Sidelined by society, Sheikha Helawy's short stories animate the lives of Palestinian Bedouins stuck in limbo

Book Club: The plight of Bedouins living in Palestine is seldom written about in novel form. Sheikha Helawy, herself hailing from a Bedouin town, has written a collection of 18 short stories that unveils the culture of Bedouin women in modernity.


They Fell Like Stars from the Sky and Other Stories is a powerful ode to the Bedouin women and girls of Palestine and their spirit for every form of freedom [Neem Tree Press]

Noshin Bokth
20 September, 2023

Amid constant and violent deracination, the stifling patriarchy, and the radiance within the mundane, women remain lambent in They Fell Like Stars From the Sky and Other Stories.

Award-winning author Sheikha Helawy has crafted 18 short stories in which young women and girls soliloquies, memories, and tragedies are celebrated and scrutinised.

The literary canon is rife with Palestinian tales that have expounded on its trauma, resilience, and people.

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However, translated by Nancy Roberts, Helawy has animated the life of Palestinian Bedouins and the life that prevails in their villages. She is one of the few authors who has revealed an intimate portrait of the inner worlds of Bedouiness to a global audience.

"Helawy focuses each story on the spirit of one or two girls. The psychological acuity with which she writes demands to be lauded. Adolescence is a perplexing transition for girls, and the added trauma of occupation and societal fixation on female bodies and chastity only convolutes their worlds further"

Helawy herself is from the forgotten village of Dhail El E'rj. Roberts prefaces that the residents of this village, including Helawy, were forcibly displaced by the Israeli occupation.

The town was eradicated, delineated as unrecognised, and replaced with an Israeli railway. Thus, Helawy has reanimated the people of this plundered town and the little girl within her who resisted and triumphed. Her lyrical vignettes are interlaced with Bedouin dialect and examine those girls just entering into womanhood to those with years of wisdom.

She pens stories in which their experiences are universal yet distinctive to Bedouin's existence. Not only are these tales a homage to her roots, but they were written as a spiritual purging to reconcile, dismantle, and confront the cultural stereotypes that sought, yet ultimately failed to diminish, women.

The ethics and principles governing these villages' girls are subtly interwoven. The tales are succinct, each merely three to four pages long. Many of them explore the psyches of adolescent girls coming to terms with their changing bodies and minds and the contradictory regulations imposed on them.

In the first story, Haifa Assassinated My Braid, a young girl convinces her mother to take her to the salon to cut off enough hair so she can no longer boast the braids precious to girls of her Bedouin culture.

She is a student at a school in Haifa and is relentlessly teased for all the features that betray her Bedouiness. So, in an effort to transiently disavow her identity and become a Haifa girl, she chops off her braid despite the Bedouin mentality equating braids with virginity.

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In the eponymous story, They Fell Like Stars From the Sky, a group of boys tie a tire to a tree to create a makeshift swing that provides the illusory effect of flying over the neighbouring Jewish settlement.

This innocuous pastime of children worldwide has turned into a scandal. Jawaher, the young girl the story centres on, contemplates the repercussions of enjoying the swing and decides to get a taste of the air above with her friends. Such an act is borderline shameful for growing women like themselves. In their defiance, the swing snaps, scattering the girls like fallen stars, injuring Jawaher, and bringing dishonour to her mother.

In Pink Dress, another girl haphazardly shaves her leg hair in contempt of her mother's anxiety so that her feminity may illumine through her dress.


"Many of the other tales contemplate love, marriage, and family. How are relationships defined in a society consumed with a woman's virginity or in the precarious environment under apartheid?"

Helawy focuses each story on the spirit of one or two girls. The psychological acuity with which she writes demands to be lauded. Adolescence is a perplexing transition for girls, and the added trauma of occupation and societal fixation on female bodies and chastity only convolutes their worlds further.

An unnamed character from I'll Be There is caught in limbo between the oppressive rules of the British Nun at her school and her puritanical Bedouin mother. Her only crime is that she enjoys jewellery and music.

Selma is a girl on the edge of puberty whose bosom is blooming in the tale The Door to the Body. Her burgeoning femininity prompts caustic arguments between her parents about whether they should send her to boarding school. As she ponders with innocence, "What bothered her most was her parent's preoccupation with a part of her body that didn't even mean much to her!"

Throughout the collection, we see that the Israeli occupation is not a central force in this collection. However, key players are insidiously intertwined in the characters' lives, such as the British nuns and the bordering Israeli settlements that boast luxuries near dwindling villages. While their shadow eclipses the prosaic concerns of teenagers, we are made to witness the silent but resounding fortitude of the Palestinian people.

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Many of the other tales contemplate love, marriage, and family. How are relationships defined in a society consumed with a woman's virginity or in the precarious environment under apartheid?

Ali is the meditation of a young man who ponders on his beautiful wife, Wadha, comparing her to coffee beans. He asserts that coffee beans require an expert, and so does a woman, only to learn that his wife's heart is beholden to another man named Ali. A dead woman's body horrifies the village elders when her body is found to be adorned with snake tattoos.

A private act for the sensual pleasure of her husband haunts and scandalises those she leaves behind. Hasna is told, "We don't have girls who fall in love," in Umm al-Zeinat. A betrothed teenager is ridiculed for the love of her donkey, and Habiba's grandmother's devotion to singer Umm Kulthum sustains her. Love and connection survive pillaging, tirades, and war in Helawy's world. Moreover, it manifests beyond romance and through the bonds of feminity and life itself.

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The tales' brevity affects the sentiment of entering someone's private memories and consciousnesses. They are an eloquent sketch of the interminable metamorphosis' of a woman's identity and the power she possesses to resist.

When girls experience puberty, they leave behind their childhood to enter a life driven by ambiguous morals while navigating through their unique womanliness. It is a harrowing task further compounded by the perilous political atmosphere of life under occupation.

The individual is shaped by discrepancies in their national identity and constraints of tradition, so the women in Helawy's stories provide a catharsis for the readers. Being cognizant of oneself and how your environs permeate your psyche requires adroitness and candour, a skill that Helawy has conquered.

Noshin Bokth has over six years of experience as a freelance writer. She has covered a wide range of topics and issues including the implications of the Trump administration on Muslims, the Black Lives Matter movement, travel reviews, book reviews, and op-eds. She is the former Editor in Chief of Ramadan Legacy and the former North American Regional Editor of the Muslim Vibe

Follow her on Twitter: @BokthNoshin

Little Amal: Syrian refugee puppet leads march to US Capitol

Last week, hundreds gathered in downtown Washington, DC, clapping and dancing around Amal, a giant puppet, whose Arabic name was chosen to symbolise hope The group then marched together toward the Capitol, as a local marching band performed.

Brooke Anderson
Washington, D.C.
20 September, 2023

Little Amal, the 12-foot Syrian refugee puppet, made stops in Washington, DC this week as part of a global tour to promote human rights and to raise awareness of refugees.

On Tuesday afternoon, hundreds gathered at Freedom Plaza downtown, clapping and dancing around Amal, whose Arabic name was chosen to symbolise hope, as music was played for the occasion.

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The group then marched together toward the Capitol, as a local marching band led them down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Many people waved metallic blankets, what's often used to give warmth to migrants after a gruelling journey, and others carried children's shoes in a show of solidarity with child refugees.

"It's really to get empathy for people who are on the move, and not because they want to move most of the time but because they have to. We don't make policy. We want to change the world through empathy and to create better empathy"

"We created this event to welcome Amal. For us, it was really important to create an event and welcome Amal because our mission is humanising global politics through performance, and that's exactly what Amal does," Ersian Francois, general manager of the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics, told The New Arab, as the crowd was getting ready to march to the Capitol.

"It's not about putting children and different people in different categories. It's really to get empathy for people who are on the move, and not because they want to move most of the time but because they have to. We don't make policy. We want to change the world through empathy and to create better empathy," she said.

Little Amal is the 12-foot-tall puppet of a 10-year-old Syrian refugee child who's a global symbol of human rights, especially for those of refugees. She calls for people’s attention to the huge numbers of children fleeing war, violence and persecution, each with their own story 

The puppet, manoeuvred by an individual inside the structure and by two people walking on either side moving the arms, was able to dance and interact with people along the route.

Through their well-timed and careful movements, they were able to give the puppet a sense of warmth and vulnerability, showing why so many around the world have been moved by the puppet's presence.

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The New Arab Staff

Little Amal, not that little standing at 12 feet, is designed to depict a 10-year-old Syrian refugee girl. The animatronic puppet, which made her walking tour debut in 2021, has made stops in cities around world, including London, Brussels, Rome, and Geneva.

Since beginning "The Walk" in July 2021, Amal has travelled over 6,000 miles to 97 towns and cities in 15 countries and has been welcomed by more than a million people on the street, according to the project's website.

A woman hands a shoe to the puppet Little Amal as they walk towards the US Capitol on Pennsylvania Avenue on September 19, 2023, in Washington, DC 

The puppet has appeared at festivals and other gatherings in an effort to bring attention to children fleeing conflict.

Between 7 September and 5 November 2023, Amal is travelling 6,000 miles across the United States, stopping in 40 towns and cities from Boston to San Diego, with more than 100 public events expected to host the puppet.

Three new dams 'to be built' in storm-stricken Derna

The New Arab Staff
25 September, 2023

A Libyan Government of National Unity official says three new dams will be built in the stricken city of Derna following floods which killed thousands.

The dams which collapsed in Derna had suffered years of neglect [Maxar Technologies]
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Three new dams will be built in the Libyan city of Derna in the coming months, where thousands of people were killed by Storm Daniel earlier this month.

Omar Al-Maghribi, the Director of the Dams Administration at the Libyan Government of National Unity's Ministry of Financial Resources told The New Arab's sister site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that companies had been contracted for the project.

He did not name the businesses contracted for the project or reveal their estimated costs.

Two dams collapsed in Derna during Storm Daniel, which was viewed as the main factor behind the catastrophic loss of life, property, and infrastructure in the city.

Reports suggest that the dams have been chronically neglected over the past decade amid Libya's conflict and political chaos, with the foreign company responsible for the two dams halting work there.

The Tripoli-based Government of National Unity does not control Derna, which like most of eastern Libya is held by forces loyal to warlord Khalifa Haftar.

Storm Daniel caused the Bou Mansour Dam, which has a capacity of 22.5 million cubic metres and is located 13 kilometres from Derna, to give way. This resulted in water inundating the nearby second dam, situated just a kilometre from the coastal city with a capacity of 1.5 million cubic metres.

Following the storm, a Libyan Audit Bureau report stated that the Ministry of Water Resources neglected the maintenance of the Derna dam, especially the non-payment of 2.286 million euros in maintenance expenses to the Turkish company, Bressel, in 2020.

A 2018 Al-Araby Al-Jadeed report pointed out that some dams in Libya require an equivalent of $7.27 million for annual maintenance. However, official figures indicated that the financial allocations did not exceed $364,000.

Derna, with its dam reservoirs, has witnessed at least five floods since 1942, as per a study from Sabha University. These dams, built between 1973 and 1977 by a Yugoslavian firm, have not seen any significant maintenance since 2002.

NATO NATION BUILDING

The political failures behind Libya's deadly floods

In-depth: Libya's divided and dysfunctional political system bears part of the blame for the magnitude of loss in the catastrophic flooding.

Ufuk Necat Tasci
18 September, 2023

Libya has been left reeling from the aftermath of Storm Daniel, a hurricane-strength storm that hit the central and eastern Mediterranean over a week ago.

Striking Benghazi, Al Bayda, Merc, and, in particular, Derna in eastern Libya, officials have so far put the death toll at well above 11,000, but the tally could rise even higher.

Over 10,000 remain missing a week after the disaster, with Yale University professors recently declaring that the storm could be the worst in the continent's recorded history.

The collapse of dams built five decades ago in the port city of Derna, home to 90,000 people, unleashed devastating walls of water that swept away entire neighbourhoods and decimated infrastructure.

"Neglect and corruption have been rampant for some time, and the flood response has exposed this for all to see"

Despite the unprecedented magnitude of the storm, the extent to which the city was prepared for such a disaster has raised a number of concerns, most notably surrounding state neglect, which is now exacerbated by a divided political authority and widespread insecurity.

Furthermore, the challenges in getting aid to Libya following the tragedy, as well as the lack of coordination and administrative power, highlight the absence of strong public institutions across the country.

Since 2014, eastern Libya has been under the control of Libyan National Army (LNA) leader Khalifa Haftar, while the rival western-based government located in Tripoli oversees infrastructure projects and has access to national funds.

The lack of maintenance for the dams, however, goes back further. A decade after they were damaged following storms in 1986 a Libyan government study showed cracks and fissures in their structures.

Selected, not elected: Libya's multifaceted power struggle

Analysis Ufuk Necat Tasci

Two years later, an Italian engineering firm recommended the construction of a third dam to protect the city after confirming the cracks.

In 2007, the government of Muammar Gaddafi hired a Turkish company to conduct repairs, but payment issues delayed the work until 2010 and, eventually, they halted after the revolution in the country.

A state-run audit agency reported in 2021 that the two dams hadn’t been maintained despite $2 million being allocated for the project in 2012 and 2013.

Libya’s top prosecutor Al-Siddiq Al-Sour has said an investigation will be launched into the collapse of the dams, which will include scrutinising previous governments and local authorities.

Officials have so far put the death toll at well above 11,000. 

But the degree to which a fractured and dysfunctional political system can respond to the disaster, and create safeguards for the future, remains unclear.

"Neglect and corruption have been rampant for some time, and the flood response has exposed this for all to see," Sami Hamdi, editor-in-chief of the International Interest, told The New Arab.

The dominance of individual warlords and militia alliances means that institutions have little weight across the country, impacting service provision and general governance, the analyst said.

"Popular opinion is not considered of particular importance among the militias or political factions, and their control and authority is one that is imposed through the use of force and patronage"

“The first point of contention is why orders were issued to stay indoors rather than evacuate when everyone knew a storm was on its way. Second, and more significantly, there is little evidence of or hope for accountability, given the lack of trust in local institutions or processes," Hamdi added.

"There have been no resignations or admissions of fault."

Instead, Hamdi says, the established powers and militias are engaging in a PR race to evade accountability, reaffirm their 'wise' leadership (in the words of Haftar's son), and cement their legitimacy by insisting that all help must go via them.

Even within the West-East political divide, which shows no signs of abating, the city of Derna itself had remained isolated within the wider eastern region.

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"Derna has always been a peculiar, contrarian city, characterised by a spirit of rebellion and protest," Jalel Harchaoui, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), told The New Arab.

"Partly for this reason, Haftar developed an enmity against Derna, a violent phase that lasted until early 2019. Hostility still existed in 2023, as Derna's municipal elections in August 2023 were interrupted and prevented by Field Marshal Haftar," Harchaoui added.

According to the analyst, deep antagonism between the Haftar regime and Derna remains a serious issue that must be monitored in the wake of the deadly floods.

"For this and other reasons, the Haftar family and its friends will be tempted to divert, distort, and subvert international aid efforts meant for Derna," Harchaoui added.

Over 10,000 remain missing a week after the disaster. 

A 2018 report by a UN panel of experts said that the behaviour of militias and various groups had resulted in the “misappropriation of Libyan State funds and the deterioration of institutions and infrastructure”.

But despite a consensus among the Libyan public that political factions are unpopular, the continued delay in elections or a political roadmap means that for the foreseeable future national divisions look set to continue.

"Rather than uniting, political factions are more likely to begin competing over aid routes, reconstruction contracts, and financing frameworks in order to entrench their positions"

"In this regard, popular opinion is not considered of particular importance among the militias or political factions, and their control and authority is one that is imposed through the use of force and patronage rather than a willingly conferred mandate from the Libyans," Hamdi told TNA.

Rather than uniting, political factions are more likely to begin competing over aid routes, reconstruction contracts, and financing frameworks in order to entrench their positions further following the natural disaster, Hamdi adds.

Indeed, jostling to be the contact point for relief efforts and international aid is a means of claiming political legitimacy that Libyans would not grant them at the ballot box.

Dr Ufuk Necat Tasci is a political analyst, academic, and journalist. His research areas and interests include Libya, the foreign policy of Turkey, proxy wars, surrogate warfare, and new forms of conflict and history

Follow him on Twitter: @UfukNecat

Israel's 'African problem': After Eritrean clashes, anti-migrant racism flares

Alessandra Bajec
20 September, 2023

In-depth: Violent clashes in Tel Aviv involving Eritrean asylum seekers, and ensuing calls to deport all migrants, have put the spotlight on Israel's widespread and long-standing police brutality and racism against African migrants.

In the wake of violent clashes during protests by rival groups of Eritreans in south Tel Aviv at the beginning of this month, the Israeli government has launched a full-scale offensive against African migrants.

The unrest erupted after opponents of the Eritrean government asked Israeli authorities to cancel an embassy event, and clashed with government supporters. The involvement of the Israeli police dramatically intensified the street fight as officers fired on protesters with live ammunition, arguably a disproportionate response.

In the aftermath of the altercations between pro- and anti-regime Eritreans, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to deport the “illegal infiltrators” involved in the skirmishes. More than 50 Eritrean protest participants were detained without charge or trial.

Just a week later, the Israeli cabinet approved $5 million to incentivise African migrants and refugees to depart, the latest of several measures the Israeli regime has taken over the years to try to kick asylum seekers out of the country. It also announced plans to strengthen the police presence in south Tel Aviv, where many migrants live.


"The recent crackdown on Israel's Eritrean minority points to an escalation in the Israeli right's anti-migrant campaign, which has long sought to target non-Jewish immigrants"

Halefom Sultan, an Eritrean asylum-seeker and activist living in Tel Aviv, thinks police violence in the events at the Eritrean embassy “reflects” the Israeli government’s policies, observing a recurring use of excessive force on non-Jews in the country.

“Every time there’s an incident of violence, police forces will turn against us [refugees],” he told The New Arab.

The refugee activist hinted that it is possible that Israeli officials purposefully left these politically opposed Eritrean groups to clash with each other to fuel the perception that asylum seekers are “criminals”.

“Whenever refugees get into a fight, Israeli police will just stand by until it’s all over,” Sultan said, emphasising that the non-intervention seemed deliberate.

Netanyahu called migration from African countries a “threat” to the state of Israel, hailing the construction of a barrier on the southern border with Egypt which he claimed blocked “hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Africans”.

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Analysis Fatih Şemsettin Işık

The Israeli PM said there remains a “problem” in south Tel Aviv and elsewhere that needs to be resolved, and ordered a plan to remove all of the country’s African migrants, claiming that they are a threat to the “future of Israel as a Jewish and a democratic state”.

Netanyahu and others in his government have blamed the Supreme Court for previously standing in the way of forcing migrants out of Israel.

The recent crackdown on Israel’s Eritrean minority points to an escalation in the Israeli right’s anti-migrant campaign, which has long sought to target non-Jewish immigrants. Consecutive Israeli cabinets, mostly under Netanyahu’s leadership, have manifested this hostility towards African asylum seekers, the majority of whom are from Sudan and Eritrea.

Between the years of 2005 and 2012, Israel began implementing several policies to dissuade immigration as many Africans arrived in the country via Egypt, before building a fence along the desert border which largely stemmed the numbers of incoming migrants.

More than 100 people were injured when Israeli police intervened in clashes between rival Eritrean factions in southern Tel Aviv on 2 September 2023.

“The Israeli government has initiated so many directives to make [African migrants’] life miserable in order to coerce them into leaving,” Sigal Rozen, public policy coordinator at the Israeli rights group Hotline for Refugees and Migrants (HRM), commented speaking to The New Arab.

Under international law, Israel cannot return people entitled to refugee protection to a country where their life or liberty may be at risk. But in recent years, Israeli authorities have tried various tactics against asylum-seekers to push them out.

In 2013, in response to a policy of incarcerating migrants indefinitely, Israel’s High Court overruled legislation that permitted migrants to be jailed for up to three years without trial. The detention period was later reduced to the current three-month period.

The Court also ordered the closure of Holot refugee detention centre in southern Israel’s Negev desert in 2014, which the government finally shut down in 2018.


"There are an estimated 25,000 African immigrants living in Israel, mainly from Sudan and Eritrea, who fled conflict or persecution. Very few have been granted refugee status"

Since 2013, Israel has encouraged asylum-seekers to leave ‘voluntarily’, often under the threat of imprisonment, by offering plane tickets, travel documents and cash payments.

Notably, it struck secret agreements with Rwanda and Uganda, where it started transferring Eritreans and Sudanese under a contentious “voluntary return” programme whereby immigrants had to choose between indefinite imprisonment in Israel and signing a document to “willingly” leave.

Those departing under this policy were not granted protection in Rwanda or Uganda, forcing them to embark on a dangerous journey in search of safety in Europe.

In 2018, the Israeli government took a harsher step by announcing a plan to forcibly deport African asylum seekers residing in the country to third African countries, however the deportation plan was cancelled following months of both local and international outrage and mobilisation.

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Israeli authorities have also been incentivising immigrants to return home or relocate by means of economic pressure. A 2017 law required employers to deposit 20% of asylum seekers’ wages into a fund that they could only access if they agreed to leave the country. The High Court repealed the law in 2020.

Last year, the Interior Ministry decided to prohibit the employment of asylum seekers in 17 Israeli cities, where most of them live, unless they work in certain industries (hospitality, construction, agriculture, and institutional caretaking) that rely on migrant labour.

Even though it has not been enacted, the directive puts refugees and migrants in limbo not knowing if they would be ordered to relocate to a city where they are authorised to live and work.

Another coercive governmental proposal was announced in June of this year to train asylum seekers and refugees professionally on the condition that they will leave Israel willingly.

For years, the Israeli government has implemented a range of tactics aimed at driving African migrants in the country out. 

“The most horrible of all measures is this constant instability. Every day, asylum seekers learn that Israeli decision-makers are discussing them or making new plans to try to expel them,” Rozen told The New Arab.

She stressed that, regardless of who is in charge, the Israeli political establishment has been steadily hostile toward African immigrants. “All governments during these years have wanted to see migrants out,” she explained.

There are an estimated 25,000 African immigrants living in Israel, mainly from Sudan and Eritrea, who fled conflict or persecution. Very few have been granted refugee status, with only a minuscule 0.5% of asylum seeker claims accepted as of today.

In contrast, Israel grants automatic citizenship to Jews from anywhere in the world, without requiring any justifying circumstances.

No justice for Palestinians in Israel's flawed legal system

In-depth   Jessica Buxbaum

Those seeking asylum in Israel are only allowed to stay under a temporary permit. They are not officially allowed to work, and are not entitled to healthcare or welfare services, except in extreme cases.

Most of them reside in south Tel Aviv, characterised by a relatively lower cost of living, or economically deprived neighbourhoods of Jerusalem, Eilat, Haifa, Arad, and Ashkelon. Israeli residents in those areas complain of increased crime, a rise in rents, and lack of jobs, often blaming migrants.

Immigrants with little to no rights have already lived with an uncertain future amid ongoing efforts to push them out of the county.

Now, Israel’s right-wing government is leveraging the rise in hostility towards migrants in the aftermath of the Tel Aviv clashes to further its racist campaign against the non-Jewish migrant community.

Alessandra Bajec is a freelance journalist currently based in Tunis.

Follow her on Twitter: @AlessandraBajec

Iraq's Christians facing 'systematic displacement' since US-led invasion, says patriarch

The head of Iraq's Chaldean Catholic church has painted a bleak image of the community's current situation in Iraq, plagued by decades of instability.

The New Arab Staff
25 September, 2023

Sako said Christians accounted for less than 1% of Iraq's population today

The head of Iraq's Chaldean Catholic Church says the country's Christian community has been systematically displaced and their rights violated since the 2003 US-led invasion, pointing to an alarming population decrease.

In a message posted on the church's official website on Saturday evening, Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako accused the Iraqi state of marginalising the country's Christian minority.

Most of Iraq's Christians have fled the country since the 2003 US-led invasion, in part due to a proliferation in extremist groups.

"Christians have their legitimate human and national rights violated, and are being excluded from their jobs, and their capabilities and properties are being seized, in addition to the systematic demographic change of their towns in the Nineveh Plain before the eyes of the Iraqi state," the patriarch said.

"One million Christians left Iraq after 2003, and after IS [Islamic State group] members displaced the Christians of Mosul and the towns of the Nineveh Plain in 2014, for security, political, economic, and social reasons."

IS seized large swathes of territory in northern and western Iraq, proclaiming an unrecognised Islamic caliphate which included parts of Syria, before its defeat in 2017.

Although these regions have been liberated, Iraqi Christians still face major hurdles including the dominance of militias and the failure of successive governments to rebuild their towns.

Christians today account for less than one percent of Iraq's roughly 44 million population, the patriarch said. Chaldeans - alongside Assyrians and Syriacs - make up the biggest Christian denominations in the country.

Before the US-led invasion and the fall of dictator Saddam Hussein, Christians were believed to number between 1.5 and 2 million. Many fled to Lebanon and Jordan, or abroad to Europe, North America, and Australia.

"About 1,200 Christians were killed in multiple violent incidents throughout Iraq in the period between 2003 and 2018, including 700 people who were killed based on their identity, and a number of clerics were kidnapped in Mosul and Baghdad, and a number of them were killed, most notably Bishop Boulos Faraj Rahho, the Chaldean Archbishop of Mosul," Sako said, according to the message published on the website.

He added that 85 churches and monasteries in Baghdad, Mosul, and Basra were bombed by extremists including IS, as well as the seizure of 23,000 Christian homes and other private properties, while many were forced out of their jobs.

"The Christian quota was hijacked in the parliamentary elections, Christians have lost confidence in the improvement of their situation, due to these violations and the consequences of the Personal Status Law," he said.

Since 2003, Iraq has by convention been governed by a sectarian power-sharing system where the president (whose position is largely ceremonial) is a Kurd and the prime minister and parliament speaker are Shia and Sunni Arabs respectively.

In this confessional-based system, Christians and other minorities have had little representation.

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The New Arab Staff & Agencies

"The percentage of Christians decreased from 4 percent to about 1 percent," Patriarch Sako said, suggesting that "the migration trend and the departure of young people will continue due to their exclusion from jobs for flimsy reasons".

He said equality in law is the key to tackling the exodus of Christians from Iraq.

In early July, Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid cancelled a 2013 decree officially recognising Sako as head of the Chaldean Church, which was essential for administering the community's endowment.

In response, Sako said he would withdraw from the seat of the patriarchate in Baghdad and instead settle at one of the monasteries in the autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq.

The Chaldean patriarch has also been embroiled in a war of words with Christian lawmaker Rayan Al-Kildani for months.

Kildani heads the Babylon Movement, whose armed wing is part of Al-Hashd Al-Shaabi - a network of largely Iranian-backed paramilitaries which have official recognition from the Iraqi state.

In a country ravaged by repeated conflicts and plagued by endemic corruption, Sako and Kildani have accused each other of illegally seizing Christian-owned properties.

Kildani, who has been under US sanctions since 2019, accuses the cardinal of assuming a political role beyond his religious mandate.

WOMEN, LIFE, FREEDOM

How Mahsa Amini's death permanently changed Iran

Analysis: Mass protests last year changed Iran in significant ways. One year on, the Islamic Republic still faces a legitimacy crisis, as a cultural revolution continues to challenge the balance of power between state and society.

Analysis
Giorgio Cafiero
19 September, 2023

The 16th of September marked one year since the death in police custody of Mahsa Jina Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman from Saqqez.

When Amini was in Tehran just over a year ago, the Iranian “morality police” arrested her for allegedly not properly wearing the hijab in compliance with the laws of the Islamic Republic.

Although Iranian officials claim that she died from a heart attack unrelated to her situation in the “re-education” centre, Amini’s parents and Iranian protesters have rejected this official line, maintaining that she died from blows to her body while in custody.

What immediately followed Amini’s death in custody was a wave of protests that erupted all over Iran. In contrast to previous protests, the ones triggered by this young woman’s death took place in all provinces. Iranians came out in large urban areas, as well as in more rural and conservative parts of the country.

Although over time the protests lost steam, which was largely due to the government’s heavy-handed crackdown, the grievances that drove so many Iranians to the street remain unaddressed.

"The protests marked an inflection point, where the majority of the Iranian people gave up trying to find a modus vivendi with a regime that only cares about its own narrow core constituents"

A cultural revolution

The protests that broke out in September 2022 changed Iran in significant ways. Although the Islamic Republic has remained in power, which means that there was no successful political revolution, Iran has been, and still is, undergoing a cultural revolution.

“Today, the Iranian society, especially women, are moving the boundaries of [civil] disobedience and I believe that the balance of power between state and society will change, when more and more segments of society engage in [civil] disobedience, and that is when significant changes in governance structures will emerge in Iran,” said Dr Bijan Khajehpour, the managing partner at Vienna-based Eurasian Nexus, in an interview with The New Arab.

“How Iran changed since the death of Mahsa Amini is that Iranian women and girls essentially came to the street to fight mandatory hijab and said, ‘Enough is enough…You can’t kill a woman or girl because of how she’s dressed,’” Negar Mortazavi, a Washington-based Iranian journalist, host of The Iran Podcast, and senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, told TNA.

Iran's violent history of repressing protest movements

In-depth  Sophia Akram

“The protests marked an inflection point, where the majority of the Iranian people gave up trying to find a modus vivendi with a regime that only cares about its own narrow core constituents,” explained Dr Ali Vaez, director of the International Crisis Group’s Iran Project, in a TNA interview.

“It was significant that women across the country showed up for [Amini]…it was also significant because this is a continuation of the daily fight of women that has been going on for four decades,” said Mortazavi.

“Since the beginning of the Islamic Republic, a specific group of women first protested the law of the mandatory hijab. Then it kept growing and growing with new generations joining. My own mother and aunt, then my own generation, and now the newer, younger generation [has] essentially [been] saying, ‘We want our bodily autonomy, we want to be able to dress how we want, and you can’t base it on one reading of the religion.’”

Women protest over the death of 22-year-old Iranian Mahsa Jina Amini in front of the Iranian Consulate on 26 September 2022 in Istanbul, Turkey. 

Challenges to the Islamic Republic's legitimacy

One year after Amini’s death in custody, Iran’s government is still facing its most serious legitimacy crisis since 1979. Segments of the country are fed up with the Islamic Republic’s economic, political, and social policies at a time when Iran’s middle class continues shrinking with more citizens living in poverty.

Of course, this is not entirely the fault of Iran’s government. The US is not an innocent or blameless actor. At least according to the architects of US sanctions on Iran, such policies have been designed to worsen these economic conditions in Iran, which exacerbate the regime’s legitimacy crisis. Regardless of Western motivations, the sanctions appear to have their desired effects when it comes to fuelling more opposition to the Islamic Republic on the part of wider segments of Iran’s population, particularly the youth.

A question worth asking is, could Iran’s worsening legitimacy crisis lead to the Islamic Republic facing an existential crisis? Considering the state’s monopoly on arms, power, and violence plus the fact that the protest movement lacks any leader, some experts are doubtful.

"It's not a matter of whether the system will be faced with another uprising, it's a matter of when, what sparks it, and whether the regime has anything to offer in response beyond internet blackouts, batons, and bullets"

“We don’t see the ingredients for an actual full-on revolution. Yes, it’s mass dissent, mass protests, but it’s also leaderless,” commented Mortazavi. “There are no serious political parties behind the street protests. It’s just very hard to imagine, at this stage, that the legitimacy crisis will translate into an immediate existential crisis, meaning that the state or regime is about to fall.”

Yet, the Iranian journalist explained that “if these cries for change, transformation, or revolution as the society wants are not heard by the state, and if policies stay rigid…I think the legitimacy crisis will just grow, run deeper, and get worse.”

Iran's protests expose deep cracks in the ruling elite

Analysis  Stasa Salacanin

Oppression, not reforms, is Iran's expected short-term future

Although Iran joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, receiving an invitation to enter BRICS, and renormalising relations with Saudi Arabia in a Chinese-brokered diplomatic deal underscore how Iran is less isolated on the international stage compared to one year ago, it is unlikely that these developments in Tehran’s foreign policy will help the Islamic Republic overcome this legitimacy crisis at home.

Authorities in Tehran understand the magnitude of this crisis, and this is why the government has been relentless in terms of repressing dissent.

“There is grievance upon grievance that has been piling on and not addressed by the state. This poses a serious legitimacy crisis. The state understands that’s why they have to mobilise security forces to crackdown…on such protests and essentially react with such violence and brutality. Around 500 protests were killed, thousands were arrested, and a few were executed,” Mortazavi told TNA.

“The protests and government reaction have confirmed that the Iranian government has no intention of building back legitimacy or accommodating popular grievances,” Dr Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House, said in a TNA interview.

One year after Amini's death in custody, Iran's government is still facing a serious legitimacy crisis. 

“What is popular legitimacy worth to the powers that be and how much of it do they actually possess? Not much,” said Dr Rouzbeh Parsi, the head of the Swedish Institute of International Affairs' Middle East and North Africa programme, told TNA.

“Effectively, meaningful reform from within is not on the horizon,” explained Dr Vakil. “To manage internal dissent, economic challenges, massive climate change pressure, and future Supreme Leader succession, Iran will be governed by a narrow exclusive group of loyalists and believers.”

During and after the Amini protests there were some voices optimistic enough to believe that the government in Tehran would agree to certain concessions along with specific political and social reforms in order to regain some lost legitimacy with reformist figures, such as former president Mohammad Khatami and former prime minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi.

"[The Islamic Republic] lost the battle of ideas because it's stopped offering any. It's all but given up on the battle for popular legitimacy"

“Instead, the government is doubling down on reinforcing veiling and social repression,” observed Dr Vakil. “Despite the hope that next year’s parliamentary elections would be more inclusive, the bureaucracy and academia are both being purged,” she added.

The Iranian government’s ability to weather the mass protest movement that began a year ago is merely “a pyrrhic victory in a much bigger contest that began before September last year, continues today, and will continue in the future,” Dr Vaez told TNA.

“[The Islamic Republic] lost the battle of ideas because it’s stopped offering any. It’s all but given up on the battle for popular legitimacy, which was already the case over the past few parliamentary and presidential elections.”

As Iran doubles down on hijab laws, women fight back

In-depth Alessandra Bajec

More sparks

Within this context of Iran’s authorities oppressing and cracking down on activists, lawyers, artists, journalists, academics, and entrepreneurs whom they see as contributing to the Islamic Republic’s legitimacy crisis, there is every reason to expect more uprisings to erupt in the future.

“It’s not a matter of whether the system will be faced with another uprising, it’s a matter of when, what sparks it, and whether the regime has anything to offer in response beyond internet blackouts, batons, and bullets,” according to Dr Vaez.

Mortazavi concurs. She believes that more mass protests will break out in Iran, “probably in shorter intervals, in shorter periods in between as the state continues to ignore the grievances and provide these sparks for the population.” Past sparks have included the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ shooting down of the Ukrainian passenger plane with 176 civilians on board in January 2020, soon after the 50 percent petrol price increase which triggered protests in response to the overnight hike of gas prices.

“This time [the spark] was the death in custody of a young woman for how she was dressed…This woman wasn’t a criminal. She wasn’t in a jail. She was just picked up on the street because of her attire. The state has essentially created these sparks. We’ve seen the society light up and now we’re seeing it light up in shorter intervals because of the situation with the economy and the social and political grievances that haven’t been addressed,” said Mortazavi.

With no signs of serious reforms being around the corner, Iran’s government will probably continue dealing with its legitimacy crisis through authoritarian methods. “The Islamic Republic is now a securitised Islamic state: the institution of elections and the system's republican institutions have become empty shells, and the men with guns have infiltrated all institutions of power,” Dr Vaez told TNA. “A minority rule regime can survive with brute force for a long time, but not forever.”

Dr Parsi believes that in the long run the Iranian system has to change. What remains to be seen is the tempo and scope of such change, how it is managed, and how orderly the change will be. “The more unwilling [Iran’s government] changes, the higher the cost for everyone,” he warned.

“There are of course those within the nezam (system) who believe themselves to be sufficiently impervious to societal pressure that they can continue without much change. There is a generational aspect here in that both the population and those who man the state apparatus will no longer belong to the founding generation nor the one who experienced the war with Iraq,” added Dr Parsi.

Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO of Gulf State Analytics.
Follow him on Twitter: @GiorgioCafiero

Grief to action: The Woman Life Freedom movement one year on

Yousra Samir Imran
16 September, 2023

It's been a year since Iranian authorities oversaw the brutal murder of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. Her death and others like her have spawned the Woman Life Freedom movement that demands systemic change in Iran. One year on, how has the movement fared?

When 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian Jina “Mahsa” Amini died a year ago while under custody after having been arrested by Iran’s Guidance Patrol for “improper hijab” it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Against the background of totalitarian rule with stringent laws that forced all women to wear the hijab, along with a collapsing economy and a government failing to tackle climate change and mismanaging natural resources, the Iranian people rose up in protests that spread across 21 provinces.

The initial protest began in Amini’s home province of Saqqez. Women attending her funeral removed their headscarves in protest and chanted “Jin Jîyan Azadî” meaning “Woman, Life, Freedom.”

These three words had long been part of Kurdish-Iranian history as part of the feminist women’s resistance movement in the Kurdish Workers’ Party (KPK), inspired by the words of imprisoned PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan who said a country could not be free unless all women were free. These three words spread like quickfire and were chanted by women and men alike across Iran, becoming the slogan of a female-led mass movement.

"Over 20,000 people have been arrested since the protests began in September 2022, over 500 have been killed by the IRGC and scores executed to “make an example” of them"

The past year’s major act of defiance has been the public removal of hijab by girls and women as young as twelve years old. Schoolgirls waving their hijabs in the air, writing “death to the dictator” on classroom blackboards and stamping on pictures of Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei.

One cannot ignore the symbolism: girls and women of all ages taking back their agency, refusing to have their bodies policed and removing a garment that in many ways is an emblem of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The response from the Islamic Republic of Iran, primarily through its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was expected. Just like other authoritarian regimes in the SWANA region such as Egypt, mass protests were responded to with military violence, the use of live ammunition, arbitrary arrests, forced disappearances, trials in kangaroo courts and executions.

Over 20,000 people have been arrested since the protests began in September 2022, over 500 have been killed by the IRGC and scores executed to “make an example” of them. They were charged with working for foreign bodies against Iran or for “enmity against God” (moharebeh). Even the schoolgirls were not safe. Female students from 91 schools across Iran suffered from poisoning which the United Nations described in March 2023 as targeted chemical attacks.



A year ago, The New Arab spoke to Iranian activist Elnaz Sarbar. Despite the violent crackdown by the Iranian state, she says that poll figures prove that opposition against the Islamic Republic is increasing.

“In January 2023, there was a poll that was done [by the Netherlands-based Gamaan Institute] that was over 200,000 people; 150 thousand were inside Iran. The poll asked how many people support the Islamic Republic. The results were that 15% of people support it and 81% oppose it. I think what the Mahsa or Jina Revolution did for the Iranian people was bring this opposition to the forefront of the society. You know, hearing people chant “Bring down the dictator,” now it's a chant that is heard across the country. It was a chant that people even months later still repeat. People go to their rooftops at night when you can't see anybody and they shout ‘Bring down the dictator.’”

One of the effects of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement has been the reawakening, mobilisation and activism of Iranians in the diaspora. This month London-based publishers Saqi release Woman, Life, Freedom: Voices and Art from the Women’s Protests in Iran, edited by Malu Halasa. The anthology captures first-hand accounts and artwork by Iranian and Kurdish-Iranian women and the LGBTQ+ community who were part of the movement, and it exhibits different forms of creative resistance.

UK-based sound artist Fari Bradley is one of the contributors to the anthology. She is at the forefront of protests in London, supporting major actions such as a now-renowned performance on International Women’s Day in March 2023.

British-Iranian women marched silently across London dressed in the red cloaks and white bonnets of The Handmaid’s Tale, holding posters of female protestors' faces who were killed by the IRGC since the movement began. It was a powerful form of protest that made the news internationally. What it symbolised was that while The Handmaid’s Tale is fiction for most, it is a lived reality for women in Iran.

Women's freedom is a key theme of Margaret Attwood's bestseller "The Handmaiden's Tale"

“So, it was young people, mostly on social media, just crying out for support and for people to notice, because even though injustice has always been happening in Iran, they've never said anything like that before. They've never asked us specifically to get political. We'd never seen the stories covered with such tenacity, and you know, you'd hear one bad story and then it would sort of die down because this now has become a wave of continual attacks from the regime, and then resistance against the regime. It was as if a veil was lifted from our eyes as if we had been just toeing the line for injustice for so long and trying not to rock the boat, and suddenly everyone was like ‘rock the boat!’” Bradley tells The New Arab.

In the past year, one of the things many people across the world have failed to recognise is the Kurdish heart of this movement. It was the death of a Kurdish-Iranian woman that sparked it and the protests began in a Kurdish province.

Many believe that the IRGC crackdown was harder in Kurdish-Iranian provinces. Award-winning Kurdish-Iranian journalist and author of The Cypress Tree, Kamin Mohammadi, wrote an essay included in Saqi’s Woman, Life, Freedom anthology that was nominated for two journalism awards.

In it, she delves into the Kurdish origins of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement and the disproportionate use of violence used on Kurdish-Iranians and other ethnic minorities over the past year.

Iran's leaders can't hide failings behind empty analogies

Voices  Kourosh Ziabari

“I think there's something to be said as to why the regime responds like that,” says Mohammadi. “The vast number of people who've been taken and imprisoned are Kurdish, not just Kurdish, but also Baluchi. So, these are ethnic minorities. They’re also not Shia Muslims, they are Sunni. And I think a lot of the discrimination from this regime comes from that. More than their actual ethnicity. Sadly, I'm looking right now and rounding up the amount of people who've been imprisoned, killed, and sentenced to death. They've executed I think five people to do with the protest. But they've executed many more people who've been in prison from before the protest and they are vast majority Kurdish and Baluchi minorities. There's a real socioeconomic class issue here as well, because, you know, these are not the upper or middle wealthier classes that are on the streets, right?”

"There is serious talk of the regime installing AI surveillance systems to catch women in public who aren’t wearing a hijab... Many activists are saying this is a form of gender apartheid"

Over the past twelve months, people of all genders and ages in Iran have risked their lives in protest against the mandatory hijab. A year on, there seems no end in sight for the Islamic Republic’s compulsory hijab rules, in fact, things are about to become harder.

In July the BBC reported the reinstatement of Iran’s morality police’s hijab patrols. In the past, Article 638 of Iran’s Penal Code criminalised those who violate any religious taboo in public, without explicit mention of the word “hijab.”

The new Hijab and Chastity Bill is very explicit, criminalising the wearing of no hijab or improper hijab; the punishments are larger fines of up to 360 million Iranian rials (over 8 thousand dollars) and prison sentences between five and ten years. The government is trying to pass this bill through the use of Article 85 of the Iranian constitution, which allows them to pass laws without public debate.

There is serious talk of the regime installing AI surveillance systems to catch women in public who aren’t wearing a hijab or a hijab according to their guidelines. Many activists are saying this is a form of gender apartheid.

The Woman Life Freedom movement demands freedom for Iran, regime change, and justice for Mahsa Amini and other Iranians killed for not wearing the hijab 

“They have introduced a new legislation with 70 items to push back against hijab and it includes punishing businesses who provide services to women without a headscarf, including taxis and coffee shops and shops, so they are not going after only women but also business owners,” says Elnaz Sarbar.

Things may have not changed legislatively – in fact, they may have gotten worse. Yet, if there is one positive change that has come about over the past year as a result of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, it has been a societal shift.

Fari Bradley and other Iranian women noticed that the uprisings in Iran had brought men out, marching shoulder to shoulder with women, a growing allyship that was being outwardly exhibited. Men and women, boys and girls were marching for the same thing – liberty from authoritarian rule, an end to regime violence and better economic conditions, particularly for workers.

“We're receiving videos of men, of elderly strangers, supporting them against the Revolutionary Guard, who are also sometimes women as well, you know, they go around and harass people and oppress people. They try to film them and you can just see everybody retaliating and saying, no, leave these people alone,” explains Bradley.

“Sometimes it's a tacit support, but the main thing is just men not blocking women. You know, this is a country where women can't travel without permission, so, it's been amazing. Older generations might not be coming out as much as the youth, but they are the ones who taught their kids to be curious and to think freely, they are supporting those who go out, with their hearts in their mouths, waiting for their loved ones protesting to come home safely. A lot of the workers have been amazing, striking and organising.”

“The biggest thing I heard from friends in Iran was that it used to be quite common for women to be cat-called in the streets. But that’s almost completely gone. Respect for women has increased and people talk about respect more. Another thing that's happened is many mental health charities have popped up which support people online and, you know, mental health was stigmatised and you can see society has changed in that regard. And that's really positive. It's a feminist revolution, but men of all ages are feminists too now.”

Iranian women are the heroes of their own stories

Perspectives  Katy Shahandeh

Kamin Mohammadi believes that another thing to come out of the movement has been the erosion of ethnic, social and class divides and greater unity.

“For ordinary women in Iran, particularly Kurdish women, I don't think that this has moved the dial. It's definitely not made them any safer. So probably for everyone, it's kind of made things worse.

In terms of the bravery of the people of Iran, particularly the Kurdish people, what we saw during these protests that hastened me, and I hope they go on, was that they kept chanting at the heart ‘unity.’ And it was about unity. It was about the Kurds, the Baluchis, the Aphasias, the Persians, the men, the women, and the LGBTQ community. Everyone together united and that has been one of the more beautiful things that we've seen emerge from this.”

The Islamic Republic has tried its best to quash the movement, end the protests and make examples of people, but what it has failed to do is quash the fearless and resilient spirit of its women, who continue to carry out acts of defiance, and who are still hopeful that one-day things will change.

“There's something one of my friends told me when all this started and I wrote it down,” says Elnaz. “She told me ‘I see confidence in women and I think this is confidence you can't take back’. We did it, we came to the streets with the dress we wanted to wear and so we're going to keep doing this - especially the younger generation, they're like, ‘we don't care about the price.’ There was a political activist, who was sentenced to four years in prison. She came out on her first day out of prison, took her headscarf off and chanted in front of the prison. She was arrested again and sentenced to another two years. The women really are fearless.”

Woman, Life, Freedom: Voices and Art from the Women’s Protests in Iran, edited by Malu Halasa, is published by Saqi and is out now

Yousra Samir Imran is a British Egyptian writer and author who is based in Yorkshire. She is the author of Hijab and Red Lipstick, being published by Hashtag Press in the UK in October 2020

Follow her on Twitter: @UNDERYOURABAYA

KDP/PUK IRAQI KURDISTAN

Iraq's highest court dissolves Kurdistan region's provincial councils due to 'constitutional violations'

Dana Taib Menmy
Iraq
25 September, 2023

The last time the Kurdistan region held provincial councils was in 2014. New elections were scheduled for 23 July 2018 but were postponed due to disagreements among Kurdish political parties on when to hold them. 

Iraq's Supreme Federal Court on Sunday, 24 September, dissolved the Kurdistan region's provincial councils, indicating that extending the councils' terms was "unconstitutional". [Getty]

Iraq's Supreme Federal Court on Sunday, 24 September, dissolved the Kurdistan region's provincial councils, indicating that extending the councils' terms was "unconstitutional".

"The Supreme Federal Court has ruled the unconstitutionality of Article (2) of Law number (2) of 2019, which is the first amendment to the law for the provincial councils in the Iraqi Kurdistan region number (3) of 2009, for its violation of the provisions of Articles (2 / first / b and c) and (6) of the Constitution of the Republic of Iraq for the year 2005," the court said in a statement.

The last time the Kurdistan region held provincial councils was in 2014. New elections were scheduled for 23 July 2018 but were postponed due to disagreements among Kurdish political parties on when to hold them.

In 2019, the Iraqi Kurdistan parliament amended the law for the region's provincial elections, extending the councils' mandate beyond its four-year legal term.

"Based on the lawsuit we filed, the federal court has decided the unconstitutionality of extending the terms of the regional provincial councils," Srwa Abdulwahid, head of the New Generation opposition party in the Iraqi parliament, wrote on X, previously known as Twitter.

"These councils have been unlawfully receiving salaries for the past five years, so they must reimburse every penny they took from the people's resources without justification. We will not stop and will continue to expose the legal and constitutional violations of the ruling parties in the region," he added.

Elections in Iraqi Kurdistan region to be delayed, again

The New Generation, an opposition party in the Kurdistan region and Iraq was established by former businessman Shaswar Abdulwahid in the wake of the failed Kurdish referendum for independence from Iraq held on 25 September 2017.

"The ruling by Iraq's top court is consistent with the Iraqi constitution and laws, as the terms of the councils were identified for only four years as per law number (3) of 2009. Iraq's constitution stipulates that the right to vote is guaranteed for the Iraqis. Extending the councils without the will of voters is contrary to the principles of the constitution," Farman Hassan, a Kurdish lawyer and writer, told The New Arab.

He ruled out the Kurdish ruling parties from holding fresh provincial elections and stressed that council members should retire as per the court's ruling. He indicated that the councils' dissolution "is not in the interests of locals" but instead in the interests of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), arguing that the councils were regarded as some decentralization from the KRG.

The two main ruling parties in the KRG, Barzani family's the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Talabani's family the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), had already made the region's municipality councils as an illegal alternative for the region's provincial councils.

Iraq's top court annuls Kurdistan parliament extension

The terms of the region's municipality councils had already expired and the last election for the municipality councils was held in early 2000.

Iraq's Federal Supreme Court late in May ruled against extending the term of the Kurdistan region's parliament as contrary to the country's constitution, declaring the Kurdish legislature as terminated.

Iraqi Kurdistan elections were scheduled for late 2022, but disputes between the KDP and the PUK forced the assembly to extend its mandate for another year. Fresh general elections are expected to be held in February 2024.

Iraq is set to hold provincial elections on 18 December across 15 provinces, excluding four provinces in the northern Kurdish region. The regional councils are tasked with providing public services to locals. However, they have often been accused of corruption.

For the first time since 2005, the elections will also be held in Kirkuk's multi-ethnic and oil-rich province, in a constitutionally disputed area between the Kurdistan region and the federal government in Baghdad.

Israeli forces arrest leader of Palestinian Lions' Den group in West Bank raid

The New Arab Staff
22 September, 2023

Israeli forces arrest a leader in the Palestinian armed group "Lions' Den" (Areen al-Ossud), Khaled Tabila, also known as "Al-Baladi", in a raid in Nablus.

The Israeli military raid began with the infiltration of undercover agents backed by military reinforcements [Getty]

Israeli forces have arrested one of the leaders of the Palestinian armed group the Lions' Den (or Areen al-Ossud in Arabic), Khaled Tabila, according to a report by The New Arab's Arabic language sister site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed on Friday.

Before his arrest, Tabila - also known as "Al-Baladi", was besieged in his home in Rafidia area west of Nablus city, northern West Bank, during an early morning raid, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reported.

The Israeli military raid began with the infiltration of undercover agents backed by military reinforcements, who invaded Nablus, setting up several military checkpoints until they reached Tabila's house, the report said.

Tabila, in his 30s, is one of the founders of the the Lions' Den. He was a member of the Palestinian Presidential Guard before joining armed Palestinian groups two years ago.

Israeli forces have escalated raids into Palestinian cities since late 2021 as confrontations with Palestinians spiked.

In March 2022, the Israeli army launched operation 'Break the Wave' with the aim of crushing growing armed resistance, particularly in Nablus and Jenin, by carrying out near-daily raids, killings and arrests in the two northern West Bank cities.

In July, Israeli forces raided Jenin for 48 hours, destroying most of its infrastructure, killing ten Palestinians and forcing around 3,000 Palestinians to leave their homes.

Separately, a Palestinian teenager was killed by Israeli forces early on Friday in the town of Kafr Dan in the Jenin, northern West Bank.

The boy was identified as 16-year-old Abdullah Imad Abu al-Hassan from the town of Yamoun, west of Jenin, local sources told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

Since the beginning of 2023, Israeli forces have killed more than 200 Palestinians during deadly raids into occupied West Bank cities and refugee camps and have arrested more than 3,600.

Can we give plants advance warning of dangers by ‘talking’ to them?

Using light as a messenger, the researchers are developing tools that enable plants to communicate with humans, and humans to communicate with plants

Research has shown that a plant’s natural defence mechanism can be activated by using light

 (John Walton/PA)

FRI, 22 SEP, 2023 - 09:28
NINA MASSEY, PA SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT

It may be possible to “talk” to plants and warn them of impending attacks or extreme weather, new research suggests

A team of plant scientists at the Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University (SLCU) would like to turn this science “fiction” into reality by using light-based messaging to communicate with plants.


Early laboratory experiments with tobacco demonstrated that a plant’s natural defence mechanism (immune response) can be activated by using light as a stimulus (messenger).

Using light as a messenger, the researchers are developing tools that enable plants to communicate with humans, and humans to communicate with plants.

If we could warn plants of an impending disease outbreak or pest attack, plants could then activate their natural defence mechanisms to prevent widespread damage

In everyday human life, light is used for communication such as traffic lights and pedestrian crossings.

Lead researcher Dr Alexander Jones said: “If we could warn plants of an impending disease outbreak or pest attack, plants could then activate their natural defence mechanisms to prevent widespread damage.

“We could also inform plants about approaching extreme weather events, such as heatwaves or drought, allowing them to adjust their growth patterns or conserve water.

“This could lead to more efficient and sustainable farming practices and reduce the need for chemicals.”

Previously, the Cambridge researchers engineered a series of biosensors – devices that measure biological or chemical reactions – using fluorescent light to visually communicate in real time what is happening at the cellular level in plants.

These biosensors reveal how plants react to environmental stresses – plants communicating with humans.

The new study describes a tool called Highlighter, which uses specific light conditions to activate a specific gene in plants, for example to trigger their defence mechanisms – humans talking to plants.

Bo Larsen, who engineered Highlighter while at SLCU, has taken scientists a step closer to this goal of talking to plants by engineering a light-controlled gene expression system (optogenetics system) that is tailored for plants.

Optogenetics is a scientific technique that uses a light to activate or deactivate a specific process.

“Light stimuli are cheap, reversible, non-toxic and can be delivered with high-resolution,” Dr Jones said.

According to the study, when deployed in plants Highlighter uses minimally invasive light signals for activation and inactivation.

Dr Jones said: “Highlighter is an important step forward in the development of optogenetics tools in plants and its high-resolution gene control could be applied to study a large range of fundamental plant biology questions.

“A growing toolbox for plants, with diverse optical properties, also opens exciting opportunities for crop improvement.

“For example, in the future we could use one light condition to trigger an immune response, and then a different light condition to precisely time a particular trait, such as flowering or ripening.”

The research is published in the Plos Biology journal.

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