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Russian authorities have imposed a climate of fear in Crimea, according to a today’s report by the Human Rights Watch.

“Crimea’s isolation has made it very difficult to conduct comprehensive human rights monitoring there,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director for Human Rights Watch. “But serious human rights abuses in Crimea should not slip to the bottom of the international agenda.”

Since Russian forces began occupying Crimea in early 2014, the space for free speech, freedom of association, and media in Crimea has shrunk dramatically, the humanitarian organization said. HRW accused the authorities of not conducting investigations into actions of armed paramilitary groups, implicated in torture, extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearances, attacks and beatings of Crimean Tatar and pro-Ukraine activists and journalists.

According to NGO, under the pretext of combating extremism or terrorism, the authorities have harassed, intimidated, and taken arbitrary legal action against Crimean Tatars, an ethnic minority who openly opposed Russia’s occupation.

“For the last two years, many Crimean Tatars have consistently, openly, and peacefully opposed Russian actions in Crimea,” Williamson said. “Russia has been making Crimean Tatars pay a high price for nothing more than their principled stance.”

Local authorities declared two Crimean Tatar leaders personae non gratae and prohibited them from entering Crimea. Moreover, the authorities also harassed and intimidated Crimean Tatar activists and conducted intrusive and sometimes unwarranted searches at mosques and Islamic schools.

HRW reported that under international law, the Russian Federation is an occupying power in Crimea as it exercises effective control in Crimea without the consent of the government of Ukraine, and there has been no legally recognized transfer of sovereignty to Russia.

“Russia bears direct responsibility for the surge in rights abuses in Crimea,” Williamson said. “Russia’s international partners should sustain constant pressure on Russia to stop human rights abuses on the peninsula.”

The post HRW: Climate of fear established in Crimea appeared first on New Europe.

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France launched a new prison program aiming to combat fundamentalism among prison inmates. The plan was initially unveiled in February 2015.

France established designated wards in French prisons for detainees, who adopted the jihadism ideology. The specialized units accommodate all but the more radicalized inmates. The detainees in the anti-jihadist units are supervised by more guards and receive a special treatment which focuses more on mental health and education. Psychologists are meeting with the prisoners who they are also encouraged to engage in political discussions, attend theatre workshops and discuss with experts about the jihadist ideology. Inmates who refuse to participate in the de-radicalization process are expelled from the program.

In 2015, Newsweek reported that even though Muslims make up less than 10 percent of France’s 66 million population, half of the prison population in the country are Muslim. After the fatal Paris attacks and the fact that most of the attackers were French nationals, many criticized the authorities because it provided many Jewish and Christian preachers for the prisoners in need but very few Muslim preachers.

Last month the French newspaper Le Fiagro reported France’s Interior Ministry had identified 8,250 “radicalized” French people.

In the meantime, the French government is also trying to establish the first de-radicalization center aiming at freeing those who have been convinced by the ideology of extremist Islam. The center is expected to open in the summer, but its location remains unknown.

According to the Local France, the center will be a kind of boarding school for radicalized French youths aged 18 to 30, who may have tried and failed to travel to the Middle East. It will officially be called a centre for “reintegration and citizenship”.

 

The post French government reforms prison system to combat jihadism appeared first on New Europe.

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