European Union

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Google+ Share on LinkedIn+var sbFBAPPID = '457641991045477';

Latvia’s Antisemitism is a ghost that makes European headlines every March. This week, a Latvian MP of the ruling coalition bloc, Kārlis Seržants, was on the record on Tuesday, March 15, making profoundly anti-Semitic comments.

In an interview with the Russian language public radio LR4, he said that “clever Jews” were responsible for some of the nation’s main problems. Clever Jews who operate “on the edge of the law,” referring to prominent Russian minority activists who, he believes, are Jewish. “I am not a chauvinist, absolutely not,” he specified “and “that is exactly why I am telling that being of Jewish ethnicity means being very smart.” While Russians might also be smart, he specified that Jews are “especially smart.”

The President of the European Jewish Congress, Dr. Moshe Kantor, expressed his profound shock at the remarks of the Latvian MP: “Such racist remarks singling out individual communities in Latvia have no place in democratic discourse within the European Union.”

The former journalist and member of the Saeima (Latvian Parliament) makes part of the Greens and Farmers Union (ZZS), that is, the third largest party but one that emerged at the helm of the current ruling coalition since February 2016. ZZS is the party of the current Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis.

But, perhaps, the heightened attention to this antisemitic stereotyping, that is not unique to Latvia, points towards a greater issue. Anti-Semitic rhetoric, implicit or explicit, is a controversial issue in Latvia, especially in the days leading to March 16. March 16, 1941 is the date of a decisive battle in Russia’s Opochka region, in which Nazi Germany failed to repel the advance of the Red Army. That was a battle in which Baltic volunteers were engaged, including the Latvian Legion, a locally drafted force of Waffen SS.

The Latvian national narrative is that the 140,000 members of the Latvian SS were not really Nazis, but patriots who fought against the Soviet occupier. They were fighting against an army that had occupied Latvia in 1939 – following an agreement with Nazi Germany – deporting thousands of Latvians to Siberia.

Jewish groups and the Russian minority in Latvia are less convinced. Commenting on the event, Efraim Zuroff, of Jerusalem’s Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center told AFP that “anyone who fought for the victory of the Third Reich shouldn’t be a hero.” The Latvian patriotic narrative often omits that about 70,000 Jews were exterminated in Latvia, largely with local collaboration, while the Nazi were hailed as liberators, AFP reports.

On Wednesday, as every year, more than a 1,000 people commemorated the patriotic contribution of the 140,000 Latvian Legionnaires.  The Minister of Culture Dace Melbarde had announced he would join the event, as did a number of Members of the Saeime. Other ministers would not attend, others that they would be “absent,” without making clear whether they would be willing to attend had they been in Riga.

Officially, the administration of Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis does not regard March 16 an official commemoration day for Latvian soldiers. But, for all governments, this is a symbolically loaded issue. In 2014, a Minister of the national conservative alliance resigned, after participating in the event in Riga.

Each year, the event stains the image of Latvia and heightens attention to anti-Semitic attitudes. Unfailingly, it is also an event that Russia uses to discredit the Latvian government.

(AFP, The Baltic Times LR4, LSM.lv, BNS, Jerusalem Post)

 

The post Latvian Antisemitism: a recurring theme every March appeared first on New Europe.

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Google+ Share on LinkedIn+var sbFBAPPID = '457641991045477';

The Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen are responsible for twice as many civilian casualties as all other forces put together, United Nations human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said today.

The announcement didn’t come as a surprise as it has been reported repeatedly that the Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia, had targeted many times populated territories in Yemen during its campaign against the Yemeni rebels, known as the Houthis.

The coalition supports the exiled Yemeni government led by President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and tries to bring it back in power after being forced to withdraw from Yemen because of military actions performed by the Houthis and military forces loyal to former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Since the start of the airstrike campaign in March 2015, the citizens of the poorest state in the Middle East are witnessing a humanitarian destruction. At least 7.6 million people are now seriously “food insecure” in Yemen. Moreover, on 5 January, the UN reported that civilian casualties in Yemen topped 8,100, with nearly 2,800 of them killed, amid Saudi-led coalition airstrikes, shelling by Houthi groups and other clashes.

On 4 March, the spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Rupert Colville, also told journalists in Geneva, Switzerland that civilian casualties continued to mount in Yemen, during February. Last month, a total of at least 168 civilians were killed and 193 injured and around two-thirds of them were hit by the Arab-coalition airstrikes. In the country as a whole, 117 civilians were killed and another 129 wounded as a result of airstrikes in February, with the largest number of casualties (99) attributed to airstrikes hitting the capital, Sana’a.

Today, it was reported that another airstrike on 16 March, on a market in northern Yemen’s rebel-held Hajja province, caused the death of 119 people, including 22 children. According to reports, after the carnage caused by the airstrike, a panel of UN experts has said the coalition has carried out 119 sorties and called for the urgent need for establishing an international probe for war crimes in Yemen.

After the market massacre, the Arab-coalition spokesman, Brigadier General Ahmed al-Assiri, told AFP in an exclusive interview that the coalition is “in the end of the major combat phase,” in Yemen. His statement was welcomed by the White House spokesman Josh Earnest.

However, a similar announcement was made in April 2015. Then, al-Asiri, had said that the objectives of the campaign have been met and the Shia rebels, are no longer a danger.

Two days ago, the Dutch MPs asked from the national govenmrent to enforce an arms embargo against Saudi Arabia, to pressure the oil-rich country to shop shelling in Yemen. A similar call was made by the MEPs to the EU main policy-makers.

This is not the first time The Netherlands are trying to stop the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen. In 2015,  Dutch diplomats in the UN, asked for an independent war crimes inquiry in Yemen. However, the inquiry was blocked by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries such as Bahrain and Qatar which claimed that a war crimes investigation must be launched by the Yemeni government.

 

The post Saudi airstrikes in Yemen responsible for most of the civilian casualties appeared first on New Europe.

30shares Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Google+ Share on LinkedIn+What's This?var sbFBAPPID = '457641991045477';

A declaration to tackle global wildlife trafficking routes has been signed by the Sustainable Shipping Initiative (SSI) – a coalition of companies from across the global shipping industry.

As reported by Hellenic Shipping News online, the declaration was unveiled by The Duke of Cambridge, President of United for Wildlife, and is the culmination of 12 months of work to develop a plan, led by the transport sector, to crack down on illegal wildlife trafficking routes.

The declaration states that shipping must earn a reputation for being a trusted and responsible partner in the communities that it touches around the world.

The United for Wildlife Transport Taskforce Buckingham Palace Declaration is a landmark agreement, outlining 11 commitments aiming to help support the private sector in fighting the illegal wildlife trade. These include: increasing passenger, customer, client, and staff awareness about the nature, scale, and consequences of illegal wildlife trade, promoting the declaration’s commitments across the entire transport sector , improving the training of staff within the transport sector to enable them to detect, identify and report suspected illegal wildlife trade, and acknowledge staff who champion this cause, and notifying relevant law enforcement authorities of cargoes suspected of containing illegal wildlife.

The post Global shipping industry sails against wildlife trafficking appeared first on New Europe.

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Google+ Share on LinkedIn+var sbFBAPPID = '457641991045477';

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.

37shares Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Google+ Share on LinkedIn+What's This?var sbFBAPPID = '457641991045477';

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.

The 28 EU states have agreed on a joint refugee plan which they are ready to present to Turkey for negotiation. Many commentators still oppose the planned deal with Turkey on the grounds that it is immoral. Others see it as the only way to stop the people smugglers and create legal escape routes for refugees.

In his capacity as governor of the Banská Bystrica Region Marián Kotleba, the leader of the neo-Nazi LS-Naše Slovensko party which has just gained seats in the Slovakian parliament, had a theatre production stopped in the city of Brezno simply because he didn't like it. Is Slovakia facing the prospect of Nazi-style enforced cultural conformity?

Romania plans to buy the famous sculpture The Wisdom of the Earth by iconic Romanian sculptor Constantin Brâncuși from its current private owners for 11 million euros. However the Romanian government's plan is to put just five million towards the purchase and gather the remaining sum through donations by the end of September. Can this crowdfunding initiative help unite the country?

The Kurdish terrorist organisation the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons claimed responsibility on Thursday for last Sunday's attack in Ankara. It said the bombing, which claimed 37 lives, was a retaliatory strike for the Turkish military's operations in the southeast of the country. How can the situation in Turkey be defused?

Russia has begun its partial withdrawal from Syria but its naval base in Tartus and its air base in Latakia will remain in operation. Some commentators say President Vladimir Putin's 'surprise' announcement was a logical step since he has achieved all his military objectives. Others speculate that Putin has withdrawn solely for domestic reasons.