U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday outlined what he described as an Israeli ceasefire proposal to end the war in Gaza, nearly eight months after Israel began its invasion in response to the October 7 attack by Hamas. Biden described three phases to release captives held by both sides, allow residents to return to the north of the Gaza Strip and begin reconstruction of the devastated territory after the full withdrawal of Israeli troops. Hamas said it looked positively on the proposal and previously accepted similar terms, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to agree to it publicly amid pressure from far-right members of his governing coalition to continue the war indefinitely. Former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy says Biden may have employed “constructive ambiguity” about Israel’s position in order to bring the two sides closer to a deal, but that the most important goal is to end the “horrors” in Gaza with a permanent ceasefire. “What are the maximal guarantees that can be given that this is not just a 42-day hiatus followed by yet further death, killing, destruction that we still now see every day?” asks Levy, who is now president of the U.S./Middle East Project.
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After working at the U.S. State Department for over 20 years, Stacy Gilbert quit the Biden administration this week after a report she contributed to concluded Israel was not obstructing humanitarian assistance to Gaza. Gilbert served as a senior civil military adviser in the State Department’s chief humanitarian office, which features heavily in internal policy discussions over Gaza. Despite “abundant evidence showing Israel is responsible for blocking aid,” the report concluded the opposite and was used by the Biden administration to justify continuing to send billions of dollars of weapons to Israel. Gilbert says she was “shocked” to find that the report concluded Israel was not not blocking humanitarian assistance: “That is not the view of subject matter experts at the State Department, at USAID, nor among the humanitarian community. And that was known. That was absolutely known to the administration for a very long time.” Gilbert says there is a clear pattern by Israel “of arbitrarily limiting, restricting or just outright blocking assistance going in that has caused the very grave situation in Gaza.”
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In a broadcast exclusive, Democracy Now! speaks with Alex Smith, a former contractor with the U.S. Agency for International Development who resigned in protest over the Biden’s administration’s support for the war on Gaza. Smith worked as a senior adviser on gender, maternal health, child health and nutrition at USAID until last week, when he was set to deliver a presentation on maternal and child mortality among Palestinians. One day before he was scheduled to present, the USAID leadership canceled his presentation. Smith says he was then given a choice between resignation and dismissal. “I would like them to stop gaslighting and speak truthfully about what is happening,” says Smith, who says USAID must do more than acknowledge famine is happening in Gaza. “We need to take the next step of saying it is illegal and who is doing the starvation intentionally.” Smith condemns the Biden administration for silencing U.S. experts while supporting Israel, which claims there is no famine in Gaza. “It’s shameful that that misinformation can go around the world to millions, while we at USAID can’t even whisper about it in a conference on gender and human rights and health outcomes.”
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Bogotá, May 21, 2024—Colombian authorities must thoroughly investigate the death threat received by journalist Edward Álvarez, ensure his safety, and bring those responsible to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday.
Álvarez, a reporter for the independent online news outlet La Chiva de Urabá in the northern city of Apartadó, received a death threat via WhatsApp on May 12, according to news reports and the journalist, who spoke to CPJ.
The sender identified themselves as “Commander Lucas” of the powerful drug-trafficking group The Gaitanista Self Defense Forces of Colombia — called the Gulf Clan by Colombia’s government — and declared Álvarez a “military objective” for publishing a story about one of the group’s imprisoned members, according to CPJ’s review of the message. “Commander Lucas” warned that if Álvarez continued reporting, his family would also be at risk.
On May 10, La Chiva de Urabá published Álvarez’s video interview with an Apartadó woman in which she alleged that her jailed former partner was trying to extort her by spreading intimate photos of her on social media.
“Colombian authorities must immediately investigate the death threat received by journalist Edward Álvarez and ensure he can return to Apartadó and continue his reporting safely,” said Cristina Zahar, CPJ’s Latin American program coordinator, in São Paulo. “True democracies must guarantee press freedom for all citizens.”
Álvarez told CPJ that he reported the threat to the local police and the Attorney General’s office on May 13 and then fled Apartadó. “I am very scared,” he told CPJ, adding that he did not know when he would return .
The Gaitanista Self Defense Forces of Colombia denied that any of its members threatened Álvarez in a May 12 statement, reviewed by CPJ, and said they were being impersonated, according to those news reports.
The Bogotá-based Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP) documented four incidents of journalists who received threats from the drug-trafficking group.
CPJ’s text messages to the press office of the Attorney General’s office in Bogotá did not receive an immediate reply. Major Miguel Gutierrez, chief of the investigative police in the Urabá region that includes Apartadó, told CPJ that his agents are investigating and do not yet know who threatened Álvarez.
Beirut, May 21, 2024 — Iraqi Kurdish authorities should immediately and unconditionally release journalist Shakar Star and allow all members of the media to work freely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday.
On the evening of Saturday, May 18, Iraqi Kurdistan Asayish security forces arrested Star, a presenter at local media agency Tiwar News, while he traveled from the eastern city of Sulaymaniyah with his wife and two children at a checkpoint near Koysinjaq city in Erbil province, according to his outlet and an Asayish statement. The Asayish security forces seized Star’s car and took the journalist to their headquarters in Sulaymaniyah.
The Kurdistan Region Security Agency said Star was charged with preparing and presenting “false and misleading news reports” on an informal social media page that incited chaos and terror. If convicted of insulting government officials and public authorities, Star faces up to seven years in prison or an unspecified fine.
The Asayish forces are the primary security and intelligence agency in Iraqi Kurdistan, and its forces are significantly influenced by the two main Kurdish political parties: the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). Koysinjaq is the only district in Erbil province that is under PUK control and is secured by its Asayish forces.
“Iraqi Kurdish authorities have made a habit out of jailing journalists critical of the ruling parties, and the practice must end,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna, in New York. “Iraqi Kurdish authorities must immediately release journalist Shakar Star and all others imprisoned.”
Rebaz Abdullah, head of Tiwar News, told CPJ via messaging app that he thinks Star’s arrest stems from a series of four news reports published in April and May on Tiwar News’ social media titled “Welcome to the Emirate of Smuggling [Sulaymaniyah], which documented information about the smuggling of gold, U.S. dollars, weapons, drugs, and human trafficking, and implicated Sulaymaniyah security forces.
Tiwar News issued a Sunday statement saying Star had not received a formal arrest warrant, only a verbal summons, which they “viewed as a threat rather than a legal action.” The statement also said Star only presented the reports, which were written by a team of professional editors.
“Star only read them; he didn’t write them,” Abdullah told CPJ.
Reached by phone, Salam Abdulkhaliq, spokesperson of the Kurdistan Region Security Agency, told CPJ, “I have nothing more [to say] than the statement.” CPJ called Saadi Ahmed Pira, a PUK party spokesperson, for comment but received no response.
Israel and the United States have both strongly condemned the International Criminal Court’s decision to pursue arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on war crimes charges, calling it “outrageous” and seeking support from other allies in opposing the court’s moves. On Monday, ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan outlined specific charges against Netanyahu and Gallant, including “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare” and “extermination.” The ICC also sought arrest warrants for three leaders of Hamas — Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh and Mohammed Deif — for war crimes including extermination and murder, the taking of captives, torture, rape and other acts of sexual violence. The warrants for Israel’s top leaders, which must still be approved by a panel of ICC judges, are “a watershed event in the history of international justice,” says war crimes prosecutor Reed Brody. “This is the first time that a Western or pro-Western leader is [the] subject of an indictment request.”
We also speak with Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, who says Israel’s strident response to the ICC prosecutor is no surprise. “This is the kind of Israel we have in 2024. It doesn’t care about international law. It doesn’t care about international opinion,” says Pappé.
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The Committee to Protect Journalists and nine other organizations representing news media titles, journalists, and campaign groups, urged U.K. authorities on Tuesday to urgently repeal Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, which could force publishers to pay the costs of people who sue them — even if the outlet wins.
Section 40, which has never been brought into force, was drawn up following the Leveson Inquiry into British media ethics in 2012 after journalists were found to have hacked the phones of celebrities and a murdered schoolgirl.
CPJ and others called on the U.K. to repeal Section 40, as promised in 2023 via provisions in the Media Bill, as it risks forcing news publishers to sign up to state-backed regulation.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian were killed on Sunday in a helicopter crash along with several other officials and crew. Wreckage of the helicopter was found early Monday in a mountainous region of the country’s northwest following an overnight search in blizzard conditions. Raisi was returning from inaugurating a new dam built jointly with Azerbaijan along the two countries’ border. Raisi, 63, was elected in 2021 in a vote that saw the lowest-percentage turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history after major opposition candidates were disqualified from taking part. Analyst Trita Parsi says the president’s death will have little impact on the Islamic Republic’s policies, including barring dissident candidates from running for office. “Now the regime is going to have to try to whip up and mobilize voters and excitement for an election within 50 days,” he says. “And it has to make a decision: Is it actually going to allow other candidates to stand, or is it going to continue on the path that it has set out for itself in which these elections increasingly become rather meaningless in terms of actual democratic value?”
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Istanbul, May 17, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists on Friday called on Syrian authorities to release detained Syrian journalist Mahmoud Ibrahim immediately and to disclose his location and that of all imprisoned journalists.
On February 25, Syrian government forces arrested Ibrahim, an editor with Al-Thawra newspaper, which is published by the ruling Baath party, after he attended a court hearing at the Palace of Justice in the western coastal city of Tartus, according to newsreports and the Beirut-based press freedom group SKeyes.
Earlier that day, Ibrahim said in a Facebook post that he was going to attend a first hearing on charges of supporting armed rebellion, violating the constitution, and undermining the prestige of the state. Ibrahim said that he was not guilty and continued to support the “peaceful movement” in the southwestern city of Sweida, where protesters have been calling for President Bashar al-Assad’s departure since August.
CPJ was unable to determine Ibrahim’s whereabouts or health status since his arrest.
The journalist’s family were worried about his health as he required medication for several conditions, the Syrian Network for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, reported.
“CPJ is appalled that Syrian authorities have arrested yet another journalist for commenting on news events in their own country. Mahmoud Ibrahim should not be criminalized simply for expressing his opinion,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York. “Syrian authorities must inform Ibrahim’s family of his whereabouts, grant him access to medical care, and release him and all other journalists unfairly jailed for commenting on the government of President Bashar al-Assad.”
The Syrian Network for Human Rights said it believed Ibrahim was arrested under the 2022 Anti-Cybercrime Law. In an August 25 Facebook post, the journalist sent “peace and a thousand peace” from Tartus to Sweida, with heart emojis and photographs of city skylines.
The Sweida demonstrations were initially against inflation but shifted focus to criticize the government, including attacks on the offices of Assad’s Baath party.
In his February Facebook post, Ibrahim said that an unnamed journalist in Tartous had written a security report about him to the authorities, which led to the lawsuit being filed against him in September, as well as the termination of his job contract and a ban on his employment by government institutions.
Ibrahim also said that he had responded in December to a summons by the Tartus Criminal Security Branch, which was investigating him.
On January 1, Ibrahim said on Facebook that his employer had stopped paying his salary and the newspaper’s director did not give him an explanation.
CPJ’s email to Al-Thawra newspaper requesting comment did not receive any response.
CPJ’s email to Syria’s mission to the United Nations in New York requesting comment on Ebrahem’s case, whereabouts, and health did not receive any reply.
Syria held at least five journalists behind bars when CPJ conducted its most recent annual prison census, which documented those imprisoned as of December 1, 2023. CPJ was unable to determine where any of those journalists were being held or if they were alive.
A video has been circulating on social media showing some men taking out ballots from several Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines and placing them into a black bag. The claim accompanying this video suggests that the footage is related to the first phase of polling in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, held on April 19, 2024. Users have also claimed that ballots were being stolen from VVPAT machines by BJP functionaries.
A user named Sandeep Varma tweeted the video, alleging that after the elections on April 19, ballots were being stolen from VVPAT machines kept under tight security, and the BJP was carrying out the exercise.
*बहुत हम वीडियो है आप इसको जरूर देखिए 19 तारीख में जो चुनाव हुआ चुनाव के बाद एवं जहां फुल सिक्योरिटी में रखी जाती है वहां एवं से वीवीपीएटी से पर्ची चुराई जा रही है और भारतीय जनता पार्टी अपनी पर्ची डलवा रही है।* pic.twitter.com/yzZxh9QeHj
A user named Jennifer Fernandes tweeted the video, questioning the Election Commission and asking why these machines were being tampered with.
A user named Kiran Patnaik also raised questions while tweeting the video, asking where the ballots were being taken without them being counted.
Fact Check
Alt News performed a reverse image search using one of the frames from the viral video on Google. This led us to the original video, which was uploaded by a user on December 13, 2022. In other words, the video is old and has no connection to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
The Collector of Bhavnagar had also issued a reply from their official handle, stating that as per the Election Commission’s guidelines, after the completion of counting, the ballots were removed from the VVPAT machines, placed into a black envelope, and sealed for future elections. He added that the entire process was videographed, with one copy stored in a strong room and another kept with the relevant district election officer.
Landslide Victory In Gujarat.
Scene From One Of The Strong Rooms In That State
Bhavnagar Constituency. pic.twitter.com/GO1Q27DVk3
To sum up, several social media users shared an old video of the routine process of removing ballots from VVPAT machines, falsely linking it to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and making the false claim that ballots were being stolen from the machines by BJP workers.
Two political prisoners in Vietnam’s Gia Trung Prison have finally been given health checkups after almost a year of requests, their families told Radio Free Asia.
Luu Van Vinh is serving a 15-year sentence for “activities aimed at overthrowing the government” while Huynh Minh Tam is serving eight years for “conducting anti-state propaganda.”
Vinh’s wife, Le Thi Thap, said her husband told her the two were only allowed to be examined at Gia Lai Provincial General Hospital because no other prisoners had applied.
She said examination results showed her husband had bone and joint disease, while Tam needed treatment for toothache.
Vinh told his wife prisoners’ health was suffering because of the harsh conditions in the prison. He said inmates refused to eat the pork served at mealtimes because it smelled bad. He added the detention areas had no shade and the tiny cells were only cooled by small fans, which made the summer heat unbearable.
RFA Vietnamese called Gia Trung Prison to verify the information but no one answered the phone.
Tran Thi Ngoc Xuan (left) and Huynh Thuc Vy. (Family photographs/RFA edit)
Female prisoners at Gia Trung also complained about the conditions, saying they had to live with the smell of raw sewage.
Two of the women, Tran Thi Ngoc Xuan and Huynh Thuc Vy, share a cell, with Xuan serving a 13-year prison sentence for subversion over her involvement in the U.S.-based Dao Minh Quan exile organization. Vy was sentenced to 33 months for “insulting the national flag.”
During a visit from relatives this month, Xuan said her cell was heavily affected by the smell from a nearby wastewater pipe.
“During a recent meeting with Xuan at Gia Trung Prison, I noticed that her health was not very good, her skin was pale,” said a relative who didn’t want to give their name for fear of reprisals.
“She said the cell was near a wastewater discharge point and the stench was so unpleasant that she couldn’t sleep at night. During the day, whenever possible, she had to leave the cell to go to a place with fresher air.”
The relative said the two prisoners have been reporting the problem for two years but the prison had done nothing about it.
Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese.
A Uyghur activist living in Paris has been moved to a secure location after a group of unidentified men appeared on her doorstep last week and called for her to let them in, according to the president of the European Uyghur Institute.
On the morning of May 8, eight unidentified people emerged from a black van with tinted windows outside the Paris home of Gulbahar Jelilova, a Uyghur businesswoman from Kazakhstan who spent 18 months in a Xinjiang internment camp, said Dilnur Reyhan, president of the institute.
At the time of the incident, Jelilova was away from her apartment, but neighbors told her the unidentified people repeatedly buzzed her unit — though the bell does not list her name, Reyhan said. They also called her cell phone several times.
As the group gathered in front of the building, Reyhan posted a photo on X, saying Jelilova was “terrified” by their presence.
“Gulbahar herself saw the Chinese men when she reached the turn leading to her house and took a photo of them. She was scared and called me,” Reyhan told Radio Free Asia.
“Their decision to ring the doorbell may have been intended to intimidate her, to send a message, or perhaps they had a specific purpose,” she said, adding that the car resembled “vehicle used for kidnappings.”
A May 8, 2024 post on X by Dilnur Reyhan, president of the European Uyghur Institute, shows men and women dressed in black standing near a van outside the residence of Gulbahar Jelilova. (@DilnurReyhan via X)
Reyhan said she called the police, who arrived and were told by the group they had come to see a Japanese rock garden they heard was in the building.
She said “trusted sources” later reported all eight were Chinese nationals and that her group was helping prepare a court complaint against the group. RFA could not confirm their identity or nationality.
Reyhan said such acts of intimidation had grown more common, and that she herself had been regularly followed by a car in recent months.
Jelilova could not be reached, and the French police did not respond to requests for comment from Radio Free Asia.
‘Tomorrow this could be me’
Gulbahar Haitiwaji, a Uyghur detained in China’s “re-education” camps for two years but who now lives in France said the incident at Jelilova’s apartment had unnerved many.
“Because China is so ruthless, in the back of my mind I always think that one day they’ll bring about harm towards me,” she said. “For example, yesterday it was Gulbahar, tomorrow it could be me.”
The incident took place one day after Chinese President Xi Jinping wrapped up his two-day state visit to France, his first stop on a three-country European visit. His arrival was greeted by several protests from Tibetan, Uyghur and Chinese activists – including Jelilova.
While such demonstrations have in the past been met, sometimes violently, with pro-Beijing counter-protests, there was little sign of that in Paris.
But at a May 5 protest at Madeleine Square, which is located close to the French president’s residence, Uyghur activists were met by a small group of French-speaking counter-protesters.
A video posted to Facebook shows about eight young men, all wearing masks and none of whom appear to be of Chinese descent, holding up letter-sized photos of World Uyghur Congress President Dolkun Isa with a mark across his face.
As the crowd of protesters approach them, they shout “liar” and “they are bulls–ing us” in French, before running away as police pursue them for unknown reasons.
Isa told RFA that he suspected the protests were the “result of the Chinese government’s arrangements, funding, or organization.”
The Chinese Embassy in Paris did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.
Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Abby Seiff and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Nuriman Abdureshid for RFA Uyghur.
The police fatal shooting of Win Rozario, a 19-year-old Bangladeshi teen who lived in Queens, New York, has set off protests and demands for justice from the family. Rozario had called 911 in late March asking for help as he experienced a mental health crisis, but two New York police officers who arrived at the family’s home shot him at least four times within minutes after entering the Rozario residence. The NYPD claimed Rozario “came at” the officers with a pair of scissors when they fired at him, but police body-camera footage shows he was standing on the other side of the kitchen, several feet away from the officers, as his mother desperately tried to shield her son. “He needed help, and what they did instead was kill him,” says New York City Councilmember Shahana Hanif, who represents the city’s 39th Council District. She also discusses progressives’ ongoing efforts to pass a ceasefire resolution at City Council to demand an end to the war in Gaza, as well as Mayor Eric Adams’s crackdown on asylum seekers.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
We speak with civil rights attorney Ben Crump about the police killing of Roger Fortson, a Black 23-year-old Air Force member who was fatally shot by a Florida police officer mere moments after opening the door of his apartment. Fortson’s family says the police had arrived at the wrong home and that Fortson had grabbed his legal firearm as a precaution. Police body-camera footage shows Fortson answered the door with his gun at his side, not posing an imminent threat to the officer, who immediately shot Fortson six times. “The Second Amendment applies to Black people, too,” says Crump, who has represented victims of police violence in many high-profile cases. The police claim that officers were responding to a domestic dispute is contradicted by the fact that Fortson was home alone, Crump says. “They need to go ahead and admit that it was the wrong apartment and quit trying to justify this unjustifiable killing.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
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