Sunday, June 30, 2024

No Other Term But Genocide Describes Gaza Situation, UN Rapporteur Says

June 29, 2024

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND - APRIL 24: United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, Tlaleng Mofokeng, speaks during an exclusive interview on the developments in Gaza and the current situation in the health infrastructure there, in Geneva, Switzerland on April 24, 2024. (Photo by Muhammet Ikbal Arslan/Anadolu via Getty Images)

United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Tlaleng Mofokeng, articulated her profound concern over Gaza during the 56th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.

She said, criticizing the U.S. resolution to ban the use of Gaza death toll, “When a population faces systematic extermination, what other term than genocide can adequately describe it?”

Mofokeng’s remarks, underscored the dire conditions in Gaza, emphasizing the stark realities of survival amidst acute shortages of essential provisions. She cast lights on the scarcity of basic necessities such as food, potable water, and secure housing, which have amplifyed the plight faced by Gazans during the current Israel’s war.

Highlighting the severe psychological toll inflicted by persistent Israeli airstrikes, Mofokeng pointed out the widespread trauma gripping the population. She stressed the reliance on reports from the World Health Organization (WHO) and humanitarian agencies for updates on the status of healthcare facilities in Gaza, underscoring the critical humanitarian crisis unfolding in the region.

“When they (hospitals) cannot get supplies and essential medicines, and when healthcare workers themselves are being killed and harassed, it makes the attacks on the right to health even more prominent,” she stated.
The rapporteur stressed that there is still no estimate regarding how long it will take to rebuild Gaza’s health infrastructure
Mofokeng asserted the importance of a global discussion on recognising the events in Gaza as “genocide” and holding the perpetrators accountable in international courts.

Her remarks came after U.S house representatives voted on resolution to bar international budget funds to cite Gaza death toll.

Observes deemed this resolution as a step to hide and silence discussions about the impacts of Israel’s devastating war.

US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib slammed the vote as “Genocide denial, saying “There is so much anti-Palestinian racism in this chamber that my colleagues don’t even want to acknowledge that Palestinians exist at all. Not when they’re alive, and now, not even when they’re dead. It’s absolutely disgusting. This is genocide denial.”

Shortlink for this post: https://daysofpalestine.ps/?p=54671

Poll: 66% of Israelis Prefer Netanyahu Leaving his Post

June 29, 2024

in News

FASCIST INTERNATIONALE

‘Patriots for Europe’: Hungary’s Orban announces new EU Parliament alliance

Austria’s far-right Freedom Party and populist Czech ANO party led by Andrej Babis also join as Hungary takes on EU presidency.

Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban has selected 'Make Europe Great Again' his motto for the bloc's presidency [File: Szilard Koszticsak/AFP]

Published On 30 Jun 2024

Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPO), Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz and the populist Czech ANO party led by Andrej Babis are forming a new alliance in the European Parliament.

“We take on the responsibility to launch this new platform and new faction. I want to make it clear that this is our goal,” Orban told reporters at a joint news conference with FPO leader Herbert Kickl and ANO’s Babis, calling for other parties’ support.

The new alliance has been dubbed the “Patriots for Europe” and will require backing from parties from at least four other countries to be recognised as an official group in the European Parliament – where far-right groups have made gains.

Parties from at least a quarter of the European Union’s 27 member states are needed to officially form a new political group.
‘New era’

“A new era begins here, and the first, perhaps decisive moment of this new era is the creation of a new European political faction that will change European politics,” Orban said.

The three men signed a “patriotic manifesto”, promising “peace, security and development” instead of the “war, migration and stagnation” brought by the “Brussels elite”, according to Orban.

Kickl’s FPO is part of the Identity and Democracy grouping, which also includes France’s National Rally and Italy’s League.

The centrist ANO movement of billionaire former prime minister and eurosceptic Babis announced last week it was leaving Renew Europe. The three parties were the strongest performing in their respective countries during the EU elections earlier this month.

While Fidesz has remained outside larger groupings since it parted ways with the mainstream centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) in 2021, the FPO is part of the Identity and Democracy political group along with Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party in France. ANO is not part of any political group.

What’s behind the rise of the far right in Europe?

The new alliance is shaping as Hungary takes over the six-month rotating presidency of the EU from Monday. The bloc’s presidency bloc brings little real power but enables countries holding it to put their priorities higher on the agenda.

Hungary has in recent years increasingly blocked, altered or delayed a number of key EU decisions, including those on the war in Ukraine and relations with Russia and China.

He has selected “Make Europe Great Again” as his motto for the presidency, alarming European politicians for its nod to the slogan of former United States President Donald Trump, whom Orban has previously called a “good friend”.

Leaders in Brussels earlier this week launched membership talks with candidate countries Ukraine and Moldova amid Orban’s repeated threats to block Ukraine’s candidacy.

Amid longstanding accusations of undermining democratic institutions by Orban, an EU Parliament resolution in late May said the bloc’s presidency must be taken out of Hungary’s hand altogether.

In this month’s European Parliament election, nationalist parties capitalised on voter disquiet over spiralling prices, migration and the cost of the green transition, and are looking to translate their seat gains into more influence on EU policy.

While the FPO has a clear lead in Austrian opinion polls ahead of the September 29 parliamentary election, Orban faces a growing threat in Hungary from the new opposition party Tisza, which said this month it would join the EPP in the European Parliament.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

Marine Le Pen declares hard right party has 'almost wiped out' Emmanuel Macron after leading first set of french elections

30 June 2024, 23:17 |

Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally party has taken a strong lead in the first round of voting. Picture: Alamy

By Will Conroy

Marine Le Pen said her far right National Rally has "almost wiped out" President Emmanuel Macron as the exit polls show the party leads the first round of snap legislative elections to take place in France.

President Macron called a surprise vote when his centrist alliance was beaten in the European elections by France’s National Rally party at the beginning of this month.

Ms Le Pen’s party is leading the first round of elections with around 33% of votes while the left wing New Popular Front coalition has been seen to be coming in second with around 28.5%, according to exit polls.

The figure is nearly double the 18% the party managed in the 2022 elections and puts them in a good position to become the largest party of France's lower house.

Meanwhile, Pollsters IFOP, Ipsos, OpinionWay and Elabe found President Macron's centrist bloc to be in the third spot with between 20.5-23%.

Addressing supporters in Henin-Beaumont, northern France, Ms Le Pen said “Democracy has spoken” after exit polls suggested her party took the biggest share in Sunday’s first-round vote.

She added: “Nothing is won and the second round will be decisive, to avoid the country falling into the hands of the Nupes coalition, a far-Left with violent tendencies.”

President Emmanuel Macron's Renaissance party are polling third with an estimated 22%. Picture: Alamy

Ms Le Pen said the second round of voting would be “decisive in giving Jordan [Bardella] an absolute majority in the National Assembly, to launch next week the recovery of France and the restoration of unity and national harmony”.

She added: "The French have almost wiped out the Macronist bloc."

Ms Le Pen's protege and party leaderMr Bardella has enjoyed a spike in popularity, particularly among young voters.

He told supporters in Paris on Sunday evening: "Three weeks after the European elections the French people have given a verdict and they have confirmed their clear hopes for change.

"This is giving us hope throughout the country."

He warned of the "dangers" of the left-wing coalition its leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, saying it could put France in "existential peril".

Far-right National Rally party president Jordan Bardella. Picture: Alamy

The first round of elections attracted a significant number of French voters with an unusually high turnout of 59% reported earlier with three hours left to go.

"This is the highest level since the 1986 legislative elections," Mathieu Gallard, research director at the Ipsos polling institute, said.

At the same stage in the first round of the 2022 legislative elections, turnout was recorded as 39.42%.

This first round of voting started at 8am - or 7am UK time - and ended at 4pm in smaller towns, and 6pm in bigger cities.

France's semi-presidential system means that it has both a president and a prime minister.

The voting happening today will reveal who is prime minister, but not president, with Mr Macron already having decided to stay in his role until the end of 2027.

If Ms Le Pen's party win an absolute majority, France would end up with a government and president from different political camps the fourth time in post-war history.

Ms Le Pen said “Democracy has spoken” after exit polls suggested her party took the biggest share in Sunday’s first-round vote. Picture: Alamy

Polls showed that support for Le Pen's far-right, anti-immigrant National Rally (RN) had increased in recent days.

A poll undertaken for Les Echoes newspaper indicated that the RN was due to win 37 per cent of the national vote, which is an increase of two points from more than a week ago.

Another poll from BFM TV estimated that the far-right party might win between 260 and 295 seats, which could give it an outright majority within France's 577 constituencies.

Polls indicated that the New Popular Front (NFP), a leftwing alliance, might receive 28 per cent of the vote, whereas Macron's centrist bloc falls behind at 20 per cent.

After today's vote, campaigning will begin on Monday for an additional five days before voters are called back to the polls for a final, decisive second-round ballot on 7 July.

Following the first-round vote, Macron is planning to convene a government meeting to decide the further course of action, government sources told AFP.

Supreme Court 'staged a coup' and will resemble Russian courts if Trump wins: conservative

Carl Gibson, AlterNet
June 29, 2024

Official White House photo by Andrea Hanks.

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has grown far too powerful, and could permanently alter the government established by the framers if current trends continue, according to a conservative legal expert.

On Saturday, Norman Ornstein — who is an emeritus scholar at the Koch-funded American Enterprise Institute — offered a frank and stunning condemnation of the Court in a post to X (formerly Twitter). After a wave of controversial rulings in the final week of its 2023-2024 term, Ornstein opined that the Supreme Court is rapidly transforming into courts seen in authoritarian governments seen in other parts of the world.

"I wonder how long it will take before Americans wake up to the brutal reality that the US Supreme Court has staged a coup, brazenly seizing power from the other two branches in a way that is utterly contrary to the framers vision of the role of a court and a judiciary," he wrote. "And it is crystal clear that if [former President] Donald Trump wins, the Supreme Court will be much closer to the Russian or Hungarian courts than the one in our constitution."

READ MORE: 'Loss of trust': Growing chorus of federal judges speak out against 'out of step' SCOTUS

Ornstein's tweet comes on the heels of a busy week for SCOTUS, with justices siding with a January 6 insurrectionist in his challenge of a criminal charge against him — potentially impacting charges filed against hundreds of other participants in the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Court also notably overturned 40 years of precedent after officially disposing of a long-respected legal process known as the Chevron Doctrine.

Under that doctrine — which was first established in the 1984 Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council case — courts deferred to experts within federal agencies to interpret how federal laws impact the industries those agencies are tasked with regulating. In summing up January’s oral arguments, SCOTUSBlog noted that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pointed out that if the Court overturned the Chevron Doctrine, it would mean policy decisions wouldn’t rest with experts working for federal agencies, but with the Court itself. After Friday's ruling overturning that precedent, the federal judiciary now has additional powers to set policy within all federal agencies.

Judges taking the place of experts in deciding how to interpret regulations could prove problematic, as Trump-appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch recently demonstrated in his opinion in a separate decision. Forbes reported that in the Ohio v. Environmental Protection Agency case, Gorsuch mistakenly referred to the pollutant nitrogen oxide as "nitrous oxide," which is the laughing gas used by oral hygienists.

Perhaps the most highly anticipated decision of this term is Trump v. United States, in which the former president is arguing that he has absolute broad criminal immunity for all official acts carried out as president. His D.C. election interference trial has been on hold while SCOTUS considered his argument, which was already rejected by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and by a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel. Despite flags seen flying outside two of conservative Justice Samuel Alito's homes that were carried by insurrectionists, the justice refused calls to recuse, and Chief Justice John Roberts declined to meet with two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss the incidents.

READ MORE: Flag outside Alito's vacation home 'literally carried by insurrectionists': J6 investigator

Ornstein isn't alone in his view of the Roberts Court becoming an increasingly partisan institution. Earlier this week, Newsweek reported that multiple federal judges appointed by both Democratic and Republican presidents are casting doubt on the Court's ability to rule on cases in an objective manner.

David S. Tatel, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton to the D.C. Circuit, wrote in his memoir that his "low regard" for SCOTUS prompted him to retire from the bench.

"My views, I think, are widely shared throughout the judicial system," Tatel said. "Obviously, there are people who don't agree with them, but there are, I can assure you, a large number of judges who will not find anything I've said in this book surprising."

A New Situation For Syria-Turkey Relations – OpEd

June 30, 2024 By Haluk Direskeneli

In recent years, there has been a noticeable shift in the relationship between Turkey and Syria. While some circles view this change as flexibility and agility in diplomacy, it can also be interpreted as a diplomatic fiasco.

Turkey’s Syria policy has undergone significant changes since the civil war began in 2011. Initially, the relationship with the Syrian regime was amicable, with terms like “My brother Assad” being used. However, as the conflict intensified, Assad was labeled “the butcher Assad,” and Turkey supported opposition groups against his regime. Military interventions were even considered to overthrow Assad.

Today, however, President Erdoğan’s statements about possibly having family dinners with Assad mark a dramatic shift in Turkey’s policy towards Syria. Such statements create serious inconsistencies and uncertainties in diplomacy. The Assad regime, once deemed a cause for war, is now being reconsidered as a dialogue partner. Calling this flexibility might be misleading; true diplomacy requires consistency and predictability to achieve strategic goals.

The situation is further complicated by the appointment of some ambassadors in recent years who lack language skills and diplomatic experience. In diplomatic relations, flexibility means being creative and adaptable to achieve goals, but zigzagging and constantly changing stances can be detrimental to long-term strategic interests.

From personal experience, I can share that in the 1990s, I frequently traveled to Syria for steam boiler sales. These visits were marked by friendly and sincere relations. We sold steam boilers and made good money. Economically, Syria was our market, our backyard. Later, these relations turned hostile. Now, there is a desire to return to friendly relations. This inconsistency is more indicative of diplomatic failure than success.

Turkey’s Syria policy has been inconsistent and uncertain in recent years. Diplomatic flexibility is important for achieving strategic objectives, but it should not be confused with erratic behavior. A more consistent and predictable approach in Turkey’s diplomatic relations would be more beneficial for long-term interests.

Haluk Direskeneli, is a graduate of METU Mechanical Engineering department (1973). He worked in public, private enterprises, USA Turkish JV companies (B&W, CSWI, AEP, Entergy), in fabrication, basic and detail design, marketing, sales and project management of thermal power plants. He is currently working as freelance consultant/ energy analyst with thermal power plants basic/ detail design software expertise for private engineering companies, investors, universities and research institutions. He is a member of Chamber of Turkish Mechanical Engineers Energy Working Group.

Nigeria: 18 Dead As Suspected Female Bombers Strike Wedding, Funeral, Hospital

So far, 18 deaths have been confirmed, with the dead including children, adults and pregnant women.

Outlook Web Desk
Updated on: 30 June 2024

Suspected Female Bombers Strike Wedding, Funeral, Hospital In Nigeria | Photo: Vanguard News

A series of bomb attacks in Nigeria's Borno state killed at least 18 people and injured more than 40 on Saturday, according to the local state emergency management agency.

Suspected female suicide bombers separately attacked a wedding, a funeral and a hospital, according to Barkindo Saidu, the director general of the Borno state emergency management agency.

So far, 18 deaths have been confirmed, with the dead including children, adults and pregnant women. Nigeria's Vanguard News, however, reported that the death toll could be higher, close to 30, with more than 100 people wounded.

“The first bomb blast occurred around 3pm in the midst of a wedding ceremony. A few minutes later, another bomb blast occurred at General Hospital Gwoza. In the midst of sorrow, the people in the community gathered for the funeral congregation of the deceased people, (and) another suicide bomber denoted a bomb,” the state emergency management said.

Boko Haram and its splinter group, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), are the main militant groups active in Borno state.

The area has seen frequent attacks and kidnappings in recent years, with women and children often used as bombers.

Some of those carrying out suicide attacks are believed to be among the thousands kidnapped by the group over the years.

The Nigerian military has been battling Boko Haram and ISWAP in the region, but the groups continue to pose a significant threat.

Nigeria flag peace

Biden Administration Criticized For Omitting Nigeria From Religious Persecution Watchlist

June 30, 2024

By CNA

By Peter Pinedo

Religious freedom activists are criticizing the Biden State Department for continuing to leave Nigeria off its “countries of particular concern” (CPC) watchlist, despite the department’s own report highlighting the violent persecution of Christians in the country.

One expert said that Nigeria’s exclusion reveals a “troubling inconsistency” in the State Department’s policy toward religious freedom.

The 2023 Report on International Religious Freedom, released by the State Department on Wednesday, highlights the religious liberty situation in nearly 200 countries and territories.

Announcing the release of the report, Secretary of State Antony Blinken decried rising religious intolerance across the globe and cast a “vision” for the world in which “everyone is able to choose and practice their beliefs.”

Advocates took issue with the report’s characterization of the persecution of Christians in Nigeria as a series of “intercommunal clashes” and the result of competition for resources rather than radicalized Islamic groups.

Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute, told CNA that the report demonstrates a “broader agenda” on the part of the Biden State Department of “not criticizing the attacks on Christians in Nigeria.”

“These attacks, these horrible Hamas-like bloody assaults, very violent, very brutal, they never seem to be stopped or investigated, or prosecuted by the government,” she said. “The Christians under attack are defenseless, they’re not being protected by their own governments, and [they] don’t have militias of their own. So, they’re extremely vulnerable.”

What is going on in Nigeria?

Nigeria is the largest country in Africa by population. About half of the Nigerian population, over 111 million people, are Christian. Despite this, the Nigerian government is dominated by Muslims and many states in the country operate under Sharia law.

The Christian population has increasingly come under fire in recent years and has been targeted by several Islamic terrorist groups, such as Boko Haram, the Islamic State West Africa Province, and radical groups of the Fulani ethnic tribe.

According to the State Department’s report, there were over 4,000 Christians killed, 3,300 abducted, and 100,000 displaced in Nigeria between October 2022 and September 2023.

The Nigerian government has largely turned a blind eye to these attacks, in many cases refusing to dispatch police or military forces until well after attacks have occurred.

In addition, Nigeria targets Christians with anti-blasphemy, prosecuting them for speaking in defense of their religion.

The report recognizes the uptick in attacks, killings, and kidnappings, and prosecutions have resulted in what it calls “a climate of fear and displacement” among the Christian population. Yet it also says that “because issues of religion, ethnicity, land, and resource competition, and criminality are often closely linked, it was difficult to categorize many incidents as being solely, or even primarily, based on religious identity.”

Nigeria left off list with world’s worst abusers

Shea said that because more Christians are killed in Nigeria than in any other country in the world, there is no excuse for it not being on the CPC list, which she explained is an effective “short list of the world’s worst abusers.”

Countries currently on the list include China, North Korea, Russia, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia.

Shea explained that the CPC list helps to effectuate change by exerting U.S. economic and diplomatic pressure. In many instances CPC designation can come with special economic sanctions, something she said would be especially effective in Nigeria’s case since the U.S. sends the country over $1 billion in annual aid.

“The United States gives a billion dollars in foreign aid to Nigeria every year, and it needs to ensure that that aid is well spent so that it’s not contributing to this, and that the government of Nigeria is actually protecting all its citizens,” she said.

Meanwhile, Sean Nelson, an attorney with the advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom International, told CNA that the State Department’s report demonstrates an incoherence and inconsistency within the administration’s policy toward Nigeria.

“The exclusion of Nigeria from the CPC list despite the clear evidence provided by the State Department’s own reporting reveals a deeply troubling inconsistency in the Biden administration’s approach to the fundamental right of religious freedom that undermines the U.S.’s credibility,” Nelson said.

“A consistent approach,” he went on, “maintains the seriousness with which our nation has always viewed the violation of this fundamental right, while an inconsistent approach relegates the right to religious freedom to second-class status.”

“The first step to addressing these grave issues, even with our friends, is acknowledging them, and words without actions only have a small impact,” he said. “The State Department should follow the evidence to its logical conclusion and use the tools that Congress has given it to make sure that the promotion of international religious freedom remains a U.S. foreign policy priority.”

CNA
The Catholic News Agency (CNA) has been, since 2004, one of the fastest growing Catholic news providers to the English speaking world. The Catholic News Agency takes much of its mission from its sister agency, ACI Prensa, which was founded in Lima, Peru, in 1980 by Fr. Adalbert Marie Mohm (†1986).

YAZIDI

Young women fear return to a broken land of rubble and brutality

By Caroline Hawley, Diplomatic correspondent

BBC

Amar Foundation
Yazidi singers have performed in locations including London and Oxford

It’s 10 years since Islamic State militants tried to wipe out the Yazidi people in the Sinjar region in northern Iraq. They massacred thousands of men, and raped and enslaved girls and women. Now survivors face a new fear as the Iraqi government plans to close down the tented camps where they live, in other parts of the country, to encourage them to return to the areas they fled from.

Several Yazidi women who survived the horrors and live in an affected camp have been in the UK for a series of choral performances, seeking to showcase their cultural heritage and highlight the plight of their community, which is an ancient religious and ethnic minority.

Tears slide silently down Amira’s cheeks as she tells the BBC of the horrific brutality inflicted by the militants when they captured the Yazidis’ ancestral homeland in 2014. A decade has passed, but her pain remains raw.

Warning: This article contains graphic descriptions of violence

Amira managed to flee to the mountains as men from her community were shot dead and women and girls were raped and enslaved.

But two of her sisters were among those put to work in the households of Islamic State (IS) fighters, who had declared the Yazidis to be devil-worshippers.

Handout
Amira is one of the Yazidi women in a choir that has been visiting the UK

Unlike many slaves Amira’s sisters weren’t raped, she says, because they were already married.

However, one sister, whose husband had been killed by the militants, was beaten on a daily basis.

And she received an unspeakably cruel threat.

“She had given birth 15 days before she was captured, and they said to her: ‘We will kill your baby and force you to eat his flesh',” Amira says.

Her voice drops to a near-whisper as she describes how her other sister, Delal - who was pregnant when she was captured - lost her baby daughter at the age of five months because she couldn’t produce milk to feed her. Delal tried to kill herself but was stopped by her four-year-old son. “Her child was only four years old,” says Amira. “And he said to her, ‘Mum, please don’t kill us. Let’s get out of here.’”

When she later took a tomato from the fridge to feed him, she and her two surviving children were locked in a room for a week as punishment, with no food and only a small bottle of water and carton of milk.

Reuters
Yazidis fled en masse from Sinjar when IS descended on the town in 2014

The Iraqi government’s plans to close down the camps where tens of thousands of Yazidis have been living since 2014 is a frightening prospect for many of them.

The limited services currently provided within the camps are due to be cut off by the end of July, with grants for them to return to the region of Sinjar, where the massacres took place.

AFP
Ten years after the IS attack on Sinjar, little has been rebuilt

“The situation is very dangerous,” Vian Dakhil, the only Yazidi MP in the Iraqi parliament, told the BBC. “There are a lot of armed groups there and the Iraqi government forces are weak.”

Much of the town of Sinjar is still rubble, she says. “There are no houses, no schools, no hospitals, no anything.”

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has echoed their concerns, saying there should be no forced closure of the camps. “No-one should be made to return to a place where they may be at risk of irreparable harm, or not have access to basics like water, healthcare, housing and jobs to help them resume a decent life,” says Farha Bhoyroo, the agency’s spokesperson in Iraq.

The agency says that it is worried that some of those displaced from Sinjar may end up with no option but to stay in the decommissioned camps

Hadiya, 28, who was also part of the choir visit organised by the Amar Foundation charity, told the BBC that, before 2014, she had “everything – including a very big house”.

Now she and her family live in a tent, just 4m (13ft) long and 3m wide, “like prisoners”. It’s blisteringly hot in the summer and cold in the winter. But at least, there, she feels safe.

Hadiya normally lives in a tent with her family

Hadiya too is still haunted by terrible memories – including what happened to her cousin, Ghazal.

Ghazal was taken captive at the age of eight and, two years later, forced to marry. When she was rescued in 2020, at the age of 14, Hadiya says she was raising two children whom she had to leave behind – and had been brainwashed into thinking the Yazidis were “bad people”.

Ghazal, now 18, remains disturbed and withdrawn. Her older sister – who would now be 19 – is one of hundreds of women and girls who are still missing.

“No-one is asking for them,” Zahra Amra, office manager of the Amar Foundation in Dohuk, complains bitterly. She's also in the UK with the singers, acting as translator.

“No-one is helping us search for our sisters. Too many Isis fighters have been released from prisons. When IS came no-one helped us and now they want us to go back to Sinjar.”

Zahra, left, inside the tent where she lives, in a camp

In August 2014, Zahra lost classmates and friends. Her grandmother was shot dead because she was too frail to make it up Mount Sinjar where tens of thousands of Yazidis fled as IS advanced.

But most of all, she says, she lost the future that she and her friends had been planning, and the collective trauma and sense of abandonment run deep.

“We don’t feel safe,” she says. “And we don’t trust anyone.”

The Yazidi women's peace choir can be heard performing on BBC Radio 3's Music Planet, available on BBC Sounds.

SEE

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=YEZIDI

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=YAZIDI

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=YEZEDI

UNESCO finds Islamic State group-era bombs in Mosul mosque walls, years after the defeat of IS

The mosque, famous for its 12th-century leaning minaret, was destroyed by IS in 2017 and has been a focal point of UNESCO's restoration efforts since 2020

AP Baghdad Published 29.06.24

Representational pictureShutterstock

The UN cultural agency has discovered five bombs hidden within the walls of the historic al-Nouri Mosque in the city of Mosul in northern Iraq, a remnant of the Islamic State militant group's rule over the area, UNESCO said in a statement on Saturday.

The mosque, famous for its 12th-century leaning minaret, was destroyed by IS in 2017 and has been a focal point of UNESCO's restoration efforts since 2020.

The UN agency said that five large-scale explosive devices, designed for significant destruction, were found inside the southern wall of the Prayer Hall on Tuesday.

“These explosive devices were concealed within a specially rebuilt section of the wall,” the statement said. “Iraqi authorities were promptly notified, secured the area, and the situation is now fully under control.”

It added that “one bomb has been defused and removed, while the remaining four are interconnected and will be safely disposed of in the coming days”.

Iraqi authorities have requested that UNESCO halt all reconstruction operations at al-Nouri mosque and evacuate the entire complex until the devices are disarmed.

IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared an Islamic caliphate from the mosque a decade ago on June 29, 2014, leading to its destruction when extremists blew it up during the battle to liberate Mosul in 2017.

The discovery of these bombs underscores ongoing challenges in clearing Mosul of explosives and revitalising its devastated urban areas.

International efforts, supported by the United Nations, focus on mine clearance and aiding in the city's recovery. Despite progress, much of Mosul's old city remains in ruins, marked by minefield warning signs, highlighting the complexity of post-conflict reconstruction.

UNESCO aims to complete the full reconstruction of al-Nouri Mosque by December, “finally erasing the stigma of the Daesh occupation,” the statement said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group's name.

A decade after the Islamic State group declared its caliphate in large parts of Iraq and Syria, the extremists no longer control any land, have lost many prominent leaders and are mostly out of the world news headlines.

Still, the group continues to recruit members and claim responsibility for deadly attacks around the world, including lethal operations in Iran and Russia earlier this year that left scores dead. Its sleeper cells in Syria and Iraq still carry out attacks against government forces in both countries as well as US-backed Syrian fighters, at a time when Iraq's government is negotiating with Washington over a possible withdrawal of US troops.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

Sunday, June 30, 2024

Poll: 66% of Israelis Prefer Netanyahu Leaving his Post

Marine Le Pen declares hard right party has 'almost wiped out' Emmanuel Macron after leading first set of french elections

A New Situation For Syria-Turkey Relations – OpEd

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