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San Francisco prosecutors charge 26 pro-Palestinian demonstrators who blocked Golden Gate Bridge

San Francisco prosecutors charge 26 pro-Palestinian demonstrators who blocked Golden Gate Bridge
Supporters of a ceasefire and arms embargo, amid the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, block the 405 freeway’s southbound lanes in Los Angeles, California, on Aug. 13, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 13 August 2024
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San Francisco prosecutors charge 26 pro-Palestinian demonstrators who blocked Golden Gate Bridge

San Francisco prosecutors charge 26 pro-Palestinian demonstrators who blocked Golden Gate Bridge
  • Traffic snarled for hours after demonstrators blocked lanes with vehicles, shutting down all vehicle, pedestrian and bike traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge
  • The demonstration was part of coordinated protests across the country to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an end to military aid to Israel
Updated 13 August 2024
AP
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SAN FRANCISCO: San Francisco prosecutors have charged 26 protesters who blocked the Golden Gate Bridge for hours in April to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.
The protest on April 15 was one of many held by pro-Palestinian demonstrators who blocked roadways around the country, causing traffic jams and temporarily shutting down travel into some of the nation’s most heavily used airports.
The protesters were charged with felony conspiracy, false imprisonment, trespassing to interfere with a business, obstruction of a thoroughfare, unlawful assembly, refusal to disperse at a riot, and failure to obey the lawful order of a uniformed officer, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office announced Saturday.
Traffic snarled for hours after demonstrators blocked lanes with vehicles, shutting down all vehicle, pedestrian and bike traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge. The demonstration was part of coordinated protests across the country to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an end to military aid to Israel.
Prosecutors said the protest trapped hundreds of motorists on the bridge “who had no choice but to remain imprisoned on the freeway for several hours.”
“While we must protect avenues for free speech, the exercise of free speech can not compromise public safety,” District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said in a statement. “The demonstration on the Golden Gate Bridge caused a level of safety risk, including extreme threats to the health and welfare of those trapped, that we as a society cannot ignore or allow.”
The San Francisco Public Defender’s Office said it anticipates it will represent some of those charged and asked that the charges be dropped. The office said Jenkins “went fishing on Twitter for complaints about the protest even though no one was injured and the California Highway Patrol cleared the roadway with no resistance from protesters.”
“The protesters are opposing American tax dollars being used to fund ongoing attacks on the people in Gaza, which the International Criminal Court has deemed crimes against humanity,” San Francisco Public Defender Mano Raju said. “Our attorneys intend to vehemently defend any individuals we are appointed to represent.”
In March, the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office dropped criminal charges against 78 protesters who blocked traffic on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge for hours in November to demand a ceasefire in Gaza, prosecutors said. The demonstrators were instead ordered to do five hours of community service and pay restitution.
The Nov. 16 protest came as San Francisco was hosting President Joe Biden and other world leaders for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. Protesters calling for a ceasefire have also blocked major roadways in cities including Los Angeles, New York, Boston and Philadelphia.

Topics: War on Gaza San Francisco prosecutors pro-Palestine protests

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Bangladesh religious party chief backs crimes against humanity trial for ex-PM Hasina

Bangladesh religious party chief backs crimes against humanity trial for ex-PM Hasina
Updated 34 sec ago
AFP
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Bangladesh religious party chief backs crimes against humanity trial for ex-PM Hasina

Bangladesh religious party chief backs crimes against humanity trial for ex-PM Hasina
  • Shafiqur Rahman is the leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, whose members were hounded, driven underground and sentenced to death during Hasina’s rule
  • After Hasina’s toppling and exile in neighboring India following a student-led revolution in August, the ban on Jamaat-e-Islami’s activities was lifted
Updated 34 sec ago
AFP

DHAKA: Bangladesh’s top religious party leader says he supports the extradition of ousted premier Sheikh Hasina to face trial for crimes against humanity in the same tribunal that convicted his colleagues.
Shafiqur Rahman is the leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, whose members were hounded, driven underground and sentenced to death during Hasina’s autocratic 15-year rule.
Her government justified the crackdown on the nation’s largest Islamic party by accusing it of sponsoring extremist attacks — charges Rahman denies.
After Hasina’s toppling and exile in neighboring India following a student-led revolution in August, the ban on Jamaat’s activities was lifted.
Rahman is leading its public revival.
Now back in the political mainstream, he says Hasina must be extradited to face trial with her allies for abuses committed during her tenure.
“We don’t believe in the theory that just because we faced injustice, someone else should also face injustice,” the 65-year-old told AFP at his party office in the capital Dhaka.
“But people want them to be tried. If they don’t face trial, these criminals will commit more crimes.”
Dozens of Hasina’s allies were taken into custody after her regime collapsed, accused of culpability in a police crackdown that killed more than 700 people during the unrest that deposed her.
Several cases accusing Hasina of orchestrating the “mass murder” of protesters are being probed in a deeply contentious war crimes court her government set up.
The International Crimes Tribunal was ostensibly created to try Bangladeshis accused of committing crimes against humanity during the country’s devastating 1971 independence war against Pakistan.
The United Nations and rights groups criticized its procedural shortcomings, and it became widely seen as a means for Hasina to eliminate political opponents.
The tribunal hanged five of Jamaat’s top leaders, sparking protests that led to the deaths of around 500 people.
Rahman said it was important Hasina and her loyalists faced a fair trial, the kind denied to his executed comrades.
He said he was confident that the tribunal, if reformed, could meet the task.
“Whenever there is any crime against humanity in this country, then there is no problem with it being explored in the tribunal,” he said.
“If there is any disparity of law, if there is any contradiction with the constitution or human rights, that can be amended.”
At the same time, Rahman said Jamaat would challenge the tribunal’s former wrongdoings by posthumously appealing the death penalty verdicts handed to his former colleagues.
“We will prove that we faced injustices in the court which hanged our leaders,” he said.
Jamaat’s headquarters was shuttered for more than a decade but reopened days after Hasina’s downfall. It is now swarming with party activists.
The party will contest the next national elections, expected sometime in the next two years — but Rahman says they are in no rush.
Instead he wants the caretaker government, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, to first fulfil its pledge of a democratic overhaul.
“The election would not be meaningful without reforms,” Rahman said.
So far there had been no alliance struck with its previous coalition partner, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), he said.
But Rahman did support the return of exiled BNP leader Tarique Rahman, convicted of graft charges during Hasina’s government, and who has lived in London since 2008.
“We have many false cases against us, so we believe he also has many false cases against him,” Rahman said.
Hasina accused Jamaat of supporting extremism and undermining the country’s secular constitution.
The impetus for her crackdown on the party was bolstered by several attacks during her time in office that killed bloggers accused of blasphemy and Westerners living in Dhaka.
Rahman emphatically denied the party’s association with any extremist group, saying Jamaat had long committed to the democratic process.
He cited Jamaat’s condemnation of a spate of attacks after Hasina’s toppling on Bangladesh’s minority Hindus, motivated by the community’s perceived support of her government.
And he pointed to the party’s efforts to guard Hindu temples and Sufi Muslim shrines after they were attacked since August.
“We are loud and clear,” he said. “We don’t have any ambiguity here. We don’t support any of this.”

Two reception centers in Albania ready to handle migrants sent by Italy

Two reception centers in Albania ready to handle migrants sent by Italy
Updated 1 min 9 sec ago
Reuters
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Two reception centers in Albania ready to handle migrants sent by Italy

Two reception centers in Albania ready to handle migrants sent by Italy
Updated 1 min 9 sec ago
Reuters
SHENGJIN: Two reception centers built in Albania to take in migrants arriving in Italy opened their doors on Friday, an Italian official said, part of a deal between the two countries aimed at tackling irregular migration into the European Union.
The deal is the first example of a non-EU country accepting migrants on behalf of an EU nation and has drawn the interest of other Western nations seeking to discourage the growing numbers of migrants arriving from Africa, the Middle East and beyond.
“As of today the two centers are operational and ready to welcome the first ones,” said an Italian official who spoke on condition of anonymity in the port town of Shengjin, a port on Albania’s Adriatic coast where one of the facilities is located.
The 2023 deal with Albania stipulates that irregular migrants arriving in Italy will be taken by boat to Shengjin, where they will be identified and their applications for asylum processed.
They will then be driven a short distance inland to the small town of Gjader, where they will be accommodated.
Albania, one of Europe’s poorest countries which is also a candidate for EU membership, cannot host more than 3,000 migrants in total at any one time under the deal.

Japanese atomic bomb survivor group Nihon Hidankyo wins Nobel Peace Prize

Japanese atomic bomb survivor group Nihon Hidankyo wins Nobel Peace Prize
Updated 11 October 2024
AFP
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Japanese atomic bomb survivor group Nihon Hidankyo wins Nobel Peace Prize

Japanese atomic bomb survivor group Nihon Hidankyo wins Nobel Peace Prize
  • Nihon Hidankyo is a grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha
Updated 11 October 2024
AFP

OSLO: The Nobel Peace Prize was on Friday awarded to the Japanese anti-nuclear group Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha.
The group, founded in 1956, received the honor “for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again,” said Jorgen Watne Frydnes, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo.
The Nobel committee expressed alarm that the international “nuclear taboo” that developed in response to the atomic bomb attacks of August 1945 was “under pressure.”
“This year’s prize is a prize that focuses on the necessity of upholding this nuclear taboo. And we have all a responsibility, particularly the nuclear powers,” Frydnes told reporters.
Last year, the prestigious prize went to imprisoned women’s rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran.
The prize comes with a gold medal, a diploma and a prize sum of $1 million (913,000 euro).
The award will be presented at a formal ceremony in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of the 1896 death of the prizes’ creator, Swedish inventor and philanthropist Alfred Nobel.
The Peace Prize is the only Nobel awarded in Oslo, with the other disciplines announced in Stockholm.
On Thursday, South Korean author Han Kang won the Nobel Prize in Literature for her work exploring the correspondence between mental and physical torment as well as historical events.
The Nobel season winds up Monday with the economics prize.

Topics: Nobel Peace Prize

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Pope Francis meets Ukraine’s Zelensky at Vatican

Pope Francis meets Ukraine’s Zelensky at Vatican
Updated 11 October 2024
Reuters
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Pope Francis meets Ukraine’s Zelensky at Vatican

Pope Francis meets Ukraine’s Zelensky at Vatican
  • Zelensky is traveling across Europe this week to discuss his proposed ‘victory plan’ with region’s leaders
  • Western officials and Zelensky have said the war with Russia is at a critical point
Updated 11 October 2024
Reuters

VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Vatican on Friday morning for their second face-to-face encounter in four months.
The pope and the Ukrainian leader, who met on the sidelines of the Group of Seven (G7) summit in southern Italy this summer, held private talks at the Vatican’s apostolic palace.
Zelensky is traveling across Europe this week to discuss his proposed “victory plan” with the leaders of Britain, France, Italy and Germany, and the head of NATO.
Western officials and Zelensky have said the war with Russia is at a critical point and Ukraine is keen for further support to try to change the balance on the battlefield to put itself in a strong position for eventual peace talks.
The pope drew the ire of Ukrainian officials in March when he suggested they should have the courage of the “white flag” to negotiate an end to the war with Russia. At the time, Zelensky dismissed the pope’s remarks as “virtual mediation” from a distance.
Francis has also criticized Ukrainian lawmakers’ plans to ban activities of a Russia-linked branch of the Christian Orthodox church, which the Ukrainians have accused of spreading pro-Russian propaganda and housing spies.
The pope met privately on Thursday with the leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk. The prelate, who is based in Kyiv, has been in Rome for an ongoing Vatican summit of global bishops.
“I wanted to tell the pope about the disaster of the war and the challenges coming this winter,” Shevchuk told the Vatican’s media outlet.

Topics: Russia-Ukraine Conflict Russia Vatican Pope Francis Volodymyr Zelensky

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Blinken says US wants Lebanon solution, not ‘broader conflict’

Blinken says US wants Lebanon solution, not ‘broader conflict’
Updated 11 October 2024
AFP
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Blinken says US wants Lebanon solution, not ‘broader conflict’

Blinken says US wants Lebanon solution, not ‘broader conflict’
  • Blinken said the United States would work to support the fragile Lebanese state to build itself up after Hezbollah’s long-held sway
Updated 11 October 2024
AFP

Vientiane: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken voiced hope Friday for a diplomatic solution in Lebanon and preventing a broader conflict, as he backed efforts by the fragile state to assert itself against Hezbollah.
Blinken again said that Israel, which has been carrying out deadly strikes on Lebanon, “has a right to defend itself” against Hezbollah, but voiced alarm over the humanitarian situation.
“We continue to engage intensely to prevent broader conflict in the region,” Blinken told reporters after an East Asia Summit in Laos.
“We all have a strong interest in trying to help create an environment in which people can go back to their homes, their safety and security, kids can go back to school,” he said.
“So Israel has a clear and very legitimate interest in doing that. The people of Lebanon want the same thing. We believe that the best way to get there is through a diplomatic understanding, one that we’ve been working on for some time, and one that we focus on right now.”
He said the United States would work to support the fragile Lebanese state to build itself up after Hezbollah’s long-held sway.
“It’s clear that the people of Lebanon have an interest — a strong interest — in the state asserting itself and taking responsibility for the country and its future,” he said.
He also said that the United States was voicing concern directly to Israel on the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
“I have real concern about the inadequacy of the assistance that’s getting to them,” Blinken said, adding that the United States has been “very directly engaged with Israel” on the topic.

Concern in Asia about prospect of Middle East conflicts

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said also on Friday there was deep concern in Asia about the plight of people in Gaza and conflict in the Middle East and stressed Washington was doing everything in its power to prevent those from spreading.
Speaking in Laos after the East Asia Summit, Blinken said concerns about the Middle East came up in conversations with other leaders, during which he reiterated Washington was dedicated to diplomacy to control the situation in the face of what he called an Iranian-led axis of resistance.
“The intense focus of the United States, which has been the case going back a year, and doing just that, (is) preventing these conflicts from spreading. And we’re working on that every day,” Blinken told a press conference.
“We’re working very hard through deterrence and through diplomacy to prevent that from happening. There’s also obviously deep concern that we share about the plight of children, women, and men in Gaza, who for now a year have been caught in a terrible crossfire of Hamas’ instigation.”
Blinken also said the United States was directly engaged with Israel to stress how imperative it was that the humanitarian needs of people in Gaza are met.
Israel had the right to defend itself from attacks from Hezbollah, he added, and like the United States, it had a clear and legitimate interest in creating an environment where tens of thousands of displaced people in southern Lebanon can return to their homes.
“It’s also vitally important that in doing that, they focus on making sure that civilians are protected and, again, are not being caught in a terrible crossfire,” he said.
Blinken also gave his reassurances of the US commitment to the Indo-Pacific region, regardless of the outcome of the upcoming US presidential election, adding it was critical to US interests.
“Even with everything else going on, our focus has remained intensely on this region,” he said.
“It’s my belief that basic approach will continue, irrespective of who’s president, because it’s so manifestly in our interest.”
“There’s strong support in Congress for our engagement in the region across parties and across both houses of Congress. And I don’t see that changing,” he said.

Topics: Battlefield Lebanon Lebanon Israel US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken

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