French minister holds Tunisia talks on return of extremists

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Caroline Nelly Perrot and Kaouther Larbi | AFP
ID: 
1604691580806392300
Fri, 2020-11-06 19:37

TUNIS: Tunisia said Friday it would take back from France its citizens suspected of being extremists, after last week’s deadly attack in Nice allegedly carried out by a Tunisian terrorist.
But Interior Minister Taoufik Charfeddine, following talks with his visiting French counterpart Gerald Darmanin, said their return would be conditional.
The former French colony is “prepared to receive any Tunisian,” Charfeddine said.
“But this must be done in line with conditions and regulations” under international laws and in “preserving the dignity of the Tunisian” being returned, Charfeddine told reporters.
Sources close to Darmanin said ahead of the talks that he would submit to authorities a list of some 20 Tunisians who France wants to expel, on the basis that they had been convicted on terrorism charges or were suspected of extremist inclinations.
The French interior minister is due to visit Algeria on Sunday on a similar mission.
Public opinion in Tunisia is hostile toward the return of suspected militants, and authorities have refused the return of their citizens from France on the basis of travel restrictions linked to the coronavirus pandemic.
Tunisian nationals have constituted a significant proportion of foreign terrorists in Syria, Iraq and Libya over the past decade.
In 2015, the United Nations said that some 5,000 Tunisians had flocked mainly to Syria and Libya to join Daesh, while authorities in Tunis gave a lower figure of 3,000.
Their return has been a cause of concern in Tunisia, which has been under a state of emergency following a string of Daesh-claimed attacks in 2015 and 2016.
Darmanin’s visit to Tunis was scheduled some time ago but it took on new urgency following the October 29 killing of three people at a church in the southern French city of Nice.
The alleged perpetrator of that attack, 21-year-old Brahim Aouissaoui, who arrived illegally in Europe in late September, is not the first Tunisian suspected of carrying out a deadly extremist attack in Europe.
In 2016, 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel plowed a truck into a Bastille Day crowd on the Nice seafront, killing 86 people.
Later that year fellow Tunisian citizen Anis Amri, 24, carried out a similar attack at a Berlin Christmas market, killing 12 people.
Daesh claimed both men as its followers.
Darmanin also met Tunisian President Kais Saied who stressed that his country would seek to find a “solution to obstacles that may arise” in the face of expulsions from France.
Several non-governmental organizations released a petition charging that European governments were “pressuring” Tunisia to take back its citizens.
The groups, including the Tunisian League of Human Rights, said European countries are “taking advantage of the fear sparked by the crimes committed by terrorists to get rid of illegal migrants.”
Darmanin is expected to discuss illegal migration in Algeria and also in a later visit to Malta.
Illegal sea crossings to Europe from Tunisia have been on the rise, largely driven by economic woes after a 2011 popular revolution that many hoped would bring change.
Sources close to Darmanin said the expulsions from France will also target common law criminals and would take into account “hygiene protocols” due to the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the sources, 70 percent of over 230 foreigners illegally in France and suspected of radicalism are from the Maghreb region, which includes Tunisia and Algeria, and from Russia.

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Protester killed in southern Iraq as tensions flare again

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By NABIL AL-JURANI | AP
ID: 
1604690317066286800
Fri, 2020-11-06 19:00

BASRA: Iraqi security forces opened fire during clashes with hundreds of protesters in the southern city of Basra on Friday, killing one demonstrator and wounding several others as tensions flared once again, hospital officials said.
The clashes erupted after some of the protesters tried to set up tents in a public square, a week after similar, previously erected protest tents in Basra and Baghdad had been removed.
Dozens of young Iraqis were seen running away in panic after the shots were fired in Basra. The slain protester was identified as Omar Al-Thiabi, a 29-year-old unemployed Iraqi.
Last Saturday, Iraqi forces cleared out sit-in tents from Baghdad’s central Tahrir Square that had been the epicenter of anti-government mass protests that erupted last year. They also removed tents in Basra’s Bahriya Square and in other southern cities that have seen major protests throughout the past year.
The removal of the tents has led to tensions and protesters in Basra have been trying to erect them again, holding demonstrations in the city for the past three days. They are also demanding the sacking of the governor and an investigation into previous killings of protesters.
The hospital officials said seven protesters were wounded in Friday’s clashes. They spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
More than 500 people were killed during the months-long protest movement that began in October 2019 in Baghdad and across the mainly Shiite south, many of them demonstrators shot by Iraqi security forces.
Despite reaching unprecedented numbers in late 2019 and successfully mounting pressure on the country’s elites, the anti-government protests have been largely dormant in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Activists also blamed the drop in numbers on a violent crackdown by Iraqi security forces and militia groups, as well as kidnappings and targeted assassinations.

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Eight Syrian ministers added to EU sanctions list

Author: 
AFP
ID: 
1604678640745283600
Fri, 2020-11-06 15:56

BRUSSELS: The EU on Friday added eight ministers from the new Syrian government formed in August to its sanctions blacklist for their role in President Bashar Assad’s violent repression of civilians.
The decision by the EU’s 27 member countries bans the ministers from traveling to Europe and will see their assets frozen.
The EU’s official journal on Friday added the names of the ministers of oil and mineral resources, industry, health, agriculture and three ministers of state.
The ministers of finance, justice, trade, transport, culture, education and water resources had already been added on October 16.
The new government of Prime Minister Hussein Arnous, who has been on this list since 2014, is the fifth to be formed in Syria since the beginning of the conflict in 2011.
With the additions, the crisis in Syria has put 288 people and 70 entities under EU sanctions.
EU sanctions have been in force against the Assad regime since December 2011 and are subject to annual review.
The Syrian conflict erupted in early 2011 when Assad’s forces staged a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests, sparking violence that has since claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
After nine years of war, Assad controls some 70 percent of Syrian territory.

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Palestinian held by Israel ends hunger strike after 103 days

Author: 
Reuters
ID: 
1604682510005670400
Fri, 2020-11-06 16:48

RAMALLAH: A Palestinian on Friday ended a 103-day hunger strike against his detention without charge by Israel after being assured his four-month detention would not be extended, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club said.
There was no immediate comment from Israeli authorities on whether they had offered any special assurances to Maher Al-Akhras, 49, who has been in an Israeli hospital suffering from heart pain and convulsions, according to his wife.
Akhras, a resident of the city of Jenin in the north of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was taken into custody in July under an Israeli “administrative detention” order.
Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency says Akhras was detained after it received information that he was an operative of the Islamic Jihad militant group, an allegation his wife has denied.
He had vowed to continue to refuse solid food despite an October decision by Israel’s Supreme Court not to extend his detention beyond Nov. 26.
But after receiving what it called “a firm commitment (by Israel) not to renew his administrative detention … Maher Al-Akhras decided to end his hunger strike starting today, Friday Nov. 6,” the Palestinian Prisoners Club, which works on behalf of prisoners, said in a statement.
“He will spend the remaining period until his release receiving treatment in the hospital,” the statement added.
The Israel Prison Service referred questions to the Israeli military, which did not immediately provide comment.
There are around 5,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails, 350 of them under administrative detention, Palestinian officials said. Israeli officials say detention without trial is sometimes necessary to protect the identities of undercover operatives.

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US hits ‘corrupt’ Lebanese political leader Gibran Bassil with sanctions 

Author: 
Reuters
ID: 
1604640138173268000
Fri, 2020-11-06 05:18

CHICAGO: Lebanese political leader Gibran Bassil has been hit by US sanctions, with Secretary of State Michael Pompeo accusing him of being “notorious for corruption.”

Bassil, who has held various ministerial roles and heads the Free Patriotic Movement, has had his US assets frozen and is barred from entering the country.

Pompeo said Bassil was in violation of President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 13818, which targets rights abuses and corruption under the 2015 Magnitsky Act.

The Magnitsky Act gives the president the power to block US entry and impose property sanctions against any foreign person, or entity, who is responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights or is engaged in government corruption.

“Bassil has served in multiple high-level posts in the Lebanese government, including as minister of foreign affairs and emigrants, minister of energy and water, and minister of telecommunications,” Pompeo said. “Throughout his government career, Bassil has become notorious for corruption and has been linked to the purchase of influence within Lebanese political circles. While minister of energy, Bassil was involved in approving several projects that would have steered Lebanese government funds to individuals close to him through a group of front companies.”

Pompeo said the action expanded on similar sanctions imposed under Executive Order 13224 on two other former Lebanese officials, including Yusuf Finyanus, who was Lebanon’s minister of transportation and public works, and Ali Hassan Khalil, who previously served as minister of public health and then later as minister of finance.

Finyanus and Khalil “put personal interests and those of Iran-backed Hezbollah ahead of the welfare of the Lebanese people,” Pompeo said. “Through his corrupt activities, Bassil has also undermined good governance and contributed to the prevailing system of corruption and political patronage that plagues Lebanon, which has aided and abetted Hezbollah’s destabilizing activities. Lebanese political leaders should be aware that the time has long passed for them to put aside their own narrow self-interests and instead work for the people of Lebanon.”

Pompeo said he was also strengthening punishments against Bassil by applying two other powerful instruments of US sanctions, including Section 7031(c) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2020 (Div. G, P.L. 116-94), due to his involvement in significant corruption that blocked Bassil’s travel to the US.

Al-Andalus revisited
Eight centuries of Muslim rule in Spain, during which Arab culture and science flourished, are echoed not only in the magnificent art and buildings of Al-Andalus, but also in the souls and the DNA of its descendants

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