SIALKOT: Khizar Abbas’ dream of reaching Italy ended in Iran when he was arrested with a number of other illegal migrants. But, he told Arab News, he was one of the lucky ones.
“Iranian (smugglers) shot four of our group just because they were tired and pleaded for some water and rest for a few minutes,” he said. “This horrifying scene haunts me.”
Abbas, a resident of Mandranwala village in Sialkot, Punjab, left for Mashkel, a border town in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province on Nov. 9, along with 30 other men who aimed to reach Europe through Iran.
“The agents kept us in a small room for two days in Mashkel which was already crammed with around 200 men aged between 20 and 35,” he said, explaining that they then a group of around 250 men then met up with Iranian agents for the next leg of their journey, to Turkey.
The Iranian “agents” divided them into small groups and took them via the mountains to Tehran.
“All of us were thinking that we had put our lives at risk,” he said. “Almost all of us wanted to return, but the agents thrashed those who asked to be released with canes.
“We were lucky that our group was arrested at a checkpoint at the outskirts of Tehran,” Abbas continued. He said a large number of men and women from Pakistan and Afghanistan were already being held there.
Having been held in a number of different detention centers, Abbas returned home on Nov. 29 and is back to running a general store to make ends meet.
Abbas’ deal with the agent was for $6,000 till Greece, but he only paid $3,500 because he was arrested and deported from Iran. His elder brother is already in Athens for the last 7 years and earning well there. So, they are well off and did not sell anything. "It was just lure of Europe that pushed him to take the risk."
Thousands of Pakistanis risk their lives each year to travel to Europe in search of better jobs with the help of human traffickers, but the majority end up in jail or dead.
In November this year, 20 people attempting to cross the Pakistan-Iran border illegally, with help from local and Iranian smugglers, were killed by militants in Turbat, Balochistan.
Following an investigation into that incident, Pakistan identified 14 Iranian human traffickers and letters have been sent to Interpol requesting their arrest.
“Agents in Turkey, Greece, Italy, and Germany were in contact with local agents in Quetta and those in Iran for getting these intending emigrants to Italy and Germany through Iran, Turkey and Greece,” a 25-page report prepared by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) revealed.
“Letters have been issued to Interpol and MoFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) to contact Iranian authorities and apprehend 14 Iranian agents,” Minister for Interior Ahsan Iqbal informed the National Assembly in a written response.
Talking to Arab News, Minister of State for Interior Affairs Tallal Chaudhry said the government has resolved to take stringent measures to choke the notorious human trafficking land route from Pakistan to Iran.
“We have conveyed our concerns to Iranian authorities through official channels and asked them for a wider crackdown on human smugglers operating on their soil,” he said, referring to a meeting between the director general of the FIA and his Iranian counterpart last week.
The minister revealed that Pakistan has also shared intelligence about smugglers operating in Turkey, Greece and Germany with the relevant authorities and requested a crackdown from them as well.
“Iran has assured us of full cooperation to arrest the human smugglers operating on its soil,” he said. “We can bring the illegal migration of Pakistanis to Europe down to a minimum only if other countries like Iran, Turkey, Greece and Italy cooperate with us.”
Human smuggling and trafficking is often quoted as the third most lucrative source of organized-crime revenue after weapons and drugs, amounting to over $32 billion per year.
The FIA told Pakistan's Supreme Court in a report that 6,767 Pakistanis entered European countries illegally through Iran in 2017 alone, while 27,749 were deported — 18,810 from Iran; 4,401 from Turkey and 4,538 from EU countries.
The report says that the most common route for illegal migration is overland from Pakistan to Iran,Turkey and then Greece.
“The illegal migrants leave Pakistan via unmanned or unofficial border crossings located along unfrequented routes into Iran,” the report says, identifying Pakistan’s Gujranwala district as “the origin of the majority” of them.
“Pakistani nationals are among the 10 most-detected nationalities that attempt irregular migration to the European Union and Australia,” says a UNODC report.
Another Mandranwala native, 45-year-old Amjad Ali, reached Greece in 2002 after six months travelling on foot from Iran to Turkey. He remained there until 2014.
“I worked at a dairy farm in Greece for 12 years, earned a lot of money, but I would still suggest aspiring illegal migrants don’t risk their lives just for the dream of a better life,” he told Arab News.
Amjad paid $4,000 to the smugglers
Despite the fact that every time an illegal migrant is killed, Pakistani authorities vow to take action, the FIA report revealed, “No proper law to control human smuggling has been enacted.”
Pakistan identifies 14 Iranian human traffickers; seeks Interpol help to nab them
Pakistan identifies 14 Iranian human traffickers; seeks Interpol help to nab them
White House says still opposes Ukraine using US arms against Russia
WASHINGTON: The White House on Tuesday rejected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s pleas for an end to restrictions on Kyiv using US-supplied arms to strike Russian territory.
“There’s no change to our policy at this point. We don’t encourage or enable the use of US-supplied weapons to strike inside Russia,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told a briefing.
Prosecutor urges jury to convict Trump, citing ‘powerful evidence’
NEW YORK: Donald Trump engaged in “conspiracy and a cover-up” to hide from voters that he had paid hush money to a porn star, prosecutors told a jury Tuesday in closing arguments at the first ever criminal trial of a former US president.
Less than six months before an election in which Trump is seeking to return to the White House, the stakes riding on the verdict are high — both for the 77-year-old personally and for the country.
Trump is accused of falsifying business records to reimburse his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen for a $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, afraid that her account of an alleged sexual encounter could doom his 2016 presidential campaign against Hillary Clinton.
Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass delivered the summation for the prosecution after Trump’s defense lawyer, Todd Blanche, called for his acquittal, insisting the case against the former president was based on lies.
Steinglass said Daniels’s story about her 2006 tryst with the married Trump was the motive for the alleged crime, but the “case at its core is about a conspiracy and a cover up” on the eve of an election.
“The people have presented powerful evidence of the defendant’s guilt,” he said.
Blanche told the jury that Trump was “innocent.” The only outcome should be a “very quick and easy not guilty verdict.”
Cohen, the one-time Trump fixer who became the star prosecution witness, was motivated by “outright hatred” for his former boss, Blanche said.
“He told you a number of things on that witness stand that were lies, pure and simple,” he said.
Blanche said Trump was busy “running the country” when the reimbursements were made to Cohen and he did not closely inspect all the invoices that came across his desk.
“There was no intent to defraud and beyond that there was no conspiracy to influence the 2016 election,” Blanche said.
But Steinglass countered that there was a mountain of corroborating evidence in addition to Cohen’s testimony.
“They want to make this case about Michael Cohen,” he said. “This case is about Donald Trump and whether he should be accountable for causing false entries in his own business records and whether he did that to cover up his own election violations.”
Speaking to reporters before entering the Manhattan courtroom, Trump called it a “very dangerous day for America.”
“We have a rigged court case that should have never been brought,” he said as three of his five children — Don Jr, Eric and Tiffany — stood behind him.
The 12 anonymous jurors were to start deliberations as early as Wednesday.
Polls show Trump neck and neck against President Joe Biden and the verdict will inject new tension into the White House race.
Speaking on behalf of the Biden campaign outside court, legendary actor Robert De Niro berated Trump as a “clown” intent on destroying the country.
The first former or sitting president under criminal indictment, Trump faces charges ranging from the relatively minor hush money case to accusations he took top secret documents and tried to overthrow the 2020 election.
The New York case, which featured more than 20 witnesses over five weeks and gripping testimony by Daniels and Cohen, is the only one likely to come to trial by election day.
If convicted, Trump faces up to four years in prison on each of 34 counts, but legal experts say that as a first-time offender he is unlikely to get jail time.
A conviction would not bar him from appearing on the ballot in November.
Trump chose not to testify in his defense.
Instead, he used his trips to court to stage tirades against “corrupt” Judge Juan Merchan, and to claim the trial is a Democratic ploy to keep him off the campaign trail.
To return a guilty or not guilty verdict requires the jury to be unanimous. Just one holdout means a hung jury and a mistrial, although prosecutors could seek a new trial.
Biden’s blurred red lines under scrutiny after Rafah carnage
WASHINGTON: Joe Biden’s red lines over Israel’s assault on Rafah have kept shifting, but the US president faces growing pressure to take a firmer stance after a deadly strike in the Gazan city.
Despite global outrage over the attack in which 45 people were killed, the White House insisted on Tuesday that it did not believe Israel had launched the major operation that Biden has warned against.
John Kirby, the US National Security Council spokesman, said that Biden had been consistent and was not “moving the stick” on what defined an all-out military offensive by key ally Israel.
But Biden faces a difficult balancing act both domestically and internationally over Gaza, especially in a year when the 81-year-old Democrat is locked in an election battle with Donald Trump.
“Biden wants to appear tough on Rafah, and has really tried to be stern with (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu, but in an election year, his red lines are increasingly blurred,” Colin Clarke, director of research at the Soufan Group, told AFP.
“I think he’ll continue shifting those lines, ducking and weaving, largely in response to events on the ground.”
Facing US campus protests over his support for Israel, Biden said earlier this month that he would not supply Israel with weapons for a major military operation in Rafah, and he halted a shipment of bombs.
Yet he has since taken no action even as Israel has stepped up air attacks and, as of Tuesday, moved tanks into central Rafah.
Instead, the White House has largely retreated to arguing about what does, and does not, constitute an invasion.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said last week there was “no mathematical formula” and said that “what we’re going to be looking at is whether there is a lot of death and destruction.”
At the White House on Tuesday, his colleague Kirby faced intense questioning over the Israeli strike, which sparked a fire at a displaced persons camp in which dozes of people burned to death.
Kirby said the deaths were “heartbreaking” and “horrific” but again said there would be no change in policy toward Israel.
“We have not seen them smash into Rafah,” he said.
“We have not seen them go in with large units, large numbers of troops, in columns and formations in some sort of coordinated maneuver against multiple targets on the ground.”
But internationally the pressure is growing on Biden, a self-described Zionist who has stuck by Netanyahu despite deep disagreements since the war began with the October 7 Hamas attack.
Questions are mounting over how long the United States can tolerate an Israeli assault on Rafah when the International Court of Justice — the UN’s top court, of which both the US and Israel are members — ordered it to stop.
Political pressure is also mounting on Biden at home.
Protests against his support for Israel have roiled university campuses across the United States, while many on the left wing of his Democratic Party also oppose his stance.
Republicans however have assailed Biden over what they say is his faltering support for Israel, with US House Speaker Mike Johnson inviting Netanyahu to address Congress.
“It is indeed a difficult balancing act,” Gordon Gray, a former US ambassador who is now a professor at George Washington University, told AFP.
“Threading the proverbial needle — as the Biden administration is apparently seeking to do — will only disappoint voters who feel strongly about the issue one way or another.”
Gray however said he believed Biden’s decades-old support for Israel meant he would unlikely change his position, saying he was a “rare politician who is acting out of genuine conviction rather than for his own electoral benefit.”
Deputy leader of UK’s Labour Party promises to fight to end Gaza’s suffering, in leaked video
- Labour, if elected, would recognize Palestinian statehood, says Angela Rayner
LONDON: Angela Rayner, the deputy leader of the UK’s Labour Party, has promised that her party will do everything in its power to ease the suffering in Gaza as it bids to regain Muslim voters’ support, a leaked video surfacing on social media has revealed.
The footage was first reported by the political blog Guido Fawkes, which claimed to have obtained the leaked tape from a meeting in Ashton-under-Lyne, Rayner’s constituency.
The MP is seen appealing to voters upset with the party’s stance on Israel’s assault on Gaza, The Telegraph reported.
Rayner — claiming she worked “day and night” to get three British doctors out of Rafah and is now attempting to secure aid for the enclave — said: “I promise you, the Labour Party, including myself, is doing everything we can, because nobody wants to see what’s happening.”
She acknowledged the party’s current inability to halt the fighting, admitting that Labour’s influence would be “limited,” even if it came to power after July’s general election.
Rayner added: “Only last week the Labour Party were supporting the ICC (International Criminal Court). The Conservatives didn’t support the ICC, so with this general election on that issue, we can’t affect anything when we’re not in government.
“And I’ll be honest with you, if Labour gets into government, we are limited. I will be honest. I’m not going to promise you … because (Joe) Biden, who’s the US (president), who has way more influence, has only got limited influence in that.
“And Qatar, Saudi Arabia, all of these people, we are all working to stop what’s happening at the moment; we want to see that. So I promise you, that’s what we want to see.”
Rayner also promised that, if Labour was elected, the party would recognize Palestinian statehood.
She added: “If Labour gets into power, we will recognize Palestine. I will push not only to recognize … there is nothing to recognize at the moment, sadly. It’s decimated.
“We have to rebuild Palestine; we have to rebuild Gaza. That takes more than just recognizing it.”
Gaza has been a divisive issue for Labour since Oct. 7, with reports revealing that Muslim voters have abandoned the party as a result of what they perceive as its politicians enabling the war.
The Telegraph found that Labour’s support had dropped in local elections in areas with large Muslim populations, including Oldham in Greater Manchester, where the party lost control of the council in a surprise defeat.
Labour leader Keir Starmer has expressed his determination to re-establish trust among those who have abandoned his party due to his handling of the Gaza war.
However, when probed on particular commitments, he remained vague.
Rayner said in the video: “I know that people are angry about what’s happening in the Middle East.
“If my resignation as an MP now would bring a ceasefire, I would do it. I would do it if I could effect change.”
However, she said such an eventuality was not “in my gift” due to the “failure of the international community.”
In response to the footage, Nigel Farage, Reform UK’s honorary president, accused Rayner of “begging” for the Muslim vote, The Telegraph reported.
12 Indians killed in quarry collapse after cyclone rains
- Several highways and key roads were disrupted by landslides, and all schools were shut
- India’s weather office warned of extremely heavy rains in northeastern states on Tuesday
Guwahati: Torrential rains in the wake of a powerful cyclone caused the collapse of a quarry in India’s Mizoram state killing 12 people, government officials said Tuesday.
“So far 12 bodies have been found, we are looking for more,” deputy commissioner of Aizawl district Nazuk Kumar told AFP.
Rescue efforts in the quarry were being hampered by “heavy rains,” police director general Anil Shukla said, NDTV news network reported.
Mizoram Chief Minister Lalduhoma offered compensation to families of the victims of the “landslide due to Cyclone Remal.”
“I pray for the success of rescue and relief operations and wish a speedy recovery of the injured,” India’s President Droupadi Murmu said on social media.
In Mizoram, several highways and key roads were disrupted by landslides. All schools were shut and government employees asked to work from home.
India’s weather office has issued warnings of extremely heavy rainfall across Mizoram and other northeastern states on Tuesday.
In India’s neighboring Assam state, one person was killed and heavy rains had cut the power supply, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said in a statement.
The cyclone made landfall in low-lying Bangladesh and neighboring India on Sunday evening with fierce gales and crashing waves.
Overall, at least 38 people died in the cyclone or storms in its wake.
In India, eight people died in West Bengal state, officials said Tuesday, updating an earlier toll of six, taking the total killed in the country to at least 21.
In neighboring Bangladesh, which bore the brunt of the cyclone that made landfall on Sunday, at least 17 people died, according to the disaster management office and police.
