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(11/06/17 5:57pm)
France approved new anti-terror laws on the 31st.
The French parliament passed the anti-terrorism bill a few days after a knifeman killed two women in Marseille. The bill, which is being hailed by some as “highly controversial” was approved by 415 votes to 127.
According to Reuter's Richard Lough, the new law will end France’s nearly two-year-long state of emergency by making certain factors of the emergency state into law. Lough reports the bill has been met with little resistance by the French Public, however Human Rights Watch has called it “abusive” for cementing some of the measures of the state of emergency into law.
Among these are allowances which will give power to the government to shut down mosques and other centers of worship if the religious leaders are believed to be inciting violence or justifying acts of terrorism.
The legislation will also allow members of the government to confine certain members of the public to their home towns and will require them to report to the police once a day. As well, “The authorities will be allowed to mount security perimeters around places deemed at risk” which will allow people and vehicles to be searched.
There has been over fifteen fatal terror attacks in France since the Toulouse and Montauban shootings in which a man by the name of Mohammed Mera killed seven people over the course of three non-consecutive days in March. The state of emergency went into effect after the Paris Attacks took place in November of 2015.
(10/31/17 6:45pm)
The effects of the Kurdish independence referendum are still resonating within Iraq and the Kurdish territories. Masoud Barzani announced Monday that he will be stepping down from his position as president of the KRG, a position which he has held since 2004.
Last week, Iraqi forces took back Kirkuk from the Kurds after they had occupied it since ISIS forces attempted to take the city in 2014. It was at this same time that the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), under Masoud Barzani’s leadership, installed a pipeline to tap the region’s crude oil -- a move that recieved heavy condemnation from the Iraqi government. Now, three years later, Iraq is pumping oil from Kirkuk again in partner with British Petroleum.
The Iraqi government has further responded to the referendum and has taken back control over the Rabia border crossing with Syria which was previously held by Kurdish forces. Rabia is four hours northwest of Kirkuk by vehicle. According to IraqiNews's Khadim al-Aqabi, the head of the Iraqi border crossings department said the takeover came as forces had previously deployed in the Rabia region.
Now, Barzani, whose position technically expired in August of 2015, has announced that he will be stepping down from his presidency after 12 years as president of the KRG. Along with his resignation, which was approved by the Parliament of the Iraqi Kurdish region, Barzani has sent a letter to the Parliament outlining who he believes power should be distributed henceforth. According to AlJazeera, Barzani wants to see presidential powers divided between the regional government, parliament, and the judiciary. Further more, AJ reports that “Some in the Kurdish region believe that Barzani’s stepping down is of little consequence” and believe that he will maintain an influence from the background, allowing his family to “maintain its grip on the KRG”.
This move comes amid some confusion. Barzani’s removal from office is not unexpected in the region, but amid these heightened tensions, it is still unclear as to the motive of his descension, and as to what will happen next. According to AJ, some analysts suggest that Barzani’s stepping down will allow other Kurdish institutions more ability for influence, and will empower the Parliament which was only recently reactivated.
Barzani has been at the center of controversy for years, due to his pro-nationalist agenda, which often contradicts what Baghdad mandates.
Photo credits: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kurdistan4all/3674985239
(10/23/17 5:53pm)
Four weeks after the referendum for Kurdish independence, Iraqi forces have taken back the city of Kirkuk. The city lies outside of the Kurdish autonomous region but has been long contested.
The area is marked by Kurdish-run oilfields, and was ingrained as the symbolic Kurdish capital in 2003 when Kurdish and US forces took the city during the beginning of a northern front against Iraq. In 2014, as ISIS took the Anbar region of Iraq, and the Kurdish Peshmerga captured Kirkuk when Iraqi forces abandoned the city in what was ultimately a successful move to stop the ISIS advance.
Kirkuk is an ethnically diverse city, and is home to Turkmen, Arabs, and Kurds. After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2006, a new Iraqi constitution was drafted by the Iraqis and the Americans and granted larger autonomy to the Kurd. This new constitution would give the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) more control over Iraqi Kurdistan than they had before. However, Kirkuk, home to 40 percent of Iraq’s oil reserves, was left out of this.
For the past three years, Kirkuk has been more or less under Kurdish authority. In 2016, ISIS attempted to claim the city and Peshmerga fighters reclaimed the city after several days of fighting.
In march, the governor of Kirkuk order the Kurdistan regional flag to be flown over all the government buildings in the city. This was met with extreme disapproval from Baghdad, Iran, and Turkey. With the Yes vote in late September, the issue of a Kurdish flag in the city took on a deeper meaning.
Because of its oil wealth, Kirkuk is an important city for the Kurds. Were they to gain their independence, It would establish them as an economically viable country and so last week, the Iraqi government, aware of this, sent Iraqi armed forces into the city to retake it.
Now, Kurds are leaving the area en masse and seeking refuge in Irbil, the official capital of the Kurdish region in Iraq. According to CNN, who quoted the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, approximately 61,200 people have been displaced around the city since the fifteenth of October.
What happens next is unknown and is up to the of the Iraqi government and the Kurdish Democratic Party to decide in the coming weeks.
(10/19/17 4:48pm)
A new travel ban is set to take effect on October 18th.
This Semester, IU is exploring ‘Diversity, Difference and Otherness’ in a complex world. Yet as we seek to include and understand, the Trump administration is in the process of signing a new executive order which will limit those who can seek refuge in our country.
The third –and likely final ban will be signed as an executive order amid heightened national and global tensions.
Earlier this year, President Trump signed his first and second travel bans as executive orders, and twice this year they were enjoined by lower federal courts across the united states.
The previous orders were ruled unconstitutional for being discriminatory on religious grounds.
The countries they blacklisted were all predominantly Muslim.
Diana Nabulsi, a fifth-year student at IU said “having a president that enforces a travel ban that mainly targets Muslims is kind of discouraging when my family from the Middle East have dreams to pursue a better future with better opportunities in America and now they can’t.”
The first ban, which was signed in January, was met with international backlash and immediate pushback from courts all over the country for targeting only Muslim-majority countries.
Had the ban succeeded, citizens of the seven countries who had a valid visa or green card likely would have been deported.
Refugees from the countries listed in the order would have been banned from entering the country for 120 days.
For Syrian refugees, the 120-day exclusion would have been indefinite.
The second ban was signed as an executive order on March 6th after the first order was deemed invalid. In this revised order, the reason for the ban was amended from religious grounds to a concern for national security.
Again it was challenged by judges across the country, but when it reached the Supreme Court, the injunctions imposed by the lower courts were invalidated by a 6-3 vote.
An exemption was carved out to allow refugees and immigrants from the banned countries who had bona-fide relationships in the U.S to be able to enter the country.
A “Bona-Fide relationship” is defined here as any family relationship, job offer or university admission. Refugee resettlement programs were also considered to be “bona-fide” until the department of Justice appealed this to the supreme court and it was removed from the definition.
Now, that order is expiring. As of today, there will be 19 days without a ban and On October 18th, a new order will be signed.
This time, it’s serious.
The new ban is much more sophisticated than its predecessors. Addressing the shortcomings of the other two, this order includes non-Muslim countries such as Venezuela and North Korea. The other countries: Chad, Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Somalia are all Muslim-majority countries. Sudan was dropped from the list.
Speaking about his relatives in Somalia, undergraduate Mohamed Abdirisak said “It’s very difficult for people to come here”. He added that after the bans, his family in Somalia can no longer travel to the United States.
IU is home to a diverse student body representing more than 100 countries. Many of these students now have to decide whether or not to go home and risk not being able to come back.
Professor Asma Afsaruddin teaches Islamic Studies in the department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at IU and she is concerned about her students.
“We have a number of students from the middle east and we are concerned about their ability to return to their country”, she said. “Especially if they want to go home for the summer and come back all energized for the new fall semester. They just are not able to do that”.
Afsaruddin added that she has colleagues who are also affected by the ban.
“This is a matter of conscience for most of us”, she said.
The inclusion of Venezuela and North Korea to the ban are confusing.
“Hardly anyone from North Korea travels to the United states so it’s a moot point to include them,“ Afsaruddin said. I think it’s a way of fending off the very scathing criticism this administration’s faced on account of instituting what had been pretty much an exclusively Muslim travel ban.”
Other Bloomington residents shared this sentiment. “There’s not a huge amount of refugees trying to come in from North Korea” said Nabulsi. “He’s just trying to prevent refugees from Syria from coming in because he thinks they’re all dangerous.”
Venezuela’s foreign ministry responded to Trump administration’s order on Monday. CNN reported that the Ministry said “These types of lists … are incompatible with international law and constitute in themselves a form of psychological and political terrorism.”
However, the Supreme Court has upheld the order.
When the order goes into effect this month, Syria will see the harshest restrictions.
Immigrants and non-immigrants alike from Syria and North Korea will be barred from entering the United States.
In Chad, Yemen, and Libya, some business and tourist visas will be suspended for both immigrants and tourists. Non-immigrants from Somalia and Iran are suspended from traveling to the United States. Iranians with valid student-visas are excepted, but will face enhanced screening. For Venezuela, a country currently struggling with rampant inflation and a collapsed economy, it concerns only certain government officials and their immediate family members.
Addressing the implications of these bans, Abdirisak said “I feel like people need to get to know other cultures better, and break down those mental walls. Just try to sit down, break bread with people, get to know them for who they are and I think the world would be a better place.”