March, 04 2015, 08:00am EDT
Clegg Drug Stance 'Undermined By Aid for Executions'
Nick Clegg has been challenged to explain his support for UK-funded drug raids in countries such as Pakistan, which can lead to death sentences for 'mules'.
LONDON
Nick Clegg has been challenged to explain his support for UK-funded drug raids in countries such as Pakistan, which can lead to death sentences for 'mules'.
In a Guardian article published today, followed by a press conference, the Deputy Prime Minister condemned the "vast police, criminal justice and military resources" wasted on UK drugs policy, which he described as an "abject failure". However, in recent correspondence with human rights organization Reprieve, Mr Clegg has defended continuing UK aid for Pakistani anti-drug operations, where those caught are sentenced to death.
The UK has provided more than PS12 million to Pakistan's Anti-Narcotics Force, which has cited the number of death sentences it secures after anti-drug raids as a 'prosecution achievement.' One week before Pakistan resumed executions late last year, Mr Clegg wrote to Reprieve defending the assistance, claiming that Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had assured him that no executions would take place. However, a total of 24 prisoners, out of an 8,000-strong death row population, have since been hanged in Pakistan.
Since then, Mr Clegg has maintained that the UK funding to that country will continue, based on Pakistan's claim that it only plans to execute "terrorists." However, at least two people not convicted of terror offences have now been hanged, and there are fears that drug offenders could also soon be in line for execution. The UK and countries such as Denmark have previously withdrawn similar aid to Iran, with Denmark concluding in 2013 that "the donations are leading to executions."
While Mr Clegg has led the government's public response to the issue, recent questions have also been raised over which department has overall responsibility for it. The Home Office has said to Reprieve that the issue is a matter for the Foreign Office, but last month Home Office minister Lynne Featherstone appeared to contradict this stance, telling Parliament that her department took "lead responsibility" for the policy.
Commenting, Maya Foa, director of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said: "Nick Clegg's positive rhetoric is undermined by his dogged defence of British funding for Pakistani drug raids, which routinely end in death sentences for those caught. The death penalty for drug offences is the sharp end of the failed war on drugs, yet Mr Clegg has stuck by the Home Office's counter-narcotics programme as it has helped send hundreds to death row - including British nationals. If his words on the war on drugs are to have any kind of credibility, he must stop toeing the Home Office line on UK aid for executions, and refuse to fund drug raids in countries that maintain the death penalty for these offences."
Reprieve is a UK-based human rights organization that uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantanamo Bay.
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Putin's Tactical Nuclear Weapons Drills Called 'Dangerous and Irresponsible'
"What is needed now is de-escalation," said ICAN. "Russia can still stop the exercises and should be called on to do so immediately by all states."
May 06, 2024
Disarmament advocates on Monday denounced the Russian Defense Ministry's plans to hold tactical nuclear weapons drills "in the near future," an announcement that came over two years into Russia's war on Ukraine.
"Russia announcing nuclear weapons exercises near Ukraine is dangerous and irresponsible. It must be widely condemned," the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) declared on social media. "This kind of brinkmanship, typical of 'nuclear deterrence' thinking, can spiral out of control and result in catastrophe."
'"Saber-rattling' like this is part of how all nuclear-armed states show they are serious about using nuclear weapons. But it's reckless: It increases the risk of nuclear weapons use, whether intentionally or by accident, at a time when it is at its highest since the Cold War," ICAN continued. "And let's not forget these 'exercises' train military personnel to mass murder civilians in seconds."
While strategic nuclear weapons are intended to wipe out cities, nonstrategic or tactical arms have shorter ranges and lower yields, and are designed for battlefield use. However, as ICAN highlighted, "'tactical' nuclear weapons could have up to 20 times the destructive power of the bomb the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima."'
"What is needed now is de-escalation. Russia can still stop the exercises and should be called on to do so immediately by all states," the group said, urging all "responsible states opposed to nuclear drills and nuclear blackmail" to join the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), passage of which
earned ICAN the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.
Since invading Ukraine in February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin and other officials have
ramped up fears of nuclear war. Russia has the largest arsenal of the nine nuclear-armed nations, followed closely by the United States—which has armed Ukrainians throughout the ongoing war. The other countries known to have nukes are China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom. None of them support the TPNW.
As
Reutersreported on Monday:
Some Western and Ukrainian officials have said Russia is bluffing over nuclear weapons to scare the West, though the Kremlin has repeatedly indicated that it would consider breaking the nuclear taboo if Russia's existence was threatened.
"We do not see anything new here," said Andriy Yusov, a spokesperson for Ukrainian military intelligence. "Nuclear blackmail is a constant practice of Putin's regime."
The Russian Defense Ministry said Monday that its exercises would involve troops of the Southern Military District—which, as The New York Timesnoted, is "an area that covers Russian-occupied Ukraine and part of Russia's border region with Ukraine."
The ministry explained on social media that its plans "to practice the preparation and use of nonstrategic nuclear weapons" come "in response to provocative statements and threats of individual Western officials against the Russian Federation."
Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesperson, echoed that reasoning for the drills, citing statements from British, French, and U.S. officials, according toTASS. He also told reporters that "deploying NATO soldiers to confront the Russian military in the latest escalation of tensions is an unprecedented move. And, of course, it requires special attention and special measures."
NATO in January launched the Steadfast Defender 2024 drills—its largest exercises since the Cold War, involving more than 90,000 troops, over 1,000 combat vehicles, and dozens of ships and aircraft. The drills in Poland are due to end this month.
Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said that while "Putin has previously used nuclear rhetoric against [the] West during his war in Ukraine," this is the first time he knows of that the Russian leader has ordered tactical nuke drills in this district "with explicit reference to West," and it is "obviously intended as a signal."
"For NATO this is an opportunity to double down on condemnation of nuclear threats, reaffirm that nuclear war can't be won and should never be fought, and study how Russia operates its tac nuke forces in exercise," the expert added. "Just don't take the bait and respond with NATO nuke operations!"
Pavel Podvig, the Geneva-based director of the Russian Nuclear Forces Project, agreed that "this is, of course, a signal." He urged Western leaders to "avoid... getting sucked into this" and rally the world around the message that "nuclear threats are inadmissible."
Responding to Podvig's remarks on social media, former ICAN executive director Beatrice Fihn pointed out that over 70 nations condemned threats to use nuclear weapons at the first TPNW meeting.
"I wish more NATO states would work with the TPNW states that have close connections to Russia to strengthen and support this kind of work," she said.
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Romney Admits Push to Ban TikTok Is Aimed at Censoring News Out of Gaza
A conversation between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the Republican senator offered an "incredible historical document" showing how the U.S. views its role in the Middle East.
May 06, 2024
A discussion between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Sen. Mitt Romney over the weekend included what one critic called an "incredible mask-off moment," with the two officials speaking openly about the U.S. government's long-term attempts to provide public relations work for Israel in defense of its policies in the occupied Palestinian territories—and its push to ban TikTok in order to shut down Americans' access to unfiltered news about the Israeli assault on Gaza.
At the Sedona Forum in Sedona, Arizona on Friday, the Utah Republican asked Blinken at the McCain Institute event's keynote conversation why Israel's "PR been so awful" as it's bombarded Gaza since October in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack, killing at least 34,735 Palestinians—the majority women and children—and pushing parts of the enclave into a famine that is expected to spread due to Israel's blockade.
"The world is screaming about Israel, why aren't they screaming about Hamas?" asked Romney. "'Accept a cease-fire, bring home the hostages.' Instead it's the other way around, I mean, typically the Israelis are good at PR. What's happened here? How have they, and we, been so ineffective at communicating the realities there?"
Blinken replied that Americans, two-thirds of whom want the Biden administration to push for a permanent cease-fire and 57% of whom disapprove of President Joe Biden's approach to the war, are "on an intravenous feed of information with new impulses, inputs every millisecond."
"And of course the way this has played out on social media has dominated the narrative," said the secretary of state. "We can't discount that, but I think it also has a very, very challenging effect on the narrative."
Romney suggested that banning TikTok would quiet the growing outrage over Israeli atrocities in the United States.
"Some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down, potentially, TikTok or other entities of that nature," said Romney. "If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians relative to other social media sites, it's overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts."
The interview took place amid a growing anti-war movement on college campuses across the U.S. and around the world, with American police forces responding aggressively to protests at which students have demanded higher education institutions divest from companies that contract with Israel and that the U.S. stop funding the Israel Defense Forces.
Right-wing lawmakers and commentators have suggested students have been indoctrinated by content shared on social media platforms including TikTok and Instagram, and wouldn't be protesting otherwise.
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), who co-sponsored a recent bill to ban TikTok—included in a foreign aid package that Biden signed late last month—said last week that "there has been a coordinated effort off these college campuses, and that you have outside paid agitators and activists."
"It also highlights exactly why we included the TikTok bill in the foreign supplemental aid package because you're seeing how these kids are being manipulated by certain groups or entities or countries to foment hate on their behalf and really create a hostile environment here in the U.S.," said Lawler.
Social media has provided the public with an unvarnished look at the scale of Israel's attack, with users learning the stories of Gaza residents including six-year-old Hind Rajab, 10-year-old Yazan Kafarneh, and victims who have been found in mass graves and seeing the destruction of hospitals, universities, and other civilian infrastructure.
U.S. college students, however, are far from the only people who have expressed strong opposition to Israel's slaughter of Palestinian civilians and large-scale destruction of Gaza as it claims to be targeting Hamas.
Human rights groups across the globe have demanded an end to the Biden administration's support for Israel's military and called on the U.S. president to use his leverage to end the war. Josep Borrell, the European Union's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, in February lambasted Biden and other Western leaders for claiming concern about the safety of Palestinians while continuing to arm Israel, and leaders in Spain and Ireland have led calls for an arms embargo on the country. The United Nations' top expert on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories said in March that there are "reasonable grounds" to conclude Israel has committed genocidal acts, two months after the International Court of Justice made a similar statement in an interim ruling.
Romney and Blinken didn't mention in their talk whether they believe social media and bad "PR" have pushed international leaders and experts to make similar demands to those of college students.
The conversation, saidIntercept journalist Ryan Grim, was an "incredible historical document" showing how the U.S. government views its role in the Middle East—as a government that should "mediate" between Israel and the public to keep people from having "a direct look at what's happening."
"Romney's comments betray a general bipartisan disinterest in engaging Israel's conduct in Gaza on its own terms, preferring instead to complain about protesters, interrogate university presidents, and, apparently, muse about social media's role in boosting pro-Palestinian activism," wrote Ben Metzner at The New Republic. "As Israel moves closer to a catastrophic invasion of Rafah, having already banned Al Jazeera in the country, Romney and Blinken would be wise to consider whether TikTok is the real problem."
Enterpreneur James Rosen-Birch added that "Mitt Romney flat-out asking Antony Blinken, in public, why the United States is not doing a better job manufacturing consent, is wild."
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'This Is a Crime Against Humanity': 600,000 Children in Line of Fire as IDF Moves on Rafah
"We had already run out of words to describe how catastrophic the situation is in Rafah—but this next chapter will take it to indescribable new levels," said Save the Children International's CEO.
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Humanitarian organizations and United Nations officials are warning that the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children—nearly all of whom are sick, injured, or malnourished—are in grave danger as Israeli forces on Monday moved to forcibly evacuate the overcrowded Gaza city of Rafah ahead of an expected ground invasion.
An estimated 600,000 children are believed to be sheltering in Rafah in terrible conditions and under the near-constant threat of Israeli airstrikes, which rocked the city and killed dozens of people—including at least eight kids—hours before the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued its evacuation directives.
"They're being told to move, quote unquote, to a 'humanitarian zone.' That's a unilaterally declared humanitarian zone," James Elder, a spokesperson for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), said in a BBC appearance Monday. "That's not a humanitarian zone where humanitarians have been able to provide the services they need to. I've been talking to colleagues and friends in Rafah this morning, and they're terrified."
"Nowhere is safe," said Elder. "But as unbearable as this is, it's happening and it's going to be horrific."
"Its going to be horrific"
James Elder from UNICEF on Israel ordering people in Rafah to move.
When will our journalists start calling this what it is? pic.twitter.com/hYMQWyQss2
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) May 6, 2024
Threatening "extreme force" in the area, the Israeli military on Monday ordered roughly 100,000 people in the eastern part of Rafah to move west to Al-Mawasi, a town on Gaza's southern coast. Humanitarian groups said Al-Mawasi doesn't have anywhere near sufficient infrastructure to house displaced people from Rafah and stressed that nowhere in Gaza is safe as long as Israel continues its bombing campaign.
Inger Ashing, CEO of Save the Children International, said in response to the IDF's directives that "for weeks we have been warning there is no feasible evacuation plan to lawfully displace and protect civilians."
"For weeks, we have been warning of the devastating consequences this will have for children and our ability to assist them in an already straight-jacketed response. For weeks, we have been calling for preventive action," Ashing continued. "Instead, the international community has looked away. They cannot look away now."
"The announced incursion will not only risk the lives of over 600,000 children but will at best disrupt and at worst cause the collapse of the humanitarian aid response currently struggling to keep Gaza’s population alive," she added. "Forcibly displacing people from Rafah while further disrupting the aid response will likely seal the fate of many children. We had already run out of words to describe how catastrophic the situation is in Rafah—but this next chapter will take it to indescribable new levels."
"History will judge all of those who are complicit in what is being done to Palestinians in Gaza. It must end now."
Roughly 1.4 million people, many of them already displaced multiple times since October, are currently sheltering in Rafah, which Israel's military has been threatening to invade for months amid faltering cease-fire talks with Hamas.
Reutersreported that in the wake of the IDF's evacuation order, "some loaded children and possessions onto donkey carts, some packed into cars, others simply walked" in the hopes of escaping Israel's ground assault.
"People have nowhere to go, no area is safe. All that remains in Gaza is death," Mohammed Al-Najjar, a 23-year-old man with family in Rafah, told the news agency. "I wish I could erase these last seven months from my memory. So many of our dreams and hopes have faded."
According to UNICEF, around 65,000 children in Rafah have a preexisting disability—including seeing, hearing, and walking difficulties—and nearly 80,000 are infants. Roughly 8,000 children under the age of two in Rafah are acutely malnourished.
"The 'evacuation' of Rafah is illegal," said Heidi Matthews, an assistant professor of law at the Osgoode Hall Law School of York University. "There are no 'humanitarian' or 'safe zones.' Civilians are being forcibly displaced to areas totally unsuitable to human habitation. This is a crime against humanity."
The Biden administration, which has supported Israel's war on Gaza from the start, has expressed opposition to a Rafah ground invasion absent a credible plan to keep civilians out of harm's way. On Monday, a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said that "we continue to believe that a hostage deal is the best way to preserve the lives of the hostages, and avoid an invasion of Rafah, where more than a million people are sheltering."
The spokesperson said U.S. President Joe Biden plans to speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at some unspecified point on Monday.
Mike Merryman-Lotze, just peace global policy director at the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), said in a statement Monday that "the Biden administration has spoken against the invasion of Rafah but continues to send billions of dollars in weapons to Israel for its genocidal campaign."
"Any invasion will only bring countless more deaths and exacerbate the risk of famine that is already high because Israel continues to block most humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. President Biden and all elected officials must act now to stop this invasion, demand a permanent and complete cease-fire, and end all arms transfers to Israel."
CNNreported Sunday that the Biden administration decided to pause a shipment of U.S.-made ammunition to Israel, but an unnamed official told the outlet that the hold was "not connected to a potential Israeli operation in Rafah and doesn't affect other shipments moving forward."
Medical Aid for Palestinians, an advocacy group based in the United Kingdom,
said Monday that "the international community knows that this invasion will be a catastrophe."
"The killing of civilians will accelerate and much more of Gaza's remaining infrastructure will be destroyed," the group said. "History will judge all of those who are complicit in what is being done to Palestinians in Gaza. It must end now."
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