KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 17 — The High Court in Kota Baru has allowed Ikatan Guru Guru Muslim Malaysia’s (IGuru) application to reinstate its lawsuit to declare vernacular schools as unconstitutional in Malaysia.

The application was filed by IGuru president Mohd Azizee Hasan who was represented by Datuk Shaharudin Ali while federal counsel Nik Nur Adila Mat Zaidan from the Attorney General Chambers (AGC) appeared for the government and the Education Ministry.

High Court judge Wan Ahmad Farid made his decision this morning after the originating summons was previously struck off on January 25 as no lawyer was present to appear for Azizee at the time.

The court then set February 28 for case management for an application by the AGC to transfer the case to the Kuala Lumpur High Court.

Shaharudin in a statement today said his client will challenge this application as they deemed the High Court in Kota Baru the appropriate venue for the matter.

“The intention of the application was to consolidate all vernacular cases to a specified Kuala Lumpur High Court.

“The Plaintiff will be opposing such application by the Attorney General’s Chambers because we take the position that the High Court of Kota Baru has the jurisdiction and is competent to determine the constitutional issues posed to the Court,’’ said Shahrudin.

Last year, two similar challenges were mounted by different groups to seek clarity on Article 152 of the Federal Constitution in relation to the use of the national language as the main medium of instructions in schools and to determine if Sections 17 and 28 of the Education Act violated the constitution.

In 2019, Putra vice-president Mohd Khairul Azam filed a similar lawsuit in his second attempt to have vernacular schools declared unconstitutional, after his first failed in November of that year.

In his lawsuit against the education minister and Malaysian government, Mohd Khairul Azam claimed Sections 28 and 17 of the Education Act are invalid due to alleged inconsistencies with Act 152 of the Federal Constitution.

In February of last year, the High Court had also allowed 14 organisations, including political parties such as MCA, MIC, Gerakan and education and language groups, to become part of Mohd Khairul Azam ‘s constitutional challenge.

Mohd Khairul was also represented by Shaharudin at the time.

A Kashmiri human rights defender on Tuesday said police detained him to keep him away from a delegation of foreign envoys set to visit the disputed region.

Ahsan Untoo, the chairman of the International Forum for Justice and Human Rights, Jammu and Kashmir, told Anadolu Agency from inside a lockup that he was taken into custody in Srinagar on Monday evening.

“I have been told that authorities fear I might hold a protest during the visit of the foreign delegation,” said Untoo, who was also detained on Aug. 5, 2019 when India scrapped the political autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir.

He was detained until last August under a preventive detention law. He has held scores of peaceful, often one-man protests, against alleged rights violations.

His organization has also helped families who accuse Indian forces of human rights violations.

“Do I not have a right, not as an activist but a parent, to meet these envoys and narrate my woes? If we can't even express ourselves before a foreign delegation, what kind of visit is this and what kind of democracy is this?"

A 20-member delegation will visit the Indian-administered Kashmir on Feb. 17-18. This is the fourth tour of foreign envoys organized by India since the region was stripped of its special status.

The Indian government drew flak for past tours from the opposition, who said handpicked people were paraded before the visitors to present a false rosy picture of the region.

Pakistan has also called the upcoming visit a "smokescreen" to create "a false impression of ‘normalcy'" in the Himalayan valley, which is held by India and Pakistan in parts but claimed by both in full. A small sliver of the region is also under Chinese control.

Since they were partitioned in 1947, the two countries have fought three wars, two of them over Kashmir.

Some Kashmiri groups have been fighting against Indian rule for independence, or unification with neighboring Pakistan. Thousands of people have been killed and tortured in the region since 1989, according to several human rights groups./aa

Ukraine on Tuesday condemned the PKK terror group for the massacre of 13 Turkish citizens in northern Iraq.

“It is with deep sorrow that we learned about the deaths of Turkish citizens in northern Iraq. The murderers of unarmed people deserve the most severe condemnation,” Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said on Twitter.

“We express our sincere condolences to the friendly Turkish people, as well as relatives and friends of the victims.”

The bodies of the 13 Turkish citizens, held captive by the PKK for several years, were found during Turkey’s anti-terror operation in the Gara region in northern Iraq, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on Sunday.

In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US, and the EU – has been responsible for the deaths of 40,000 people, including women, children, and infants./aa

New documentary evidence from official French archives revealed that during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Paris allowed the perpetrators to flee while ignoring a request by its own ambassador to arrest them.

French online outlet Mediapart published a diplomatic telegram dated July 1994 in the midst of the genocide, accessed by Francois Graner, the research director of the French National Research Center (CNRS), who has been studying official archives related to France’s role in the genocide.

In the genocide, at least 800,000 people mainly from the Tutsi minority were massacred in a span of about 100 days. Thousands of women from the tribe were raped and villages torched and pillaged.

The French army, deployed under the UN peacekeeping mission, established a safe humanitarian zone in Rwanda and the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo. However, the real intention behind Paris’ humanitarian intervention has been questioned since 1994, with some saying the safe corridor controlled by the French army was a cover to shield the forces behind the planned killing.

Foreign Ministry ordered to let perpetrators go

According to Mediapart, French diplomat Yannick Gerard, in a telegram on July 15, 1994 from Rwanda, sought instructions from Paris on “personalities almost all of which are considered responsible for the massacres” who had arrived in a refugee camp run by the French military in Gisenyi, on the border with Zaire.

The cable said: “We have publicly informed them their presence in the area was not desired” and “they would be put under house arrest until their surrender to the United Nations.”

In response, Bernard Emie, then-advisor to Foreign Minister Alain Juppe and the current director of the General Directorate for External Security (DGSE), wrote:

"You can use all indirect channels, and especially your African contacts, to convey to these officials (under the control of the French army) that we ask them to leave the Safe Humanitarian Aid Zone, without directly disclosing yourself. The international community, and in particular the United Nations, will follow against these so-called authorities. Underline that you can determine the path very soon."

Gerard followed the instructions allowing the people to escape. He opened the closed borders and sent them to the border with vehicles.

Graner told Anadolu Agency that these people were in fact 14 members of the government that committed the genocide, including the prime minister and many government ministers.

Evidence France wanted job done secretly

Although France’s complicity in providing material support in the genocide has come to light through survivors’ testimony and archival documents, Graner said it was not known that the government gave a specific order allowing the perpetrators to escape.

“This document shows how France took this decision and wanted it done secretly. It came from the Foreign Ministry headed by Juppe,” he said.

The decision was taken even before the UN Security Council in New York could decide whether the perpetrators should be arrested.

Graner added that France was the only country that accepted the representatives of the government whose establishment it supported. “During the genocide, in April 1994, two representatives were hosted in the Prime Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, and the Elysee Palace," he said, referring lastly to the presidential residence.

"This is political evidence of France's continued support for an extremist Hutu group before, during, and after the genocide. France relied on them to keep the region under its influence."

Graner stressed the grave consequences of France's support for the genocide against the ethnic Tutsis.

French-Rwandan tensions

Allegations on France’s dubious role and involvement in Rwanda have been a source of tensions between the two countries. In 2016, Rwanda implicated 22 French military officers for their direct role in the genocide.

While Paris has denied claims that it supported the Hutu regime’s efforts to exterminate the Tutsi, it has provided refuge to several figures suspected of planning and carrying out the genocide.

Agathe Kanziga, the widow of assassinated President Juvenal Habyarimana, and alleged powerful figure of the inner Hutu circle responsible for planning the violence, has been living in France. In 2011, France refused an extradition request.

Last year, Felicien Kabuga, known as the financier of the genocide, was arrested after he was found to be hiding in France for 26 years.

According to information collected by the Collective of Civil Parties for Rwanda NGO, there are around 30 cases of people allegedly responsible for the genocide presumed to be living as refugees in France.

During a 2010 trip, the first by a French head of the state since the genocide, then-President Nicholas Sarkozy famously admitted that his country had made “grave errors of judgment” in 1994.

In a bid to reconcile Franco-Rwandan relations, in 2019 President Emmanuel Macron appointed a panel of historians and researchers to investigate France’s role in the Rwanda genocide. The findings of the report are due this year./aa

France’s National Assembly approved a controversial bill Tuesday that has been criticized for targeting Muslims. 

The draft law was approved with 347 lawmakers voting in favor, 151 against and 65 abstaining.

Known as the “separatism” bill, it was supported by President Emmanuel Macron’s ruling La Republique En Marche (LREM) party, the Democratic Movement (MoDem), the Agir party and the Union of Democrats and Independents (UDI), while the center-right Republicans (LR) and far left La France Insoumise (LFI) party opposed it.

Lawmakers from the center-left Socialist Party (PS) and French Communist Party (PCF) abstained from voting.

The LR reportedly opposed the bill for including “soft steps.” Bruno Retailleau, who serves as president of the group in the Senate, said in a statement that he wanted to include "Islamist separatism" and a ban on headscarves in public places in the bill.

The bill will be discussed in the Senate on March 30 and is expected to return to the National Assembly after a vote is held.

It was introduced by President Macron last year to fight so-called "Islamist separatism."

The bill is being criticized because it targets the Muslim community and imposes restrictions on almost every aspect of their lives.

It provides for intervening in mosques and the associations responsible for their administration as well as controlling the finances of associations and non-governmental organizations belonging to Muslims.

It also restricts education choices of the Muslim community by preventing families from giving children home education.

The bill also prohibits patients from choosing doctors based on gender for religious or other reasons and makes "secularism education" compulsory for all public officials./aa

US President Joe Biden said Tuesday that every American will be able to get a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of July.

Responding to questions from American citizens at a CNN town hall, Biden said there were only 50 million vaccine doses available when he took office on Jan. 6.

"By the end of July, we’ll have 600 million doses, enough to vaccinate every single American," he added.

He said there will be 400 million vaccine doses available by the end of May.

The US continues to be the hardest hit by the pandemic, which has infected over 27.7 million people in the country and killed nearly 488,000 since the first case was detected in February last year./aa

Families staging a sit-in protest in southeastern Turkey’s Diyarbakir province against the PKK terror group, which is accused of forcibly recruiting children, called on their sons and daughters Tuesday to surrender to Turkish security forces.

The protest outside the office of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), which the government accuses of having links to the PKK, began on Sept. 3, 2019 when three mothers said PKK terrorists forcibly recruited their children and has been growing since then.

Guzide Demir, a grieved mother whose son was abducted to the mountains four years ago, said they are determined to continue the protest.

Demir’s son Aziz was only 16 years old when he was kidnapped.

“They have massacred our 13 children,” she said, referring to the PKK’s recent executions of 13 Turkish citizens in a cave in northern Iraq’s Gara region.

Their bodies were found during Turkey’s anti-terror offensive in the region which was launched to clear its borders of terrorists.

Demir urged her son to surrender to security forces, noting that she would not leave the protest until her son comes back.

“My son, Aziz, come back and surrender to security forces,” she said.

One of the protesting fathers, Salih Gokce, came from eastern Agri province to get back his son Mehmet, who was kidnapped four years ago.

Gokce also condemned the terror group for murdering the 13 Turkish nationals.

He also called on his son to give in to security forces.

“I will not leave this tent. My son, come back and surrender to the merciful hands of the government,” he said.

In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the EU – has been responsible for the deaths of 40,000 people, including women, children and infants./aa