VILNIUS: Supporters of jailed Belarusian Nobel Peace laureate Ales Bialiatski say the human rights activist should have been included in the biggest East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War on Thursday.
Allies of Bialiatski and other jailed Belarusians are disappointed they were not included in the swap, which saw eight Russians, including a convicted murderer, exchanged for 16 prisoners in Russian and Belarusian jails, many of them dissidents.
Some of the Russian dissidents freed in the swap, including Ilya Yashin, an opposition activist, expressed anger or reservations on Friday at having been deported from their country against their will.
Bialiatski, 61, who is serving a 10-year sentence for financing anti-government protests after a trial in 2023 condemned by the US and the European Union as a “sham,” was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022 — a year after his arrest.
“When we heard that the deal is imminent, we hoped that someone from Belarus political prisoners will surely be a part of it. First of all, of course, the jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner,” said Alena Masliukova, a member of Viasna — the human rights organization founded by Bialiatski.
“This was a total disappointment, and we still haven’t overcome it,” said Masliukova, who now lives in exile in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital.
Among those released in this week’s swap was German citizen Rico Krieger who had been sentenced to death on terrorism charges in Belarus, a close ally of Russia where — according to Viasna — 1,390 people are in jail for political reasons — many linked to mass protests four years ago.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, in power since 1994, faced large protests after a disputed 2020 presidential election — the biggest challenge to his rule.
He has long dismissed accusations of human rights abuse.
Viasna says activists are still dragged before courts for their role in the protests, and Masliukova said political prisoners faced harsh conditions in jail.
“They are kept in cold cells, without contact with relatives. They leave jail with damaged health,” she said.
Bialiatski returned voluntarily from exile to Belarus in 2021 despite knowing he likely faced arrest, which supporters said meant he might not be willing to leave the country again, a process which legally requires the prisoner to ask for a pardon.
“I know his character and I am sure there is no way he would ask for pardon from Lukashenko,” said Siarhei Sys, a long-time friend. “I don’t know what happens in five years ... It all depends on the state of his health.”
Jailed Belarus Nobel winner should have been freed in prisoner swap, say supporters
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Jailed Belarus Nobel winner should have been freed in prisoner swap, say supporters
- Allies of Bialiatski and other jailed Belarusians are disappointed they were not included in the swap
- Alena Masliukova, a member of Viasna — the human rights organization founded by Bialiatski, said: “This was a total disappointment, and we still haven’t overcome it“
Taylor Swift says she will vote for Kamala Harris
“I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them,” Swift said in her post
WASHINGTON: Pop megastar Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala Harris on Tuesday after her debate against Republican rival Donald Trump, calling the Democratic presidential nominee a “steady-handed, gifted leader” who could lead the country with calm rather than chaos.
In a post on Instagram, Swift told her over 280 million followers that she will vote for the US vice president in the Nov. 5 election, in the biggest celebrity endorsement yet for Harris. Polls show the race essentially tied between the two candidates.
“I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election. I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them,” Swift said in her post.
Swift was pictured with her cat in the post, which she signed as “childless cat lady,” in a dig at Trump’s running mate JD Vance, who in a 2021 interview called some Democrats “a bunch of childless cat ladies.” He has since said it was merely a “sarcastic remark.”
Swift also said she was impressed by Harris’ running mate Tim Walz, who the singer described as someone “who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.”
Walz, who was on air on MSNBC when the endorsement was announced, said he was “incredibly grateful” and urged the singer’s large fan base of “Swifties” to “Get things going.”
Trump on Wednesday dismissed her endorsement, saying he “was not a Taylor fan.”
“It was just a question of time,” Trump told Fox News in an interview. “She’s a very liberal person. She seems to always endorse a Democrat. And she’ll probably pay a price for it ... in the marketplace.”
Reproductive rights have become a key issue for voters since the US Supreme Court ended the constitutional right to abortion two years ago. IVF fertility treatments have also been pushed into the spotlight since an Alabama court ruled earlier this year that frozen embryos were people.
Harris, who supports abortion rights, has cast Trump as a threat to reproductive rights in the country after he appointed Supreme Court justices who helped overturn the Roe v Wade ruling in 2022. Trump has defended the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling but has said a federal abortion ban is unnecessary and that the issue should be resolved at the state level.
In August, Trump posted a fake social media image of Swift asking people to vote for him in the November election.
Swift made a reference to that in her post late on Tuesday, saying Trump’s move “really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation.”
She added: “It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter.”
Swift has supported Democrats in the past and backed President Joe Biden in 2020. Her endorsement is the latest for Harris from the entertainment industry. Many Hollywood actors, producers and filmmakers have said they viewed Harris, a native Californian, as their hometown candidate.
Harris shares a home with her husband, Doug Emhoff, a former entertainment lawyer, in the celebrity enclave of Brentwood on the west side of Los Angeles.
Shortly after Swift’s endorsement, the Harris-Walz campaign announced pre-orders for its latest campaign wear: Swift fan inspired friendship bracelets.
Russian strategic bomber planes overfly Barents and Norwegian seas, RIA says
- The flights were part of the “Ocean-2024” drills that Russia launched a day earlier
MOSCOW: Russian Tu-160 strategic bomber planes flew over the Barents and Norwegian seas as part of a major naval exercise, the state-run RIA news agency quoted the defense ministry as saying on Wednesday.
It said the flights were part of the “Ocean-2024” drills that Russia launched a day earlier.
The exercises, the biggest since the Soviet era, will involve more than 90,000 servicemen, over 400 vessels and 125 aircraft and will run until Sept. 16 across a vast area including parts of the Pacific and Arctic Oceans and the Mediterranean, Baltic and Caspian seas.
Gunmen kill a polio worker during a vaccination campaign in Pakistan
- Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi issued a statement condemning the attack
- No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in Bajur
KHAR, Pakistan: Gunmen on motorcycles opened fire Wednesday on police escorting a team of polio workers during a door-to-door vaccination campaign in northwestern Pakistan, killing an officer and a polio worker, police said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in Bajur, a district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban, according to local police chief Abdul Aziz.
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi issued a statement condemning the attack.
Pakistan on Monday launched a nationwide polio campaign amid a spike in militant attacks. The potentially fatal, paralyzing disease mostly strikes children under age 5 and typically spreads through contaminated water.
That same day, a roadside bomb hit a vehicle carrying officers assigned to protect health workers conducting polio immunization in the northwestern South Waziristan district, in the same province, wounding six officers and three civilians.
The militant Daesh group later claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack.
Anti-polio campaigns in Pakistan are regularly marred by violence. Militants target vaccination teams and police assigned to protect them, falsely claiming that the campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
Since January, Pakistan has reported 17 new cases of polio, jeopardizing decades of efforts to eliminate polio in the country. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries in which the spread of polio has never been stopped.
Red Cross pushes for aid corridors into war-torn Myanmar
- ICRC chief met Myanmar’s ruling general this week
- Access, restrictions limiting scope of aid operation
BANGKOK: Cmmittee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is in talks with Myanmar’s ruling junta, its armed opponents and its neighbors to provide cross-border humanitarian assistance into the war-torn country, its chief said on Wednesday.
Myanmar has been mired in conflict since February 2021 when top generals ousted the elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, triggering widespread protests that grew into an armed rebellion challenging the powerful military.
With wide swathes of the country in turmoil, about a third of Myanmar’s 55 million people require humanitarian assistance but the ICRC cannot operate in many areas because of access restrictions and security risks, said Mirjana Spoljaric.
“There’s a total absence in certain regions of medical services, I mean, a complete collapse,” Spoljaric told Reuters.
“There’s not even medicine coming in at the moment, and there’s very little food available.”
During a visit to Myanmar that ended this week, Mirjana said she told junta chief Min Aung Hlaing that the ICRC has the capacity to deliver more assistance.
“The problem is access,” she said. “It’s critical at the moment because we can’t even go and assess the humanitarian needs, and this is something that we need to remedy.”
CROSS-BORDER APPROACH
In an effort to push more aid into Myanmar, the ICRC is engaging multiple parties on the possibility of sending assistance through neighbors such as Bangladesh and Thailand.
“This was a constant topic of conversation,” Spoljaric said, “The cross-border issue is on the table.”
In March, Thailand delivered some aid into Myanmar, as part of an initiative backed by the Southeast Asian bloc ASEAN to open a humanitarian corridor.
“The lesson learned is you need to have everybody’s agreement in order to operate. But this could potentially provide entry points for some level of ceasefire, local ceasefire negotiations going forward,” Spoljaric said.
Another potential route to deliver aid into the country is through Bangladesh, which borders Myanmar’s Rakhine state, where the Arakan Army rebel group has taken control of significant territory and beaten back the military.
The fighting in Rakhine has led to a fresh exodus of the mainly Muslim minority Rohingya community into Bangladesh, which already has over a million Rohingya refugees in sprawling camps.
“What we seek is the direct dialogue with all the parties to a conflict with all weapon bearers and those who have control over them,” Spoljaric said.
“But at the same time as in every conflict we try to mobilize states that can have an influence.”
A former Swiss diplomat, Spoljaric did not detail the response of the Myanmar junta chief to the proposal, which she said is also being discussed with armed groups opposed to the military, neighboring countries and ASEAN.
“I am hoping that my meeting with the chairman will improve channels of communication and will at least show some openings on their side to increase operational space,” she said, referring to Min Aung Hlaing.
Children of Daesh suspects returned to France doing well: prosecutor
- Overall 170 women had returned from Iraq and Syria to France
- Until 2022, France only brought back children on a case-by-case basis
PARIS: France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor said on Wednesday that 364 repatriated children of French parents suspected of joining the Daesh group in Syria and Iraq a decade ago were doing well.
“There are 364 children in 59 departments (areas in France), who are followed by judges for children, and who benefit from coordination from my office to make sure they have optimal care,” Olivier Christen told the France Info radio station.
Another anti-terror prosecutor had in 2018 expressed fear that the children of French nationals who joined Daesh after it set up a so-called caliphate in 2014 could be “ticking time bombs.”
But Christen, who leads the National Anti-Terror Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) opened in 2019 in the wake of a spate of jihadist attacks, brushed aside that worry.
“These 364 children in no way seem to me to correspond to that expression,” he said.
“They are being closely monitored... They pose no particular difficulty.”
“There are very different situations. Some are very, very young children, others are fully fledged teenagers,” he added.
Overall 170 women had returned from Iraq and Syria to France, he said, including 57 from detention camps in northeast Syria in recent years since the Daesh caliphate’s territorial collapse in 2019.
Of the 364 children who had been brought to France, “169 have been repatriated over the past two years,” he added.
Until 2022, France only brought back children on a case-by-case basis, prioritizing orphans and some children of women who had agreed to give up their parental rights. But Paris changed that policy two years ago.
Daesh seized control of large swathes of Syria and neighboring Iraq in 2014, before Syrian forces spearheaded by Kurds and backed by a US-led coalition ousted them from their last patch of land in eastern Syria in 2019.
Kurdish autonomous authorities in northeast Syria have been holding around 56,000 people, including 30,000 children, in detention centers and camps.
Among them are Daesh fighters and their families, as well as displaced people who fled the fighting.
