Sunday 18 July 2021

Esraa Abdelfattah: Egypt activist freed after nearly two years

Esraa Abdelfattah was arrested in October 2019 on charges of ‘spreading fake news’ and ‘collaborating with a terrorist group’.

Egyptian activist and journalist Esraa Abdelfattah, one of the symbols of the 2011 revolution, has been freed after nearly 22 months in pre-trial detention, lawyer Khaled Ali has said.

Ali, as well as friends of Abdelfattah, posted photographs online on Sunday of her being released from prison.

Abdelfattah was among several prominent journalists and activists released ahead of Eid al-Adha, one of the most important holidays in the Islamic calendar.

In 2008, Abdelfattah created an “April 6” Facebook page in support of striking workers and to call for political reforms, at the start of the mobilisation of mass protests that would lead to the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak three years later.

Abdelfattah, 43, was arrested in October 2019 on charges of “spreading false news” and “collaborating with a terrorist group”.

Her detention sparked international condemnation, with the US calling it “scandalous”.

Abdelfattah, who was also previously jailed under Mubarak, walked free just hours after a surprise decision by the prosecution to release her.

She had opposed the Muslim Brotherhood when they took power in Egypt in 2012 and backed the 2013 protests that led to the removal of President Mohamed Morsi.

Under Egyptian law, pre-trial detention can be extended for up to two years.

Journalists, activists released

Egyptian authorities have in recent months released detainees ahead of major Muslim holidays. Several other journalists and activists were released on Sunday, two days ahead of Eid al-Adha.

Activist and lawyer Mahienour el-Masry, journalists Moataz Wadnan and Gamal el-Gammal, politician Abdel Nasser Ismail and journalist Mustafa el-Aasar were also freed, a lawyer representing them and a judicial source said. The charges against them are still pending, the lawyer added.

Wadnan was arrested in February 2018 following his interview with Egypt’s former top auditor Hesham Genena, who caused uproar after he said former military chief of staff Sami Annan possessed documents incriminating the country’s “leadership”.

El-Aasar was also arrested in February 2018. Both journalists face charges of joining a “terrorist” group, disseminating false news in separate cases.

The releases came after an outcry by rights advocates when prosecutors last week referred Hossam Bahgat, a leading Egyptian investigative journalist and human rights advocate, to trial.

Bahgat said he was accused of insulting Egypt’s election authority, spreading false news alleging electoral fraud and using social media to commit crimes.

The accusations stem from a tweet Bahgat wrote last year blaming the election authority’s chairman for allegedly mishandling last year’s parliamentary vote, according to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, or EIPR, the organisation Bahgat founded 18 years ago.

US State Department spokesman Ned Price condemned Bahgat’s indictment and the detention and harassment of Egyptian civil society leaders, academics and journalists under el-Sisi.

“We’ve communicated to the Egyptian government our strong belief that individuals such as Hossam Bahgat should not be targeted for expressing their views peacefully,” Price said last week. “As a strategic partner we’ve raised these concerns with the Egyptian government, and we will continue to do so going forward.”

Also last week, an Egyptian court began the trial of six secular activists and journalists, including former politician Zyad el-Elaimy, Ali, the rights lawyer, said.

The six, who were arrested in 2019, face an array of charges including disturbing the public peace through disseminating false news about domestic affairs. The next court session is July 29, he said.

El-Elaimy and others were added by a court last year to a “terrorism list” for the next five years. The decision was upheld last week by the Court of Cassation, Egypt’s highest criminal court.

Among the six was jailed Palestinian-Egyptian activist Ramy Shaath, who helped establish Egypt’s branch of the Palestinian-led boycott movement against Israel, known as Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS).

Shaath, the son of a former Palestinian foreign minister, was detained in 2019 but has not been charged. His wife, a French citizen, was deported.

The Egyptian government has in recent years waged a widescale crackdown on dissent, jailing thousands of people, mostly Islamists, but also secular activists involved in the 2011 Arab Spring uprising.

Journalists have also been targeted, with dozens imprisoned and some foreign journalists expelled. Egypt remains among the world’s top jailers of journalists, along with Turkey and China, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES

Obama programme for child migrants ruled illegal

A federal judge in Texas has ruled that a programme protecting migrants who came to the US as children from deportation is illegal.

Judge Andrew Hanen said new applicants should not be enrolled in Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca).

But he said the ruling does not require the government to deport any Daca recipients.

Nearly 650,000 people – known as Dreamers – are currently enrolled in the programme.

President Joe Biden has ordered his administration to strengthen the initiative. The US Supreme Court last year blocked a bid by former President Donald Trump to end Daca.

In Friday’s ruling, Judge Hanen agreed with a group of states that had filed a lawsuit arguing the programme was illegally created by former President Barack Obama in 2012.

Texas and eight other conservative states said Mr Obama had acted without due congressional authorisation.

Daca recipients are shielded from deportation, granted work authorisation, can have driving licences and apply for education financial aid.

This is the second time a federal court in Texas has dealt a blow to Mr Biden’s immigration agenda.

In January, a judge blocked the Democratic president’s attempt to impose a 100-day moratorium on deportations.

Democratic US Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey tweeted on Friday it was time for Mr Biden’s party, which commands narrow majorities on Capitol Hill, to act.

“Congress must seize the moment and any and all opportunities to finally provide a pathway to legalisation for millions of undocumented immigrants,” he said.

Mr Biden has already proposed legislation that would provide a path to US citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the US.

According to the Politico website, Democrats plan to create a way to citizenship for Dreamers and other undocumented groups in a forthcoming $3.5tn (£2.5tn) spending bill.

However, it is unclear whether the immigration provisions can get by the Senate’s strict rules.

The legal blow to Daca comes on the day that the numbers of migrants arriving at the south-western border broke yet another record.

Border officials caught migrants there 188,829 times in June, the largest number in a single month in more than two decades.

This included over 15,000 children who were travelling alone, said US Customs and Border Protection.

Also on Friday the Pentagon confirmed to the BBC that Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas was being used by US immigration officials to fly undocumented migrants into the country’s interior.

Britney Spears allowed own lawyer in conservatorship fight

Pop superstar, who is battling to remove father from long-running legal guardianship, tells court the arrangement was being abused.

An emotional Britney Spears scored a victory in her bid to end her father’s control of her affairs on Wednesday, as a judge ruled she could appoint her own lawyer to help end a 13-year guardianship arrangement that the pop superstar has condemned as “cruelty.”

The controversial arrangement, known as a conservatorship, stems from 2008 and gives Britney’s father, Jamie Spears, control of her business and personal affairs. He is currently the sole person in charge of her $60m estate.

“You’re allowing my dad to ruin my life,” 39-year-old Spears told the Los Angeles judge by phone. “I have to get rid of my dad and charge him with conservatorship abuse.”

Speaking for about 10 minutes, and by turns angry and upset, Spears said she had always been “extremely scared of my dad”.

She said she was fed up with the multiple psychological evaluations and wanted the conservatorship brought to an end without another one.

“I’m not a perfect person … but their goal is to make me feel like I’m crazy,” Spears said.

It was the second time Spears had addressed the court publicly. Last month, she called the legal arrangement abusive and stupid in a 20-minute public address that fuelled worldwide interest in the conservatorship, which her father initiated after his daughter had a mental health breakdown. Details of Spears’s mental health issues have never publicly been disclosed.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny on Wednesday approved former federal prosecutor Mathew Rosengart as Spears’s lawyer. The singer’s court-appointed lawyer stepped down last week.

Rosengart told the AFP news agency on the sidelines of the hearing that he would file a petition “as soon as possible” to remove Jamie Spears as the conservator – and suggested the singer’s father should simply step down.“We will be filing a petition as soon as possible to move Mr Spears, subject to our formal retention,” said Rosengart, who has previously represented the likes of Steven Spielberg and Sean Penn.

“As I said in open court, a very fair question is: Why is Mr Spears not voluntarily stepping down? He does not belong in this conservatorship any more. And we believe he should voluntarily step down immediately.”

Spears, who shot to global fame in her teens, suffered a highly public breakdown in 2007 after being hounded by paparazzi.

A California court placed her under the conservatorship the following year and the singer soon returned to performing, releasing three albums, appearing on television and taking up a Las Vegas residency.

But in January 2019, she abruptly announced she was suspending her performances until further notice.Her case has drawn increasing public support, from fans chanting outside the courtroom – who greeted the news of her replacement lawyer with raucous cheers – to her musical peers Christina Aguilera and Madonna.

At a small demonstration in Washington, DC, 34-year-old Patrick Thomas, head of the recently formed Free Britney America group, called the singer’s situation “archaic”.

“This is not just about Britney alone. This is about every other person who is trapped in one of these, what I would call a prison,” said Thomas, whose group is pushing for a congressional hearing and federal oversight of conservatorships.

In her first comments to the court in June, Spears complained of being prevented from marrying or having more children, and said she was compelled to take medication against her will.

Spears said she had been made to perform shows under threat of lawsuit, and that she was not even allowed to get changed in privacy or drive her own car.

“I just want my life back. It’s been 13 years and it’s enough,” she said.

Since then, many of the central figures in the management of Spears’ affairs have distanced themselves including Samuel Ingham, the lawyer appointed by the court soon after her breakdown, and longtime manager Larry Rudolph.

Jamie Spears’s lawyer did not oppose the appointment of a new lawyer for his daughter, but told the court that Spears’s claim that her father is responsible for all the bad things that have happened to her is “the furthest thing from the truth”.

Signalling he would not step down voluntarily, the lawyer said Spears’s father “has been there 24/7 for the past 13 years,” and repeated a call for the court to investigate the singer’s claims of abuse.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES

Let’s reflect on and build the kind of Rwanda we want – Rwandan High Commissioner to Ghana

Rwandan High Commissioner to Ghana, Aisa Kirabo Kacyra, is urging Rwandans everywhere to reflect on the of Rwanda they desire and work towards attaining them.

Speaking at a ceremony to mark 27 years since their country was liberated following ethnic genocide on ethnic Tutsis by their fellow countrymen, the Hutus, the High Commissioner urged her countrymen and women to do their part to keep Rwanda United.

In just 100 days in 1994, about 800,000 people were slaughtered in Rwanda by ethnic Hutu extremists.

They were targeting members of the minority Tutsi community and their political opponents, irrespective of their ethnic origin.

With meticulous organisation. Lists of government opponents were handed out to militias who went and killed them, along with all of their families.

Neighbours killed neighbours, and some husbands even killed their Tutsi wives, saying they would be killed if they refused.

At the time, ID cards had people’s ethnic group on them, so militias set up roadblocks where Tutsis were slaughtered, often with machetes which most Rwandans kept around the house.

Thousands of Tutsi women were taken away and kept as sex slaves, according to the BBC.

“We must be inspired, individually and collectively, to continue to play our part and build the Rwanda we want as enshrined in our vision 2050. If one were to ask you what is the Rwanda we want, what will look it look like, how will we define it? A united Rwanda.

“A Rwanda with the people having a high income and considered a high-income country with inclusive and sustainable socio-economic development”, Rwandan High Commissioner to Ghana Aisa Kirabo Kacyra stressed.

She also expressed what she says was the gratitude of the whole of Rwanda to the Rwandan Army for liberating the people 27 years ago and continue protecting them.

A total of 93 people were indicted for the genocide, and after lengthy trials, dozens of senior officials in the former regime were convicted of genocide – all of them Hutus.

South Africa looting: Clean-up to mark Nelson Mandela Day

As South Africans mark Nelson Mandela Day, the president has urged people to honour the legacy of the anti-apartheid hero by helping to rebuild the country after days of riots that left 212 dead.

“The one positive thing I can say is that this incident has united us as never before,” Cyril Ramaphosa said.

People have been posting photos of themselves distributing food to areas most affected by the unrest.

The violence was sparked by the jailing of ex-President Jacob Zuma.

He handed himself in to police on 7 July to serve a 15-month sentence for contempt of court.

The 79-year-old was found guilty for failing to appear before an inquiry to answer questions about corruption during his presidency.

On Monday, Mr Zuma is due to attend – via video link – another corruption trial in relation to a $5bn (£3bn) arms deal from the 1990s.

He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and his lawyers are now calling for a postponement because of the violence.

Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first democratically elected president, died at the age of 95 in 2013, when Zuma was president.

Each year on what would be Mandela’s birthday – 18 July – people are urged to spend 67 minutes helping others, to mark his 67 years of public service.

Mr Ramaphosa has spent the day in Gauteng province touring Soweto, South Africa’s largest township and once home to Mr Mandela.

He has been taking part in the clean-up after mayhem which saw thousands of people ransacking malls.

Small businesses, warehouses, factories, clinics and schools in the two provinces of Kwazulu-Natal and Gauteng were also targeted – a level of violence unprecedented in post-apartheid South Africa.

Debris was strewn all over the streets and some communities have had to travel long distances to buy basics.

In Durban, the main city of KwaZulu-Natal, the authorities are also investigating a chemical spill possibly linked to a warehouse fire after dead fish were spotting washing ashore.

A member of a spill cleaning crew removes dead fish from the river in the uMhlanga Lagoon Nature Reserve in Durban on July 18, 2021. — image captionDead fish have been washing ashore in Durban

The unrest has now largely subsided and the deployment of 25,000 soldiers is expected to be completed by the end of the weekend.

Mr Ramaphosa, who says the violence was orchestrated, has faced criticism for acting too late.

Amid the chaos people armed themselves and formed vigilante groups to protect their property.

But during his tour of Soweto, the president said he was impressed by South Africans’ resilience – reflecting Mr Mandela’s spirit.

‘Titane’ wins top Cannes honor, 2nd ever for female director

Julia Ducournau’s “Titane,” a wild body-horror thriller featuring sex with a car and a surprisingly tender heart, won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, making Ducournau just the second female filmmaker to win the festival’s top honor in its 74 year history.

The win on Saturday was mistakenly announced by jury president Spike Lee at the top of the closing ceremony, broadcast in France on Canal+, unleashing a few moments of confusion. Ducournau, a French filmmaker, didn’t come to the stage to accept the award until the formal announcement at the end of the ceremony. But the early hint didn’t diminish from her emotional response.

Lee in the moments after his flub. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

“I’m sorry, I keep shaking my head,” said Decournau, catching her breath. “Is this real? I don’t know why I’m speaking English right now because I’m French. This evening has been so perfect because it was not perfect.”

After several false starts, Lee implored Sharon Stone to make the Palme d’Or announcement, explaining: “She’s not going to mess it up.” The problems started earlier when Lee was asked to say which prize would be awarded first. Instead, he announced the evening’s final prize, as fellow juror Mati Diop plunged her head into her hands and others rushed to stop him.

Lee, himself, spent several moments with his head in his hands before apologizing profusely for taking a lot of the suspense out of the evening.

“I have no excuses,” Lee told reporters afterward. “I messed up. I’m a big sports fan. It’s like the guy at the end of the game who misses the free throw or misses the kick.”

“I messed up,” he added. “As simple as that.”

Decournau’s win was a long-awaited triumph. The only previous female filmmaker to win Cannes’ top honor — among the most prestigious awards in cinema — was Jane Campion for “The Piano” in 1993. In recent years, frustration at Cannes’ gender parity has grown, including in 2018, when 82 women — including Agnes Varda, Cate Blanchett and Salma Hayek — protested gender inequality on the Cannes red carpet. Their number signified the movies by female directors selected to compete for the Palme d’Or — 82 compared to 1,645 films directed by men. This year, four out of 24 films up for the Palme were directed by women.

Julia Ducournau. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)

In 2019, another genre film — Boon Joon Ho’s “Parasite” — took the Palme before going on to win best picture at the Academy Awards, too. That choice was said to be unanimous by the jury led by Alejandro González Iñárritu, but the award for “Titane” — an extremely violent film — this year’s jury said came out of a democratic process of conversation and debate. Juror Maggie Gyllenhaal said they didn’t agree unanimously on anything.

“The world is passion,” said Lee. “Everyone was passionate about a particular film they wanted and we worked it out.”

In “Titane,” Agathe Rousselle plays a serial killer who flees home. As a child, a car accident leaves her with a titanium plate in her head and a strange bond with automobiles. In possibly the most-talked-about scene at the festival, she’s impregnated by a Cadillac. Lee called it a singular experience.

“This is the first film ever where a Cadillac impregnates a woman,” said Lee, who said he wanted to ask Decournau what year the car was. “That’s genius and craziness together. Those two things often match up.”

Sharon Stone (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)

Cannes’ closing ceremony capped 12 days of red-carpet premieres, regular COVID-19 testing for many attendees and the first major film festival to be held since the pandemic began in almost its usual form. With smaller crowds and mandated mask-wearing in theaters, Cannes pushed forward with an ambitious slate of global cinema. Last year’s Cannes was completely canceled by the pandemic.

The slate, assembled as a way to help stir movies after a year where movies shrank to smaller screens and red carpets grew cobwebs, was widely considered to be strong, and featured many leading international filmmakers. The awards were spread out widely.

The Grand Prix award was a joint honor split between Asghar Farhadi’s Iranian drama “A Hero” and Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen’s “Apartment No. 6.”

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