French pay tribute to student murdered in Paris

Relatives of Philippine, a French student, whose body was found buried nearly a week ago cry after her funeral ceremony at Versailles' cathedral near Paris, on September 27, 2024. (AFP)
Relatives of Philippine, a French student, whose body was found buried nearly a week ago cry after her funeral ceremony at Versailles' cathedral near Paris, on September 27, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 27 September 2024
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French pay tribute to student murdered in Paris

French pay tribute to student murdered in Paris
  • The killing of 19-year-old student has led to fresh demands to crack down on illegal immigration

VERSAILLES, France: Nearly 3,000 people on Friday attended the funeral of a Paris student who was raped and murdered in a case that has inflamed a French debate on migration after a Moroccan was named as the suspected attacker.

The killing of the 19-year-old, named only as Philippine, whose body was found half-buried in a park in western Paris, has led to fresh demands to crack down on illegal immigration.
A 22-year-old Moroccan arrested in Geneva has been named as the suspected attacker.
Mourners packed Saint-Louis Cathedral in Versailles outside Paris for the funeral, with many waiting outside as the student’s wooden coffin was carried in.
“I thought it was important to come here to reflect and pay my respects,” said one 15-year-old girl, clutching a bouquet of white and purple flowers.

FASTFACT

A 22-year-old Moroccan arrested in Geneva has been named as the suspected attacker.

The girl’s mother, Anouck B., said many people were affected by the tragedy. “It was important to come and support the whole family,” she said.
The Moroccan suspect is expected to be extradited to France. French authorities say he had been previously convicted of rape and been the subject of an expulsion order.
On Thursday, President Emmanuel Macron, speaking on a visit to Montreal, called Philippine’s murder “a heinous and atrocious crime” and added that “we need to protect the public better.”
The conservative interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, has vowed to change immigration rules after the murder.
The student’s body was found in the Bois de Boulogne Park, not far from Paris-Dauphine University in the affluent 16th district.
According to prosecutors, the suspect was convicted in 2021 of a rape committed in 2019 when he was a minor.
He was released in June, served his sentence, and placed in an administrative detention center.
In early September, a judge freed him on condition he reported regularly to the authorities.
Since the murder, conservative and far-right politicians have urged harsh measures, saying deportation orders are not enforced properly.
“How many tragedies will France endure before our leaders react?” Jordan Bardella, leader of the far-right National Rally, said on the X social media platform.
However, some rights groups and left-wingers said the focus should not be on immigration but rather “feminicide.”
“Misogyny kills. Let’s not have the wrong debate,” said the women’s rights group CIDFF.

 


UN rapporteur urges climate activist’s release ahead of COP29

UN rapporteur urges climate activist’s release ahead of COP29
Updated 6 sec ago
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UN rapporteur urges climate activist’s release ahead of COP29

UN rapporteur urges climate activist’s release ahead of COP29

GENEVA: The UN rapporteur on environmental defenders on Thursday urged Azerbaijan to free Anar Mammadli, saying his detention seemed aimed at silencing climate advocates ahead of November’s COP29 summit.
Michel Forst voiced alarm over the alleged “persecution, penalization and harassment” of Mammadli, who has now been in pre-trial detention for six months on “allegedly trumped-up criminal charges” in what the rapporteur called “apparent reprisal for his environmental activism.”
“I am gravely concerned about the deterioration in the treatment of Mr.Mammadli and the crackdowns on civil society actors, including environmental defenders,” Forst said in a statement.
Mammadli risks up to eight years behind bars on smuggling charges which human rights groups claim are bogus.
He and activist Bashir Suleymanli had formed a civil society group called Climate of Justice Initiative, which set out to promote environmental justice in the tightly-controlled, oil-rich nation.
The COP29 UN climate summit is being held in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku from November 11-22.
Forst said it appeared that the charges and the lengthy detention “were a form of retaliation against Mr. Mammadli for his efforts in the lead up to COP29.”
His ongoing detention on charges subject only to a preliminary investigation “therefore appears grossly unreasonable and disproportionate.”
“The length of Mr. Mammadli’s pre-trial detention also strongly indicates that it is a measure that is punitive in nature, aiming to intimidate Mr. Mammadli and other environmental defenders from speaking out, particularly in the lead up to COP29. This is unacceptable.”
Mammadli’s health has deteriorated in detention and served to “further penalize” him, Forst said, calling for his immediate release and for the charges to be “immediately dropped.”
As UN special rapporteur, Forst is tasked with taking measures to protect any person experiencing or at imminent threat of penalization, persecution or harassment for seeking to exercise their rights under the convention.
Azerbaijan is a party to the convention.
The former Soviet republic wedged between Russia and Iran has faced considerable scrutiny over its hosting of COP29.
 


Germany to close Iranian consulates over execution

Updated 10 min 12 sec ago
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Germany to close Iranian consulates over execution

Germany to close Iranian consulates over execution
BERLIN: Germany will close the three Iranian consulates on its soil in response to the execution of German-Iranian Jamshid Sharmahd, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Thursday.
“We have repeatedly and unequivocally made it clear to Tehran that the execution of a German citizen will have serious consequences,” Baerbock said, announcing the closure of the consulates in Frankfurt, Munich and Hamburg in a televised announcement.
The execution, announced on Monday, had already provoked tit-for-tat diplomatic protests, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz calling it a “scandal.”
“The fact that this assassination took place in the light of the latest developments in the Middle East shows that (Iran’s) dictatorial, unjust regime... does not act according to normal diplomatic logic,” Baerbock said.
“It is not without reason that our diplomatic relations are already at an all-time low,” she said.
The closures will affect a total of 32 consular staff, according to the foreign ministry.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry responded Thursday evening, denouncing the “irrational decision” that “cannot be justified,” and said it had summoned Berlin’s ambassador to Tehran to convey Iran’s “strong protest.”
Baerbock did not mention Iran’s embassy in Berlin but said Germany would “continue to maintain our diplomatic channels and our embassy in Tehran.”
Among other reasons, this was necessary in order for the government to continue to press for the release of the other German citizens whom “the regime is unjustly detaining,” she said.


Sharmahd, 69, had been sentenced to death in February 2023 for the capital offense of “corruption on Earth,” a sentence later confirmed by the Iranian Supreme Court.
He had been convicted of playing a role in a 2008 mosque bombing in the southern city of Shiraz, in which 14 people were killed and 300 wounded.
His family have long maintained that Sharmahd was innocent and Amnesty International said he had been the victim of a “show trial.”
But Iran has defended his execution and declared that “a German passport does not provide impunity to anyone, let alone a terrorist criminal.”
Germany is also understood to be pushing for further sanctions against Iran at the EU level.
“In Brussels I have been pushing for the Revolutionary Guards to be listed as a terror organization,” Baerbock said on Thursday.
The EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell earlier this week said the bloc condemned Sharmahd’s “killing in the strongest possible terms” and was “considering measures in response.”
Sharmahd, a German citizen of Iranian descent and a US resident, was a software engineer who had worked and written for an Iranian opposition group’s website based abroad that strongly criticized the Islamic republic’s leadership.

Ukraine calls for ending restrictions on using long-range missiles against Russia

Ukraine calls for ending restrictions on using long-range missiles against Russia
Updated 26 min 2 sec ago
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Ukraine calls for ending restrictions on using long-range missiles against Russia

Ukraine calls for ending restrictions on using long-range missiles against Russia
  • Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said the North Korean troop deployment marked a “true escalation of this war” and that Kyiv should be allowed to use missiles to strike Russian territory

MONTREAL: Ukraine’s foreign minister on Thursday called on Western nations to lift restrictions on the use of long range missiles against Russia, after North Korean troops deployed to Russia’s border region with Ukraine, trained and ready for combat.
Speaking at a peace conference in Montreal, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said the North Korean troop deployment marked a “true escalation of this war” and that Kyiv should be allowed to use missiles to strike Russian territory.
“We need a strong reaction,” he said. “We need (a) strong decision of our allies to lift all the restrictions, to lift all the restrictions to use long-range missiles on the territory of Russia.”
“That’s our right of self defense and we are speaking about military targets on Russian territory,” he added.
Citing US intelligence, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that some 8,000 of the 10,000 North Korean troops believed to be in Russia have made their way to the Kursk border region.
North Korea has denied sending troops to Russia, but in state media last week, its vice foreign minister said that if such a deployment were to happen, it would be in line with international law.
In Montreal, Sybiha was backed by Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Eide who said: “I just wanted to add my voice to those saying that we should not put any other restrictions on Ukraine’s use of weapons.”
 


Trump sues CBS for at least $10 billion over Kamala Harris interview

Trump sues CBS for at least $10 billion over Kamala Harris interview
Updated 37 min 54 sec ago
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Trump sues CBS for at least $10 billion over Kamala Harris interview

Trump sues CBS for at least $10 billion over Kamala Harris interview

WASHINGTON: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump sued CBS on Thursday over an interview of his Democratic rival Kamala Harris aired in early October that the lawsuit alleged was “doctored” and misleading, according to a court filing.
The filing was made in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Trump and Harris face each other in what polls show to be a tight race for the Nov. 5 US elections.
The suit demanded a jury trial and at least $10 billion in damages, the filing showed.


Using force against pro-Palestine student protests in US could be unlawful: Human rights groups

Using force against pro-Palestine student protests in US could be unlawful: Human rights groups
Updated 31 October 2024
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Using force against pro-Palestine student protests in US could be unlawful: Human rights groups

Using force against pro-Palestine student protests in US could be unlawful: Human rights groups
  • Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, American Civil Liberties Union urge colleges to protect free speech
  • ‘The information we have gathered on excessive use of force against student protesters is extremely worrisome’

LONDON: Human rights organizations have urged higher education institutions across the US to “respect and protect the right to protest in support of Palestinian rights.”

Large numbers of students across America have held ongoing protests at their places of learning over the past year to call for an end to Israel’s war in Gaza — with some being broken up forcibly by local police departments at the behest of their schools.

In an open letter, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union suggested that university and college administrations calling in police to break up demonstrations could be unlawful, and that they should not suppress student protests.

Amnesty said its researchers had identified at least 174 photos, videos and social media posts showing potential examples of excessive police force against protesters on campuses.

It added that at least 17 universities were identified where chemicals were used on students, including pepper spray, and 11 campuses where police used non-lethal kinetic projectiles such as rubber bullets.

“Universities are responsible for protecting both physical safety and free expression on campus,” said Jamil Dakwar, director at the ACLU’s Human Rights Program. 

“It’s deeply concerning to see universities needlessly expose students to police violence for peacefully expressing their political opinions. 

“We’re urging schools once again to exercise restraint, practice de-escalation, and protect free speech and dissent on campus.”

The use of force against protesters on US campuses has led to numerous injuries, many of them severe.

HRW detailed “injuries such as bleeding puncture wounds, head injuries, broken teeth, and suspected broken bones,” singling out the University of California Los Angeles, Columbia University and City College of New York as having witnessed the most egregious cases.

Amnesty’s Digital Verification Corps said at least half of the injuries it had identified via social media appeared to have been caused by exposure to chemical irritants.

Justin Mazzola, researcher with Amnesty International USA, said: “The information we have gathered on excessive use of force against student protesters is extremely worrisome and we are still in the beginning of our investigation. 

“With the continuation of the Israeli military’s assault on Gaza and the risk of US complicity through the sending of weapons, campus protests in favor of stopping the violence and destruction will continue.

“Universities have a responsibility to protect academic freedom and the rights to freedom of expression, and to peacefully protest, and we will be watching to ensure they do.”

Police responses to campus protests in the US have also been criticized by other bodies and individuals of note, including the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk, and the UN special rapporteur on the right to education, Farida Shaheed.

HRW, Amnesty and the ACLU made clear that even on private college campuses where freedom of speech in relation to protesting the war in Gaza is not protected under the First Amendment of the US Constitution, international law still insists upon freedom of peaceful assembly.

They added that American higher education institutions should take steps to facilitate free dialogue and “fulfill their human rights responsibilities” to their students, regardless of their ideological persuasion. A full report, the three organizations said, will be published later this year.

“Instead of resorting to police action that both shuts down free speech and heightens the risk of injuries, universities need to do more to protect student speech from violence and intimidation, and actively ensure that peaceful student expression continues without interference,” said Tanya Greene, HRW’s US program director.