A8 Tuesday, April 12, 2011
WORLD
Roswell Daily Record
Iraq moves to shut Iranian exile camp
AP Photo
Iraqi Foreign Affairs Minister Hoshyar Zebari speaks to journalists at a conference palace dedicated to the coming Arab League summit in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday.
BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq’s government voted Monday to shut down a camp of Iranian dissidents and move them out of the country by year’s end, following a deadly raid on the compound by government forces last week. Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Iraq will not deport the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran back to Iran, but would not say what might happen if the group refuses to leave their sprawling desert compound in Iraq’s eastern Diyala province where they have lived for decades. “They need to leave Iraq by the end of the year. Iraq is not the choice for them,” al-Dabbagh said Monday night, shortly after the Cabinet meeting ended. “We have to find a nation where they can go, and we will look to the U.N. to help,” al-Dabbagh said.
Shahin Gobadi, the Paris-based spokesman for the People’s Mujahedeen’s political wing, said the camp residents are willing to move to the United States or countries in the European Union if those gover nments will give them asylum. “We have no intention of staying in Iraq, but there has been no response,” Gobadi said. He said the group is also willing to return to Iran but only if it is certain they will not be attacked or oppressed by the government in Tehran, which considers them a terrorist organization. U.N. observers in Baghdad are still being prevented by the Iraqis from going inside Camp Ashraf following the pre-dawn clashes Friday between Iraqi soldiers and the exiles that hospital officials in a nearby town said left at least 12 dead and 39 exiles wounded.
Five soldiers also were hurt in the melee that began after the Iraqi army reinforced their forces outside the camp, which the residents took as a sign of aggression and responded by throwing rocks and lunging in front of military vehicles. The U.N. spokeswoman in Baghdad, Aicha elBasri, on Monday said the agency was planning to enter Camp Ashraf this week. The Iraqi army also has blocked journalists from the settlement, and briefly prevented the U.S. military from helping the wounded inside. U.S. Col. Barry Johnson, a spokesman in Baghdad, said military medics have since been let in but would not describe the conditions inside the camp or verify the number of dead or wounded. The camp’s leaders put the death toll Monday at 34, with more than 300
wounded, although those numbers could not be immediately verified. The Iraqi army has denied that anyone was killed. The raid was roundly denounced in Washington and London, and by U.N. of ficials in Geneva, although it was praised by Tehran. The Shiite-led Iraqi government, and particularly Prime Minister Nouri alMaliki, has long sought to expel the Iranian exiles who were given sanctuary by former dictator Saddam Hussein. Their presence also has been an irritant between Baghdad and Tehran, as the two governments strengthen ties. The People’s Mujahedeen seeks to overthrow Iran’s clerical leaders, although the group says it renounced violence in 2001 after carrying out bloody bombings and assassinations in Iran in the 1980s.
Egypt blogger gets 3 years for criticizing army
CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian military tribunal has convicted a blogger of insulting the army after he publicized reports of abuses by the military, and sentenced him to three years in prison, human rights groups said Monday. The military court issued the sentence against Maikel Nabil Sanad, 26, Sunday without the presence of his lawyers, according to a statement by seven Cairo-based rights groups. It was the first trial of a blogger by Egypt’s military rulers, who took charge of the country after former president Hosni Mubarak was ousted by anti-government protests Feb. 11 after an 18-day popular uprising. Rights lawyers say the sentence has wide implications for freedom of expression in post-Mubarak Egypt, and could set a precedent for anyone seeking to expose wrongdoing or abuses by the military. A member of the military council, Maj. Gen. Mohammed al-Assar told an Egyptian private TV station, ONTV, Monday, the armed forces is open to criticism — up to a point. “There is a difference between criticism with good intentions from a citizen, a journalist or a broadcaster, who mean the public good. There is no problem with that,” he said. “The problem is in questioning the intentions (of the army).” Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said it was “shocked” by the three-year jail sentence, asking the authorities to review it and free him “without delay.” The case against Sanad, who was arrested two weeks ago at his home, was based on a blog post titled “The people and the army were never hand in hand,” questioning the military’s continued allegiance to Mubarak; as well as Facebook postings reporting allegations of abuse. “Maikel was posting on his blog news published by rights groups, and newspaper clippings” among other things, said Adel Ramadan, Sanad’s lawyer. “The danger extends to all bloggers, rights activists and journalists.” In the same interview with ONTV, however, Maj. Gen. Ismail Etman said not only were Sanad’s postings insulting, but he also agitated against the country’s policy of mandatory military conscription, which would “affect people.” He added that Sanad might have “foreign links,” without elaborating. Attributing foreign agendas to political activists was also a common tactic used by Mubarak’s regime to tarnish its opponents. “We don’t object to opinions, but they must be with respect and without insults or defamation,” Etman said, adding that the sentence could be appealed to the military’s supreme court. Rights groups have criticized the new military rulers for arbitrary arrests and speedy trials for civilians, saying their activities were reminiscent of those of the former regime. Ramadan said more than 10,000 civilians have been convicted and sentenced by military tribunals since the army took over two months ago. Military trials are swift, do not follow the procedures and rules of evidence of civil courts. Ramadan was quoting official court records and military statements and included cases involving minor theft, land disputes, as well as demonstrating and weapons possession. Most Egyptians expressed joy when the military stepped in to remove Mubarak, chanting the slogan “the military and the people go hand in hand,” but tension has since crept into the army’s relations with the population. In the early hours of the morning Saturday, soldiers forcefully stormed a protest camp on to break up a sit-in, killing at least one demonstrator and wounding dozens. The protesters had been critical of the military. Volleys of gunfire rang through the streets of downtown Cairo for hours until the military withdrew at sunrise. Soldiers arrested 42 civilians, including two foreigners, all of whom are now facing military tribunals. Eleven were later released, including the foreign nationals. Around a thousand protesters have now started a new sit-in at the country’s iconic Tahrir Square in Cairo demanding the resignation of the minister of defense and head of the army, Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi. Heba Morayef, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, said Sanad’s case also shows that the military cannot be criticized. “It sets the military up as an establishment beyond criticism and beyond being held accountable,” she said. “It sends exactly the wrong signal at a time when you are supposed to be transitioning away from abusive practices combined with official denial and failure to investigate.”
AP Photo
Veiled Muslim women take part in a protest against France banning the wearing of Islamic veils in public, in London on Monday.
French ban on Islamic veils enters force PARIS (AP) — The world’s first ban on Islamic face veils took effect Monday in France, meaning that women may bare their breasts in Cannes but not cover their faces on the Champs-Elysees. Two veiled women were hauled off from a Paris protest within hours of the new ban. Their unauthorized demonstration, on the cobblestone square facing Notre Dame Cathedral, was rich with both the symbolism of France’s medieval history and its modern spirit of defiance. While some see encroaching Islamophobia in the new ban, President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government defended it as a rampart protecting France’s identity against inequality and extremism. Police grumbled that it will be hard to enforce. “The law is very clear. Hiding your face in public places is cause for imposing sanctions,” Interior Minister Claude Gueant said Monday at an EU meeting in Luxembourg. He said it defends “two fundamental principles: secularism and the principle of equality between man and woman.”
The law af fects barely 2,000 women who cloak themselves in the niqab, which has just a slit for the eyes, and the burqa, which has a mesh screen over the eyes, and it enjoyed widespread public support when it was passed last year. But it has worried French allies, prompted protests abroad and has come to epitomize France’s struggle to integrate Muslim immigrants in recent generations. France is a traditionally Catholic country where church and state were formally separated more than a century ago, when Muslims were barely a presence. Today, it sees itself as a proudly secular nation: Few Catholics attend church regularly and small-town churches are crumbling — while growing demand for prayer rooms means Muslims pray on sidewalks and streets. Though only a very small minority of France’s some 5 million Muslims wear the veil, many Muslims see the ban as a stigma against the country’s No. 2 religion. Many have also felt stigmatized by a 2004 law that banned Islamic headscarves in
classrooms. About a dozen people, including three women wearing niqab veils, staged a protest in front of Notre Dame on Monday, saying the ban is an af front to their freedom of expression and religion. Much larger crowds of police, journalists and tourists filled the square. Two of the veiled women were taken away by police for taking part in an unauthorized demonstration, Paris police authority said. They were released later Monday after questioning. Amnesty International condemned the detention of the women and others at the protest. It was unclear whether the women were also fined for wearing a veil. The law says veiled women risk a $215 (150) fine or attendance at special citizenship classes, though not jail. People who force women to don a veil are subject to up to a year in prison and a $43,000 (30,000) fine, and possibly twice that if the veiled person is a minor. The ban affects women who wear the niqab and the burqa.
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