8-14 January 2018 - 16-min

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4 8 - 14 January, 2018 World NEW DELHI TIMES Thousands remain missing after Iraq’s victories against IS I n 2014, Abdulrahman Saad was taken from his home in Mosul by Islamic State fighters, leaving his family in limbo. They asked IS security offices and judges: Where is our husband and father? No answer. When the operation to retake Mosul began, they heard he was being held in the western part of the city, with hundreds of other prisoners. But when the area was liberated, they found no trace of Saad, the Photo Credit : AP Photo 59-year-old owner of a wholesale food store. “Life without my father is difficult,” says his son, Rami. Without him, the Saads struggle to get by, and his wife pines for her spouse. In their misery, they have company. Since Mosul was declared liberated in July, residents have submitted more than 3,000 missing-persons reports to Nineveh’s provincial council, according to council member Ali Khoudier. Most of them are men or teenage boys. Some were arrested by IS during the group’s extremist rule; others were detained by Iraqi forces on suspicion of extremist ties. Regardless, Iraqi government bureaucracy, inefficiency and neglect have left thousands of families across Iraq hanging as the country’s leadership celebrates the defeat of IS. In a small garden outside of a Mosul courthouse, dozens wait to hear if investigators have news of their missing relatives. They cling to thick files of papers: identity documents, official forms, glossy family photos and “missing person” advertisements from a local paper. It is unlikely they will hear good news. “It will be years before these people know what exactly happened to their relatives,” said an investigator, as anxious relatives tapped on the windows behind his desk and hovered at his office door. The investigator, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Iraqi government doesn’t have enough forensic experts to exhume the dozens of mass graves discovered as territory has been retaken from IS. And the country’s judicial system isn’t equipped to efficiently process the thousands of detainees scooped up by security forces. Some 20,000 people are being held at detention centers across Iraq on suspicion of ties to IS, according to a report from Human Rights Watch this month. In Anbar province, where victory was declared in the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah more than a year ago, more than 2,900 people remain missing, according to Mohammed Karbouli, a member of Iraq’s parliamentary committee on defense and security from Anbar. He said those missing from Anbar are becoming a symbol of the lack of trust between Anbar’s mostly Sunni residents and the Shiite-dominated central government in Baghdad. When parents don’t know the fate of their children, he warned, “tensions emerge.” Just south of Mosul, an unthinkable number of Iraqis are believed to be buried in a natural sinkhole that became one of the Islamic State group’s most infamous mass graves. Some Iraqi officials estimate as many as 4,000 people were tossed into the cavernous, natural crevasse in the barren desert on the road linking Mosul to Baghdad— some already dead, others still living and buried alive. IS fighters “would bring them and make them get out (of the car) and line up at the edge of the hole,” said Mohammed Younis, a resident of the area, recounting the weeks and months leading up to the fight for Mosul. “They would line them up and then they would execute them. And the bodies would all fall into the hole.” An AP investigation has found at least 133 mass graves left behind by the defeated extremists, and only a handful have been exhumed. Many of the missing — especially the thousands of Yazidis unaccounted for since Islamic State fighters slaughtered and enslaved the minority — may ultimately be buried there. Estimates total between 11,000 and 13,000 bodies in the graves, according to the AP tally. But not all of the missing were spirited away by the Islamic State. Some families in and around Mosul say their relatives were taken by unidentified gunmen after IS was defeated. “It was the middle of the day, 3:30 in the afternoon. A silver pickup truck drove into the village and took my brother,” Elias Ahmed explained as he walked along the dusty main road leading to his home in the sprawling Bijwaniya agricultural village. Ghazwan Ahmed was taken along with four other young men in August. They have not been seen since. “The men who took him didn’t even identify themselves, they just said they worked in intelligence,” he explained. Elias Ahmed spent weeks shuttling between the different headquarters buildings of Iraq’s disparate security services in and around Mosul. The federal police, Sunni tribal paramilitary fighters, local policemen and the Iraqi army all control different sections of Mosul and the surrounding Nineveh countryside. Each group maintains its own records of detentions and arrests. Ahmed went looking for answers at a court north of Mosul in the small, historically Christian town of Tel Keif, established especially to process those charged with terrorism. Each morning, family members gather outside its gates in hope of tracking down missing relatives. Inside, judges process close to 100 cases a day. Many trials last no longer than 30 minutes. Yasser Hafahdy, an attorney from Mosul working at the court, defended the practice of arresting people without informing their families where they would be held or the charges against them. He said the court was overwhelmed by the sheer number of IS suspects arrested and could not spare the time or resources to reach out to families. Since the court opened its doors in March, about a dozen judges have processed more than 15,000 cases. More than 60 percent have been found guilty, Hafahdy estimated. “What we need is a Judge Dredd, you know, Sylvester Stallone,” Hafahdy said, referring to a 1995 dystopian action film in which a traditional justice system is replaced by armed judges who patrol city streets acting as police, judge, jury and executioner. At a nearby detention center, hundreds of men sat in cramped rooms, and dozens of women and child detainees shuffled between a windowless room and an open courtyard. “The Iraqi government was completely unprepared for all the people taken prisoner while fighting Daesh,” said an Iraqi lieutenant colonel overseeing a different detention center just south of Mosul. “Honestly we expected more field executions. But human rights organizations were monitoring the operations, so we began taking people prisoner instead.” The Iraqi officer, who spoke on condition that he was only identified by his rank because he was not authorized to talk to journalists, said that during the Mosul operation hundreds of people passed through his detention center on their way to Baghdad for trials. During the height of the fighting, the small rooms used as makeshift cells were packed with prisoners. “We know that this is a violation of human rights,” he said. The squalid conditions were due to the backlog of cases in Baghdad, he said, and families were unable to track down arrested relatives until the detainees were processed in the capital. Rami Saad continues to look. The search has taken him to government detention centers and hospitals in and around Mosul and lawyers’ offices in Baghdad. Rami traveled to the Health Ministry’s forensic department in Mosul to look over lists of people confirmed killed by IS. If Abdulrahman Saad’s death could be established, at least the wife would receive his pension. “But we didn’t find my father’s name,” Rami said, and so “we have a glimmer of hope. Perhaps he is still alive.” Credit : Associated Press (AP) Iceland requires companies to prove equal pay for women A new law in Iceland is requiring all companies to prove that their wage practices don’t discriminate against women, in what is thought to be a global first in the effort to reduce gender pay gaps. 25 workers will have to obtain an “equal pay certification” from an accredited auditor showing that they are basing pay differences on legitimate factors such as education, skills and performance. The law, which was passed with a large majority by parliament in June, took effect at the New Year. It seeks to erase a current pay gap between men and women of about 5.7 percent that can’t be explained by differing work hours, experience or education levels, as measured by Statistics Iceland. While other countries, and the U.S. state of Minnesota, have equal-salary certificate policies, Iceland is believed to be the first to make it mandatory for both private and public firms. The North Atlantic island nation, which has a population of about 330,000, wants to eradicate the gender pay gap by 2022. The country has a female prime minister, Katrin Jakobsdottir, and ranks first on the World Economic Forum’s global gender equality index. Companies with more than Big companies with more than 250 employees have until the end of the year to get the certification, while the smallest have until the end of 2021. The certification must be renewed every three years. Employers’ associations came out against the law, saying that it imposed costly compliance burdens and involved too much government interference in the labor market. Some academic economists also were skeptical of the certification requirement, arguing that the gap resulted from nongender related factors that would be apparent if the statistical measures were perfect. While the law might help eliminate the unexplained pay gap, it likely won’t address the larger, explainable pay difference of 22 percent between the sexes that is based on different work volumes, according to a report by Stefan Olafsson of the University of Iceland for the European Social Policy Network. The network provides independent policy analysis to the European Commission. “That is still a gendered pay difference rooted in the fact that women take greater responsibility for care tasks within the household, while men spend more time in paid work,” Olafsson wrote. “Still, one may assume that the certification requirement will forward the ethos of gender and other equality issues in Icelandic society, both directly and indirectly,” he wrote. Credit : Associated Press (AP) Photo Credit : AP Photo www.NewDelhiTimes.com
8 - 14 January, 2018 5 World Kim says US should know North Korean nuclear N force a reality orth Korean leader Kim Jong Un said that the United States should be aware that his country’s nuclear forces are now a reality, not a threat. But he also struck a conciliatory tone in his New Year’s address, wishing success for the Winter Olympics set to begin in South Korea in February and suggesting the North may send a delegation to participate. Kim, wearing a Western-style gray suit and tie, said in his customary annual address that his country had achieved the historic feat of “completing” its nuclear forces and added that he has a nuclear button on his desk. “The U.S. should know that the button for nuclear weapons is on my table,” he said during the speech, as translated by The Associated Press. “The entire area of the U.S. mainland is within our nuclear strike range. ... The United States can never start a war against me and our country,” Kim said. He also called for improved relations with the South, an idea mentioned in speeches more often than it is met. He said the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics would be a good opportunity to showcase the status of the Korean nation. He also said the two Koreas could meet urgently to discuss the North sending a delegation. “The Winter Olympic games that will be held soon in the South will be a good opportunity to display the status of the Korean nation and we sincerely wish that the event will be held with good results,” he said. South Korea’s presidential office said it welcomed the proposal to hold talks between government officials over the issue of North Korea sending a delegation to the Olympics. The office of President Moon Jae-in said the successful hosting of the Pyeongchang Olympics would contribute to peace and harmony not only on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia, but in the entire world. The New Year’s address is an annual event in North Korea and is watched closely for indications of the direction and priorities Kim may adopt in the year ahead. This year’s speech was seen as particularly important because of the high tensions over Pyongyang’s frequent missile launches and its nuclear test in 2017. The tests were the focus of fiery verbal exchanges between North Korea and President Donald Trump, who has derisively called Kim “little rocket man.” Kim also stressed North Korea’s economic achievements during the speech, and noted the importance of improving the nation’s standard of living. Credit : Associated Press (AP) Photo Credit : AP Photo “P NEW DELHI TIMES How Iran Protests Play into Middle East Power Struggles art of me is feeling hope,” said Arash Azizi, a New York University researcher, far from his home in Iran. “We see the rising up of the downtrodden.” “But I am even more worried than hopeful,” he added. More than 20 people have been killed and 450 arrested since a protest movement in cities and towns across Iran began in late December, and analysts say if it continues, the impact many not just be in Iran, but across the region. Mostly peaceful protests could turn into clashes and Iran’s rivals are watching for the prospect of a weakened state, according to Reza Marashi, research director with the National Iranian American Council. Protesters are demanding an end to “mismanagement, nepotism and corruption,” he said, and have called for the fall of the government in recent days. Unlike mass protests in 2009 against an election seen as illegitimate, the movement is without clear leadership, and normally outspoken activists in Iran have been largely silent. It is still not clear if the demonstrations will continue with the same velocity as they have in the past week. And if they do, according to Marashi, it is too early to predict an outcome. The 2009 protests lasted for months, but were ultimately crushed by security forces. Thousands of people were arrested and dozens killed. The election results were upheld. Current protests have attracted considerably smaller crowds, but in a larger number of cities and towns, said Marashi. “It’s more important to see how it plays out over the weeks and months,” he said. Iran-Saudi rivalry Iran is embroiled in proxy wars with Saudi Arabia in Syria and Yemen, as well as funding Hezbollah, a Lebanese military and Israeli archenemy. It is also a key player in Iraq, and its internal politics have the potential to impact almost every corner of the region. Among the protesters’ grievances are vast sums of money sent abroad while people are hungry at home. In the past two years, tensions between Tehran and Riyadh have become explosive, and Iranian officials have accused Saudi Arabia, the United States and Britain of having a hand in the protests. “This is a silly claim, with no basis in fact,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, executive director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Americas office. “It is farcical because the Saudis have little influence in Iran.” In recent days, protesters also began calling for the collapse of their government, demanding “Death to the dictator!” and “Clerics should get lost!” Among Iran’s main rivals, this sparked speculation — or perhaps hope — that the Iranian government will fall or be damaged. For Saudi Arabia, this could mean a shift of regional power toward Riyadh as Iran’s influence and ability to fight regional conflicts decrease, according to Khaled Almaeena, a Saudi political and media analyst based in Jeddah. “For too long, Iran has been interfering with other states,” he said. Domino effect If the past is an indicator of the future, these protests are likely to lead to a violent crackdown if they continue, according to Azizi of NYU.And while many protesters have expressed a willingness to risk physical harm to achieve their aims, there has yet to emerge any alternative to the current government. “Some people say, If we want to bring down the Islamic Republic, I’m the first to sign up,’” he said. “’But what’s next?’” Violence on Iranian streets may also increase the threat of clashes in other parts of the region, according to Josepha Ivanka Wessels, a senior researcher at Lund University in Sweden. “The prospect of major bloodshed at the hands of the state looms large and if that happens, the ensuing domino effect could create yet another volatile and explosive situation in an already stormy and dangerous region,” she writes in The Conversation, a journal that features articles written by academics. Real change? Still, many in Iran are hopeful that the protests will inspire real change at any cost, according to Azizi. “People ask how long are we going to keep up this bizarre regime that takes up our blood and treasure to survive,” he said. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, widely seen as progressive and democratically elected, has spoken up for the public’s right to express their grievances, but has also downplayed the protest movement. “Our great nation has witnessed a number of similar incidents in the past and has comfortably dealt with them. This is nothing,” he told Iranian members of parliament. Other Iranian leaders have stressed that the death penalty will be applied to some protest-related arrests. If demonstrators are not dissuaded by this threat and the lack of alternate leadership, some analysts say even continued protests may have no immediate impact. “The regime has full control of all security forces as well as the judiciary, the communications networks and other sources of power,” said Fitzpatrick. “So far, it has been retrained in exercising these tools of force, but it will not hesitate to do so if the protests grow to the point where they might be seen as threatening the regime’s hold on power.” In the context of Iranians’ long-term internal struggle for civil and political rights, these protests are significant, added the National Iranian American Council’s Marashi. “Iranians strive for democracy, not revolution,” he said. Credit : Voice of America (VOA) www.NewDelhiTimes.com
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8-14 January 2018 - 16-min

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