NAIROBI, Kenya: Actress and UN refugee agency special envoy Angelina Jolie on Tuesday denounced the impunity with which rape is committed in conflict zones and the mistreatment of vulnerable women and children.
Jolie spoke in Kenya to mark World Refugee Day. She visited a training center on how to prevent sexual violence in conflict and met with refugees from conflicts in Burundi, South Sudan, Somalia and Congo.
“The reality is that women and girls as well as boys and men can still be raped with near-total impunity in conflict zones around the world, and there are still appalling cases of rape and mistreatment of vulnerable women, children and men by peacekeepers sent to protect them,” she said.
Jolie added: “The horror of sexual violence is compounded when it is carried out by someone in uniform who has a taken an oath to protect.”
The way people treat refugees, the majority of whom are women and children, is a measure of humanity, she said, according to a statement by the UN refugee agency.
“Not only have they had to flee extreme violence or persecution, lost everything and witnessed the death of family members, but they have also had to face so much abuse and intolerance and hardship. They are doing their best to carry on with minimal support, trying to live lives of dignity against impossible odds,” Jolie said.
Kenya is home to nearly 491,000 refugees from conflicts in neighboring countries. A Kenyan court recently stopped the government from closing what had been the world’s largest refugee camp, Dadaab, and sending more than 200,000 people back to Somalia. The court said the government had not proved Somalia is safe for refugees to return.
Angelina Jolie urges better treatment of refugees
Angelina Jolie urges better treatment of refugees
Arts festival’s decision to exclude Palestinian author spurs boycott
- A Macquarie University academic who researches Islamophobia and Palestine, Abdel-Fattah responded saying it was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship,” with her lawyers issuing a letter to the festival
SYDENY: A top Australian arts festival has seen the withdrawal of dozens of writers in a backlash against its decision to bar an Australian Palestinian author after the Bondi Beach mass shooting, as moves to curb antisemitism spur free speech concerns.
The shooting which killed 15 people at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Dec. 14 sparked nationwide calls to tackle antisemitism. Police say the alleged gunmen were inspired by Daesh.
The Adelaide Festival board said last Thursday it would disinvite Randa Abdel-Fattah from February’s Writers Week in the state of South Australia because “it would not be culturally sensitive to continue to program her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi.”
FASTFACTS
• Abdel-Fattah responded, saying it was ‘a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship.’
• Around 50 authors have since withdrawn from the festival in protest, leaving it in doubt, local media reported.
A Macquarie University academic who researches Islamophobia and Palestine, Abdel-Fattah responded saying it was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship,” with her lawyers issuing a letter to the festival.
Around 50 authors have since withdrawn from the festival in protest, leaving it in doubt, local media reported.
Among the boycotting authors, Kathy Lette wrote on social media the decision to bar Abdel-Fattah “sends a divisive and plainly discriminatory message that platforming Australian Palestinians is ‘culturally insensitive.'”
The Adelaide Festival said in a statement on Monday that three board members and the chairperson had resigned. The festival’s executive director, Julian Hobba, said the arts body was “navigating a complex moment.”
a complex and unprecedented moment” after the “significant community response” to the board decision.
In the days after the Bondi Beach attack, Jewish community groups and the Israeli government criticized Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for failing to act on a rise in antisemitic attacks and criticized protest marches against Israel’s war in Gaza held since 2023.
Albanese said last week a Royal Commission will consider the events of the shooting as well as antisemitism and social cohesion in Australia. Albanese said on Monday he would recall parliament next week to pass tougher hate speech laws.
On Monday, New South Wales state premier Chris Minns announced new rules that would allow local councils to cut off power and water to illegally operating prayer halls.
Minns said the new rules were prompted by the difficulty in closing a prayer hall in Sydney linked to a cleric found by a court to have made statements intimidating Jewish Australians.
The mayor of the western Sydney suburb of Fairfield said the rules were ill-considered and councils should not be responsible for determining hate speech.
“Freedom of speech is something that should always be allowed, as long as it is done in a peaceful way,” Mayor Frank Carbone told Reuters.
