UN says Swedish citizen faces Iran execution ‘shortly’

UN says Swedish citizen faces Iran execution ‘shortly’
Ahmadreza Djalali was sentenced to death in 2017 on espionage charges that are deemed baseless by Stockholm and his supporters. (AFP/File)
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Updated 23 December 2023
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UN says Swedish citizen faces Iran execution ‘shortly’

UN says Swedish citizen faces Iran execution ‘shortly’
  • “Disturbing news that Dr. Ahmadreza Djalali could be shortly executed on charges of ‘enmity against God’,” the UN human rights office said on X
  • Djalali was sentenced to death in 2017 on espionage charges that have been denounced as baseless by Stockholm and his supporters

GENEVA: The United Nations warned Saturday that an Iranian-Swedish citizen is facing imminent execution in Iran, after a Swedish court upheld the conviction of a former Iranian prison official.
“Disturbing news that Dr. Ahmadreza Djalali could be shortly executed on charges of ‘enmity against God’,” the UN human rights office said on X.
Djalali was sentenced to death in 2017 on espionage charges that have been denounced as baseless by Stockholm and his supporters.
Before his arrest in Iran in April 2016, Djalali was a visiting professor in disaster medicine at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, a Belgian research university.
The UN rights office said his execution could take place soon “despite failures to respect fair trial and due process standards.”
“Iran must stop this execution.”

The comments came amid fears that a Swedish appeals court decision confirming the conviction of former Iranian prison official Hamid Noury could jeopardize the fate of several Swedish prisoners in Iran.
Amnesty International warned Friday that Djalali in particular was “at grave risk of imminent retaliatory execution” after the court this week confirmed Noury’s life sentence for crimes committed during a 1988 purge of dissidents.
Noury, 62, was convicted of “grave breaches of international humanitarian law and murder” over his role in a purge that saw at least 5,000 prisoners killed across Iran.
The crackdown is widely considered retaliation for attacks carried out by the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), an exiled opposition group, at the end of the Iran-Iraq war.
Sweden tried Noury under its principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows it to prosecute a case regardless of where the offenses took place.
Since the appeals verdict, “mounting evidence indicates that Iranian authorities are threatening to carry out Ahmadreza Djalali’s execution in retaliation for their unmet demands to pervert the course of justice in Sweden,” said Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa.
“The cruel toying with Ahmadreza Djalali’s life immediately after a Swedish court of appeals upheld (Noury’s) conviction and life sentence... heightens concerns that Iranian officials are holding Ahmadreza Djalali hostage to compel Sweden into a prisoner swap,” she said in a statement.
Iran has previously used detained foreigners as bargaining chips to secure the release of its citizens abroad, and Swedish media reports have also speculated about the possibility of a prisoner swap.
Djalali is not the only Swede being held in Iran.
EU diplomat Johan Floderus, 33, was arrested in Iran in April 2022 — as Noury’s lower court trial was underway in Stockholm — and has now been held for more than 600 days.
Floderus’s trial opened in Iran this month, with Tehran accusing him of conspiring with Israel and of “corruption on Earth” — one of Iran’s most serious offenses, which carries a maximum penalty of death.
The UN rights office said Saturday that a “moratorium on all death sentences is urgently required” in Iran.
According to rights groups, Iran executes more people per year than any other nation except China.
In a November report, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights group said the country had executed more than 600 people so far this year, the highest figure in eight years.
Amnesty said Friday that Iran had “recently embarked on another alarming executions spree, executing at least 115 people in November 2023 alone.”


Donald Trump safe following gunshots in his vicinity, says campaign

Donald Trump safe following gunshots in his vicinity, says campaign
Updated 12 sec ago
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Donald Trump safe following gunshots in his vicinity, says campaign

Donald Trump safe following gunshots in his vicinity, says campaign

WASHINGTON: Donald Trump is safe following gunshots in his vicinity, his campaign said in a statement.

More to follow...


Vance defends pet-eating story, a claim Democrats call ‘dangerous’

Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance.
Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance.
Updated 15 September 2024
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Vance defends pet-eating story, a claim Democrats call ‘dangerous’

Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance.
  • Trump amplified the claim during his debate Tuesday with Democrat Kamala Harris, provoking widespread mockery at home and abroad

WASHINGTON: The Republican vice presidential nominee defended Sunday his claim that immigrants are eating people’s pet animals in an Ohio town, a claim multiple officials say is “dangerous” and unfounded.
Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance had made the surprising claim earlier this month — saying Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio — were eating people’s pet cats and dogs. Vance is a US senator who represents Ohio.
Trump amplified the claim during his debate Tuesday with Democrat Kamala Harris, provoking widespread mockery at home and abroad — but also prompting a series of threats that forced some Springfield schools and hospitals to close.
“My constituents are telling me firsthand that they’re seeing these things,” an unapologetic Vance said on CNN.
Vance denied any responsibility for the recent spate of threats against Springfield, blaming them on “psychopaths” and “losers.”
Springfield’s mayor, a local sheriff and the state’s Republican governor have said they have no evidence to back up Vance’s claims.
“These discussions about Haitians eating dogs and cats and other things need to stop,” Governor Mike DeWine said on ABC.
“What we know is that the Haitians who are in Springfield are legal. They came to Springfield to work (and)...they are very good workers.”
Thousands of Haitians have settled in Springfield in recent years, most of them under a federal program granting them temporary protected status.
Governor Josh Shapiro of the neighboring state of Pennsylvania, a Democrat once touted as a possible Harris running mate, on Sunday accused Vance of recklessly fanning the flames of rumor.
“When they go out and they lie about this stuff, they put their fellow Americans at risk,” he told CNN interviewer Dana Bash. “JD Vance should be ashamed of himself. ... This is dangerous stuff.”
Vance denied his remarks had any connection to the threats against Springfield.
“The violence is disgusting,” he said. “We condemn it.” But he repeatedly blamed the problems in places like Springfield on the border policies of the Biden-Harris administration.
Trump, like Vance, has doubled down on his attacks on migrants.
Campaigning Friday in California, Trump vowed there would be “large deportations” from Springfield if elected. He has promised to deport millions of undocumented migrants nationwide.
Harris, meantime, appeared Friday in Shapiro’s state of Pennsylvania, perhaps the most crucial of the swing states expected to decide the November election.
“I offer a new generation of leadership,” said the 59-year-old Democrat, underlining the contrast to Trump, who is 78.


Released Indian opposition leader Kejriwal to resign as Delhi chief minister

Arvind Kejriwal, Chief Minister of Delhi, greets his supporters after Supreme Court granted him bail in New Delhi.
Arvind Kejriwal, Chief Minister of Delhi, greets his supporters after Supreme Court granted him bail in New Delhi.
Updated 15 September 2024
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Released Indian opposition leader Kejriwal to resign as Delhi chief minister

Arvind Kejriwal, Chief Minister of Delhi, greets his supporters after Supreme Court granted him bail in New Delhi.
  • Kejriwal is a fierce critic of Narendra Modi and a former anti-corruption crusader whose decade-old Aam Aadmi Party quickly rose to mainstream politics

NEW DELHI: Indian opposition leader Arvind Kejriwal said on Sunday he will resign as chief minister of the Delhi regional government, a day after he was released from prison on bail in a graft case. Kejriwal was granted bail on Friday by India’s Supreme Court and left prison on Saturday almost six months after being detained in relation to alleged irregularities in the capital city’s liquor policy.
Kejriwal is a fierce critic of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a former anti-corruption crusader whose decade-old Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) quickly rose to mainstream politics, although its clout is relatively small compared to older opposition parties.
AAP had expected that Kejriwal’s release from prison would allow him to campaign as a chief minister in regional elections next month in the northern state of Haryana, and in Delhi early next year.
Kejriwal, announcing his resignation as chief minister at a meeting with AAP workers, said he would only return to the post if people certify his honesty by voting for him in the upcoming Delhi election. He called on the Election Commission to bring forward the Delhi election to November, from February 2025.
“I demand elections be held in November with Maharashtra elections, I demand the elections be held immediately,” Kejriwal said.
He was first taken into custody in March by India’s financial crime-fighting agency, weeks before the country’s national elections, in relation to Delhi’s liquor policy.
Although he was granted bail in that case in July, he remained in detention due to his arrest the previous month by the federal police in another graft case related to the same policy.
Kejriwal, 55, and AAP deny the allegations and say the cases are “politically motivated.”


Student at a Japan university shaves her head to support Palestinians

Student at a Japan university shaves her head to support Palestinians
Updated 15 September 2024
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Student at a Japan university shaves her head to support Palestinians

Student at a Japan university shaves her head to support Palestinians
  • ITO Risa is a University student in Japan who joined the Palestine Solidarity Camp,
  • Her protest is part of a worldwide movement among students at various universities with the aim of encouraging and supporting those who are being oppressed

TOKYO: A Japanese female university student has shaved her head as a sign of solidarity with campaigning students in the United States who have been attacked for supporting the people of Palestine and Gaza.

ITO Risa is a University student in Japan who joined the Palestine Solidarity Camp, and her protest is part of a worldwide movement among students at various universities with the aim of encouraging and supporting those who are being oppressed.

“I wanted to highlight the connection between the genocide in Gaza and the genocide of the Holocaust,” Risa told Arab News Japan. “When I thought about a symbol of the Holocaust, I considered an image of a Jewish man and woman being shaved. By referencing this image, I aimed to re-enact the death of Jews in the Holocaust and by wearing the kufiya to connect these two narratives.”

Risa said students supporting Palestine at Columbia University had been attacked by Zionists, but she made it clear that she and her colleagues are not discriminating against Jews, only the actions of Israel and Zionism. But the main thrust of her protest was to support the Palestinians.

“To the people of Gaza and the Palestinians suffering in Palestine, you are not alone,” she said. “There are many people who want to support you. Many are working together with Palestinians all over the world, including in Japan. We are standing together with Palestinians.”

“I hope this circle of support will continue to grow. I also hope that those watching this video will join this circle, and that it will continue to expand. I believe that resolving the crisis in Palestine will lead to the recovery and empowerment of Palestinians.”


Why Philippines tops ranking of disaster risk countries

Why Philippines tops ranking of disaster risk countries
Updated 15 September 2024
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Why Philippines tops ranking of disaster risk countries

Why Philippines tops ranking of disaster risk countries
  • Archipelago nation of 120 million people has faced five typhoons since May
  • Country heads 2024 World Risk Index, which breaks down disaster risk of 193 countries

MANILA: The Philippines is the country most at risk from natural disasters, the 2024 World Risk Report shows, with environmentalists highlighting sluggish climate action amid worsening and extreme weather conditions.

The archipelago nation of nearly 120 million people is no stranger to natural disasters, with millions of people often displaced during annual storms and typhoons, which have been made more unpredictable and extreme by the changing climate.

For the third year in a row, the Philippines tops the report’s World Risk Index, which breaks down the disaster risk of 193 countries.

Published by Germany-based research institute IFHV and the alliance of development organizations Bundnis Entwicklung Hilft, this year’s top five most at-risk countries include Indonesia, India, Colombia and Mexico.

“It is definitely a worsening and concerning trend. There are noticeable extreme weather conditions, heat during the summers have been record-breaking, seasons have been unpredictable, there have been high intensity and (high) frequency typhoons,” Ann Dumaliang, a Filipino conservationist and managing trustee of Masungi Georeserve, told Arab News.

“In the Philippines, it is no longer vulnerable communities that are affected. It’s now felt widely across the nation — schools need to be canceled, heatstroke patients overwhelm emergency rooms, in addition to devastating floods.”

This month, more than a dozen people were killed when Typhoon Yagi, known locally as Enteng, passed central and northern Philippines, before it wreaked havoc in southern China and parts of Vietnam and Thailand.

For Filipinos, it is the fifth tropical storm to hit their country since May.

It is more accurate to describe natural disasters as geographical realities, Dumailang said, which for the Philippines are multifold due to its archipelagic nature and location in the “Ring of Fire,” the arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.

Those aspects intersect with “man-made causes that lead to continuous environment degradation and poor infrastructure,” and are further “exacerbated by lack of political willpower to make the necessary interventions at the right time,” she added.

John Leo Algo, national coordinator of Aksiyon Klima Pilipinas, a leading civil society network for climate action, said the country’s vulnerability to natural disasters has got worse over time.

“The Philippines’ vulnerability to the climate crisis is worsening because of a combination of more extreme impacts and the lack of capacity to address them. There really is no such thing as a ‘natural disaster’; disasters, by definition, occur when stakeholders do not properly prepare against an impending hazard,” Algo said.

The country’s vulnerability can be traced to insufficient local understanding of the climate crisis and its effects, delays and incoherence in climate policy development, as well as issues with funding and support to implement climate solutions, he added.

Resolving the issue would require “every sector, every stakeholder, and every community” to be prepared to address the effects of the climate crisis.

For now, the Philippines’ National Adaptation Plan and Nationally Determined Contribution Implementation Plan, new mechanisms adopted in an effort to address climate change, “are crucial to reduce the country’s risk to the climate crisis,” Algo said.

“But a lot of work still has to be done, especially in improving its inclusion of communities and civil society groups in both the decision-making and implementation process.”