HINDUISM IS NOT HINDUTVA

Hindu Devotees Throng Temples to Worship Lord Shiva on 'Maha Shivratri' Festival – Video

14 minutes ago

© AFP 2022

Sangeeta Yadav

SPUTNIK

Maha Shivratri, the day when Lord Shiva married Goddess Parvati – as the legend goes – has been celebrated by Hindus since time immemorial. The duo is worshipped as the symbol of love, power, and togetherness.

People across India are celebrating the festival of Maha Shivratri, dedicated to Lord Shiva, on Tuesday by visiting temples to worship the deity.

These temples are reverberating with hymns and devotees' religious chanting of "Har Har Mahadev" or "Om Namah Shivai" in the name of Shiva.

Every year on this day, devotees visit temples and offer milk, honey, and flowers to Lord Shiva's phallic symbol -- "Shivalingam" – and pray before his statue. The temples become choc-a-bloc with people.

From taking a dip in the holy water of sacred rivers at different religious spots to fasting and meditating at home, devotees of Lord Shiva celebrate the day with much fanfare.

With the COVID-19 situation improving, spirits are high in India after almost two years of restrictions.

Also known as the "Great Night of Lord Shiva,'' Maha Shivratri falls on the darkest night of the year as per the Hindu calendar, and devout Hindus spend all night awake, chanting hymns for their spiritual awakening.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with several other politicians and celebrities took to social media to wish people luck on this special day.

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Netizens have flooded Twitter with pictures of Hindu devotees visiting temples and taking a dip in the holy water of the Ganges in Haridwar city.

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Noted sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik from Odisha state also created a sculpture of Lord Shiva adorned with 23,436 "rudrakshas" (stones used as prayer beads) on Puri beach to express his devotion to Shiva.

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Essential to bring women to centre of politics: Indian politician

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi tells Al Jazeera why the main opposition party gave 40 percent tickets to female candidates for Uttar Pradesh polls.

Congress party's Priyanka Gandhi waves during a roadshow for the ongoing assembly elections in Prayagraj in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh [Rajesh Kumar Singh/AP Photo]

By Zeyad Masroor Khan
Published On 1 Mar 2022

In an unprecedented move, India’s main opposition Congress party has given 40 percent of its tickets to female candidates for the ongoing assembly elections in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, also the country’s most populous with more than 200 million residents.

The driving force behind the Congress move is Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, daughter of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and the party’s current president, Italian-born Sonia Gandhi. Priyanka is also the younger sister of former Congress president Rahul Gandhi.

Despite belonging to India’s most prominent political family, the 50-year-old – married to businessman Robert Vadra and mother of two children – is a late entrant to active politics and had so far confined herself to campaigning for her mother and brother during the parliamentary elections.

That changed in 2019 when she was given the charge to turn Congress fortunes around in politically-crucial Uttar Pradesh, a state the party ruled for decades before the rise of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and caste-based regional parties in the 1990s.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Priyanka shares her views on the need to empower more women, the BJP’s religious politics targeting minorities, mainly Muslims, and what her party is doing to resist it.

Al Jazeera: What was the idea behind giving 40 percent tickets to female candidates in Uttar Pradesh? Are you doing this knowing fully well that it is not a state where Congress has a significant presence? In other words, since you know you won’t win many seats, then why not make a strong feminist statement?

Priyanka Gandhi: I would say that’s a rather cynical way of looking at what is a pioneering step forward for the full participation of women in Indian politics. Uttar Pradesh is the largest state in India, it greatly influences the nation’s politics. It also happens to be one of the most deeply entrenched patriarchies in the world. What we are doing is challenging this patriarchy right from within it. The idea, not just of giving 40 percent tickets to women, but also of creating a separate manifesto for their empowerment by giving them employment opportunities, laying out plans for their health, education, safety and upliftment is to give them their rightful due. Women are treated with condescension as a political force by most political parties in India. An example of this is that the ruling party’s flagship programme for women addresses them as “daughters” and consists of handing them one free gas cylinder per year!

In a polity divided into the lines of caste and religion, women can be an immense driving force for change if they consolidate and become cognisant of their own collective political power. They can be instrumental in lifting the politics of the nation above narrow divisions and demanding a focus on development, health, education, employment, economics and other issues that deeply affect the public. It is essential to bring women to the centre of political agenda and discourse. We are happy to have spearheaded this change.

Congress party’s Priyanka Gandhi waves to supporters during a roadshow in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh [Sanjay Kanojia/AFP]

Al Jazeera: Do you expect the move to give Congress dividends in the long run or is this a one-off thing? What are the steps to create a political culture that gives women more visibility in Indian politics, particularly in your party?

Gandhi: It is certainly not a one-off thing. In the last three years since I have been given charge of UP, we have consistently stood up for women. Whether it was the Unnao rape cases, the Shahjahanpur case, the Hathras case, or for that matter most cases of heinous crimes against women, as well as other issues affecting women like the dismal wages being paid to assistant teachers or front-line health workers, the Congress party not only fought for justice for them but was instrumental in pressurising the government to take action. We will continue to fight for women with even more strength in the future.

On the political front, we have fielded 40 percent of women candidates in this election. We will encourage and support them to nurture their constituencies and become the voice of women in Uttar Pradesh. Many of them are brilliant women, brave and driven with the ambition to help their sisters. Some of them have suffered immense hardships. These include the mothers of rape victims, a lady who was belaboured by the police simply for taking a representation demanding an increase in wages to the chief minister, another whose clothes were torn off in public when she presented herself for a local election, another whose daughter was gang-raped and imprisoned on false charges two days after her wedding.

They are extremely courageous women and I see great potential in them. It has not been easy for them to transition into a political role, many have faced resistance from society and even internally from within our party but they have been remarkably resilient. On my part, I have fully supported and protected them. Aside from this, we will encourage even more women to fight the corporation and municipality elections in October and we will create an influx of young women leaders in our party organisation so that we become a fighting force for the empowerment of women in politics.

Al Jazeera: You also gave tickets to Muslim activists like Sadaf Jafar and the mother of a Muslim man killed during anti-citizenship law protests. What did you have in mind when you decided on their names?

Gandhi: Whether it was Sadaf, the mother of rape victims, the mother of an innocent boy killed during the anti-CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) movement, the tribal boy in Sonbhadhra or many others like them whom we have given tickets to, each had one thing in common: the crimes against them were perpetrated by those who either had political power themselves or were connected to it. Giving them tickets to fight the election was to send a strong message that political power rightfully belongs to the people of this country. It is meant to enable and uplift them, not to oppress and destroy them. We said to them: “Power did this to you, now take it into your own hands and fight for yourself. Use it to help others who suffer like you did.”

Priyanka Gandhi speaks during the release of the Congress party’s manifesto for the Uttar Pradesh elections, in New Delhi [Altaf Qadri/AP Photo]

Al Jazeera: Uttar Pradesh is considered one of the unsafest places for women. What are some of the things you hope to change if you get into a position to influence political decisions?

Gandhi: We have proposed many steps to improve safety for women in our women’s manifesto. If we form the government in Uttar Pradesh, 25 percent of all recruits into the police force will be women so that policewomen are present at every police station to assist victims of crimes against women. Presently, when such crimes are committed, in most cases the police and administration protect the perpetrator. The first information reports (FIRs or police reports) are not filed, the woman’s family is pressurised and the woman herself is vilified and blamed. We intend to bring in a law that allows punitive action to be taken on any public servant who impedes the filing of an FIR within 10 days.

We are proposing a six-member special empowered commission consisting of female judges, activists and senior civil servants to look into cases of vilification and persecution of female victims of crime and their families. We have also announced that we will form a legal cell with female members active and available in every district to assist victims of rape, sexual assault, domestic violence etc. More than anything else, I would like to be able to effect a change in the social and political mindset of people. I believe that bringing women’s issues to the centre of public discourse and the increased participation of women in politics will drive this change.

Al Jazeera: The ruling BJP is trying its best to polarise the UP election along religious lines. What is Congress’s plan to counter this narrative?

Gandhi: The BJP has a two-pronged strategy to garner votes in every election. It polarises the electorate and it distributes rations and doles in a year or so before the election. Both these aspects of the BJP’s strategy reveal its truth. Its policies are designed to benefit its monopolist financiers and ensure that a large section of the populace remains poor. Its performance on employment, inflation, support to small and medium industries and strengthening agriculture has been abysmal.

Keeping people poor makes them dependent on, and grateful for, the paltry doles handed out to them. Sowing divisiveness in their minds enables the discussion to be fully diverted from governance and delivery. The BJP uses issues that emotionally charge the public, divide the electorate along religious and caste lines and ensure that it remains in power.

Priyanka Gandhi, left, waves during a roadshow for assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh [Rajesh Kumar Singh/AP Photo]

I believe that driving a change of narrative towards development, jobs and opportunity for women and young people can counter the BJP’s divisive narrative or for that matter the caste-based politics of other political parties too. India has the largest youth population in the world. The current narrative is making use of this youthful population by directing its energy towards divisiveness and negativity. This same youthful energy can be directed towards a more positive and constructive national agenda. Bringing to the fore the fact that divisiveness does not resolve the immense problems being faced by the public is extremely important. People are indeed suffering. A recent survey of vulnerable households across 14 states revealed that 66 percent of households had been hit by income loss, 45 percent are in debt and 79 percent have faced food insecurity in the last two years. These are staggering figures.

On another note, I strongly believe the hypermasculine, jingoistic narrative of the BJP can be countered by a hyperfeminine, egalitarian narrative. By hyperfeminine, I mean a movement that aggressively asserts femininity and demands equality across the board. Women can effectively consolidate and alter the political narrative. Women are the backbone of society, they must be made to understand that they can also be the backbone of politics in the country. They can drive change.

Al Jazeera: What took you so long to enter active politics? And are you the Congress’s chief ministerial candidate in Uttar Pradesh?

Gandhi: My brother and I had a rough childhood as both my grandmother in whose home we grew up and my father was assassinated when we were very young. I wanted my children to have a simple and normal childhood. I did not want to expose them to the harshness of public life so I stayed out of politics except for managing my mother’s and brother’s constituencies and focus on bringing them up and making sure I was there for them. And I am not the Congress party’s chief ministerial candidate in Uttar Pradesh. I think it would be premature to make such assumptions. Let’s wait till the results are out.

KEEP READING
What Priyanka Gandhi’s entry into politics means for India’s elections
Indian police detain key opposition leaders marching against rape
‘Team Gandhi on the loose!’
Speculation over Priyanka’s political foray 

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

Thailand agrees plan for Saudi Arabia labor deployment as ties normalize


The skyline is seen through air pollution in Bangkok, Thailand February 15, 2018. (Reuters)

Reuters, Bangkok
Published: 01 March ,2022

Thailand plans to facilitate the deployment of labor to Saudi Arabia for the first time in decades, its government said on Tuesday, part of the restoration of ties that were severed by the Gulf State over a multi-million-dollar jewelry theft.

Thailand has been eager to normalize relations with the Kingdom after a spat that has cost billions of dollars in two-way trade and tourism revenues and the loss of tens of thousands of overseas Thai jobs.

The two countries agreed to reestablish full diplomatic ties following the January visit by Prime Minister Chan-ocha to Saudi Arabia.

Thailand’s cabinet on Tuesday approved two draft agreements on legal labor recruitment for Saudi Arabia which will protect the rights of workers and employers, said government spokesman Thanakorn Wangboonkongchana.

“This will mark a new era of strengthening Thailand-Saudi Arabia economic ties and expanding the Thai labor market into the Middle East,” Thanakorn said.

Saudi Arabia downgraded relations over the theft in 1989 of about $20 million of jewels by a Thai janitor in the palace of a Saudi prince.

The spat became known as the “Blue Diamond Affair” and a year after the theft, three Saudi diplomats were separately assassinated in a single night. Many of the gems, including a rare blue diamond, are yet to be recovered.

The theft remains of Thailand’s biggest unsolved mysteries and the bloody trail of destruction that followed saw some of Thailand’s top police generals implicated.

Palestinians protest French statements on Jerusalem

February 28, 2022

French Prime Minister Jean Castex delivers a speech in Dunkirk townhall after a visit of Arcelor Mittal on February 04, 2022 in Dunkerque, France 

[Sylvain Lefevre/Getty Images]

February 28, 2022 

Palestinians staged a rally in the Gaza Strip on Monday to protest statements by French Prime Minister, Jean Castex, in which he declared Jerusalem as "the eternal capital of the Jewish people."

"Jerusalem is the eternal capital of Palestine," reads a banner waved by protesters during the rally organised by the Palestinian group, Hamas, in the western city of Khan Younis, Anadolu News Agency reports.

"Castex's remarks were part of the continuing bias of French and Western decision-makers to the Israeli occupation," Hamas leader, Mushir Al-Masri told Anadolu Agency.

"The Western policy can't give Israel legitimacy on the land of Palestine," he said.

READ: Church leaders urge Israel to halt Jerusalem land confiscation

On Friday, Castex claimed during a gala dinner hosted by the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF) that "Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish people."

"That does not stop anyone from recognising and respecting the attachment of other religions to this city," he said.

Jerusalem remains at the heart of the Israel-Palestine conflict, with Palestinians hoping East Jerusalem, now occupied by Israel, might eventually serve as the capital of a future Palestinian State.

Israeli forces brutally assault Palestinian worshippers at Al-Aqsa mosque

The New Arab Staff
28 February, 2022

Fourteen Palestinians were wounded and 20 detained after Israeli police attacked Muslim worshippers.


Al-Aqsa mosque, located in the Old City of Jerusalem, is the third holiest site in Islam. [Getty]

Israeli forces detained at least 20 Palestinians and assaulted worshippers who had gathered to celebrate a Muslim holiday on Monday at Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, activists and local media reported.

Fourteen Palestinians were wounded, including a child, and four were taken to hospital for treatment, the Palestinian Red Crescent announced on Monday evening, as they worshipped the Muslim festival of Al-Israa and Miraj.

Videos shared by Palestinians on social media showed Israeli forces throwing teargas and stun grenades into a crowd of worshippers, with many children and infants in the congregation, sparking panic.

One video showed an Israeli officer pushing a young woman to the ground and punching her, before dragging her away in a headlock with the help of other policemen.

Worshippers gathered near Al-Aqsa mosque - the third holiest site in Islam and the place from which Prophet Muhammad is said to have ascended to heaven - on Monday to celebrate the Al-Israa and Miraj holiday.

Since Jerusalem became entirely occupied by Israel in 1967, the complex containing the Al-Aqsa Mosque has been repeatedly targeted by Israeli settlers, police and soldiers.

Abuses against Palestinian worshippers have intensified over the past months.

Israeli settlers routinely break into the complex during Friday prayers to attack the mosque and believers, with the tacit approval of Israeli forces stationed near the mosque.

In 2021, the complex was raided by over 34,500 Israelis according to Palestine's Waqf ministry, the authority responsible for Palestinian holy sites.

Al-Aqsa mosque has become a highly symbolic battleground crystallising tensions between Israeli settlers, who would like to claim all of Jerusalem, and Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. The United Nations considers East Jerusalem occupied Palestinian land.

Israel bulldozers demolish three Palestinian business structures

February 28, 2022 

A view from the site as a building belonging to a Palestinian family demolishing by Israeli forces allegedly for being "unlicensed", in Nahalin village of Bethlehem, West Bank on December 21, 2021 [Wisam Hashlamoun - Anadolu Agency]

February 28, 2022 at 5:46 pm

Israeli municipal authorities ordered the demolition of a Palestinian grocery store, bakery and carwash in the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Jabal Al-Mukabbir.

According to Wafa news agency the commercial buildings were targeted because occupation forces say they were built without the necessary permits.

Palestinian and Israeli rights groups say the Israeli demolition policy aims to limit the presence of Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem.

Iyaad Jaafreh, the grocery store owner, was also notified of occupation authorities' intention to take over a three dunum (0.74 acres) plot of land belonging to his family due to public interest.

Israeli authorities regularly carry out demolitions of Palestinian-owned homes and businesses in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, under the pretext that they are built without permits.

At least one-third of all Palestinian homes in Jerusalem lack building permits, placing some 100,000 Palestinians at risk of forced displacement. In 2014 Israel issued only one such permit to Palestinians and none the following year.

According to the Palestinian National Information Centre, Israel has forced Palestinians living in East Jerusalem to demolish more than 1,900 homes since it occupied the city in 1967.

Quds Press: 211 rights groups call for respecting Amnesty's report on Israel's apartheid

March 1, 2022

Secretary General of Amnesty International, Agnes Callamard (C) holds a press conference in East Jerusalem on February 1, 2022. 

[Mostafa Alkharouf - Anadolu Agency]

March 1, 2022 at 10:33 am

Some 211 rights groups and NGOs yesterday called for the international community to respect Amnesty International's report which labelled Israel an apartheid state, Quds Press reported.

In a joint statement, the rights groups and NGOs also called for respecting other similar reports, considering them international documents to be used in prosecuting Israel for its crimes of discrimination and racism against Palestinians.

The rights groups and NGOs considered the denial of the facts in these reports as a form of animosity towards Palestinians and denial of their inalienable rights.

At the same time, they condemned any parties or individuals who denied that Israel is practicing apartheid against Palestinians.

Concluding their statement, the rights groups and NGOs expressed their hope that Amnesty International opens an investigation into remarks made by the director of its office in Israel, Molly Malekar, in which she criticised the report.

Speaking to the Times of Israel, Malekar described the findings of Amnesty's report as a "punch to the gut".

On 1 February 2022, Amnesty International released findings of a comprehensive investigation into Israel's practices against Palestinians and found that Tel Aviv is adopting an apartheid regime against them.

Ukraine crisis highlights West’s hypocrisy over Israeli land theft

Ali Abunimah

Rights and Accountability 

22 February 2022

Veterans of the extreme-right nationalist Azov Battalion, a unit of Ukraine’s national guard, hold a rally in the capital Kiev, 14 March 2020. Far-right and neo-Nazi organizations played a key role in the Western-backed overthrow of Ukraine’s president in 2014, leading to the current crisis. 

NurPhoto via ZUMA Press

TWEETS BELOW ARTICLE

Just a day after Moscow recognized the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk from Ukraine, the European Union came out swinging against what it characterized as “Russian aggression.”

It condemned Moscow’s move as “illegal and unacceptable” and vowed swift sanctions “to target those who were involved in the illegal decision.”

The measures will also hit “banks that are financing Russian military and other operations in those territories” and aim to thwart the “ability of the Russian state and government to access the EU’s capital and financial markets and services.”

These sanctions – likely to be followed by others – supposedly flow from the EU’s deep respect for “international law,” as well as the “sovereignty and territorial integrity” of Ukraine.

The US is also laying out sanctions in response to what Washington describes as a Russian “invasion” of the two eastern regions that have been under the control of pro-Russian separatists since 2014.

Germany, which is largely dependent on gas supplies from Russia, announced the suspension of plans to build the Nordstream 2 pipeline.

The crisis in Ukraine today can be traced to American sponsorship of the 2014 coup against the country’s elected pro-Russian president that brought far-right and even neo-Nazi Ukrainian nationalists to power.

Washington’s goal has been to bring Ukraine into the anti-Russia NATO military alliance – something Moscow sees as an existential threat – and is strongly opposed by many among Ukraine’s large ethnic Russian population.
Biden recognizes Israel’s crimes

Yet the sudden concern for international law regarding Ukraine is nowhere to be found when it comes to Israel’s illegal occupation and annexation of Palestinian and Syrian land, and its imposition of an apartheid regime on the entire Palestinian people – a crime against humanity.

These Israeli crimes could of course not be perpetrated without American and European support or acquiescence.

When the Trump administration moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2017, effectively recognizing Israel’s illegal annexation of the city, the EU rejected the move.

The EU also rejected the 2019 US recognition of Israel’s illegal annexation of Syria’s occupied Golan Heights.

Ironically, one of the handful of countries ready to follow the US in recognizing Israel’s illegal annexation of Jerusalem is none other than the US and EU-backed government in Ukraine.

Notably, the Biden administration has refused to rescind Trump’s recognition of Israel’s blatantly illegal acts – even as Washington blasts Russia for recognizing Donetsk and Luhansk.

Indeed, Biden himself maintains an illegal US occupation of parts of Syria.

Under Trump, its explicit purpose was to plunder the country’s oil.

Yet the European Union, which has criticized both the US and Russia for their actions, has not imposed any sanctions on Washington for aiding and abetting Israel’s crimes.

That is hardly surprising. For decades, the European Union has acknowledged that Israel’s occupation, theft and annexation of Palestinian land is illegal, but instead of sanctioning it, Brussels rewards and encourages it.

The stark contrast with the immediate American and EU resort to sanctions against Russia is not lost on Palestinians.

“For us as Palestinians, we see this discussion and we ask ourselves, where is this discussion when it comes to Palestine?” Wesam Ahmad, of the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq, said on Tuesday.

Ahmad was speaking during a webinar hosted by Finnish lawmaker Veronika Honkasalo, focusing on a bill she has introduced to ban trade in goods from occupied territories.

“The occupation of Palestinian territory has been going on for a much longer period of time,” Ahmad observed.

He said that the persistent “lack of action” in response to Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights and international law “undermines the credibility of the rule of law being something that applies across the board.”
Pressure from the people

Frustrated with the complicity, hypocrisy and unaccountability of their leaders, people across the continent are launching a European Citizens Initiative to force Brussels to close European markets to products and services from settlements in occupied territories, including Israeli colonies on Palestinian and Syrian land.

A European Citizens Initiative is a formal process that is meant to allow citizens to influence EU policy. It requires gathering the signatures of at least a million people from across the bloc.

This one has already passed the first hurdle of being formally registered by the European Commission, the EU’s executive body.

That came after the Commission had refused to register a similar initiative in 2019, a decision that was overturned last year when organizers went to court.

“Even though illegal settlements constitute a war crime under international law, the EU allows trade with them,” said the European Legal Support Center, one of 100 organizations urging EU citizens to sign on to the initiative.

Human Rights Watch – one of several major human rights groups that over the last year have concluded that Israel perpetrates the crime against humanity of apartheid – is also backing the initiative.

“Settlements unlawfully rob local populations of their land, resources and livelihoods,” Bruno Stagno, chief advocacy officer at Human Rights Watch, stated. “No country should be enabling the trade in goods produced as a result of land theft, displacement and discrimination.”

Frances Black, an Irish senator who sponsored legislation in her country to ban trade in settlement goods, is also urging support for the initiative.

Although passed by the Irish parliament, the government in Dublin is blocking implementation of Black’s Occupied Territories Bill.

Meanwhile, the similar bill in Finland is coming up for its first vote on Friday. It has secured 35 sponsors out of Finland’s 200 members of parliament.

If it passes, this would be only the first step towards becoming law.

More than 40 Palestinian human rights, political and cultural organizations have written to Finnish MPs. In a letter seen by The Electronic Intifada, they urge lawmakers to support the bill, calling it a “crucial opportunity for Finland to lead by example on complying with relevant obligations under international human rights and international humanitarian law.”

Contrary to persistent Israel lobby complaints that Israel is being singled out, all these initiatives would ban trade in goods from any occupied territory – including Western Sahara, which is occupied by Morocco.

In September, the European Court of Justice annulled an EU trade deal with Morocco because it included Western Sahara without the consent of its people and their internationally recognized representatives, the Polisario Front.

During Tuesday’s seminar hosted by Finnish MP Honkasalo, Salah Abdulahe Mohamed, an advocate for Sahrawi self-determination, charged that the EU continues to allow the import of goods plundered from Sahrawi territory – such as sardines and tomatoes – that are falsely labeled as products of Morocco.

The European Citizens Initiative that would stop trade with Israel’s settlements faces an enormous uphill battle. Of course, it would not even be necessary if EU governments really respected the norms they now accuse Russia of violating.

But time and again, international law proves not to be a yardstick against which all are measured, but a club used by the strong exclusively for their own advantage.

Ali Abunimah's blog

EURO CIVILIZATION IS WHITE😱

Does the Ukraine exodus reveal a ‘shocking distinction’ on refugees in some parts of the EU?

By Joshua Berlinger • Updated: 01/03/2022 - 18:26

Refugees from Ukraine cross into Poland at the Medyka crossing, Tuesday, March 1, 2022 

Countries like Romania, Hungary and Poland are being praised for letting in tens of thousands of people who fled Ukraine after Russia's invasion last week, but the open-door policy of several states has highlighted an apparent double-standard.

These refugees, who are largely white and Christian, can enter some countries more easily than those escaping violence in the Middle East or North Africa.

Political scientist Ziad Majed told AFP news agency the "magnificent solidarity and humanism" towards Ukraine illustrates a "shocking distinction" which reveals a "dehumanization of refugees from the Middle East"

"When you hear certain comments talking about 'people like us' it suggests that those who come from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan or Africa are not", adds the professor at the American University of Paris.

More than a half a million refugees have left Ukraine already, the head of the UN's refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Monday. To cope with the influx, the European Union has invoked a never-before-used law to help the traditional asylum system when it is overwhelmed by a mass and unexpected arrival of migrants.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said his country is "letting everyone in", while Poland declared its border open to fleeing Ukrainians -- even those without official documents -- and dropped its requirement to show a negative COVID-19 test. On Sunday, the UNHCR said 45,200 refugees had arrived in Poland in just 15 hours.

"We must be prepared to accept many refugees from Ukraine. People who will seek a safe haven with us fleeing the tragedy of war," Polish President Andrzej Duda said last week.

The Polish right has historically opposed almost all immigration, and Orbán is one of the EU's most outspoken opponents of the EU's migration policy. He said in 2018 that "migration is dangerous to public security, to our welfare and to the European Christian culture".

While geopolitics may be at play here -- these are refugees of a Russian invasion that Europe has universally condemned -- there is also the fact that Ukrainian people are ethnically and culturally similar to their new hosts.

“These are not the refugees we are used to … these people (Ukrainians) are Europeans,” Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov told journalists earlier this week, The Associated Press reported.

“These people are intelligent, they are educated people ... This is not the refugee wave we have been used to, people we were not sure about their identity, people with unclear pasts, who could have been even terrorists."

"In other words," he added, "there is not a single European country now which is afraid of the current wave of refugees."

Petkov's comments have drawn allegations of racism, as it implies that non-European migrants are less intelligent, less educated and more dangerous.

In fact, many who fled Syria for Europe during the 2015 crisis were from the professional middle class, according to reports at the time, and only sought to escape the civil strife in their country that has left at least 350,000 people dead.

Members of the news media have landed in hot water for similar -- if unintended -- implications. A reporter from CBS News apologised after facing backlash for his comments about why the violence was surprising in "relatively civilised" and "relatively European" Ukraine. And Al Jazeera issued an apology after a presenter on its English network made "unfair comparisons between Ukrainians fleeing the war and refugees from the MENA region".

Refugees and migrants attempting to reach Europe in recent years from conflict zones in the Middle East and North Africa have faced much more perilous journeys. In 2021, the Greek Coast Guard was accused of repeatedly accused of illegally abusing and pushing migrants back to sea; the number of migrants and refugees who died while trying to reach Spain more than doubled to 4,404; and 1,315 people died trying to cross the central Mediterranean, the highest since 2018.

Equal treatment

Refugees are not supposed to face discrimination based on race, religion or country of origin, according to the UN Refugee Convention.

"In an ideal world, we would like everyone to be treated equally," said Jeff Crisp, an expert at the University of Oxford's Refugee Studies Centre.

The reality, however, is that "both people and states do treat different groups of refugees in different ways, according to where they come from; according to their own perceptions of those people, and according to their own political interests," said Crisp, who previously headed policy development and evaluation for the UN refugee agency (UNHCR).

The issue has already presented itself with those leaving Ukraine. Crisp pointed to the increasing number of reports that Africans have had issues trying to leave Ukraine.

A spokesman for Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said his office had received reports of Ukraine police and security personnel refusing to allow Nigerians to leave for the Polish border.

Jean-Jacques Kabea, a Congolese pharmacy student, told AFP that he spent four days in the cold without anything to eat. Kabea said that Ukrainian forces told him and Congolese students had to stay and fight, as men have been ordered to stay in the country.

"They tell you: "you are going to stay here, you are fleeing the war, stay here, you are going to fight with us, you are not going to leave, especially you black people," Kabea said.

Crisp, the migration expert at Oxford, said that it's imperative those fleeing Ukraine be treated equally.

"Clearly, if you're escaping from Ukraine at the moment, then it doesn't matter what your nationality is, what the colour of your skin is, what your culture is. You can understand why people would want to get out of their situation and seek safety elsewhere," he said.

Down the line, Crisp is worried that the goodwill among European states could evaporate if Ukrainian refugees continue to flood in -- especially if their homes are destroyed or their democratically elected government is overthrown, making it more difficult to return home.

"The big question is how long is the invasion and the conflict in Ukraine going to persist? What level of destruction will take place in that country? And what are the implications of that level of destruction for the, for the eventual return of refugees," Crisp said. "If there are high levels of destruction within Ukraine, particularly if some kind of Russian backed public government is installed, then I think we have to start thinking about the Ukrainian refugee situation in Europe being a long term one."

"I wouldn't be at all surprised if, in four or five years' time, we're still talking about the situation of Ukrainian refugees in Europe," Crisp said.

Western media’s coverage of Ukraine crisis ‘racist’, normalises conflicts in other areas: Press body

The Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association cited examples from CBS News, Al Jazeera and ‘The Telegraph’.

Scroll Staff

Refugees from Ukraine at the border crossing in Medyka in eastern Poland on Monday. | Wojtek Radwanski/ AFP

The Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association on Monday described as “racist” certain statements made by Western media on the Ukraine crisis, asking news organisation to be “mindful of implicit and explicit bias” in their coverage of the Russian invasion.

In a statement, the press body cited a few examples of the news coverage that seemed to give more importance to victims of war in Europe to other regions such as the Middle East and Africa.

It quoted CBS News correspondent Charlie D’Agata saying: “But this [Ukraine] isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is a relatively civilized, relatively European – I have to choose those words carefully, too – city, one where you wouldn’t expect that, or hope that it’s going to happen.”

The statement also cited Al Jazeera English anchor Peter Dobbie comparing Ukrainian citizens trying to flee the country with the refugees attempting to leave the Middle East region.

“What’s compelling is, just looking at them, the way they are dressed, these are prosperous... I’m loath to use the expression... middle class people,” Dobbie said. “These are not obviously refugees looking to get away from areas in the Middle East that are still in a big state of war. These are not people trying to get away from areas in North Africa.”

He added that the Ukrainian citizens were “like any European family”.

The press body also cited the example of journalist and advisor to the United Kingdom Board of Trade Daniel Hannan writing for the The Telegraph. In the article, Hannan said that what makes the Ukraine crisis “so shocking” was that its citizens “seem like us”.

“War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations,” he wrote. “It can happen to anyone.”

In its statement, the press body rejected “orientalist and racist implications” that any country was “uncivilised” and has economic factors that make them worthy of conflict.

“This type of commentary reflects the pervasive mentality in Western journalism of normalizing tragedy in parts of the world such as the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, and Latin America,” it said.
“It dehumanizes and renders their experience with war as somehow normal and expected.”

Advising newsrooms not to compare two conflicts, it said that deaths of civilian and their displacement in other places were equally as “abhorrent” as it was happening in Ukraine.

The press body advised newsrooms to train their correspondents on cultural and political nuances of regions they were reporting on and also not rely on “American- or Euro-centric biases”.


“AMEJA stands in full solidarity with all civilians under military assault in any part of the world, and we deplore the difference in news coverage of people in one country versus another. Not only can such coverage decontextualize conflicts, but it contributes to the erasure of populations around the world who continue to experience violent occupation and aggression.”— The Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association

Read today’s developments on the Ukraine crisis here

'Ukrainian girl confronting a Russian soldier' is actually Palestine's Ahed Tamimi

Many online slammed the mix-up, saying a clip of the Palestinian activist drew sympathy and was thought to be from Ukraine because she is 'white-passing'

Ahed Tamimi gestures in front of an Israeli soldier in 2012, during a protest against the confiscation of Palestinian land by Israel in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh (AFP)

By Nur Ayoubi
Published date: 28 February 2022

Old footage of Ahed Tamimi, a Palestinian activist arrested in 2017 by Israel, has been widely shared online under the false claim that she is a Ukrainian girl standing up to a Russian soldier.

Images from a 2012 incident show Tamimi, then aged 11, confronting an Israeli soldier, gesturing as if to punch him.

However, many on Twitter shared the pictures with false information that it is from Ukraine.

On the short-form video platform TikTok, a clip of the same confrontation between Tamimi and the soldier asks viewers to pray for Ukraine. So far, the clip has been viewed over 12 million times and has accumulated just over 800,000 likes.



Tamimi has often been referred to as an icon of the Palestinian resistance. She garnered widespread media attention in 2017 when she was arrested following an altercation with Israeli soldiers who refused to leave her home in Nabi Saleh, a village in the occupied West Bank.

Tamimi, who was 16 years old at the time, was sentenced to eight months in an Israeli prison as a minor, making headlines around the world.

At the time of her release, Tamimi paid tribute to the women incarcerated in Israeli prisons and said she was planning to become a lawyer to help further the Palestinian cause.


The false information spread alongside footage of Tamimi angered many social media users who see a double standard in how the footage was received.

“I guess Palestinian kids are only heroic when mistaken as European?” one Twitter user asked.

Another Twitter user called for people to “stop using Palestinians as props”.

Western media coverage of Russia’s invasion has been slammed by many online for using racist tropes, often expressing sorrow for "civilized" Europeans and comparing them with refugees from the Middle East.

Many online said the video of Tamimi has gone viral again under this new - if false - context because she is "white-passing"

Earlier this week, David Sakvarelidze, Ukraine’s former deputy general prosecutor, sparked outrage when he spoke to the BBC about Russia’s invasion saying “it’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed”.

This is not the first time that old, unrelated footage has been confused with the Russian invasion since the start of the conflict.

Much misleading footage linked to the Russia-Ukraine crisis has come from the Middle East. Multiple videos and images from Syria, Lebanon, Libya, and Palestine have all falsely been attributed to the Russian invasion.

This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition.

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