Text of the Gaza ceasefire proposal approved by Hamas
Al Jazeera has obtained a copy of the Gaza ceasefire proposal that Hamas said it accepted on Monday. The deal, which was put forward by Egypt and Qatar, would come in three stages that would see an initial halt in the fighting leading to lasting calm and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Palestinian territory. The proposed agreement would also ensure the release of Israeli captives in Gaza as well as an unspecified number of Palestinians held in Israeli jails. Israel has said that it does not agree to the proposal but that it will engage in further talks to secure an agreement – all while pushing on with its assault on Gaza. Meanwhile, the United States, which is also involved in the negotiations, said it is reviewing the Hamas response. Here’s the text of the proposed deal: The basic principles for an agreement between the Israeli side and the Palestinian side in Gaza on the exchange of captives and prisoners between them and the return of sustainable calm. The framework agreement aims at: The release of all Israeli captives in the Gaza Strip, civilians or military, alive or otherwise, from all periods, in exchange for a number of prisoners held by Israel as agreed upon, and a return to a sustainable calm that leads to a permanent ceasefire and a withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip, its reconstruction and the lifting of the siege. The framework agreement consists of three related and interconnected stages, which are as follows: The first stage (42 days) [Herein] a temporary cessation of military operations between the two parties, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces eastward and away from densely populated areas to a defined area along the border all along the Gaza Strip (including Wadi Gaza, known as the Netzarim Corridor, and Kuwait Roundabout, as below). All aviation (military and reconnaissance) in the Gaza Strip shall cease for 10 hours a day, and for 12 hours on the days when captives and prisoners are being exchanged. Internally displaced people in Gaza shall return to their areas of residence and Israel shall withdraw from Wadi Gaza, the Netzarim corridor, and the Kuwait Roundabout: On the third day (after the release of three captives), Israeli forces are to withdraw completely from al-Rashid Street in the east to Salah al-Din Street, and dismantle military sites and installations in this area. Displaced persons (unarmed) shall return to their areas of residence and all residents of Gaza shall be allowed freedom of movement in all parts of the Strip. Humanitarian aid shall be allowed in via al-Rashid Street from the first day without any obstacles. On the 22nd day (after the release of half the living civilian captives in Gaza, including female soldiers), Israeli forces are to withdraw from the centre of the Gaza Strip (especially the Netzarim/Martyrs Corridor and the Kuwait Roundabout axis), from the east of Salah al-Din Street to a zone along the border, and all military sites and installations are to be completely dismantled. Displaced people shall be allowed to return to their places of residence in the north of Gaza, and all residents to have freedom of movement in all parts of the Gaza Strip. Humanitarian aid, relief materials and fuel (600 trucks a day, including 50 fuel trucks, and 300 trucks for the north) shall be allowed into Gaza in an intensive manner and in sufficient quantities from the first day. This is to include the fuel needed to operate the power station, restart trade, rehabilitate and operate hospitals, health centres and bakeries in all parts of the Gaza Strip, and operate equipment needed to remove rubble. This shall continue throughout all stages. Exchange of captives and prisoners between the two sides: During the first phase, Hamas shall release 33 Israeli captives (alive or dead), including women (civilians and soldiers), children (under the age of 19 who are not soldiers), those over the age of 50, and the sick, in exchange for a number of prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention centres, according to the following [criteria]: Hamas shall release all living Israeli captives, including civilian women and children (under the age of 19 who are not soldiers). In return, Israel shall release 30 children and women for every Israeli detainee released, based on lists provided by Hamas, in order of detention. Hamas shall release all living Israeli captives (over the age of 50), the sick, and wounded civilians. In return, Israel shall release 30 elderly (over 50) and sick prisoners for every Israeli captive, based on lists provided by Hamas, in order of detention. Hamas shall release all living Israeli female soldiers. In return, Israel shall release 50 prisoners (30 serving life sentences, 20 sentenced) for every Israeli female soldier, based on lists provided by Hamas. Scheduling the exchange of captives and prisoners between the parties in the first stage: Hamas shall release three Israeli detainees on the third day of the agreement, after which Hamas shall release three other detainees every seven days, starting with women as much as possible (civilians and female soldiers). In the sixth week, Hamas shall release all remaining civilian detainees included in this phase. In return, Israel shall release the agreed-upon number of Palestinian prisoners, according to lists Hamas will provide. Hamas will provide information about the Israeli detainees who will be released at this stage by the seventh day (if possible). On the 22nd day, the Israeli side shall release all prisoners from the Shalit deal who have been re-arrested. If there are fewer than 33 living Israeli detainees to be released, a number of bodies from the same categories shall be released to complete this stage. In return, Israel will release all women and children who were arrested from the Gaza Strip after October 7, 2023 – provided this is done in the fifth week of this stage. The exchange process is linked to the extent of commitment to the agreement, including the cessation of military operations, the withdrawal
Slum to stardom: Indonesian film director Joko Anwar is riding high
Medan, Indonesia – Indonesian film director Joko Anwar is a busy man. He is on location in the city of Bandung, shooting “a new project”, the details of which he refuses to divulge, while also wrapping up post-production on another film to be released “soon”. At the same time, he is doing press for his latest smash-hit horror flick Siksa Kubur (Grave Torture), which was released in Indonesia on April 11 and has already sold almost 4 million tickets – putting it on track to join the top 10 highest grossing Indonesian films of all time. “Can you give me 10 minutes,” he apologises about 20 minutes into the phone interview, having said that he was on set but not that he was actually between takes. “I just need to shoot this scene.” It is perhaps no surprise that Anwar, one of Indonesia’s most celebrated film directors, is good at multitasking – particularly if the rave reviews of Siksa Kubur, which he wrote, directed and marketed, are anything to go by. The film tells the story of a young girl Sita (played by Widuri Puteri) and her brother Adil (Muzakki Ramdhan). It begins in 1997 when the siblings witness their parents, who own a bakery, die in a suicide bombing. Joko Anwar with the cast of A Copy of my Mind at the Venice International Film Festival in 2015 [Andrea Merola/EPA] The bomber, who steps into the bakery moments before detonating the bomb, plans to die as a martyr – believing he will go straight to heaven and avoid being tortured in his grave. “The concept of grave torture does not exist in other religions – it is uniquely Muslim,” Anwar explained. “Muslims believe that, when you die, you will be questioned by two angels about your life. If you don’t do well, you will be tortured in your grave.” After watching her parents die at the hands of a man who believes he can evade sin even as he murders innocent bystanders, Sita becomes obsessed with proving that grave torture does not exist and that religion is primarily a form of fear-mongering. It is a sensitive topic in Indonesia, where almost 90 percent of the country’s 270 million people are Muslim, but Anwar, himself a practising Muslim, says that he did not want the film to be “judgemental”. “We tried to treat the topic with the greatest respect and not disparage anyone. We were just throwing out questions and hoping that there would be a discussion. We wanted the film to be an experience that led to reflection,” he said. The idea for Siksa Kubur was percolating in Anwar’s mind for “a long time” before it came to fruition. “I wanted to examine the relationship between religion and people. Since I was a child, I have had questions about belief and religion, which I tried to explain to the audience through these characters.” One of these characters is the head of the Islamic boarding school that the orphaned Sita and Adil attend, and who abuses the young boys in his care. Anwar wrote the screenplay following a series of high-profile cases of abuse at religious institutions across Indonesia, including Muslim and Christian schools. “Teachers at religious schools use religion as their identity, so I wanted to ask the question: Why are they doing that then?” he said. “The theme of abuse at religious institutions was based on a very relevant issue in Indonesia.” ‘Gotham City’ Like Sita and Adil, Anwar’s childhood was difficult. He was born in 1976 in the city of Medan, the provincial capital of North Sumatra. His father worked as a pedicab driver, a backbreaking job riding a bicycle with a passenger cab around the densely populated city, while his mother sold fabric in a local market. Anwar grew up in what he describes as “a slum named Amplas”. Located in the heart of Medan, Amplas is the city’s main transit terminal, clogged with long-distance buses ferrying passengers across Sumatra and beyond. Christine Hakim got her part in Siksa Kubur after a chance meeting with Anwar in a hotel lobby [Courtesy of Joko Anwar] Like many transit hubs, Amplas has long had a reputation for a certain amount of vice, filled with pickpockets and ticket touts, grifters and traffickers – serviced by open-air shacks that offer a cheap local moonshine made from the fermented sap of toddy palms. Across the rest of Indonesia, Medan also has a nickname: Gotham City, after the crime-ridden metropolis in the Batman comics. Anwar, a comic book fan, laughs when reminded of the moniker and agrees that Medan is a tough place to live. Amplas, in particular, he says, was “not conducive to a child”. By the age of 14, the majority of Anwar’s peers were either “in prison, married because they got someone pregnant, or consumed by drugs and crime. I escaped by watching films”. From the age of six, Anwar would make an arduous 45-minute journey on foot to a rundown “bioskop rakyat” (community cinema), which sold cheap tickets for local Indonesian films and kung-fu movies from Hong Kong. Sometimes, he had the few rupiahs he needed for a ticket and could go inside, but at other times, he did not have enough or the sellers refused entry to a child on their own. On those occasions, Anwar would stand on his tiptoes and peek through the ventilation shaft of the cinema, which did not have air conditioning and was cooled by fans. “That way, I could see about three-quarters of the screen, and I discovered that there were different worlds other than my own,” he recalled. His dream of attending film school, however, proved elusive when his parents could not afford the fees, and instead, Anwar went to the Institute of Technology in Bandung where he studied aeronautical engineering before becoming a journalist and film critic for the Jakarta Post. Once there, he interviewed filmmaker Nia Dinata, who helped him get hired as an assistant director for
‘Yemen at a crossroads’: Nearly 200 aid groups issue urgent funding appeal
Only a fraction of funds needed to provide aid to millions in the war-torn country is secured, the groups say. Dozens of aid groups have called for more donor funding to meet the urgent humanitarian needs of Yemen, warning that inaction would lead to “catastrophic consequences” for people in the war-ravaged country. In a joint statement released on Monday, 188 humanitarian organisations including United Nations agencies said they had secured only $435m of the $2.7bn required to provide crucial assistance, warning of threats such as food shortages and diseases. “Underfunding poses a challenge to the continuity of humanitarian programming, causing delays, reductions and suspensions of lifesaving assistance programmes,” the statement said, warning that 18.2 million people – more than half the population – needed help after more than nine years of war. Dire needs despite relative calm Yemen has been gripped by conflict since late 2014 when the country’s Houthi rebels seized large swaths of the country, including the capital, Sanaa. It escalated in March 2015 when Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates assembled a United States-backed military coalition in an attempt to restore the internationally recognised government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. A UN-brokered truce in 2022 has seen reduced hostilities, but humanitarian needs remain dire. Meanwhile, recent Houthi attacks on ships transiting through the Red Sea in protest against Israel’s war on Gaza and US retaliatory strikes threaten to shatter the relative calm. A shrinking economy, deteriorating public services, low-intensity violence and climate change vulnerabilities continue to drive humanitarian crises in the country, the aid groups’ statement said, adding that nursing women, older people and children are particularly vulnerable to rising levels of food shortages. The spread of cholera in the current rainy season, as well as unexploded munitions that have caused deaths and injuries, are also serious concerns, the groups said, noting that Yemen is a country “at a crossroads”. “We cannot ignore the significant humanitarian needs that remain and that cannot be addressed without adequate funding to respond,” the statement said. With a population of 33 million, Yemen is one of the world’s poorest countries and among the most vulnerable to climate change. Hundreds of thousands have died in the war or from indirect causes such as a lack of food, according to the UN. In March, NGOs warned that two in five Yemeni children are not attending school, while more than 17 million people – half of them children – require health assistance. Monday’s appeal to boost the country’s 2024 Humanitarian Response Plan came a day before a meeting of high-ranking European Union officials in Brussels to discuss aid for the country. Adblock test (Why?)
Israel orders Rafah evacuation after night of intense bombardment
NewsFeed Palestinian families have begun leaving eastern Rafah after the Israeli military ordered its evacuation, saying it will use ‘extreme force’ there. World leaders have repeatedly warned against a military offensive where more than 1.5 million displaced people are sheltering. Published On 6 May 20246 May 2024 Adblock test (Why?)
Tunis police raid sees refugees abandoned near the border with Algeria
Tunis, Tunisia – Teams of refuse workers are busy in the deserted alleyway outside the International Organization for Migration (IOM) offices in Tunis. A nearby park stands empty. In both, large piles of refuse are the only evidence of the hundreds of sub-Saharan African refugees and migrants who sheltered here until recently. In the early hours of Friday morning, police swept into both camps, plus a protest site outside the offices of the UNHCR a few miles distant, clearing them of the shelters erected there and bundling the men, women and children onto municipal buses to the Algerian border. The Refugees in Libya organisation claims they were taken off the buses near the border town of Jendouba – whose governorate borders Algeria – where they were left without food or water to fend for themselves. The raids in Tunis are the latest example of an increasingly hostile environment taking hold in Tunisia. One where irregular sub-Saharan African arrivals, their numbers swelling by the day, find themselves attacked by both security services and politicians, forced to shelter in open fields while increasingly vulnerable to kidnapping and ransom. Who they are There are currently tens of thousands of irregular sub-Saharan African arrivals sheltering in Tunisia, nearly all hoping to continue their months-long journeys on to Europe. 🚨Ongoing mass desert dumping by the Tunisian authorities. Yesterday at approximately 3 am, multiple police forces including special riot control and anti-terrorism units dismantled the protest camp outside the UNHCR office in the Lac zone of Tunis. Hundreds of refugees and… pic.twitter.com/5uaYxDmR75 — Refugees In Libya (@RefugeesinLibya) May 3, 2024 Total numbers are impossible to confirm. However, the IOM estimates that about 15,000 may be living in the fields near the coastal city of Sfax after police ejected them from the centre in September. Some have returned to the outskirts of the city, squatting in the working-class districts close to the rail tracks. More shelter in the fields near Zarzis, close to the Libyan border, clustering around the UNHCR office in hopes of securing refugee accreditation and a degree of protection in a country that offers none. Some 550 were estimated to have been living rough in Tunis at the time of Friday’s police raid. Outside the offices of the IOM, many families had sheltered in structures of timber and tarpaulin. Among them were a large number of children and newborn babies, including Freedom, a four-month-old boy born in Tunisia to a Nigerian mother, Gift. “I named him that because I need freedom,” she had told Al Jazeera, “I need to know freedom. There is no freedom for us,” she says. Gift had entered the country last summer through Libya, where a militia patrolling the desert had taken her prisoner, holding her for seven months before her family in Nigeria could raise her ransom. Gift and Freedom’s location is currently unknown. Cleanup crews clearing the alleyway by the IOM office in Tunis on May 3, 2024 [Al Jazeera] Unwanted Conditions in the fields near Sfax are dire, 37-year-old Richard from Ghana said. Violent police raids and surveillance have grown more frequent and disease has gradually taken hold in a community deprived of medical care. The fear of arrest and deportation to the desert borders with Libya and Algeria is ubiquitous. “Conditions there are bad. Very, very bad,” Richard said. He had returned from Sfax to the fragile security of the IOM camp in Tunis a week earlier. “I am sick, you can see. My body hurts,” he said. “I have to go to hospital but they give you no assistance. In Sfax, it is very difficult.” He gestured to his friend Solomon, 36, who was coughing: “My brother here is really sick. He’s been coughing for some time,” he said. “I started to cough three days ago. All my body hurts. Lots of people at the camp had the same symptoms,” Solomon said. On top of the spread of disease is the ongoing threat from the police. Camps around Sfax where the undocumented shelter offer no protection from police surveillance, which has taken to the skies recently. “I saw the drones,” Solomon says. “I was at Kilometre 31. They were going up and down,” he says, waving his hand above his head. Tear gas canisters from Al Amrah, near Sfax, Tunisia 23-25 April 2024 [Courtesy of Richard] Richard joins in, he had been at Kilometre 34, names given to the informal camps based on their distance from Sfax centre. He describes a raid last month where the refugees were able to film the police burning tents and firing tear gas. “The police came and burned the tents,” Richard explains, showing the video of the raid on his phone. “I don’t know why they did it,” he says. But this is just one of what have become commonplace raids for those living in the fields around Sfax, shut off from the world by a police force that seeks to block access from NGOs and prying journalists. Both Richard and Solomon subsequently told Al Jazeera that they were away from the Tunis camps at the time of the police raid. Kidnapped With much of the sub-Saharan African refugee community existing in an official vacuum, a trade in kidnapping has been growing since at least the end of last year. In Tunis, huddled on a broken sofa that, like the shelters surrounding it, was subsequently swept up in the raid, three Sierra Leoneans spoke of having been held and tortured on arriving in Sfax from Algeria. Tunisia Is Not Safe. Please We Want To Leave Before🇹🇳Election. Many Woman,Breastfeeding Mum And Kids Have To Sleep Out Until Their Parents,Guidance Able To Fix Their Plastic Houses. European Migration Policy Keep Enslaves,Kill,Rape,Exploitation In Our Own Continent.🇹🇳🇪🇺Are Killer https://t.co/S9ULWrwguu pic.twitter.com/mMZCL4Sfqp — Josephus Thomas (@JosephusT001) April 6, 2024 They were held prisoner by an unknown number of Francophones, their guess was Cameroonians, after being “sold” to them by the Tunisian smugglers they had already paid 600 euros ($644) to. “They beat us with
No arrests as Los Angeles police clear USC pro-Palestinian encampment
Students and other protesters have called for universities to divest their financial ties to Israel. Protests against Israel’s war on Gaza continue across university campuses in the United States as graduation season gets under way, with police in Los Angeles making no arrests as they cleared a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of Southern California (USC). After USC requested assistance, police entered the encampment about 5am local time (12:00 GMT) on Sunday and worked with campus police to remove tents as students peacefully left the area, police said. The move comes a day after at least 25 pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested as police cleared an encampment at the University of Virginia (UVA). Tensions flared at UVA’s campus in Charlottesville, where protests had been largely peaceful until Saturday morning, when police officers in riot gear were seen in a video moving on an encampment on the campus’s lawn and cuffing some demonstrators with zip ties. Campus protests have emerged as a political flashpoint during a US election year as Democratic President Joe Biden seeks a second term in office. Police have arrested more than 2,000 people during protests at dozens of campuses around the country. Students and other protesters have called for universities to divest their financial ties to Israel and push for a ceasefire. Under mounting political pressure, Biden on Thursday broke his silence on the campus unrest, saying Americans have the right to demonstrate but not to unleash violence. Many colleges, including Columbia University in New York City, have called in police to quell protests. At the University of Texas in Austin on Sunday, drones deployed by police circled overhead as about 200 pro-Palestinian demonstrators rallied, with about 50 onlookers, local media reported. The speakers advised fellow demonstrators to remain peaceful and not engage the police. Adam, a Palestine Solidarity Committee organiser protesting at the University of Texas at Austin, told Al Jazeera that Palestinian students recognise that American students support Palestine. “We will no longer deal in the blood of Palestinians,” he said. Al Jazeera’s Phil Lavelle, reporting from the University of California Irvine, said the situation there was relatively calm and talks between the protesters and the university administration were ongoing. “We understand there is a protest in San Francisco. Here at UC Irvine, things are very calm,” he said. Separately, there have been at least four bomb threats at New York area synagogues over the weekend, police said, but none have proven credible. New York Governor Kathy Hochul said on X late Saturday: “We will not tolerate individuals sowing fear & antisemitism. Those responsible must be held accountable for their despicable actions.” At least 34,683 people have been killed, mostly women and children, and 78,018 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza since October, according to Palestinian authorities. Israel launched the assault on Gaza after Hamas led an attack on southern Israel, killing at least 1,139 people, mostly civilians, according to an Al Jazeera tally based on Israeli statistics. Adblock test (Why?)
At least 75 killed, more than 100 others missing in Brazil floods
More than 88,000 people are displaced as floods hit Brazil’s southern Rio Grande do Sul state. Massive floods in Brazil’s southern Rio Grande do Sul state have killed at least 75 people over the last seven days, and another 103 were reported missing, local authorities have said. Damage from the rains also forced more than 88,000 people from their homes, state civil defence authorities said on Sunday. Approximately 16,000 took refuge in schools, gymnasiums and other temporary shelters. The floods left a wake of devastation, including landslides, washed-out roads and collapsed bridges across the state. Operators reported electricity and communications cuts. More than 800,000 people are without a water supply, according to the civil defence, which cited figures from water company Corsan. “I repeat and insist: the devastation to which we are being subjected is unprecedented,” state Governor Eduardo Leite said on Sunday morning. He had previously said that the state will need a “kind of ‘Marshall Plan’ to be rebuilt”. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva visited Rio Grande do Sul for a second time on Sunday, accompanied by Defence Minister Jose Mucio, Finance Minister Fernando Haddad and Environment Minister Marina Silva, among others. The leader and his team surveyed the flooded streets of the state capital, Porto Alegre, from a helicopter. “We need to stop running behind disasters. We need to see in advance what calamities might happen and we need to work,” President Lula told journalists afterwards. A man walks by a farm destroyed by the currents of the flash floods caused by heavy rains in Jacarezinho, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil [Diego Vara/Reuters] The Guaiba River reached a record level of 5.33m (17.5 feet) on Sunday morning, surpassing levels seen during a historic 1941 deluge, when the river reached 4.76m (15.6 feet). During Sunday mass at the Vatican, Pope Francis said he was praying for the state’s population. “May the Lord welcome the dead and comfort their families and those who had to abandon their homes,” he said. The downpour started on Monday and was expected to last through Sunday. In some areas, such as valleys, mountain slopes and cities, more than 300mm (11.8 inches) of rain fell in less than a week, according to Brazil’s National Institute of Meteorology, known by the Portuguese acronym INMET, on Thursday. Rescue workers evacuate a flood victim in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil [Renan Mattos/Reuters] The heavy rains were the fourth such environmental disaster in the state in a year, following floods in July, September and November 2023 that killed 75 people. Weather across South America is affected by the climate phenomenon El Nino, a periodic, naturally occurring event that warms surface waters in the Equatorial Pacific region. In Brazil, El Nino has historically caused droughts in the north and intense rainfall in the south. This year, the impacts of El Nino have been particularly dramatic, with a historic drought in the Amazon. Scientists say extreme weather is happening more frequently due to human-caused climate change. “These tragedies will continue to happen, increasingly worse and more frequent,” said Suely Araujo, a public policy coordinator at the Climate Observatory, a network of dozens of environmental and social groups. Brazil needs to adjust to the effects of climate change, she said in a Friday statement, referring to a process known as adaptation. Adblock test (Why?)
Al Jazeera vows to continue coverage of Gaza war despite Israeli ban
NewsFeed Al Jazeera has condemned Israel’s closure of the network that has seen its offices raided and the channel go dark. The Qatar-based media outlet ‘affirms its right to continue to provide news and information to its global audiences’. Published On 5 May 20245 May 2024 Adblock test (Why?)
‘Radicalised’ 16-year-old shot dead by Australia police after stabbing man
Police kill the boy after he stabbed a man in Perth in an attack authorities say indicated ‘terrorism’. Police in Australia say they have shot dead a boy after he stabbed a man in the western city of Perth, in an attack authorities said had “hallmarks of terrorism”. There were signs the 16-year-old, armed with a kitchen knife, had been “radicalised online”, Western Australia province’s Premier Roger Cook told reporters on Sunday. The victim in his 30s was stabbed in the back on Saturday night in the parking lot of a hardware store in the city’s suburban Willetton area. Authorities said they received calls from concerned members of the local Muslim community before the attack. The man was stable in a hospital, authorities said. “At this stage it appears that he acted solely and alone,” Cook told a televised news conference in Perth. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he had been briefed on the incident by police and intelligence agencies, which advised there was no ongoing threat. “We are a peace-loving nation and there is no place for violent extremism in Australia,” Albanese said on X. My thoughts are with those who have been affected by the incident in the Perth suburb of Willetton overnight. I have spoken with WA Premier Roger Cook this morning, and I thank the WA Police for acting swiftly to contain the incident. — Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) May 5, 2024 Police said members of the local Muslim community had made complaints about the boy’s behaviour just before the attack, helping to quickly identify him. On Saturday night, the teenager appeared to have placed a call to the police, saying he was going to commit “acts of violence”. Police said they were later alerted by a phone call from a member of the public that a knife attack was under way in the car park. Three police officers responded, one armed with a gun and two with tasers. The tasers failed to subdue the boy before he was killed by a single gunshot. Syed Wadood Janud, the imam of Perth’s largest mosque, the Nasir Mosque, condemned the stabbing in a statement. “There is no place for violence in Islam,” he said. “We appreciate the effort of the police to keep our communities safe. I also want to commend the local Muslim community who had flagged the individual prior with the police.” Saturday’s incident is the latest in a series of knife attacks in Australia in recent weeks. Last month, New South Wales police charged several boys with terrorism-related offences in investigations following the stabbing of an Assyrian Christian bishop while he was giving a livestreamed sermon in Sydney. The attack on the bishop came only days after a stabbing spree killed six in the Sydney beachside suburb of Bondi. Gun and knife crime is rare in Australia, which consistently ranks among the safest countries in the world, according to the federal government. Adblock test (Why?)
India calls Canada arrests over Sikh activist murder ‘political compulsion’
Reacting to Indian nationals’ arrest, Trudeau acknowledges fear in Canada’s Sikh community but underscores ‘rule of law’. Canada’s investigation into alleged Indian involvement in the assassination of a Sikh separatist in Vancouver last year is a “political compulsion”, India’s foreign minister has said after three Indian citizens were arrested over the killing. Canadian police on Friday arrested the trio for the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, saying they were investigating their links to the Indian government, “if any”. He migrated to Canada in 1997 and acquired citizenship 18 years later. He was wanted by Indian authorities for alleged terrorism and conspiracy to commit murder, the allegations he had denied. On June 18, 2023, he was shot dead by masked assailants in the car park of the Sikh temple he led in suburban Vancouver. Nijjar’s killing sent diplomatic relations between Ottawa and New Delhi into a tailspin last year after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there were “credible allegations” linking Indian intelligence to the crime. India rejected the allegations as “absurd”, temporarily halting the processing of visas and forcing Canada to reduce its diplomatic presence in the country significantly. “It is their political compulsion in Canada to blame India,” the Press Trust of India news agency quoted India’s External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar as saying on Saturday. New Delhi has sought to persuade Ottawa not to grant Sikh separatists visas or political legitimacy, Jaishankar said, since they are “causing problems for them [Canada], for us and also for our relationship”. He added that Canada does not “share any evidence with us in certain cases, [and] police agencies also do not cooperate with us”. Jaishankar said India will wait for the Canadian police to share information on the arrested men, adding that the suspects “apparently are Indians of some kind of gang background”. “We’ll have to wait for the police to tell us,” he said. “But, as I said, one of our concerns which we have been telling them is that, you know, they have allowed organised crime from India, specifically from Punjab, to operate in Canada.” The three Indian nationals, all in their 20s, were arrested in Edmonton, the capital of Alberta province, on first-degree murder and conspiracy charges. They were accused of being the attacker, driver and lookout in his killing last June. The Canadian police said they were aware that “others may have played a role” in the murder. Meanwhile, Trudeau, speaking on Saturday at an event in Toronto to celebrate Sikh heritage and culture, acknowledged that many Sikhs in Canada are “feeling uneasy, and perhaps even frightened right now”, but urged faith in the justice system. “Let us remain calm and remain steadfast in our commitment to our democratic principles and our system of justice,” he said. Trudeau said the arrests were “important because Canada is a rule of law country with a strong and independent justice system, as well as a fundamental commitment to protecting all its citizens”. Nijjar advocated for a separate Sikh state, known as Khalistan, carved out of India. Thousands of people were killed in the 1980s during the separatist movement, which was put down by the Indian security forces. The movement has largely petered out within India, but in the Sikh diaspora – whose largest community is in Canada, with about 770,000 people – it retains support among a vocal minority. India has warned governments in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom repeatedly that Sikh separatists were trying to make a comeback. In November, the US Department of Justice charged an Indian citizen living in the Czech Republic with allegedly plotting a similar assassination attempt on US soil. A Washington Post investigation found last week that Indian foreign intelligence officials were involved in the plot, a claim rejected by New Delhi. Adblock test (Why?)