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  • Bangladesh mourns some 200 deaths as student protests wind down 


Bangladesh mourns some 200 deaths as student protests wind down 

An activist (C) argues with a security personnel as he takes part in protest outside the High Court building demanding justice for the victims arrested and killed in the recent countrywide violence in Dhaka on July 31, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 31 July 2024
AP
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Bangladesh mourns some 200 deaths as student protests wind down 

  • Over 200 were killed in recent weeks during protests over Bangladesh’s quota system for government jobs 
  • Protests posed most serious challenge to Bangladesh PM who won fourth consecutive term in office in January 
Updated 31 July 2024
AP

DHAKA, Bangladesh: Bangladesh observed a day of mourning Tuesday in memory of more than 200 people killed in recent weeks during violence that evolved from student protests over the South Asian country’s quota system for government jobs.

After weeks of peaceful protests by students looking to change the system — which reserves 30 percent of government jobs for families of veterans and freedom fighters during the war of independence against Pakistan in 1971 — violence erupted on July 15 when activists of a student wing of the ruling party attacked demonstrators. Security officials opened fire, using tear gas and rubber bullets to try to quell the violence.

The quota protests posed the most serious challenge to Bangladesh’s government since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina won a fourth consecutive term in January elections that the main opposition groups boycotted.

The ruling Awami League party and opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party have often accused each other of fueling political chaos and violence, most recently ahead of the election, which was marred by a crackdown on several opposition figures.

Government officials — including those at the Bangladesh Secretariat, the top office containing most of the country’s ministers and bureaucrats — wore black badges Tuesday to mourn those killed in the violence.

Bangladesh is slowly crawling back to normalcy with the strict curfew being relaxed in recent days. Authorities also asked all mosques, temples and other religious installations to organize special prayers Tuesday for the dead.

Later Tuesday, Hasina visited a state-run hospital in the capital of Dhaka, where many of the injured were being treated. She asked hospital authorities to ensure the best possible care.

Also on Tuesday, members of 31 cultural groups tried to hold a procession in downtown Dhaka, condemning the deaths in the violence but police blocked it. No violence was reported as singers and other activists sat down on the street and continued the protests peacefully amid a tight police cordon.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan put the overall death toll at 150, while the country’s leading Bengali-language daily, Prothom Alo, said 211 people have been killed since the violence erupted on July 15 while thousands of others have been injured.

Media reports said about 10,000 people have been arrested over the past two weeks in relation to clashes at protests and other attacks on state properties. Rights groups have called for an end to arbitrary arrests, and critics accused the government of using excessive force to tamp down the violence.

“The mass arrest and arbitrary detention of student protesters is a witch hunt by the authorities to silence anyone who dares to challenge the government and is a tool to further perpetuate a climate of fear,” Smriti Singh, regional director for South Asia at Amnesty International, said in a statement Monday.

“Reports suggest that these arrests are entirely politically motivated, in retaliation for the exercise of human rights,” Singh said.

The government has defended its position, saying that the arrests were being made on specific charges, and reviewing CCTV footage and on the basis of evidence.

Six of the protest coordinators being held in custody by the Detective Branch of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police released a statement calling off the protests, but other demonstrators rejected the video statement, claiming it was coerced.

They say they will protest until all their demands are met, including a public apology from Hasina, the prime minister.

Police said the six coordinators were taken into custody for their safety, and their families met them on Monday. A video was posted showing the six having a meal with the head of the Detective Branch in Dhaka, Harun-or-Rashid.

Rights activists have demanded the six be released so that they can return to their families.
The protesters have no single leader, though the movement has a number of coordinators across the country. A news release attributed to one coordinator, Abdul Hannan Masooud, called for protests Wednesday at educational institutions, courts and major roads. The release could not be verified independently.

Also Tuesday, Bangladesh’s Law Minister Anisul Huq said that the government would ban the right wing Jamaat-e-Islami party and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir. Hasina and several other Cabinet ministers have accused the party and its student wing of playing a role in the violence during the student protests.

Huq said the ruling Awami League-led 14-party alliance had decided that the Jamaat-e-Islami party and its student wing should be officially banned on Wednesday. Details of the ban were not immediately clarified.

The party was a governing partner of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party under former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, Hasina’s arch rival, in 2001-2006. The party had actively campaigned in favor of Pakistan’s military and against the creation of independent Bangladesh in 1971.

Protesters have said the 30 percent quota was discriminatory and benefited supporters of Hasina, whose Awami League party led the independence movement, and urging that it be replaced by a merit-based system.

On July 21, the Supreme Court ordered that the 1971 war veterans’ quota be cut to 5 percent. Of the remainder, 93 percent of civil service jobs would be merit-based, while the remaining 2 percent would be reserved for members of ethnic minorities, transgender people and those with disabilities. Two days later, the government accepted the ruling and pledged to execute the decision.

The status of the 1971 war veterans remains a charged issue in Bangladesh as the quota had also applied to women raped by Pakistani soldiers and their collaborators during the war for independence — and their children. These women have been recognized as “freedom fighters” for the ordeal they suffered. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Hasina’s father, is the independence leader of Bangladesh.

Both broadband and mobile data services were restored Tuesday after a dayslong Internet blackout, but social media platforms including Facebook remained blocked. Banks and offices opened under a relaxed curfew. Schools and other educational institutions were closed with no opening date yet set as police continued to grapple with protesters.

Topics: Bangladesh Protests

Phone documentary details Afghan women’s struggle under Taliban govt

Afghan women prepare air fryer apple chips at a factory in Herat on November 17, 2024. (AFP)
Updated 6 sec ago
AFP
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Phone documentary details Afghan women’s struggle under Taliban govt

  • Taliban authorities have banned post-secondary education for girls and women, restricted employment and blocked access to parks and other public areas
Updated 6 sec ago
AFP

LOS ANGELES, United States: A rare inside account of the Taliban authorities’ impact on Afghan women hits screens next week with the smartphone-filmed documentary “Bread & Roses.”
Produced by actress Jennifer Lawrence (“The Hunger Games“) and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, this feature-length film immerses the viewer in the daily struggles endured by half the population of Afghanistan since the withdrawal of US troops paved the way for Taliban leaders to seize power.
“When Kabul fell in 2021 all women lost their very basic rights. They lost their rights to be educated, to work,” Lawrence told AFP in Los Angeles.
“Some of them were doctors and had high degrees, and then their lives were completely changed overnight.”
The documentary, which debuted at Cannes in May 2023, was directed by exiled Afghan filmmaker Sahra Mani, who reached out to a dozen women after the fall of Kabul.
She tutored them on how to film themselves with their phones — resulting in a moving depiction of the intertwined stories of three Afghan women.
We meet Zahra, a dentist whose practice is threatened with closure, suddenly propelled to the head of protests against the Taliban government.
Sharifa, a former civil servant, is stripped of her job and cloistered at home, reduced to hanging laundry on her roof to get a breath of fresh air.
And Taranom, an activist in exile in neighboring Pakistan, who watches helplessly as her homeland changes.

“The restrictions are getting tighter and tighter right now,” Mani told AFP on the film’s Los Angeles red carpet.
And hardly anyone outside the country seems to care, she said.
“The women of Afghanistan didn’t receive the support they deserved from the international community.”
Since their return to power, Taliban officials have established a “gender apartheid” in Afghanistan, according to the United Nations.
Women are gradually being erased from public spaces: Taliban authorities have banned post-secondary education for girls and women, restricted employment and blocked access to parks and other public areas.
A recent law even prohibits women from singing or reciting poetry in public.
The Taliban authorities follow an austere brand of Islam, whose interpretations of holy texts are disputed by many scholars.
“The Taliban claim to represent the culture and religion while they’re a very small group of men who do not actually represent the diversity of the country,” Yousafzai, an executive producer of the film, told AFP.
“Islam does not prohibit a girl from learning, Islam does not prohibit a woman from working,” said the Pakistani activist, whom the Pakistani Taliban tried to assassinate when she was 15.
The documentary captures the first year after the fall of Kabul, including moments of bravery when women speak out.
“You closed universities and schools, you might as well kill me!” a protester shouts at a man threatening her during a demonstration.
These gatherings of women — under the slogan “Work, bread, education!” — are methodically crushed by Taliban authorities.
Protesters are beaten, some are arrested, others kidnapped.
Slowly, the resistance fades, but it doesn’t die: some Afghan women are now trying to educate themselves through clandestine courses.
Three years after the Taliban fighters seized power from a hapless and corrupt civilian administration, no countries have officially recognized their new government.
In the wake of Donald Trump’s re-election to the US presidency, Taliban leaders have made it known that they hope to “open a new chapter” in relations between Kabul and Washington, where a more transactional foreign policy outlook is expected to prevail.
For Mani, that rings alarm bells.
Giving up on defending the rights of Afghan women would be a serious mistake — and one the West could come to regret, she said.
The less educated Afghan women are, the more vulnerable their sons are to the ideology that birthed the Al Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001.
“If we are paying the price today, you might pay the price tomorrow,” she said.
“Bread & Roses” begins streaming on Apple TV+ on November 22.
 

 

Topics: Afghanistan Taliban

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Australian writers send Middle East reading list to MPs to boost understanding of region

Updated 55 min 17 sec ago
Arab News
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Australian writers send Middle East reading list to MPs to boost understanding of region

  • Initiative, named Summer Reading for MPs campaign, aims to encourage wider and more nuanced reading on Middle East conflicts
Updated 55 min 17 sec ago
Arab News

LONDON: More than 90 Australian authors and literary figures have sent a list of books to every federal parliamentarian in a bid to foster a deeper understanding of the Middle East among political leaders, it was revealed on Monday.

The initiative, named the Summer Reading for MPs campaign, aims to encourage wider and more nuanced reading on the history and complexities of the region’s conflicts.

Each of Australia’s 227 MPs and senators will receive the same set of five books, encompassing nonfiction, fiction, and reference works, The Guardian reported.

Notable writers such as Tim Winton, Charlotte Wood, Michelle de Kretser, and JM Coetzee are among the campaign’s supporters. The book selection has also received endorsements from the Jewish Council of Australia and the Australian Palestine Advocacy Network.

The five chosen books are: “Balcony over Jerusalem” by journalist John Lyons; “A Very Short History of the Israel-Palestine Conflic by Jewish historian and political scientist Ilan Pappe; “The Hundred Years’ War” by Palestinian-American historian Rashid Khalidi; “Palestine A-Z,” an alphabetized reference by Irish author Kate Thompson; and “The Sunbird,” a novella by Lebanese-Australian writer Sara Haddad. 

In an accompanying letter to MPs, the group underscored the importance of these “authoritative, highly readable books” in addressing what they see as a deficit in the public’s and politicians’ understanding of the conflict.

“The political debate in Australia and internationally rarely touches on the issues, events, and historical analyzes that these books reveal — despite their direct relevance to what is happening today,” the letter highlighted.

The writers stressed that the campaign was not about shifting opinions but broadening perspectives.

“We’re not asking anyone to change their personal opinions or public positions. We just ask that politicians consider reading one or more of these books in the hope that they might inform and illuminate discussion on the ghastly situation we have been watching unfold across the Middle East,” they said.

Melbourne architect Marcus O’Reilly, one of the campaign’s initiators, said frustration over the quality of political discourse and media reporting on Middle Eastern issues spurred the project.

“It just occurred to me that if people were reading some of these books, people’s responses might be amped up a bit more,” O’Reilly said. “They’re not pushing a particular direction and that was the whole idea.”

Aviva Tuffield, a publisher and fellow originator, highlighted the role reading plays in fostering empathy and understanding.

“The summer is for reading. There’s well-known summer reading lists like Obama’s, and the Grattan Institute’s. It might be good for politicians who aren’t engaged (on this issue) and only get the talking points to do some reading (of their own),” she said.

In recent weeks, campaign organizers have met with a cross-section of MPs and senators from all parties, delivering the books in person where possible.

Many MPs expressed a degree of caution when addressing the Middle East conflict publicly, with one regional MP noting it was the issue that drew the most constituent correspondence. Despite this, the initiative has been welcomed.

“All, so far, had been receptive to receiving history books and literature as a measured way to learn more about the issues,” Tuffield confirmed.

The campaign has also garnered support from a wide range of Australian authors, including Kim Scott, Anna Funder, Nam Le, Chloe Hooper, Anita Heiss, and Trent Dalton.

Topics: War on Gaza Israel Palestine Gaza Hamas Australia

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New Senegalese president to face key challenges

Updated 48 min 27 sec ago
AFP
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New Senegalese president to face key challenges

  • Former president Macky Sall, who headed an opposition coalition, on Monday congratulated Pastef on its win
Updated 48 min 27 sec ago
AFP

DAKAR: A likely absolute majority for President Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s Pastef party in Senegal’s legislative election would empower him to pursue his ambitious 25-year agenda, though his first challenge will be coming up with a budget amid a fiscal crisis.
Faye sought a clear parliamentary majority in Sunday’s vote to implement the reform agenda that helped sweep him to power in a landslide election victory in March.
But analysts say creating a budget catering both to his voters’ needs and to the International Monetary Fund, with which his government is currently in talks, will be challenging.
Former president Macky Sall, who headed an opposition coalition, on Monday congratulated Pastef on its win. Former Prime Minister Amadou Ba, who ran against Faye in the presidential election, also conceded defeat, as did other opposition leaders.

SPEEDREAD

President Bassirou Diomaye Faye sought a clear parliamentary majority in Sunday’s vote to implement the reform agenda that helped sweep him to power in a landslide election victory in March.

Senegal’s sovereign debt rose in price on Monday, Tradeweb data showed, while most other African nations’ bonds lost ground. The yield on its 2033 dollar bond was down about 10 basis points at 9.28 percent.
“If confirmed by the electoral bodies, Pastef’s victory could give a free hand in passing budgets and implementing its programmatic reforms,” said Wendyam Lankoande, a consultant at Africa Practice.
But, he noted, voters are “looking for quick solutions to unemployment, rising cost of living, and limited reach of public services in remote rural areas in the hinterland.” In September, a government audit revealed that Senegal’s debt and budget deficit were much wider than the previous administration had reported. A $1.9 billion IMF program agreed in June 2023 has been on hold since. Negotiations with the IMF to restart disbursements could last until mid-2025.
“We see Pastef’s majority as a positive development as it clears the path for President Faye and (Prime Minister Ousmane) Sonko to begin work on a budget for 2025 that aligns broadly with IMF requirements,” said Leeuwner Esterhuysen, senior economist at Oxford Economics Africa.
“That said, some of these requirements won’t necessarily go down well with Senegalese citizens.”
He said the Fund was likely to show some leniency, as it appears to have good relations with the new administration.

“We think the government may be able to delay the implementation of harsh measures such as removing VAT exemptions on farming inputs or increasing household electricity prices, while energy subsidies will be phased out gradually to limit the impact on consumers,” Esterhuysen said.

 

Topics: Senegal

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British artist loses architecture award over Israeli cultural boycott

Updated 18 November 2024
Arab News
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British artist loses architecture award over Israeli cultural boycott

  • Athens-based James Bridle was awarded the €10,000 Schelling Architecture Foundation’s theory prize in June
  • It was withdrawn with the foundation citing a new German resolution on antisemitism after Bridle signed open letter supporting a boycott in October
Updated 18 November 2024
Arab News

LONDON: A British artist has lost an award from a German foundation after signing an open letter pledging to boycott Israeli cultural institutions.

James Bridle, who is based in Athens, Greece, was told in June he would receive the Schelling Architecture Foundation’s theory prize for “outstanding contributions to architectural theory.”

However, he learned on Sunday he would no longer receive the award and the €10,000 ($10,561) prize that goes with it because he had signed the letter, along with thousands of other people. Published on LitHub at the end of October, it stated: “We will not work with Israeli cultural institutions that are complicit or have remained silent observers of the overwhelming oppression of Palestinians.”

The foundation said: “We respect the right to express political views, especially since the foundation does not accuse James Bridle of antisemitism.

“But the foundation can neither support nor be associated with a call for cultural isolation of Israel.”

The decision to rescind the award came after the Bundestag, the German parliament, this month passed a controversial resolution on antisemitism. Titled “Never Again is Now: Protecting, Preserving and Strengthening Jewish Life in Germany,” it was proposed following the Hamas-led terror attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

It states that “the Bundestag reaffirms its decision to ensure that no organizations or projects that spread antisemitism, question Israel’s right to exist, call for a boycott of Israel or actively support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement receive financial support.”

Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International have criticized the resolution for limiting freedom of expression in Germany.

The Schelling Architecture Foundation is named for its founder, Erich Schelling, who according to the foundation’s website was a member of the Nazi party between 1937 and 1945.

Bridle told the Guardian newspaper: “Although they are clearly not prepared to state it outright, the foundation’s decision is an accusation of antisemitism, which is abhorrent. It is particularly so given the organization’s own history.”

He added that it was ironic that the foundation’s jury had praised his 2022 book “Ways of Being,” which discussed Israel’s “apartheid wall” in the occupied West Bank, and “the relationship between genocide and ecocide.”

A spokesperson for the foundation said other awards nominees had been informed of the decision. The awards ceremony is due to take place on Wednesday.

“We have to be prepared for there to be further reactions,” the spokesperson added.

Topics: War on Gaza Israel Palestine Gaza Hamas UK Israel boycott

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G20 leaders gather for deadlocked talks on climate, Middle East, Ukraine wars

Updated 18 November 2024
AFP
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G20 leaders gather for deadlocked talks on climate, Middle East, Ukraine wars

  • Wars which have bitterly divided G20 members are set to feature prominently in discussions in Brazil
  • Biden will attend his last summit of world’s leading economies with China’s XI as the most influential leader
Updated 18 November 2024
AFP

Rio de Janeiro: G20 leaders began arriving for a summit in Brazil on Monday to try reignite deadlocked climate talks and overcome their differences on the Middle East and Ukraine wars ahead of Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

US President Joe Biden will attend his last summit of the world’s leading economies, but as a lame duck leader eclipsed by Chinese President Xi Jinping, the most influential leader at this year’s meeting.

Brazil’s left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is using his hosting duties to promote issues close to his heart, including fighting hunger and climate change and taxing the super-rich.

But the wars which have bitterly divided G20 members are also set to feature prominently in the discussions.

A Brazilian foreign ministry source said Monday that some countries wanted to renegotiate a draft summit communique.

“For Brazil and other countries the text is already finalized, but some countries want to open up some points on wars and climate,” he told AFP.

Biden’s decision Sunday to allow Ukraine to use long-range US missiles to strike targets inside Russia — a major policy shift — could prompt European allies to also review their stance.

G20 leaders are also under pressure to try rescue UN climate talks in Azerbaijan, which have stalled on the issue of greater climate finance for developing countries.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for G20 members, who account for 80 percent of global emissions, to show “leadership” to facilitate a deal.

Security is tight for the gathering, which comes days after a failed bomb attack on Brazil’s Supreme Court in Brasilia by a suspected far-right extremist, who killed himself in the process.

The get-together will cap a farewell diplomatic tour by Biden which took him to Lima for a meeting of Asia-Pacific trading partners, and then to the Amazon in the first such visit for a sitting US president.

Biden, who has looked to burnish his legacy as time runs down on his presidency, insisted in the Amazon that his climate record would survive another Trump mandate.

All eyes at the stalled COP29 climate conference in Azerbaijan are on Rio to break an impasse over how to raise $1 trillion a year for developing countries to cope with global warming.

Rich countries want fast-developing economies like China and Gulf states to also put their hands in their pockets.

The meeting comes in a year marked by another grim litany of extreme weather events, including Brazil’s worst wildfire season in over a decade, fueled by a record drought blamed at least partly on climate change.

At the last G20 in India, leaders called for a tripling of renewable energy sources by the end of the decade, but without explicitly calling for an end to the use of fossil fuels.

Conspicuously absent from the summit is Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose arrest is sought by the International Criminal Court over the Ukraine war.

Lula, 79, told Brazil’s GloboNews channel on Sunday that he did not want the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East to take the focus off global poverty.

“Because if not, we will not discuss other things which are more important for people that are not at war, who are poor people and invisible to the world,” he said.

The summit opens on Monday with Lula, a former steelworker who grew up in poverty, launching a “Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty.”

Brazil is also pushing for higher taxes on billionaires.

Lula had faced resistance to parts of his agenda from Argentinian President Javier Milei, a libertarian Trump uber-fan who met the Republican last week at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

The head of the Argentine delegation, Federico Pinedo, told AFP that Buenos Aires has raised some objections and would not “necessarily” sign the text, however. He did not elaborate.

But the Brazilian foreign ministry source on Monday downplayed the likelihood of Argentina blocking a consensus.

Topics: G20 climate

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