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31 July 2017 - NPWJ News Digest on Middle East and North Africa Democracy
Articles
Crackdown aims to 'silence' Palestinian journalists
By Aljazeera, 31 Jul 2017
Earlier this month, Jihad Barakat, a journalist with Palestine Today TV, was on his way from the northern West Bank city of Nablus to a village in the Tulkarem area to visit family, when he noticed something unusual at an Israeli military checkpoint.In contravention of protocol, Israeli soldiers were searching the convoy of Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah. Barakat took out his phone and documented the incident; hours later, he was detained by Palestinian security forces.
Islamic State claims responsibility for attack on Iraqi embassy in Kabul
By Reuters, 31 Jul 2017
Militant group Islamic State on Monday claimed responsibility for an attack on the Iraqi embassy in Kabul that began with a suicide bomber blowing himself up at the main gate, allowing gunmen to enter the building and battle security forces. The assault comes a week after 35 people were killed in a Taliban attack on government workers in the Afghan capital and underlines the country's precarious security as the United States weighs an overhaul of its policy in the region.
Women Activists in Iran Pressing for Female Minister in Cabinet
By Human Rights Watch, 27 Jul 2017
President Hassan Rouhani is expected to introduce nominees for his second-term cabinet in the coming weeks, and the question on many minds is whether a woman will be appointed minister. During the election campaign, Rouhani passionately defended women’s participation in the public sphere, saying his administration “does not accept gender discrimination and injustice.” The women and family chapter of his draft comprehensive plan for his next administration included several steps, such as “increasing women’s participation in high-level management positions.”
'A children's crisis': now 80% of all kids in Yemen are in need
By The Guardian, 27 Jul 2017
Children are bearing the brunt of the conflict in Yemen, with 80% in desperate need of aid and 2 million suffering from acute malnutrition, the UN has warned. The impact of war and hunger on the country’s 12.5 million young people has been compounded by what the directors of the World Health Organization, the UN Children’s Fund and the World Food Programme described in a joint statement as “the world’s worst cholera outbreak in the midst of the world’s largest humanitarian crisis”.
EU court rules to keep Hamas on terror list
By CNN, 26 Jul 2017
The European Union's highest court maintained its position that Hamas is a terrorist organization after defying calls for the Palestinian Islamist group to be removed from Europe's blacklist.The European Court of Justice ruling, which was made on Wednesday after an appeal by the EU, overturns a 2014 recommendation from a lower European Court that said Hamas should be removed from the blacklist and sanctions upon the group lifted.Just last year, ECJ Advocate General Eleanor Sharpston also recommended that Hamas be taken off the blacklist after arguing that the decision to uphold the judgment on Hamas was based on media reports rather than legal arguments. She said that the EU's stance on keeping Hamas on the blacklist was "not sufficient."