radiofree.asia

Category: Syria

  • The Non-explosive Iranian Bomb

    The non-existent Iranian bomb has lesser importance to the existing bombs that threaten the world. United States (US) demands that Iran promise to halt pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile developments distract from the real intent of US actions — deter other nations from establishing more friendly relations with Iran and prevent them from gaining a correct perspective on the causes of the Middle East crises.

    The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) created a potential for extensive political, economic, and social engagements of the international community with Iran. The investments would lead to attachments, friendships, and alliances and initiate a revitalized, prosperous, and stronger Iran. A new perspective of Iran could yield a revised perspective of a violent, unstable, and disturbed Middle East. Israel and Saudi Arabia would finally receive attention as participants in bringing chaos to the Arab region. Economies committed to Iran’s progress and allied with its interests could bring pressure on Israel and Saudi Arabia to change their destructive behaviors.

    Because arguments with Iran could have been approached in a less provocative and insinuating manner, the previous demands were meant to provoke and insinuate. Assuredly, the US wants Iran to eschew nuclear and ballistic weapons, but the provocative approach indicated other purposes — alienate Iran, destroy its military capability, and bring Tehran to collapse and submission. For what reasons? Accomplishing the far-reaching goals will not affect the average American, lessen US defense needs, or diminish the continuous battering of the helpless faces of the Middle East. The strategy mostly pleased Israel and Saudi Arabia, who engineered it, share major responsibility for the Middle East turmoil, and consistently try to use mighty America to subdue the principal antagonist to their malicious activities. During the 2016 presidential campaign, contender Donald Trump said, “Many nations, including allies, ripped off the US.” President Donald Trump has verified that statement.

    Noting the history of US promises to leaders of other nations – give up your aggressive attitudes and you will benefit – the US promises make the Ayatollahs skeptical. The US reneged on the JCPOA, sent Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic to the World Court and eventual death (although his personal compromises were the key to the Dayton Accords that ended the Yugoslavian conflict), directly assisted NATO in the overthrow of subdued Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, pulverized Iraq after sanctions could not drive that nation to total ruin, rejected the Iranian pledge of $560 million worth of assistance to Afghanistan at the Tokyo donors’ conference in January 2002, and, according to the U.S. envoy to Afghanistan, Richard Dobbins, disregarded Iran’s “decisive role in persuading the Northern Alliance delegation to compromise its demands of wanting 60 percent of the portfolios in an interim government.” Tehran has always sensed it is in a no-win situation. Regardless of its decisions and directions, the U.S. intends to pulverize the centuries old Persian lands.

    If the US honestly wants to have Iran promise never to pursue nuclear and ballistic missile weapons, it will approach the issues with a simple question, “What will it take for you (Iran) never to pursue these weapons?” Assuredly, the response will include provisions for the US to withdraw support from a despotic Saudi Kingdom in its oppression of minorities and opposition and propose that the US eliminate financial, military and cooperative support to Israel’s theft of Palestinian lands, oppressive conditions imposed on Palestinians, daily killings of Palestinian people, and expansionist plans. The correct question soliciting a formative response and leading to decisive US actions resolves two situations and benefits the US — fear of Iran developing weapons of mass destruction is relieved and the Middle East is pointed in a direction that achieves justice, peace, and stability for its peoples.

    Despite the August 2018 report from Trump’s U.S. Department of State’s Iran Action group, which “chronicle Iran’s destructive activities,” and consists of everything from most minor to most major, from unsubstantiated to retaliatory, from the present time to before the discovery of dirt, Iranians will not rebel in sufficient numbers against their own repressive state until they note the end of hypocritical support by western powers of other repressive states. Halting international terrorism, ameliorating the Middle East violence, and preventing any nation from establishing hegemony in the Arab world starts with Trump confronting Israel and Saudi Arabia, two nations whose records of injustice, aggression, oppression, and violation of human rights exceed that of the oppressive Iran regime.

    Otherwise, it will occur on a Sunday morning; always occurs in the early hours on the day of rest. It will come with a roar greater than the sum of all shrieks and screams ever uttered by humankind, rip across fields and cities, and burn through the flesh of a part of the world’s population.

    The post The Non-explosive Iranian Bomb first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Syria After Assad

    Hope has been restored for many Syrians. But vigilance will be needed to ensure that democratic institutions emerge and withstand autocratic impulses.

    This post was originally published on Dissent Magazine.

  • Lebanese nun fights to save Alawites massacred in the ‘new’ Syria


    This content originally appeared on The Grayzone and was authored by The Grayzone.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Social Media as Evidence: Documenting Human Rights Abuses in Post-Assad Syria

    By Julie T, Julie DL, Isabelle, Celia, and Dewi Available in Arabic here. (Trigger Warning/Content Warning: graphic descriptions of violent acts, humiliation and mention of death) How can social media help to identify human rights abuses in Syria? Following the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, Syria has faced continued turmoil, with widespread […]

  • Iraqi MP Files Lawsuit Against Syrian President Over ‘Terrorist’ Past

    Iraqi Member of Parliament Alaa al-Haidari has filed a lawsuit with the Iraqi Public Prosecution against the new Syrian President, Ahmad al-Sharaa, Shafaq News reported on 29 April.

    In a video statement from the Supreme Judicial Council building, Haidari said, “I filed the complaint against the terrorist Julani, known as Ahmad al-Sharaa,” who “was part of ISIS organizations in Iraqi territory.”

    This comes as the Syrian President received an official invitation from Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani on 27 April to attend the Arab League Summit scheduled to be held next month in the capital, Baghdad.

    The post Iraqi MP Files Lawsuit Against Syrian President Over ‘Terrorist’ Past appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • How Fair Was it to Label Hamas “Terrorists”?

    So Hamas have finally got around to appealing against the UK Government branding their political wing a terrorist organisation.

    In their legal submission, they say “the proscription has hindered the group’s ability to broker a political solution to the conflict, stifled conversations in securing a long-term political settlement, criminalised ordinary Palestinians residing in Gaza, and undermined the possibility of a peaceful settlement”.

    They also argue that being branded terrorists infringes fundamental rights and has a disproportionate impact on freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and open debate and political expression, which makes sensible journalism and public discourse on Israel’s actions in Palestine impossible.

    Hamas’s submission also points out that Britain’s Terrorism Act “covers all groups and organisations around the world that use violence to achieve political objectives, including the Israeli armed forces, the Ukrainian Army and, indeed, the British armed forces”.

    And it claims proscription obstructs humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip because any form of assistance can be labelled “terrorism” if it is “seen as supporting a group that has been labelled a terrorist organisation”.

    On the other hand, proscribing Hamas was a clever move because it makes it so much easier for Israel’s stooges at Westminster to avoid having to explain that regime’s far worse war crimes and crimes against humanity. We have to thank Priti Patel who, while International Development Secretary, was so taken-in by Zionist claptrap and so adoring of Israel that, in 2017, she reportedly had around a dozen meetings with Israeli politicians and organisations during a family holiday in Israel without telling the Foreign Office, her civil servants or her boss Theresa May, and without government officials present. This was not only a middle finger to the Ministerial Code of Conduct but a gross breach of security.

    She was also said to have tried persuading colleagues to send British taxpayers’ money as aid for an Israeli forces project in the Golan Heights…. and she actually visited the Golan. As everyone and his dog knows, the Golan Heights is Syrian territory stolen in 1967 by the Israelis who have illegally occupied it ever since. Touring it with the thieving occupation army was another serious diplomatic blunder.

    Patel’s meetings are said to have been arranged by Lord Polak, an official of the Board of Deputies of British Jews in the 1980s who joined the Conservative Friends of Israel in 1989, and served as its director for 26 years until appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for political service and made a life peer. It’s difficult to see what political service Polak performed for anyone other than the Israeli regime.

    Patel was forced to resign but later restored to favour and promoted to Home Secretary. She proscribed Hamas’s political wing in 2021 with hardly a murmur of opposition. There seemed no legitimate reason for doing so unless it was part of the UK/US/Israel axis aim to bring about coercive regime change. But would that be legal? Are the Palestinians to be denied self-determination and the right to choose their own government? Well, yes, so it seems.

    What’s to fear from Hamas?

    No-one in the UK Government has properly explained, probably because no-one has bothered to sit down and shoot the breeze with them. Instead they eagerly welcome Netanyahu and his thugs with red-carpet hugs, handshakes and vows of affection and endless co-operation, and soak up the nonsense they talk.

    And has anyone at Westminster bothered to read Hamas’s 2017 Charter? If so, did they notice Sections 16 and 20? They are reasonably in tune with international law while the Israeli government pursues policies that definitely are not.

    1. Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.
    2. Hamas believes that no part of the land of Palestine shall be compromised or conceded, irrespective of the causes, the circumstances and the pressures and no matter how long the occupation lasts. Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.

    Under international law the correct way to deal with the threat posed by Hamas is (and always has been) by requiring Israel to immediately end its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and theft of Palestinian resources.

    JVP (Jewish Voice for Peace), who claim to be the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world, said of the genocide in Gaza: “We’re organizing a grassroots, multiracial, cross-class, intergenerational movement of US Jews into solidarity with Palestinian freedom struggle.” Here’s an extract from their no-nonsense statement on the hostilities in Palestine.

    “The Israeli government may have just declared war, but its war on Palestinians started over 75 years ago. Israeli apartheid and occupation — and United States complicity in that oppression — are the source of all this violence. Reality is shaped by when you start the clock.

    For the past year, the most racist, fundamentalist, far-right government in Israeli history has ruthlessly escalated its military occupation over Palestinians in the name of Jewish supremacy with violent expulsions and home demolitions, mass killings, military raids on refugee camps, unrelenting siege and daily humiliation. In recent weeks, Israeli forces repeatedly stormed the holiest Muslim sites in Jerusalem.

    For 16 years, the Israeli government has suffocated Palestinians in Gaza under a draconian air, sea and land military blockade, imprisoning and starving two million people and denying them medical aid. The Israeli government routinely massacres Palestinians in Gaza; ten-year-olds who live in Gaza have already been traumatized by seven major bombing campaigns in their short lives.

    For 75 years, the Israeli government has maintained a military occupation over Palestinians, operating an apartheid regime. Palestinian children are dragged from their beds in pre-dawn raids by Israeli soldiers and held without charge in Israeli military prisons. Palestinians’ homes are torched by mobs of Israeli settlers, or destroyed by the Israeli army. Entire Palestinian villages are forced to flee, abandoning the homes orchards, and land that were in their family for generations.

    The bloodshed of today and the past 75 years traces back directly to US complicity in the oppression and horror caused by Israel’s military occupation. The US government consistently enables Israeli violence and bears blame for this moment. The unchecked military funding, diplomatic cover, and billions of dollars of private money flowing from the US enables and empowers Israel’s apartheid regime.”

    The Zionists’ Dalet Plan, or Plan D

    It’s not just America’s complicity and Britain’s 110-years of betrayal that have brought us to this appalling situation. Plan D was the Zionists’ terror blueprint for their brutal takeover of the Palestinian homeland drawn up 77 years ago by the Jewish underground militia, the Haganah, at the behest of David Ben-Gurion, then boss of the Jewish Agency, and relentless pursued by the Israeli regime to this day.

    Plan D was a carefully thought-out, step-by-step plot choreographed ahead of the British mandate government’s withdrawal and the Zionists’ declaration of Israeli statehood. It correctly assumed that the British authorities would no longer be there.

    It’s a sign of the shoddy times we live in that the lawyers involved in the appeal case felt obliged to state that Hamas did not pay them or the experts who provided evidence for their submission, as it is illegal to receive funds from a group designated as a terrorist organisation.

    Hopefully their appeal will skewer the Government’s utter hypocrisy and undying support for the real terrorists in the Holy Land. Priti Patel will have to reckon with the consequences of her actions in terms of the huge numbers of innocent lives lost or reduced to unimaginable misery.

    I hasten to add that I am no supporter of Hamas. I support truth and justice, simple as that. And of course the Laws of Cricket.

    The post How Fair Was it to Label Hamas “Terrorists”? first appeared on Dissident Voice.


    This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Stuart Littlewood.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • How Fair Was it to Label Hamas “Terrorists”?

    So Hamas have finally got around to appealing against the UK Government branding their political wing a terrorist organisation.

    In their legal submission, they say “the proscription has hindered the group’s ability to broker a political solution to the conflict, stifled conversations in securing a long-term political settlement, criminalised ordinary Palestinians residing in Gaza, and undermined the possibility of a peaceful settlement”.

    They also argue that being branded terrorists infringes fundamental rights and has a disproportionate impact on freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and open debate and political expression, which makes sensible journalism and public discourse on Israel’s actions in Palestine impossible.

    Hamas’s submission also points out that Britain’s Terrorism Act “covers all groups and organisations around the world that use violence to achieve political objectives, including the Israeli armed forces, the Ukrainian Army and, indeed, the British armed forces”.

    And it claims proscription obstructs humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip because any form of assistance can be labelled “terrorism” if it is “seen as supporting a group that has been labelled a terrorist organisation”.

    On the other hand, proscribing Hamas was a clever move because it makes it so much easier for Israel’s stooges at Westminster to avoid having to explain that regime’s far worse war crimes and crimes against humanity. We have to thank Priti Patel who, while International Development Secretary, was so taken-in by Zionist claptrap and so adoring of Israel that, in 2017, she reportedly had around a dozen meetings with Israeli politicians and organisations during a family holiday in Israel without telling the Foreign Office, her civil servants or her boss Theresa May, and without government officials present. This was not only a middle finger to the Ministerial Code of Conduct but a gross breach of security.

    She was also said to have tried persuading colleagues to send British taxpayers’ money as aid for an Israeli forces project in the Golan Heights…. and she actually visited the Golan. As everyone and his dog knows, the Golan Heights is Syrian territory stolen in 1967 by the Israelis who have illegally occupied it ever since. Touring it with the thieving occupation army was another serious diplomatic blunder.

    Patel’s meetings are said to have been arranged by Lord Polak, an official of the Board of Deputies of British Jews in the 1980s who joined the Conservative Friends of Israel in 1989, and served as its director for 26 years until appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for political service and made a life peer. It’s difficult to see what political service Polak performed for anyone other than the Israeli regime.

    Patel was forced to resign but later restored to favour and promoted to Home Secretary. She proscribed Hamas’s political wing in 2021 with hardly a murmur of opposition. There seemed no legitimate reason for doing so unless it was part of the UK/US/Israel axis aim to bring about coercive regime change. But would that be legal? Are the Palestinians to be denied self-determination and the right to choose their own government? Well, yes, so it seems.

    What’s to fear from Hamas?

    No-one in the UK Government has properly explained, probably because no-one has bothered to sit down and shoot the breeze with them. Instead they eagerly welcome Netanyahu and his thugs with red-carpet hugs, handshakes and vows of affection and endless co-operation, and soak up the nonsense they talk.

    And has anyone at Westminster bothered to read Hamas’s 2017 Charter? If so, did they notice Sections 16 and 20? They are reasonably in tune with international law while the Israeli government pursues policies that definitely are not.

    1. Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.
    2. Hamas believes that no part of the land of Palestine shall be compromised or conceded, irrespective of the causes, the circumstances and the pressures and no matter how long the occupation lasts. Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.

    Under international law the correct way to deal with the threat posed by Hamas is (and always has been) by requiring Israel to immediately end its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and theft of Palestinian resources.

    JVP (Jewish Voice for Peace), who claim to be the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world, said of the genocide in Gaza: “We’re organizing a grassroots, multiracial, cross-class, intergenerational movement of US Jews into solidarity with Palestinian freedom struggle.” Here’s an extract from their no-nonsense statement on the hostilities in Palestine.

    “The Israeli government may have just declared war, but its war on Palestinians started over 75 years ago. Israeli apartheid and occupation — and United States complicity in that oppression — are the source of all this violence. Reality is shaped by when you start the clock.

    For the past year, the most racist, fundamentalist, far-right government in Israeli history has ruthlessly escalated its military occupation over Palestinians in the name of Jewish supremacy with violent expulsions and home demolitions, mass killings, military raids on refugee camps, unrelenting siege and daily humiliation. In recent weeks, Israeli forces repeatedly stormed the holiest Muslim sites in Jerusalem.

    For 16 years, the Israeli government has suffocated Palestinians in Gaza under a draconian air, sea and land military blockade, imprisoning and starving two million people and denying them medical aid. The Israeli government routinely massacres Palestinians in Gaza; ten-year-olds who live in Gaza have already been traumatized by seven major bombing campaigns in their short lives.

    For 75 years, the Israeli government has maintained a military occupation over Palestinians, operating an apartheid regime. Palestinian children are dragged from their beds in pre-dawn raids by Israeli soldiers and held without charge in Israeli military prisons. Palestinians’ homes are torched by mobs of Israeli settlers, or destroyed by the Israeli army. Entire Palestinian villages are forced to flee, abandoning the homes orchards, and land that were in their family for generations.

    The bloodshed of today and the past 75 years traces back directly to US complicity in the oppression and horror caused by Israel’s military occupation. The US government consistently enables Israeli violence and bears blame for this moment. The unchecked military funding, diplomatic cover, and billions of dollars of private money flowing from the US enables and empowers Israel’s apartheid regime.”

    The Zionists’ Dalet Plan, or Plan D

    It’s not just America’s complicity and Britain’s 110-years of betrayal that have brought us to this appalling situation. Plan D was the Zionists’ terror blueprint for their brutal takeover of the Palestinian homeland drawn up 77 years ago by the Jewish underground militia, the Haganah, at the behest of David Ben-Gurion, then boss of the Jewish Agency, and relentless pursued by the Israeli regime to this day.

    Plan D was a carefully thought-out, step-by-step plot choreographed ahead of the British mandate government’s withdrawal and the Zionists’ declaration of Israeli statehood. It correctly assumed that the British authorities would no longer be there.

    It’s a sign of the shoddy times we live in that the lawyers involved in the appeal case felt obliged to state that Hamas did not pay them or the experts who provided evidence for their submission, as it is illegal to receive funds from a group designated as a terrorist organisation.

    Hopefully their appeal will skewer the Government’s utter hypocrisy and undying support for the real terrorists in the Holy Land. Priti Patel will have to reckon with the consequences of her actions in terms of the huge numbers of innocent lives lost or reduced to unimaginable misery.

    I hasten to add that I am no supporter of Hamas. I support truth and justice, simple as that. And of course the Laws of Cricket.

    The post How Fair Was it to Label Hamas “Terrorists”? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Minoritised women are being kidnapped and trafficked under Syria’s Western-backed regime

    Since the new regime in Syria took power, there has been a wave of abductions targeting women and girls, particularly from minoritised communities. This accompanies an “escalation in the rate of civilian assassinations“, linked in many cases to “sectarian affiliation”.

    Western allies Turkey and Israel, meanwhile, continue to take advantage of the chaos.

    Revenge, chaos, and opportunism contribute to worrying situation for women from minority groups in Syria

    Last week, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) noted that, alongside “the deteriorating security chaos in different areas”:

    the phenomena of kidnappings, blackmailing and [forcible] disappearance have reached worrying levels.

    The lack of accountability for such actions, it said, have “encouraged criminals and gangs to commit more crimes”. And it explained that:

    the fate of 50 Alawite women remains unknown after they disappeared under mysterious circumstances since the beginning of 2025

    It added that no group seems to have claimed responsibility for the actions. However, the targeting of the Alawite minority group – from which the Assad dynasty came – suggests an element of collective revenge, although Druze and Christian women have also been targets.

    Some reports describe the kidnappings as opportunistic enslavement. Others describe requests for excessive ransom payments. And they blame regime leader Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani (now calling himself Ahmed al-Sharaa) for creating “a security vacuum by dismissing all government police and security officials and emptying the country’s prisons”. Combining this with severe electricity shortages that leave many neighbourhoods dark at night, women in particular fear leaving home after sunset.

    The new regime, meanwhile, has reportedly killed hundreds of Alawites this year in a wave of repression, blocking aid deliveries to the areas in question. Human rights groups believe these events may be war crimes.

    Women and their families fear consequences for speaking out

    The Daraj media outlet released an investigation about the kidnappings of Alawite women and girls. It noted that some criminals took their victims in broad daylight and in public places. Some who were released described suffering both physical and mental abuse. Others remain missing. And there are several cases of families receiving messages saying they had been forcibly married or taken out of Syria.

    Daraj stressed that:

    what makes the Alawite women’s and girls’ abductions especially difficult to resolve is that the kidnappers have… [been] telling the families and husbands to stay silent — or face the consequences.

    At the same time, it said:

    The fear of social stigma or “shame” in a conservative and traditional society — compounded by fear of retribution from the kidnappers — has forced the families of the abducted into a state of double silence.

    One survivor of abduction spoke about hearing a foreign accent. Along with reports of foreign phone numbers being used, and of kidnappers taking women out of Syria, there are serious concerns about the potentially organised, transnational nature of the crimes.

    The outlet asserted that:

    Kidnappings and related stories are still being posted almost daily at the time of this report. Families are sharing images and pleas for information on social media in hopes of locating their daughters. The region’s ongoing security vacuum only fuels these cases

    Syrian women who have spoken out about the phenomenon, meanwhile, have reportedly faced hostility or threats, including from government officials and militants.

    Getting the West on side by appeasing Israel

    Israel’s genocide in Gaza and invasion of Lebanon very much helped to pave the way, alongside Russia’s ongoing quagmire in Ukraine, for Al-Qaeda-linked jihadists to topple the Assad regime late last year. So it would only seem right for the new regime to be friendly towards Israel, especially when that’s usually a key condition for positive relations with the US empire. Indeed, the US appears to be demanding the repression of Palestinians in Syria as a condition for dropping sanctions.

    Al-Jawlani (Al-Sharaa) seems to be obliging. He has apparently said he’s willing to normalise relations with Israel. He had been repressing Palestinian groups. And his response to continuing Israeli occupation in the south of Syria has been weak. Just this week, a report noted “a significant increase in Israeli military activity throughout April, highlighting heightened tensions along the border strip with the occupied Golan Heights”. As Hawar News explained:

    The movements included field incursions, the setup of temporary checkpoints, search operations within villages, and the confiscation of civilian equipment. These actions were accompanied by continuous overflights of warplanes and drones.

    Occupation forces even:

    raided the al-Qahtaniyah school during school hours, causing panic and extreme fear among students and teachers

    All of this has in turn:

    raised concerns about attempts to impose a new reality on the ground or preparations for broader security operations, coinciding with political statements suggesting a long-term presence within Syrian territory.

    An agreement regarding Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights could well be the cornerstone of a final deal.

    The West is happy to sideline women’s rights in Syria

    While the US is playing hardball, the UK has already decided to lift numerous sanctions on Syria. The leaders of establishment institutions the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), meanwhile, seem to be looking forward to having a good relationship with the Syrian regime. The IMF’s managing director, for example, hoped Syrian institutions could soon “plug themselves in the world economy”.

    The normalisation of an extremist as the new leader of Syria seems inevitable. But as the process continues, we must continue highlighting the grave concerns for women’s rights in particular as the ultra-conservative regime cements itself in power.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Ed Sykes

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • 58th Session of the Human Rights Council: Assessment and Key Outcomes by CIVICUS and ICJ

    The 58th regular session of the UN Human Rights Council ran from February 24 to April 4, 2025, resulting in 32 Resolutions and 14 Universal Period Review adoptions.

    The session included a high-level segment attended by over 100 dignitaries, thematic panels addressing the rights of specific vulnerable groups, interactive dialogues, and debates on country-specific reports. This session also marked key anniversaries of the Beijing Declaration and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. The Human Rights Council plays a crucial role in addressing global violations and continues to serve as a platform for activists and victims of violations. In the face of multiple intersecting crises and conflicts, democracy erosion, and authoritarianism on the rise, Council decisions continue to wield considerable power to improve civil society conditions, particularly in fragile contexts where civic actors are particularly affected by widespread human rights violations and abuses, while offering unique opportunities for the negotiation of higher human rights standards.

    I have on the past used other such reports by the ISHR and the UHRG (see below) but thought that this time I should highlight other NGOs:

    https://ishr.ch/latest-updates/hrc58-civil-society-presents-key-takeaways-from-the-session/

    Report on the 58th session of the Human Rights Council

    CIVICUS contributed to the outcomes of the Council session through engagement on key Resolutions, delivery of statements, and organisation of events. We sounded the alarm on the global erosion of civic space and the growing repression of civil society across multiple regions. 

    Regional Developments: Africa

    A strong Resolution on South Sudan was adopted, extending the mandate of the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan (CHRSS).

    Regional Developments: Asia Pacific

    A Resolution on Myanmar’s human rights situation was adopted by consensus amid escalating violence and widespread impunity.

    Regional Developments: Americas

    The Resolution on Nicaragua renewed the mandate of the Group of Human Rights Experts (GHREN) on Nicaragua.

    Regional Developments: Europe

    Key resolutions were adopted on Ukraine and Belarus, continuing international monitoring mechanisms.

    Regional Developments: Middle East

    Resolutions on Iran and Syria were adopted, with mixed results on addressing severe human rights concerns.

    Several important thematic resolutions were adopted during the session.

    Civil Society Challenges

    Ahead of the 58th session, CIVICUS raised attention on the increasing restrictions imposed on civil society. CIVICUS engaged in key side events during HRC58, spotlighting democracy, child human rights defenders, and intersectional approaches to civic space.

     A detailed post-session report is available via this link.

    The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ):

    The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), together with partner organizations, participated actively in the 58th session. Civil society’s critical engagement is essential in calling on the Council and its member States to respond to the plight of victims of human rights violations. In this regard, the ICJ was pleased to ensure that our partner from the African Albinism Network delivered our joint statement on the tenth anniversary of the mandate of the Independent Expert on the enjoyment of human rights by persons with Albinism. Maintaining effective access to the UN in Geneva for civil society is key to ensure that people can themselves participate or be represented in the discussions at the Council that concern them directly. With regard to this, the ICJ denounces all attempts to undermine civil society participation, including the intimidation of human rights defenders during side events, observed again at this HRC session.

    At the outset, the ICJ welcomes the adoption of a number of important resolutions renewing, extending or creating mandates under the HRC purview, among which the following were adopted without a vote:

    • a resolution extending the mandate of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic for a period of one year;
    • a resolution establishing an open-ended intergovernmental working group for the elaboration of a legally-binding instrument on the promotion and protection of the human rights of older persons;
    • a resolution renewing the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism for a period of three years;
    • a resolution renewing the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food for a period of three years;
    • a resolution extending the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar for a period of one year;
    • a resolution renewing the presence of the Office of the High Commissioner in Seoul, for a period of two years with the same resources and extending the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea(DPRK) for a period of one year.

    While regretting the failure to adopt them by consensus, the ICJ also welcomes the adoption of other important resolutions by a majority of the votes:

    • a resolution extending the mandate of the Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine for a period of one year;
    • a resolution renewing the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus for a period of one year and extending the mandate of the Group of Independent Experts on the Situation of Human Rights in Belarus for a period of one year;
    • a resolution renewing the mandate of the Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua for a period of two years;
    • a resolution extending the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran for a period of one year and deciding that the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran should continue for one year with an updated mandate to address the recent and ongoing violations of human rights; and
    • a resolution extending the mandate of the independent human rights expert tasked with undertaking the monitoring of the human rights situation in Haiti, for a renewable period of one year.

    This session discussed armed conflicts whose intensity had continued to increase, including in Gaza, Ukraine, the DRC and Myanmar.

    ……Unsurprisingly, the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory was one of the most-discussed throughout the 58th session. Many countries voiced strong support for the Palestinian people and their human rights, with many calling for a two-State solution based on Israel’s withdrawal to its pre-1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as Palestine’s capital. The ICJ commends the many States who intervened during the negotiations and adoption of the resolutions on the situation in the OPT to emphasize the need for accountability, and who voiced their support for the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice and their respective recent decisions on Israel/Palestine. The resolution adopted at this session titled “the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the obligation to ensure accountability and justice” invited the General Assembly to consider establishing an ongoing international, impartial and independent mechanism to assist in the investigation and prosecution of persons responsible for the most serious crimes under international law committed by all parties in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel since 2014.

    Earlier in the year, on 7 February 2025, the Council had already held a special session to discuss the human rights situation in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where armed clashes between Congolese forces and the Rwanda-backed M23 movement had been ongoing, and had escalated since January 2025. The special session had resulted in the adoption of a resolution requesting the High Commissioner to urgently establish a fact-finding mission to report on events since January 2022. The resolution had also established an independent COI composed of three experts appointed by the HRC President to continue the work of the fact-finding mission. At the 58th session, the ICJ and many countries expressed grave concern about the human rights situation in the DRC, and during the Enhanced Interactive Dialogue with the High Commissioner and the Team of Experts at the end of the session many of the same themes and concerns heard during the special session were raised again.

    Threats to Multilateralism

    This 58th session took place in the context of increasing threats against multilateralism. In particular, this session started in the aftermath of the United States and Israel announcing that they would boycott the Council by not engaging with it. In addition, on 27 February – the day before the interactive dialogue with the Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua, when the HRC was scheduled to discuss the serious human rights violations committed by the State apparatus, including executions, torture and arbitrary detentions – Nicaragua announced its decision to withdraw from the Council.

    Accountability

    The ICJ regrets the attempts by some countries at this session to undermine accountability mechanisms by presenting them as political tools purportedly interfering in the internal affairs of the States concerned and encroaching upon their sovereignty. The human rights organization recalls that such spurious arguments contradict the international human rights law obligations freely agreed upon and undertaken by States and disregard the fact that, as the 1993 Vienna Declaration states, “the promotion and protection of all human rights is a legitimate concern of the international community”.

    With regards to the situation in Syria following the fall of the Assad regime, the need for accountability was high on the HRC’s agenda throughout the 58th session. ….In this regard, the ICJ particularly welcomes the adoption of the resolution on the situation in Syria, which encouraged the interim authorities to grant the COI necessary access throughout the country and to cooperate closely with the Commission. The ICJ also notes the authorities’ declared commitment to investigating the recent spate of violations and abuses, including through the newly established fact-finding committee to investigate the events in the west of the Syrian Arab Republic in March 2025. In this connection, the human rights organization called for investigations to be demonstrably independent, prompt, transparent and impartial…

    As usual, a number of country situations were not on the agenda of the Council but would actually require much greater scrutiny. At the 58th session, the ICJ expressed particular concern on the situation in Tunisia and Eswatini among others, where attacks on independent judges and lawyers are a key manifestation of deepening authoritarianism in these countries…

    The impact of the liquidity crisis and the withdrawal of critical support was also discussed during informal negotiations on the resolution renewing the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism. While in the end the resolution is short, there was much debate about specific phrasing concerning the resources provided to the mandate. The ICJ participated in the interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur, stressing the need for coordination and cooperation between civil society and regional systems to address counterterrorism laws that violate human rights and fundamental freedoms of civil society actors, highlighting in particular the situations in Venezuela and Eswatini. The ICJ reiterated the importance of the Special Rapporteur being adequately resourced in order to fully address these challenges.

    Oral Statements

    General Debate, Item 2: HRC58: ICJ Statement on the situation of human rights in Tunisia, Sri Lanka, and Guatemala

    General Debate, Item 4: HRC58: ICJ statement on the human rights situation in Eswatini, Myanmar and Afghanistan

    Belarus: HRC58: ICJ statement on human rights situation in Belarus 

    Albinism: HRC58: ICJ statement on persons with albinism during Interactive Dialogue with the Independent Expert 

    Venezuela: HRC58: ICJ statement on civil society repression and ongoing human rights violations in Venezuela

    Counterterrorism: HRC58: ICJ statement on the use of counterterrorism laws to suppress dissent in Venezuela and Eswatini

    Transitional Justice: HRC58: ICJ statement on OHCHR report, urging progress in transitional justice for Libya and Nepal

    General Debate, Item 10: HRC58: The ICJ calls for urgent action on escalating human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the impact of the U.S. foreign aid pause

    Side events

    ICJ International Advocacy Director, Sandra Epal-Ratjen, spoke at a high-level event on the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment

    The ICJ organized a joint side-event on the situation in Tunisia

    —

    https://www.civicus.org/index.php/media-resources/news/united-nations/geneva/7609-58th-regular-session-of-the-human-rights-council-post-session-assessment-and-key-outcomes

    https://www.icj.org/hrc58-the-un-human-rights-council-ends-a-six-week-intense-session-in-perilous-times-for-multilateralism/

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Defamation Campaign against Syrian woman rights defender Hiba Ezzideen Al- Hajji

    On 23 April 2025 Front Line Defenders expressed its serious concern for Syrian woman human right defender Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajji, as well as her family and the ‘Equity and Empowerment’ organisation, who are being targeted by a defamation campaign on Facebook which seeks to incite violence against them. The online campaign, initiated both by individuals known to support the new government and unknown users, has targeted Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajii for a Facebook post she made on 20 April 2025, in which she advocated against forced marriages. This bombardment of defamatory messages has included calls for violence, including death threats, constituting a clear case of harassment.

    Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajji is a Syrian feminist and woman human rights defender. She is the CEO of the Equity and Empowerment organisation and the Chairperson of the Board of Directors in Shan network for peace building. Equity and Empowerment is a women-led organisation which works on gender equality, focusing on digital security, economic and political empowerment. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2023/08/10/syrian-woman-human-rights-defender-hiba-ezzideen-al-hajji-threatened/]

    Since 20 April 2025, Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajii’s Facebook account, through which she posted about women’s rights, has been used to start a defamation campaign and incite violence against her, as well as her family and the Equity and Empowerment organisation, both based in Idlib, Syria. The online campaign has led to Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajii receiving numerous death threats on the social media platform, both through private messages and through a flood of posts on her own account, as well as on Equity and Empowerment’s page. The online mob, formed by unknown users, have urged followers to post defamatory content against her online and called for physical violence, inciting people to burn down the center of Equity and Empowerment in Idlib, with the objective of killing Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajii and harming her family. They have distorted the meaning of an old video, in which she stated that it is unnecessary to use the veil in the centers of Equity and Empowerment where there are only women, to falsely accuse her of insulting the Hijab and Islam. The online mob have also attempted to distort her Facebook post in which she urged authorities to investigate cases of women’s abduction, in order to allow for accountability.

    Several public figures have taken advantage of this defamation campaign in order to falsely accuse the woman rights defender of being an agent to Assad security branches, despite her clear stands against the Assad regime and extensive record of human rights activism against it. Subsequently, on 22 April, the police in Idlib closed down the center of Equity and Empowerment. Furthermore, the governor of Idlib announced via Facebook that he has requested the public prosecutor to file a lawsuit against Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajii for insulting the hijab. The woman human rights defender has expressed a profound concern for her personal safety and well-being. She has reported fearing for her life, as well as the lives of her family and team at Equity and Empowerment.

    Front Line Defenders condemns the defamation and online campaign seeking to incite violence, as well as subsequent acts of intimidation against woman human rights defender Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajii, her family and her organisation Equity and Empowerment. Front Line Defenders believes that the defamation campaign and online harassment is directly related to Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajji’s work in the defence of human rights, particularly her work towards the promotion of women’s rights in Syria.

    Front Line Defenders also expresses concern with the recurrent use of Facebook as a tool to incite violence against woman human rights defenders in Syria. The organisation urges Meta to immediately take down all Facebook posts against woman human rights defender Hiba Ezzideen Al-Hajii and her organisation Equity and Empowerment, suspend any groups, pages and profiles used to defame her or organise attacks and incite violence against her and her organisation, while also storing data that is relevant for future investigations and accountability. Meta must fulfill their responsibility to protect human rights, in accordance with international human rights standards. They must take the necessary steps to guarantee the safety of human rights defenders online, ensuring their platforms do not contribute to violent and dangerous campaigns, or allow users to incite targeted violence against defenders, particularly woman human rights defenders, which puts their lives at serious risk. Front Line Defenders stands ready to assist Meta with identifying the defamatory and violent content in question and the accounts on which they are hosted or shared.

    https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/statement-report/syria-defamation-campaign-against-woman-rights-defender-hiba-ezzideen-al-hajji

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • This Easter, Let’s Denounce the Christian Zionism That Helps Destroy Palestine

    This weekend, in a rare occurrence, Christians of all denominations will be celebrating Easter at the same time as Eastern and Western Christian calendars coincide. Yet, as has become an undeniable reality for many Christian Palestinians, the only thing we share in common between our Easter and the Easter of many Christians in the West is the sheer coincidence that these celebrations are falling…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • De Facto Occupation: Israel’s Security Zone Strategy

    In recent months, the Israeli Defense Forces have been much taken by a term that augurs poorly for peaceful accord in the Middle East. “Security zones” are being seized in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Syria. Land is, for claimed reasons of self-defence, being appropriated with brazen assuredness. It is hard, however, to see this latest turn as anything other than a de facto military occupation, a situation that will prolong the crisis of vulnerability the Jewish state so wishes to overcome. Israel’s insecurities are much the result of various expansions since 1948 that have only imperilled it to future attack and simmering acrimony. The pattern threatens to repeat itself.

    In Syria, Israel rapidly capitalised on the fall of the Assad regime by shredding the status quo. Within a matter of 11 days after the fleeing of the former President Bashar Al-Assad to Moscow, and again on February 1 this year, satellite images showed six military sites being constructed within what is nominally the UN-supervised demilitarised zone, otherwise known as the Area of Separation. A seventh is being constructed outside the zone and in Syria proper. Such busy feats of construction have also accompanied Israeli encroachment on the land of Syrian civilians, coupled with vexing housing raids, road closures and unsanctioned arrests.

    All this has taken place despite undertakings from Syria’s transitional President Ahmed al-Sharaa that he would recognise the 1974 agreement made with Israel, one which prohibits Israel from crossing the Alpha Line on the western edge of the Area of Separation. “Syria’s war-weary condition, after years of conflict and war, does not allow for new confrontations,” admitted the new leader on December 14, 2024. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was only scornful, regarding the 1974 agreement between the two countries as a dead letter buried by history. “We will not allow any hostile force to establish itself on our border,” he snottily declared.

    Lebanon is also facing a stubborn IDF, one that refuses to abide by the Israel-Hezbollah agreement last November which promised the withdrawal of both forces from southern Lebanon, leaving the Lebanese army to take over the supervising reins. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, who faces the herculean task of removing Hezbollah’s weapons while potentially integrating members of its group into the Lebanese army, has found his task needlessly onerous. In recent discussions with US deputy Mideast envoy Morgan Ortagus, the Lebanese leader reasoned “that Israel’s presence in the five disputed points gives Hezbollah a pretext to keep its weapons.”

    On April 16, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz promised that such security zones would provide relevant buffers to shield Israeli communities. Ominously, the IDF would “Unlike in the past [not evacuate] areas that have been cleared and seized”. They would “remain in the security zones as a buffer between the enemy and [Israeli] communities in any temporary or permanent situation in Gaza – as in Lebanon and Syria.”

    In Gaza, it is becoming increasingly clear that any prospect of Palestinian autonomy or political independence is to be strangled and snuffed out. Israel has already arbitrarily created the “Morag Corridor”, which excises Rafah from the Strip, and the Netzarim Corridor, which severs Gaza in half. Katz has also promised that the policy of blocking all food, medicine and other vital supplies to Gaza implemented on March 2 will continue, as it “is one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using it as a tool with the population”.

    Displacement orders, euphemised as “evacuation orders”, have become the staple of operating doctrine, the means of creating buffers of guns and steel. On April 11, Israeli authorities issued two such orders, effectively “covering vast areas in northern and southern Gaza”, according to UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric. “Together, these areas span more than 24 square kilometres – roughly the size of everything south of Central Park here in Manhattan.” Within these zones of military seizure lie medical facilities and storage sites filled with vital supplies.

    The UN Human Rights office also expressed its concerns about Israel seemingly “inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life increasingly incompatible with their continued existence as a group in Gaza.” The population was being “forcibly transferred into ever shrinking spaces with little or no access to life-saving services, including water, food, and shelter, and whey they continue to be subject to attacks.” Engaging in such conduct against a civilian population within an occupied territory, the office pointedly observes, satisfies the definition of a forcible transfer, being both a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute of 1998.

    The latest doctrine of appropriation and indeterminate occupation adopted by Katz and the IDF has not impressed the Hostages and Missing Families Forum in Israel, long advocating for the release of Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza by Hamas. “They promised that the hostages come before everything,” came the organisation’s aggrieved observation. “In practice, however, Israel is choosing to seize territory before the hostages.” In doing so, the prerogatives of permanent conflict and habitual predation have displaced the more humane prerogatives of peace.

    The post De Facto Occupation: Israel’s Security Zone Strategy first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Fiji defence minister draws flak for six-week trip to meet peacekeepers

    RNZ Pacific

    Fiji’s Minister for Defence and Veteran Affairs is facing a backlash after announcing that he was undertaking a multi-country, six-week “official travel overseas” to visit Fijian peacekeepers in the Middle East.

    Pio Tikoduadua’s supporters say he should “disregard critics” for his commitment to Fijian peacekeepers, which “highlights a profound dedication to duty and leadership”.

    However, those who oppose the 42-day trip say it is “a waste of time”, and that there are other pressing priorities, such as health and infrastructure upgrades, where taxpayers money should be directed.

    Tikoduadua has had to defend his travel, saying that the travel cost was “tightly managed”.

    He said that, while he accepts that public officials must always be answerable to the people they serve, “I will not remain silent when cheap shots are taken at the dignity of our troops, or when assumptions are passed off as fact.”

    “Let me speak plainly: I am not travelling abroad for a vacation,” he said in a statement.

    “I am going to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our men and women in uniform — Fijians who serve in some of the harshest, most dangerous corners of the world, far away from home and family, under the blue flag of the United Nations and the red, white and blue of our own.

    ‘I know what that means’
    Tikoduadua, a former soldier and peacekeeper, said, “I know what that means [to wear the Fiji Military Forces uniform].”

    “I marched under the same sun, carried the same weight, and endured the same silence of being away from home during moments that mattered most.

    “This trip spans multiple countries because our troops are spread across multiple missions — UNDOF in the Golan Heights, UNTSO in Jerusalem and Tiberias, and the MFO in Sinai. I will not pick and choose which deployments are ‘worth the airfare’. They all are.”

    He added the trip was not about photo opportunities, but about fulfilling his duty of care — to hear peacekeepers’ concerns directly.

    “To suggest that a Zoom call can replace that responsibility is not just naïve — it is offensive.”

    However, the opposition Labour Party has called it “unbelievably absurd”.

    “Six weeks is a long, long time for a highly paid minister to be away from his duties at home,” the party said in a statement.

    Standing ‘shoulder to shoulder’
    “To make it worse, [Tikoduadua] adds that he is . . . ‘not going on a vacation but to stand shoulder to shoulder with our men and women in uniform’.

    “Minister, it’s going to cost the taxpayer thousands to send you on this junket as we see it.”

    Tikoduadua confirmed that he is set to receive standard overseas per diem as set by government policy, “just like any public servant representing the country abroad”.

    “That allowance covers meals, local transport, and incidentals-not luxury. There is no ‘bonus’, no inflated figure, and certainly no special payout on top of my salary.

    As a cabinet minister, the Defence Minister is entitled to business class travel and travel insurance for official meetings. He is also entitled to overseas travelling allowance — UNDP subsistence allowance plus 50 percent, according to the Parliamentary Remunerations Act 2014.

    Tikoduadua said that he had heard those who had raised concerns in good faith.

    “To those who prefer outrage over facts, and politics over patriotism — I suggest you speak to the families of the soldiers I will be visiting,” he said.

    “Ask them if their sons and daughters are worth the minister’s time and presence. Then tell me whether staying behind would have been the right thing to do.”

    Responding to criticism on his official Facebook page, Tikoduadua said: “I do not travel to take advantage of taxpayers. I travel because my job demands it.”

    His travel ends on May 25.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Fiji defence minister draws flak for six-week trip to meet peacekeepers

    RNZ Pacific

    Fiji’s Minister for Defence and Veteran Affairs is facing a backlash after announcing that he was undertaking a multi-country, six-week “official travel overseas” to visit Fijian peacekeepers in the Middle East.

    Pio Tikoduadua’s supporters say he should “disregard critics” for his commitment to Fijian peacekeepers, which “highlights a profound dedication to duty and leadership”.

    However, those who oppose the 42-day trip say it is “a waste of time”, and that there are other pressing priorities, such as health and infrastructure upgrades, where taxpayers money should be directed.

    Tikoduadua has had to defend his travel, saying that the travel cost was “tightly managed”.

    He said that, while he accepts that public officials must always be answerable to the people they serve, “I will not remain silent when cheap shots are taken at the dignity of our troops, or when assumptions are passed off as fact.”

    “Let me speak plainly: I am not travelling abroad for a vacation,” he said in a statement.

    “I am going to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our men and women in uniform — Fijians who serve in some of the harshest, most dangerous corners of the world, far away from home and family, under the blue flag of the United Nations and the red, white and blue of our own.

    ‘I know what that means’
    Tikoduadua, a former soldier and peacekeeper, said, “I know what that means [to wear the Fiji Military Forces uniform].”

    “I marched under the same sun, carried the same weight, and endured the same silence of being away from home during moments that mattered most.

    “This trip spans multiple countries because our troops are spread across multiple missions — UNDOF in the Golan Heights, UNTSO in Jerusalem and Tiberias, and the MFO in Sinai. I will not pick and choose which deployments are ‘worth the airfare’. They all are.”

    He added the trip was not about photo opportunities, but about fulfilling his duty of care — to hear peacekeepers’ concerns directly.

    “To suggest that a Zoom call can replace that responsibility is not just naïve — it is offensive.”

    However, the opposition Labour Party has called it “unbelievably absurd”.

    “Six weeks is a long, long time for a highly paid minister to be away from his duties at home,” the party said in a statement.

    Standing ‘shoulder to shoulder’
    “To make it worse, [Tikoduadua] adds that he is . . . ‘not going on a vacation but to stand shoulder to shoulder with our men and women in uniform’.

    “Minister, it’s going to cost the taxpayer thousands to send you on this junket as we see it.”

    Tikoduadua confirmed that he is set to receive standard overseas per diem as set by government policy, “just like any public servant representing the country abroad”.

    “That allowance covers meals, local transport, and incidentals-not luxury. There is no ‘bonus’, no inflated figure, and certainly no special payout on top of my salary.

    As a cabinet minister, the Defence Minister is entitled to business class travel and travel insurance for official meetings. He is also entitled to overseas travelling allowance — UNDP subsistence allowance plus 50 percent, according to the Parliamentary Remunerations Act 2014.

    Tikoduadua said that he had heard those who had raised concerns in good faith.

    “To those who prefer outrage over facts, and politics over patriotism — I suggest you speak to the families of the soldiers I will be visiting,” he said.

    “Ask them if their sons and daughters are worth the minister’s time and presence. Then tell me whether staying behind would have been the right thing to do.”

    Responding to criticism on his official Facebook page, Tikoduadua said: “I do not travel to take advantage of taxpayers. I travel because my job demands it.”

    His travel ends on May 25.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • The new Sykes-Picot in post-Assad Syria


    This content originally appeared on The Grayzone and was authored by The Grayzone.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Breaking The Silence: Factions In Daraa Confront Israeli Advance

    On the evening of April 2, Daraa province witnessed a violent clash between Syrian armed factions and Israeli occupation forces south of Nawa city, marking the second confrontation of its kind in recent weeks. The clash erupted after Israeli forces attempted to advance into the forested area between Taseel and Al-Jubaylah, coinciding with a Syrian security operation near the Taseel Dam aimed at recovering the body of a drowned child. A tribal source suggested to Al-Akhbar that the Israeli incursion was linked to broader efforts to control regional water resources, coming just two days after “Israel” declared Al-Mantra dam, Southern Syria’s largest dam, a restricted military zone.

    The post Breaking The Silence: Factions In Daraa Confront Israeli Advance appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Donald Trump just shot HIMSELF in the foot with his ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs

    US president Donald Trump has imposed sweeping tariffs on countries around the world. But in doing this, Trump is raising the import prices for some of the largest US companies. Predictably, they’ve dropped in the market. What’s more, the US president himself owns shares in some of the companies.

    While we have the world’s smallest violin for these huge companies, is this what Trump wants?

    Trump tariffs backfiring – majorly

    Take Apple. The trillion pound company has supply and manufacturing chains all around the world, including in China, India, Vietnam and Taiwan. And Trump hit all these countries with tariffs: China at 54%, India at 27%, Vietnam at 46% and Taiwan at 32%. Import tariffs such as these have resulted in Apple’s share prices dropping 9%, wiping £191 billion from its value. The US president owns shares in Apple worth £382,000.

    Analysts at Rosenblatt Securities said Apple could raise iPhone prices by 43% because of the tariffs. That’s if they pass the costs on to consumers, despite Apple making net profit of £72 billion in 2024.

    The tariffs have also impacted retail giants such as Amazon, Walmart and Target. All of these companies saw a share drop of more than 10% in March.

    Trump is going further than his trade wars in his last administration. Everyone knows how damaging it is to American companies themselves (and say US farmers who are then hit with retaliatory tariffs). So the policies may not result in good faith favourable trade deals for the US. This is not a surprise from Trump who has bankrupted six of his own businesses.

    Indeed, China responded:

    There is no winner in a trade war, and there is no way out for protectionism

    As the second largest economy, the country has promised countermeasures.

    In response to all this, the UK could look to forge new relationships with other nations in order to provide an effective response to Trump’s tariffs. The US president imposed tariffs of 10% on UK imports. And business secretary Jonathan Reynolds told MPs that the Britain could retaliate with its own tariffs.

    But with Keir Starmer acting as a midwife to the far right through ushering in Nigel Farage and Reform in the UK, it’s unlikely they will properly stand up to Trump.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By James Wright

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Syria’s March massacres: how sectarian violence targeted Alawites – video

    Four days of shocking violence in north-west Syria left more than 1,500 people dead – including at least 745 civilians – in some of Syria’s deadliest days of fighting since the beginning of the civil war in 2011. Widespread revenge attacks against civilians have mostly targeted Alawites, a minority Islamic sect from which the ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad hailed. The Guardian has put together a visual breakdown of the events which shook Syria’s coast

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Government Forces Carry Out New Civilian Executions In Syria’s Coast

    At least six people were killed and several others from the Alawite community were wounded on 31 March in a new civilian massacre in Harf B-Nimra village, located in Syria’s Tartous governorate.

    According to local reports, armed men wearing military uniforms entered the village in Baniyas countryside and executed the Mukhtar (the village elder), his son, and five other men.

    “The gunmen set off from Al-Desaynah base, a former camp of the [disbanded Syrian Arab Army], in Baniyas countryside. The attackers carried out that attack and returned to the base where forces of the ministries of defense and interior are stationed,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on Monday.

    The post Government Forces Carry Out New Civilian Executions In Syria’s Coast appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Alawites And Christians: Behind Syria’s Silent, Sectarian Slaughter

    The massacres and repression of Alawites and Christians in Syria began immediately after the fall of Damascus and have continued for the past three and a half months.

    On 7 December 2024, the day after the capital city fell to Idlib-based militants, Israel began bombing Syrian territory and deployed tanks into the country’s south.

    Yet the barrels of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its affiliated Salafi extremist groups – who had taken control of Damascus – were not pointed at Israel, but at Syria’s Alawite population. What began as attacks on Alawite and Christian religious sites quickly turned into the systematic slaughter of Alawites.

    The post Alawites And Christians: Behind Syria’s Silent, Sectarian Slaughter appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Eight months in, Labour is failing on all measures to tackle homelessness

    The Labour Party government recently announced plans to move towards homelessness prevention. Meanwhile, local authorities are paying private companies billions of pounds to provide temporary accommodation to people experiencing homelessness – which is merely a reactive, crisis response rather than a genuine effort to address the problem.

    The scale of the crisis

    A recent analysis by Shelter estimated that 354,000 people are currently experiencing homelessness in England. This is an increase of 44,500 on the previous year. These figures do not include anyone classed as ‘hidden homeless’ – that is, anyone sofa-surfing, sleeping in cars or squats, or otherwise choosing to stay clear of homelessness charities or local authorities. This means the actual figure is even higher. 

    During Labour’s first budget announcement in October, Rachel Reeves included a measly £233m in extra funding to tackle homelessness. This was quickly followed by the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government announcing an additional £633.2m in December.

    This money will be given to English councils from 2025-26 through the Homelessness Prevention Grant to support them to deliver services that both tackle and prevent homelessness. This is a funding uplift of £192.9m on 2024-25. 

    However, it seems that currently the majority of funding designated for homelessness is still being spent on temporary accommodation. 

    Not so temporary

    The Conservative government promised, and failed, to end rough sleeping – which is only the most visible form of homelessness. Thousands of other people are forced to stay in hostels, bed and breakfasts, sofas, or even cars. 

    Ending rough sleeping simply makes the problem less visible. It would still exist – just out of the public eye.

    Under both the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 and the Housing Act 1996, local authorities have a duty to take steps to prevent homelessness. In England, local authorities also have a statutory duty to take steps to relieve homelessness if a household is already homeless when it approaches them for help.

    Often, both of these come in the form of temporary accommodation. This can be hostels, temporary flats, supported accommodation, hotels, or bed and breakfasts. 

    According to the most recent figures, there are 326,000 people in temporary accommodation in England, with the majority being families and children. This is a 17% increase on the previous year.

    And, in 2022–23, 18% of households in temporary accommodation in London were there for over 5 years. 

    What’s more, temporary accommodation is one of the most expensive forms of accommodation. The average rent in England costs £1,375 per calendar month. Temporary accommodation, however, is known to be far more expensive.

    An analysis by the Centre for Homelessness Impact showed that from April 2023 to March 2024, local authorities reported that they spent £2.29bn on temporary accommodation. This is compared to £770 million on all other types of homelessness activity. Since 2010, spending on temporary accommodation has increased by 406%. Meanwhile, there was only an increase of 145% in the number of households experiencing homelessness over the same time frame. 

    “Prevent households from reaching crisis point”

    The response to a recent Freedom of Information request to Croydon Borough Council laid out the average prices the council pays for temporary accommodation, per night. It stated that: 

    Rates are regularly reviewed and are subject to change at any time. The current rates are:

    Studio – £30-40, 1 bed – £50 -65, 2 bed – £70 – 80 3 bed – £75 -90 4 bed – £95-115

    This means that a month of temporary accommodation in a two bedroom property would cost £2,480. The monthly rent for a property of the same size in Croydon, according to the Office for National Statistics, would be around £1,477. This shows a 68% difference in the prices between temporary accommodation and settled accommodation. Obviously, over time that adds up. 

    Whilst Labour has only been in power eight months, there are clear steps it could be taking to turn the tide on these numbers.

    Greg Hurst, Director of Communications and Public Engagement at the Centre for Homelessness Impact told the Canary: 

    So much spending on temporary accommodation keeps households living there for very long periods. This is a really expensive use of public funds.

    He explained that many types of nightly paid accommodation – which is often not self contained – are far more expensive than other types of accommodation. This includes bed and breakfasts, hotels, and shelters. He said:

    What the government can do is prevent households from reaching crisis point. Once they do, under the Homelessness Reduction Act, councils have a duty to provide housing for households in priority need that are not judged to be ‘intentionally’ homeless.

    Years worth of damage

    One way Labour could stop households from “reaching crisis point” would be to address the damage of years of devastating Conservative welfare cuts. 

    Leanna Fairfax, PhD student in women’s homelessness, spelled this out to the Canary:

    I think it starts right back from the beginning, we need more social homes. Along with a regulated private rented system and the welfare cuts that have been implemented over the last 15 years need to be reviewed as these inter-relate with some of the issues as to why people are experiencing homelessness. Such as the benefit cap and two child limit.

    A notable solution could come in the form of the Local Housing Allowance (LHA), which is linked to both housing benefit and Universal Credit. 

    The LHA is a flat rate benefit which allows people on low incomes to pay for private rented accommodation. It’s based on age, local rent prices, and other factors such as disability status or a history of being in care. Until 2013, it automatically reflected local rent prices, but the Conservative government froze it. This meant rent prices continued to increase, whilst the benefit did not. 

    Labour recently announced that LHA will once again be frozen in 2025. Research showed that last year, the LHA was almost one-third lower than average private rent prices. However, since then average rent prices in England have increased by a further 8.8%, to £1,375. LHA rates have still not changed, meaning the gap keeps growing. 

    Controversially, private renters under the age of 35 are only entitled to a shared accommodation rate – even if they live alone. This means increasing numbers of young people are experiencing homelessness, with a 10% increase in 2023-24 compared to the previous year. 

    In North Yorkshire, the average rent on a one bedroomed property is £562 – which is one of the cheapest in the country. The LHA rate amounts to £414.24. This means that 35% of the rent is not covered .

    For under-35s, the difference is even greater as the shared accommodation rate is only £384.48 – meaning 46% of the rent is not covered.

    This means that as rents continue to increase, instead of preventing homelessness like Labour claims it is trying to do, the LHA freeze means that homelessness figures are likely to keep increasing.

    A political choice

    Ultimately, if Labour was serious about preventing homelessness, or even ending it, it would start to tackle the systemic causes that it seems to be attempting to sweep under the rug. 

    Fairfax pointed out, for instance, that systemic sexism is one factor driving homelessness:

    I think systemic causes of homelessness should be brought into discussion more. For example the role which gender plays in homelessness and how single mothers likely make up a large proportion of those new figures. The continued inequalities that women face along with the increased pressure of gender norms such as being the primary carer to children mean that women are at an increased risk to be reliant on the state and are a greater risk of the negative impacts of inadequate policies and funding.

    Moreover, the LHA is a case in point of the choices our politicians make – which both put people at risk of homelessness, and keep people in homelessness for longer. 

    Unless Labour takes a long, hard look at the societal conditions fomenting homelessness, it can’t truly claim to champion prevention, and all its actions really amount to is more tinkering round at the edges of a socio-political problem of its own making.

    Feature image shows Russ and Selma – via Centre for Homelessness Impact / Jeff Hubbard

    By HG

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Homophobic Met Police facing protests over the death of drag icon Heklina

    The tragic passing of San Francisco drag icon Heklina has ignited transatlantic protests, with supporters demanding transparency and justice in the investigation of her death. Born Stefan Grygelko, Heklina was a beloved figure in the LGBTQ+ community, renowned for co-founding influential venues like the Oasis nightclub and pioneering the drag show Trannyshack. Her sudden death in a London flat in April 2023 has left family, friends, and fans grappling with grief and unanswered questions.​

    Now, on Monday 31 March at 10am, campaigners have organised a demonstration against institutional homophobia at the Met Police. The protest will assemble next to Big Ben by Westminster Bridge.

    The protest marks two years since the death of the entertainer Heklina in Soho and, despite CCTV footage of potential suspects with her the night she died, no exhaustive searches or arrests have been made. There is private acceptance that internal bias has held up the investigation into her death.

    Heklina: a life celebrated  but a death shrouded in controversy

    Heklina’s influence on the drag scene was profound. Her innovative performances and commitment to creating inclusive spaces made her a cherished figure in San Francisco and beyond. Collaborations with fellow performers, such as Peaches Christ, showcased her dedication to the art form and her community. Their partnership brought to life numerous shows, including the parody Mommie Queerest, which they were set to perform in London at the time of her passing.

    In April 2023, while preparing for their London performances, Peaches Christ discovered Heklina unresponsive in their shared flat. The scene was distressing, raising immediate concerns about the circumstances leading to her death. Despite the passage of time, the official cause of death remains undetermined, fueling frustration among those close to her.

    The Met Police’s handling of the case has come under scrutiny. Friends and family have expressed dissatisfaction with the investigation’s pace and transparency. Peaches Christ, in particular, has voiced concerns about homophobia affecting the inquiry, noting prolonged periods without updates and a perceived lack of urgency.

    These sentiments are echoed by others who feel that systemic issues within the police force have hindered progress. ​

    Public outcry and protests

    In response to the Met Police’s mishandling of the investigation, supporters have organized protests in both London and San Francisco. These gatherings aim to honor Heklina’s legacy and demand accountability from authorities. Notable figures, including Scissor Sisters’ Ana Matronic and RuPaul’s Drag Race stars Cheddar Gorgeous and Crystal, have joined the call for justice, highlighting the widespread impact Heklina had on the community. ​

    The LGBTQ+ community and allies are united in their pursuit of clarity regarding Heklina’s untimely death. The release of CCTV footage showing three unidentified men leaving the flat on the night of her passing has raised further questions and underscored the need for a comprehensive investigation. Advocates are calling for these individuals to come forward and for the police to address any shortcomings in their investigative processes. ​

    Remembering Heklina’s legacy

    As the community mourns, there is a collective effort to celebrate Heklina’s contributions to the arts and LGBTQ+ culture. Tributes have poured in, reflecting the deep admiration and love felt for her. Her work not only entertained but also paved the way for greater acceptance and understanding of drag as an art form. The ongoing quest for answers serves as a testament to the profound impact she had on those around her.​

    In honoring Heklina’s memory, supporters remain steadfast in their demand for justice, hoping that transparency and accountability will prevail, bringing solace to all who cherished her.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • HTS-Israeli Campaign To Eliminate Syria’s Engineers And Scientists

    On 27 November 2024, militants from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the former Al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, launched a lighting assault on Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city.

    Amid the chaos, Armenian born professor Yervant Arslanian was assassinated by a suspected HTS sniper while attempting to flee the assault.

    Arslanian had previously worked in Italy on weapons systems and was chief of the Syrian advanced weapons research design team at the Arab School of Science and Technology in Aleppo at the time of his death.

    Following the assassination, Syrian-Armenian journalist Kevork Almassian speculated that HTS was not acting alone.

    The post HTS-Israeli Campaign To Eliminate Syria’s Engineers And Scientists appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Syria’s Genocide, Claiming Over 10,000 Lives, Is Not A Sectarian Conflict

    Syria’s massacres that can be defined by nothing less than genocide have exceeded in the slaughter of over 10,000 dead souls. The last few days flooded with videos and images of the endless public, mass executions of children, women, civilians, and entire families, have shown that the world is willing to watch yet another genocide unfold with most of the international media and the international community silent, excusing or down-playing the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham’s (HTS) terrorist ethnic cleansing of Syrians. As Israel once again strikes Gaza killing over 400 people, with the full backing of the Trump administration.

    The post Syria’s Genocide, Claiming Over 10,000 Lives, Is Not A Sectarian Conflict appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Damascus Targets All But Israel As Border Crisis Deepens

    Since the seizure of Damascus by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) on Dec. 8, 2024, thousands of Syrians have been killed across the country. Instead of confronting Israeli aggression and further land grabs in the nation’s south, Syria’s de facto President, Ahmed al-Shara’a, has directed his fire at Lebanon instead.

    On March 17, fighters affiliated with the new Syrian security forces of HTS crossed into the Lebanese border town of al-Qasr, three of whom were captured by a local clan. News quickly spread that two of the militants were executed and a third seriously injured, prompting Syria’s leadership to order shelling and a military buildup on its side of the border.

    The post Damascus Targets All But Israel As Border Crisis Deepens appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Damascus Targets All But Israel As Border Crisis Deepens

    Since the seizure of Damascus by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) on Dec. 8, 2024, thousands of Syrians have been killed across the country. Instead of confronting Israeli aggression and further land grabs in the nation’s south, Syria’s de facto President, Ahmed al-Shara’a, has directed his fire at Lebanon instead.

    On March 17, fighters affiliated with the new Syrian security forces of HTS crossed into the Lebanese border town of al-Qasr, three of whom were captured by a local clan. News quickly spread that two of the militants were executed and a third seriously injured, prompting Syria’s leadership to order shelling and a military buildup on its side of the border.

    The post Damascus Targets All But Israel As Border Crisis Deepens appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • The Tragedy of Syria


    It is cruelly fitting that one of the acknowledged cradles of civilization is now a showroom for the cruelties, irrationalities, and injustices of the modern capitalist world.

    At various times, Syria was part of the lands that were widely admired for their enlightened governance, tolerance, and economic development.

    Today, Syria is a wasteland, divided into parcels, and occupied by alien forces that show no regard for the country’s legacy or the unity and well-being of its people.

    After four hundred years of reasonably stable, tolerant, and peaceable existence under Ottoman rule, the people of the country now known as Syria experienced the heavy hand of European imperialism. With the Sykes-Picot agreement, Syria became the “responsibility” of France after World War I, existing essentially as a French colony with its artificial boundaries established by European powers.

    Understandably, the colonial subjects resisted. As it always does, the anti-colonial struggle provided the impetus for consolidating a nation in a space where a country never existed. As with the seminal anti-colonial victory in what is now the US, the fight against the French was an essential condition to the forging of the Syrian nation-state. Nation-building emerges from and advances from the struggle against domination, for independence.

    But it was not a sufficient condition. After World War II, when France proved unable to maintain its colonies, the new Syria had to fulfill other difficult conditions of nation-building. Decolonization left the scars of oppression– social, political, and economic backwardness.

    Without independent political organizations and well-established institutions, the military– made up of anti-colonial fighters, tribal militias, even former French collaborators– served as a unifying force. Politics was conducted through the often-violent clash of military factions. Countering this chaos was the impact of Arab nationalist and Arab socialist secular trends emerging throughout the Middle East. Ba’athism and Nasserism were two progressive influences tempering Islamic fundamentalism, tribalism, and the complacency of feudal and primitive capitalist economies.

    Concurrent with aid from the Soviet Union and the guarantee of Syrian sovereignty against imperialist aggression, the alliance of the military, the Ba’ath Party, and the Communist Party consolidated and took a leftward turn, strengthening their hand against the backward elements. This progressive development in the energy-rich Middle East did not go unnoticed by the United States and its then-designated local police agents: Israel and Iran.

    In the ensuing years, Syria continued to struggle for national unity, agrarian reform, and modernization under the 30-year presidency of Hafez Al-Assad. Assad brought a measure of stability and peace, while imperialism encouraged and materially supported the Muslim Brotherhood and other fundamentalists to undermine these secular developments.

    Typically, European and US ideologues railed against the fragile state, condemning its failure to embrace modern capitalist institutions while these same ideologues were encouraging feudal jihadists to rebel against secularism.

    With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the death of the elder Assad, the tenuous progress of Syria, its independence, and its unity were weakened. Under the leadership of the younger, less visionary Bashir al-Assad, without any powerful allies, and with active and determined plotters in Washington, the future of Syria was in doubt. Assad’s flirtation with market economics and privatization brought his regime no respite from imperialist machinations.

    In 2011, protests against Assad’s rule were co-opted by foreign security services. Through the auspices of the CIA, through its vast network of ready and willing jihadists, and armed with weapons shipped from the overthrown government of Libya, a brutal proxy war was launched. Neo-Ottoman Turkey threw its own jihadists into the fight. And the US armed and unleashed Kurdish nationalists to further pressure the Assad government and serve US interests.

    What the mainstream media called “a Revolution and the Syrian Civil War” was, in fact, a conflict of proxies and of foreign intervention. In response to Turkish and US meddling and to the arrival of hordes of foreign jihadists, Hezbollah militias and Iranian and Russian forces came to the assistance of the weak Assad government forestalling the chaos that follows forcible regime change.

    As the war reached somewhat of a stalemate, Assad stood in Damascus, ruling the little that was left of the country’s infrastructure, housing, economy, and territorial integrity. US Marines occupied a portion of Syria with its oil resources. Kurds ruled in another part of the country under US protection. The US’s NATO ally, Turkey– hostile to the Kurds– ruled in another part of Syria, supporting their favored brand of head-chopping jihadists. Israel took advantage of weakened foes and occupied a large slice of Syria nearer to Damascus, while destroying all Syrian military assets in Southern Syria.

    If this reverse of nation-building, this nation-degrading process seems familiar, it should. It resembles all too well the willful, post-Cold War, systematic destruction of fragile states constructed around multiple ethnicities and enjoying a measure of national independence. Without the international leverage of a socialist bloc, led by the powerful Soviet Union, the imperialist bloc disposed of contrarian states like Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Libya, usually by fomenting ethnic strife or supporting elite demands. Failing states throughout Africa and Asia bear similar scars, inflicted by great powers bent on strengthening their spheres of interest, as France attempts in sub-Saharan Africa.

    In late 2024, Turkey unleashed its own stable of radical, fundamentalist head-choppers, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, against the Assad regime from its lair in Idlib province. The demoralized, spent forces of Assad’s military were swiftly overwhelmed. Despite designation as a “terrorist group” by the UN (and the US), HTS was heralded by most of the US and European mainstream media as victorious freedom fighters. Reporters flocked to Damascus– after staying far away for years, while reporting from Beirut and the US embassy– to “prove” the evil of the Assad regime. Easily duped by local opportunists, much of the reportage collapsed as facts and evidence came forward.

    Ahmed al-Sharaa, the head of HTS anointed himself the new Syrian head of state, adopted a proper Western suit, shaved his beard, and pronounced a new era of peace and harmony, while outlawing political parties, postponing a new constitution, and cancelling elections until far off in the future. Such is the new Syrian Democracy.

    But public relations cannot restrain the blood lust of the fundamentalist head-choppers. In 2025, HTS elements began a vengeance campaign against Baa’ath cadre, former military leaders, and religious “infidels,” killing and attacking civilians in Alawite and Christian villages.

    Understandably, a new resistance is emerging. Bizarrely, EU authorities blame the massacres on those resisting HTS.

    No doubt at the urging of its foreign sponsors (especially the US), HTS and the Kurds were herded into a cooperative agreement in March that includes the merging of its “military institutions” — a move that hopes to strengthen their hand against future Syrian resistance and present an image of unity to the rest of the world. The Kurds give the US greater influence at the expense of the Turks.

    The last pages of the Syrian tragedy are yet to be written.

    There are lessons to be learned.

    The post-Soviet era has emboldened a ruthless, cruel imperialism. Without the threat of Soviet power to present a counterforce, the US, NATO, and other powers are free to impose their will on other states, including taking their own rivalries to the brink of World War. Few remember that the then-real threat of Soviet intervention, stopped the Israelis from passing beyond the Golan Heights and marching to Damascus during the Six Day War– a principled act of international solidarity.

    As a corollary, it is impossible to fail to note that there are no similar counterbalancing forces today. There have been no political, economic, or military powers demonstrably committed to a principled defense of weaker states threatened by imperialist aggression since the Cuban and Soviet defense of Angola and the defeat of South African apartheid aggression in the 1980s.

    That reality is not only a tribute to the socialist internationalism of the past, but a sobering message to those on the left who interpret the realignment of great powers– the so-called tendency to multipolarity– as a new kind of anti-imperialism. The experience of Syria– left on its own to defend its integrity and sovereignty against the agents of backwardness and great-power interests– speaks to the impotence of the so-called BRICS block. Issuing protests, resolutions, and condemnations is no substitute for action or material aid. Russian support, once so vital to Assad’s defense, failed to rise against HTS and is now offered shamelessly to its former foe.

    Capitalist alliances around spheres of influence or temporary common interests are far removed from principled anti-imperialism, a stance only possible apart from the logic of capitalist competition. Anti-imperialism is a principle, not a self-interested calculation.

    The post The Tragedy of Syria first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Yasmine Al-Mashaan, a Syrian human rights defender, on transitional justice

    On 12 March 2025 the OHCHR published the feature:

    Two women looking at the camera

    From left:Human rights defenders Sofija Todorovic (Serbia) and Yasmin Al-Mashaan (Syria) © OHCHR/Gabriela Gorjón

    “I’m the only girl of six siblings. And suddenly I lost five brothers between 2012 and 2014,” said Yasmine Al-Mashaan, a Syrian human rights defender and victim. “Before they were taken, they were around to love and protect me. I think it’s my duty to give them a little bit of their love and to fight for truth and justice for them and for everyone,” said Al-Mashaan, a former pharmaceutical assistant.

    She spoke during an enhanced interactive dialogue on transitional justice at the 58th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, where UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk presented a report on lessons learned and good practices related to transitional justice in the context of sustaining peace and sustainable development.

    “In 2018, I co-founded, along with other families of forcibly disappeared persons, the Caesar Families Association, which brings together families who identified their loved ones among the victims in the photos smuggled out of Syria in 2013, known as the Caesar Photos,” Al-Mashaan said.

    Her brother Oqba, one of her two disappeared brothers, was among the photos. 

    Türk emphasized that transitional justice tackles the demons of the past to build a better future.

    “It grapples with difficult questions about truth and memory. It looks for justice, in all its complex and myriad forms,” he said. “And it helps to repair the institutional and social fabric of fractured societies. Above all, transitional justice is about victims, dignity and healing.”

    According to the Office’s report, in the aftermath of a conflict or large-scale and serious human rights violations and abuses, States have an obligation to provide truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-repetition. The report showcases some 36 victim-centred, inclusive, and gender-responsive transitional justice efforts led by victim associations and grass-roots organizations from dozens of countries, from Colombia to Syria, and Chad to Timor Leste.

    However, Türk said, the path to peace is never easy.

    “Transitional justice is often held up and slowed down by political instrumentalization, discriminatory or selective design and focus, insufficient buy-in of affected populations, and weak State institutions,” he said.

    Women and youth as a driving force

    Türk said that civil society, including grass-roots organizations often led by women and youth, play a crucial role in overcoming these challenges.

    Sofija Todorovic, Programme Director of Youth Initiative for Human Rights in Serbia, who also participated in the dialogue, believes the role of youth organizations in transitional justice is indispensable.

    “These organizations ensure that the voices and perspectives of young people are integrated into the policies and strategies shaping their future,” she said. “In many cases, their mission extends to educating youth about the history that has been deliberately concealed from them.”

    Todorovic’s determination was fuelled by the realization that her country had hidden the truth from her.

    “My State and the institutions within my State didn’t give me the right to truth and to make informed conclusion about the past, but rather they forced only one side of the story of the past,” she said. “And I think that that it’s unfair.”

    She emphasized the need to address intergenerational trauma in transitional justice efforts.

    “Only people who have space to heal can be able to build functional democracy,” she said. “We need a political climate that will resolve the trauma, not exploit it.”

    Both Todorovic and Al-Mashaan’s organizations exemplify the power of women’s leadership, resilience, and strategic action in advancing transitional justice despite significant obstacles.

    Justice and peace

    Leyner Palacios Asprilla, a Colombian human rights defender and former Truth Commission member currently leading the Unit for Victims of the Chocó Region, participated in the dialogue via video message. The situation in his region remains so critical that he couldn’t leave the victims he works with alone.

    For Palacios Asprilla, UN Human Rights in Colombia has been instrumental in navigating the challenges of consolidating peace, protecting victims, and defending human rights.

    “Today, the world cannot forget our country because we have not yet crossed the finish line or overcome the obstacles to reach a point of tranquillity,” he said. “Colombia is an example to the world in its commitment to consolidating peace. But the world must not forget that this task is not yet complete.”

    Türk said that in this fragmented world, transitional justice is an essential and creative problem-solving approach. It must be grasped, nurtured and used to build durable peace.

    Many countries, including Nepal, Syria, and Bangladesh, have enormous opportunity to move towards justice and peace, he said.

    Key takeaways

    In preparing the report, UN Human Rights organized consultations with 70 women and 70 men from more than 77 countries, including representatives of national entities implementing transitional justice measures, victims’ associations and civil society organizations, regional and international human rights protection systems, and transitional justice experts and practitioners.

    The report identifies seven key lessons in advancing transitional justice:

    1. Documenting human rights violations is essential for accountability and future justice.
    2. Marginalized victims must be included, ensuring their experiences are recognized.
    3. Victims’ associations play a crucial role in advocacy and justice efforts.
    4. Immediate legal, medical, and psychological support helps victims navigate trauma.
    5. International human rights mechanisms provide accountability when national justice fails.
    6. Universal jurisdiction and international courts offer alternatives when domestic options are blocked.
    7. Grassroots memory and memorialization preserve historical truth and prevent future atrocities.

    see also: Transitional justice and human rights Report by UN Human Rights

    https://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2025/03/transitional-justice-confronting-past-building-future

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Thousands Of Syrian Alawites Shelter At Russian Base

    Thousands of Syrian Alawites continue to seek sanctuary at a Russian air base, fearing for their lives in the wake of a series of horrific sectarian massacres carried out by Syrian government-affiliated extremist armed groups.

    Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday that about 9,000 people were seeking refuge at Hmeimim, an air base established by Russia as part of its 2015 intervention in the US-backed war that began in 2011 to topple the Syrian government of former president Bashar al-Assad.

    Thousands of people have been sheltering at the Hmeimim Air Base near the coastal city of Jablah since 7 March, when extremist militants went from house to house in predominantly Alawite towns and villages, killing residents and looting and burning their homes.

    The post Thousands Of Syrian Alawites Shelter At Russian Base appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • ‘The streets are empty, no one dares go outside’: Syria’s Alawites terrorised by revenge killings

    Hundreds of civilians murdered by militant groups, throwing doubt over new government’s ability to control the country – and US willingness to lift sanctions

    When armed men entered Hayan’s house last Friday, he thought he was going to be killed like his neighbours before him. Militants dragged him outside, threw him to the ground and started shooting right above his head, making it so he could no longer hear the insults they lobbed at him for being a member of the country’s minority Islamic Alawite sect.

    Hayan was lucky – they chose merely to scare not kill him – but by the time the rampage finally ended, 25 residents of the Alawite town of Salhab, northwest Syria, were dead. They included a 90-year-old local religious figure whom militants killed after forcing him to watch them murder his son.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.