Hypocrisy comes with a capital “H”

“I knew nothing.” 
- Ravi Karunanayake

2018-11-09

Politics does strange things to civil society. This, despite the fact that civil society is supposed to be independent. But then we are political animals. We do not want to be independent. We can’t be independent. We have certain preferred outcomes and these we want to promote, one way or the other, regardless of those notions of democracy and freedom we bandy about day after day. In other words, it’s all about seeing your favourite horses running the country and telling others how to run themselves.   
The backlash against the (temporary?) caretaker government stems from three different groups. The first, obviously, are those who were humiliated at seeing the leader of the UNP being ousted, for the second time after a space of 10 years, from the Prime Minister’s chair. These are the ‘kepuwath kola’ types. The second are those who raved over the government’s reformist programme but ranted against its pro-privatisation economic programme. These are the (spent) old leftists.   

Regardless of their motives, both of them support a return to the status quo, which is why even someone like Kumar David, despite his leftist credentials and critiques of IMF austerity measures, terms the Sirisena-Mahinda combination a “putsch” much less preferable to the government the likes of him were critiquing.   
Both these groups, however, are unapologetic about where their loyalties lie, even if they sweep those loyalties under the carpet of good governance. It is the third group that interests me. They are a mishmash of the first two, yet exude a (deceptive) neutral stance. Broadly entailing civil society, they include those outfits (in the media, online and everywhere else) which have been promoting the very same good governance the government they support played and tampered with, these last three years. If the Rajapaksas, who have no moral right over the UNP or their allies, want to pick on the hypocrisy of the previous government, they don’t have to look further than the hypocrisy of this civil society (which, as a friend of mine recently commented, tongue in cheek, is as “civil” as the international community is “international”). They would need to point at two distinct incidents which transpired during the yahapalana years, both of which that civil society feigned silence at. Let’s list them out, shall we?   

"If those protesting outside, on the streets, are shedding crocodile tears over the plight of the people, they have only to remind themselves that the people they are fighting for were left virtually voiceless, and paralysed, over these last three years"

The first was the bond scandal. The “independent” media wasn’t exactly quick to catch up on it, even when it was spreading like wildfire through informal channels, and when they did catch up on it, certain commentators did, and wrote, everything they could to absolve the not-so-immediate wrongdoers.   
I remember a particularly unsavoury piece, written by an anonymous “Roving Editor” and published in a prominent Sunday newspaper, prompting the politicians to stop focusing on the scandal and move on to “bigger issues confronting this country.” The best summing up of the magnitude of THIS issue came from former deputy governor of the Central Bank, W. A. Wijewardena, whose political inclinations are hardly with the Rajapaksas: that the bid placements caused a “far worse damage” to the bank than the 1996 LTTE bomb attack.   
Outrage against the bond auction came from, I can attest quite strongly, a broad section of the population, both for and against the Rajapaksa regime. Outrage from the Rajapaksa camp was directed less at the reality of the scandal than at the “If-we-were-not-there-it-wouldn’t-have-happened” rhetoric. But that was a minority. The anger of the people, as a whole, was less partisan and more representative of the country (more representative, certainly, than the crowd that went out to the streets two weeks ago, since the money the Central Bank “lost” belonged to all of us). “Civil society” would have had a field day championing their cause, to the country, if not the world.   

And yet, no protest erupted. None of those freedom loving activists came out. Where were they? Singing ‘The Internationale’ with the old leftists?   
EconomyNext, a website I otherwise respect immensely, failed to offer a single report on the bond auction in 2015, and did so only after the scandal hit the ceiling in 2016. The likes of Asanga Welikala and Razeen Sally, who delivered lectures on the role of the State as a night watchman, failed to condemn the role THIS State had taken on: as daylight robber. Welikala in particular had no problem titling his anti-Rajapaksa rant “Paradise Lost?” hinting that Rajapaksa’s appointment signalled an end to some paradise that was supposed to have existed until then. Deluded, much?   
And it’s not just the bond scandal. Malinda Seneviratne, in his piece “Selective tear-shedding in seasons of demagoguery,” asks the following question:   
“When Sirisena gave nomination to Mahinda Rajapaksa and immediately thereafter stood with Wickremesinghe, did they whimper about ‘the spirit of democracy’? When he sacked and replaced the General Secretaries of the SLFP and UPFA, going as far as obtaining an interim court order so the Central Committees of these political entities could not function, did they protest?”

"EconomyNext failed to offer a single report on bond auction in 2015"

I don’t remember the US Embassy, the British High Commission, the European Union or the United Nations propounding their concerns over these anti-democratic moves. But there was a more reprehensible anti-democratic move engineered by the President. No one talked about it, and far from condemning it, many of those who are now denouncing the “loss of democracy” celebrated it.   
This was the decision of the President to usher in defeated candidates through the National List. It wasn’t about the National List per se. It was about the legitimacy behind the decision to take in those who had clearly lost the trust of the people. D.E.W. Gunasekara, together with Nagananda Kodithuwakku, filed a petition against it, contending that the appointment of rejected candidates (as opposed to pre-selected appointees) through the List amounted to “a violation of the people’s sovereign right to elect political representatives of their choice,” since the clause inserted in the 1978 Constitution, Article 99A, the 14th Amendment, had not been enacted through the mandate of the people (obtained preferably via a referendum).   

"Former CJ Sripavan rapped Nagananda Kodithuwakku for obstructing justice"

The petition was made in 2015. Then it got postponed. The then Chief Justice, K. Sripavan, withdrew from the case. Then it got postponed again. Then he argued that it was a not a matter of general or public importance. Then D.E.W. Gunasekera tried to take the case to Geneva. Then the Chief Justice rapped Kodithuwakku for obstructing justice (read, “persisting with the issue”). Then the case returned to the Supreme Court after Kodithuwakku filed a separate petition. Then it got delayed again.   Forget the US Embassy. Forget the British High Commission. Forget the European Union. Forget the United Nations. Where was ‘Civil Society’? They had championed parliamentary legitimacy. They had facilitated a shift in the polity from state to the legislature. The appointment of failed candidates was clearly not right, then. Article 99A required a campaign against it, if at all because it was as much a violation of the people’s sovereign right as the appointment of Mahinda Rajapaksa.   
And yet, no one spoke. No one hummed.   
 Was it because if someone did hum, the Rajapaksas and their cohorts would have returned to the Parliament (they did, but not as ministers). Perhaps. Revolutions, after all, even the most facile revolutions (like the one we witnessed from 2015 to 2018), thrive on expedience, and on tactics that lie outside the parameters of constitutional legitimacy. They are crafted by politicians first, and only then by policymakers. But then, that’s the exact same argument the Rajapaksas are using. Now. Whether or not they intended it, the former government handed over the fuel and the gunpowder to this government. “You did it to us then, we’ll do it to you now!” is the gist, the bare essence, of what the likes of Keheliya Rambukwelle are spouting.   
But that’s another story.   

If those protesting outside, on the streets, are shedding crocodile tears over the plight of the people, they have only to remind themselves that the people they are fighting for were left virtually voiceless, and paralysed, over these last three years. Where were these democracy lovers, we can ask, when the Central Bank went down in flames over those bids, the President sacked the General Secretaries of the SLFP and UPFA, and candidates roundly defeated in a general election were appointed without as much as a by-your-leave as ministers? Nowhere to be found.   
Should we stand by them now? Ideally, yes. Are they for democracy? Perhaps. Do they idealise political outcomes which negate their calls for a movement that is NOT about Ranil? Definitely. Is this hypocrisy with a capital “H”? You bet. 

We are fully in the game — India on Sri Lanka Political Turmoil

India determined to be counterweight to China in Sri Lanka

by Sanjeev Miglani and Shihar Aneez-Nov 8, 2018
Courtesy: Reuters

( November 8, 2018, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Gleaming cranes stretch out on the waterfront in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo as Chinese companies construct a $1.5 billion new commercial district, including hotels, marinas and a motor racing track. They have already built a giant container terminal nearby and a huge port in the south.

Now India, the traditional power in the region, is muscling into port and other projects, pushing back hard against China.

The big fear for India is that Sri Lanka, just off its southern coast and on one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, could become a Chinese military outpost.

But the battle is creating political turmoil in Sri Lanka. A bust-up between President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe over how far to accommodate Indian interests is a key reason the nation’s unity government has just fallen apart, government officials and foreign diplomats said.

Wickremesinghe, who was fired on Oct. 26 and replaced by veteran pro-China politician Mahinda Rajapaksa, told Reuters about arguments at a cabinet meeting chaired by the president last month over a proposal to grant development of a Colombo port project to a Japan-India joint venture.

“There are arguments in the cabinet, sometimes heated arguments,” he said.

Wickremesinghe did not name the president but said: “There was a paper put forth to not give it to India, Japan.”

He added that he insisted that the ultimate decision should respect a memorandum of understanding signed between India, Japan and Sri Lanka.

It was the first account of what transpired in the Oct 16 meeting and the government’s pushback against India.

Wickremesinghe declined to respond when asked if he believed the China-India struggle was behind his firing. But Rajitha Senaratne, a former government minister who attended, confirmed the president and the prime minister had argued at the meeting.

Two Sri Lankan officials, as well as a Western diplomat and an Indian government source, who were all briefed on the meeting, corroborated the minister’s account.

The president’s office did not respond to requests for comment. Sirisena told a public meeting on Monday his political rivals were trying to drive a wedge between him and the Indian government by painting him as anti-India.

The Indian foreign ministry said Delhi was committed to giving developmental assistance to Sri Lanka.

In a statement last week, the Chinese embassy in Colombo rejected allegations China was involved in a conspiracy to change Sri Lanka’s leadership, saying it does not believe in such interference.

Japan did not respond to a request for comment on the sacking of the government. But Wickremesinghe and an official from the Japan International Cooperation Agency said a $1.4 billion soft loan for a light railway project in Colombo was on hold.

SECOND TERMINAL

India had been pushing Sri Lanka for the award of an estimated $1 billion contract for a second foreign-operated container terminal in Colombo. It has pointed to a memorandum of understanding (MOU) Sri Lanka signed in April 2017.

Reuters has reviewed unpublished documents from that MOU and it lays out a blueprint for projects India would be involved in, including an oil refinery, roads, power stations and the container terminal. The agreement also includes room for Indian involvement in the development of industrial zones.

The cabinet meeting was supposed to give clearance for the port project but President Sirisena said the country, already mired in $8 billion of Chinese debt, couldn’t give any more of its assets to foreigners, according to Senaratne.

“There was a misunderstanding between the president and the prime minister,” said Senaratne, who was the health minister in the deposed cabinet. The Colombo terminal should be left to the state-owned Sri Lanka Port Authority, which was already developing the facilities, he quoted the president as saying.

Tension had been building between Sirisena and Wickremesinghe even before the clash over the port project. The president did not approve of some economic reforms, such as opening up the services sector to foreign investment, being introduced by the prime minister.

Sri Lanka is only one of a number of South Asian countries where the China-India rivalry has roiled domestic politics.

China has been constructing ports, power stations and highways in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Nepal, much of it now tied to its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative to connect China with countries cross Asia and beyond.

In September, the leader of the Maldives – who had courted Chinese investments – lost an election in a result seen as a setback to Beijing’s ambitions for the islands. “DEBT DIPLOMACY” One of the officials briefed on the cabinet meeting said he was told Sirisena quoted U.S. Vice President Mike Pence’s warning last month that China was using “debt diplomacy” and the Hambantota port in the south could become a Chinese forward military base.

Sirisena told the cabinet Sri Lanka didn’t want this kind of international attention and vowed he wasn’t going to compound the problem by granting the Colombo deal to an outside party, this official said.

But Wickremesinghe, who has forged close ties with India and Japan to balance ties with China, said at the meeting that the cabinet had already approved the broader pact with India a year ago, he told Reuters.

He said the debt-burdened Sri Lanka Port Authority wasn’t in a position to build the terminal on its own, Wickremesinghe said he told the meeting.

“It wasn’t even an Indian project, Japan was going to be the majority partner with India at 20 percent,” Wickremesinghe said in the interview. But the president not only rejected the proposal but shocked those present by turning on New Delhi, saying he was the target of an assassination plot and suggesting India’s foreign intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), was behind it, said officials who attended the meeting.

The Sri Lankan government later denied Sirisena named the agency, India’s equivalent of the CIA. India’s foreign ministry said Sirisena spoke to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the issue to ensure it didn’t lead to a diplomatic crisis.

But ten days after the cabinet meeting, Wickremesinghe was out and former president Rajapaksa was named in his place. Rajapaksa had ushered in Chinese investment when he was president from 2005-2015 and lost a presidential election to Sirisena after reports that RAW had helped build a coalition against him.

CHANGING LANDSCAPE

In Colombo, the increasing Chinese influence is there for all to see.

On the city’s ocean front, a part of the ocean is blocked from view because of the reclamation project that will eventually turn into the new commercial district. Giant billboards and wire mesh, including some signs in Chinese, close off the largest construction site in the capital.

There is a growing Chinese community of about 12,000 expatriates, up from barely a few hundred a few years ago. They are scattered in Colombo and Hambantota.

Modi’s government is determined to start to turn back the tide. It is aggressively pitching for projects next to Chinese investments, so China’s military does not get a free pass.

“India can ill afford to ignore the strategic advantage China has gained in Sri Lanka so close to peninsular India,” said Colonel R. Hariharan, a retired Indian army intelligence officer.

The Colombo port isn’t the only priority. In Hambantota, India is bidding to take control of an airport built next to the Chinese seaport even though it handles hardly any flights.

“We are fully in the game,” said an Indian government source. It kept its profile low, though, because of local sensitivities, the source said.

(Additional reporting by Ranga Sirilal; Editing by Martin Howell and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

The Land We Lost To The Political Prostitutes & Comics 

By Lakmal Harischandra –NOVEMBER 8, 2018

Lakmal Harischandra

I am feeling lost and so is my dear nation, still failing to realize the sheer folly of entrusting it to those who are not fit even to manage a wayside shop, let alone this ‘Pearl of the Indian Ocean’. A coalition of disparate parties has crumbled into disarray with dirty political games being played; sadly in the name of democracy. With the latest political crisis, country may well be re-entering the era of deep fracturing of polity, a climate that bred authoritarianism and all the attendant ills of the past . I am not a professional writer; but in my desperation and frustration, I chose to express my thoughts and also thought of exhorting my fellow countrymen to rise up against this prostitution of  our political process and corruption of our political culture by cowboys and comics. Those at the grassroot levels are watching the unfortunate developments with gaped mouths and anxiety. Shouldn’t we ask the pertinent question; ‘Why have we become a nation which cannot manage itself  both productively and efficiently, when comparatively many in the region are whizzing past us?’ 

Many democratic experiments have been failing in Sri Lanka. We have lost many historic opportunities given in a platter, since Independence in 1948. Fast forward, we have almost come to the end of the tether, after having voted in a bunch of  misfits yet another time. Today, it is thus a shame that we have been compelled to bear the ill-consequences of our own follies, saddled with a crack President who is more appropriate to head a comic house, 2 ‘Prime Ministers’ ( one being corrupt to the core and other being inefficient to the core),   a parliament of baboons( at least that is how baboons are described in a group in the English language), a pack of thieves, rapists, betrayers, cheats, frauds, low grade unprincipled turncoats who will sell their souls in return for pennies and  illiterates who have less qualifications than a peon in a government office. A Professor once said that many of those representing us in parliament are fit to be in old age homes and sanctuaries. O Tempora! O Mores!    

Past seventy years, Sri Lanka which was once stood tall as the Pride of and premier league of Asia, a country LQY of Singapore wanted to take as a role model, has now being relegated to the lowermost levels and on the fast track to being a Pariah State. Worse of all, the rowdy political class has brought indelible divisions of racism and communalism among our people, and using them to stay or come to power. I think the Sri Lankan Cricket team is most representative of the degeneration of standards of politics in Sri Lanka. What sort of country are we going to inherit to our next generation? At a time where Trumps are making a mockery of Western style of democracy, Modi is allowing Maha Baratha to stoop to cheap racist politics, Sirisena through his stupid weak brand of politics/ Mahinda through his insatiable greed for power/ Ranil through his inefficiency and selfishness to cling to power at all costs have managed to precipitate this constitutional crisis and a setback for democracy in Sri Lanka, making it a laughing stock of the world. 

For how long can we allow these sucker types to be in charge of our country and bleed the nation to death?  For seven decades, we have been voting in and voting out greens and blues or combination of both in turns, all of whom have been sucking the nation dry through corruption, inefficiency, racism and petty  politics. Who allowed them to sell Sri Lankan assets without people’s consent, on the guise of  executive and legislative power in a democracy? (Sri Lanka became the first nation to fall victim to the Chinese debt trap laid in the name of infrastructure building, leading the country to build a series of white elephants) .Who allowed them to sell their vote in parliament in return for a pot of gold? Who allowed them to help themselves with massive perks in the form of houses, luxury vehicles and security as well as unbelievable free amenities and pension? Why cannot these frauds be brought to book as promised? Where are the massive money pots being offered as bribes for ‘jumping MPs’ emerging from? Aren’t they worthy of investigation? Why aren’t those who give fairy tale promises and forget after elections to be  made to account like in other fields? Why can’t we bring in a system where our public representatives are elected based on acceptable levels of education and political literacy?  Why did we allow leaders of this country of 21 million to become venal and self-serving? Why are we allowing foreign governments to interfere in domestic politics and throw all diplomatic protocols to the wind? These are but some questions people ask ; but unfortunately they still want to be spectators without being part of a wider movement  to set this rot right and ensure cleaner and efficient system of politics. 

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Arjuna blames mob for what happened at CPC Head Office

.. asks police to conduct impartial probe

By Harischandra Gunaratna-November 8, 2018, 12:00 pm 

Former Petroleum and Petroleum Resources Minister Arjuna Ranatunga yesterday called upon the police to conduct an impartial probe and apprehend those responsible for mayhem at the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation Head Office at Dematagoda on 28 Oct. Two persons were shot by one of Ranatunga’s security guards and one of them succumbed to his injuries.

A 15- minute video clip of the incident was shown at a news conference organised by the former Minister in Colombo. Ranatunga said a powerful UPFA politician was behind the incident.

When The Island asked him what had stopped short of naming the politician concerned, Ranatunga said he would be named soon.

The former Minister said he had visited the CPC Head Office to collect the keys to his official residence upon his return from a visit overseas when the mob stormed the place.

"They came to attack me while I waiting for the Additional Secretary to the Ministry to arrive and the security personnel moved me into a room to ensure my safety and the mob tried to storm the room while brutally assaulting the security personnel."

"A sub inspector in my security contingent was forced to open fire at the mob to save my life as a large number of armed gangsters were trying to enter the room, where I was."

He said he had already spoken to President Maithripala Sirisena about the incident and the latter had given him a patient hearing.

Gaza child dies from 2014 drone strike

Relatives of Muhammad al-Rifi mourn during the child’s funeral in Gaza City on 3 November.Mahmoud AjjourAPA images

Maureen Clare Murphy- 8 November 2018

A Palestinian child in Gaza has died from wounds sustained during Israel’s 51-day bombardment of the territory four years ago.

On Saturday, Muhammad Nasir Ziad al-Rifi, 13, succumbed to his injuries from a 21 August 2014 drone strike that killed his father, twin brother and five other members of his family – most of them children.

The child’s spine was hit by shrapnel, causing paraplegia. “The injury also left Muhammad reliant on medical devices for breathing and other functions,” according to Defense for Children International Palestine.

Muhammad was among a group of family members who were irrigating agricultural fields in Gaza City when a missile struck around two meters from where he and the other children were standing.

Muhammad al-Rifi

According to Muhammad’s grandfather, the boy was admitted to a rehabilitation hospital in 2015 but his condition did not improve. He was pronounced dead after “a period of critical deterioration,” Defense for Children International Palestine stated.

Another Gaza child, 9-year-old Muhammad Abu Hadaf, died last December from shrapnel injuries to his spine sustained during the 2014 bombardment.

Around 550 children were among the approximately 2,220 Palestinians fatally injured during that offensive. At least 164 of those children died as a result of Israeli drone strikes, according to Defense for Children International Palestine.

One child was among the five Israeli civilians were killed during the fighting, along with 67 soldiers.
On Sunday, a Palestinian man from Gaza died in an Israeli hospital from injuries sustained one day earlier.

Israel claimed that the man, identified by Palestinian media as Imad Shahin, was shot after he allegedly crossed the Gaza boundary fence.

Shahin was detained by Israeli forces and transferred to Soroka hospital in Beersheva, where he died. Shahin’s family received no formal notice of his death, the Palestinian outlet Arab 48 reported.

Israel is holding the body of Shahin as well as those of 10 others from Gaza killed since 30 March, when mass protests under the banner of the Great March of Return were launched.

No fatalities were reported during the most recent protests in Gaza on Monday and Friday, though Israel continued to injure Palestinians with live fire and tear gas.

More than 220 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza over the past seven months, all but approximately 50 of them fatally wounded during Great March of Return protests.

Around 12,000 Palestinians have been injured during the protests, more than half of them by live fire, according to the Gaza-based rights group Al Mezan.

Thirty-three children are among those killed, and more than 1,200 boys and girls were wounded by live fire.

Subdued protests

Protests in Gaza have been subdued in recent days following a reported agreement between Palestinian factions in the territory and Israel that would see an easing to Israel’s 11-year siege and an end to mass confrontations at the boundary, including the launching of incendiary balloons and kites.
Last Friday’s protests were held under the observation of a delegation from Egypt.

Cairo is facilitating the indirect negotiations and is reportedly pushing Israel to expand the permitted fishing area off of Gaza’s coast to 14 nautical miles – still short of the 20-mile zone stipulated under the Oslo accords signed by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization 25 years ago.

According to Beirut’s Al-Akhbar, under the draft agreement Israel will allow an initial group of 5,000 laborers from Gaza under the age of 40 to work there.

The agreement is also said to compel the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank to pay 80 percent of the salaries of its employees in Gaza – doubling its current rate – and not prevent Qatar from transferring back pay for Hamas civil servants in Gaza.

Egypt would permanently open Rafah, Gaza’s main crossing for travelers, and work towards reaching a three-year truce between Hamas and Israel under international supervision by the United Nations and Russia.

The agreement would also include opening of the commercial crossings with Israel, support for Gaza’s power plant and other infrastructure, and projects to provide job opportunities to some 30,000 recent university graduates to alleviate one of the highest unemployment rates in the world.

Obstacle

The Palestinian Authority remains a primary obstacle, however, as its leader Mahmoud Abbas has persisted in his refusal to reconcile with Hamas, insisting that international projects in Gaza remain under the auspices of his Ramallah government.

The Palestinian Authority reportedly demands that Hamas hand over police power in Gaza, as well as responsibility for the collection of taxes, the courts, crossings and ministries.

Meanwhile electricity in Gaza has increased from four hours per day to up to 16 hours per day after Israel began delivering Qatari-funded fuel that has increased capacity at the Strip’s sole power plant as part of a UN and Egypt-mediated deal.

But Al Mezan warned this week that only half of Gaza’s energy needs are currently being met, and that pressure on electricity infrastructure will increase with colder winter temperatures.

The rights group said that since 2010, 32 Palestinians in Gaza, including 25 children, “have died in incidents involving the use of unsafe alternative energy sources, especially candles, which are the affordable choice for families.”

Saudi to deport scores of Rohingya refugees ‘against their will’ to Bangladesh

Rohingya detainees say they can prove their identities to the Saudis with their old Burmese ID cards

Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during her four-day visit to Saudi Arabia in October (SPA)

Areeb Ullah

Wednesday 7 November 2018 

Saudi Arabia is preparing to forcibly remove scores of Rohingya refugees "against their will" to Bangladesh after imprisoning them for an indefinite period inside a Saudi detention centre, activists and imprisoned Rohingya told Middle East Eye.

The planned deportations come after Saudi Arabia ordered Bangladesh to take back more than a hundred Rohingya who came on Bangladeshi passports to the Gulf kingdom - amid fears that Bangladesh is repatriating Rohingya to Myanmar.

Those being prepared for deportation from Saudi Arabia have told Middle East Eye they have Burmese ID cards to prove they are Rohingya from Myanmar - a country more than 700,000 of them have fled since August 2017 to avoid persecution from the army - and not Bangladeshi. 

“What will we do when we got to Bangladesh? We have no other choice but to kill ourselves."

- Abdul Ghulam, Rohingya detainee inside Shumaisi detention centre

The detainees had begun to be processed for removal to Bangladesh just days after a visit to Saudi Arabia by Bangladesh's prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, in mid-October when she met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

During Hasina’s four-day visit to Saudi Arabia, MBS praised Dhaka’s pledge to invest in Bangladesh and called for stronger military cooperation. Salman also praised Bangladesh’s response to the Rohingya crisis.

Beaten into signing their own deportation orders

Many Rohingya refugees came to Saudi Arabia on passports obtained via fake documents from several South Asian countries - including Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal and Pakistan - in a bid to flee persecution in Myanmar. Most entered Saudi Arabia on Umrah pilgrimage visas several years ago.

But after being caught up in a series of Saudi immigration raids, the Rohingya were subsequently taken to the Shumaisi detention centre in Jeddah, where they confessed to coming to the country on fake passports.

Members of the persecuted minority described fear and panic inside Shumaisi, as Saudi immigration police prepared to forcibly remove the Rohingya detainees to Bangladesh.

Rohingya threatened with deportation to Bangladesh have Burmese documents proving their identity (Supplied)

Several Rohingya detainees told Middle East Eye they were "punched" in the chest by Saudi immigration police and forced to sign documents declaring they had "full mental health" to consent to be sent to Bangladesh.

"The forms were already completed by the [Bangladeshi] embassy and Saudi immigration police," one detainee, who wished to remain anonymous, told MEE.

"They just needed our fingerprint and punched me in the chest to get it. We don't want to go to Bangladesh and live in the refugee camps. What future do we have there?"

Documents leaked to MEE confirmed testimony from detainees that forms from the Saudi Interior Ministry demanded a confirmation on the refugees’ "full mental health" before their deportation to Bangladesh.

The Saudis then handed these forms - with the Rohingya’s fingerprint and photo - to local Bangladeshi diplomats based in Saudi Arabia, who then gave the Rohingya Bangladeshis travel documents, according to the detainees in Shumaisi and documents presented to MEE.

The Bangladeshi travel documents are left blank with only a mugshot of the detainee attached at the bottom and signed later by Bangladesh's diplomats tasked with processing the deportation.

Documents that Rohingya were forced to sign against their will according to detainees and activists (Supplied)

Bangladesh’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, its ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and the foreign minister did not respond to requests for comment. The Saudi embassy in the UK was also approached for comment but did not respond. 

The anonymous detainee stopped speaking to MEE following several days of communication. Fellow inmates fear he has already been deported to Bangladesh.

Other detainees also told MEE that Saudi immigration police had been processing five to ten people daily in preparation for their deportation since mid-October.

Mobile phones that were previously allowed inside the detention centre had also begun to be confiscated by the Saudi immigration police inside Shumaisi. The phones had been used by Rohingya detainees to communicate with each other across various holding cells in the Shumaisi detention centre, which houses 32,000 undocumented workers from across the world.

Rohingya activists and family member estimate that hundreds of Rohingya who had come on fake passports were detained indefinitely in the Shumaisi detention centre. MEE could not independently verify the exact number of Rohingya detainees.

‘What will we do?’

In October, Bangladeshi authorities said it planned to repatriate thousands of Rohingya refugees from its refugee camps to Myanmar. The UN has condemned the move as it fears the genocide against Rohingya inside Myanmar is ongoing.

Abdul Ghulam, who changed his name for security reasons, is another Rohingya detainee in the Shumaisi detention centre.

While Rohingya detainees face a health crisis in the detention centre, other detainees have voiced concern that their deportation to Bangladesh would lead to their eventual repatriation to Myanmar.

"Before we would always worry about our families [in the refugee camps in Bangladesh], but now we are worried about being taken to Bangladesh," said Ghulam.

"That's why we are very upset and living under even more tension. The situation is impacting our health. Eating the two pieces of bread they give us is too difficult to swallow because we have been here for so long in the hope of being freed.

“What will we do when we got to Bangladesh? We have no other choice but to kill ourselves."

Children and women are among the dozens of Rohingya detainees inside Shumaisi detention centre (Supplied)

Ghulam also told MEE that representatives from other countries had rejected the detained Rohingya’s pleas for help, on the grounds that they used fake documents to get their passports to gain passage to Saudi Arabia.

The only country to take the Rohingya after years of negotiations, however, was Bangladesh, according to activists.

Nay San Lwin, who advocates for Rohingya around the world, said that problems for Rohingya occurred after 2010 when the Saudis began using a fingerprint system to register tourists and migrants coming to Saudi Arabia.

“Before when they claimed that they were Rohingya, they got a special permit and stay permit via verification from local Rohingya groups who visited the detention centre,” Lwin recalls.

“The Saudi government should seek to work with Rohingya community groups to verify them, not deport them against their will. Most of them are educated and have grade ten education and speak the Burmese language.”

Saudis urged to halt deportations

Saudi Arabia has no official asylum or refugee policy and is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, which recognises refugees' rights to work, be given travel documents and have freedom of movement.

The Gulf kingdom is said to have the largest population of Rohingya Muslims outside of South Asia. In 1973, during the rule of King Faisal, and following an upsurge in communal violence inside Myanmar, the Gulf kingdom granted Rohingya asylum.

Saudi Arabia must immediately halt all forced deportations of Rohingya to Bangladesh and allow them to seek asylum in Saudi Arabia

- Adam Coogle, Middle East researcher for Human Rights Watch

This continues to be official policy for Rohingya born in the kingdom to generations previously offered residency permits.

Rights groups condemned plans to deport scores of Rohingya to Bangladesh from Saudi Arabia, urging the Saudi authorities to halt the deportations.

“Rohingya in Saudi detention are trapped between the spectre of remaining in jail indefinitely or deportation to a third country where they would be forced to live in very difficult conditions,” Adam Coogle, a Middle East researcher for Human Rights Watch, told Middle East Eye.

“Saudi Arabia must immediately halt all forced deportations of Rohingya to Bangladesh and allow them to seek asylum in Saudi Arabia.”

Amina Zoubairi, a spokesperson for the UN Refugee Agency, told MEE that it was aware “of potential deportation of Rohingya from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia”.

“We have approached Saudi authorities who have said that there is no deportation of Rohingya from the kingdom, and added that deportation plans target migrants from other nationalities who have entered the country irregularly and claim to be Rohingya in order to benefit from the Saudi authorities’ special treatment towards this group,” said Zoubairi.

Death threats and denunciations: artists fear Bolsonaro's Brazil

Outraged … a woman protests against Wagner Schwartz’s naked dance piece. Photograph: Cris Faga/NurPhoto via Getty

Oliver Basciano-Wed 7 Nov 2018 15.50 GMT

Some have employed security guards. Others have fled. With Jair Bolsonaro about to take power, many artists in Brazil fear the censorship and intimidation they currently endure are about to get much worse

Wagner Schwartz received the first death threat two days after lying naked on the floor of a museum in São Paulo. It was October 2017 and the Brazilian artist had invited members of his audience, which included children, to adjust his body: move a limb, roll him over, that kind of thing. This was for a dance piece called La Bête, a work he had already staged many times at home and abroad. So it was a shock to suddenly find himself the target of an increasingly emboldened network of rightwing and evangelical Christian groups.

During La Bête, a four-year-old girl, encouraged by her mother, lifted Schwartz’s hand and then his foot, while another slightly older girl touched his head. These moments were caught on video and uploaded to Facebook. “The creators of this page,” says Schwartz, “put a caption on the video saying the museum incited paedophilia and that I was a paedophile. From this moment on, people who did not know me or the work decided La Bête was a threat.”

Evangelical activists and members of the Movimento Brasil Livre, a group that claims to be libertarian, gathered outside the venue, the Museum of Modern Art (MAM), while 100,000 people signed a petition denouncing the work. One popular meme juxtaposed a picture of Schwartz with three bullets and the caption: “Paedophilia has a cure.”

Accused of inciting paedophilia … Wagner Schwartz performing La Bête. Photograph: Benoit Cappronnier

Pedro D’Eyrot, a performer in the funk-electroclash band Bonde Do Rolê, is one of the founding member of MBL. “Having children touching and being exposed to a naked strange man is wrong,” he says, but he does add: “Our legal institutions are the ones to deal with it.” Nonetheless, Schwartz was forced into hiding and, shortly after, boarded a flight to Paris. “I was frightened,” he says. “Justice in Brazil does not protect those who are threatened.”

Schwartz is just one of many artists in Brazil who were given an early indication of the country’s changing climate. The recent victory of Jair Bolsonaro in the presidential elections is, for a large number of them, a nightmare incarnate. They cite the retired military officer’s courting of the evangelical vote, his homophobic and misogynist rhetoric, not to mention his promise to fold the ministry of culture, and “cleanse” Brazil of “communists”.

Regina Vater, an artist based in Rio de Janeiro, is old enough to remember Brazil’s former military regime. “I never thought I would live through something like the dictatorship again,” he says. “The situation we are in now is even more sinister. There is a veil of democracy, but we are in a state of deception.”

Homophobic rhetoric … election winner Jair Bolsonaro. Photograph: Mauro Pimentel/AFP/Getty

There were jubilant scenes outside the Museum of Art São Paulo (MASP) on the night of Bolsonaro’s victory. Dressed in the yellow and green of the Brazilian flag, the president-elect’s supporters lit fires and cranked up the sound system, while a funk MC started to mock opposition politicians to a beat. As the party swelled, it looked as if the museum was under siege.

It could well be. Such institutions are unlikely to avoid interference, direct or otherwise, from the new government. Fernanda Brenner, artistic director of a non-profit arts body called Pivô, says the incoming president owes a huge debt to all the groups who supported his campaign – and she says they’re behind much of the intimidation being levelled at artists and performers.

Brenner believes one target will be the Rouanet Law, a system that allows companies to reduce their income tax bill by investing in cultural projects. “The Rouanet Law will be an easy hit for him,” she says. “People see it as artists taking advantage of public money. If he cuts it, cultural projects will become very difficult.”

Bolsonaro promised as much during his run. At a rally in March – before 2,000 people, some armed and in military fatigues – the candidate promised to dissolve the ministry of culture into the education department, while attacking the “big-time artists” who he claimed were getting rich off public money.

‘It was awful to see my work so distorted’ … Antonio Obá’s Acts of Transfiguration, in which he grinds up a statue of the Virgin Mary. Photograph: Mendes Wood/Courtesy the artist
D’Eyrot, whose band worked with the producer Diplo, and whose involvement in right-wing politics shocked the Brazilian music world, hopes Bolsonaro will keep his promises: “I expect his government to stop funding all the ideological apparatus created by the PT that lives and thrives on taxpayers’ money.” The PT, or Workers’ Party, governed the country for almost 15 years. “If these initiatives want to survive,” adds D’Eyrot, “they will have to find the money on the market like everyone else.”

Antonio Obá, an artist nominated for the Pipa, Brazil’s biggest art award, caused a storm last September, when pictures and descriptions of a work he performed were circulated online. In Acts of Transfiguration: Disappearance of a Recipe for a Saint, Obá grinds to dust a statue of the Virgin Mary before pouring the powder over his naked body. “I was raised in a traditional Catholic family,” he says, “and almost attended the seminary. I play on Christian rites with affection. The work is supposed to reveal something of my personal history. It was awful to see it so distorted and politicised.”

Rocks are reported to have been thrown at the windows of the museum where he was performing. “The intimidation was systematic,” he says. “Racist messages, threats – all driven by rumours and photos circulating online. Life became unsustainable. I could no longer make work or teach. The strain on my family was too much.” In fear – and with legal action threatened by Magno Malta, a senator now expected to take a ministerial position in Bolsonaro’s government – Obá fled to Europe.

Ambushed … protests against the visit of gender theorist Judith Butler. Photograph: Nelson Almeida/AFP/Getty

Igor Vidor, a Rio-based artist who recently put on a show investigating the links between gang violence and public figures, also believes himself to have been targeted by an orchestrated campaign.

 “The things they were saying, the accusations they were making about me, were the same, the kind of things said by Bolsonaro.” He received his first threatening email three weeks ago, and they have since become increasingly aggressive.

Vidor’s exhibition, at the Galeria Leme in São Paulo, featured interviews with the police and people working within the city’s drug trade, together with a page torn from a cash book he found detailing drugs bought and sold. Like many I spoke to, he seems shocked by the new Brazil. “I never thought things I could do as an artist, critical thoughts presented in a gallery, would put fascists at my front door.” The artist now employs security for his family.

Late last year, the American gender theorist Judith Butler, in São Paulo for a symposium titled The End of Democracy, was ambushed by activists from Tradition, Family and Property, a far-right Christian group. Citing her writings about the fluidity of gender, they accused the professor of child abuse – and burned her effigy.

It has all contributed to a change in the public mood, according to Marcia Fortes, who owns a gallery in São Paulo. “Some time last year,” says Fortes, “we lost the battle. Artists are regarded as paedophiles and the population at large remain against us.”

However, British playwright Jo Clifford does not entirely agree. A Portuguese translation of her play The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven – which imagines a transgender Christ – was due to open in Londrina. But the venue cancelled at the very last moment and the lead, a trans woman called Renata Carvalho, received death threats.

“After we were left without a venue, however, with a mob outside, these local women – lots of them with children – turned up,” she says. “They formed a human shield to protect us as we went to a new venue, a semi-derelict space where we performed by torchlight.” Injunctions have been sought by both Pentecostal and Catholic groups to stop the production. “At an outdoor venue in Garanhuns, a smokebomb was thrown over the wall. Despite this, 500 to 600 people came to see the play that evening. Attending theatre like this has become an incredible act of defiance.”

Several resistance movements have now emerged. Last month, Wilson Witzel, now governor of Rio, was pictured alongside a colleague who was destroying a plaque commemorating Marielle Franco – the progressive city councillor assassinated in March. Channelling their outrage, artists Paula Kossatz and Sidnei Balbino produced and distributed 1,000 replicas of the plaque. Likewise, the #coleraalegria movement has brought together hundreds of artists. At workshops held at Casa 1, an arts venue and refuge for LGBT youth in São Paulo, fabric protest banners are sewn for display on the city’s streets.

'I see frightening parallels. I don't think Brazilians are prepared'

One Turkish artist I spoke to, who wishes to remain anonymous, worries that such initiatives are of only symbolic value. “The rise of Erdoğan in Turkey was the worst thing I thought I’d ever witness,” says the artist, who has lived in São Paulo on and off for 10 years. “Yet I see frightening parallels here. I don’t think Brazilians are prepared, or realise how bad it can get. People are still thinking in terms of the democratic process and the right of protest. I am so afraid, because I know what is possible.”

The artist has opened a meeting space for queer artists in downtown São Paulo. From there they will operate a media agency to distribute anti-right-wing material. One of the projects, in the lead-up to the elections, was a series of video interviews with Pentecostal Christians and police officers who did not support Bolsonaro … “people who the public will listen to, to counter the fake news. People who can explain that the stuff Bolsonaro says is not Christian, or that the Workers’ party did not invent human rights to protect criminals”.

Other initiatives have more focused aims. The 324 movement, named after the number of votes needed in congress to pass a law, is coordinated by film producer Paula Lavigne. This week, 324 Artes, the branch dedicated to the arts (corruption and the environment are two other areas) will meet to plan “opposition strategies”, but most communication takes place via WhatsApp groups, involving people from across arts and media, including Brenner and Fortes.

 Fightback … a student holds a sign reading ‘Bolsonaro lies’ during a demonstration of resistance. Photograph: Nacho Doce/Reuters

Some notable successes have already been chalked up. When Santander bowed to pressure and pulled an exhibition of queer-identifying artists from the bank’s cultural centre in the southern city of Porto Alegre, and the mayor of Rio blocked the show from travelling to the city’s Museum of Art, 324 mobilised to restage it at Rio’s art school, raising more than £220,000 in crowdfunding.

In October last year, MASP, heeding legal advice, prohibited under-18s from attending the exhibition Histories of Sexuality. However, lawyers working pro bono for 324 were able to force the institution to make the age restriction advisory. “Censorship generates self-censorship,” says Fortes. “This is the biggest danger.”

Retaining visibility is key, says Wagner Schwartz, especially in art that deals with gender or sexuality. Schwartz is back in Brazil, about to stage a new autobiographical work at a venue in Rio, featuring other performers who have been on the receiving end of harassment – including Renata Carvalho, Elisabete Finger (the mother of one child who participated in La Bête) and Maikon K, a theatre-maker who was detained by the military police after a nude performance at the National Museum in Brasilia last July. “The art I do is one that disturbs authoritarian discourses,” he says. “Brazil has not and will not stop being a territory that I work in.”

Claudio Bueno, the curator of a new LGBT exhibition at the Museum of Sexual Diversity in São Paulo, echoes this stance. “We discussed whether we should include the artists’ names in the show,” he says. “Whether we are putting them at risk, especially the trans artists who are particularly vulnerable in this climate.But we decided that we cannot hide, we will not disappear. We must resist.”