In what could bring about a solution to a months-long crisis involving expatriates above 60 in Kuwait, the newly appointed Justice Minister Jamal Al Jalwai will hold talks this week with the agencies concerned to devise the “best mechanism” to address the problem, a local newspaper has reported.

A disputed ban on renewing work permits for this category of expatriates who hold no university degree has been in effect in Kuwait for several months now, spelling trouble for them and their families.

In an attempt to resolve the standoff, Al Jalwai will meet with representatives of manpower authorities and the Cabinet legislation department, Al Rai newspaper said, quoting what it termed as well-informed sources.

“The minister seems serious to resolve this long-outstanding file,” the sources said.

Last October, the Kuwaiti Legal Advice and Legislation Department invalidated the ban on employing expatriates above 60, saying it had no legal basis.

The department said the ban had been issued by the Public Authority of Manpower (PAM) director-general without authorisation.

At the time, a proposal was floated that those expatriates renew their work permits in return for a fee of KD500 per person and mandatory health insurance.

The PAM board later approved revocation of the ban and endorsed a new renewal system that has not come into effect, though.

The controversial ban, which went into effect earlier last year, triggered an outcry among rights activists, who argued that it affects thousands of expatriates and their families who long lived in Kuwait.

Around 4,013 such expatriates have been forced out of the work market in Kuwait in the first six months of enforcing the ban, Al Qabas newspaper reported recently.

Critics also said the restriction has also harmed many employers and destabilised the labour market in Kuwait, robbing it of experienced workers./ gulf news 

The French national identity, domestic security and tackling religious extremism will be big points in the 2022 French election, which coincides with Paris taking the EU's reins, raising concerns that its tough views could influence the bloc’s members

France has assumed the rotating European Union presidency for the next six months, however, with the country's anti-radicalism bill having already created an uncomfortable climate for France's Muslims, experts worry Paris may attempt to impose its anti-Muslim views on the bloc as a whole.

“There are already examples where you can see the interference of the French government on a European level when it comes to the existence of Muslims and Muslim visibility,” Farid Hafez, a visiting professor of International Relations at Williams College and nonresident scholar at Georgetown University's Bridge Initiative told Daily Sabah.

Listing instances of the French government going against the European Commission, Hafez recalled that European Commissioner for Equality Helena Dalli was attacked by French ministers for meeting with representatives from a Muslim youth organization that was participating in a campaign organized by the Council of Europe. He also pointed to the civil rights group Alliance Citoyenne, which actively defended Muslim women's rights but lost its funding.

“Therefore, I think, France will impose its views on Europe. The question is how much other European countries allow the French government to influence how Muslims are seen and positioned in the European Union.”

The French government announced earlier this year that it would step up checks of places of worship and associations suspected of spreading so-called extremist religious propaganda.

The crackdown came after the October 2020 murder of teacher Samuel Paty who was targeted following an online campaign against him for having shown controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad published by the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo during a civics class.

Hafez highlighted that after Paty’s death, France and Austria in particular pushed for the EU to release a harsh statement framing the problem as rooted in Islam. Most EU countries pushed back, he said, explaining that therefore France's presidency may not directly increase Islamophobic views within the EU.

The attack came in the midst of a heated debate over Macron's campaign against what he called "Islamist separatism" in immigrant communities, where conservative Muslims are accused of rejecting secularism, free speech and other values taught in school.

“I see that France is one of the most problematic countries when it comes to Islamophobia in Europe,” Hafez said. “France has been one of the harshest governments in the legislation against Muslims, we not only see hijab bans but also after the murder of Paty, the French government used this incident to crack down on the Muslim civil society – raided mosques and even closed anti-racist organizations for nothing else but speaking against Islamophobia.”

According to Interior Ministry figures, since November 2019, 3,881 establishments have been inspected and 126 closed, mostly small businesses but also two schools.

The proposed law and the Cell to Fight Radical Islam program, led by prefects in each region, are just part of a many-layered operation to rout out what authorities call “enemies of the Republic.”

The Interior Ministry said in December that around 100 mosques and Muslim prayer halls out of France's total number of more than 2,600 have been investigated over recent months because of suspicion that they were spreading "separatist" ideology.

Six sites were being probed with a view to closing them down on the basis of French laws against extremism and separatism, it said.

France's Muslim population is estimated to number about 5 million people, many of whose family origins lie in Algeria or other parts of its former empire.

Speaking to Daily Sabah, Abdennour Toumi, North Africa expert at the Ankara-based Center for Middle Eastern Strategic Studies (ORSAM), said that the roots of the current anti-Islam atmosphere go back to “a rhetoric set by the far-right party of Ms. Marine Le Pen (RN), the corporatist media and the arrogant elite anti-Muslim in the Parisian chic quarters of the right and the left banks,” enhanced by the several terror attacks the country has suffered.

“Emmanuel Macron, whose Muslim views were more or less like his predecessor, are moderate, and I don’t believe he is anti-Islam. But his political survival and the imperatives of the post-Charlie Hebdo and Paris attacks, have shaped his policy on Islam. Thus, he wanted like President Nicolas Sarkozy to domesticate the Muslims in France,” he said.

Toumi does not believe that France will be successful in influencing the bloc’s policies on Islam and the Muslim community. However, he warns that the country’s interior minister is more hawkish and aims to eradicate so-called “radical” Islam.

“For the EU’s reaction on Islam, the issue is not homogenous for the 27 members, which currently, are facing other challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic variants and macro-economic questions.”

Speaking on the effects of France’s policies on the community, Toumi highlights that the minority group of millions is still protected by national and European laws.

“The question of 'radical' Islam has complicated the real fight of this thorny issue that needs deep logistic and educative tools to one day contain this national security issue that became political discourse. In the end of the day, Muslims in France are well integrated and the third generation of the Muslim immigrants, notably the Maghreb communities, feel fully French and patriots.”

He says that such policies “would destabilize further President Macron," who is on the cusp of a heated presidential election that will take place in the spring.

"La laicite has become the state's religion," Toumi added.

Macron was accused by leftist critics at the time of stigmatizing Europe's biggest Muslim community and pandering to the far-right ahead of the 2022 elections.

But on the right, voters and politicians have long been urging tougher action to restore the state's authority in what a group of teachers described in a 2015 book as the "lost territories of the Republic."

They include controversial media pundit Eric Zemmour, a possible candidate for the presidency in next year's vote, who has declared Paty's murder proof that France is in a "civil war" with radical Muslims.

Toumi said that Muslims represent around 1% of the French electoral corps – and its vote does not weigh seriously on national elections with those voting being generally the elder and not the youth.

Macron, who was elected in 2017 on a pledge to reform France and restore its status as a global power, is the overwhelming favorite to win the election but analysts caution his victory is far from certain.

“This election is going to be historical, and eventually a political big-bang in the French fifth Republic,” Toumi said, indicating that Macron's top challenger is Republican candidate Valerie Pecresse.

Pecresse campaigned on promises to halve the number of residence permits for non-EU migrants, stiffen judicial sentences in tough neighborhoods where police are under pressure and ban women accompanying their children on school trips from wearing a Muslim headscarf.

"I feel the anger of people who feel impotent in the face of violence and the rise of Islamist separatism, who feel their values and lifestyle are threatened by uncontrolled immigration," she said.

“It’s an opportunity for the Muslims to emerge as a serious actor in French politics and will create a new social and political imperative in the next elections.”

Toumi said that the Muslim community in France should unite and make their voice heard.

“Their voice could be a solid argument for the voiceless and will silence the anti-Muslim elite and politicians.”

Hafez said that France’s main concern is the future of French society and that Paris does not want self-organized Muslims who are proud of their religious identity to have a say in what France is and how it should look in the future.

“The Islamophobia question is a power question, It’s a question of the role of Muslims in France today and tomorrow.”

France last year engaged in a bitter feud with Muslim countries, including Turkey, over the statements and policies made by top French officials following the republication of offensive caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. Muslims across the world denounced satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo's decision to republish cartoons that disrespect the religion and the prophet.

The Observatoire National de Lutte contre l’Islamophobie recorded 235 Islamophobic acts from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2020, a 53% increase from the previous year. According to a 886-page report titled the "European Islamophobia Report 2020" co-edited by Enes Bayraklı, an international relations professor at the Istanbul-based Turkish-German University, and Hafez, there was a 14% increase in acts and a 79% increase in threats.

"The year 2020 marks a turning point in Islamophobia and in the treatment of Muslims in France," the report said, adding that for some years now, the French government has been "misusing the concept of “laïcité” (French version of secularism) to make it a weapon to the disadvantage of French Muslims and Islam – leading to the socio-economic exclusion of many Muslims, and in particular Muslim women wearing headscarves."

Furthermore, Shada Islam in her article published in the Guardian also touched upon what she called “France’s Muslim-panic” and said that “Once restricted to the EU’s far-right groups, France’s fixation with Muslims has extended across the European political landscape; Islam is seen either as a threat to national secular traditions or to the idea of “Christian Europe.”

Turkey’s stance

Following France’s decision to pass the controversial anti-radicalism bill, Turkey stressed that the move would further marginalize Muslims and other religious minorities.

Turkey's communications director in July said that though France claims to champion the principles of freedom, equality and fraternity, it has increased interference in the way of life of religious minorities through the bill.

States bear great responsibilities in these times when attacks against Muslims in Europe are increasing, he said, adding that Turkey will continue to closely follow the developments concerning the bill.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry similarly slammed France's decision, accusing it of following a distorted approach in an attempt to control migrant communities in Europe by establishing fabricated concepts.

The ministry said the mindset behind the law was mainly the result of false understandings of sociological and historical facts, further inciting xenophobia, racism, discrimination and hatred towards Muslims.

The statement continued by suggesting that the French state embrace more constructive rhetoric that will meet societal, religious and ethical needs – rather than looking at the people and religious issues solely through a security perspective./ dailysabah

The upcoming elections in three Indian states will be a contest between the BJP’s polarizing, violent, Islamaphobic messages and efforts to create a more plural, more democratic India

A bizarre event took place in northern India between December 17 and December 19, 2021. It was a “religious parliament” (Dharma Sansad) with the theme, “The Future of the Sanatan Dharma in Islamic India: Problem and Solutions.” The event took place in Haridwar, a city in the Indian state of Uttarakhand. The speakers—each of them dressed in saffron robes, which are usually worn by Hindu monks—took to the stage during the Dharma Sansad and spoke in a startlingly dangerous and provocative fashion. Sadhvi Annapurna, the general secretary of the Hindu Mahasabha, a right-wing Hindu nationalist outfit in India, was the most forthright in spelling out the agenda of hatred against the Muslim community that marked the tone for this event. “Nothing is possible without weapons,” she said. “If you want to eliminate their [the Muslim] population, then we are ready to kill them.”

The reference to “their” and “them” in her speech was clear to everyone in the room and anyone who watched her clip, which circulated widely on social media and on television channels in India. Sadhvi Annapurna was referring to the 204 million Muslims of India. “Even if 100 of us are ready to kill 20 lakh [2 million] of them, then we will be victorious and are ready to go to jail,” she said.

Despite calls by some sections of society, including a group of retired government officials, to investigate and arrest the organizers and speakers of the Dharma Sansad for making these provocative hate speeches, the police in the state of Uttarakhand did not take any “serious action” against those who tried to incite violence through this event, stated government officials in a letter they sent to Uttarakhand’s Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami “condemning his government’s response” to the Dharma Sansad. Uttarakhand is governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), whose leader Narendra Modi is the prime minister of India.

Meanwhile, Dhami did not make any statements against the event, although photographs of him bowing before one of the speakers at the conclave appeared to suggest a close association with the people involved in organizing the event. That speaker in the photograph, Swami Prabodhananda Giri, the head of the Hindu Raksha Sena, a right-wing organization based out of Uttarakhand, said at the gathering, “Every Hindu must pick up weapons, and we will have to conduct this cleanliness drive.” It is clear that the association of “weapons” with “cleanliness” refers to the kind of ethnic or religious cleansing witnessed during various periods in history, including the Holocaust during World War II.

Elections and Hate

Between February and March 2022, three key north India states are expected to go to the polls; among these states is Uttarakhand. The other two states—Uttar Pradesh and Punjab—are key to the fortunes of the ruling BJP, which will see its popularity tested after Modi had to withdraw three farm bills on November 19, 2021. Farmer unrest in both Punjab and Uttar Pradesh led to a year-long protest campaign that soured the reputation of the BJP in these two states and has created the possibility of new electoral maps being drawn in both these states in India. Uttar Pradesh (which has a population of approximately 200 million) is India’s most populous state, and the fortunes of the BJP there will determine the authority of Modi’s government in Delhi, India’s capital and the central government’s seat of power. A defeat in Uttar Pradesh, or even a reduced majority, would give the opposition greater confidence to challenge Modi’s fiat approach to policymaking and to counter the right-wing ideology propagated by the BJP.

Currently, the BJP dominates the state assembly in Uttar Pradesh (it won 312 out of the 403 seats in the assembly elections of 2017). The atmosphere in Uttar Pradesh remains tense for minorities (around 19 percent of the population in the state are Muslims), largely because various Hindu right-wing organizations—such as those represented at the religious conclave—have stoked the fires of hatred against the Muslim minority for generations. As part of its vote-gathering arsenal, the BJP has developed a strategy to provoke religious violence, polarize the population, and ensure that the majority Hindu vote gathers under its banner. This is what the BJP did to succeed in the 2014 general elections, before which local party officials engineered a pogrom in the town of Muzaffarnagar in August to September 2013 that resulted in the death of more than 60 people and left thousands of others displaced. In the aftermath of that violence, BJP leader—and now home minister of India (responsible for law and order in the country)—Amit Shah in 2014 told a crowd in Shamli in western Uttar Pradesh that the general election, which eventually led to the BJP seizing power in India, was about honor, and was “an election to take revenge for the insult” and “to teach a lesson to those who have committed injustice.”

In November 2021, the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (National People’s Party) formed an alliance for the Uttar Pradesh legislative elections. The Samajwadi Party had governed the state from 2012 to 2017 under the leadership of former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav. The Rashtriya Lok Dal, meanwhile, brings heft in the western districts of Uttar Pradesh, where the farmers’ agitation had the greatest impact. This combination threatens the BJP’s divisive agenda. It is likely that more events like the Dharma Sansad focused on spreading and strengthening religious hate in Uttar Pradesh will be on offer to polarize the electorate to the benefit of the BJP.

Sewers of Hate

The religious conclave held in December 2021 suggested that there was a threat to Hindus in “Islamic India.” This is a theme that goes back to the 19th century, when leaders of the Hindu right wing began to say that Hinduism was being threatened by, among other things, the rising birth rate of Muslims. Facts apart, this idea festered in the sewers of right-wing thought continues to find favor in the currents within the BJP, such as Shah, who had described the minority Muslim population of Uttar Pradesh as the people “who have committed injustice.” To refer to India as “Islamic” is part of the exaggerated paranoia, a festivity of hatred that results in violence and in the consolidation of political power for the BJP.

Rather than face arrest for their hate speech, the men and women who spoke at the assembly filed a complaint with the police against “maulanas or clerics” and “the Quran, maulvis [Islamic scholars] of Haridwar and other unnamed Muslims.” Sadhvi Annapurna, who had called for the murder of Muslims, is heard in a video posted on Twitter on December 28, 2021, telling a police officer to “show us that you are not biased.” Yati Narsinghanand, who organized the religious conclave, interjects to say that the police officer is “biased and on our side.” Following the religious conclave in Haridwar, 21 “Hindu monks” who participated in the conclave formed a committee to hold more of these meetings and to “convert India into a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ [state].” “You [the Hindus in India] can fight them only with arms,” the monks said, with no need to elaborate on whom they meant during their reference to “them.”

Democracy in India is wounded by the acidic legacy of the Hindu right wing, which thrives on intimidation and false pride as the fuel for its success. The farmers’ agitation offered an alternative path. The two roads will be tested in these legislative elections expected to take place in early 2022./ News Click 

If the fire of hate goes unchecked, the day is not far when it will spread across India.

In the holy land of Haridwar, some people robed in saffron professing to be holy men held a “Dharam Sansad” between December 17 and 20, 2021, where they reportedly spewed venom against Muslims, and gave a call for genocide. They saw in Muslims a threat to the existence of Hindus, and advocated arming Hindus with sophisticated weapons. They also reportedly said that Muslims should be chased away like Rohingya were chased from Myanmar, thereby establishing a “Hindu Rashtra”. One of them allegedly said that he would have shot a former prime minister for having said that minorities have the first right to India’s resources./ Indian Express 

Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn warns that the outlook is dire in the country as the political and security crisis deepens.

Myanmar has "all the ingredients for civil war", Cambodia, chair of Southeast Asia's regional bloc, has warned ahead of a visit by Prime Minister Hun Sen to the crisis-wracked country.

Hun Sen, whose country this year holds the rotating chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc, will visit Myanmar on Friday and Saturday in an effort to defuse the crisis.

Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn warned the outlook was dire, speaking at a lecture on Monday organised by Singapore-based think-tank the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.

"The political and security crisis in Myanmar is deepening, and has led to (an) economic, health and humanitarian crisis," he said.

"We feel that all the ingredients for civil war are now on the table.”

"There are now two governments, there are several armed forces, people are undergoing what they call the civil disobedience movement and (there is) guerrilla warfare around the country."

Peace roadmap

Myanmar has been in chaos since a coup last year, with more than 1,400 people killed in a crackdown on dissent by security forces, according to a local monitoring group.

Prak Sokhonn rejected criticism that Hun Sen's visit would legitimise the junta, and said the kingdom's "immediate attention is on improving the situation in Myanmar".

Efforts would remain focused on a peace roadmap and the "five-point consensus" agreed on by ASEAN leaders last year, he said.

The visit aims "to pave the way for progress" by "creating a conducive environment for inclusive dialogue and political trust among all parties concerned".

A visit by an ASEAN special envoy to Myanmar has been delayed after the junta refused to allow him to meet with ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

In response, the bloc excluded Myanmar's junta leader from a high-level October summit, a rare rebuke by a group often criticised for being toothless.

Myanmar's crisis has bad implications for "regional stability... ASEAN's image, credibility, unity," Prak Sokhonn added.

Nevertheless, he said Cambodia was making efforts to allow Myanmar's junta chief to resume attending meetings of the bloc again./ TRT

Bangladeshi authorities have bulldozed over 3,000 “illegal” Rohingya-run shops in Cox’s Bazaar, raising concern about the already dismal state of the refugees in the country.

Speaking to AFP, Additional Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Mohammad Shamsud Douza confirmed that thousands of “illegal shops” had been destroyed. He added, “The number of Rohingya is increasing. And they need shelters. We are already building sheds on the premises.” He also reassured that relief groups were ensuring the regular supplies of essential items to the camps.

These make-shift shops represent several refugees’ “last hope” for sustenance in Bangladesh. To this end, rights groups have expressed alarm about the incident. Khin Maung, a Rohingya rights activist, said that the demolitions have damaged the livelihoods of several refugees and their families. He stressed, “Rohingya families are large, and the amount of food ration given to them is decreasing. Many families used to rely on the income from the shops.”

Critics clam that the shops in Cox's Bazaar were bulldozed to pressure the refugees to shift to camps on the cyclone-prone Bhashan Char island.

Similarly, Saad Hammadi, a South Asia Campaigner from Amnesty International, said that the decision to demolish the shops has left the refugees vulnerable to exploitation and “aggravated tension and frustration.” To this end, he called on the government to “protect the rights and dignity of the Rohingya refugees by involving them in the decisions including their right to earn a living.”

An international rights group activist quoted by Voice of America said that the demolitions are a part of the government’s pressure tactics to incentivise the refugees to shift to the Bhashan Char Island in the Bay of Bengal. Rights groups, including Amnesty International, have urged the Bangladeshi government to scrap its plans to shift the refugees to the island, citing safety concerns due to its vulnerability to floods and cyclones. Despite these requests, however, Dhaka maintains that it will rehouse 100,000 of the camps’ approximately one million Rohingya refugees on the island while it works on a long-term solution. 

Bangladesh houses over 850,000 Rohingya refugees who fled Myanmar in 2017 in the aftermath of a deadly attack by Myanmar’s military that the United Nations (UN) has said was motivated by “genocidal intent.” While Bangladesh has been commended for accepting the refugees, onlookers have expressed concern about the restrictions placed on the refugees and the safety of their living conditions. /State Craft

A deadly fire that tore through a converted row house in Philadelphia, in the US state of Pennsylvania, has left 13 people dead, fire and local officials said on Wednesday.

The dead include at least seven children who were killed in the inferno, but officials stressed the death toll remains fluid as first responders continue to search the building. Two other people, including a child, have been transported to local hospitals, reportedly in critical condition.

Eight people were able to safely evacuate from the row house, which had been converted into two separate apartments, according to officials. Officials said a total of 26 people lived in the building, including 18 who lived on the unit that spanned the second and third floors.

“This is, without a doubt, one of the most tragic days in our city's history,” Mayor Jim Kenney told reporters at a press conference. “Keep these babies in your prayers.”

The Philadelphia Fire Department said it responded to a call of a fire at the site at 6:40 a.m. local time (1140 GMT), and were able to bring the fire under control within 50 minutes.

Philadelphia Fire Department First Deputy Fire Commissioner Craig Murphy said that when the crew arrived on the scene they "began an aggressive attack on the fire," and in the process discovered "multiple fatalities at this location."

"The fire was extinguished and it was terrible," he said. "This is probably one of the worst fires I’ve ever been to."

The cause of the fire remains under investigation./aa

At least nine people were killed in floods that hit almost entire Iran, local media reported.

Ismail Najjar, head of the National Disaster Management Organization, said that the recent heavy rains and floods killed at least nine people in Fars, Kerman and Sistan-Baluchestan provinces, according to ISNA news agency.

Najjar said that heavy rains adversely affected 101 cities and 309 regions across the country.

Efforts are ongoing to deliver aid supplies to flood victims in 17 provinces, including West Azerbaijan, Ardabil, Isfahan, Bushehr, Qazvin, Fars, Kirman, Sistan-Baluchestan, he added./aa