epubdos : Afghanistan
SCA MORNING PRESS CLIPS
Prepared for the U.S. Department of State
Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs
TO:
SCA & Staff
DATE:
Friday, August 23, 2024 6:30 AM ET

Afghanistan
The Taliban publish vice laws that ban women’s voices and bare faces in public (AP)
AP [8/22/2024 12:58 PM, Staff, 48215K, Neutral]
Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have issued a ban on women’s voices and bare faces in public under new laws approved by the supreme leader in efforts to combat vice and promote virtue.

The laws were issued Wednesday after they were approved by supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, a government spokesman said. The Taliban had set up a ministry for the "propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice" after seizing power in 2021.

The ministry published its vice and virtue laws on Wednesday that cover aspects of everyday life like public transportation, music, shaving and celebrations.

They are set out in a 114-page, 35-article document seen by The Associated Press and are the first formal declaration of vice and virtue laws in Afghanistan since the takeover.

"Inshallah we assure you that this Islamic law will be of great help in the promotion of virtue and the elimination of vice," said ministry spokesman Maulvi Abdul Ghafar Farooq on Thursday.

The laws empower the ministry to be at the frontline of regulating personal conduct, administering punishments like warnings or arrest if enforcers allege that Afghans have broken the laws.

Article 13 relates to women. It says it is mandatory for a woman to veil her body at all times in public and that a face covering is essential to avoid temptation and tempting others. Clothing should not be thin, tight or short.

Women are obliged to cover themselves in front of non-Muslim males and females to avoid being corrupted. A woman’s voice is deemed intimate and so should not be heard singing, reciting, or reading aloud in public. It is forbidden for women to look at men they are not related to by blood or marriage and vice versa.

Article 17 bans the publication of images of living beings, threatening an already fragile Afghan media landscape.

Article 19 bans the playing of music, the transportation of solo female travelers, and the mixing of men and women who are not related to each other. The law also obliges passengers and drivers to perform prayers at designated times.

According to the ministry website, the promotion of virtue includes prayer, aligning the character and behavior of Muslims with Islamic law, encouraging women to wear hijab, and inviting people to comply with the five pillars of Islam. It also says the elimination of vice involves prohibiting people from doing things forbidden by Islamic law.

Last month, a U.N. report said the ministry was contributing to a climate of fear and intimidation among Afghans through edicts and the methods used to enforce them.

It said the ministry’s role was expanding into other areas of public life, including media monitoring and eradicating drug addiction.

"Given the multiple issues outlined in the report, the position expressed by the de facto authorities that this oversight will be increasing and expanding gives cause for significant concern for all Afghans, especially women and girls," said Fiona Frazer, the head of the human rights service at the U.N. mission in Afghanistan.

The Taliban rejected the U.N. report.
Taliban enact law that silences Afghan women in public, and curbs their freedom (VOA)
VOA [8/22/2024 6:09 PM, Ayaz Gul, 4032K, Neutral]
Taliban leaders in Afghanistan have ordered fresh limitations on women, forbidding them from singing, reciting poetry or speaking aloud in public and mandating them to keep their faces and bodies covered at all times.

The restrictions are part of a new so-called Vice and Virtue decree published by the Taliban’s Justice Ministry on Wednesday after approval from their reclusive supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, said a ministry spokesman in a video message.

The 35-article document is the first formal declaration of the vice and virtue laws under the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Islamic Sharia law since they regained power in Afghanistan three years ago.

The decree greatly restricts personal freedoms and religious practices, covering aspects of everyday life such as transportation, music, shaving, celebrations, and women’s behavior and appearance in public.

The rules targeting female members of the Afghan society explained that a woman’s voice is deemed intimate and should not be heard singing, reciting poetry or reading aloud in public. Women also are not allowed to look at men they are not related to by blood or marriage and vice versa.

Under the new law, females must cover their bodies and faces at all times in public to avoid temptation and to avoid tempting others. Their clothing should not be thin, short or tight, it emphasized.

The legal document empowers the Taliban’s Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice to enforce these rules across the impoverished, war-torn South Asian country. It can give warnings before imprisoning offenders for durations from one hour to three days, and it also may seize properties as a penalty if considered appropriate.

The actions of the Vice and Virtue Ministry are already under international scrutiny.

The United Nations reported last month that the ministry’s ever-expanding policing of public morality was contributing to a climate of fear and intimidation among Afghans through edicts and the methods used to enforce them.

One of the articles in the legal document released Wednesday bans the publication of images of living beings, which critics fear could further shrink media in Afghanistan, forcing the closure of television channels, digital media and print newspapers. Media outlets are already suffering from Taliban-ordered censorship.

Another article prohibits playing music in public transport, the travel of female passengers unless accompanied by a male guardian, and the mingling of unrelated men and women. Additionally, passengers and drivers are required by law to observe designated prayer times. Men cannot shave beards or trim them to less than a fistful, although the law does not define what qualifies as an "Islamic" hairstyle.

Human rights activists feared the latest restrictions underscore a significant increase in the Taliban’s attempts to enforce their version of Islamic law, especially in suppressing and removing women from public life.

The fundamentalist Taliban have already barred Afghan girls ages 12 and older from attending school and many women from public and private sector jobs, including United Nations agencies. No country has officially recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, mainly over their harsh treatment of women.

On Wednesday, Richard Bennett, the U.N.-appointed special rapporteur on Afghan human rights, confirmed that the Taliban had barred him from visiting the country, calling it a "step backward" and urging the de facto Afghan government to lift the travel ban.

Bennett has taken several trips to Kabul and highlighted in his subsequent reports the Taliban’s sweeping curbs on Afghan women’s access to education, employment and public life at large. He alleged that women and girls under Taliban rule "are being persecuted" based on gender, which he called a crime against humanity.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has defended their travel ban on the U.N. envoy, alleging that Bennett was "spreading propaganda" by providing "misleading" information to the international community.
UAE accepts Taliban diplomat as Afghan ambassador (Reuters)
Reuters [8/22/2024 4:57 PM, Charlotte Greenfield and Alexander Cornwell, 42991K, Positive]
The United Arab Emirates has accepted the credentials of a Taliban-appointed diplomat as the ambassador of Afghanistan, a UAE official said on Thursday, making the Gulf state the second country after China to accept a Taliban envoy at that level.

Taliban diplomats have controlled Afghanistan’s embassy in Abu Dhabi and its consulate in Dubai since at least last year, foreign diplomats have said, though apparently without formal acceptance as Afghan diplomats.

The UAE official told Reuters that accepting "the credentials of the Ambassador of Afghanistan" reaffirms the Gulf state’s determination to build bridges and help Afghans, including through development and reconstruction projects.

The official did not say whether the UAE, among three nations to have recognised the 1996-2001 Taliban government, now recognised the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan.

No other government has officially recognised the Taliban government since it swept back to power three years ago and until now only Beijing had formally accepted the credentials of an ambassador.

However, Taliban appointees are running diplomatic missions in several countries including in neighbouring Pakistan.

The Taliban-run foreign ministry said in a statement late on Wednesday that Mawlawi Badreddin Haqqani had been nominated as its ambassador and presented his credentials to the UAE’s foreign ministry’s assistant undersecretary for protocol affairs.

"The newly accredited Ambassador of Afghanistan will soon formally present his credentials to the Emir of the United Arab Emirates during (an) official ceremony," the ministry said.

The Taliban share economic ties with the UAE, which won contracts to run operations at Kabul airport in 2022. Interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, designated as a "specially designated global terrorist" by the U.S., met UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi in June.

The Taliban entered the Afghan capital on Aug. 15, 2021, as the Afghan security forces, set up with years of Western support, disintegrated and U.S.-backed President Ashraf Ghani fled. The UAE military had fought alongside U.S.-led forces during the 20-year war that ousted the Taliban in 2001.

Though China and the UAE have not formally recognised the Taliban administration or confirmed any official change in relations, diplomats and international analysts say formally accepting an ambassador is a grey area of international diplomacy that could constitute upgraded ties.

Many governments, especially Western nations including Washington, have said the path to any formal recognition of the Taliban will be stuck until they change course on women’s rights and re-open high schools and universities to girls and women.

The Taliban say they respect rights in accordance with their interpretation of Islamic law and that restrictions on its banking sector and a lack of recognition are hindering its economy.
Biden’s embarrassed silence on Afghanistan (Washington Post – opinion)
Washington Post [8/22/2024 6:45 AM, Charles Lane, 54755K, Negative]
If recent history had followed President Joe Biden’s wishes and expectations, he would have addressed the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night as the party’s nominee for a rematch against former president Donald Trump. And he would have been able to boast about keeping his 2020 campaign promise to get U.S. troops out of Afghanistan.

The U.S. withdrawal in August 2021 stemmed from Biden’s strong belief that the “forever war” had grown unsustainably costly and that voters would reward a president who ended it. He had agitated for a pullout as vice president under Barack Obama; and, as president, Biden rejected top advisers’ recommendations to keep a small stabilizing force in the country. When doubters raised the specter of a chaotic Kabul bug-out, a la Saigon in 1975, Biden responded that the chances were: “None whatsoever. Zero.”

As it happened, the U.S. exit became a debacle, with 13 American service personnel and more than 200 Afghans killed. Biden’s approval rating plunged in the polls and never recovered. Age-related stumbles in the June 27 debate against Trump precipitated Biden’s ouster from the 2024 Democratic ticket, in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris; but his political decay started to set in three years ago this month.

And, so, Biden found himself giving a valedictory address on Monday night in Chicago; it ran to 5,000-plus words, but not one of them was “Afghanistan.” For the president, and his party, this is a sore subject about which the less said, the better. Rarely has a president so badly misjudged the consequences, substantive and political, of a foreign policy decision.

This is especially true given what has happened in that country since the United States left and the hard-line Islamist Taliban movement toppled a U.S.-backed regime.

Under their supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, a shadowy, unelected figure seldom seen in public, the Taliban has extinguished nearly all opposition and reverted to the harsh practices of its previous stint in power, which ended in 2001 when U.S. troops ousted it for harboring al-Qaeda terrorists.

Executions in stadiums have resumed. In February, officials let relatives of two murder victims fatally shoot the alleged perpetrators as thousands watched, according to the Associated Press. Public floggings and the stoning of accused adulterers are also back: In May 2023, an official of the Taliban-controlled Supreme Court reported that it had approved 37 stonings, in addition to 175 other corporal punishments.

The Taliban’s rule is cruelest for women. “You may call it a violation of women’s rights when we publicly stone them or flog them for committing adultery because they conflict with your democratic principles,” Akhundzada said on March 24, in a rare audio statement on government media. “I represent Allah and you represent Satan.” He added, “The Taliban’s work did not end with the takeover of Kabul; it has only just begun.”

The Taliban has barred most girls over the age of 12 from schools and universities, excluded women from public parks, forbidden them to take long-distance trips without a male guardian and required them to wear the head-to-toe burqa covering. Unsurprisingly, Afghan women are fleeing in increasing numbers but often cannot find refuge in neighboring countries.

According to a recent report from a United Nations special rapporteur for Afghanistan, “The system of discrimination, segregation, disrespect for human dignity and exclusion institutionalized by the Taliban is motivated by and results in a profound rejection of the full humanity of women and girls.”

On Wednesday, the Taliban banned the rapporteur, Richard Bennett, from the country. This defiant move followed a statement from another Afghan official, at a U.N.-sponsored conference in June, who told the United States and other Western countries to stop pressuring the Taliban about “internal matters.” The Taliban’s self-confidence was on display on Aug. 15, the anniversary of Kabul’s fall, when they staged a huge parade of captured U.S. military vehicles at Bagram air base, the former U.S. headquarters.

Of course, Republicans can’t stop saying “Afghanistan.” The chaos of August 2021, which Trump called “the worst humiliation in the history of our country,” was a theme of the party’s convention last month in Milwaukee, though the GOP emphasized the 13 U.S. service members killed, not the Taliban’s horrific rule. This is hypocritical: Trump himself was pursuing a negotiated exit with the Taliban, and there is no guarantee his version would have gone any smoother — despite his claims to the contrary. The GOP is on firmer ground, though, when it argues the U.S. abandonment of Kabul might have emboldened Russia to move against Ukraine.

Though the Taliban likes to show off captured U.S. weaponry, so far, the Afghanistan-based terrorists have not attacked the United States (though wanted terrorist Sirajuddin Haqqani serves as the regime’s interior minister). Preventing that was the main objective of the U.S. intervention, as Biden says. There had to be some limits on how much time and money Washington would pour into Afghanistan; remaking it in America’s liberal, democratic image would have been the work of generations.

For now, the United States and other Western countries are refusing to recognize or aid Afghanistan unless the Taliban respects women’s rights. Yet as the Taliban entrenches its rule, the question of whether Biden could have done anything differently haunts his presidential legacy. “You’ve heard me say it before, we’re facing an inflection point, one of those rare moments in history when the decisions we make now will determine the fate of our nation and the world for decades to come,” Biden said on Monday night. That includes his decision to leave Afghanistan.
Pakistan
Gunmen ambush and kill 11 police officers in eastern Pakistan, officials say (AP)
AP [8/22/2024 3:55 PM, Babar Dogar, 31180K, Negative]
Gunmen armed with rocket-propelled grenades ambushed a police convoy in eastern Punjab province on Thursday, killing at least 11 officers and wounding seven others, authorities said.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in the Rahim Yar Khan district. The officers were ambushed while on patrol in a deserted area in search of robbers who operate in the region.

Punjabi police said the gunmen were likely robbers and not militants. The victims were taken to a nearby hospital.

Pakistan has witnessed a surge in violence and militants attacks in recent years, but such a high number of police casualties in a single attack is rare.

Security forces often carry out operations against bandits in Punjab and in the southern Sindh province, where they hide in rural, forested areas and where they have killed several police officers in attacks over the past months.

Thursday’s attack in the district of Rahim Yar Khan’s area of Kacha is known for robbers’ hideouts along the Indus River, where hundreds of heavily armed bandits evade police.

Police said that one of the police vehicles apparently broke down while passing through accumulated rainwater along farm fields, when dozens of bandits launched the attack. Pakistan has been lashed by monsoon rains since July.

Authorities swiftly condemned the attack in Kacha, one of the deadliest on police in recent years. President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi released statements denouncing the attack, expressing sorrow and describing the slain officers as martyrs.

Police were ordered to take immediate action against the attackers and Sharif demanded the best medical care for the wounded officers.

Earlier on Thursday, gunmen opened fire on a school van in Punjab, killing two children and wounding six other people, police said. No one claimed responsibility for that attack.
Robbers kill eleven police in southern Pakistan, say police (Reuters)
Reuters [8/23/2024 2:47 AM, Urvi Dugar and Mubasher Bukhari, 42991K, Negative]
Robbers armed with guns and rocket-propelled grenades ambushed a police convoy in Pakistan on Thursday, killing at least eleven officers and wounding others, the police and interior ministry said.

The incident took place in the southern Pakistani district of Rahim Yar Khan.

A police statement said the robbers attacked two police patrols near the border between two provinces.
Pakistan’s interior ministry and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attack and ordered police leadership to take swift action to chase and arrest the culprits.

Nine policemen have been injured, the Punjab police spokesperson said.

The border region is considered a no-go area for citizens. Police and other law enforcement agencies do not have much control of the area, which a large number of gangs use as a safe haven.
Pakistan’s top court withdraws part of ruling about Ahmadis’ rights after Islamists vowed protests (AP)
AP [8/22/2024 2:48 PM, Staff, 31180K, Negative]
Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Thursday removed a controversial part of its recent verdict concerning minority Ahmadis, apparently yielding to criticism from religious groups and clerics who had threatened nationwide protests.

The ruling was quickly praised by Islamists who had earlier sought the resignation of the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Qazi Faez Esa, for his alleged support for the minority Ahmadi community.

Pakistan’s Parliament declared Ahmadis non-Muslims in 1974. Since then, they have been repeatedly targeted by Islamic extremists, drawing condemnation from domestic and international human rights groups.

The controversy began in February when the court overturned the conviction of Mubarak Sani, a member of the Ahmadi community who had been convicted by another court in 2021 on charges of insulting Islam.

Initially the Supreme Court ruling went unnoticed but last month Zaheerul Islam, a deputy chief of the Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan party, was arrested after he issued a call for the killing of the chief justice over his alleged support for the Ahmadis.

Esa had been the target of criticism by clerics and religious groups since February when he ordered the release of Sani and wrote a paragraph that was seen by the Islamists as a violation of blasphemy laws.

During the Thursday court hearing, Esa listened to arguments from clerics and said he was deleting his controversial writing about Ahmadis.
Pakistan top court amends religious freedom ruling after protests (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [8/22/2024 12:59 PM, Staff, 85570K, Neutral]
A judge in Pakistan on Thursday said the country’s Supreme Court would amend a ruling that recognised some religious freedoms for the persecuted Ahmadiyya minority, after weeks of widespread protests from far-right Islamist groups.

The Ahmadiyya sect, considered heretical by fundamentalist groups, has been persecuted for decades in Pakistan, but threats and intimidation have risen in recent years.

The Supreme Court in a July ruling had said that while Ahmadis are declared non-Muslim, they have the right to practise and preach their faith within their homes, places of worship, and institutions, as long as they do not use Muslim terms.

However, the ruling sparked nationwide protests and calls from various religious parties, scholars and the government to review the ruling.

"The religious scholars had expressed their reservations on the Supreme Court decision," said Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa, who was heading a three-member bench.

"We have accepted the federal government’s plea to clarify the decision and we are omitting the controversial paragraph."

"The detailed verdict will be announced later," he added.

The protection for Ahmadis to practise their faith at home was included in a ruling that gave bail to an Ahmadi accused of blasphemy.

The backlash that followed included a bounty put on the head of the chief justice by a leader of the radical Islamist party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, which wields massive street power.

"It is quite rare that the Supreme Court takes up an application when both appeal and review have already been exhausted," Osama Malik, an independent lawyer based in Islamabad, told AFP.

"Diluting the judgement has diminished the scant hope that had been offered to persecuted minorities," he added.

Roads leading to Pakistan’s capital were restricted on Thursday and educational institutes were ordered to remain closed ahead of the case hearing.

Ahead of the announcement, hundreds of supporters of Islamist parties gathered and chanted slogans near the court.

"Qazi Faez Isa has deeply hurt millions of Muslims with his verdict," said 32-year-old protester Alyan Ahmed, a member of TLP.

"We are prepared to go to any lengths if this decision is not reversed," he added.

Ahmadis consider themselves Muslims, and their faith is identical to mainstream Islam in almost every way.

But their belief that the movement’s founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was the "mahdi" or messiah has marked them to many as blasphemous unbelievers, particularly in Pakistan.

There are around 500,000 Amadis in Pakistan according to their community leadership.

The constitution has branded them non-Muslims since 1974, and a 1984 law forbids them from claiming their faith as Islamic or openly practising Islamic rituals.
Pakistani YouTuber returns after alleged abduction, draws attention to enforced disappearances (VOA)
VOA [8/22/2024 7:12 PM, Zia Ur Rahman, 4032K, Neutral]
Mystery surrounds the abduction and release three days later of a popular YouTuber who created a satirical song making fun of high electricity bills in Pakistan.

Family members say Aun Ali Khosa was abducted August 14 after his song went viral. Based on a famous patriotic song "Dil Dil Pakistan," which means "Heart Heart Pakistan," the satirical version changed the lyric to "Bill Bill Pakistan."

According to Aun Ali Khosa’s wife, Benish Iqbal, eight or nine masked men arrived at their home in a large car and a pickup truck. She said they entered the house by breaking a window and door and took Khosa with them.

He returned home at midnight three days later and is in fine health, according to the family, but his face shows signs of fatigue, and he is not speaking to anyone.

In a conversation with VOA, Khosa said, "I’m absolutely fine. I do not want to talk about where I was, who took me, or why."

When VOA asked Khosa if he was fed during his disappearance, he replied, "I don’t want to talk about that."

Iqbal filed a petition in the Lahore High Court, alleging Khosa was unlawfully detained by law enforcement officers. Authorities so far have not responded to the accusation.

This is not the first incident of apparent disappearance over satirical writing. Earlier this year, Ahmed Farhad, a poet and journalist from Pakistan-administered Kashmir, also went missing. After several days, the police announced his arrest.

Enforced disappearance rising

According to human rights activists, cases of short-term allegedly enforced disappearances across the country have increased in recent years, with a spike since May 9. Most of the "disappeared" do not speak openly about their experiences.

Human rights activist and lawyer Imaan Zainab Mazari observes that while enforced disappearances used to be for longer durations, since 2022, there has been an uptick in cases where people are taken for just a few days and then released - marking a troubling new pattern.

"The purpose of making someone disappear for a short period of time is to silence them by intimidation," Mazari told VOA.

"For example, a journalist could be arrested for a week so he is intimidated and does not publish a story. Or an officer can be kidnapped for allegedly disobeying an ‘illegal’ order," Mazari added.

Legal expert Khadija Siddiqui believes that Pakistan’s law is clear that if a person commits a crime, he or she is arrested and brought to court within 24 hours. But, she says, some people are picked up even if there is no case against them.

"There is no law in the country for forced disappearance or abduction of people by force," Siddiqui told VOA.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a nongovernmental human rights organization in Pakistan, has expressed its concern about enforced disappearances and demanded that such persons be recovered as soon as possible.

While talking to VOA, HRCP Chairman Asad Butt said, "Incidents like Aun Ali Khosa show the weakness of the state."

Legal expert Siddiqui suggests that stricter judicial measures against enforced disappearances could significantly cut down on future incidents.
Pakistan’s Internet ‘Firewall’ Aimed At Crushing Dissent Upends Livelihoods (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [8/23/2024 5:10 AM, Abubakar Siddique, 235K, Neutral]
Millions of Pakistanis have for weeks experienced slow Internet connections and problems with accessing social media platforms.

Activists say the authorities are installing a China-style national Internet firewall aimed at exerting more control over the online space and crushing dissent.

Islamabad has denied allegations that it is behind the Internet slowdown, which has disrupted businesses and triggered widespread complaints in the South Asian country of some 240 million.

Pakistanis have been unable to promptly send emails or use the messaging application WhatsApp, which is used by tens of millions of people. Businesses and entrepreneurs say the Internet slowdown has disrupted their daily work.

Among them is Omeed Khan, a freelance video editor from the capital, Islamabad.

The 21-year-old said he has been unable to download or upload lengthy videos for weeks. Unable to meet the deadlines set by his mostly international customers, his livelihood has suffered.

“This Internet slowdown is detrimental to our work,” said Khan, who used to earn several thousand dollars per month. “Our clients will quickly move to freelancers in neighboring India and Bangladesh.”

Financial experts have warned that the Internet disruptions could exacerbate the severe economic crisis in Pakistan.

The government estimates that the country earns more than $2.5 billion annually from digital exports of products and services.

Pakistan Software Houses Association, which represents IT companies, said in a statement on August 15 that the disruptions could cost the already fragile economy around $300 million.

“This is not going to invite investment into the country or business,” said Farieha Aziz, co-founder of the nongovernmental digital rights group Bolo Bhi.

‘Stricter Controls’

For weeks, Islamabad refused to comment on the slowdown. In recent days, officials have provided contradictory remarks about the reason behind the disruptions.

Information Technology and Telecommunication Minister Shaza Fatima Khawaja admitted on August 15 that the government was tinkering with the Internet, revealing that it was “upgrading a web-management system” it had previously installed.

Khawaja had previously blamed the Internet disruptions on more Pakistanis using virtual private networks (VPNs) to circumvent government controls.

On August 21, Hafeezur Rehman, the chairman of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), claimed that a faulty undersea Internet cable was to blame for the disruptions.

Activists say there is no doubt that the government’s alleged implementation of a national firewall to monitor and regulate content and social media platforms is to blame.

They say the building of a China-style firewall and filtering system is designed to increase surveillance and stifle dissent, especially criticism of the country’s all-powerful military.

The civilian government is backed by the military and the PTA is overseen by a retired general.

The alleged implementation of the firewall comes as Pakistan’s military, which has an oversized role in the country’s domestic and foreign affairs, says it is battling "digital terrorism."

Military officials in recent months have alluded to the threat posed by the opposition Pakistan Tehrik-e Insaf political party led by jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan as well as civil and political organizations in the restive provinces of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that have been critical of the army.

Aziz of the digital rights group Bolo Bhi said the alleged building of the firewall has raised questions about its impact on Pakistanis’ fundamental rights, including freedom of expression, the right to privacy, and access to information.

“There has to be disclosure, transparency, due process, none of that we’ve seen,” she said.

Ramsha Jahangir, a senior policy and communications associate with Global Network Initiative, a Washington-based global digital rights watchdog, said that “placing stricter controls will now add significant privacy concerns with increasing surveillance of Internet activity.”

‘Web-Management System’

In recent years, Pakistan has built what officials have called a web-management system, which the authorities have used to block websites, including foreign news websites.

But activists say the alleged firewall is likely to be more sophisticated and capable of identifying individuals who upload or share content on social media platforms.

The PTA is reportedly seeking mandatory local registration and licensing for Skype, WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Netflix.

These companies must comply with removing and blocking content Islamabad declares unlawful under its controversial cyberlaws and regulations.

According to Freedom House, a U.S. global rights watchdog, Pakistan is already one of the countries where the Internet is “not free.”

“Authorities routinely use Internet shutdowns, platform blocking, and arrests and harsh convictions to suppress unwanted online speech,” the organization said in its 2023 report.

The report noted that "online activists, dissidents, and journalists are often subjected to harassment" and in some cases "physical assault and enforced disappearances."

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a rights watchdog, on August 20 called on Islamabad to immediately scrap the alleged firewall.

“The right to connectivity is a fundamental right -- not a privilege,” it said in a statement.

HRCP said that, lacking job security or alternative incomes, the slowdown of the Internet is proving detrimental for freelancers.

The watchdog said it was “unacceptable” amid a cost-of-living crisis “in a tottering economy.”
India
Ukraine Cites Modi Visit as the Fruit of an Emerging Diplomatic Push (New York Times)
New York Times [8/22/2024 4:14 PM, Andrew E. Kramer, 831K, Neutral]
Ukrainian officials are claiming that their military incursion into Russia this month coincides with a flurry of diplomatic overtures that could strengthen Kyiv’s push for wider international backing for its negotiating position in any potential peace talks.

That diplomacy has in part been aimed at engaging neutral nations or those that lean toward Russia, including China and India. And Ukraine cited a planned visit to Kyiv on Friday by Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India as evidence that diplomatic success goes hand in hand with its offensive in Russia.

“It’s important to have diplomatic evidence that the picture is more complicated, and these players also respect Ukraine and engage with Ukraine under these circumstances,” Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said in an interview, referring to Mr. Modi’s visit. In July, Mr. Kuleba visited China as the Ukrainian military prepared its incursion, expressing support for a Chinese role in a peace process.

Many leaders of countries supporting Ukraine, including President Biden, have ventured to Kyiv during the war. Mr. Modi is the highest profile visit by a leader of a nation with close trade ties with Russia and political neutrality on the war.

Indian officials have said they are not seeking a mediating role but will convey messages between Ukraine and Russia if requested. India is seen as interested in a resolution to the war to avoid further isolation of Russia in the West, which could push Moscow into a closer embrace with China, India’s rival in Asia.

But India has navigated the two combatants in the war carefully. Though Mr. Modi is visiting Ukraine on Friday, he traveled to Moscow earlier this summer, where he was photographed hugging President Vladimir V. Putin on the same day a Russian cruise missile struck a children’s hospital in Ukraine, killing and wounding patients and doctors.

Economically, India has remained an important trading partner for Russia, and has propped up the Russian economy by purchasing discounted oil from companies sanctioned by the European Union and the United States.

At the same time, Mr. Modi earlier in the conflict publicly chastised Russia over the invasion, telling Mr. Putin at a meeting in 2022 that it was “not the time for war.” And now Mr. Modi plans to be in Kyiv even as Ukrainian troops occupy a swath of territory in Russia.

The visit, said Mr. Kuleba, is a “big diplomatic breakthrough” for Kyiv in its effort to press neutral nations to show balance in their relations with the warring countries. He added that Ukraine is not seeking a mediating role by India in potential talks.

Military analysts have been skeptical that Ukraine could hold the territory seized in Russia long enough for it to serve as leverage in any peace negotiations, and no talks are scheduled in any case. Ukraine diverted forces from defending inside the country to attack in Russia, and its defensive lines are now at risk of buckling near the strategic eastern Ukrainian town of Pokrovsk.

But Mr. Kuleba said the attack on Russia, in which several elite military units quickly overran border defenses and seized hundreds of prisoners, has shown that Ukraine can take the initiative, two and a half years after Russia’s full-scale invasion.

“This operation defies perhaps the most widespread argument in the West about stalemate in the war,” he said. “We showed Russia is not as strong as it pretends. And second, we demonstrated there are multiple theaters of war in this conflict.”

Ukraine is pushing the military and diplomatic tracks in parallel, he said.

In the aftermath of Ukraine’s cross-border incursion, Mr. Putin has said he won’t negotiate while Ukrainian troops are on Russian land. But Russia has yielded under pressure in the war before, Mr. Kuleba said, scaling back demands in early rounds of cease-fire talks as Ukraine routed Russia’s invading forces in fighting near the capital, Kyiv, and in negotiating safe passage for grain ships after developing nations objected to rising global food prices.

“Let’s recall that before the large-scale invasion began, and the immediate aftermath, the question sounded slightly different: How long can Ukraine hold against Russia?” he said. “The answer was no more than a week or so. Today, we’re talking about how long Ukraine can hold in the Kursk region. In terms of the war effort, I think it’s a positive change.”

Diplomatically, Ukraine is seeking to win wide international backing for its negotiating stance in any potential talks. In June, Kyiv organized a peace summit in Switzerland that endorsed three confidence building steps in the Ukrainian plan: securing grain exports, safeguarding energy infrastructure and returning civilians deported to Russia.

But those steps represented a scaled-back agenda for Ukraine, emerging after India and other countries made clear they would not sign on to Ukraine’s full 10-point plan. In the end, India attended the summit but did not sign the communiqué, objecting to a diplomatic format that did not include Russia.

India imports Ukrainian grain and agricultural goods, and along with other developing nations felt the pinch of rising food prices when Russia installed a naval blockade of Ukrainian ports. After Moscow withdrew from the pact on grain shipments, Ukraine re-established a shipping channel by attacking Russia’s fleet with exploding sea drones, forcing its ships too far from the Ukrainian coast to enforce a blockade.

But risks remain for food exports that could elevate prices in developing nations.

Mr. Zelensky and Mr. Modi are expected to discuss trade, analysts have said. But the mere presence of the Indian leader in Kyiv is perhaps the more significant development.
Indian Prime Minister Modi arrives in Kyiv for talks with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy (AP)
AP [8/23/2024 3:46 AM, Staff, 456K, Neutral]
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived on Friday in Kyiv, where he will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Officials in India and Ukraine say the visit will focus on boosting economic ties and cooperation in defense, science and technology. But analysts say the visit could also be an attempt to have India strike a more neutral stance after what has been seen as a lean toward Russia.

Ukrainian media reported that Modi met with representatives of the Indian diaspora after arriving. The crowd gathered around the Indian prime minister cheering “Modi, Modi, Modi.”

“The Indian community accorded a very warm welcome,” Modi said on the social media platform X.

The chief of Ukraine’s Presidential Office, Andriy Yermak, called Modi’s visit “historic” and emphasized Ukraine’s expectation that India could play a role in ending the war between Russia and Ukraine with a “just peace,” referring to Ukraine’s peace formula.

“We respect India as a very big democracy in the world and a powerful country,” Yermak said in an interview with India Today. “But now it’s necessary to say who is the aggressor, who is the victim.”

Before arriving in Ukraine, Modi urged diplomatic efforts to end the war during a visit to Poland on Thursday, pledging India’s support and saying that no conflict can be solved on a battlefield.

Modi’s arrival came a month and a half after Zelenskyy criticized his visit to Moscow in July, when he met with Putin on the day Russian missiles struck across Ukraine, killing scores of people.

Zelenskyy described that meeting as a “huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts.” He also chided Modi for hugging Putin during their meeting.

India has avoided condemning Russia’s invasion and instead has urged Russia and Ukraine to resolve the conflict through dialogue and diplomacy.

Modi’s visit is the first by an Indian prime minister to Ukraine since the two countries established diplomatic relations over 30 years ago.
Indian PM Modi arrives in Kyiv for talks with Ukraine’s Zelenskiy (Reuters)
Reuters [8/23/2024 4:22 AM, Tom Balmforth and Pavel Polityuk, 42991K, Neutral]
India’s Narendra Modi arrived in wartime Kyiv on Friday to hold talks with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the first trip by an Indian prime minister to Ukraine since Kyiv gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

The visit comes at a volatile juncture in the war in Ukraine, with Ukrainian forces still in Russia’s western Kursk region following their incursion on Aug. 6 and Russian troops grinding out slow but steady advances in Ukraine’s east.

The visit, which follows a trip by Modi to Moscow in July, is important for Western-backed Kyiv, which has been trying to nurture diplomatic relations in the Global South in its efforts to secure a fair settlement to end the war.

"Reached Kyiv earlier this morning. The Indian community accorded a very warm welcome," Modi wrote on X. The Ukrainian railways company showed footage of him stepping off a train carriage and being received by Ukrainian officials.

In the run-up to the trip he said he was looking forward to sharing "perspectives on peaceful resolution of the ongoing Ukraine conflict".

Modi’s visit to Moscow last month coincided with a heavy Russian missile strike on Ukraine that hit a children’s hospital. The attack prompted Modi to use emotive language to deliver an implicit rebuke to Putin at their summit.

But the trip elicited fierce criticism from Zelenskiy who said it was a "huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the world’s largest democracy hug the world’s most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day".

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser in the Ukrainian president’s office, told Reuters Modi’s visit to Kyiv was significant because New Delhi "really has a certain influence" over Moscow.

"It’s extremely important for us to effectively build relations with such countries, to explain to them what the correct end to the war is - and that it is also in their interests," he said.

India, which has traditionally had close economic and defence ties with Moscow, has publicly criticised the deaths of innocent people in the war.

But it has also strengthened its economic ties with Moscow after Western nations imposed sanctions on Russia and cut trade relations with it over the invasion.

Indian refiners which rarely bought Russian oil in the past have emerged as Moscow’s top clients for sea-borne oil since Russia poured troops into Ukraine in February 2022. Russian oil accounts for over two-fifths of India’s oil imports.

PEACE VISION

Ukraine has said it hopes to bring together a second international summit later this year to advance its vision of peace and involve representatives from Russia.

The first summit in Switzerland that pointedly excluded Russia in June attracted scores of delegations, including one from India, but not from China, the world’s second largest economy.

"Lasting peace can only be achieved through options that are acceptable to both parties. And it can only be a negotiated settlement," Tanmaya Lal, Secretary (West) in the Indian foreign ministry, told reporters.
"This is an important visit that is expected to catalyze our ties in a whole range of sectors," Lal said, listing economic and business links, agriculture, infrastructure, health and education, pharmaceuticals, defence and culture.

Volodymyr Fesenko, a Kyiv-based political analyst, said he expected no breakthrough proposals to be made to end the war during the trip by Modi, who visited Poland on Thursday.

For there to be an attempt to negotiate, the military situation has to stabilise and the presidential election must be held in the United States, a close ally of Ukraine, he said.

He said the visit was important for India to demonstrate it was "not on Russia’s side" and that Kyiv wanted to normalise relations after Modi’s Moscow trip.
As Modi visits Poland, PM Tusk eyes stronger defence industry ties with India (Reuters)
Reuters [8/22/2024 7:10 PM, Anna Koper, 42991K, Neutral]
Poland wants to deepen its cooperation with India in the defence industry, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Thursday, as Warsaw seeks to benefit from New Delhi’s drive to modernise its armed forces and diversify away from Russian suppliers.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is visiting Warsaw en route to Kyiv, where he has said he will "share perspectives" on the peaceful resolution of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

The trip follows Modi’s July 8-9 visit to Moscow which drew criticism from the U.S. and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as it coincided with a lethal Russian strike on a children’s hospital in Kyiv.

"It is no coincidence that we talked about intensification in terms of the defense industry," Tusk told a news conference alongside Modi in Warsaw. "We are ready as Poland to take part in the modernisation of military equipment."

Poland has been one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters since Russia’s 2022 invasion, while India has remained neutral.

Nevertheless, cooperation concerning the defence industry was high on the agenda for the first visit to Warsaw by an Indian prime minister in 45 years, officials said.

New Delhi had historically relied heavily on Moscow for defence supplies but in recent years has sought to diversify, a process that has intensified since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

A Polish official who declined to be named told Reuters that India had a lot of Soviet-era equipment such T-72 tanks which Poland was able to repair or refit, creating an opportunity for cooperation.

India recently reopened the defence wing at its embassy in Warsaw.

Modi said that India is willing to offer its help to end the conflicts in Ukraine and West Asia.

"India firmly believes that no issue can be solved on a battlefield," Modi said. "We support dialogue and diplomacy for the quick restoration of peace."

Tusk praised Modi’s engagement and said the he was convinced India could play a positive role.
Is India a Safe Place for Women? Another Brutal Killing Raises the Question. (New York Times)
New York Times [8/22/2024 4:14 PM, Anupreeta Das and Sameer Yasir, 831K, Neutral]
In December 2012, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student boarded a bus in New Delhi a little after 9 p.m., expecting it would take her home. Instead, she was gang-raped and assaulted so viciously with an iron rod that her intestines were damaged. She died days later as India erupted in rage.

Nearly 12 years later, the nation is convulsing with anger once again — this time, over the ghastly rape and murder of a 31-year-old trainee doctor in a Kolkata hospital, as she rested in a seminar room after a late-night shift. Since the Aug 9. killing, thousands of doctors have gone on strike to demand a safer work environment and thousands more people have taken to the streets to demand justice.

For a country desperate to be seen as a global leader, repeated high-profile cases of brutal sexual assaults highlight an uncomfortable truth: India, by many measures, remains one of the world’s most unsafe places for women. Rape and domestic violence are relatively common, and conviction rates are low.

This week, the Supreme Court of India took up the Kolkata case as one of fundamental rights and safety, questioning how hospital administrators and police officers had handled it and saying new protective measures were needed. “The nation cannot wait for another rape and murder for real changes on the ground,” Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud said.

Gender-related violence is hardly unique to India. But even as millions of Indian women have joined the urban work force in the past decade, securing their financial independence and helping to fuel the country’s rapid growth, they are still often left to bear the burden of their own safety.

Longstanding customs that both repress women and in many cases confine them to the home have made their safety in public spaces an afterthought. It can be dangerous for a woman to use public transportation, especially at night, and sexual harassment occurs frequently on the streets and in offices. Mothers tell their daughters to be watchful. Brothers and husbands drop their sisters and wives off at work.

In 1997, India’s Supreme Court issued guidelines intended to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. Those rules stemmed from the 1992 rape of a social worker, Bhanwari Devi, who tried to stop the marriage of a nine-month-old child.

A bill to put the guidelines into law was proposed in 2007. It was approved six years later in 2013, a year after the gang-rape of the young physiotherapy student in New Delhi, who came to be known as Nirbhaya, or fearless.

The legal protections have been ineffectual partly because the government has been lax about implementing the law and investing in mechanisms to properly handle cases of sexual assault, said Vrinda Grover, a lawyer and women’s rights activist.

She said that investigations she had examined were often “unprofessional, shoddy” and carried out by people with little training. The state’s approach, Ms. Grover said, is colored by prejudice against women.

If the government acts only after people organize protests, “then it is the system that has become dysfunctional and we will not see the end of sexual violence,” she said.

In the Kolkata case, Chief Justice Chandrachud identified a number of breakdowns in the official response to the rape and killing. He asked why hospital administrators and police officers had not followed protocol in reporting the crime in the hours after the victim’s body, which bore signs of rape and brutal injury, was discovered at R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital, where she worked. The top court also set up a national task force to recommend safety measures to protect medics, who are often subject to violence and abuse.

Three senior officials at the Kolkata hospital have been removed from their posts. A 33-year-old man, who was a volunteer at a police post at the hospital, has been arrested in connection with the killing, but as of Thursday he had not been charged. The Supreme Court ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation, which is handling the case, to submit a status report on Thursday.

The ongoing protests — with dozens of Bollywood celebrities and other public figures lending their voices — have morphed into widespread anger, not just at the plight of many in the medical profession, but also about workplace safety for women.

The millions of Indian women who have entered the work force in recent years have challenged patriarchal norms to pursue the same opportunities that men have in one of the world’s fast-growing economies. Women, along with men, are also increasingly migrating from villages to cities, seeking better earnings.

But India still has a low labor force participation rate among women compared to other countries, a figure that had been on a long downward slide until the past few years. Women make up less than a third of India’s urban labor force, and men vastly outnumber women in both government and private-sector jobs.

Safety in the workplace is essential if more women are to enter the labor force, said Gita Gopinath, the first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

“No way that will happen if women in India don’t feel completely safe,” Ms. Gopinath, who is of Indian origin, told the journalist Barkha Dutt in an interview posted this weekend on YouTube. “Not having to worry about your safety is absolutely a basic right” as a woman, she said.

The numbers tell a harrowing story for Indian women. In 2023, the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security ranked India 128th out of 177 countries in its annual index on women’s inclusion, justice and security.

According to the World Bank, 35 percent of Indian women between the ages of 15 and 49 have experienced physical or sexual violence at the hands of their partners, higher than the world average of 27 percent.

Nearly 45,000 rape cases were investigated in 2022, the latest year for which statistics are available from India’s National Crime Records Bureau. But among the cases that went to trial, there were convictions in just over 5,000 — a rate of 27.4 percent, lower than for cases of murder, kidnapping and other violent crimes.

Many more rape cases go unreported because of social stigma and other reasons.

Though gruesome incidents of rape continue to occur and sexual harassment remains a reality for many women, the Nirbhaya case and the #MeToo movement have changed how such matters are perceived, said Ms. Grover, the women’s rights activist.

“There is a marked change in how women across brackets of age, class and caste structures view themselves,” Ms. Grover said. “There is no confusion that this is a crime they are in no way responsible for.”

On Wednesday, hundreds of doctors wearing aprons and stethoscopes protested outside the federal health ministry and at Jantar Mantar, a designated spot for protests in the nation’s capital. They demanded immediate action to ensure the safety of doctors and other medical workers.

“Most of the incidents are not reported,” said one doctor, Pinky Verma. “That is because the attacks happen on women, and people can live with it.”
Indian doctors resume work but protests over medic’s rape, murder continue (Al Jazeera)
Al Jazeera [8/22/2024 9:28 AM, Staff, 20871K, Neutral]
Some doctors in India have returned to work after an 11-day strike over the brutal rape and murder of a trainee medic at a government hospital in the eastern city of Kolkata this month.

But the protests continued in Kolkata on Thursday, where people gathered for another day of demonstrations against the latest fatal sexual assault on a woman in India, which took place on the premises of the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.

Doctors across the country stopped work, apart from emergency services, demanding better safety measures in medical facilities and justice for the 31-year-old.

"We are resuming duties following the Supreme Court’s appeal and assurances and intervention in the RG Kar incident and safety for doctors," the Resident Doctors’ Association (RDA) at New Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) said.

"We commend the Court’s action and call for adherence to its directives. Patient care remains our top priority," it said in a post on X.

The RDA at the Indira Gandhi Hospital in the national capital was also ready to end the strike "in a spirit of national interest and public service", according to a statement.

At a hearing on Thursday, the Supreme Court urged doctors to return to work and said no "coercive action" should be taken against peaceful protesters, local media reported.

The court also ordered local and national authorities to put in place safety measures within two weeks.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), a federal agency, submitted a progress report on the investigation to the top court.

India has been outraged by the trainee’s rape and murder at her workplace, her bloodied and brutalised body found on August 9. An outraged citizenry joined doctors in protests across the country.

The Supreme Court set up a national task force of doctors this week to make recommendations on the safety of healthcare workers.

"Protecting safety of doctors and women doctors is a matter of national interest and principle of equality. The nation cannot await [for] another rape for it to take some steps," Chief Justice Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud said.

"If women cannot go to a place of work and be safe, then we are denying them the basic conditions of equality," said Chandrachud, who headed a three-judge bench.

It additionally ordered a federal paramilitary force to provide security at the Kolkata hospital after female doctors said they did not feel safe after the crime and subsequent vandalisation of the facility by unidentified men.

A police volunteer, who was tasked with helping police personnel and their families with hospital admissions when needed, has been arrested and charged with the crime.

Thulasi K Raj, a Supreme Court lawyer, said there are limits to what the court can do and how its directives can be implemented nationwide.

"I think the sort of trust that people put on the Supreme Court to resolve a complicated issue in the country such as sexual assault on women is misguided," Raj told Al Jazeera.

"We need to put our accountability, responsibility on the executive and the legislators, who are in charge of enforcing and making laws, and in charge of taking measures for sensitisation on what we can do to reduce and possibly eliminate the number of assaults that women face in the country," she added.

Activists say the incident has shown yet again how women in India continue to face sexual violence despite tougher laws introduced after the 2012 gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a bus in New Delhi.

That attack had spurred politicians to order harsher penalties for such crimes and set up fast-track courts dedicated to rape cases. The government also introduced the death penalty for repeat offenders.

However, despite tougher legislation, sexual violence remains pervasive in India.

In 2022, the latest year for which records are available, police recorded 31,516 reports of rape a 20 percent jump from 2021, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.
Floods, landslides in India’s Tripura displace tens of thousands (Reuters)
Reuters [8/23/2024 3:12 AM, Tora Agarwala and Ruma Paul, 5.2M, Negative]
Soldiers in lifeboats ferried people to safety on Friday in India’s northeastern state of Tripura after heavy rain triggered floods and landslides, forcing more than 65,000 people from their homes and killing 23, authorities said.

Television images showed army personnel manning the rescue craft, while cars and buses were marooned in streets of knee-deep water, and disaster management officials said four days of incessant rain had swelled rivers.

"As of this morning, most rivers are flowing below the critical mark," said one of them, Suman Deb, although the intensity of the rain had reduced since Thursday night.

"However, the river Gomti still continues to flow above the danger mark," Deb said, referring to the state’s main river, which flows through the district of Comilla in neighbouring Bangladesh to empty into the Bay of Bengal.

The displaced have gathered in 450 camps, the officials said, with a total of about 1.7 million affected, along with extensive damage to infrastructure, crops and livestock.

Most deaths were caused by landslides though some followed the collapse of mud walls and drowning, another disaster management official said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

The Indian Army said more than 80 of its personnel joined in rescue efforts, bringing to safety 334 people stranded by rising floodwaters.

In Bangladesh, the Gomti broke through an embankment late on Thursday, inundating at least 15 villages and displacing hundreds of families, officials and witnesses said.

In the capital, Dhaka, some people alleged this week that the floods were caused by the opening of dam sluice gates in India, an assertion New Delhi has rejected.

It was "not correct" that the floods were caused by water released from Tripura’s Dumbur dam on the Gomti, the foreign ministry said.

Blocked roads in several districts of Bangladesh isolated people and hampered rescue and relief efforts, officials said.

Strong currents of floodwater gushed through the districts of Feni, Moulvibazar and Noakhali where roads were inundated and ropes used to pull stranded people to safety, television videos showed.

"I have never seen such a flood in my lifetime," said Noakhali resident Mohammad Alam.
More than 75,000 people were taken to over 1,500 shelters in the flood-hit districts, with military and border guards helping in the rescue, authorities said.
NSB
Bangladesh Ex-PM Hasina has diplomatic passport revoked after fleeing to India (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [8/22/2024 12:04 PM, Staff, 85570K, Negative]
Bangladesh’s interim government revoked the diplomatic passport of ousted premier Sheikh Hasina on Thursday, after she fled a student-led uprising by helicopter to India earlier this month.

The move to cancel Hasina’s documents leaves the former autocratic leader in potential limbo, and comes on the same day that a United Nations team arrived in Dhaka to assess whether to investigate alleged human rights violations.

More than 450 people were killed -- many by police fire -- during the weeks leading up to Hasina’s ouster, as crowds stormed her official residence in Dhaka and ended her iron-fisted 15-year rule.

The interior ministry said in a statement that Hasina’s passport and those belonging to former government ministers and ex-lawmakers no longer in their posts "have to be revoked".

It also poses a diplomatic dilemma for Hasina’s current host, regional powerhouse India.

- ‘Disproportionate force’ -

Hasina, who fled to an airbase near India’s capital New Delhi, was a close ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose Hindu-nationalist government preferred her over her rivals from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which it saw as closer to conservative Islamist groups.

While India is hosting Hasina, Modi has also offered his support to the new Bangladeshi leader, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, who is heading the caretaker administration.

"The former prime minister, her advisers, the former cabinet and all members of the dissolved national assembly were eligible for diplomatic passports by virtue of the positions they held," Dhaka’s home ministry said in a statement.

"If they have been removed or retired from their posts, their and their spouses’ diplomatic passports have to be revoked."

Dhaka’s new authorities said that Hasina, and other former top officials during her tenure, could apply for a standard passport, but that those documents were contingent on approval.

"When the aforementioned people apply afresh for ordinary passports, two security agencies have to clear their application for their passports to be issued," the ministry added.

Hasina’s government was accused of widespread abuses, including the mass detention and extrajudicial killing of political opponents.

The UN rights office asessing the protest response had said in a preliminary report last week that there were "strong indications, warranting further independent investigation, that the security forces used unnecessary and disproportionate force".

Yunus has said his administration would "provide whatever support" UN investigators need.

Separately, a Bangladeshi war crimes tribunal set up by Hasina has launched three "mass murder" probes into its founder over the recent unrest.
Bangladesh court sends 2 journalists to police custody for questioning as chaos continues (AP)
AP [8/22/2024 11:34 AM, Julhas Alam, 85570K, Negative]
A court in Bangladesh\u00b4s capital Thursday allowed police to interrogate two journalists in their custody for four days in connection with the murder of a garment worker, who joined recent student protests against former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina that forced her to step down and flee to India earlier this month.

Ekattor TV’s former Head of News Shakil Ahmed and former Principal Correspondent Farzana Rupa were arrested on Wednesday when the couple, along with their young daughter, went to Dhaka’s main Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport to travel overseas.

After hours of questioning at the airport, the couple was taken into custody. They had attempted to board a Turkish Airlines flight to Paris via Istanbul. The two journalists worked for the pro-Hasina TV channel and were fired by authorities after her government’s fall, apparently under pressure from student leaders who are regularly issuing ultimatums to remove people from various sectors.

On Thursday, Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Ahmed Humayun Kabir granted four days of police remand after hearing an application filed by police official Mohaiminur Rahman, who had sought a 10-day remand for questioning them.

Names of Ahmed and Rupa were not initially included in a murder case of the garment worker who died during a demonstration on Aug. 5 in Dhaka\u00b4s Uttara. The case named 39 accused including Hasina for murder. The journalists were arrested as two of the unnamed accused.

Police said Thursday that the journalist couple had instigated the government of former Hasina to kill protesters.

"We came to know based on a tip-off that the accused had instigated the (former) government to crush the students in the quota reform movement. The misery behind the incident will be revealed if police interrogate the accused thoroughly," according to the police petition to the court.

The development came as interim leader Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel laureate, is overhauling the bureaucracy, judiciary and other public sectors, including the central bank and universities, by changing their heads.

Yunus-led government has also fired more than 1,800 elected local government representatives across the country since he took over on Aug. 8 after Hasina stepped down on Aug. 5 in the face of a mass uprising that followed attacks, vandalism and killings of many people loyal to Hasina. The parliament was also dissolved after she quit.

The United Nations said in a report recently that more than 650 people died in the violence. It said nearly 400 deaths were reported between July 16 and August 4, while around 250 people were reportedly killed following the new wave of violence between Aug. 5 and 6 after Hasina\u00b4s downfall.

On Thursday, the New York-based Human Rights Watch expressed concern over the arrest of the journalist couple.

"It is extremely concerning that the justice system is replicating its abusive and partisan behavior since the fall of the Awami League government (of Hasina), with arbitrary arrests and failure in due process, merely reversing those targeted," said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy director of the agency’s Asia Division, in an email to The Associated Press.

"While there is legitimate anger over the abuses under Sheikh Hasina\u00b4s authoritarian governance, the focus should be on reform, not reprisal, which will only serve to undermine the pledges of the interim government," she said.

The student protests, which began against a quota system for government jobs, were initially peaceful but turned violent on July 15. Later they morphed into a movement against what was considered Hasina\u00b4s increasingly autocratic administration. The uprising eventually forced Hasina to leave office, ending her 15-year rule.

Hasina, 76, was elected to a fourth consecutive term in January, but the vote was boycotted by her main opponents, with thousands of opposition activists detained beforehand.

On Thursday, a team from the United Nations arrived in Bangladesh to discuss the process of investigating alleged human rights violations during the deadly violence in the country.

The U.N. office in Bangladesh said the team will visit Dhaka on Aug. 22-29. "The purpose of this visit is to understand their priorities for assistance in promoting human rights," it added.

Referring to the attack on at least seven TV stations and newspapers in recent weeks, A U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Wednesday that any such attacks should be accountable.

"The safety and well-being of journalists anywhere in the world is of critical importance for any country, especially for countries going through a transition. It is important that journalists be allowed to do their work, and that those who commit violence against journalists be held to account," Dujarric said.
UN team in Bangladesh to discuss modalities of human rights probe (Reuters)
Reuters [8/22/2024 7:39 AM, Ruma Paul, 42991K, Negative]
A United Nations team will meet Bangladesh’s interim government and other stakeholders from Thursday to discuss the process to investigate alleged human rights violations during the recent deadly violence in the South Asian country, officials said.

About 300 people, many of them university and college students, were killed during protests that began in July with students agitating against quotas in government jobs before the events spiralled into demonstrations to oust long-serving former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

An interim government, headed by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, was sworn in after Hasina fled the country and flew to New Delhi following the students-led uprising.

The U.N. office in Bangladesh said in a media advisory that the team from the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights will be visiting Dhaka from Sept. 22-29.

"The purpose of this visit is to understand their priorities for assistance in promoting human rights," said the media advisory, adding that Bangladesh’s interim government had requested the U.N. to probe the killings during the protests.

"It is important to note that this visit is not an investigation, but rather it will focus on discussing the process for investigating human rights violations in light of the recent violence and unrest."

Rory Mungoven, chief of the Asia Pacific region at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, was leading the U.N. team, which met Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen on Thursday, according to two Bangladesh foreign ministry officials.

U.N. human rights chief, Volker Turk, made a phone call to Yunus last week and said a U.N.-led investigation will be launched "very soon" to probe the killing of the protesters, Yunus’ office said.

A separate fact-finding team will be dispatched to Dhaka in coming weeks to conduct the investigation once details are finalised, the U.N. added.
Bangladesh’s second independence: A step forward for democracy (The Hill – opinion)
The Hill [8/22/2024 9:30 AM, Farhana Sultana, 18752K, Neutral]
Since July, I have been glued to social media and international news reports on the student protests, massacre of students and subsequently, the student-led mass uprising that overthrew Bangladeshi autocrat Sheikh Hasina on Aug. 5.

I am a Bangladeshi who grew up in faculty housing at Dhaka University, the epicenter of the student protests. As a child, and later as an adult, I was surrounded by Bangladeshi students and witnessed their activism and political consciousness.

Today, I am incredibly moved and proud of the current generation of students who have toppled a corrupt government and are working quickly to create a working democracy in its place. This has been dubbed the “Gen Z revolution.”

After more than 15 years of dictatorship by Sheikh Hasina and her party, Awami League, many found it surprising to witness a student movement spark a revolution without civil war. The students endured weeks of brutal attacks by Hasina’s police force and violent Awami League members. The student protestors were demanding reforms to job quotas that crippled the country with its high youth unemployment.

In response, highly militarized police and regime loyalists killed over 500 people and injured over 1,000 in three weeks in what is called Bloody July. Today, there are more than 800 confirmed dead and more than 33,000 injured. A country-wide curfew was imposed, internet blackouts rolled out and more disappearances and massacres occurred in the dark. Democracy always dies in the dark.

The swift organizing by secular Gen Z is perhaps what surprised many. Their focus on anti-discrimination, fairness, dignity and justice swiftly expanded as teachers, parents, artists, celebrities, and average people joined the cause.

Through Bloody July, as more students were killed, student leaders called for a Long March to Dhaka, with one demand of Hasina’s resignation. Tens of thousands from across the country marched to the capital overnight on Aug. 5. This proverbial storming of the gates resulted in Hasina fleeing to India, her closest ally.

Euphoria broke out across Bangladesh after she absconded, as people hailed this as the nation’s second independence and a return to democracy.

There is usually chaos in the power vacuum left after a regime falls. The police force fled their posts for fear of reprisals due to their brutal treatment of student protesters. A country suddenly without a government or a security force faced widespread looting and violence on the night of Aug. 5, mostly against Awami League members.

The democratic movement by students responded immediately and swiftly to restore law and order that very night with the assistance of larger community support. It was nothing short of remarkable.

Students and civilians self-organized into groups to manage traffic, clean waste, guard minority religious institutions, catch culprits and vandals, remove and repair damage and rebuild infrastructure and the country at large. 

Within a short three days of the regime’s fall, at the request of student leaders, Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus was inaugurated to lead the new interim government. It is poetic justice that Yunus replaced Hasina, who for over a decade persecuted him and filed spurious cases against him. Now, the government cabinet is the most progressive and diverse in Bangladesh’s history.

The installation of Yunus as interim head is what Bangladesh needs at this time. His first speech called to ensure the protection of all religious and ethnic minorities, prevent violence and strengthen  democratic processes to keep rebuilding Bangladesh. Calls to investigate and prosecute culprits properly, without mob justice, have been reiterated repeatedly.

Monumental challenges are ahead for the desired gains of the Gen Z revolution to come to fruition. Awami League hollowed out institutions with corruption, cronyism, offshore embezzlement of funds, disappearances and extra-judicial killings, and a deeply angry set of loyalists in the country who have been cut off from sources of extortion income.

These party loyalists, alongside Hasina’s family and advisors abroad, are supporting a propaganda campaign against Bangladesh, with Hindutva support in India. Their goal is to return to power.

On Aug. 10, a mere two days after the interim government was sworn in, a judicial coup was attempted. While Yunus was paying respect to the late student protestor Abu Sayeed, the Awami League loyalist chief justice of Bangladesh attempted to declare the interim government illegal.

Luckily, junior army officers alerted students, who immediately descended on the court, pressuring the chief justice to resign. Again, the vigilance, response and self-organization of students and the youth became visible.

There are still considerable concerns about what will transpire in the coming days and weeks as the interim government tries to bring order into the mess Hasina left behind.

But while the interim government and the people of Bangladesh work to rebuild the country, many celebrate having freedom of speech back and begin the process of healing. Now schoolchildren, parents, artists and professionals are painting murals across Bangladesh to commemorate the events and pay homage to those who paid a price to bring about change.

Nonetheless, there are ongoing attempts to discredit and undermine the secular students and civilians from diverse backgrounds and classes who led the uprising against a dictator who ruled with an iron fist. 

As a nation, we must rebuild and renew Bangladesh as a robust democracy. This means leaving the old dynastic party politics, guarding the democratic process, ensuring reparative justice and remaining progressive and inclusive in governance. 

Bangladeshis have the opportunity to reform our nation. We must not go back. Bangladesh 2.0 has just started.

Bangladesh’s second independence builds on the long history of the anti-colonial revolutionary politics of the youth who were central in past democratic uprisings. While this one is hailed as the Gen Z revolution, these students and youth stand on the shoulders of our fierce ancestors of the past. We are better off for it.
In a Likely Overture to China, Nepal Lifts Ban on TikTok (New York Times)
New York Times [8/23/2024 12:29 AM, Bhadra Sharma, 831K, Neutral]
The new prime minister of Nepal, K.P. Sharma Oli, on Thursday overturned a ban on TikTok that his predecessor imposed in November, an apparent sign that the veteran politician intended to strengthen the country’s relations with China, its northern neighbor.

The popular social media app, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, was banned for its refusal to curb what the previous Nepalese government had described as hate speech that disturbed “social harmony.” At the time, Nepali officials said that they had resorted to the ban after TikTok declined to address concerns about troubling content.

A spokesman for TikTok expressed satisfaction with the move, saying, “We’re excited to be able to continue enabling Nepali voices and creativity.”

The decision to reinstate TikTok signaled Mr. Oli’s belief that, amid the geopolitical bickering between China and India, Nepal’s neighbor to the south that also banned the app, the Himalayan country was better off aligning with China.

TikTok and many other Chinese apps have been banned in India since 2020, amid historically fraught relations between the two countries and more recent efforts to dominate the South Asian region.

Prithvi Subba Gurung, a Nepalese government spokesman, said TikTok would now have to abide by certain directives, such as naming a point of contact in the country.

“We have set a few conditions such as TikTok to be used for promoting Nepali tourism, supporting us for digital safety, digital literacy and digital education and curb hate content,” Mr. Gurung said.

On Thursday morning, the Chinese ambassador to Nepal, Chen Song, wrote on the social media platform X, “Today is a good day,” which many Nepalese took to mean that the talks to reinstate TikTok had been finalized.

Mr. Oli, 73, who leads Nepal’s largest communist party, returned to power in July as the leader of a new ruling coalition, taking charge of the government for the fourth time. The previous leader, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, was seen as easier than Mr. Oli for India to manipulate and frequently changing coalition partners for his personal benefit.

Mr. Oli has made no secret of his opposition to India’s influence in Nepal. During his first stint as prime minister in 2015, he stood up against a crippling economic blockade that India had imposed over certain provisions in Nepal’s Constitution.

During his second stint as prime minister, after elections in 2017, Mr. Oli revised Nepal’s political map in a way that further soured relations with India.

On Thursday, Nepal and China also agreed to expand a few development projects aimed at strengthening bilateral ties, including an agreement to complete the upgrade of a highway in Kathmandu, the Nepalese capital, as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative project.
14 killed, 16 injured and more missing after a bus with Indian pilgrims drives off a Nepal highway (AP)
AP [8/23/2024 4:25 AM, Binaj Gurubacharya, 456K, Negative]
At least 14 people were killed, 16 other injured and several more believed to be missing after a bus carrying dozens of Indian pilgrims drove off a key highway Friday in Nepal, officials said.

The bus veered off Prithvi Highway and rolled toward a fast-flowing river, stopping on the rocky bank. The top part of the bus was ripped, but the wreckage did not plunge into the Marsyangdi river.

Armed Police Force spokesperson Shailendra Thapa said that, among those pulled out of from the bus, 14 were declared dead and 16 were injured in the accident.

Officials could not yet say how many more were missing or the exact number of people on the bus when it crashed, but they estimated there were some four dozen on board at the time of the accident.

Police and army rescuers were helping to pull people from the wreckage near Abukhaireni, a town about 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of the capital, Kathmandu.

The bus from neighboring Indian town of Gorakhpur was heading toward Kathmandu from the resort town of Pokhara on Friday when it drove off the highway midway in the journey.

In July, two buses were swept by landslides not too far from Friday’s accident site. Of the 65 people on board those two buses, only three survived and only about half the bodies were recovered. The wreckage of those buses have not been found yet but authorities have continued to search.

Bus accidents in Nepal are mostly due to poorly maintained roads and vehicles and much of the country is covered by mountains with narrow roads.
In Nepal, the US and India Come Together to Counter China (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [8/22/2024 6:15 AM, Mohamed Zeeshan, 1156K, Neutral]
Nepal’s new Foreign Minister Arzu Rana Deuba is in India this week for a series of high-profile meetings. Deuba was originally scheduled to fly to New Delhi for a routine health checkup. But given the political circumstances surrounding India-Nepal relations, New Delhi upgraded her visit to an official trip, and Deuba even got a rare audience with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Deuba’s visit to India is her first foreign trip since taking charge of Nepal’s Foreign Ministry last month under the country’s new Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli. That detail is not by itself very significant: Since it became a republic 17 years ago, Nepal has seen a change of prime minister as many as 13 times - often a result of shifting alliances between the three major political parties in the country’s divided parliament. Oli himself has now become prime minister for a third time. His two main rivals, Sher Bahadur Deuba (Arzu Rana Deuba’s husband) and Pushpa Kamal Dahal, have each been prime minister for five and three terms respectively. None of them has ever completed a full term in office so far.

Yet, Deuba’s trip to New Delhi is still significant. The last two times that he was in power, Oli pivoted hard toward China and ran up a long gamut of spats with India. He faced down an economic blockade from New Delhi, raked up old territorial disputes along the border, and signed a landmark agreement with Beijing to reduce his country’s dependence on Indian trade routes. With Oli back in power, India is now trying to get out in front, especially as it faces a series of politically unfavorable developments elsewhere in the neighborhood - from Bangladesh to the Maldives.

Nepal is important not just to India but also to the United States. Nestled between India and China in the strategically contested Himalayas, Nepal is an important player in checking China’s influence in South Asia.

As in most other parts of Asia, the path to winning influence in Nepal runs through the economy. Much like the rest of the region, Nepal’s economy suffered hard during the pandemic. Tourism revenue - a key driver of growth - dried up, causing trade imbalances and inflation. According to a government survey, unemployment stood at 12.6 percent in 2022-23 - up from 11.4 percent in 2017-18 before the pandemic. Not by coincidence, Nepal has become the unlikely source of the largest contingent of foreign mercenaries fighting for the Russians in Ukraine - as many as 15,000 of them, according to some reports.

China has already entered and dominated the fray. Like other South Asian economies, Nepal sees economic ties with China as a way to break free from New Delhi’s historic hegemony. In recent times, Chinese imports have surged while imports from India have declined. Earlier this year, Nepal and China teamed up to drill for oil in the former’s territory as a way to reduce Nepal’s dependence on oil imports from India - a key strategic objective for Kathmandu after New Delhi imposed an economic blockade on its fuel imports in 2015 over a political dispute. There have also been reports of possible projects under China’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative.

But while Nepal pivots to China, the United States has not stood by idly. In recent years, Washington has tried to build its own presence in Nepal. In 2017, a $500 million compact was signed to build critical infrastructure, including the facilitation of cross-border electricity trade between Nepal and India. Last week, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Verma was in Kathmandu, pledging $100 million in military support.

Ordinarily, India is very sensitive to such activities in its neighborhood by major world powers. But in the wake of sundry disputes with Nepal and others in the region, New Delhi increasingly recognizes that it might not be able to ward off China’s economic influence alone. That has created more space for the U.S. to coordinate with India in neighborhood relations. Perhaps tellingly, after Verma went to Nepal last week, he was warmly welcomed in New Delhi by India’s Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.

For New Delhi, such collaboration with the U.S. has become increasingly pivotal. In recent years, India’s rise as an emerging power has been accompanied by testy relations with the neighborhood. Countries like Nepal have naturally pursued a policy of strategic autonomy by pivoting to China, to counterbalance India. Washington’s entry into the region with economic assistance programs of its own will be to India’s benefit.
Sri Lanka Threats On Basic Freedoms ‘Concerning’: UN (Agence France-Presse)
Agence France-Presse [8/22/2024 6:41 AM, Staff, 4032K, Negative]
The United Nations Human Rights Office on Thursday said basic freedoms in Sri Lanka were under threat, as the country gears up to elect a new president in September.

A report published Thursday by the UN agency stressed that Sri Lanka, which will hold its first presidential vote since recovering from a deep economic crisis, has not reformed its human rights protection system despite vowing to do so.

Instead, laws and bills introduced since 2023 have given "broad powers to the security forces" and expanded "restrictions on freedom of expression and opinion and association", OHCHR said.

"This trend is particularly concerning as the country is in an important pre-election period," UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said in a statement.

OHCHR also highlighted the "erosion of democratic checks and balances, ongoing threats and intimidation against civil society and journalists, and recurrence" of past rights violations.

The state has continued to arbitrarily arrest and detain people, the report said, citing recent cases including "torture and deaths in custody".

Sri Lanka has maintained a large military relative to its population of 22 million since the end of a decades-long civil war against the separatist Tamil Tigers in 2009.

Turk urged the South Asian country to "recognise victims’ suffering" and "acknowledge security forces’ role" in committing "gross human rights violations" as the report blamed impunity and a persisting lack of accountability.

A lightning military offensive killed at least 40,000 civilians in the final months of the fighting, according to UN estimates. Sri Lankan forces were accused of indiscriminately shelling civilians.

"Crimes and violations committed during and after the civil war... must not go unpunished," the High Commissioner said.

Sri Lanka has been cash-strapped and in April 2022 defaulted on its $46 billion foreign debt when it ran out of foreign exchange for essential imports.

An unprecedented economic crisis in 2022 caused months of food, fuel and medicine shortages across the island nation, spurring widespread unrest.

Austerity measures followed, heavily impacting women and the poor in particular, the report noted.

Local elections were due to be held last year but postponed indefinitely after the government insisted it had no money to conduct a nationwide vote.
Central Asia
Kazakhstan Summons Belarusian Ambassador After Lukashenka Interview (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [8/22/2024 6:33 AM, Staff, 1530K, Neutral]
Kazakhstan summoned Paval Utsyupin, Belarus’s ambassador in Astana, to "objectively assess" the Central Asian nation’s stance on key international issues in an unbiased manner amid rising tensions between the two countries.

The ministry did not say specifically why it summoned Utsyupin, but it comes after Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the authoritarian ruler of Belarus, made several controversial statements in an interview with Russian state television.

Kazakh Foreign Minister Murat Nurtileu said at the August 21 meeting with Utsyupin that Astana is "confident that all differences between any nations must be solved solely via political and diplomatic means."

In the televised interview on August 20, Lukashenka accused some post-Soviet states of what he called "unfair relations with Russia," specifically mentioning antigovernment protests in Kazakhstan in January 2022 that turned deadly after Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev invited troops of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) to help him restore order.

"We have to be together. The time will come soon to ask Russia for help. Nobody else is there to ask for help.... When the situation occurred in Kazakhstan, whom did it refer to for help? China, India, Pakistan? No. It turned to Putin for help. And we sent [CSTO] troops there. In just half of one day our planes landed there, and order was restored," Lukashenka said in the interview.

The interview caused a sharp reaction in Kazakhstan and other countries such as Armenia, where protesters pelted the Belarusian Embassy in Yerevan with eggs and other produce and demanded diplomatic ties with Minsk be cut over Lukashenka’s interview, in which he also criticized Armenia’s shift westward.

"Who needs Armenians? Nobody. Let them develop their economy and rely on their own resources. What is France? Who is [French President Emmanuel] Macron? Tomorrow, when Macron is gone, everybody will forget about the Armenians," Lukashenka said in the interview.

The rally in front of the Belarusian Embassy was organized by the pro-Western For the Republic Party. The party’s leader, Arman Babajanian, was among the protesters.

Lukashenka’s interview came amid Ukrainian armed forces’ incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, which led to speculations in many post-Soviet countries that Russia could now call on the CSTO member states -- Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan -- to help it repel Ukrainian troops. Armenia suspended its membership in the CSTO in February.
Kazakh Prosecutors Seek Additional Prison Term For Ex-Wife Of Nazarbaev’s Nephew (Radio Free Europe)
Radio Free Europe [8/22/2024 12:11 PM, Staff, 1530K, Negative]
Prosecutors on August 22 asked the Specialized Inter-District Court in Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, to sentence the imprisoned former wife of a convicted nephew of the Central Asian nation’s former authoritarian president, Nursultan Nazarbaev, to 12 years in prison on charges that include the illegal deprivation of liberty and extortion.

Investigators say Gulmira Satybaldy, with the assistance of her driver, forcibly held her former business partner and relative Abai Zhunusov in isolation against his will for 165 days in 2019 to force him to give up his stakes in several businesses.

Satybaldy is concurrently serving two sentences -- eight years for embezzlement and the illegal appropriation of shares and assets of several enterprises, and seven years for abduction and actions aiding the commission of a crime.

The sentences were handed down by a court in May and June last year.

Prosecutors are now asking the court to rule that the new 12-year sentence they are seeking for the defendant be served partially concurrently, meaning that the total time to be spent in prison by Satybaldy would be 13 years.

Gulmira Satybaldy was arrested along with her ex-husband Qairat Satybaldy in March 2022. He was tried separately in September 2023 and sentenced to six years in prison after being found guilty of fraud and embezzlement.

Last week, a court in Kazakhstan’s eastern city of Oskemen replaced Qairat Satybaldy’s six-year prison sentence with a suspended sentence.

Court No. 2 in the capital of the East Kazakhstan region ruled on August 16 that Qairat Satybaldy must be released with a suspended 40-month sentence, stressing that the once extremely powerful businessman and politician had returned all the money he was accused of embezzling to the State Treasury.

The probes launched against the couple were part of a series of investigations targeting relatives and allies of Nazarbaev following unprecedented anti-government protests that turned into deadly mass disorders in early January 2022.

After the deadly events, the Kazakh regime began to quietly target Nazarbaev, his family, and other allies -- many of whom held powerful or influential posts in government, security agencies, and profitable energy companies.
A ‘Coordinated Silence’ in Central Asia Amid Ukraine’s Kursk Incursion (The Diplomat)
The Diplomat [8/22/2024 9:05 AM, Otabek Akromov, 1156K, Neutral]
Ukraine’s cross-border assault into the Kursk region of Russia on August 6 took the world by surprise. The unexpected attack by a small state against a nuclear power has turned Russian President Vladimir Putin’s narrative of greatness and invincibility into dust and ash. While Western analysts have largely fixated on the tactical advances made by Ukrainian forces into Russian territory, this attack has also exposed a strategic weakness in Russia as an alleged great power.

Russia finds itself isolated in its conflict in Ukraine, with its allies, both within and outside the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) - a military alliance similar to NATO that includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan - extending neither military nor political support.

Central Asian states are politically and militarily tied to Russia either through membership in the CSTO or bilateral treaties of allied relations. One of the fundamentals that sustains a military organization or allied relations is coordination and political support among members when deemed necessary. Like NATO’s Article 5, Article 4 of the CSTO stipulates, "If one of the States Parties is subjected to aggression by any state or group of states, then this will be considered aggression against all States Parties to this Treaty." The same principles form the basis of allied relations. Although Uzbekistan is not a member of the CSTO, it signed and ratified a Treaty of Allied Relations with Russia in 2005.

Despite the agreements that Moscow has established with the Central Asian republics - except Turkmenistan, which maintains a policy of "positive neutrality" - Central Asia has maintained a coordinated silence, providing neither military assistance nor political support to Russia amid the Ukrainian intervention into Kursk.

This demonstrates the ineffectiveness of allied relations and proves that the CSTO exists mostly as a paper structure, significantly undermining Russian regional authority.

This is not the first time the issue of the CSTO’s incompetence has popped up. Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko criticized the organization for ignoring Kyrgyzstan’s request for assistance in amid ethnic clashes in 2010. He said: "What sort of organization is this one, if there is bloodshed in one of our member states - and this body keeps silent?"

In addition, Uzbekistan’s secession from the CSTO (twice, in 1999 and 2012) created a crack, while Armenia’s more recent freezing of its membership in the organization - due to the inaction of the CSTO amid an ultimately successful Azerbaijani onslaught into the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh - unloosed a serious reputational crisis for the organization.

The coordinated silence of the Central Asian republics amid Ukraine’s intrusion into Russian territory, in turn, is yet another blow to the reputation of both the CSTO as a military bloc and Russia as a supposed great power.

Importantly, the Kremlin has not requested any military assistance from its allies per the CSTO charter requirements or the treaty of allied relations. On August 16, the CSTO’s press service responded to Russian media requests regarding the Kursk incursion that, if necessary, the organization "will implement all necessary procedures" but noted that such a request had not yet been made.

However, the absence of any official reaction among the Central Asian states on the Ukrainian intervention in Kursk should be considered another significant piece of evidence of Moscow’s declining authority in the region, which I have discussed elsewhere.

The tendencies that emerged as a result of the Kursk crisis, thus, may have far-reaching implications for Central Asian regional processes and open a window of opportunity for the West to increase its presence in the region.

At the Astana Summit of the heads of state of Central Asia that took place on August 9, participating leaders announced a roadmap for trade and defense policy coordination. For instance, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev highlighted the detrimental effects of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis on regional trade and mentioned that regional integration is the most optimal way to mitigate these challenges. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called for regional security and defense policy coordination among the five Central Asian republics. The Russian decline might create an opportunity to transform these initiatives into practice.

These unfolding events also create fertile soil for Washington to revitalize its involvement in regional processes. The weakening of Russian authority offers a window of opportunity for the U.S. to restore its credibility and presence in the region, which was damaged after the withdrawal from Afghanistan. According to the revisited U.S. Strategy for Central Asia 2019-2025, Washington aims to strengthen the sovereignty and independence of the Central Asian republics by fostering connectivity among them, thus alleviating the influence of Russia and China. Thus, the emergence of a strong and independent Central Asia aligns with the strategic goals of the United States.

However, what remains uncertain is the readiness of all five Central Asian states to tie themselves together through regional integration, even amid a Russian decline. While Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan advocate for catalyzing integration, not all leaders stressed the institutionalization of regional cooperation in the same way. Whether or not the U.S. will stay committed to strengthening the sovereignty of Central Asian states is also in question, especially if Donald Trump wins the presidential election and reinstates his "America first" policy.
Twitter
Afghanistan
Habib Khan
@HabibKhanT
[8/22/2024 10:23 PM, 229.6K followers, 10 retweets, 40 likes]
Thread The Taliban has rolled out a new law giving their vice and virtue ministry sweeping powers to imprison people for perceived moral violations, including something as minor as missing prayers. It also prohibits women from showing their faces or speaking in public.

Habib Khan
@HabibKhanT
[8/22/2024 10:25 PM, 229.6K followers, 8 likes]
The new vice and virtue law, signed by the Taliban’s supreme leader, expands the “morality police” powers to detain anyone they consider guilty of “immoral acts” with warnings, threats, or up to three days in prison.

Habib Khan
@HabibKhanT
[8/22/2024 10:29 PM, 229.6K followers, 5 likes]
The law imposes stricter rules on women, declaring their voices and faces "forbidden" to men outside their immediate family, requiring them to refrain from wearing “thin or short” clothing to avoid “temptation”.

Habib Khan
@HabibKhanT
[8/22/2024 10:32 PM, 229.6K followers, 5 likes]
The law says that a woman’s voice is deemed intimate and should not be heard singing, reciting poetry or reading aloud in public. Women also are not allowed to look at men they are not related to by blood or marriage and vice versa.

Habib Khan
@HabibKhanT
[8/22/2024 10:33 PM, 229.6K followers, 1 retweet, 6 likes]
The law bans the publication of images of living beings, which could further shrink media in Afghanistan, forcing the closure of television channels, digital media and print newspapers. Media outlets are already suffering from Taliban-ordered censorship.

Habib Khan
@HabibKhanT
[8/22/2024 10:37 PM, 229.6K followers, 4 likes]
The law bans playing music on public transport, restricts women from traveling without a male guardian, and prohibits the mingling of unrelated men and women. Additionally, passengers and drivers are required by law to observe designated prayer times.

Habib Khan
@HabibKhanT
[8/22/2024 10:37 PM, 229.6K followers, 4 likes]
Men cannot shave beards or trim them to less than a fistful, although the law does not define what qualifies as an "Islamic" hairstyle.

Habib Khan
@HabibKhanT
[8/22/2024 10:40 PM, 229.6K followers, 8 likes]
The United Nations reported last month that the Taliban’s expanding policing of public morality has created a climate of fear in Afghanistan. The ministry has arrested 13,000 people in the past year for perceived immoral acts.

Habib Khan
@HabibKhanT
[8/22/2024 10:42 PM, 229.6K followers, 5 likes]
Human rights activists feared the latest restrictions underscore a significant increase in the Taliban’s attempts to enforce their version of Islamic law, especially in suppressing and removing women from public life.

Sara Wahedi
@SaraWahedi
[8/23/2024 12:52 AM, 81.1K followers, 45 retweets, 495 likes]
My Afghanistan will be free again. My Afghanistan will pass this darkness. Today, we shed tears. Tomorrow, we fight.

Sara Wahedi
@SaraWahedi
[8/23/2024 12:04 AM, 81.1K followers, 28 retweets, 99 likes]
The Taliban’s extremism is a result of the world’s silence. The UN Security Council allowed Talib leaders to go to Mecca, they accepted Talib demands to exclude women from the Doha talks. This strengthened the Taliban, as the world hasn’t even uttered a word of condemnation.

Sara Wahedi
@SaraWahedi
[8/23/2024 12:09 AM, 81.1K followers, 10 retweets, 50 likes]
Stop letting the Taliban travel. Place benchmarks on any aid that is not directly implemented by humanitarian agencies/grassroots orgs. Girls go to school or no funds. Start an ICC case. What happened to diplomacy?Is there really *no* way to dealing with the Taliban except war?

Nilofar Ayoubi
@NilofarAyoubi
[8/22/2024 1:11 PM, 66.9K followers, 95 retweets, 249 likes]
Even women’s voices have been announced Forbidden by Taliban! It appears that starting today, women in Afghanistan will have to communicate using sign language, but since they aren’t allowed to show skin , they must wear gloves too ?!
Pakistan
Shehbaz Sharif
@CMShehbaz
[8/22/2024 3:07 PM, 6.7M followers, 242 retweets, 946 likes]
Deeply perturbed at the loss of life and devastation caused by the floods in Bangladesh. I extend my deepest sympathies to the people of Bangladesh and the families of the victims. Pakistan stands in solidarity with Bangladesh in this moment of tragedy. I am confident that the resilient people of Bangladesh will overcome this difficult time with their characteristic perseverance and fortitude.

Anas Mallick
@AnasMallick
[8/22/2024 8:55 AM, 73.6K followers, 201 retweets, 454 likes]
PM Shehbaz Sharif close security detail almost ends up cancelling a scheduled meeting of the visiting German Minister for Economic Cooperation, demands that she submit her bag — Minister turns around to go back and then the bag is allowed - unnecessary!

Hamid Mir
@HamidMirPAK
[8/22/2024 2:29 PM, 8.5M followers, 51 retweets, 264 likes]
Very unfortunate incident. 11 cops lost lives in a rocket attack in Punjab. May Allah rest the souls of all police martyrs in peace.
India
Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[8/22/2024 11:43 PM, 101.3M followers, 5.6K retweets, 26K likes]
Greetings to everyone on the first National Space Day. We recall with great pride our nation’s achievements in the space sector. It is also a day to laud the contributions of our space scientists. Our Government has taken a series of futuristic decisions relating to this sector and we will do even more in the times to come.

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[8/23/2024 12:02 AM, 212.9K followers, 20 retweets, 102 likes]
Why Modi’s trip to Ukraine is important:
-Very few leaders have visited both Russia & Ukraine since the invasion
-Very few countries have deep ties w/both Russia & Ukraine
-Very few top leaders from countries as close to Russia as India have visited Ukraine since the invasion

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[8/22/2024 10:20 AM, 212.9K followers, 14 likes]
I’m quoted here on Modi’s Ukraine visit-his objectives for the trip, how the West will view the visit, and India’s potential mediation role (“I don’t think Modi would formally offer mediation unless both Russia and Ukraine want it…I don’t think they do.”) https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2e9zrywq9o
NSB
Bangladesh Nationalist Party-BNP
@bdbnp78
[8/22/2024 6:30 AM, 64.1K followers, 41 retweets, 256 likes]
Hundreds of thousands of people in Bangladesh, spanning areas including Feni, Lakshmipur, Noakhali, Khagrachari, Comilla, Habiganj, and Moulvibazar, are currently grappling with severe flooding. Under the leadership of BNP Acting Chairman @trahmanbnp, BNP leaders and activists, along with their affiliated organizations, are actively engaged in supporting those affected by the floods. They have initiated rescue operations in various regions and are distributing food to individuals taking refuge in relief centers. #Feni #Noakhali #Khagrachari #Lakshmipur #Comilla #Habiganj #Moulvibazar #Flood #BNP

Brahma Chellaney
@Chellaney
[8/23/2024 1:47 AM, 265.2K followers, 93 retweets, 218 likes]
The Biden administration welcomed the regime change in Bangladesh and was quick to deny Hasina’s allegation of U.S. involvement in her overthrow. But, sadly, it has been conspicuously silent on growing human-rights abuses there. The military-backed "interim" regime, not content with purges and other vendetta, is jailing academics, local officials, lawyers, journalists, political opponents and other dissidents on trumped-up murder charges, while turning a blind eye to Islamist rampages, including against minorities. Blinken, who kept berating the Hasina government over democratic backsliding, has not uttered a word on the current human-rights abuses or the fact that the "interim" government lacks constitutional legitimacy or mandate. The broader Western silence is only emboldening greater abuses, including forced resignations, arbitrary arrests, physical assaults on detainees, curtailment of the rights to liberty and freedom of expression, and systematic attacks on the country’s long-persecuted Hindu minority.

MOFA of Nepal
@MofaNepal
[8/22/2024 12:07 PM, 259.3K followers, 3 retweets, 23 likes]
Foreign Secretary received Director from IOM headquarters in Geneva Mr. Joseph Samuel Appiah at her office today and discussed various matters related to Nepal-IOM cooperation and collaboration including safety and security of Nepali migrant workers.@sewa_lamsal

Eran Wickramaratne
@EranWick
[8/23/2024 2:04 AM, 69K followers, 2 retweets, 5 likes]
When a president is sworn in he or she takes a pledge to protect the constitution. The Supreme Court decided yesterday that President Ranil Wickremesinghe violated the constitution & the fundamental rights of the people. Addressing a massive election rally in my electorate Moratuwa with Sajith Premadasa, I assured that an SJB government will protect both the constitution & the FR of the people.

M U M Ali Sabry
@alisabrypc
[8/23/2024 1:01 AM, 6.2K followers, 2 retweets, 23 likes]
SLFP (Maithripala faction) MPs Dushmantha Mithrapala & Angajan Ramanathan declare their support to President Ranil Wickremesinghe at the upcoming Presidential election-
Central Asia
Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[8/22/2024 1:48 PM, 197.3K followers, 1 retweet, 13 likes]
Concluding his working visit to #Karakalpakstan, President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev returned to Tashkent, where he met with Seifi #Ghasemi, the Chief Executive Officer of @airproducts, to discuss the expansion of strategic cooperation. During the meeting, they reached agreements on implementing innovative projects in areas such as the deep processing of hydrocarbons, chemical product manufacturing, the introduction of advanced technological solutions in agriculture, and the training of highly qualified specialists for the energy and chemical industries

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[8/22/2024 1:07 PM, 197.3K followers, 3 retweets, 30 likes]
President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev visited the yurt exhibition at the #Okkush complex in #Nukus, showcasing the culture and lifestyle of the Turkic people. The idea for this exhibition was first discussed during the President’s visit to the region in 2022, and since then, the complex has grown into a popular tourist destination.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[8/22/2024 11:26 AM, 197.3K followers, 3 retweets, 11 likes]
Another open dialogue between the President of #Uzbekistan and entrepreneurs took place in #Nukus. This event has become a yearly tradition and serves as a much-anticipated forum for entrepreneurs to address systemic issues, suggest solutions, and foster new incentives. The President introduced new initiatives across five key areas, underscoring the advantages of conducting business in Uzbekistan. He also highlighted that this year’s dialogue is being held in #Karakalpakstan, emphasizing the unique benefits the region offers to entrepreneurs.

Javlon Vakhabov
@JavlonVakhabov
[8/22/2024 1:28 PM, 6K followers, 1 retweet, 7 likes]
Today, I met with @UNESCO Representative and Head of Office in Uzbekistan Sara Noshadi (@NoshadiSara) to discuss our shared priorities in advancing regional identity across Central Asia. With the upcoming 43rd UNESCO General Conference in Samarkand in 2025 - marking the first time in over 40 years that it will be held outside Paris - we focused on how this event can spotlight and invest in our region’s rich cultural heritage. We also explored opportunities for the IICA (@IICAinTashkent) to collaborate with UNESCO on side events that align with the regional cooperation agenda. I look forward to continuing these efforts and showcasing Central Asia’s significance at the next General Assembly.

Navbahor Imamova
@Navbahor
[8/23/2024 12:49 AM, 23.6K followers, 3 retweets, 3 likes]
Andijan: Engaging ordinary folks with extraordinary projects. pushing for greener Uzbekistan, economic opportunities. Most of the people I’ve met so far are alone in their mission. Lots of cheer on social media from across UZ and beyond but near zero real support.

{End of Report}
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