India rejects Canada’s suspicion over Delhi role in murder of Sikh leader 

An Indian paramilitary soldier stands guard next to a police barricade outside the Canadian High Commission in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2023. (AP)
An Indian paramilitary soldier stands guard next to a police barricade outside the Canadian High Commission in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2023. (AP)
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Updated 19 September 2023
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India rejects Canada’s suspicion over Delhi role in murder of Sikh leader 

An Indian paramilitary soldier stands guard next to a police barricade outside the Canadian High Commission in New Delhi, India.
  • In fresh diplomatic row, each nation has expelled the other’s diplomat 
  • India says it is concerned over Canadian interference in internal matters 

NEW DELHI: India rejected on Tuesday suspicions leveled by Canada over New Delhi’s role in the murder of a Sikh separatist leader, as it moves to expel a senior Canadian diplomat from the country.  

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told his Parliament on Monday that Canadian intelligence agencies were “actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India and the killing of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar.”  

Nijjar, 45, was shot dead outside a Sikh temple on June 18 in the Canadian city of Surrey, where a large Sikh population resides. He was a strong supporter of a movement banned in India called Khalistan, which calls for an independent Sikh homeland. 

“We have seen and reject the statement of the Canadian prime minister in their Parliament, as also the statement by their foreign minister,” the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.  

Allegations of “India’s involvement in any act of violence in Canada are absurd and motivated,” it added.  

“Such unsubstantiated allegations seek to shift the focus from Khalistani terrorists and extremists, who have been provided shelter in Canada and continue to threaten India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”  

The Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday also announced its decision “to expel a senior Canadian diplomat based in India.”  

It said: “The concerned diplomat has been asked to leave India within the next five days. The decision reflects (the) government of India’s growing concern at the interference of Canadian diplomats in our internal matters and their involvement in anti-India activities.”  

Trudeau told Canadian lawmakers that he had brought up the case with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Group of 20 summit last week in New Delhi and asked for cooperation in the investigation.  

Canada has also moved to expel a top Indian diplomat, Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said.  

“If proven true, this would be a great violation of our sovereignty and of the most basic rule of how countries deal with each other,” Joly said. “As of today, and as a consequence, we have expelled a top Indian diplomat from Canada.” 

The diplomatic spat deals a fresh blow to bilateral ties that have been fraying for years, with New Delhi concerned over Sikh separatist activity in Canada.  

The latest development may now impact trade ties, as talks on a proposed trade deal were frozen last week.  

“It’s a serious escalation of differences between the two countries. India has major differences with Canada over how it is handling the issue of Sikh separatism,” Sanjay Kapoor, analyst and chief editor of the political magazine Hard News, told Arab News.  

"During the G20, both leaders complained to each other, with PM Justin Trudeau talking of interference by India in their affairs. At that time, it didn’t seem as (if) the differences between the two countries (would) so rapidly worsen.” 

In India, Khalistan was known as a violent separatist movement in the 1980s and early 1990s, prompting a controversial military operation by the Indian government that killed thousands of people. 

Ajai Sahni, executive director at the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi, said Canada’s accusation is missing proof.  

“This is an extremely perverse statement … On the basis of the available evidence, it falls flat,” Sahni told Arab News.  

According to Sahni, “electoral games” were behind Trudeau’s support for the Sikh people in Canada, under the belief that the community can deliver critical votes in upcoming elections.  

Canada has the largest population of Sikhs outside the Indian state of Punjab at around 770,000 or 2 percent of its total population.  

“This is entirely defined by domestic politics, not by any objective evidence-based involvement of the Indian state,” Sahni said.  


France to pull troops out of Niger following coup

French Barkhane Air Force mechanics maintain a Mirage 2000 on the Niamey, Niger base on June 5, 2021. (AP)
French Barkhane Air Force mechanics maintain a Mirage 2000 on the Niamey, Niger base on June 5, 2021. (AP)
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France to pull troops out of Niger following coup

French Barkhane Air Force mechanics maintain a Mirage 2000 on the Niamey, Niger base on June 5, 2021. (AP)
  • “We will consult with the putschists because we want things to be orderly,” Macron said in an interview with France’s TF1 and France 2 television stations

PARIS: France will pull its soldiers out of Niger following a July coup in the West African country, President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday, dealing a huge blow to French influence and counter-insurgency operations in the Sahel region.
Macron said 1,500 troops would withdraw by the end of the year and that France, the former colonial power in Niger, refused to “be held hostage by the putchists.”
France’s exit, which comes after weeks of pressure from the junta and popular demonstrations, is likely to exacerbate Western concerns over Russia’s expanding influence in Africa. The Russian mercenary force Wagner already present in Niger’s neighbor Mali.
The French president has refused to recognize the junta as Niger’s legitimate authority but said Paris would coordinate troop withdraw with the coup leaders.
“We will consult with the putschists because we want things to be orderly,” Macron said in an interview with France’s TF1 and France 2 television stations.
France’s ambassador was also being pulled out and would return to the country in the next few hours, Macron added.
French influence over its former colonies has waned in West Africa in recent years, just as popular vitriol has grown. Its forces have been kicked out of neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso since coups in those countries, reducing its role in a region-wide fight against deadly Islamist insurgencies.
Until the coup, Niger had remained a key security partner of France and the United States, which have used it as a base to fight an Islamist insurgency in West and Central Africa’s wider Sahel region.

RUSSIA’S EXPANDING PRESENCE
France’s military base in Niger’s capital, Niamey, had become the epicenter of anti-French protests since the July 26 coup.
Groups have regularly gathered on the street outside to call for the exit of troops stationed in the capital. On one Saturday this month, tens of thousands rallied against France, slitting the throat of a goat dressed in French colors and carrying coffins draped in French flags.
Pro-coup demonstrators in Niamey have waved Russian flags, adding to Western countries’ fears that Niger could follow Mali’s lead and replace their troops with Wagner fighters.
Before his death in a plane crash last month, Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin spoke in a social media clip of making Russia greater on all continents and Africa more free. Wagner’s future has been unclear since his demise.
Wagner is also active in Central African Republic and Libya. Western nations say it is also present in Sudan, though it denies this. Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for a return to constitutional order in Niger.
French nuclear power plants source a small amount — less than 10 percent — of their uranium from Niger, with France’s state-owned Orano operating a mine in Niger’s north.
Macron said he still regarded democratically elected President Mohammed Bazoum, currently held prisoner by the coup leaders, as Niger’s legitimate leader and had informed him of his decision.
 

 


Serb gunmen battle police in Kosovo monastery siege; four dead

Serb gunmen battle police in Kosovo monastery siege; four dead
Updated 5 min 4 sec ago
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Serb gunmen battle police in Kosovo monastery siege; four dead

Serb gunmen battle police in Kosovo monastery siege; four dead
  • Ethnic Albanians form the vast majority of the 1.8 million population of Kosovo, a former province of Serbia

NORTH MITROVICA, Kosovo: Ethnic Serb gunmen in armored vehicles stormed a village in north Kosovo on Sunday, battling police and barricading themselves in a monastery in a resurgence of violence in the restive north that killed four people.
The siege centered on a Serbian Orthodox monastery near the village of Banjska in the Serb-majority region where monks and pilgrims hid inside a temple as a shootout raged.
One police officer and three of the attackers died, according to authorities in Kosovo and Serbia.
Ethnic Albanians form the vast majority of the 1.8 million population of Kosovo, a former province of Serbia.
But some 50,000 Serbs in the north have never accepted Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence and still see Belgrade as their capital, more than two decades after a Kosovo Albanian guerrilla uprising against repressive Serbian rule.
A group of Kosovo Serbs positioned trucks on a bridge into the village, shooting at police who approached them, before the battle moved to the nearby monastery, according to accounts by both Kosovo police and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.
The gunmen had left the monastery by night, the Serbian Orthodox Church said, though it was unclear where they went.
Vucic said the action was a rebellion against Kurti, who has refused to form an association of Serb municipalities in north Kosovo. “Serbia will never recognize independent Kosovo, you can kill us all,” he said. Two Serbs were seriously injured and a fourth among them may have died, Vucic said. He condemned the killing of the police officer and urged restraint from Kosovo Serbs.
The Serbian Orthodox Church’s diocese of Raska-Prizren, which includes Banjska, said men in an armored vehicle entered the monastery compound, forcing monks and visiting faithful to lock themselves inside the temple.
The Kosovo police later said they had entered the monastery and were checking for possible infiltrators among worshippers. Three of their personnel were also injured, as well as the fatality in their ranks, police said.
Kosovo’s Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla said police found a large number of heavy weapons, explosives and uniforms “that were enough for hundreds of other attackers,” indicating preparations for a massive assault.

INTERNATIONAL CONCERN
The head of the UN mission in Kosovo, Caroline Ziadeh, and European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell condemned the violence.
Borrell talked with both Kurti and Vucic, according to his office.
NATO troops, along with members of the EU police force EULEX and Kosovo police, could be seen patrolling the road leading to Banjska, according to a Reuters reporter nearby.
Kosovo border police closed two crossings with Serbia.
Serbs in north Kosovo have long demanded the implementation of a EU-brokered 2013 deal for the creation of an association of autonomous municipalities in their area.
EU-sponsored talks on normalizing relations between Serbia and Kosovo stalled last week, with the bloc blaming Kurti for failing to set up the association.
Pristina sees the plan as a recipe for a mini-state within Kosovo, effectively partitioning the country along ethnic lines.
Serbia still formally deems Kosovo to be part of its territory, but denies suggestions of whipping up strife within its neighbor’s borders. Belgrade accuses Pristina of trampling on the rights of minority Serbs.
Unrest intensified when ethnic Albanian mayors took office in north Kosovo after April elections the Serbs boycotted.
Clashes in May
injured dozens of protesters and NATO alliance peacekeepers. NATO retains 3,700 troops in Kosovo, the remainder of an original 50,000-strong force deployed in 1999.
The area of north Kosovo where Serbs form a majority is in important ways a virtual extension of Serbia. Local administration and public servants, teachers, doctors and big infrastructure projects are paid for by Belgrade.


Pope blames weapons industry for Russia-Ukraine war and ‘martyrdom’ of Ukrainian people

Pope blames weapons industry for Russia-Ukraine war and ‘martyrdom’ of Ukrainian people
Updated 4 min 48 sec ago
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Pope blames weapons industry for Russia-Ukraine war and ‘martyrdom’ of Ukrainian people

Pope blames weapons industry for Russia-Ukraine war and ‘martyrdom’ of Ukrainian people
  • Francis has long denounced the weapons industry as “merchants of death,” but he has also asserted the right of countries to defend themselves

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE: Pope Francis on Saturday labeled the weapons industry as being a key driver of the “martyrdom” of Ukraine’s people in Russia’s war, saying even the withholding of weapons now is going to continue their misery.
Francis appeared to refer to Poland’s recent announcement that it is no longer sending arms to Ukraine when he was asked about the war during brief remarks to reporters while returning home from Marseille, France.
Francis acknowledged he was frustrated that the Vatican’s diplomatic initiatives hadn’t borne much fruit. But he said behind the Russia-Ukraine conflict was also the weapons industry.
He described the paradox that was keeping Ukraine a “martyred people” — that at first many countries gave Ukraine weapons and now are taking them away. Francis has long denounced the weapons industry as “merchants of death,” but he has also asserted the right of countries to defend themselves.
“I’ve seen now that some countries are pulling back, and aren’t giving weapons,” he said.
“This will start a process where the martyrdom is the Ukrainian people, certainly. And this is bad.” It was an apparent reference to the announcement by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawieck that Poland was no longer sending arms to Ukraine as part of a trade dispute.
“We cannot play with the martyrdom of the Ukrainian people,” Francis said. “We have to help resolve things in ways that are possible.”
“Not to make illusions that tomorrow the two leaders will go out together to eat, but to do whatever is possible,” he said.
In other comments, Francis spoke about his two-day visit to Marseille, where he exhorted Europe to be more welcoming to migrants.
Francis said he was heartened that there is greater consciousness about the plight of migrants 10 years after he made his first trip as pope to the Italian island of Lampedusa, ground zero in Europe’s migrant debate. But he said the “reign of terror” they endure at the hands of smugglers hasn’t gotten any better.
Francis recalled that when he became pope, “I didn’t even know where Lampedusa was.” The Sicilian island, which is closer to Africa than the Italian mainland, is the destination of choice for migrant smugglers and has seen frequent shipwrecks off its shores. Last week, the island was overwhelmed when nearly 7,000 migrants arrived in one day, more than the resident population.
Francis, who was elected pope in 2013, said he had heard some stories about the problems on Lampedusa in his first months as pope “and in prayer I heard ‘You need to go there.’”
The visit has come to epitomize the importance of the migrant issue for Francis, who has gone on to make some memorable gestures of solidarity, including in 2016 when he brought back a dozen Syrian Muslim migrants on his plane after visiting a refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece.


He spoke no English, had no lawyer. An Afghan man’s case offers a glimpse into US immigration court

He spoke no English, had no lawyer. An Afghan man’s case offers a glimpse into US immigration court
Updated 43 min 51 sec ago
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He spoke no English, had no lawyer. An Afghan man’s case offers a glimpse into US immigration court

He spoke no English, had no lawyer. An Afghan man’s case offers a glimpse into US immigration court
  • The case reflects an asylum seeker who was ill-equipped to represent himself and clearly didn’t understand what was happening, according to experts who reviewed the transcript

NEW YORK: The Afghan man speaks only Farsi, but he wasn’t worried about representing himself in US immigration court. He believed the details of his asylum claim spoke for themselves.
Mohammad was a university professor, teaching human rights courses in Afghanistan before he fled for the United States. Mohammad is also Hazara, an ethnic minority long persecuted in his country, and he said he was receiving death threats under the Taliban, who reimposed their harsh interpretation of Islam after taking power in 2021.
He crossed the Texas border in April 2022, surrendered to Border Patrol agents and was detained. A year later, a hearing was held via video conference. His words were translated by a court interpreter in another location, and he said he struggled to express himself — including fear for his life since he was injured in a 2016 suicide bombing.
At the conclusion of the nearly three-hour hearing, the judge denied him asylum. Mohammad said he was later shocked to learn that he had waived his right to appeal the decision.
“I feel alone and that the law wasn’t applied,” said Mohammad, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition that only his first name be used, over fears for the safety of his wife and children, who are still in Afghanistan.
Mohammad’s case offers a rare look inside an opaque and overwhelmed immigration court system where hearings are often closed, transcripts are not available to the public and judges are under pressure to move quickly with ample discretion. Amid a major influx of migrants at the border with Mexico, the courts — with a backlog of 2 million cases -– may be the most overwhelmed and least understood link in the system.
AP reviewed a hearing transcript provided by Mona Iman, an attorney with Human Rights First now representing Mohammad. Iman also translated Mohammad’s comments to AP in a phone interview from Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas.
The case reflects an asylum seeker who was ill-equipped to represent himself and clearly didn’t understand what was happening, according to experts who reviewed the transcript. But at least one former judge disagreed and said the ruling was fair.
Now Mohammad’s attorney has won him a new hearing, before a different judge — a rare second chance for asylum cases. Also giving Iman hope is a decision this week by the Biden administration to give temporary legal status to Afghan migrants living in the country for more than a year. Iman believes he qualifies and said he will apply.
But Mohammed has been in detention for about 18 months, and he fears he could remain in custody and still be considered for deportation.
AP sought details and comment from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The agency didn’t address questions on Mohammad’s case but said noncitizens can pursue all due process and appeals and, once that’s exhausted, judges’ orders must be carried out.
 
For his April 27 hearing, Mohammad submitted photos of his injuries from the 2016 suicide bombing that killed hundreds at a peaceful demonstration of mostly Hazaras. He also gave the court threatening letters from the Taliban and medical documents from treatment for head wounds in 2021. He said militants beat him with sticks as he left the university and shot at him but missed.
In court, the government argued that Mohammad encouraged migration to the US on social media, changed dates and details related to his history, and had relatives in Europe, South America and other places where he could have settled.
In ruling, Judge Allan John-Baptiste said the threats didn’t indicate Mohammad would still be at risk, and that his wife and children hadn’t been harmed since he left.
Mohammad tried to keep arguing his case, but the judge told him the evidentiary period was closed. He asked Mohammad whether he planned to appeal or would waive his right to do so.
Mohammad kept describing his claim, but John-Baptiste reminded him he’d already ruled. Mohammad said if the judge was going to ignore the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, he wouldn’t ask for an appeal. John-Baptiste indicated he had considered it.
“You were not hit by the gunshot or the suicide bomber,” John-Baptiste said. “The harm that you received does not rise to the level of persecution.”
Mohammad continued, explaining how his family lives in hiding, his wife concealing her identity with a burqa.
“OK, are you going to appeal my decision or not?” John-Baptiste ultimately asked.
“No, I don’t,” Mohammad said.
“And we don’t want you to make the decision now that you can’t come back later and say you want to appeal. This is final, OK, sir?” John-Baptiste said.
“Yes. OK, I accept that,” Mohammad said.
He later asked whether he could try to come back legally. The judge started to explain voluntary departure, which would allow him to return in less than a decade, but corrected himself and said Mohammad didn’t qualify.
“I’m sorry about that, but, you know, I’m just going to have to order you removed,” John-Baptiste said. “I wish you the best of luck.”
Mohammad later told AP he couldn’t comprehend what was happening in court. He’d heard from others in detention that he had a month to appeal.
“I didn’t understand in that moment that the right would be taken from me if I said no,” he said.
 
Former immigration judge Jeffrey Chase, who reviewed the transcript, said he was surprised John-Baptiste waived Mohammad’s right to appeal and that the Board of Immigration Appeals upheld that decision. Case law supports granting protection for people who belong to a group long persecuted in their homelands even if an individual cannot prove specific threats, said Chase, an adviser to the appeals board.
But Andrew Arthur, another former immigration judge, said John-Baptiste ruled properly.
“The respondent knew what he was filing, understood all of the questions that were asked of him at the hearing, understood the decision, and freely waived his right to appeal,” Arthur, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for immigration restrictions, said via email.
Chase said the hearing appeared rushed, and he believes the case backlog played a role.
“Immigration judges hear death-penalty cases in traffic-court conditions,” said Chase, quoting a colleague. “This is a perfect example.”
Overall, the 600 immigration judges nationwide denied 63 percent of asylum cases last year, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. Individual rates vary wildly, from a Houston judge who denied all 105 asylum requests to a San Francisco one denying only 1 percent of 108 cases.
John-Baptiste, a career prosecutor appointed during the Trump administration’s final months, denied 72 percent of his 114 cases.
Before Mohammad decided to flee, his wife applied for a special immigrant visa, which grants permanent residency to Afghans who worked for the US government or military, along with their families.
But that and other legal pathways can take years. While they waited, Mohammad said, the Taliban came looking for him but instead detained and beat his nephew. Mohammad described making the devastating decision to leave his family, who had no passports.
He opted for a treacherous route through multiple countries to cross the US-Mexico border, which has seen the number of Afghans jump from 300 to 5,000 in a year.
Mohammad said he crossed into Pakistan, flew to Brazil and headed north. He slept on buses and trekked through Panama’s notorious Darien Gap jungle, where he said he saw bodies of migrants who didn’t make it.
Mohammad planned to live with a niece in North Carolina. Now he fears if he’s sent home and his wife gets her visa, they’ll be separated again.
Deportations to Afghanistan are extremely rare, with a handful each year.
Attorney Iman said they’re grateful Mohammad’s case has been reopened, with a hearing scheduled for Oct. 4. She is fighting for his immediate release.
“I have no doubt that his case would have turned out differently had he been represented,” Iman said. “This is exactly the type of vulnerable individual that the US government has promised, has committed to protect, since it withdrew from the country.”
 

 

 


Italian premier admits she hoped to do ‘better’ on controlling irregular migration

Italian premier admits she hoped to do ‘better’ on controlling irregular migration
Updated 24 September 2023
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Italian premier admits she hoped to do ‘better’ on controlling irregular migration

Italian premier admits she hoped to do ‘better’ on controlling irregular migration
  • After 8,500 people arrived on the tiny island of Lampedusa in just three days earlier this month, Meloni demanded the EU do more to help relieve the pressure

ROME; Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has admitted she had hoped to do “better” on controlling irregular migration, which has surged since her far-right party won historic elections a year ago.
“Clearly we hoped for better on immigration, where we worked so hard,” she said in an interview marking the win, broadcast late Saturday on the TG1 channel.
“The results are not what we hoped to see. It is certainly a very complex problem, but I’m sure we’ll get to the bottom of it.”
Meloni’s post-fascist Brothers of Italy party was elected in large part on a promise to reduce mass migration into Italy.
But the number of people arriving on boats from North Africa has instead surged, with more than 130,000 recorded by the Interior Ministry so far this year — up from 70,000 in the same period of 2022.
After 8,500 people arrived on the tiny island of Lampedusa in just three days earlier this month, Meloni demanded the EU do more to help relieve the pressure.
Brussels agreed to intensify existing efforts, and this week said it would start to release money to Tunisia — from where many of the boats leave — under a pact aimed at stemming irregular migration from the country.
But Meloni’s main coalition partner, Matteo Salvini of the anti-immigration League party, has been dismissive of EU efforts to manage the surge of arrivals that he dubbed an “act of war.”
The League this weekend also condemned the German government for providing funding for an NGO conducting at-sea rescues in the Mediterranean, saying it represented “very serious interference” in Italian affairs.
Defense Minister Guido Crosetto, a member of Meloni’s party, added his criticism on Sunday, telling La Stampa newspaper that it was a “very serious” move that put Italy “in difficulty.”
Salvini, who closed Italy’s ports to charity migrant rescue ships while in government in 2019, is agitating for Rome to take tougher action.
Since taking office in October, Meloni’s government has restricted the activities of the charity rescue ships, which it accuses of encouraging migrants, while vowing to clamp down on people smugglers.
It has also sought to boost repatriation of arrivals ineligible for asylum, including by building new detention centers and extending the time migrants can be held there.

It emerged this week it would also be requiring migrants awaiting a decision on asylum to pay a deposit of 5,000 euros or be sent to a detention center, prompting accusations the state was charging “protection money.”

The center-left Democratic Party said earlier this week that “on immigration, the Italian right has failed.”

“It continues on a path that is demagogic and consciously cynical, but above all totally ineffective both in the respect and safeguarding of human rights, and for the protection of Italy’s interests,” it said in a note.