Wednesday, November 2, 2016

A NCPA official accused for child abuse

By Ashwaru Colombo-Nov 02, 2016

An official at the National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) has been accused of abusing a young boy.

Minister of Women and Children’s Affairs Chandrani Bandara told the she has ordered a full investigation into the alleged incident.

The Minister said she has called for an independent investigation and her instructions have been communicated to the NCPA through her secretary

A complaint over the abuse of the young boy from Kurunegala famous boys school was made over the NCPA complaints hotline. And also one of his school teacher was complaint about this to NCPA hot line 1929 .

Sources said there was and attempt to suppress the complaint since it involved an official from the NCPA.

However Minister Chandrani Bandara insisted that she is closely following the investigations and that she has sought a report on the investigations today.

By Ashwaru Colombo

Kashmir - 2

By Izeth Hussain-October 31, 2016, 8:01 pm

I concluded the first part of this article by stating that the relevance of the Kashmir problem for the Sri Lankan nation and for the question of shaping a new world order has to be addressed. For this purpose we have to firstly ask what the Kashmir problem really is about. I hold that it is really about the annexation of Kashmir by India. If the rebellion in Kashmir dies out and the people of Kashmir are seen to be successfully integrated into the Indian union there will be no Kashmir problem, not one at least that should bother the rest of the world apart perhaps from Pakistan. But that seems most unlikely considering that the rebellion is at its height almost seventy years after Partition. The Kashmir problem continues to envenom Indo-Pakistan relations, even to the extent that a nuclear war cannot be ruled out. It is time therefore for the international community to address the problem, and the first requisite for that is to understand what the problem really is about.

The case for stating that it is really about the annexation of Kashmir by India has to begin with the recognition of the fact that historically India never was a single political unit. A politically united India was a British creation. Before the Partition the Hindu and the Muslim leaders agreed that the sub-continent should be partitioned along religious lines in so far as that was feasible. It was certainly feasible for the Maharaja of Kashmir to have opted to join Pakistan because the territories were contiguous and Kashmir had a solid Muslim majority. But that did not happen because of certain developments that need not be recounted here. What is important is that there was a UN Resolution calling for a plebiscite to allow the people of Kashmir to decide on their future. What is important also are the facts that India agreed to the holding of the plebiscite and that Nehru kept on reiterating that commitment. India therefore acknowledged that there was a moral case for allowing the Kashmiris to opt to join Pakistan, or to set up a separate state – the latter was not regarded as a feasible option at that time. Nor would it have been thought that the majority of the Kashmiri Muslims would have opted to join India. But India finally refused to hold the plebiscite, and it is found after almost seventy years that the attempt to integrate Kashmir into the Indian union has been a failure. Those facts point inexorably to one conclusion: India has annexed territory that should not belong to it.

It is an intriguing question why India reneged on its very explicit commitment to hold the plebiscite. The factor of Nehru’s Kashmiri Brahmin ancestry being the determinant seems too frivolous to be taken seriously. I wonder whether the intensification of the Cold War during that period had a lot to do with it. It came to be widely accepted that Pakistan’s first Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, was assassinated in 1951 through a plot mounted by the CIA, and the reason for that was that he was determined to entrench a Non-Aligned foreign policy – at that time Non-Alignment was called "positive neutralism" in Nehru’s terminology. The US’s notoriously aggressive Secretary of State John Foster Dulles explicitly declared that neutralism was "immoral" – a position reiterated to me many times by Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary during my time there in 1957 – 1958. I must mention also a story current in some circles in Pakistan, a story that I have never seen in print. It was that a Scotland Yard team investigating the assassination went to East Pakistan to conclude their investigations, but while returning to West Pakistan their plane blew up mysteriously in mid-air.

It could be that India felt peculiarly vulnerable during that period, against a background in which there was a widespread assumption that India would be breaking up sooner rather than later. According to the perceptions of the great authentic nationalist leaders of that time, notably Nehru, Tito, Nasser, and Soekarno – the moving forces behind Bandung 1955 and the first Non-Aligned Summit in Belgrade in 1961 – the expositors of true independence as distinct from merely formal sovereignty for the third world countries, the US was an aggressive neo-colonialist power that was fiercely intolerant of that true independence. According to Indian perceptions the US could be a lethal force against India, and Pakistan could serve as its regional weapon. It could make sense in that context for India to take up a tough stand on Kashmir in opposition to Pakistan, and that could be the explanation for India so blatantly reneging on an international commitment.

There are two ways of looking at India’s relations with its neighbors. On the debit side we can take count of the absorption of Sikkim, the satellitisation of Bhutan, the troubled relations with Nepal and Bangladesh seen by many as bullying, the arrogance shown according to many towards China at the time of the border war, the breakup of Pakistan, the backing for the buildup of the LTTE and the disastrous 1987 intervention in Sri Lanka, which collectively show that India has an inordinate appetite for real estate and for trying to dominate its neighbors. It does seem that India has had an exceptional record for bad relations with neighbors. But we must acknowledge that for the most part India has had equable relations with Sri Lanka unlike with its northern neighbors. That could signify that the bad relations in the north were occasioned by security preoccupations which were not there in the south and not by a drive for domination over its neighbors. I rather think that both factors have counted in India’s relations with neighbors. Its behavior over Kashmir provides I think a convincing illustration of my point. On the one hand, security preoccupations arising out of the intensification of the Cold War could have led to the blatant reneging on the commitment to hold the plebiscite. On the other hand, India showed by that reneging that it was challenging the very raison d’être of Pakistan: if the Kashmiri Muslims were successfully integrated into the Indian union it would have been shown that there was no need to establish Pakistan to secure fair and equal treatment for the Muslims of the sub-continent.

I come now to the relevance of Kashmir for the Sri Lankan nation and for the question of shaping a new world order. I must emphasize two points before proceeding further. The first is that despite the ambiguity I have noted in the preceding paragraph, India has shown a regional hegemonic drive of a sort that should not be tolerated by any of its neighbors, least of all by Sri Lanka. The second is that India is guilty of annexation of territory that should not belong to it. That is true of Kashmir particularly in the period after 1989. Kashmir has a particular relevance for Sri Lanka because it is facing a serious threat to its territorial integrity. India seems determined to establish a permanent pro-Indian enclave in North East Sri Lanka. Under certain circumstances an outright intervention by India to establish a separate state cannot be ruled out. In this situation the support given by our Government for India over postponement of the SAARC Summit was deplorable. Did our Government have even one shred of evidence to show the Pakistan Government’s complicity in the raid that burnt alive sixteen Indian soldiers? Is it not known that that Government is not in control of some of the terrorist groups that operate from Pakistan territory? It is a reasonable surmise that though Pakistan Governments may foment the Kashmir rebellion – which should be regarded as quite understandable considering India’s outrageous behavior over Kashmir – none of them will want to do anything that could provoke a further war.

Obviously Kashmir is relevant to the question of shaping a new world order. There can be no such order worth the name if there is acquiescence in annexation. A war was fought over the annexation of Kuwait by Iraq, a war which had the support of the entire international community apart from Iraq. The international community’s disapproval of annexation was also shown over the virtual annexation of East Timor by Indonesia. In the case of Kashmir the aspect of annexation has been obscured by historical developments. It cannot be ignored if the rebellion there continues, which has to be expected maybe in waves and not in a continuous direct trajectory. In that event the international community could come to accept self-determination as the solution for the Kashmir problem. I believe that a solution of the Kashmir problem will result in a coming together of India and Pakistan in positive ways that are unimaginable at present.

izethhussain@gmail.com

Forced to divorce by Israel

Israel prevented Ahmad Nattat’s wife Samira from traveling to access cancer treatment because his name was on her ID.-Maram Humaid

Maram Humaid-1 November 2016

For Samira Shawamreh, the cost of cancer treatment was that she and her husband had to divorce.

In 2014, Samira was diagnosed with bowel cancer. For treatment, she had to travel regularly between Hebron, where she then lived, and hospitals in Jerusalem and Beit Jala, also in the occupied West Bank.

On her way to these hospitals, she was frequently stopped at Israeli military checkpoints. Sometimes she was held for hours before being allowed to continue. On occasion, she was told she could not go any farther.

The Israeli soldiers at the checkpoints claimed that Samira’s identity card bore the name of a “terrorist.” The name in question was that of her husband Ahmad Nattat.

In 2011, Ahmad was arrested by Israeli forces at the Allenby crossing between Jordan and the West Bank.

He was interrogated for more than 60 days. During this period, he was accused of involvement in armed resistance against the Israeli occupation when he previously lived in the West Bank. Ahmad also was charged with carrying out and assisting “terrorist” attacks and refusing to provide details when questioned about people wanted by Israel.

He was convicted of the charges against him. Originally, he was sentenced to eight years imprisonment. But, after his lawyer appealed against that ruling, the sentence was reduced to two years, Ahmad told The Electronic Intifada.

Ordeal

Samira suffered considerable pain at Israeli checkpoints. “I was not even able to stand,” she said.

To end her ordeal, Samira needed to have Ahmad’s name removed from her ID card. That required a divorce.

“The decision to get a divorce was the hardest one I have ever made,” Samira said by telephone. “But I was forced to because of the severe deterioration of my health.”

Samira (now 37) and Ahmad (now 38) met in Ramallah, a city in the West Bank. Ahmad, who grew up in Gaza, moved to Ramallah in 2000, seeking employment. He found a job in a supermarket, where he met Samira. The couple married in 2001.

Four years later, Ahmad and Samira went to live in Gaza. Samira began feeling pains in her stomach in 2009. She had surgery in a Gaza hospital, but her condition worsened afterwards.

Blocked from traveling

Both of them then tried to travel to the West Bank so that Samira could have further tests and treatment. After many attempts, Samira was granted a travel permit by the Israeli authorities. But Ahmad was refused.

The couple had to spend the next two years apart. Ahmad kept applying for permits to visit Samira, who was now living in Hebron. Israel kept turning him down.

Eventually, he set out on a roundabout journey, in the hope he would be reunited with Samira. He left Gaza, traveling through Egypt, and then tried to enter the West Bank via Jordan. His arrest at the Allenby crossing came as a shock.

Ahmad admits that he allowed some people who were involved in armed resistance against Israel to hide in his home in the West Bank during the early years of this century. He had no direct involvement in armed resistance, he said.

“The accusations made against me in the Israeli court were mostly false or exaggerated,” he said.

Samira was only able to visit Ahmad three times while he was imprisoned by Israel. On his release, he was returned to Gaza.

When he learned of Samira’s diagnosis and how Israel was impeding her treatment, Ahmad reluctantly came to the conclusion that they would have to divorce. “I did everything I could to stop this from happening,” he said. “But her need for treatment was urgent.”

“Darkest times”

Samira says that being away from Ahmad increased her anguish during treatment. “I missed having Ahmad by my side and supporting me at those darkest times,” she said.

The two are still very much in love. Despite the divorce, they speak constantly by telephone. Ahmad has saved Samira’s number in his cellphone under the name Habibti, the Arabic word for sweetheart.

The past few months have been especially difficult as Samira’s mother, with whom she lived in Hebron, died recently.

“I feel very lonely,” said Samira. “I hope that I will be able to reunite with Ahmad. But it is still very hard to go back to Gaza. My treatment has not ended yet.”

Samira and Ahmad said they have sought help from Palestinian political leaders, human rights groups and the International Committee of the Red Cross. They realize that they face an uphill struggle to be allowed to live together.

Israel has been tearing Palestinian families apart for decades. Since 1988 Israel has restricted Palestinian movement between the West Bank and Gaza.

The policy has become more severe over the years. At present, Israel’s stated policy is that travel between the West Bank and Gaza is permitted in “exceptional humanitarian cases only, particularly urgent medical cases.” Israel does not recognize that married couples have a right to live together.

With Ahmad’s name removed from her ID card, Samira now finds it easier to travel through Israeli checkpoints.

“I can freely move between hospitals in Jerusalem and the West Bank,” Samira said. “What a price we have paid to win this freedom.”

Maram Humaid is a Gaza-based translator and journalist.

U.N. Chief Fires His Top Peacekeeping Commander in South Sudan

BY COLUM LYNCH-NOVEMBER 1, 2016

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday fired his top peacekeeping commander in South Sudan, following the release of a damning internal investigation that faulted the top U.N. brass for failing to come to the aid of thousands of civilians.

The U.N. peacekeeping mission in South Sudan fell woefully short of its obligation to protect civilians last summer as fighting between government and rebel forces blew up a fragile peace agreement and pitched Juba into chaos for four bloody July days, according to the scathing inquiry.

United Nations civilian and military commanders were caught unprepared for the fighting, despite multiple warning signs that the capital was headed back into fighting. When the bullets and mortars started flying, U.N. blue helmets abandoned their posts and hunkered down in their compound, leaving thousands of abandoned civilians and international aid workers to fend for themselves.

“The special investigation found that a lack of leadership on the part of key senior mission personnel cuminated in a chaotic and ineffective response to the violence,” according to an executive summary of the report.

Following the report’s release, Ban’s office issued a statement saying the U.N. chief “is deeply distressed by these findings.” His spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, said the U.N. chief “has asked for the immediate replacement for the force commander,” Lt. Gen. Johnson Mogoa Kimani Ondieki of Kenya. The U.N. chief is considering further action.

Since declaring its independence in the summer of 2011, South Sudan has struggled to form a nation out of a tapestry of diverse ethnic groups. The country has been wracked by violence since December 2013, when forces loyal to President Salva Kiir, a Dinka, opened fire on followers of his former vice president, Riek Machar, a Nuer, setting off a civil war that has had troubling ethnic dimensions.

Earlier this year, an internationally backed peace deal set the stage for Machar, along with more than 1,200 fighters, to return to the capital. But the pact unraveled on July 8, as the capital of Juba erupted into three days violence and chaos as rival forces exchanged fire. The fighting — which left more than 300 dead — marked the total collapse of a fragile peace agreement. It also exposed the vulnerability of U.N. peacekeepers, who came under fierce criticism for abandoning their posts at the height of the fighting and for refusing orders to help humanitarian aid workers.

The U.N. has posted some 1,800 peacekeepers — from China, Ethiopia, India, and Nepal — in Juba. Efforts by the U.N. Security Council to reinforce the troops deployed to the mission, known as UNMISS, have been stalled by the South Sudanese government, which has expressed serious misgivings about the buildup of international forces.

In response to critics, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed retired Dutch General Patrick Cammaert to carry out an “independent special investigation” into the U.N. response. The report reveals deep unease about a provision of the peace deal that resulted in Machar and his forces returning to Juba in April to begin the process of forming a power-sharing government in South Sudan.

The U.N. mission’s top official, as well as security experts, raised “strong objections” to deploying Machar’s troops within a kilometer of the U.N. headquarters and two U.N. camps for displaced South Sudanese civilians. They feared doing so would place U.N. personnel and displaced civilians in the crossfire if the rival forces started fighting — but Machar insisted.

The U.N. mission, meanwhile, did not take the warning signs sufficiently seriously.

“Despite the early warning that fighting would take place near U.N. House, the mission did not probably prepare for … foreseeable scenarios,” according to the report’s 10-page summary. For instance, U.N. commanders failed to reinforce defensive positions around U.N. facilities with enough firepower to counter small arms fire, “severely limiting the mission’s ability to respond when fighting with heavy weapons started.”

As fighting intensified, South Sudanese government forces deployed artillery, tanks, and helicopters into the fight.

“Government and opposition forces fired indiscriminately, striking U.N. facilities and POC [Protection of Civilian] sites,” according to the report. “In three days of fighting, two Chinese peacekeepers were killed and several injured, 182 buildings on the U.N. House compound were struck by bullets, mortars and rocket propelled grenades (RPGs).”

The U.N. report reserves some of its sharpest criticism for the peacekeepers who ignored a call for help from 70 civilians, including five U.N. personnel and international aid workers. Some were raped, tortured, and beaten by government troops at Hotel Terrain on July 11. The U.N. Joint Operations Center made multiple requests to peacekeeping contingents, including troops from China and Ethiopia, to send a rapid reaction force to the hotel. Each time, they refused.

Even after the government’s highest-ranking general provided a liaison officer to help the U.N. gain safe passage to the hotel, “no response team materialized.” Three and a half hours after the hotel attack began, South Sudanese security forces extracted all but three survivors. One South Sudanese civilian had already been executed.

One of the three female humanitarian aid workers remaining at the hotel later phoned the U.N. to say they had been left behind. But a U.N. security officer who took the call “was dismissive of her appeal and did not call her back when her phone credit expired,” according to the report summary. In the end, a private security company contracted by an international relief agency rescued the women.

Months after the crisis, U.N. peacekeepers “continue to display a risk averse posture unsuited to protecting civilians from sexual violence and other opportunistic attacks,” the report found.

In one particularly egregious case, U.N. troops and police stood by impassively as attackers assaulted a woman just a few yards in front of a U.N. protection site. “Despite the woman’s screams, they did not react,” the report said. The assault was stopped only after U.N. civilian staff officers “intervened and prevented a further assault.”

The investigators were unable to verify separate allegations that peacekeepers had failed to intervene to stop sexual assaults of women during the July violence in Juba. “While these incidents of sexual violence most certainly occurred, the special investigation was unable to verify the allegations regarding the peacekeepers’ response,” the report stated.

Photo credit: ALBERT GONZALEZ FARRAN/AFP/Getty Images

Philippines can buy assault rifles from Russia, Duterte says after US suspends sale

Image via Concept News Central.

2nd November 2016

THE Philippines could always turn to Russia to buy firearms, President Rodrigo Duterte said in shrugging off the United States’ move to suspend the sale of 26,000 assault rifles to local police over human rights concerns.

On Tuesday, Duterte told reporters during a visit to his parents’ tomb at the Davao Public and Roman Catholic Cemetery that it was not necessary for the Philippines to purchase the weapons from the U.S., the Manila Bulletin reported.

Instead, Duterte said the Philippines was willing to bolster ties with Russia on the matter.

“Remember what the Russian diplomat said? Come to Russia. We have everything you need,” Duterte was quoted as saying, referring to a previous engagement with a Russian envoy.

SEE ALSO: Philippines: Town mayor slain as Duterte warns drug war deaths could rise to 30,000

Since taking office in late June, Duterte has locked horns on numerous occasions with the U.S., following the long-time ally’s criticism of his war on narcotics and the thousands of drug suspects killed at the hands of police and vigilante groups. Duterte also recently declared his country’s “separation” from the US as he moved to cement ties with China and establish a more independent foreign policy for the Philippines.

During the ASEAN summit in Laos, Duterte met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev who said Russia was ready to provide assistance to the Southeast Asian country.

On Monday, the U.S. State Department announced the suspension of the planned sale of some 26,000 assault rifles to the Philippine National Police following an objection by U.S. Senator Ben Cardin.

According to Reuters, senatorial aides said Cardin, the top Democrat on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, cited human rights violations in the Philippines as the reason for the halt in the sale.

SEE ALSO: Philippines: ‘Go ahead, pack your bags’, Duterte tells US businessmen

In response, the government and Philippine police expressed disappointment but said they were looking to buy the assault rifles from elsewhere.

Police spokesman Dionardo Carlos was quoted by the news agency as saying that the Philippines had yet to receive any notice on the withdrawal of sale.

Human Rights Watch Asia Division Deputy Director Phelim Kine said the decision to thwart the sale was “well-justified” as the police are deeply implicated in Duterte’s “abusive” war on drugs”.

HRW estimates that some 5,000 Filipinos – mostly drug suspects – have been killed since Duterte was sworn in as president on June 30.

“The State Department’s decision is the first real US move to put teeth in its criticism of the spiraling death toll Duterte’s drug war.

“And it’s hit the police where it hurts: (Police Director-General Ronald) dela Rosa has said it ‘has a huge effect’ on police efforts to expand their arsenal,” Kine said in a statement on Tuesday.

Kine said Duterte and dela Rosa were now aware that the killings carry a cost with their country’s longtime ally.

He added that U.S. funding to the Philippine police, including US$9 million in State Department aid for counter-narcotics and law enforcement programs for 2017, and US$32 million in assistance pledged by US Secretary of State John Kerry in July, may be at risk unless the killings are stopped.

South African leader faces increasing calls to resign

Thousands march in the South African capital Pretoria against President Jacob Zuma, demanding he step down over a string of corruption scandals. (Reuters)

By Christopher Torchia | AP November 2 at 1:02 PM

JOHANNESBURG — Thousands of South Africans demonstrated on Wednesday for the resignation of President Jacob Zuma, who is enmeshed in scandals that critics say are undermining the country’s democracy.

The protests in the administrative capital of Pretoria came as a court ordered the release of a state watchdog report about allegations that a business family linked to Zuma sought to influence some Cabinet post selections to benefit its own business interests. The public protector’s office must release the report on Wednesday, the North Gauteng High Court ruled.

Zuma earlier sought to block the release of the report, but his lawyer, Anthea Platt, said he was dropping the effort.

The possibility of new revelations of alleged wrongdoing at top levels of the South African government is likely to increase pressure on Zuma, who apologized earlier this year after the Constitutional Court said he flouted the constitution in a scandal over more than $20 million in state funds used to upgrade his rural home. Zuma eventually paid back more than $500,000, an amount determined by the national treasury.

[South Africa’s student protests are part of a much bigger struggle]

In a separate scandal, the director of the National Prosecuting Authority this week dropped fraud charges against Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan following an outcry by South Africans who suspected the move to prosecute Gordhan was an attempt by government factions to take control of the national treasury. Prosecutors said the original charges were not politically motivated.

On Wednesday, business executives, religious leaders and others gathered in a Pretoria cathedral to demand that Zuma quit. They said alleged corruption linked to the president was undermining one of Africa’s biggest economies, which is experiencing weak growth, as well as a constitution that was crafted after the end of white minority rule in 1994.

“It is not possible to turn the situation around” as long as Zuma remains president, said Sipho Pityana of Save South Africa, a coalition of groups that say they seek to protect the constitution.

Separate rallies were also held in Pretoria by South Africa’s two biggest opposition parties, the Democratic Alliance and the Economic Freedom Fighters. The marches were mostly peaceful, but some shop windows were smashed. Four people were arrested for throwing stones at passing cars, the African News Agency reported.

Later, members of the Economic Freedom Fighters, many wearing red berets and red shirts, marched to the Union Buildings, which houses the offices of Zuma and other government officials. There, protesters briefly clashed with police who set off stun grenades and fired rubber bullets.

[South Africa’s government is at war with itself]

The government said in a statement that South Africans have the right to protest peacefully and that police were prepared to act to protect property.

Some members of the ruling African National Congress party also want the president to resign. The ANC, which took power after apartheid, lost several key municipalities in local elections in August, partly because of public dissatisfaction with the president.

The Nelson Mandela Foundation, founded by the anti-apartheid leader who became South Africa’s first black president, is among groups that say Zuma is failing in his duties.

Zuma has not commented this week on growing calls for his ouster. He is scheduled to chair a forum in Harare on Thursday with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.

Amnesty staff blocked from Moscow office after officials seal premises

Employee says human rights group’s office broken into and locks changed without warning

The door to the office of Amnesty International after it was sealed by Moscow city authorities. Photograph: Ivan Sekretarev/AP

Shaun Walker in Moscow-Wednesday 2 November 2016

Staff at Amnesty International in Moscow say their office has been broken into and sealed off by municipal officials.

When employees arrived on Wednesday they found new locks on the door and a stamped paper across the entrance that demanded the office contact the city authorities, said Alexander Artemyev of human rights group’s Moscow office. No warning had been given.

“Our neighbours told us that five men came around 9.30am, broke in and then changed the locks. When asked what they were doing, the men said it was a rent issue,” Artemyev told the Guardian.

Amnesty staff members had been calling the numbers on the paper all day without response, so in the evening went to speak with city officials, where they were told authorities had taken possession of the property due to non-payment of rent.

“They told us we had been warned three months in advance, which isn’t true,” said Artemyev.

“All our computers, papers, personal effects – they’re all still in there, behind the locked doors,” Amnesty campaigner Ivan Kondratenko wrote on Facebook. He posted photographs of the old locks strewn on the floor amid debris.

John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International’s Europe director, said: “Given the current climate for civil society work in Russia, there are clearly any number of plausible explanations, but it’s too early to draw any conclusions. We are working to resolve the situation as swiftly as possible and very much hope there is a simple administrative explanation for this setback to our work.”

Dalhuisen said the organisation was “100% confident” that it had fulfilled all its obligations as tenants. Artemyev said the Moscow employees planned to present documents to authorities on Thursday proving they had paid rent.

He added: “It’s a ludicrous decision and an incorrect one, and we will try to show that. We don’t want to make any loud political statements yet; hopefully it is just a mistake.”

A representative of the Moscow state property department, from which Amnesty rents the office, said they had no immediate comment.

The climate for human rights work in Russia has worsened in recent years, and a law has forced organisations with foreign funding to declare themselves as “foreign agents”.

A number of Russian rights groups have had similar problems with municipal authorities in recent months, but most have received warnings prior to any action being taken. Sealing an office without warning is a step usually more indicative of a criminal investigation, though this does not seem to be the case with Amnesty.

Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch in Moscow said: “Though law enforcement authorities are not involved in any way, in the current political climate one cannot help but suspect that these developments could be aimed at putting pressure on the independent outspoken organisation, well known for its criticism of Russia’s domestic human rights crackdown and Russia’s actions in Syria and Ukraine.

“But we genuinely hope this is not the case, and our colleagues will be able to promptly return to their office and resume normal work.”

‘I Live in a Lie’: Saudi Women Speak Up

By MONA EL-NAGGAROCT. 28, 2016

Soon after “Ladies First” was screened, I met these Saudi students in Washington Square Park in New York. Hend, on the left, had watched the documentary and criticized it for portraying her country as a place that oppresses women. “We don’t need to abolish male guardianship,” she said. “We need to teach men how to be better guardians.” Mona El-Naggar/The New York Times

Medical personnel in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Newsha Tavakolian for The International Herald Tribune

“We’re not allowed to even go to the supermarket without permission or a companion, and that’s a simple thing on the huge, horrendous list of rules we have to follow.” — DOTOPS, 24

“The male guardianship makes my life like a hell!! We want to hang out with our friends, go and have lunch outside. I feel hopeless.” — JUJU19, 21

“I don’t mind taking my dad’s approval in things he should be a part of. These very strong social bonds you will never, ever understand.” — NOURA

These are three of the nearly 6,000 women from Saudi Arabiawho wrote to The New York Times last week about their lives.

We had put a call -out on our website and on Twitter in conjunction with the publication of “Ladies First,” a Times documentary I directed about the first Saudi elections in which women were allowed to vote and run for local office.

Saudi Arabia is an incredibly private, patriarchal society. While I was making the film, many women were afraid to share their stories for fear of backlash from the male relatives who oversee all aspects of their lives as so-called guardians. We wanted to hear more about their fears, their frustrations, their ambitions.

Saudi Arabia has one of the world’s highest rates of Twitter use, and our posts rocketed around. We were overwhelmed by the outpouring.

Most of the responses focused on frustration over guardianship rules that force women to get permission from a male relative — a husband, father, brother or even son — to do things like attend college, travel abroad, marry the partner of their choice or seek medical attention. Some women talked about the pride they had in their culture and expressed great distrust of outsiders. But many of them shared a deep desire for change and echoed Juju19’s hopelessness

There was an angry backlash under a Twitter hashtag using Arabic for “Don’t tell The New York Times.” And there was a backlash to the backlash: “#don’t_tell_theNewYork_times that if your father rapes you and you run away, then you will go to prison, and if they let you out, then they will send you back to him.”

Excerpts from the women’s responses are below, many translated from Arabic. In order to enable women to feel free to speak openly, we gave them the option of anonymity. Where possible, we verified the identity of the respondent or location of her email. In some cases, that proved impossible.

We want to keep the conversation going. Feel free to email us atsaudiwomen@nytimes.com.

A Life Restricted

“I got into an accident once in a taxi, and the ambulance refused to take me to the hospital until my male guardian arrived. I had lost a lot of blood. If he didn’t arrive that minute, I would’ve been dead by now.” — RULAA, 19

Riyadh

“Every time I want to travel, I have to tell my teenage son to allow me.”

— SARAH, 42

a doctor in Riyadh

“My sister went to a bookstore without taking permission from her husband, and when she returned, he beat her up without restraint.”

— AL QAHTANIYA, 28

Riyadh

“The door of the school where I work is closed from early morning till noon. There is a man guarding the door. Even if a teacher is done with her classes, she cannot leave. Metal gates keep us as prisoners.” — MALAK, 44

Riyadh

“I left the home and sought refuge with a human rights organization in Saudi. I told them about my problems with my father, and they were not able to do anything, and they advised me to go to the police to demand protection from my father. When I went to the police, my father had already informed them that I fled his home. I told the police everything, and they said that I did something wrong/committed a horrible crime in leaving the home of my father, and they placed me in prison!

“The first three days I spent in solitary, then they transferred me to the general ward. There were women there who committed crimes like killing and stealing.” — TYPICAL SAUDI GIRL, 23

FULL STORY>>>

Toronto exhibition highlights Syria’s ‘living history’

Syrian exhibit is the first time that virtual-reality technology has been used in North American museum

This oil on canvas painting of Jesus Christ and his three companions was created in 1964 by Syrian artist Fateh Moudarres, one of the pioneers of contemporary Syrian art (MEE/Jillian Kestler-D'Amours)

The exhibition counts 48 items on display, ranging from a period of 5,000 years of Syrian history )-An intricate, wooden backgammon table made in the 19th century (MEE/Jillian Kestler-D'Amours)

Jillian D'Amours-Wednesday 2 November 2016

TORONTO, Canada – As the war in Syria continues, the country has today become intrinsically linked to death, destruction and violence, and waves of displaced families seeking refuge on foreign shores.

But a Canadian museum is seeking to change that narrative, showcasing 5,000 years of art that cuts across the country’s many diverse cultures.

Syria: A Living History draws on Syria’s rich history – and its Mesopotamian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Persian, Ottoman and Arab influences – to paint a vivid picture of the country.

From ancient idols and artefacts, to paintings, sculptures, and vases, the exhibition contains 48 objects, two digital reproductions and one virtual reality experience.

“For us, what was most important to be able to emphasise was the fact that Syria is a region, a people, that are made up of many different cultures both today and in the past,” explained Henry Kim, director and CEO of the Aga Khan Museum, an Islamic art museum in Toronto that is hosting the exhibition.

“A lot of times we think about Syrians as being one type of people. Even today so many ethnicities, languages, religions practiced in Syria that it truly defies that one size fits all description of what Syria actually is,” Kim told Middle East Eye.

It is the first time that virtual-reality technology has been used in a North American museum, Kim said.

By moving a tablet in front of them, visitors are transported to the Aleppo Room, a room covered in detailed, red-painted panels that belonged to a Syrian merchant in Aleppo in the 17th Century. The room is on display at Berlin’s Pergamon Museum.

“You actually hold it in front of you like you’re dancing,” Kim said of the experience.

Wide-reaching collaboration

While exhibitions of this nature generally take three years to pull together, Kim explained that Syria: A Living History was conceived, executed and opened to the public in about one year.

He said the museum was moved to act after realising that despite widespread concerns about the preservation of Syrian culture during the war, museums had done very little globally.

The destruction of artefacts in the ancient, Syrian city of Palmyra, which holds important archaeological items dating back to the Neolithic period, and the devastating images of Syrian refugees attempting to cross the Mediterranean also pushed the idea forward.

“We felt that with everything that’s happening, we really needed to respond very quickly,” Kim said.

The items on display came to the Aga Khan Museum through collaborations with seven institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Louvre in Paris, as well as private collectors.

One of the objects, an eye idol, dates back to 3,200 BCE. Excavated at Tell Barak, an ancient city in northeastern Syria today, the small figurine was likely offered at a temple for spiritual protection, the museum explained.

Other items of note include an ivory lion’s head from the 8th or 9th centuries BCE, which experts say may have served as an armchair ornament, a stone inscription panel from 16th Century Damascus, and a detailed, copper incense burner from the 13th Century.

A section of the Qu’ran dating back to the Mamluk period (1250-1517) is also on display. It is open to the beginning of the Sura al-Isra’ (the Night Journey), which describes how the Prophet Muhammad journeyed from Mecca to Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem before ascending to heaven to visit unearthly dimensions.

An intricate, wooden backgammon table, complete with colourful, bone and mother-of-pearl designs, also stands out from behind a glass casing. The 19th Century board game table was likely used for a variety of games, including backgammon (tawla, in Arabic), chess and checkers.

Six contemporary Syrian artists also have their work on display, including Fateh Moudarres, Aktham Abdelhamid, Loftfi Al Romhein, Tammam Azzam and Elias Zayat.

“What can we say about Syria today?” added Nasser Rabbat, director of the Aga Khan program for Islamic Architecture at MIT, and the co-curator of the exhibition, in a statement.

“A country that has for centuries enjoyed a unique mosaic of ethnicities, cultures, religions, and sects. All [of which have] contributed to the rich landscape of Syria and gave it an aura of vivid multiculturalism long before the term itself was coined.”

Hope for the future

Kim said the public’s response to the exhibition has gone beyond what he hoped.

He described meeting a man who was touring the museum who, it turned out, was originally from Aleppo and had recently moved to Canada. More than 33,000 Syrian refugees have been resettled in Canada since December 2015 through private and public sponsorship programs.

“He had great pride in being able to show his host family the artefacts,” Kim recalled.

The man then stood in front of a photograph near the entrance of the exhibition, and began talking animatedly with his teenage daughter. Puzzled, Kim asked what was going on; the image, the man explained, showed the very same street in Aleppo on which his daughter had gone to school.

“For me, that was one of the most powerful things I’ve ever seen… Seeing people who suddenly were transported back to their home city, a city they’re now refugees from, to be able to see that that’s celebrated, commemorated, in a museum in your new country,” Kim said.

The exhibition ends with an interactive installation that asks visitors to write out what the term “home” means to them, and affix their notes to the superimposed image of Gustav Klimt’s painting The Kiss on a bombed-out, bullet-ridden building in Damascus.

Syrian artist Tammam Azzam first created that juxtaposed image in 2013 in an effort to draw international attention to the situation in Syria.

The installation, Kim said, aims to push visitors “to realise that there’s a future ahead” in Syria.

“And even though we don’t know what that’s going to be, one of these days the war will end and the question is how will Syria and its society and its people rebuild itself during that period of time?” he said.

“Yes, there is destruction, [but] there is something that’s going to come out of this.”

Syria: A Living History is on display at the Aga Khan Museum until February 26, 2017.