Every Saturday for 23 years, dozens of people have held a vigil in a central Istanbul square, sitting in silence and holding pictures of relatives who went missing in police detention.

The group was about to stage their 700th demonstration last Saturday when Turkish police told them their protest was banned, before firing tear gas and plastic pellets to disperse the crowd and detaining dozens – including a 82-year-old woman who was among the first to protest in 1995 in search of her son.

The sit-in by the so-called Saturday Mothers was one of the few remaining public protests near Istanbul’s Taksim square, once a vibrant demonstration ground but now off limits for opposition groups.

Critics say that breaking up the vigil was another sign that NATO member Turkey is drifting into more authoritarian rule under President Tayyip Erdogan, adding to Ankara’s already deteriorating record on human rights and media freedoms.

Casting the protest as a cover for supporting terrorism, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said the Saturday Mothers were linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and hinted the vigils would no longer be allowed.

“This has been one of Turkey’s oldest civil disobedience movements,” said Ahmet Sik, former journalist and a lawmaker for the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), who was at Saturday’s protest.

“There was a time when the police helped these people to do their vigil. To criminalise such an established protest now is an attempt to intimidate the rest of the public,” he said.

Turkey in July lifted a two year-long state of emergency during which 150,000 civil servants were purged and 77,000 people suspected of links to a failed coup in 2016 were charged.

But opponents say Erdogan’s new executive presidency and a counter-terrorism law passed last month equips him with sweeping powers to stifle opposition.

Soylu said on Monday that authorities blocked the sit-in because participants were “trying to create victims through motherhood and mask terrorism through that victimisation.”

At a news conference in Istanbul, the group denied links to any militant group and pointed out Erdogan, when he was prime minister in 2011, met them and pledged support.

They also vowed to continue their protest.

“Nobody is using us. Nobody has made us come here,” said Hanife Yildiz, whose son Murat went missing in police detention in 1995.

“I handed over my son to the state and I haven’t gotten him back since.”

‘REPEAT OF THE 1990s’

The silent vigils of Saturday Mothers began as a protest against what they say was the disappearance of relatives in police detention and extrajudicial killings in the 1990s.

At the time, when conflict with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) was at its height, such disappearances and killings were common, mostly in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast.

Emine Ocak, who was briefly detained on Saturday, was among those at the first sit-in after her son Hasan Ocak went missing following clashes with police in Istanbul in 1995.

Soylu rejected that Ocak had gone missing in detention and said he was a member of an ultra leftist terrorist organisation and that he was killed after a row within the group but the Saturday Mothers were trying to put the blame on the state.

Emine Ocak’s picture – the image of a white-haired elderly woman shouting as she was taken by riot police – went viral across Twitter. Her son Huseyin, Hasan’s brother, told Reuters police intervention was unexpected.

“There seems to be a new security approach in the state that very much resembles the one in the 1990s,” Huseyin Ocak said.

“I was there at the meeting with Erdogan on Feb 5, 2011. He said, ‘Your problem is my cabinet’s problem.” “He also promised to find our relatives”, he added.

State investigations have shed light on some of the cases pursued by the Saturday Mothers. A 2011 parliament report found that Cemil Kirbayir, who went missing during a 1980 coup, died under torture.

“Since 1995 we have continued our rightful and silent resistance,” Cemil’s brother Mikail said. “You will not be able to remove us from that square.”

An opposition Ugandan lawmaker was charged with treason on Thursday over his alleged role in the stoning of President Yoweri Museveni’s convoy this month.

A civilian magistrate ordered Robert Kyagulanyi remanded in custody until Aug. 30 and granted him access to private doctors, citing the “health of the accused”, according to footage broadcast on private broadcaster NBS Uganda.

Kyagulanyi, who only entered parliament last year, has been left unable to stand after being beaten while in detention, his lawyer told Reuters, citing relatives who visited him. The Ugandan government says the assault accusation is “rubbish”.

In the TV footage, Kyagulanyi was seen walking with one crutch and the assistance of prison wardens when entering the courtroom.

Earlier on Thursday, a separate military court dropped charges of unlawful weapons possession against Kyagulanyi, a popular musician whose songs’ biting criticism of Museveni’s government has won him a large youth following.

His detention, along with and four other politicians critical of Museveni, sparked two days of anti-government demonstrations in the capital Kampala and other parts of the country this week.

Three other lawmakers and dozens of other people have also been charged with treason over their alleged role in the convoy stoning.

Separately, police arrested two opposition politicians on Thursday for defying orders not to leave their homes after police placed them under “preventative arrest” to try to head off further unrest.

Ugandan police spokesman Emilian Kayima said police had received “intelligence reports that these leaders were inciting people to riot yet they have other lawful avenues, like petitioning a higher court, to seek redress about the fate of their colleague”. He was referring to Kyagulanyi.

“We don’t want to experience what we went through on Monday,” he said, referring to a demonstration in Kampala at which Ugandan police fired tear gas and military units were deployed to disperse protesters.

Representatives of several prominent opposition politicians had said on social media that they had been prevented from leaving home and that they had planned to attend Kyagulanyi’s court appearance.

Protesters and opposition supporters accuse Museveni, in power since 1986, of stifling dissent through intimidation, beatings and detentions, charges which his government denies.

Last October, when parliament was debating whether to remove a constitutional age limit that would have barred Museveni from seeking re-election in 2021, security forces and protesters clashed on the streets and two protesters died.

The presidential age limit has since been removed.

]]> 7845 https://www.faith-matters.org/bosnia-leader-accuses-u-s-of-meddling-in-elections/ Thu, 23 Aug 2018 09:42:23 +0000 https://www.faith-matters.org/?p=7831

The president of Bosnia’s autonomous Serb Republic has accused the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo of using its development agency to interfere in the Balkan country’s election process, a charge dismissed by the embassy as a “wild” conspiracy theory.

Milorad Dodik said the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was implementing its aid programme through non-government organisations to conceal what he said was its real agenda of countering Russian influence in the region.

“Aiming to directly interfere in internal affairs of the Republika Srpska and Bosnia, USAID … tries to avoid all institutions and to grant funds under cover of the alleged fight against crime and corruption,” Dodik said.

Dodik, a critic of the West who favours closer ties with Russia, accused the central Bosnian government of conspiring with USAID in the matter and said that NGOs in the Serb Republic which receive USAID funding would be investigated.

Bosnia is divided into a Serb Republic and an entity for its Muslim Bosniak and Croat populations, which are linked via a weak central government.

The U.S. Embassy dismissed Dodik’s accusations.

“Once again, the assistance of the people of the United States is being used to support wild conspiracy theories in the interest of election campaigning in Bosnia,” it said in a statement.

The embassy said it was still negotiating with the Bosnian central government programmes worth a total $8 million to help combat graft, and it accused Dodik of trying to mislead the public and intimidate USAID partners.

Bosnia’s Prime Minister Denis Zvizdic also dismissed Dodik’s allegations, saying the programmes accepted by the Council of Ministers were only at an initial stage and could not influence the election process.

Dodik, who has been blacklisted by the United States for pushing for an illegal referendum on an illegal holiday, has often accused Western governments of being biased against Serbs.

Political analysts said Dodik’s rhetoric showed he had begun early campaigning for Bosnia’s parliamentary and presidential elections on Oct. 7. He plans to run for the Serbs’ seat in Bosnia’s tripartite inter-ethnic presidency.

Last month, Dodik also accused Britain of sending intelligence specialists to Bosnia to meddle in the election campaign. Britain said he was “inventing fake threats” as part of his election campaigning.

Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and Alphabet Inc. collectively removed hundreds of accounts tied to an alleged Iranian propaganda operation on Tuesday, while Facebook took down a second campaign it said was linked to Russia.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the accounts identified on his company’s platform were part of two separate campaigns, the first from Iran with some ties to state-owned media, the second linked to sources which Washington has previously named as Russian military intelligence services.

Officials in Iran, where it is a holiday to mark the Muslim Eid al-Adha festival, were not immediately available to comment. Moscow has repeatedly denied using hacking or fake social media accounts to influence foreign elections. The Russian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The move by Facebook and others is the latest attempt by global social media giants to guard against political interference on their platforms. It comes as concerns are rising about foreign attempts to disrupt the U.S. midterm elections in November.

The United States earlier this year indicted 13 Russians for alleged attempts to meddle in U.S. politics, but the latest alleged Iranian activity, exposed by cybersecurity firm FireEye Inc. suggests the problem may be more widespread.

“It really shows it’s not just Russia that engages in this type of activity,” Lee Foster, an information operations analyst with FireEye, told Reuters.

FireEye said the Iranian campaign used a network of fake news websites and fraudulent social media personas spread across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google Plus and YouTube, to push narratives in line with Tehran’s interests.

The Iranian mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment.

The activity was aimed at users in the United States, Britain, Latin America and Middle East up through this month, FireEye said, and included “anti-Saudi, anti-Israeli, and pro-Palestinian themes” as well as advocacy of policies favorable to Iran such as the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal.

FireEye said the Iranian activity did not appear “dedicated” to influencing the upcoming election, though some of the posts aimed at U.S. users did adopt “left-leaning identities” and took stances against President Donald Trump.

That activity “could suggest a more active attempt to influence domestic U.S. political discourse” is forthcoming, Foster said, but “we just haven’t seen that yet.”

‘DISTINCT CAMPAIGNS’

Facebook said the Russia-linked accounts it removed were engaged in “inauthentic behavior” related to politics in Syria and Ukraine. It said that activity did not appear to be linked to the Iranian campaign.

“These were distinct campaigns and we have not identified any link or coordination between them. However, they used similar tactics by creating networks of accounts to mislead others about who they were and what they were doing,” the company said in a statement.

Facebook last month removed 32 pages and accounts tied to another misinformation campaign without describing its origins, but which U.S. lawmakers said likely had Russian involvement.

Microsoft said this week that hackers linked to the Russian government sought to steal email login credentials from U.S. politicians and think tanks, allegations the Russian foreign ministry described as a “witch-hunt.”

FireEye said the U.S.-focused Iranian activity ramped up last year, just months after Trump took office, with websites and social media accounts posting memes and articles, some of which were apparently copied from legitimate U.S. and Iranian news outlets.

In some cases, the domains for the fake websites like “US Journal” and “Liberty Free Press” were originally registered years before the 2016 election, in 2014 and 2013, but most remained inactive until last year, FireEye said.

Arabic-language, Middle East-focused websites appear to be part of the same campaign, the company added.

The technology companies variously said they linked the accounts to Iran based on user phone numbers, email addresses, website registration records and the timing of account activity matching Iranian business hours.

FireEye expressed “moderate confidence” about the Iranian origins, but said it has not been able to tie the accounts back to a specific organization or individuals.

Hundreds of thousands of people followed one or more of the Facebook pages implicated in the campaign, Facebook said.

It shared examples of removed posts, including a cartoon depicting an Israeli soldier executing a Palestinian and a fake movie poster showing President Trump embracing North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Postings cited by FireEye expressed praise for U.S. politicians and other Twitter users who criticized the Trump administration’s decision in May to abandon the Iranian nuclear pact, under which Iran had agreed to curb its nuclear weapons program in exchange for loosening of sanctions.

Some Twitter and Facebook accounts were designed to appear as if they were real people in the U.S., Britain and Canada, according to FireEye. The accounts used a combination of different hashtags to engage in U.S. culture, including “#lockhimup,” “#impeachtrump” and “notmypresident.”

Twitter, which called the effort “coordinated manipulation,” said it removed 284 accounts.

Facebook said it removed 254 pages and 392 accounts across its flagship platform as well as its Instagram service. Some of the accounts had events and groups associated with them.

The accounts spent about $12,000 to advertise through Facebook and Instagram using a variety of currencies, Facebook said. The company said it had notified the U.S. Treasury and State departments of the purchases, which may potentially violate sanctions.

Alphabet, which includes Google and YouTube, did not respond to a request to comment.

Egypt is finalising details of a long-term truce deal between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, an Egyptian security source said on Thursday, amid easing tensions on the border of the enclave where some two million Palestinians live.

Cairo has brokered an interim truce that has allowed commercial goods into Gaza ahead of the Muslim Eid al-Adha feast which starts next week.

“We are putting the final touches to the terms of the truce that will be signed by all sides, and we expect to announce the terms next week if Fatah helps us to do so,” the source said, referring to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s mainstream party which dominates the occupied West Bank.

Officials from Fatah have not joined those of Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, and other Palestinian factions for the talks in Cairo on the long-term truce.

But Fatah’s backing is crucial for any deal as the party retains a large presence in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and has overall control in areas under Abbas’s Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank.

“The period of calm will be for one year, during which contacts will be held to extend it for another four years,” the source told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A long-term truce could pave the way for talks on other issues, including the easing of a blockade that has crippled Gaza’s economy and allowing a possible swap of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers.

The source said Egyptian intelligence chief, Abbas Kamel, was expected to meet Abbas in Ramallah after similar talks in Israel, and a deal could be announced by next week. An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed Kamel had met with Netanyahu in Israel this week, but gave no details.

A Palestinian source in Ramallah said Kamel has left without seeing Abbas, who had been preoccupied with a Palestinian leadership conference. But the source said Abbas had informed Egypt that Fatah representatives would join the Cairo talks later this week or next week.

EASING BLOCKADE

Apart from the opening of its Kerem Shalom commercial crossing into Gaza, Israel also expanded the enclave’s fishing zone, in waters under Israeli naval blockade, from three to nine nautical miles off the southern coast and to six nautical miles in the north, according to the head of Gaza’s fishermen’s union.

The Egyptian security source said the extended truce would also include opening a sea lane from Gaza to Cyprus under Israeli supervision.

A Palestinian official in Gaza familiar with the talks said Palestinian factions were demanding a “total lifting of the blockade on Gaza, opening all crossings with Israel and Egypt and a water corridor”.

Israel says its blockade is a self-defence measure against Hamas, a group that has called for its destruction.

Israel’s security cabinet, a forum of senior ministers headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, discussed the Gaza situation on Wednesday and an Israeli “diplomatic official” said Hamas would have to prove its commitment to the truce.

As well as wanting calm along the border, Israel has said Hamas must return the remains of two soldiers killed in the 2014 Gaza war and release two civilians whose fate is unknown. It says they are being held by Hamas in Gaza.

“That’s the only way,” Israeli Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi, a member of Netanyahu’s security cabinet, said on Thursday when asked if a broad arrangement depended on the return of the soldiers’ bodies.

“Nothing will be done to enable (Gaza’s) significant rehabilitation and the improvement of infrastructure and ports and other such fantasies, unless they release the bodies and the two Israeli captives,” he told Israel radio.

The Egyptian security source said the long-term truce would also envisage Israel freeing hundreds of detained Palestinians in a prisoner swap.

However, the Palestinian official denied any talks were taking place on a swap, saying Hamas opposed mixing the issues.

Egypt has brokered a Palestinian reconciliation agreement that provides for Hamas to cede control of Gaza to Abbas’s Palestinian Authority. A dispute over power-sharing has hindered implementation of the deal, but the Egyptian source said Cairo was still seeking progress on the issue.

Google has added a section to its twice-yearly transparency report to show who buys U.S. election ads on its platform and how much money is spent on political advertising, the search engine giant said on Wednesday.

The move follows similar steps from Twitter and Facebook in late June, as social media platforms face the threat of U.S. regulation over the lack of disclosure on such spending.

The new data from Alphabet Inc gives details on advertisers who have spent more than $500 on political ads from May 31, 2018.

With a spend of $629,500, the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, a fundraising organization for President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, stood as the top U.S. political ad spender, according to the data.

Google said it would update the report every week and the public can view new ads that get uploaded or new advertisers that decide to run ads.

Indonesia’s president, Joko Widodo, brandished his nationalist and religious credentials on Friday amid reports he had come under pressure from Islamic party allies to accept a conservative cleric as running mate in next year’s election.

In a last-minute decision, Widodo announced on Thursday Ma’ruf Amin, who heads the board of advisers of the country’s biggest mass Muslim organisation, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), would be his vice presidential candidate for April’s poll.

The duo will be challenged by the former general Prabowo Subianto and the private equity tycoon and Jakarta deputy governor Sandiaga Uno.

Wearing a crisp white shirt emblazoned with the slogan “Clean. With the people. Real work.”, Widodo told supporters on Friday he would “safeguard national resources”.

He cited as evidence recent policy decisions to nationalise oil and gas assets and seize majority ownership of the huge Grasberg gold and copper mine from the U.S. based Freeport-McMoran.

“It is proof that we are sovereign,” he said.

Amin later led the crowd in prayer, asking God to “give us the capability and spirit to safeguard us against forces that try to destroy, to weaken us and our country.”

The pair left the stage as Islamic singing, rendered in Arabic, played.

The cleric then delivered a sermon at Friday prayers at Jakarta’s biggest mosque.

Prabowo and Uno were to have gone to the mosque before formally registering as candidates at the election commission but changed their plans and prayed at a nearby mosque instead.

‘STAUNCH CONSERVATIVE’

Amin also heads the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), an influential group for clerics that has issued fatwas hostile to minorities, including the Islamic sect Ahmadiyah and the gay community.

He also issued a statement accusing former Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama of blasphemy for insulting the Koran, an edict that led hundreds of thousands of protesters to swarm the streets of the Indonesian capital demanding his ouster last year.

Purnama, an ethnic Chinese Christian, lost the election as he divided his time between campaigning and defending himself against blasphemy charges in court. He was later jailed for two years.

Kevin O’Rourke, a political analyst, said Amin was a “staunch conservative” and “adroit manipulator”.

“As VP, he can bolster Islamic groups and perhaps give some other religious conservative a chance to succeed Widodo,” he wrote.

Indonesia politics analyst Marcus Mietzner said Amin’s appointment could neuter attacks on Widodo’s alleged lack of religious conviction and elevate nationalist themes in the election campaign.

“(The Opposition) are probably going to shift their focus onto ultra-nationalist themes: sell-out to China, invasion of foreign workers, evil imports, predatory investors,” he told Reuters in emailed comments.

“These are classic Prabowo themes anyway, but they will become even more pronounced this time.”

Widodo and Prabowo contested the last presidential election in 2014. Widodo won but his popularity slumped mid-campaign after false reports were spread online that he was a Christian and an ethnic Chinese descendent.

After Friday prayers, Prabowo declared himself the candidate for the poor, touching on another central theme of his campaign: inequality.

“Our job as leaders is to eliminate people’s suffering so that nobody is hungry, naked or suffering … no matter what their religion is.”

“Our friends here are sometimes considered radicals, but believe me, there is no radical Islam in Indonesia,” added Prabowo, who has forged close ties with hardline Islamists.

‘DEPENDENT’

According to party officials from the president’s coalition, Widodo had favoured an alternative to Amin, former constitutional court chief justice Mahfud MD.

In a television interview, Mahfud said he was asked “in some detail” to prepare to be the running mate and was on standby to be anointed on Thursday.

Mahfud said it was Widodo’s decision to overlook him.

But, as quoted by the news portal Detik.com, NU board member Robikin Emhas said NU leaders, including Amin, told Widodo that they could not support Mahfud.

Mietzner said Widodo had initially discounted NU’s opposition to Mahfud.

“The implications are that four years into his presidency, Jokowi is still much more dependent on his supporting parties than he cares to admit. (It’s) a demonstration of his continued weakness,” he said, referring to Widodo by his nickname.

A presidential spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

A leader of NU-aligned National Awakening Party (PKB), Muhaimin Iskander, told reporters on Thursday it was a surprise Amin was selected and that Mahfud was Widodo’s initial preference.

“I thought Mahfud was chosen. But it turned out to be Ma’ruf Amin,” he said.

Slovenia’s five centre-left parties nominated Marjan Sarec, a comedian turned politician, to become prime minister and form a government following an inconclusive June 3 general election.

The nomination is expected to end Slovenia’s longest political stalemate since an election.

The anti-immigrant Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) of former Prime Minister Janez Jansa, the strongest single party in the parliament with 25 seats, could not find a coalition partner to form the government.

Under Slovenian law, lawmakers may nominate candidates for prime minister if the president fails to name a candidate because no party holds a majority in parliament.

The parliament is due to vote on Sarec’s nomination on Aug. 17. He would need support of an absolute majority – at least 46 out of 90 parliamentary members – to be elected.

Sarec is a former actor and comedian whose second term as mayor of Kamnik in northern Slovenia expired this year.

His LMS party has agreed a minority coalition with the Social Democrats, the Party of Modern Centre, the Party of ex-Prime Minister Alenka Bratusek SAB and pensioners’ party Desus.

The coalition also expects to get the backing of the Left party, though it earlier said it would not participate in the government.

The five parties together hold 43 seats, and with the Left’s nine seats they expect to secure a slim majority in the parliament. If confirmed, Sarec will have 15 days to nominate his cabinet.

One of the first tasks of the new government would be to start the sale of Slovenia’s largest bank, state-owned Nova Ljubljanska Banka. Slovenia has committed to sell a 75 percent stake in NLB in exchange for European Commission approval of state aid to the bank in 2013.

The deputy leader of Britain’s opposition Labour Party increased pressure on its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, over anti-Semitism on Sunday, saying the party could “disappear into a vortex of eternal shame” unless he tackled a growing crisis.

Corbyn has been criticised by Jewish groups for what they describe as his tolerance of anti-Semitism in Labour, a crisis that has threatened his standing at a time when the governing Conservatives are struggling to unite behind a Brexit plan.

Corbyn’s again appealed to Jewish members on Sunday, using a video message to press his pledge to drive anti-Semitism out of the party “for good” after a similar attempt fell flat for several Jewish groups on Saturday. One — the Jewish Labour Movement — called for action, not words.

In an interview with the Observer newspaper, deputy leader Tom Watson took aim at Corbyn saying the party had to “take a long, hard look at ourselves, stand up for what is right and present the party as fit to lead the nation – or disappear into a vortex of eternal shame and embarrassment”.

“I think it’s very important that we all work to de-escalate this disagreement.”

He called on Corbyn to adopt in full an internationally accepted definition of anti-Semitism. Labour says it has concerns about part of the definition but had re-opened discussions to take into account Jewish community concerns.

In his message, Corbyn did not refer to the definition but apologised for the hurt caused to many Jewish people and pledged to speed up disciplinary cases in Labour to drive out anti-Semitism.

“People who use anti-Semitic poison need to understand: You do not do it in my name, or the name of my party. You are not our supporters,” he said.

The Labour Party has been benefiting in the polls from a row in the Conservatives over Prime Minister Theresa May’s plans for Britain to leave the European Union, which has deepened divisions and raised the possibility of an early election.

But some Labour members fear the growing row over anti-Semitism will damage the party before an election, which is due in 2022.