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Australia strips Muslim cleric of citizenship in unprecedented move
25 Nov, 2020 10:15
FILE PHOTO: Abdul Nacer Benbrika © AP Photo / AuBC via APTN
Abdul Nacer Benbrika has become the first person to be stripped of his Australian citizenship while still in the country after the government decided that he poses a “significant terrorist threat.”
It is the first time that an individual has lost their citizenship while still in the country. Australian law allows the government to strip a person of their citizenship if they are dual citizens. Benbrika is believed to have retained his Algerian citizenship and he will, therefore, not be left stateless by the move.
Announcing the decision, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton told reporters: “If it’s a person who’s posing a significant terrorist threat to our country, then we’ll do whatever is possible within Australian law to protect Australians.”
Australia’s Shadow Foreign Minister Penny Wong said that the country’s opposition party supports the government’s action, as a “necessary step in certain circumstances.”
Benbrika was convicted on three terrorism charges in 2009 and is serving 15 years in Australian prison for intentionally being the leader and a member of a terrorist organization, as well as possessing material associated with the planning of a terrorist act.
While he is eligible for release next month, Benbrika remains in an Australian prison, as the country’s law allows people convicted of terrorism offenses to be detained for up to three years after their sentence ends.
Benbrika’s legal team is currently appealing his continued detention. Following the revocation of his citizenship, he has 90 days to appeal the cancellation of his visa and return to Algeria. Algiers has not yet commented on the recent developments.
Australia previously used its legal ability to revoke citizenship in 2019, stripping it from Neil Prakash, who is imprisoned in Turkey and accused of being an Islamic State recruiter.
Russia's FSB finds explosive device in raids on Islamic State followers in Moscow,
says they planned terror attacks
25 Nov, 2020 11:18
Russia’s Federal Security Service (the FSB) announced the arrest of followers of Islamic State, on Wednesday. The terrorist group is banned in Russia.
Footage from the operation shows special forces entering apartments and detaining suspects. The images also show a homemade bomb being disarmed by a robot.
As explained by the FSB’s Public Relations Center, the arrested parties planned to commit “acts of sabotage and terrorism in the Moscow Region.” It linked one of the suspects to an already ongoing investigation in the Vladimir Region, east of the capital. Without giving his nationality, the security service described him as “Central Asian.”
“In the course of the investigation, at the places where the radical Islamists were located, an improvised explosive device, as well other items and documents, were found and seized,” the press release said.
According to the Russian news agency TASS, around five people were detained, and one already admitted his involvement in a planned attack. In a published video, the man tells the FSB officers that there is a bomb in a plastic bag in the apartment.
Last month, the FSB reported the arrest of another IS follower in the Moscow Region. According to the agency, the man was found with parts of an explosive device, correspondence with militants discussing a planned terrorist attack, a revolver and a flag of the Islamic State.
Three Iranian bomb plotters freed by Thailand in apparent exchange for release of Australian-British 'spy' scholar
26 Nov, 2020 08:19
(L) Thai prison officers escort Saeid Moradi during trial in Bangkok in 2012. © REUTERS / Chaiwat Subprasom; (R) Kylie Moore-Gilbert © AP Image / Handout via REUTERS
Thailand has given the green light to transfer three people serving sentences for plotting a bombing to Iran. The move is an apparent exchange for Tehran releasing an Australian-British academic convicted of espionage charges.
The prisoner swap was first reported on Wednesday, when the Iranian government agreed to release 33-year-old Kylie Moore-Gilbert. She was serving a 10-year prison sentence after being tried and convicted as an Israeli spy in 2018.
Iranian media said her release was made in exchange for securing the freedom of three Iranian citizens, who were held in a foreign prison. The identity of those people was not reported. Footage broadcast by Iranian television showed a group of three men, one of them in a wheelchair, with their faces covered by masks and large hats. Some sources on social media said they were Saeed Moradi, Mohammad Khazaei and Masoud Sedaghat Zadeh, who were serving terms in Thailand for illegal possession of explosives and other crimes.
The group was busted in 2012 after a powerful explosion happened in a rented house in which they were staying. Media said that Thai police were tipped off by Israeli intelligence, who said the Iranians were preparing a bombing attack against Israeli diplomats in Bangkok. Moradi lost his legs while trying to flee the police, reportedly after trying to toss a grenade at officers. Israel at the time said the botched plot was part of a series of attacks by Iran's government, which also included bombings in India and Georgia.
Moore-Gilbert is a Cambridge-educated scholar of Islamic studies, who worked as a lecturer at the University of Melbourne. Iran said she had received training in espionage from Israeli intelligence and attempted to gather classified materials on Iran's economic and military affairs during her second visit to the country. She was arrested in September 2018 as she was leaving Tehran.
Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said she was "extremely pleased and relieved" by Moore-Gilbert's release, while reiterating that her government was rejecting the grounds for her arrest and conviction. The academic denied any wrongdoing and staged several hunger protests during her incarceration.
The prisoner exchange comes at a time highly perilous for Iran, which remains in the crosshairs of the presumably outgoing Trump administration. The US president reportedly sought options for attacking the Islamic Republic within weeks. Israeli military are said to be preparing for a possible military conflict, should the US president decide to act against Iran's nuclear facilities.
The Trump administration broke the US' commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and subjected the country to a so-called "maximum pressure" campaign with the stated goal of extracting better concessions from Tehran. The Iranian government has not caved in despite the economic hardship caused by the US sanctions.
F-16 pilots get up to 79 life sentences each for bombing police & parliament building in Ankara during 2016 coup attempt
26 Nov, 2020 09:39
© Getty Images / Anadolu / Bulent Uzun
A Turkish court has handed life sentences to former military commanders and fighter jet pilots who bombed police compounds and the parliament building in Ankara during a failed coup.
The court in Ankara delivered the verdicts against 475 defendants, 365 of whom had been detained.
Several former military officials and civilians individually received up to 79 life sentences for their role in the failed coup. A former brigadier general was sentenced to life in prison for providing fuel for F-16 jet fighters flown by the insurgents, while several of his colleagues received a similar sentence for instructing the pilots to strike specific targets in the capital.
The pilots were likewise sentenced to life in prison for bombing police sites, the Turkish Parliament building and a state broadcasting company in the country’s capital. In one ruling, a former F-16 pilot received 16 life sentences for killing 15 people near the presidential compound.
Another defendant, a former brigadier general, was handed a life sentence for detaining a military police chief during the coup.
Turkish courts previously sentenced 121 people to life in prison for their role in the coup in June and 151 last year.
On July 15, 2016, elements of the Turkish Armed Forces tried to seize control over key sites in Ankara, Istanbul and several other locations across the country, but were quickly overpowered. The government accused dissident cleric Fethullah Gulen of staging the coup. Gulen, who has lived in self-exile in the US since 1999, denied the allegations.
The Gulen movement is considered to be a terrorist group by Turkey. Security forces regularly conduct raids against the cleric’s supporters in different parts of the country.
France charges four teenagers in relation to beheading of Samuel Paty
26 Nov, 2020 13:46
who was beheaded on the streets of the Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, France, October 18, 2020.
© REUTERS / Charles Platiau
Four teenagers have been charged in France in relation to the murder of Samuel Paty, including three who allegedly identified the teacher to his killer before he was beheaded in a street near his school.
The three individuals, aged between 13 and 14, are charged with complicity in a terrorist murder. The fourth teenager, who is the daughter of the parent who launched an online campaign against Paty, is charged with slanderous denunciation.
Due to their age, French law prohibits the publication of the pupils’ names.
Paty was killed by 18-year-old Chechen Islamist extremist Abdullakh Anzorov after showed his students cartoons of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed, published in satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, during a lesson on free speech.
The brutal murder sparked outrage in France and restarted a debate about free expression in a country that has been plagued by acts of religious extremism in recent years, with terrorist attacks having taken the lives of more than 250 people since 2015.
Seven people were initially charged following the killing, including two students and a parent of one of Paty’s pupils. Six were charged with complicity in a terrorist murder, while one was accused of having close contact with the murderer and associating with a terrorist.
All of the suspects, except the two minors, aged 14 and 15, were remanded in custody. In response to the crime, French President Emmanuel Macron has pledged to crack down on violence and radical Islam in a move that has led to backlash from majority-Muslim countries, who have accused the political leader of scapegoating their religion.
Nearly 1/4 of hate crimes in Europe last year were anti-Semitic,
new OSCE report shows
26 Nov, 2020 11:45
A giant menorah before its illumination during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah in Berlin. December 2019.
© Reuters / Michele Tantussi
Attacks against the Jews accounted for roughly 25 percent of the hate crimes recorded by the OSCE's human rights watchdog across Europe last year.
The new data was compiled in the annual report by the Office for the Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODHIR) of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
Out of 6,694 hate incidents recorded in Europe and Central Asia last year, 1,704 were anti-Semitic. This was the category with the second-largest number of incidents after 3,033 instances listed under the more general "racism and xenophobia" category.
The third-largest group was bias based on sexual orientation or gender identity (1,278 cases), followed by bias against Christians (577) and Muslims (511).
The data was collected using reports from 39 countries, nearly 150 civil society groups, the UN Refugee Agency, the International Organization for Migrations, and OSCE missions.
Authorities in countries like France and Germany have been sounding the alarm on the sharp rise in anti-Semitic acts in recent years. The worrying trend was oftentimes attributed to the spike in popularity of various far-right and neo-Nazi groups.
UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Ahmed Shaheed, warned in April about religious leaders and politicians who were exploiting the Covid-19 pandemic to "spread hatred against Jews and other minorities."
"It is imperative for the civil society organizations and faith-based actors to signal a zero-tolerance policy towards anti-Semitism online and offline," Shaheed said.
No doubt that a lot of those numbers are due to a rise in far-right and neo-Nazi groups. But, I'm sure some of it is due to the rise in the numbers of Muslims in Europe. It's curious why this study didn't include the likely perpetrators of the events, then we might not have to guess.
Regardless of who is responsible, there is a definite rise in antisemitism in some European governments, and much of that is because of the ever-increasing numbers of Muslims and politicians wanting to secure their votes. This problem will just keep getting worse.
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