Tunisia ‘backsliding’ in protecting migrant rights: UN

Mary Lawlor, United Nations human rights special rapporteur. (Twitter @MaryLawlorhrds)
Mary Lawlor, United Nations human rights special rapporteur. (Twitter @MaryLawlorhrds)
Short Url
Updated 02 October 2024
Follow

Tunisia ‘backsliding’ in protecting migrant rights: UN

Mary Lawlor, United Nations human rights special rapporteur. (Twitter @MaryLawlorhrds)
  • Tunisia and neighboring Libya have become key departure points for migrants, mainly from sub-Saharan African countries, seeking better lives in Europe by risking perilous Mediterranean crossings, often in makeshift boats

GENEVA: Tunisia has scaled down its protection of migrants’ rights with arrests of rights activists, United Nations human rights special rapporteur Mary Lawlor said in a statement on Tuesday.
“The arrest of migrant rights defenders and the general climate of hate speech and smear campaigns against them in Tunisia is further evidence that the country is backsliding in its commitment to the protection of human rights,” the statement said.
Lawlor decried “official statements accusing those who assist migrants, asylum seekers and refugees of being traitors and foreign agents.”
Tunisia and neighboring Libya have become key departure points for migrants, mainly from sub-Saharan African countries, seeking better lives in Europe by risking perilous Mediterranean crossings, often in makeshift boats.
Lawlor denounced the recent arrests of migrant rights activists Abderrazek Krimi and Mustafa Djemali from the Tunisian Refugee Council, which Djemali heads.
She said police interrogated them about “the source of their organization’s foreign funding,” before they were detained for “illegally sheltering persons in Tunisia.”
The rapporteur said both Krimi and Djemali “were doing perfectly legitimate work,” and that their arrest was a “violation of international human rights conventions” ratified by Tunisia.
“This will only create fear and stigmatization,” depriving “hundreds of vulnerable persons in precarious conditions, particularly those from sub-Saharan Africa” of “life-saving activities,” the statement said.
The Tunisian Refugee Council supports the UN High Commissioner for Refugees agency (UNHCR) with migrant and refugee protection programs, and helps to provide accommodation for asylum seekers.
In May, President Kais Saied lashed out at organizations that defend the rights of sub-Saharan migrants in the country.
Authorities had waged a campaign against NGOs helping sub-Saharan African migrants living in or transiting Tunisia.
Saied had cited what he called suspicious foreign funding intended to undermine the North African country, with the recipients of such funds deemed “traitors and mercenaries.”
A wave of arrests ensued, including of Saadia Mosbah, head of the Mnemty anti-racism association, who is still behind bars after being accused of money laundering.
Lawlor said Tunisian migrant rights defenders were taking “huge risks to support internationally recognized human rights of migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees.”
In a speech last year, Saied denounced what he called “hordes of illegal migrants” as a demographic threat to Tunisia.
His speech sparked violence against sub-Saharan Africans, hundreds of whom lost their jobs and homes, with many forced out of the main cities.
 

 


Gaza’s Islamic Jihad says Israeli hostage tried to take own life

Gaza’s Islamic Jihad says Israeli hostage tried to take own life
Updated 58 min 59 sec ago
Follow

Gaza’s Islamic Jihad says Israeli hostage tried to take own life

Gaza’s Islamic Jihad says Israeli hostage tried to take own life
  • One of the group’s medical teams intervened and prevented him from dying

DUBAI: An Israeli hostage held by Gaza’s Islamic Jihad militant group has tried to take his own life, the spokesperson for the movement’s armed wing said in a video posted on Telegram on Thursday.
One of the group’s medical teams intervened and prevented him from dying, the Al Quds Brigades spokesperson added, without going into any more detail on the hostage’s identity or current condition.
Israeli authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Militants led by Gaza’s ruling Hamas movement killed 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage in an attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, according to Israeli tallies. Hamas ally Islamic Jihad also took part in the assault.
The military campaign that Israel launched in response has killed more than 45,500 Palestinians, according to health officials in the coastal enclave.
Islamic Jihad spokesman Abu Hamza said the hostage had tried to take his own life three days ago due to his psychological state, without going into more details.
Abu Hamza accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of setting new conditions that had led to “the failure and delay” of negotiations for the hostage’s release.
The man had been scheduled to be released with other hostages under the conditions of the first stage of an exchange deal with Israel, Abu Hamza said. He did not specify when the man had been scheduled to be released or under which deal.
Arab mediators’ efforts, backed by the United States, have so far failed to conclude a ceasefire in Gaza, under a possible deal that would also see the release of Israeli hostages in return for the freedom of Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
Islamic Jihad’s armed wing had issued a decision to tighten the security and safety measures for the hostages, Abu Hamza added.
In July, Islamic Jihad’s armed wing said some Israeli hostages had tried to kill themselves after it started treating them in what it said was the same way that Israel treated Palestinian prisoners.
“We will keep treating Israeli hostages the same way Israel treats our prisoners,” Abu Hamza said at that time. Israel has dismissed accusations that it mistreats Palestinian prisoners.


Israeli airstrikes kill at least 16 in southern Gaza

Israeli airstrikes kill at least 16 in southern Gaza
Updated 02 January 2025
Follow

Israeli airstrikes kill at least 16 in southern Gaza

Israeli airstrikes kill at least 16 in southern Gaza

At least 16 Palestinians were killed in two separate Israeli airstrikes in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday, according to medics.

One strike targeted the Hamas-run interior ministry headquarters in Khan Younis, killing six people. Another airstrike hit a tent encampment in Al-Mawasi, a designated humanitarian zone for displaced civilians, killing at least 10 people, including women and children, and injuring 15 others.

Among the dead in the Al-Mawasi strike were Mahmoud Salah, Gaza's police chief, and his aide Hussam Shahwan, the head of Hamas security forces in southern Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Gaza interior ministry. The ministry condemned the attack, accusing Israel of seeking to deepen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

The Israeli military described the strike in Al-Mawasi as intelligence-based, targeting Shahwan but did not acknowledge Salah's death.

The Gaza health ministry reports over 45,500 Palestinians have been killed since the war began, with most of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents displaced and large portions of the territory in ruins. The conflict, now in its 15th month, began after Hamas’ cross-border attack on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people and resulted in 251 hostages being taken to Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.


27 migrants die off Tunisia, 83 rescued, in shipwrecks: civil defence

27 migrants die off Tunisia, 83 rescued, in shipwrecks: civil defence
Updated 1 min 8 sec ago
Follow

27 migrants die off Tunisia, 83 rescued, in shipwrecks: civil defence

27 migrants die off Tunisia, 83 rescued, in shipwrecks: civil defence

TUNIS:  Twenty-seven migrants, including women and children, died after two boats capsized off central Tunisia, with 83 people rescued, a civil defense official told AFP on Thursday.
The rescued and dead passengers, who were found off the Kerkennah Islands off central Tunisia, were aiming to reach Europe and were all from sub-Saharan African countries, said Zied Sdiri, head of civil defense in the city of Sfax.
Searches were still underway for other possible missing passengers, according to the Tunisian National Guard, which oversees the coast guard.
Tunisia is a key departure point for irregular migrants seeking to reach Europe with Italy, whose island of Lampedusa is only 150 kilometers (90 miles) from Tunisia, often their first port of call.
Each year, tens of thousands of people attempt the perilous Mediterranean crossing, which has seen a spate of recent shipwrecks, with the dangers exacerbated by bad weather.
On December 18, at least 20 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa died in a shipwreck off the city of Sfax, with five others missing.
Earlier on December 12, the coast guard rescued 27 African migrants near Jebeniana, north of Sfax, but 15 were reported dead or missing.
Since the beginning of the year, the Tunisian human rights group FTDES has counted “between 600 and 700” migrants killed or missing in shipwrecks off Tunisia. More than 1,300 migrants died or disappeared in 2023.
kl/bou/dcp


Syria forces launch security sweep in Homs city: state media

Syria forces launch security sweep in Homs city: state media
Updated 02 January 2025
Follow

Syria forces launch security sweep in Homs city: state media

Syria forces launch security sweep in Homs city: state media
  • Syrian security forces are conducting a security sweep in the city of Homs, state media reported on Thursday

DAMASCUS: Syrian security forces are conducting a security sweep in the city of Homs, state media reported on Thursday, with a monitor saying targets include protest organizers from the Alawite minority of the former president.
“The Ministry of Interior, in cooperation with the Military Operations Department, begins a wide-scale combing operation in the neighborhoods of Homs city,” state news agency SANA said quoting a security official.
The statement said the targets were “war criminals and those involved in crimes who refused to hand over their weapons and go to the settlement centers” but also “fugitives from justice, in addition to hidden ammunition and weapons.”
Since Islamist-led rebels seized power in a lightning offensive last month, the transitional government has been registering former conscripts and soldiers and asking them to hand over their weapons.
“The Ministry of Interior calls on the residents of the neighborhoods of Wadi Al-Dhahab, Akrama not to go out to the streets, remain home, and fully cooperate with our forces,” the statement said.
Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, told AFP the two districts are majority-Alawite — the community from which ousted President Bashar Assad hails.
“The ongoing campaign aims to search for former Shabiha and those who organized or participated in the Alawite demonstrations last week, which the administration considered as incitement against” its authority, he said.
Shabiha were notorious pro-government militias tasked with helping to crush dissent under Assad.
On December 25, thousands protested in several areas of Syria after a video circulated showing an attack on an Alawite shrine in the country’s north.
AFP was unable to independently verify the footage or the date of the incident but the interior ministry said the video was “old and dates to the time of the liberation” of Aleppo in December.
Since seizing power, Syria’s new leadership has repeatedly tried to reassure minorities that they will not be harmed.
Alawites fear backlash against their community both as a religious minority and because of its long association with the Assad family.
Last week, security forces launched an operation against pro-Assad fighters in the western province of Tartus, in the Alawite heartland, state media had said, a day after 14 security personnel of the new authorities and three gunmen were killed in clashes there.


Palestinian Authority suspends broadcast of Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV temporarily

Palestinian Authority suspends broadcast of Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV temporarily
Updated 02 January 2025
Follow

Palestinian Authority suspends broadcast of Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV temporarily

Palestinian Authority suspends broadcast of Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV temporarily
  • The authority accuses the broadcaster of sowing division in the Middle East and Palestine
  • The authority says Al-Jazeera was airing 'inciting material' from Jenin camp in the West Bank

CAIRO: The Palestinian Authority suspended the broadcast of Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV temporarily over “inciting material,” Palestinian official news agency WAFA reported on Wednesday.
A ministerial committee that includes the culture, interior and communications ministries decided to suspend the broadcaster’s operations over what they described as broadcasting “inciting material and reports that were deceiving and stirring strife” in the country.
The decision isn’t expected to be implemented in Hamas-run Gaza where the Palestinian Authority does not exercise power.
Al-Jazeera TV last week came under criticism by the Palestinian Authority over its coverage of the weeks-long standoff between Palestinian security forces and militant fighters in the Jenin camp in the occupied West Bank.
Fatah, the faction which controls the Palestinian Authority, said the broadcaster was sowing division in “our Arab homeland in general and in Palestine in particular.” It encouraged Palestinians not to cooperate with the network.
Israeli forces in September issued Al-Jazeera with a military order to shut down operations, after they raided the outlet’s bureau in the West Bank city of Ramallah.