BASL commends disbanding of Welikada Prison intelligence unit

July 28, 2018

The Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) has commended the government’s decision to disband the intelligence unit of the Welikada Prison, while terming it as a timely and prudent step. 

The harm caused by the prison intelligence unit from the history of prisons up until now is at a high level, according to the President of BASL President’s Counsel U.R. de Silva. 

He stated that the Bar Association is prepared to give is fullest support for the future action related to this decision. 

Minister of Justice and Prison Reforms Thalatha Athukorale ordered the immediate disbanding of the Intelligence Unit of the Welikada Prison on Thursday (26). 

The decision was taken after looking into the various corruption and irregularities with regard to the Prisons Department recently, the Justice Ministry said.

Sri Lanka: Tablets to students a hoax, toilets a more priority

Functional, hygienic, acceptable toilets have never been in the minds of the politicians because they perhaps do not believe in a ceremonial opening of toilets. What schoolchildren go through is wretched times while in school.

by Sunil Thenabadu-Jul 26, 2018

Jul 26, 2018

( July 26, 2018, Brisbane, Sri Lanka Guardian) One of the Presidential Election “Gundus” before the Yahapalanaya Government came to power was to provide “Tablets” to all students in Sri Lanka which appeared to have got its priorities mixed up. All less affluent students were anxiously stayed in sheer anticipation. When the promise was about to get off the grounds there were protests from opposition those tablets are not going to help students in their studies and that they would get educated in other areas apart from assisting in their basic studies. This was a huge disappointment for majority of the less affluent students. The promise with all the spade work made is not going to get off for the sheer disappointment of many students.

The previous government too instead of carrying out activities to resolve the urgent needs of people exhausted billions of rupees on matters which were much less significant and imperative. Some major issues that considered as priorities should be addressed are the need for clean drinking water, threat to farmers by wild elephants, marketing harvests, chronic kidney disease, Jobs for graduates, lowering cost of living– all of which cause several adverse long-term socio- economic impacts which affect health, education and many other aspects of the rural population and of course, the job market.

One priority however addressed by the President that has not been able to get off ground is the lack of public toilets.President Maithripala Sirisena has publicly said that there are many schools without toilets. A National Water Supply and Drainage Board survey revealed a few years ago that about 1,300 primary and secondary schools did not have proper sanitary facilities. This figure would be much higher now. Two civil society outfits have disclosed that there are schools where students are discouraged from drinking water for want of toilets and this practice has rendered those hapless children prone to renal complications.

It is also reported that absenteeism is widespread among girls in certain schools during menstruation periods. This is an indictment on the two main parties which have ruled the country for decades. Functional, hygienic, acceptable toilets have never been in the minds of the politicians because they perhaps do not believe in a ceremonial opening of toilets. What schoolchildren go through is wretched times while in school.

Although tourism is constantly promoted by all governments, there are no clean toilets, for that matter any toilets along roads and towns, apart from those in wayside small hotels which are not at all hygienic and stinking. Hence one has to hold on for hours to answer a call of nature. This is appalling indeed.

In complete contrast as a Sri Lankan we are so fortunate to live in Australia. I wish to categorically state that there are more than 14,000 public and private hygienic toilet facilities across the country. This is shown in a national public toilet map prepared by the state. Useful information is provided about each toilet, location, opening hours, availability of baby change rooms, accessibility for disabled persons and also about parking facilities.

On the contrary let alone the tourists, Sri Lankans who travel long distances by bus are subjected to stress and anxiety when they require answering a call of nature. It is time our politicians realise that public toilets are more significant than building international playgrounds, high rise buildings or even airports. Where the cost of which is relatively meagre

China’s strategic ambitions seen in the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka

The port of Hambantota, Sri Lanka, which was built by one state-owned Chinese company and is now operated by another, March 5, 2018. (NYT)

Abhijit Singh - Jul 26, 2018 

New Delhi’s Indian Ocean woes aren’t confined to Sri Lanka. Across the Indian Ocean’s littorals, the Chinese navy has been preparing to establish a stronger security presence. On Pakistan’s Makran coast, the PLAN has deployed regularly, including at Gwadar, also constructed by CMPorts. Earlier this year, the PLA is said to have initiated talks with the Pakistan military for another outpost at Jiwani.

Sri Lanka’s decision earlier this month to move a naval unit to Hambantota port, now leased to the China Merchant Ports Holdings Ltd for period of 99 years, isn’t good news for New Delhi. With reports in the media that China is considering ‘gifting’ a frigate to the Sri Lankan Navy, it seems clear that a process for the creation of a Chinese naval outpost in India’s near-neighbourhood has just begun. Beijing’s move creates the grounds for the insertion of PLAN training and support teams at Sri Lanka’s naval command, which is bound to result in the positioning of greater Chinese naval assets at the facility.

To be sure, Hambantota’s maritime significance for Beijing has never been in doubt. The port’s location at the southern extremity of Sri Lanka, overlooking South Asia’s vital sea lanes, makes it an important commercial asset for China. But Beijing’s investment in Hambantota also has a strategic dimension. As a recent New York Times report revealed, the deal involved huge sums of money contributed to former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s re-election campaign in 2015. When Beijing’s revised its loan interest rates from 1-2% floating to 6.3%, it became clear Hambantota was more than just an investment opportunity for China.

Colombo, of course, rejects suggestions that its deal with CMPorts is driven by anything other than economics. When it comes to China, Sri Lankan analysts suspect many Indian observers suffer from paranoia that induces zero-sum thinking. New Delhi, they complain, does not give enough credence to Colombo’s assurances that Hambantota port will be civilian and under the explicit control of Sri Lankan authorities.

Yet, India’s misgivings deserve closer examination. If the PLAN’s salami-slicing approach in the South China Sea is any indication, China’s gameplan in Hambantota is likely to be one of incremental control. In the near-term, Beijing would conform to the commercial template, avoiding any naval deployments to the port city. Over time, however, there is little doubt that China’s leadership would seek to leverage its possession for strategic gains.

Beijing will perhaps start by asking Colombo to allow naval access for logistics. Since Sri Lanka had already announced a naval command at Hambantota, Colombo won’t have much option but to accommodate Beijing’s request. China would then offer to assist Sri Lanka in upgrading existing communications facilities, gradually expanding the enterprise into an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance outpost. Eventually, China would aim to establish a dual use commercial/ military facility for forward-arming, restocking and refuelling of high-end naval assets. Willingly or inadvertently, Colombo would be co-opted into the plan.

The complex nature of China’s investment at Hambantota says something about Beijing’s strategic motives. Since August 2017, when the deal was first signed, Colombo has claimed control over Hambantota International Port Services Ltd. (HIPS), the holding company in charge of port security. However, CMPorts has publically revealed it holds 58% stakes in the firm (as against Sri Lanka Port Authority’s 42%). With majority stakes in the project, it seems unlikely the Chinese state-owned company will allow Sri Lanka a veto over future PLAN deployments at Hambantota.

Oddly enough, only select portions of the pact have been made public, with the Sri Lankan government hesitant to place the document in parliament for a thorough discussion. It is possible CMPorts insisted on the inclusion of clauses that clarified its superior stakeholder status in resolving disagreements. The prospects of greater Chinese undersea presence in the region may have caused Ranil Wickremesinghe, the Sri Lankan Prime Minister, to call for the deployment of anti-submarine warfare platforms in Sri Lanka’s near-seas. It also appears to be the single most important reason India is seeking control of the loss-making Mattala airport at Hambantota.

But New Delhi’s Indian Ocean woes aren’t confined to Sri Lanka. Across the Indian Ocean’s littorals, the Chinese navy has been preparing to establish a stronger security presence. On Pakistan’s Makran coast, the PLAN has deployed regularly, including at Gwadar, also constructed by CMPorts. Earlier this year, the PLAN is said to have initiated talks with the Pakistan military for another outpost at Jiwani.

In Maldives, China reportedly has a plan to construct a naval facility at Gadhoo Island in the Southern Laamu atoll, close to the one and a half degree channel — the main trading route between Africa and Asia. This has coincided with a downturn in India-Maldives relations, and a refusal by Male to extend visas for Indian security personnel deployed on the southern Islands, ostensibly to prevent surveillance over Chinese assets in the region.

More troubling for India is China’s increased openness about its naval force projections in the Indian Ocean. A deployment of a three-ship task force in January 2018 was perceived by some as a warning for Delhi to desist from using military force in the Maldives. Not surprisingly, the PLAN is more indifferent than ever to Indian sensitivities in South Asia. Beijing seems to be signalling to New Delhi that it will not let the latter’s security concerns come in the way of its own strategic ambitions.
Many in India’s strategic community then seem convinced Hambantota will be a crown jewel in China’s “string of pearls” strategy.

Perhaps, it is the price India will pay for not making its red lines in the Indian Ocean clear to China.
Abhijit Singh is senior fellow and head, Maritime Policy at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi

The views expressed are personal

Ven. Uduwe Dhammaloka Thera de-planed at BIA

LEON BERENGER-JUL 26 2018

Ven. Uduwe Dhammaloka Thera who is currently embroiled in a legal tussle over the possession of a baby elephant has been de-planed from a London bound flight after it was discovered that he was on the Immigration and Emigration blacklist, officials said.

On arrival at the passport control at the Bandaranayake International Airport (BIA) in Katunayake, the monk was initially cleared for travel overseas but was later taken off the flight minutes before it was scheduled to take off, the officials added.

They said that the revocation of the monk’s travel ban was effective from 25 August and Immigration and Emigration officials had apparently bungled the matter after they had given the green light for the monk to travel overseas.

“The Immigration and Emigration officials handling this passenger should have made it clear that he is banned from leaving the country following a Court order and the matter should have ended there.

But this was not the case as the monk was allowed to pass the passport control, enter the boarding area and later board the London bound flight before being taken out at the last minute. All these issues and embarrassment could have been spared if the Immigration and Emigration officials had stayed within the frame of the Court order,” they said.

Immigration and Emigration Controller General Nihal Ranasinghe said that they had initially cleared the monk for travel as they awaited a confirmation from the Court.

“We dispatched a fax to the relevant Court seeking details on the monk’s travel ban but since there was a delay it was decided to ask the monk to disembark, otherwise the remaining passengers on the scheduled flight would be inconvenienced,” Ranasinghe added.

The monk later returned to the temple while his attorneys visited the Court to clarify the legal matters regarding the incident.

Doctors suspect move to scuttle effort to save public from bogus specialists

Dr. R. P. Dayasena-July 27, 2018, 11:50 pm

The Association of Medical Specialists (AMS) accues ‘certain elements of the Medical Profession’ with vested interests of trying to put paid to the efforts being made to enact special laws to save the public from bogus medical specialists.

 The association says those in the medical profession and some trade unions have launched a joint operation to derail the process.

The following is the text of the statement issued by Dr. R. P. Dayasena, Secretary to the Association: Many of the developed countries have a mechanism to register medical specialists separately in their medical councils. This will help the specialists to be identified as a distinct category. The public will also be able to check with the medical council, the qualification and the status of a doctor, who claims to be a specialist.

In Sri Lanka there are many doctors practising as specialists in the private sector, without obtaining the stipulated certification by the appropriate authority. These are "bogus" specialists but no action could be taken against them as there is no specialist registry. There had been many instances in the past where bogus specialists have treated patients leading to disasters,

The Sri Lanka Medical Council as far back as 2006 recognised the need for a specialist registry and proposed the appropriate amendments to the medical ordinance.

These amendments were kept in the ministry for a long period but Maithripala Sirisena when he was the Health Minister, understood the importance of such registry, kindly agreed to take it as a priority to implement.

As a result several rounds of discussions were held with the Sri Lanka Medical Council, Ministry of Health, Association of Medical Specialists and amendment bill was prepared to achieve this objective. The draft bill was perused by the Legal Draftsmen’s Department and the Attorney General’s Department. With their clearance the bill was gazetted on 08.12.2017. This bill was presented to the Parliament on 17.07.2018. The approval of this amendment bill will empower the Sri Lanka Medical Council to maintain a separate register for specialists, which will be a major step forward in the regulation of the medical practice in Sri Lanka.

However, a group of trade unions in the ministry of health has called for countrywide trade union action to protest against this bill which is going to help the Sri Lankan public.

The Association of Medical Specialists would like to categorically state that this bill has no relevance whatsoever to the professions supplementary to medicine or any other profession, but the medical and dental officers registered under section 29 and 43 of the medical ordinance.

We have a strong suspicion that certain elements of the medical profession with vested interests, who benefit from not having a specialist registry, are instigating and sponsoring these groups to pressurize the Minister of Health, who has given his fullest co-operation up to now to get this bill to the Parliament.

The Association of Medical Specialists would like to make a strong appeal to the President and the Minister of Health not to give in to the pressure exerted by the unscrupulous groups in the health sector and to proceed with the proposed bill in the Parliament. As responsible citizens and qualified medical professionals serving the country we strongly condemn the organised attempts by certain individuals and groups to sabotage this important achievement which will be the first step to eradicate "quacks" from the medical profession. A quality medical care is the right of the citizen and the people who object to this bill are only committing treachery against their fellow citizens.

PayPal censors journalists who criticize Israel

Amir CohenReuters

Ali Abunimah- 25 July 2018

An operative of Israel’s global censorship campaign has admitted to exaggerating claims of anti-Semitism in order to engineer crackdowns on supporters of Palestinian rights.

In the latest instance, Benjamin Weinthal has apparently succeeded in persuading PayPal to close down the account of the French online publication Agence Media Palestine.

This constitutes censorship as it denies journalists the means to raise money for their work and retaliates against them for ideas they express.

Agence Media Palestine says it is considering legal action.

Weinthal presents his efforts as reportage for The Jerusalem Post on the actions of companies like PayPal, but what he really does is instigate crackdowns by feeding information – by his own admission distorted – about those he is targeting.

Weinthal is a “research fellow” at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, an American neoconservative group that works closely with the Israeli government, and which has attempted to smear the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement for Palestinian rights as linked to Hamas and Iran.

In a 2016 conversation about Israel lobby activities taking place in Europe, revealed here for the first time, Weinthal described how he persuades politicians to crack down on those he claims are anti-Semitic because of their criticisms of Israel.

“You have to exaggerate to get these ideas across, because they don’t understand what contemporary anti-Semitism is, many of them,” Weinthal explained.

While admitting that such smear tactics are a necessary part of his work, Weinthal took credit for getting journalists Max Blumenthal and David Sheen banned from the Bundestag, the German parliament, in 2014.

Weinthal described how he sent “material” to German Green Party politician Volker Beck smearing Blumenthal – who is Jewish – as being like Horst Mahler, a former left-wing activist who became a Nazi.

Weinthal also described how he has contacted PayPal and banks that provide services to civil society and human rights groups in order to pressure them to close accounts.

He said that his work targets civic groups across France, Germany and Austria.

Undercover investigation

The Electronic Intifada independently verified Weinthal’s statements gathered during an undercover Al Jazeera investigation into the activities of the Israel lobby in the United States.

Al Jazeera’s film of that investigation has yet to be aired due to censorship ordered by the leaders of Qatar, which funds and hosts the network, under intense pressure from the Israel lobby.

In March, The Electronic Intifada exclusively reported details of the content of the unaired film.
The documentary reveals that the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Weinthal is a research fellow, has been functioning as an agent of the Israeli government, even though it is not registered to do so as required by US law.

Sima Vaknin-Gil, the director-general of Israel’s strategic affairs ministry, is said to state that the foundation is “working on” projects for Israel including “data gathering, information analysis, working on activist organizations, money trail.”

“We have FDD,” Vaknin-Gil stated, using the group’s initials. “We have others working on this.”

PayPal censorship

Agence Media Palestine is a website that publishes articles on Palestine in French, many translated from sources in other languages, including The Electronic Intifada.

The supporters it lists include prominent figures in France, such as the late author and concentration camp survivor Stéphane Hessel, Israeli filmmaker Eyal Sivan and human rights activist Mireille Fanon-Mendès France.

On 12 July, Agence Media Palestine received an email from PayPal’s Brand Risk Management department stating:

“We have recently reviewed your usage of PayPal’s services, as reflected in our records and on your website http://www.agencemediapalestine.fr. Due to the nature of your activities, we have chosen to discontinue service to you in accordance with PayPal’s User Agreement.”

The email gives no details of any alleged violations of PayPal’s terms of use for its service that allows people around the world to conveniently and inexpensively send money to one another.

Due to its market dominance, there are few alternatives to PayPal. That makes life especially difficult for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, who, unlike Israeli settlers, are given no access to the company’s services.

It also makes life difficult for journalists or activists in other countries who find themselves targets of the company’s arbitrary actions.

On 16 July, Agence Media Palestine replied to PayPal asserting that “We are a French NGO [nongovernmental organization], duly registered in France, based in Paris, acting within French society in strict accordance with French laws and regulations.”

The publication asked PayPal to “explain clearly which activity you object to, and on which legal basis.”

PayPal has not replied.

In a further response to PayPal seen by The Electronic Intifada, Agence Media Palestine accuses the company of an “arbitrary act,” adding it could “not ignore the links between PayPal and the extreme right-wing propagandist Benjamin Weinthal.”

Agence Media Palestine said that unless PayPal justifies its action, the publication “reserves the right to take legal action.”

The publication added that it may mount an “information campaign about this discriminatory act for the benefit of a state that has just passed an apartheid law,” referring to Israel’s recent constitutional law elevating the rights of Jews above those of other citizens.

In response to an inquiry from The Electronic Intifada, a PayPal spokesperson stated in an email on Tuesday: “We do not provide information on account status per company policy.”

“PayPal regularly assesses activity against our Acceptable Use Policy and carefully review accounts, closing those that violate our policies,” the spokesperson added.

The company provided no details of the alleged violations leading to the shutdown of Agence Media Palestine’saccount.

PayPal’s action is reminiscent of crackdowns on political speech and independent journalism, especially left-wing and Palestine-focused publications, by other Silicon Valley giants such as Facebook and Google.

Weinthal plays ignorant

About an hour after it received the 12 July email from PayPal saying that its account had been shut down, Agence Media Palestine was emailed by Benjamin Weinthal, using his Jerusalem Post reporter persona.

“Your organization lists PayPal as a donation method, but the payment is blocked,” Weinthal stated.
“Did PayPal close your account? If so, what was the reason for the closure?” Weinthal asked, feigning ignorance about a matter he had evidently played a key role in instigating. “Is your account in violation of France’s anti-discrimination law?”

Weinthal did not respond to a request for comment from The Electronic Intifada.

In an article published the following day, Weinthal cites unnamed “legal experts” to claim that organizations that support the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement are “in violation of the Lellouche Law, which makes it illegal to target Israelis based on their national origin.”

He made the same claim in January after PayPal shut down the account of the campaign group Association France Palestine Solidarité.

Yet efforts by Israel and anonymous “legal experts” to interpret French law to ban speech or activism supporting Palestinian rights and BDS have no basis. These efforts amount to bullying and censorship, as even European Union leaders recognize.

BDS advocacy is legal

In 2016, the European Commission, the executive branch of the EU, affirmed that “BDS actions” in its member states are protected as “freedom of expression and freedom of association in line with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.”

Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief, recently reaffirmed that position in what the newspaper Haaretz described as a “personal, sharply worded letter” to Israel’s strategic affairs minister Gilad Erdan.

Erdan’s ministry leads Israel’s global effort to thwart activism in support of Palestinian rights.
Mogherini’s letter pushed back at Israel’s “vague and unsubstantiated” allegations in a report published by Erdan’s ministry accusing the EU of financing terrorism and boycott activities against Israel through nonprofit organizations.

“Allegations of the EU supporting incitement or terror are unfounded and unacceptable,” Mogherini stated. “The title of the report itself is also inopportune and misleading; it mixes terrorism with the boycott issue and it creates unacceptable confusion in the public eye regarding these two distinct phenomena.”

Attempting to smear BDS activists as associated with “terrorism” has been a key tactic of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the group that works with the Israeli government and with which Weinthal is affiliated.

While the EU itself opposes boycotts against Israel, Mogherini affirmed that “simply because an organization or individual is related to the BDS movement does not mean that this entity is involved in incitement to commit illegal acts, nor that it renders itself ineligible for EU funding.”

The EU official confirmed once again that such advocacy is protected speech.

Why then is PayPal helping Israel and its surrogates to silence supporters of Palestinian rights?
Ali Abunimah is executive director of The Electronic Intifada.

Iraq's top Shia cleric Sistani turns heat up on protest movement

Influential imam warns of further escalation in comments branded dangerous by analysts and protesters

People shout slogans during a protest in Kerbala, Iraq (Reuters)

Alex MacDonald

Friday 27 July 2018

Iraq's top Shia authority Ali Sistani on Friday called on the government to meet the demands of protesters and form a new government, as unrest continues over power cuts, water shortages and unemployment.

Speaking to followers in his Friday sermon, a representative of Sistani said that Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi needed to work "urgently" to placate the protesters.

"The current government must work hard urgently to implement citizens' demands to reduce their suffering and misery," Sistani's representative said during the sermon in the Shia holy city of Kerbala, apparently relaying the words of Sistani himself.

He also called for the creation of a new government, an aim so far unrealised since 12 May elections were marred by allegations of voter fraud.

"He [the new prime minister] must launch a relentless war against the corrupted and those who protect them," added the representative.

At least 16 people have been killed and hundreds wounded since protests began in Basra on 8 July. Although initially focused in the southern city, which has been afflicted with water and electricity shortages during 50 degree celsius temperatures, the demonstrations spread to other provinces and cities, including Baghdad, Diwaniya, Babil, Najaf and Kerbala.

Iraq's security forces have reacted with violence to the demonstrations, while the government imposed blocks on the internet, which Amnesty International claimed was a means of preventing protesters from uploading images of abuse.

'He’s essentially supporting the protests and implicitly calling for violent escalation'

- Duaa Malik, Iraqi analyst

Sistani's representative added that even if “demands for reforms fade away”, they would soon return “much stronger”.

“In a Friday sermon, three years ago, we warned that those who oppose reform and are betting that the calls [for change] will die down must know that reform is an absolute necessity," he said.

Religious influence

Abadi welcomed Sistani's intervention, saying on Twitter the religious authorities shared his desire for "a strong, prosperous and stable Iraq, in which the security, safety, justice and prosperity of all its children can be achieved, and where there is no place for the corrupted and the syphoning of public money".

The Shia religious authorities have in the past been highly influential in mobilising Iraqis, most notably in 2014 when a call by Sistani led to the creation of the Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitary units to fight the Islamic State group (IS).

However, some protesters have recently voiced their anger at religious and sectarian influence on Iraq's politics, with at least one demonstration in Baghdad featuring chants of "Not Sunni, not Shia, secular, secular!"

One protester suggested to Middle East Eye that the intervention by Sistani had come in to preserve the political system and undermine the protests.

He added that the Shia establishment felt threatened by the demonstrations as much as the government.

READ MORE ►

What's behind Iraq's Basra protests?

However, Duaa Malik, a Washington-based Iraq analyst, branded Sistani's comments "dangerous" as they implied a potentially violent escalation in what have been so far peaceful protests.

"He’s essentially supporting the protests and implicitly calling for violent escalation," she told MEE, adding that protesters had reiterated a call for peaceful protests in the wake of his comments.

"If that were to happen, then it would be used as means to suppress the revolution happening against the government altogether, and that’s what’s truly dangerous about his statements this Friday."

Further protests

Further demonstrations were set to take place across Iraq on Friday evening. The roads to Tahrir Square in central Baghdad were reportedly blocked off in anticipation, while demonstrators began gathering outside provincial buildings in Basra.

On Wednesday, Basra's provincial council called for the government in Baghdad to grant more autonomy to the region, along the lines of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in the north of Iraq.

Iraqi security forces try to put out burning tyres during a protest in the West Qurna 2 oilfield north of Basra (Reuters)

Ahmed Sileti, a member of the provincial council, told Rudaw that "15 out of the 35 members of the Basra provincial council" had "signed the demand to turn it into a region".

He said that Baghdad owed Basra $45bn. 

Basra province is home to some of the largest oil reserves in the country, as well as the only seaport. As such, Baghdad is likely to be reticent about allowing further decentralisation of powers to the region.

The backdrop to much of the unrest is the failure to form a national government. The Sairoun Alliance, a coalition of supporters of Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the Iraqi Communist Party and others, won the largest number of votes in the election, for which there was a low turnout. But accusations of voter fraud have led to a recount, delaying any attempts to build a coalition government.

Muntazar al-Zaidi, a parliamentary candidate for Sairoun most famous for throwing a shoe at former US president George W Bush, told MEE that he was supporting the demonstrations and said a new government was needed.

"Maybe, if we have an independent government, the people will go back home," he said.

A Russian Attack on Montenegro Could Mean the End of NATO

Trump doesn’t think the country is worth defending. Putin has already tried to destabilize it once—the West can’t let it happen again.

Montenegrin Army soldiers fire artillery look at the Montenegro flag during preparations on the eve of Independence day, on May 20, 2010 in Cetinje, Montenegro. (SAVO PRELEVIC/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

BY JEFFREY A. STACEY-

JULY 27, 2018, 2:10 PM

Russia has repeatedly outsmarted the West in recent years, managing to play a weaker hand with remarkable skill. Moscow has finely honed its skills in information warfare and hybrid warfare, relying on methods including pressure diplomacy, fake news, and foreign electoral intervention.

Along the way, it has taken parts of Georgia and Ukraine by force and knocked both the United States and Britain down several pegs geopolitically.

Russia is not as powerful as it was in the Soviet era but, thanks to President Vladimir Putin’s strategic thinking, it is now regularly punching above its weight

 in global affairs. Russia is far more effective than China in kneecapping the West whenever it can, while constantly seeking and frequently finding ways to undermine it.

 

Most worryingly for the West, the coup de grâce could come in the Balkans, long the stage for Russian competition with the West. No one knows what Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to in their two-hour private meeting in Helsinki earlier this month. Trump may have handed Putin a list of key marginal congressional races in which he needs Russia to interfere. It’s more likely that they talked about NATO, Crimea, and Ukraine—and that Putin got what he wanted from Trump.

Indeed, Trump appears to be playing along with a Russian ploy that could shatter the NATO alliance by going after its newest member. “Montenegro is a tiny country with very strong people,” the president told the Fox News host and Trump admirer Tucker Carlson, the day after meeting with Putin. “They have very aggressive people. And they may get aggressive, and congratulations, you are in World War III,” he added. An armed Russian incursion in Montenegro—involving hybrid or traditional warfare—would give Trump an opportunity to make good on his word to Fox News and tell NATO allies that Washington will not honor Article 5 of the NATO treaty and join its allies in coming to Montenegro’s aid.

Without U.S. involvement in an operation by the NATO Response Force—NATO’s multinational high-readiness attack force—Europe would likely back off and not respond to a surprise assault. Russia’s attack would not occur via land-based forces, which would have to travel through multiple countries that lean Western. Instead, the attack would likely come by sea and air.

Such a scenario would do mortal damage to NATO, irrevocably splitting the alliance. Russia has already attempted a coup in Montenegro to prevent it from joining NATO
in the first place, and more recently, developments in Macedonia have led to Russian intelligence agents from the FSB—the main successor to the KGB—deploying in order to attempt to foment unrest there, as well as in Greece, where two diplomats were just expelled for ginning up opposition to a Greek deal with Macedonia to change the latter’s name and put to rest a long-simmering dispute.

Although Russia will never attack U.S. or Western forces directly—the several hundred Russian mercenary soldiers killed by U.S. forces in Syria recently are a case in point—it actually doesn’t have to. Russia can mortally wound NATO without ever engaging its forces head-on. Not only are the FSB and GRU—Russia’s military intelligence unit—increasingly targeting the Balkans, but Russia has also now deployed the bulk of its most effective military forces on its western border.

Montenegro is NATO’s newest and, in many ways, its weakest member. Having only become independent from Serbia in 2006, its minuscule population of about 630,000 features armed forces that number only around 2,000. It is a small and peaceful country, the only one of the former Yugoslav republics that did not get caught up in the violent aftermath of the breakup of Yugoslavia.

However, even before it was independent and well before becoming a member of NATO, Montenegro was and continues to be a contributor to NATO forces in Afghanistan, making a significant contribution in per capita terms. In fact, at Washington’s request, Montenegro actually increased its deployment in Afghanistan in 2017. But Russia has been pressuring Montenegro for the past decade.

In 2017, after the Montenegrin Parliament voted in favor of joining NATO, the Russian Foreign Ministry said the government had “ignored the voice of reason and conscience” and that Russia reserved “the right to take steps aimed at defending our interests and national security.” Russia rapidly banned imports of all Montenegrin wine and declared an advisory for Russians traveling there, while Putin’s spokesman threatened further “retaliatory actions.”

Montenegro holds Russia responsible for attempting to carry out a coup against the current president, Milo Djukanovic (when he was still prime minister), on election day in October 2016, accusing 14 individuals—Russian and Serbian nationalists, including two members of the GRU—of planning to attack state buildings and kill Djukanovic. Fittingly, it was Montenegro’s current prime minister, Dusko Markovic, whom Trump literally pushed out of his way in his first visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels.

Montenegro has already joined the Council of Europe, as well as the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. The European Union is also seriously considering inviting it to join as a full-fledged member, which, along with its newfound NATO membership, is why Russia is so concerned. Moscow doesn’t want another pro-Western country in the geographical zone it defines as its “near abroad.”

In hindsight, it appears Russia’s assertiveness in the region goes all the way back to the aftermath of the Kosovo War in 1999, when, after Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic’s capitulation to NATO, there was a surprising race between Russian and NATO forces to occupy an airfield on the outskirts of Pristina in Kosovo. Russia got there first, and a direct confrontation was narrowly avoided after high-level British and U.S. officials intervened.

With Russia resentful of NATO’s expansion, the next major inflection point came when it invaded NATO applicant Georgia in 2008. Senior U.S. officials, including former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, have publicly admitted it was a mistake not to respond to this incursion in a concrete manner. Russia still occupies part of Georgia to this day.

This was a turning point, allowing the Kremlin to conclude that it could challenge Western interests with minimal response, so long as it didn’t take the West on directly. Russia’s annexation of Crimea and occupation of eastern Ukraine occurred in response to the Ukrainian revolution in 2014 and the EU invitation for Ukraine to join it. Since then, Russia has engaged in hundreds of near-miss provocations of NATO forces in the air and at sea.

It also appears that Moscow successfully interfered in the Brexit vote and the 2016 U.S. election and poisoned a former Russian spy on British territory. Having already achieved this degree of damage to the West, it is possible Russia is now beginning to misjudge the NATO allies’ tolerance and is overplaying its hand.

The reason the Helsinki summit amounts to a full-blown national security crisis is that the Russians have announced they are moving forward on agreements made in the meeting, while top U.S. officials and military commanders remain totally in the dark. Hints from the Russian side suggest that a new referendum in eastern Ukraine, a Putin visit to Washington, and Syrian refugee resettlement were all discussed.
The real question is whether Trump is simply acting on his whims to harm U.S. national security interests or if strings are actually being pulled from Moscow.

Already, during the 2016 campaign, Trump spoke on multiple occasions about how NATO was taking advantage of the American people, specifically mentioning the Baltic countries by name, further casting doubt on whether he would honor Article 5 as president. Now, he is singling out Montenegro.

At the very least, Trump’s comments about Montenegro serve to weaken the alliance, giving Russia further latitude to destabilize NATO’s newest member and increasing the risks of renewed conflict in the Balkans. At worst, these words reflect Putin’s own views, raising serious concerns that the two presidents arrived at some form of understanding about Montenegro behind closed doors. Unless NATO is fully prepared to counter the threat militarily, the immediate consequence of a Russian attack on Montenegro would be the effective end of the most powerful military alliance in world history.

 

Jeffrey A. Stacey is a national security consultant, a former State Department official in the Obama administration, and the author of the book, "Integrating Europe."

Why China is ‘re-educating’ Muslims in mass detention camps

A boy reacts as Turkish plain clothes police officers try push back demonstrators during a protest of supporters of the mostly Muslim Uighur minority and Turkish nationalists to denounce China's treatment of ethnic Uighur Muslims during a deadly riot in July 2009 in Urumqi, in front of the Chinese consulate in Istanbul, on July 5, 2018. Source: Ozan Kose/ AFP

By Michael Clarke | 27th July 2018

CHINA’S Ministry of Foreign Affairs denies their existence.

But extensive reporting by international media and human rights groups indicates that upwards of hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs – a Muslim-minority ethnic group – have been detained in sprawling “re-education” centres in the far-western Xinjiang region of China.

The camps are not only massive, with some exceeding 10,000sqm, but have also been likened to prison-like compounds, with “reinforced security doors and windows, surveillance systems, secure access systems, watchtowers, and guard rooms or facilities for armed police”.

The US Congressional-Executive Commission on China calls it “the largest mass incarceration of a minority population in the world today”. China has long been wary of its Uyghur population, particularly in the wake of deadly riots, terrorist attacks and the flow of Uyghur militants to Syria and Iraq to fight with the Islamic State in recent years.

SEE ALSO: China bans ‘overly religious’ Muslim names in Xinjiang 

But the emergence of the re-education camps in Xinjiang raises a number of new questions: Why has the Communist Party come to rely on mass internment to control the Uyghurs? What are the implications for China’s future political development under President Xi Jinping? And how should the international community respond?

From social controls to ‘re-education’

Xinjiang’s position at the crossroads of East and West, as well as the cultural, religious and ethnic differences between the majority Han and minority Uyghurs, have posed significant challenges to the Communist Party for decades.

To bring more stability to the restive region, Beijing has pursued an aggressive integration strategy defined by tight political, social and cultural controls, the encouragement of mass migration by the dominant Han Chinese population, and state-led economic development.

In turn, the Uyghurs have increasingly chafed against these restrictive policies, resulting in periodic outbursts of violence.

This picture taken on June 26, 2017 shows a Muslim man arriving at the Id Kah Mosque for the morning prayer on Eid al-Fitr in the old town of Kashgar in China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Source: Johannes Eisele/ AFP

In recent years, Beijing has leveraged the global war on terror and the existence of a small number of Uyghur militants abroad to crack down on Uyghur ethnic identity even further.

From the party’s perspective, the recent outbreaks of Uyghur violence are not a reaction to restrictive policies, but the result of the “three evil forces” of “separatism, terrorism and extremism”, which have “hoodwinked” ethnic minorities into “erroneous” thinking.

In Xinjiang, this has enabled the development of a high-tech and data-heavy surveillance apparatus to reassert the party’s control over the region, along with efforts to weed out so-called extremists by identifying supposedly “abnormal” activities such as the wearing of long beards, hijabs, niqabs and burkas.

Now, re-education camps have emerged as a repugnant but depressingly logical extension of this process. The government calls them “transformation through education” centres, which harks back to the institutions of “thought reform” established under Mao Zedong in the 1950s.

James Palmer‏ @BeijingPalmer

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The destruction of the Uighur vs the destruction of the Rohingya is a lesson in the power of closed states. There are probably around a million Uighur in concentration camps right now. Young Uighur men have been almost entirely vanished from Urumqi.

8:25 pm - 6 May 2018

Those camps sought to “transform” and “rehabilitate” prisoners through such tactics as patriotic indoctrination, self-criticism sessions and forced labour. A similar theme can be seen in the current re-education camps in Xinjiang, where detainees are forced to sing patriotic songs, take part in self-criticism sessions and sit through lectures on Xi Jinping “thought”, Chinese language, Chinese law and the dangers of Islam.

The objective is to dilute Uyghur cultural identity and, in Xi’s words:

enhance their sense of identity with the motherland, the Chinese nation, Chinese culture, the CCP and socialism with Chinese characteristics.

The camps, in fact, represent not only a systematic violation of human rights, but the abject failure of the party’s efforts to integrate Xinjiang and its people into the nation.

A return to core Communist ideology

These camps are an extreme symptom of Xi’s commitment to return Communist ideology to centre stage in China.

This began shortly after Xi assumed the presidency in 2013 when he launched the “Seven Perils” campaign to combat so-called subversive ideas. This targeted things like Western constitutional democracy, universal values of human rights and press freedom.

He also stressed a core lesson learned from the collapse of the Soviet Union – that the system failed because the Communist Party wavered in its ideals and nobody was man enough to resist then-leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s move toward dissolution.

To avoid this fate himself, Xi has moved to ensure that political indoctrination should not focus simply on party members, but must be spread throughout society and unite all ethnic groups behind the party’s mission.

SEE ALSO: Rising star footballer among Uyghurs sent to Chinese ‘re-education’ camps

Xi has also intensified the party’s obsession with “stability maintenance” to almost paranoiac levels. China has rapidly embraced cutting-edge technologies like facial recognition and artificial intelligence in the pursuit of this objective.

Significantly, elements of this system have been in operation in Xinjiang for some time, such as the use of facial recognition scanners at police checkpoints, train stations and petrol stations, and the collection of DNA samples and biometric data from the Uyghur population.

This enables authorities to quickly identify people’s ethnicities and track their physical movements and social interactions both online and offline to determine their relative “threat” to “stability”.

Expansion of surveillance abroad

For Uyghurs, all of this has resulted in an almost unimaginable expansion of the power of the state over their lives in pursuit of what can only be called “cultural cleansing”.

The state’s harnessing of 21st-century technology has also enabled it to harass and silence Uyghurs living abroad and pressure them into collaborating with authorities to monitor family members in Xinjiang.

As China’s international power and influence continue to rise, there are fears the instruments of coercion perfected in Xinjiang could be used to target other ethnic or religious minorities and dissidents – both inside China and abroad.

Two security guards watch near the Tiananmen Square in Beijing on March 27, 2018. Source: Wang Zhao/ AFP

Such fears are stoked by the fact that China, and its major tech companies such as Huawei, have begun to ink deals under the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) to export these cutting-edge surveillance technology and systems to a variety of countries, from Zimbabwe to Mongolia. ​

What does all of this mean for states such as Australia that are increasingly economically interdependent with China?

To begin with, Australia should simply call out Beijing’s actions in Xinjiang for what they are – systematic violations of the human rights of the Uyghur people – much as US Congressional leaders and some members of the European Union have done.

Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback of the @StateDept responds to a question about whether the US Government takes human rights into consideration when considering US-China trade relations.#EastTurkistan #Uyghurs #China #Ramadan #Islam #Muslims pic.twitter.com/QmvPt4WfMK

— Abdugheni Sabit (@AbdugheniSabit) 29 May 2018

Canberra has done so in the past with respect to the Tiananmen Square massacre and other human rights violations. The scope of the Chinese government’s actions in Xinjiang demands nothing less.

SEE ALSO: China testing facial-recognition systems to track Uyghur community

Second, Australian policymakers should recognise that the camps in Xinjiang, and the broader return of Maoist ideology, are arguably a sign of the Communist Party’s insecurity not its strength.

What is occurring in Xinjiang may appear to be far removed from Australia’s national interests, but it provides evidence of the type of behaviour we may come to expect more of from an ascendant China, both domestically and internationally.​

In the final analysis, we as a nation should not remain silent while hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs are persecuted for simply being who they are.

This article originally appeared on The Conversation.