In this mailing:
- Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: Silencing and Intimidating Critics
- Burak Bekdil: Turkey and EU: Can this Marriage be Saved?
- Kaswar Klasra: Pakistan Earned U.S. Designation as "Country of Particular Concern"
by Khaled Abu Toameh • December 27, 2018 at 5:30 am
Palestinian columnist Sami Fuda denounced the Hamas crackdown on its critics in Gaza: "Apparently, freedom of expression is unacceptable to the de facto rulers of the Gaza Strip... The policy of intimidating and imprisoning writers will not deter them and is completely ineffective and unacceptable."
While these few Palestinians have expressed concern over Hamas's effort to silence its critics, international human rights organizations, including some that operate in the Gaza Strip, continue to turn a blind eye to this assault on public freedoms. They are either afraid of Hamas, or they do not give a damn about human rights violations unless they can find a way of pointing an accusatory finger at Israel.
Hamas is prepared to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a rally marking the 31st anniversary of its founding, but says it cannot afford to provide financial aid to impoverished Palestinians. Meanwhile, any Palestinians who dare to ask Hamas the wrong questions will find themselves behind bars.
What does the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas do when it is not firing rockets at Israel or sending Palestinians to clash with Israeli soldiers along the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel? It sends its security officers to arrest, interrogate, intimidate and harass anyone who dares to criticize Hamas. Pictured: Palestinians in Gaza prepare to attack Israeli soldiers at the border fence with Israel on May 14, 2018. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
What does the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas do when it is not firing rockets at Israel or sending Palestinians to clash with Israeli soldiers along the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel? It sends its security officers to arrest, interrogate, intimidate and harass anyone who dares to criticize Hamas.
It is not as if anyone was expecting Hamas to act differently. The terms democracy and freedom of expression have never been in Hamas's dictionary. For Hamas, it is either you are with us or you are against us. There is no third option for Palestinians living under Hamas's rule in the Gaza Strip, even for those who were previously associated with Hamas, but later changed their minds and dared to express a different opinion or, worse, criticize the Islamist movement.
In the past week alone, Hamas has arrested two Palestinian academics on suspicion that they voiced criticism of the group: professor of biology Salah Jadallah and writer Khader Mihjez.
by Burak Bekdil • December 27, 2018 at 4:45 am
In Freedom House's democracy index, Turkey belongs to the group of "not free" countries, performing worse than "partly free" countries including Mali, Nicaragua and Kenya.
Just as there cannot be a "not free" member of the EU, there cannot be a member that blatantly ignores rulings of the European Court of Human Rights.
"I think that, in the long term, it would be more honest for Turkey and the EU to go down new roads and end the accession talks ... Turkish membership in the European Union is not realistic in the foreseeable future." — Johannes Kahn, EU Enlargement Commissioner; interview in Die Welt.
In September 2017, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she will seek an end to talks for Turkish membership in the European Union. Pictured: Merkel and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan meet in Berlin, September 28, 2018. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
When Turkey first applied for full membership in the European Union in 1987, the world was an entirely different place -- even the rich club had a different name: the European Economic Community. U.S. President Ronald Reagan had undergone minor surgery; British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had been re-elected for a third term; Macau and Hong Kong were, respectively, Portuguese and British territory; the Berlin Wall was up and running; the demonstrations at the Tiananmen Square were a couple of years away; the Iran-Contra affair was in the headlines; the First Intifada had just begun; and what are today Czech Republic and Slovakia were Czechoslovakia.
In March 2003, just a few months after he was elected Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that Turkey was "very much ready to be part of the European Union family." In October 2005, formal accession negotiations between Turkey and the EU began.
by Kaswar Klasra • December 27, 2018 at 4:00 am
"Occupations deemed as 'dirty' and 'shameful' are reserved for Christians, and many believers are victims of bonded labor. Pakistan's notorious blasphemy laws target religious minorities but affect Christians the most...". — Open Doors.
"Christians continue to be killed for accusations of blasphemy, as well as for their low status in society. In June 2017, a Christian sewage worker died in a hospital because three Muslim doctors refused to touch him, thereby making themselves unclean, during their Ramadan fast." — Open Doors .
"Abusive enforcement of the country's strict blasphemy laws resulted in the suppression of rights for non-Muslims, Shi'a Muslims, and Ahmadis." — United States Commission on International Freedom.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo presents a report on international religious freedom, May 29, 2018. (Image source: U.S. State Department)
Pakistan was among the nations recently designated by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as "Countries of Particular Concern under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 for having engaged in or tolerated 'systematic, ongoing, [and] egregious violations of religious freedom.'"
Islamabad promptly issued an angry response, which reads, in part:
"Pakistan rejects the US State Department's unilateral and politically motivated pronouncement... Besides the clear biases reflected from these designations, there are serious questions on the credentials and impartiality of the self-proclaimed jury involved in this unwarranted exercise.
"Around 4 percent of our total population comprises citizens belonging to Christian, Hindu, Budhists [sic] and Sikh faiths. Ensuring equal treatment of minorities and their enjoyment of human rights without any discrimination is the cardinal principle of the Constitution of Pakistan..."
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