NORTH KOREA: Why do North Koreans workers choose to be exploited by their own state abroad? - Human Rights ...

NORTH KOREA: Why do North
Koreans workers choose to be
exploited by their own state
abroad?
Paper presented on the occasion of the screening of
“Dollar Heroes” at the European Parliament on 9
October(*)
By Eun Kyoung Kwon, Director of Open North Korea and Secretary
General of ICNK

HRWF (29.10.2018) – Over 100,000 citizens of the DPRK work in
about 40 countries around the world including: Mongolia,
Russia, Poland, Kuwait as well as China. Cumulatively, these
workers earn approximately 900 million dollars a year.

North Korean overseas workers have to submit 70% to 95% of
their earnings to the authorities in the form of ‘state-
assigned earnings’ or a ‘state fee.’ They work over 8 hours a
day, sometimes up to 20 hours according to former North Korean
overseas workers.

Why do such many North Koreans come to work in foreign
countries despite the fact that around 90% of their salaries
will be confiscated by the state? In order to find this
answer, we must investigate the system of forced labor in the
DPRK.

There is a law in North Korea which punishes the unemployed.
Article 90 of the Administrative Punishment Law states that
“those who do not take a job at a company where they have been
dispatched to within 6 months, without fair reason, or those
who do not report for duty at a company for over a month, will
be sentenced to up to three months of forced labor in a labor-
training camp (rodong dallyeondae). In serious cases, culprits
may be sentenced to longer than three months.”

The North Korean economic system is, as everybody knows, a
state-planned economy where enterprises, factories, and other
workplaces must operate in accordance with the state economic
plan, regardless of their realistic capacity. The salary
system is also included in the state plan.

In fact, the state-designated monthly wage for most employees
is around 2,000 North Korean won, only enough to purchase 500
grams of rice. Therefore, many North Korean people go to their
workplaces not to earn a living but to avoid punishment for
the crime of unemployment. No North Korean expects to receive
a living wage from their company. Perversely, North Korean
companies extort money and resources from their employees. It
is how and why the companies exist.

Let’s imagine how the North Korean people survive with 2,000
won of monthly wage, which is equivalent to 500 grams of rice.
The solution used to be the food distribution system, but now
it is markets. Through producing, selling, and circulating
goods privately in markets, a North Korean can earn a living
wage. However, to work in markets, one must escape from duties
at their assigned workplace. In order to avoid the punishment
for unemployment, market operators pay monthly bribes to their
employers. The amount of bribe is at over score times their

monthly wage. About 30% of company employees pay bribes in
order to attend to their private businesses.

These days, markets are home to thriving private businesses
such as transportation, distribution, manufacturing and
various other companies. But, working for these private
businesses is not fully authorized as an official occupation
in North Korea.

Many state-run enterprises and factories don’t operate
efficiently enough to make a profit, however, their role is to
supervise and control employees’ political beliefs. This is
conducted through weekly self-criticism meetings and more than
three times of political lectures for a month organized by the
Workers Party committee. If an employee wants to skip such
political activities, they must offer over 100,000 won per
month in bribes to the company.

In addition, all workplaces are required to provide labor and
resources for national construction projects. When a state-
planned construction project is undertaken, employees of
factories and enterprises across the country will be mobilized
to provide labor for the project.

Laborers are mobilized for constructions through a systemized
rotation process in a company. However, if you offer over
400,000 North Korean won a year, you can avoid the
mobilization. The monthly salary is around 2,000 won.

Therefore, it is poorer employees who are most likely to be

mobilized for national construction projects. For the duration
of the project, they will continue to receive insignificant
remuneration from their companies but, more damagingly, be
deprived of the opportunity to earn money through market
activities for the entire duration of the construction
project. There is no additional compensation.

In terms of resources for the construction, enterprises have
to provide most of the construction materials, with the
authorities only supplying cement, sand, and gasoline. The
remaining necessary materials are the responsibility of the
local employees to provide.

Since Chairman Kim Jong Un took office, the state has been
actively pursuing construction projects. In Pyongyang, they
built Scientists Street, Changkwang Street, and Ryeomyung
Street and, in the northern city of Hyesan and Chongjin, new
apartment complexes, and a few tourist resorts in a coastal
city. For these projects, authorities do not appropriate a
budget for labor and most construction materials, as they are
the responsibility of enterprises and their employees.

There is another forced labor system, which is used also for
major national construction projects and can be considered a
contemporary form of a slavery. It is the permanent
dolgyeokdae, a shock brigade or a military-style construction
youth brigade. It is set up as a supplementary military
service, but designed for meeting the labor needs of national
construction projects.

The structure and management of this dolgyeokdae brigade are

almost the same as that of the People’s Army. The dolgyeokdae
is a formal alternative to military service, with a service
period of seven years, as opposed to 10 year service period
for the army.

Technically, members of dolgyeokdae receive a salary, though
it is around one third of normal workers’ salaries. However,
of the 30 former dolgyeokdae members I have met in South
Korea, none received salaries during their service, for almost
ten years.

Due to the dire working situation and high intensity labor
requirement, only the most vulnerable class of people are
dispatched to dolgyeokdae after their graduation from high
school.

To summarize, a workplace of North Korean workers exists not
to provide for the economic lives of employees but to extort
money, resources and labor from employees and control their
political lives and ideological beliefs. These are ordinary
practices for North Korean workers, including those who work
in foreign countries.

North Korean workers in foreign countries can pick up
construction contracts as a second job after work and during
the weekends. Experienced engineers can even leave their own
workplace to work contract jobs. Like in North Korea, however,
they must pay massive bribes to managers in order to leave
their workplace during the daytime.

This system puts double or triple burden of labor on shoulders
of N. Korean workers both in the country and foreign
countries. To bring an end to forced labor, the North Korean
government must decriminalize unemployment, recognize private
businesses as a legally valid profession to allow citizens to
earn a living privately, and importantly dismantle the
dolgyeokdae system in the long run.

There is one additional point that I’d like to speak on.

While the money that North Koreans earn overseas makes its way
into state coffers, the little money that they earn through
contract jobs functions as a driving force for vitalization of
markets and has a stabilizing effect on people lives.

I don’t expect North Koreans to return to the dire situation
while operating a strict state-planned economy as they
suffered until the early 1990s. We expect people’s economic
activities in markets to become more vitalized and to bring
comparative stability to their lives. (It is one of a few
solutions for human rights improvement in the DPRK.) (As the
human rights situation improves, the path for normalization of
the country will become clearer.)

If North Korea follows through on promises of complete
denuclearization, Kim Jong Un will expect economic development
with much international support in near future. This support
should be given for the sake of the people’s betterment and
the international community must make it clear that forced
labor cannot be involved in any way and that all laborers must
be compensated with a fair salary and work in enhanced working

conditions.

The 3rd cycle of the Universal Periodic Review is coming in
May next year. I hope the stakeholders and relevant officials
at the EU accept my suggestions for your recommendations to
the DPRK, so that North Korea can implement practical
solutions to end the forced labor.

(*) The conference and screening of the movie “Dollar Heroes”
had been organized at the European Parliament by MEP Laszlo
Tokes with Human Rights Without Frontiers.

………………………………….

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st/

UNITED STATES: Suspect in
Pittsburgh synagogue shooting
charged with 29 counts in
deaths of 11 people
By Kellie B. Gormly, Avi Selk, Joel Achenbach, Mark Berman and
Alex Horton

The Washington Post (27.10.2018) – https://wapo.st/2SuX5jx – A
man armed with a semiautomatic assault-style rifle stormed the
Tree of Life synagogue here Saturday and shot worshipers
during Shabbat services, killing 11 and wounding six in the
deadliest attack on Jews in the history of the United States.

The mass shooting targeted members of a synagogue that is an
anchor of Pittsburgh’s large and close-knit Jewish community,
a massacre that authorities immediately labeled a hate crime
as they investigated the suspect’s history of anti-Semitic
online screeds.

Law enforcement officials identified the alleged shooter as
Robert D. Bowers, 46, a Pittsburgh resident who the FBI said
was not previously known to law enforcement. He was charged
with 29 counts of federal crimes of violence and firearms
offenses, federal prosecutors said late Saturday.

A man with that name had posted anti-Semitic statements on
social media before the shooting, expressing anger that a

nonprofit Jewish organization in the neighborhood has helped
refugees settle in the United States. In what appeared to be
his final social media post hours before the attack, the man
wrote: “I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered.
Screw your optics, I’m going in.”

Bowers allegedly burst into the synagogue’s regular Saturday
9:45 a.m. service with an AR-15-style assault rifle and three
handguns, authorities said. Witnesses told police he shouted
anti-Semitic statements and began firing. The synagogue, in
the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, did not have armed security
guards.

Police received calls about an active shooter at 9:54 a.m. and
dispatched officers a minute later. Police said Bowers left
the building and encountered the responding officers, shooting
one before retreating into the synagogue to hide. More
officers responded and, after an exchange of gunfire, Bowers
suffered multiple gunshot wounds, was arrested and was taken
to a hospital, authorities said.

Four police officers were shot during the response and were in
stable condition late Saturday. It was unclear late Saturday
whether Bowers was speaking with authorities or had an
attorney.

Federal prosecutors filed 29 counts against Bowers, charging
him with federal civil rights crimes. Bowers was charged with
obstructing exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death,
using a firearm to commit murder during a crime of violence,
obstructing exercise of religious beliefs resulting in an

injury to a public safety officer and using a firearm during a
crime of violence.

The charges were announced in a statement released by Scott W.
Brady, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania,
and Robert Jones, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s
Pittsburgh office. Court documents were not immediately
available and were expected to be released Sunday morning.

The Pittsburgh massacre is yet another example of the
homicidal fury and bigotry on the fringes of American society.
It weaves together elements of many other active-shooter
incidents that have horrified Americans in recent years, and
highlighted the unusual frequency of mass casualty events in
this country in comparison with almost every other nation in
the world.

Once again the suspect was a man armed with a semiautomatic
assault-style weapon — as was, for example, the gunman who
killed 49 people in Orlando’s Pulse nightclub in 2016. Once
again the crime scene was a house of worship, a classic “soft
target,” as was the First Baptist Church in Sutherland
Springs, Tex., where a disturbed gunman hoping to kill his
mother-in-law slaughtered 26 people during a Sunday service
last November.

And once again the victims were members of an ethnic or
religious minority with a long history of persecution — as
were the nine African American worshipers killed three years
ago when a white supremacist invaded a Bible study session at
the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston,

S.C.

“This was the single most lethal and violent attack on the
Jewish community in the history of the country,” said Jonathan
Greenblatt, CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation
League. “We’ve never had an attack of such depravity where so
many people were killed. . . . When you go into a synagogue,
saying ‘I want to kill all the Jews,’ that’s a hate crime.”

Political, religious and civic leaders condemned Saturday’s
massacre and vowed to support the Jewish community.

“We simply cannot accept this violence as a normal part of
American life,” Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D), said during an
afternoon news conference, his voice shaking. “These senseless
acts of violence are not who we are as Pennsylvanians, they’re
not who we are as Americans.”

President Trump denounced the massacre and said something
needs to be done about such crimes, suggesting a more frequent
and speedier use of the death penalty, saying it should be
“brought into vogue.”

“It’s a terrible, terrible thing, what’s going on with hate in
our country and frankly all over the world,” Trump said before
boarding Air Force One on Saturday afternoon for a flight to
Indianapolis. The president made a full-throated denunciation
of anti-Semitism at a rally in Murphysboro, Ill., later in the
day: “This evil anti-Semitic attack is an assault on all of
us. It’s an assault on humanity. It will require all of us

working together to extract the hateful poison of anti-
Semitism from our world.”

He said the massacre could have been prevented if the
synagogue had armed security guards. Trump has frequently
suggested that more armed people could deter mass shootings,
making such comments after shooting rampages in Parkland,
Fla., and Orlando in recent years. Armed law enforcement
officers were, in fact, present at both of those mass
shootings.

Trump ordered flags flown at half-staff at public grounds
until sunset Wednesday in “solemn respect” for the victims,
the White House said in a statement.

The Anti-Defamation League, founded more than a century ago,
has documented numerous murderous attacks on Jews in the
United States, such as the assault by a white supremacist on
the U.S. Holocaust Museum in 2009 that killed a security
guard. The previous deadliest anti-Semitic attack, the ADL
said, was actually a case of mistaken religious identity that
claimed four lives. It happened in 1985, when a racist
attacked Charles Goldmark and his family in Seattle, thinking
they were Jewish.

The ADL said Saturday that anti-Semitic incidents rose 57
percent in 2017, with 1,986 documented events, a spike the
league attributed to an increase of such incidents in high
schools and on college campuses.

Carl Chinn, president of the nonprofit Faith Based Security
Network, said Saturday’s massacre was the 15th mass murder —
defined as four or more fatalities — in a house of worship in
U.S. history. The first was the 1963 Birmingham, Ala., bombing
of the 16th Street Baptist Church that killed four African
American girls, he said.

On Saturday, members of the Tree of Life synagogue gathered at
a makeshift grief center nearby to learn the fate of loved
ones. On social media, synagogue members quickly relayed news
of who was safe. But there would be 11 names — all adults —
missing from the check-in.

Synagogue member Arnold Freedman, 91, a psychologist, had
intended to go to Tree of Life at 10 a.m., but he stayed home
because a repairman was working in his basement. He began
getting calls from friends as soon as the shooting began.

“Our climate in the country now is really troubled. You see
these hate crimes, and anybody on either side of the spectrum,
right or left, are going to blame the other. It’s terrible,”
Freedman said. “Unfortunately, there’s too many people like
that, and they have too much access to guns.”

Chuck Diamond, who grew up in Squirrel Hill and was a rabbi at
Tree of Life for seven years, said he had always feared a day
like this.

“When I was leading the congregation, I always had in the back
of my mind that something like this will happen,” Diamond

said. “It’s a terrible thing to feel. When you come into our
sanctuary, you want it to be a place that you feel safe in.”

As news of the shooting spread, police locked down the nearby
Rodef Shalom Congregation. Police also raced to synagogues in
Washington, New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles to provide
additional security.

“It could have just as easily been our congregation,” said
Rabbi Aaron Bisno of Rodef Shalom. “We don’t know what
motivated the shooter, but when something like this strikes,
the randomness of it terrifies.”

The Tree of Life building houses three synagogues and has
multiple communities that worship simultaneously, Bisno said,
calling it the “center of Jewish life on Shabbat morning.”

In recent years, Pittsburgh brought on a former FBI agent to
act as a security point person, according to Bisno. His
congregation recently went through an active-shooter training.
Saturday was the first time there was a community need to put
it into practice.

“It’s frightening,” he said. “It could happen anywhere at any
time.”

The FBI said Saturday that authorities believe Bowers acted
alone. Authorities who entered the crime scene described it as
stunning in its savagery.

“This is the most horrific crime scene I’ve seen in 22 years
with the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” said Jones, the FBI
special agent in charge.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions called the shooting
“reprehensible and utterly repugnant to the values of this
nation” and said the Justice Department will file hate crime
and other charges “that could lead to the death penalty.”

“The   actions   of   Robert   Bowers   represent   the   worst   of
humanity,” said Brady, the prosecuting U.S. attorney for the
Western District of Pennsylvania. “Justice in this case will
be swift and it will be severe.”

The Pittsburgh attack came days after the arrest of a Florida
man who allegedly sent more than a dozen pipe bombs to
prominent critics of Trump, and amid feverish midterm-election
campaigning rife with attack ads. Several leaders have said
the nation’s political rhetoric has become too polarizing,
perhaps inspiring recent violence.

Gab, a social media platform that has attracted many far-right
users, said Saturday that the company had suspended an account
that matched the alleged shooter’s name, turning the messages
over to the FBI. The account included repeated attacks on
Jews, references to white supremacist and neo-Nazi symbols,
and attacks on the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, known as
HIAS, which works with the federal government to resettle
refugees in American communities.

Mark Hetfield, president and chief executive of HAIS, said his
agency has seen plenty of hate, and actively works to help
people who are fleeing such hate.

“But the United States is supposed to be a place of refuge,
and a synagogue is supposed to be a place of refuge,” Hetfield
said.

Tom Malinowski, a Democratic congressional candidate in New
Jersey who served as assistant secretary of state for
democracy, human rights and labor in the Obama administration,
posted a statement on his website saying that deranged people
have always been around but that the political climate has
changed.

“Our highest national leaders are legitimizing rhetoric once
confined to the paranoid extremes of our society — railing
against ‘globalists,’ who all happen to be prominent Jews,
complaining about ‘white genocide,’ attacking immigrants for
‘threatening our culture,’ and spreading crackpot conspiracy
theories to advocate imprisoning their political opponents,”
said Malinowski, who long served as the Washington director
for Human Rights Watch. “These words are like sparks to the
gasoline of disturbed minds. These words can kill.”

The recent spate of mass shootings led Tree of Life Rabbi
Jeffrey Myers to write on the synagogue’s blog, lamenting the
lack of national action to address gun violence in the wake of
the Parkland school shooting.

“Unless there is a dramatic turnaround in the midterm
elections, I fear that the status quo will remain unchanged,
and school shootings will resume,” Myers wrote. “I shouldn’t
have to include in my daily morning prayers that God should
watch over my wife and daughter, both teachers, and keep them
safe. Where are our leaders?”

Deanna Paul, Amy B Wang, Devlin Barrett, Wesley Lowery, Abby
Ohlheiser, Kristine Phillips, Mike Rosenwald and Katie Zezima
contributed to this developing story.

………………………………….

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violations of human rights in the world, click here for a free
subscription to our newsletters!

Also:

HRWF    database       of   news   and   information   on    over   70
countries: http://hrwf.eu/newsletters/forb/
List of hundreds of documented cases of believers of various
faiths                          in                          20
countries: http://hrwf.eu/forb/forb-and-blasphemy-prisoners-li
st/

SRI    LANKA:     Violence,
discrimination      against
Christians escalate in Sri
Lanka
Christian Headlines (19.10.2018) – https://bit.ly/2qj30ex –
Attacks and other actions against Christians in Sri Lanka have
escalated this year, with Hindu extremism beginning to take
root along with long-time Buddhist aggression, according to
rights advocates.

“Last month there have been more incidents that have been
documented than previous months,” an attorney with the
National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka (NCEASL)
who requested anonymity told Morning Star News.

NCEASL reported 67 incidents against Christians in Sri Lanka
from January through September. Last month saw the highest
number of cases reported this year, 12, while 10 incidents
were recorded in each of two months, July and March, followed
by April and January with eight incidents each.

June and July saw seven incidents each, followed by May with
four and February with two.

The highest number of incidents fell under the category of
“violence” and “threats” against Christians, with 16 cases
each, according to NCEASL figures. This was followed by nine

incidents in each of the categories of “discrimination,”
“demands for closure” (of worship places) and “intimidation,”
while “police inaction,” “false allegations” and
“registration” (of cases against Christians) registered two
incidents each. One case each of “legal challenge” and
“demonstration” were recorded.

Sri Lanka’s population is about 70 percent Buddhist and 13
percent Hindu.

Entire Communities Instigated

There is a trend from group attacks to groups instigating
entire communities, the rights advocate said.

“We are witnessing that communities are being mobilized in an
increasing manner against Christians,” the attorney said. “The
incidents are not anymore only led by extremist groups, but we
are seeing that the extremist elements are able to influence
communities as a whole and lead violent mob attacks against
places of worship and people.”

Among recent cases, a large mob in Southern Province gathered
to protest against a church in their community, which was
followed by a violent attack, and then discrimination. In
Beliatta in Hambantota district, a mob of about 100 people
from nearby villages on Sept. 12 vandalized the Assemblies of
God Church building.

NCEASL reported that the assailants damaged the church
building structure, two motorcycles parked outside and
desecrated and removed religious symbols hanging on the front
door. A few of them entered the premises, threatened the
pastor and his family with death, demanded that worship
services stop and told the pastor to leave the village.

They harassed women in the congregation and spewed
obscenities, and a Buddhist monk later joined them and further
aggravated matters. When three police officers arrived at 12
p.m., they had to call for back-up because the crowd had grown
out of control and was not allowing the pastor or anyone else
to leave – the mob assaulted a member of the congregation who
tried to leave.

After 10 more officers arrived, only then were police able to
carry the pastor safely to the Beliatta Police Station. He
filed a complaint.

Later that night at about 11:45 p.m., according to NCEASL,
unidentified people pelted the pastor’s home with stones for
about 20 minutes. The stones injured the pastor’s uncle,
endangered his child and damaged roof tiles. Police secured
the area after the pastor called an emergency hotline.

Police arrived at about 1 a.m., arrested one person and
continued to provide security to the pastor’s family with
seven officers at his place. The following day, the pastor
filed another complaint.

On Sept. 12 in the same town, around 500 people, including
Buddhist monks, staged a protest against the pastor and church
worship.

“Both these protests were in the Southern Province, and the
people who were protesting were Buddhists since the province
is largely a Buddhist area,” the attorney told Morning Star
News. “But what is concerning is that since the end of the
[1983-2009 civil] war, we now also see such attacks taking
place also in the Hindu Tamil areas, in the east
particularly.”

Rise of Hindu Extremism

Some attacks by Hindus have been reported in the north as
well, where there are sizeable Hindu populations, but not as
many as in the eastern Hindu areas, the attorney said.

“In the Eastern Province, we see a lot of influence from the
India’s Hindu right-wing groups such as the RSS [Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh] seeping into Sri Lanka,” the attorney said.
“Hindu extremist groups have had meetings with Hindu villagers
promoting hatred and division and inciting them towards
violence.”

The instigation has led to violence, denial of burial in
public cemeteries and other rights violations.

“In this way, we see not only Buddhist extremism, which is
something that has always been in the country, but also a rise
in Hindu extremism, particularly in the Eastern Province,” the
attorney told Morning Star News.

With NCEASL help, victims have been able to file police
complaints, leading courts to take up their cases, the
attorney said.

“There have been instances when cases have been filed against
Christians, and the bias is very visible,” the attorney said.
“In these cases, the Christians have had no choice but to
approach the courts. Some judges who may also be biased never
give an order in a matter of religious freedom because they do
not want to set a precedent and very often force the
Christians to settle the matter rather than giving justice.
So, in many incidents no one gets punished by law.”

The attorney has seen many cases where Christians have
responded in forgiveness and have moved on, but also many
instances where Christians get very discouraged.

“I have come across a few pastors who has been so discouraged
that their congregations have left them, and at least two
pastors have actually left the country in the past year,” the
attorney said. “It has been a sad situation. On one hand there
has been growth in the church because of persecution, but
there have also been instances where it has completely broken
the church.”

Sri Lanka is ranked 44th on Christian support organization
Open Doors’ 2018 World Watch List of the 50 countries where it
is most difficult to be a Christian.

………………………………….

If you want to be regularly informed about different
violations of human rights in the world, click here for a free
subscription to our newsletters!

Also:

HRWF database of news and information on over 70
countries: http://hrwf.eu/newsletters/forb/
List of hundreds of documented cases of believers of various
faiths                          in                          20
countries: http://hrwf.eu/forb/forb-and-blasphemy-prisoners-li
st/

BELGIUM:        Citizenship
deprivation  against   dual
nationals recruiting young
Muslims   ,  an   efficient
measure?
– By Willy Fautré, Human Rights Without Frontiers –

HRWF (27.10.2018) – On 23 October 2018, the Court of Appeal of
Antwerp stripped dual national Fouad Belkacem of his Belgian
citizenship, leaving the leader of Sharia4Belgium with his
sole Moroccan nationality. He was accused of recruiting young
Muslims as jihadists for the Islamic State. In 2015, Fouad
Belkacem was sentenced to 12 years in jail and fined 300,000

euros for being the leader of a terrorist outfit. Without his
Belgian nationality, Fouad Belkacem can be expelled to Morocco
but he can still take the matter to the Court of Cassation
where procedural issues are settled. Belgian Asylum Secretary
Theo Francken has welcomed the news on social media. On
Twitter he wrote: “Terrorist leader loses nationality.
Excellent, but it should happen automatically in the event of
a terrorism conviction.”

On 1 December 2017, the Court of Appeal in Brussels deprived
two dual nationals of their Belgian citizenship. It ruled that
Bilal Soughir, who had recruited in 2005 the Belgian and first
Western kamikaze Muriel Degauque, would be stripped of his
Belgian citizenship and would consequently only retain his
Tunisian nationality. It also ruled that Malika El Aroud, a
58-year-old woman convicted of recruiting young Brussels
Muslims to fight in the so-called “holy war” in Afghanistan,
be stripped of her Belgian citizenship. She now only has
Moroccan citizenship. In her case, the proceedings started in
2014 but took three years before the decision of the court
because her solicitor had taken the case to the Constitutional
Court. At the Court of Appeal, the Advocate-General said that
Ms El Aroud no longer deserved Belgian citizenship as “for
many years she has continually spread jihadism in our
country”. Malika El Aroud, also known as the “Black Widow of
the Jihad, had twice been married to Muslim extremists, both
of whom died in the so-called “holy war’. She was first the
wife of Dahmane Abd al-Sattar, a.k.a. Abdessatar Dahmane, one
of the men who killed anti-Taliban leader Ahmad Shah Massoud
two days before the September 11, 2001 attacks. Arrested in
2008 for recruiting young Muslims for Osama bin Laden, she was
sentenced to 8 years in prison and fined 5,000 euro for
terrorist-related offences in 2010.

Recruiting young people for the jihad in Syria, Iraq,
Afghanistan and other countries is a drama for their families
and training them on such battlefields for subsequently

perpetrating terrorist attacks in Europe constitutes a serious
threat to national and human security in Belgium and other
European countries. However, court procedures aiming at the
deprivation of their citizenship take many years in democratic
countries as there are many possibilities of legal recourse.
Moreover, such a court decision can only be effective if they
are immediately deported at the end of their prison term and
if their country of origin accepts them…

Fouad Belkacem: Belgian Islamist leader loses citizenship

BBC                      (23.10.2018)                        –
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45951138      –   Jailed
Islamist Fouad Belkacem, whose group Sharia4Belgium sent
dozens of jihadists to Syria, has been stripped of his Belgian
citizenship and faces deportation to Morocco.

The appeal court in Antwerp ruled that he had fallen seriously
short of his duties as a citizen.

Belkacem was jailed in 2015 for leading a terror group, many
of whose recruits joined jihadist group Islamic State.

More Belgians per capita went to fight in Syria than from any
other EU state.

Some of those who returned to Europe were involved in the
Paris attacks in 2015 and the Brussels bombings of March 2016.

Belkacem’s Sharia4Belgium originated in Antwerp, recruiting
the first Belgian fighters before it was disbanded.

It took its inspiration from Islam4UK, a group once led by
Anjem Choudary, a radical preacher who was released from a
British jail on 19 October. During Belkacem’s 2015 trial it
emerged that he had co-founded Sharia4Belgium shortly after
spending time at a London mosque.

Another group known as the Zerkani network recruited
jihadists, such as Paris attacker Abdelhamid Abaaoud and

Brussels bomber Najim Laachraoui, from the Molenbeek area of
Brussels.

After he was given a 12-year jail term, Belgian officials
began work on removing his citizenship. As a dual national he
retains Moroccan citizenship.

Belgian Migration Minister Theo Francken praised the decision
to strip Belkacem of his Belgian nationality, but added that
such a move should be automatic after any terrorism
conviction.

Removing citizenship from jihadists with dual nationality
remains controversial. France announced plans to introduce the
policy after the November 2015 attacks but dropped them the
following year.

Belkacem is not the first Belgian linked to terror to lose his
nationality. Malika el-Aroud was stripped of her citizenship
last year for leading an al-Qaeda linked group.

He can still appeal against the decision to Belgium’s court of
last resort, the court of cassation, or to the European Court
of Justice.

His lawyer, Liliane Verjauw, said he no longer had any
connection to Morocco and considered himself Belgian.

“His family has been here for 50 years, over three
generations. His Belgian nationality is part of his identity,”
she said.

Op-ed: About Anti-Semitism:
HRWF’s position
– By Willy Fautré, Human Rights Without Frontiers

– HRWF (26.10.2018) – What is and what is not antisemitism, a
widely spread concept about which there is no consensus in the
international community? ‘Everybody’ has his own definition of
antisemitism which is partly endorsed by some and challenged
by others. A few examples will illustrate the confusion that
prevails on this issue.

Definitions

The general definition of antisemitism is hostility or
prejudice against Jews but various authorities have developed
other definitions.

For the purposes of its 2005 Report on Global Anti-Semitism,
the term was considered by the US State Department to mean
“hatred toward Jews—individually and as a group—that can be
attributed to the Jewish religion and/or ethnicity.” (1)

In 2005, the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and
Xenophobia (now EU Fundamental Rights Agency), developed a
more detailed working definition, which states: “Antisemitism
is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as
hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of
antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish
individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community
institutions and religious facilities.” It also adds that
“such manifestations could also target the state of Israel,
conceived as a Jewish collectivity,” but that “criticism of
Israel similar to that leveled against any other country
cannot be regarded as antisemitic.” (2)

Late in 2013, the definition was removed from the website of

the Fundamental Rights Agency. A spokesperson said that it had
never been regarded as official and that the agency did not
intend to develop its own definition (3). However, despite its
disappearance from the website of the Fundamental Rights
Agency, the definition has gained widespread international
use. The definition has been adopted by the EU Working Group
on Antisemitism and in 2010 it was adopted by the US
Department of State. Other institutions followed suit.

In 2016, the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance
Alliance) – a body of 31 Member Countries, ten Observer
Countries and seven international partner organisations –
adopted the following working definition of antisemitism,
making it the most widely endorsed definition of antisemitism
around the world:

“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be
expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical
manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or
non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish
community institutions and religious facilities.” (4)

The IHRA was also endorsed by the OSCE/ ODIHR, an organization
grouping together 57 states (5).

Mark Weitzman, Chair of the IHRA Committee on Antisemitism and
Holocaust Denial, which proposed the adoption of the
definition in 2015, said: “In order to begin to address the
problem of antisemitism, there must be clarity about what
antisemitism actually is. This is not a simple question. The
adopted working definition helps provide guidance in answer to
this challenging question. Crucially, the definition adopted
by the IHRA is endorsed by experts, is relevant and is of
practical applicability.”

Position of HRWF

Due to the confusion prevailing about what is and what is not
antisemitism, as well as the abuse of the concept for

political purposes in concrete incidents and situations,
• HRWF avoids the use of the word “antisemitism” as it avoids
the use of “islamophobia” for the same reasons
• HRWF uses the term “anti-Jewish” to qualify ideologies,
state policies, hate speech, incidents and various forms of
violence targeting Jews, their communities, their community
buildings…
• HRWF reserves the use of the term “anti-Israel” for
writings, speeches, demonstrations… criticizing the State of
Israel.

(1) “Report on Global Anti-Semitism”, U.S. State Department, 5
January 2005.
(2) “Working Definition of Antisemitism”. European Union
Agency for Fundamental Rights. Archived from the original on 5
January 2010. Retrieved 24 July 2010.
(3) Jewish Telegraphic Agency (5 December 2013). “What is
anti-Semitism? EU racism agency unable to define term”.
Jerusalem Post. (https://bit.ly/2OP8Ym0)
(4) See https://bit.ly/2ArCQfi and https://bit.ly/25wbn73
(5) See “Understanding Anti-Semitic Hate Crimes and Addressing
the    Security    Needs   of    Jewish    Communities”
(https://www.osce.org/odihr/317166?download=true)

CHINA: A documented history
of  the  Chinese   regime’s
attempts to undermine Shen

Yun performing arts

By Annie Wu

The Epoch Times (01.10.2018) – https://bit.ly/2Ri0Ozr – The
performances are lauded by celebrities, influential leaders,
and arts aficionados all over. Audiences often come away
feeling awed and inspired.

Shen Yun, its Chinese characters meaning “the beauty of divine
beings dancing,” according to its website, seeks to revive the
5,000 years of Chinese civilization through music and dance.
Founded in 2006 in New York, Shen Yun’s annual productions
have toured hundreds of theaters around the world, playing
sold-out prestigious venues across North America and Asia.

The company’s founders are artists in exile. Unable to present
traditional Chinese arts within Communist China—where the
campaign to destroy elements of Chinese history and culture
during the Cultural Revolution nearly severed Chinese from
their roots—they established Shen Yun so they could freely
express their passion for China’s rich heritage.

That is why the Beijing government, with its censorship regime
that only allows state-censored performance, has continually
tried to sabotage and undermine Shen Yun’s performances in
America and beyond.

Since Shen Yun’s early years, numerous cases of attempted
interference from Chinese consulates around the world have
been documented.

Across cities in the United States, Beijing has enacted
different tactics: consulates and embassies have sent letters
to theater venues trying to persuade them not to rent to Shen
Yun; Beijing’s state-run media have run paid ads in a U.S.
newspaper defaming Shen Yun; Shen Yun’s sponsors have been
harassed; and internet commenters are mobilized to post
negative reviews online.

In spite of Beijing’s efforts, U.S. theaters have remained
largely undeterred; rather than caving to outside political
pressure, they’ve chosen to support artistic freedom. Shen Yun
now tours over 80 cities throughout the United States.

Threatening Letters

Beijing has made explicit its stance on Shen Yun. On Dec. 23,
2008, a post in Chinese appeared on the website of the Chinese
consulate general in Chicago, calling Shen Yun “anti-China.”

But the efforts to deter Shen Yun’s performances began in
earnest around 2010.

In the United States, one of the primary means was through
pressuring or threatening theater venues to not lease its
space to Shen Yun.

In late January 2010, Shen Yun was due to perform at The
Robinson Center Music Hall in Little Rock, Arkansas. That’s
when the consulate-general office in Houston, Texas sent an
undated, unsigned letter to the music hall, accusing Shen Yun
of “undermining China-US relations.”

The letter sought to discredit Shen Yun, claiming that it is
“undermining China’s stability and overthrowing Chinese
Government,” “spread anti-Chinese propaganda,” and “denigrates
and distorts Chinese culture.”

At the end, the letter asks that when Shen Yun requests “for
venue rental, endorsement or sponsorship, please just say NO.”

But the theater’s management ignored the letter. Shen Yun’s
performances proceeded without a hitch.

An official at the Houston theater venue where Shen Yun was
due to perform several months later, the Wortham Center, also
received pressure from the Chinese regime. But the official
said he was not intimidated.

Instead, the Houston City Council decided to endorse Shen Yun
with a declaration designating that July 2 and 3, 2010 are
“Shen Yun Performance Days.”

The gesture seemed a pointed response to         attempts   at
interfering with Shen Yun’s performances.

In Seattle, Washington in January 2012, a similar incident
occurred as Shen Yun was preparing to perform there. This
time, the consulate in San Francisco penned a letter to
Seattle city council members, asking them to “not send
proclamation or congratulatory letter for the performance,
attend the performance.”

Local Seattle media exposed the attempted intimidation
tactics, with King 5, the local affiliate of NBC, broadcasting
a TV segment on it.

This is a well-established tactic. As early as 2007, Shen Yun
staff have reported such pressuring of local officials, such
as when the consulate in Los Angeles sent a letter to Orange
County officials warning them not to support Shen Yun’s
performances.

Then-chairman of the Orange County Board of Supervisors ended
up penning a public letter where he denounced Beijing’s
attempts at pressuring officials: “Your letter is a formal
request that the Orange County Board of Supervisors cooperate
with your government’s suppression of Falun Gong…I am
personally insulted by your request and will certainly not
honor it,” Chris Norby wrote.

Norby was referring to the Falun Gong meditation practice, a
spiritual discipline severely persecuted by the Chinese regime
since 1999.

As a part of Shen Yun’s portrayal of modern-day China, some of
its dances portray the ongoing tragedy of the persecution;
many of Shen Yun’s founding artists are also adherents of
Falun Dafa.

Based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and
tolerance, Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa attracted
millions of adherents soon after its introduction in 1992.
Beijing’s atheist regime soon grew concerned that Falun Dafa
could pose a threat to the Chinese Communist Party’s ideology.

In July 1999, then-Party leader initiated a nationwide
campaign to harass, arrest, and detain Falun Dafa
practitioners, while employing the state’s propaganda
apparatus to vilify the meditation group and its adherents.

Beijing’s fear of its brutal persecution being revealed to
international audiences has fueled its agenda to

systematically obstruct Shen Yun wherever it performs.

A Scheme

When these attempts at pressuring officials and theater venues
didn’t work, Chinese entities tried a different tactic.

In Austin, Texas, in 2010, the Long Center theater where Shen
Yun was due to perform received an unusual email.

The correspondence came from a Gmail account called “Jianhai
Chao.” In the email, the person begins with discussing an oil
spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Then, the person claims to be a
Falun Dafa practitioner, pleading for the theater’s audiences
to channel their thoughts: “by this way, evils could be killed
and resolved to blood water,” the email read.

The theater staff, who shared the email with local presenters,
suspected that the nonsensical ramblings were from Chinese
entities posing as Falun Dafa practitioners in order to
discredit them—similar to the propaganda disseminated in
mainland China to justify to the public Beijing’s persecution.

That same year in June, the Chrysler Hall in Norfolk,
Virginia, which was also due to host Shen Yun, received an
email from a purported audience member, who claimed she
received emails from Falun Dafa practitioners that gave her a
bad impression of them. The sender, bessie35@yahoo.com, ended
the letter by predictably urging the theater not to host Shen

Yun.

Shen Yun’s performances went ahead anyway. That July, the
Austin mayor sent a proclamation to the company congratulating
it on successful performances.

In 2015, officials from the Chinese consulate in Chicago met
with a manager at the Peabody Opera House in St. Louis,
Missouri. In person, the officials demanded that the theater
cancel Shen Yun’s booking—or else it would harm relations
between the United States and China. Theater managers were not
impressed, and did not comply with the demands.

More Tricks

The latest scheme that Beijing devised is more overt. China’s
state-run English-language newspaper China Daily paid for an
ad insert that appeared in the Washington Post on Jan. 25,
2017.

In the insert was an article titled, ““Blasphemy masquerades
as art,” that contained disparaging and false remarks about
Shen Yun and Falun Dafa. It was a move meant to discourage
U.S. readers from attending Shen Yun’s upcoming performances
at Washington DC’s well-regarded Kennedy Center.

It seemed DC residents were unfazed by the China Daily ads;
Shen Yun’s week-long run at Kennedy Center was well-attended,
according to local organizers.

Despite Beijing’s bid to prevent Shen Yun from telling
truthful stories about ancient and contemporary China, they
worked to the contrary.

Beijing’s schemes have fizzled, and on the contrary, audience
members in the United States often happen to resonate with
precisely the portions of Shen Yun’s storytelling that Chinese
communist apparatchiks object to.

“Their struggle for freedom was very touching…I think that for
me, it renews my prayers for people in China to be free, to
know the truth, and to be able to express who they are—to not
live in fear of tyranny of the government,” said Rebecca
Laird, an audience member during Shen Yun’s May 10 performance
at the Shea’s Performing Arts Center in Buffalo, New York.

………………………………….

If   you   want   to   be   regularly   informed   about   different
violations of human rights in the world, click here for a free
subscription to our newsletters!

Also:

HRWF database of news and information on over 70
countries: http://hrwf.eu/newsletters/forb/
List of hundreds of documented cases of believers of various
faiths                          in                          20
countries: http://hrwf.eu/forb/forb-and-blasphemy-prisoners-li
st/

CHINA: Beijing’s attempts to
thwart Shen Yun’s tours in
Europe and beyond
By Annie Wu

The Epoch Times (10.10.2018) – https://bit.ly/2Rgp0lH –
Princess Michael of Kent, a member of the British royal
family, once sang high praises for Shen Yun, the New York-
based performing arts company that showcases traditional
Chinese culture through an annual global tour that has drawn
hundreds of thousands of audiences. So have scores of regular
arts lovers, dignitaries, politicians, and celebrities around
the world who have attended Shen Yun’s performances.

Yet, the Chinese regime has consistently tried to cripple Shen
Yun’s presence in the West, out of apparent frustration at its
influence and engagement with sensitive contemporary topics in
China.

Thus, Chinese consulates and their operatives around the world
have for years pressured theaters not to lease their space to
Shen Yun, or sought to coerce Western government officials to
not attend the performances or voice support for the company.

Despite this international campaign, Western theaters and

lawmakers have most often not caved to the pressure, and have
instead asserted the value of freedom of expression and
rejected the attempts at controlling their conduct.

Holland

During Shen Yun’s most recent 2018 tour, for example, the
company was set to give four performances in two Dutch cities
during the month of May.

Weeks prior, local media exposed Chinese diplomats’ attempts
to convince a local theater to cancel Shen Yun’s appearances.

“Simply because Shen Yun’s program depicts how the Chinese
regime suppresses the spiritual group Falun Gong, Chinese
diplomats have met with Holland’s foreign affairs minister,
requesting that Shen Yun’s performances be canceled,” Dutch
newspaper Algemeen Dagblad reported on April 18.

Based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and
tolerance, Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, attracted
tens of millions of adherents in China soon after its
introduction in 1992. The popularity of the practice and its
failure to conform to communist orthodoxy led the Communist
Party leader at the time, Jiang Zemin, to launch a nationwide
campaign in July 1999 to eliminate it. The Party’s entire
propaganda apparatus was directed to vilify Falun Gong and any
who practiced it.

As part of Shen Yun’s representation of modern-day China, some

of its dances portray the ongoing persecution. Beijing’s
apparent fear of the extent of the campaign being revealed to
international audiences has fueled its attempts to stop Shen
Yun—often by spreading Beijing’s hate propaganda against it.

Shen Yun was founded in 2006 in New York by artists in exile;
its website says that the company aims to revive 5,000 years
of Chinese civilization—a feat impossible in mainland China
where the Communist Party’s atheist ideology has destroyed
elements of Chinese history and culture since it took power.

Holland’s foreign affairs ministry responded that the decision
was up to the theater venue, the Nieuwe Luxor theater in
Rotterdam.

The theater decided that the show would go on.

A week later, Shen Yun announced that it would extend its
engagement to a third city, Breda, performing two showings at
the Chassé theater.

Denmark

This year, a Danish radio station also exposed the Chinese
Embassy’s attempts to stop the Royal Danish Theater from
hosting Shen Yun.

According to a report by Radio24syv published on Feb. 19,
2018, local Shen Yun organizers wrote a letter to Danish
authorities last September, appealing for the company to be
allowed to perform at the renowned Royal Danish Theater.

According to emails obtained by Radio24syv, when Denmark’s
Ministry of Culture requested a comment from the Royal Danish
Theater, one of its employees revealed to another staff member
that he or she had met with the Chinese embassy in August.

“They [the embassy] ended the meeting by asking if we had a
dialogue with Shen Yun, and requested that we shouldn’t allow
them to rent our facilities,” the email stated.

Theater director Morten Hesseldahl and culture minister Mette
Bock denied the accusation and said they were not aware of any
pressure from the Chinese embassy.

But upon publication of the news, several prominent Danish
figures, including Bente Hagelund, president of the People’s
University of Copenhagen, and several lawmakers, expressed
outrage at what they perceived as the Chinese regime’s
interference in Danish affairs.

Spain

In 2014, Chinese diplomats in Barcelona, Spain tried similar
tactics.

Consulate officials first appealed to the National Theatre of
Catalonia, where Shen Yun was due to perform, demanding that
the performance be canceled because it “went against the
interests of the Chinese Communist Party,” according to a
report by Spanish newspaper El Mundo.

When that failed, the Chinese officials tried to pressure
senior officials at Spain’s Foreign Ministry.

If Shen Yun is allowed to perform, relations between Spain and
China would be compromised, the Chinese diplomats said, which
“subliminally pointed to China’s investments in our country
and exports of Spanish products,” El Mundo reported.

Similar stories have been documented wherever Shen Yun
performs. In Switzerland in 2011, the Swiss-German newspaper
Tages-Anzeiger revealed that the Chinese consul, Liang
Jianquan, met with the director of the venue, the Zurich
Kongresshaus, directly to try swaying him.

When Shen Yun experienced the same interference this March in
Berlin, Germany, local newspaper Der Tagesspiegel likened the
Chinese regime’s interference to the heavy censorship of
cultural arts and literature in East Germany. “Since East and
West Germany were united, Berlin has never seen such
censorship of the arts. Yet, the Chinese consulate has tried
to interfere with Shen Yun’s performance in Berlin,” the
newspaper article read.

New Zealand