Tensions are rising in France, home to one of Europe’s largest Muslim minorities, ahead of the snap election run-off.

Fatimata, a 22-year-old French Muslim woman, suddenly feels as though many of her compatriots are against her very being.

On Sunday, the far right led the first round of parliamentary elections and while it’s not yet clear if Marine Le Pen’s National Rally movement will form a majority after the July 7 run-off, many of France’s six million Muslims are, like Fatimata, paralysed with fear.

“I am feeling betrayed by France. Knowing that 10.6 million people voted for a party promoting the ban of the veil in the public space is hurtful,” she told Al Jazeera.

She represents the kind of French citizen that Le Pen’s party has long demonised.

She wears the hijab, she was born to foreign parents – Mauritanian and Senegalese, and she was raised in one of the banlieues, the impoverished suburbs circling Paris that are home to many immigrant and ethnic minority communities. She’s also a dual citizen.

Le Pen has called for the hijab to be banned in public spaces while Jordan Bardella, her protege who could become France’s next prime minister, has called the veil a “tool of discrimination”. He has railed against the populous banlieue north of Paris that he grew up in – Seine-Saint-Denis – and promised to ban dual nationals from some “the most strategic” state jobs if his party seizes power.

“I’ve experienced to the core the feeling of becoming a foreigner in one’s own country. I’ve experienced the Islamisation of my neighbourhood,” 28-year-old Bardella said in June.

Fatimata, a student, hails from Stains, a commune within Seine-Saint-Denis. It is possible that as a child, she may have walked past Bardella at a market or sat across from him in a cafe.

“I received French nationality when I was 13, and I can’t help to think that somewhere in my banlieue, there is a 13-year-old girl just like I was who won’t be able to achieve things because the first party in France is now the National Rally,” she said.

‘Compromising my future’

President Emmanuel Macron called the snap polls after suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of the far right in the recent European Parliament elections. But his risky gamble has backfired.

While National Rally secured about a third of Sunday’s vote with 33.15 percent, the New Popular Front, a left-wing alliance, came second with 28.14 percent. Macron was left red-faced again, as his centrist alliance scored just 20.76 percent. Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets since to rally against the far right.

Elias, a 27-year-old who works in marketing, said many Muslims are considering emigrating from France if the National Rally ends up governing – a trend which has already taken hold among some professionals.

Earlier this year, the authors of a study titled La France, tu l’aimes mais tu la quittes (France, loving it but leaving it), conducted a survey of more than 1,000 people, interviewing 140 at length. They cited a “brain drain” of French Muslims quitting the country for jobs abroad because of the “harmful effects of Islamophobia”.

While a “valid” reaction to discrimination or the rise of the far right, Elias said he feels “torn”.

“If we all leave, who will continue to resist? I think it is important to stay, at least for the future generations,” said Elias, who has Algerian ancestry.

“What’s also making me very worried is the potential increase of police violence. There will probably be a surge of racial profiling and of violence, because the officers will feel protected and supported by the National Rally.

“I am scared for my little brother, who is 15 years old and who had his first police check when he was only 13.”

For Tiziri Messaoudene, an 18-year-old student of Algerian descent, it is Bardella’s position on dual nationals that is most frightening.

During a pre-election speech, Bardella justified his stance by evoking Russia’s war on Ukraine, saying, “Can anyone imagine a Franco-Russian working at the armed forces ministry today?”

“The National Rally is saying that dual-nationality holders will not be allowed to work in ‘strategic positions in the state’. This is compromising my future in this country. I am studying political science and would like to work in public affairs, so if this bill passes, would I have studied for nothing?” Tiziri said.

In Carpentras, Tiziri’s hometown in southern France, the National Rally scored 53.51 percent on Sunday.

National Rally was previously known as the National Front, the party founded in 1972 by Marine Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen. The movement has attempted to soften the hard-right image cultivated by Le Pen senior, who was known for, and convicted of, racist hate speech.

Rim-Sarah Alouane, a French legal expert, said it would be “theoretically impossible” for the National Rally to carry out some of its aims.

“The bill on the ban on the veil in the public space would infringe on the laïcité (secularism) principle, while the bill on the dual-nationality holders would infringe on the principle of equality between the citizens,” Alouane told Al Jazeera.

“Nevertheless, the National Rally is a political party like no other, which means that it could do exceptional things if it comes to power.

“So in theory, those bills are against the Constitution. But in practice, we will have to see if the supreme institutions of the country will play their roles as counterweights.”

She believes that a “long process of normalisation” lies behind the far right’s success.

Under Macron’s government, controversial bills such as the abaya ban, the so-called separatism law and recent measures on immigration have rocked marginalised groups.

“It’s an important thing to remember,” said Tiziri. “Even under Macron, we lived in a nauseating Islamophobic and racist climate, where scapegoats were the Muslims and the people from foreign origin.”

According to Benjamin Tainturier, a doctoral student at Sciences Po Paris who researches far-right discourse in the media, the National Rally’s rise can be linked to the “demonisation of the radical left”, especially of Jean-Luc Melenchon’s France Unbowed party, as well as shifting theories on racism.

“After 15 years, the National Rally has succeeded in changing the definition of what racism is, through replacing a colonial and essentialist racism by a more subtle form,” he told Al Jazeera.

Macron’s Renaissance party also “stigmatised its left-wing opponents, by using the same demonising tactics that were used against the far-right before”, he said.

While campaigning, centrist politicians adopted the slogan “Ni RN, ni LFI” (Neither National Rally, nor France Unbowed).

Looking ahead, Tainturier shares Elias’s concern that police-led discrimination could surge if the far right dominates the parliament.

“If the ruling power conveys the idea that it is acceptable to discriminate against people according to their origins, it could legitimise police violence and thus increase it,” he warned.

Meanwhile, Macron, who faces the prospect of awkwardly cohabiting with a far-right premier, is urging voters to get behind the centre, ominously warning of “civil war” if the hard right – or left – triumphs.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

L’article Elections. France’s Muslims fear for their futures as Le Pen’s far right party surges est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

At least 500 prisoners are on hunger strike inside a Bahraini prison primarily used to detain prisoners of conscience, refusing food in protest at their detention conditions.

Detainees began refusing food on 7 August, and increasing numbers have joined since.

Sayed Alwadaei, at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (Bird) and a former inmate at Jau prison, said: “This is probably one of the most powerful strikes that has ever happened inside the Bahraini prison system; the scale of it is overwhelming.”

According to a statement from the inmates released through the outlawed Al-Wefaq opposition party, the hunger strike includes demands for increased time outside their cells, currently limited to an hour a day, prayers in congregation at the prison mosque, changes to constraints on family visits, improvements to education facilities and access to proper medical care.

Detainees at Jau prison that mainly houses prisoners of conscience began refusing food on 7 August

“These are not frivolous demands, but necessary ones required for human life,” the prisoners added.

The tiny Gulf island of Bahrain, population 1.5 million, has one of the highest incarceration rates per capita in the Middle East. An estimated 3,800 people are behind bars, of which Bird estimates that 1,200 are prisoners of conscience.

Since pro-democracy protests against the ruling Al Khalifa family swept Bahrain in 2011, a large number of people connected with demonstrations have been incarcerated. The government has launched sweeping crackdowns on activists, civil society and opposition political groups, including banning two political parties.

Most of the 1,200 political prisoners held in Bahrain are in Jau prison. Former inmates such as Alwadaei say political prisoners are housed in separate blocks and subjected to especially harsh treatment.

Prominent political prisoners, including the veteran human rights defender Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, are among the hunger strikers in Jau. His daughter, the activist Maryam al-Khawaja, said her father, who has been incarcerated since 2011, launched his own hunger strike to demand adequate medical treatment for a heart condition, after he was denied an appointment with a cardiologist on 11 occasions.

She said her father believed he had been singled out for additional punishment after demanding that prisoners received proper medical attention.

The lack of medical care, she said, was putting his life at risk. “He has a heart arrhythmia and he is at risk of a heart attack or a stroke at any time. We believe my father needs urgent surgery to install a pacemaker.”

Prisoners say denial of medical treatment, use of punitive solitary confinement and abuse are common. The family of Ahmed Jaafar Mohamed Ali, a dissident extradited from Serbia to Bahrain last year in contravention of a ruling by the European court of human rights because of fears he would be tortured in Bahrain, said he had joined the hunger strike.

His family say that after Ali demanded to see the duty officer at Jau on 15 August, the officer arrived and instructed other guards to pepper spray Ali in the face. He was then bound, with his arms behind his back and on his legs, before being taken to solitary confinement.

The national communication centre of Bahrain told the Guardian after publication: “The government of Bahrain is committed to protecting human rights and ensuring that international standards are met for all dealings with inmates at its reform and rehabilitation facilities”, and repeatedly asserted there were no prisoners of conscience held within its system.

Officers and other employees at Jau prison “are fully committed to dealing with inmates in accordance to the law,” it added.

The office of Bahrain’s interior ministry ombudsman said it had conducted investigations to “ensure the inmates obtain all their rights, whether from health care, visits or contact with their families, and are not being subjected to ill-treatment”.

Maryam al-Khawaja pointed to the broad international assistance received by Bahraini authorities from abroad, including Britain. The UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, met the crown prince of Bahrain, Salman Bin Hamad Al Khalifa, in July. Britain also increased funding to the Bahraini interior ministry and security bodies to £1.8m last year through its opaque Gulf strategy fund.

She said: “The ruling family know they are incredibly dependent on their western allies … in many ways they [the allies] have enabled the Bahraini regime to stay in power.”

By Ruth Michaelson – Theguardian.com

L’article At least 500 Bahraini prisoners on hunger strike over conditions est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

Benjamin Netanyahu has begun to impose an overhaul of Israel’s institutions, which most of his fellow citizens do not want. The prime minister has succeeded in pitting against him some of the most influential entrepreneurs in the digital economy he prides himself on having created.

The head of the central bank, the leading representatives of the judiciary, all the former army chiefs of staff, the former leaders of the intelligence services, thousands of reservists, notably from the air force, the association of medical personnel and doctors… The list of the country’s driving forces who have warned him against such a move, to no avail, is endless.

His own camp is alarmed by this stubbornness. Netanyahu’s coalition was elected in November 2022 for four years, with 64 seats out of 120 in parliament. But for months, opinion polls have shown that most Israelis reject this reform or want it to pass only with the opposition’s approval by consensus.

A significant proportion of Netanyahu’s voters are turning away from him, witnessing the tearing apart of the Jewish majority – 80 % of the population – whose effects promise to be felt for years. Yet Netanyahu persists. On July 24, his coalition reduced the Supreme Court’s supervisory power over his actions and those of local administrations and the appointment and dismissal of senior civil servants.

It thus weakens the justice system’s ability to fight corruption and nepotism. But, more than the substance of the legislation, its passage by force is shocking. Netanyahu repeatedly refused to hear the chief of staff before the vote, even as discord spread through the army’s ranks. Thousands of reservists are no longer volunteering for the military, to which they are indispensable.

Radicalized base and messianic far right

According to the daily newspaper Haaretz, two generals dispatched in uniform to the Knesset waited for hours without being able to meet with certain ministers they were supposed to inform about the gravity of the crisis. The day after the vote, the major international rating agencies published harsh analyses. Netanyahu dismissed them.

Once again, the prime minister who has been on trial for corruption since 2020 says he will negotiate with the opposition before proceeding with his reforms. There is every reason to fear that this promise will amount to nothing. Justice Minister Yariv Levin intends to tackle the appointment of government legal advisors and Supreme Court judges during the fall to bring the institution in line.

Even among the ultra-Orthodox parties, at war with the Supreme Court for three decades, doubts are emerging. They realize secular and liberal Israelis are turning against their community. Only the radicalized electoral base of the « Bibists » and the messianic far right, which thrives on Israel’s colonial war in the Palestinian territories and dreams of a Jewish theocracy between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, remain adamantly committed to the reform.

For over 15 years, Netanyahu ruled by pitting one part of Israel against another: Jews against Arabs, Mizrahi Jews against Ashkenazis, the country’s center against its periphery, and the « people » against the institutions. It was a tactic, a way to become indispensable. Now it is his very legacy.

World Opinions + Le Monde

L’article Debate. Benyamin Netanyahu and the politics of division est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s move to force through his deeply unpopular pension reform, without a vote in parliament, could rekindle social unrest reminiscent of the Yellow Vest movement, union leaders and analysts have warned as protests continue to sweep the country.

Demonstrations against the government’s use of a special constitutional provision, known as article 49.3, to sweep aside parliamentary opposition to the reform have been angrier than anything seen over the past two months.

Unions, united in coordinating their protests, called for a ninth strike day next Thursday, but many expressed fears they could lose control of the protests as more radical demonstrators set the tone.

« Yes, we are worried, » Cyril Chabanier, the head of the moderate CFTC union, told AFP.

Commentators have begun to wonder whether the hardening of fronts could herald the return of the Yellow Vests, a grassroots movement that started in 2018 as a protest against rising fuel prices and snowballed into the biggest social action against Macron in his first term.

« It’s a social law of physics, » said Jean-Marie Pernot, a political scientist specialising in trade unions.

« If you don’t respect any of the channels meant for the expression of dissent, it will find a way to express itself directly, » he told AFP.

Early Yellow Vest action was marked by strikes, weekly demonstrations, the blocking of roads and fuel depots, and the worst clashes with riot police in decades.

It was only with the imposition of restrictions on movement brought about by the Covid crisis that the movement’s actions were brought to a halt.

‘Tougher action ahead’

« There may be tougher action ahead, more serious and further-reaching, » warned Fabrice Coudour, a leading energy sector representative for the hard-left CGT Union.

« It may well escape our collective decision-making, » he said.

The Yellow Vests prided themselves on having no designated leaders. They resisted attempts by left-wing politicians and unions to harness the movement’s energy for their own ends.

One of their more prominent spokesmen was Jerome Rodrigues, who lost an eye to a police rubber bullet during clashes at one demo.

Within hours of Macron’s pensions move on Thursday, Rodrigues told an angry, cheering crowd outside the National Assembly that the objective was now nothing less than « the defeat » of the president.

At the same time, protests erupted in many parts of France, some demonstrators destroying street furniture, smashing windows and setting bins on fire.

In the central French city of Dijon, protesters burned effigies of Macron.

The CGT announced that it would force the shutdown of energy giant TotalEnergies’ refinery in Normandy in France’s northwest as of this weekend.

Picket lines at power utility Electricite de France would also be extended, the CGT said. And early on Friday, CGT activists blocked Paris’s busy ringroad, the Boulevard Périphérique.

‘Government’s fault’

The unions have already put the responsibility for any future trouble at the government’s doorstep.

« Obviously, when there is this much anger and so many French people on the streets, the more radical elements take the floor, » said Laurent Escure, boss of the UNSA trade union federation. 

« This is not what we want, but it’s going to happen. And it will be entirely the government’s fault, » he told AFP.

For weeks, Laurent Berger, head of the moderate CFDT union, has been warning the government that there could be more trouble if protesters got the idea that the Yellow Vests achieved more with violence than established unions with their peaceful, mass demonstrations.

« What is the democratic outlook for a country that fails to respond to 1.5 or 2 million people in the streets on three occasions, but that did respond to a violent movement with a fifth of that number in the street? » he asked in an interview last month.

Macron made a number of concessions to the Yellow Vest movement.

Among other measures, he scrapped a planned carbon tax and boosted salaries for minimum wage earners, for a total estimated cost to public finances of 10 billion euros ($10.7 billion).

World Opinions – FRANCE 24 – AFP

L’article French unions see threat of Yellow Vest rerun over Macron’s retirement push.. Video est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

Saad Lamjarred, a star Moroccan singer, has been found guilty of raping a young woman in France and sentenced to six years in prison.

Lamjarred, 37, showed no reaction after the verdict was announced by a court in Paris on Friday, French media reported. He was immediately detained.

During a short trial, he denied raping the woman in a Paris hotel in 2016.

Lamjarred is famous in the Arab music world. His hit LM3ALLEM has been viewed more than one billion times on YouTube.

When Lamjarred was arrested in 2016, the king of Morocco – who has awarded Lamjarred the country’s highest national honour – intervened to cover the singer’s legal fees.

Many of the singer’s fans alleged at the time that he was the victim of a « plot » by neighbouring Algeria, which has strained relations with Morocco.

And the first song he released after his arrest, which he dedicated to the king, showed just how popular he remained, gaining over 140m views.

It was not immediately clear if he planned to appeal against the verdict.

World Opinions – BBC News

L’article Saad Lamjarred: Moroccan star singer convicted of rape in France est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

Momina Khatun is convinced she is cursed.

She’s one of hundreds of women in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam who married under the age of 18 – and are now stuck in limbo after their husbands were arrested in a crackdown on child marriage.

The state government claims it wants to eradicate the illegal practice, but Ms Khatun and other women whose husbands are in custody say they have been left helpless.

Ms Khatun, who is expecting a baby, didn’t have an easy start in life, but marriage turned out better than she expected.

Her father remarried when she was eight. A few months later her mother abandoned her too, leaving her to live with her paternal aunt in a tiny village in the state.

« Life was difficult there. I was treated like I was a burden to her family, » Ms Khatun said. Last year, when her aunt’s family decided to get her married at the age of 17, she was delirious with fear.

« We were always told that the man we marry will determine the quality of our life. I was young and worried what would happen if my husband was a bad person. »

But Yakub Ali, the farmer she married, turned out to be a kind man who took away the « loneliness and replaced it with genuine love and affection », Ms Khatun said.

« There wasn’t much, we were poor. At least there was peace. »

But their happiness was short-lived.

On 4 February, Mr Ali was arrested from their home and charged with marrying Ms Khatun when she was a minor.

A week on, the 22-year-old remains in custody. Ms Khatun, who is seven months pregnant, has not been able to meet her husband since his arrest.

« Where do I go? I have no one. My child and I will die hungry and lonely, » she said.

Ms Khatun and hundreds of other women in Assam have been protesting after their male relatives were arrested in connection with cases of child marriage.

More than 8,100 people have been named in police complaints so far, including the parents of grooms and priests who performed the marriage ceremonies. It was not immediately clear how the police arrived at the figures – the BBC has contacted officials for comment – but at least 2,500 people have been arrested since last week.

Women like Ms Khatun see the action as a « cruel interference in their lives ».

Mostly uneducated and poor, they say the arrested men are primary breadwinners for their families and that they depend on them to survive. Videos of women, wailing outside police stations and rolling on the ground, have cascaded over social media, fuelling feelings of anger and outrage.

Those like Mr Ali, who are accused of marrying girls aged 14-18, are being charged under a law that bans child marriage and carries a sentence of two years and a fine.

Men accused of marrying girls below 14 have been charged under a more stringent law that protects children from sexual offences, a non-bailable felony carrying jail terms ranging from seven years to life.

Reports say that districts with higher Muslim populations in Assam have seen more arrests than others, though hundreds of Hindu men have also been arrested.

Under Muslim personal law in India, girls can get married once they reach puberty. The conflict between this and India’s Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, which bars all marriages of women below the age of 18, is being challenged in the Supreme Court. »There is a line of precedent that special laws will override general personal laws of any religion, » according to Dr Arghya Sengupta, research director of Vidhi Legal, a think-thank.

But he added that « the unjustness of the situation » also needs to be factored in. « The personal law of Muslims has allowed girls who have attained puberty to marry of their own free will for decades. So to suddenly throw their husbands in jail for a practice which, in their eyes, was never wrong may be unjust. »

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma maintains that his government is at « war » against child marriage and isn’t targeting any one community. But critics say the retrospective arrests are the latest attempt of the state’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government to marginalise minorities, especially Bengali-speaking Muslims.

The community, which migrated from what was once East Pakistan and is now Bangladesh, has long faced discrimination in the multi-ethnic state, where linguistic identity and citizenship are the biggest political fault lines.

The Hindu-nationalist BJP government, which is also in power nationally, has announced a slew of policies, including a controversial citizenship law, that critics say discriminates particularly against Bengali-speaking Muslims.

Experts say the arrests could push illegal marriages underground, making them harder to report.

« Child marriages are more a social malaise than a religious one, and are rooted in poverty and patriarchy, » says Dr Abdul Azad, lecturer and researcher at Vrije University, Amsterdam.

« It is only through social and economic upliftment of communities that the practice can be truly eradicated – not by explicitly targeting a single community. »

Although illegal, child marriage is widespread in many parts of India mainly due to patriarchal customs, lack of education and poverty.

Very few cases are actually reported. In Assam, only 155 cases of child marriage were registered in 2021, and 138 in 2020, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.

The latest crackdown started on 23 January, when Mr Sarma expressed alarm over the soaring underage pregnancy rate in Assam and promised to put an end to the problem.

The sudden nature of the move has shattered many families.

Khalidul Rashid, a resident of Dhubri district in Assam, breaks down before he even begins speaking.

He says his 23-year-old daughter Kulsoom Khan took her own life on 4 February. The eldest of four, Kulsoom was married off when she was 14. In 2020, when her husband died of Covid-19, she moved back to her parent’s home with her two children.

Everything was fine in her life, her father says, but when she heard last week about the arrests, she became vey tense.

On Friday, she asked her father for her marriage certificate. « I told her that her husband was dead and she had nothing to worry about, » Mr Rashid says.

But Kulsoom was afraid the police would arrest her parents.

« So she took her life – to protect us, » Mr Rashid says.

Dr Kalam says that while most of the child marriages in Assam occur among the marginalised communities, a powerful social movement against the practice has taken shape in recent years.

Now the government’s « aggressive approach », he says, will weaken this movement.

« Our society has become so divided that such brutal actions are gaining support, » Dr Kalam says.

Masud Zaman, a lawyer based in Dhubri district who is fighting on behalf of eight women protesters, agrees with the assessment.

A Muslim-dominated area, Dhubri has recorded the highest number of arrests.

« The common perception is that child marriage is a problem of Muslim society. But child marriage rates are high in Dhubri because it’s one of the poorest districts of Assam, where most families are illiterate. Not because Muslims live here, » Mr Zaman says.

He accused the government of turning a social issue into a communal one, at the expense of women’s lives.

While both Hindu and Muslim men have been rounded up in the recent arrests, the lawyer alleges there has been selective treatment in the way bail is being given.

« In Majuli – which is predominantly home to tribal communities – 24 men got bail within a day. We argued on behalf of [Muslim] men accused of the same offences on the same grounds, but couldn’t get bail. »

The BBC saw a copy of one of the bail orders passed by a district court in Majuli, which states the arrests had been made on « vague and insufficient grounds ».

Mr Zaman added that it was insensitive to think money – the government has announced financial compensation for the affected women – could alleviate their grief.

« What about the emotional bond between a wife and her husband? How will the government compensate women for that? »

It’s a question that haunts Ms Khatun.

« Does suffering ever end in a woman’s life? » she says.

World Opinions – BBC News

L’article Assam: India child brides desperate after mass arrests est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

The eruption of nationwide protests in Iran following the death in police custody of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman detained for allegedly failing to adhere to hijab (headscarf) rules is the most serious challenge Iran’s leadership has faced in years.

While authorities say Mahsa Amini died from underlying health reasons, her family and countless other Iranians believe she died as a result of having been beaten.

Protesters say that if they don’t act now, they could fall victim to the same fate. At least 30 people have been killed in the protests.

It has come at a time when Iranians are feeling particularly fed up. Systematic corruption among Iran’s political elite, growing poverty with inflation at more than 50%, deadlock in nuclear talks and lack of social and political freedom have left Iran’s young and vibrant population feeling hopeless.

According to Iran’s Social Security Organization Research Institute at least 25 million Iranians were living below the poverty line by June 2021. That number is even higher now.

These are not the first protests in the history of the Islamic republic of Iran. But many observers believe there is something different about them.

More than anything, this is a woman’s protest.

‘Society has shifted’

Civil liberties groups continually spotlight the suppression of women in Iran, an entire part of society who have been the biggest losers of the Islamic revolution of 1979.

Iranian women were forced to wear hijab (headscarf) soon after the revolution and have lost many of their rights, including right to travel, right to work and right to child custody over the age of seven. There was little objection to these changes from men at the time.

« The fact that many men are joining the protests shows that the society has shifted to more progressive demands, » says Mehrdad Darvishpour, an Iranian sociologist based in Sweden.

The main slogan of protesters is « Woman, Life, Freedom », a call for equality and a stance against religious fundamentalism.

Also, these protests are far more inclusive than the previous ones.

The so-called Green Movement of 2009 saw the middle class protest against alleged election fraud. Although it was large in size, it centred on major cities. Other major protests in 2017 and 2019 were confined to poorer areas.

But the current protests are now being reported in both middle class and working class areas. They seem to have moved from local or ethnic issues, to more inclusive ones.

« We are witnessing the birth of a mega-movement, » says Mr Darvishpour.

https://emp.bbc.com/emp/SMPj/2.46.1/iframe.htmlMedia caption,

How Mahsa Amini became a symbol of defiance in Iran

A movement that was being led by women but has managed to bring other movements together. And more importantly, the symbolic value of burning hijabs, has cracked the image of an unbreakable regime.

According to Mr Darvishpour, there is no going back from this experience.

Government’s options

The establishment is in a very difficult place. The death of Mahsa Amini has even shaken some of the hardcore supporters of the government.

Many of them, including some clerics, are questioning the violent tactics that are being used by morality police against women.

So, the government has two options: To change its strict hijab rules, which are part of the identity of the Islamic republic. But doing so may encourage protesters to continue until they reach their final demand for regime change.

Or not to change anything and continue the violent crackdown and killing of protesters, which may briefly calm down the unrest but will only add fuel to their ever growing anger.

Many of the riot police that are now suppressing the protests are also suffering from economic difficulties and are not necessarily supportive of the establishment.

If these protests continue they might switch sides.

On top of that, the Supreme Leader’s 83 years of age and his ill health is on the mind of many Iranians on both sides.

It’s unclear whether whoever succeeds him will be able to sustain the support of the regime’s hardcore supporters or not.

This might not be the final chapter, but it is a very important one.

Lives are being lost, but more cracks are appearing in a system that is no longer working for many angry Iranians who want a different way of life.

World Opinions + BBC News

L’article Iran grapples with most serious challenge in years est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

Female protesters have been at the forefront of escalating protests in Iran and have been burning headscarves, after the death in custody of a woman detained for breaking hijab laws.

Videos of public protests are being posted on Iranian social media after the death of Mahsa Amini following her arrest by morality police.

Protesters chant "death to the dictator" near Argentina Square, central Tehran, tonight (35.7371115,51.4153741) pic.twitter.com/MXdwQOkyZZ

— Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) September 16, 2022

Demonstrations have continued for five successive nights, and reached several towns and cities.

Mahsa Amini died in hospital on Friday after spending three days in a coma.

In Sari, north of Tehran, large crowds cheered as women set their hijabs alight in defiant acts of protest.

Ms Amini was arrested in the capital last week by Iran’s morality police, accused of breaking the law requiring women to cover their hair with a hijab, or headscarf, and their arms and legs with loose clothing.

She fell into a coma shortly after collapsing at a detention centre.

At Mahsa Amini's funeral in her hometown of Saqqez, Kurdistan province, women take their headscarves off in protest against Iran's forced hijab law amid "death to the dictator" chants.

Mahsa, 22, died in custody after being arrested by morality police.pic.twitter.com/MaqyberjNO

— Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) September 17, 2022

Mahsa Amini, 22, was arrested by Iran's morality police for so-called "inappropriate hijab". She fell into a coma at a police station and sadly died at a hospital today. Morality police claim she had a "sudden heart attack". Her mother says Mahsa was murdered by the authorities. pic.twitter.com/ibWOnMBROk

— Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) September 16, 2022

There were reports that police beat Ms Amini’s head with a baton and banged her head against one of their vehicles, Acting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Nada al-Nashif said.

The police have denied that she was mistreated and said she suffered « sudden heart failure ». Ms Amini’s family has said she was fit and healthy.

The 22-year-old was from Kurdistan Province in western Iran, where three people were killed on Monday as security forces opened fire on protesters.

An aide to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei paid a visit to Ms Amini’s family on Monday and told them that « all institutions will take action to defend the rights that were violated », state media reported.

Senior MP Jalal Rashidi Koochi publicly criticised the morality police, saying the force was a « mistake » as it had only produced « loss and damage » for Iran.

World Opinions + BBC News

L’article Iran protests: Women burn headscarves in anti-hijab protests est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

On July 29, a white Italian man beat to death Alika Ogorchukwu, a disabled Nigerian street vendor from Civitanova Marche in Italy, as bystanders looked on and merely recorded the homicide.

On finding out about Ogorchukwu’s demise, I contemplated whether to watch footage of the murder and inevitably run the risk of suffering the anguish that George Floyd’s similarly traumatic demise inflicted on my soul in May 2020.

In the end, to truly bear witness to the immense suffering he had been subjected to in his final moments, to experience a small measure of the pain that he felt, I watched it. The footage left me teary, sick and trembling with fear. Ogorchukwu was like me, after all: a middle-aged African migrant who was trying to build a better future for himself and his family.

According to Italian police, the frenzied attack occurred after Ogorchukwu persistently attempted to sell merchandise to Filippo Claudio Giuseppe Ferlazzo and his girlfriend.

However, the Association Center Services for Migrants in the Marche Region said Ogorchukwu was attacked not for assuming a hard sale approach, but for allegedly addressing Ferlazzo’s girlfriend as “beautiful” (and touching her arm).

Listening to the discussions over the alleged motivation behind the senseless, racist murder, I couldn’t help but think about the “unresolved” 1955 murder of Emmett Till in Mississippi, the United States.

Fourteen-year-old Till was kidnapped, beaten, shot in the head, tied to a massive metal fan and thrown into the Tallahatchie River, for the “crime” of supposedly whistling at a 21-year-old white woman. He had allegedly “flirted” with her and that sealed his shocking fate. Six decades later, Carolyn Bryant Donham, the white woman at the centre of the allegations against Till, revealed that she had actually lied about everything.

The crude and degrading caricature of a “black brute”, a violent beast that is “crazed with lust” for white women, was critical to 19th and 20th century American “negrophobic” discourse and white supremacist ideologies used to justify racism, and the lynching of Black men. White supremacists have long used made-up “attacks” on white women’s dignities to commit violence against Black men and perpetrate white terror.

Ogorchukwu’s recent murder demonstrates that the very public, incessant and systematically imposed dehumanisation and criminalisation of Black people that led to Emmett Till’s gruesome murder in the US more than half a century ago – and the murder of countless other African Americans in modern-day America – is also claiming lives miles away in Italy.

Indeed, Ogorchukwu, unfortunately, is not the first, and sadly will likely not be the last, among countless African men and women shot, injured and killed in racially motivated attacks in Italy.

In 1979, for example, unknown assailants burned to death Ahmed Ali Jama, a Somali refugee. Giacomo Valent, a 16-year-old student of Italian and Somali descent, was beaten and stabbed to death in 1985 for being a “dirty n*****” by two white classmates. And Senegalese migrant Assane Diallo was shot ten times and killed in Milan after asking a stranger for five euros in 2018.

Black, brown and migrant bodies are in as much danger in Europe as they are in America.

The violence is not just physical, though: it is often verbal, too, and cleverly embedded in nationalist philosophies and anti-migration policies.

Italy’s first Black minister Cécile Kyenge has been likened to an orangutan by a right-wing senator, for instance, and professional footballer Mario Balotelli has repeatedly become the target of monkey chants in football stadiums.

Meanwhile, right-wing political parties, such as the League, led by former Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, have deliberately stoked anti-migrant sentiments to win votes. “We need a mass cleansing, street by street, piazza by piazza, neighbourhood by neighbourhood,” Salvini said ahead of parliamentary elections in 2018. And he’s unashamedly claimed that people like Kyenge and Balotelli are just “pawns” in some mysterious grand scheme to erase “identities, diversities, histories” in Italy.

Like so many “America first” nationalists in the US, Salvini seemingly subscribes to the racist “White Replacement Theory” and this explains his astonishing animosity towards migrants. As interior minister, he notoriously barred foreign ships carrying sick and desperate migrants rescued at sea from docking at Italy’s shores. At the time, Spanish newspaper El Mundo said, “Europe has not experienced such alarming levels of racial intolerance since the consolidation of the fascist movements in the years leading up to World War II”. It added, “Europe cannot continue to tolerate the violent attitude of an EU member who does nothing but undermine the values on which the European project is based”.

Italy is currently gearing up for snap parliamentary elections on September 25 and Salvini has once again managed to make immigration the decisive electoral matter. Despite El Mundo’s admirable observations and protestations, I don’t consider Salvini to be an oddity in Europe or the “European project”. His endlessly strident utterances against racial diversity, for one, echo Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s recent discriminatory assertion that Hungarians don’t want to become “peoples of mixed race”. Salvini’s electoral promise to process refugees in North Africa sounds eerily comparable to the racist Rwanda-United Kingdom asylum deal concluded in June. Plus, it is somewhat similar to the anti-migration deals that the European Union concluded with Turkey, Libya and Niger to curtail migration from North Africa and the Middle East. And Salvini’s decision to bar migrant rescue ships from docking in Italy is no different from Polish security forces systematically forcing asylum seekers to return to Belarus, or Greek authorities “pushing back” ships carrying asylum seekers from Greek waters, with the complicit assistance of Frontex, the EU border guard agency.

So the difference between Salvini’s Italy and the supposedly “progressive” European nations is simply a matter of style and not substance. Spain’s problematic policies and actions, for example, are also undermining the EU’s supposed commitment to racial diversity. On June 24, at least 23 African men died at the Melilla-Morocco border as they attempted to cross into Spain. Human rights organisations rightly characterised the deaths as a tragedy and called for a thorough and independent investigation into the questionable actions of Moroccan and Spanish border guards. However, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez described it as an “attack” on Spain’s “territorial integrity” and framed irregular migration as a security threat.

That Sanchez claimed Spain is under attack from Africans is hardly surprising. Right-wing and conservative elements in Europe – just like their counterparts in the US – are infatuated with conspiracy theories about elaborate and highly implausible migrant “invasions”.

The EU claims all forms of hatred and intolerance are incompatible with European values. Plus hate-motivated crime and speech are illegal under EU law. Yet, across Europe, politicians are openly using inflammatory speech to target religious and racial minorities and criminalise migration. To be sure, reckless talk about ethnic homogeneity and migrants “flooding” Europe creates the conditions under which xenophobia can flourish and people like Ogorchukwu, people like football player Adama Traoré, people like myself become “legitimate” targets for police brutality and racist violence. How many more migrants like Ogorchukwu must die at the hands of seemingly indoctrinated protagonists before Europe realises racism is a continental crisis?

The EU must do more than proclaim its undying commitment to establishing “vibrant democracies” and “pluralistic societies”. It must ensure that racial and religious minorities are not subjected to the incessant Nazi-like hate speech and racism that has gone mainstream in Europe. As Europe becomes an increasingly hostile place for Black and brown people and migrants, the EU must seriously consider implementing the so-called Article 7 procedures against delinquent nations that threaten its core values.

Europe so easily criticises and condemns American racism. But it is hard to say it is doing much better than its younger sibling across the Atlantic when it comes to fighting white supremacist ideologies, attitudes and conspiracies.

Ogorchukwu and countless refugees didn’t have to die violent deaths in Italy. Nobody – Black, white or brown – must. But until Europe acknowledges and takes serious action to address its racism crisis, Black, brown and migrant bodies will be in as much danger there as they are in America.

By Johannesburg-based social and political commentator / Aljazeera

L’article Murder of Alika Ogorchukwu: Is Europe just as racist as America? est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

Investigators spoke to 179 people including members of Cuomo’s executive staff and state police protective detail across a five-month period and reviewed more than 74,000 pieces of evidence including emails, texts, audio files and pictures.

“These interviews and pieces of evidence reveal a deeply disturbing yet clear picture,” said James, who does not plan to bring state charges against the governor, instead leaving the legal fallout from the investigation largely to civil courts.

“We have concluded our investigation. Our work is done. As it relates to next steps, that’s entirely up to the governor and the General Assembly and the general public,” James said.

New York State Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins joined other New York politicians in calling for Cuomo’s immediate resignation.

“Now that the investigation is complete and the allegations have been substantiated, it should be clear to everyone that he can no longer serve as governor,” Stewart-Cousins said in a statement on Tuesday.

Statement from Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins pic.twitter.com/WW3uBqU8Kr

— Sen. Stewart-Cousins (@AndreaSCousins) August 3, 2021

“The fact that there are 11 women coming forward is deeply, deeply disturbing,” said Kirstin Gillibrand, a US senator from New York. “I do believe he should resign.”

Cuomo had previously denied the sexual harassment allegations by at least six women against him and refused to step down as New York state’s top government executive.

“What is alleged, did not happen,” Cuomo said during a news conference on March 12. “I’ve not had a sexual relationship that was inappropriate, period,” he said.

State investigators on Tuesday described retaliation by the governor and his top aides against the women who brought allegations against him.

Probe reveals a ‘deeply disturbing, yet clear picture’ of illegal sexual conduct towards young women in ‘toxic’ state workplace.

Police in the state capital of Albany have a report from one woman who said Cuomo touched her breast, investigators said. In his video statement on Tuesday, Cuomo said he would welcome a court trial of the facts in the case.

President Joe Biden had said in March when the investigation began that Cuomo should resign if it confirmed the sexual harassment allegations against the governor.

“I think he’d probably end up being prosecuted, too,” Biden told ABC News when asked about the allegations against Cuomo.

A group of 59 New York state legislators, along with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio demanded Cuomo’s resignation in March after an allegation surfaced that Cuomo had groped a government aide at the governor’s state residence last year.

“The specific allegation that the governor called an employee of his, someone who he had power over, called them to a private place and then sexually assaulted her – it’s absolutely unacceptable,” de Blasio, a Democrat who has publicly feuded with Cuomo, said at the time.

World Opinions News / AL JAZEERA

L’article New York Gov Cuomo sexually harassed women, state probe finds est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.