At least 18 Egyptian student supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi have been expelled from their respective universities over the past three days for taking part in anti-government demonstrations, a report said on 28 October, citing university officials and activists. Acting head of Upper Egypt’s Minya University, Gamal Abu al-Magd, told reporters that six activists from the “Students against the Coup” campaign, the main organiser of most student protests, had been suspended for three weeks for participating in student rallies against Egypt’s military-backed government.
Earlier, a spokesman for Cairo’s Al-Azhar University said that five female students had been expelled for staging an anti-government protest on campus. “The vicious attack [by security forces and university administrations] on peaceful student opponents [of the regime] continues,” Abdel-Rahman Safwan, a spokesman for “Students against the Coup,” said.
THAILAND URGED TO ACT ON DEATHS OF MUSLIM CHILDREN
A leading human rights organisation on 29 October called on Thailand’s government to take action against security forces accused of killing an ethnic Malay Muslim teenager. Human Rights Watch said military and paramilitary units have been involved in the killing of Malay Muslim children in southern Thailand, where an insurgency has led to the deaths of more than 6,000 people since 2004, the vast majority of them civilians.
Muhammad-Azuwan Sohoh, 14, was shot dead by paramilitary rangers on 21 August as he passed their camp in Narathiwat province on a motorbike. A police investigation found that a ranger planted a handgun on the dead boy to indicate that he was a militant.
ISLAMOPHOBIA THREATENS MUSLIMS’ RIGHTS IN BELGIUM
Hind is a 31-year-old Moroccan woman living in Brussels without a job. She also happens to be a Muslim who wears the Niqab, a hijab that covers the face. ‘‘I’m looking for a job… and here in Belgium there is a new law we cannot work with our veil,” said Hind, who did not want to reveal her last name. “We have to take it off to work.” A law banning the full-face veil came into effect in Belgium in 2011. Veiled women objected to the law, which bans clothing that obscures the identity of the wearer in places like parks and on the street. But in 2012 the Belgian Constitutional Court rejected appeals and ruled that the ban did not violate human rights.
TUNISIA’S ENNAHDA DOWN, NOT OUT AFTER ELECTION DEFEAT
After Tunisia’s Ennahda conceded defeat in Sunday’s parliamentary elections, there were no fireworks, concerts or cheering rallies outside the headquarters of its rival, the secular Nidaa Tounes alliance. Instead it was Ennahda’s leader Rached Ghannounchi who appeared before jubilant supporters to give what looked more like a victory address than a concession speech, a report said on 30 October.
Ennahda’s defeat was a blow to the first Islamist party to come to power after the Arab Spring revolts of 2011, and Ghannounchi may have been putting on a brave face after a loss attributed to his party’s performance in government. But Nidaa Tounes’ subdued celebration says more about the complicated task the secularists face in forming a government with Islamists firmly entrenched in Tunisia’s young democracy after the overthrow of the autocratic Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali.
EX-LIBYAN REBEL LEADER ALLOWED TO SUE BRITAIN OVER TORTURE
A former Libyan commander won the legal right to sue Britain for damages over the years of torture he says he suffered at the hands of Muammar Gaddafi’s henchmen after being illegally handed to Libya by British and U.S. spies. The ruling on 30 October by the Court of Appeal in London could open the way for litigation against the British government in similar torture or rendition cases.
Abdel Hakim Belhadj, a rebel leader who helped topple Gaddafi in 2011 and is now leader of the Libyan al-Watan Party, says he and his wife Fatima were abducted by U.S. CIA agents in Thailand in 2004 and then transferred to Tripoli with the help of British security officials. Britain and the United States had been keen to build relations with Gaddafi at the time, following his 2003 pledge to give up sponsoring terrorism and to end Libya’s chemical and nuclear weapons programmes.
SWEDEN BECOMES FIRST EU-MEMBER COUNTRY RECOGNISING PALESTINE STATE
The Swedish government officially recognised the state of Palestine on 30 October, saying it hoped the move would help to revive the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The decision drew praise from the Palestinian president and criticism from Israel. “Our decision comes at a critical time because over the last year we have seen how the peace talks have stalled, how decisions over new settlements on occupied Palestinian land have complicated a two-state solution and how violence has returned to Gaza,” Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom told reporters. “By making our decision we want to bring a new dynamic to the stalled peace process.” She rejected accusations that Sweden was taking sides and she hoped other EU countries would follow Sweden’s lead.
MYANMAR LYNCH MOB MOSTLY UNJAILED
An international rights group has warned that most members of a mob that killed ten Muslim pilgrims in Myanmar two years ago have escaped justice. Human Rights Watch commented as seven men were jailed for the attack. “It was clear from photographic evidence that there was an entire mob of persons involved,” Phil Robertson, the organisation’s deputy director for Asia, said on 29 October. “What happened to the other persons who were arrested?”
Last week Thandwe County Court in Rakhine imprisoned the killers, who local media reported as members of the Buddhist majority, to seven years each for the murders. They were part of a mob that dragged the men from a bus before beating them to death in June 2012, sparking sectarian rioting in western Rakhine state. The mob set fire to the bus and urinated on the victims’ bodies, the Democratic Voice of Burma reported at the time.
CHINA HOSTS SUMMIT ON REBUILDING AFGHANISTAN
China will donate 1.5 billion yuan ($244 million) to Afghanistan over the next three years, the country’s premier announced on 31 October at the opening of the Istanbul Process on Afghanistan conference in capital Beijing. Stressing the summit should focus on Afghanistan’s reconstruction, Li Keqiang pledged to strengthen cooperation on infrastructure, construction and the protection of mineral sources. “During the next five years China will educate 3,000 people from different social groups and provide 500 scholarships,” he added.
Meanwhile, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu thanked China for hosting the conference and called for coordinated efforts to fight challenges such as terrorism and the drug trade in Afghanistan. The Istanbul Process was founded in November 2011 to present a new vision of security and stability in Afghanistan and to promote regional cooperation in Asia, according to the summit’s official website.
MALALA TO DONATE NOBEL PRIZE FOR GAZA SCHOOLS
Nobel peace laureate Malala Yousafzai is to donate $50,000 towards rebuilding schools in Gaza, she announced on 29 October. Malala was speaking in Stockholm where she received the World’s Children’s Prize. She announced that she would donate all the prize money to the United Nations relief and works agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA. In her speech, Malala said: “I am honoured to announce all my World’s Children’s prize money will go to help students and schools in an especially difficult place – in Gaza.”