Caribbean countries announce their intention to demand compensation from European governments for crimes of slavery

Caribbean countries announce their intention to demand compensation from European governments for crimes of slavery

    6:13 PM   No comments

The British newspaper "The Times" reported that "Caricom", a bloc of 15 Caribbean countries, will demand an official apology from European governments, and compensation worth $33 trillion, for their centuries-long enslavement.

In detail, these countries hope to begin negotiations with Britain, France, Spain, and Denmark on a 10-item plan, which includes an official apology for their role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

In addition, Caribbean countries are seeking $33 trillion in compensation from European governments. The plan also includes that these former colonial powers finance health, education, debt cancellation, and direct payments to Caribbean governments, according to what the newspaper reported.

Britain owes $19.6 trillion, Spain must pay $6.3 trillion, while France owes $6.5 trillion, according to a report issued by an American consulting firm, which worked to calculate legal compensation for the enslavement of 19 million people, over 4 centuries.

Although it is impossible to calculate the true extent of the damage caused by the slave trade carried out by European powers, these numbers constituted a “starting point for negotiations,” according to Verene Shepherd, a Jamaican history professor and vice-chair of the Caribbean Reparations Commission.

Shepherd stressed the need for “a number to start with,” stressing that “the crime is huge, and the responsibility for what happened is great.”

In 2013, Caricom established a Compensation Committee. CARICOM, or the Caribbean Community, represents a political and economic union of 15 countries in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean.

In subsequent years, the group reached out to former European colonial powers about reparations, but did not receive a “positive response” to its letters, Shepherd said.

According to The Times, some have suggested that Caribbean countries pursue reparations through the courts in the countries they target.

In turn, Peter Esbut, dean of studies at a theological college, said: “By granting slave owners compensation for the loss of their property, they are setting a precedent... If you compensate the owners for the loss of their property, you must also compensate the slaves for the loss of their freedom.”

Most European governments rejected the idea of reparations. In response to a question in the British House of Commons, last April, about whether he would offer an apology and “commit to reparative justice,” British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: “No, I think that trying to dismantle our history is not the right way forward, and it is not something We focus our energies on it.”

Banning the cloak in French schools begins tomorrow, and Macron is calling for its strict implementation

Banning the cloak in French schools begins tomorrow, and Macron is calling for its strict implementation

    5:21 AM   No comments

The French authorities have confirmed that female students who wear abayas and students who wear long shirts will not enter their classes on Monday, the first day of the school year, amid condemnation by human rights organizations and opposition political currents.

According to a memorandum sent by French Education Minister Gabriel Attal to heads of educational institutions, wearing the abaya and long shirt "expresses religious affiliation in the school environment and cannot be tolerated."

France, home to Europe's largest Muslim minority, has banned the Islamic headscarf in public schools since 2004.

According to French press reports, the ban on the abaya is a continuation of the implementation of the 2004 law, which prohibits the wearing of clothes or symbols that show religious affiliation in French educational institutions.

In July of last year, Le Figaro newspaper published an investigation revealing that despite the continued application of the 2004 law, there is a significant increase in the abayas worn by girls and long shirts worn by boys, so that they doubled in secondary schools, especially when Ramadan begins, so that some The managers expressed their dissatisfaction and wondered why the clothes were so popular.

For his part, French President Emmanuel Macron called - in statements he made the day before yesterday, Friday - for firmness in implementing the abaya ban.

"We will not let anything pass," Macron said during his visit to a vocational high school in Orange, southern France. "We know that there will be cases - perhaps due to negligence - but many cases of trying to challenge the republican system. We have to be firm."

He added that "teachers and school principals should never be left alone to face the existing pressures or challenges on this subject," adding that these "knights of the republic" have "the right to defend secularism," as he put it.

On the other hand, a broad spectrum of French people expressed their condemnation of the decision to ban the cloak, led by the leftist opposition inside and outside Parliament.

Prominent French left-wing politician Jean-Luc Melenchon strongly criticized the decision, and called on officials to avoid provoking conflicts of a religious nature.

Manuel Bombard, coordinator of the France Independence Party - which is led by Melenchon - said that he would propose to the party's parliamentary group to reject this decision - which he described as dangerous and cruel - and to submit it for review before the Council of State in order to prove that it is a decision contrary to the constitution.

Meanwhile, French female students expressed their annoyance at the decision and considered it a blatant interference in their personal freedom.

A student - who asked not to be identified - said in a statement to Al-Jazeera, "It is not within their authority to decide what to wear. They removed the veil from us in 2004, and now they are working to remove the abaya, which is not a religious dress, but rather a cultural traditional dress. To what extent will they continue this?"

A court in France condemns the State for violating the rights of detainees: prisons infested with bugs and mold

A court in France condemns the State for violating the rights of detainees: prisons infested with bugs and mold

    10:54 AM   No comments

Administrative wisdom in the French city of Montpellier condemned the French state for the inhuman and degrading treatment of convicts held in Perpignan prison.

The court's decision stated that the conditions in the prison violate the rights of detainees who are subjected to ill-treatment by the authorities.

The General Inspectorate's latest report submitted to the court showed that the prison occupancy rate is 280% for men, and that more than 300 detainees share about 130 beds.

The report found that "some sleep on mattresses on the floor, without space to move around, and most of them are infested with bed bugs. Mold is visible everywhere, on the walls and toilets, which are sometimes clogged," adding that "the windows were broken and the electrical network was faulty, causing At risk of fire for the prisoners."

The court ordered state authorities to ensure that dormitories are repaired and improved, fire threats are eliminated, and investigations are opened against guards for alleged mistreatment and humiliation of prisoners.

A report published by the French TV network "France Info" stated that France had broken a new record for the sixth time in a few months, regarding the number of detainees, after imprisoning more than 74,000 prisoners on the first of last July.

This prompted the European Court of Human Rights to condemn the French authorities for detaining large numbers of prisoners that exceed the capacity of the prisons, and obligated them to pay an amount of $50,000 to the plaintiffs.

A total of 16,643 detainees currently suffer from overcrowding, compared to the places available in French prisons. The total density of prisons now stands at 122.8%, compared to 118.7% just a year ago.

The report confirmed that the occupancy rate in pretrial detention prisons amounted to 146.3%, which are the prisons in which detainees awaiting trial are held. So they are presumed, according to the law, to be innocent.

To address this problem, the French government promised to build an additional 15,000 new places in prisons by 2027, stressing that the growing use of measures that constitute an alternative to detention "will show its effects in the coming months."

In 2020, the European Court of Human Rights found that France violated European Human Rights Convention Due to Overcrowded Prisons. 

The US, EU condemn Ben Gvir's statements about the rights of Jews compared to the rights of Palestinians

The US, EU condemn Ben Gvir's statements about the rights of Jews compared to the rights of Palestinians

    8:18 AM   No comments

US State Department brands national security minister’s remarks ‘inflammatory’. In a rare comment calling out the Otzma Yehudit party leader by name, a State Department spokesperson condemned the remarks as inflammatory and compared them to racist rhetoric dangerously amplified by senior officials.

In Europe, the European Union relaeased a statement about the same issue. It "strongly" condemned the statements of the Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, in which he claimed that his and his family's right to movement in the West Bank "exceeds the right of the Arabs," as he described it.

And last Wednesday, the leader of the far-right "Jewish Power" party, Ben Gvir, said - in an interview with the Israeli Channel 12 -, "My right and the right of my wife and children to move on the roads of the West Bank is more important than the Arabs' right to freedom of movement."

Ben Gvir added, "This is the reality, this is the truth, my right to life precedes their right to freedom of movement."

According to data from the left-wing Israeli "Peace Now" movement, which rejects settlements, about half a million settlers live in 132 settlements and 146 outposts in the West Bank.

These data do not include settlers in 14 Israeli settlements built on occupied East Jerusalem lands.

Ben Gvir is seen as a phenomenon of the rise of the far-right in Israel, and his supporters chant "Death to the Arabs". He is also known for his extremist stances towards the Palestinians, and he is a resident of the "Kiryat Arba" settlement, which is built on the lands of Hebron, in the southern occupied West Bank.

Policing in the United States: “placed his hands around a sergeant’s neck and choked her”

Policing in the United States: “placed his hands around a sergeant’s neck and choked her”

    5:01 AM   No comments

Another Black man's encounter with the police; as reported by the NYP:

The fracas involving several officers and suspect Romaine Francis began after he approached the cops “in an aggressive manner” around 10:30 p.m. Sunday night at the corner of Prospect Avenue and East 149th Street, according to a police spokesperson.

The officers had been conducting an investigation when the “uninvolved” 29-year-old man confronted them, police said.

Officers at the scene asked Francis to back away “multiple times,” before they tried to take him into custody, police said. A physical altercation then erupted, according to video of the incident shared on social media.

Police said that during the struggle, Francis “placed his hands around a sergeant’s neck and choked her.”

UK's Illegal wars and human rights violations in Islamic Societies

UK's Illegal wars and human rights violations in Islamic Societies

    6:14 AM   No comments

Citing declassified materials, the organization, Declassified UK, reported that Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who held this post from 1997 to 2007, authorized a military operation against Iraq in December 1998, despite repeated warnings from legal advisers about the illegality of such actions.