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04 May 2015 - NPWJ News Digest on Middle East and North Africa democracy
Articles
Saudi Arabia denies deployment of ground troops in Aden
By Al Jazeera, 04 May 2015
Dozens of Arab special forces soldiers arrived in the Yemeni port city of Aden on Sunday to bolster the anti-Houthi forces amid a fierce offensive by the Shia rebels and their allies, sources have told Al Jazeera. Saudi Arabia denied that a ground operation was under way by the anti-Houthi coalition it leads, but declined to comment on Sunday on the presence of special forces - a topic Riyadh has consistently refused to address in the more than one-month-old conflict. In Aden, Ali al-Ahmadi, the spokesman for the Southern Popular Resistance, a group defending the southern port city against an advance by the Iranian-allied Houthis, told Reuters news agency that the fighters battling the rebels around Aden airport are Yemenis, not Arab special forces troops deployed by the Saudi-led coalition. A Saudi spokesperson has also issued a denial. He confirmed, however, that the Arab coalition remained engaged in the fight in the Arabian Peninsula nation. "There are no foreign forces in Aden but coalition continues to help fight against the Houthi militia," Brigadier General Ahmed al-Asiri said in a statement.
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Suicide blast targets government officials in Kabul
By Al Jazeera, 04 May 2015
An explosion in Kabul has targeted a shuttle bus belonging to the Afghan attorney general's office, leaving at least one dead and wounding 13 others. Monday's incident occurred in the capital's sixth police district as the vehicle was carrying attorney general's office employees, the interior ministry said. Zabiullah Mujahid, Taliban spokesman, claimed responsibility for the attack in a text message to news organisations. The Afghan interior ministry "strongly condemned" the attack. "These attacks... demonstrate [an] extreme level of atrocity by terrorists against innocent and defenseless civilians," the ministry said in a statement. The explosion blew out the windows of houses and shops nearby, Ahmad Reshad, a government employee who was near the blast site, told AFP news agency. The attack comes after a 20-member Afghan delegation on Sunday launched two-days of "open discussion" with Taliban representatives in Qatar - in their latest effort to end Afghanistan's long war. The attack was the first in Kabul since the armed group launched their annual warm-weather offensive on April 24. The Taliban is engaged in fierce fighting in northern Kunduz province, where thousands of government forces are struggling to fend off a major offensive that last week threatened the provincial capital. NATO's combat mission formally ended in December but a small follow-up foreign force has stayed on to train and support local security personnel. The Taliban launched their spring offensive across Afghanistan late last month, stepping up attacks on government and foreign targets and inflicting a heavy toll on civilians and Afghan security forces. The number of civilians killed and wounded jumped 22 percent in 2014 compared to the previous year, according to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).
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Israel's Ethiopian Jews clash with police at race rally
By Al Jazeera, 04 May 2015
Israeli riot police have fired stun grenades and water cannon on thousands of ethnic Ethiopian Jewish citizens in an attempt to clear one of the most violent protests in memory in the heart of Tel Aviv. The protesters, Israeli Jews of Ethiopian origin, were demonstrating on Sunday against what they said was police racism and brutality after a video clip emerged last week showing policemen shoving and punching a black soldier. Demonstrators overturned a police car and threw bottles and stones at officers in riot gear at Rabin Square in the heart of Israel's commercial capital. Israel's Channel 2 television said tear gas was also used, something the police declined to confirm. "I've had enough of this behaviour by the police, I just don't trust them any more ... when I see the police I spit on the ground," one female demonstrator who was not identified told Channel 2 before police on horseback had charged. Al Jazeera's Mike Hanna, who attended the protest, said the Israeli Red Cross earlier in the evening said at least 40 people, including 23 police officers, were injured. "All suffered light injuries to the head and upper body," Hanna said. Hanna said that it was notable that the injuries weren't more serious, when Israeli police clashes with Palestinian protesters often ended with far more severe injuries or deaths.
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Syrian children killed in government barrel-bomb attack, say rights groups
By The Guardian, 03 May 2015
Children were killed and wounded in Aleppo on Sunday in a barrel bomb attack that destroyed a building where students were sitting exams, residents and rights groups said. At least seven people were killed, including four children and a school teacher, and dozens were wounded in the air strike that targeted the Seif al-Dawla teaching centre. Rebel authorities accused the regime of “barbaric” targeting of schools and kindergartens in the city as a protracted conflict for Syria’s largest metropolis intensifies. Videos and photographs posted by residents and citizen journalists on the scene showed civil defence workers and civilians pulling corpses and the wounded from the wreckage, as well as children with bloodied faces in burial shrouds.
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Amnesty says Egypt using courts and jail to intimidate journalists
By Reuters, 02 May 2015
Egyptian authorities are using the courts to stifle journalism, Amnesty International said on Sunday in a report that listed 18 reporters and media workers jailed and dozens more facing criminal investigations. The New York-based rights group said several reporters have been detained for long periods without charge or trial, including an Egyptian photographer known as Shawkan who has been held for more than 600 days. Rights groups say a crackdown launched by the government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi after the overthrow of Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in mid-2013 has muzzled freedom of expression. "In Egypt today anyone who challenges the authorities' official narrative, criticizes the government or exposes human rights violations is at risk of being tossed into a jail cell, often to be held indefinitely without charge or trial or face prosecution on trumped-up charges," Amnesty said. The Egyptian foreign ministry responded to the report saying the journalists were arrested based on a warrant from the public prosecutor and afforded full due process. "Nobody is being targeted for being a journalist. Such accusations are politicized nonsense," said spokesman Badr Abdelatty. The sentencing of three Al Jazeera journalists to between 7 and 10 years in prison last year on charges of spreading lies reinforced the view of rights groups that the government was rolling back freedoms gained after a 2011 uprising.
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Islamic State: Militants 'kill 300 Yazidi captives'
By the BBC news, 02 May 2015
A statement from the Yazidi Progress Party said 300 captives were killed on Friday in the Tal Afar district near the city. Iraqi Vice-President Osama al-Nujaifi described the reported deaths as "horrific and barbaric". Thousands of members of the religious minority group were captured last year. It is not clear how they were killed, or why this has happened now, says the BBC's Middle East editor Alan Johnston. Many are reported to have been held in Mosul, the main stronghold of IS after the militants swept through large areas of northern and western Iraq, and eastern Syria in 2014. Yazidis, whose religion includes elements of several faiths, are considered infidels by IS. Thousands fled to the Kurdish-controlled region of northern Iraq after IS captured the Yazidi-populated Sinjar district in Nineveh province. Hundreds of men were killed, while some Yazidi women were held and used as sex slaves.
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