By Arab News

By Aijaz Zaka Syed

Change has come to India. The great democracy is undergoing an unprecedented churning and a new political narrative is emerging. Pundits agree that the emergence of “common man” has shaken the old, ossified power structures to the core and cynical, old politics and politicians are being forced to embrace the new grammar of change. Yes, change. Change is the buzzword. For some though, the more things change the more they remain the same.

For once, I agree with Narendra Modi. Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde’s concern over the victimization of Muslims and his warning to state governments against the targeting of Muslim youths is nothing but a “brazen and callous attempt to woo the minority community.”

In comments made last week, Shinde expressed concern over the continuing heavy presence of Muslim youths in jails saying he is writing to states to set up review committees to assess the role of minority youths languishing in jails on terror charges without trial.

It prompted the Gujarat chief minister to dash off a strong letter of protest to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saying Shinde’s comments on Muslims marked a “new low” and that “even the minority community will raise the questions on the timing of such statements.”

There may be some truth in the Gujarat leader’s contention. With the general elections being less than 6 months away, the home minister’s sudden concern for the “minority youth” may be a desperate attempt by a desperate party for the Muslim vote.

This is not the first that the home minister has raised this issue though. In September, he had written to state governments urging them to ensure no innocent Muslim youth is wrongfully detained in the name of terror.
Shinde had talked of receiving several representations and complaints on harassment of innocent Muslim youth by law enforcement agencies.

Raising concerns over the presence of a large number of Muslims in jails and urging police and investigative agencies against targeting the community, he had noted: “Some of the minority youth have started feeling that they are deliberately targeted and deprived of their basic rights.”

States, including Gujarat, were asked to ensure “strict and prompt action against erring police officers is taken where there is mala fide arrest of any member of minority community. Wrongfully arrested person(s) should not only be released immediately but should also be suitably compensated and rehabilitated to join the mainstream.”

Predictably, Shinde’s missive had raised a storm of howling protests with the opposition BJP and its righteous friends in media accusing the governing Congress and UPA of “appeasement and vote bank politics,”— just as they are doing now.

Predictably, Modi was the first to respond to Shinde then as well dashing off another letter of protest to the prime minister. What had particularly ticked off our friend from Gujarat and the shrill, ever raucous brigade of television warriors was the Center’s suggestion of forming ‘special courts’ to dispose of the gathering pile of terrorism related cases involving Muslim youths.

At the time, they had offered the same argument against Shinde’s call as has been made in the latest of Modi’s salvos. That it is political and constitutional sacrilege to suggest “special treatment” for any particular group or community.

Shinde’s statement could send a wrong message about the country’s criminal justice system and have a demoralizing effect on the law enforcement machinery, wrote the Gujarat leader in his complaint to the PM emphasizing “a crime is a crime irrespective of the birth marks of the criminal and his religious beliefs could not determine the guilt or innocence.”

Moreover, he points out, this approach challenges the constitutional principle of right to equality before law.
I couldn’t agree more. Equality before law — that is the cardinal principle of criminal justice system and not just in India. All are equal before law no matter where they come from, what they look like or what religion they believe in. Justice is equal for everyone.

But what about those who are picked up precisely because of how they look like or which religion they believe in? They are already judged and condemned — before their arrest and even before committing the crime. Some do not even have to wait in detention or go to courts to be judged. Justice is dispensed with instantly by our incredibly efficient and effective police and investigative agencies without troubling courts, as has been the case with Ishrat Jahan and so many other Muslim terrorists in the Vibrant Gujarat.

Yes, a crime is a crime irrespective of the birth marks of the criminal and his religious beliefs. It’s just that most criminals and terrorists happen to be Muslims.

This is why every third inmate in Maharashtra’s jails, a state ruled by the Congress incidentally, happens to be a Muslim despite their population being less than 15 percent in the state. Other states are not far behind Gujarat and Maharashtra in delivering equitable and swift justice to Muslims.

The Delhi Police, which incidentally reports to the Home Ministry at the Center headed by Shinde, has firmly burnished its credentials in fighting terror at home, rounding up everyone who looks like a Muslim terrorist or could very well be on the way to becoming one.

Moreover, Delhi Police Special Cell specializes in traveling far and wide to hunt for terrorists — from the distant Darbhanga on Bihar-Bengal border to relief camps in the riot ravaged Muzaffarnagar in neighboring Uttar Pradesh. As far as Delhi Police is concerned, if you are a Muslim, you are a terrorist — until proven otherwise.

And this is not the figment of anyone’s imagination. There are countless independent studies to prove the systemic bias of police and other law enforcement agencies against the community.

Statistics provided by various civil society groups and even the National Crime Record Bureau of the Government of India speak for themselves. Thousands of Muslims have been languishing in prisons across the country — many of them for years and without a trial.

Those who arrested them have promptly forgotten about their existence. Even when these cases go to courts, they drag on for years. Meanwhile it’s not just their lives and careers that are wrecked. Their whole families and extended neighborhoods are scarred and destroyed in the process.

I personally know many such families in Hyderabad. Those detained and tortured for years for attacks like Makkah Masjid blasts continue to pay even after being acquitted. Or the fact that the National Intelligence Agency has found the fingerprints of Hindu groups behind many such attacks. Terror never goes away.

So whatever the motives behind Shinde sending up this balloon now or Prime Minister Singh suddenly waking up to the woes of Muslims after ten years in power, there is no denying the fact that something terribly has gone wrong with the way the community is treated by the Indian state.

But instead of addressing the issue, Modi and company — aided by an insensitive, irresponsible media and militant security establishment — rush to raise the appeasement bogey.

Of course, everyone is equal before law in principle. But where do you see this in practice today? We have seen the equality before law at work in Modi’s own case.

After coolly executing the 2002 pogrom in full view of the world and despite being monitored and censured by the highest court in the land for his role and mountains of evidence to nail him, Modi has not just managed to evade the long arm of the law, the man is all but ready to head the world’s greatest democracy.

Do you call it justice? Is this equality before law where an 80-plus woman who saw her husband hacked and burned to death right before her eyes has to run from pillar to post looking for justice for 12 years?

Indian Muslims do not need any special treatment from anyone, Mr. Modi — not from the Congress and nor from the BJP. All they need is justice — and freedom from persecution for being who they are.

- Aijaz Zaka Syed is a commentator on the Middle East and South Asian affairs and Editor of ‘Caravan’ online newspaper. Email: aijaz.syed@hotmail.com

The article Indian Muslims Don’t Need Special Treatment – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Arab News

By Nadeem Mumtaz Qureshi

Technology dominates our lives. To many in the world it has become an ideology, which has banished ancient superstitions and now promises a happy, prosperous and healthful future for all of mankind. But is this not expecting too much? Could it be that technology is overrated? Could it be that it has limits and that those limits are now approaching? The evidence suggests that this may well be so and that, in some cases, these limits were reached years or decades ago.

Consider space travel: It takes the greatest nations on Earth, working at the outside edge of their abilities, with their best minds and resources, to put a few people in low Earth orbit. And how do these “conquerors” of space ride into orbit? The answer is: Through the “technology” developed by the Chinese millennia ago for fireworks. For all their sophistication, modern space vehicles are large Roman Candles powered by the same principles that to this day lift fireworks into the air. More “sophisticated” systems for lifting spacecraft into orbit while mooted remain firmly in the domain of science fiction. In the meantime lighting a fire under a rocket remains the only way to make it to space.

Or take air travel: It took about half century for airplanes to go from a speed of about 10km per hour at which the Wright Brothers’ biplane took to the air at Kitty Hawk in 1903, to speeds of 900 km per hour of the jet-powered airliners such as the Boeing 707 and DC 8, which started to see service in the late 1950s.

A little more than half a century separates us from the flight of the first Boeing 707, and yet, all passenger airliners in service today still fly at about the same speed as the 707. Yes, the innards of these new airliners have changed dramatically. Hydraulics and cables have been replaced by computers, motors and wires. Engines have seen dramatic improvements in efficiency due to improved metallurgy and computer-aided design. But the planes still travel at the same subsonic speeds, using the same fuel as their predecessors. Indeed the technology to push airplanes to supersonic speeds has also existed for more than half a century, yet it remains confined — for reasons of cost and practicality — to military aircraft.

Even electronics is starting to push up against physical limits. Gordon Moore — a founder of Intel — wrote in a paper published in 1965 that the number of transistors that could be placed on a semiconductor would grow exponentially, roughly doubling every two years. Moore’s law has turned out to be remarkably prescient.

Transistor counts have indeed doubled every two years over the past four decades or so. But, as with all things physical, limits are eventually reached. Miniaturization in printed circuits has reduced conductor widths to an atomic scale. It is unlikely that Moore’s law will hold for the future as it has for the past. Conventional silicon- based computing will no longer see breathtaking advances in computation speed. There is talk of shifting to other materials, or relying exclusively on optics, or on “biological” computing. But all of this remains — like power through fusion — a mirage, tantalizingly close but magically evanescent.

In biology, the breakthrough moment was in 1963 when James Watson and Francis Crick discovered, in Crick’s words, “the secret of life.” And, for a while, it seemed like they had. What they had discovered was the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid — DNA. This molecule — an elegantly simple “double helix” — resides at the center of all living cells. “Encoded” in the double helix is the entire genome of the creature to whom the cell belongs. This means, theoretically, that it if one had a single cell of any creature — living or dead — it should be possible to “reconstruct” an exact replica of that creature. And indeed, this was the sort of dream that scientists dreamed.

But it was not to be.

Several decades later, when the “tools” became available to manipulate DNA, the true power of Watson and Crick’s discovery was unleashed. Biotechnology was born. Scientists started to “read” the double helix, to cut and paste it, and to “unzip” it. In doing so they were able to come up with some marvelous discoveries and drugs. But even here, the initial excitement at discovering “the secret of life” has given way to a realization that things are much more complicated than they appear; the more the scientists discover it seems the less they know. Great expectations of cures to debilitating and fatal diseases have not materialized. Read the literature on cutting edge research in biotechnology and you will be struck by the number of times the phrase “is not understood” appears. Nature, it seems, has secrets it will not reveal.

There is no doubt that technology has served us well. And will continue to do so. But it is not panacea, or magic, or for that matter ideology.

- Nadeem M. Qureshi is chairman of Mustaqbil Pakistan

The article Is It End Of Road For Technology? – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Observer Research Foundation

By Ravi Joshi

Amidst fresh threat of sanctions from the US Congress, Iran’s terms of rapprochement with the West, following the successful breakthrough in its nuclear talks with the P5+1 in November last year, are all set to be implemented from 20 January. Tehran seems unfazed by such reports and the region is abuzz with the coming changes as countries are readying to align themselves on the right side of Tehran.

The recent interview of the Sheik of Dubai (BBC, 13 January), who candidly stated that lifting of sanctions on Iran is good for the region, is just one such indication. For good measure, he added that the policies of Dubai are different from that of Saudi Arabia and of Qatar – the two countries that have actively promoted Islamic Jihadists to overthrow the regime of Syrian President Assad, an implacable ally of Iran. The Sheik said that his country does “not believe in interfering with its neighbours, but in helping them”. The fact that a minor potentate of the GCC has broken ranks to speak out against the avowed policy of the group is a significant move.

There are good reasons for this. The tiny city-state has benefitted immensely from the smuggling and re-selling of Iranian oil, besides maintaining huge off-shore accounts of the Iranian elite in its banks. Though it maintained a political stand-off, economic relations with Iran have bloomed through the informal sector. And during the sharp foreign exchange crisis in October 2011 and again in December 2012, when dollars began to disappear from the Tehran bourse and the value of the Iranian Rial collapsed, it was to Dubai that Tehran turned to ship-in plane-loads of dollars.

The Dubai Sheikh’s recent utterance is an indication not only of the Sheikdom’s desire to catch up with the high tide of Iran’s rise in the region, but also a definite weakening of the Saudi clout among the Gulf monarchs. This is heightened by the latter’s troubled relationship with the US. In the regional calculus, not only among the unelected gulf monarchs but also among the rulers from Cairo to Islamabad, there is one simple theorem – ‘if your relationship with the US is bad, you suffer and not the other way round’. Only those who quickly adapt and align their position to the winds blowing from Washington hope to survive and cash in.

Even prior to the Iran rapprochement, the US had already left its allies in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey in the lurch, letting them hold on to their Jihadists facing a rout in the hands of a recalcitrant Assad who merely handed over chemical weapons and held on to the rest of his armory to slaughter the foreign mercenaries. The fretting and fuming of Saudi Arabia that refused to take up its elected position in the UNSC as a protest against this turnaround in US policy on Syria did not help the cause.

The monarchies who had just about started breathing easy with the fading of the ‘Arab Spring’ and the re-assertion of the ‘ancient regime’ in Cairo have now to battle with a new reality – a resurgent Iran that challenged the mighty West and survived decades of punishing sanctions. It must be noted that all these years of isolation and sanctions have neither bankrupted the economy nor have led to civic strife causing upheaval and overthrowing of the regime. Incidentally, all these happened to America’s best ally in the region, Egypt, which was neither isolated nor sanctioned.

How will a re-emergent Iran respond to its foes and the foes of its closest friends, Syria and Iraq remains an exciting story that will unfold in the coming years. Will Iran take up the unfinished revolution in Bahrain; will it reignite the burning embers in eastern Saudi Arabia where the Shia minority has been crushed to silence or will it first focus on consolidating the hold of its ally – Noori al-Maliki, facing a civil war in Fallujah?

Iran has been true to its friends, particularly those that stood by it during its period of isolation. And will now assert its ‘Energy clout’ on the region. To start with Oman first. The Sultan of Oman who had all along maintained a steady friendship with Iran, despite his long land border with Saudi Arabia, has been amply rewarded. Under a memorandum of understanding signed with Oman in December 2013, Iran is to start exporting within 2 years as much as 1 billion standard cubic feet per day (bscfd) of gas by underwater pipeline to the sultanate, which will use 70% of it domestically and the rest for liquefaction at an underutilised plant at Sur. It is free to sell the balance amount to Japan, India and South Korea.

With Iraq too, Iran has a contract to deliver by pipeline 850 million standard cubic feet per day (MMscfd) of gas and is negotiating a second contract that would push export rates to 1.6 bscfd by next year. It’s building a 227-km pipeline between Ilam and Khosravi near the border. Iraq is building a 220-km pipeline to deliver gas to power plants near Baghdad, but completion has been delayed by security problems. Iran is also negotiating construction of a pipeline connecting Khoramshahr, Iran, with Basra, in southern Iraq, for delivery of 700 MMscfd.

In sharp contrast to these developments comes the news of Iran cancelling the funding for the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline. In mid-December 2013, Iran announced cancellation of its proposed funding of $500 million to the construction of the Pakistani side of the gas pipeline. The announcement came as ‘a sudden change in heart’ considering that the two sides had met just a week before and mutually agreed to ‘formulate a road map’ to complete the project. This decision indicates Iran’s clout in regional energy affairs in choosing who its customers and clients would be. Has Iran decided that Pakistan does not require any concessions? Was the offer of loan made only to a Shia President of Pakistan, Ali Zardari, and does not hold good to his successor? Or is President Rouhani merely fine-tuning some of the policies of his predecessor? It is unclear, but there is certainly more to this than meets the eye.

How will Pakistan now meet its contractual obligation of completing the pipeline project by 2014 end and, failing which, how will it pay the penalty of a million dollar per day, as per terms of contract, remains to be seen?

India’s relationship with Iran has been a complex one. While we maintained high levels of political exchange, our trade with Iran undoubtedly suffered. Our Prime Minister’s visit to Tehran for the NAM summit in August 2012, followed by the visit of Vice President Hamid Ansari for the swearing in of President Rouhani in August 2013 and the visit of Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid for the Joint Commission Meeting have kept up a steady pace of high level exchanges between Tehran and Delhi, during its worst period of international sanctions. Delhi has also kept up the annual security dialogue with Tehran at the level of the two NSAs, despite the ups and downs of an Iranian attack on an Israeli diplomat in the heart of Delhi in February 2012. We have not been able to establish that it was either orchestrated or executed by the Iranian intelligence, partly because the Israelis have not substantiated their claim nor has Iran has fully cooperated in the investigations. The fact that all three bombings that took place around the time in Delhi, Bangkok and Tbilisi were so botched-up, indicate a level of planning and execution that makes it hard to blame a nation’s intelligence organisation for such incompetence.

Our trade, mainly consisting of oil imports from Iran, suffered immensely due to pressure from the US. We reduced our oil imports from a high of 21.81 million tonnes in 2008-09 to 14 million tonnes in 2012-13. We almost halved our oil imports from Iran in five years. The Iranians have consistently argued with us as to how could we let a third country dictate to us on a purely commercial transaction between two friends. And we maintained all along, quite justifiably, that the difficulty was in the payments in hard currency as all international banking channels got shut, one by one. The Hulk Bank in Turkey remained the lone exception with Turkey converting its dollar holdings into gold and smuggling it to Iran.

As Iran’s relations with the US improve, India can certainly look forward to a more robust relationship with Tehran, shorn of the pulls and pressures from Washington.

(Ravi Joshi is a Visiting Distinguished Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi)

The article Changing US-Iran Relations And India – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Ralph Nader

Dear President Obama:

All the daily decisions and crises you have to confront must not preclude occasional addresses to the country that rise to the level of statesmanship, transcending the hurly-burly of politics and executive branch administration.

There are three areas where the people need the views and vision of their President.

1. A major address on the resources and preconditions necessary for the government to wage peace as a continual policy of statecraft and not just sporadic initiatives between waging war or engaging in other violent conflicts. Consider the enormous disparity of time, power and money allocated to preparing for or waging military assaults with what is devoted to prevention of conflict and other fundamentals of securing the conditions for peace. The tiny U.S. budgets for nuclear, chemical and biological arms control with the Soviet Union and other nations over the years have certainly produced positive returns of incalculable magnitude and importance.

We have military academies but no peace academies. Vast sums are allocated for research and teaching about war and military tactics, but very little for peace studies at our schools and universities. You may wish to meet with former Washington Post columnist, Colman McCarthy, who teaches peace in the Washington D.C. area schools and has written pioneering books and articles that include his compelling arguments for having peace studies adopted in high schools and colleges around the country (see http://www.salsa.net/peace/conv/ for more information).

2. Earlier in 2009 and again in 2011 I wrote to urge you to address a large gathering, in a convenient Washington venue, for the leaders of nonprofit civic organizations with tens of millions of members throughout the United States. Not receiving a reply, I sent my request to the First Lady, Michelle Obama, whose assistant replied saying you were too busy.

You were, however, not too busy to address many business groups and also to walk over to the oppositional U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Well, it is the second term and such a civic gathering could be scheduled at your convenience. You could use this occasion to make a major speech on the importance and means of advancing the quality and quantity of civic groups and their chapters which, taken together, are major employers. Your advisers could even justify the effort as stimulating a jobs program by urging larger charitable contributions from the trillions of dollars of inert money in the hands of the upper economic classes.

3. Strengthening democratic processes and expanding democratic institutions and participation by the people are cardinal functions of the presidency. Indeed, Harvard Law Professor, Richard Parker in his little, seminal book: Here the People Rule (Harvard University Press, 1998) argues that the constitution authorizes the President “to facilitate the political and civic energies of the people.”

A major address on this topic should be right up your experiential alley from both your early experience in Chicago of observing and confronting the power structures’ many forms of exclusion and mistreatment of the populace and your more recent accommodation to that power structure and its influence over Congress.

As has been said, democracy is not a spectator sport. It requires a motivated citizenry, along with rights, remedies, and mechanisms that facilitate people banding together as candidates, voters, workers, taxpayers, consumers and communities. Concentration of power and wealth in the hands of the few who decide for the many is the great destroyer of any society’s democratic functions. It was Justice Louis Brandeis who, memorably, stated that, “We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” And another well-regarded jurist, Judge Learned Hand declared, “If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: thou shalt not ration justice.”

As “politics” is seen by more people as a dirty word and as the people move from cynicism about political institutions to greater withdrawal from them, including public meetings, primaries, elections and referenda, they need a president who addresses these disabling symptoms of a weakening democratic society from the local to the state to the national levels of our political economy.

Such an address will have positive reverberations beyond the general public. Depending on your scope, recommendations and announcements, it will reach the youth of our country, our high schools, universities, workplaces and professional schools. Why it may even affect the moribund, technical routines of the Harvard Law Review (where you were president in 1990) as well as other law schools, bar associations and lawyers who aspire to higher estimates of their own professional significance (see my remarks “The Majesty of the Law Needs Magisterial Lawyers” before the Connecticut Bar Association June 17, 2013). If law means justice, as it should, then the rule of law needs presidential refurbishing to strengthen the fiber of our democracy.

I hope you will see the merit of these three suggestions. A copy of this letter is being sent to the First Lady, Michelle Obama, whose staff may be responsive in a different manner.

I look forward to your reaction.

Sincerely yours,
Ralph Nader

The article Ralph Nader: Needed Three Obama Speeches For The People – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By RT

President Barack Obama announced as expected on Friday a major overhaul to one of the National Security Agency’s most disputed surveillance operations, reining in the NSA’s bulk metadata collection program seven months after it was first exposed.

Effective immediately, the president said, NSA officials must obtain court permission in order to access the government’s archive of telephone metadata.

Exactly who will be in charge of holding onto the phone records pertaining to millions of Americans has yet to be decided, however, and Mr. Obama says he’s tasked United States Attorney General Eric Holder, the intelligence community and Congress with finding a solution.

The article Obama Announces NSA Programs Overhaul appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Al Bawaba News

As the White House ratcheted up its effort to placate political opposition to an interim Iran nuclear deal, top U.S. nuclear negotiator Wendy Sherman failed to convince senators to hold off imposing new sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

The While House fears that imposing new sanctions could prompt Iran to ditch diplomacy.

Sherman apparently failed to convince the skeptics after holding a closed briefing with the senators.

“Really I’m more disturbed now than ever after the briefing,” Agence France-Presse quoted Republican Senator Lindsey Graham as saying.

“The endgame being contemplated is not even in the ballpark of what I would consider the endgame,” he added.

The pro-sanctions camp believe it has at least 59 votes in the Senate and a healthy majority in the House of Representatives and could be approaching the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto Obama has promised, AFP reported.

However, it is still unclear whether Senate Majority leader Harry Reid will avoid embarrassing fellow Democrat Obama and bring the sanctions bill up for a vote.

Compromise

Republican Senator Bob Corker meanwhile suggested a compromise position, noting that U.S. officials agreed to impose no new sanctions for the six-month duration of the interim deal.

“Why don’t we schedule a vote for July 21,” he said. “If they haven’t reached an agreement that we believe is satisfactory, let’s implement on that day.”

The summary of “technical understandings” between Iran and world powers sets the terms of a deal reached in Geneva last year, which will be implemented by the U.N. watchdog the International Economic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials.

It lists Iranian nuclear facilities to be inspected and a timetable for entry by IAEA officials and contains a payment schedule for nearly $7 billion in blocked Iranian foreign exchange holdings which will be released under terms of the deal.

The administration also made a more detailed document available to a restricted audience of lawmakers and aides in Congress, in line with the IAEA’s wish to keep some aspects of the pact confidential, White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

Opponents of the interim nuclear deal between the P5+1 group of powers and Iran warn that it gave up too much in return for what they see as paltry concessions from the Islamic Republic.

The summary was released amid rising speculation that Secretary of State John Kerry could meet Iranian President Hassan Rowhani at the World Economic Forum in Davos next week.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said there were no meetings so far to announce but noted Kerry would be in the Swiss resort at the same time as “a number of Iranian officials.”

The summary confirmed that, under the deal, Iran would halt production of near 20 percent uranium and start to dilute the uranium stockpile it already has.

New impositions

Meanwhile, former Pentagon chief Robert Gates warned Thursday that imposing new sanctions on Iran would be a mistake.

“I think that the president’s opposition to a bill that would impose additional sanctions now is absolutely right,” Gates said at an event highlighting his newly released memoir.

“To vote additional sanctions today would be I think a deal-killer,” said Gates, who served as defense secretary under President Barack Obama and his predecessor, George W. Bush.

He added: “As hard as it may be for people to realize, what we may be seeing is the success of the sanctions effort done by president (Bill) Clinton, intensified by president Bush and even more so by president Obama, to force the Iranians to come to the table because of economic hardships.”

“I think we have succeeded to the extent that we now have the Iranians at the table.”

He pointed to the clear effect of economic pressure on the Islamic Republic.

The interim deal, meant to buy time for detailed negotiations to foil what the West sees as Tehran’s drive for nuclear weapons, will go into force on Jan. 20.

Original article

The article White House Intensifies Political Campaign For Iran Deal appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Arab News

Many Arab countries “see Israel not as an enemy but as a friend,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week, hitting back at those critical of the Canadian premier’s pro-Israel position.

Netanyahu was asked during an interview with Toronto-basedCTV News about the criticism Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper receives for voicing support to Israel amid tensions surrounding the Mideast peace talks.

Harper, a staunch supporter of Israel, will be on a trip to the Jewish state and the West Bank next week.

In remarks made during the interview, the Israeli premier compared Harper’s pro-Israel position to Arab states, which chose to become “friends” with the country instead of viewing it as an enemy.

“Those who criticize him [Harper] are out of sync,” said Netanyahu.

“They should go to some of the countries in the Middle East who now support Israel, who think about Israel in different terms,” he added.

Netanyahu said many of Israel’s Arab neighbors aim for peace in the region and share concern over Iran’s nuclear program. Other Arab states see that hardline Islamist groups impose a threat to the region, he added.

“So I say to those who criticize a pro-Israel position in Canada, I ask them, come to the Middle East. Go to the Arab world and you’ll discover, you’ll discover a lot of people are reconsidering their positions,” he said.

“So when Canada says, ‘Israel is our friend,’ they’re not necessarily alienating the Arabs. Quite the contrary, because the Arabs are changing. The Arabs, many of them, sometimes openly and sometimes in corridors and whispers, they say, ‘Israel is our friend.’ So they don’t view others differently as a result of that.”

Original article

The article Netanyahu Says Many Arab Countries Now See Israel As A ‘Friend’ appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By IPCS

By Delwar Hossain

The 10th Parliamentary elections were held in Bangladesh on 5 January 2014 against the backdrop of the opposition alliance’s boycott and blockade programme, amidst a whirl of apprehensions, tension and violence. The boycott of the major opposition party, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its allies, particularly Jamaat-e-Islami, has emerged as the key determinant of election outcomes and its aftermath.

Three views are particularly discernible about this boycott. According to one view, this boycott was self-imposed and was part of a larger strategic move by the opposition parties. Riding on popular support and ascendancy of hard-line leadership in parties, they took an unyielding stance on elections. Another view is that it was inevitable due to the lack of a conducive environment for participation since the caretaker government (CTG) system was scrapped by the 15th amendment of the Constitution of Bangladesh. They believe that no elections could be acceptable to them without CTG. The third view is focused on the process of holding elections under the current system, but with a new poll-time administration and a bigger and more substantive role of the Election Commission. Of course, this has to be based on political settlement by the two major political parties – the Awami League (AL) and BNP. The United Nations-brokered initiative led by Oscar Fernandez Taranco emphasised the third view to resolve the impasse. Ironically, no political settlement was reached. Both the ruling and opposition alliances opted for absolute gains.

Having no option as per the constitutional provision as well as political ‘common sense’, the government and the Election Commission organised the elections. In fact, the unique political environment in the country has produced an unprecedented election both in its process and outcome. A total number of 153 members of Parliament were elected uncontested and the remaining 147 were up for voting. With a poor voter turnout (40 per cent by the Election Commission) by Bangladesh standards (87 per cent in the December 2008 elections), the ruling Awami League bagged 232 seats. The Jatiya Party, made up of former military dictator Ershad, won 33 seats, becoming the second largest party in Parliament. Members of Parliament have already sworn in and a new Cabinet has been formed with Sheikh Hasina as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh. Despite some reservations, the international community has recognised the government. The US and EU are continuing their diplomatic parleys to bring all political parties to a dialogue, and are working on the possibility of a mid-term election.

Although the elections have been questioned by various quarters in Bangladesh and beyond due to non-participation of the main opposition parties, a critical aspect of this election is the unleashing of widespread violence before, during, and after the polls. Since the early 1990s Bangladesh witnessed four general elections held under a caretaker (CTG) system. Interestingly, all defeated political parties and alliances seriously questioned the credibility of these elections too. A short-lived election was held in February 1996 under the party-run administration which lasted for about forty five days. In 2014, for the second time, an election was held under a non-caretaker government (officially known as an all-party government) in the post-mass upsurge era. Unlike the past, the main opposition party was invited to join the poll-time government, but it was rejected. It became clear at the end of 2011 that politics in Bangladesh was turning into a ‘zero-sum-game’ primarily on the question of ‘election administration’, which was changed by the ruling alliance with their brute majority in the national Parliament.

While the quality of the 10th Parliamentary elections has been questioned in terms of credibility, inclusivity and participation, domestic politics demands special mention to understand the elections and its outcome. Domestic politics in Bangladesh started to transform into a new and difficult shape when the ruling alliance announced the trial of war criminals. The International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) was set up in 2009 as a war crimes tribunal in Bangladesh to investigate and prosecute suspects for the genocide and crimes against humanity committed in 1971 by the Pakistani Army and their local collaborators, Razakars, Al-Badr and Al-Shams. The formation of ICT jolted the opposition camp. The second largest party in the opposition camp, Jamaat-e-Islam is directly linked with war crimes during the Liberation War in 1971. Top leaders of Jamaat have been charged with war crimes over the past four decades. The triggering incident was the verdict against a central leader of Jamaat, Moulana Delwar Hossain Sayedee. Following the verdict in February 2013, the Party unleashed massive violence throughout the country especially in their strongholds – mainly border districts.

Violence has become a political weapon of opposition politics, spearheaded by the war crimes-charged party. The subsequent Hefazat phenomenon has added impetus to this rising spree of political violence. The intermingling of extremist violence and the political movement led by the opposition alliance has emerged as the body blow to Bangladesh’s nascent democracy. With capital punishment being awarded to to one of the leading war criminals – Abdul Kader Mollah – politics in Bangladesh needs to be redefined and re-conceptualised. The 10th Parliamentary elections were held in the evolving parameters of Bangladeshi politics, where political stability and democratic governance have been traded with violence and extremism for absolute political gains.

Delwar Hossain
Professor, Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka

The article Bangladesh Elections: Redefining Domestic Politics? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Observer Research Foundation

By Nidhi Sinha

Lately, US-Russia relations have been on an all-time low due to disagreements on various fronts, particularly over the issue of Syria, granting asylum to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, Anti-gay rights, Ukraine’s cosiness with EU etc. The recent Islamist attacks in Volgograd, the South-eastern city of Russia, have again turned the world’s attention to the recurring menace of terrorism. Amidst this gloomy situation, Russia is all set to host the 2014 Winter Sochi Olympics to be held next month.

These terrorist attacks are similar to the previous ones which had been carried out by the Islamist militants operating from North Caucasus. Doku Umarov — the Islamist militant leader from Chechnya has been held as the prime suspect in the Volgograd attacks. Earlier, he had given the call to target the Sochi Olympics 2014. It is believed that the recent bombings could have been carried out to disrupt the Winter Olympics. Overall, this attack was targeted to de-stabilize Russia politically and economically.

One can only hope that the recent events may lead to gradual warming of ties between Russia and US as the issue of terrorism inflicts both the countries. Earlier, both Obama and Putin had agreed to intensify security cooperation for the most expensive Winter Games. The US State department had decided to send an undisclosed number of Diplomatic Security agents to Sochi to help ensure the safety of American athletes, according to the American Embassy in Moscow.[1]

However, the recent decision of the President of US to boycott the Sochi Olympics seems like another dent in the US–Russia relations. This decision on the part of US has been primarily triggered due to the banning of homosexual propaganda by Russia. Recently, Obama announced the American delegation which would be sent to the Olympics and it prominently features two gay athletes, tennis star Billie Jean King and hockey player Caitlin Cahow. This is the latest snub rendered by US to Russia. The question remains whether it is in the best interest of US. During this moment of despair, due to the terrorist attacks, US should show solidarity with not only Russia but also the challenge of terrorism gripping every country today.

There was a brief period of ’reset’ in the US–Russia relations which had its underpinnings in George W. Bush’s regime. The year 2001 was symbolic as US had started its “war on terror” due to the aftermath of 9/11 terrorist attacks on US and it needed Russia’s support in this venture. The major achievements of the reset period were the New START treaty, cooperation on Iranian nuclear program and Afghanistan and the Russian support on the Libyan issue. One can easily see that the reset lacked much depth and was not based on pertinent issues of increased economic engagement between the two countries but skirted around the issues of nuclear disarmament and political rights. Due to this lack in depth of relations, more radical issues have resurfaced time and again and act as major road-blocks in the smooth functioning of US—Russia relations. One should also not forget that US is a constant sore in Russia’s eyes regarding the question of “sphere of influence” in Central Asian region as well as NATO’s gradual expansion towards Eastern Europe.

President Obama’s efforts to improve the foreign relations have not borne much fruit. He had tried to build friendship with the former Russian President Medvedev but with the coming back of Putin the situation has drastically changed. He has been vocal on several issues like the Syrian crisis where Russia put its foot against the use of force. The fundamental difference between the two countries over the perception of “Arab Spring” is palpable. The two countries have largely variant ideologies on important aspects of global issues as well. US believes in the legitimacy to intervene another country on the pretext of humanitarian crisis, whereas, Russia is a strong proponent of upholding the sovereignty of each individual country.

What is required at this moment is negotiations between the two countries and gradual ironing out of the differences. Obama should go to Sochi and send out the message to the world that despite differences, the two countries are together on the issue of terrorism. This would be a diplomatic win for him and resurrect the position of US in the international arena. US had suffered a major set-back in the handling of Syrian crisis when it decided to use force. This is the opportune moment for US to improve its bi-lateral relations with Russia.

(The writer is an Associate Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi)

Courtesy: us-russia.org

The article Should Obama Go To Sochi Olympics? – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By IDN

By Antonia Sohns

In October, Christiana Figueres, the head of the United Nations body tasked with producing a global climate treatygave an impassioned speech during which she stated that future generations are being condemned by the lack of a global agreement. Political action is required to rectify the existing prejudice of development in favor of current generations, with disregard for the future. Intergenerational justice may be improved and sustainable development enhanced, by investing in youth and in using financial incentives to deter unsustainable practices.

A recent study on Intergenerational Justice in Aging Societies by the Bertelsmann Foundation’s Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI) project examines the ecological footprint of 29 OECD countries.

It found that none of the surveyed countries are intergenerationally just, in that their impact on the planet exceeds the land’s capacity to sustain the activity. The ecological footprint calculates the rate of resource consumption and waste generation, and compares it to how rapidly nature can absorb waste and regenerate. Therefore, it provides a measurement of a nation’s development, and captures the pressure human societies put on their natural environment.

Due to the ease of its application and messaging, the ecological footprint statistic can grab media attention and catalyze change in policy. Ecological footprint calculations are relatively easy to undertake because the data required is largely available at different spatial scales. As its output is a single number, of global hectares per capita required by an economy to produce all the goods consumed in that economy and absorb the wastes generated in production, it can enhance efforts to assess and compare sustainability of development between countries.

Despite these advantages, ecological footprints have their limitations. Ecological footprints are an analysis of a country at a certain moment in its development. Therefore, its measurement is static in time and may not consider all of the complexities of regional trade flows, or technological change occurring rapidly within a nation.

Other researchers have worked to develop tools that examine the social welfare of today’s rate of development, producing the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW), among others. The ISEW distinctly incorporates environmental damage and natural resource depletion, and distinguishes between water, air, and noise pollution, the loss of wetlands and farmland, and the long-term repercussions of environmental damage.

While tools to assess the pressure of human societies on the Earth’s systems all have their limitations, they embolden nations’ understanding of the impacts of our actions, and our efforts to develop more sustainably. As the ecological tool is employed, studies indicate that we are drastically overshooting the capacity of the Earth to support our current rate of consumption and waste generation. Findings reveal that if all people were to live as Americans do, five planets of resources would be required.

Hungary most intergenerationally just

Based solely on its ecological footprint Hungary is the most intergenerationally just of all countries surveyed in the SGI study. It shows a footprint of 3.6 gha (global hectares) per capita, followed by Poland (3.9 gha) and Israel (4 gha). Estonia – which ranks top in the overall SGI assessment of intergenerational justice when we also consider social and fiscal dimensions – scores fairly well with a footprint of 4.7 gha.

Denmark, the United States, and Belgium, score the worst, with ecological footprints of 8.3 gha, 7.2 gha, and 7.1 gha, respectively. For just intergenerational action globally, the ecological footprint per capita should be below 1.8 gha. This means that even those countries which score relatively well in international comparison do not sufficiently compensate for their resource use.

Although, for instance, both Denmark and Estonia emphasize the long-term global consequences of their actions in their national sustainable development plans, their ecological footprints are dramatically different. Some studies attributed Denmark’s high ecological footprint to its meat consumption and production, while other studies did not indicate whether Denmark’s ecological footprint was the result of high levels of individual consumerism, or industrial activities. This lack of specificity of the ecological footprint highlights another limitation of the measurement.

Small population

Another variable that may decrease a nation’s ecological footprint is a small population. SGI found that seven OECD nations, including Canada, Australia, Finland, New Zealand, Estonia, Sweden and Norway, are environmental creditors, largely due to lower population density. Therefore, these nations produce an environmental surplus, leaving more environmental reserves for subsequent generations.

While ecological footprint is but one measurement that can contribute to our understanding of intergenerational justice, it is a valuable component that helps communicate that the impacts of today’s actions have an enduring legacy. The consequence of which must be considered and accounted for in our development plans.

As the meetings in Warsaw for the 2013 United Nations Climate Change Conference showed, the issue of fairness between countries remains a pressing one, as developing countries argue that they must exploit the resources available to them to grow their economies. As nations struggle to determine what is just, and how climate change should be addressed in an approach that is equitable and economical, the intergenerational impacts of climate change must not be overlooked due to political shortsightedness.

As Locke’s proviso states there should be “enough and as good” left in common for others. Today’s practices recklessly abandon this principle, and have sculpted a future that is characterized by inequality and ecological crisis. It is not too late to act, and augment intergenerational justice by developing resources today with the needs of future generations in mind.

Antonia Sohns is a Water and Energy Analyst at the World Bank and co-author of “Sustainable Fisheries and Seas: Preventing Ecological Collapse,” in State of the World 2013. She wrore this article in her personal capacity. It was originally printed on SGI News and reposted in Worldwatch Blogs.

The article Global Accord Necessary For Future Development – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Balkan Insight

By Sinisa Jakov Marusic

A survey, which shows Macedonians increasingly doubt whether the dispute with Greece will ever be solved, ‘reflects reality’, the Macedonian Foreign Minister told a round table in Skopje.

Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki sounded a downbeat note at a round table on Macedonia’s relations with its neighbours, which focused on the bilateral dispute with Greece over its name.

“People feel that in the current situation there is no space for a solution [to the "name" dispute], which would open the doors to EU and NATO, and that perception reflects reality,” Poposki said.

The discussion, attended by former foreign ministers, diplomats and political analysts, was hosted by the Institute for Democracy “Societas Civilis”, a think-tank, and by the Macedonian Centre for International Cooperation, MCMS, an NGO.

According to a survey carried out by the two organizations in November-December 2013 and presented at the event, pessimism is growing about a likely solution to the dispute, as is resistance to any compromise with Greece that would require a change of name.

Although 54.6 per cent of respondents wanted a solution within one year, only 9.6 per cent expected this to happen in that period.

Almost 30 per cent of the respondents said a solution would never happen, well up on the 24 per cent who gave this answer in 2011.

Another 27 per cent said they expected a solution within five years while 21 per cent expected it in six to 10 years.

A large majority, 62 per cent, said they opposed any compromise involving a change to the country’s name.

By contrast, in 2011, only 45 per cent of the respondents gave that answer to the same question.

“While in 2011 there were certain hopes of a small window for a name solution… it is becoming apparent that in 2013 this window is closing,” the head of the survey, Saso Klekovski, from MCMS, told the debate.

Despite repeated recommendations by the European Commission, the EU has not started accession talks with Macedonia, nor has it been invited to join NATO, owing to the dispute with Greece over its name.

Greece insists that Macedonia’s name implies territorial claims to its own northern province, also called Macedonia.

In 2011, the International Court of Justice, the ICJ, declared that Greece had broken a UN agreement by blocking Macedonia’s membership of NATO since 2008. However, Athens has ignored the ruling and has not changed course.

Antonio Milososki, a former Foreign Minister under Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, said that Macedonia should suspend its participation in the long-standing UN “name” talks.

“They should resume only after Greece officially states its position regarding the applicability of the ICJ ruling, because meanwhile we are spending valuable energy without any results,” Milososki said.

Milsoski’s standpoint corresponds with that of President Gjorge Ivanov who, in his annual address last month, said that conditions were approaching for Macedonia to consider such a step.

Another participant in the round table, Stevo Pendarovski, a former advisor to presidents Boris Trakovski and Branko Crvenkovski, focused on the need to build a wider political consensus within Macedonia on the name issue.

“Having a majority [in parliament] does not give you the right to think that only you are entitled to discuss key issues,” Pendarovski said, accusing the government of leaving the other political parties in the dark regarding the issue.

“I would like to see us building consensus on key issues before we encounter bad things,” he added.

According to the survey, questions about Macedonia’s identity remain “a red line” for most Macedonians when it comes to the name talks, Saso Klekovski told the debate.

Over 70 per cent of the respondents said they were against any kind of additional definition of Macedonia’s identity and language.

A majority of 54 per cent of respondents said the core problem was Greece’s refusal to accept the existence of a Macedonian state, identity and language.

Political analyst Rizvan Sulejmani said that it was “disappointing” to see such a large percentage of people opposing a possible compromise solution.

He criticized the government for boosting nationalism with populist projects, such as the costly Classical makeover of Skopje, instead of working towards a solution of this key diplomatic dispute.

“This shows that something is definitely wrong and that we are slowly turning into a nation where rational thinking is discarded and where emotions and fears lead us,” he said.

The article Macedonia Name Logjam ‘Is Reality’, Minister Says appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By MINA

“I would love to put a bullet in his head,” one Pentagon official told media site BuzzFeed. The NSA leaker is enemy number one among those inside the US intelligence world.

Edward Snowden has made some dangerous enemies. As the American intelligence community struggles to contain the public damage done by the former National Security Agency contractor’s revelations of mass domestic spying, intelligence operators have continued to seethe in very personal terms against the 30 year-old leaker.

“In a world where I would not be restricted from killing an American, I personally would go and kill him myself,” a current NSA analyst told BuzzFeed. “A lot of people share this sentiment.”

“I would love to put a bullet in his head,” one Pentagon official, a former special forces officer, said bluntly. “I do not take pleasure in taking another human beings life, having to do it in uniform, but he is single handedly the greatest traitor in American history.”

That violent hostility lies just beneath the surface of the domestic debate over NSA spying is still ongoing. Some members of Congress have hailed Snowden as a whistleblower, the New York Times has called for clemency, and pundits regularly defend his actions on Sunday talk shows. In intelligence community circles, Snowden is considered a nothing short of a traitor in wartime.

“His name is cursed every day over here,” a defense contractor told BuzzFeed, speaking from an overseas Intelligence collections base. “Most everyone I talk to says he needs to be tried and hung, forget the trial and just hang him.”

One Army intelligence officer even offered BuzzFeed a chillingly detailed fantasy.

“I think if we had the chance, we would end it very quickly,” he said. “Just casually walking on the streets of Moscow, coming back from buying his groceries. Going back to his flat and he is casually poked by a passerby. He thinks nothing of it at the time starts to feel a little woozy and thinks it’s a parasite from the local water. He goes home very innocently and next thing you know he dies in the shower.”

There is no indication that the United States has sought to take vengeance on Snowden, who is living in an undisclosed location in Russia without visible security measures, according to a recent Washington Post interview. And the intelligence operators who spoke to BuzzFeed on the condition of anonymity did not say they expected anyone to act on their desire for revenge. But their mood is widespread, people who regularly work with the intelligence community said.

The article US Spies Want Snowden Dead appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By SAAG

By Dr. Subhash Kapila

North East Asia is a strategically significant region which earlier experienced intense Cold War confrontations and is now witnessing the unfolding of possibly a new more intense Cold War, this time between China and the United States and in both cases Japan and South Korea are significant regional players on this chessboard.

With China looming large as a threat perception in varying shades in North East Asia and in Asia as a whole, India stands strategically noticed by the two prominent regional actors, namely Japan and South Korea, possibly because India’s power differentials with China are not too wide and Japan- India and South Korea-India have enough strategic convergences.

Strategically, it is naïve as some believe in India that there is some concept as ‘strategic non-alignment’ and that it can be pursued as India’s overall strategy in global power-politics. India has to realise that even without entering into military alliances strategic space exists to practise ‘balance of power’ politics. Asian security demands that with the United States obsessed with ‘China Hedging Strategy’, it is the Asian powers themselves which have to formulate ‘balance of power’ strategies as deterrence against any threats to Asian security and stability.

Japan and South Korea in recent times have forged ‘Strategic Partnerships’ with India whose significance and import has not been lost on China This stands evident from two recent newspaper articles by the Chinese Ambassador which indirectly reflect concerns at Japan and South Korea reinforcing strategic partnerships with India and highlighting that India conversely has more to gain strategically from China.

Significantly, the onset of 2014 witnesses India hosting visits of its North East Asia ‘Strategic Partners’ to New Delhi for apex level political discussions and meetings. The South Korean President Park Geun-hye is currently on a state visit to India heading a large delegation for substantive discussions on reinforcing further strategic and defence ties besides economic relations. South Korea is expected to make a bid for construction of nuclear reactors in India in which field it has good experience. South Korea also has figured as an economic power-house and has a thriving defence industry.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is headed for India a few days later to be the Chief Guest at India’s Republic Day Celebrations on January 26, 2014. That the Japanese Prime Minister’s visit follows in quick succession of the royal visits of The Imperial Majesties of the Emperor and Empress of Japan is rich both in symbolism and strategic significance.

Japan and India both figure as the leading powers of Asia along with China but China refuses to acknowledge this and has recently adopted even more military confrontation postures against both Japan and India in its territorial disputes with them.

Japan despite some economic slowdown still figure as one of the leading global economic powers and has an advanced high technology defence production industry.

In terms of military power both Japan and South Korea have for long had sizeable military capabilities to which I have been a personal witness as a military diplomat in both countries in the early 1980’s. Earlier this was geared to their Cold War alliance commitments and presently both nations are geared towards military self-reliance as a safe-bet strategy against the uncertainties of United States security alliance commitments with United States deferring to Chinese sensitivities oblivious to Japanese and South Korean sensitivities.

The stark strategic reality is that Japan, South Korea and India have been impelled to move strategically closer and forge strategic partnerships, is born out of strategic convergences in the not too peaceful military rise of China. It is a different matter that all these three powerful countries may be muted in acknowledging this strategic reality openly.

What cannot be ignored is that stretching from South Asia to South East Asia and continuing to East Asia and North East Asia the security environment stands viciously stirred by China. China is at adversarial odds with a number of countries in each of the said regions.

India offers a lucrative economics and trade investment market to both Japan and South Korea and both countries today are entrenched in the automobiles and electronic appliances and electronics industry in India.

In terms of economic interdependence, Japan and South Korea are attracted by India’s burgeoning consumer market whereas India needs Japan and South Korea as reliable sources of foreign direct investment in India’s infrastructure projects. Both Japan and South Korea are also attractive sources for India in relation to science, high technology and defence production.

However, it is the contextual strategic and security environment in Asia as a whole which determines Japan and South Korea strategically noticing India even though India itself shies away and is reluctant to adopt more assertive military postures in relation to China-generated military turbulence and brinkmanship endangering Asian security and stability.

Presumably, even if India, at present, is strategically timid in relation to China, it is perceived by Japan and South Korea that India’s military profile and expanding Indian Navy signature in the Indo-Pacific region provides existential security and stability especially in relation to the security of sea-lanes which are the lifelines of Japan and South Korea for their energy security, trade and commerce.

India needs to justify the strategic trust that Japan and South Korea have reposed in India as a source and asset for Asian security and stability. Further, India has to demonstrate that India too values the potential contributions that Japan and South Korea can make in relation to India’s comprehensive national security.

India has established a number of forums and dialogue mechanisms for strategic dialogues and military cooperation with Japan and South Korea. High level defence visits also stand exchanged with India. The Japanese Defence Minister was recently in New Delhi to further reinforce the Japan-India Strategic Partnership.

Any assertive steps that India undertakes in relation to furtherance of Asian security and stability and security of sea-lanes in strategic cooperation with Japan and South Korea bilaterally with them or ideally trilaterally, would most likely will not be opposed either by the United States or Russia as the major powers with crucial stakes in Asia Pacific.

Japan and South Korea have made their strategic moves and it is now for India to reciprocate these moves effectively and substantially reinforce the strategic partnership with both nations.

The article North East Asia Strategically Notices India – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Palestine Chronicle

By Felicity Arbuthnot

A “devastating” two hundred and fifty page document: “The Responsibility of UK Officials for War Crimes Involving Systematic Detainee Abuse in Iraq from 2003-2008″, has been “presented to the International Criminal Court, and could result in some of Britain’s leading defense figures facing prosecution for “systematic” war crimes” the (London) Independent on Sunday has revealed.

The dossier charges that: ‘“those who bear the greatest responsibility” for alleged war crimes “include individuals at the highest levels” of the British Army and political system.’

Among those named, states the Independent, are two former Defense Ministry supremos, Geoff Hoon and Adam Ingram, Defense Secretary and Minister of State for the Armed Forces, respectively, under Tony Blair’s premiership, during the planning and invasion of Iraq and for most of the UK’s occupation. General Sir Peter Wall, head of the British Army is also named.

Shocking allegations have been compiled from the testimonies of four hundred Iraqis: ‘representing “thousands of allegations of mistreatment amounting to war crimes of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”’

The document, lodged with the International Criminal Court at the Hague on Saturday (11th January 2013) “calls for an investigation into the alleged war crimes, under Article 15 of the Rome Statute” and is the result of some years of work by Birmingham based Public Interest Lawyers and the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR.). The submission: “is the most detailed ever submitted to the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor on war crimes allegedly committed by British forces in Iraq.”

In 2006 the ICC opined that: “There was a reasonable basis to believe that crimes within the jurisdiction of the court had been committed, namely willful killing and inhuman treatment.” However, since the claims were less than twenty cases, prosecutors declined to mount an investigation.

Subsequently: “hundreds of other claims have come to light, prompting consideration of the complaint now. It is the start of a process which could result in British politicians and generals being put in the dock on war-crimes charges.” The: “pattern of abusive treatment by UK services personnel in Iraq continued over almost six years of military operations.” When is a crime not a crime, one wonders, when it is “only” in double figures?

Evidence is presented of: “systematic use of brutal violence, that at times resulted in the death of detainees, while in the custody of UK Services Personnel.” The two law bodies claim: “there is evidence of brutality combined with cruelty and forms of sadism, including sexual abuse, and sexual and religious humiliation”, with widespread use of “hooding”, prisoners forced in to excruciating “stress positions, sleep deprivation, noise bombardment and deprivation of food and water.”

All such techniques were banned under the government of Edward Heath in 1972, after being used in Northern Ireland. Claims are that these legally outlawed techniques were used: “in a variety of different UK facilities (in Iraq) … from 2003 to 2008.” (Incidentally, after September 2007, the British stated that only had a small military contingency remained, assisting in training Iraqis.)

Alleged tortuous treatment was compounded, seemingly, by: “failures to follow-up on or ensure accountability for ending such practices became a cause of further abuse. The obvious conclusion is that such mistreatment was systematic.”

The Independent quotes Professor William Schabas, human rights law expert: “What this application does is throw down the challenge to the court to show there are no double standards. There is definitely a case for an investigation by the ICC.” He suggested that “there’s no doubt” of war crimes committed by British forces in Iraq. “People should be worried.”

The UK Ministry of Defense and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office both state that any allegations of abuse have been, or are being investigated through various, including legal channels, with William Hague emphasizing that there was no need for the ICC to become involved.

The ICC as a body has also come under fire, accused of only putting on trial, or investigating largely Africans and ignoring other alleged human rights abuses.

ECCHR Secretary General, Wolfgang Kaleck told the Independent: “With the current communication to the ICC we want to move forward the criminal prosecution against those political and military leaders in the UK who bear the most responsibility for systematic torture in Iraq”, adding: “The International Criminal Court in The Hague is the last resort for victims of torture and mistreatment to achieve justice.

“Double standards in international criminal justice must end. War crimes and other severe violations of human rights must be investigated and prosecuted, regardless of whether they are committed by the most powerful.”

According to Phil Shiner of Public Interest Lawyers, the actions of British officials in high places, involved in the invasion, planning, execution and occupation, are to come under investigation. “I think we easily meet the threshold for these issues to be looked at, I would be gobsmacked and bitterly disappointed if they don’t look at this.”

Geoff Hoon, Adam Ingram and General Sir Peter Wall could not be reached for comment.

A small sample of the eye watering allegations presented to the ICC can be found here.

- Felicity Arbuthnot. is a journalist and activist who has visited the Arab and Muslim world on numerous occasions. She has written and broadcast on Iraq, her coverage of which was nominated for several awards. She was also senior researcher for John Pilger’s award-winning documentary Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq. She contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

The article Iraq: ‘Devastating’ Dossier Alleging British War Crimes Lodged With ICC – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By JTW

By Habibe Ozdal

Russia has been drawing attention recently as a result of the upcoming February 2014 Winter Olympics due to take place in the Black Sea coast city of Sochi. Much has been said in the news recently about security, and the country has recently been in a state of alarm following the two recent terrorist attacks that took place within 24 hours in Volgograd, killing 34 people. After the explosions, the Kremlin deployed 5,000 security personnel in and around Volgograd, and security was increased in the train stations, subways, and malls of Moscow and Russia’s other major cities.

In addition, Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin signed a law setting a punishment of five years’ imprisonment for separatist speech and activities, and a further law that came into force on January 7, 2014, that raised security in Sochi to the maximum. This second law determines a closed region in the North Caucasus that is bordered by the Karachay-Cherkessia Republic and Abkhazia, entry to which is forbidden except for official or mandatory business. A security check will be made for anyone entering Sochi, where the Olympic Games will take place, and these extraordinary security measures will remain in place after the Olympics have ended, until March 21st.

Recently, Putin made a move that contrasted with the common reflex to increase security measures, a product of “the security approach” after the terrorist attacks. Four months ago a presidential decree banned protests from taking place during the Sochi Olympics; a new decree, however, permits meetings, protests, and other events, so long as they are not about the Sochi Olympics and on the condition that the Ministry of Interior and the federal security units are informed.[1] We will see in the upcoming days whether or not these changes are enough to reduce the effects of the boycott on the Olympics by human rights organizations reacting to the high security precautions.

Why Volgograd?

Who carried out the attacks on Volgograd, who were the targets, and what was the purpose? These are major topics that need to be discussed, and while doing so, it is also necessary to look at the short and long-term aims of these incidents and their possible effects.

When thinking about the perpetrators of these attacks, eyes turn to the “Caucasian Emirate” led by Doku Umarov, who has stated that everything needs to be done to stop the Olympics from happening, and that they would carry out attacks in order to achieve this goal.

Volgograd, where two terrorist attacks took place within 24 hours, is 700 kilometers from Sochi, the venue for the Olympics. It has a population of one million people and borders the North Caucasus. The city is a central hub for regional transport, especially on the north-south railway. Aside from the recent terrorist attacks in the last days of 2013, the city was also subjected to a suicide attack in October 2013 that caused the death of 12 people. The choice of Volgograd as the target for the attacks may be based on a strategy to debunk the false assumption that terrorism occurs only in the North Caucasus region by spreading terror across the country.

In the North Caucasus, separatist movements and radicalism are far from new, as the North Caucasus is known to be a region characterized by long-term conflicts. It should also be underlined that even though the Chechen War has officially come to an end, tension in the North Caucasus cannot be said to have decreased. Putin may be remembered as the leader who brought an end to the Chechen War, but it was also under his rule that the terrorist threat expanded beyond the North Caucasus region to other parts of the country. With these most recent attacks in Volgograd, the message of the terrorist movements can be analyzed as the terror will spread to other territories of Russia, since the battles taking place in the North Caucasus are not mentioned in the mainstream media. There have been several incidents that offer a clear indication that terrorism is not limited to the North Caucasus, such as the theater attack in Moscow in 2002, the school in Beslan in 2004, the explosions in the Moscow metro in 2010, and Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport in January 2011. Taking these factors into account, it can be said that the purpose of the terrorist attacks that took place in Volgograd was to increase the sense of insecurity across the whole of Russia.

A sort of “state of emergency” in Sochi

There is no doubt that the security measures taken in and around Sochi are very strong. To prevent terrorism from becoming a problem during the Olympics, many new police stations have been built near the border of the Caucasus, vehicular access to the city has been prohibited, and this ban will remain in place for the duration of the Games. All the workers who had been recruited from outside Sochi to work on the organization of the event were sent home at the end of December. Under the security precautions determined in 2009, 42,000 police officers and 10,000 military units from the Ministry of Interior will be available for the event. 23,000 personnel from the Ministry of Emergencies will be deployed along the coastline and in the hilly area nearby.

Despite all these precautions, it’s far from guaranteed that the organizers will be able to prevent terrorist activities. In the new picture, it seems that the only regions that have improved are those in which terrorist incidents have taken place. According to Prof. Dr. İhsan Bal, increasing security in order to prevent terrorist attacks from happening without finding their source does not stop them; it merely changes the location of the incidents. In other words, terrorist attacks are more than likely to take place in other areas/regions where there is less effective security. Mirroring what Turkey has been experiencing for many years, a solution does not seem possible if the real reason behind the terrorist attacks is not identified. It is hard to say that the source of the problem has been identified during the so-called period of stability under Putin, as one needs to remember that during the Putin era, an attempt was made to weaken the power of ethnic nationalism through the strengthening of central authority. Two clear indicators of how Russia approaches the fight against terrorism are the “vertical power” governing strategy that centralizes power- especially against increasing terrorist activity- and the fact that even if the autonomous regions in Russia are allowed to elect their own regional governors, like they did before 2004, the Caucasus are omitted from this practice. In the Caucasus, despite the aim to create a foundation of legitimacy, it is the candidate selected by Putin who will be elected by the Parliament to lead the region.

In October 2010, it was suggested that a Social and Economic Development Strategy until 2025 for the Northern Caucasus should be drawn up. In October 2011, an economic development and social support program to address the issue of unemployment in the Caucasus was decided upon.[2] The program detailed 37 huge projects and $13.4 million worth of investments in the Caucasus, which is an indication that the Kremlin finally understands that if the problem is to be resolved a comprehensive strategy will be required. That said, the fact is that political strategies addressing the problem through means other than deploying military forces to the region are set aside every time there is new terrorist attack. This creates new elements of risk.

The aim of the Volgograd attacks: Sochi and beyond

It can be said that the Volgograd attacks had three different aims: First, as a short-term goal, to lay the groundwork for a boycott of the Sochi Olympics for security reasons, showing that despite all the security measures, Russia is not safe enough. The intention in this regard is to decrease the number of countries attending- which would certainly cast a shadow on the Sochi Olympics. The second goal, which may be defined as medium term, is to make Russia lose the prestige of organizing the Sochi Olympics. The Sochi Winter Olympics are the most expensive to date, with a budget of $51 billion.[3] Western media organizations have recently mentioned police malpractices, presenting evidence showing that the system has collapsed. There is a claim that shortcomings in intelligence are due to this degeneration, and that preventing further terrorist attacks will be no easy task. This shows that the medium-term purpose of weakening the investments that Russia has made for the Sochi Olympics seems to be working, at least in the period just after the Volgograd attacks.

The third goal, which has both medium and long-term aspects, seems to strike at Putin’s “stability” discourse. In 2013, the fact that Putin was presented as a world leader trying to resolve the Syrian crisis through diplomatic methods (of course, with the influence of Western countries’ domestic political debates) added much to the president’s prestige in Russia. Also, in the last quarter of 2013, Ukraine started to favor Russia over the EU in its foreign policy, thus strengthening the argument about Russia regaining its power in its “Near Abroad”.

In addition to this, Putin signed the amnesty law that led to the release from prison of a band called Pussy Riot and the Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky[4], who had spent ten years in confinement. This seemed to be aimed at weakening the global perception of Putin as a “human rights violator” and softening Russia’s bad reputation in this regard. These acts of terrorism aim to weaken Putin’s “everything is under control” image, created through his maneuverings in politics both inside and outside Russia, by showing that there are some long-term, unresolved issues that continue to exist.

***

As a result, regardless of the level of security in place and how much effort is put into the preparations for the Sochi Olympics scheduled to take place in February 2014, it would be no big surprise if the terrorists struck both before and during Sochi. In addition, the inclination to increase the “sense of insecurity” in Russia through the spread of terrorist acts outside the North Caucasus to other regions of the country seems to be continuing; as seen in the latest example, rather than halting terrorist acts, increasing security measures merely pushes them to other regions where security is lower than in Sochi.

In order to fight terrorism, Putin, through his wholesale acts and the old reflexes, is returning to policies of securitization. Just like during the Chechen War, when it comes to fighting terrorism Putin’s practices are supported by Western countries without criticism. Unfortunately, however, this type of approach is only a short-term one, and will not remove the source of the problem.

Habibe Ozdal, USAK Center for Eurasian Studies

[1] According to the decree, the event organizers must inform the authorities of the place or route of the protest, the number of participants and the duration.

[2] In Northern Caucasia, a region that has long been linked with terrorist activity, unemployment is close to 50 percent in some of the Republics. Therefore, developing this region is a milestone in achieving stability in the country.

[3] According to official numbers, the money spent on the Sochi Olympics is around 10 billion dollars. Other numbers that can be heard in the media include investments in the Krasnodar region, of which Sochi is a part. ‘Sochi 2014 to be safest, most secure Olympics ever’ – organizers”, Russia Today, January 7, 2014. http://rt.com/news/chernyshenko-sochi-olympics-security-276/

[4] Khodorkovsky was sentenced to 10 years 10 months in prison after selling illegally stocks in his petroleum company Yukos to American Exxon and Chevron companies. Khodorkovsky claimed that the punishment was political, although the ECHR found that not to be the case.

The article The Russian Security Spiral In The Lead Up To The Sochi Olympics – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By VOA

By Dan Robinson

President Barack Obama unveiled reforms Friday in the vast surveillance being conducted by the country’s clandestine National Security Agency.

Aiming to calm uproar over NSA telecommunications surveillance, Obama outlined plans to end government control of an enormous cache of bulk phone records about calls made by Americans and foreigners, and also announced steps to reassure foreign leaders about U.S. surveillance tactics.

In the highly anticipated Justice Department speech, which follows months of review by a special panel in the wake of damaging disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the president also said government access and search of any data held by telecommunications companies will require advance approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA).

The special panel issued 46 recommendations to the administration, covering everything from NSA’s collection of so-called “metadata” from communications links worldwide, to direct surveillance of foreign leaders — an issue that caused major rifts between the U.S. and key allies.

While Obama said there has been no intentional abuse of surveillance programs and no spying on ordinary Americans through bulk phone data collection, he also said the NSA’s ability to gather intelligence must be preserved. He acknowledged, though, that proper safeguards must be in place to prevent unwarranted intrusions.

Obama said he would not dwell on the actions of Snowden, whom he mentioned by name, or his motivation for making public a huge trove of classified information. The challenge ahead, he said, includes regaining the trust of people around the world, and of American citizens.

“The task before us now is greater than simply repairing the damage done to our operations, or preventing more disclosures from taking place in the future,” he said. “Instead, we have to make some important decisions about how to protect ourselves and sustain our leadership in the world, while upholding the civil liberties and privacy protections that our ideals — and our Constitution — require.”

Proposed changes

In order to modify existing policies, the president has ordered the attorney general and the NSA to submit within 60 days a report on alternative methods of holding phone data before Congress must reauthorize Section 215 of U.S. law under which collection occurs.

The presidential directive orders safeguards to be developed regarding how long the U.S. can hold information about non-citizens overseas, and how it can be used — as the president put it — to advance U.S. counterintelligence, counterterrorism and cybersecurity.

Effective immediately, the National Security Agency will be required to get FISA permission before accessing phone records collected from hundreds of millions of Americans, except in emergency situations.

Senior administration officials say the attorney general will work with the surveillance court to ensure that no request to access specific phone records can be made without advance judicial review.

He also proposed changes in the use of National Security Letters, which allow the government to seek information from persons or companies pertaining to national security. He also endorsed creation of a panel of outside advocates to represent privacy and civil liberty concerns before FISA, a move that would require congressional action.

Obama also said he would appoint new State Department and administration officials to oversee implementation of the new policies and maintain dialogue and outreach to both domestic and international communities impacted by the changes.

Obama said his reforms will point the U.S. in a new direction and will require more work, but “will make us stronger.”

Foreign impact

Senior administration officials also said intelligence activities aimed at heads of state and government have been reviewed, and bilateral conversations have already been initiated to build better cooperation and coordination on all sides.

Obama said U.S. leadership can only be sustained with the trust and confidence of world leaders. He pledged to the world that unless there is a compelling national security purpose, the U.S. will not monitor the communications of heads of state and government, or of close friends and allies.

“People around the world — regardless of their nationality — should know that the United States is not spying on ordinary people who don’t threaten our national security, and that we take their privacy concerns into account,” he said. “This applies to foreign leaders as well.”

Obama said the U.S. will not apologize for methods it has used and will continue gathering intelligence. The world expects the United States to defend individuals’ freedom, he said, adding that U.S. intelligence collection is aimed at protecting American and allied forces combating weapons proliferation and transnational crime.

The president also announced initiation of a White House review of policies on so-called “big data,” taking into account the pace of technological change that has revolutionized communications worldwide.

The same technological advances that allow U.S. intelligence agencies to pinpoint an al-Qaida cell in Yemen, he said, also put routine communications around the world within the reach of government investigators. He admitted how disquieting that prospect can be for everyone as the digital revolution transforms the world.

While intelligence agencies cannot function without keeping details of their work secret, he said continuing attacks and cyber-attacks make it necessary for the intelligence community to be able to “connect the dots” as a central defender of the nation.

Obama also said the United States’ intelligence gathering throughout its two-century existence “has helped secure our country and freedom.” The 2001 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil posed new challenges for the country, he said, which required intelligence agencies to adapt beyond the type of spying they had conducted for decades.

US opinion polls

Polls in recent months have shown a majority of Americans believe existing laws are inadequate when it comes to oversight of NSA methods.

Globally, Obama’s remarks are being carefully assessed because of the controversy over NSA eavesdropping on phone calls of key leaders such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Though the reforms announced Friday are based on findings of the review panel and Obama’s intense consultations, he has yet to receive another report from a special civil liberties board.

Experts say the changes are certain to draw criticism from some in the intelligence community, who urged the president to maintain surveillance programs in their current form.

Washington reporter Ken Bredemeier and Pete Cobus contributed to this report.

The article Obama Proposes Limits On NSA Data Collection appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Jim Kouri

Fourteen Iraqi civilians who were kidnapped Thursday morning by suspected members of al-Qaeda in Iraq, a/k/a Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), were later in the day found dead in a wooded area outside of Baghdad, according to Moshe Ashar, a security and counterterrorism consultant for a number of police agencies.

According to witness accounts of the abduction given to Iraqi police investigators, the kidnappers wore army-style uniforms when they appeared to arbitrarily select their prisoners in the Sunni-controlled town of Mishahda.

The officers who discovered the 14 dead victims told reporters that they were shot to death execution-style by their abductors who shot each person twice, with one round to the chest and the other to the head of their captives.

Among the dead bodies were several members of one family — a man, a woman and three children — who were reportedly dragged out of their home by the suspected al-Qaeda terrorists, according to news reports.

This latest act of terrorism in Iraq on Thursday followed a number of terrorist bombings on Wednesday throughout the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, according to Middle East sources.

According to reports, 59 people were killed and another 60 were wounded by the remotely detonated improvised explosive devices (IED).

In Baghdad, six bombing attacks struck two majority-Shiite neighborhoods and two mixed Sunni and Shiite districts.

One of Wednesday’s bombings took place in a northern Baghdad neighborhood, where a parked car bomb exploded at an open-air marketplace. The IED killed five shoppers and wounded 12, the local media reported.

Another car bomb in a commercial area killed four civilians and wounded 14 others, police said.

The latest violent attacks occurred in addition to the battle between the Iraqi army and al-Qaeda-linked terrorists who invaded and occupied the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi.

The article Iraq: 14 Kidnap Victims Executed By Al-Qaeda‏ appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Monish Gulati

The Afghan President, Hamid Karzai has refused to sign the US-Afghanistan bilateral security agreement (BSA). The agreement, comprising 30 documents and 36 articles covers everything from taxation and customs duties to a promise to protect Afghanistan from hostile action and will form the basis of the US military presence in Afghanistan post-2014. Karzai, in the last few months has gone past a few US deadlines to sign the BSA; the latest one being 31 December 2013. He has ignored US threats of the “zero option” and recommendation of his own Loya Jirga and its head and his ally, Sibghatullah Mojaddedi. He wants the BSA to be signed by the next Afghan president after the elections in April this year subject to US refrain from raiding civilian homes in Afghanistan and directly negotiating with the Afghan Taliban.

Karzai’s stand has confounded analysts and even frustrated the US lawmakers, who at a congressional hearing in December last year accused him of “insulting” US sacrifices by not signing the “all for Afghans and Afghanistan” BSA . The US also got people from the Iraqi foreign minister to Jan Kubis, the U.N. special representative to Afghanistan, to “advise” Karzai to sign the BSA. Even the most unlikely of mediators, the Indian Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh, during her recent visit to the US found herself being urged by the Obama administration to use Indian influence with Karzai on the BSA.[1] The absence of a credible reason for Karzai’s dilly-dallying on the BSA has led to slew of theories.

Shah Shuja Complex

Some analysts feel it is all about Karzai’s legacy as he dreads his situation being compared to the treatment meted out to his forebear, Shah Shuja, by the East India Company in the 1840s and be remembered as a puppet ruler.[2] Shah Shuja incidentally came from the same sub-tribe as Karzai. There are others who feel Karzai has the mindset of a tribal warlord, playing community and local politics at the national level, resorting to brinkmanship and in the process losing sight of the big picture. Not surprising then that some members of the Meshrano Jirga – or the upper house of parliament, last month asked Karzai to ink the BSA with the US instead of seeking defence cooperation from India.[3] However, as per William Dalrymple, the Afghan President “is no fool”, and is vastly underrated by the West.

Cut-off Date

After weeks of insisting that the BSA be signed by the end of the year, US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel now says that Karzai has time until February’s NATO defence ministers meeting, [4] backing off his initial demand that the deal be done by the end of 2013. However Omar Samad, former Afghan ambassador to France and now with the New America Foundation, feels it is more to do with Afghan elections.

Afghan Elections

According to Samad the February cut-off is derived from the understanding that Afghan presidential candidates (and Karzai) would not want BSA to be a campaigning issue and hence would like to settle it before the start of the campaigning season ie by the end of February 2014. The US also does not want to wait until April’s presidential election because of the possibility of a lengthy runoff that may follow in case the elections do not yield a clear winner. This would delay the signing of the BSA into the summer, perhaps even the fall of 2014. Adding to this is the talked about possibility of an extended winter pushing the election date itself ahead of the scheduled April 2014.

Operational Issues

Hagel’s other worry is that the longer the BSA is delayed, more it will affect the confidence of the Afghan people and the ANSF going forward post-2014. It would also directly affect US planning and its support for its ISAF partners. The US military feels it needs adequate time to plan and prepare for the complex post-2014 mission including numbers of troops, locations, budgets, and the Congress approval. Requirements of multi-national partners (ISAF) for the mission add to its complexity and the signing of the BSA is after all just the first step of this process.

Strategic Considerations

US Congressman Rohrabacher recently remarked on the BSA, “I think we are grovelling again… This is insanity and it’s time for us to get our butts out of that country, not for their sake, but for our sake.” That represents a significant view in the US on Afghanistan. However, the official US narrative is that “an enormous expenditure of blood and treasure has been made in Afghanistan since 9/11 and important gains have been achieved to make Afghanistan a better place.”[5] Also, “Afghanistan is a key ally in the region and like in Iraq, U.S. military officials want to give the deal every chance to succeed before packing up and going home.”

A CFR special report specifies two main missions for the remaining U.S. troops; “majority should be assigned to train, advise, and assist ANSF. Smaller numbers of troops should be tasked specifically with conducting strikes against terrorists by killing or capturing high-value targets, working with high-end Afghan forces in Taliban-controlled areas, and using unmanned aerial vehicles to conduct intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and occasional strike missions.”[6]

Karzai has a different understanding of the situation and seems convinced that the US needs the BSA for its own strategic objectives, including for launching counterterrorist operations in Pakistan. [7] He therefore feels he is negotiating from a position of strength, which may not be very far from the truth. Afghanistan is virtually the last remaining US “outpost” in the region and BSA will secure it for next ten years. Further, Shah Shuja complex notwithstanding, Karzai has managed to dent the US narrative on Afghanistan. It has made US and NATO revisit the fact that they are in Afghanistan for their own needs and ends and in doing so Karzai has accorded parity, albeit temporarily, to Afghan sacrifices with US “ blood and treasure” in Afghanistan.

The delay in signing of the BSA has also provided Karzai a measure of support which he (or his candidate in the Presidential race) would have if the BSA was signed. Lastly, he has managed to hold the door open for negotiations with the Taliban- which still has not climbed down from its position of “no foreign soldier on Afghan soil.” The Taliban has an time window to evaluate the pros and cons of its position on a negotiated settlement because the situation will be dramatically altered once the BSA is signed.

Conclusion

The BSA has an important political dimension, when signed it not only commits the US to ensuring security but also managing the politics in Kabul. It will need to make certain that the government of the day in Kabul stays committed to the BSA and does not create a situation by abrogating the pact in favour of another alternative. Further, it puts the Taliban out in the cold (in its Pakistani haven) and consigns Afghanistan to an unending state of insurgency. Karzai therefore has good reasons for taking his time on the BSA.

Monish Gulati is a Delhi Based Defence Analyst. Views expressed are personal

This article appeared at  CLAWS and is reprinted with permission.

Endnotes

[1] http://www.rediff.com/news/report/sujatha-singh-in-us-says-its-up-to-karzai-to-sign-security-pact/20131212.htm

[2] John Zubrzycki. Hamid Karzai takes author William Dalrymple to heart, and his home, The Australian, May 21, 2013.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/books/hamid-karzai-takes-author-to-heart-and-his-home/story-e6frg8nf-1226647214724

[3] Abasin Zaheer. Respect jirga decision on BSA, senators ask president, Pajhwok, December 15, 2013 http://www.pajhwok.com/en/2013/12/15/respect-jirga-decision-bsa-senators-ask-president

[4] Stephanie Gaskell. Hagel Softens on Troop Deal, Gives Karzai Until February – But Not April, Defense One, December 9, 2013. http://www.defenseone.com/management/2013/12/hagel-softens-troop-deal-gives-karzai-until-february-not-april/75185/?oref=defenseone_today_nl

[5] U.S. Troops Required Post-2014 to Curb al-Qaeda’s Resurgence in Afghanistan, Recommends New CFR Report, Council on Foreign Relations, November 26, 2013. http://www.cfr.org/russia-and-central-asia/us-troops-required-post-2014-curb-al-qaedas-resurgence-afghanistan-recommends-new-cfr-report/p31942

[6] Ibid.

[7] Michael Keating and Andrew Wilder. ‘The Best Deal on Offer,’ Foreign Policy, December 19, 2013 http://southasia.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/19/the_best_deal_on_offer

The article Making Sense Of Karzai’s BSA Gambit – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By F18News

By Mine Yildirim, Norwegian Helsinki Ctte

Turkey continues long-standing interferences in the right to freedom of religion or belief, Forum 18 News Service notes in its religious freedom survey. Issues include: the ban on any religious or belief community having legal personality (stopping them owning places of worship); some aspects of the Diyanet’s activities obstruct the exercise of freedom of religion or belief by some Muslim and non-Muslim individuals and groups; barriers to using and acquiring places of worship; serious restrictions on conscientious objection to military service; discrimination related to public service posts and activities; the right to teach a religion or belief including to train clergy being severely restricted; compulsory school instruction in Islam with limited exemption possibilities; being forced to declare a religion or belief on identity cards; atheists being prosecuted for exercising the linked rights of freedom of religion or belief and of expression; and interference in some religious communities’ choice of leaders. Piecemeal and selective changes have proved inadequate to protect freedom of religion or belief effectively.

The Turkish government continues long-standing practices incompatible with its international obligations on freedom of religion or belief, despite opportunities for positive change, Forum 18 News Service notes in its religious freedom survey. For example, a long-standing crucial issue is that Turkey permits no religious or belief community to exist in its own right with full legal status – such as the right to own places of worship and the legal protection religious communities normally have in states under the rule of law. Turkish human rights defenders have expressed disappointment at the government’s failure to fully implement its international obligations to defend freedom of religion and belief, as well as related human rights such as freedom of expression.

Political background

Demands for an effective legislative and practical framework for the protection of freedom of religion or belief for all remain unmet. Missed opportunities to achieve this have included the new Constitution-making process and the government’s various democratisation initiatives. Turkish civil society initiatives on human rights issues, as well as statements and judgments by international human rights monitoring bodies such as the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg, have all provided further opportunities for positive change. But the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has not used these opportunities.

The AKP may have reached its limits in implementing effective protection of the right to freedom of religion or belief. This has been demonstrated in its failure to observe “the State’s duty of neutrality and impartiality”, as the ECtHR phrases it in judgments under the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) in a number of cases. The AKP’s approach has also prevented the state from protecting the pluralism that exists in Turkish society. The unrest following the government’s dismissal of 2013′s Gezi Park protests in Istanbul (which demanded among other things greater protection of human rights), as well as claims of corruption in the state administration, have led to instability. This offers little hope that further democratisation reforms will follow in the near future, including in the field of freedom of religion or belief.

Constitution drafting

The Constitution drafting process, which started in 2011, failed to produce a text that could be submitted to the Grand National Assembly for the adoption of a new and democratic constitution. This process was supposed to see the various political parties seek consensus. But the Constitutional Reconciliation Commission (AUK), which was tasked with the drafting, stopped functioning following the statements of AUK head Cemil Cicek in November 2013 that he had no hopes that the AUK would be able to draft the new Constitution.

Under the proposed new Constitution’s section entitled Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, key issues the various political parties have strongly disagreed about have included: the definition of citizenship, the right to freedom of religion or belief, equality, and education in a person’s mother tongue.

All parties have agreed on the protection of the right to have, not to have, and to change one’s religion or belief. Some proposals from various parties would have taken the new Constitution closer to Article 9 (“Freedom of thought, conscience and religion”) of the ECHR in allowing the right to manifest a religion or belief in worship, teaching, practice and observance.

But the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) did not change its historic position restricting the right to manifest a religion or belief in teaching, and requiring the state to provide religious instruction. However, the CHP and the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) proposed the inclusion of a statement that the state will maintain equal distance to beliefs and take into account the religious pluralism in society in its dealings concerning religion or belief. But the AKP and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) opposed this.

The controversial compulsory secondary school Religious Culture and Knowledge of Ethics (RCKE) courses (which instruct pupils in Sunni Islam and which the ECtHR has required Turkey to change and provide real exemptions from) were opposed by the CHP and BDP. But the AKP and MHP wanted to keep RCKE lessons. The right to conscientious objection to compulsory military service was proposed by the BDP. But no other party accepted this.

The BDP also proposed abolishing the Diyanet, or Presidency of Religious Affairs (which reports to the Prime Minister and is funded by the state). But no other parties backed this proposal. The CHP argued that the Diyanet should serve the population while taking into account religious pluralism.

Despite the BDP putting forward proposals to bring the Constitution into line with international human rights standards, freedom of religion or belief in the new Constitution is unlikely to include a provision that is in line with international law.

Indeed, in April 2012 the Constitutional Court (AYM) established a new jurisprudence on “Turkish secularism” (laiklik), which ignored international human rights obligations. The AYM did this by attributing to the state a positive obligation to provide Islamic religious teaching, and so in practice to continue to restrict the rights of others to teach their religion or belief. This has wide and possibly unforeseeable implications, not least as the AYM’s perception of Turkish society is strikingly at odds with the reality of today’s diverse society. But the AYM decision does match the observable AKP approach to freedom of religion or belief.

Legal personality

No religious or belief community has legal personality – whether Muslim, Jewish, Armenian Apostolic, Greek Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, Baha’i, Jehovah’s Witness, atheist, or any other. This is directly contrary to Turkey’s international human rights obligations.

Religious or belief communities’ representative bodies – such as the Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic Patriarchates or the Jewish Chief Rabbinate – also have no legal personality. The communities are therefore deprived of rights, such as the right to own or hire property (for example as a place of worship), to establish charitable organisations, to open a bank account, or to sign contracts.

Other kinds of legal vehicles – whether associations or foundations – are not suitable to the nature of belief communities and do not correspond to independent legal personality. Both associations and foundations also face sometimes formidable bureaucratic obstacles.

It is possible for members of religious communities to gain legal status as associations, a route followed by some Protestants and Jehovah’s Witnesses. In theory such associations have legal personality and can own property in their own name, though this does not mean that religious communities as such own the property. Nevertheless, at the absence of a proper legal entity status for belief communities, the association model has breathed life into the functioning of religious communities vis a vis the state- public authorities.

The other legal entity status available is the foundation, but Civil Code Article 102 prevents such entities being designated to support a particular religious community. The only exceptions are the community foundations of the non-Muslim religious communities protected under the 1923 Lausanne Treaty (such as the Armenian Apostolic, Greek Orthodox, and Jews). They cannot establish new community foundations and are restricted to institutions founded under the Ottoman Empire. The 2008 Foundations Law enables these foundations to undertake activities such as selling property, which they could not do before. Yet all these foundations are run by individuals, who may not be clergy, and the foundations cannot be run by a church or synagogue community as such.

Alevi and other Sunni Islamic groups cannot have legal personality under the 1925 Law No. 677 (“Closure of Dervish Convents and Tombs, the Abolition of the Office of Keeper of Tombs and the Abolition and Prohibition of Certain Titles”). This Law also, among other things, closed Alevi places of worship and prevents their leaders from using their religious titles. This Law is protected under the Constitution and cannot be amended. It is unlikely that the issue of legal personality can be resolved without addressing this very sensitive issue for the modern Republic’s relationship with religious communities.

Belief communities- since they do not have legal personality – cannot as themselves seek legal remedies. This denies them the chance to as themselves take legal action to defend their freedom of religion or belief. This is a fundamental problem which, if rectified, would offer the possibility of addressing the many other problems affecting freedom of religion or belief in Turkey.

Achieving legal status for all would not solve all problems, but the changes in official and social attitudes necessary would help resolve the other problems.

Legal personality, property, and places of worship

The right to establish, own, and maintain places of worship is an integral part of the right to manifest religion or belief set out in the international human rights standards Turkey is a party to. Yet religious communities face serious obstacles – both formal and informal – preventing this right being effectively protected.

The right to acquire legal personality and the right to property are closely connected. For example, the Catholic Church continues to lose property as a result of lack of legal personality. The land and property of Santa Maria church in Izmir was transferred to the State Treasury in June 2013, as noted in the Norwegian Helsinki Committee: Turkey Freedom of Belief Initiative’s (NHC:IÖG) January – June 2013 monitoring report. As it is not allowed by the state to have legal personality, the Church could not legally establish its ownership of the property.

An adequate form of legal personality for religious communities themselves is a requirement under Turkey’s international human rights obligations. Its absence leads to situations such as the many Armenian church buildings in Anatolia being owned by individuals, not the community itself, as Istanbul-based Armenian weekly Agos noted in August 2013. Many of these individuals want to transfer or sell these buildings (which are often in serious need of restoration) to the Armenian Patriarchate. Yet this is not possible, as the Patriarchate has no legal personality and therefore cannot own property. The future of these buildings is thus uncertain.

The other option available is to transfer them to the Culture and Tourism Ministry, which could restore them. The Ministry does not open the church buildings for worship, however, but turns them into museums. This has been the case with the Cathedral of the Holy Cross on Akhtamar Island near Van, where Armenian church services have been permitted only once a year.

Some steps have been taken to return some of the property confiscated from some non-Muslim communities during the Republic’s existence since 1924. But no steps have been taken to return property confiscated from, for example, Alevis and Catholics. The August 2011 Legislative Decree on the return of property to non-Muslim community foundations, and the 7 October 2013 decision to return land wrongfully confiscated by the state to the Syriac Orthodox Mor Gabriel Monastery (which predates by centuries the arrival of the Turks in Turkey) were positive. But legal cases continue against the Monastery and its employees.

An opening for Alevis?

The AKP government’s “Alevi opening”, which started in 2010, has failed to produce any concrete result to protect the freedom of religion or belief of Turkey’s Alevi community – which may be as large as one third of the population. The Alevis’ basic demands have remained the same for decades. They include: recognition of Alevi cem houses (cemevi) as place of worship; abolishing compulsory school RCKE courses (also required by the ECtHR in Strasbourg); and elimination of discrimination and freedom of religion or belief violations caused by the Diyanet. This is a community whose freedom of religion or belief problems the government has repeatedly claimed it will resolve.

Provincial governors justify the rejection of applications for place of worship status for cem houses by reference to the 2004 Diyanet Communication that the places of worship of Muslims are mosques. A request to the Grand National Assembly, by Alevi CHP parliamentary deputy Hüseyin Aygün, for a cem house to be established in the Grand National Assembly building was denied in July 2012 by the Head of the Assembly, due to the same non-legally binding Diyanet Communication.

According to March 2013 official figures from the Interior Ministry, 937 cem houses exist, but none has place of worship status.

The lack of any solution to the Alevis’ problems in the Government’s October 2013 Democratisation Package disappointed both Alevis and those who want to see the right to freedom of religion or belief for all protected. Following criticism, the government claimed that it is working on a separate “Alevi package”. But the content of this package is unknown, and there has been no dialogue on it with Alevi representatives.

The Diyanet

The Diyanet or Presidency of Religious Affairs, which reports to the Prime Minister, exerts a large influence on the extent to which freedom of religion or belief can be enjoyed in Turkey. Only the Diyanet can administer mosques (which must all be Sunni), and like all other religious communities the Islamic community and groups within it do not have independent legal personality. Massive state financial and institutional support for the Diyanet along with its activities – including its biases against some Muslim and non-Muslim groups – make it difficult for individuals or belief communities outside the Diyanet’s structures to exercise freedom of religion or belief.

For example, non-recognition of Alevi cem houses (cemevi) as places of worship is based on an opinion by the Diyanet – which does not in Turkish law have binding legal force. A Communication (No. 1773), sent by the Diyanet to the Interior Ministry on 17 December 2004, states that: “It is not possible to consider cemevi and other places as places of worship because Alevism, which is a sub-group within Islam, cannot have a place of worship other than mosques or mescit that are common places of worship within Islam”.

In a case relating to the establishment of an Alevi association which referred to cemevi as a place of worship in its statute, the Associations Directorate of the Ministry of Interior on 30 March 2005 sent a letter (No. 1277) to the Ankara Governorship, referring to this Diyanet opinion. The Interior Ministry asked an Alevi association, the Cankaya Cemevi Building Association (CCBA), to remove references to cemevi as a place of worship from its statute. The CCBA refused to do this when the Ankara Governorship wrote to them requesting this, stating that for all Alevis cemevi are accepted as places of worship. The Governorship then initiated a court case via the Ankara Prosecutor’s Office to close the CCBA down.

The Alevis have protested strongly against this, not least as the Diyanet opinion has no legal force and they object to their religious community being made subject to the opinions of another religious community. The state’s interference in Alevi internal religious affairs by attempting to dictate whether or not cemevi are places of worship, as well as its subjugation of one religious community to the dictates of a public religious institution, seems indeed incompatible with international law. Were a case to reach the ECtHR in Strasbourg, Turkey would very likely lose.

The AKP has increased the Diyanet’s influence, without addressing its current incompatibility with Turkey’s human rights obligations. Despite the need for change in the Diyanet-state relationship, the government has dismissed civil society proposals for change as “unjust” and “too assertive for such a sensitive issue”.

Problems faced by de facto places of worship

It is in fact, if not in law, possible for Alevis and other communities, such as Protestants, to worship in a building not having legal place of worship status. But there are legal, financial and social consequences.

Legally, gathering for worship in a building that is not legally recognised, or calling it a cem house (cemevi), church or similar name may – albeit seldom – result in prosecution. In Istanbul a Protestant was prosecuted on 25 May 2010 for calling his association (established for running seminars on Christianity) a church. He was acquitted when he stated that his poor Turkish as a foreigner led him to wrongly describe his legal association as a church. On occasion, local police have formally warned a number of self-described churches without legal place of worship status, but with a link to legal status as associations, that worship in their buildings is unlawful. The reason given is that the buildings are association buildings and not appropriate for worship purposes.

Financially, legally recognised places of worship enjoy certain exemptions from a number of taxes, for instance, property tax, and electricity and water charges. Belief communities whose buildings do not have legal place of worship status cannot enjoy these benefits.

Having a legally-recognised place of worship gives a religious community a high social standing. This helps its followers not to be seen by state officials and the general public as being on the margins of society and public life. This is important in Turkish society – not least for those communities whose followers may be at risk of violent attack (see below).

Planning regulations

Local planning regulations, prepared by municipalities, have detailed Implementation Guidelines for what are referred to as “religious facilities”. These guidelines also contain detailed structural and construction requirements. For example, the Greater Izmir Municipality’s Guidelines require a place of worship to have an at least 2,500 square metre [27,000 square foot] plot of land in newly developing areas. This is beyond the means of small religious communities, and they normally do not want such large buildings.

Religious communities have also found that municipalities allocate no space for places of worship other than mosques. For example, Protestants and Jehovah’s Witnesses are normally unsuccessful in securing the designation of land they acquire as being for places of worship. When they ask local municipalities for suitable plots to build new places of worship they are normally refused, as it is claimed that no suitable plot exists.

In Ankara the Association of Kurtulus Churches (a Turkish Protestant denomination) in 2010 told Forum 18 that it had for a long time been applying to the municipality for a plot or building to use for a place of worship. They were repeatedly told until 2013 that no land or building was available. Then the local Cankaya Municipality offered the Association a number of suitable places. Yet the Association’s first choice was allocated for the construction of a mosque. The Association made a second choice, and the municipality is now waiting for a response from the state National Property Institution which owns the land.

None of the applications of Jehovah’s Witnesses for their Kingdom Halls have been successful. In 2013 they have filed a case to the ECtHR on this, and no admissibility decision has been made. If accepted, this will be the first such ECtHR case on places of worship in Turkey and so is important for all religious and belief communities.

Conscientious objection

The right to conscientious objection to military service is part of the freedom of religion or belief, but this right is not protected in Turkey. This has led to numerous judgments against Turkey following the ECtHR’s July 2011 Bayatyan v. Armenia decision (Application no. 23459/03). In addition, in June 2012 the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UN HRC) ruled against Turkey in the cases of Jehovah’s Witnesses Cenk Atasoy and Arda Sarkut (CCPR/C/104/D/1853-1854/2008). The UN HRC found that Turkey violates Article 18 (“Freedom of thought, conscience and religion”) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by not recognising the right to conscientious objection.

The recognition in 2012 by two Turkish military courts of the right to conscientious objection under Article 9 (“Freedom of thought, conscience and religion”) of the ECHR was important – although the judgments were both flawed and limited. The request of Bariss Görmez, a Jehovah’s Witness, for conscientious objection was accepted and he was acquitted of any criminal offence because his religious community is committed to conscientious objection. But that of Muhammed Serdar Delice, a Muslim, was rejected as the state-run Diyanet claimed that conscientious objection has no place in Islam.

In violation of the ECHR’s Article 9, the judgments only recognised objectors who are members of groups that object to military service on intellectual, religious or political grounds. Also in violation of Article 9, they used selective theological arguments from the state-run Diyanet to exclude other objectors. As Muslim conscientious objector Delice commented, “regardless of one’s religion, conscientious objection is everyone’s right”.

Turkey has not established a domestic legal framework to recognise this right in line with international human rights standards. ECtHR judgments require this, for example asking Turkey to establish an “effective and accessible procedure” to establish entitlement to conscientious objector status (Savda v. Turkey – Application no. 42730/05, June 2012). In addition, the UN HRCttee in the Atasoy and Sarkut communication asked Turkey to “suspend all proceedings against conscientious objectors and suspend all sentences already imposed”. This has not happened to date [January 2014].

Equality in relation to the public sector?

In recent years restrictions on women wearing a headscarf have been lifted. A 2011 instruction from the Higher Education Council lifted the headscarf ban for university students. In November 2012 the Council of State suspended Bar rules restricting the use of the headscarf by lawyer interns. And in October 2013 the AKP’s Democratisation Package lifted the ban on the headscarf for civil servants, except for those working in the judiciary, the military and police- as they wear uniforms it was explained.

Some AKP spokespeople justified this on equality grounds, and women’s rights organisations were divided on the issue. Relatively little attention was paid to the contradiction of men wanting women to be able to wear the headscarf, and the same men also not taking steps to further women’s participation in society and the public service as well as political processes. For example, the BDP and the main opposition CHP put forward a provision for the new Constitution that “in the formation of administrative organs the principle of gender equality will be observed”. But the AKP and the opposition MHP opposed this.

Other areas of discrimination related to the public service have also not been addressed. The rights of those whom public servants – in education and the judiciary for example – are supposed to serve were barely discussed.

Non-Muslims continue to be under-represented in all areas of public service, and are unknown in senior positions in the military, judiciary, police and bureaucracy. Followers of non-Muslim beliefs would like to see members of their communities working in all parts and levels of the public sector. For them the accomplishment of this will mean real equality. Although no formal obstacles to the employment of non-Muslims in the public sector exist, the current situation indicates that informal obstacles persist.

Education

The right to teach a religion or belief is not protected in the Constitution, and is by far the most restricted part of freedom of religion or belief in Turkey. Instead, the Constitution regulates religious instruction and education saying that “Education and instruction in religion and ethics shall be conducted under state supervision and control.” The state has the monopoly on both opening religious schools and determining obligatory or optional courses regarding religious education.

Private institutions cannot open Institutions to provide religious education. Under Article 3 of Law No. 5580 on Private Educational Institutions, “education institutions identical or similar to ones which provide religious education cannot be opened”.

Despite declarations by senior officials and AKP members that the Greek Orthodox theological seminary on the island of Heybeliada (Halki) – closed by the state in 1971 – should be re-opened, the government has failed to enable this. The similar 1969 closure of the Armenian Apostolic Church’s theological college in Üsküdar has been far less publicised, but its continued closure highlights the long-denied right of all religious or belief communities to run their own training establishments.

The compulsory Religious Culture and Knowledge of Ethics (RCKE) school course continues, including Sunni Islamic religious instruction, even though the ECtHR in Strasbourg and Turkey’s Court of Cassation have held that RCKE lessons are incompatible with the country’s human rights obligations. In the October 2007 ruling on the Hasan and Eylem Zengin v. Turkey case (Application no. 1448/04), the ECtHR ruled that Turkey should either change the course curriculum or introduce a real possibility of exemptions for all who wanted this.

In 2010 the Education Ministry introduced some changes to the RCKE curriculum and textbooks. But in June 2012 the Reform in Education Initiative found in a report that it is still incompatible with Turkey’s human rights obligation to allow parents or legal guardians to raise their children in line with their religious or philosophical views.

Exemptions from the RCKE course are available only for those who can prove – by showing a copy of their identity card – that they are Christian or Jewish. No exemptions are allowed for atheists, agnostics, Islamic minorities, or followers of other faiths such as the Baha’is, Yezidis or Alevis. Choosing exemption from RCKE classes can be difficult even for those who are formally entitled to this, as in practice some children who do gain exemption have experienced ostracism and bullying from other children and discrimination from teachers – particularly in small towns and cities.

In the 2012-13 school year, the AKP introduced additional optional religion courses on the Koran, Basic Religious Knowledge (Islam), and the life of the Muslim Prophet Mohammed. In this first year of these courses some school administrations made them effectively compulsory by not offering other optional lessons due to a lack of teaching staff. Many parents did not feel that they could publicly protest at this, as they did not want their children to be discriminated against. The Education Ministry has taken some action to correct this, but whether these formally optional lessons will become truly optional nationwide remains to be seen.

But the inclusion of the possibility to establish schools to teach in a child’s mother tongue in the October 2013 Democratisation Package was a positive step. Before 2013 only the so-called Lausanne minorities (recognised in the 1923 Lausanne Treaty) could open such schools. This development was particularly welcomed by the Syriac Orthodox community which has long suffered from being unable to teach its language to younger generations in school. The language is important for the continuation of their religious practices, as ancient Aramaic is used in this community’s worship.

Discrimination and violence

The long-running trial in Malatya of those accused of murdering three Protestants from the local Zirve Publishing House in April 2007 continues to draw attention to the question of what causes such intolerance and violence. The length of this trial, and of the trials of those accused of murdering Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in January 2007, has cast doubt on their fairness and the determination of the state to see justice done.

During both trials, information has been uncovered linking the murders to elements within the military and civil bureaucracy. Such information has also been uncovered in the Ergenekon and Balyoz investigations of alleged “deep state” coup plotters. These elements of the “deep state” appear to have been involved in the planning and facilitation of the murders.

Whether the judiciary and other state officials are willing to bring such “deep state” elements to justice, and ensure all parts of the state obey the law remains to be seen. A number of state officials could not be investigated because their superiors did not give permission for investigations to be initiated related to the Dink case. Currently, following the mutual recriminations involving the AKP, the movement of the Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, and police corruption investigations, the retrial of earlier cases tried by specialised security courts is being discussed. If this happens, the Ergenekon, Balyoz and Zirve trials will also be retried – further delaying the possibility of justice for the victims, their families and their communities.

Unless all elements of the state are, when necessary, brought to legal responsibility, guaranteeing the safe and free existence of diverse belief groups in Turkey, including atheists and agnostics, will be impossible.

Sporadic violence against members of religious communities continues. According to the NHC:IÖG monitoring report, in 2013 attacks targeting places of worship took place against the New Hope Protestant Church in Atasehir, Ayois Ionis Orthodox Church in Burgazada, and the Gedikpasa Surp Hovhannes Armenian Church in Istanbul. This caused apprehension among smaller belief communities, including those not directly targeted.

An assassination plot against the Izmit Protestant Church’s Pastor was foiled when police arrested the 20 people involved in the plot in January 2013. (Attacks by others, including an also-failed assassination plot, have also taken place.) But the Pastor has not been provided with police protection, church lawyers have not been given access to case files, and the church has been left to put security measures in place.

Media hostility against various religious groups is still a problem and limits their followers’ ability to effectively enjoy the right to freedom of religion or belief. The Hrant Dink Foundation’s Media Watch on Hate Speech report, covering the period May-August 2013, found that as has been the case previously, ethnic Armenians, Jews and Christians were in that order the subject of most religious hate discourse.

Fear of discrimination based on religious affiliation is widespread, the January 2014 NHC: IÖG monitoring report notes. But religious believers, atheists and agnostics are highly reluctant to use the existing weak legal remedies. To avoid discrimination, many people keep their religious affiliation secret and do not change the designation of “Islam” on their identity cards. Those of non-Turkish ethnic background use ethnic Turkish names, and many choose employment or social relations where their non-Sunni Muslim background would not be a problem.

Religion on identity cards

On identity cards citizens must either declare themselves as following one of a limited number of religions – atheism is not a possible choice – or leave the religion part of identity cards and the corresponding part of the Public Registry blank. This is despite a February 2010 ECtHR decision urging Turkish authorities to eliminate this section entirely (Sinan Isik v. Turkey – Application No. 21924/05).

Such a public declaration of religious identity makes people vulnerable to discrimination. This is because of the very many situations in daily life requiring identification to be shown, including: entry into certain buildings; dealings with the police; enrolling at school and university; voting in elections; applying for a mobile phone line; enlisting for compulsory military service; getting married; starting a new job; and withdrawing money in person from a bank. This means that many people can access this information, and in the Turkish context it therefore risks coercing people into declaring a religion or belief. There is an absolute prohibition on such coercion in international human rights law.

Although individuals may leave the religion section in their identity cards blank, this does not solve the problem as the overwhelming majority of Turkish people do not do this. This leads to people who are not Muslim thinking that they must declare themselves as Muslim to avoid discrimination based on their religious or non-religious beliefs. For example, this is happening in the families of ethnic Armenians in eastern Turkey who were during and after 1915 forced to become Muslims. Many of their descendants have now converted back to Christianity, yet prefer to leave the designation of Islam in their identity cards for fear of experiencing social exclusion and ostracism.

Atheists

Article 216 (3) of the Criminal Code criminalises “the denigration of the religious values of a certain group of the society where this act is conducive to disrupt public peace”. This vague terminology is left to the judiciary to interpret and apply.

So far, Article 216 (3) has only been used against Turkish atheist critics of Islam. In 2013 Nisan Sevanyan (who criticised the Islamic prophet Mohammed) and Fazil Say (who announced on Twitter that he is an atheist) were sentenced to 10 month and 13 and a half month jail terms respectively. Both sentences were suspended. Trials of the Metis Publishing House for in 2010 publishing the Illallah Diary and of cartoonist Bahadir Baruter have been postponed. But in January 2014, 27 contributors (out of 40 who are being prosecuted) to the EksiSözlük (Sour Dictionary) were brought to trial under Article 216 (3) for denigrating Islam. The outcome of the legal process remains to be seen, but such prosecutions strongly encourage people to censor themselves. These proceedings send a message that atheists exercising the linked rights of freedom of religion or belief and freedom of expression are liable to prosecution and punishment.

Interference in some communities’ choice of leaders

Turkey continues to interfere in the choices made by the Jewish, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic communities when they elect new leaders. These are, in the government’s interpretation of the 1923 Lausanne Treaty, the only three recognised ethnic/religious communities. The election process is to a great extent outside of the control of the religious communities themselves, and is subject to arbitrary state decisions. As one person who has a leading role in one of the three communities told Forum 18 in 2010, “the procedure is defined throughout the process, with changes in criteria as well as reciprocal negotiations [with the state]“. Commenting on the uncertainties within the process, they noted that “each election is different”.

The future?

Contrary to Turkey’s international human rights obligations, the country does not fully protect freedom of religion or belief. This would require drastic changes to both domestic law and official actions. Piecemeal and selective changes have proved inadequate as a way of protecting freedom of religion or belief.

With local elections due at the end of March and a presidential election due in August in an unstable political context, it appears unlikely that the AKP will prioritise advancing human rights including freedom of religion or belief. So it remains crucial that civil society initiatives to advance human rights are supported, in particular those advancing freedom of religion or belief.

The article Turkey: Religious Freedom Survey – Analysis appeared first on Eurasia Review.

By Ludwig Watzal

Neoconservative extremists, Zionist lobbyists from the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and their willing executioners on Capitol Hill driven by the right-wing Israeli government are trying everything to sabotage the agreement between Iran and the five UN Security Council members plus their German annex. This unholy alliance tries to drag the Obama administration into another Middle Eastern war. These lobbyists have raised the stakes so high that Iran’s only alternative to war would be unconditional surrender. After the Iranian government has agreed to normalize its relations with the West, these US extremists demand not only a continuation but a tightening of the sanctions screw.

The newly introduced Menendez-Kirk Iranian Sanctions Bill (S. 1881) can be seen as a roadmap to war with Iran. The Democrat Menendez and the Republican Kirk seem both on the “payroll” of AIPAC; they receive campaign money that makes them susceptible to a particular policy. Fifty eight cosponsors support this de-facto script to war. The rhetoric of this bill requires from the sovereign Iranian nation to drop politically and publically its pants and gives up its legitimate nuclear energy program.

The sponsors of the bill propose that the Congress put the lives of U.S. servicemen in the hands of a foreigner, Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu. Thus, under item (b) (5) of the Bill, the Congress is asked to pledge unconditional military, diplomatic and economic support to Israel, should its government feel “compelled to take military action in legitimate self-defense against Iran’s nuclear weapon program.” How politically deranged Netanyahu is, shows his outrageous historic analogy; he suggests we are now in 1938, and Iran is equivalent to Nazi Germany. As a German, I wish Germany would have been in 1938 in a situation that Iran is in today: World War II would have never happened.

Netanyahu is actually a wolf in sheep’s clothing, who screams constantly ‘stop the thief’, though his government is the one that threatens its neighbors and is armed up to its ears with nuclear and biological weapons. Israel is the only country in the Middle East that has not signed and does not intend to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This omission allows Israel to legally refuse international inspections of its nuclear arsenal. The U.N. General Assembly has repeatedly recommended the establishment of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle-East. Israel is opposed to that recommendation, invoking unique security needs.

On January 15, 2014, the British daily “The Guardian”1 ran a story on the hypocrisy of the U. S. and Great Britain regarding Israel’s nuclear arsenal and its efforts to acquire the technology and the nuclear material. Despite knowing about Israeli massive nuclear arsenal, the West turns a blind eye on it.

President Obama might be well advised not only confront the Zionist lobby head on but also the “Israeli senators” on Capitol Hill who fight for the interests of Israel against their own government and constituencies. Why in the world want even Democratic senators bring Obama’s Iran policy to failure? In a speech, Obama should show to their constituency and to the American people whose interests their elected senators represent. He should not only call out AIPAC but also the Democratic senators who want to destroy Obama’s only foreign policy success as U. S. President. He should follow Chris Hayes example, the young and brilliant reporter from MSNBC, who has challenged AIPAC and the U. S. Democratic senators.2

Speaking of “Israeli senators”; in 2008, the former U. S. senator Huck Hagel, who holds right now the office of Secretary of Defense, put it this way: “I’m not an Israeli senator; I’m a United States senator.” The majority of the incumbent senators try with tooth and nails to bring the nuclear deal with Iran to failure. If Israel really wants to instigate a war with Iran, the U. S. should let Israel go it alone and not lift a finger when the country gets into trouble. It will show to the whole world that the right-wing Israeli government is the aggressor and a menace to world peace.

Besides attempting to torpedo an agreement with Iran, the Netanyahu government is also not interested in peace with the Palestinians. Defense minister Moshe Ya’alon regards the U. S. security plan “not worth the paper it’s written on”. Kerry “cannot teach me anything about the conflict with the Palestinians”, he said. For the last few months, there have been no negotiations between the Israeli and the Palestinians but between the U. S. and us, said Ya’alon. “The only thing that can ‘save us’ is for John Kerry to win a Nobel Prize and leave us in peace.”3

This political behavior by Israeli officials should be an eye-opener for the Obama administration. Every year, the American taxpayer gives the Israeli government 3 billion Dollars, not to mention all the other advantages Israel gets on the top of it. The U. S. administration regards Israel as one of its closest allies, but this “ally” often bites the feeding hand.

As long as the U. S. and the U.N. Security Council treat the Iranian nuclear program differently from the Israeli one, the negotiations will fail. Iran will and can’t surrender to the whims of the Zionist lobby and its “Israeli senators” on Capitol Hill. If these forces prevail, even Obama can’t prevent another war that lies not in the interest of the American people.

Dr. Ludwig Watzal works as a journalist and editor in Bonn, Germany. He runs the bilingual blog between the lines. http://between-the-lines-ludwig-watzal.blogspot.de/

Notes:
1. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/15/truth-israels-secret-nuclear-arsenal
2. http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/democrats-stop-trying-to-start-another-war-118006851793
3. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4476582,00.html

The article Iran Is Not Yet Off The Hook – OpEd appeared first on Eurasia Review.