Month: April 2019

Palestinian security forces regularly torture prisoners and arrest political opponents “to crush dissent” in both the occupied West Bank and Gaza, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Tuesday. 

A new report said both the Western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA) and its rivals in Hamas make systematic use of torture and widespread arrests which could amount to crimes against humanity. 

HRW called on Britain, the US, and the EU cut off funding for the PA’s security forces until they stop torturing detainees and investigate officers of accused of abuse. The group also called on Qatar, Iran, and Turkey to halt their funding for Hamas. 

Both the PA and Hamas security forces denied to HRW that they practice torture and said they investigate all allegations of abuse. 

Tom Porteous, deputy programme director at HRW, said those claims were not accurate. “Calls by Palestinian officials to safeguard Palestinian rights ring hollow as they crush dissent,” he said. 

In one of the most disturbing allegations, HRW said PA security forces arrested a 32-year-old civil servant and tied a cord around his genitals for eight hours, causing them to “swell and turn blue”. 

The man said his captors kept him a small room known as “the closet”, roughly 60cm by 60cm, where he struggled to breath. He said he was kept in the room for 22 hours a day for 22 days in a detention facility in Jericho in the West Bank.  

His interrogators wanted him to confess to taking part in a murder he had seen a month earlier. “If you do not speak, you will be destroyed,” one security officer reportedly told him. 

Other detainees in Hamas prisons in Gaza said they were beaten and kept in painful stress positions for hours at a time in a room they called “the bus”. 

HRW said both the PA and Hamas suppressed free speech, arrested critics, stifled the media, and prevented people from taking to the streets to protest.

“The PA and Hamas have both clamped down on the major outlets for dissent available to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza,” the report said. 

One Palestinian journalist was arrested in Gaza for 15 days after publishing a post on Facebook asking if the children of Hamas leaders “sleep on the floor like ours do”. The journalist was charged with “misuse of technology”. 

Both Gaza and parts of the West Bank were under PA control until 2007, when Hamas overthrew the PA government in Gaza and seized power. The PA has been left with control of sections of the West Bank, while Israel maintains control of most of it.

The report found that repression in both Gaza and the West Bank had become worse as the PA and Hamas hunted each other’s supporters in their territory. “Where they have autonomy, they have developed parallel police states,” said Mr Porteous. 

HRW has previously accused Israel’s security forces of torturing Palestinian detainees and abusing children taking into Israeli custody. Israel denies the claims. 

The latest HRW report is unlikely to have much impact on Hamas, which is considered a terrorist group by the US and EU and is supported by states like Iran with dismal human rights records of their own. 

But the report may put strong pressure on the PA security forces, who are largely funded by the West. The US and EU both support the PA and argue that the Palestinian security forces play a major role in preventing violence against Israel. 

A spokesman for the PA prime minister did not respond to a request for comment. 

Israeli and PA security forces cooperate closely against Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups, although neither side is eager to discuss the relationship in public.

A man-eating Indian tiger has been shot dead after an exhaustive, months-long search, involving drones, sharpshooters, dogs, elephants, 200 forestry rangers and Calvin Klein cologne.

The "aggressive and clever" tigress, known as T1, was shot on Friday evening in Maharashtra state, having been hunted for killing a suspected 14 people over the last two years. 

The lead hunter shot her with a .458 Winchester Magnum rifle, claiming the tigress charged at him and left him no other option. 

“There was no doubt that human lives were in danger. There was a market day and the tiger was just on a road that people use and children cycle on so we had to get there," Asgar Ali Khan, a legendary tiger catcher recruited to hunt the animal, told the Sunday Telegraph.  

“This was a tigress that was aggressive and clever, and had absolutely no fear of humans," he said.

"She had tasted human flesh and saw us like monkeys, or goats, or other prey. So when she charged at us I had to shoot in self-defence.”

The saga has been through the courts, wildlife departments and splashed across newspapers all summer as people followed the search for the killer tiger of Pandharkawda, in the west Indian state.  

Mr Asgar is descended from a line of well-respected hunters and had been in pursuit of T1 since September. 

The hunt began with much fanfare but faced several problems, including a rampaging elephant that killed a villager, protests from conservation groups over the Mr Asgar’s involvement and CK Obsession aftershave failing to attract the beast.

The fragrance contains civetone, a synthetic smell derived from the civet species known to drive big cats wild, but the bait didn’t work.

“She was too clever for the cologne”, said Mr Asgar. “We were dealing with an extraordinarily smart tiger.”

However, wildlife activists and animal experts questioned the tactics deployed in T1’s killing. 

Senior veterinarian and forensic expert Prayag Hodigere Siddalingappa said: “It’s not a legal shooting. It’s a murder, poaching. How did they do it without the presence of a vet?

“How could they identify the tigress at night? How did they do it after sunset? The tiger runs away after being darted, it doesn’t charge back at you.”

Mr Asgar said his team was experienced and had night vision equipment. They tracked T1 for several weeks.

He said: “After hearing reports of the tiger being on the road we moved in to ensure safe passage of any people and to get them out, and also in the hope of tranquilising her.”

The remains of the tiger were sent to Nagpur’s Gorewada Zoo, where a postmortem will be conducted.

On the protests, Mr Asgar said: “I am very disappointed to hear such reaction. Our priority was always to capture the tigress, but my team was in extreme danger when she charged us, so I had to shoot. I just picked up my .458 Winchester Magnum rifle and fired. I didn’t even have time to aim.”

The tigress was six-years-old and her cubs are about one year old. The search continues for the offspring, with the idea to sedate them and move them to a safari park or zoo.

A woman carrying a grenade-shaped belt buckle on a train from Barcelona to Madrid caused havoc on Wednesday, forcing railway stations to be evacuated as well as delays.

Police in Barcelona said they were advised by security personnel in the city’s main Sants station that "they had seen by scan an object that could be an explosive artefact," a spokesman told AFP.

A photo of the luggage scan posted on the Twitter feed of Catalonia’s Mossos police force showed what looked clearly like a grenade.

Most Spanish stations require passengers boarding trains to put their luggage through scanners.

Police subsequently evacuated two high-speed trains at the Barcelona station but didn’t find anything, the spokesman said.

"Then we saw that this person could be in a train going to Madrid. We warned national police," he added.

People were then evacuated from the Spanish capital’s main Atocha station, the state-owned Adif company which manages the country’s railway stations told AFP.

Police said they created a security zone on part of a platform at the station, which was the scene of one of Europe’s worst terror attacks in 2004 when 191 people were killed in explosions on commuter trains.

When the train arrived, they checked the luggage and found that the grenade-like object was actually a "belt buckle," a police spokeswoman said.

It is unclear why security personnel in Barcelona let the passenger get onto the train if they were worried about the potential grenade.

Adif told AFP they were looking into the incident.

Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, appeared in court in a wheelchair on Friday to learn the date of his sentencing. 

Manafort was convicted of eight bank and tax fraud convictions in the summer and has been in a local Virginia jail ever since waiting to be sentenced. 

The former political consultant was brought into the court in a wheelchair with his right foot bandaged and elevated and did not rise when the judge presiding over his case addressed him. 

He was wearing a prison jumpsuit that read "Alexandria inmate" after previously being refused permission to appear in a suit.

Manafort’s lawyer Kevin Downing told Judge TS Ellis that there are “significant issues with Manafort’s health right now that have to do with his confinement”.

Mr Downing said the conditions of his confinement are for Manafort’s safety, but he asked that Mr Ellis expedite the pre-sentence investigation so Manafort could move as soon as possible out of a local jail and presumably to a federal prison. Downing did not elaborate on Manafort’s health issues.

“I’m not the judge who ordered that confinement,” Judge Ellis said, but he added he would bear the concerns in mind.

The 69-year-old is reported to have a serious medical condition related to this diet. His bandaged foot is thought to be caused by a dietary-related inflammation in his foot.

He learned on Friday that he will be sentenced on February 8 next year and legal experts suggest he is likely to face around 10 years in prison.

Since his conviction Manafort has been co-operating with Robert Mueller, the man heading up a federal investigation into possible Russian collusion in the 2016 presidential election. 

The plea deal with President Trump’s former campaign chief was seen as a major turning point for the Russia investigation.

Manafort is the most senior of the president’s former aides to be convicted in Mr Mueller’s Russia investigation.

Under the deal, Manafort pleaded guilty to a series of other financial charges he had set to stand trial on. He is reported to have spent over 50 hours with Mr Mueller’s team.

As part of the deal, Mr Mueller did not have to decide whether to prosecute Manafort on 10 remaining charges until after he is done co-operating or is sentenced – whichever came last.

But Judge Ellis called that agreement "highly unusual" and Mr Mueller’s prosecutors agreed yesterday to dismiss the charges and prepare for sentencing.

However the charges were dropped the charges without prejudice, meaning the prosecution could reintroduce them at a later date, giving them further leverage over Manafort.

President Donald Trump now has to contend with his political opponents holding one half of the US Congress, a blow delivered in the midterms that will shape how the next two years play out. 

The change will alter his plans for legislation and likely put his administration on the back foot thanks to a long list of investigations expected to be launched by Democrat-held House committees. 

However, the impact is not total, with Mr Trump enjoying a stronger Republican hold on the Senate and still able to act without congressional approval through his presidential powers. 

Much depends also on how the Democrats choose to wield their new majority and the balance they strike between reaching across…