Swedish court sentences far-right politician for insulting Muslims

Swedish court sentences far-right politician for insulting Muslims
A Swedish court sentenced on Tuesday a far-right politician to four months in jail for two counts of “incitement against an ethnic group” after making hateful comments at political rallies two years ago. (AFP/File)
Short Url
Updated 05 November 2024
Follow

Swedish court sentences far-right politician for insulting Muslims

Swedish court sentences far-right politician for insulting Muslims
  • The Danish-Swedish 42-year-old man, who was not named but has been identified by Swedish media as Rasmus Paludan
  • In 2022, Paludan, founder and head of the Danish nationalist anti-immigration party Stram Kurs, made his offensive remarks directed at Muslims, Arabs and Africans during protests

MALMO: A Swedish court sentenced on Tuesday a far-right politician to four months in jail for two counts of “incitement against an ethnic group” after making hateful comments at political rallies two years ago.
The Danish-Swedish 42-year-old man, who was not named but has been identified by Swedish media as Rasmus Paludan, founder and head of the Danish nationalist anti-immigration party Stram Kurs, had been previously convicted and sentenced by a Danish court on a similar charge, the Malmo District Court said.
In 2022, Paludan, founder and head of the Danish nationalist anti-immigration party Stram Kurs, made his offensive remarks directed at Muslims, Arabs and Africans during protests that he led in the southern city of Malmo in 2022, the court said. He also burned a copy of the Qur’an, Islam’s holy book, on at least one occasion. In response, a violent wave of riots swept the country.
Some observers also say Paludan’s actions may have momentarily risked Sweden’s chances of joining NATO after increasing political tensions with Turkiye. Sweden joined the alliance in March this year.
The court in a statement Tuesday said Paludan’s remarks against Muslims “cannot be excused as criticism of Islam or as political campaign work.”
Chief Councilor Nicklas Söderberg, the court’s chairman, said: “It is permitted to publicly make critical statements about, for example, Islam and also Muslims, but the disrespect of a group of people must not clearly cross the line for a factual and valid discussion.”
He added that during the Malmo rallies in April and September 2022 “there was no question of any such discussion,” and that Paludan’s public statements “only amounted to insulting Muslims.”
The court took particular interest in whether the politician knew the protests were filmed and published on Facebook. Paludan had said that he wasn’t aware of it but the district court disagreed and said his “actions at the gatherings would be downright illogical if he didn’t know about the publication on Facebook.”
Paludan, a lawyer by profession, told Swedish media outlets that he wasn’t surprised by the verdict.
“It was expected. We will appeal,” the Swedish newspaper Expressen cited him as saying.


Top UN court to open unprecedented climate hearings next week

Top UN court to open unprecedented climate hearings next week
Updated 18 sec ago
Follow

Top UN court to open unprecedented climate hearings next week

Top UN court to open unprecedented climate hearings next week
  • Representatives from more than 100 countries, organizations will make submissions before the International Court of Justice
  • Activists hope the legal opinion from the ICJ judges will have far-reaching consequences in the fight against climate change

THE HAGUE: The world’s top court will next week start unprecedented hearings aimed at finding a “legal blueprint” for how countries should protect the environment from damaging greenhouse gases — and what the consequences are if they do not.
From Monday, lawyers and representatives from more than 100 countries and organizations will make submissions before the International Court of Justice in The Hague — the highest number ever.
Activists hope the legal opinion from the ICJ judges will have far-reaching consequences in the fight against climate change.
But others fear the UN-backed request for a non-binding advisory opinion will have limited impact — and it could take the UN’s top court months, or even years, to deliver.
The hearings at the Peace Palace come days after a bitterly negotiated climate deal at the COP29 summit in Azerbaijan, which said developed countries must provide at least $300 billion a year by 2035 for climate finance.
Poorer countries have slammed the pledge from wealthy polluters as insultingly low and the final deal failed to mention a global pledge to move away from planet-heating fossil fuels.
The UN General Assembly last year adopted a resolution in which it referred two key questions to the ICJ judges.
First, what obligations did states have under international law to protect the Earth’s climate system from greenhouse gas emissions?
Second, what are the legal consequences under these obligations, where states, “by their acts and omissions, have caused significant harm to the climate system and other parts of the environment?“
The second question was also linked to the legal responsibilities of states for harm caused to small, more vulnerable countries and their populations.
This applied especially to countries under threat from rising sea levels and harsher weather patterns in places like the Pacific Ocean.
“Climate change for us is not a distant threat,” said Vishal Prasad, director of the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC) group.
“It is reshaping our lives right now. Our islands are at risk. Our communities face disruptive change at a rate and scale that generations before us have not known,” Prasad told journalists a few days before the start of the hearings.
Launching a campaign in 2019 to bring the climate issue to the ICJ, Prasad’s group of 27 students spearheaded consensus among Pacific island nations including his own native Fiji, before it was taken to the UN.
Last year, the General Assembly unanimously adopted the resolution to ask the ICJ for an advisory opinion.
Joie Chowdhury, a senior lawyer at the US and Swiss-based Center for International Environmental Law, said climate advocates did not expect the ICJ’s opinion “to provide very specific answers.”
Instead, she predicted the court would provide “a legal blueprint in a way, on which more specific questions can be decided,” she said.
The judges’ opinion, which she expected sometime next year, “will inform climate litigation on domestic, national and international levels.”
“One of the questions that is really important, as all of the legal questions hinge on it, is what is the conduct that is unlawful,” said Chowdhury.
“That is very central to these proceedings,” she said.
Some of the world’s largest carbon polluters — including the world’s top three greenhouse gas emitters, China, the United States and India — will be among some 98 countries and 12 organizations and groups expected to make submissions.
On Monday, proceedings will open with a statement from Vanuatu and the Melanesian Spearhead Group which also represents the vulnerable island states of Fiji, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands as well as Indonesia and East Timor.
At the end of the two-week hearings, organizations including the EU and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries are to give their statements.
“With this advisory opinion, we are not only here to talk about what we fear losing,” the PISFCC’s Prasad said.
“We’re here to talk about what we can protect and what we can build if we stand together,” he said.


Indonesian rescuers search for missing in buried cars and bus after landslide in Sumatra

Indonesian rescuers search for missing in buried cars and bus after landslide in Sumatra
Updated 10 min 14 sec ago
Follow

Indonesian rescuers search for missing in buried cars and bus after landslide in Sumatra

Indonesian rescuers search for missing in buried cars and bus after landslide in Sumatra
  • The death toll from one landslide on Wednesday on a hilly interprovince road rose to nine from seven
  • Flash floods hit the provincial city of Medan on Friday although waters have receded in some areas

JAKARTA: Indonesian rescuers on Friday searched for survivors buried in three cars and bus at the base of a cliff after flash floods and landslides in North Sumatra province killed at least 29 people.
Torrential rain for the past week in the province has triggered flash floods and landslides in four different districts, Indonesia’s disaster agency has said.
The death toll from one landslide on Wednesday on a hilly interprovince road rose to nine from seven, Hadi Wahyudi, the spokesperson of North Sumatra police told Reuters on Friday.
At least five cars, one bus, and one truck were trapped at the base of a cliff following the landslide. On Friday, police and rescuers focused their search for missing people on three cars and one bus buried in mud.
“We still don’t know how many people who were still trapped,” Hadi said.
In other districts, landslides over the weekend killed 20 people and rescuers will keep searching for two missing people until Saturday.
Flash floods hit the provincial city of Medan on Friday although waters have receded in some areas, said Sariman Sitorus, spokesperson for the local search agency.
The floods forced a delay in votes for regional elections in some areas in Medan on Wednesday.
Extreme weather is expected in Indonesia toward the end of 2024, as the La Nina phenomenon increases rainfalls across the tropical archipelago, the country’s weather agency has warned.


UK transport secretary quits over decade-old cellphone fraud case

UK transport secretary quits over decade-old cellphone fraud case
Updated 5 min 25 sec ago
Follow

UK transport secretary quits over decade-old cellphone fraud case

UK transport secretary quits over decade-old cellphone fraud case
  • The resignation came hours after Sky News and The Times of London newspaper reported that Haigh had been charged with fraud
  • After she found the phone and switched it back on, she was called in for questioning by police

LONDON: British Transport Minister Louise Haigh resigned on Friday over a decade-old fraud conviction for claiming her cellphone had been stolen.
In a letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Haigh said “I remain totally committed to our political project, but I now believe it will be best served by my supporting you from outside government.”
“I appreciate that whatever the facts of the matter, this issue will inevitably be a distraction from delivering on the work of this government and the policies to which we are both committed,” she wrote.
The resignation came hours after Sky News and The Times of London newspaper reported that Haigh had been charged with fraud after she reported that a work cellphone had been stolen after she was mugged in 2013. She later said she had mistakenly listed it among the stolen items.
After she found the phone and switched it back on, she was called in for questioning by police. Haigh pleaded guilty to fraud by misrepresentation and was given a conditional discharge.
In a statement before her resignation, Haigh said that “under the advice of my solicitor I pleaded guilty -– despite the fact this was a genuine mistake from which I did not make any gain. The magistrates accepted all of these arguments and gave me the lowest possible outcome (a discharge) available.”
Haigh, 37, has represented a district in Sheffield, northern England, in Parliament since 2015 and was named to the key transport post after Starmer’s center-left Labour party was elected in July.


Taiwan says 41 Chinese military aircraft, ships detected ahead of Lai US stopover

Taiwan says 41 Chinese military aircraft, ships detected ahead of Lai US stopover
Updated 29 November 2024
Follow

Taiwan says 41 Chinese military aircraft, ships detected ahead of Lai US stopover

Taiwan says 41 Chinese military aircraft, ships detected ahead of Lai US stopover
  • The figure was the highest in more than three weeks, according to a tally of figures released daily by Taiwan’s defense ministry

TAIPEI: Taiwan said Friday it had detected 41 Chinese military aircraft and ships around the island ahead of a Hawaii stopover by President Lai Ching-te, part of a Pacific tour that has sparked fury in Beijing.
The figure was the highest in more than three weeks, according to an AFP tally of figures released daily by Taiwan’s defense ministry.
China insists self-ruled Taiwan is part of its territory, which Taipei rejects.
To press its claims, China deploys fighter jets, drones and warships around Taiwan on a near-daily basis, with the number of sorties increasing in recent years.
In the 24 hours to 6:00 a.m. on Friday, Taiwan’s defense ministry said it had detected 33 Chinese aircraft and eight navy vessels in its airspace and waters.
That included 19 aircraft that took part in China’s “joint combat readiness patrol” on Thursday evening and was the highest number since November 4.
Taiwan also spotted a balloon — the fourth since Sunday — about 172 kilometers west of the island.


UN plastic treaty talks push for breakthrough as deadline looms

UN plastic treaty talks push for breakthrough as deadline looms
Updated 29 November 2024
Follow

UN plastic treaty talks push for breakthrough as deadline looms

UN plastic treaty talks push for breakthrough as deadline looms
  • South Korea is hosting the fifth and final UN Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee meeting to agree globally binding rules on plastics this week

BUSAN, South Korea: Negotiators at the fifth round of talks aimed at securing an international treaty to curb plastic pollution were striving on Friday to speed up sluggish proceedings and reach a deal by a Dec. 1 deadline.
South Korea is hosting the fifth and final UN Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5) meeting to agree globally binding rules on plastics this week.
Until Thursday, several delegates from around 175 countries participating had expressed frustration about the slow pace of the talks amid disagreements over procedure, multiple proposals and some negotiations even returning to ground covered in the past.
In an attempt to speed up the process, INC Chair Luis Vayas Valdivieso is holding informal meetings on Friday to try and tackle the most divisive issues.
These issues include curbing plastic products and chemicals of concern, managing the supply of primary polymers, and a financial mechanism to help developing countries implement the treaty.
Petrochemical-producing nations such as Saudi Arabia strongly oppose efforts to target a cap on plastic production, over the protests of countries that bear the brunt of plastic pollution such as low- and middle-income nations.
While supporting an international treaty, the petrochemical industry has also been vocal in urging governments to avoid setting mandatory plastic production caps, and focus instead on solutions to reduce plastic waste, like recycling.
The INC plans an open a plenary session at 7 p.m. (1000 GMT) on Friday that will provide an indication of how close the talks have moved toward a treaty.