HERSTORY
Rosalind P. Walter, the First 'Rosie the Riveter,' Is Dead at 95

Joseph Berger, The New York Times•March 5, 2020


NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 09: Rosalind P. Walter attends the 2015 WNET Annual Gala at Cipriani 42nd Street on June 9, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images)More

Rosalind P. Walter grew up in a wealthy and genteel Long Island, New York home. Yet when the United States entered World War II, she chose to join millions of other women in the homefront crusade to arm the troops with munitions, warships and aircraft.

She worked the night shift driving rivets into the metal bodies of Corsair fighter planes at a plant in Connecticut — a job that had almost always been reserved for men. A newspaper column about her inspired a morale-boosting 1942 song that turned her into the legendary Rosie the Riveter, the archetype of the hardworking women in overalls and bandanna-wrapped hair who kept the military factories humming.

Written by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb and popularized by the Four Vagabonds, the bandleader Kay Kyser and others, “Rosie the Riveter” captured a historical moment that helped sow the seeds of the women’s movement of the last half of the 20th century. It began:

All the day long whether rain or shine

she’s a part of the assembly line

She’s making history,

working for victory —

Rosie, brrrrr, the Riveter

Keeps a sharp lookout for sabotage

Sitting up there on the fuselage

That little frail can do, more than a male can do —

Rosie, brrrrr, the Riveter.

Other women went on to become models for Rosie posters and magazine covers as well.

But Rosie was just Walter’s first celebrated act. At her death on Wednesday at 95, she remained something of a public presence as a major philanthropist and one of PBS’ principal benefactors, her name intoned with others on programming like “Great Performances,” “American Masters,” “PBS NewsHour,” “Nature” and documentaries by Ken and Ric Burns.

She was the largest individual supporter of WNET in New York, helping to finance 67 shows or series starting in 1978.

Her friend Richard Somerset-Ward said she died at her home in Manhattan.

Walter had been drawn to public television in part to compensate for lost opportunities during the war, said Allison Fox, WNET’s senior director for major gifts. In serving her country, Walter had sacrificed a chance to attend either Smith or Vassar College, Fox said, and found that public television documentaries and other programs helped fill in the gaps in her education.

“She cared deeply about the public being informed and felt that public television and media is the best way to accomplish this,” Fox said.

Walter had two sources of wealth. Her father, Carleton Humphreys Palmer, was president and then chairman of E.R. Squibb and Sons, the Brooklyn-based drug company that helped mass produce the early doses of penicillin distributed to the troops during World War II. (It is now a subsidiary of Bristol Myers Squibb.)

Her second husband, Henry Glendon Walter Jr., was president and later chairman and chief executive of International Flavors and Fragrances, which provides the scents and tastes for 38,000 products, from perfumes to snacks to laundry detergents; for many years it was the world’s largest company of its kind.

Henry and Rosalind Walter gave generously to the American Museum of Natural History, the Pierpont Morgan Library, Long Island University, the college scholarship program of the U.S. Tennis Association and the North Shore Wildlife Sanctuary on Long Island.

Some gifts came through what is known today as the Rosalind P. Walter Foundation. The Walters served as trustees or directors of many of the organizations they gave to.

Rosalind Palmer Walter — friends called her Roz, not Rosie — was born on June 24, 1924, in Brooklyn, one of four children of Carleton and Winthrop (Bushnell) Palmer. Her mother was a professor of literature at Long Island University.

The family settled in Centre Island, a village in the town of Oyster Bay on Long Island’s North Shore. Its 400 or so well-heeled residents have since included singer Billy Joel, lyricist Alan Jay Lerner and media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

Her parents sent Rosalind to the Ethel Walker School in Simsbury, Connecticut, one of the first college preparatory boarding schools for upper-class women.

By the time she graduated, Europe was at war, and after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 spurred the United States to declare war on Japan, Germany and Italy, she was recruited, at 19, as an assembly line worker at the Vought Aircraft Co. in Stratford, Connecticut.

Her story caught the attention of the syndicated newspaper columnist Igor Cassini, who wrote about her in his “Cholly Knickerbocker” column. And that, in turn, inspired the songwriters.


A year after the war’s end, Walter, by then working as a nurse’s aide at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, married Henry S. Thompson, a lieutenant with the Naval Reserve and a graduate of Stanford University, at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. They had a son, also named Henry, before the couple divorced in the 1950s.

Her second husband, whom she married in 1956, had a son from a previous marriage, Henry G. Walter III, who died in 2012. Walter is survived by her son, Henry S. Thompson; two grandchildren; four step-grandchildren; and several step-great-grandchildren.

Walter was not the only Rosie the Riveter. There were at least four other women who became models for the character as the War Production Board sought to recruit more women for the military factories.

Norman Rockwell drew his version of Rosie for the cover of the May 29, 1943, issue of The Saturday Evening Post — a grimy-faced, muscular woman in denim overalls, work goggles perched on her forehead and a copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf trampled underfoot. His model was a Vermont woman, Mary Doyle Keefe, who died in 2015.

And J. Howard Miller drew a Rosie poster for Westinghouse war factories. He portrayed her in a red and white polka dot bandanna as she flexed a bicep under the words “We Can Do It!” The image became a feminist symbol starting in the 1980s, reprinted on T-shirts and coffee mugs. The model for that Rosie was most likely Naomi Parker Fraley, a California waitress who died in 2018.

So Rosalind Walter cannot alone claim the crown of being the real Rosie the Riveter. But she was there first.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Dresden police release details of brazen €1 billion heist

The authorities said they believe at least seven people must have participated in the theft at the Green Vault museum. Two of the perpetrators must have been small in order to break into the Jewel Room, they said.





Police in Dresden released more details on Thursday about the massive jewelry heist at the city's Green Vault in November.

Authorities say that after carefully trawling through the local CCTV footage, they have determined that at least seven people took part in the robbery.

They also released a sketch of one of the perpetrators, who is believed to be about 25 years old:


The sketch of one of the suspects

Police said they have determined the make and model of the getaway vehicle, an Audi A6. It was sold to an unknown buyer last August in Magdeburg, another city in Germany's east, by a man authorities believe is connected to the crime. The car was likely repainted before the break-in, indicating that the theft was planned well in advance. The car was later found having been set on fire in a Dresden garage.

On the night of November 25, the thieves started a fire near the museum that destroyed the building's power box. They then were able to cut through iron bars and broke into the Green Vault. Police have said that at least some of the thieves must have been relatively small in order to fit through the window into the Jewel Room.

They smashed the glass cases with axes and made away with loot worth approximately 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion), including the famed 49 carat Dresden White Diamond, which was discovered in India and bought by Saxony's royal family in the 18th century. Other pilfered items included many other pieces of diamond, ruby, emerald, and sapphire jewelry and a diamond-encrusted medal that once belonged to the King of Poland.

The Green Vault is one of Europe's oldest museums. It was founded in 1723 by the Saxon King Augustus II.

Police have offered a €500,000 ($557,000) reward for information leading to the recovery of the jewels or an arrest.

es/msh (AP, dpa)

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Black smoke and no jobs in the oil-rich Niger Delta

Decades of exposure to gas flaring by the foreign oil refineries in Niger Delta has harmed the health of residents. The thick plumes of toxic smoke are their constant reminder of an industry that gives them nothing more.

As passengers travel along Gbaramatu River in the Delta state of Nigeria, fireballs belch out of steel chimneys, lift up to the sky and cover it in huge plumes of smoke. This is an everyday reality for the many communities that live here. Niger Delta is rich in crude oil deposits and home to multinational companies including Shell. (A previous version of this article stated that BP is one of these companies. This has now been corrected. The department apologizes for the error.).

Gas flaring has been a common practice for the refineries that operate here for decades. It is the burning of natural gases that come up as crude oil is extracted from the earth. It is done to speed up the process of extraction. But the smoke and dust gradually fall back to the ground, coating earth and water in slimy soot.

"You can see this water is salty,” says Jerry Kingdom, a 25-year-old resident of the riverbank community of Batan. "We are drinking this water and it is not good for our skin or our body. Many of us, the children and the elders, have been getting sick."

Read more: Rights group slams Shell for ignoring Niger Delta oil spills


Gas flaring at the Total oil platform at Amenem in the Niger Delta

Rich oil deposits, poor job prospects

Communities on higher land in the Delta are affected too. In Utorogu there are more than 150 oil wells and a giant gas refinery meant to supply other countries in Africa. The residents complain that not only are they harmed by this project but also that there is nothing to gain from it.

"We have not benefited anything from these big oil companies,” says Benjamin Realda, a youth leader. "Look at the youth, there are no good jobs for them. We have skilled workers but there are no jobs.” Realda has finished his diploma and is looking for a job.

Despite its rich crude oil deposits, oil contributes to less than 10% of Nigeria's gross domestic product. Foreign oil conglomerates take large portions of the profits to their own countries, according to Africa Check.


The first shipment of oil from Nigeria took place in 1958

Wasting an energy resource

Nigeria is the sixth largest exporter of crude oil in the world. Shell-BP was the first company to drill for oil in the Niger Delta in 1956. Today, 23 billion cubic meters of gas is flared in Nigeria alone each year, accounting for more than 13% of global gas flaring. This causes massive environmental damage due to the release of greenhouse gases.

Methane, a toxic gas, is released in large amounts. It also has a more potent heating effect on the environment than carbon dioxide. Flaring of methane during crude oil extraction converts it to carbon dioxide. This is why many oil refineries argue that gas flaring is the most environmentally friendly way to dispose of extra gases that they cannot sell.

It is, however, a substantial waste of energy resources when these natural gases could be used to power many neighboring villages. "There is no light in the community. There is no water, no good road, no hospital. We have been suffering. Look at the flare. Every day, we suffer from it," said Realda.

Kingdom agrees with him. He is frustrated with the lack of educational facilities in the region. The only primary school is too ill-equipped to even have basic furniture.


Oil contributes to less than 10% to Nigeria's GDP

Lung and fertility problems

Gas flaring spews particulate matter, soot and toxins into the air. These are hazardous to humans. Health experts have already attributed the high frequency of respiratory and cancer problems in Niger Delta to flaring from oil refineries.

Dr Adogbeji Earnest Ideh, a doctor and former chairperson of the Nigeria Medical Association, told DW that the flaring of gas has made living in Niger Delta extremely difficult.

"People breathe in petroleum products and gas every morning, every afternoon, every evening. So that you now have quite a lot of upper respiratory tract infections, you now have people developing asthma and so many other lung diseases."Various tests have confirmed that flaring is affecting fertility. "Men are beginning to develop what is called azoospermia. There are quite a lot of other ailments in the community, and we do not even have hospitals,” Ideh said.

Read more: Gas flaring continues scorching Niger Delta

New but weak regulations

Recently, the Nigerian government has taken new steps to reduce flaring. In 2019, a Nigerian Gas Flare Commercialisation Program was passed which aims to sell flare gas to third parties. This will help convert gases that are of no value to oil refineries into a valuable energy resource.

Past regulations have also tried to accurately document the amount of gases that are being flared on a day-to-day basis and to enforce stronger penalties on companies for flaring violations. But penalties are often too low to deter oil companies.

The people in Batan and Utorogu along the Gbaramatu River may have to wait a long time before these regulations begin to change their lives for the better.

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India's Himalayan apple farmers feel the heat

Rising temperatures and irregular snowfall are impacting the conditions necessary to grow the fruit. In the face of lost business, India's apple farmers are adapting.


Towards the end of the year, the small town of Kalpa in the Indian Himalayas is a sight to behold. Nestled between the snow-covered Kinnaur Kailash range and the teal waters of the Sutlej river, apple orchards exude the golden glow of fall.

Kalpa lies in the Kinnaur region in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh in India. The region has a reputation for producing the tastiest and most expensive apples on the Indian market.

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In India the fruit is unaffordable for some. At an organic farmers' market in New Delhi, Kinnauri apples cost €4 - 5 (US $4.4 - 5.5) per kilo, compared to around €1.50 (US $1.6) for a dozen bananas. Growers are considered prosperous compared to the average Indian farmer.

Yet as warmer temperatures and decreased snowfall begin to impact apple yields, this prosperity could be in question.

Changing conditions


A worker in an orchard in Kalpa, India, grades apples

Apple crops grown in the Himalayas usually require a certain number of "chill" hours, when temperatures are between 0-7 degrees Celsius (32-44.6 Fahrenheit). As temperatures rise, these chill hours are reducing in some areas.

"We have seen that the frequency and quantity of snowfall decreasing and its timing has also changed," says Satish Kumar Bhardwaj, a professor teaching environmental sciences at Yashwant Singh Parmar University in Solan, India. "In such conditions, traditional varieties [of apples] are finding it difficult to get adequate amounts of chilling hours needed for the blooming and setting of the fruit."

Research from Bhardwaj's university shows that warming conditions have pushed some orchards to higher altitudes in Himachal Pradesh.

While some farmers in the lower hills have moved away from apples and started growing vegetables, flowers and fruits such as kiwi and pomegranate, apples are thriving in Tabo, a village located 3,280 meters (10,761 feet) above sea level in the cold desert Spiti valley.

Read more: What can farmers do to protect the climate?

Kishore Kumar, an apple grower from Kalpa had a good harvest this year — 3,000 boxes each containing 26 kilograms (57 pounds) of apples. But not everyone has been so lucky.

Increasing pests

Apple grower and social activist Jiya Lal supervises as migrant workers from Nepal scale the trees in his orchard, picking the fruit and collecting it in bags hanging around their necks. Of his 400 trees spread over some two and a half hectares, around 80 have contracted apple scab disease, which destroys the fruit with lesions.


Kalpa in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh has a reputation for producing tasty, and expensive, apples


Healthy apples from Jiya Lal's orchard in Kalpa

"Apple scab has returned to this area after a few decades," he says. "In May-June, when it is supposed to be dry, there was a lot of rain which caused prolonged dampness and the disease to spread . I will not get even 50% of the market value for the infected apples." Lal estimates a total loss of approximately €1,267 (US $1,402) from his harvest, an amount that will significantly affect his family's annual budget.

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"My orchard's yields and revenues are going down with each passing year," says Sanjay Chauhan, an apple grower and ex-mayor of Shimla, the capital of the state. In his orchard in the village of Kotkhai, Chauhan grows traditional varieties of apple such as Red and Golden Delicious, which were introduced to the region over 100 years ago.

"A laborer harvesting apples in my orchard was covered in white fluffy woolly aphids — that is the amount of pests we had this year despite spraying pesticides frequently," he says. "I feel that in the next five years, we will see a crisis in the apple economy."

Lost business

Kumar, Chauhan and Lal are among the thousands of families and businesses in Himachal Pradesh who have created a booming apple industry.

This year, Pritamrekha Negi, 42, an apple grower from Ribba village in Kinnaur, lost half her annual income. In August, the leaves on her trees began to yellow and fall far earlier than normal, due to an unseasonal change in temperature. She harvested a mere 350 boxes of apples (8,400 kg) as compared to 800 (19,200 kg) last year.

Farmer Jiya Lal has struggled with apple scab disease in his orchard

"Our son studies at a boarding school in Delhi and we will have to dip into our savings to pay his school fees for the year," she says. "Our land is covered in apple trees. I have never thought about growing another crop."

Despite the threats, apple growers may have a chance to maintain their yields through new varieties that perform well in warmer temperatures and need fewer chilling hours.

Read more: India's ghost villages: Food and water scarcity forcing many to leave

"There is a growing demand for 'low-chill' varieties of apple,” says Vikram Singh Rawat, founder of Kalashan Nursery and Farm in the Himalayan village of Karsog.

New varieties

Rawat's nursery sells low-chill, high-density apple varieties and apple clonal rootstocks — small plants onto which others can be grafted — imported from the USA, Italy and the Netherlands.

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"Low chill varieties can mitigate the losses caused by climate change," he says. Most of Rawat's customers are young people who have quit their city jobs to revive their family orchards with this modern method. His bestselling varieties are Evasmi Scarlet Spur, Red Kan and Super Chief, all either cross-bred or mutations, but not GMO.

Yet not everyone is convinced. While low-chill varieties appear to grow faster and bear more fruit, their trees are smaller, their lifespan is shorter and they cannot survive on rain alone, instead requiring drip irrigation. This makes growers like Chauhan skeptical.

"There needs to be more research on the sustainability of low-chill varieties. In the summer, we did not have drinking water for 16 days in my village. In such conditions, how would I water new varieties of apple trees?" he asks.


CLIMATE CHANGE: BANGLADESHI FARMERS TURN TO HYDROPONICS TO STAY AFLOAT
Paradise in peril

Where the Ganges and Bramhaputra rivers converge at the Bay of Bengal, they form a vast fertile delta. Sediment brought down from the Himalayas means this has long been a region of agricultural plenty. But as climate change pushes up the sea level and storms become more frequent and more severe, its inhabitants and way of life are among the most threatened on the planet.

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Gadgets for tech giants made with coerced Uighur labor

By DAKE KANG and YANAN WANG

1 of 6
In this June 5, 2019, photo, residents of the Hui Muslim ethnic minority walk in a neighborhood near an OFILM factory in Nanchang in eastern China's Jiangxi province. The Associated Press has found that OFILM, a supplier of major multinational companies, employs Uighurs, an ethnic Turkic minority, under highly restrictive conditions, including not letting them leave the factory compound without a chaperone, worship, or wear headscarves. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

NANCHANG, China (AP) — In a lively Muslim quarter of Nanchang city, a sprawling Chinese factory turns out computer screens, cameras and fingerprint scanners for a supplier to international tech giants such as Apple and Lenovo. Throughout the neighborhood, women in headscarves stroll through the streets, and Arabic signs advertise halal supermarkets and noodle shops.

Yet the mostly Muslim ethnic Uighurs who labor in the factory are isolated within a walled compound that is fortified with security cameras and guards at the entrance. Their forays out are limited to rare chaperoned trips, they are not allowed to worship or cover their heads, and they must attend special classes in the evenings, according to former and current workers and shopkeepers in the area.


The connection between OFILM, the supplier that owns the Nanchang factory, and the tech giants is the latest sign that companies outside China are benefiting from coercive labor practices imposed on the Uighurs, a Turkic ethnic group, and other minorities.

Residents of the Hui Muslim ethnic minority walk in a neighborhood near an OFILM factory in Nanchang in eastern China's Jiangxi province. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Over the past four years, the Chinese government has detained more than a million people from the far west Xinjiang region, most of them Uighurs, in internment camps and prisons where they go through forced ideological and behavioral re-education. China has long suspected the Uighurs of harboring separatist tendencies because of their distinct culture, language and religion.

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When detainees “graduate” from the camps, documents show, many are sent to work in factories. A dozen Uighurs and Kazakhs told the AP they knew people who were sent by the state to work in factories in China’s east, known as inner China — some from the camps, some plucked from their families, some from vocational schools. Most were sent by force, although in a few cases it wasn’t clear if they consented.

Workers are often enrolled in classes where state-sponsored teachers give lessons in Mandarin, China’s dominant language, or politics and “ethnic unity.” Conditions in the jobs vary in terms of pay and restrictions.

At the OFILM factory, Uighurs are paid the same as other workers but otherwise treated differently, according to residents of the neighborhood. They are not allowed to leave or pray – unlike the Hui Muslim migrants also working there, who are considered less of a threat by the Chinese government.

“They don’t let them worship inside,” said a Hui Muslim woman who worked in the factory for several weeks alongside the Uighurs. “They don’t let them come out.”

“If you’re Uighur, you’re only allowed outside twice a month,” a small business owner who spoke with the workers confirmed. The AP is not disclosing the names of those interviewed near the factory out of concern for possible retribution. “The government chose them to come to OFILM, they didn’t choose it.”

Neighborhood residents chat near the entrance to an OFILM factory in Nanchang in eastern China's Jiangxi province. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

The Chinese government says the labor program is a way to train Uighurs and other minorities and give them jobs. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday called concern over possible coerced labor under the program “groundless” and “slander.”

However, experts say that like the internment camps, the program is part of a broader assault on the Uighur culture, breaking up social and family links by sending people far from their homes to be assimilated into the dominant Han Chinese culture.

“They think these people are poorly educated, isolated, backwards, can’t speak Mandarin,” said James Leibold, a scholar of Chinese ethnic policy at La Trobe University in Melbourne. “So what do you do? You ‘educate’ them, you find ways to transform them in your own image. Bringing them into the Han Chinese heartland is a way to turbocharge this transformation.”

OFILM’s website indicates the Xinjiang workers make screens, camera cover lenses and fingerprint scanners. It touts customers including Apple, Samsung, Lenovo, Dell, HP, LG and Huawei, although there was no way for the AP to track specific products to specific companies.

A woman uses her phone near the Apple store in Beijing. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Apple’s most recent list of suppliers, published January last year, includes three OFILM factories in Nanchang. It’s unclear whether the specific OFILM factory the AP visited twice in Nanchang supplies Apple, but it has the same address as one listed. Another OFILM factory is located about half a mile away on a different street. Apple did not answer repeated requests for clarification on which factory it uses.

In an email, Apple said its code of conduct requires suppliers to “provide channels that encourage employees to voice concerns.” It said it interviews the employees of suppliers during annual assessments in their local language without their managers present, and had done 44,000 interviews in 2018.

A worker polishes iPhones in an Apple store in Beijing. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Lenovo confirmed that it sources screens, cameras, and fingerprint scanners from OFILM but said it was not aware of the allegations and would investigate. Lenovo also pointed to a 2018 audit by the Reliable Business Alliance in which OFILM scored very well.

All the companies that responded said they required suppliers to follow strict labor standards. LG and Dell said they had “no evidence” of forced labor in their supply chains but would investigate, as did Huawei. HP did not respond.

OFILM also lists as customers dozens of companies within China, as well as international companies it calls “partners” without specifying what product it offers. And it supplies PAR Technology, an American sales systems vendor to which it most recently shipped 48 cartons of touch screens in February, according to U.S. customs data obtained through ImportGenius and Panjiva, which track shipping data.

PAR Technology in turn says it supplies terminals to major chains such as McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Subway. However, the AP was unable to confirm that products from OFILM end up with the fast food companies.

McDonald’s said it has asked PAR Technology to discontinue purchases from OFILM while it launches an immediate investigation. PAR Technology also said it would investigate immediately. Subway and Taco Bell did not respond.

A report Sunday from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, researched separately from the AP, estimated that more than 80,000 Uighurs were transferred from Xinjiang to factories across China between 2017 and 2019. The report said it found “conditions that strongly suggest forced labor” consistent with International Labor Organization definitions.

The AP also reported a year ago that Uighur forced labor was being used within Xinjiang to make sportswear that ended up in the U.S.

___

FROM FARMERS TO FACTORY WORKERS

Beijing first sent Uighurs to work in inland China in the early 2000s, as part of a broad effort to push minorities to adopt urban lifestyles and integrate with the Han Chinese majority to tighten political control.

At first the program targeted young, single women, because the state worried that Uighur women raised in pious Muslim families didn’t work, had children early and refused to marry Han men. But as stories of poor pay and tight restrictions trickled back, police began threatening some parents with jail time if they didn’t send their children, six Uighurs told the AP.

The program was halted in 2009, when at least two Uighurs died in a brawl with Han workers at a toy factory in coastal Guangdong province. After peaceful protests in Xinjiang were met with police fire, ethnic riots broke out that killed an estimated 200 people, mostly Han Chinese civilians.

Women from the the Hui Muslim ethnic minority from a nearby neighborhood gather outside a shop near an OFILM factory in Nanchang in eastern China's Jiangxi province. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

An AP review of Chinese academic papers and state media reports shows that officials blamed the failure of the labor program on the Uighurs’ language and culture. So when the government ramped up the program again after the ascent of hardline Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2012, it emphasized ideological transformation.

A paper drafted by the head of the Xinjiang statistics bureau in 2014 said the Uighurs’ poor Mandarin made it hard for them to integrate in inner China. It concluded that Xinjiang’s rural minorities needed to be broken away from traditional lifestyles and systematically “disciplined”, “trained” and “instilled with modern values.”

“The local saturated religious atmosphere and the long-time living habits of ethnic minorities are incompatible with the requirements of modern industrial production,” the paper said. It outlined a need to “slowly correct misunderstandings about going out to choose jobs.”
Full Covernage: China

Before Uighurs were transferred for jobs, the paper continued, they needed to be trained and assessed on their living habits and adoption of corporate culture.

“Those who fail will not be exported,” it said.

The paper also described government incentives such as tax breaks and subsidies for Chinese companies to take Uighurs. A 2014 draft contract for Xinjiang laborers in Guangdong province obtained by the AP shows the government there offered companies 3000 RMB ($428.52) per worker, with an additional 1000 RMB ($142.84) for “training” each person for no less than 60 class hours. In exchange, companies had to offer “concentrated accommodation areas,” halal canteens and “ethnic unity education and training.”

But it was a tough sell at a time when Chinese officials were grappling with knifings, bombings and car attacks by Uighurs, fueled by explosive anger at the government’s harsh security measures and religious restrictions. Hundreds died in race-related violence in Xinjiang, both Uighur and Han Chinese.

A labor agent who only gave his surname, Zhang, said he tried brokering deals to send Xinjiang workers to factories in the eastern city of Hangzhou, but finding companies willing to take Uighurs was a challenge, especially in a slowing economy.

“Their work efficiency is not high,” he said.

The size of the program is considerable. A November 2017 state media report said Hotan prefecture alone planned to send 20,000 people over two years to work in inner China.

There, the report said, they would “realize the dreams of their lives.”

___

ANSWERING THE GOVERNMENT’S CALL

The Uighurs at OFLIM were sent there as part of the government’s labor program, in an arrangement the company’s website calls a “school-enterprise cooperative.” OFILM describes the workers as migrants organized by the government or vocational school students on “internships”.

OFILM confirmed it received AP requests for comment but did not reply.

The AP was unable to get inside the facility, and on one visit to Nanchang, plainclothes police tailed AP journalists by car and on foot. But posts on the company website extoll OFILM’s efforts to accommodate their Uighur workers with Mandarin and politics classes six days a week, along with halal food.

OFILM first hired Uighurs in 2017, recruiting over 3,000 young men and women in Xinjiang. They bring the Uighurs on one- or two-year contracts to Nanchang, a southeastern metropolis nearly two thousand miles from Xinjiang that local officials hope to turn into a tech hub.

OFILM is one of Nanchang’s biggest employers, with half a dozen factory complexes sprinkled across the city and close ties with the state. Investment funds backed by the Nanchang city government own large stakes in OFILM, corporate filings show. The Nanchang government told the AP that OFILM recruits minorities according to “voluntary selection by both parties” and provides equal pay along with personal and religious freedom.

OFILM’s website says the company “answered the government’s call” and went to Xinjiang to recruit minorities. The Uighurs need training, OFILM says, to pull them from poverty and help them “study and improve.”

Mandarin is heavily emphasized, the site says, as well as lessons in history and “ethnic unity” to “comprehensively improve their overall quality.” The site features pictures of Uighurs playing basketball on factory grounds, dancing in a canteen and vying in a Mandarin speech competition.

In August, when OFILM organized celebrations for Eid Qurban, a major Islamic festival, Uighur employees did not pray at a mosque. Instead, they dressed in orange uniforms and gathered in a basketball court for a show with Communist officials called “Love the Motherland – Thank the Party.” An OFILM post said a “Uighur beauty” dazzled with her “beautiful exotic style.”

State media reports portray the Nanchang factory workers as rural and backwards before the Communist Party trained them, a common perception of the Uighurs among the Han Chinese.

A neighborhood resident stops for a smoke near the entrance to an OFILM factory in Nanchang in eastern China's Jiangxi province. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

“The workers’ concept of time was hazy, they would sleep in till whenever they wanted,” a Party official is quoted as saying in one. Now, he said, their “concept of time has undergone a total reversal.”

In the reports and OFILM posts, the Uighurs are portrayed as grateful to the Communist Party for sending them to inner China.

Despite the wan expressions of three OFILM workers from Lop County, a December 2017 report said they gave an “enthusiastic” presentation about how they lived in clean new dormitories “much better than home” and were visited by Communist Party cadres.

“We were overjoyed that leaders from the Lop County government still come to see us on holidays,” one of the workers, Estullah Ali, was quoted as saying. “Many of us were moved to tears.”

___

THEY TOOK MY CHILD TO INNER CHINA

Minorities fleeing China describe a far grimmer situation. H., a wealthy jade merchant from Lop County, where OFILM now gets Uighur workers, began noticing the labor transfer program in 2014. That’s when state propaganda blaring through television and loudspeakers urged young Uighurs to work in inner China. Officials hustled families to a labor transfer office where they were forced to sign contracts, under threat of land confiscations and prison sentences.

H., identified only by the initial of his last name out of fear of retribution, was worried. The government was not only reviving the labor program but also clamping down on religion. Acquaintances vanished: Devout Muslims and language teachers, men with beards, women with headscarves.

Toward the end of 2015, when H. greeted his 72-year-old neighbor on the street, the man burst into tears.

“They took my child to inner China to work,” he said.

Months later, H. and his family fled China.

Zharqynbek Otan, a Chinese-born ethnic Kazakh, said that after he was released from an internment camp in 2018, neighbors in his home village also told him their sons and daughters were forced to sign contracts for 6 months to five years to work at factories near Shanghai. If they ran from the factories, they were warned, they’d be taken straight back to internment camps.

Nurlan Kokteubai, an ethnic Kazakh, said during his time in an internment camp, a cadre told him they selected young, strong people to work in inner Chinese factories in need of labor.

“He told us that those young people would acquire vocational skills,” Kokteubai said.

Not all workers are subject to the restrictions at OFILM. One ethnic Kazakh said her brother made power banks in central China for $571.36 a month and didn’t take classes.

But another said two of his cousins were forced to go and work in cold, harsh conditions. They were promised $428.52 a month but paid only $42.85. Though they wanted to quit, four Uighurs who complained were detained in camps after returning to Xinjiang, scaring others.

Uighurs and Kazakhs in exile say it’s likely those working in inner China are still better off than those in camps or factories in Xinjiang, and that in the past, some had gone voluntarily to earn money. A former worker at Jiangxi Lianchuang Electronics, a lens maker in Nanchang, told The Associated Press the 300 or so Uighurs there were free to enter or leave their compound, although most live in dormitories inside factory grounds. He and a current worker said they were happy with their working conditions, their salary of about 5,000 RMB ($714.20) a month, and their teachers and Mandarin classes in the evenings.

But when presented a list of questions in Uighur about the labor transfers, the former Jiangxi Lianchuang worker started to look very nervous. He asked for the list, then set it on fire with a lighter and dropped it in an ashtray.

“If the Communist Party hears this, then” – he knocked his wrists together, mimicking a suspect being handcuffed. “It’s very bad.”

___

Associated Press writer Erika Kinetz contributed to this report.


Top brands 'using forced Uighur labor' in China: report

China has allegedly moved thousands of Uighurs into factories that supply major brands including Volkswagen, Nike, Apple and BMW. A new report says the factory conditions "strongly suggest forced labor."


An Australian think tank has accused the Chinese government of transferring more than 80,000 ethnic Uighurs out of internment camps and into factories that supply major international brands.

In a new report, Uighurs for sale, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) identified at least 27 factories across China where detainees from camps in the western region of Xinjiang had been relocated since 2017.

"Under conditions that strongly suggest forced labor, Uighurs are working in factories that are in the supply chains of at least 83 well-known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors," the think tank said.

The brands, it added, included "Apple, BMW, Gap, Huawei, Nike, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen."

China's Foreign Ministry rejected the report as having "no factual basis," during a regular press briefing on Monday.

"This report is just following along with the US anti-China forces that try to smear China's anti-terrorism measures in Xinjiang," spokesman Zhao Lijian said.

Corporate responsibility

James Leibold, one of the report's authors and an expert on Chinese history and society at Australia's La Trobe University, said companies needed to take responsibility.

Companies should "immediately undertake a thorough and transparent due-diligence process to determine if, and to what extent, supply chains have been exposed to any form of forced labor," he told DW.

"This needs to be done not by acting parent companies in China, but by bringing in independent outside observers to do a full audit on the supply chain and the manufacturing process."

Read more: China's treatment of Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang: 'I had the chills'

VW and Apple respond

When asked about the concerns raised in the report, Volkswagen told news agencies that none of the listed companies is currently a direct supplier. In a statement, the German automaker said it holds "direct authority" in all areas of its business and "respects minorities, employee representation and social and labor standards."

According to a local media article cited by the ASPI report, a factory that has manufactured cameras for Apple's iPhones received 700 Uighur laborers in 2017.

In its response, Apple cited a statement issued earlier, in which the the tech giant said it was "dedicated to ensuring that everyone in our supply chain is treated with the dignity and respect they deserve."

"We work closely with all our suppliers to ensure our high standards are upheld," the statement added.

Read more: Uighur whistleblower: China is 'arresting people without any reason'

'Harsh, segregated life'

Citing government documents and local media reports, ASPI said the mass transfers to factories were part of a state-sponsored scheme that "is tainting the global supply chain."

It said workers often lead a "harsh, segregated life" in the factories, and are subjected to constant surveillance, prevented from practicing their religion and forced to take organized Mandarin classes and ideological training.

Leibold, one of the report's authors, said the labor transfers could be seen as an extension of Xinjiang's "re-education" camps, as well as a "response to the slowing economy in China, and the cost of the mass-internment of Uighurs to local governments in Xinjiang."

The United Nations estimates that more than a million Muslim Uighurs have been detained in camps in Xinjiang. Rights groups say the camps are part of an effort to suppress Uighur Islamic customs and religion, but China describes the sites as vocational education centers that aim to teach Mandarin and job skills, and stamp out religious extremism.

William Yang, DW's correspondent in Taipei, contributed to this report.

nm/stb (Reuters, AFP)

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Date 02.03.2020

Press freedom pays a price in US-China media showdown

Washington and Beijing's tit-for-tat crackdown on foreign media could make work harder for US journalists in China. Experts say the principle of press freedom is being caught up in a geopolitical dispute.


On Monday, the US State Department announced that the US would cap the number of Chinese nationals allowed to work for five state-controlled Chinese media outlets in the US.

According to a State Department official, 100 journalists will be given work visas. This means 60 journalists will be cut from the outlets, all of which were classified as "foreign missions" by the US in February.

This comes after three reporters from the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) were abruptly expelled by the Chinese government over the headline of an opinion piece on February 19.

At a press briefing last month, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said the headline, which referred to China's handling of the coronavirus outbreak, was discriminatory.

Read more: Opinion: Journalists' expulsion a sign of China's insecurity

Keith Richburg, director of the University of Hong Kong's Journalism and Media Studies Center and a former Beijing bureau chief for the Washington Post, said taking action against Chinese media was something new for the US.

"Previous administrations always said they didn't want to go down the tit-for-tat path," Richburg told DW, adding that the US has wanted to demonstrate that it believes in press freedom while avoiding falling into a pattern of retribution.

However, under President Donald Trump, the US has taken a more transactional approach towards foreign policy.

Richburg said it wasn't surprising that the Trump administration reacted to the move against the WSJ journalists in China by restricting the number of Chinese journalists allowed to work in the US.

"On the one hand, China does treat foreign journalists unfairly," said Richburg. "But on the other hand, I think that the value of a free press is something we should not tamper with."

Read more: Conditions worsen for foreign journalists in China: survey

A 'cold war' mentality?

However, the US has said it will not immediately deport the Chinese journalists and they will not be barred from seeking employment elsewhere in the country. Chinese nationals working for other media outlets in the US won't be affected by the new rule, and the five outlets in question won't be prohibited from hiring employees from other countries.



WHERE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS DOESN'T EXIST
Africa's very own North Korea: Eritrea

Eritrea ranks second-last in the World Press Freedom Index. Reports from the disastrous state of affairs in Eritrea are rare, and many journalists have been forced to leave the country. Radio Erena is the only one to broadcast independent information to the people of Eritrea — from Paris.

On Tuesday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry condemned the move, saying the decision "severely interrupted Chinese media's normal reporting tasks in the United States."

"Based on the Cold War mentality and ideological prejudice, the US State Department suppressed the Chinese media agencies with political means in the United States for unexplained reasons," said Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian.

Read more: Opinion: Freedom of speech under attack in Germany? Hardly.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo emphasized that Beijing has imposed harsh surveillance, harassment and intimidation tactics against journalists from the US and other countries working in China.

"We urge the Chinese government to respect freedom of expression, including for members of the press," Pompeo said in a statement.

Press freedom in jeopardy?

Under the "foreign mission" designation, the US government considers employees of the five state-run media outlets to be employees of the Chinese state, rather than journalists.

Chiaoning Su, an assistant professor of journalism at Oakland University in the US, said that the US crackdown on Chinese media is a response to the rise of Chinese propaganda around the world.

"I think the whole series of events reflects Washington's attitude towards the rise of China's sharp power," Su told DW.

China is known by free press advocates to be one of the most restrictive places for foreign journalists to report from. Su said Washington's move could make working conditions for US journalists in China even worse.

Read more: How China's new media offensive threatens democracy worldwide

"China produces propaganda in the name of press freedom and that's when the US tries to restrict these activities," said Su, adding the China will be driven to respond to this by further restricting the work of foreign journalists.

"Ultimately, press freedom is the thing that pays the heaviest price."

Richburg said the US and China should find a way to calm things down, rather than embracing a combative approach.

"I think the US and China need to get back to the point where both sides can have different systems, while at the same time recognizing that sometimes they will criticize each other," Richburg said.

Only 3% enjoy open society, says Civic Atlas report

A truly open society exists for merely 3% of the world's population, according to a new "Atlas of Civil Society" published in Germany. In 38 countries, 3 billion live in fear of repression, surveillance and even murder.

Nations that enable and safeguard citizens' freedoms are becoming rarer, according to the five-category atlas compiled by CIVICUS, a Johannesburg-based global alliance, forBread for the World (Brot für die Welt), a large aid agency of Germany's protestant churches.

"Women are disproportionately often the targets of digital, psychological and indeed physical violence, right the way through to politically-motivated murder," the president of Brot für die Welt in Germany, Cornelia Füllkrung-Weitzel, said, as the study focused in particular on women this year.

Read more: Nation states — have they served their purpose?

CIVICUS researchers, using 2019 data, sorted 196 nations into five categories — open, narrowed, obstructed, repressed and closed.

Top group eroded

The top 43 nations, comprising 259 million persons, accounted for just 3% of the world's 7.7-billion population — down from 4% in the previous assessment based on 2018 data.

Remaining in the top "open" group are 13 EU members — including Germany, but only around half of the bloc, plus the departing United Kingdom — along with New Zealand, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Lithuania, Slovenia as well as a string of island nations.

Read more: Australia's newspapers go dark

Australia and Malta fall out of the "open" category into the second-placed "narrowed" category of 42 nations, placing them alongside 13 other EU nations, including Italy and France, as well as the United States and Japan.

Hungary among 'obstructed' category

Forty-nine countries were placed in the "obstructed" group, including Brazil, Malawi and Hungary.

Categorized as "repressed" societies were 38 nations with a combined population of 3 billion — almost 40% of the world's population, Nigeria and India were included, where residents fear intimidation, surveillance and even death, if they criticize those in power.

In the worst group where freedoms are deemed "closed" to 2 billion people, there stood 24 countries, including Egypt, China, Iran, Yemen, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

Their rulers escape prosecution; their critics are jailed, mistreated and killed, write the CIVICUS authors.

Defined by Bergson, Popper

The term "open society" was coined by the French philosopher Henri Bergson in 1932 — during the onset of the Nazi German dictatorship.

The concept was developed further by Austrian-born British philosopher Karl Popper during his World War Two-exile in Christchurch, New Zealand.

ipj/msh (epd, KNA, dpa)

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India restores internet access in Kashmir, with conditions

For the past seven months, social media sites have been blocked and internet access restricted in India-administered Kashmir. However, authorities are now able to track internet users.



Indian authorities lifted a ban on social media and restored full internet access in Kashmir on Wednesday evening, seven months after the disputed region was locked down and stripped of its partial autonomy. The order, which still places certain restrictions on mobile internet services, is only valid till March 17, unless extended.

"We have already started switching the service on,” said an official at the state-run BSNL, one of the major internet service providers in the region. Another official at a private internet service provider in the main city of Srinagar also said on Wednesday that access to social media had been restored on its networks.

Several Kashmiris have been using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to circumvent government censorship. Soon after the ban was lifted, the Twitter handle of Mehbooba Mufti – one of the three main opposition leaders in Kashmir detained by the government since the August – called out the "futility" of the social media ban.

The Twitter handle is managed by Mufti’s daughter, Iltija. "My mother last tweeted on 5th August post abrogation of Article 370. Today as I tweet for the first time from Kashmir post decriminalisation of social media, Im swept by saudade & painful nostalgia. Will we ever heal? When will this nightmare end, (sic.)" she wrote.

Open access with conditions

Access to broadband internet in the restive region comes with a condition: MAC-binding. This forces a particular device to access internet from a specific IP address. If either the MAC (Media Access Control) address or the IP address changes, the device will not be able to access internet. MAC-binding will also enable authorities to trace a device on the basis of its online activity.

Read more: Kashmiris feel 'alienated' 6 months after India 'annexation'

Mobile internet services too will be availble only on post-paid connections. Pre-paid connections will not have access to internet "unless verified as per the norms applicable to post-paid connections," the order said. 

People lined up outside a government set-up internet cafe in Indian-administered Kashmir

Further, internet speed is restricted to second generation 2G networks, while the high-speed 4G networks will remain blocked.

Longest internet shutdown by a democracy

In August, authorities halted internet, landline and mobile services in what was then India’s only Muslim majority state. It imposed the unprecedented blackout under the pretext of security concerns. The administration in the territory said it feared the internet could be used to propagate terrorism and incite locals.

The internet shutdown in Kashmir was the longest such ban imposed by a democracy. India faced criticism from lawmakers in the European Union and the US, who repeatedly called on the government to curb restrictions.

Read more: Five excuses governments (ab)use to justify Internet shutdowns

Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry, an influential trade body, has estimated the cost of the six-month long communications clampdown at more than $2.4 billion (€2.2 billion) with nearly 500,000 job losses.

Internet restrictions in the Kashmir valley were partially eased in January, following a review order by the Indian Supreme Court. "Suspension of the internet for an indefinite period is not permissible, it can be for a limited time period and is subject to judicial review," the court said, adding that freedom of speech includes the right to internet access.

However, social media sites that allowed "peer-to-peer" communications remained blocked. In fact, Kashmiris initially had access to only about 300 government approved "whitelisted" websites.

adi/aw (AP, AFP)

India ends Internet blackout in Jammu and Kashmir

A journalist works online Wednesday in his office in Srinagar, Kashmir, after the Internet blackout was lifted. Photo by Farooq Khan/EPA-EFE

March 5 (UPI) -- India on Wednesday restored Internet access to government-controlled regions of Kashmir and Jammu, seven months after it was shut down when legislators controversially revoked their autonomy.

The government originally blocked all communications, from phone service to broadband Internet, anticipating backlash last August when it first stripped the special status from the areas. It has slowly lifted those restrictions since.

Those living in the region will again be able to get back online, but at slower 2G speeds.

Iltija Mufti, the daughter of detained Kashmir leader Mehbooba Mufti, said the government likely lifted the ban because it realized its futility, as many young people were able to get around the Internet blackout.

The government in New Delhi initially justified the block on terrorism and safety grounds, but the Indian Supreme Court ruled in January it represented a denial of free speech and demanded a more detailed reason.

Kashmir has long been a focal point of tension and sometimes violent struggles between Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan, which administers Azad Jammu and Kashmir to the north and west.

US-Taliban agreement — a male-dominated affair

The US-Taliban deal in Doha has been hailed as a landmark achievement, however the agreement provides no guarantee to upholding women's rights. What does it mean for the future of Afghan women? DW analyzes.





"We want peace and security in our country," said Khadija, who lives in Firozkoh district of Afghanistan's western Ghor province. "The Taliban and the Afghan government should sit down and make peace," the 47-year-old added.

On February 29, the United States and the Taliban signed a historic deal that has paved the way for a dialogue between the insurgents and Kabul.

The US-Taliban deal has already come under pressure, with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani refusing to release some 5,000 Taliban prisoners, and the insurgent group resuming attacks on Afghan forces. The Pentagon, however, said Thursday that the US agreemeent with the Taliban still stands.

But what is there for Afghan women in the deal? What guarantees have the Taliban given to uphold women's rights?

Most Afghan women certainly do not want a return to the misogynistic Taliban rule. At the same time, they want the almost 19-year-long conflict to end. Many of these Afghan women have lost their fathers, husbands and sons in the war.

"How many more young men need to die?" asked Mehri, an elderly woman in Herat province. "The young people should be focusing on their education," she said.
Women missing from the peace process

"The actual work towards peace begins now," Masuda Sultan, an Afghan women's rights activist, told DW. "Women's rights issues will be part of the intra-Afghan talks," she added.

Women's participation in the Afghan peace process has so far been minimal, as was evidenced in the US-Taliban deal signing ceremony in Doha. President Ghani's delegation to Qatar included only one woman.

Read more: US-Taliban deal — a victory for Islamists?

While many Afghan women are not ready to compromise on their rights, some desparately want the war to end.

"Our research on the Afghan peace process shows that those who have the most to lose are the most critical of the process," said Magdalena Kirchner, head of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (Foundation) in Kabul. "The well-educated Afghan women, who have achieved a lot, are unwilling to compromise now," she said, adding that many gains after the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001 have not reached a large number of Afghan women.

Kirchner urges foreign donors to ensure that women's rights are protected in Afghanistan.

Read more: US-Taliban deal: How Pakistan's 'Islamist support' finally paid off

Peace, but at what cost?

A large number of Afghans want peace, with 64% of those surveyed by the Asia Foundation in 2019 supporting reconciliation with the Taliban. However, the definition of peace — and at what cost it will be achieved — varies from person to person.

"We are desparate for peace," said Fatima, a housewife in Arghandab discrict of the southern Kandahar province. "It does not matter who comes to power. We just want peace," she asserted.

Masuda Sultan, who participated in a previous meeting with the Taliban, told DW that the Taliban were respectful toward them. "When I met them, I realized that they are humans too — with dreams and fears. All parties to the conflict want peace — a kind of healing to overcome the psychological damage of the war," Sultan said, adding that the post-deal opportunity for peace should not be missed.

Read more: Opinion: Goodbye to democracy in the Hindu Kush?

Last week, the US signed a historic peace deal with Taliban forces, aimed at ending 19 years of war. Many women in the country, like filmmaker Roya Sadat, are fearful a return to power of the Taliban could endanger the few gains they have made. 

Germany underestimated far-right terror for 'too long'

The threat of far-right terror in Germany has not been taken seriously, the head of Germany's parliament told lawmakers in the wake of the Hanau attacks. Wolfgang Schäuble said the violence did not occur in a vacuum.


Germany must admit that it underestimated the threat of far-right terror for too long, the president of the Bundestag told lawmakers on Thursday.

The country must do more to smash far-right networks, while also addressing the problem of Islamophobia in society, Wolfgang Schäuble told Germany's lower legislature.

Read more: After attack, Hanau takes a stand against racism

Schäuble, addressing a parliamentary debate on the Hanau attacks, called for "sincerity from the state, which must admit to having underestimated the extreme right-wing danger for too long."

"The decisive answer to this must be to uncover radical networks with all constitutional means and to smash right-wing extremist associations," said Schäuble, adding that the state must "finally get better at consistently enforcing the law".

DW's Michaela Küfner followed proceedings in the Bundestag and said that this was "the moment it was recognized that the [far-right] threat had, in teh past, been a lot larger than was publicly debated."

The perpetrator of the Hanau attack killed nine people with foreign roots at both a cafe and a shisha bar in the city. Authorities judged the murders to have been racially-motivated.

Schäuble said that such crimes "do not happen in a vacuum" but in a "poisoned social climate in which resentment towards 'otherness' — and the most absurd conspiracy theories — are stoked."

Minorities had been demonized to such an extent, Schäuble said, that hate campaigns — and even murder — were accompanied by "perverse applause on social networks."

Read more: 'Ferhat wanted to do something good for Hanau'

He also addressed the topic of Islamophobia. "Nothing justifies belittling, denigrating, persecuting, attacking people because of their origin or belief," said Schäuble, while adding that people's concern about immigration and social change needed to be taken seriously.



VIGILS ACROSS GERMANY AFTER HANAU SHOOTING
German president joins mourners

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (right) and his wife Elke Büdenbender, along with Hesse State Premier Volker Bouffier, laid wreaths near one the crime scenes in Hanau.

The killing spree in Hanau — near the city of Frankfurt — ended when the 43-year-old German gunman returned home, killing his mother before turning the pistol on himself. Thousands joined protests against far-right violence in the wake of the attacks, with many accusing the far-right Alternative for Germany(AfD), which holds 91 of 709 seats in Germany's lower house, of having fueled resentment.

Social Democrat lawmaker Aydan Özoguz told DW that the session had been important to show solidarity with the victims.

"It seemed to many people… that when you attack a Muslim, or when you attack a Jew, then it's only against that group," said Özoguz. "What was really quite clearly said today here from every party — almost, except for the AfD — is that it is an attack against democracy, it is an attack against the whole of society and we have to stand together."

During an emotional debate session, the AfD rejected any blame for the attack, claiming that the failure of mainstream parties had led to rising extremism.

A memorial service for the victims was held on Wednesday, attended by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

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Date 05.03.2020
Author Richard Connor
Related Subjects Terrorism, Alternative for Germany party (AfD)
Keywords Hanau, Wolfgang Schäuble, far-right, neo-Nazi, terrorism, terror, AfD