Protests shut streets in Armenia’s capital, roads in other parts to demand the prime minister resign

Tens of thousands of demonstrators have held a protest in the center of the capital of Armenia, calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan after Armenia agreed to hand over control of several border villages to Azerbaijan. (AP)

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Updated 27 May 2024

May 27, 2024 09:53

Protests shut streets in Armenia’s capital, roads in other parts to demand the prime minister resign

Protests have roiled the country for weeks, sparked by the government’s return of four border villages to Azerbaijan
Police on Monday said 196 people have been detained in Yerevan

Updated 27 May 2024

May 27, 2024 09:53

YEREVAN: Protesters demanding the resignation of Armenia’s prime minister on Monday blocked main streets in the capital city and other parts of the country, sporadically clashing with police.
Police said 196 people have been detained in Yerevan. Protests have roiled the country for weeks, sparked by the government’s return of four border villages to Azerbaijan.
The demonstrations are spearheaded by Bagrat Galstanyan, a high-ranking cleric in the Armenian Apostolic Church and archbishop of the Tavush diocese in Armenia’s northeast, where the returned villages are located.
Although the villages were the protests’ rallying point, they have expanded to express a wide array of complaints against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and his government.
Top figures in Gastanyan’s Tavush for the Homeland movement told a huge rally in Yerevan on Sunday that they support Galstanyan becoming the next prime minister.
The decision to turn over the villages in Tavush followed a lightning military campaign in September, in which Azerbaijan’s military forced ethnic Armenian separatists in the Karabakh region to capitulate.
After Azerbaijan took full control of Karabakh, about 120,000 people fled the region, almost all from its ethnic Armenian population.
Ethnic Armenian fighters backed by the Armenian military had taken control of Karabakh in 1994 after a six-year war. Azerbaijan regained some of the territory after fighting in 2020 ended an armistice brought on by a Russian peacekeeping force, which began withdrawing this year.
Pashinyan has said Armenia needs to quickly define the border with Azerbaijan to avoid a new round of hostilities.

Topics: Armenia Azerbaijan

Woman faces hate crime charges after confronting Palestinian man wearing `Palestine’ shirt

Alexandra Szustakiewicz. (X @StopArabHate)

Updated 31 sec ago

November 19, 2024 22:54

Woman faces hate crime charges after confronting Palestinian man wearing `Palestine’ shirt

Waseem Zahran told the Chicago Sun-Times it was not the first time he has been harassed for wearing the sweatshirt, and he expects it won’t be the last time

Updated 31 sec ago

November 19, 2024 22:54

DOWNERS GROVE, Illinois: A suburban Chicago woman faces hate crime charges for allegedly confronting a Palestinian man wearing a sweatshirt with “Palestine” written on it and trying to knock a cellphone out of his pregnant wife’s hands as she recorded the encounter, authorities and the man said.
Alexandra Szustakiewicz, 64, appeared in court Monday for her arraignment on two felony hate crime counts and a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge. A DuPage County judge ordered the Darien, Illinois, woman to have no contact with the victims and to stay away from the restaurant where police said the confrontation occurred Saturday. Szustakiewicz’s next court hearing is set for Dec. 16.
A message left Tuesday for her public defender, Kendall Pietrzak, seeking comment on the charges was not immediately returned.
Szustakiewicz was at a Panera Bread restaurant in the Chicago suburb of Downers Grove on Saturday “when she confronted and yelled expletives at a man regarding a sweatshirt he was wearing with the word Palestine written on it,” according to a news release sent Monday by the DuPage County State’s Attorney’s Office and Downers Grove police.
She also allegedly “attempted to hit a cell phone out of the hands of a woman who was with the man when the woman began videotaping the incident,” it adds.
A complaint filed against Szustakiewicz, who was arrested Sunday, alleges that she “committed a hate crime by reason of perceived national origin” of the two victims.
DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin said in a statement that “this type of behavior and the accompanying prejudice have no place in a civilized society.”
The Palestinian man Szustakiewicz is accused of confronting said he was wearing a hoodie with the word “Palestine” on it when she approached him and yelled expletives at him while trying to hit his pregnant wife, whom he shielded as she filmed Szustakiewicz with her cellphone.
Waseem Zahran told the Chicago Sun-Times it was not the first time he has been harassed for wearing the sweatshirt, and he expects it won’t be the last time. He said his family has long faced harassment and threats for being Palestinian.
“Since I was a child, I’ve seen my mom threatened, parents screamed at, cousins yelled at. But it was a first for me to be attacked,” Zahran told the newspaper.
He said he tried to deescalate the situation multiple times, even after Szustakiewicz allegedly hit him in the face and attempted to throw hot coffee on his wife before and after swinging at her multiple times.
Zahran said Szustakiewicz continued swinging at his wife even after he told her she was pregnant.
“I don’t care,” he said she replied.
He said in a statement sent Monday by the Chicago Office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations that he is “a born and raised American who took his wife out for lunch. I was not able to do that simply because I was Palestinian.”
CAIR-Chicago Executive Director Ahmed Rehab condemned the attack in the statement.
“We have long seen how European migrants like this woman feel a bizarre sense of entitlement to regularly harass and accost native Palestinians in their ancestral homeland, knowing they enjoy full impunity and knowing their victims have no recourse,” Rehab said.
“Now, shockingly but not surprisingly, that same anti-Palestinian hatred has followed them into their new homeland, here in America, where they were born and raised.”

Topics: Palestine Chicago US

Afghan woman teacher, jailed Tajik lawyer share top rights prize

Updated 21 min 17 sec ago

AFP

November 19, 2024 22:33

Afghan woman teacher, jailed Tajik lawyer share top rights prize

Zholia Parsi, a teacher from Kabul, shared the prize with lawyer Manuchehr Kholiqnazarov, who is serving a 16-year prison sentence in connection with his human rights work
The chairman of the prize jury, Hans Thoolen, said the pair were “exceptional laureates“

Updated 21 min 17 sec ago

AFP

November 19, 2024 22:33

GENEVA: An Afghan teacher and a jailed lawyer from Tajikistan on Tuesday won the Martin Ennals Award, one of the world’s most prestigious rights prizes, with the jury hailing their “exceptional courage.”
Zholia Parsi, a teacher from Kabul who began protesting for women’s rights after the Taliban returned to power three years ago, shared the prize with lawyer Manuchehr Kholiqnazarov, who is serving a 16-year prison sentence in connection with his human rights work.
The chairman of the prize jury, Hans Thoolen, said the pair were “exceptional laureates” who had “paid too big a price for justice and equality to be respected in Afghanistan and Tajikistan, and the international community must support their efforts instead of battling geostrategic interests in the region.”

Meet Zholia Parsi, Martin Ennals Award Laureate 2024!

More information about her: https://t.co/QOA3g1babK

Join us for the Award Ceremony on November 21, 18:30 CET at Salle Communale de Plainpalais, Geneva, followed by a cocktail dinner and a late-night talk with jury members. pic.twitter.com/a7vtCrj1B8
— Martin Ennals Award (@martinennals) November 19, 2024

Parsi began her activism after losing her career and seeing her daughters deprived of their education in the wake of the Taliban takeover in August 2021.
She founded the Spontaneous Movement of Afghan Women (SMAW), which has mobilized communities in various provinces to resist the Taliban’s policies and practices, the jury said.
Parsi had “displayed remarkable leadership and resilience in organizing numerous public protests despite the risks involved,” it added.
She was arrested in the street by armed Taliban in September 2023 and detained along with her son, it said, adding that she was only released “after three months of torture and ill-treatment... which further strengthened her resolve to resist Taliban oppression and repression.”
Kholiqnazarov is a human rights lawyer belonging to the Pamiri ethnic group from the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) region in eastern Tadjikistan.
He headed the Lawyers Association of Pamir, and lobbied among other things for minority rights and the incorporation of international human rights standards into domestic law and practice.
He played a key role in investigating the November 2021 death of youth leader Gulbiddin Ziyobekov.
That investigation turned up critical evidence indicating the young man may have been the victim of an extrajudicial execution, the jury’s statement said.
It also pointed to unlawful use of force in the violent repression of the mass protest in the regional capital Khorog that followed Ziyobekov’s death, resulting in two deaths, 17 people injured and hundreds detained, it added.
Kholiqnazarov himself was arrested on May 28, 2022 “amid a widespread crackdown on local informal leadership and residents of the GBAO,” the prize jury said.
The Martin Ennals Award, named after the first secretary general of Amnesty International, was first given in 1994.
The jury comprises representatives from 10 leading human rights organizations, including Amnesty and Human Rights Watch.
The award ceremony will take place in Geneva on Thursday.

Topics: Martin Ennals Award Zholia Parsi Afghanistan Manuchehr Kholiqnazarov Tajikistan rights

Trump’s hush money case should be paused, prosecutors say

Updated 19 November 2024

Reuters

November 19, 2024 20:54

Trump’s hush money case should be paused, prosecutors say

The prosecutors had asked for more time to consider next steps in the case
Trump pleaded not guilty in the case, which he has long portrayed as a politically motivated attempt by Bragg, a Democrat, to interfere with his campaign

Updated 19 November 2024

Reuters

November 19, 2024 20:54

NEW YORK: The case in which Donald Trump was convicted on criminal charges stemming from hush money paid to a porn star should be paused in light of his election victory to allow Trump to seek dismissal, New York prosecutors said on Tuesday.
Trump, 78, is hoping to enter office for a second term unencumbered by any of the four criminal cases he has faced and which some said would derail his 2024 candidacy to return to the White House.
The Republican Trump was convicted in May of falsifying business records to cover up a $130,000 payment his former lawyer Michael Cohen made to porn star Stormy Daniels for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump, who denies it.
The case marked the first time a US president — former or sitting — had been convicted of or charged with a criminal offense.
Trump had been scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 26, but Merchan last week put all proceedings in the case on pause at the request of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office.
The prosecutors had asked for more time to consider next steps in the case, citing the need to balance the “competing interests” between having the criminal case go forward and protecting the office of the president.
Trump pleaded not guilty in the case, which he has long portrayed as a politically motivated attempt by Bragg, a Democrat, to interfere with his campaign.
His defense lawyers urged Merchan to dismiss the case, arguing that having it loom over him while he was president would cause “unconstitutional impediments” to his ability to govern.
Trump’s lawyers also argued his conviction should be vacated and the charges dismissed because of the US Supreme Court’s ruling in July that presidents cannot be prosecuted over their official acts, and that evidence of their official acts cannot be used in trials over personal behavior.
Bragg’s office said that its case dealt with purely personal conduct.
Falsification of business records is punishable by up to four years in prison. Before he was elected, experts said it was unlikely — but not impossible — that Trump would face time behind bars, with punishments such as a fine or probation seen as more likely.
Trump’s victory over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 election made the prospect of imposing a sentence of jail or probation even more politically fraught and impractical, given that a sentence could have impeded his ability to conduct the duties of the presidency.
Trump was indicted on three separate slates of state and federal charges in 2023, one involving classified documents he kept after leaving office and two others involving his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.
A Florida-based federal judge in July dismissed the documents case. The Justice Department is now evaluating how to wind down the federal election-related case. Trump also faces state criminal charges in Georgia over his bid to reverse his 2020 loss in that state, but the case remains in limbo.

Topics: Trump Returns President-elect Donald Trump Hush money prosecutors Michael Cohen

Russia’s nuclear threats ‘irresponsible’: EU’s Borrell

Updated 19 November 2024

AFP

November 19, 2024 19:31

Russia’s nuclear threats ‘irresponsible’: EU’s Borrell

“It is not the first time that Putin plays the nuclear gamble,” the outgoing foreign policy chief told reporters
“Russia has subscribed to the principle that a nuclear war cannot be won, and so must never be fought,” he said

Updated 19 November 2024

AFP

November 19, 2024 19:31

BRUSSELS: EU top diplomat Josep Borrell accused Russia on Tuesday of issuing “completely irresponsible” nuclear threats, after President Vladimir Putin broadened the scope for Moscow’s use of atomic weapons.
“It is not the first time that Putin plays the nuclear gamble,” the outgoing foreign policy chief told reporters following defense minister talks in Brussels on the 1,000th day of the conflict.
“Russia has subscribed to the principle that a nuclear war cannot be won, and so must never be fought,” he said, warning that “any call for nuclear warfare is an irresponsibility.”
The EU talks — dominated by the need to ramp up support for Ukraine’s fight — came as Kyiv confirmed it had fired US-supplied long-range missiles into Russian territory, in what Russia said marked “a new phase” in the war.
Borrell had pressed member states ahead of time to align with Washington in allowing Ukraine to strike inside Russia using donated missiles — something France appears to be considering.
Addressing reporters afterwards, Borrell gave no indication of a shift on the sensitive issue.
But he said EU states had agreed “by an overwhelming majority” that “the fate of Ukraine will determine the destiny of the European Union.”
“If Putin could be successful in Ukraine, we will pay a very high bill, much more expensive than any kind of military support that we could provide today,” he said.
Borrell said a “big majority” of EU member states had shown “their determination to continue supporting Ukraine” — with Donald Trump’s imminent White House return throwing US support for Kyiv into question.
“Certainly we are in a different scenario with a different president in the White House, which seems to have ideas about how to end the war,” he said.
Ministers were joined by NATO chief Mark Rutte who warned that Putin must not be allowed to “get his way” in Ukraine and reiterated his call for Europe to “ramp up the defense industry.”
More than two and a half years after Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, now 23 of the 32 NATO members reach the target of spending two percent of gross domestic product on defense — up from just three a decade ago.
But the growing consensus is that Europe will have to do more to make sure it can stand on its own.
Borrell said it was made clear by Rutte that given “the challenges we are facing, this landmark, this mythic figure of two-percent will not be enough, and we need to take more action.”
“Europeans have to do more and quicker in order to increase their defense capacity, not just to support Ukraine, but for our own security,” said the EU top diplomat, who hands over next month to his designated successor Kaja Kallas.

Topics: Russia-Ukraine Conflict Josep Borrell Russian President Vladimir Putin Nuclear Threat

Ukraine hits Russia with US ATACMS missiles for first time on war’s 1,000th day

Updated 19 November 2024

Reuters

November 19, 2024 18:18

Ukraine hits Russia with US ATACMS missiles for first time on war’s 1,000th day

Ukraine said it had struck a Russian arms depot around 110 km inside Russia in an attack that caused secondary explosions
The Ukrainian military did not publicly specify what weapons it had used

Updated 19 November 2024

Reuters

November 19, 2024 18:18

Ukraine said it had struck a Russian arms depot around 110 km inside Russia in an attack that caused secondary explosions
The Ukrainian military did not publicly specify what weapons it had used

KYIV: Ukraine used US ATACMS missiles to strike Russian territory on Tuesday, taking advantage of newly granted permission from the outgoing Biden administration on the war’s 1,000th day.
Russia said its forces shot down five of six of the missiles, which were fired at a military facility in the Bryansk region. Debris of one hit the facility, starting a fire that was swiftly put out and caused no casualties or damage, it said.
Ukraine said it had struck a Russian arms depot around 110 km (70 miles) inside Russia in an attack that caused secondary explosions. The Ukrainian military did not publicly specify what weapons it had used, but a Ukrainian official source and a US official later confirmed it had used ATACMS.
President Joe Biden gave approval just this week for Ukraine to use the ATACMS, the longest-range missiles Washington has supplied, for such attacks inside Russia. Moscow has described their potential use as an escalation that would make Washington a direct combatant in the war and prompt its retaliation.
The attack took place as Ukraine marked 1,000 days of war, with weary troops at the front, Kyiv besieged by airstrikes, a fifth of Ukrainian territory in Moscow’s hands and doubts about the future of Western support as Donald Trump heads back to the White House.
Military experts say using the US missiles to attack positions at such a depth in Russia can help Ukraine defend a pocket of Russian territory it has captured as a bargaining chip, but is not likely to have a decisive impact on the course of the 33-month-old war.
Moscow has said such weapons cannot be used without direct operational support from the United States, and therefore their use would make Washington a direct participant in the war.
On Tuesday, President Vladimir Putin signed a new nuclear doctrine apparently intended as a warning to Washington. It lowers the threshold under which Russia might use atomic weapons to include responding to attacks that threaten its territorial integrity.
Washington said the update to the nuclear doctrine was
no surprise
and cited “more of the same irresponsible rhetoric from Russia.”

JITTERS IN MARKETS
Reports of the Ukrainian attack caused jitters in markets, with share indexes sliding in Europe and safe haven assets rallying.
Trump has criticized the scale of US aid to Kyiv and said he will end the war quickly, without saying how. Both sides appear to anticipate his return in two months will be accompanied by a push for peace talks, which are not known to have taken place since the war’s early months.
The warring sides have both been escalating in recent weeks in an attempt to secure a stronger position at any negotiations. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says Kyiv must do everything for the war to end diplomatically next year.
“At this stage of the war, it is being decided who will prevail. Whether us over the enemy, or the enemy over us Ukrainians... and Europeans. And everyone in the world who wants to live freely and not be subject to a dictator,” he said in an address to parliament on Tuesday marking 1,000 days of war.
A candle-lit commemoration was planned for later on Tuesday.
Thousands of Ukrainian citizens have died, over six million live as refugees abroad and the population has fallen by a quarter since Putin ordered the invasion by land, sea and air that began Europe’s biggest conflict since World War Two.
Military losses have been huge, although casualty figures remain closely guarded secrets. Public Western estimates based on intelligence reports say hundreds of thousands have been wounded or killed on each side.
“In the frozen trenches of the Donetsk region and in the burning steppes of the Kherson region, under shells, hail, and anti-aircraft guns, we are fighting for the right to live,” Ukraine’s top commander Oleksandr Syrkyi wrote on Telegram.
Tragedy has touched families in every corner of Ukraine, where military funerals are commonplace in cities and far-flung villages, and people are exhausted by sleepless nights of air raid sirens and anguish.
In the first year after the invasion, Ukrainian troops pushed Russian forces back from the outskirts of Kyiv and recaptured swathes of territory with surprise military successes against a larger and better-armed foe.
But since then, the enemies have settled into relentless trench warfare that has ground eastern Ukrainian cities to dust. Russian forces still occupy a fifth of Ukraine and for the past year they have steadily gained ground.
Kyiv now hopes to gain leverage from a sliver of territory in Russia’s Kursk region it captured after launching its first major cross-border assault in August. It says Russia has deployed 50,000 troops there to try to take it back.
In a move decried in the West as an escalation, Russia has now deployed 11,000 North Korean troops, some of whom Kyiv says have clashed with Ukrainian forces in Kursk. Zelensky said Pyongyang could send 100,000 soldiers.
Russia for its part continues to advance village by village in eastern Ukraine, claiming to have captured another settlement on Tuesday.
With winter setting in, Moscow on Sunday renewed its aerial assault on Ukraine’s struggling power system, firing 120 missiles and 90 drones in the biggest barrage since August.
Publicly there has been no narrowing of the gulf in the enemies’ negotiating positions. Kyiv has long demanded full Russian withdrawal from all occupied territory, and security guarantees from the West comparable to membership in NATO’s mutual defense treaty to prevent future Russian attacks.
The Kremlin says Ukraine must drop all ambitions to join NATO and withdraw all troops from provinces Russia claims to have annexed since its invasion.

Protests shut streets in Armenia’s capital, roads in other parts to demand the prime minister resign

Protests shut streets in Armenia’s capital, roads in other parts to demand the prime minister resign

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Woman faces hate crime charges after confronting Palestinian man wearing `Palestine’ shirt

Woman faces hate crime charges after confronting Palestinian man wearing `Palestine’ shirt

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Afghan woman teacher, jailed Tajik lawyer share top rights prize

Afghan woman teacher, jailed Tajik lawyer share top rights prize

Uighur intellectual nominated for top European rights award

Turkey sentences detained judge who won human rights award to 10 years

Trump’s hush money case should be paused, prosecutors say

Trump’s hush money case should be paused, prosecutors say

Judge delays Donald Trump’s sentencing in hush money case until after November election

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Russia’s nuclear threats ‘irresponsible’: EU’s Borrell

Russia’s nuclear threats ‘irresponsible’: EU’s Borrell

Lavrov says Ukrainian attack on Russia with US missiles is a Western escalation

Ukraine hits Russia with US ATACMS missiles for first time on war’s 1,000th day

Ukraine hits Russia with US ATACMS missiles for first time on war’s 1,000th day

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Protests shut streets in Armenia’s capital, roads in other parts to demand the prime minister resign

Protests shut streets in Armenia’s capital, roads in other parts to demand the prime minister resign

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