VICTORIA, Seychelles: A plan for India to build a military base on an outlying Seychelles island has won favor among the archipelago nation’s politicians, but some hostility from its people.
The base on Assumption Island is to be funded by India and shared by the two countries’ militaries.
The deal was struck in principle in 2015 during a visit to the Seychelles by India’s prime minister Narendra Modi, but progress since has been slow.
The government of the Seychelles, based in Victoria on Mahe Island 1,135 kilometers (705 miles) northeast of Assumption, says the base will help coast guards to patrol its 1.3 million square kilometer (500,000 square mile) exclusive economic zone for illegal fishing, drug trafficking and piracy.
Currently, the remote coral island has a tin shack post office, an air strip and almost no people, it is less than seven kilometers long, has a high point just 30 meters (100 feet) above sea level and is covered in bird excrement.
But its location lends it strategic importance for monitoring shipping in the Mozambique Channel.
India plans to invest $550 million dollars (446 million euros) in building the base to help it ensure the safety of its vessels in the southern Indian Ocean. It also says the base will be a resource for other shipping nations.
“Assumption is very close to the Mozambique Channel where much of the international trade is transiting, and not just for India but for other countries as well, and our interest is that our trading vessels are safe,” said India’s ambassador in Victoria, Ausaf Sayeed.
India has had a military cooperation agreement with the Seychelles since 2003 and the deal would give it use of the Assumption base for up to 30 years. Indian soldiers would be deployed on the island and help train Seychelles’ troops.
But ratification of the 2015 agreement has been slow with a new, amended pact only signed between the two countries on January 27.
“What we did in relation to the first agreement is to clarify some points that could give rise to litigation,” said Frank Ally, the Seychelles’ attorney general.
He said these included a prohibition on any nuclear uses of the island or weapons storage. India is also not allowed to use Assumption in war.
Seeking to allay fears the government has made available to the public some details of the classified defense agreement.
Nevertheless, the project remains controversial with small weekly demonstrations in the capital.
Indian presence in the Seychelles is a sensitive matter. Some fear an influx of Indian workers who, they say, might come to dominate the economy, while others consider a foreign power building a military base an affront to sovereignty and national pride.
“The Seychelles can make its own military base, I am against any foreign military presence!” said Guilmert Corgat, a businessman in Victoria who attended a town hall meeting on the plan in late February.
“If this deal is so good for the Seychelles, why don’t we hold a referendum?” asked Alexia Amesbury, a lawyer.
During the discussions foreign minister Barry Faure was forced to insist the government was not giving the island away, “because Assumption belongs to the Seychelles.”
Opponents of the plan also cite Assumption’s relative proximity to Aldabra atoll, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is home to the world’s largest population of giant tortoises.
Environmentalists worry about the possible impact of a large military presence so close to an ecosystem that has survived precisely because of the absence of people.
Despite the dissenting voices, Sayeed remains positive that parliament will ratify the new agreement when it reopens this month.
With the opposition, like the government, broadly in favor of the base, though against too many concessions to India, the diplomat’s optimism may be well-founded.
“I think politicians and people who see the positive side of this cooperation will be in favor, and I am convinced that it will pass,” he said.
Planned Indian military base stirs Seychelles controversy
Planned Indian military base stirs Seychelles controversy
Afghan barbers under pressure as morality police take on short beards
KABUL: Barbers in Afghanistan risk detention for trimming men’s beards too short, they told AFP, as the Taliban authorities enforce their strict interpretation of Islamic law with increasing zeal.
Last month, the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice said it was now “obligatory” to grow beards longer than a fist, doubling down on an earlier order.
Minister Khalid Hanafi said it was the government’s “responsibility to guide the nation to have an appearance according to sharia,” or Islamic law.
Officials tasked with promoting virtue “are obliged to implement the Islamic system,” he said.
With ministry officials patrolling city streets to ensure the rule is followed, the men interviewed by AFP all spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.
In the southeastern province of Ghazni, a 30-year-old barber said he was detained for three nights after officials found out that one of his employees had given a client a Western-style haircut.
“First, I was held in a cold hall. Later, after I insisted on being released, they transferred me to a cold (shipping) container,” he said.
He was eventually released without charge and continues to work, but usually hides with his clients when the patrols pass by.
“The thing is that no one can argue or question” the ministry officials, the barber said.
“Everyone fears them.”
He added that in some cases where both a barber and clients were detained, “the clients have been let out, but they kept the barber” in custody.
Last year, three barbers in Kunar province were jailed for three to five months for breaching the ministry’s rules, according to a UN report.
‘Personal space’
Alongside the uptick in enforcement, the religious affairs ministry has also issued stricter orders.
In an eight-page guide to imams issued in November, prayer leaders were told to describe shaving beards as a “major sin” in their sermons.
The religious affairs ministry’s arguments against trimming state that by shaving their beards, men were “trying to look like women.”
The orders have also reached universities — where only men study because women have been banned.
A 22-year-old Kabul University student said lecturers “have warned us... that if we don’t have a proper Islamic appearance, which includes beards and head covering, they will deduct our marks.”
In the capital Kabul, a 25-year-old barber lamented that “there are a lot of restrictions” which go against his young clients’ preference for closer shaves.
“Barbers are private businesses, beards and heads are something personal, they should be able to cut the way they want,” he said.
Hanafi, the virtue propagation minister, has dismissed such arguments, saying last month that telling men “to grow a beard according to sharia” cannot be considered “invading the personal space.”
Business slump
In Afghanistan, the majority are practicing Muslims, but before the Taliban authorities returned to power in 2021, residents of major cities could choose their own appearance.
In areas where Taliban fighters were battling US-backed forces, men would grow beards either out of fear or by choice.
As fewer and fewer men opt for a close shave, the 25-year-old Kabul barber said he was already losing business.
Many civil servants, for example, “used to sort their hair a couple of times a week, but now, most of them have grown beards, they don’t show up even in a month,” he said.
A 50-year-old barber in Kabul said morality patrols “visit and check every day.”
In one incident this month, the barber said that an officer came into the shop and asked: “Why did you cut the hair like this?“
“After trying to explain that he is a child, he told us: ‘No, do Islamic hair, not English hair’.”
