NEW DELHI: Top lawyers are sounding the alarm over the consequences of Indian arms exports to Israel, which they say violate international conventions and the country’s own domestic law in the wake of the war on Gaza.
Indian arms sales to Israel came into the spotlight in May, when two cargo ships were prevented from docking in the Spanish port of Cartagena after reports that they were loaded with weapons.
The first vessel was en route from Chennai in southeast India to the Israeli port of Ashdod — some 30 km from Gaza — and was blocked by Spanish activists. The second was on the way from Chennai to Haifa, and was officially denied entry, with Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares confirming to the media that the vessel was carrying a shipment of arms to Israel.
In June, after Israel’s deadly bombing of a UN-run school sheltering thousands of displaced people in central Gaza, Palestinian reporters released a video showing the remains of a missile found in the rubble after the attack. A label on it read: “Made in India.”
The reports have triggered an uproar among Indian civil society and opposition politicians, who have requested clarification from the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of External Affairs over the military cooperation in the wake of Israel’s deadly onslaught on Gaza and a genocide case against the country in the International Court of Justice.
A recent petition signed by Supreme Court lawyers, judges and retired foreign service officials called on Defense Minister Rajnath Singh to halt the issuance of licenses to companies supplying military equipment to Israel and cancel the existing ones, as the exports are not only “morally objectionable” and “abominable,” but also constitute a “serious violation” of law.
“It’s very clear that genocide is being committed in Palestine by Israel; the International Court of Justice has virtually said so,” Prashant Bhushan, a public interest lawyer in the Supreme Court of India, told Arab News.
“India is clearly aiding that genocide.”
A Ministry of Defense spokesperson told Arab News on Saturday that “it is the Indian government’s policy not to sell weapons to countries in conflict” and that the government “has not authorized the supply of any weapons to Israel during the last several months.”
The spokesperson did not comment on canceling existing licenses.
At least 40,334 people — most of them children and women — have been killed and more than 93,300 wounded in Israeli military attacks on Gaza since Oct. 7, according to the Palestinian enclave’s Health Ministry estimates.
The real toll, however, is believed to be much higher as the ministry’s data does not include people buried under rubble, those who died of their injuries or who starved to death, as Israeli forces have been blocking international aid. One of the world’s leading medical journals, the Lancet, estimated last month that the actual death toll of Palestinians killed in Gaza could exceed 186,000 — or almost 10 percent of the territory’s population.
The substantial evidence of Israel breaking international humanitarian law, the genocide and war crime proceedings against its leadership in the ICJ and International Criminal Court, as well as a new case brought by Nicaragua against Germany over its support for Tel Aviv, create legal circumstances in which India can be charged with violating its own constitution and international law.
Dr. Anwar Sadat of the Indian Society of International Law said that the violations are on “several” levels, starting with international humanitarian law.
“Israel is targeting civilian population consistently. Israel is targeting hospitals, Israel is targeting supply lines, Israel is targeting the supply of humanitarian assistance to Palestinian people,” he told Arab News. “Israel is in serious violation of international humanitarian law, so you cannot support and supply, or in any way assist it.”
Sadat said that by providing military assistance to Israel, India also risks being charged with breaching the Genocide Convention and may face a similar case to the one recently initiated against Germany. Genocide and ancillary crimes of genocide, such as complicity, are subject to universal jurisdiction.
In late March, Nicaragua instituted proceedings against Germany at the ICJ under, inter alia, the Genocide Convention, concerning “alleged breaches of certain international obligations in respect of the Occupied Palestinian Territory” arising from Germany’s support and military supplies for Israel.
“If you are a party to this convention, and India is a party to the Genocide Convention, you have international legal responsibility to prevent the commission of genocide,” Sadat said.
“Any breach of international legal obligations requires reparations, compensation.”
India would not be able to absolve itself, as it is not safeguarding any essential interests by breaching the law.
“There is no such situation before India,” Sadat said. “Not providing the arms to Israel does not make India unsafe in any way, so it has no plea of necessity.”
Advocate Chander Uday Singh, a Supreme Court lawyer who was also among the petitioners demanding that India immediately stop all exports of military material to Israel, warned that India is also acting against its own domestic law.
Article 51C of the Indian Constitution says that is the state’s duty to “foster respect for international law and treaty obligations.” This includes the Genocide Convention, of which provisions are directly binding for India also on the domestic level, as it has not framed its own.
“India was the signatory to the Genocide Convention in 1949 and then thereafter it has ratified the convention in 1959, so under international law we are completely bound by the Genocide Convention, meaning we are contracting party to it,” Singh said.
“The Genocide Convention also requires contracting parties to frame national laws and give effect to the convention within the country ... the fact that we have not framed the domestic law means that that the convention itself can be looked at, and the principles of the convention can be applied by Indian courts.”
Top Indian lawyers raise alarm over Delhi’s military exports to Israel
https://arab.news/9t3sz
Top Indian lawyers raise alarm over Delhi’s military exports to Israel
- Indian weapon sales to Israel came into spotlight after Spain blocked Indian shipment through its ports
- Defense Ministry spokesperson says India has not authorized any arms supplies to Israel in past months
Cambodia’s Hun Sen accuses Thai PM of ‘insulting king’
He said Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s comments about her military commander — who she labelled an “opponent” — in a leaked phone call with the veteran leader over a border dispute were “an insult to the king.”
“An insult to a regional commander is an insult to the Thai king because it is only the king who issued a royal decree to appoint him,” Hun Sen said in a livestream on his official Facebook page.
The daughter of controversial ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra — who goes on trial for lese-majeste next week — faces being sacked as prime minister as the phone call scandal has triggered calls for her to step down and her government to teeter.
Hun Sen — father of Cambodia’s prime minister Hun Manet and former close ally to Thaksin — last week posted the full 17-minute recording of the private conversation on his official Facebook page.
“I just let Thailand know how the prime minister committed a dirty act to their nation,” he said on Friday.
In the recording posted online, the two leaders discussed restrictions imposed on border crossings after a military clash last month killed a Cambodian soldier.
Thailand has strict lese majeste laws, which bans criticism of King Maha Vajiralongkorn and his close family and carries sentences of up to 15 years in jail per offense.
Seoul asks Temu, AliExpress to pull children’s products over safety concerns
- The Seoul city government said Friday it recently inspected 35 children’s products sold on Temu and AliExpress and found that 11 failed to meet South Korea’s safety standards or contained hazardous substances above local limits
SEOUL: The Seoul city government has asked online retail giants Temu and AliExpress to suspend sales of certain children’s products over safety concerns, saying Friday that some goods far exceeded local limits for hazardous substances.
Chinese e-commerce titans like Shein, Temu and AliExpress have seen a surge in global popularity in recent years, drawing in consumers with a wide range of trendy, ultra-low-cost fashion and accessories — positioning them as major rivals to US giant Amazon.
Their rapid rise has triggered growing scrutiny over business practices and product safety, including in South Korea.
The Seoul city government said Friday it recently inspected 35 children’s products sold on Temu and AliExpress — including umbrellas, raincoats and rain boots — and found that 11 failed to meet South Korea’s safety standards or contained hazardous substances above local limits.
In six of the umbrellas, phthalate-based plasticizers — chemicals used to make plastics more flexible — were found at levels far exceeding safety standards, the city said in a statement.
Some of those products exceeded the domestic safety limit by up to 443.5 times for the chemical, while two items were found to contain lead at levels up to 27.7 times higher than the locally acceptable level.
Based on the inspection results, the Seoul government said it “has requested that online platforms suspend sales of the non-compliant products.”
It also noted that “prolonged exposure to harmful substances can affect children’s growth and health,” and highlighted the need to carefully review product information before making purchases.
The Seoul government told AFP the retailers have no legal obligations to comply with their request.
But Temu said it “immediately initiated an internal review” after receiving notice from the city government, and that it was “in the process of removing the said items.”
“We are continuously improving on our quality control system to prevent, detect, and remove non-compliant products,” a Temu spokesperson told AFP.
AliExpress did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Phthalate-based plasticizers can cause endocrine disorders, while lead exposure above safety limits can impair reproductive functions and increase the risk of cancer, according to Seoul authorities.
Last year, the city government said women’s accessories sold by Shein, AliExpress and Temu contained toxic substances sometimes hundreds of times above acceptable levels.
The European Union last year added Shein to its list of digital firms that are big enough to come under stricter safety rules — including measures to protect customers from unsafe products, especially those that could be harmful to minors.
Vatican unveils last of restored Raphael Rooms after 10-year cleaning that yielded new discoveries
- “With this restoration, we rewrite a part of the history of art,” Vatican Museums director Barbara Jatta said
VATICAN CITY: The Vatican Museums on Thursday unveiled the last and most important of the restored Raphael Rooms, the spectacularly frescoed reception rooms of the Apostolic Palace that in some ways rival the Sistine Chapel as the peak of high Renaissance artistry.
A decadelong project to clean and restore the largest of the four Raphael Rooms uncovered a novel mural painting technique that the superstar Renaissance painter and architect began but never completed. Raphael used oil paint directly on the wall, and arranged a grid of nails embedded in the walls to hold in place the resin surface onto which he painted.
Vatican Museums officials recounted the discoveries in inaugurating the hall, known as the Room of Constantine, after the last scaffolding came down. The reception room, which was painted by Raphael and his students starting in the first quarter-century of the 1500s, is dedicated to the fourth-century Roman emperor Constantine, whose embrace of Christianity helped spread the faith throughout the Roman Empire.
“With this restoration, we rewrite a part of the history of art,” Vatican Museums director Barbara Jatta said.
Pope Julius II summoned the young Raphael Sanzio from Florence to Rome in 1508 to decorate a new private apartment for himself in the Apostolic Palace, giving the then-25-year-old a major commission at the height of his artistic output.
Even at the time, there were reports that Raphael had wanted to decorate the rooms not with frescoes but with oil paint directly on the wall, to give the images greater brilliance. The 10-year restoration of the Room of Constantine proved those reports correct, said Fabio Piacentini, one of the chief restorers.
Vatican technicians discovered that two female figures on opposite corners of the hall, Justice and Courtesy, were actually oil-on-wall paintings, not frescoes in which paint is applied to wet plaster. They were therefore clearly the work of Raphael himself, he said.
But Raphael died on April 6, 1520, at the age of 37, and before the hall could be completed. The rest of the paintings in the room were frescoes completed by his students who couldn’t master the oil technique Raphael had used, Jatta said.
During the cleaning, restorers discovered that Raphael had clearly intended to do more with oil paints: Under the plaster frescoes, they found a series of metal nails they believed had been drilled into the wall to hold in place the natural resin surface that Raphael had intended to paint on, Piacentini said.
“From a historical and critical point of view, and also technical, it was truly a discovery,” he said. “The technique used and planned by Raphael was truly experimental for the time, and has never been found in any other mural made with oil paint.”
The final part of the restoration of the room was the ceiling, painted by Tommaso Laureti and featuring a remarkable example of Renaissance perspective with his fresco of a fake tapestry “Triumph of Christianity over Paganism.”
The Raphael Rooms were never fully closed off to the public during their long restoration, but they are now free of scaffolding for the many visitors flocking to the Vatican Museums for the 2025 Jubilee.
South Korea arrests Americans trying to send Bibles to North
- Local police said the six were trying to send thousands of plastic bottles, filled with rice, one-dollar bills and Bibles, into the sea off Ganghwa Island on Friday when they were caught
SEOUL: South Korean police on Friday arrested six US nationals attempting to send plastic bottles packed with rice and Bibles to North Korea, the head of the investigation team said.
Local police said the six were trying to send thousands of plastic bottles, filled with rice, one-dollar bills and Bibles, into the sea off Ganghwa Island at 1:03 am on Friday when they were caught.
“We have arrested and are questioning six American nationals in their 20s to 50s on suspicion of violating the Framework Act on the Management of Disasters and Safety,” the head of the investigation team at Ganghwa Police Station in Incheon told AFP.
The Americans could not speak Korean, so “an interpreter was provided for them and we have since started the questioning,” he added.
Located northwest of Seoul, Ganghwa Island is one of the closest South Korean territories to North Korea, with some parts of the surrounding sea lying just 10 kilometers (six miles) from the maritime border between the two countries.
The island has long been a popular site for non-profit organizations and anti-North Korean groups to launch plastic bottles filled with rice, as well as USB sticks containing K-pop and South Korean dramas.
The area was designated a danger zone last November, along with other border regions where activists launch balloons carrying leaflets.
At the time, the government said such activities could be perceived by the North as provocative.
Last year, the two Koreas were in a tit-for-tat propaganda war, as the North sent thousands of trash-filled balloons southwards, saying they were retaliation for propaganda balloons launched by South Korean activists.
In response, Seoul turned on border loudspeaker broadcasts — including K-pop tunes and international news — and North Korea started transmitting bizarre, unsettling noises along the frontier that had been a major nuisance for South Korean residents in the area.
South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung, who took office this month, has vowed a more dovish approach toward Pyongyang and has halted the loudspeaker broadcasts, which North Korea, in return, stopped the following day.
India accused of illegal deportations targeting Muslims
- Deportations spark fear among India’s estimated 200 million Muslims
- Many of those targeted in the campaign are low-wage laborers in states governed by Bharatiya Janata Party
NEW DELHI: India has deported without trial to Bangladesh hundreds of people, officials from both sides said, drawing condemnation from activists and lawyers who call the recent expulsions illegal and based on ethnic profiling.
New Delhi says the people deported are undocumented migrants.
The Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has long taken a hard-line stance on immigration – particularly those from neighboring Muslim-majority Bangladesh – with top officials referring to them as “termites” and “infiltrators.”
It has also sparked fear among India’s estimated 200 million Muslims, especially among speakers of Bengali, a widely spoken language in both eastern India and Bangladesh.
“Muslims, particularly from the eastern part of the country, are terrified,” said veteran Indian rights activist Harsh Mander.
“You have thrown millions into this existential fear.”
Bangladesh, largely encircled by land by India, has seen relations with New Delhi turn icy since a mass uprising in 2024 toppled Dhaka’s government, a former friend of India.
But India also ramped up operations against migrants after a wider security crackdown in the wake of an attack in the west – the April 22 killing of 26 people, mainly Hindu tourists, in Indian-administered Kashmir.
New Delhi blamed that attack on Pakistan, claims Islamabad rejected, with arguments culminating in a four-day conflict that left more than 70 dead.
Indian authorities launched an unprecedented countrywide security drive that has seen many thousands detained – and many of them eventually pushed across the border to Bangladesh at gunpoint.
Rahima Begum, from India’s eastern Assam state, said police detained her for several days in late May before taking her to the Bangladesh frontier.
She said she and her family had spent their life in India.
“I have lived all my life here – my parents, my grandparents, they are all from here,” she said. “I don’t know why they would do this to me.”
Indian police took Begum, along with five other people, all Muslims, and forced them into swampland in the dark.
“They showed us a village in the distance and told us to crawl there,” she said.
“They said: ‘Do not dare to stand and walk, or we will shoot you.’”
Bangladeshi locals who found the group then handed them to border police who “thrashed” them and ordered they return to India, Begum said.
“As we approached the border, there was firing from the other side,” said the 50-year-old.
“We thought: ‘This is the end. We are all going to die.’”
She survived, and, a week after she was first picked up, she was dropped back home in Assam with a warning to keep quiet.
Rights activists and lawyers criticized India’s drive as “lawless.”
“You cannot deport people unless there is a country to accept them,” said New Delhi-based civil rights lawyer Sanjay Hegde.
Indian law does not allow for people to be deported without due process, he added.
Bangladesh has said India has pushed more than 1,600 people across its border since May.
Indian media suggests the number could be as high as 2,500.
The Bangladesh Border Guards said it has sent back 100 of those pushed across – because they were Indian citizens.
India has been accused of forcibly deporting Muslim Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, with navy ships dropping them off the coast of the war-torn nation.
Many of those targeted in the campaign are low-wage laborers in states governed by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), according to rights activists.
Indian authorities did not respond to questions about the number of people detained and deported.
But Assam state’s chief minister has said that more than 300 people have been deported to Bangladesh.
Separately, Gujarat’s police chief said more than 6,500 people have been rounded up in the western state, home to both Modi and interior minister Amit Shah.
Many of those were reported to be Bengali-speaking Indians and later released.
“People of Muslim identity who happen to be Bengali speaking are being targeted as part of an ideological hate campaign,” said Mander, the activist.
Nazimuddin Mondal, a 35-year-old mason, said he was picked up by police in the financial hub of Mumbai, flown on a military aircraft to the border state of Tripura and pushed into Bangladesh.
He managed to cross back, and is now back in India’s West Bengal state, where he said he was born.
“The Indian security forces beat us with batons when we insisted we were Indians,” said Mondal, adding he is now scared to even go out to seek work.
“I showed them my government-issued ID, but they just would not listen.”
