The share of delayed projects for new electric lines has increased, partly due to public opposition, states the European Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators. Local communities involved ask for decision processes more transparent and inclusive

Thousands of kilometres of increasingly sophisticated and cutting-edge transmission lines, in other words supergrids, are on the EU agenda. Projects for high voltage links between countries are already being implemented. But works are often blocked or slowed down because of opposition locally.

In general, the public have concerns relating to the impact on their health, environmental damage and loss in property value. These fears are, in most cases, fuelled by what’s perceived to be poor consultation and communication about the positive effects of new electric lines, such as improved energy security and less emissions.

There are well-known cases of opposition. Building the Spain-France electrical interconnection across the Pyrenees took more than 20 years and the direct intervention of the former European commissioner Mario Monti as a special advisor, all because of citizens’ resistance to new power lines through the mountains.

Another case is the SuedLink transmission line, needed to transport more electricity from the north to the south of Germany. Due to opposition, particularly in Bavaria, the country has adopted a new law that obliges transmission operators to give priority to underground cabling, in a bid to boost public acceptance. This means the SuedLink will be the first project of its size, over 800 kilometres, which will be predominantly buried.

The European TEN-E Regulation (2013) addresses these issues. “Indeed, the EU sets a framework for ‘projects of common interest’, which includes many rules on how to better inform the public. The obligations range from having a dedicated project website to developing a strategy for public participation and organising at least one public consultation before the official permitting procedure,” expert Antonella Battaglini told youris.com.

Battaglini collaborated with the BESTGRID project, which aimed to promote public participation in grid development processes: “We could see, from working together on several levels, it really made a difference. This ranged from European exchanges between consortium partners to cooperation between local NGO groups and grid operators.”

In Italy, the modernisation of the SACOI (Sardinia-Corsica-Italy) link is underway. It is a strategic cable at the centre of the European project BEST PATHS. “We are starting a series of consultations with the local institutions and communities involved to promote as much as possible the technologies that are most sustainable for the environment and the community”, said Terna, which runs national high voltage grids in the country and is part of the project.

The definition of “projects of common interest” relates to projects that contribute to the integration of electric energy markets in the EU, improve the security of energy supply, increase production from renewable energy sources and reduce CO2 emissions.

The Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) states that 31 percent of the projects of common interest are delayed, while 14 percent are being re-worked. The main reasons are national law changes, uncertainty of regulatory decisions and public protests.

“The common (‘public’) interest is already defined at the planning level, where the public does not have sufficient possibilities to participate,” writes environmental lawyer Birgit Schmidhuber, who led a legal analysis on the TEN-E Regulation. “Then at the project level mostly no criticism is tolerated, as the overall decision has been taken before. The public – at least the affected public – should have the possibility to raise interests which are notoriously under-represented (…) such as environmental or health concerns.”

“It would be highly welcomed if the identification of projects of common interest would achieve a high standard of public participation, through adequate instruments and a broad stakeholder dialogue as foreseen by the Aarhus Convention [ed. Note: UN Convention on public participation in decision-making and on access to information in environmental matters],” she added.

A “streamlined public consultation” is always needed,” underlined Marcelo Masera, head of the European Commission’s Energy Security Unit and one of the authors of the report “Evolution, opportunities, and critical issues for pan-European transmission.” Moreover it is necessary to set out a maximum temporary limit for the permit process, since “the time required to get permits for grid facilities is generally much longer than the time needed to build new power plants.”

“A national ‘one-stop shop for permit granting’ should be also established. The companies that are part of the project must have one – and only one interlocutor throughout the entire process,” explained Masera. Having multiple points of contact fuels bureaucracy and generates inconsistency in the processes.

Creating supergrids in Europe is a radical step forward in helping to secure our future energy supply. And, while there has been some opposition to their development, improved communication and consultation will help to smooth the way for their continued expansion.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has observed a planet outside our solar system that looks as black as fresh asphalt because it eats light rather than reflecting it back into space. This light-eating prowess is due to the planet’s unique capability to trap at least 94 percent of the visible starlight falling into its atmosphere.

The oddball exoplanet, called WASP-12b, is one of a class of so-called “hot Jupiters,” gigantic, gaseous planets that orbit very close to their host star and are heated to extreme temperatures. The planet’s atmosphere is so hot that most molecules are unable to survive on the blistering day side of the planet, where the temperature is 4,600 degrees Fahrenheit. Therefore, clouds probably cannot form to reflect light back into space. Instead, incoming light penetrates deep into the planet’s atmosphere where it is absorbed by hydrogen atoms and converted to heat energy.

“We did not expect to find such a dark exoplanet,” said Taylor Bell of McGill University and the Institute for Research on Exoplanets in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, lead researcher of the Hubble study. “Most hot Jupiters reflect about 40 percent of starlight.”

But the planet’s nighttime side is a different story. WASP-12b has a fixed day side and night side because it orbits so close to the star that it is tidally locked. The nighttime side is more than 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit cooler, which allows water vapor and clouds to form. Previous Hubble observations of the day/night boundary detected evidence of water vapor and possibly clouds and hazes in the atmosphere. WASP-12b is about 2 million miles away from its star and completes an orbit once a day.

“This new Hubble research further demonstrates the vast diversity among the strange population of hot Jupiters,” Bell said. “You can have planets like WASP-12b that are 4,600 degrees Fahrenheit and some that are 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit, and they’re both called hot Jupiters. Past observations of hot Jupiters indicate that the temperature difference between the day and night sides of the planet increases with hotter day sides. This previous research suggests that more heat is being pumped into the day side of the planet, but the processes, such as winds, that carry the heat to the night side of the planet don’t keep up the pace.”

The researchers determined the planet’s light-eating capabilities by using Hubble’s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph to search in mostly visible light for a tiny dip in starlight as the planet passed directly behind the star. The amount of dimming tells astronomers how much reflected light is given off by the planet. However, the observations did not detect reflected light, meaning that the daytime side of the planet is absorbing almost all the starlight falling onto it.

First spotted in 2008, WASP-12b circles a Sun-like star residing 1,400 light-years away in the constellation Auriga. Since its discovery, several telescopes have studied the exoplanet, including Hubble, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, and NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Previous observations by Hubble’s Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) revealed that the planet may be downsizing. COS detected material from the planet’s super-heated atmosphere spilling onto the star.

The results were published in the Sept. 14 editioni of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

International law needs to be more stringent for states to offer reparation for victims of atrocity crimes, such as war crimes. At present, demands differ from those put on states to prosecute perpetrators. This according to a new dissertation by Fanny Holm at Umeå University, in which she also suggests measures to increase state’s responsibilities.

“When atrocity crimes have taken place, there is need for comprehensive legal measures that also concern other states than those where the crimes have been committed,” said Fanny Holm.

Genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity are atrocity crimes that have taken place in locations such as for instance Auschwitz, Srebrenica, Darfur and Syria. A common consequence of atrocity crimes is that both perpetrator and victim leave the state where the injustice took place, which makes it difficult for the legal system of the state in question to try the crimes.

Currently, states, international organisations and researchers alike show a desire to prevent new atrocities from taking place, and to find ways to legally deal with the injustices. It has led to a series of initiatives such as international agreements and the establishment of specialised courts and tribunals. The purpose is both to prosecute the perpetrators and to offer remedy and reparation to victims. Reparation can involve financial compensation, but also other forms of support and help.

In her dissertation, Fanny Holm studied documents of international law such as conventions and resolutions, national legislations and court practice to find out what opportunities and obligations single states have to prosecute perpetrators, and also what opportunities and obligations are available to render legal procedures possible where victims can demand reparations from the perpetrator. The study shows that there are several sources of international legislation that require prosecution of atrocity crimes committed abroad, at the same time as there are remarkably fewer sources concerning reparation for those victims.

“Concordance between the two shows serious flaws. It could boil down to the issue of reparation for victims being seen rather as a private concern or a concern between states, which renders individual processes impossible. It could also be seen as a matter for the victims of crime alone. And hence that it should be left to the individual states to choose how to implement the rules. Consequently, these views mean that not all victims are given the chance to demand reparations,” said Fanny Holm.

In the dissertation, Fanny Holm suggests measures that can increase states’ responsibilities and provide justice to victims of atrocity crimes. The most urgent matter is to reduce the breach between demands for prosecution and the procedures for reparations. The dissertation also exemplifies how existing international agreements could be interpreted and how new ones could be formulated to increase pressure on states to provide opportunities for reparation procedures for atrocity crimes that took place abroad, for instance by particular jurisdiction for atrocity crimes in international agreements concerning civil procedure.

Fanny Holm has previously worked at the Swedish Crime Victim Compensation and Support Authority. She has also worked at a law court and carried out an internship at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

he brain’s own mechanisms for dealing with the loss of dopamine neurons in Parkinson’s disease may be a source of the disorder’s abnormal movement, according to a Northwestern Medicine study published in Neuron.

The study suggests the loss of dopamine may cause the brain to rewire in a maladaptive manner, contributing to impaired movement in Parkinson’s disease. These findings also suggest that there are fundamental problems with scientists’ traditional model of Parkinson’s disease, said senior author Mark Bevan, PhD, professor of Physiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

The prevailing consensus was that excessive patterning of the subthalamic nucleus (STN), a component of the basal ganglia, by the cerebral cortex was linked to the symptomatic expression of Parkinson’s disease, including muscle rigidity and slowness of movement, according to Bevan.

“When one saw a burst of activity in the cortex that was consistently followed by an abnormal burst of activity in the STN, scientists assumed that the direct connection between the two was responsible,” Bevan said.

Thus, Bevan and his colleagues, including lead author Hong-Yuan Chu, PhD, a post-doctoral fellow in the Bevan Lab, expected to see transmission in the cortex-to-STN pathway increase as dopamine levels dropped. Instead, they found the opposite: the strength of the pathway decreased massively.

“Like most scientists who come across something unexpected, we thought we’d done something wrong,” Bevan said. “So, we used multiple, complementary approaches but everything pointed to the same conclusion.”

Further investigation suggested abnormal activity in a more indirect pathway from the cortex to the STN, involving the globus pallidus, was responsible. Abnormal activity in the indirect pathway leaves the STN vulnerable to excessive excitation, triggering compensatory plasticity that ultimately proved to be harmful, according to the study.

When the scientists prevented this maladaptive plasticity in late-stage Parkinson’s models, they found the symptoms improved, pointing to a link between compensation and motor dysfunction.

“According to the classic model, these adaptations should be homeostatic and preserve STN function,” Bevan said. “Preventing them should make the symptoms much worse — but it made them better instead.”

While the compensatory mechanisms may initially keep the brain operating normally under conditions of moderate dopamine neuron loss, as the disease progresses and more dopamine neurons die, the adaptations may become so extreme that they impair movement, according to the study.

These results suggest that there are fundamental flaws in our traditional understanding of brain dysfunction in Parkinson’s disease, Bevan said.

For Bevan, the unexpected results in this study served as a reminder that scientists must remain open-minded.

“It’s easy to be emotional and cling to your hypothesis,” Bevan said. “You have to be dispassionate, open-minded, and look at the data — if the data is not consistent with the hypothesis then you have to reject it and come up with a new one.”

As 3-D printing has become a mainstream technology, industry and academic researchers have been investigating printable structures that will fold themselves into useful three-dimensional shapes when heated or immersed in water.

In a paper appearing in the American Chemical Society’s journal Applied Materials and Interfaces, researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and colleagues report something new: a printable structure that begins to fold itself up as soon as it’s peeled off the printing platform.

One of the big advantages of devices that self-fold without any outside stimulus, the researchers say, is that they can involve a wider range of materials and more delicate structures.

“If you want to add printed electronics, you’re generally going to be using some organic materials, because a majority of printed electronics rely on them,” said Subramanian Sundaram, an MIT graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science and first author on the paper. “These materials are often very, very sensitive to moisture and temperature. So if you have these electronics and parts, and you want to initiate folds in them, you wouldn’t want to dunk them in water or heat them, because then your electronics are going to degrade.”

To illustrate this idea, the researchers built a prototype self-folding printable device that includes electrical leads and a polymer “pixel” that changes from transparent to opaque when a voltage is applied to it. The device, which is a variation on the “printable goldbug” that Sundaram and his colleagues announced earlier this year, starts out looking something like the letter “H.” But each of the legs of the H folds itself in two different directions, producing a tabletop shape.

The researchers also built several different versions of the same basic hinge design, which show that they can control the precise angle at which a joint folds. In tests, they forcibly straightened the hinges by attaching them to a weight, but when the weight was removed, the hinges resumed their original folds.

In the short term, the technique could enable the custom manufacture of sensors, displays, or antennas whose functionality depends on their three-dimensional shape. Longer term, the researchers envision the possibility of printable robots.

Sundaram is joined on the paper by his advisor, Wojciech Matusik, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) at MIT; Marc Baldo, also an associate professor of EECS, who specializes in organic electronics; David Kim, a technical assistant in Matusik’s Computational Fabrication Group; and Ryan Hayward, a professor of polymer science and engineering at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Stress relief

The key to the researchers’ design is a new printer-ink material that expands after it solidifies, which is unusual. Most printer-ink materials contract slightly as they solidify, a technical limitation that designers frequently have to work around.

Printed devices are built up in layers, and in their prototypes the MIT researchers deposit their expanding material at precise locations in either the top or bottom few layers. The bottom layer adheres slightly to the printer platform, and that adhesion is enough to hold the device flat as the layers are built up. But as soon as the finished device is peeled off the platform, the joints made from the new material begin to expand, bending the device in the opposite direction.

Like many technological breakthroughs, the CSAIL researchers’ discovery of the material was an accident. Most of the printer materials used by Matusik’s Computational Fabrication Group are combinations of polymers, long molecules that consist of chainlike repetitions of single molecular components, or monomers. Mixing these components is one method for creating printer inks with specific physical properties.

While trying to develop an ink that yielded more flexible printed components, the CSAIL researchers inadvertently hit upon one that expanded slightly after it hardened. They immediately recognized the potential utility of expanding polymers and began experimenting with modifications of the mixture, until they arrived at a recipe that let them build joints that would expand enough to fold a printed device in half.

Whys and wherefores

Hayward’s contribution to the paper was to help the MIT team explain the material’s expansion. The ink that produces the most forceful expansion includes several long molecular chains and one much shorter chain, made up of the monomer isooctyl acrylate. When a layer of the ink is exposed to ultraviolet light — or “cured,” a process commonly used in 3-D printing to harden materials deposited as liquids — the long chains connect to each other, producing a rigid thicket of tangled molecules.

When another layer of the material is deposited on top of the first, the small chains of isooctyl acrylate in the top, liquid layer sink down into the lower, more rigid layer. There, they interact with the longer chains to exert an expansive force, which the adhesion to the printing platform temporarily resists.

The researchers hope that a better theoretical understanding of the reason for the material’s expansion will enable them to design material tailored to specific applications — including materials that resist the 1-3 percent contraction typical of many printed polymers after curing.

By Elise Harris

Just one day after being released from 18 months of captivity, Indian priest Fr. Tom Uzhunnalil shared an emotional meeting with Pope Francis, saying that throughout his time as a prisoner, he offered his suffering for the Pope and the Church.

According to a Sept. 13 article published in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, the encounter took place at the Pope’s residence in the Vatican’s St Martha guesthouse immediately after the general audience on Wednesday.

Photos of the encounter show an emotional scene as Fr. Uzhunnalil bends down to kiss the Pope’s feet, after which the Pope tenderly gives the priest his blessing.

While Fr. Uzhunnalil appeared with an overgrown beard in the majority of photos published during his time in captivity, today’s pictures show him clean-shaven and dressed in clerics.

According to L’Osservatore Romano, Fr. Uzhunnalil thanked the Pope, saying “(I) prayed for you every day, offering my suffering for your mission and for the good of the Church.” These words, the newspaper reports, moved the Pope to tears.

A Salesian missionary, Fr. Uzhunnalil first garnered the world’s attention when he was kidnapped March 4, 2016, during an attack on a Missionaries of Charity home in Aden, Yemen, that left 16 people dead, including four Sisters.

His international profile grew when rumors spread that he was to be crucified on Good Friday, which were later discredited. After that, numerous photos and videos were released depicting Fr. Uzhunnalil, thin and with an overgrown beard, pleading for help and for his release, saying that his health was deteriorating and he was in need of hospitalization.

In comments to L’Osservatore Romano, Fr. Uzhunnalil said he couldn’t celebrate Mass while in captivity, but “every day inside, in my heart, I repeated the words of the celebration.”

The priest remarked that he would continue to pray “for all those who were beside me spiritually,” and offered a special word of remembrance for the 16 people who died during the attack in which he was kidnapped.

He also offered thanks to the government of Oman, in particular Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said, and to the Holy See for their role in brokering his release.

On his part, Pope Francis embraced Fr. Uzhunnalil and told him that he would continue to pray for him, as he had every day while the priest was imprisoned. Visibly moved, the Pope then gave the priest his blessing, L’Osservatore Romano reported.

Accompanying Fr. Uzhunnalil was Cardinal Oswald Gracias, Archbishop of Bombay and a member of the Pope’s Council of Cardinal advisers.

In comments to L’Osservatore Romano, the cardinal said that after this “terrible experience, the essential message that Tom is about to convey is that ‘Jesus is great and loves us.’”

He recalled the words of the priest, who after being released said, “Truly, every day I felt Jesus next to me, I always knew and felt in my heart that I was not alone.”

In a Sept. 13 letter, Fr. Ángel Fernández Artime, Major Rector of the Salesian order, said Fr. Uzhunnalil arrived to their community around 6 p.m. Sept. 12, having flown to Rome directly from the Muscat airport in Oman.

He said Fr. Uzhunnalil will stay with them for a few days in order to ensure that he has medical treatment and time to rest, and also “to be able to embrace him in the name of all brother Salesians and the entire Salesian family.”

Artime said that while they were aware that discussions were underway with the priest’s kidnappers, the community did not know that Fr. Uzhunnalil had been freed until he was already on his way to Rome.

He stressed that “the Salesian Congregation was not asked for any ransom payment,” and said they are unaware of any payment that may have been made to ensure Fr. Uzhunnalil’s release.

The rector offered his thanks to the various parties involved in securing Fr. Uzhunnalil’s release, as well as all those who kept the priest in their prayers.

Fr. Uzhunnalil’s freedom, he said, “is a motivation to continue to respond in the future with utmost fidelity and authenticity to the call and to the charism he has entrusted to us, and to which Fr. Tom has given his life: the announcement of Jesus and his Gospel, preaching to young boys, girls and youth throughout the world, among them, the poor and abandoned.”

In a separate article published on the Salesian Information Agency, it was noted that after his arrival, one of Fr. Uzhunnalil’s first requests was to pray in the Salesian community’s chapel in the Vatican, and to celebrate Mass.

Due to the necessity of immediate medical examinations, he was not able to celebrate Mass right away, but he asked if he could go to confession before the medical staff arrived, since he not had the opportunity while in captivity.

The article says Fr. Tom was treated to a traditional Indian meal later that night. In sharing his experience with the community, the priest said he never once felt that his life was in danger, and that at one point, his captors provided medicine for his diabetes.

No official date was given for when Fr. Uzhunnalil will return to India, however, he is expected to go back to Kerala within a few days.

The extremist group ISIS have been using Google Plus to share their press releases and videos for months, apparently without hinderance from the tech giant.

After coming under fire for not doing enough to combat extremism online, other social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook made it very difficult for groups such as ISIS to post and share content.

Google Plus has apparently left multiple ISIS accounts untouched, including what appears to be the “official” account of Amaq News Agency, the extremist group’s main media outlet. Amaq has been using Google Plus to publish press releases as well as videos and infographics, with many of their posts receiving dozens of upvotes.

To date, Amaq have published 243 posts to Google Plus, extending as far back as July of this year. The content posted is often graphic: uncensored and gory execution videos including everything from beheading to crucifixion, front-line battle footage, and menacing threats of violence targeted at the West.

In addition to the official ISIS news agency publishing content, there are numerous personal profiles which have been sharing extremist propaganda from the terror group. A Google Plus “Community” which claims to act as a force against “misleading” media about ISIS has over 1,000 members and has been active.

Any account found to be posting ISIS videos, pictures or press releases is quickly banned from Twitter and Facebook, making it nearly impossible for the extremist group to effectively use those networks to spread its message. ISIS accounts on Twitter often only last a day or two before being removed, and use long, jumbled usernames, likely to avoid instant detection.

Starting in December of 2016 Google announced it will heighten its flagging and removal of “the most extreme and egregious terrorist images and videos – content..” that goes against is policies in a joint effort with Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube.

Although Google Plus may be social media network declining in popularity, its evident lack of moderation has led it to remain useful for extremist terror groups such as ISIS.

Al Bawaba is reaching out to Google for comment.

The Bible’s Leviticus verse 26:1 says, “You shall not make for yourselves idols”. Contrary to this we did a lot of idols, including kings, queens, religious leaders, dictators and most recently pop stars and celebrities. Within a new trend we have various public activists and human rights defenders who became idolized and preached for courage and principled stance.

Since the beginning of the 20th century we have witnessed numerous brave and tireless personalities fighting for suffrage, human dignity and independence of oppressed people. We have founded the Nobel Peace Prize to honour those who dedicated their life to struggle for better well-being on our planet. Some of those public advocates were executed or murdered, or they spent most of their life imprisoned. Let’s admit that only few among us are ready to sacrifice their well-being for freedom of others. Naturally, person like Nelson Mandela became a hero and a role model for millions not only in his native South Africa but around the globe.

In the meantime, high hope which we placed on some human rights champions seems to fail meeting our expectation. Problem is that we idolized those activists without scrutinizing their agenda, self-interests and weaknesses. In 1991 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to today’s Myanmar’s de-facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who spent many years fighting human right abuses in her country. However, with recent violent attacks against ethnic minority in Myanmar, many critics called upon to revoke the Nobel Prize, citing her silence over the persecution of Rohingya Muslims. Moreover, the human rights icon went to defend the actions of the government forces, referring to the necessity to fight “terrorists” – such an easy excuse today. We have not heard much about the plight of Rohingya Muslims from another human rights champion, Dalai Lama, who as a spiritual leader of Buddhists bears responsibility for massacre committed by Buddhist monks against Muslims in Myanmar.

Perhaps, it is time to confess that human rights advocacy does not automatically give indulgence. Moreover, so many activists were caught by the narrative of nationalism or some narrow-minded agenda. Let’s start with iconic Mahatma Ghandi – feminists rightfully points out his male chauvinism, needless to say about his Hindu nationalism. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who spent many years in Stalinist GULAG and then was exiled from the Soviet Union, later expressed regret for the demise of the Russian empire and called upon to collect ‘Russian lands’ left after the break-up of the USSR. Other Soviet dissidents like Zviad Gamsakhurdia transformed from a human right activist to a militant nationalist. His motto “Georgia is for Georgians” caused many troubles in the newly born republic already engulfed by ethnic tension. Prominent Soviet scientist and Nobel Prize winner for nuclear-free world activism Andrei Sakharov, who advocated for transfer of Nagorno-Karbakh region of Azerbaijan to Armenia, probably under influence of his Armenian origin wife Elena Bonner, evoked so much controversy and ignited violent emotions in the region.

While some countries honour some political icons, others hate them. That is the case with another Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union. Western and Central Europeans admire him for giving freedom to former socialist republics. But in the Soviet Union he acted ruthlessly to suppress the national-liberation movements in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Lithuania and preserve the Soviet Union. From a different angle, Russian nationalists accuse him of destroying their beloved empire.

As the author of this piece is affiliated with government office, it might be easy to accuse him of attacking human right activism, which is not indeed the goal of this article. Rather, I would urge the so-called international humanitarian community to scrutinize carefully those who are involved in public advocacy. Because of their authority human rights idols’ words have heavy weight and deep impact. It is not rare that liberal phraseology became a façade for ethnic cleansing, aggressive separatism and militant nationalism. They all and always should be screened – so many, I know, who sometime pursued their self-interests under cover of liberalism.

After all, public advocacy today with a wise management might be another type of business, especially in the view of available funds from philanthropists, international organizations, NGOs and foreign governments. Such abuse of a good cause brings more sufferings rather than alleviating them.

*Farid Shafiyev, holds PhD from Carleton University and MPA from Harvard Kennedy School, and currently posted as ambassador of Azerbaijan to the Czech Republic.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani will attend the annual UN gathering in New York next week, likely to deliver a message of hope and optimism regarding Iran and the regional affairs. Transpiring at a delicate time in the Middle Eastern affairs, slowly but surely recuperating from the calamitous chaos of the past several years, Rouhani’s US visit also coincides with the relentless maneuvers by the US hawks both inside and outside the Trump administration to derail the Iran nuclear accord, which is in fact a crowning achievement of US’ ‘smart diplomacy’.

Intent on safeguarding the nuclear accord, which has brought a noticeable measure of relief from the Western sanctions bound to expand during Rouhani’s second term, Rouhani will use the UN podium to highlight the mutually-rewarding, i.e., win-win, significance of the nuclear accord and warn the US of negative ramifications of any unilateral Washington initiative to scrap the historic agreement — that has put to rest the international anxiety regarding Iran’s nuclear program.  Already, Rouhani has warned that Iran will resume full-scale nuclear activities should the US decide to renege on the deal.

According to a top Iranian diplomat who spoke with the author on the condition of anonymity, Rouhani will project Iran’s image “as a significant contributor to anti-terrorism, peace and stability,” in light of the on-going Syria peace talks in Astana, sponsored by Russia, Turkey, and Iran. Today, the ISIS terrorists, who seized large chunks of both Iraqi and Syrian territories at the outset of Rouhani’s first term, are on the run, losing their last strongholds and, optimistically speaking, it is a matter of time before the bloody Syrian conflict is officially over.

No doubt, the questions of political reconciliation and future elections in Syria still loom large, but by now it is abundantly clear that thanks in large measure to the timely Russian intervention, the terrorist cause in Syria has faced a massive defeat, benefiting regional and global stability. Of course, still much depends on the role and input of terrorist-sponsoring states in the Persian Gulf, to revise their destructive policies, which have brought no tangible benefits to them after considerable waste of precious resources.

Fortunately, there are positive signs of slow improvements in the thorny Iran-Saudi relations, and the Saudi leaders must realize by now that their aggressive foreign policy approach, e.g., with respect to the neighboring Qatar, has clearly backfired and is in dire need of re-consideration and re-mapping in favor of cooperative security with both Iran and Iraq. Meanwhile, the deadly quagmire and humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen continues and the Saudi leaders attending the 72nd session of UN General Assembly will find very few sympathetic ears for their regional behavior.

Iran, on the other hand, is apt to boast of making major contributions to the cause of regional stability, such as by wielding its influence for the sake of a stable coalition government in Lebanon, thus averting chaos in that country. Having initiated an important General Assembly resolution against extremism at his first UN appearance as Iran’s new president four years ago, Rouhani is now keen on building on that positive legacy by making similar initiatives that would reinforce Iran’s stability role.

According to the Iranian diplomat mentioned above, Iran is seeking to promote “new regional-led initiatives” because it is convinced that “there are important vehicles for regional development.”

Previously, Tehran has proposed a regional forum on regional security in the Persian Gulf region, a noble idea hitherto shunned by the Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). But, harmonious Iran-GCC relations is essentially bad news for US, UK, and France, among others, whose military-industrial complexes thrive on huge arms sales to the region, triggered in part by the regional tensions. Hoping to simultaneously send a message of reconciliation to the GCC states, Rouhani’s aim in New York will be less to put the Saudis on the defensive and more to reassure them of Iran’s benign intentions.

With respect to the US, which is grappling with natural disasters and North Korean crisis, it is instructive that the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has recently proposed to use Iran-style negotiations to deal with North Korea, in other words the US will go it alone if it opts out of the nuclear agreement. The time has certainly come to fully acknowledge the various direct and indirect benefits of the nuclear agreement, for all sides including US’s national security interests, and, hopefully, Rouhani’s US visit will serve to convince President Trump that his chronic Iranophobia collides with reality and should be replaced with a realistic policy that takes into consideration the tangible economic benefits of ‘doing business with Tehran’.

The plight of Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya minority is becoming the Muslim world’s latest rallying call emulating the emotional appeal of the Palestinians in the second half of the 20^th century.

Like the cause of the Palestinians, the Rohingya, albeit with a twist, have also become a battlefield for the Muslim world’s multiple rivalries and power struggles. Calls for military intervention on behalf of the Rohingya reflect efforts by competing Muslim states and non-state forces to be seen as defenders of a community under attack.

They also echo a greater assertiveness of Muslim states amid perceptions of waning US power and global shifts in the balance of power as well as a jihadist effort to reposition themselves in the wake of the demise of the Islamic State’s territorial base in Iraq and Syria.

To be sure, Muslim states are unlikely to marshal an expeditionary force capable of intervening in Myanmar. Nonetheless, calls for action signal thinking especially among bitter Middle Eastern rivals, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, that favours Muslim states projecting independent military force.

That thinking is reinforced by concerns about expansion of jihadist groups beyond the Middle East into regions like Southeast Asia and worry that the militants will gain an upper hand in projecting themselves as the true defenders of the faith compared to Muslim governments who do little more than pay lip service and at best provide humanitarian relief.

Beyond Middle Eastern rivalries and competition with militants for hearts and minds, the plight of the Rohingya could complicate Pakistan’s rejection of US pressure to halt support for select extremist groups, put it at odds with China that has backed the Myanmar government, and potentially move Chinese suppression of its Uighur minority in the north-western province of Xinjiang into the Muslim firing line.

Iranian Deputy Parliament Speaker Ali Motahar  this week raised the bar by calling on the Muslim world to raise a Muslim expeditionary force to come to the rescue of the Rohingya. “Why aren’t we Muslims thinking about forming a NATO-like joint military force that can intervene in such situations? The crimes of the government of Myanmar will not be halted without using military force,” Mr. Motahar was quoted as saying by the Iranian Students’ News Agency.

Mr. Motahar’s call took on added significance by not only taking the 57-member, Riyadh-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to task for not convening an emergency meeting to discuss the plight of the predominantly Sunni Muslim Rohingya, but also criticizing his own government to prevent the issue from becoming mired in the Muslim world’s sectarian divide.

“Unfortunately, we think more about the Shiites than Islam, which constitutes both Shiites and Sunnis. Turkey’s response was better than ours. It told Bangladesh to accept Muslims driven out from Myanmar and Turkey would pay for their stay in Bangladesh,” Mr. Motahar said. Iran unlike other Muslim nations has yet to offer the Rohingya humanitarian aid.

Yet, the deputy speaker’s remarks were at the same time a stab at Iran’s arch rival, Saudi Arabia, which cemented the trend towards greater Muslim military assertiveness with the creation two years ago of a 37-nation military alliance commanded by a Riyadh-based retired Pakistani general. The alliance failed in its initial aim of marshalling Muslim support for Saudi Arabia’s ill-fated intervention in Yemen.

Mr. Motahar’s remarks also sought to reinforce the perception that the alliance was more about bolstering Saudi Arabia in its rivalry with Iran than about confronting the scourge of political violence.

Mohsen Rezaee, the secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council and former chief commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards, sought to further put the Saudis on the spot by calling on Iran, Turkey, Syria and Iraq to establish an Army of the Prophet. Predominantly Sunni Muslim Turkey would provide the alliance its non-sectarian credentials.

The Iranian call has little chance of being taken up. Iran is already involved in multiple conflicts; Syria and Iraq are battling demons of their own, and Turkey is likely to restrict itself to being the Muslim world’s improbable moral voice and ensuring that Kurds in neighbouring states do not carve out an independent existence of their own.

The Iranian call, nonetheless, competes with that of various militant Islamist and jihadist groups that have called on fighters to come to the aid of their Rohingya counterparts in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. The militants could prove to be truer to their word.

The calls by both Iran and the militants have prompted Saudi Arabia to counter Tehran’s criticism and brandish its credentials as a leading defender of Muslim rights. The kingdom asserted that it is the one country that has long stood up for the Rohingya.

“The Kingdom has exerted all possible efforts to help Myanmar’s Muslims in this human tragedy. The Kingdom is all about action, and not words. Nobody can claim that they have exerted more efforts for the Rohingya people than the Kingdom has during the past 70 years, as history stands witness that the Kingdom was one of the first states that supported their case at the international level and in the UN Human Rights Council,” said Waleed Al-Khereiji, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Turkey.

So far, competition between Saudi Arabia and Iran seems when it comes to the Rohingya a battle between paper tigers. The two countries are each other’s match in rhetoric and lack of deeds.

As a result, accusations by Myanmar that Muslim countries are supporting Rohingya militants may be less targeted at Saudi Arabia and Iran and more at Turkey that has delivered aid to Rohingya fleeing into Bangladesh and described the crackdown as a genocide, and Pakistan.

Myanmar press reports quoted Bangladesh and Indian intelligence as having intercepted two phone calls between Hafiz Tohar, a leader of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a militant group that sparked the crackdown with attacks in late August on Myanmar security forces, and an alleged operative of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s main intelligence agency, as well as a third call with an alleged representative of the Islamic State (IS), who was calling from Iraq.

Providing excerpts of the calls, the reports suggested that the ARSA attacks were timed to follow a report by a group headed by former UN Secretary General Kofi Anan that warned that Myanmar risked fuelling “extremism” if it did not lift restrictions on the freedom of movement and right to citizenship of its Rohingya minority.

There was no independent confirmation of the press reports nor was it immediately clear what interest Pakistan would have in destabilizing Myanmar and causing Bangladesh heartburn. Similarly, Pakistan has been a target of IS attacks and there was no obvious reason why its intelligence would coordinate with the jihadist group.

That is not to say that there are no links between the Rohingya militants and Pakistan as well as Saudi Arabia. ARSA leaders are believed to have roots in Saudi Arabia, to have been trained in Pakistan, and gained experience in Afghanistan. The group is moreover believed to be funded by unidentified wealthy donors in the kingdom. ARSA, nonetheless, insists that it has no ties to militants outside Rakhine state and that its aim is to protect the Rohingya rather than wage global jihad.

All of this suggests at best indirect links to Pakistani intelligence and does not explain why Pakistan would have been involved in the most recent events in Myanmar. It also does not prove any official Saudi backing of the group.

Allegations of a Pakistani link, nonetheless, come at a time that the United States has put Pakistani association with various militant groups in Afghanistan, including the Taliban, as well as proscribed proxies that it allegedly uses against India and in disputed Kashmir, high on its agenda.

It also comes at a time that China is discreetly debating its hands-off approach to Pakistani links to militancy. China has so far shielded Islamabad by vetoing UN Security Council designation as a terrorist of Masood Azhar, the fugitive leader of an anti-Indian group. China has also defended Pakistan against US criticism.

The Rohingya could swing the pendle in the Chinese debate. China, like India, has invested in Myanmar infrastructure. The last thing China wants is to be on the receiving end of inflamed Muslim public opinion that embraces the plight of the Rohingya and targets supporters of the government. That is even truer given China’s Achilles heel: brutal suppression of basic rights of the Uighurs, a Turkic Muslim group in Xinjiang.

China’s massive energy imports and huge infrastructure investments in the Muslim world as part of its One Belt, One Road initiative have so spared it criticism of its crackdown in Xinjiang that targets the Uighur’s religious identity. That could change if the plight of the Rohingya becomes the Muslim world’s new rallying cry.

The United States has not been directly attacked by a foreign organization since September 11, 2001. But many European cities like Barcelona, Paris, Manchester, London, Brussels, and Berlin have endured many attacks that are causing security problems in Europe.

In addition, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, and Yemen have become battlegrounds for extremist groups like the Islamic State and Al Qaeda where there is little hope to address these security concerns in this War on Terror.

President Trump attended ceremonies at the 9/11 Memorial in New York and the Pentagon in Virginia where he vowed that terrorists will never hit the homeland ever again, ”The terrorists who attacked us thought they could incite fear and weaken our spirit. But America cannot be intimidated, and those who try will join a long list of vanquished enemies who dared test our mettle.”i President Trump told the public that he would be deploying more troops to Afghanistan to stabilize the war-torn country and train Afghan troops in its battle against the Taliban.

At the same time, President Trump has tried to ban immigration from about half a dozen predominately Muslim countries. Last week, a court rejected some of his restrictions, but late on Monday, a Supreme Court justice blocked that decision from going into effect while the court considers the legal challenges to Trump’s travel ban. Trump was also a person who campaigned heavily on defeating terrorism and his voters are expecting him to make huge progress.

Are We Safer After 9/11?

The question we should be asking ourselves is have we effectively decreased the root causes of terrorism that threaten the United States and the world? The War on Terror has become a complete failure for U.S foreign policy. There are several reasons for this. First, U.S foreign policy practices like regime change have exacerbated the terrorism problem in the seven countries that the United States bombed including Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Pakistan.ii It is true that the United States has not had a significant terrorist attack to the scale of September 11, but Washington has always exaggerated the actual threat terrorism poses.

Second, politicians are fearful of another incident like 9/11 happening again and they are also fearful of being blamed for the nation’s security concerns. There is also a tendency for powerful leaders to demonstrate that they take the threat seriously by taking military action even if it does not actually solve the problem. The threat of terror is a manageable problem, and it cannot be won with military action being so effective that the costs outweigh the benefits.

Most importantly, we need smarter, reasonable people who can ask and answer the hard questions of how to deal with terrorism, but we also need to take into consideration the lives of U.S soldiers and the trillions of dollars that are being spent to military operations. Our government should not be spending billions of taxpayer dollars on foreign policy adventures in the Middle East and North Africa, since four of the seven countries the U.S bombed since 9/11 are in this region, but we need to help with humanitarian assistance and create free and fair institutions for everyone in the region.

U.S government officials must be responsible and have the obligation of explaining the facts to the American people which are that terrorism is a low probability threat in the United States and it should not be in the costs of trillions of dollars and the loss of many American soldiers (that were a result of elective foreign wars) to keep the war of terror from expanding into something that is infinite. We may be a nation that holds democratic freedoms and civil liberties, but these values do not reflect the realities on the ground in the seven countries the U.S bombed since 9/11.

Finding an Ideology

The United States and its allies have not done enough to address the root causes of terrorism around the globe where many individuals are feeling marginalized and alienated in their home nations. Most international terrorism is grounded on local grievances, and unfortunately, the United States foreign policy in the Middle East has been misguided by taking sides that tend to be very repressive towards the local populations there, which then makes the west the so-called ‘far enemy’ that supports the so-called ‘near enemy’.

U.S officials need to understand that our foreign policy entangles us into the conflicts that are local or national in nature because we give military aid, humanitarian aid, and political support to ruthless governments. Our officials also tend to turn a blind eye and say nothing to restrain leaders in any way, shape, or form given how much power the United States has economically and politically in international organizations like the United Nations.

In regard to changing U.S foreign policy, we need leaders who are smart about how we are going to intervene, if we are going to intervene at all, and understand that when we support governments in the Middle East with grotesque human rights records who repress their people, the citizens of these countries see the United States as repressors that are acting behind the scenes, and this is where marginalized people use religious ideologies like Wahhabism, or nationalist ideologies like Arab nationalism to justify their grievances.

The Complicated Dynamic

Attempting to address grievances is extremely difficult for the United States given the lack of knowledge in different regions, language barriers, the overlapping divisions between the governments and the local people, and the amount of internal corruption within governments as well. We need our leaders and policymakers to be courageous and not fall into the trap of following fear. For example, we need policymakers to make strong public statements that allow us to work with our allies to drive policymaking into something more innovative and diplomatic rather than aggressive.

The root causes of terrorism and support for repressive governments in the Middle East is true, but it understates the case. The United States bombed Iraq for every year in the past 26 years since the Gulf War in 1991, but it demonstrates that the grievances of the people living in the Middle East are real. And if you do something for over a quarter of a century with no greater effect, it should be time to start asking why we are doing it in the first place.

The main objective of the War on Terror was to disrupt and disdain terrorist networks and to deter those groups from carrying out any more attacks against the United States and Europe. In the seven countries the United States bombed since 9/11, the rates and incidents of terrorism increased in these countries. In 2006, a U.S Intelligence Report stated that “The Iraq conflict has become the ‘cause celebre’ for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.”iii

Foreign policy wise, the War on Terror was an utter failure even though there have been effective measures from law enforcement and intelligence agencies on destroying terrorist cells, blocking havens for radicalized groups, and securing supply routes on international borders.

More Work Needs to Be Done at Home and Abroad

The terror threat domestically in the United States has been somewhat successful. We had the Boston Marathon Massacre, San Bernardino, Orlando, and the Fort Hood attacks in Texas. Charlottesville was an example, where white supremacists engaged in acts of terror like using a car to run over a counter protester.

The problem with the Trump Administration is that they don’t focus on all aspects of terrorism and domestic threats. Instead, they focus solely on radical Islamist terrorism. Sting operations have also been used against people who have connections to gangs and drugs, but this proves problematic for many reasons. First, sting operations tend to target people based on their religious identity even though they won’t admit that most of the victims identify themselves as Muslims. Second, sting operations are mostly done online because recruitment has been conducted by chat rooms, cryptic communications, and trolling through Facebook and Twitter accounts. The targets for recruitment are also young men who have mental health problems, people who are facing personal crises, or even people who have big mouths to say the wrong things who get snared by law enforcement recruiters which recruit people into sting operations. This may sound cynical, but cases have shown that people who get recruited for sting operations are marginalized in society.

In the international context, the U.S failure to support the Arab Spring turned into an Arab nightmare for most Arab citizens because the message that it sent to people in the MENA region is that the United States prefers to work with repressive governments who produce violent non-state actors rather than to side with nonviolent populist movements seeking indigenous democracy.

It is important to highlight this because the people in this region see and understand that even though there are security and safety concerns, there is no credibility for leaders who behave like dictators. The United States should not be in the business of the Middle East for the sake of spreading democratic revolutions, which is a recipe for entangling the U.S into unnecessary wars and it angers the local populations in general. This happened in Libya when Gaddafi was replaced by an anarchist government that gave way to safe havens for terrorists that didn’t exist before, and this is a bad approach. The lessons from past foreign policy failures should signify the United States to stay out of other nations’ business.

Notes:
i. Jonathan Lemire, “Evolving Trump: From business celeb on 9/11 to stern leader” September 11, 2017 Star Tribune http://www.startribune.com/trump-and-first-lady-prepare-to-commemorate-sept-11/443669963/
ii. Adam Pasick, “Here are the seven countries the United States has bombed since 9/11”September 22, 2014 Quartz https://qz.com/269630/here-are-the-seven-countries-the-united-states-has-bombed-since-911/
iii. Daniel Byman, “Iraq and the Global War on Terrorism” July 1, 2007 Brookings Institution https://www.brookings.edu/articles/iraq-and-the-global-war-on-terrorism/

By Henry George*

The far-right group National Action was banned at the end of 2016, after the murder of Jo Cox MP in June by a far-right terrorist.

They were your classic neo-Nazis: hatred of Jews, hatred of non-whites, hatred of homosexuals. They paraded around towns in black clothes, (sound similar to a certain US street politics movement?) scarves covering their lower faces, bearing banners that praised Hitler. So, not fine people.

Then came news that a cell of National Action members, all in their early 20’s and 30’s, had been arrested under Britain’s terrorism act. They had been arrested on suspicion of the ‘commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism’.

What was more disturbing was the fact that they were all enlisted n the Royal Anglian regiment of the British Army. No one knows if they’re part of a larger network operating under the radar in the UK’s military. Nevertheless, the idea that these men, who believe in the words and deed of Adolf Hitler, were fighting for Queen and Country is unsettling, to say the least.

While bearing in mind the reality that the numbers of far-right extremists who are entered into the government’s Prevent counter-radicalisation programme has recently seen a rise of 30% to over 500 cases, up from a quarter in 2015, it is important to also bear in mind that the numbers of Islamists still far-outweigh those of the far-right.

There are 35,000 Islamist extremists in the UK; 17,393 in France; 24,400 in Germany; 5,000 in Spain; 18,884 in Belgium. That adds up to around 100, 677 Islamist extremists in Western Europe.

This is a huge number of people who to a greater or lesser extent believe in a utopian doctrine that inspires them to see their vision of a worldwide Caliphate fall over the earth through separatist and sectarian activism and terrorist action. We have seen the results of this in the carnage over the last two and a half years.

As of United States, the data is far clearer.

Yes, the far-right may be rising in numbers, but the threat from Islamism still far surpasses it.

About the author:
*Henry George studied for a History BA at Royal Holloway, University of London. He then studied for a War Studies MA at King’s College London, focusing on ISIS inspired terrorism and Fourth Generation Warfare for his dissertation. He also blogs here, focusing on issues surrounding identity politics, political philosophy, free speech and cultural issues broadly linked to the West’s decline. He can be reached on Twitter at @intothefuture45.

Source:
This article was published by Bombs and Dollars

I wrote a recent piece in The Federalist on the hysteric Western liberal media coverage of the Rohingya crisis is looking very similar to the ones during the early days of Libyan and Syrian civil wars. Naturally, the reaction to that, was…let’s say…quite extreme.

Anyway, here’s what we are seeing now. the same appeal to emotions, same arguments of ethnic cleansing, and genocide, without any understanding of the history and context of the crisis. It will soon lead to arguments of regime change, and sanctions, if UN peacekeepers. And it is specifically for that reason, every neighbouring country should be wary of the situation in Myanmar.

With more than 310,000 people having fled to Bangladesh in recent weeks, there are daily reports of violence in Myanmar border. The UNHRC, which bizarrely had Saudi Arabia as a Chair, of all countries, noted that Myanmar is apparently having an ethnic cleansing. An official was quoted by Guardian, saying, “I call on the government to end its current cruel military operation, with accountability for all violations that have occurred, and to reverse the pattern of severe and widespread discrimination against the Rohingya population.”

The Rohingya issue is not new. It originates from the forced demographic change during the British times, when the northern Myanmar was socially engineered by the British colonial governance, to provide for cheap labour. It created centuries of sectarian tension and separatism, and worse, anti-Burmese violence in the 40s and 50s. Over 50000 Myanmar Buddhists were killed in the 1940s, a wound that still lives in Myanmar. Recently, since the 1980s, the Rohingya separatism, acquired an Islamist character. It is important to note that there’s a huge connection between Islamists in North India, and Xinjiang, and Rohingya and the Moro Liberation front. While most of these groups started with political or economic demands, over time, they have acquired a religious character which cannot be negotiated with.

It is in this time, the latest Rohingya crisis started. People will remember that last time, China and Russia blocked any action against Myanmar government. This time also, India found solidarity with Myanmar. The reason is simple.

India, China and Myanmar, even with different forms and types of governments, however face an existential problem with Islamism and jihadism. India as it is, has over 40000 Rohingya, most of them located in north of the country, as well as in the zones next to Bangladesh, where the authorities think that they have huge demographic repercussions for the native population. The Rohingya is also according to memos of Indian security agencies, are a particularly high breeding ground for Islamic jihadism which will have long term consequences. Similarly, in Myanmar, they are considered outsiders, who came to Burma, and now want a separate state of their own. Myanmar has seen what happened to the Coptic Christians and Yazidis, Jews and Pandits, and they have arguably learnt their lessons.

The combination of these two factors are huge. The fact that the Rohingya population, would never integrate in Myanmar, and secondly, they will have huge security implication for both the neighbouring great powers of India and China, is not a fact that is lost on careful observers of the crisis.

Most importantly, however, it is important to understand that the hysteria about Rohingya is essentially a reaction by liberal internationalists who are now threatened with a record of their failed foreign policy. Since the heydays of Arab Spring and Liberal interventionism, the foreign policy of humanitarian interventions has been used time and time again. However, that foreign policy is under scrutiny ever since 2003. The Rohingya crisis is now offering a chance to the same ideologues a chance for a new global battle. But there is needless to mention, no good options in Myanmar. A war or intervention will only exacerbate the situation insanely, not to mention that neither India or China would support a Western backed force next to their border, and the subsequent chaos and inevitable rise of Islamism. With ISIS now waging Jihad in Philippines, there should be an urgent focus on that.

By Jalil Bayat*

Although Iran’s nuclear agreement with the P5+1 group of countries, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), is an international agreement, which has been also endorsed by the United Nations Security Council, some analysts have opined that the United States may finally withdraw from the deal. Apart from the consequences that such a move would have for the JCPOA and agreements between the two parties, the reaction that the international community, especially the European Union, is expected to show to this unilateral measure by the United States, is of high importance. Therefore, the question that can be posed here is what scenarios are imaginable for the future polarity of the international world system as a result of possible withdrawal of the United States from the JCPOA? Given the reaction to be shown by the international community, especially the European Union, to this development, the answer to this question may vary from continuation of a unipolar system to establishment of a multipolar one.

Almost all experts on international relations are unanimous that the international system that was dominant during the Cold War period was a bipolar system. Following the collapse of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, most analysts believed that the United States will be the sole superpower in the world and the international system will be a unipolar one. This idea was criticized in the later years of the 1990s due to remarkable growth, at least in economic terms, of such countries as Japan and Germany. However the United States’ unilateral invasion of Iraq in 2003, which was not endorsed by the United Nations, once again strengthened the position of those who believed in a unipolar international system.

However, a number of developments have come about in recent years in which the United States has proved ineffective and this issue has once again led to debates about a uni-multipolar and even a multipolar world system. During the crisis of Ukraine, the United States was practically only a by-stander and it has been one of the most important cases raised by critics and opponents of a unipolar world system. On the other hand, the United States’ inability to achieve its goals during crises that plagued Arab countries, especially Syria, was another example cited by some experts on international relations as a proof to the end of the unipolar world system.

However, opponents of this viewpoint have mentioned the wide gap that exists between the United States and other countries in military, economic and cultural terms as a reason for the existence of a unipolar international system. These comments show that the JCPOA and the reaction that the international community will show to possible withdrawal of the United States from this international agreement is one of those cases, which can shed a lot of light on this issue and reveal the truth about it.

As a result, if following the United States’ possible withdrawal from this agreement, the international community, especially the European Union, followed suit with Washington willingly or unwillingly and reviewed its relations with Iran in various fields, then one could assert that the international system is still unipolar in nature, because it is the United States, which can still determine international arrangements according to its own will and despite opposition from other countries. Proponents of this viewpoint can claim that even now that the JCPOA is being enforced, many big European banks as well as other financial and economic institutions are not willing to have transactions with Iran due to fear of being punished by the United States and this, on its own, is proof enough to the power of the United States and the superpower status it has at international level.

On the opposite, if following the United States’ withdrawal from the JCPOA, the international community, especially the European Union, continued to remain committed to the agreement and expanded its relations with Iran, then one could claim that the unilateral system is history, at least, at the present juncture. For this proposition to come true, measures taken by the United States should not be able to bar Iran from being benefited by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in various fields. This means that all non-American public and private companies and banks must be able and willing to enter into trade exchanges with Iran freely and without any fear of the United States’ punitive measures. In that case, one can confirm that the international system is of a multipolar nature and any unilateral measure by any country, even the most powerful one, cannot be determining.

From this viewpoint, possible withdrawal of the United States from the JCPOA would provide the European Union with a historic opportunity (or threat?) to clarify its real standing in the international system. Will Europe, along with China and Russia, be able to give credit to the viewpoint of those who support a multilateral international system? Will the United States be willing to cause the international community to have more doubts about cooperation with Washington for stabilizing the existing world order through its unjustified withdrawal from the JCPOA?

Perhaps, the answer to these questions will come to the light in October when it is time for the US president to reaffirm Iran’s compliance with its commitments as per the JCPOA.

*Jalil Bayat
Candidate for Ph.D. in International Relations; Tarbiat Modarres University

By Sarral Sharma*

The by-election for Lahore’s National Assembly constituency (NA)-120 – previously NA-95 – seat will take place on 17 September. The seat fell vacant after the disqualification of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s on 28 July following the Supreme Court verdict in the Panama Papers case. Through an assessment of the contesting candidates and their political agendas for the election, this article seeks to determine who stands the likeliest chance of winning, and why.

There are 44 candidates contesting for this seat; but the two key contenders are Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) candidate, Begum Kulsoom Nawaz Sharif, and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) candidate, Dr Yasmin Rashid. Other notable candidates include Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) Faisal Mir, Jamaat-e-Islami’s (JeI) Ziauddin Ansari, and independent candidate, Qari Yaqoob Sheikh, and they may have a limited role to play in the upcoming election.

The PML-N might not find it difficult to win the NA-120 constituency given how Nawaz Sharif won from the NA-120 seat five consecutive times, in 1985, 1988, 1990, 1993 and 1997. The constituency is regarded as Sharif’s stronghold. The party has fielded Kulsoom Nawaz despite her serious illness, and Maryam Nawaz is tasked with leading the political campaign. Incidentally, Kulsoom and Maryam are Nawaz’s spouse and daughter respectively. Amid reports of a possible political feud in the Sharif family with Hamza Sharif – son of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif – withdrew from electioneering. This would be viewed as Maryam’s political anointment as Nawaz’s potential political heir.

The PML-N appears to be focusing on consolidating its electoral base in both Province of Punjab (PP) constituencies, PP-139 and PP-140, which fall under NA-120. In the 2013 election, Sharif won a 10,000-vote lead in PP-140 compared to the lead of over 30,000 votes in PP-139 against PTI’s Rashid. Therefore, the party’s agenda is also to improve the overall tally in both the provincial constituencies in order to create a strong political base before the 2018 general election. More importantly, a win with a comfortable margin will prove critical for the PML-N’s future in Punjab, and to an extent, might also address the doubts some have raised regarding Maryam’s leadership. Still, factors such as a possible anti-incumbency sentiment, party infighting and the impact of the Panama papers trial on local electorate might limit their victory margin.

The PTI has again fielded Yasmin Rashid, who lost to Nawaz in the 2013 election. Rashid views Nawaz’s disqualification as an opportunity to avenge her defeat in the previous election. Despite being the PML-N’s home turf, representatives of the NA-120 constituency and the Punjab government have been accused of indifference due to the sorry state of infrastructure including poor roads, regular power outages, dismal sanitation facilities and unavailability of clean drinking water. Rashid has chosen door-to-door campaigning as well as addressing Mohalla (local area) meetings and erecting party flexes and banners highlighting local issues related to lack of basic amenities in the constituency.

Former PPP supporters as well as some PML-N supporters now disenchanted with the Party, and the youth constitute the PTI’s core electoral base. PTI Chief Imran Khan, who had previously participated in electioneering, is not active this time, possibly because the Election Commission of Pakistan enforced a code of conduct barring campaigning by parliamentarians. Yet, he held a rally in Lahore on 8 September, outside the NA-120 constituency, to seek support for Rashid and to boost the party cadres’ morale. PTI’s win in the by-election may prove to be a referendum against the PML-N government ahead of the 2018 general elections. More importantly, Khan will stand vindicated in his anti-corruption campaign.

PPP’s Faisal Mir too is in the fray with the Party’s old guard trying to re-enter Punjab politics after an embarrassing defeat in 2013. Although the PPP may not make a big impact in this election, the party is putting its best foot forward to prepare for the 2018 polls. Some PPP loyalists who supported PTI’s Rashid in 2013 have reportedly returned to the former party’s fold since Mir’s nomination. However, the weak central leadership and limited political outreach outside Sindh province may dampen the party’s future in Punjab. Still, it is possible that the PPP could improve its overall electoral standing and may make a dent in the opposition parties’ vote share.

Other smaller contenders such as the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), and the new entrant Qari Yaqoob Sheikh, an independent nominee supported by Hafiz Saeed’s Jamaat ud Dawa (JuD), might garner some support from right wing voters in the constituency. However, the main contest will be between the two main opposition parties. If the PTI wins the upcoming by-election, it may signal a possible shift in Pakistan’s political setup which might be more visible as the country goes for polls in 2018. Conclusively, Nawaz’s political (and personal) image and Maryam’s future as a potential leader of the PML-N are at stake in this election.

* Sarral Sharma
Researcher, IReS, IPCS
E-mail: sarral.sharma@ipcs.org

By Ben Sixsmith

“You owe us and you need us” is the message of Suketu Mehta’s Foreign Policy article on immigration. While I think his piece is vindictive, condescending, illogical and often uninformed it is refreshingly blunt.

Let us step back for a moment. In these arguments it is tempting to bracket people as “pro” and “anti” immigration. I am not anti-immigration. I think some measure of movement makes cultural, economic and humanitarian sense. (I am an immigrant as well, though I would have argued the same before leaving England.) What I do oppose – and have opposed, and will continue to oppose – is mass immigration on a reckless, utopian scale that ignores tradition, prudence and the popular will. Mr Mehta disregards them, and does so with some contempt.

The headline and the illustration are, well, illustrative. “This Land is Their Land”, booms the former. Not even our land. Theirs. The illustration depicts migrants in a rowing boat, clutching The Stars and the Stripes. (Are they crossing the Atlantic?) A man holds a child while a woman wearing a hijab looks across the sea with a determined expression. I do not think I am being cynical if I suggest that this is an unrealistic portrayal of a Middle Eastern family.

Mehta has no time for distinctions between immigrants, even saying the difference between refugees and economic migrants is a mere “choice of words” as “whether you’re running from something or running toward something, you’re on the run”. An atheist fleeing Afghanistan might disagree with him. There is in fact a clear difference between running from death and running towards wealth. But for Mehta migrants are more or less a monolithic bloc: “us”, with “our communities”, arranged against the West.

Mehta scorns the idea that Westerners have the right to choose which migrants to accept. To him, immigrants are “creditors” taking what they are owed. “All hail Western civilization,” he sneers, “Which gave the world the genocide of the Native Americans, slavery, the Inquisition, the Holocaust, Hiroshima, and global warming.” Westerners have done – and do – a lot of dreadful things but Mehta’s denunciation veers into agitated overstatement. As grotesque as the Atlantic slave trade was, slavery had existed for millenia. The Arabic slave trade began hundreds of years before Europeans disgraced themselves with this oppressive system, and ended long after the success of abolitionism. Great as our contribution to climate change appears to be, the world’s leading contributors to fossil fuel emissions include China, India, Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia.

Mehta attributes all or at least most of the troubles of underdeveloped countries to Western misdeeds. British wealth and Indian poverty, he claims, citing Shashi Tharoor, was built on the depredations of the British Empire. Alex Tabarrok refuted these ideas in his review of Tharoor’s book – while, I should add, granting that the British did appalling things.

Europeans “corrupted our governments”, Mehta continues, neatly absolving African and Asian officials of blame. They did this “so their corporations could continue stealing our resources”. If the West is cunningly bent on plundering the Third World why is it so often Chinese businesses that do crooked deals in Africa? Or is that somehow our fault as well?

Syrian migrants are moving, Mehta claims, “Because the West…invaded Iraq…and set in motion the process that destroyed the entire region.” Iraq was a disgraceful catastrophe, true, but does Mehta think the Middle East – with its ethnic divisions, Islamic extremism and authoritarian rulers – would have been harmonic if the war had never taken place? The argument that Iraq caused the Arab Spring was rubbish when neocons made it in its first triumphant weeks, and remains rubbish now. We do owe Iraqis for our miserable recklessness, and are assisting them in the destruction of ISIS, but the idea that the West bears all responsibility for the troubles of the Middle East is childish nonsense.

Mehta’s condemnation because vengeful when he claims:

It is every migrant’s dream to see the tables turned, to see long lines of Americans and Britons in front of the Bangladeshi or Mexican or Nigerian Embassy, begging for a residence visa.

I think well enough of migrants to believe that Mr Mehta is putting these strange, vindictive words into their mouths. (Our editor, Sumantra Maitra, also has an Indian background and criticised the piece on Twitter. Mehta blocked him.)

Having claimed that immigrants are bitter people, bearing fantasies of Western suffering, Mehta insists they are actually going to save us. If I thought so poorly of a people, I might not be warm, generous or cooperative – but, again, I do not think most migrants share his view.

Some do. Some hold it to far greater pathological extremes. Mehta has a lot of fun with Enoch Powell’s nightmares of the River Tiber foaming with much blood, but it would have been nice to have some recognition of the hundreds of people who have died in New York, Madrid, London, Paris, Brussels, Nice and Manchester. The jihadists who perpretrated the crimes in those great cities thought of themselves as “creditors” as well.

To Mehta, it seems, immigrants are just better than natives. “They will bring energy with them, for no one has more enterprise than someone who has left their distant home to make the difficult journey here.” Immigrants are different. Some are enterprising and some are not. Some immigrant groups are less reliant on state welfare than native Britons, for example, and some are more. “Given basic opportunities,” he continues, “They will be better behaved than the youth in the lands they move to, because immigrants in most countries have lower crime rates than the native-born.” Again, it depends on which immigrants and which natives – and how creative Mehta could be with “basic opportunities”.

Once Mehta reaches his grand climactic claim that the “immigrant armada that is coming to your shores is actually a rescue fleet” this reader could feel his arteries throb. As an immigrant – in Poland, which Mehta reveals his ignorance of when he suggests President Andrzej Duda leads the ruling party – I hope I am doing well for my host nation. I work hard to make a difference in my community. I cannot imagine having the brass balls to claim it needs me, though; that I am its “salvation”; that I am “rescuing” it. I would not be very popular if I did.

This article was published at Bombs and Dollars

By Maha Hilal*

Every year on September 11, the United States mourns the innocent lives that were lost in the terrorist attacks of 2001.

Each year I remember these victims, too. But I also mourn the often forgotten victims of the never-ending wars and draconian counter-terrorism policies of the post 9-11 world: the Muslim community.

In a speech to Congress shortly after the attacks, then-President Bush addressed a portion to Muslims. “The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends; it is not our many Arab friends,” he said. “Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them.” Yet despite Bush’s attempt to distinguish between the “good” and “bad” Muslims, the war on terror has targeted the Muslim community at large almost exclusively.

Abroad, several Muslim nations have been devastated by U.S. invasions and military operations. As of 2015, Physicians for Social Responsibility estimated that 1.3 million Iraqis, Afghans, and Pakistanis had died in the course of the war on terror — a figure the group called “conservative,” noting that it doesn’t include figures from other war zones like Yemen and Somalia. Civilian casualties run high in all of these places, and alleged combatants have died by the hundreds in U.S. military custody.

Domestically, law enforcement has systematically singled out Muslims for special abuse.

Muslim congregations and student groups have suffered intrusive surveillance. And federal agencies have systematically entrapped alleged Muslim “terrorists,” with one 2014 Human Rights Watch report finding that informants had played an active role in hatching at least 30 percent of the plots they prosecuted suspects for.

Meanwhile, so-called communication management units — where federal prison inmates are barred from virtually all contact with the outside world and other inmates — were built and used to warehouse Muslim prisoners. At one point, over 60 percent of inmates housed in them were Muslim, despite Muslims making up just 6 percent of the prison system.

In the even more extreme Guantanamo Bay prison, that number rises to 100 percent.

But it doesn’t end there, because the laws and policies of the war on terror have created a culture of fear — one that teaches American society to fear Muslims, and one that teaches Muslims to fear the U.S. government. While it’s gotten worse under Trump, it’s not something that started under him. The Bush administration built the violent infrastructure of the war on terror, Obama expanded it, and Trump is simply building on it still.

Earlier this year, President Trump signed two executive orders, commonly referred to as the Muslim Ban and Muslim Ban 2.0, which halted the issuing of visas to people from seven (and later six) majority-Muslim countries.

While many were surprised by this overt act of racism and xenophobia, the war on terror has taught Muslims like me that this is nothing new. The orders came amid a surge of hate crimes against Muslims, which recently reached their highest levels since 9/11 itself. Furthermore, the number of hate crimes this year has far surpassed that of 2016 — by 91 percent, according to the Council on American Islamic Relations.

“While the bias that motivates a hate crime may be unusual in its ferocity,” a Human Rights Watch report explained way back in 2002, “it is rooted in a wider public climate of discrimination, fear, and intolerance against targeted communities, which may also be echoed in or enhanced by public policy.”

As a Muslim American who has lived in the United States for most of my life, September 11 taught me a few things. It taught me that collective responsibility is at the heart of the laws and policies that have unfolded in the war on terror — that we’ll be targets till we prove we’re “good” Muslims who are uncritical of foreign policy and who believe in the American dream.

It taught me that religious freedom is a value that the United States cherishes, until of course Muslims try to claim it. Then it becomes a security concern.

It taught me that this is actually what many groups have experienced in our country. Different groups are targeted at different times under different umbrellas for our “national security,” which is nothing more than legitimized and institutionalized racism and xenophobia.

This year will mark 16 years of the war on terror — 16 years of military and militaristic means to allegedly abate the terrorist threat, but which have in fact terrorized my own community.

This year, as part of the DC Justice for Muslims Coalition, I’m leading a campaign called #MySept11MuslimStory to provide a space for Muslims to share their stories on the consequences they’ve experienced post-9/11 — not just from the U.S. government, but from society at large. This is my way of empowering the Muslim community to resist the oppression we’ve experienced on the basis of collective responsibility.

The war on terror was supposed to be about making our country safer. But as a Muslim American, I don’t feel any safer. Instead, I suspect those feelings of safety were never meant to be extended to me, or my community. As we prepare for what’s ahead, empowering ourselves couldn’t be more important.

*Maha Hilal, Ph.D., is the Michael Ratner Middle East fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. She’s also a steering committee member of DC Justice for Muslims Coalition, an organizer with Witness Against Torture, and a board member of the DC chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.

2010 marked the beginning of an age of shifting interest and realignments in power relationships. This matrix of the new age brought the strategic partnership of three key powers, which are central to the resolution of many regional issues and whose collective political decisions can shape the political environment of future.

This power relationship is between China, Pakistan and Russia. China with its economic and global influence, Russia with its muscular strength, information warfare and Pakistan being a frontline state combating terrorism and its geo-strategic location this emerging triangular power relations have inherent political potential to pull the string in the emerging regional and global political theater. The contemporary international political order is moving towards multi-polarity which is leaning towards the Asian political order, a multiethnic and multi cultural region.

With the new world developments such as China’s investment in the One Belt One Road economic initiative, Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union and its connectivity with OBOR and Pakistan’s geo-strategic location are one of the key factors that would define the new trends in the triangular power relations between three depending upon the basic queries such as the motivating factors behind the convergence of interests and what would the impact this trio exert on the Asian Order.

China under its dynamic leader Xi Jinping ambitiously envisioned and pursued the economic strategy to integrate Asia with Europe, Middle East and Africa with its OBOR initiative. Hence Asia is an integral part and very important key to success to materialize this OBOR initiative and Pakistan is the first link to this initiative. However, Pakistan and Russia are two important actors or pillars in Chinese geo-strategic ambition, first in the China -Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and second is the OBOR integration with the Eurasian Economic Union. In this context China, Pakistan and Russia have essential shared objective in commerce, collective defense and regional security.

From Pakistan’s perspective, the Chinese seek to accelerate their trade and commerce through CPEC, which is an essential component of Maritime Silk Road enterprise composed of networks of railways, highways and pipelines along with various energy and industrial project subjected to stave off the energy starvation of Pakistan and regional connectivity and pave the way for China’s access to Indian Ocean by linking Xinjiang province with Pakistan’s Gwadar Port. The geo-strategic interests of both countries China and Pakistan converge beyond the geography and also include a substantial role in Afghanistan. As far as China’s interests in Afghanistan are concerned ranges from the development assistance, investment enterprises and emerging security role to get and preserve its strategic objectives in the country which need enhanced security environment.

While China and Russia’s shared interests in the contemporary international environment are to counter US hegemony. China and Russia shared many multilateral platforms and institutions such as BRICS and SCO to strengthen their strategic partnership depends upon their shared interests both regionally and globally. Russia with its initiative of Eurasian Economic Union and China with its OBOR initiative are seeking to revolutionize the world trade and integrate world economics through trans-regional connectivity and mutual cooperation with the shared objective of G-zero World.

An eminent political commentator Pepe Escobar stated that Russia and China are not only protecting their core national interests, but advancing their complementarities. Russia’s excellence in aerospace, defence technology and heavy industry matches Chinese excellence in agriculture, light industry and information technology. Both these countries are supported by the prestigious institutions such as BRICS, SCO, CSTO and Eurasian Economic Union. Both Russia and China have shared objective regarding peace and stability in Afghanistan, South Asia particularly Pakistan’s role as geo-strategic fulcrum, Eurasian integration making peace in the violent and fragile Middle East.

In South Asia, Russia’s recent overture or approach towards Pakistan (previously cold war rival) represents a clean break from the cold war animosity. Russia’s security tie with the joint military exercise “Friendship 2016” with Pakistan is the recent example, which has more benefits than costs attached. Russia and Pakistan bilateral relations are at embryonic stage with undertaken projects represent the cautious approach. Here it is pertinent to state that India’s traditional rivalry with Pakistan, whom Russia has long-term strategic partnership commence from the cold war era, is uneasy with the growing ties of Russia and Pakistan. Russia is the second largest defence exporter to India and it is expected that their bilateral defence trade is targeted to reach 30 billion dollars by 2025.

On the other hand, Russia and Pakistan both share strategic interests as Russian wants to resolve Afghanistan dilemma because it has fears of the spill-over effects of the terrorism to its backyard in Central Asia from Afghanistan particularly the emergence of IS which threatens the stability of Russia itself with reference to Chechnya. It also has fears of the presence of US forces in Afghanistan.

Whereas Pakistan’s interests are starting from first, it wants to strengthen its position in the region by engaging with second nuclear power; Second, Pakistan seeks to peaceful resolution of Afghanistan; Third, Pakistan seeks the prospects of giving Russia access to deep-sea port in Gwadar and subsequent incorporation of Russia in OBOR. In a nutshell, in the South Asian context Pakistan’s reach to Russia come out of the need to counterbalance India’s growing influence in the region specifically after the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) between India and the US which seems to make India “linchpin” in this region.

As Indian access to US weapons alongside US support for Indian operations in the sea – Indian Ocean — represents an alarming signal to Pakistan to recalibrate its international relations and increase its outreach to regional powers to counter prospective Indian hegemony in South Asia. Simultaneously Pakistan should maintain its relations with US on even keels because Pakistan’s shift to strengthen its strategic relations with Russia and China are not at the cost of Pakistan-US relations- the only objective is to counterbalance India’s hegemony in the region.

*The writer is Research Associate at Strategic Vision Institute, a think-tank based in Islamabad.
Email: asiamaqsood.09@gmail.com

Upset Hindus are urging Hangzhou (China) headquartered e-commerce giant Alibaba Group for immediate withdrawal from its website of doormats carrying images of Hindu deities Lord Krishna and Lord Ganesha; calling it highly inappropriate.

Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, said that it was shocking to visualize that Alibaba, for its mercantile greed, was apparently persuading the world to scrub/wipe the soles of their shoes before entering a building/bathroom on the faces of images of gods which Hindus worshipped.

Hindu deities Lord Ganesha and Lord Krishna, whose images were depicted on doormats sold at Alibaba website, were highly revered in Hinduism and were meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines and not for putting one’s feet on for cleaning or sweeping on or to “dry wet feet, grab dirt, dust and grime”, as was the case here. Inappropriate usage of Hindu deities or concepts for commercial or other agenda was not okay as it hurt the devotees; Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, indicated.

Rajan Zed also urged Alibaba group to offer a formal apology.

Symbols of any faith, larger or smaller, should not be mishandled, Zed noted.

Rajan Zed further said that such trivialization of Hindu deities was disturbing to the Hindus world over. Hindus were for free artistic expression and speech as much as anybody else if not more. But faith was something sacred and attempts at trivializing it hurt the followers, Zed added.

We the undersigned organisations would like to stress that, with the initiative of the Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO), the Rohingya Intellectual Community Association of Australia filed through their Counsel, a communication with the International Criminal Court (“the ICC”) in December 2015 and filed a follow up communication in August 2017, with the support of the Rohingya Community Worldwide.

Counsel representing our organizations submitted that the ICC should exercise jurisdiction on the grounds that the Rohingya are a stateless minority and no legal recourse exists for them in Myanmar as a result of their statelessness. The ICC finally responded in August 2017 that it does not have jurisdiction on the mass atrocity crimes committed against the Rohingyas. The Rohingya continue to have no access to justice and therefore do not have any redress in Myanmar if they are persecuted.

Acts of mass atrocity and genocide against the defenseless Rohingya and other minority civilians can never be a purely internal matter of Myanmar. These acts have been ongoing for over thirty-nine years. The UN and international community have a ‘responsibility to protect’ and should intervene to save thousands of lives and protect human security.

We, therefore, appeal to the UN Security Council, international community, OIC, ASEAN and Myanmar’s neighbours to intervene immediately in the matter to protect helpless Rohingya people and similarly situated minorities in the region from Myanmar’s state sponsored genocide and crimes against humanity. In addition, we thank and plead to the international community to continue providing humanitarian assistance both in Arakan and in Bangladesh on humanitarian grounds.

The Following organizations are the signatories of this press release.

Arakan Rohingya National Organisation,
Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK,
Bradford Rohingya Community UK,
Burmese Rohingys Community Denmark,
Burmese Rohingya Community Australia,
Burmese Rohingya Community Japan,
Canadian Burmese Rohingya Organisation,
Rohingya Advocacy Network Japan,
Rohingya Arakanese Refugee Committee,
Rohingya Blogger,
Rohingya Community Germany,
Rohingya Community Switzerland,
Rohingya Community Finland,
Rohingya community Italy,
Rohingya community Sweden,
Rohingya Organisation Norway,
Rohingya Society Netherlands,
Rohingya Society Malaysia,
The European Rohingya Council