IHR: Iran Executes Three Women In Single Day

Saturday, 30 July, 2022

Iran this week executed three women in the space of a single day, all on charges of murdering their husbands, an NGO said on Friday.

There has been growing concern over the increasing number of women being hanged in Iran as the country sees a surge in executions.

Many killed husbands who were abusive or they married as child brides or even relatives, AFP reported activists as saying,

Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) said that on July 27 three women were executed in different prisons for murdering their husbands in separate cases, meaning at least 10 women have now been executed by Iran in 2022.

Senobar Jalali, an Afghan national, was executed in a prison outside Tehran, it said.

Meanwhile Soheila Abedi, who had married her husband when aged just 15, was hanged in a prison in the city of Sanandaj in western Iran.

She had committed the murder 10 years after their marriage and was convicted in 2015, IHR said.

Faranak Beheshti, who had been convicted around five years ago for the murder of her husband, was executed in the prison in the northwestern city of Urmia, it said.

Activists argue that Iran’s laws are stacked against women, who do not have the right to unilaterally demand a divorce, even in cases of domestic violence and abuse.

A report by IHR published in October last year said that at least 164 women were executed between 2010 and October 2021.

But activists are alarmed by a surge in executions in Iran this year, coinciding with the rise of former judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi to the presidency in 2021 and protests over an economic crisis.

At least 306 people have been executed so far in Iran in 2022, according to a count by IHR.

Washington-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran and London-based Amnesty International said Wednesday that Iran is carrying out executions at a “horrifying pace” in an “abhorrent assault” on the right to life.

Those arrested in recent weeks in a crackdown against critical voices include the director Mohammad Rasoulof, whose lacerating film “There is No Evil” about the effects of the use of the death penalty in Iran won the Golden Bear at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival.

Source: Asharq al-Awsat.

Link: https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3788051/ihr-iran-executes-three-women-single-day.

Water scarcity in Jordan threatens nature reserve of rare Arabian gazelle

Melissa Pawson

April 25, 2022

The famous Arabian oryx, a distinctive white gazelle with long black horns, is not hard to spot in the Shaumari reserve. From across the scrubland, a herd of around 20 oryxes could be seen clustered around a water pipe where a small leak has caused the vegetation to grow up green and lush.

The oryxes’ survival depends on the careful management of the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN) at Shaumari reserve. Previously extinct in Jordan, 11 of the gazelles were reintroduced to the reserve in the east of Jordan in the late 1970s. The population has since grown to around 110 individuals in what has been hailed as a successful reintroduction program.

However, ensuring the oryxes’ well-being has been getting harder in recent years, said reserve manager Ashraf Al-Halah. “The plants here do not depend on rain, they depend on floods. But we’re noticing a change in the flooding frequency,” he told Al-Monitor.

Al-Halah explained that while the semi-arid area used to get around four or five floods a year, the water has decreased. “We received just one this year, and the last year there was none,” he said.

The lack of water is putting animal populations at risk. Al-Halah blames increased water harvesting outside the reserve.

According to Al-Halah, the RSCN was not consulted by the authorities when water collection ponds were constructed nearby, including one pond just three kilometers away in 2015.

Al-Halah said that talks on the impact of water collecting on the reserve have begun this month between the RSCN and the Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Water and Irrigation. Al-Halah added that until surveys are conducted, they will not be able to start negotiations about a potential solution.

Last summer, there was a row between the RSCN and the Energy Ministry over the ministry’s plans to start copper mining in the Dana Nature Reserve. The mining plans have since been put on hold.

Al-Halah warned, “If we destroy these treasures, or destroy this heritage, it cannot be recovered.” He cannot envision a solution that doesn’t involve the decommissioning of the nearby water collection ponds. He said, “We will take the conclusions [of the surveys, when done] to the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Water and tell them [that] this will destroy us,” he said.

Downstream lies the Azraq wetlands reserve, an oasis that serves as a crucial stopover for migratory birds. The wetlands are also drying out dramatically.

“This is the first year I witnessed no flooding,” said Hazem Hreisha, who manages the Azraq wetlands reserve. “This is the problem. The wetlands depend on permanent freshwater.”

The Azraq wetlands used to be fed by a natural spring. However, as the groundwater was depleted, the spring dried up in the early 90s.

The oasis is now supplied by water pumped in by the Jordan Water Authority under an agreement signed in 1993, for the provision of 1.5 to 2.5 million cubic meters annually. Hreisha told Al-Monitor that the RSCN paid the water authority a one-time fee of $250,000 to secure the agreement.

However, the reserve is currently only receiving 600,000 cubic meters per year and the flow often stops on summer days. Hreisha explained that the oasis has shrunk to a tenth of its original size and needs more water to be restored to being a resilient ecosystem.

“This is the government’s responsibility,” he added. “It’s not a large quantity to provide.”

When asked if the RSCN is communicating with the Water Ministry and Irrigation about the deficit, Hreisha replied, “Every year.” He said, “They respond that they have a lot of commitments with the local community.”

As millions around the world show their support for the environment on Earth Day, Hreisha said he hopes international advocacy will pressure the government to prioritize Jordan’s nature reserves.

According to UNICEF, Jordan is the second most water-scarce country in the world. Ministry of Water and Irrigation data states that each person in the kingdom has access to around 61 liters of water per day, compared to the roughly 350 liters used by the average American.

Dawoud Isied is a hydrogeologist and CEO of Straight Light Consultants, an environmental firm. He told Al-Monitor that the current situation in the wetlands is not sustainable. “If the government needs more water, they will stop [pumping to the reserves] for people. Humans are the priority.”

He added that over-pumping is heavily straining Jordan’s water resources. He said that the Azraq basin can safely provide 30 to 35 million cubic meters per year, but twice that amount is being taken.

Isied said that destroying the water collection ponds around the reserve would not necessarily recharge the depleted aquifer, though decommissioning some would help. He said, “The sustainable solution is to use [what floodwater still comes], which is around 40 to 60 million cubic meters a year,” to recharge the aquifer and bring water to the wetlands.

Isied explained that his company has been testing a method called managed aquifer recharge in another area, with some success. “That is, I hope, the solution to the water problem in Azraq,” he said.

Engineer Hesham Halal Al-Hesa, director of the Dams Administration in the Ministry of Water and Irrigation, told Al-Monitor that the water collection sites around Azraq actually benefit the local area. He stated that larger solutions than simply ending collection at the ponds are needed to address the country’s water scarcity.

Bewilderingly, he added that the Azraq area actually needs “more water harvesting because it recharges the aquifer and [provides] drinking water for the animals … and controls flood risk management.”

Al-Hesa added that the ministry is searching for additional water resources as well as working on “efficient management of water distribution.”

Al-Monitor was directed to contact an engineer in the Ministry of Water and Irrigation who is the point of contact for the project, but no responses were forthcoming.

Hreisha feels the Ministry of Water and Irrigation should be doing more to ensure the future of the reserves. “This is part of the natural heritage in Jordan,” he said. The ministry “should provide and also search for new techniques, new technologies, new alternative resources.”

Source: al-Monitor.

Link: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2022/04/water-scarcity-jordan-threatens-nature-reserve-rare-arabian-gazelle.

Finland to Make Decision on NATO Membership in Coming Weeks

Wednesday, 13 April, 2022

Finland will make a decision about whether to apply to join the 30-member NATO alliance in the next few weeks, Prime Minister Sanna Marin told reporters in Stockholm on Wednesday.

“There are different perspectives to apply (for) NATO membership or not to apply and we have to analyze these very carefully,” Marin told reporters in a joint news conference with her Swedish counterpart.

“But I think our process will be quite fast, it will happen in weeks,” he added, Reuters reported.

Source: Asharq al-Awsat.

Link: https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3589541/finland-make-decision-nato-membership-coming-weeks.

Spain to Extradite Turkish Citizen Suspected of Smuggling Banned Gear to Iran

Wednesday, 20 April, 2022

Spain’s high court has agreed to extradite to the United States a Turkish citizen suspected of smuggling to Iran equipment that can be used in making missiles, circumventing an arms embargo, court documents showed on Wednesday.

Spanish police arrested Murat Bukey in the Barcelona airport in September at the request of US prosecutors, who suspect him of importing from the United States and selling in Iran fuel cells that can be used in powering ballistic missiles and biodetection in 2012 and 2013, the court said.

Iran was then under a UN arms embargo that banned imports of missile components and technologies. The embargo expired in 2020, but Iran remains under US economic sanctions.

In its ruling the court said Bukey had “falsely declared the material wouldn’t be exported to Iran”. He is also accused of money laundering.

During the extradition hearing, Bukey’s lawyers argued the US statute of limitations had run out on the alleged offenses and that they had been allegedly committed while he was in Turkey, not in the United States.

Still, his lawyer, Llorenc Caldentey Morey, said he was not appealing against the decision. Bukey will remain in custody pending the approval of the extradition by the Spanish government.

Source: Asharq al-Awsat.

Link: https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3602881/spain-extradite-turkish-citizen-suspected-smuggling-banned-gear-iran.

Police break up protests after Belarus presidential vote

August 10, 2020

MINSK, Belarus (AP) — Phalanxes of Belarusian police in full riot gear violently dispersed thousands of demonstrators who poured into the streets to challenge the early count from Sunday’s presidential election indicating the longtime authoritarian leader won a sixth term by a landslide.

Hundreds of people were detained, according to a leading rights group. The brutal crackdown that began late Sunday and lasted through the night followed a tense campaign that saw massive rallies against President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled the ex-Soviet nation with an iron hand for 26 years.

Election officials declared that early returns show 65-year-old Lukashenko winning with more than 80% of the vote while the main challenger, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, a former English teacher and political novice, had about 8%.

Tsikhanouskaya rejected the official claims, saying “I will believe my own eyes — the majority was for us.” Thousands of her supporters quickly took to the streets of the capital to protest what they saw as official manipulations of the vote. They faced rows of riot police in black uniforms who moved quickly to disperse the demonstrators, firing flash-bang grenades and beating them with truncheons.

After breaking up the big crowds, police relentlessly chased smaller groups of protesters across downtown Minsk for the next several hours. Several other cities across the country saw similar crackdowns on protesters.

Interior Ministry spokeswoman Olga Chemodanova said that police efforts to restore order were continuing overnight, but wouldn’t say how many people were detained. Ales Bilyatsky of the Viasna human rights group told The Associated Press several hundred were detained and hundreds injured in the police crackdown.

“What has happened is awful,” Tsikhanouskaya told reporters Sunday. An AP journalist was beaten by police and treated at a hospital. At Minsk’ Hospital No. 10, an AP reporter saw a dozen ambulances delivering protesters with fragmentation wounds and cuts from stun grenades and other injuries.

“It was a peaceful protest, we weren’t using force,” said 23-year-old protester, Pavel Konoplyanik, who was accompanying his friend who had a plastic grenade fragment stuck in his neck. “No one will believe in the official results of the vote, they have stolen our victory.”

Konoplyanik, whose legs were also cut by fragments of police grenades, said he doesn’t want to leave the country but fears that he might have no other choice. Two prominent opposition challengers were denied places on the ballot, but Tsikhanouskaya, the wife of a jailed opposition blogger, managed to unite opposition groups and draw tens of thousands to her campaign rallies, tapping growing anger over a stagnant economy and fatigue with Lukashenko’s autocratic rule.

Lukashenko was defiant as he voted earlier in the day, warning that the opposition will meet a tough response. “If you provoke, you will get the same answer,” he said. “Do you want to try to overthrow the government, break something, wound, offend, and expect me or someone to kneel in front of you and kiss them and the sand onto which you wandered? This will not happen.”

Mindful of Belarus’ long history of violent crackdowns on dissent — protesters were beaten after the 2010 election and six rival candidates arrested, three of whom were imprisoned for years — Tsikhanouskaya called for calm earlier Sunday.

“I hope that everything will be peaceful and that the police will not use force,” she said after voting. After the polls closed, about 1,000 protesters gathered near the obelisk honoring Minsk as a World War II “hero city,” where police harshly clashed with them, beating some with truncheons and later using flash-bang grenades to try to disperse them. Some of the protesters later tried to build barricades with trash containers, but police quickly broke them up.

Three journalists from the independent Russian TV station Dozhd were detained after interviewing an opposition figure and were deported. Tsikhanouskaya emerged as Lukashenko’s main opponent after two other aspirants were denied places on the ballot. Viktor Babariko, head of a major Russia-owned bank, was jailed for charges he called political, and Valery Tsepkalo, entrepreneur and former ambassador to the United States, fled to Russia with his children after warnings that he would be arrested and his children taken away.

Tsepkalo’s wife Veronika became a top member of Tsikhanouskaya’s campaign, but she left the country too early Sunday, fearing for her safety, said campaign spokeswoman Anna Krasulina. Over the weekend, eight members of Tsikhanouskaya’s campaign staff were arrested.

Many voters were defiant in the face of Lukashenko’s vow not to tolerate any protests. “There is no more fear. Belarusians will not be silent and will protest loudly,” 24-year-old Tatiana Protasevich said at a Minsk polling place.

As polls opened, the country’s central elections commission said more than 40% of the electorate had cast ballots in five days of early voting, a process the opposition saw as offering fertile ground for manipulation.

“For five nights nobody has guarded the ballot boxes, which gives the authorities a wide field for maneuverings,” Veronika Tsepkalo told AP before leaving Belarus. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, whose assessments of elections are widely regarded as authoritative, was not invited to send observers.

Tsikhanouskaya had crisscrossed the country, tapping into public frustration with a worsening economy and Lukashenko’s swaggering response to the pandemic. Belarus, a country of 9.5 million people, has reported more than 68,500 coronavirus cases and 580 deaths but critics have accused authorities of manipulating the figures to downplay the death toll.

Lukashenko has dismissed the virus as “psychosis” and declined to apply measures to stop its spread, saying a lockdown would have doomed the already weak economy. He announced last month that he had been infected but had no symptoms and recovered quickly, allegedly thanks to playing sports.

Yet for some voters, Lukashenko’s long, hardline rule was a plus. “He is an experienced politician, not a housewife who appeared out of nowhere and muddied the waters,” retiree Igor Rozhov said Sunday. “We need a strong hand that will not allow riots.”

Associated Press journalists Jim Heintz and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this story.

Russia fines opposition radio station for fake news

June 19, 2020

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian opposition-leaning radio station Echo Moskvy and its website editor have been fined the equivalent of $3,745 for posting the comments of a political analyst who questioned Russia’s coronavirus statistics.

The station’s chief editor Alexei Venediktov tweeted Friday that a Moscow court handed a $2,880 fine to the radio station and a $865 fine to its website editor Vitaly Ruvinsky “for publishing the statement of political analyst Valery Solovei,” adding that Echo Moskvy planned to appeal the ruling.

According to court filings, the fines were issued for “disseminating deliberate… misinformation” and “creating a threat to the life and (or) health of the people.” Venediktov didn’t specify which statement by Solovei was considered misinformation. Russian state news agency TASS cited an anonymous source familiar with the situation as saying that the fines were handed out for “articles about the coronavirus infection.”

On March 16, Solovei alleged in an interview to Echo Moskvy that the government was lying when it said no one had died in the country from the coronavirus and at least 1,600 people might have died since mid-January.

By that time, Russian health officials hadn’t reported a single coronavirus death, and Russia’s media and internet watchdog, Roscomnadzor, pressured the station to delete the interview from its website. Echo Moskvy complied, but editors insisted Solovei was merely expressing an opinion.

The country’s comparatively low virus death toll — 7,972 deaths among over 569,000 confirmed infections as of Friday — has raised questions both in Russia and in the West, with some suggesting officials may be manipulating the numbers for political purposes. Russian officials have bristled at the accusations, citing effective response measures.

The demand to delete the interview was part of a widespread government campaign against what authorities called “fake news” about the pandemic. On March 31, Russian lawmakers approved fines of up to $25,000 and prison terms of up to five years for anyone who spreads what is deemed to be false information. Media outlets were to be fined up to $127,000 if they disseminate disinformation about the outbreak.

Russia’s prominent legal aid group Agora found that since April, Russian law enforcement has pursued about 200 cases of spreading alleged misinformation about the virus. Thirty-three cases involved criminal prosecution, the group said in a study released this week, and more than $20,000 worth of fines have been handed down.

Any information that differs from what officials report is considered false by authorities, Agora pointed out.

Uncharted Brexit waters: UK’s Boris Johnson faces 2020 tests

January 03, 2020

LONDON (AP) — After a remarkable political turnaround, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is on the verge of taking Britain out of the European Union with the enthusiastic support of a strong majority in Parliament.

After suffering a string of parliamentary defeats over Brexit — plus the ignominy of being told by Britain’s Supreme Court that his suspension of Parliament last year was unlawful —Johnson cruised to victory in the country’s Dec. 12 election and finally got his landmark Brexit bill passed before Christmas.

Expectations for the coming year are high, fueled by Johnson’s upbeat approach. He promised in his New Year’s message that resolving the Brexit stalemate means Britain “can start a new chapter in the history of our country, in which we come together and move forward united, unleashing the enormous potential of the British people.”

He pledged to “work my socks off” to unite the country. The message was pre-recorded; Johnson spent the holiday on the Caribbean island of Mustique with girlfriend Carrie Symonds. Johnson’s predecessor, former Prime Minister Theresa May, was stung by repeated rebukes from a hostile Parliament. Johnson, however, is in a much stronger position with a healthy Conservative Party majority in the House of Commons after the election that he called two years early.

When Johnson’s tenure at 10 Downing Street began in July with a series of defeats in Parliament, many observers said he likely would have the shortest reign of any recent prime minister. Instead, he has won a five-year term and left the main opposition Labor Party in near-total disarray.

With Parliament remade in his image, Johnson expects to split Britain off from the 27 other EU nations on Jan. 31, becoming the first nation ever to leave the bloc. Then the truly difficult part begins as Britain launches contentious trade talks that will define its new relationship with Europe, its key trading partner.

Momentous changes are coming, but the immediate impact of Britain’s departure will be blunted because of a yearlong transition period. There will still be unfettered trade between Britain and the EU and the free movement of people throughout 2020.

Johnson may have a friendly Parliament at home, but he does not have a warm relationship with EU leaders, who hold much of the leverage in trade talks. He faces outright hostility from Scotland’s leader, whose region wanted to stay in the EU, and questions about whether Brexit may nudge U.K. member Northern Ireland closer to the Republic of Ireland and threaten its status as part of the U.K.

There is intense time pressure on the EU trade talks, which must conclude by the end of 2020 unless both sides agree on an extension by the end of June. That is an option Johnson has ruled out, raising once again the prospect that Britain might sever all EU ties without a new deal in place. Economists say such a “no-deal” Brexit would sabotage Britain’s economy.

Most trade talks take much longer than one year to complete. These particular negotiations are unusually fraught because of uncertainty surrounding how trade between Northern Ireland and Ireland will be governed once the U.K. is no longer part of the EU.

There have been persistent warnings that imposing new trade barriers and tariffs could jeopardize the gains brought about by Northern Ireland’s 1998 Good Friday peace deal and rekindle the violence there that has been largely dormant for two decades.

Brexit may nudge Northern Ireland toward uniting with Ireland by keeping Northern Ireland closely bound to Ireland in trade terms and imposing new paperwork that would slow trade between Northern Ireland and mainland Britain.

Johnson also faces a Brexit-fueled confrontation with Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon that poses another threat to the U.K.’s unity. Sturgeon and her Scottish National Party are lobbying hard for a second independence referendum on whether Scotland should remain in the U.K. or strike its own path as an independent country.

Sturgeon argues that since Scottish voters rejected Brexit in the 2016 referendum Scotland is being “dragged out of the EU against its will” and should be given the chance to opt for independence, even though the prospect was voted down in 2014.

Johnson says his government will not authorize another vote on Scottish independence, but Sturgeon plans to press the issue in the coming year, capitalizing on her party’s strong performance in the December election. The independence-minded SNP won 48 seats in the House of Commons, a gain of 13 legislators.

Johnson’s larger-than-expected margin of victory and his Conservatives’ strong performance in traditional working-class Labor Party strongholds in northern and central England give him a chance to consolidate power. The Conservatives now have 365 seats in the 650-seat Parliament to Labor’s 202.

It is not clear yet whether Johnson will navigate a shift to the center, patching together a deal that keeps the EU trading relationship as open as possible, or whether he will continue to court the Conservatives’ hard-Brexit wing, which is ready for an abrupt rupture with Europe.

Either way, his task is formidable: take Britain out of the EU without sparking a major economic contraction, keep the U.K. intact despite the yearning for secession in some quarters, and making good on promises to hard-hit communities in north and central England that wealth and opportunity will — finally — move beyond greater London.

If he can do all that, and keep voters in newly Conservative parts of the country content, his turnaround would be complete.