16-year-old Palestinian Ahed Al-Tamimi, appears in court after she was taken into custody by Israeli soldiers, in Ramallah, West Bank on 28 December 2017 [Issam Rimawi/Anadolu Agency]
April 4, 2018 at 11:48 am
Israeli lawyer Gaby Lasky who is defending Palestinian teen Ahed Tamimi has accused investigators of sexual harassment, Arab48.com reported yesterday.
Lasky has filed several complaints against interrogators for verbal and physical sexual harassment but said that no investigations were opened into any of her complaints. She has described this as a “gross violation of the law”.
Free Ahed Tamimi, International Women’s Day – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/MiddleEastMonitor]
In her complaint, the lawyer wrote that one of the interrogators questioned Ahed in an inappropriate way for a female minor, which amounted to sexual harassment.
The same interrogator told Tamimi that he would arrest her relatives and interrogate them if she did not respond to his questioning.
Lasky also said that despite the fact that Tamimi is young, she was interrogated simultaneously by two men without the presence of a woman in the room or even an interrogator specialised in questioning minors.
“This proves that the [Israeli] law enforcement system infringes upon the rights of Palestinian minors,” Lasky also wrote in her complaint to the Israeli attorney general.
Reporters at The Daily Beast said they had watched an exclusive video footage of Tamimi’s interrogation leaked on Sunday which reportedly shows the teenager enduring two hours of questioning on 26 December. One of the interrogators tells her: “You have eyes like an angel” then tries to explain how she is like his sister who “spends all his money on clothes”.
According to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed sexual harassment and abuse, including rape, is routinely used by Israeli authorities to humiliate and torture both female and male Palestinian prisoners.
She told reporters last month before the court accepted the plea bargain that “there is no justice under occupation and this is an illegitimate court”.
Decision on when Worker’s party leader should start 12-year jail term expected to further polarise the country’s politics Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is sweating on a supreme court judgment this week. Photograph: Mauro Pimentel/AFP/Getty Images
The fate of Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is in the balance as the country’s supreme court prepares to hand down a ruling that could lead to him being jailed before October elections for which he is currently the frontrunner.
Tensions are running high with Brazil rocked by the recent killing of a Rio councillor, Marielle Franco, and Wednesday’s judicial decision seems likely to further polarise an already bitterly divided country. If Lula is jailed, his supporters will cry political persecution; if not, his detractors will allege corruption.
Lula’s conviction for corruption and money laundering was upheld by an appeals court in January and his sentence increased to 12 years. On Wednesday the supreme court must decide whether to uphold a 2016 ruling that defendants should begin prison sentences after the first appeal is rejected.
Lula’s Worker’s party says the conviction was politically motivated to prevent the former president, who remains popular with poorer Brazilians, from running again in October. The case was part of Brazil’s sprawling “Car Wash” investigation that has jailed dozens of top executives and politicians.
“I did not accept the military dictatorship and I will not accept this dictatorship of the prosecutors,” Lula said on Monday night to a roaring crowd in Rio de Janeiro.
Anti-Lula protests are planned across Brazil on Tuesday, organised by groups that led demonstrations for the 2016 impeachment of Lula’s successor, Dilma Rousseff, which brought in President Michel Temer’s rightwing government.
Pro-Lula demonstrations by unions and social movements are planned in the capital, Brasilia, on Wednesday.
The supreme court’s president, Cármen Lúcia, made a televised appeal on Monday night for “serenity in times of intolerance” to avoid social disorder.
Two Lula-branded buses were shot at last week during a campaign tour of southern Brazil. No one was hurt, and the former president was not in either of the two buses, which were carrying guests and journalists.
Prosecutors say Lula was promised a beachfront apartment worth BR$2.2m (£470,000) in a BR$88m graft scheme to help the construction company OAS secure contracts with the state oil firm, Petrobras.
Lula’s lawyers have repeatedly protested his innocence and said the prosecution has produced no material evidence for his conviction.
The supreme court will decide on Wednesday on a habeas corpus request from Lula to keep him out of jail to pursue further appeals. If denied, Lula could be arrested the same day.
“All of the signals from the judiciary so far indicate Lula will be jailed, it’s just a question of time,” said Maurício Santoro, a political scientist and professor of international relations at Rio de Janeiro’s State University. “The Brazilian press would be extremely critical of the supreme court if the request was granted.”
While technically barred from the elections because of his conviction, Lula leads opinion polls by a wide margin. Jair Bolsonaro, a hardline rightwing former army captain and military dictatorship revisionist often labelled the “Brazilian Trump”, is second.
Born in poverty, Lula became Brazil’s first working-class president and is fondly remembered by poorer sections of the population for his Worker’s party’s social policies. Other supporters say his conviction is an attack on democracy.
“We are here, reaffirming that what we want is democracy,” said Marcia Regina Coelho Chalfun, a 55-year-old teacher, at the Lula event in Rio on Monday night. “I have always voted for Lula and would vote for him again. He is an icon, an ex-president who changed the face of this country. It’s really important that Lula is free.”
If jailed, it is unlikely that Lula, now 72, would serve a long sentence. Last week the former São Paulo congressman, mayor and governor Paulo Maluf, once wanted by Interpol, was released and transferred to house arrest on health grounds after serving four months for corruption.
Lula’s court session might be delayed, buying him more time, but pressure is mounting on the politician.
“The change in jurisprudence, in this case, will imply the release of countless convicted persons,” says a petition signed by more than 5,000 Brazilian magistrates.
One of the signatories – the lead “Car Wash” prosecutor, Delton Dallaganol – tweeted that he would “fast and pray” for Lula’s detention.
A police officer guards a cordoned off area in the city centre where former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found poisoned, in Salisbury, Britain, April 3, 2018. REUTERS/Hannah McKay
THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Russia’s call for a joint inquiry to be held into the poisoning of a former Russian double agent in England failed on Wednesday when it was outvoted 15-6 at a meeting of the global chemical weapons watchdog.
Russia had called an emergency meeting of the decision-making executive of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to counter accusations by Britain that it was behind the March 4 nerve agent poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, England.
Britain’s charges of Russian involvement, strongly denied by Moscow, have triggered mass expulsions of diplomats by both Britain’s allies in the West, including the United States, and similar retaliatory action by Russia.
When the meeting convened on Wednesday, Russia proposed a joint investigation into the poisoning as it was not invited to participate in an independent probe being carried out by the OPCW at Britain’s request, results of which are due next week.
Britain called the Russian proposal for a joint investigation a “perverse” attempt to escape blame for the poisoning of the Skripals, and part of a disinformation campaign mounted by Moscow.
Russia’s proposal in the end drew support from China, Azerbaijan, Sudan, Algeria and Iran, a source told Reuters, with U.S. and European members voting against the plan. There were 17 abstentions among members of the organisation’s 41-member council, only 38 of whose members were present and eligible to vote on Wednesday.
Russia’s ambassador to the OPCW, Aleksander Shulgin, confirmed that the vote had been lost.
RUSSIA CALL TO SECURITY COUNCIL
Separately on Wednesday Russia requested a public meeting of the United Nations Security Council on April 5 to discuss the British accusations against Moscow, Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said.
British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson welcomed Russia’s defeat in The Hague.
“Russia has had one goal in mind since the attempted murders on UK soil through the use of a military-grade chemical weapon — to obscure the truth and confuse the public,” he said in a statement.
“The international community has yet again seen through these tactics and robustly defeated Russia’s attempts today to derail the proper international process.”
The closed-door OPCW meeting itself triggered sharp verbal exchanges between the Britain and Russia’s representatives.
In a tweet, the British delegation called Moscow’s idea for a joint investigation “a diversionary tactic, and yet more disinformation designed to evade the questions the Russians authorities must answer”.
John Foggo, Britain’s acting envoy, said Russian assertions that the attack may have been carried out by Britain, the United States or Sweden were “shameless, preposterous statements...
Shulgin, at a news conference, said the vote showed more than half of the OPCW’s members had “refused to associate themselves with the West’s point of view” — referring to those who voted in favour of Russia’s proposal or abstained.
He repeated that Russia had had nothing to do with the attack on the Skripals, which he said looked like “a terrorist attack.”
Britain’s remarks were “a dirty flow of complete lies ... outright Russia-phobia,” he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday the OPCW should draw a line under a case that has triggered the worst crisis in East-West relations since the Cold War.
Scientists at the Porton Down biological and chemical weapons laboratory in England have concluded that the toxin was among a category of Soviet-era nerve agents called Novichok, though could not yet determine whether it was made in Russia.
TAKING SAMPLES
The OPCW, which oversees the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, has taken samples from the site of the Salisbury attack and is expected to provide results from testing at two designated laboratories next week.
Shulgin said earlier that if Moscow was prevented from taking part in the testing of the Salisbury toxin samples, it would reject the outcome of the OPCW research.
Russia’s request to open a parallel, joint Russian-British inquiry has been portrayed by Western powers as an attempt to undermine the investigation by OPCW scientists.
The EU said it was very concerned Moscow was considering rejecting the OPCW findings.
Instead of cooperating with the OPCW, Russia had unleashed “a flood of insinuations targeting EU member states ... This is completely unacceptable,” an EU statement read to the council session said.
A police vehicle is parked next to cordon tape close to where former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found poisoned, in Salisbury, Britain, March 28, 2018. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls
Skripal, 66, a former Russian military intelligence officer who betrayed scores of Russian agents to Britain and was exchanged in a Russia-West spy swap, remains in a critical but stable condition. His daughter, Yulia, 33, has shown signs of improvement.
The head of Porton Down appears to have contradicted claims by Boris Johnson about the poisoning of a former spy, Sergei Skripal.
In an interview, the foreign secretary secretary talked about the scientific analysis of the Novichok nerve agent that was used. And he seemingly confirmed that the Porton Down defence research laboratory had “no doubt” that the substance was made in Russia.
Mr Johnson’s claims were made to German TV channel Deutsche Welle, while reiterating the British government’s allegations against Russia.
The interviewer asked him: “You argue that the source of this nerve agent, Novichok, is Russia. How did you manage to find it out so quickly? Does Britain possess samples of it?”
During the course of a long response, Mr Johnson appeared to suggest that scientists from the UK’s military laboratory were adamant that the Novichok was Russian-made.
He said: “I genuinely think Russia is an incredible country, a fantastic place, and it pains me to see the way things have got between us. So, I’m genuinely distressed by what has happened. But when I look at the evidence; I mean, the people from Porton Down, the laboratory…”
“They have the samples?” the interviewer interjected.
“They do,” replied Mr Johnson. “They do. And they were absolutely categorical and I asked the guy myself, I said, ‘Are you sure?’ And he said there’s no doubt.”
Mr Johnson’s comments do not appear to match with further remarks by the head of Porton Down himself.
Speaking yesterday, Gary Aitkenhead said: “We were able to identify it as Novichok, to identify that it was military-grade nerve agent.”
But he added: “We have not identified the precise source, but we have provided the scientific info to government who have then used a number of other sources to piece together the conclusions you have come to.”
Aitkenhead said that identifying the source would require “other inputs”, explaining: “It is our job to provide the scientific evidence of what this particular nerve agent is, we identified that it is from this particular family and that it is a military grade, but it is not our job to say where it was manufactured.”
The apparent contradiction has already been leapt on by Labour. Shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, said: “I don’t understand where he got that information from.”
And Labour MP Chris Williamson said: “Boris Johnson is your Foreign Secretary and he just lied to justify our country’s foreign policy.”
Meanwhile, Sky News quotes an unnamed source in the Foreign Office who said Mr Johnson “misspoke”.
But this is not the only time the government has made this claim. The Russian embassy in London has highlighted a tweet by the Foreign Office last month. The tweet said that Porton Down had “made clear” that the Novichok nerve agent was “produced in Russia”.
The tweet has now been deleted, with the Foreign Office explaining that it had been “truncated and did not accurately report our Ambassador’s words”.
22 March: “Porton Down lab @dstlmod clearly established that the source of Salisbury toxic agent was Russia” 3 April: “ @dstlmod never had the task to establish the source of the toxic agent”
In a statement today, the Foreign Office backed Mr Johnson’s remarks by suggesting he had simply been referring to the identification of the nerve agent itself – rather than its source.
A spokesperson told FactCheck today: “The Foreign Secretary was making clear that Porton Down were sure it was a Novichok – a point they have reinforced. He goes on in the same interview to make clear why based on that information, additional intelligence and the lack of alternative explanation from the Russians, we have reached the conclusion we have.
“What the Foreign Secretary said then, and what Porton Down have said recently, is fully consistent with what we have said throughout. It is Russia that is putting forward multiple versions of events and obfuscating the truth.”
The Foreign Office had previously explained: “This is only one part of the intelligence picture. As the Prime Minister has set out in a number of statements to the Commons since 12 March, this includes our knowledge that within the last decade, Russia has investigated ways of delivering nerve agents probably for assassination – and as part of this programme has produced and stockpiled small quantities of Novichoks; Russia’s record of conducting state-sponsored assassinations; and our assessment that Russia views former intelligence officers as targets.”
What should we read into it all?
Gary Aitkenhead’s comment may be seen as undermining the government’s allegations against Russia.
However, it is worth noting that the government has always maintained that it’s case is multi-faceted. Chemistry is only part of the story.
Professor Alastair Hay told us: “My reading is that Gary Aitkenhead was simply reaffirming what Porton had said previously about the identity of the agent. He was making sure that the laboratory’s role is clear. He pointed out the UK Government was using other intelligence evidence it had to point the finger of blame at Russia.
“But I think it is good that Aitkenhead did the reaffirmation. It keeps Porton above the fray and recognised for its scientific ability.
“Unless Porton had had a prior sample from the facility where the Novichok was made it would have been difficult to identify the source. If the environmental samples had had other ingredients from the production process in them this could have helped identify how it was made and thus help to narrow down facilities. But in the absence of that prior sample pointing a finger would be unsound.”
Professor Andrea Sella told FactCheck: “This is only partly about the chemistry… It strikes me that the Russian government is doing everything it can to cast doubt on everything. They’ve repeatedly undermined Porton Down, for example by suggesting that it might have actually made and delivered the agent. Now they leap on this statement which is very clear and very simple – the chemistry is Novichok; there is additional information from other sources that corroborates the idea that the stuff came from Russia. The demands from the Russians that the UK share its information are a transparent attempt to get the UK to reveal its intelligence information.”
“Let’s face it, there is no plausible alternative scenario. It’s about the wider pattern – over and over inconvenient Russians have been bumped off, in the UK and elsewhere. Their behaviour fits with a long standing bait and switch pattern to confuse and obfuscate.”
The verdict
We have no way of verifying what Porton Down scientists may have told Boris Johnson behind closed doors; nor do we know what he was intending to refer to in his comments.
However, the question put by the interviewer specifically referred to Russia – as did Mr Johnson’s preceding comments.
Therefore, we think people might reasonably have assumed he was claiming that Porton Down had scientific evidence to show the Novichok was made in Russia – a claim that has proved to be wrong.
At best, this means his comments were sloppy and ham-fisted. At worst, they were wrong and misleading.
The statements from Porton Down do not necessarily change the government’s overall evidence base particularly. After all, we knew all along that chemistry was only part of the story.
The statements reaffirm the importance of strong intelligence. But, as of yet, the government has not elaborated on what intelligence it has – or released any of it.
The announcement of a new prime minister has led to widespread celebrations, but reforming the country without alienating the army will not be easy.
Abiy Ahmed, newly elected Prime Minister of Ethiopia, addresses the house of Parliament in Addis Ababa, after the swearing in ceremony on April 2, 2018. (ZACHARIAS ABUBEKER/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
BYNIZAR MANEK-
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — In 1990, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) was a guerrilla alliance battling the Derg, a Marxist-Leninist military junta that had deposed Emperor Haile Selassie in a 1974 coup. A year later, the EPRDF took power; it has ruled Ethiopia ever since.
When the Derg fell, Abiy Ahmed, who was recently elected as the EPRDF’s chairman and sworn in as prime minister on Monday, was just 14 years old. But even then, Abiy, who was born to a Muslim father and a Christian mother in the Oromo town of Beshasha in southwestern Ethiopia, was becoming politically active.
“In one way, the world is eagerly awaiting our country’s transition, and in another way, they are waiting in fear,” Abiy said in his maiden speech as prime minister. “We have a country in which our fathers have sacrificed their bones and spilled their blood,” and yet the nation has kept its unity. “This is the season in which we learn from our mistakes and compensate our country,” he continued. “I ask forgiveness from those activists and politicians who paid the sacrifice and youths who wanted change but lost their lives.” He even spoke of applying Ethiopia’s constitution in a way that understands “freedom,” especially freedom of expression and the rights to assembly and association — suggesting that he may lift the state of emergency that has led to the detention of more than 1,100 people. In the capital of Addis Ababa, people in cafes clapped and cheered in front of television screens.
At a town on Ethiopia’s porous southern border with Kenya, where Ethiopia’s military last month announced it had mistakenly killed Oromo civilians, locals celebrated by slaughtering camels, cows, and goats. People in Jimma, the largest city in southwestern Ethiopia, were singing; a student at Jimma University told me, “We have got one of our own!”
More than a third of Ethiopians belong to the Oromo community and about a fifth to the Amhara, while Tigrayans represent 6 percent, according to the latest census. Together, the Oromo and Amhara make up more than half of Ethiopia’s population of 105 million. These demographic realities and the distribution of power among these groups are the defining feature of Ethiopian politics.
Abiy joined the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO) and the EPRDF in 1991, according to his official biography. He decided to join the OPDO after his brother, Kedir, was killed, according to Abiy’s childhood friend Seyfu Imam Abamilki. The same year, the OPDO was part of the advancing EPRDF army seeking to smash Derg forces and take Addis Ababa. At that time, the OPDO was a small organization that the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) established in late 1990; it became part of the EPRDF in January 1991.
As a young man finding his feet, Abiy was one of at most 200 OPDO fighters placed under the overall military command of the EPRDF forces, which in 1991 numbered about 100,000 — 90 percent of them Tigrayans. Abiy, despite his Oromo origins, was quick to adapt, starting as an assistant to the military and learning the Tigrinya language. As a Tigrinya speaker, he could get ahead, given the preponderance of Tigrayan soldiers and officers. And it has continued to serve him well; Tigrayans remain preeminent in Ethiopia’s ruling coalition and control the military, intelligence, and security organs of the state.
In 1993, when Abiy was in his late teens, he became a regular soldier. He enrolled in what would become the new federal army — the Ethiopian National Defense Forces — as part of an OPDO division and eventually rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. In 1995, Abiy had to formally leave the OPDO; the EPRDF’s new constitution would be “free of partisanship” and forbade membership in any political organization. The same year, he was deployed as a member of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Kigali in the wake of the Rwandan genocide.
After nearly two decades of military service, Abiy left the army in his early thirties, became a civilian, and re-entered the OPDO; his final military post was as deputy director of the Information Network Security Agency, which provides technical intelligence to support the government on matters of national interest. A few years earlier, he was posted back to his hometown of Beshasha, where he successfully defused communal tensions following an incident between Muslims and Christians, his old friend Seyfu and a government official in the town, Mohammed Abajojam, told me.
In quick succession, Abiy became a member of the EPRDF-controlled parliament, the OPDO central committee, and then the politburos of both the OPDO and EPRDF. He began a rapid ascent through the corridors of power, serving as director of the national science and technology information center and, briefly, as minister of science and technology under former Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, who resigned in February, triggering a leadership crisis.
At 41, Abiy is Africa’s youngest leader — and he is pursuing a different path than many others in the region.
“Now more than any other countries of the world, for us, ensuring democracy is about our existence,” Abiy told parliament. “We have to keep in mind that Ethiopia is ours and build a participatory democracy that allows everyone’s voice to be heard and everyone to benefit.
His last job offers a hint of his policy preferences. As Oromia’s deputy president, Abiy headed the region’s Housing and Urban Development Bureau, where he and other top officials embarked on an ambitious policy of economic revolution, seeking to address the burning issue of mass unemployment and deep-rooted grievances among legions of disaffected youth in Oromia, which has been a hotbed of anti-government protests for nearly three years. “In Oromia, unemployment is more than 80 percent, around 6 million youths are unemployed,” and almost half of Oromia’s population is under 15, Abiy told me in June while working on a program to overhaul employment, supply chains, and revenue sharing in cement mining in Oromia. “Nobody can stop them by gun,” he said. “They’re not an enemy but a power that can help the government in the development process.”
For now, Abiy’s elevation to prime minister has quieted Ethiopia’s most confrontational voices. This could quell violent protests in Oromia, which intensified late last year amid severe clashes between security forces from Ethiopia’s Somali region and Oromo in eastern Ethiopia, triggering serious intraparty conflict within the EPRDF. In his speech, Abiy pledged to crack down on corruption, which, according to Jamil Abdisalam, the mayor of an Oromo town in the east, has been the primary cause of the violence that recently prompted approximately 1 million people to flee their homes. He attributed the disturbances to senior federal and military officials and their business associates who monopolize trade in black market dollars and contraband on the boundary.
All eyes are on Abiy’s next moves and whether he will manage to reorient the political system to give the Oromo the representation they demand and turn a one-party system into something more democratic.
In Ethiopia’s complex and delicate ethnic federation, Abiy will be watched closely by proxies from myriad other ethnic groups and forces for any failings, and they may react negatively should they get the impression that Abiy is unilaterally working for the advantage of the Oromo. After all, the OPDO now controls the office of the prime minister, the post of speaker of parliament, and the presidency — nominally, the three most important positions in the state. Oromos can surely now become the most influential ethnic group.
But Abiy is making conciliatory gestures. “In one country, there will be differences in ideas,” Abiy told parliament. “Difference is not a curse when we listen to each other, and when we agree based on principle, it brings blessings. In argument, solutions will be found.”
To find those solutions, he will need to avoid angering the army and security forces. In Ethiopian politics, “security, intelligence, military are the gods,” said Masresha Taye, an expert observer. “If you know God, will you be afraid of him,” he added. “Abiy and the top OPDO cadres, they know God. They know the intelligence. They know the security. They have been there for 20-plus years. They know who is doing what.”
The Tigrayan-dominated army and intelligence services could find Abiy well qualified because he speaks their language and understands their needs. They also might find him difficult to work with because they know each other so well. That will depend on his agenda. Abiy is likely to reshuffle his cabinet soon. At the moment, Getachew Assefa, the director of the national intelligence and security service and a veteran TPLF official, remains directly attached to the prime minister’s office and holds the rank of minister without portfolio. How these godlike security officials operate may be mysterious for others, but Abiy “has been groomed within that system,” Masresha adds. He knows how to navigate the military bureaucracy.
That knowledge matters because, as prime minister and commander in chief of the armed forces, Abiy is expected to preside over a major military reorganization. Before the previous prime minister resigned, he announced the promotion of three major generals — one Oromo, one Tigrayan, and one Amhara — to newly created deputy posts under Gen. Samora Younes, the army’s Tigrayan chief of staff. With their promotions, it seemed clear that one of them was being positioned to succeed Samora as chief of staff. Abiy will be able to influence the selection of Samora’s successor, but any deal must ultimately be negotiated with the army. The negotiators could make an ethnic calculation to address Oromo or Amhara grievances about not having a large enough presence in the military’s top ranks.
Just as Abiy will not have a completely free hand in determining the military’s leadership, he will also have to build consensus before making other key policy decisions.
It is worth recalling that the eight-day meeting of the EPRDF Council that culminated in Abiy’s selection gave him just 108 votes out of 169 (less of a consensus than his predecessor), and it took six weeks after Hailemariam resigned before the ruling coalition finally made up its mind on a successor. This suggests that there is serious discord among Ethiopia’s leadership. However, the fact that Abiy was not elected in a unanimous vote points to a rare glimmer of democracy within the EPRDF’s Leninist-inspired tradition — and that is a major development in EPRDF culture.
Some of that discord may be easing. Abiy’s deputy prime minister, Demeke Mekonnen, the chairman of the Amhara National Democratic Movement, announced over the weekend that “the growing mistrust” had receded. Demeke withdrew from the leadership race at the 11th hour, with the region’s spokesperson cryptically announcing that the Amhara party “played its own role” in the process of “electing a competent leader.”
Abiy will now be obliged to walk a fine line to satisfy the aspirations of his fellow Oromo, especially pressures from constituencies who say they facilitated his ride to the top. He must also be careful not to alienate others, particularly the military. “If Abiy holds the full power and responsibilities of the premiership and establishes his own cabinet including the heads of intelligence and military and opens the political space for all, it will be a new era for Ethiopia,” Lammi Begna, an Oromo youth activist who has helped spearhead anti-government protests over the last years, told me by phone from Oslo, Norway. “Our demand is for real change, and we want it to be effective very soon.”
Whatever changes Abiy chooses to introduce as prime minister, he will have to negotiate with other factions of the ruling party; in the EPRDF’s politburo, which tends to set government policy, the OPDO holds only nine out of 36 seats. And even in parliament, the OPDO does not have a majority. Abiy’s room for maneuver will therefore depend on cooperation from the EPRDF’s other three parties, especially Oromia’s newfound Amhara allies.
So far, he is sounding the right notes. “I present my offer to Ethiopians that are here and also abroad that we forgive one another and close yesterday’s chapter and start another,” he told lawmakers in his speech to parliament.
In the weeks before Abiy’s selection as leader, even the most seasoned observers were mulling the possibility of a Yugoslav-style fragmentation in Ethiopia. Now, for the first time in years, there is reason for cautious optimism.
Rohingya refugees who were intercepted by Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency off Langkawi island, are escorted in their boat as they are handed over to immigration authorities, at the Kuala Kedah ferry jetty in Malaysia April 3, 2018. Source: Reuters
HUMANITARIAN agency MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station) has announced it will deploy its search and rescue vessel MY Phoenix to the Andaman Sea for a one-month observation mission, as more boats carrying Rohingya refugees from Burma (Myanmar) are expected to head for Southeast Asia.
Malaysian authorities on Tuesday intercepted a boat carrying 56 Rohingya Muslim refugees from Burma off the northern island of Langkawi, with rights groups predicting a further wave of boats during the months seas are calmer.
“How can we sit back as people risk their lives and the lives of their loved ones to escape what the UN has described as ethnic cleansing?” said MOAS Cofounder and Director Regina Catrambone in a statement.
“As always, MOAS will stand in solidarity with one of the world’s most vulnerable refugee communities. Since our first mission in 2014, we have been a lighthouse of hope for thousands of people in danger, and this is what we will continue to be,” she said.
The UN has said more than 671,000 Rohingya have fled Rakhine State into Cox’s Bazar since Aug 25 in response to so-called “clearing operations” by Burma’s Tatmadaw army. The military stands accused of mass killings, rape and arson in Muslim villages.
MY Phoenix in the Mediterranean Sea. Source: Matthew Willcocks/ MOAS
MOAS was founded in 2014 in response to tragedies in 2013 in which over 2,400 men, women and children drowned in the Mediterranean fleeing conflict in Libya, Syria and Iraq.
It says it has assisted more than 40,000 people making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean, and since September 2017 has shifted its focus to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
Humanitarian agencies have warned of a “humanitarian crisis within the crisis” as Bangladesh’s approaching wet season could see flooding and disease ravage overcrowded camps in Cox’s Bazar that are now home to more than 830,000 refugees.
Tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims fled sectarian violence in Rakhine in 2012, with a peak in 2015 of an estimated 25,000 people fleeing across the Andaman Sea for Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.
MOAS previously deployed the Phoenix in Oct 2015 to run an observation mission for six months.
When Kelli Rowlette received the results from a DNA sample she had sent to a popular genealogy website, she assumed there had been a mistake.
The test showed that her DNA matched a sample from a doctor more than 500 miles away — and, though she had never heard of him, Ancestry.com predicted a parent-child relationship between the two.
At the time, Rowlette was not aware that more than 36 years ago, her parents had struggled to conceive.
She did not know her mother had undergone artificial insemination, nor did she — or her parents — know her mother’s fertility doctor had allegedly used his own sperm to get her pregnant with Rowlette.
The account comes from a lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court in Idaho. In it, Rowlette accuses Gerald E. Mortimer, a now-retired obstetrician gynecologist in Idaho Falls, of fraud and medical negligence, among other things.
Mortimer could not immediately be reached for comment, and it’s not clear whether he has an attorney.
In the early 1980s, Rowlette’s parents, Howard Fowler and Sally Ashby, were married and living in Idaho Falls, not far from the Wyoming border.
The pair was having a hard time conceiving. Mortimer diagnosed Fowler with a low sperm count and Ashby with a tipped uterus, a condition in which the uterus tilts toward the spine, according to the lawsuit.
The doctor recommended that Ashby undergo a procedure in which she would be inseminated with both sperm from her husband and an anonymous donor who matched the couple’s specifications, the lawsuit says. The couple requested a donor who was in college and taller than 6 feet with brown hair and blue eyes — and Mortimer told them that he had found a donor matching their description, the suit says.
But the lawsuit claims that when Mortimer performed the procedure in the summer of 1980, he used his own sperm. He did not match the couple’s specifications.
Ashby became pregnant and, in May 1981, Mortimer delivered his own child — never divulging the secret, according to the lawsuit.
Mortimer remained Ashby’s doctor for several years until the she and her husband moved to Washington state.
“Dr. Mortimer cried when Ms. Ashby informed him they were moving,” according to the lawsuit. “Dr. Mortimer knew Kelli Rowlette was his biological daughter but did not disclose this to Ms. Ashby or Mr. Fowler.”
It wasn’t until last year that the decades-long secret started to unravel — when Rowlette sent in a DNA sample and it told her something was off.
University of British Columbia professor Wendy Roth explains genetic ancestry tests and how these tests influence how people understand race.(YouTube/Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies)
In July, Rowlette, from Benton County, Wash., received the notification about the match from Ancestry.com. She told her mother, expressing her “disappointment in the unreliability of the service” — and her mother recognized the doctor’s name, according to the lawsuit.
“Ms. Ashby contacted Mr. Fowler, now her ex-husband, and relayed the information she obtained from Ancestry.com. Mr. Fowler was also devastated by the news,” the lawsuit states, explaining that the parents “painfully labored” over whether they should tell their daughter.
But several months later, Rowlette discovered the shocking truth on her own.
In August, Rowlette was helping to sort through her parents’ old papers when she ran across her birth certificate. It had been signed by the doctor who delivered her — Gerald Mortimer, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit states that Rowlette was “horrified” and contacted her parents “in a panic to relay what she had found.”
After news of the lawsuit, a spokeswoman for Ancestry.com said in a statement Tuesday that DNA testing “helps people make new and powerful discoveries about their family history and identity.
“We are committed to delivering the most accurate results, however with this, people may learn of unexpected connections,” it read. “With Ancestry, customers maintain ownership and control over their DNA data. Anyone who takes a test can change their DNA matching settings at any time, meaning that if they opt out, their profile and relationship will not be visible to other customers.”
Since the situation came to light, Rowlette and her parents have been “suffering immeasurably,” the lawsuit says.
The family is suing Mortimer and Obstetrics and Gynecology Associates of Idaho Falls, accusing them of medical negligence, fraud, battery, negligent infliction of emotional distress and breach of contract.
The family’s attorney could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday by The Washington Post.
It is vitally necessary to understand the role of UNHRC in the modern global context. There is a tendency among the young left oriented atavists to classify every international institute, formed under the influence of UN, as reactionary and a new instrument of exploitation. In their analysis, the factor of international labour and its intervention is not taken into consideration.
It is futile to classify UNHRC and other international organisations as instruments of global capital and imperialism, and neglect the power of organised labour however conservative it appears. In the modern world side by side of global capital, international labour plays a massive role in the fight for human rights and other social rights.
On the other hand, it is hilarious to claim Donald Trump has tightened the HR conditions on Lanka! Truth is the power of international labour has compelled Lanka to retreat. Already power of labour is indicated by signing the DSP +, which would give much benefit to Lanka. Donald Trump had to bow down to the power of international labour even though he is living in dream world of fascism.
All liberal analysts agree that one of the most unfortunate features of the present time in Lanka is that the government alliance shows signs of disintegration.
‘This is on account of the rivalry between the two parties; including their leadership that shows no signs of abating, and for which statesmanship is required if it is to be overcome.’
Local government elections
The dissolved condition of the government was seen in its poor electoral performance at the local government elections held last month. UNP did not launch a dynamic campaign.
The opposition parties made use of the co-signed resolution to allege that the government was too subservient to foreign powers. They said ‘country sold to US’, to conduct an emotive campaign against the government.
It used arguments of nationalism, patriotism and betrayal that showed, if not countered and crushed, its potential to sweep the government off its feet at other national elections to come.
This has aroused the ‘for democracy peoples movement’ which has criticized both Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and President Maithripala Sirisena.
In this difficult context, there is a positive role that the international community can play.
Its nurturing role can be seen in the manner in which specialized international agencies have taken on responsibility for supporting the establishment of viable reconciliation mechanisms that the government has promised.
It would be more constructive for the international community to be supportive rather than add to the pressures on the government in a manner that would further undermine it electorally.
An example of constructive support would be the role played by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). For many years this organisation has played a key role in gaining humanitarian access to the war zones of the North and East.
Yes, it is true that the sessions of the UNHRC in Geneva no longer occupy media headlines as they did in the past when the fascistic Mahinda government used the occasion to confront the international community; but they are still very important.
Because it does not mean that the country is able to deal successfully with the issues identified in the resolution. The suspicions and mistrust that continue to undermine inter-nationality relations within the country are an obstruction to their implementation.
TNA and Tamil Diaspora
The TNA and the Tamil Diaspora represented by the Global Tamil Forum have been urging the UNHRC in Geneva to extend the period of their scrutiny of the implementation of the resolution. This is because of their concern that if such international scrutiny ceases there will be even less incentive for the government to continue with the task. Tamil leaders were patient but were pressing the Yahapalanaya to implement the conditions accepted in the UNHRC agreement.
A delegation of the TNA supported by the Global Tamil Forum visited the United States of America at the time when Lanka has been under scrutiny at the UN in Geneva.
TNA was with appointments secured from the relevant highest levels of authority at the UN, US Administration and Government and the Norwegian Government. Before that TNA continued engagement with the Government of Lanka to encourage implementation of 2015 manifesto commitments, and commitments made to all Lankans and the international community.
The delegation included Sumanthiran, Lanka Member of Parliament of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), and Father S J Emmanuel, President of the Global Tamil Forum (GTF), now resident in Lanka. Among other serious concerns, the delegation discussed the need to demand Government of Lanka to commit to a time-bound implementation plan of resolutions 30/1 & 34/1 of the UNHRC and the need for UNHRC monitoring and oversight over Sri Lanka beyond March 2019. Delivering a joint statement in Geneva, the UK said Lanka is safer and freer than it was in 2015.
However, it added that it was disappointed that the pace of progress has been slow. It stated that “Much still remains to be done to implement Sri Lanka's commitments. We remain concerned about reports of abuse of authority by some security officials.
And multiple incidents of inter-communal violence, attacks, and hate speech against minorities are alarming and demonstrate the need for reconciliation efforts.
As Sri Lanka acknowledged with its co-sponsorship of resolution 30/1, devolution of political authority through constitutional reform is integral to lasting reconciliation and non-recurrence of violations and abuses.
Families of disappeared persons from all communities have waited too long for answers.
We urge that the Office of Missing Persons be fully operational without delay, and for meaningful steps to establish the other transitional justice mechanisms outlined in resolution 30/1.
Effective security sector reforms, repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and release of more military-occupied land to civilian ownership will all help build trust and confidence.”
As the search for justice for victims of the Tamil genocide continues.
– While the application of ‘universal jurisdiction’ by individual states to prosecute war criminals must be pursued rigorously, the way forward for member states of the UN Human Rights Council is to lobby the UN Security Council for an ICC referral or for theestablishment of an international special criminal tribunal for Sri Lanka.
Part 1 of this article showed the UN Human Rights Council’s prolonged reliance on the Sri Lankan government to prosecute members of its armed forces and senior political leaders, cannot be sustained any longer – those responsible for “some of the worst crimes in the 21st century.” And it was obvious a hybrid court is definitely not in Sri Lanka’s agenda.
Part 2 herein makes crystal clear UNHRC’s prolonged reliance on Sri Lanka to prosecute its armed forces is unsustainable, examining the role played by Sri Lanka’s current president, the plethora of Sri Lanka’s lies, the phenomena of double talk, its sworn loyalty to its armed forces as well as its ‘war on terror’ narrative, the never ending triumphalism mentality, the volatile political situation in Sri Lanka and more – that does not bode well, going forward in the search for justice for the victims of the Tamil genocide.
Sri Lanka agreed to a hybrid judicial mechanism:
Sri Lanka’s underlying approach to fulfilling its criminal justice commitments is based upon cunning, deception, untruths and unsubstantiated claims as will be seen in the parts to this article yet to follow. In the context of criminal justice, one of four pillars of transitional justice, it is necessary to look at the commitments Sri Lanka signed up to – as a co-sponsor no less of the two resolutions on ‘Promoting Reconciliation, Accountability and Human Rights’, which requires it, in good faith; under 30/1 para 6: “to establish a judicial mechanism with a special counsel to investigate allegations of violations and abuses of human rights and international humanitarian law, with the participation in that judicial mechanism, including the special counsel’s office, of Commonwealth and other foreign judges, defence lawyers and authorized prosecutors and investigators; and under para 7: to reform its domestic law (creating enabling legislation) to ensure it can implement effectively its own commitments.”
President Sirisena has openly said he wouldn’t prosecute his army:
President Sirisena, (including the coalition and the opposition) has rejected wholesale the idea of “foreign participation” and has said he won’t allow his armed forces to be prosecuted. Both of which, as per his public declaration, is but the stark reality on the ground in Sri Lanka, which the UNHRC must face up to and come to terms with; first it’s important to comprehend president Sirisena is not going to put himself in jeopardy as part of the regime that committed the offence, some taking place, under his watch, at a critical time when he served as defense minister at the last stages of the war, when some of the mass atrocities committed against civilians happened; the time when surrendering LTTE leaders and the rank and file were executed and instances of enforced disappearances took place; His name could be in the list of perpetrators, possibly in the OISL report (OHCHR Investigation on Sri Lanka), the president once boasting he stopped the publication of that list.
Prosecuting the army and ‘foreign participation’ are politically damaging:
Both prosecuting the army and ‘foreign participation’ are politically explosive propositions. If considered, would spell doom for Sirisena’s governing coalition (or for whosoever is in power) which is now hanging by a thread – the use of the race card is a malady found to be normal in Sri Lanka, where its politicians use it against each other for their political survival and one-upmanship as they vie for the affections and acceptance of their Sinhala Buddhist base.
![16-year-old Palestinian Ahed Al-Tamimi, appears in court after she was taken into custody by Israeli soldiers, in Ramallah, West Bank on 28 December 2017 [Issam Rimawi/Anadolu Agency]](https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/2017_12-28-Ahed-al-Tamimi.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&quality=75&strip=all&ssl=1)
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is sweating on a supreme court judgment this week. Photograph: Mauro Pimentel/AFP/Getty Images
Abiy Ahmed, newly elected Prime Minister of Ethiopia, addresses the house of Parliament in Addis Ababa, after the swearing in ceremony on April 2, 2018. 
