SUISSE: Three-quarters of Swiss back a burka ban

SUISSE: Three-quarters                                   of
Swiss back a burka ban
Swissinfo (08.01.2017) – http://bit.ly/2Fyf7uz – A nationwide
ban on face-coverings – a de facto burka ban – would currently
get the thumbs-up from 76% of Swiss voters, according to a
poll in the SonntagsZeitung and Le Matin Dimanche. Around half
also support the idea of Islam becoming an official Swiss
religion.

Six out of ten respondents said they would definitely back the
ban on face-coverings, put forward by the rightwing Swiss
People’s Party. Some 16.5% said they were leaning towards a
ban, 7% were leaning against it, 13% were definitely against
it and 3% said they had yet to decide.

Almost 70% of respondents also wanted to see headscarves
banned from schools.

But while the Swiss appear to be against burkas and niqabs,
that is not the case for Islam as a religion: 48% backed
official recognition of Islam as a state religion, like
Christianity. This idea has been proposed by the leftwing
Social Democratic Party, on condition that the Islamic
communities adhere to a moderate form of Islam and organise
themselves transparently.

The online surveyexternal link by market researchers
Marketagent asked 1,264 Swiss aged 18-75 in German- and
French-speaking Switzerland between December 7-18.

Ticino is the only canton so far to introduce a total face-
covering ban in public places. St Gallen has a less
restrictive form of ban, but voters have rejected the idea in
Zurich, Solothurn, Schwyz, Basel City and Glarus. Valais
lawmakers recently outlawed a cantonal vote on the wearing of
headgear on the grounds that it would violate the

constitution.

NETHERLAND/ UN/ IRAQ/SYRIA:
Netherlands joins UN Security
Council to shine light on IS
genocide
World Watch Monitor (11.01.2018) – http://bit.ly/2r10m0c – The
Netherlands has just joined the UN Security Council as a
temporary member for a year. Ten days before, its Foreign
Minister, Halbe Zijlstra, published a letter explaining the
Dutch government’s response on the use by politicians of the
term “genocide”.

The Dutch Parliament had had several debates on the “genocide”
committed by members of the Islamic State group (IS), and came
to a consensus that it was not for politicians but for the
international judicial system to make such a determination.

The Dutch government’s response – the main points of which can
be viewed at the bottom of the article – followed a joint
legal opinion from the Advisory Committee on International Law
Issues (CAVV) and the External Adjudication Adviser (EVA),
which it had requested at the end of 2016.

“The Dutch government must be commended for its work on this
topic. Hopefully those promises are translated into action and
will be visible over the next year.”

The Dutch government supported this legal opinion, and
confirmed its reluctance to use the word “genocide” where such

a determination had not been previously           made   by   an
international court or UN body.

However, concerning the atrocities perpetrated by IS against
Christians and Yazidis, the Dutch government confirmed that it
“is the opinion that sufficient facts have been established to
judge that [IS] is most likely guilty of genocide and crimes
against humanity”. It added that the obligations under the
1948 UN Convention on Prevention and Punishment of the Crime
of Genocide apply to IS’s atrocities.

This declaration is late, in comparison with other actors. The
opinion published by the Dutch government, relying on the
joint legal opinion of CAVV and EVA, clarifies the approach to
be taken by government and parliamentary officials concerning
mass atrocities that may amount to genocide.

Additionally, the Dutch government indicated in its letter the
possible direction of work, including: referral of the
situation in Syria to the ICC; supporting the work of the
International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism, a new
mechanism established by the UN General Assembly resolution to
collect evidence of atrocities in Syria; and assisting the
Investigative Team, a new mechanism established by the UN
Security Council to collect evidence of IS atrocities in Iraq.

The Dutch government mentioned that it would further advocate
focussing on atrocities perpetrated by other actors in
addition to IS. Concerning Iraq, this position has been
abandoned by other states for the sake of achieving consensus
on the issue of IS.

But the Dutch government emphasised that the atrocities
perpetrated by other parties must not be neglected and
forgotten.

The Dutch government must be commended for its work on this
topic. Hopefully those promises are translated into action and
will be visible over the next year.

It should also be emphasised that apart from the commendable
joint opinion of the CAVV and EVA, the Dutch government has
had great assistance on the topic from MP Pieter Omtzigt, who
represents the Netherlands at the Parliamentary Assembly of
the Council of Europe and became a rapporteur on bringing IS
to justice in late 2016.

His mandate included preparing a report outlining     the options
to bring IS to justice, and a resolution               proposing
recommendations to member states to the Council of    Europe. The
report and the resolution were adopted by the EU in   late 2017.

Omtzigt will continue to hold his mandate for another year to
follow up on the recommendations made in the EU resolution, as
he looks to ensure the Dutch government makes a firm stance at
the UN Security Council.

He has said he wants to ensure IS militants are prosecuted for
their involvement and complicity through an international or
hybrid tribunal (a domestic court with significant support of
international expert and judges).

The UK recently claimed that it was not “crucial” to make such
a determination of genocide, and that it has fulfilled its
international obligations by working with the Iraqi government
on UN Security Council Resolution 2379, establishing the
Investigative Team to collect the evidence of IS atrocities in
Iraq, and has been providing humanitarian assistance. However,
there is more to the story.

Indeed, the determination of genocide should not be crucial to
trigger the obligations under the 1948 UN Convention on
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide;
historically, however, this has been done first after the use
of the word “genocide”.

The UK was the leading force behind the UN Security Council
Resolution 2379 that passed successfully on 21 September 2017.
However, the resolution proposes that Iraqi courts will deal

with prosecutions of the perpetrators. The question is whether
Iraqi courts can do so.

British peer David Alton questioned the UK government on what
checks it had done before proposing, by way of Resolution
2379, Iraqi courts prosecute IS militants. The UK government
responded that it was currently considering the issue, namely
after the resolution was adopted and not in preparation of the
resolution, to allow it to propose the best solution for
bringing IS to justice.

If, in fact, Iraqi courts do not have the capacity, it means
that an international or a hybrid tribunal will need to be
established, as proposed by Omtzigt. Furthermore, the UK has
failed to prosecute returning IS fighters. According to the
information submitted by the UK to the Council of Europe, as
of early 2017 only 101 individuals connected with IS
atrocities have been convicted, which may be just the tip of
the iceberg, considering that 425 are said to have returned to
the UK.

The UK has been actively supporting the work of the Global
Coalition against IS, a coalition of 74 countries with the aim
to tackle IS on all fronts. However, at the same time, the
assistance provided to the victims of the IS genocide is
concerning. The UK government confirmed that it is funding 171
projects in the Christian areas affected by IS atrocities and
80 projects in the Yazidi areas. While this may sound
reassuring, the extent, impact, and benefit of these projects
is unclear. I attempted to obtain this information by way of
Freedom of Information request but have not received word back
yet.

However, as indicated in the letter from the Dutch government,
the determination of genocide is a vital step towards the
fulfilment of the obligations to prevent and punish.

*Ewelina Ochab is a human-rights advocate and author of ‘Never

Again: Legal Responses to a Broken Promise in the Middle East’

USA/AUSTRIA/IRAN: 100 Iranian
Christians waiting to enter
U.S. could be sent back to
Iran
Washington Free Beacon (09.01.2017) – http://bit.ly/2qMfz4U –
U.S. government action could send 100 mostly Christian
Iranians stranded in Vienna back to Iran this week, where
their return during the harsh government crackdown on
dissidents could target them for further persecution, human
rights activists warn.

The deportation threat looms despite the Trump
administration’s and Congress’s vocal support for protesters
in Iran, who are waging the strongest nationwide uprising
against the government in Tehran in eight years.
“These deportations, during a human-rights crackdown in Iran
no less, could be a death sentence for these persecuted
Christians and other minorities,” Nina Shea, an international
humans rights lawyer who directs the Hudson Institute’s Center
for Religious Freedom, told the Washington Free Beacon. “They
would undermine the important statements against Iran’s
repression by President Trump, Vice President Pence and U.N.
Ambassador [Nikki Haley].”

“The administration needs to act fast to stop this travesty,”
she said, noting that the U.S. government could give the
refugees notices denying them entry to the U.S. as early as
this week. This would leave the Austrians with little choice

but to send them back to Iran.

Activists say the timing of the deportation threat is also
particularly troublesome for the Trump administration, after
the State Department last week designated Iran among 10
countries “of particular concern” for “systematic, ongoing,
and egregious violations of religious freedom.”

The Iranian Christian refugees traveled to Vienna in January
2017 under a 27-year-old U.S. law passed by Congress to help
Jews escape persecution in the Soviet Union. Under a 2004
update of the law, known as the Lautenberg amendment, the
State Department has helped tens of thousands of Iranian Jews,
Christians, and Baha’is who were at risk in their home country
to resettle in the United States.

During the end of the Obama administration, the State
Department initially signed off on plans to resettle the
latest group of mostly Iranian Christian refugees but then
placed a hold on them toward the end of last year before Trump
took office, according to Anna Buwalda, executive director of
the Jubilee Campaign. The Jubilee Campaign is a nonprofit
organization that advocates for religious minorities who
suffer persecution in their home countries.
Buwalda says she and other human-rights activists don’t know
why the U.S. appears to be on the brink of denying them entry
to the United States, and no one at the State Department or
DHS has provided any answers.

“This is part of the mystery, and nobody’s been able to
receive any information to explain it,” she said.

One-third of the refugees were set to resettle in California,
where many of their relatives who have already gone through
the refugee resettlement process are located, according to the
activists.

The Department of Homeland Security, which has an office in
Vienna, helped interview and vet the refugees, along with

HIAS, the global Jewish nonprofit that works with the State
Department on Lautenberg program refugee cases, Buwalda said.

HIAS referred a request for comment to its partner, the State
Department Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.
Neither the State Department nor the DHS provided a response.

The refugees, most of them Armenians and Assyrians, have been
waiting in Vienna for a year as U.S. courts have weighed in on
the constitutionality of the travel ban, and recently were
informed they must go back to Iran, according to Shea and
Buwalda.

It is unclear if the Trump administration is behind the
deportation threat or if Austria is becoming impatient with
these cases remaining in limbo.

Human rights groups are urging the administration to take
action and are worried the refugees and other priorities
involving religious minorities in hotspots around the world
are falling through the cracks as key Trump administration
posts remain vacant a year into his presidency.

“The U.S. has broken its promise to Iranian religious
minorities,” Buwalda said. “They traveled to Vienna at the
invitation of the United States, with the understanding that
they would soon be reunited with their American families.
Instead, the groups of refugees have been forced to wait there
for more than a year with no explanation.

They have no source of income, and many have spent down their
life savings.”

“The U.S. government must solve this situation quickly and
humanely,” she said.

One key post that would normally handle Lautenberg program
issues remains vacant. Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback’s nomination
to the State Department post of ambassador at large for

religious freedom is in limbo after Democrats placed a hold on
it late last year and blocked the Senate from approving him.

The White House re-nominated Brownback on Monday but has not
publicly disclosed whether it intends to expend the political
capital to lean on the Senate to quickly confirm him. Senate
GOP leaders would have to devote at least three days of
precious floor time to hold a floor vote on the nomination if
Democrats continue to oppose him instead of passing him
quickly by unanimous consent.

The White House did not respond to an inquiry into Brownback’s
nomination.

Catholic and other Christian leaders have praised the Trump
administration’s rhetoric on the issue. They point to the
administration’s National Security Strategy report, unveiled
in late December, and its pledge to “protect religious
minorities” abroad.

Pence in October received a standing ovation at a dinner
devoted to religious freedom issue when he pledged that “help
is on the way” to religious minority communities in Iraq
struggling to recover from Islamic State genocide.
However, Trump also has yet to appoint a special adviser for
international religious freedom at the White House’s National
Security Council and has kept a special envoy for religious
freedom post downgraded in power, as it was during the Obama
administration.

The faith office at USAID also remains without a leader.

A firsthand account of child
marriage   in   a   Lebanese
refugee camp
  She got married for protection. She escaped for
                     survival.

Painting by an SB OverSeas beneficiary in Lebanon

By Kevin Charbel, SB OverSeas

SB OverSeas (11.01.2018) – When the bombing started, at first
people were paralysed by fear and uncertainty, having never
experienced something of that kind before. Then the school was

hit while children were attending classes inside.

Sarah, along with the majority of the village’s parents,
decided that it was necessary to seek refuge elsewhere in
order to survive. She left for a camp on the Turkish/Syrian
border with her six children, planning to have her husband
follow shortly. She’d heard that families would be safe there.

Months passed without any news until eventually she was
informed that her husband had been arrested on his way to meet
her and hadn’t been seen or heard of since. Her situation
becoming unsustainable without him, she was forced to
undertake a second perilous journey to a camp in Saida,
southern Lebanon where she was aware that some members of her
community had found safety.

Nour, Sarah’s daughter, was 8 when they settled in the camp
where she would spend the next four years growing up, spending
her time minding her younger siblings while Sarah went to
work. Living conditions are difficult there, most families
residing inside a huge, five-story concrete shell of a
building that was one day meant to be a university.

The grey unplastered walls of the camp tend to stifle the
natural curiosity and imagination that children are born with,
but Nour never lost it. She continued to exude light and
energy, cultivating social links indiscriminately within her
community. These attributes, coupled with her precocious
nature, is what Sarah believes to be the reason that her
neighbours and friends started to whisper doubts about Nour’s
morality and virginity.

A family without a male protector in this context is
vulnerable to many forms of attack, especially if their
standing in the community is threatened. Sarah did not see it
as normal for Nour to be married so early, particularly as she
herself had married at 20 years old, but she saw no other
option to guarantee the protection of her daughter and the
rest of her children. With a heavy heart, she made it known
that she was looking for a husband for Nour, which almost
immediately drew the attention of a woman from a community
close by who proposed her son as a suitor. Nour was introduced
to the 18 year-old construction worker the next day and, a few
hours later, agreed to marry him.

One of the most difficult moments in Sarah’s life was
explaining to her 12 year-old daughter what to expect on her
wedding night. To explain that her husband would want to get
close to her and to not push him away if he kissed her. That
he would teach her how to be a wife to him.

The ceremony was carried out quietly and without legal
documentation as Nour’s age prevented any official
recognition. The cleric who administered the ceremony was
careful to remind the families that they should not discuss
his involvement.

Nour moved in with her husband’s family after the wedding,
some ten kilometres away from Sarah. She regularly called to
say that she was unhappy and didn’t like how her husband and
his family treated her. She was allowed to visit her mother
only very rarely, but she took every opportunity to express
her discontent, her sadness and loneliness. Eventually, after

four months had gone by, Nour turned up alone at her mother’s
doorstep, explaining that she had run away from her husband
and no longer wanted to go back. Sarah contacted the husband’s
family to find out what had happened; she was told that Nour
was not welcome back as they were frustrated with her
childishness and ineptitude for household duties.

The divorce was finalised a week later. Nour is now back      at
home with Sarah and her brothers, but all she wants is to     be
left alone, refusing to leave her home. The light that was    in
her eyes has been replaced by dullness, her energy replaced   by
apathy.

When asked about her daughter’s future, Sarah cannot hold back
the tears. She hastens to explain that she regrets having ever
made her child go through such an ordeal and that she just
hopes that Nour can get back to being herself again one day.

Learn more about SB OverSeas at: http://sboverseas.org

______________________________________________________________
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List of hundreds of documented cases of believers of various
faiths                         in                         20

countries: http://hrwf.eu/forb/forb-and-blasphemy-prisoners-li
st/

Poverty for Syrian refugees
could push children to marry
and work
The Gulf Today (10.01.2018) – http://bit.ly/2EsiYb6 – BEIRUT:
Nearly seven years into Syria’s civil war, Syrian refugees in
neighbouring Lebanon are becoming poorer, leaving children at
risk of child labour and early marriage, aid organisations
said on Tuesday.

A recent survey by the United Nations children’s agency
UNICEF, UN’s World Food Programme, and refugee agency, UNHCR
showed that Syrian refugees in Lebanon are more vulnerable now
than they have been since the beginning of the crisis.

Struggling to survive, more than three quarters of the
refugees in Lebanon now live on less than $4 per day,
according to the survey which was based on data collected last
year.

“The situation for Syrian refugees in Lebanon is actually
getting worse – they are getting poorer. They are barely
staying afloat,” Scott Craig, UNHCR spokesman in Lebanon, told
the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Around 1.5 million refugees who fled Syria’s violence account
for a quarter of Lebanon’s population.

The Lebanese government has long avoided setting up official
refugee camps. So, many Syrians live in tented settlements,

languishing in poverty and facing restrictions on legal
residence or work.

“Child labour and early marriage are direct consequences of
poverty,” Tanya Chapuisat, UNICEF spokeswoman in Lebanon said
in a statement to the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“We fear this (poverty) will lead to more children being
married away or becoming breadwinners instead of attending
school,” she said.

According to UNICEF, 5 percent of Syrian refugee children
between 5-17 are working, and one in five Syrian girls and
women aged between 15 and 25 is married.

Mike Bruce, a spokesman for the Norwegian Refugee Council,
said without sufficient humanitarian aid and proper work
Syrian families would increasingly fall into debt and more
could turn to “negative coping mechanisms” like child labour
and marriage.

Cold winter temperatures in Lebanon would also hurt refugees,
he said.
“Refugees are less and less able to deal with each shock that
they face and severe weather could be one of those shocks,”
said Bruce.

………………………………….

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/womens-rights-gender-equality/

List of hundreds of documented cases of believers of various
faiths                         in                         20

countries: http://hrwf.eu/forb/forb-and-blasphemy-prisoners-li
st/