UK POLICE APOLOGISE FOR ‘MUSLIM TERRORIST’ MOCK BLAST
Greater Manchester Police on 11 May apologised after fake terrorists shouted “Allahu Akbar” during a large-scale training drill that tried to simulate a terrorist attack. The exercise drew huge criticism for using a fake “Muslim terrorist”, and was slammed for racial stereotyping. Manchester peace activist Dr Erinma Bell criticised the use of a “Muslim terrorist”. She said “a terrorist can be anyone” and “we need to move away from stereotypes”.
In a statement released by GMP, assistant chief constable Garry Shewan said: “It is a necessity for agencies including the police to train and prepare using exercises such as this, so that we would be in the best possible position to respond in the event that the unthinkable happened and an attack took place. However, on reflection we acknowledge that it was unacceptable to use this religious phrase immediately before the mock suicide bombing, which so vocally linked this exercise with Islam. We recognise and apologise for the offence that this has caused.”
UK PM, DEFENCE CHIEF APOLOGISE TO IMAM OVER ISIL CLAIM
British Prime Minister David Cameron and Defence Secretary Michael Fallon apologised for their comments in which they repeated false claims linking Tooting Imam Sulaiman Gani to the ISIL group, a report said on 12 May. PM Cameron made comments as part of Conservative Party campaign allegations that Labour’s successful mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan had connections to radical and extremist Muslims. But Gani strongly rejected any sympathies for ISIL and Cameron’s office issued a clarification late Wednesday, saying the prime minister had wanted to suggest Gani supported “an” Islamic state.
According to the report, a statement said: “In reference to the Prime Minister’s comments on Suliman Gani, the Prime Minister was referring to reports that he supports an Islamic state. “The Prime Minister is clear this does not mean Mr Gani supports the organisation ISIL and he apologises to him for any misunderstanding.”
TURKEY’S HELP IN PALESTINE DEVELOPMENT LAUDED
Turkey has helped in the development of Palestine with $400 million worth of projects implemented through its Turkish Cooperation and Development Agency, Palestinian Ambassador to Ankara reportedly said on 14 May.
According to the agency’s internal data, TIKA implemented 349 projects in Palestine since Turkey inaugurated the Palestine Coordination Program Office in 2005. The agency implemented 173 projects in West Bank, 113 projects in Gaza and 63 projects in Jerusalem, creating much needed educational and emergency facilities in the area. Out of the total projects, TIKA carried out 78 social infrastructure, 64 administrative infrastructure, 52 education, 46 emergency, 38 health, 25 production sector, and 25 water and sanitation projects as well as 21 restoration projects for joint historical and cultural monuments.
RECORD 40.8 MILLION DISPLACED BY CONFLICTS IN 2015
The number of people uprooted within their own countries by war and conflict rose last year to a record 40.8 million, a report published on 10 May found. “This is the highest figure ever recorded and twice the number of refugees worldwide,” said Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, co-authors of the report with the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. Some 8.6 million newly displaced people were recorded in 2015, including 4.8 million in the Middle East and North Africa.
“Displacement…has snowballed since the Arab Spring uprising in 2010 and the rise of the ISIL,” said the report, with Yemen, Syria, and Iraq accounting for more than half of the total. Outside the Middle East, the countries with the highest numbers of people fleeing were Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, South Sudan, and Ukraine.
US MILITARY ACADEMY REJECTS STUDENT’S HIJAB REQUEST
An elite American military college has decided to deny a recently-accepted Muslim female student’s request to wear the hijab. Citadel President Lt. Gen. John Rosa said in a statement on 10 May that after consideration, the school will not be able to accommodate the student’s request to wear the head covering.
“As the Military College of South Carolina, The Citadel has relied upon a highly effective educational model requiring all cadets to adopt a common uniform,” Rosa said in a statement. He said the academy seeks to provide for the cadet’s specific needs “whenever possible”, and pointed to the shuttling of students to churches, mosques, synagogues and other places of worship.
A FIFTH OF SYRIA’S PALESTINIAN REFUGEES FLED THE COUNTRY
More than 20 per cent of Syria’s Palestinian refugees have fled the country and its five-year war, the head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency said on 12 May. “Before the war, there were 560,000 Palestine refugees. We estimate that currently about 110,000 to 120,000 have left the country,” UNRWA chief Pierre Krahenbuhl said on a visit to Damascus.
“There are about 45,000 who went to Lebanon, 15,000 to Jordan,” he said. “The others – therefore almost half of those who have left – have travelled, we presume, through Turkey and then to a variety of other countries. “Some of them will be in Europe. We know of Palestine refugees who have reached parts of Asia. We know of some who have reached Latin America.”
SYRIA REGIME TURNS BACK AID CONVOY TO BESIEGED DARAYA
The Syrian regime on 12 May refused the first aid convoy’s entry to the town of Daraya since a siege began in 2012. “Daraya has been the site of relentless fighting for more than three-and-a-half years, and we know the situation there is desperate,” Marianne Gasser, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegation, said.
“Civilians trapped here urgently need humanitarian aid. We hoped today’s distribution might prove to be a first step and lead to more aid being allowed in. Unfortunately, we were prevented from entering and eventually had to turn back,” Gasser said. Earlier, the UN said the first humanitarian assessment mission since 2012 was on its way to Daraya, some 8 kilometres southwest of Damascus.
TURKEY SLAMS EU ON TERROR LAW CHANGE
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has slammed Europe for demanding changes to Ankara’s legislation on terrorism. In his address at an event titled “National Will in Turkish Political History” in Ankara on 12 May, Erdogan said: “Asking Turkey to revise its terror law means to give up on the cause” in ongoing talks with EU on visa-free travel.
Last week, the European Commission called for a change in Ankara’s legislation on terrorism – a demand that Erdogan harshly criticised and rejected. “You see the attitude from the European Union. They say we should loosen our grip on terror. Since when are you controlling Turkey, who gave you the order?” Erdogan asked.
ERDOGAN SAYS TURKEY FIGHTS ISIL ‘LIKE NO OTHER COUNTRY’
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on 11 May said no other country in the world was battling the terror group ISIL like Turkey. Speaking at a conference attended by chiefs of defense from Balkan countries in Istanbul, Erdogan said: “While countries [taking part in the anti-ISIL coalition] didn’t take any steps, didn’t conduct the necessary intelligence-sharing [to fight ISIL], Turkey was expected to do everything.”
ISRAEL SLAMMED OVER DE FACTO TRAVEL BAN FOR ACTIVIST
The Human Rights Watch on 13 May criticised Israel’s latest attempt to suppress the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement by implementing a travel ban on co-founder Omar Barghouti. Israel refused to renew Barghouti’s travel documents after the threats that were made against him by officials. Barghouti lives in the northern coastal city of Acre in Israel and requires the document to travel in and out of Israel and Palestine.
Human Rights Watch was quick to respond to the ban, with executive director Sarah Leah Whitson describing the failure to renew his document as “an effort to punish him for exercising his right to engage in peaceful, political activism, using its arsenal of bureaucratic control over Palestinian lives.”