Category: FOREIGN

Foreign Blogs is a network of global affairs blogs and a supplement to the Foreign Policy Association’s Great Decisions program.

  • India arrests BJP worker for chanting ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ one year ago

    India arrests BJP worker for chanting ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ one year ago

    The police in the Indian state of Karnataka has arrested a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) worker for raising ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ slogans over a year ago. The man was taken into custody one day after the arrest of three Congress workers on similar charges, reports Indian media.

    The BJP worker, identified as Ravi, 40, in a case registered against him for raising a pro-Pakistan slogan during a December 2022 protest, when the BJP was in government in the state.

    BJP and JD(S) MLCs protest over the alleged sloganeering of ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ after Congress leader Naseer Hussain won the Rajya Sabha election, in Council hall during the Budget session of Karnataka Assembly, in Bengaluru. (PTI)

    The Indian Express has reported that the BJP protest was called against the remarks of the then Pakistani foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. While at the United Nations, Bilawal had called Modi the ‘Butcher of Gujarat’ – a reference to 2002 killing of Muslims when he was Chief Minister of the state. A video of the protest showed Ravi saying “Pakistan Zindabad” even as another person behind him attempted to close his mouth, it added. However, the local chapter of the BJP criticised Ravi’s arrest as “political vendetta”.

    The president of BJP’s Mandya district unit was quoted by the Indian Express as saying that Ravi was a farmer and he did not know any language other than his native Kannada and did not know the meaning of the words he spoke.

    The arrest came a day after three Congress workers were arrested for raising pro-Pakistan slogans in the Karnataka assembly on February 27 when party candidate Syed Naseer Hussain was elected to the Rajya Sabha. In a video shared by India Today, many congress leaders in the assembly have claimed that the exact words were actually Nasir Hussain Zindabad and not Pakistan Zindabad.

    Karnataka Home Minister G. Parameshwara said on Tuesday that pro-Pakistan slogans were raised twice. “We identified the suspects and arrested them. The law will take its course,” he said, according to the Indian Express report.

    The police said that the three Congress workers have been identified as Iltaz, from Delhi, Mohammad Nashipuri, a native of Haveri district of Karnataka and Munnawar, a resident of the state capital of Bengaluru on Monday. They remain in police custody, they added.

  • Israel says to allow worshippers access to Al-Aqsa in Ramzan as in ‘previous years’

    Israel says to allow worshippers access to Al-Aqsa in Ramzan as in ‘previous years’

    Israel will allow as many Muslim worshippers to access Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem during the first week of Ramzan as in previous years, the prime minister’s office said Tuesday.

    “In the first week of Ramzan, worshippers will be allowed to enter the Temple Mount, in similar numbers to those in previous years,” the statement said, using the Jewish term for the site.

    “Every week there will be a situation assessment in terms of security and safety and a decision will be made accordingly,” it added.

    Every year, tens of thousands of Muslim worshippers perform Ramzan prayers at the Al-Aqsa mosque.

    Ramzan comes this year as Israel wages a genocide in the Gaza Strip in a disproportionate response to Hamas in Israel on October 7.

    Israel has been assessing how to address worship in Jerusalem during Ramzan, the Islamic fasting month due to start on March 10 or 11, depending on the lunar calendar.

    Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir had recently said that Palestinian residents of the West Bank “should not be allowed” entry to Jerusalem to pray during Ramzan.

    “We cannot take risks,” he said, adding: “We cannot have women and children hostage in Gaza and allow celebrations for Hamas on the Temple Mount.”

    Ben Gvir leads a hard-right party advocating Jewish control of the compound.

    Days later, the United States called on Israel to allow Muslims to worship at Al-Aqsa.

    “It’s not just a matter of granting people religious freedom that they deserve… it’s also a matter that directly is important to Israel’s security,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

    “It is not in Israel’s security interest to inflame tensions in the West Bank or in the broader region.”

    Hamas has called for a mass movement on Al-Aqsa for the start of Ramzan.

    “Ramzan is sacred to Muslims; its sanctity will be upheld this year, as it is every year,” the Israeli government statement said after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a meeting of all security agencies on Tuesday.

  • Iran executed ‘staggering total’ of 834 people last year, say rights groups

    Iran executed ‘staggering total’ of 834 people last year, say rights groups

    Iran executed a “staggering” total of at least 834 people last year, the highest number since 2015 as capital punishment surged in the Islamic Republic, two rights groups said Tuesday.

    The number of executions, which Iran has carried out by hanging in recent years, was up some 43 percent on 2022.

    It marked only the second time in two decades that over 800 executions were recorded in a year, after 972 executions in 2015, Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and Paris-based Together Against the Death Penalty said in the joint report.

    The groups accused Iran of using the death penalty to spread fear throughout society in the wake of the protests sparked by the September 2022 death in police custody of Mahsa Amini that shook the authorities.

    “Instilling societal fear is the regime’s only way to hold on to power, and the death penalty is its most important instrument,” said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam in the report, which described the figure of 834 as a “staggering total”.

    Iran has executed nine men in cases linked to attacks on security forces during the 2022 protests –- two in 2022, six in 2023 and one so far in 2024 -– according to the rights groups.

    But executions have been stepped up on other charges, notably in drug-related cases, which had until recent years seen a fall.

    “Of particular concern is the dramatic escalation in the number of drug-related executions in 2023, which rose to 471 people, more than 18 times higher than the figures recorded in 2020,” said the report.

    Members of ethnic minorities, notably the Sunni Baluch from the southeast of Iran, are “grossly overrepresented amongst those executed” on drug-related charges, it said.

    At least 167 members of the Baluch minority were executed in total, accounting for 20 percent of the total executions in 2023, even though the minority accounts for only around five percent of Iran’s population.

    Wrong Signal

    ECPM director Raphael Chenuil-Hazan said the “lack of reaction” by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) was sending “the wrong signal to the Iranian authorities”.

    Most hangings in Iran are carried out within the confines of prison but the report said that in 2023 the number of hangings carried out in public in Iran tripled from 2022, with seven people hanged in public spaces.

    At least 22 women were executed, marking the highest number in the past decade, the report said.

    Fifteen of them were hanged on murder charges and NGOs have long warned that women who kill an abusive partner or relative risk being hanged.

    In 2023, only 15 percent of the recorded executions were announced by official Iranian media, with IHR confirming the other executions with its own sources.

    Amiry-Moghaddam expressed concern that a lack of international outrage at the executions, in particular with attention focused on the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas, was only encouraging the Islamic republic to carry out more hangings.

    “The inconsistency in the international community’s reaction to the executions in Iran is unfortunate and sends the wrong signal to the authorities,” he said.

  • Prisoner in American jail donates all his wages for working for 136 hours to Gaza

    Prisoner in American jail donates all his wages for working for 136 hours to Gaza

    Hamza, a prisoner incarcerated in an American jail and working as a janitor, donated all of his earnings to the people suffering in Gaza. The story has been widely shared across social media.

    Filmmaker Justin Mashouf first shared on his socials that his incarcerated friend Hamza had asked him to help him by donating his wage money to help civilians in Gaza.

    “An incarcerated brother I am in correspondence with donated $17.74 for relief efforts in Gaza. This donation is the sum of 136 hours of his labor in the prison working as a porter/janitor,” Mashouf wrote.

    The selfless act left not just Mashouf but also the people on Twitter and Instagram stunned.

    As Mashouf shared Hamza’s prison pay stub on social media, users raised more than $102,000 through a GoFundMe campaign. This money was intended to go to the 56-year-old Hamza who has been incarcerated for nearly 40 years and is set to be paroled this month, reports The Washington Post.

    Mashouf first contacted Hamza in 2009, when he was working on his documentary “The Honest Struggle.”

    The Washington Post did not publish Hamza’s legal name — “Hamza” is a chosen name — because Mashouf said Hamza feared he would be risking his parole status by seeking attention.

    Legal records show that Hamza was convicted of one count of second-degree murder in 1986 and sentenced to 15 years to life. He pleaded guilty to the murder when he was a teenager, records show.

    Mashouf told the Washington Post that Hamza had been convicted of the murder of an uncle.

    “Hamza accidentally fired a gun at a loved one … leading to his imprisonment for over four decades,” says GoFundMe page.

    At the time of his conviction, the judge told Hamza that he would be released on adult parole. However, Hamza appealed against the denial of his parole in 2013.

    Records show that Hamza has appeared in front of the court multiple times but has always been denied parole.

    The GoFundMe page also laid out how Hamza converted to Islam in 1989 and how he would be spending his money once released: health care, housing, clothing, food, a job search and training. Hamza has already decided, however, that some of the donations meant for him will go to others in need, Mashouf said.

    After Mashouf told Hamza that the funds were in the thousands, Hamza asked him to disable donations.

    “He said whatever has already been donated is sufficient for him,” Mashouf said. “And that he didn’t want to distract people from those who were suffering more than him.”

    Moreover, in an update on the GoFundMe page, Hamza said he was eager to start his new life.

    “I look forward to the promise of life, happiness, struggles, and dreams, to soar and spread my wings, to be a man, a human being once again now that I know the preciousness and the incalculable value of Life,” he wrote.

    Mashouf said that Hamza is a qualified electrician but would need computer and technological training to get up to speed before he joins the workforce outside prison.

    Hamza will also be donating his March paycheck to civilians in Gaza, one that he hopes is his final check from prison.

    Prisoners in California make between 8-37 cents per hour for their labour. This is a part of forced labour permitted by the constitution. Prison labour provides $ 11 billion per year to the country’s revenue, reported AJ+ in an explainer.

  • Spanish tourist gang-raped by seven men in India

    Spanish tourist gang-raped by seven men in India

    Spanish tourists identified as Vicente and Fernanda, having a total of 240 thousand followers on Instagram were attacked by a group of seven men in the Indian state of Jharkhand.

    The couple had stopped their motorbikes and set up a tent to pass the night in the state’s Dumka district when the group found them. They repeatedly hit the man and gang-raped the woman.

    “They had beaten us and robbed us, although not many things [were taken] because what they wanted was to rape me,” the 28-year-old woman said in an Instagram post while showing her bruised face.

    “They raped me, they took turns while some watched and they stayed like that for about two hours”, Fernanda, who has joint Brazilian-Spanish nationality, said in an interview.

    In another post, her male partner said he was hit several times in the head with a helmet and that his “mouth is destroyed”.

    A patrol car rescued the duo late on Friday night after the assault and escorted them to a local hospital.

    The local police has said that they have identified everyone involved and arrested four men who have confessed to rape.

    However, three of them have appeared in court after the gang rape of a Spanish tourist on a motorbike trip with her husband, with police hunting four other suspects, reports said Monday. “We have formed a team to hunt the remaining suspects,” senior local police officer Pitamber Singh Kherwar told AFP.

    On Sunday, three accused were seen being escorted into court with sacks on their heads by police officers holding ropes tied around their waists. The three were later remanded in custody.

    The Spanish woman and her husband were also in court.

    “We have to ensure strict punishment,” Kherwar said, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency reported Monday.

    Kherwar said a special team including forensic officers had been formed to scour the scene of the attack, while another team was hunting more suspects.

    “They are constantly raiding places,” Kherwar said in PTI’s report. “We will soon arrest the remaining accused.”

    On average, in 2022, nearly 90 rapes were reported in India every day, meaning one woman is raped every 18 minutes according to the National Crime Records Bureau, which recorded 31,516 rape cases that year.

    Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh states recorded the highest number of cases.

  • Haiti declares state of emergency after thousands of prisoners escape

    Haiti declares state of emergency after thousands of prisoners escape

    Haiti’s government declared on Sunday a state of emergency and nighttime curfew in a bid to regain control of the country after a deadly gang assault on the capital’s main prison that allowed thousands of inmates to escape.

    The curfew will be enforced from 6 pm to 5 am in the Ouest region, which includes the capital, through Wednesday, the government said in a statement, adding that both the curfew and the state of emergency can be extended.

    About a dozen people died as gang members attacked the National Penitentiary in Port-au-Prince overnight Saturday into Sunday, an AFP reporter observed.

    The attack came as part of a new spate of extreme violence in the Haitian capital, where well-armed gangs who control much of the city have wreaked havoc since Thursday.

    The gangs say they want to oust Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who has led the crisis-wracked Caribbean nation since the assassination of president Jovenel Moise in 2021.

    Only around 100 of the National Penitentiary’s estimated 3,800 inmates were still inside the facility Sunday after the gang assault, Pierre Esperance of the National Network for Defense of Human Rights said.

    “We counted many prisoners’ bodies,” he added.

    An AFP reporter who visited the prison on Sunday observed around a dozen bodies outside it and hardly anyone inside. Some bodies had wounds from bullets or other projectiles.

    In its statement late Sunday, the Haitian government said security forces had “received orders to use all legal means at their disposal to enforce the curfew and detain those who violate it.”

    It said the objective was to allow the government to “re-establish order and take the appropriate measures to take back control of the situation.”

    Economy Minister Patrick Michel Boisvert signed the statement as the country’s acting prime minister.

    Prime Minister Henry was in Kenya last week to sign an agreement to deploy police from the East African country to lead a UN-backed law and order mission to the gang-plagued nation.

    Haiti’s government is notoriously weak — kidnapping and other violent crime is rampant and gangs are described as much better armed than the police themselves.

    Gang members also attacked a second prison called Croix des Bouquets, police said earlier.

    Known gang leaders and people charged in the assassination of Moise were among those incarcerated in the main prison, located a few hundred meters from the National Palace, the Haitian daily Le Nouvelliste said.

    The prison had been “spied on by the assailants since Thursday via drones,” before it was attacked early Saturday evening, according to Le Nouvelliste.

    Esperance said it was not immediately clear how many inmates escaped from the second prison, which he said held 1,450 inmates.

    – Kenya-led security mission –

    Powerful gang leader Jimmy Cherisier, known by the nickname Barbecue, said in a video posted on social media that armed groups in Haiti were acting in concert “to get Prime Minister Ariel Henry to step down.”

    It was not immediately clear on Sunday if the prime minister had returned to Haiti after his Kenya trip.

    The UN Security Council in October approved an international police support mission to Haiti that Nairobi had agreed to lead, but a Kenyan court ruling has thrown its future into doubt.

    On Friday, Henry signed an accord in Nairobi with Kenyan President William Ruto on deploying the force.

    Ruto said he and Henry had “discussed the next steps to enable the fast-tracking of the deployment,” but it was not immediately clear whether the agreement would counter a court ruling in January that branded the deployment “illegal.”

    Haiti, the Western hemisphere’s poorest nation, has been in turmoil for years, and the 2021 presidential assassination plunged the country further into chaos.

    No elections have taken place since 2016 and the presidency remains vacant.

    Protesters have demanded Henry’s resignation in line with a political deal that required Haiti to hold polls and for him to cede power to newly elected officials by February 7 of this year.

  • Indian photographer shot dead after camera battery ran out at birthday party

    Indian photographer shot dead after camera battery ran out at birthday party

    A photographer in Bihar, India, has been allegedly shot dead by the hosts of a birthday party after his camera battery got drained.

    Sushil Sahni was killed at the party of the daughter of the suspect, who was reportedly dissatisfied with the photographer’s service when his camera’s battery ran out.

    Sushil had returned to his house to charge his battery but the alleged murderer upon not finding him in the party contacted him and forcefully asked him to come back to the party after charging the battery.

    Upon Sushil’s return, a scuffle broke out between the two, and in a fit of rage, the party owner put a pistol in Sushil’s mouth and fired. The suspect then took the victim to the gate of the hospital and fled the spot, reports Indian media.

    The suspect has reportedly been involved in the illegal liquor business and the police is making attempts to find him.

  • Israel minister says Arab trade ties unphased by Gaza war

    Israel minister says Arab trade ties unphased by Gaza war

    Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates – Israel’s economy minister on Tuesday said trade relations with Arab states had not been affected by the Gaza war, the cost of which he added his country was able to bear.

    “There is no change at all” in trade relations, Nir Barkat told journalists on the sidelines of the World Trade Organization’s 13th ministerial meeting in Abu Dhabi.

    “Things are very stable… I think the leadership understands we have the same goal, which is to collaborate in a peaceful way.”

    When asked about Israel’s economic losses due to the war, Barkat said it could add “anywhere between 150 to 200 billion shekels ($42-55 billion)” to the country’s national debt.

    “That’s not something Israel cannot bear mid- to long-term,” he said.

    In January, Israel’s cabinet approved an additional 55 billion shekels ($15 billion) to meet the cost of the war, while the mobilisation of reservists and the displacement of communities on the borders with Gaza and Lebanon have disrupted the economy.

    The war began when the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

    Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas and responded with a relentless offensive in Gaza. ccording to health ministry, at least 29,878 people, mostly women and children, have been killed.

    Confronted with the conflict, Arab countries that have normalised relations with Israel in recent years have been forced to balance diplomacy with fiercly pro-Palestinian Arab public opinion.

    They include the United Arab Emirates, which normalised ties with Israel in 2020 as part of the US-brokered Abraham Accords.

    Barkat said the Gaza war could help Israel boost sales of military technology, noting there is “high interest” from many countries, without specifying if Arab states were among them.

    “Especially after this war we are probably going to be leading many, many initiatives… of how next-generation warfare is going to look like,” he said.

    “Anybody that thinks they are threatened by regimes of Iran then they would have to tap us to better understand what we have learnt and what the solutions and security challenges are,” he added.

    “We are way ahead of everyone.”

    apo-ho/dcp/dv

    © Agence France-Presse

  • Nearly 500 rhinos killed as poaching increases in South Africa

    Nearly 500 rhinos killed as poaching increases in South Africa

    Johannesburg (AFP) – Almost 500 rhinos were killed by poachers in South Africa last year, up 11 percent on 2022, despite government efforts to tackle the illicit trade in horns, ministers said Tuesday.

    The country is home to a large majority of the world’s rhinos and a hotspot for poaching, which is driven by demand from Asia, where horns are used in traditional medicine for their supposed therapeutic effect.

    The environment ministry said 499 of the thick-skinned herbivores were killed in 2023, mostly in state-run parks.

    The lion’s share were poached in eastern KwaZulu-Natal province, with the Hluhluwe–Imfolozi park — Africa’s oldest reserve — alone losing 307 animals.

    “This is the highest poaching loss within this province,” said Environment Minister Barbara Creecy.

    “Multi-disciplinary teams continue to work tirelessly in an attempt to slow this relentless pressure”.

    In recent years, authorities have tightened security particularly around the Kruger National Park, a tourist magnet bordering Mozambique that has seen its rhino population fall drastically over the past 15 years.

    This has resulted in lower losses there — 78 rhinos were killed in 2023, 37 percent fewer than in 2022.

    But it has also pushed poachers towards regional and private reserves like Hluhluwe–Imfolozi.

    Law enforcement agencies arrested 49 suspected poachers in KwaZulu-Natal last year, Creecy said.

    Across the country, 45 poachers and horn traffickers were convicted in court, she added.

    Among them was a former field ranger sentenced to 10 years behind bars for killing a rhino he later claimed had charged him.

    As of 2023, the national parks authority requires new employees to take a lie detector test amid concerns that some workers might be in cahoots with poachers.

    Rhino horns are highly sought in black markets where the price per weight rivals that of gold and cocaine.

    Nevertheless, in September last year the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reported that thanks to conservation efforts rhino numbers had grown across Africa.

    Nearly 23,300 specimens roamed the continent at the end of 2022, up 5.2 percent on 2021, IUCN said, adding the increase was the first bit of “good news” for the animals in over a decade.

    About 15,000 live in South Africa, according to a separate estimate by the International Rhino Foundation.

    “While these updated IUCN populations figures provide hope, these gains remain tenuous as long as the poaching crisis continues,” Jeff Cooke of the World Wildlife Fund said Tuesday.

    And he described the spike in killings in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal, in particular, as “of grave concern”.

  • Attack on mosque in Burkina Faso kills dozens during fajar

    Attack on mosque in Burkina Faso kills dozens during fajar

    An attack on a mosque in eastern Burkina Faso has killed dozens of Muslims on the same day as another deadly attack on Catholics attending mass, local and security sources told AFP on Monday.

    “Armed individuals attacked a mosque in Natiaboani on Sunday around 5:00 am, resulting in several dozen being killed,” a security source said.

    “The victims were all Muslims, most of them men” who had come for morning prayers, a local resident said by telephone.

    Another local source said “The terrorists entered the town early morning. They surrounded the mosque and shot at the faithful, who were gathered there for the first prayer of the day.”

    “Several of them were shot, including an important religious leader,” the source added.

    Soldiers and members of the Volunteers for the Defence of the Fatherland (VDP), a civilian force that supports the military, were also targeted “by these hordes who came in large numbers”, the same source said.

    The source described it as a “large-scale attack” in terms of the number of assailants, who also wreaked substantial damage.

    Natiaboani is a rural community about 60 kilometres (37 miles) south of Fada N’Gourma, the main town in Burkina’s eastern region, which has seen regular attacks by armed groups since 2018.

    On the same day as the attack on the mosque, at least 15 civilians were killed and two others injured during an attack on a Catholic church during Sunday mass in northern Burkina Faso, a senior church official said.

    Jean-Pierre Sawadogo, vicar of the Dori diocese, said in a statement that the “terrorist attack” occurred in the village of Essakane while people were gathered for Sunday prayer.

    Essakane village is in what is known as the “three borders” zone in the northeast of the country, near the common borders of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.