Wednesday, January 26, 2022

Sofia Perovskaia: Virgin Mother of the Soviet Union


Above: A contemporary image of Sofia Perovskaia.

Dr. Lara Green is a historian of modern and contemporary Russia, with a particular emphasis on networks, violence, and gender. She teaches in the Department of History at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

Soviet director Lev Arnshtam’s 1967 film Sofia Perovskaia followed the life and death of its eponymous hero, one of the leaders of the terrorist organization that assassinated the Russian tsar in 1881. Women’s participation in revolutionary violence and war had long fascinated observers. There was, for example, Vera Zasulich’s attempted assassination of a tsarist official in 1878 and Zoia Kosmodemianskaia’s partisan activities during the Second World War. Arnshtam’s film, starring Aleksandra Nazarova in the title role, followed his 1944 wartime classic Zoia, another in a long line of literary works, art, and films depicting women revolutionaries and fighters.

The film represented Perovskaia in ways that echoed the contemporary global media sensation from 1881. Perovskaia was twenty-seven at the time of the tsar’s assassination, yet both journalists and her revolutionary comrades consistently emphasized her youth. In a sensational book featuring profiles of revolutionaries, one writer and propagandist described her as “girlhood personified.” He then also incorrectly stated her birth year, in effect de-aging her by another year.

This same trope was repeated in the Soviet biography series “Lives of Remarkable People.” Elena Segal’s 1962 biography of Perovskaia featured a well-known image of the revolutionary from the time of her trial, which in this case appeared to have been altered to make her appear even younger. Her thin cheeks and slight frown have been replaced by the unblemished skin and round cheeks of a child. On the cover of this volume, the tired and worn expression from the original photograph becomes simply one of determination.

This visual and literary image identified her with the attribute of innocence by emphasizing not merely Perovskaia’s youth, but her childlike quality. The idea that a terrorist could actually be “innocent” had appeared frequently in revolutionary and popular culture. Individuals like Ivan Kaliaev, who threw the bomb that killed the tsar’s uncle in 1905, were celebrated for their moral judgement. Kaliaev, in particular, was lauded because he had refused to throw the bomb after noticing children were traveling in the same carriage.

It has been often argued that the image of the “moral terrorist” came across as insincere after the discovery in 1909 that one of the leaders of a key Russian terrorist organization was a police spy. However, representations of Perovskaia as childlike suggest that this may have been one key association that enabled the trope to live on.

Alexander Blok’s poem “Retribution,”  written between 1908 and 1912, exemplifies the continued life of this trope. The first section of the poem is an ode to the revolutionaries; an excerpt describing Perovskaia was, in fact, printed as the epigraph to Segal’s 1962 biography:

A high childlike forehead was revealed,

By a simple and modest hairstyle,

A wide white collar

And a black dress – just so,

Slim, of small stature,

The deep expression of a child,

Yet, as if finding something in the distance,

Watching attentively, fixedly,

This sweet, tender gaze

Burned with courage and sorrow…

Translation by the author.

In Blok’s framing, as a “child,” Perovskaia was able to understand the world in a way which those around her could not. Her innocence made it impossible for her to act with malicious intent. Killing the tsar in 1881 was thus the innate and pure moral response of a child to injustice.

The idea of innocence also shaped representations of Perovskaia’s sexuality. In reality, her comrade in the People’s Will, Andrei Zheliabov, had been her lover. Yet in the film, their relationship is depicted instead as a deep emotional connection. In one scene, Perovskaia and Zheliabov are shown climbing a steep hill together. Perovskaia does this in a frilly white dress, a stark contrast to the simple clothes she is best known for. It is difficult to imagine such an outfit being her choice of clothing in real life, especially given that revolutionary women of this period were often known for rejecting feminine stereotypes. Through this depiction of her relationship with Zheliabov and the color white, Perovskaia is represented as a virgin, a being symbolically without sin.

The same sequence sees Zheliabov leading Perovskaia by the hand, echoing other scenes in the film where it is male initiative and intellect that propels revolutionary action. It is Zheliabov who gets the passionate speech in the courtroom concerning their revolutionary ideas. Perovskaia, by contrast, cannot help becoming distressed when she learns of Zheliabov’s arrest shortly before the attack takes place.

Though Perovskaia is depicted in late nineteenth-century literature and Arnshtam’s Soviet-era film as a capable revolutionary activist, these representations extol her as more of a doer than a thinker. Thinking, as in the aforementioned scene, leads to being overcome by emotions. A scene near the end of the film provides another example of emotional collapse: as Perovskaia joins her fellow revolutionaries on the cart that will take them to the place of execution, she wavers and falls between the guards accompanying her. Eventually, however, she recovers; once at the gallows themselves, she embraces her comrades without hesitation. Her stoicism in the face of execution transfixes a young piccolo player in the military band, causing him to continue his repetitive refrain even after the other musicians have stopped, to the point where a superior reprimands him.

In this last moment, we might read Perovskaia as the instigator of a wider tidal wave of feeling that would eventually lead to the October Revolution of 1917. Her sacrifice, this interpretation implies, helps usher in the idea of revolution. Yet, she herself would not realize this revolutionary intent. According to her contemporaries, she was a “teacher” and a “nurse,” not a revolutionary leader. After all, in Soviet legend that role belonged to Lenin.

The Perovskaia of Segal’s biography and Arnshtam’s film rehearses many of the scripts that already existed at the time of her trial and execution. Her image as a childlike innocent endowed contemporary and future generations with a language capable of imbuing revolutionary terrorism with moral authority. Perovskaia’s innate qualities and weaknesses as a woman reflected gendered hierarchies that existed even among supposed liberated revolutionaries. By depicting Perovskaia as the virgin mother of revolution, Arnshtam’s film successfully inscribed the history of nineteenth-century revolutionaries into an official Soviet narrative with specific moral, social, and political requirements.

New oil leak off Peru coast amid crude spill cleanup


New oil leak off Peru coast amid crude spill cleanupA resident of a community affected by an oil spill at a Repsol refinery in Peru protests against the company on January 20, 2022 in Callao
 (AFP/Cris BOURONCLE)

Carlos MANDUJANO
Wed, January 26, 2022

A fresh oil leak has occurred off the coast of Peru -- already cleaning up after a major crude spill 10 days earlier -- during work on an underwater refinery pipeline, the government said Wednesday.

The leak occurred Tuesday during work at the La Pampilla refinery, owned by Spanish energy giant Repsol, the environment ministry said, though the company denied it.

The work was being done "prior to the removal of the PLEM (pipeline end manifolds), used for underwater collection and distribution" between the refinery and ships, the ministry's OEFA environment monitoring agency said.

It did not say how many liters were spilled.

Late Tuesday, hours before the authorities reported the new leak, Repsol denied there had been one.

"We rule out a second oil spill. We warn the population about the circulation of false information," Repsol Peru said on its website.

But the Peruvian Navy said in a statement that on Tuesday, during a flyover to monitor the area affected by the first spill, an "oily spot" was observed near the pipeline.

It consulted Repsol, which told it a leak had occurred "despite work having been done to remove the crude prior to inspection and repair" of the pipeline.

























- Environmental emergency -

A tanker was offloading crude at the same refinery in Ventanilla, 30 kilometers (19 miles) north of Lima, when it spilled 6,000 barrels into the ocean on January 15.

Repsol said the tanker was hit by waves triggered by a tsunami after a massive volcanic eruption near Tonga.

The Peruvian government is demanding damages from Repsol, but the Spanish company denies responsibility, saying maritime authorities had issued no warning of freak waves after the Tonga eruption.

The new leak happened as hundreds of volunteers and hired hands raced against the clock to clean beaches after the initial spill from the Italian-flagged tanker "Mare Doricum".

Peru has declared an environmental emergency after almost 264,000 gallons (1.2 million liters) of crude oil spilled into the sea on that occasion.

The environment ministry said Sunday that more than 180 hectares -- equivalent to around 270 soccer fields -- of beach and 713 hectares of sea were affected, as sea currents spread the spilled oil along the coast.


New oil leak off Peru coast amid crude spill cleanupThe Italian-flagged tanker Mare Doricum was offloading crude at the Repsol refinery in Ventanilla, 30 kilometers (19 miles) north of Lima, when it spilled 6,000 barrels into the ocean (AFP/ERNESTO BENAVIDES)

Countless birds and marine creatures have been killed, the tourism and fishing industries hit, and the health ministry has warned would-be bathers to stay away from at least 21 affected beaches.

The environment ministry's prosecutor Julio Cesar Guzman said Wednesday that four Repsol employees, including the production and environment managers "responsible for risk assessment," will be called to give statements.

"The damage is undeniable, the company has to answer as far as it can, because this is irremediable," Guzman told the RPP broadcaster.

Almost daily, dozens of fishermen are protesting on the beaches affected by the spill, prevented from going out to sea to make ends meet.

"I'm afraid I might get sick, I'm afraid I might fall or absorb a little oil, you never know, no matter how much PPE (personal protective equipment) you have," fisherman Jonathan Envites told AFP while helping the cleanup operation at Cavero Beach.

Another cleaner, Hector Fernandez, said the situation was "frustrating."

"It is contaminating the entire beach and thus affects several people who come to spend the summer and the fishermen who work every day to earn their living with sweat, with fishing."

Salons in the country have been offering free cuts to collect hair to help soak up the oil.

cm/fj/yow/mlr/to

Peru blames Repsol for oil spill disaster


A tanker off the coast of Peru was hit by waves linked to Tonga's volcanic eruption and spilled 6,000 barrels of oil, contaminating vast swathes of sea and beaches. Fingers are being pointed at the oil company Repsol.




People try to help clear the beaches


For his entire life, Manuel Chapayquen has fished off the Peruvian coast. His father and grandfather were fishermen off Ancon beach, in the north of the capital Lima. Asked if he could imagine any other job, he replies with a saying: "I'd be a fish out of water."

But now Chapayquen is watching helplessly as the sea, his sea, has turned pitch black from spilled oil, and realizing that his time as a fisherman might be over after all. "It's a crime," he says, calling Spanish oil giant Repsol "murderers of the environment." "We protect our beach day after day, and these criminals pollute the sea," the fisherman says. "Ancon will never be the same again."
Peru's fisherman face the toll

Chapayquen speaks for all 1,500 fishermen in the region, who are bringing in just 10% of their usual catch after the biggest environmental disaster in recent years, and are furious with the Spanish oil company. One of its tankers lost 6,000 barrels of crude oil while unloading at Peru's largest refinery, La Pampilla, which accounts for about half of the South American country's fuel consumption — enough to fuel 25,000 cars.


PERU FACES ENVIRONMENTAL EMERGENCY AFTER DEVASTATING OIL SPILL
Black plague
Waves wash oil onto Cavero Beach in Ventanilla, some 30 kilometers (18 miles) north of Peru's capital Lima. Nearly 1.2 million liters of crude oil spilled into the Pacific Ocean not far from where the tanker Mare Doricum was hit by violent waves while unloading crude oil at the Pampilla refinery.
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In view of 21 contaminated beaches, thousands of dead birds and fish, and a huge oil slick that is coming ever closer to the coast of the capital Lima, the government has declared a 90-day environmental emergency. Three months to clean up as best as possible contamination across an area the size of 270 soccer fields, and enough time to investigate the all-important question of who is ultimately responsible for the disaster.

Criticism of Repsol's crisis management


The Madrid-based oil company, which in 2020 generated sales of almost €50 billion ($56.6 billion) in 29 countries, is denying responsibility. Initially, it reported only seven gallons of spilled crude oil, not even 1% of the actual amount, claiming everything was under control.

Repsol failed to react during the first 48 hours of the spill, when there was still a possibility of containing it. Now it has volunteers cleaning up the ecological disaster for a pittance and often without adequate protective clothing. Ironically, they include fishermen, too.

Fisherman are protesting outside the Repsol refinery

"Did we respond quickly enough? No. We were not aware of the magnitude of the event before oil washed up on the beaches. Of course we made mistakes," says Repsol Peru President Jaime Fernandez Cuesta, adding that the plan is to have cleaned up the beaches by the end of February. However, he argues, the volcanic eruption in the South Pacific state of Tonga was responsible for the accident, because it triggered tidal waves and abnormal currents.

Disagreement over responsibility


The multinational oil firm and the Peruvian government have been playing the blame game. Repsol says the government gave no tsunami warning. After surveying the extent of the disaster, Peru's Environment Minister Ruben Ramirez has threatened the company with a €32 million fine.

Prime Minister Mirtha Vasquez pins the blame on Repsol

Peruvian Prime Minister Mirtha Vasquez does not rule out revoking Repsol's license for the refinery. A team of experts is to take a close look at the contracts with the oil company to check whether there is any scope for possible sanctions.
History of frequent oil spills

Juan Carlos Riveros does not believe the environmental disaster will have serious consequences for Repsol. "This refinery produces diesel, which is essential for public transport in the cities," says the biologist and scientific director of the nongovernmental organization Oceana. Peru is hostage to Repsol, he says. "Besides, many of the most influential politicians here have worked for Repsol as consultants for a long time." Moreover, the Peruvian Congress is currently debating a legal amendment that would extend concessions for foreign investors from 30 to 40 years.

Repsol's crisis management is absurd, says Juan Carlos Riveros

Over the last 25 years, there have been no less than 1,002 oil spills that contaminated the environment, more than half in the Peruvian jungle, over 400 in the sea. The multinational oil firms face few consequences because after all, business must go on. "The fines are ridiculous when you consider how much money these companies move around, and they always have an army of lawyers who get the best deal for the oil companies, so they often even take advantage of the lawsuits," Riveros says.

PERU GRAPPLES WITH DISASTROUS OIL SPILL AFTER TONGA ERUPTION
Oil spill spells havoc
Crews in Peru have been working to clean up a major oil spill that was sparked by a volcanic eruption in the South Pacific island nation of Tongo. The powerful eruption unleashed tsunami waves that stretched across the Pacific — hitting an oil tanker that was unloading near Peru on January 15.

Thousands of mainly young Peruvians, including many fishermen who face losing their livelihood, have taken to the streets in recent days to demand harsh consequences for Repsol. Juan Carlos Riveros is pessimistic about their future, saying that the extinction of species, deformities in animals and contamination for generations to come are the consequences of the accident. "The heavy oil is toxic, people here won't be eating fish for a while. It may take a year for the fishery to return to pre-disaster levels," he says. "By then, many fishermen will have given up."

This article has been translated from German.
English cricket comes under fresh fire over racism

AFP 

London — English cricket is back in the firing line over racism in the game after "stereotypical" and "outdated" views were expressed about the reasons for a lack of interest in the game among Britain's ethnic-minority communities
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© Provided by Independent Online (IOL)

Former Yorkshire player Azeem Rafiq delivered harrowing testimony to lawmakers in November in which he said his career had been ended by the abuse he received at the county club.

The Pakistan-born off-spinner, who had dreamed of playing for England, said cricket was blighted by institutional racism "up and down the country".

The parliamentary Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee issued a report earlier this month saying English cricket must root out "deep-seated" racism or face losing public money.

Lawmakers on the committee heard evidence from a number of chairmen of English county clubs during their latest session looking into the issue on Tuesday.

Middlesex chairman Mike O'Farrell appeared to offer generalisations about the reasons why individuals from the African-Caribbean and South Asian communities drifted away from the sport.

"The football and rugby world becomes much more attractive to the Afro-Caribbean community," O'Farrell told the committee.

"In terms of the South Asian community... we're finding that they do not want to commit necessarily the same time that is necessary to go to the next step because they prefer -- not always saying they do it -- they prefer to go into other educational fields where cricket becomes secondary."

Cricket in 'denial'

Rafiq said he was staggered by the remarks, believing they underline the problem the sport faces.

"I think today has shown everyone what I was talking about and how we have a long way to go," he told the BBC. "Clearly the counties and the game are still very much in denial and that's a big worry."

He added that O'Farrell's views on black and South Asian players were "a stereotypical way of trying to blame a minority group for why there is a problem in the game".

Ebony Rainford-Brent, the first black woman to play for England and who is now director of women's cricket at Surrey, tweeted: "These outdated views in the game are exactly why we are in this position."

"Unfortunately the decision-makers hold onto these myths. 'The black community only like football, and Asian community only interested in education'. Seriously, the game deserves better."

The National Asian Cricket Council tweeted its disappointment with O'Farrell's comments.

"Hugely disappointed with comments made today by Middlesex CCC chair Mike O'Farrell," it said.

"It is clear that cricket still needs to do so much more to change the archaic and ill-informed viewpoints of people in influential positions."

O'Farrell issued a statement apologising for any "hurt" his earlier remarks may have caused.

"I was aiming to make the point that as a game, cricket has failed a generation of young cricketers, in systematically failing to provide them with the same opportunities that other sports and sectors so successfully provide," he said.

England and Wales Cricket Board chief executive Tom Harrison told MPs that former England captain Clare Connor would lead a promised review of dressing-room culture and that a new anti-discrimination unit would be up and running by the end of May.

AFP
Kurdish-led forces in Syria recapture prison from ISIL

SDF say they recaptured Ghwayran prison in Hassakeh a week after ISIL fighters attempted a major jailbreak.

Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces fighters take their positions at the defence wall of Ghuwayran Prison in Hassakeh, northeast Syria
 [Hogir Al Abdo/AP Photo]

Published On 26 Jan 2022

Kurdish-led forces in Syria say they have regained full control of a prison in northeast Syria, a week after a breakout by ISIL (ISIS) fighters left dozens dead.

Farhad Shami, a spokesperson for the US-backed forces, said on Wednesday in a Twitter post that the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had taken over the al-Sina’a – or the Ghuwayran – prison in the city of Hassakeh.

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The days of operations had “culminated with our entire control” over the prison, he said, adding that all remaining ISIL fighters had surrendered hours after 500 had given themselves up following clashes in some buildings.

The brazen ISIL jailbreak attempt and ensuing clashes left more than 180 dead in the armed group’s most high-profile military operation since the loss of their so-called caliphate nearly three years ago.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, the deceased included some 124 ISIL fighters, 50 Kurdish fighters and seven civilians. The death toll could rise, however, as Kurdish forces and medical services gain access to all parts of the prison following the end of the attack. 
Some ISIL group fighters, who surrendered after clashing with the Kurdish-led forces, at Ghuwayran Prison, in Hassakeh, northeast Syria [SDF via AP Photo]

Kurdish forces had cut off food and water to the jail for two days to pressure holdout ISIL fighters to give themselves up, the observatory said.

The prison was thought to hold approximately 3,500 ISIL detainees when the initial attack was first launched on January 20 with explosives-laden vehicles steered by suicide bombers.

With US and other foreign forces stepping in to support Kurdish elite units, the neighbourhood around the prison was secured and the besieged fighters inside the prison started turning themselves in.

There was no mention in the statement of the 850 children and minors caught in the crossfire when the SDF began to storm the prison on Monday.

The UN and international aid organisations had expressed fear about the fate of the minors living alongside the nearly 5,000 prisoners in the overcrowded jail.




‘An international problem’

The prison is the biggest facility where the SDF has kept thousands of detainees. The relatives of many prisoners say they were arrested on flimsy charges for resisting the SDF’s forced conscription.

The Kurdish-led group has denied these allegations.

Meanwhile, thousands of Hassakeh residents were forced to leave their homes after at least 100 ISIL fighters stormed the facility last Thursday, in their biggest show of force in years.

In one mosque located at a safe distance from the chaos, hundreds of women and children were huddled together in the biting winter cold.

“We want to go back home,” Maya, a 38-year-old mother trying in vain to pacify her youngest, told the AFP news agency, adding that “there is no bread, water or sugar here.”

Many Kurdish officials, as well as Western observers, have warned the jailbreak should serve as a wake-up call.

Human Rights Watch and other rights groups have long criticised the Kurdish-led forces that control large swaths of northeast Syria for holding children in overcrowded, makeshift prisons in inhumane conditions.

Kurdish authorities have said that more than 50 nationalities are represented in Kurdish-run prisons holding more than 12,000 ISIL suspects. They have long warned they do not have the capacity to hold, let alone put on trial, all the ISIL fighters captured in years of operations.

“This issue is an international problem,” the administration’s top foreign policy official, Abdulkarim Omar, told AFP on Wednesday. “We cannot face it alone.”

He called on the international community to “support the autonomous administration to improve security and humanitarian conditions for inmates in detention centres and for those in overcrowded camps”.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
EXPLAINER: Who are the kids trapped in Syria prison attack?

By ZEINA KARAM

A boy plays with a broken sword, at al-Hol camp, which houses families of members of the Islamic State group, in Hasakeh province, Syria, May 1, 2021. Hundreds of minors are believed to be holed up in Gweiran Prison, which has been at the center of an ongoing violent standoff between Islamic State group militants and U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters after IS fighters stormed the prison on Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022. A distressing series of voice notes sent by an Australian teenager from the prison in northeast Syria underscores the plight of thousands of forgotten children that remain trapped in detention facilities in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad, File)


BEIRUT (AP) — A distressing series of voice notes sent by an Australian teenager from a prison in northeast Syria underscores the plight of thousands of forgotten children who remain trapped in detention facilities in Syria and Iraq.

Hundreds of minors are believed to be holed up in Gweiran Prison, which has been at the center of a violent standoff between Islamic State group militants and U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters that began a week ago.

The Kurdish-led forces said Wednesday they took control of the last section of the prison controlled by Islamic State militants and freed a number of child detainees used as human shields. It ended a weeklong assault by the extremists on one of the largest detention facilities in Syria.

IS fighters stormed the prison on Thursday, aiming to break out thousands of comrades who simultaneously rioted inside. The attack is the biggest by IS militants since the fall of the group’s “caliphate” in 2019.

Dozens from both sides have been killed in the clash, which has drawn back in U.S.-led coalition forces who have come to the aid of their Kurdish allies. Thousands of civilians living nearby have been displaced.

The fighting appears to have left multiple child inmates killed or wounded, though numbers are not known.

Human Rights Watch provided The Associated Press with a series of audio messages sent by the 17-year-old Australian from inside the prison in which he appealed for help, saying he was injured in the head and was bleeding. The boy says his friends got killed and he has seen bodies of kids aged 8 to 12.

But who are these kids, and why are they there?

‘CUBS OF THE CALIPHATE’

Some of the kids were children when their parents plucked them from their own countries after they decided to join the so-called Islamic caliphate declared in 2014 over parts of Syria and Iraq. Others were born there. Many attended IS-run schools where they were trained for combat.

While IS carried out massacres against residents and enslaved many of the women and girls, they also sought to re-educate young boys and tried to turn them into jihadi fighters. They recruited teens and children using gifts, threats and brainwashing. Boys were turned into killers and suicide bombers. IS videos showed kids carrying out beheadings or shooting captives in cold blood.

It was all part of a concerted effort to build a new generation of militants. They called them cubs of the caliphate.

Most were later captured by Kurdish-led forces during the U.S.-backed campaign that brought down IS three years ago, thrown into squalid, overcrowded detention centers and where they continue to languish.

Others were put in squalid camps in northeast Syria that hold families of suspected IS fighters, where they are exposed to violence, exploitation and abuse. Once they become teenagers deemed old enough to separate from their mothers, they are transferred to one of the detention centers where they join the fighters. The age cut-off rules are not exactly clear. Some as young as 12 were reportedly in Gweiran Prison, despite warning from rights groups that these youngsters are too young to be in adult facilities or to be held at all without justice.

Letta Tayler of Human Rights Watch estimates 600 minor boys, around half of them Iraqis and other non-Syrians, were inmates in the prison. Most are between 14 and 17 years old, though some are as young as 12, Tayler said. It is not clear how many of the boys in prison were trained by IS or whether any have committed any crimes.

WHY THEY ARE STILL THERE

Mostly because their governments have refused to repatriate them.

Kurdish authorities have asked countries to repatriate their nationals, saying keeping thousands of detainees in cramped facilities is putting a strain on their forces and creating a new generation of militants.

“None has even been brought before a judge to determine whether they should be detained,” Tayler said. “These children, some we are told as young as 12, should never have been placed in this squalid overcrowded prison where their lives are clearly at risk to begin with. Their countries should have brought them home to help them rebuild their lives long ago.”

But home governments often see the children as posing a danger rather than as needing rescue.

Some former Soviet bloc states have let some of their citizens back in, but other Arab, European and African countries have repatriated only minimal numbers or have refused.

Kurdish authorities run more than two dozen detention facilities scattered around northeastern Syria holding about 10,000 IS fighters. Among the detainees are some 2,000 foreigners, including about 800 Europeans.

The foreign detainees have never been brought before a court, making their detention arbitrary as well as indefinite.

In addition, some 27,500 children are locked up at the sprawling al-Hol camp, which houses families of IS members.

Most of them not yet teenagers, they are spending their childhood in limbo under miserable conditions with no schools, no place to play or develop, and seemingly no international interest in resolving their situation.

___

Associated Press writer Sarah El Deeb contributed from Beirut.
Afghanistan's LGBTQ community faces growing attacks by Taliban: report

A report by Human Rights Watch and OutRight Action said LGBTQ people in Afghanistan were targets of violence and sexual harassment. Many of them are not in a position to flee persecution.



Many queer Afghans reported being stopped at checkpoints by the Taliban


LGBTQ people in Afghanistan are facing a rise in attacks and an increasingly desperate situation under Taliban rule, according to a report released Wednesday by Human Rights Watch and OutRight Action International.

The report, entitled "'Even If You Go to the Skies, We’ll Find You': LGBT People in Afghanistan After the Taliban Takeover" interviewed 60 queer Afghans in late 2021. Most were still living in Afghanistan, while a few had escaped to nearby countries.
Queer individuals face violence, harassment

Many of the interviewees reported attacks, sexual harassment, and receiving threats from the Taliban since the religious extremist group seized power in August last year.

They said Taliban fighters stopped individuals at checkpoints for their clothes not conforming to gender norms, or for being too "Western." Private messages on cell phones were checked for proof of them being lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or gender non-conforming.

Two men reported being raped or blackmailed into sex by Taliban members. Many said they also knew of other LGBTQ individuals who had gone missing or had been killed.

A man named in the report as "Ramiz" said he was kidnapped by Taliban members and had to face sexual violence and assault at their hands.

"From now on, anytime we want to be able to find you, we will. And we will do whatever we want with you," they reportedly told him while releasing him.

Interviewees said they had erased their presence on social media, while some reported the Taliban had infiltrated LGBTQ groups and dating apps to entrap them.

Homosexuality was illegal under previous President Ashraf Ghani as well. However, the situation had vastly deteriorated under the Taliban. Some of those interviewed said they had received threats from neighbors, friends and family, and were at risk of being exposed to the Taliban.

A Taliban judge had told German tabloid Bild in 2021: "For homosexuals, there can only be two punishments: either stoning, or he must stand behind a wall that will fall down on him."

Economic losses

"A lot of queer people have lost their jobs. Even if they hide themselves, the problem is they need to feed themselves," said Nihan, a trans woman who had to leave her job at a print shop after the Taliban took over in August 2021.

Sex work, dancing and entertaining were common professions for trans people, but the situation has become far more dangerous during the Taliban regime, the report said.

Afghanistan is already facing an economic and employment crisis, with dozens at risk of starvation during the winter.

"The Taliban is very unlikely to ever accept fully the rights of LGBT people but at least some international pressure and attention to the rights of LGBT people could deter some of the worst abuses," Heather Barr, associate director of women's rights at Human Rights Watch, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

She said most LGBTQ Afghans were likely to remain in the country, as opposed to fleeing persecution.

The report said women and queer individuals, who already face a barrier to movement, were less likely to escape for fear of being noticed. Many said they were not in a position to leave behind loved ones, and some feared being deported back to Afghanistan.

"I have no documents. People are saying I will have to go back to Afghanistan, but if I go back they will kill me," a trans woman who had escaped with the help of a smuggler said in the report.

Edited by: Rebecca Staudenmaier
Mexico: Journalists protest killings of colleagues

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has led calls for Mexican authorities to give more protection to reporters after the deaths of three journalists already this year.



So far in 2022 in Mexico three journalists have been murdered

Mexican journalists began nationwide protests Tuesday following the killings of three journalists in the space of two weeks.

Demonstrators are demanding authorities do more to protect journalists despite a government program meant to do just that.

Photographers placed their cameras on the ground outside Mexico City's National Palace, while candles were lit in tribute to those who had lost their lives.

Protests were also held in the states of Veracruz, San Luis Potosi, Durango and Nayarit. Reporters held up placards reading "Not one more journalist killed,'' and "the truth can't be killed.''

Three journalists killed in Mexcio in two weeks

Two journalists were killed in the border city of Tijuana in the first weeks of the year. Crime photographer Margarito Martinez was shot dead outside his home on January 17, while reporter Lourdes Maldonado Lopez was found shot dead in her car on Sunday.



Two of the murdered journalists requested protection before their deaths

Jose Luis Gamboa was stabbed earlier this month in the state of Veracruz.

According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Gamboa had been a strong critic of local government corruption and officials with links to organized crime.

The media advocacy group tweeted about the murder of Lopez, who was meant to be "under state protection." RSF called for "a rigorous investigation and to ensure the protection of her family."



What protection is there for reporters in Mexico?

Mexico introduced a government protection plan for journalists since 2012. According to government figures, just under 500 people are receiving protection.

The two journalists murdered in Tijuana had reportedly both requested protection before they were killed.

Martinez had received threats from someone with alleged links to criminals and had been waiting for protection.

"The mechanism has failed again when journalists feel most vulnerable," reporter Sonia de Anda told AFP news agency.



Pressure to protect press freedom in Mexico

As media professionals protested on Tuesday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for tougher action.

"We call on Mexican authorities to strengthen the protection of journalists, in particular, to take further steps to prevent attacks on them, including by tackling threats and slurs aimed at them," said Guterres's spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

The country's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, addressed journalists at a briefing on Tuesday and said the perpetrators would be punished.

The odds appear to be stacked against there being justice. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, which is a non-profit organization promoting press freedom, 95% of murder cases remain unsolved.



Mexico and India topped its list as the most dangerous places for journalists in 2021.

More than 100 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2000. Only a small percentage of cases have ended in a conviction.

kb/rt (AP, AFP)
Child abuse scandal: Germany's Catholic Church fights for its future

Former Pope Benedict XVI has apologized for giving false testimony during a child sexual abuse probe. For many Catholics, the statement isn't enough; they are bitterly disappointed and demand an admission of guilt.



German bishops are struggling to position themselves in light of most recent revelations on cover-ups


A perfect blue sky hangs over Aachen Cathedral. The crisp winter sunlight illuminates more than 12 centuries of church history, constructed on Charlemagne's orders and the site of coronations of dozens of Germany's kings and queens.

But all is far from well behind the ornate facade here in the city on Germany's western border with Belgium and the Netherlands. In his Sunday sermon, Aachen Bishop Helmut Dieser spoke of wrath and disappointment, outrage and dismay, suffering and doubt.

He was referring to the reactions expressed in response to a Munich law firm's report, published on Thursday, into the church's handling of clergy who for decades covered up the sexual abuse of children.

The report includes grave allegations against former Pope Benedict XVI. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he was the head of the Munich diocese from 1977 to 1982. During that time, he took part in a meeting where he and others discussed the future of a priest accused of repeated misconduct who, it was agreed, would be transferred from Essen to Munich. Where he continued to abuse children.

Inability to admit guilt


"What appalls me and leaves me distraught, but also angry, is the incalculable extent of individual suffering and, inexorably linked with it, the extent of the failure for which church leaders, bishops and their staffs were and are responsible," said Bishop Dieser in his sermon.

"And beyond that, there is the inability to recognize one's own guilt and ask for forgiveness, or at least to express regret and pain for one's own part in the tragedy."

Even as Dieser delivered his sermon on Sunday, Benedict was still standing by the claim that he had not attended the gathering at which the Essen priest's future was decided.

However, after it became clear that his name was in the official list of participants, the former pope revised his statement on Monday, speaking of a "mistake" and claiming that he had not acted "out of bad faith."
Even a former pope can be found guilty

But there are many in the Catholic Church who have run out of patience with such statements.

"It can't remain the case that those responsible hide their shame by pretending to know nothing about what was going on, or claiming that things were done differently back then," said Dieser.

"This was the very same thinking that prevented perpetrators from being stopped and left children exposed to abuse!"

Even a former pope must be called to account for his guilt, and he must confess to that guilt, "not only in prayer, and not only when he goes to confession," the bishop said.


THE LIFE OF GERMAN POPE BENEDICT XVI
'We are pope'
"We are pope" reads the headline of Germany's leading tabloid, "Bild." On April 19, 2005, the College of Cardinals elected 78-year-old Joseph Ratzinger to succeed John Paul II as the 265th pope. Taking the name Benedict XVI, the first German pope in nearly 500 years displayed humility while assuming the papal throne: "The cardinals have elected me, a modest laborer in the Lord's vineyard."
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Ordinary passers-by were also shared their outrage to DW outside Aachen Cathedral on Monday.

"It's time for priests to take a stand," one elderly man demanded. He and his wife are in no doubt that the abuse scandal, and the fact that it was for decades covered up, have done almost irreparable damage to the Catholic Church.

"I'm sure that now more than ever people will turn their backs on the church," said the woman.
People of faith must justify their acts

These days, little remains of the euphoria with which many in Germany welcomed the election of a German pope as the head of the Catholic Church. "We are pope!" proclaimed the headline of Germany's biggest tabloid back in 2005.

Now, however, that enthusiasm has faded, and a growing number of German bishops are calling on Benedict to admit the full extent of his guilt in the child abuse scandal.

The situation is unbearable for many of the faithful, says Georg Bätzing, the bishop of Limburg, who also serves as chair of the German Bishops' Conference. They find themselves having to justify to family and friends "that [those complicit] are still members of this institution."

Regardless, all must face up to the damage done by "disastrous behavior" at the very top, among the church leaders, "and right up to the former pope."

And he goes on: "I understand everybody who is tortured by doubt in the church and the leaders of our church. And when I look at the facts that have emerged in Munich, then I can only say that I am ashamed of this church."
Systematic failure to take responsibility

That clear choice of words from Bätzing gives some encouragement to lay members of the Catholic Church. "I see many among the bishops who have the best of intentions. It would be far from fair to tar them all with the same brush," says Irme Stetter-Karp, president of the Central Committee of German Catholics.

She, too, is shocked and appalled about the extent of the cover-up: "The systematic failure to take responsibility," with which the church has reacted to the abuse scandal, must now come to an end, she told DW.

Stetter-Karp is among the many who are desperately disappointed with Pope Benedict's role in the scandal: "From my point of view, this has been anything but well-handled. The way that he revises previous claims only when it is impossible to go on denying the truth; what we need to see now, is his taking unqualified personal responsibility for his previous failings."

'Don't tar all bishops with the same brush,' says Irme Stetter-Karp, President of the Central Committee of German Catholics

Reform or fail

The Central Committee of German Catholics is the largest lay organization in the Catholic Church in Germany. Together with the German Bishops' Conference, the committee has set in motion a two-year reform program known as the "Synodal Path," which has emerged as a possible way forward from the abuse scandal.

At the beginning of February, lay members and clerics are set to meet for the Third Synodal Assembly.

"What I hope for from this milestone, this gathering, is either real progress toward reform, or we will find ourselves at a very critical juncture that could ultimately lead to the failure of the Synodal Path," Stetter-Karp told DW.

In her view, the time has come for the truth, and nothing but the truth — and not just admitting that which can no longer be denied. "I think that we are facing a very serious test."

Young people leaving the church in droves


Large numbers of young worshippers are officially leaving the Catholic Church each year. This is having a massive impact on the church's youth organizations, said Gregor Podschun, a member of the executive committee of the Federation of Catholic Youth.

Many young people are no longer sure that they have a spiritual home in the church, and some have approached the federation's youth organization to find out whether they can officially leave the main body of the church while remaining in the youth organizations.

"What we are seeing is a lot of young people beginning to question their faith," Podschun said. They sense that as an institution, the church has very little to do with the Bible.

"So, there's a disconnect between the church as a faith and the church as an institution. And that can lead to people leaving the church although they are still believers."

Podschun wants to keep the doors of the church open for young people who are unhappy with developments in the church. He, too, is exasperated with the way things often seem to be going. "It's not about the church saving itself," he said.

"If we want to ease people's suffering, and if that means tearing down the church as we know it, then so be it. And, after that, the next step can follow: rebuilding the church."

The Munich report did not come as a surprise, Podschun told DW.

"The church has monarchical structures, it's highly centralized, it's a system that exercises power on behalf of the Vatican. So, it's not really surprising how things that would be damaging to the church are covered up."

As a young Catholic himself, he hopes that all the damage and distress will prompt the church "to think seriously about expressing regret, and seek a new course."

This article was originally written in German.

While you're here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter Berlin Briefing.
EPA acts on environmental justice in 3 Gulf Coast states

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FILE - EPA Administrator Michael Regan poses for a photo for his EPA photographer near a cemetery in a neighborhood next to the Nu Star Energy oil storage tanks, after conducting a television interview, in St. James Parish, La., Nov. 16, 2021. Regan visited low-income, mostly minority communities in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas as part of an effort to focus federal attention on communities adversely affected by decades of industrial pollution. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency announced a series of enforcement actions Wednesday to address air pollution, unsafe drinking water and other problems afflicting minority communities in three Gulf Coast states, following a “Journey to Justice” tour by Administrator Michael Regan last fall.

The agency will conduct unannounced inspections of chemical plants, refineries and other industrial sites suspected of polluting air and water and causing health problems to nearby residents, Regan said. And it will install air monitoring equipment in Louisiana’s “chemical corridor” to enhance enforcement at chemical and plastics plants between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. The region contains several hotspots where cancer risks are far above national levels.

The EPA also issued a notice to the city of Jackson, Mississippi, saying its aging and overwhelmed drinking water system violates the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. The order directs the city to outline a plan to “correct the significant deficiencies identified” in an EPA report within 45 days.

In separate letters, Regan urged city and state officials to use nearly $79 million in funding allocated to Mississippi under the bipartisan infrastructure law “to solve some of the most dire water needs in Jackson and other areas of need across Mississippi.″

The actions were among more than a dozen steps announced being taken in response to Regan’s tour last November. Regan visited low-income, mostly minority communities in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas as part of an effort to focus federal attention on communities adversely affected by decades of industrial pollution.

A Toxics Release Inventory prepared by the EPA shows that African Americans and other minority groups make up 56% of those living near toxic sites such as refineries, landfills and chemical plants. Negative effects include chronic health problems such as asthma, diabetes and hypertension.

“In every community I visited during the Journey to Justice tour, the message was clear: residents have suffered far too long and local, state and federal agencies have to do better,” Regan said.

The unannounced inspections of chemical plants and other sites “are going to keep these facilities on their toes,″ he told reporters on a conference call.

Inspections currently are done on a schedule or with advance notice, Regan said, but that is about to change. “We are amping up our aggressiveness to utilize a tool that’s in our toolbox that ... has been there for quite some time,″ he said.

When facilities are found to be noncompliant, the EPA “will use all available tools to hold them accountable,″ he added.

A pilot project combining high-tech air pollution monitoring with additional inspectors will begin in three Louisiana parishes: St. John the Baptist, St. James and Calcasieu. The parishes are home to scores of industrial sites and are long plagued by water and air pollution.

President Joe Biden has made addressing racial disparities, including those related to the environment, central to his agenda. He has pledged that at least 40% of new spending on climate and the environment go to poor and minority communities. The administration’s commitment to the issue has come under renewed scrutiny in recent weeks, as two key environmental justice appointees departed. Cecilia Martinez, a top official at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and David Kieve, who conducted outreach with environmental justice groups, both left the White House, putting a spotlight on promises yet to be fulfilled.

Regan, a former environmental regulator in North Carolina, has made environmental justice a top priority since taking over as EPA head last year. As the first Black man to lead the agency, the issue “is really personal for me, as well as professional,″ he told The Associated Press in November.

“I pledge to do better by people in communities who have been hurting for far too long,” he said Tuesday.

Historically marginalized communities like St. John and St. James, along with cities such as New Orleans, Jackson and Houston, will benefit from the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law signed by Biden, Regan said. The law includes $55 billion for water and wastewater infrastructure, while a sweeping climate and social policy bill pending in the Senate would pump more than twice that amount into EPA programs to clean up the environment and address water and environmental justice issues.

As part of its enforcement action, the EPA is requiring a former DuPont petrochemical plant in La Place, Louisiana, to install fence-line monitors to identify emissions from the site, Regan said. The plant is now owned by the Japanese conglomerate Denka.

The agency also said it will push for greater scrutiny of a proposed expansion of a Formosa Plastics plant in St. James and issued a notice of violation to a Nucor Steel plant that emits hydrogen sulfide and other harmful chemicals.

Regan said he has spoken with New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell about Gordon Plaza, a city neighborhood built on the site of a former toxic landfill. Gordon Plaza was designated as a Superfund site in the 1990s, but dozens of mostly Black families still live there.

The EPA will review the site, starting in March, Regan said, and will add nine homes not included in earlier plans to help families move. City officials hope to use money from the infrastructure law to relocate families and build a solar farm on the site.
In Germany, activists rise up to counter vaccine skeptics

By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER

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People wearing face masks stand next to posters calling for people to stick to coronavirus measures and not demonstrate with right-wing extremists and conspiracy theorists, at a counter-rally against anti-vaccination activists at the Gethsemane Church in Berlin, Germany, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. A growing number of Germans have recently joined grassroots initiatives, local groups and spontaneous demonstrations to speak out against vaccination opponents, conspiracy theorists and far-right extremists who have led protests against COVID-19 measures in Germany. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)


BERLIN (AP) — Stefanie Hoener was at home one night in Berlin when she heard police sirens wailing through her Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood and anti-vaccine protesters shouting angry slurs as they marched down to the Gethsemane Church — a symbol of the peaceful 1989 revolution in East Germany that ended the communist dictatorship.

“That night these people really crossed a line,” Hoener said Monday as she stood with 200 others— many of them neighbors — in front of the red brick church to protect it from anti-vaccine protesters glaring from the other side of the street.

“If today, when everyone is allowed to express themselves freely without having to fear anything, they stand here and say we live in a dictatorship, then I can no longer tolerate that,” Hoener told The Associated Press. “I for one am very happy to have been vaccinated free of charge and to have received financial support from the government during the pandemic.”

The 55-year-old actress is one of a growing number of Germans who have joined grassroots initiatives and spontaneous demonstrations to speak out against vaccination opponents, conspiracy theorists and far-right extremists who have led protests against Germany’s COVID-19 measures.

Across the country, the new counter-protesters have turned out in favor of the government’s pandemic restrictions and a universal vaccine mandate, which will be debated Wednesday for the first time in German parliament.

Tens of thousands have signed manifestos against illegal anti-vaccine demonstrations in cities including Leipzig, Bautzen and Freiberg. Others have formed human chains in Oldenburg or Rottweil to push back far-right protesters, while dozens of medical students recently held a silent vigil outside a hospital in Dresden to protest a rally by far-right vaccine skeptics.

The silent majority in Germany that has obediently reduced their social contacts, got vaccinated and looked out for each other for close to two years to protect themselves and the most vulnerable from COVID-19 seems fed up by the small but loud minority of coronavirus deniers.

Not all of the anti-vaccine protesters in Germany are outright deniers of the pandemic, some are simply afraid of possible side effects of the vaccines or feel that the country’s health authorities have been too pushy. However, radical opponents on the far-right have tried to seize the protest movement for their own purposes.

The new counter-protesters feel that the radical vaccine refusers have been getting outsized media attention and have too much influence on the public debate about how Germany should handle the pandemic.

Even the German president this week called on the country’s silent majority to stand up and protect the country’s democracy.

“Being the majority is not enough. The majority must become politically recognizable. It must not retreat. The silent center must become more visible, more self-confident and also louder,” President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said at a panel Monday in Berlin.

Stephan Thiel, a theater director, said he was initially hesitant to join the rally in front of Gethsemane Church on Monday because he didn’t want to mingle with too many people amid quickly spreading virus infections. At the same time, he also felt he had no choice but to express his opinion.

“There are many sensible people who are staying at home because of the virus. I also find it a bit problematic to be here. But we have to be here,” he said, speaking from behind a black anti-virus mask. “We have to show that we are here and that they are not the majority. And I hope that more and more people will come every time.”

Thiel, 51, grew up under communism. He still remembers how millions of East Germans brought down the regime with their weekly demonstrations in 1989. He said he was especially offended that the anti-vaccine protesters tried to exploit the Gethsemane Church’s symbolism as a famous meeting place for opponents of the Communist regime.

“I really don’t like how they try to use that history. That’s also a reason why I came here to make a stand,” he added.

The call for action among pro-vaccine activists comes at a time when German society may become even more polarized as a universal COVID-19 vaccine mandate is up for discussion in parliament. Divisions on that issue cut across party lines. The coalition government has left it to lawmakers to draw up cross-party proposals on whether there should be a mandate and how it should be designed.

So far, at least 73.5% of Germany’s 83 million residents have been fully vaccinated, and 50.8% have already received a booster shot.

For Hoener, who has joined a neighborhood initiative that organizes weekly vigils in front of the church, there’s no question that Germany should introduce a vaccine mandate shortly.

“In Germany, unfortunately, there are not enough people who would get vaccinated voluntarily, so I think it has to be made mandatory,” she said. “Otherwise we will never get rid of this pandemic.”

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Follow all AP stories on the pandemic at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic