How the Ukraine-Russia war is playing out differently on 3 separate fronts

August 19, 2024
Greg Myre

PBS


A damaged statue of Soviet Union founder Vladimir Lenin in a central square in Sudzha, in the Kursk region of western Russia, on Aug. 16. Ukrainian troops say they've taken control of Sudzha, one of more than 80 towns and villages they've captured since a cross-border invasion of Russia on Aug. 6.-/AP

KYIV, Ukraine — The front line in the Russia-Ukraine war stretches for more than 600 miles. Yet roughly speaking, it breaks down into three separate fronts — in Ukraine's north, east and south — which are all playing out differently.

The latest front is just across Ukraine's northern border, where Ukrainian troops carried out a surprise invasion into Russian territory on Aug. 6, and are solidifying their positions two weeks after that breakthrough.

Ukraine invasion — explained
Ukrainian forces attack a second border region in western Russia

In eastern Ukraine, Russian forces are making steady advances and are closing in on a town that's crucial for Ukraine's military supply lines.

And in the south, in the Black Sea, Ukraine has delivered an ongoing series of powerful blows to the Russian navy and carved out a channel that allows it to export its wheat and other agricultural products.

Here's a closer look at all three.

In the north, a "buffer zone"

Ukraine said over the weekend it knocked out two bridges that cross the Seym River in western Russia, rendering them useless.
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This cuts off key transportation routes that Russia could have used to send reinforcements into the Kursk region, with the intent of driving out the Ukrainian forces that have been taking and holding ground for the past two weeks.

However, it also suggests Ukraine is adopting a defensive position and is not looking to advance deeper into Russia, at least in this area.

In video remarks Sunday night, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine was trying to keep Russia away from the border region it has used to stage attacks against Ukraine.

"The creation of a buffer zone on the aggressor's territory is our operation in the Kursk region," Zelenskyy said.

In May, the Russians attempted to advance on the city Kharkiv, just 20 miles inside Ukraine. Ukraine halted the Russian ground offensive, though the city and surrounding areas still come under frequent Russian airstrikes with glide bombs that are difficult to defend against.

Ukraine invasion — explained
Ukraine's Kharkiv has withstood Russia's relentless strikes. Locals fear what's next

After lightning advances in the first few days of its incursion, Ukraine's forces inside Russia have been making only limited gains in the past week. Ukraine is still providing limited details of the operation, but Zelenskyy, military analysts and a range of media reports indicate Ukrainian forces are solidifying their positions.

Ukraine's military says it has taken more than 80 villages and towns and now controls more than 400 square miles in the Kursk region. Those figures cannot be independently confirmed.

The Ukrainians have captured, at minimum, several hundred Russian troops. Ukraine's military allowed journalists to see more than 300 Russian prisoners of war who have been moved across the border and placed in a Ukrainian prison.

Meanwhile, Russia has not yet mounted a significant counterattack. Russian officials says additional troops are on the way, and Russian television has shown columns of troops and equipment heading to Kursk.

But so far, the fighting appears limited to mostly small-scale clashes. The Russians appear to be drawing their forces from other parts of Russia — and not from front-line troops already fighting inside Ukraine.

One of Ukraine's goals with the incursion into Russia is to draw Russian forces away from the front line in eastern Ukraine, but there's no evidence this has happened on any significant scale so far.

In Russia, President Vladimir Putin has not commented on the Ukrainian invasion for the past week, and made a visit Monday to Azerbaijan.

Smoke billows above a bridge on the Seym River in Russia's western region of Kursk. Ukraine's military released the footage on Sunday, saying this was the second bridge on the river it has destroyed in recent days. The bridge could have been a route for Russia to send in reinforcements to the area, where Ukrainian troops invaded Russia on Aug. 6.Ukrainian Armed Forces/via AP
In the east, Russian troops close in on a key town

Eastern Ukraine is still the main battlefront. The Russians claimed the capture of another small town Monday and are now less than 10 miles from the town of Pokrovsk.

Pokrovsk is a transportation hub that Ukraine uses to send troops and supplies to its front-line positions in the east. If the Russians take the town, Ukraine will have a tougher time supporting forces that are already outnumbered and outgunned.

For the past several days, Ukrainian officials have been urging civilians in Pokrovsk to evacuate to safer areas.

"With every passing day there is less and less time to collect personal belongings and leave for safer regions," local officials in Pokrovsk said in a recent statement.

Throughout the war, Ukraine has had a shortage of troops in the east. By sending thousands of its troops into Russia, Ukraine could be even more vulnerable in areas where it's struggling to stop Russian advances.

Weapons packages from the U.S. and European states are arriving, but not fast enough, according to Zelenskyy.

"We need to speed up the supply from our partners," Zelenskyy said in his Sunday night remarks. "There are no holidays in war. We need solutions, we need timely logistics of announced [weapons] packages. I am especially appealing now to the United States, Great Britain, and France."

In the Black Sea, Ukraine creates an export channel

One of Ukraine's biggest successes over the past year has been driving back the Russian navy in the Black Sea and establishing a shipping channel so it can again export grain and other agricultural products to world markets.

Russia dominated the Black Sea and blocked Ukrainian exports after its full-scale invasion in 2022. A subsequent deal that allowed limited Ukrainian exports fell apart last summer.

But Ukraine has found its own solution. Ukraine has fired missiles from land, hitting Russian ships that ventured too near the coast, and Ukraine also has developed its own sea drones to attack Russian vessels.

Retired U.S. Adm. Jame Foggo, who worked alongside the Ukrainian Navy in the Black Sea a decade ago, said the sea drones point to Ukraine's naval ingenuity.

"They're jet skis with explosives packed on them," said Foggo, who now heads the Center for Maritime Strategy in Arlington, Va. "They have some kind of remote control from some kind of command center. I don't know what kind of radio control they have on these things, but they're pretty darn good."

The Ukrainian missile and sea drone attacks have forced Russian ships to retreat from the western half of the Black Sea, opening the channel along the western coast for Ukrainian exports.

Ukraine announced last week that it's been one year since this option became available, and 2,300 cargo ships have used the route, an average of more than six a day. Ukraine also says it's approaching its prewar exports of wheat and other farm products at around 5 million tons a month.
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Foggo called this a remarkable achievement.

"The Ukrainians, without a floating navy, have been able to destroy about one-third of the [Russian] Black Sea fleet," or about 25 ships and submarines. "That's absolutely amazing," he said.

Gay man says he was assaulted by Shake Shack workers after kissing boyfriend in line

Video of the assault appears to show Christian Dingus, 28, being shoved and punched in the head by Shake Shack workers

Andrea Cavallier
AUG 19, 2024

Shake Shack employees accused of assaulting gay man who kissed his boyfriend in line


A gay man claimed a group of Shake Shack workers beat him up after he kissed his boyfriend while they waited in line for their order at the fast food establishment in Washington, DC.

Christian Dingus, 28, told NBC News that the violent encounter happened inside the chain’s Dupont Circle location on Saturday night.

After putting in their order, Dingus asked an employee where their food was and said the response he got was “aggressive,” NBC4 reported. He said his partner pulled him aside in an effort to try to defuse the situation. The pair continued to wait in line and began to kiss, Dingus explained.


“And while we were back there — kind of briefly — we began to kiss,” Dingus said. “And at that point, a worker came out to us and said that, you know, you can’t be doing that here, can’t do that type of stuff here.”

Video of the alleged assault appears to show Christian Dingus, 28, being shoved and punched in the head by Shake Shack workers (NBC News)

The couple stopped kissing, but Dingus said his partner got more upset and told the employee they had done nothing wrong. The employee then escorted his partner outside where the verbal argument escalated.

Dingus said that’s when he followed them outside and ended up stepping in between his partner and the worker in another attempt to defuse the situation.

“At that point, immediately, without a second, the worker just turned on me, starting attacking me,” Dingus said. “At that point, I think there might have been two or three other workers as well, threw me to the ground. I didn’t fight back at all — immediately just kind of went into the fetal position to protect myself.”


Harrowing video of the alleged assault taken by a Shake Shack patron through the window of the restaurant shows a man being shoved and punched in the head by several people wearing Shake Shack shirts.

“There was a desire to be violent towards me, and I think it’s very evident in that film,” Dingus told NBC News.

After the attack, Dingus was taken to the emergency room where he had a concussion and trauma to his jaw, he said. He also had swelling and bruising on his face.

The incident is being investigated as a hate crime, according to the Metropolitan Police Department, who has classified the offense alleged by Dingus as a simple assault, with an anti-gay bias motivation. No arrests have been made.

“You hear all the time that this stuff happens, but, you know, I started kind of believing that it didn’t, right?” Dingus said. “I’ve been ... thinking of progress and how great that community is here, and then for that all to kind of be shattered, you know, kind of sucks.”

A Shake Shack spokesperson told NBC News that the employees allegedly involved have been suspended pending further review and that the company is cooperating with authorities.

“At Shake Shack, the safety and well-being of our guests and team members are our top priorities, and we have a zero-tolerance policy for any form of violence,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

“We are aware of the incident on Saturday, Aug. 17 involving team members and a guest at our Dupont Circle location and are taking it very seriously.”

Young People Must Be ‘Full-fledged Partners in All Decisions That Shape the Future’, Deputy Secretary-General Tells World Scout Conference

18 August 2024

Following are UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed’s remarks to the forty-third World Scout Conference Intergenerational Town Hall on Trends of the World, in Cairo today:

It’s a great pleasure to deliver this keynote at such an important session on the trends of the world. The first trend coming to my mind are the increasingly complex challenges our world faces. There are more conflicts than at any time since the Second World War. Our planet is suffering the deadly effects of climate change. We have lost trust in our institutions, and one another.

This trend is no more positive when it comes to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Only 17 per cent of the Sustainable Development Goals’ targets are on track, with nearly half showing minimal progress, and worse still, over one third of the SDGs have stalled or even gotten worse.

Gender equality is a litmus test for how far off our goals we really are: at the current rate of progress, it may take another 12 generations to achieve gender equality. Our world simply cannot wait that long.

The second trend that I am seeing is about youth. Over the last 30 years, very little has changed in terms of youth representation in politics.  Young people are not often enough in the rooms where important decisions are being made.

More than half of the world’s population is under 30. Yet, less than 3 per cent of members of Parliament are under 30. With young women making up less than 1 per cent of members of Parliament. Despite global commitments to improving education outcomes, reducing violence and increasing employment rates, many young people remain out of school, unemployed and vulnerable to extreme forms of sexual and gender-based violence.

Indeed, we cannot renegotiate the world of tomorrow on our terms without the input of young people, when the world of tomorrow will belong to young people. We need to reverse these trends. Through one of our initiatives at the United Nations, the Spotlight Initiative to end violence against women and girls, we have witnessed first hand how young people are building a more equitable world where everyone can live free from violence.

Through creative self-expression, peer-to-peer learning, advocacy and digital technology, more than 8 million young people and activists around the world are driving meaningful and sustainable change and creating a better future for all. Your generation can be the one to end violence against women and girls by starting in the home.

Your three impact statements align perfectly with this vision, articulating exactly what we need to accelerate progress over the next decade: a peaceful, inclusive and sustainable world that is shaped by its young people. They represent a pressing call to action that all of us should heed. And they inspire us to consider a new way for youth participation.

Participation that is diverse and inclusive: They call for all initiatives to be inclusive of young people in meaningful ways and in all their diversity.

Participation that is accessible and safe: The participation of young people needs to be fully accessible and safe. Promoting peace, preventing violence or defending human rights cannot come at the cost of young people’s lives and security any longer.

Participation that is meaningful: Young people must be engaged in meaningful and effective ways, as full-fledged partners in all decisions that shape the future. From conceptualization to implementation, and monitoring and evaluation. It means co-creation from beginning to end.

These impact statements are an excellent path forward, but we also need a mindset shift. It’s time to let go of social and cultural beliefs that portray young people as inexperienced and indecisive.   You, as Scouts, are the perfect examples of young change-makers leading efforts to combat the world’s most pressing challenges.

The World Organization of Scout Movements is one of the most important youth movements in the world. You put youth empowerment first. You encourage global solidarity in the face of our greatest challenges. You work hard in your communities for the 2023 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals. Above all, you are the flagbearers for the timeless values of responsibility, diversity and being a force for positive change in the world.

More than ever, we need structures and platforms like the Scouts Movement to actively advocate for a world in which the human rights of every young person are realized. A world that ensures every young person is empowered to achieve their full potential. A world that recognizes young people’s agency, resilience and positive contributions as agents of change.

Young people are often the minds behind the greatest outside-of-the-box thinking. And we need those ideas and innovations to help restore faith in institutions. The upcoming Summit of the Future is an important opportunity to mend eroded trust and reform multilateralism.

I was deeply inspired by the 2024 United Nations Civil Society Conference in support of the Summit of the Future that gathered last May in Nairobi where many excellent ideas were on display. Almost half of the more than 2,100 participants were under the age of 34.

Young people spoke, and the message was unmistakable: the youth of today are contributing, are deeply interested, and must have a say in the future we are shaping. Now it is time to listen.

The Road from Fascism

BENJAMIN CREMEL/AFP via Getty Images

Aug 19, 2024

YANIS VAROUFAKIS

PS

Once fascism is in the air, it is pointless to pander to xenophobia, as liberals do when they embrace an anti-immigrant agenda, or to rail against austerity, as leftists do. Neither issue is what is really fueling far-right extremism, which is good news for progressives.

ATHENS – The recent riots in the United Kingdom have demonstrated, yet again, the inability of liberals and leftists to figure out how to appeal to working class people who are attracted by the far right. Once fascism is in the air, it is pointless to pander to xenophobia, as liberals do when they embrace an anti-immigrant agenda, or to rail against austerity, as leftists do. To deal with Britain’s rioters, and similar mobs across Europe and the United States, progressives must first commit to not abandoning them.


My shocking introduction to the fascist mindset happened three decades ago, when Kapnias, an aging Greek peasant, decided to educate me. His twisted insights, though revolting, still hold clues for places like northern England, eastern Germany, and America’s Midwest.

Kapnias had grown up dirt poor, a semi-bonded farmhand in a Peloponnesian village dominated by his landowner boss – a liberal patriarch who, during the Nazi occupation, was a British intelligence asset, his house functioning as a hub of the resistance. Watching British officers who had parachuted in enter the farmhouse, sometimes accompanied by bearded communist partisans, Kapnias knew that something was afoot – something he was unceremoniously excluded from.

“I was an untouchable,” Kapnias told me. “Until my white angel touched me,” he added, while proudly placing in my hand a leather-bound volume in an advanced state of disrepair: a 1934 edition of Mein Kampf that his Gestapo instructor, his “white angel,” had given him as a parting gift during the final stages of the occupation. Savoring my revulsion, he proceeded to explain his hatred for the Allies.

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“Their arrogance, their self-importance, their hubris led myriads to their death,” he said. Even before enlisting in a unit of collaborators, where he encountered his white angel, hatred drove him.

Sure, had Kapnias been better off, he might not have succumbed to the lure of Nazism. But poverty does not explain why he collaborated when most boys from his village, no less disadvantaged, joined the Resistance. When marginalization combines with deprivation, a certain type of person falls headlong into a moral void. Like Kapnias, they become susceptible to the perverse logic of a super race whose time has come.

When I raised the Nazi massacres of his own people, Kapnias would have none of it. For him, it was the British, his Greek boss, and the leftists who brought carnage to the land – a word I did not hear being used with such gusto again until Donald Trump deployed it in his inaugural address in 2017. When I pushed him to comment further on the Nazi murders of hundreds in a nearby town, it was his cue elatedly to proclaim:

“Real men eliminate those who stand in their way, and thus survive. And if they die, through their death they accept their unfitness to live. My white angels were above God. Unlike the Italians, the British, or our own mob, they did not hesitate to use any means. No wincing! No fear! No passion! No love! No hatred! You had to see them with your own eyes. They were magnificent!”

As he spoke, his face lit up, my pained reaction to every word filling his heart with pleasure. The British flashmobs who rioted against immigrants, supporters of Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland, and the resurgent American white supremacists may not be as vocal or articulate in their fascism, but they come from the same psychic place, and we can draw four lessons from their example.

First, fascist violence is a recruitment tool. Its chief purpose is to outrage us so that we denounce them and demand violent police action and long prison sentences. That is how they gain recruits who, Kapnias-like, delight in watching their anger infect us.

Second, fascists are not community defenders or builders. They talk a good game about ruined communities but the closest they get to community-building is riots and social-media threads that evoke, but never satisfy, people’s hunger for community.

Third, while fascism breeds on a bed of austerity, fascists will never rail against austerity. Austerity has no face, unlike Jews or Muslim asylum seekers. And fascism needs faces as focal points of the violent hatred that drives it.

Fourth, immigrants are irrelevant. As Kapnias taught me, fascists happily embrace foreigners as their white angels, including those, like Elon Musk or Donald Trump, who boast the kind of exorbitant wealth that they claim to decry. Even if there are no brown faces or newcomers around, fascists will conjure some Other to focus their hatred on.

These four lessons suggest what we must avoid. For starters, when governments and mainstream parties adopt an anti-immigration “lite” agenda, fascists smell blood in the water, and their appetite for cruelty explodes. Similarly, those who treat fascists like victims of austerity, poor education, or bad luck only make them angrier. Telling them that anti-Semitism or Islamophobia are the fool’s anti-capitalism (though correct) works no better.

So, what must we do? The answer, I suggest, also comes from Britain, in the form of Ken Loach’s most recent film The Old Oak, written by Paul Laverty. When a group of Syrian refugees is deposited in the midst of a ruined northern English town, a publican and a refugee succeed in defusing the clash between the new arrivals and the wretched locals whom deindustrialization and austerity made susceptible to the fascist mindset. Under the slogan “eating together, sticking together,” they set up a communal dining hall where no fascist trope is tolerated, but no one is harangued, demeaned, or attacked, either.

The Old Oak’s moral clarity, and its testament to the power of solidarity, is as good a contemporary guide as any on how to stop victims from turning against each other. Its message is universal: there is nothing inevitable about resurgent fascism.




YANIS VAROUFAKIS
Writing for PS since 2015

Yanis Varoufakis, a former finance minister of Greece, is leader of the MERA25 party and Professor of Economics at the University of Athens.

KARMA IS A BITCH

War crimes tribunal set up by ex-Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina initiates probe against her into ‘mass murder’ charges

By HT News Desk
Aug 20, 2024

International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), established by Sheikh Hasina in 2010, investigates atrocities from the country's liberation war against Pakistan.


A tribunal established by ousted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to investigate war crimes in Bangladesh has initiated three probes into alleged mass murder charges against her, AFP reported on Monday.

Former Bangladesh premier Sheikh Hasina (File Photo)



More than 450 people were killed many by police fire during a month of student-led protests against Hasina's 15-year rule. She stepped down as prime minister and fled to India on August 5.
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According to the tribunal's investigator, these investigations centre on the unrest that prompted Hasina's departure from the country.

Ataur Rahman, deputy director of the tribunal's investigation cell said that they were collecting preliminary evidence at this stage and added that the cases were related to “mass murder.”

He said that all three cases were initiated by private individuals and several of Hasina's former top aides have also been named.

The cases involve violence in areas surrounding the capital Dhaka, including Mirpur, Munshiganj and Savar.

Local police units nationwide have filed at least 15 cases against Hasina, according to local media reports. Some of these cases predate the recent unrest and include charges of murder and "crimes against humanity.

Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), established by Hasina in 2010, investigates atrocities from the country's liberation war against Pakistan. Under Hasina's leadership, the ICT has sentenced over 100 individuals to death, including several political opponents.

The ICT has faced criticism from rights groups for not adhering to international conventions. Hasina's government has been accused of widespread human rights abuses, including the extrajudicial killing of thousands of political opponents.

On Friday, the United Nations reported strong indications that Bangladeshi security forces used excessive force in responding to the student-led uprising.

“There are strong indications, warranting further independent investigation, that the security forces used unnecessary and disproportionate force in their response,” the UN human rights office stated in a preliminary report.

The report also highlighted alleged violations, including extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests and detentions, enforced disappearances, torture, and ill-treatment.

 BOYCOTT PALM OIL & MALAYSIA

Malaysia is offering orangutans to countries that buy its palm oil

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PA chief 'Mahmoud Abbas' to visit Gaza after 17 years

TEHRAN, Aug. 19 (MNA) – Head of the Palestinian Authority (PA) Mahmoud Abbas wants to visit Gaza Strip after 17 years following the movements and contacts in the regional and international levels.

"Preparations are taking place for the Palestinian Authority head’s planned visit to Gaza [...] Palestinian officials are communicating with countries to get their support.”

Palestinian news agency “WAFA” on Sunday reported that Head of the Palestinian Authority (PA) Mahmoud Abbas has started his visit to the besieged Gaza Strip.

The visit of Mahmoud Abbas and members of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza Strip is done with the aim of accompanying the Palestinians in Gaza who are exposed to a "genocidal" war, the report added.

MNA

Palestinian authority requests Israeli permission for Mahmoud Abbas's visit to Gaza

2024-08-19 10:04

Shafaq News/ On Monday, the Palestinian Authority sent a letter to the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, requesting permission for President Mahmoud Abbas to visit Gaza.

According to Axios correspondent Barak Ravid, citing Israeli officials, Netanyahu will need to decide whether to approve Abbas's visit to Gaza.

The Palestinian Authority announced, on Sunday, that it has been making international contacts and preparations for Abbas and other Palestinian leaders to visit the Gaza Strip. This visit aims to show solidarity with the people of Gaza, who have been enduring ongoing Israeli military actions for over 10 months, and to reaffirm the Palestinian Liberation Organization's (PLO) authority and responsibility, as well as to work towards restoring national unity, as reported by the Palestinian news agency WAFA.

WAFA reported that the Palestinian Authority is coordinating with the United Nations, permanent members of the Security Council, Arab and Islamic countries, the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the European Union, and the African Union to ensure the success of this initiative and to provide support and participation where possible. Israel has also been notified of this plan.

In a speech before the Turkish Parliament last Thursday, Abbas announced his intention to visit Gaza along with all members of the Palestinian leadership, calling for secure access to the region.

 

Netanyahu's cabinet should be tried for genocide in Gaza

TEHRAN, Aug. 19 (MNA) – The Turkish Foreign Ministry called for an international tribunal for the Zionist regime's cabinet for the continuation of the genocidal war in Gaza.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry announced in a statement on Monday that the Zionist regime martyred more than 40,000 Palestinians (in the Gaza Strip) and still continues to commit heinous crimes against humanity and massacre the rescuers and aid workers.

Netanyahu's cabinet should be held to account for its crimes in the Gaza Strip as soon as possible, the statement further read.

Over the past 10 month since the Israeli onslaught on Gaza Strip began, nearly 40,100 people, mostly women and children, have been killed and over 92,500 have been injured, according to local health authorities.

Based on the announcement of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, 40,139 Palestinian people have been martyred in the Zionist regime’s attacks on the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023.

Also, the Palestinian medical body stated that the total number of the wounded in Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war has reached 92,743 people.

More than 10 months into the Israeli onslaught, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

MA/6201044

CPJ, 44 groups urge UK judge to quit after upholding Jimmy Lai’s conviction

 Media publisher Jimmy Lai poses next to dry runs of a soon-to-be-launched Taiwanese newspaper taped to his office wall on April 7, 2003, in Taipei. (Photo: AP/Jerome Favre)

Letters

August 19, 2024 

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British judge David Neuberger, who was part of a Hong Kong court panel that denied an appeal from media publisher Jimmy Lai and six pro-democracy campaigners, should “do the right thing and reconsider” his position in the Chinese-ruled city, the Committee to Protect Journalists and 44 groups said in a Monday letter.

The letter said Neuberger’s role in the Hong Kong ruling, as a non-permanent overseas judge on Hong Kong’s top court, contradicts his previous efforts in advocating free speech and press freedom. Neuberger’s continued involvement would be, in effect, “sponsoring a systematic repression of human rights against peaceful activists and journalists in the city.”

Neuberger, a former head of Britain’s Supreme Court, resigned as chair of an advisory panel to the Media Freedom Coalition on August 14, two days after the conviction of Lai and six pro-democracy campaigners was upheld. Lai has been behind bars since December 2020.

The MFC is a group of 50 countries that pledge to promote press freedom at home and abroad. CPJ is a longstanding member of the MFC’s consultative network of nongovernmental organizations.

Read the joint statement here.

Burundi: RSF relieved by the release of Radio Igicaniro journalist Floriane Irangabiye

Organisation:
RSF_en

After nearly two years in prison, Floriane Irangabiye is about to be released. Pardoned by Burundi's President on 14 August, the journalist was serving a 10-year prison sentence for ‘undermining the integrity of national territory’. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) welcomes her release, but points out that Floriane Irangabiye should never have been arrested and locked up for doing her job as a journalist.

This is a huge relief in Burundi and for journalists around the world. Floriane Irangabiye, host of the radio station Igicaniro, has been granted full remission of the sentences handed down against her, according to a presidential decree signed on 14 August. She had been sentenced in January 2023 to 10 years‘ imprisonment for ‘undermining the integrity of national territory’. RSF has repeatedly denounced this harsh and arbitrary decision, based on spurious charges.

“Our joy is inexpressible”, Floriane Irangabiye's sister told RSF. The female journalist has been living in Rwanda since 2015. A reputed critic of the Burundian authorities, she was arrested on 30 August 2022 by the intelligence services while visiting the country.

We are relieved, as are all the journalists and press freedom activists who stood up on her behalf, to know that Floriane Irangabiye, who was serving a 10-year prison sentence for doing her job, will soon be able to see her family and loved ones again, and plan to resume her work. Floriane should never have been arrested or spent nearly two years behind bars. We reiterate our call to the authorities in Burundi, to protect press freedom and ensure that journalists can freely carry out their work without fear of reprisals. Another woman journalist is still in prison: Sandra Muhoza, who is facing life imprisonment, must now also be released and the charges against her dropped.

Sadibou Marong
Director of RSF's Sub-Saharan Africa office
Sandra Muhoza, a journalist with the online media La Nova Burundi, was arrested on 13 April and was remanded in custody five days later. She faces life imprisonment after sharing information implicating government figures. RSF continues to call for her release and for the charges against her to be dropped. While Floriane Irangabiye's release is a positive sign for press freedom, RSF has documented an increase in attacks and intimidation against journalists in recent months.