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28 Jul 2014-NPWJ News Digest on Middle East and North Africa Democracy
NPWJ in the news
Appeals Chamber confirms Libya can try former spy chief Al-Senussi
#GlobalJusticeWeekly (CICC), 25 Jul 2014
On Thursday, the ICC Appeals Chamber unanimously decided that the ICC case against Abdullah Al-Senussi is inadmissible, clearing the way for Libya to try the former spy chief. Al-Senussi’s defense counsel had appealed against an earlier decision finding the Court’s case inadmissible because Libyan authorities were willing and capable of trying Al-Senussi on their own.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) was critical of the Appeals Chamber’s decision, noting that it comes amid a near breakdown of the Libyan judicial system and that Libya has failed to provide Al-Senussi with basic due process rights. Amnesty International (AI) described the decision as “deeply alarming” and said that it in effect sanctions unfair domestic proceedings against Al-Senussi. However, No Peace Without Justice welcomed the decision, calling it a “positive answer to Libyans’ aspirations to see the alleged perpetrators of crimes against them face justice where those crimes were committed.”
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U.N. Security Council demands humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza
By: CNN, 28 Jul 2014
With more than 1,000 people killed in the Israel-Hamas conflict, the U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting in New York early Monday to push for "an immediate and unconditional humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza. "The halt in violence would allow for the delivery of urgently needed assistance, the 15-nation council said.But as the past week has shown, cease-fires between the dueling sides are short-lived. At its midnight meeting, the Security Council also proclaimed its support for "a comprehensive peace based on the vision of a region where two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace with secure and recognized borders as envisioned in Security Council resolution 1850 (2008)"They should have adopted a resolution (a) long time ago to condemn this aggression and to call for this aggression to be stopped immediately to provide the Palestinian people with protection and to lift the siege against our people in the Gaza Strip," Palestinian ambassador Riyah Mansour said.
China says may have citizens fighting in Iraq
By: The Daily Star, 28 Jul 2014
Muslim extremists from China's far western region of Xinjiang have gone to the Middle East for training and some may have crossed into Iraq to participate in the upsurge of violence there, China's special envoy for the Middle East said Monday. China has repeatedly expressed concern about the upsurge in violence in Iraq and the march of the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), which has seized much of the north of the country as Baghdad's forces there collapsed. ISIS has renamed itself the Islamic State and proclaimed the establishment of a caliphate on land it has captured in Syria and Iraq. Wu Sike, who has recently returned from the region, told reporters that China was extremely worried about the role of extremist groups in the fighting in Syria and Iraq.
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IS militants make fresh Syria advance
By: Middle East Eye, 27 Jul 2014
The Islamic State (IS) on Sunday seized an army position in the northeast Syrian city of Hasakeh, amid a major escalation in the militant offensive, a monitor said. On another front in Syria's complex civil war, rebels seeking President Bashar al-Assad's ouster captured a weapons depot in Hama province, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Just south of Hasake city, "IS jihadists took over the army Regiment 121 at Maylabiyeh, after fierce clashes with regime troops", said the Britain-based Observatory, adding that the battle lasted three days. On twitter, supporters of IS, which first emerged in Syria's war in spring 2013, celebrated the army position's "liberation" at the hands of the militants. The latest advance comes a day after IS took over Division 17 in Raqa province. According to the Observatory, at least 85 regime troops were killed during the IS takeover, among them more than 50 who were executed after their capture.
British embassy convoy attacked in Libya's Tripoli
By: The Telegraph, 27 Jul 2014
A British embassy convoy in Tripoli came under fire on Sunday in an attempted carjacking but no one was hurt, a spokesman for London's mission in Libya said. "Early this morning a British embassy convoy was subject to an attempted carjacking. Shots were fired at our vehicles but they managed to drive on and leave the area," spokesman Bob Phillipson said.
US evacuates Tripoli embassy as rival militias push Libya towards war
By: The Guardian, 26 Jul 2014
The US embassy in Tripoli staged a dramatic evacuation in the early hours of Saturday, with other embassies debating whether to follow suit as Libya hovers on the brink of full-scale war. Efforts by diplomats and prime minister Abdullah al-Thinni to engineer a last-minute ceasefire between warring militias have collapsed and the capital echoes to the sound of artillery and rockets. Fighting is also continuing in the eastern city of Benghazi, part of a nation-wide struggle between an Islamist-led alliance and fragmented opposition. In Tripoli, thousands are fleeing their homes under a rain of rocket, tank and mortar fire. "They phoned us to tell us to get out," said Huda, a resident in the south-western Tripoli district of Seraj. "They told us: you have seen how the airport looks, this will be your district too."