Israeli security forces as they protested the pending eviction and destruction of the Salem family home.

An Israeli settler who pulled a gun on the protesters was arrested.

Hatem Abdel Khader works with people in East Jerusalem who are in danger of being evicted and losing their homes [Al Jazeera]

Hatem Abdel Khader, the Palestinian Authority’s former minister for Jerusalem, and who now coordinates Muslim and Christian efforts on behalf of the PA to prevent the Judaisation of East Jerusalem, told Al Jazeera the home demolitions and evictions were inflammatory and dangerous.

“These are raising tensions and could provoke severe consequences. The international community needs to take action and the international courts have to get involved in the fight,” said Khader.

Mahmoud Salhiyeh said he knows the battle ahead is going to be long and hard “but we won’t give up without a fight”.

Crispin Blunt, member of parliament and director of the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians, said the Sheikh Jarrah case was already notorious.

“ICJP is proud and privileged to stand alongside this family as they represent not just their own interests, but the century of historic injustice meted out to the Palestinian people individually and collectively,” he said.

“For Israel’s sake, for all Palestinians and for humanity’s sake, the Sheikh Jarrah case needs to be a turning point where justice and our common humanity starts to count for more than people’s insecurities driven by fear.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

Death, danger, despair: A year in Myanmar under the military

By VICTORIA MILKO

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A photographer wearing a protective vest with a 'press' sign at the back films an anti-military government protest being dispersed with tear gas by security forces in Sanchaung township in Yangon, Myanmar on March 3, 2021. Since Myanmar's military dismissed the results of democratic elections and seized power on Feb. 1, 2021, peaceful nationwide protests and violent crackdowns by security forces have spiraled into a nationwide humanitarian crisis. (AP Photo)

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — An elderly woman forced to flee bombings. A former peace negotiator leaving his job to fight Myanmar security forces. A woman’s husband shot during a peaceful protest, leaving her alone to care for their two children.

Since Myanmar’s military dismissed the results of the country’s democratic election and seized power on Feb. 1, 2021, peaceful nationwide protests and violent crackdowns by security forces have spiraled into a nationwide humanitarian crisis.

The Associated Press spoke to people in Myanmar about how their lives have changed in the year since the military took power. They spoke on condition their names are not disclosed for fear of reprisal.

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THE WIDOW: “HE SUDDENLY DISAPPEARED”

Before his death, Khine’s husband earned enough money making door gates that her family lived a comfortable life in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city. She was able to stay home to care for the couple’s two young daughters while the husband worked.


On Feb. 1, Khine’s husband got a phone call from a friend, telling him about the military takeover.

“He looked really sad, angry and couldn’t talk much,” Khine told the AP by phone.

In the weeks that followed, protests calling for the military to restore democracy and free imprisoned politicians rippled through the country. Khine and her husband joined the crowds.

In late March, as security forces began using lethal force to crack down on protests, Khine was babysitting when demonstrators came to her home to tell her that her husband had been shot. They took him to two clinics but both refused to treat him. He died when they reached a hospital.

“He suddenly disappeared,” she said. “Before the coup, I had never imagined that our family life would fall apart like this.”

Her husband is one of at least 1,490 people killed by the military since the takeover, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a group that monitors verified arrests and deaths in Myanmar. Over 11,775 have been arrested, according to the group.

Since her husband’s death, Khine has started working at a garment factory, earning $3 a day. Unable to afford their old apartment after the loss of her husband’s income, the family has moved into a small room. She worries about being able to provide for her children and their mental health.

“My eldest daughter is becoming traumatized,” said Khine. “She often says, ‘My friends have their fathers, but I don’t.’”

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THE DISPLACED: “FLEEING THE WAR IS EXHAUSTING”

Bomb blasts, gunfire and artillery shelling have followed 63-year-old Mee at every shelter she’s been forced to flee to over the past year.

She first had to flee to a camp for the displaced after fighting broke out near her village in eastern Myanmar. A month later, the camp was no longer safe, and the medicine she needed for her heart disease and hypertension wasn’t available. With nowhere else to go, Mee moved to a relative’s house.

“While we were there, gunfire was heard,” Mee told the AP by phone “We decided not to run away, even if we died, because fleeing the war is exhausting.”

Not long after, the area near her relative’s house was bombed, and she had to move once more. For now, Mee shares a small barn with 15 other people, all of them displaced. She has enough medicine only for two months and is concerned about the future of her family and the country.

As of Jan. 17, the U.N. refugee agency estimates the number of the displaced since the army takeover at 405,700. Another 32,000 have fled to neighboring countries.

“I am worried and tired every day,” Mee said. “For now, my hope is that I just want to see peace and calm. Then, I want to go back to my house.”

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THE SURGEON: “LIVES HAVE TO BE SACRIFICED”

Before the military seized power, the 28 year-old assistant surgeon was studying for his exams to become a specialist. He lived with his family and would take pride in treating patients at the hospital he worked at in a major city.

On the morning of the takeover, he went to work, seeing military vehicles on the roads and helicopters overhead. The phones and internet were cut. Stepping into the hospital, he learned the military had detained the country’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

The next day, he and other health care workers in state-run hospitals quit, sparking what would become known as the Civil Disobedience Movement.

“After the military coup, we no longer wanted to work under them. We believed all the health sectors will have no progress under the military,” he told the AP by phone.

Myanmar has become one of the most dangerous places in the world for health care workers, according to Physicians for Human Rights. It said 30 health workers were killed and 286 arrested between the takeover and Jan. 10.

Seeing his colleagues getting arrested, the surgeon fled to an area controlled by an armed opposition group. He has worked in makeshift clinics made of tents in camps for four months, treating people with general illnesses and those wounded by military shelling and land mines.

Medicine is hard to find, with security forces arresting anyone transporting medication.

“We have to carry medicine secretly. That’s why it takes about a month for medicine to arrive,” he said. “Even if cars are carrying paracetamol or something like that, they’re arrested.”

The surgeon still dreams of being able to return home to take the exams for a specialist.

“But dreams and reality are different,” he said. “The people are suffering from the oppression of the military council. Lives have to be sacrificed for the revolution.”

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THE JOURNALIST: “WE DARE NOT TAKE OUT OUR CAMERAS”

The videographer knew journalists had to show the world what was happening in Myanmar. Setting aside their anger and sadness about the military takeover, they went to the streets to document protests and brutal crackdowns with their phones day after day.

“We dare not take out our cameras” for fear of arrest, the videographer told the AP by phone. “Things are getting worse.”

Facing increasing threats, many of the videographer’s colleagues fled to the jungle to join armed resistance groups. Others have been arrested. By Dec. 1, more journalists were arrested in Myanmar than every country in the world except China, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. At least two journalists have been killed and others tortured while in detention, the group said.

Yet the videographer continues to work, realizing that any report could be the last one.

“I’m working like an underground journalist,” the videographer said. “In case of an emergency, I have prepared a bag if I need to run.”

Despite the threats, the journalist has no intention of leaving the country.

“The international community only knows about the military’s atrocities through the media,” the videographer said. “But I will continue to do this work until I can’t do it. If the security forces chase and catch me — let them.”

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THE FIGHTER: “I DECIDED I WOULD TAKE UP ARMS”

After watching fellow peaceful protesters get shot in the head by military forces, the 47 year-old made a decision.

“I decided I would take up arms, and I started looking for options to actually do so,” he said.

His protests had started peacefully. After the military takeover, he began organizing rallies in Yangon. But as the weeks passed, he knew his safety was in jeopardy.

“I stopped living in my apartment,” he said. “I also had to ask my family to leave that apartment to a secret location so that (the military) could not harm them.”

But when the protests turned deadly, he realized he wanted to take a step further.

“I never thought I would find myself involved in a struggle,” he told the AP by phone.

The man is just one of thousands of people in Myanmar who have joined loose-knit guerilla groups called People’s Defense Forces. Some have forged alliances with armed ethnic groups that have been at war with Myanmar military for decades, while others have pledged allegiance to the opposition National Unity Government, a parallel administration that declared a “defensive war” against the military in September.

Before the takeover, the man enjoyed going to restaurants with his family, shopping trips to the mall and spending time with his children in their home when he wasn’t working at a nongovernment organization involved in the decades-long peace process.

His days are now spent on missions he is hesitant to speak about for security reasons. He lives in an area of a jungle controlled by an armed ethnic group, carrying multiple weapons wherever he goes. He and his comrades forage for whatever they can to survive and sleep in hammocks strung between trees.

“The life I enjoyed is no longer available,” he said.

The man said he is frustrated by the international community’s lack of response, and that the people of Myanmar have had to take matters into their own hands.

“We have the right to use violence to defend ourselves while the international community stands by.”

No peace in Myanmar 1 year after military takeover

By GRANT PECK

January 29, 2022 GMT

PHOTOS 1 of 9

 The army takeover in Myanmar a year ago that ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi brought a shocking end to the effort to restore democratic rule in the Southeast Asian country after decades of military rule. But at least as surprising has been the level of popular resistance to the seizure of power, which has blossomed into an insurgency that raises the specter of a protracted civil war. 

BANGKOK (AP) — The army takeover in Myanmar a year ago that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi not only unexpectedly aborted the country’s fledgling return to democracy. It also brought a surprising level of popular resistance, which has blossomed into a low-level but persistent insurgency.

Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the commander of Myanmar’s military — known as the Tatmadaw — seized power on the morning of Feb. 1, 2021, arresting Suu Kyi and top members of her government and ruling National League for Democracy party, which won a landslide election victory in November 2020.

The military’s use of deadly force to hold on to power has escalated conflict with its civilian opponents to the point that some experts describe the country as being in a state of civil war.

The costs have been high, with some 1,500 people killed by the security forces, almost 8,800 detained, an unknown number tortured and disappeared, and more than 300,000 displaced as the military razes villages to root out resistance.

Other consequences are also significant. Civil disobedience hampered transport, banking services and government agencies, slowing an economy already reeling from the coronavirus pandemic. The public health system collapsed, leaving the fight against COVID-19 abandoned for months. Higher education stalled as faculty and students sympathetic to the revolt boycotted school, or were arrested.

The military-installed government was not at all anticipating the level of resistance that arose, Thomas Kean, an analyst of Myanmar affairs consulting for the International Crisis Group think tank, told The Associated Press.

“We saw in the first days after the coup, they tried to adopt a sort of business-as-usual approach,” with the generals denying they were implementing any significant change, but only removing Suu Kyi from power, he said.

“And of course, you know, that unleashed these huge protests that were brutally crushed, which resulted in people turning to armed struggle.”

The army has dealt with the revolt by employing the same brutal tactics in the country’s rural heartland that it has long unleashed against ethnic minorities in border areas, which critics have charged amount to crimes against humanity and genocide.

Its violence has generated newfound empathy for ethnic minorities such as the Karen, the Kachin and the Rohingya, longtime targets of army abuses with whom members of the Burman majority now are making common anti-military cause.

People opposed the army takeover because they had come to enjoy representative government and liberalization after years of military rule, said David Steinberg, a senior scholar of Asian Studies at Georgetown University.

Youth turned out in droves to protest despite the risks, he said, because they had neither families nor careers to lose, but saw their futures at risk.

They also enjoyed tactical advantages that previous generations of protesters lacked, he noted. Myanmar had caught up with the rest of the world in technology, and people were able to organize strikes and demonstrations using cellphones and the internet, despite efforts to limit communications.

A driving force was the Civil Disobedience Movement, founded by health care workers, which encouraged actions such as boycotts of military products and people not paying electricity bills or buying lottery tickets.

Kept in detention by the military, Suu Kyi has played no active part in these developments.

The ruling generals, who have said they will probably hold a new election by 2023, have tied her up with a variety of criminal charges widely seen as trumped-up to keep her from returning to political life. The 76-year-old Suu Kyi has already been sentenced to six years’ imprisonment, with the prospect of many more being added.

But in the days after the army’s takeover, her party’s elected members of parliament laid the groundwork for sustained resistance. Prevented by the army from taking their seats, they convened on their own, and in April established the National Unity Government, or NUG, which stakes a claim to being the country’s legitimate administrative body and has won the loyalty of many citizens.

The NUG has also sought to coordinate armed resistance, helping organize “People’s Defense Forces,” or PDFs, homegrown militias formed at the local and neighborhood levels. The military deems the NUG and the PDFs “terrorist” organizations.

With urban demonstrations mostly reduced to flash mobs to avoid crackdowns, the battle against military rule has largely passed to the countryside, where the badly outgunned local militias carry out guerrilla warfare.

The army’s “Four Cuts” strategy aims to eradicate the militias’ threat by cutting off their access to food, funds, information and recruitment. Civilians suffer collateral damage as soldiers block essential supplies, take away suspected militia supporters and raze whole villages.

When the military enters a village, “they’ll burn down some houses, maybe shoot some people, take prisoners and torture them — the sort of horrific abuses that we’re seeing on a regular basis,” said analyst Kean.

“But when the soldiers leave, they lose control of that area. They don’t have enough manpower to maintain control when 80% to 90% of the population is against them.”

Some ethnic minority groups with decades of experience fighting the Myanmar military offer critical support to the PDF militia movement, including supplying training and some weapons, while also providing safe havens for opposition activists and others fleeing the army.

“We never accept a coup at all for whatever reason. The position of our organization is clear,” Padoh Saw Taw Nee, the chief of the Karen National Union’s foreign affairs department, told the AP. “We oppose any military dictatorship. Therefore, the automatic response is that we must work with those who oppose the military.”

He said his group began preparing immediately after the takeover to receive people fleeing from military persecution and noted that it played a similar role in 1988 after a failed popular uprising.

There is a quid pro quo — the NUG says it will honor the minority ethnic groups’ demands for greater autonomy when it takes power.

The military, meanwhile, keeps the pressure on the Karen with periodic attacks, including by air, that send villagers fleeing for safety across a river that forms the border with Thailand.

The support of the ethnic groups is seen as key to sustaining the resistance, the thought being that as long as they can engage the army, its forces will be too stretched to finish off the PDFs.

No other factors are seen as capable of tilting the balance in favor of the military or the resistance.

Sanctions on the ruling generals can make them uncomfortable — U.S. actions, especially, have caused financial distress — but Russia and China have been reliable allies, especially willing to sell arms. The U.N. and organizations such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are seen as toothless at best.

“I see the stage sort of set for a prolonged conflict. Neither side seems willing to back down or sees it as in their interest or a necessity to back down or to make concessions in any way to the other,” said analyst Kean.

“And so it’s just very difficult to see how the conflict will diminish, will reduce in the near term, even over a period of several years. It’s just very difficult to see peace returning to many areas of Myanmar.”

——-

Associated Press video editor Jerry Harmer contributed to this report.

U.N. human rights chief calls on Myanmar to restore civilian rule

Armed anti-riot police stand guard as demonstrators flash the three-finger salute, a symbol of resistance, during a protest against the military, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar. Photo by Stringer/EPA-EFE

Jan. 29 (UPI) -- As the one-year anniversary of the Myanmar coup nears, U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet is urging the international community to pressure the country to return to civilian rule.

"I urge governments -- in the region and beyond -- as well as businesses, to listen to this plea," Bachelet said in her appeal to the international community Friday. "It is time for urgent, renewed effort to restore human rights and democracy in Myanmar and ensure the perpetrators of systemic human rights violations and abuses are held to account."

Since the Feb. 1 coup, the military's effort "to crush dissent has led to the killing of at least 1,500 people," she added.

The U.N. Human Rights Office has also documented daily human rights violations.

RELATED U.S. warns of heightened businesses risks in Myanmar

At least 11,787 people have been arbitrarily detained for peacefully protesting the coup, with 8,729 remaining in custody, and at least 290 dying in detention, many likely due to torture, according to the U.N. figures.

The U.N. office has also documented village burnings, including places of worship and medical clinics, mass arrests, summary executions and use of torture, amid "assumed support of armed elements," in clashes between civilian militant groups and military forces.

Areas of highest intense military activity include the Sagaing region, and Chin, Kachin, Kayah and Kayin states, according to Bachelet's address, which noted that the U.N. human rights office would publish a report in March detailing the human rights situation since the coup.

RELATED Military court sentences deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi to 4 more years in prison

While the coup has drawn near universal condemnation, Bachelet said the response has been "ineffectual and lacks a sense of urgency commensurate to the magnitude of the crisis."

Bachelet added that the current human rights crisis was "built upon the impunity with which the military leadership perpetrated the shocking campaign of violence resulting in gross human rights violations against the Rohingya communities of Myanmar four years ago -- and other ethnic minorities over many decades beforehand."

"As long as impunity prevails, stability in Myanmar will be a fiction," Bachelet said. "Accountability of the military remains crucial to any solution going forward -- the people overwhelmingly demand this."

RELATED  Aid group says 2 workers among adults and children killed in Myanmar on Christmas Eve

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the crisis from the coup with projections that nearly half of the population of 54 million may be driven into poverty this year.

"Members of Myanmar civil society have told me first-hand what the impact of the last year has been on their lives and those of their families and communities," Bachelet said. "The people have shown extraordinary courage and resilience in standing up for their basic human rights and support each other. Now the international community must show its resolve to support them through concrete actions to end this crisis."

The Myanmar military took over the government and detained its civilian leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and other high-ranking democratically elected officials, in the coup.

Suu Kyi was sentenced earlier this month to an additional four years in prison for illegally possessing walkie-talkies and violating COVID-19 health restrictions. She was also given a four-year sentence last month on a different pair of convictions, a term that was later reduced to two years.

Protesters have demanded that Suu Kyi be released along with other members of the National League for Democracy Party.

The military, also known as the Tatmadaw, made unsubstantiated claims of fraud after November 2020 general elections, in which Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won a landslide over the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, picking up 396 of the 476 contested seats in parliament.

The country's election committee, independent observers, and numerous Western nations, have refuted the claims of election fraud.

Islamic State strikes from shadows in vulnerable Syria, Iraq

SAUDI BACKED SUNNI JIHADISTS

By ZEINA KARAM and SARAH EL DEEB

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FILE - US attack helicopter shoots flares in Hassakeh, northeast Syria, Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2022. With a spectacular jail break in Syria and a deadly attack on an army barracks in Iraq, the Islamic State group was back in the headlines the past week, a reminder of a war that formally ended three years ago but continues to be waged away from view. 

(AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad, File)

BEIRUT (AP) — With a spectacular jail break in Syria and a deadly attack on an army barracks in Iraq, the Islamic State group was back in the headlines the past week, a reminder of a war that formally ended three years ago but continues to be fought mostly away from view.

The attacks were some of the boldest since the extremist group lost its last sliver of territory in 2019 with the help of a U.S.-led international coalition, following a years-long war that left much of Iraq and Syria in ruins.

Residents in both countries say the recent high-profile IS operations only confirmed what they’ve known and feared for months: Economic collapse, lack of governance and growing ethnic tensions in the impoverished region are reversing counter-IS gains, allowing the group to threaten parts of its former so-called caliphate once again.

One Syrian man said that over the past few years, militants repeatedly carried out attacks in his town of Shuheil, a former IS stronghold in eastern Syria’s Deir el-Zour province. They hit members of the Kurdish-led security force or the local administration — then vanished

“We would think it is over and they’re not coming back. Then suddenly, everything turns upside down again,” he said.

They are “everywhere,” he said, striking quickly and mostly in the dark, creating the aura of a stealth omnipresent force. He spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear for his safety.

IS lost its last patch of territory near Baghouz in eastern Syria in March 2019. Since that time, it largely went underground and waged a low-level insurgency, including roadside bombings, assassinations and hit-and-run attacks mostly targeting security forces. In eastern Syria, the militants carried out some 342 operations over the last year, many of them attacks on Kurdish-led forces, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Jan. 20 prison break in Syria’s Hassakeh region was its most sophisticated operation yet.

The militants stormed the prison aiming to break out thousands of comrades, some of whom simultaneously rioted inside. The attackers allowed some inmates to escape, took hostages, including child detainees, and battled the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces for a week. It was not clear how many militants managed to escape, and some remain holed up in the prison.

The fighting killed dozens and drew in the U.S.-led coalition, which carried out airstrikes and deployed American personnel in Bradley Fighting Vehicles to the scene. The battle also drove thousands of neighboring civilians from their homes.

It harkened back to a series of jail breaks that fueled IS’s surge more than eight years ago, when they overwhelmed territory in Iraq and Syria.

Hours after the prison attack began, IS gunmen in Iraq broke into a barracks in mountains north of Baghdad, killed a guard and shot dead 11 soldiers as they slept. It was part of a recent uptick in attacks that have stoked fears the group is also gaining momentum in Iraq.

An Iraqi intelligence source said IS does not have the same sources of financing as in the past and is incapable of holding ground. “They are working as a very decentralized organization,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss security information.

The group’s biggest operations are conducted by 7-10 militants, said Iraqi military spokesman Maj. Gen. Yehia Rasool. He said he believes it is currently impossible for IS to take over a village, let alone a city. In the summer of 2014, Iraqi forces collapsed and retreated when the militants overran vast swathes of northern Iraq.

On its online channel, Aamaq, IS has been putting out videos from the prison attack and glorifying its other operations in an intensified propaganda campaign. The aim is to recruit new members and “reactivate quasi-dormant networks throughout the region,” according to an analysis by the Soufan Group security consultancy.

On both sides of the Syria-Iraq border, IS benefits from ethnic and sectarian resentments and from deteriorating economies. In Iraq, the rivalry between the Baghdad-based central government and the autonomous Kurdish region in the north of the country has opened up cracks through which IS has crept back. Sunni Arab disenchantment with Shiite politicians helps the group attract young men.

In Afghanistan, IS militants have stepped up attacks on the country’s new rulers, the Taliban, as well as religious and ethnic minorities.

In eastern Syria, the tensions are between the Kurdish-led administration and Arab population. IS feeds off Arab discontent with the Kurds’ domination of power and employment at a time when Syria’s currency is collapsing.

Kurdish authorities have carried out crackdowns against the Arab population on suspicion of IS sympathies, especially after a wave of protests against living conditions. At the same time, to reduce tensions, Kurdish authorities released detained Arabs and encouraged members of Arab tribes to join the ranks of the SDF. But those steps have raised concerns over infiltration or charges of corruption, adding to the challenges.

The militants have cells extending from Baghouz in the east to rural Manbij in Aleppo province to the west, according to Rami Abdurrahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory.

“They are trying to reaffirm their presence,” he said.

East Syria is also fractured among several competing forces. The Kurdish-led administration runs most of the territory east of the Euphrates, supported by hundreds of U.S. troops. The Syrian government, with its Russian and Iranian allies, is west of the river. Turkey and its allied Syria fighters, who view the Kurds as existential enemies, hold a belt along the countries’ border.

Dareen Khalifa, a senior Syria analyst for the International Crisis Group, said the SDF’s dependence on an “unpredictable U.S. presence” in fighting the militants is one of its biggest challenges.

She said the SDF is viewed as a lame duck that makes local residents reluctant to cooperate with anti-IS raids or provide intelligence on IS cells, particularly after the group threatened or killed many suspected collaborators in the past.

Moreover, the Kurdish authorities’ claim to be able to govern and provide services to the region and its mixed population “has taken a blow in 2021 as the economic conditions in the area deteriorated,” Khalifa said.

Residents say the Islamic State group is not collecting taxes or actively recruiting people, indicating they are not seeking to seize and control territory like they did in 2014, when they became de-facto rulers of an area that stretched across nearly a third of both Syria and Iraq. Instead, they exploit the security vacuum and lack of governance and resort to intimidation and kidnappings.

The resident of Shuheil in Deir el-Zour said they mostly operate at night, in flash attacks on military posts or targeted killings carried out from speeding motorcycles.

“It is always hit and run,” he said.

He described the area as constantly on edge, under an invisible threat from militants who blend into the population. The fear is so great, no one talks openly about them, whether good or bad, he said.

“Everyone is afraid of assassinations,” he said. “They have prestige, they have a reputation. They will never go away.”

___

Associated Press writers Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad and Maamoun Youssef in Cairo contributed reporting.

Sudanese take to the streets in latest anti-coup protests

By SAMY MAGDY

1 of 5

People chant slogans during a anti-coup protests that have rocked the country since a military coup three months ago.in Khartoum, Sudan, Sunday, Jan. 30, 2022

. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali)


CAIRO (AP) — Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Sudan’s capital and other cities across the country Sunday for the latest in a months-long string of demonstrations denouncing an October military coup that plunged the country into turmoil. At least one person was killed when security forces violently dispersed protesters, a medical group said.

Protesters, mostly young men and women, marched in the streets of Khartoum and other cities, demanding an end to the military’s takeover. They called for a fully civilian government to lead the country’s now-stalled transition to democracy.

The coup has upended Sudan’s transition to democratic rule after three decades of repression and international isolation under autocratic President Omar al-Bashir. The African nation has been on a fragile path to democracy since a popular uprising forced the military to remove al-Bashir and his Islamist government in April 2019.

The protests are called by the Sudanese Professionals Association and the Resistance Committees, which were the backbone of the uprising against al-Bashir and relentless anti-coup protests in the past three months.

Footage circulated online showed people beating drums and chanting anti-coup slogans in the streets of Khartoum and its twin city Omdurman. Protesters were also seen carrying Sudanese flags and other flags with photos of protesters reportedly slain by security forces printed on them.

They marched towards the presidential palace, an area in the capital that has seen deadly clashes between protesters and security forces in previous rounds of demonstrations.

Security forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse protesters in at least one location in the capital. At least three people suffered injuries from rubber bullets, said activist Nazim Sirag.

The Sudan Doctors Committee, a medical group tracking casualties among protesters, said a 27-year-old protester died in a Khartoum hospital after he sustained unspecified injuries to his chest during the protests. It did not elaborate.

There were protests elsewhere in the country including the eastern city of Port Sudan, western Darfur region and Madani, the capital city of Jazira province, about 135 kilometers (85 miles) southeast of Khartoum. Madani saw a massive anti-coup protest last week.

Ahead of the protests, authorities stepped up security in Khartoum and Omdurman. They deployed thousands of troops and police and sealed off central Khartoum, urging protesters to assemble only in public squares in the capital’s neighborhoods.

The United Nations mission in Sudan on Saturday warned that such restrictions could increase tensions, urging authorities to let the protests “pass without violence.”

Since the coup, at least 79 people have been killed and hundreds of others wounded in a widely condemned crackdown on protests, the doctors group said.

There were also mass arrests of activists leading the anti-coup protests and allegations of sexual violence, including rape and gang rape, in a Dec. 19 protest in Khartoum, according to the U.N.

The upheaval in Sudan worsened earlier this month following the resignation of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, who was the civilian face of the transitional government over the past two years.

The prime minister, who was ousted in the October coup only to be reinstated a month later under heavy international pressure, stepped down on Jan. 2 after his efforts to reach a compromise failed.

Sunday’s protests came as the U.N. mission continued its consultations to find a way out of the ongoing crisis.

On Saturday, powerful Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, deputy head of the ruling Sovereign Council, and commander of the feared Rapid Support Forces, said they have accepted the U.N. efforts to resolve the crisis, but that U.N. envoy Volker Perthes “should be a facilitator not a mediator.”

Dagalo did not elaborate but his comments showed the challenges the U.N. mission faces to find a common ground between rival factions in Sudan.

The pro-democracy movement has insisted on the removal of the generals from power and the establishment a fully civilian government to lead the transition.

The generals, however, said they will hand over power only to an elected administration. They say elections will take place in July 2023, as planned in a 2019 constitutional document governing the transitional period.

Birds of a feather: India’s raptor-rescuing brothers

By AFP
Published January 31, 2022


Mohammad Saud is one of the brothers who run Wildlife Rescue, a group devoted to injured predatory birds - 

Copyright AFP Money SHARMA

Laurence THOMANN

Nursed back from near death, a skittish vulture flaps its wings and returns to the grey skies above India’s capital after weeks of tender care from two devoted brothers.

New Delhi is home to a magnificent array of predatory birds, but untold numbers are maimed each week by kite strings, cars and other grave encounters with human activity.

A fortunate few are found and cared for by Nadeem Shehzad and Mohammad Saud, siblings who run a rescue group devoted to injured creatures at the top of the avian food chain.

Both men are fighting an uphill battle: their patients are considered ill omens, and few donors are willing to shell out in support of Wildlife Rescue, their shoestring operation on the city’s outskirts.

“There’s a superstition in India that birds of prey are unlucky birds,” Shehzad, 44, tells AFP.

“They are not liked by many. Sometimes people hate them.”

When they were younger, the brothers found an injured predatory bird and carted it to a “vegetarian” veterinary hospital — one caring exclusively for herbivores — only to despair at the staff’s refusal to treat it.

Eventually, they began taking similarly hurt birds home to help them recover.

“Some of the birds started flying back into the wild, and that gave us much-needed confidence,” Shehzad said.

Now, on the roof of their small office, a huge aviary hosts a colourful assortment of raptors in various states of convalescence.

Among them are endangered Egyptian vultures, instantly recognisable by their bright yellow beaks and tousled cream crowns.

A colony of the species lives at a waste dump in Delhi’s east, drawn by the pungent refuse dumped there by surrounding slaughterhouses and fish markets.

One of their flock was recently returned to the wild by the brothers after being wounded by the taut string of a kite.

Kites are popular in the city, and Saud says the Wildlife Rescue clinic takes in half a dozen birds each day that are injured after colliding with them.

In a treatment room, he carefully jostles with one flapping patient still ensnared by a wire, a bare wing bone peeking through a bloodied clump of feathers.

Successful treatment depends on how soon the injured birds are brought to their attention, Saud said, pointing to another bird in obvious pain, with discoloured edges around an old wound.

“He will die in a few days, his wound is already gangrenous,” he tells AFP.

– ‘We are the destroyers’ –

Delhi has grown at a remarkable pace in recent years, and the sprawling megacity is now home to about 20 million people.

The loss of natural habitat and smog — Delhi is consistently ranked among cities with the world’s worst air pollution — has strained the cornucopia of bird species nesting around the capital.

As was the case for other ecosystems reeling from human encroachment, India’s strict coronavirus lockdowns were a massive boon to the city’s bird population, veterinarian Rajkumar Rajput tells AFP.

Rajput runs another charity clinic for injured birds in Delhi’s south, largely caring for doves, pigeons and more gentle feathered friends than the carnivores nursed by Shehzad and Saud.

He is an adherent of the Jain faith, which maintains a strict prohibition on animal slaughter, and the few raptors he does treat are kept on a vegetarian diet.

Rajput warns the brief respite granted by the lockdowns is ending and the tide is beginning to turn back.

“The distance between humans and birds has only been increasing. We are unable to bridge this distance because people are gradually losing their love for nature,” the 38-year-old said.

“These birds are the builders of natural environment, and us humans are the destroyers.”

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LGBTQ RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS

Gay dating app Grindr disappears from China app stores

By AFP
Published January 31, 2022


Gay dating app Grindr is no longer available on Apple's App Store in China

 - Copyright AFP/File Martin BUREAU

Gay dating app Grindr has disappeared from multiple app stores in China as authorities tighten control of the country’s already heavily policed internet and purge online behaviour the ruling Communist Party dislikes.

The country’s cyber authority is in the midst of a month-long campaign to root out illegal and sensitive content during the Lunar New Year holiday and February’s Winter Olympics.

Although the world’s most populous nation decriminalised homosexuality in 1997, same-sex marriage is illegal and LGBTQ issues remain taboo.

The LGBTQ community is under pressure as censorship of web content combines with a ban on depictions of gay romance in films.

Data from mobile research firm Qimai shows that Grindr was removed from Apple’s App Store in China on Thursday.

Searches for the matchmaking app on Android and similar platforms operated by Chinese companies also returned no results.

Google’s Play Store is not available in China.

Neither Grindr nor Apple responded to AFP requests for comment.

Local Grindr competitors such as Blued remain available for download.

The Chinese former owner of Grindr, Beijing Kunlun Tech, sold the app to investors in 2020 under pressure from US authorities concerned that the potential misuse of its data could present national security risks.

On Tuesday, the cyberspace administration announced a drive to crack down on rumours, pornography and other web content.

The campaign aims to “create a civilised, healthy, festive and auspicious online atmosphere for public opinion during the Lunar New Year,” the administration said in a statement.

Last year, social media accounts belonging to major university LGBTQ rights groups were blocked from the popular WeChat app.

Read more: https://www.digitaljournal.com/social-media/gay-dating-app-grindr-disappears-from-china-app-stores/article#ixzz7JZVnLiBP

Hong Kong sees first ‘seditious publication’ jailing's since handover

By AFP

Published January 31, 2022

There has been a widespread crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong - 

Copyright AFP Peter PARKS

Hong Kong’s courts jailed two people for publishing seditious content on Monday, the first time the colonial-era law has been used to secure a conviction for printed content since the city’s 1997 handover to China.

Sedition is a throwback to Hong Kong’s British colonial past but has been dusted off as authorities carry out a widespread crackdown on dissent in the wake of 2019’s democracy protests.

Multiple people — including journalists, union members and a prominent radio DJ — have been detained under the law and are facing upcoming trials.

A woman last year was jailed for “conspiracy to commit a seditious act” over a pro-democracy chat group she ran which revealed personal details about police officers.

But Monday’s verdicts were the first seditious publication convictions since the return to Chinese rule.

Kim Chiang Chung-sang, 41, a former property manager, was given eight months in jail for putting up posters outside a kindergarten and the city’s High Court.

The posters criticised the judiciary for convicting a man last year at the first trial under a national security law that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong to neuter dissent.

Acting Chief Magistrate Peter Law said Chiang was “challenging the rule of law” and trying to “poison children quietly”.

In a separate case that also concluded on Monday, the District Court jailed former clerk Chloe Tso Suet-sum, 45, for over a year for asking a 17-year-old to design and print protests leaflets.

Prosecutors said the leaflets contained slogans urging Hong Kong people to build their own army and nation, and also carried black bauhinia flowers, a symbol of the city’s now crushed democracy movement.

The 17-year-old, who AFP has chosen not to name, was sent to a youth rehabilitation centre, a step short of a custodial sentence where juveniles usually stay for two to five months.

The defendants in both cases pleaded guilty, which normally results in a sentence reduction.

Sedition carries up to two years in jail for a first offence.

During colonial rule it was deployed against pro-Beijing media and leftist government critics who slammed it as a tool to suppress free speech.

Now Chinese state media and Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing press have embraced its use against the current government’s critics.

Police and prosecutors now regularly use sedition alongside the national security law to clamp down on political speech and views.

It is treated like a national security crime which means those arrested are usually denied bail.

In recent months sedition charges have been brought against pro-democracy unionists who produced euphemistic children’s books about a sheep village defending itself from invading wolves, as well as journalists from now shuttered pro-democracy news outlets Apple Daily and StandNews.

Ming Pao, a Chinese mainstream newspaper in Hong Kong, recently adding a disclaimer to its columns saying it had no intention of committing sedition when criticising government policy.

Press freedom rapidly deteriorating in China — report

Foreign journalists working in China are facing "unprecedented hurdles" ahead of the Winter Olympics, according to a new survey. Reporters in the Xinjiang region also say they are being increasingly harassed.

    

The Chinese government frequently censors critical media coverage

Foreign journalists in China are facing "unprecedented hurdles," according to a press freedom report by the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China (FCCC) released on Monday.

"The FCCC is troubled by the breakneck speed by which media freedom is declining in China," the report said.

What did the report say?

Of the over 100 foreign journalists that took part in the FCCC's survey, 99% said that they felt working conditions did not meet international standards.

Almost half of respondents said that their offices were understaffed as they were unable to bring journalists into the country as authorities have delayed visa approvals.

88% of respondents who traveled to China's northwestern Xinjiang region in 2021 said they were visibly followed, and 34% said that they were asked to delete data. Xinjiang has been the site of a crackdown on China's Uyghur ethnic minority, which has drawn international condemnation.

The FCCC noted that state-backed campaigns of online harassment have been used to make the job of reporting more difficult.

60% of respondents criticized the insufficient information provided about the Olympics

China tightly controlling Olympics coverage

In the run-up to the Beijing Winter Olympics, 60% of the 127 respondents criticized the insufficient information provided by the organizers about events.

23% said that they were not able to get in touch with appropriate Olympics committee personnel, while 32% said they were excluded from events open to other media.

Only 10% of respondents said that they were able to reliably attend pre-Olympics events. Correspondents often only learn of press events after they occur, according to the FCCC report.

The FCCC said in its report that "media freedom deteriorates in the periods around China's major events — a time when the authorities want to ensure political stability."

According to the FCCC, most news organizations are planning to send foreign journalists from outside China to cover the Olympics, which will require entering a quarantine bubble. 90% of respondents to the survey said they were not planning to go into the Olympics bubble.

Hong Kong's pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily closed after its offices were raided

 and founder Jimmy Lai was arrested

Hong Kong no longer an appealing option for correspondents

The FCCC report said that foreign correspondents that haven't been able to remain in China have relocated to cities such as Taipei, Singapore, Sydney and London.

The FCCC said that Hong Kong is no longer an appealing option for foreign correspondents, as China has begun expelling foreign journalists as well as arresting and jailing local journalists.

In December of 2021, pro-democracy news outlet Stand News was forced to shut down after its offices were raided by police and current and former staff were arrested.

In June last year, police raided the premises of the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily and the paper's executives were arrested for "collusion with a foreign country."

sdi/wd (AFP, dpa)

Teaching journalism now a risky affair

 in Hong Kong

Journalism teachers in Hong Kong can no longer teach freely amid an ongoing crackdown on free press by the government. Some are adapting to the new situation and changing their strategy.


Hong Kong authorities have intensified a crackdown on free media

Journalists in Hong Kong are facing a massive government crackdown, which has forced many news organizations to shut down their operations. It has also resulted in many journalists losing their jobs.

The crisis is not limited to media organizations and journalists; journalism teachers and trainers are also facing the brunt of the clampdown.

Under pressure from authorities, media studies teachers are unsure what to teach in the classrooms.

Zhao (name changed due to security concerns) is a part-time journalism lecturer at a university in Hong Kong. He told DW that while the university management didn't tell teachers to not teach certain topics, teachers are aware of what can't be said and what needs to be expressed in a veiled manner.

Zhao says he tells his students to be careful when covering "sensitive topics" for class assignments.

"During the Hong Kong media heyday in the 1990s, journalists could ask any question directly while reporting a topic," he said, adding that they didn't have to worry about violating media laws.

Yuen Chan, a journalism lecturer at City, University of London, fears that journalism education in Hong Kong is likely to come under more pressure in coming years.

"I think the challenge is going to be how to uphold the principles of journalism without falling foul of the law and worrying about the red lines," she told DW.

Red lines

Journalism teachers say it is becoming increasingly difficult to define the red lines regarding freedom of expression.

Tai (name changed), who teaches news editing and management at a university in Hong Kong, told DW that some teachers may choose to make significant adjustments to their teaching materials out of security concerns.

"For instance, some examples that the teachers previously used in the class may now violate the National Security Law (NSL), so they use other examples to teach certain skills in the classroom," he said.

One such example, he said, is how to describe Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen to students. In the past, some media outlets in Hong Kong introduced her as "Taiwanese President," but now it could be viewed as illegal under the NSL. The teachers now describe her as "Taiwan leader."

Tai admits that in the past two years, he, too, adjusted some parts of his teaching materials. "For example, Hong Kong's local media used to offer a wide range of perspectives that I could use in the classroom to explain journalism theories, but since the city now lacks perspectives in certain areas, I can only use materials offered by the international media," he said.
An unsafe profession

Chiaoning Su, a journalism professor at Oakland University in the United States, says many of her former colleagues have left Hong Kong.

"Those who are still there face an impossible task: teaching the core values of democratic journalism," she told DW.

Lokman Tsui, a former assistant professor of journalism at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), agrees with Chiaoning. "Journalistic values are very important. It is getting more difficult to teach them because of the direction that the government has taken," he said.

Tsui says it is now a challenge for media educators to encourage their students to become journalists. "As a teacher, you want to encourage your students to contribute something to society. But how do you do that when journalism has become unsafe?"
A difficult future

Two years ago, journalism was a popular subject at Hong Kong universities, and the number of applicants for journalism departments had grown substantially. The situation is rapidly changing now.

Journalism lecturers and communication departments at public universities are now pondering how to adapt to the changing political landscape in the city.

"University operations are supported by the government, so if they don't comply with the rules, they don't have any future in Hong Kong," said Zhao.

Yuen Chan says that some journalism schools are shifting their focus to advertising and media marketing. "Many journalism departments are offering courses in public relations, marketing, and creative industries. We may see more of these things in the future."

Despite these challenges, Zhao says he is not ready to give up on his ideals. "The media's role in monitoring the government will not change because of the crackdown," he said.

Tsung-Hsien Lee contributed to the report.

Edited by: Shamil Shams

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds

Pakistan police call for PUBG game ban after family massacre


A man walks past a poster for the PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds game at an internet cafe in Rawalpindi 

(AFP/Farooq NAEEM) (Farooq NAEEM)

Mon, January 31, 2022

Pakistani police called Monday for the wildly popular PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) game to be banned after a teenager confessed to killing four members of his family in a rage after bingeing for days playing online.

Police said Ali Zain shot dead his mother, two sisters and a brother on January 18, and claimed under questioning at the weekend that the game had driven him to violence.

"This is not the first incident of its nature," police investigator Imran Kishwar told reporters in the eastern city of Lahore, adding "so we have decided to recommend a ban".

PUBG is an online multiplayer "battle royale" game in which the winner is the last survivor.

Kishwar said Ali, 18, lived in complete isolation in his room and was addicted to the game.

Dawn newspaper quoted a Lahore police officer as saying Ali "fired at his family thinking that they will also come back to life, as happened in the game".

Often likened to the blockbuster book and film series "The Hunger Games", PUBG has become one of the world's most popular mobile games.

Telecoms authorities in Pakistan have previously temporarily blocked access to the game after complaints about its violent content.

The game has been banned -- briefly or permanently -- in several other countries, including India and China.

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for EMOTIONAL PLAGUE 

ZOO'S ARE ANIMAL CONCENTRATION CAMPS

Lioness Kills Keeper, Escapes Zoo With Mate

Iran: The lioness managed to open a door of the cage, get out and then attack the 40-year-old guard who had just brought food for them, said a zoo employee.

Agence France-Presse

Updated: January 31, 2022 

The lion and the lioness have been captured after they escaped from Iran zoo, said authorities.

Tehran:

A lioness in an Iranian zoo attacked and killed a keeper and escaped with a mate before the pair was captured again, local media reported on Monday.

"The lioness, which has been in the zoo for several years, managed to open a door of the cage, get out and then attack the 40-year-old guard who had just brought food to the pair of felines," a zoo employee told state broadcaster IRIB.

He said "the two animals managed to escape" Sunday from their cage in the zoo in the city of Arak, Markazi province, about 200 kilometres (125 miles) southwest of Tehran.

"Immediately after the incident, security forces took control of the zoo", Amir Hadi, the governor of the province was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.

He added that "efforts to capture the two felines alive have been successful".