Day: May 11, 2022

Syria
Eastern Ghouta

Syria: arrest in Assad-era chemical attack

Syria’s Interior Ministry announced the arrest of deposed regime brigadier Khardal Ahmad Dayyub, a former head of Air Force Intelligence in Daraa, for his involvement in systematic human rights violations committed against civilians. Dayyub is accused of running an “assassination committee” in Daraa, as well as involvement in the chemical attacks on Eastern Ghouta during his later service in the Damascus regional branch. He is also said to have had a key role in coordination with Hezbollah and Iranian forces in Syria that were introduced to back up the Bashar Assad dictatorship. (Photo: SANA)

Europe
Saksonov

Russian activist arrested for ‘Putin Hitler’ message

A 68-year-old veteran opposition activist was arrested after displaying a sign reading “PUTIN HITLER” from a prominent bridge over the Moskva River in the center of the Russian capital. Grigory Saksonov, also known as Uncle Grisha, climbed over the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge holding the sign and clad in wetsuit before lowering himself into the water below with a rope. He was pulled out of the river by police and taken away in an ambulance. Saksonov faces charges of “taking part in an unauthorized action” and “disobeying a police officer.” Saksonov’s action came three days before Vladimir Putin presided over the 80th anniversary Victory Day parade in Red Square, a massive spectacle marking the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. (Photo via Novaya Gazeta)

Planet Watch
UNDROP

World peasant movements mobilize for UNDROP

The world organization for land-rooted peasant farmers, Vía Campesina, launched an international campaign for full approval of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants & Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP), and for implementation of policies in line with its principles. Several events were held around the world marking the International Day of Peasant Struggle. El Salvador was one of the first countries to commit to ratifying UNDROP after it was adopted by the UN Human Rights Council in 2018. However, Vía Campesina affiliates in the Central American nation accused the government of pursuing policies contrary to its spirit, noting that in the years since then, there has been a reduction in cultivated areas of maize and beans, with a loss of at least 10,000 hectares of maize. (Image: Vía Campesina)

Iraq
ybs

Iraq: thousands displaced in new battle for Sinjar

Clashes between the Iraqi military and a local Yazidi militia have forced more than 3,000 people to flee the northern town of Sinjar. Fighting erupted when the military launched an operation to clear the area of the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS), a militia with ties to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Many of those displaced are Yazidis who survived the 2014 Islamic State genocide against the ethnicity. They are now distributed in camps across Iraq’s Kurdish region. In 2020, Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) signed a pact to restore their joint control to the autonomous Yazidi enclave, known as Ezidikhan. The deal has not been implemented until now, despite growing pressure from Turkey, which has carried out intermittent air-strikes on the Sinjar area. (Photo: A poster commemorating a slain YBS fighter on a bombed-out building in Sinjar. Credit: TNH)

witches

APOLOGY TO THE ‘WITCHES’: WHY NOW?

Scotland and Catalonia have issued formal apologies for the burning of thousands of women as “witches” between the 15th and 18th centuries. An apology for a crime committed hundreds of years ago, with the victims and perpetrators alike both long dead, may seem like an empty exercise. However, the contemporary world still sees periodic frenzies of “witchcraft” hysteria, with women and the least powerful in society “tried” and lynched—especially in rural areas of Africa and Asia. Last year, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution sponsored by Cameroon calling for “Elimination of harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks.” New York area neo-pagan practitioner and commentator Carole Linda Gonzalez argues that, in this light, the new apologies are all too relevant.

Continue ReadingAPOLOGY TO THE ‘WITCHES’: WHY NOW? 
The Andes
paro

Colombia: gunmen fire on indigenous protesters

Colombian President Iván Duque flew to Cali in the middle of the night after street clashes in the southwestern city left several indigenous protesters injured. Amid a national strikesparked by Duque’s proposed burdensome tax reform, some 5,000 indigenous activists from the nearby administrative department of Cauca had been holding a “Minga,” or protest gathering, on the outskirts of Cali, when unknown gunmen in civilian dress arrived in a pickup truck and opened fire. The Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC) reported that at least 10 activists were wounded, and that the gunmen were intermingled and cooperating with uniformed police. Bogotá has also seen days of street fighting, while an ongoing street festival, with music and dancing, is being maintained by strike supporters in Medellín—despite police repression that has led to hundreds of detentions. (Photo: Colombia Informa)

Syria
SDF

Syrian Democratic Forces fire on Arab protesters

The final defeat of ISIS in Syria’s northeast has left many Arab-majority areas of the region under occupation by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)—a situation obviously fraught with risk. Over the past weeks, protests have mounted in Arab villages across Deir ez-Zor province against the SDF, with residents demanding better services, employment and a greater role in decision-making. Finally, SDF fighters opened fire on protesters in the village of Shheil, killing one person. The protest came after an overnight raid in the village, in which SDF fighters besieged a neighborhood and killed six people. (Image via Rudaw)

North Africa

New Qaeda franchise escalates Mali insurgency

A new Qaeda-affiliated faction, the Group for Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), is attempting to re-unify the fragmented jihadist insurgency in Mali's desert north.

South Asia

Linguistic struggle heats up in Pakistan

A proposed amendment to Pakistan's constitution, making Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto and Balochi "national languages" along with Urdu, is sparking an angry backlash from nationalists.

Rojava

A FEDERAL SYRIA

Kurdish Initiatives on the Rise

by Rene Wadlow, Toward Freedom

On March 17, 2016, the “federal democratic system of Rojava” (a Kurdish term for northern Syria) was proclaimed officially. Some 150 representatives of Kurdish, Arab, and Assyrian (largely Christian) groups met in the city of Rmellane in northeast Syria and voted in favor of the union of three “cantons” largely populated by Kurds—the cantons of Afrin, Kobani, and Jezireh.

The government as well as a major opposition coalition present in the Syria negotiations which have been going on in Geneva since the middle of March, the Syrian National Coalition, both stated their refusal of a federalist system which they saw as a first step to the breakup of Syria. The Syrian Foreign Ministry said that “Any such announcement has no legal value and will not have any legal, political, social or economic impact as long as it does not reflect the will of the entire Syrian people.” There was no indication of how the “will of the entire Syrian people” was to be determined in the war-torn land.

While the Kurdish issues in Turkey have attracted international attention, and the largely autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq is a major player in Iraqi politics, the Kurds in Syria have been less discussed.

Continue ReadingA FEDERAL SYRIA 
Mexico

Mexico: Zapatistas support striking farmworkers

Zapatista leaders in Chiapas declared support for striking farmworkers in Baja California's San Quintín Valley, who clashed with police at a march for a $13-a-day minium wage.