The New York-based Centre for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) reported that Abbas Edalat, a professor of computer science and mathematics at Imperial College in London, had been detained by Iran since mid-April.
"We are urgently seeking information from the Iranian authorities following reports of the arrest of a British-Iranian dual national," a Foreign Office spokesperson told Reuters. He said he had no further details about the case at this time.
According to the rights group, Edalat refused to post bail, arguing that he should be freed unconditionally because he has not committed any crimes.
His family eventually posted bail for him on 21 April, but the Revolutionary Court in Tehran did not release him, citing documentation problems.
It is not clear what charges he is facing, but other Western dual nationals arrested in Iran have been accused of spying.
Earlier this month, family and supporters marked the second anniversary of the detention of British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe in Iran.
The CHRI condemned the "arbitrary arrests of dual nationals without transparency and lack of due process".
"The Iranian judiciary and the security establishment, particularly the Revolutionary Guards, are responsible for the well being of these detainees," the group said.
Edalat has been an outspoken opponent of sanctions and war against Iran.
"Unjustified sanctions only pave the road to a military attack on Iran. The West must change course and enter into negotiations in good faith if a catastrophe for the region and the whole world is to be avoided," he wrote in an article published by the Guardian in 2011.
The Revolutionary Guards have arrested at least 30 dual nationals since 2015, most for alleged espionage.
Iran’s growing presence in Syria has forced Israel’s security establishment to plan for the worst.
A picture taken on April 14, 2018 shows an Israeli military vehicle deployed in the Golan Heights near the border with Syria. (JALAA MAREY/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
BYSHALOM LIPNER-
Israelis gathered last week to celebrate the 70th anniversary of their independence. Independence Day has a singularly festive rhythm and protocol — including an air show. This year, more than a few spectators averred that the Israeli air force planes overhead were rehearsing for a showdown against Iranian forces entrenched across the Syrian border.
Iran is a constant source of grief for Israeli strategic planners. They share the objective of blocking Iran — whose supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, considers Israel “a cancerous tumor”— from ever exacting its wrath against the Jewish state. But the strategy for achieving this goal has not always been straightforward.
Two schools of thought governed the Iran debate during my years in government. One advocated for Israel taking a back seat, which would compel members of the international community to step up and assume primary responsibility for this global menace. The other countered that Israel had no choice but to take the wheel — otherwise, the world might conclude that Israel was indifferent to the prospect of a nuclear Iran and show little independent resolve to constrain the Islamic Republic. (Evidence suggests that the threat of Israeli action to thwart Tehran’s nuclear ambitions helped induce others to isolate Iran.)
Jerusalem continues to dance the Iran two-step today. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is building itself a permanent infrastructure just across Israel’s northern border in the Golan Heights.
On Feb. 10, Iran launched a drone laden with explosives into northern Israel, which Israel quickly shot down. The event was heralded by the military brass as “the first time [Israel] saw Iran do something against Israel — not by proxy.” But when the air base from which the drone was dispatched came under missile attack two months later, Israel equivocated. Soon after New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman reported being told by a senior Israel Defense Forces officer that this was “the first time we attacked live Iranian targets,” the paper updated the story to reflect Israel’s refusal to either “confirm or deny” the incident.
Then, last week, after Khamenei’s advisor Ali Akbar Velayati threatened that “Israel’s crime” would “not remain without response,” the IDF released satellite images of Iran’s drone deployment in Syria. Israel also decided to scale back its participation in this week’s Red Flag air force exercises in Alaska, signaling that its fighter jets might be needed closer to home. The combined effect of these measures is a carefully crafted message from Israel to Iran: We don’t want an escalation, but we know where you are — and we have the means available to make sure that you behave.
It appears that Tehran is taking these Israeli warnings seriously, if the placating rhetoric of Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is any indication. Zarif told CBS this weekend that he does “not believe that we are headed towards regional war.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, keeping up the heat, used the backdrop of a visit later that day to the IDF General Staff to let the world know he doesn’t trust Zarif and that Iran’s military chiefs are actually displaying the country’s true, belligerent colors. Recent cargo shipments from Iran to Syria have lent additional credence to Netanyahu’s suspicions. From the perspective of Israel’s leaders, they now see their own mission as guaranteeing that the burden of proof remains on Iran.
How Israel contends with this challenge will depend on the Security Cabinet — composed of Netanyahu and 11 other ministers — which will likely accelerate the pace of its consultations if the situation worsens dramatically. Their discussions are certain to be informed by Israel’s abiding credo to “defenditself by itself.” Although echoed repeatedly by presidents of the UnitedStates, this imperative has never been more acute, with America now angling to vacate the Syrian theater and leave Israel to its own devices.
After former U.S. President Barack Obama punted on his commitment to hold Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime accountable for its use of chemical weapons — and the subsequent breakdown of a deal brokered by the United States and Russia for the dismantling of Syria’s chemical stockpiles — President Donald Trump now wants out entirely. “We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now,” he told an Ohio rally in late March. The White House also pushed back against French President Emmanuel Macron’s claim that he had “convinced”
Trump to stay in Syria for the long haul. Now, Trump says he wants to deny Iran an “open season to the Mediterranean,” but that he “want[s] to come home.” Either way, the statements issued by Trump, Macron, and British Prime Minister Theresa May following their combined April 14 strike on Syria left no doubt that the Iranian presence in the country is not their foremost concern.
Iran is Netanyahu’s signature issue. And he has the wind at his back. His Likud party continues to ride high in the polls. More importantly, on the narrow question of an Iranian beachhead on Israel’s border, Netanyahu is channeling the prevailing consensus.
When the Iran nuclear deal was signed in 2015, Israelis were overwhelmingly opposed to the agreement. Since then, however, a number of former and current Israeli security professionals have begun accentuating the deal’s positives (while not ignoring its flaws). But when it comes to Iran’s exploits in Syria and Lebanon, there is no silver lining. Tehran’s sponsorship of Assad’s brutal dictatorship and of Hezbollah’s terror campaign against Israel represents a tangible danger to Israel’s national security.
All this amounts to a green light for Netanyahu to do almost anything he deems necessary for the sake of deterring Iran in Syria. When he huddles with his advisors, they will assess the erosion of Israel’s deconfliction channel with Russia. Moscow’s unprecedented public accusation of Israeli responsibility for the April 9 attack on Syria’s T-4 airfield, and reports of an imminent Russian delivery of sophisticated S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems both signal that Israel’s latitude to rap Iran’s knuckles in Syria could be severely curtailed. When they consider this together with America’s withdrawal from the scene — pinned on Trump’s dubious hopes that “increased engagement from our friends [in the region]” will fill the vacuum — decision-makers in Jerusalem are likely to conclude that their window to break Iran’s malignant siege of Israel’s north may be closing.
On a strategic level, Israeli officials will likely calculate that their operational flexibility could be further restricted if rumors of a new and updated Iran deal prove to be true. Media accounts of Trump’s meetings with Macron in Washington this week suggest that such an agreement might be in the offing. Israel’s government will be cautious about rocking that boat if it lifts anchor for fear of jeopardizing its relationship with a sympathetic White House.
There is also a political calculus. Netanyahu and his ministers can count on broad popular support if they are perceived to be defending Israel against Iranian incursions.
As a bonus, they will justifiably expect Israelis to rally around the effort, which will deflect attention from other, more divisive issues. At the moment, controversial legislation on topics such as religious conversion, military draft exemptions, and curbs on the authority of the courts feature prominently on the agenda for the Knesset’s summer session, which begins this week, and any discord on these issues could spell disaster for the health of Netanyahu’s fragile coalition. There’s also the matter of ongoing police investigations into Netanyahu’s alleged financial improprieties, which he’d prefer to remove from the headlines.
Considerations on the other side of the ledger will also occupy Israeli leaders. They will have no choice but to brace for almost certain Iranian retaliation. If Israel does lash out at Iranian assets, Hezbollah’s arsenal — upgraded since 2006 — will likely be unleashed against Israeli population centers. If the past offers any clues, Iranian agents will also try to strike at soft Israeli and Jewish civilian targets— embassies, tourist buses, Jewish community centers — around the world. Casualty tolls could impact Netanyahu’s domestic mandate to pursue Iran.
Israel’s policy stewards will also have to consider the vicissitudes of international opinion and how the world reacts to whatever action Israel takes. With Iran and its proxies crying foul, Israel will have to keep convincing its friends that its cause is defensive and legitimate. If the IDF is pressed into service against Iranian targets in Syria, Israel will have to work hard to maintain the high ground, with its diplomats pressing the case that Iran, and not Israel, is the aggressor.
Finally, the Security Cabinet will be on constant guard to ensure that any conflict in Syria does not trigger a larger war that is in nobody’s interest. The volatility of the Middle East today cannot be overstated. Iranian-backed militias are pivoting away from operations against the Islamic State and toward attacks on Western forces, Lebanon’s first parliamentary election in nine years is scheduled for May 6, Trump must decide before May 12 whether or not to reimpose suspended sanctions on Iran, and the United States is set to inaugurate its new Jerusalem embassy on May 14. The next few weeks could see major regional upheavals.
It will be unfortunate — but not surprising — if things get much worse before they get better.
President Trump had been ranting for 2 minutes and
52 seconds about former FBI director James B. Comey, “fake news CNN” and
the Justice Department when “Fox & Friends” co-host Steve Doocy
interjected.
“It's your Justice Department!”
Doocy exclaimed while interviewing Trump by phone on Fox News's morning
show on Thursday. “Mr. President, Mr. President, you're the Republican
in charge. You've got a Republican running it.”
Even Doocy, an ardent Trump apologist, seemed flabbergasted by the logical fallacy of Trump's deep-state conspiracy theory.
President Trump, for the
first time, said that Michael Cohen represented him in efforts to
silence Stormy Daniels in an interview with "Fox & Friends" April
26.(Allie Caren/The Washington Post)
“I answer this all the time,” Trump
replied. “Because of the fact that they have this witch hunt going on
with people in the Justice Department that shouldn't be there, they have
a witch hunt against the president of the United States going on, I've
taken the position — and I don't have to take this position, maybe I'll
change — that I will not be involved with the Justice Department. I will
wait till this is over. It's a total — it's all lies, and it's a
horrible thing that's going on, a horrible thing.”
Trump was, of course, venting his frustration at
special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation of Russian
interference in the 2016 presidential election, a probe Mueller took
over upon appointment by Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein.
Trump has repeatedly criticized Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff
Sessions, who recused himself from the investigation because of his role
in Trump's campaign.
Sessions, Rosenstein and Mueller are all Republicans.
As
Trump went on, increasingly irate, Doocy and co-hosts Ainsley Earhardt
and Brian Kilmeade appeared uncomfortable, looking down and exchanging
glances. They tried to move Trump along to another subject.
“Okay,” Doocy said, after Trump had raged for an additional 37 seconds.
The president continued.
“All right,” Earhardt said.
On
and on Trump fumed about being “very disappointed in my Justice
Department.” He spoke for 34 more seconds. “Fox & Friends” cut away
from the hosts' facial reactions, showing a wall bearing Trump's
photograph and a live shot of the White House.
“All right,” Kilmeade said, taking a turn.
The president would not be stopped.
“By the way,” he said, elevating his volume just a
bit, as he beat back attempts to cut him off, “the only collusion is the
collusion with the Democrats and the Russians.”
For 40 more seconds, Trump extended his monologue.
At last, Kilmeade managed to redirect Trump with this: “All right, let's talk about Michael Cohen.”
The episode was reminiscent of the way Trump bulldozed through a February phone interview
on Jeanine Pirro's Fox News show. The president appears to favor phone
interviews because he can more easily talk over his questioners than he
could if faced with nonverbal cues in person or on camera.
What
is striking is that Doocy, Earhardt, Kilmeade and Pirro are Trump
sympathizers. And in the interview on Thursday, the “Fox & Friends”
hosts seemed to be trying to save Trump from spiraling as much as
attempting to regain control of the conversation.
By ignoring them, Trump showed again that his impulses cannot be curbed, even by those looking out for his interests.
Eliminating imbalances is a core component of the Trump administration’s international economic policy. One policy approach has been the threat of tariffs against China.
by Michael R. Czinkota-
( April 25, 2018, Washington DC, Sri Lanka Guardian) When foreign governments shop for defense supplies, they are not solely motivated by price and quality. In light of the trade balance effects of major acquisitions such as aircraft or defense products, international customers often require U.S. vendors to purchase goods from them in order to “offset” the trade balance effects large purchases have on their trade flows. In light of enormous U.S. trade deficits, it is time for the United States to reciprocate with offset demands of our trading partners. Frequently we find ourselves in conditions where foreign sales to us are major and our sales to importers and their nations are minor. This leads to trade relations which are out of kilter. U.S. firms have accommodated foreign offset demands for decades. Now is the time when some give-back by our trading partners is the right medicine to improve world trade imbalances.
Offsets are industrial compensation arrangements demanded (so far only) by foreign governments as a condition for making major purchases, such as military hardware. Sometimes, these arrangements are directly related to the goods being traded. For instance, the Spanish air force’s planes – American-made McDonnell Douglass F/A-18 Hornets – use rudders, fuselage components, and speed brakes made by Spanish companies. U.S. sellers of the planes have provided the relevant technology information so that Spanish firms are now successful new producers in the industry. Under offset conditions, U.S. companies also often help export a client country’s goods go international, or even support the performance of tourism services. For example, the ‘Cleopatra Scheme’ allowed foreign suppliers to Egypt to meet their agreed upon offset obligations through package tours for international tourists.
In 2015, U.S. firms entered into 38 new offset agreements where they agreed to cause purchases with 15 countries valued at $3.1 billion. In 2017, the total U.S. trade deficit was $566 billion after it imported $2.895 trillion of goods and services while exporting $2.329 trillion. No country has a bigger trade surplus with the United States than China. In 2017, the U.S. deficit with China climbed to its highest level on record, amounting to a gap of $375 billion.
Eliminating imbalances is a core component of the Trump administration’s international economic policy. One policy approach has been the threat of tariffs against China. One effective supplemental strategy could be the instigation of offset agreements with major trade surplus nations.
For instance, many American imports that contribute to the trade deficit are capital goods, such as computers and telecom equipment. An offset agreement between China and the United States could require China to use American-made components, perhaps even from Chinese owned plants. An example could be the export of Smithfield ham from the U.S. to be served in company cafeterias in China. Then there are excellent opportunities for Chinese tourists, particularly if equipped with high-spend budgets.
The American trade deficit is not easily resolved. Government would be well served to explore non-traditional options in order to develop more than one fulcrum for leverage. New use of offset agreements – which have provided our trading partners with past success at our expense – could help revitalize American industries and bring a new sense of balance to trade relationships. Our government should encourage offset commitments by foreign firms and countries who sell a lot to us. America deserves to reap the benefits!
Michael Czinkota (czinkotm@georgetown.edu) teaches international business and trade at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and the University of Kent, U.K. His key book (with Ilkka Ronkainen) is “International Marketing” (10th ed., CENGAGE). Lisa Burgoa contributed to this commentary.
Aleksandar Vučić will accept independence only if Serbia gets something concrete in return
Aleksandar Vučić portrays himself as a tireless martyr for Serbia. ‘I am squeezed on a daily basis,’ he says. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty
By Shaun Walker in Belgrade-
When Nato bombed Serbia in 1999, Aleksandar Vučić was information minister, enforcing censorship rules for the country’s president, Slobodan Milošević, who would later be indicted for war crimes.
Nearly two decades later, Vučić himself is Serbia’s president. Claiming to have shed many of his former nationalist views, and brushing off accusations of authoritarianism, he is now seen by the international community as the man who could sign an agreement that would eventually bring reconciliation over Kosovo.
The former province of Serbia pulled away from Belgrade under international supervision after the Nato air campaign, and proclaimed independence in 2008. Serbia still considers the territory its own.
In an interview with the Guardian in Belgrade this week, Vučić said he believed there is now a brief window of “six months or a year” in which it might be possible to sign a deal.
“We are ready to discuss every single issue, we are ready to take into consideration every single proposal that would mean a compromise solution,” he said, provided Serbia is offered something in return.
Kosovo is recognised by more than 100 nations, but there are still five EU countries that do not recognise it, mainly because they fear it could set a precedent for their own domestic territorial disputes. Nor do China, India and Russia.
The hope in Brussels is that a deal could be struck that would lead to Belgrade acknowledging if not formally recognising Kosovo’s independence, and would pave the way for Kosovo to take a seat at the UN and for both nations to begin a path towards EU membership.
Vučić has been playing up these hopes, but in return wants a package of benefits for Serbia. He is already involved in regular EU-supervised dialogue in Brussels with Kosovo’s president, Hashim Thaçi, which attempts to implement the provisions of an interim agreement signed five years ago. Thaçi also told the Guardian last week that he expected a comprehensive agreement to be reached this year.
Vučić has also spent the past months engaged in a whirlwind of meetings with western leaders, trying to convince them that they should offer a compromise solution that brings concrete benefits for Serbia rather than simply acquiesce to the facts on the ground.
That Vučić could be the one to sign the deal is remarkable, given that in the 1990s he was part of the Radical party, which sought a Greater Serbia and supported the Serb political and military formations fighting in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.
Kosovo’s president, Hashim Thaçi, also expects agreement to be reached this year. Photograph: Armend Nimani/AFP/Getty
Vučić, however, is a man of contradictions. He dominates the country’s political scene, having transformed the presidency from a largely ceremonial role to the centre of power after moving over from prime minister’s seat last year. Unlike other domineering leaders, however, there are no wild gesticulations or frothing oratory. His voice rarely rises above a mumble, and he uses whispered emotional appeals, portraying himself as a tireless martyr for the Serbian cause.
“I am squeezed on a daily basis,” he said. “It’s mainly Kosovo to tell you truth. Everything else is peanuts. I have invested at least 400 days so far in the last four years since I became prime minister, only on Kosovo. It takes your energy out, and people don’t see it, they don’t understand it.”
After meeting Angela Merkel in Berlin this month, he said he had not been able to sleep the night before and was unable to eat during the meeting because he was so nervous about the fate of Serbia.
Vučić’s critics say this is all part of a carefully constructed image of a selfless fighter for Serbia that masks a raw drive to consolidate power.
“This is kind of a new style in world politics, creating a public image as the ‘best’ person in Serbia,” said Boban Stojanović, of Belgrade University’s faculty of political science. “But actually we have corruption, little free media and are on the path to a one-party system.”
The EU and other institutions have also criticised Vučić for a media crackdown, an accusation he brushes off, saying the media atmosphere is partisan on both sides and complaining of a “campaign 24/7 against me” from independent media.
European leaders may be willing to extend credit to Vučić though, both because he is seen as able to deliver a compromise package on Kosovo that a weaker leader would not be able to sell to Serbian public opinion, and because of desires to counter Russian influence in the region.
The European council president, Donald Tusk, who was in Belgrade to meet Vučić on Wednesday, said after their talks that he viewed the Serbian president as a soulmate and that Vučić was “living proof that you can be at the same time a strong patriot and a reasonable pragmatist”.
At a time when relations between Russia and the west are at a low point, Vučić perhaps more than any other world leader is walking a tightrope between the two, insisting European integration is a top priority for Serbia while maintaining very close links with its traditional ally in Moscow.
Vučić (right) visits Russian president Vladimir Putin last year. Photograph: Mikhail Svetlov/Getty
In a sign that he still performs a careful balancing act between past and present, he declined to say whether he would refer to nationalist Vojislav Šešelj, his former political mentor, as a war criminal, after a UN court in the Hague this month overturned an acquittal for inciting crimes during the 1990s.
But he did say he regretted many of his own earlier nationalist outbursts.
“Do you know someone in the entire world that is not a sinner? I haven’t met that guy so far. The difference is that I do acknowledge that and I was totally sincere with our people.”
Vučić is still only 48, and many say that with his appetite for power and sense of historical mission, he could be planning to stay around for the long haul, perhaps eyeing a decades-long reign of power in the mould of Milo Djukanović in neighbouring Montenegro.
“I can guarantee it’s not going to happen,” said Vučić, briefly laughing before transitioning back to his characteristic beleaguered whisper. He said he would “most probably not” stand for the presidency again in 2022: “I don’t have that kind of energy.”
A large banner adorns the exterior of City Hall ahead of the upcoming summit between North and South Korea in Seoul, South Korea April 25, 2018. Source: Reuters/Jorge Silva
ON Friday morning, Kim Jong Un will become the first North Korean leader to step over the border into the South since the Korean War broke out in 1950.
Not only that, it will be the first summit between the leaders of these two battling nations in over a decade. On the table for discussion are topics that have been at the forefront of international tension for months, years, even decades.
It promises to be a momentous occasion on many levels, so to get up to speed on what could be the curtain-raiser to a new North Korea, here’s a handy explainer of tomorrow’s Inter-Korea Summit.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in will greet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the border where the latter will cross a military demarcation line to enter the South for the first summit between the two sides in more than a decade.
South Korean honour guards will then escort the leaders to a welcome ceremony at a plaza in Panmunjom, or “truce village” where the summit is to be held.
Official dialogue between Kim and Moon will begin at 10.30 am local time at the Peace House in Panmunjom, an hour after Kim is scheduled the cross the border at 9.30 am. Kim will be accompanied by nine officials, Moon’s delegation is comprised of seven officials, including the ministers for defence, foreign affairs and unification.
A general view shows the interior of the Peace House, the venue for the inter-Korean summit, at the truce village of Panmunjom inside the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, South Korea, April 25, 2018. Source: Yonhap via Reuters
Why so tense?
North and South Korea are technically still at war. The Korean War of the 50’s concluded with an armistice rather than a peace treaty. Since then, although major conflict has been avoided, there have been occasional outbreaks of violence, most recently in 2010 when 50 people were killed in an attack on a South Korean navy ship and several nearby islands.
Relations between the two have remained frosty and Pyongyang’s ever increasing nuclear arsenal and threats have strained relations further. The complete lack of contact between the two leaders is testament to the contempt felt on both sides.
People wear masks of South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un during a pro-unification rally ahead of the upcoming summit between North and South Korea in Seoul, South Korea April 25, 2018. Source: Reuters/Jorge Silva
Why is it so important?
This is a major sign that North Korea is lowering its defences and opening up to the rest of the world for the first time in decades. After months of escalating rhetoric fired between Kim and US President Donald Trump, which left the world questioning if we may be on the brink of nuclear war, the offer of an olive branch is a welcome gesture.
It will also set the stage for the next move in Korea’s fledgling attempt at diplomacy. A meeting between Kim and Trump is slated for June, the first time a leader of the regime will have met a sitting US president. The success of Friday’s summit will likely dictate the atmosphere and possibly the outcome of this next step.
Students hold posters with pictures of South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un during a pro-unification rally ahead of the upcoming summit between North and South Korea in Seoul, South Korea April 26, 2018. Source: Reuters/Jorge Silva
What will be discussed?
Its significance also lies in what will be discussed.
“This summit will focus more on denuclearisation and securing of permanent peace than anything else,” the South’s presidential chief of staff, Im Jong-seok, said on Thursday.
“I feel North Korea is sending their key military officials to the summit as they too, believe denuclearisation and peace are important.”
After months of sabre-rattling from Kim, during which he repeatedly threatened to attack the US, the Supreme Leader has pledged to dismantle the Punggye-ri nuclear test site and halt all further missile and nuclear tests.
While this is a long way from agreeing to denuclearisation, a clearer picture of Pyongyang’s expectations and conditions will be formed over the day.
People hold Korean Unification Flags during a pro-unification rally ahead of the upcoming summit between North and South Korea in Seoul, South Korea April 26, 2018. The signs read, “Welcome inter-Korean summit” (L) and “Peaceful spring for our people” (R). Source: Reuters/Jorge Silva
Likely outcomes?
Concrete results are unlikely to come from just one day of discussions. This is more a jumping off block for what could be months, possibly years, of negotiations.
The meet is, however, of huge symbolic importance on a peninsula that has been bitterly divided for so long.
This show of unity will be front and centre when Kim and Moon plant a tree for “peace and prosperity” on the demarcation line and walk together through the truce village on the border.
But each is more likely to walk away with good intentions and a vague roadmap for the future than any sustainable policies.
Siobhan Kennedy-26 Apr 2018Business Editor He’s come out fighting: PR supremo Clarence Mitchell is now the public face of Cambridge Analytica, the firm at the heart of the Facebook data harvesting scandal. Just two days into the job he gave a feisty press conference – accusing the media of portraying the firm as “some Bond villain”. And he’s robustly denied claims that data harvested from Facebook users could have been used to influence voters to back Brexit or Trump. Siobhan Kennedy went to ask him some robust questions of her own.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) hails the UNESCO jury’s decision to award the prestigious Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize to Mahmoud Abu Zeid, the imprisoned Egyptian photojournalist also known as Shawkan, and calls for his immediate release.
RSF had proposed Shawkan as a candidate for the prize. The decision’s announcement is timely because Egyptian prosecutors have just requested the death penalty for this young photographer, who has been detained arbitrarily for nearly five years just for doing his job as a journalist.
The United Nations itself has described his arrest and detention as arbitrary.
“Shawkan is not a terrorist, he is a journalist and a credit to his country,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said. “Today we issue a solemn appeal to the Egyptian authorities to carry out his immediate and unconditional release.”
FILE PHOTO: Journalists and social activists attend a protest against the killing of Gauri Lankesh, a senior Indian journalist who according to police was shot dead outside her home by unidentified assailants in southern city of Bengaluru, in Ahmedabad, September 6, 2017. REUTERS/Amit Dave/File Photo
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India has constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and by some measures the biggest and most diverse media industry in the world. But journalists here say they are increasingly facing intimidation aimed at stopping them from running stories critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his administration.
At least three senior editors have left their jobs at various influential media outlets in the past six months after publishing reports that angered the government or supporters of Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), according to colleagues.
Some reporters, as well as television anchors, have told Reuters they have been threatened with physical harm, abused on social media and ostracised by Modi’s administration.
In its annual World Press Freedom Index released on Wednesday, the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said that India was now 138th-ranked in the world out of 180 countries measured, down two positions since 2017 and lower than countries like Zimbabwe, Afghanistan and Myanmar. When the index was started in 2002, India was ranked 80th out of 139 countries surveyed.
Reporters Without Borders said that “with Hindu nationalists trying to purge all manifestations of ‘anti-national’ thought from the national debate, self-censorship is growing in the mainstream media and journalists are increasingly the targets of online smear campaigns by the most radical nationalists, who vilify them and even threaten physical reprisals.”
The group said that “hate speech targeting journalists is shared and amplified on social networks, often by troll armies.”
Spokesmen for the government declined comment on the accusations by journalists. They did not immediately respond to the Reporters Without Borders report.
However, not all Indian journalists believe there is a problem. Swapan Dasgupta, a member of parliament and a political columnist who supports Modi, said the press freedom ranking was “quite inexplicable”.
“I don’t believe there has been any shrinkage in the freedom of the media in the past few years,” he said in an e-mail.
G.V.L. Narasimha Rao, a spokesman for the ruling BJP, said allegations of media intimidation were far from the truth.
“On the contrary, the BJP has been a victim of the viciousness of large sections of the media that flourished under the patronage of the Congress, left and other opposition parties,” he told Reuters in e-mailed comments. “The unabashed bias of these media against the BJP has not dented our party’s political growth.”
Some journalists in India say they believe media freedoms are now under even more threat in the run-up to an election due next year. There have been some signs of increasing opposition to Modi’s economic policies and to the BJP’s muscular Hindu nationalism.
DEATH, RAPE THREATS
“India is going through an aggressive variant of McCarthyism against the media,” said Prannoy Roy, co-founder of NDTV, India’s first private news channel.
NDTV, which some BJP leaders have called the least friendly of India’s television channels, is being investigated for fraud by the Central Bureau of Investigation. The company has called it a witch-hunt.
The government declined to respond to Roy’s comments.
Sagarika Ghose, a columnist with the Times of India newspaper, said she is viciously trolled for any criticism of the administration.
“The minute I write something, I get droves of hate mail,” Ghose said. “I have had death threats and gang rape threats on social media and also through letters sent to my home. They know where I live.”
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Ravish Kumar, a news anchor who has been scathing about the government in his programme for NDTV’s Hindi-language channel, said he has been constantly harassed and threatened by pro-government activists.
“This is very organised,” he told Reuters. “They follow me. When I go out to report, a crowd gathers in 10 minutes.”
Reporters Without Borders counted instances of Indian journalists being killed because of what they write.
“At least three of the journalists murdered in 2017 were targeted in connection with their work,” it said.
Among them was editor and publisher Gauri Lankesh, a vocal advocate of secularism and critic of right-wing political ideology. A member of a hardline Hindu group has been arrested for the murder of Lankesh, who was gunned down outside her home..
Journalists say that media proprietors, who often have multiple kinds of businesses, are risk averse and can be leaned on by the government.
“Media proprietors are notorious for reading the tea leaves, they get a clear sense of the tolerance level of politicians in power,” said Siddharth Varadarajan, who runs a not-for-profit online news portal called The Wire. “Government ministers have coined this word, presstitute, to describe journalists who are unfriendly to them or who don’t do their bidding,” he said.
OUT OF FAVOUR
Bobby Ghosh, the editor of the Hindustan Times, one of India’s premier broadsheets, quit last September shortly after Modi met the owner of the newspaper. At least two senior journalists familiar with the situation said they were told that Modi was unhappy with Ghosh’s editorial policies.
The journalists told Reuters that Ghosh fell out of favour with the government after he launched a webpage called the Hate Tracker, a database of violent crimes based on religion, race ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation.
FILE PHOTO: A protester holds a placard during a protest rally against the killing of Gauri Lankesh, an Indian journalist, in New Delhi, September 6, 2017. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi/File Photo
The database was taken down in October.
Ghosh declined to specify why he quit the Hindustan Times.
The prime minister’s office and the newspaper declined requests for comment on the matter.
A letter published at the time from the government’s chief spokesman Frank Noronha said Modi had met the Hindustan Times chairwoman Shobhana Bhartia when she invited the prime minister to attend a conference organised by the newspaper.
“Other related assumptions and insinuations...are baseless and denied,” Noronha said. “The government is committed to the freedom of the press.”
Restrictions on reporting are likely to intensify heading into the election, said Harish Khare, who resigned as editor-in-chief of the widely read Tribune newspaper last month.
“It (the government) will use every resource in its command to pressurise, manipulate, misguide media or any other voice which seeks to be independent of the government,” said Khare, who was for some time the prime minister’s press secretary in the Congress Party government that lost power to Modi and the BJP in 2014.
He told Reuters his relations with the Tribune’s controlling trust nosedived after the newspaper published a story exposing flaws in Aadhaar, the government’s national identity card project.
The newspaper’s trust rejected his accusations. “To the contrary, the Tribune Trust gave an unprecedented award of 50,000 rupees ($765) to the correspondent (who wrote the story) in recognition of the work,” said Officiating Editor K.V. Prasad in an e-mail.
“The editor-in-chief’s departure came close to the end of the tenure.”
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($1 = 65.3600 Indian rupees)
Reporting by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Additional reporting by Tom Lasseter, Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Martin Howell
