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Rights Groups Ask British Govt to Stop Deportation of Iranian Dissident To Rwanda

A person conceals his identity while testifying before an international people's court examining the suppression of the 2019 Iranian protests (YouTube)
A person conceals his identity while testifying before an international people's court examining the suppression of the 2019 Iranian protests (YouTube)
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Rights Groups Ask British Govt to Stop Deportation of Iranian Dissident To Rwanda

A person conceals his identity while testifying before an international people's court examining the suppression of the 2019 Iranian protests (YouTube)
A person conceals his identity while testifying before an international people's court examining the suppression of the 2019 Iranian protests (YouTube)

Human rights activists called Wednesday on the British Home Secretary to halt next week’s planned deportation to Rwanda of an Iranian former police commander, saying they fear for his life following his testimony to the International People’s Tribunal on Iran’s atrocities during the November 2019 protests.

Justice for Iran, an NGO tracking human rights violations, campaigned for signing a petition calling on British authorities to halt the deportation of the former police commander to Rwanda next June 14.

The petition warned that the witness could be kidnapped by Iranian authorities after arriving in the African country.

“This is an unfair and dangerous decision that must be reversed immediately,” it said.

The former Iranian police commander, also known as “Witness 195” or Bahram, had testified against Iranian authorities to the Aban Tribunal that kicked off in mid-November. Bahram arrived in Britain in May 2021.

He said he formerly led a 60-strong police unit during nationwide anti-government protests in November 2019.

Speaking to the Tribunal via videolink, the witness said he had refused to allow those under his command to shoot at peaceful demonstrators in Iran.

He told the panel about his subsequent arrest and 5-year prison sentence for cooperating and sympathizing with the protestors.

When the Iranian Supreme Court upheld the prison sentence on appeal, the witness said he escaped to Turkey leaving behind his family.

He then left Turkey in spring 2021 and made the dangerous crossing to the UK from France in mid-May in a small boat across the English Channel.

During his arrest, Witness 195 said he was subjected to severe psychological torture at a detention center. He currently suffers from heart problems.

The former police commander also said that the orders to suppress the protests came from the National Security Council, including Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Late last year, Amnesty International said 324 men, women and children were killed by Iran’s security forces during their crackdown on mass protests that erupted across Iran between 15 and 19 November 2019.

On Dec. 23, 2019, Reuters quoted three sources close to the supreme leader’s inner circle and a fourth official as saying that Khamenei gathered his top security and government officials together and issued an order to crackdown on protesters.

It said what began as scattered protests over a surprise increase in gasoline prices quickly spread into one of the biggest challenges to Iran’s clerical rulers since the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

Last April, the UK and Rwanda governments announced an agreement to send asylum seekers to Rwanda on the grounds of their irregular entry to the UK through the English Channel.

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World

UN: Millions May Be Forced to Move as Climate Change Hits South Asia

International Organization for Migration (IOM) chief Amy Pope, seen here in 2023, warned of a lack of urgency globally about the risks that vulnerable communities are facing. Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP
International Organization for Migration (IOM) chief Amy Pope, seen here in 2023, warned of a lack of urgency globally about the risks that vulnerable communities are facing. Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP
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UN: Millions May Be Forced to Move as Climate Change Hits South Asia

International Organization for Migration (IOM) chief Amy Pope, seen here in 2023, warned of a lack of urgency globally about the risks that vulnerable communities are facing. Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP
International Organization for Migration (IOM) chief Amy Pope, seen here in 2023, warned of a lack of urgency globally about the risks that vulnerable communities are facing. Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP

Climate change is threatening livelihoods and forcing people from their homes across South Asia, but technology and government action could help limit the damage, the UN migration chief told AFP on Friday.

Rising seas, flooding and drought threaten homes and farmland, Amy Pope, Director General of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said during a visit to New Delhi.

In the Himalayas, she pointed to Nepal's August 26 disaster, when a mountain and glacier collapse triggered deadly flooding, where IOM sent humanitarian aid to help.

In a worst-case scenario, up to 40.5 million people in South Asia may be forced to move by 2050, according to IOM.

"When they can't produce food, when they can't feed their livestock, it increases the likelihood of displacement," said Pope. "The first adaptation is often for people to move."

Pope said climate change was also accelerating urbanization in India.

"As people seek shelter from heat, they're going into urban centers," she said.

- 'Migration as a tool' -

The risks are particularly acute in South Asia, where vast populations and limited resources leave many communities vulnerable.

"There's a lack of urgency globally about the risks that vulnerable communities are facing," Pope said, warning that funding to help residents prepare for climate change remained inadequate.

"The cost of a humanitarian disaster is in the billions. The cost of investing in some of the resilience measures can be far less," she said.

Better data and artificial intelligence could help governments identify communities at risk before disaster strikes, Pope said.

"With the advancements in AI forecasting, you can now better anticipate those communities that are at high risk of displacement," Pope said.

By combining weather forecasts with information about local livelihoods, authorities can identify which communities most need help.

"If you know a community is at risk, we don't need to wait until they're displaced to respond," she said.

Measures could include improving farming methods, training people for other jobs and, where necessary, relocating communities repeatedly hit by floods or drought.

Finding the money for such programs is a major obstacle, Pope said, with governments often struggling to navigate the systems available to fund climate adaptation.

India's investments in early-warning systems, disaster response and technology offer grounds for optimism, she said. But no government can meet the scale of the challenge alone.

International migration can also help people earn a living while filling labor shortages abroad.

South Asia already has established migration routes, offering opportunities to build on existing links.

"Here we have government partners who recognize both the threats to their communities but they're also using migration as a tool for development," Pope said.

She warned that growing demand for workers must be matched by safe, legal routes to employment.

Otherwise, migrants risk exploitation by traffickers and smugglers, including through fraudulent overseas job offers.

India's technological capacity could also help its workers compete internationally as artificial intelligence reshapes employment, Pope said.

AI could threaten some jobs, particularly those involving routine analysis of documents and reports, but other sectors still rely heavily on human labor.

"If we can marry that capacity with the labor mobility, so that the workers are being skilled for those jobs as they're emerging, they will be ahead," Pope said.

"This is a place where I have more optimism than in places where we're dealing with the most acute crises," she said.

World

Iran President Says Conflict in Mideast Amounts to 'Ecocide'

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian visits an exhibition that showcases the defense ministry's latest advancements in defense and space in Tehran. Photo: -/Iranian Presidency/dpa
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian visits an exhibition that showcases the defense ministry's latest advancements in defense and space in Tehran. Photo: -/Iranian Presidency/dpa
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Iran President Says Conflict in Mideast Amounts to 'Ecocide'

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian visits an exhibition that showcases the defense ministry's latest advancements in defense and space in Tehran. Photo: -/Iranian Presidency/dpa
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian visits an exhibition that showcases the defense ministry's latest advancements in defense and space in Tehran. Photo: -/Iranian Presidency/dpa

Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian on Friday urged countries to condemn what he called "ecocide" in the Middle East caused by "wars of aggression".

Pezeshkian said the conflicts in Gaza and the wider Middle East had inflicted a significant toll on nature that extended beyond borders and required "international solutions", AFP said.

"What has occurred in our region as a result of wars of aggression is ecocide, or environmental genocide, and it must be condemned," Pezeshkian told a nature summit in Armenia attended by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

World

Rival Sahel Extremists Clash in Intensifying Turf war

A recent report revealed a surge in violent attacks linked to extremist groups in West Africa’s Sahel region. (AFP)
A recent report revealed a surge in violent attacks linked to extremist groups in West Africa’s Sahel region. (AFP)
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Rival Sahel Extremists Clash in Intensifying Turf war

A recent report revealed a surge in violent attacks linked to extremist groups in West Africa’s Sahel region. (AFP)
A recent report revealed a surge in violent attacks linked to extremist groups in West Africa’s Sahel region. (AFP)

Extremists from rival Al-Qaeda and ISIS factions in the Sahel have clashed recently on an unprecedented scale in the borderlands spanning Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, with claims of hundreds of fighters killed.

The two extremist coalitions, which covet influence over the same areas and control of the same routes and local populations, have repeatedly clashed since 2019.

The rivalry also drives their constant expansion in the Sahel, which the ruling juntas in Ouagadougou, Bamako and Niamey have found difficult to contain, said AFP.

The clashes are "the most intense direct confrontation globally" between an Al-Qaeda branch and an ISIS-linked group, a report by UN experts submitted to the Security Council in early August said.

A semi-arid belt of land that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean along the southern rim of the Sahara desert to the Red Sea, Africa's Sahel has become the ground zero of global extremism.

Extremists have steadily expanded beyond the rural areas where they first took root, killing thousands, roiling governments and sowing terror.

Since September, fighting between ISIS - Sahel Province (ISSP) and the Al-Qaeda-linked group (JNIM) has escalated to unprecedented levels.

On Monday, the ISSP said it had killed more than 400 al-Qaeda fighters, including "several leaders", in clashes four days earlier in the Burkinabe province of Oudalan on the Mali and Niger borders.

"If the claimed death toll is confirmed, then it will be the deadliest single battle recorded between the two groups," Heni Nsaibia, an analyst at conflict monitor ACLED, said.

The toll has yet to be independently confirmed.

But if so, it would surpass the more than 200 deaths claimed by the ISSP in the same area in early September.

- 2,200 deaths since 2019 -

Between 2019 and last month, the two extremist groups fought more than 320 battles, resulting in about 2,200 deaths, Nsaibia said.

The latest clashes between fighters from JNIM and ISIS erupted on October 9 in the tri-border area, according to Wamaps, a collective of west African journalists.

The rivals are fighting over "the same potential living space and the same recruitment pools" in a "race for control of the borders between the three countries", Wassim Nasr, an expert on extremist groups and an associate researcher at The Soufan Center, said in a recent study.

Long confined to Mali and Burkina Faso, the fighting has in recent months spread to western Niger and even northwestern Nigeria, Nsaibia said.

From its Malian stronghold in Menaka, the ISSP has extended its influence into the Nigerien regions of Tahoua, Dosso and Maradi, up to the Nigerian border, Nasr said in the study.

This facilitates the transfer of fighters, equipment and expertise with ISWAP, the ISIS branch active in the Lake Chad basin, he added.

- Competing visions -

Behind the violence lies competing visions of extremism.

While JNIM carries out abuses against civilians, it focuses on developing local roots, building alliances with communities and concentrating attacks on state forces and foreign troops.

The ISIS group adopts a more hardline, transnational approach and does not shy away from targeting civilians who refuse to kowtow to its authority, Sahel specialist Hasret Kargin said.

Such "enduring ideological and strategic tensions" between the two groups are seen in reported defections -- albeit limited in number -- from JNIM to ISSP, the UN experts said in their report.

In July, JNIM claimed it had killed one of its commanders, who had defected to join ISIS.

However, despite the heavy losses the ISIS claims to have inflicted, JNIM remains the leading terror threat in the Sahel, the UN expert report said.

It estimated that its forces number between 7,000 and 8,000 fighters, compared with 2,000 members of ISIS.

"There is significant information indicating that JNIM has shifted substantial reinforcements to the area from other regions," Kargin said.

Given its numbers across the Sahel and its strength compared to the ISIS's Sahel branch, Kargin said he predicted that JNIM would launch "fierce counterattacks in the coming days".