The Turkish Coast Guard on Thursday rescued at least 17 asylum seekers off the northwestern Canakkale province after they were pushed back to Turkish territorial waters by Greece, a security source said.

The coast guard teams were dispatched to the scene when they learned that a group of asylum seekers, who were trying to reach the Greek island of Lesbos, were stranded on a life boat off Ayvacik district, said the source who asked not to be named due to restrictions on speaking to the media.

They were taken to the shore and transferred to the provincial repatriation center, it added.

Turkey has been a key transit point for asylum seekers who want to cross into Europe to start new lives, especially those fleeing war and persecution.

Earlier this year, Turkey opened its gates to irregular migrants, accusing the EU of failing to keep its promises under a 2016 migrant deal.

Turkey hosts nearly 4 million Syrians, more than any other country in the world./aa

At least 41 irregular migrants, who had illegally entered Turkey from Iran, were held in the Turkish capital Ankara, according to a security source on Thursday.

Anti-smuggling and border teams in Ankara launched an operation to round up the irregular migrants who had entered Turkey from eastern Agri and Van provinces, said the source on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on speaking to the media.

Thirty-four Afghan and seven Uzbek nationals were held in the operation conducted across the province.

Procedures have been initiated to deport them, the source added.

Turkey has been a key transit point for asylum seekers who want to cross into Europe to start new lives, especially those fleeing war and persecution./aa

TRIPOLI 

A delegation from the International Criminal Court (ICC) will visit Libya on Friday to inspect mass graves unearthed in the city of Tarhuna, the Libyan army said Wednesday. 

The delegation will also investigate those involved in war crimes in coordination with the Tripoli Prosecutor's Office, the media office of the government-led Burkan Al-Ghadab (Volcano of Rage) Operation said in a statement.

On July 7, the ICC decided to send a team to investigate war crimes committed by forces loyal to Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar in the city, including the issue of mass graves and the planting of booby trap mines by Haftar’s militias.

Libya has been torn by civil war since the ouster of late ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

The Government of National Accord was founded in 2015 under a UN-led agreement, but efforts for a long-term political settlement failed due to a military offensive by Haftar’s forces.

The UN recognizes Fayez al-Sarraj's government as the country's legitimate authority.

Tripoli has battled Haftar's militias since April 2019 in a conflict that has claimed thousands of lives.

In recent months, as Haftar’s militias were forced into retreat by the legitimate government with Turkish security assistance, many mass graves were discovered in areas the militias had controlled.

Turkey also supports the Al-Sarraj-led government./aa

France's Prime Minister Jean Castex on Wednesday announced a draft law against radical extremism which Muslims fear, if passed, will target them unfairly.

The announcement came at a news conference following a cabinet meeting which was also attended by President Emmanuel Macron.

The "anti-separatism" bill will focus on ethnic communities, including Muslims, who do not always assimilate in the French society and culture.

Clearing the controversy around the bill, Castex said: "The text is not a text against religions, nor against the Muslim religion in particular. It is a law of emancipation in the face of religious fanaticism."

Spread over 50 articles, the bill contain provisions regarding every facet of life.

The bill allows for stricter control over the funding of schools, allowing lawmakers to consult the criminal records of all teachers in private schools.

Among other things, it authorizes law enforcement officials to regulate the use of public space, that could extend to religious gatherings.

"We will allow the prefects to intervene to impose the values of the Republic and ensure that they are respected when violations of republican principles take place," said Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, who also addressed the news conference.

The move comes in the aftermath of a spate of terror attacks in France this fall which claimed four lives, including that of a teacher.

Muslims living in France have voiced concern that they are being unfairly targeted after the attacks with multiple mosques being closed and dozens of investigations opened against prominent members of the community.

French historian and sociologist Jean Bauberot is one of the more vocal critics of the bill. In an interview with Franceinfo on Tuesday, he said: "This is not the right way to enforce the principles of secularism."/aa

GAROWE, Somalia(AA) 

At least five Somali military officials were killed and three others wounded when gunmen ambushed a military convoy near the town of Guri-El in central Somalia's Galmudug state on Wednesday.

The attack took place as the Somali national army personnel were returning from a training workshop in Guri-El, located approximately 450 kilometers (270 miles) north of the capital Mogadishu.

"A military convoy carrying Somali national army was attacked by gunmen in three different directions outside the town of Guri-El, killing five officials," Gulaid Abdirashid Hassan, a military official in Galgadud region, told Anadolu Agency over the phone.

Military reinforcements and officials from local authorities arrived at the scene and an investigation is currently underway, he added.

The attack comes after Somali military officials in southwestern province of Gedo said that they had conducted a military operations against Somali-based al-Qaeda affiliated group al-Shabaab, killing five militants.

The UN human rights chief said Wednesday that her office remains concerned about ongoing reports of serious human rights violations in China’s Xinjiang region, home to ethnic Uighur community, and would like to visit the area. 

"These reports came from a variety of sources, but consistent with our usual practice, my team is trying to validate the material we receive on these issues," said the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, speaking to journalists at a hybrid press conference.

For many months, the UN rights office has sought access to the tightly controlled Muslim-majority Chinese region of Xinjiang and hopes to visit it in 2021.

In February, Bachelet told the Human Rights Council, "We will seek to analyze in-depth the human rights situation in China, including the situation of members of the Uighur minority."

"We will continue to request unfettered access for an advance team in preparation for this proposed visit."

The UN rights chief said that her office and the Chinese government had "resumed direct exchange on a visit to China" and also on contact about the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bachelet hoped that the format her office and the Chinese government were working on would lead to "meaningful access" for the UN team.

Beijing's policy in Xinjiang has drawn widespread criticism from rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which accuse it of ostracizing 12 million Uighurs in China, most of whom are Muslims.

The region is home to 10 million Uighurs. The Turkic Muslim group, which makes up around 45% of Xinjiang's population, has long accused China's authorities of cultural, religious, and economic discrimination.

Up to 1 million people, or about 7% of the Muslim population in Xinjiang, have been incarcerated in an expanding network of "political re-education" camps, according to US officials and UN experts./aa

IZMIR/CANAKKALE, Turkey(AA)

The Turkish Coast Guard rescued at least 48 asylum seekers who were pushed into Turkish territorial waters off the Aegean coast by Greek coastal authorities, according to security sources.

The Turkish Coast Guard said Wednesday in a statement that a team was dispatched to an area off Cesme in the western Izmir province after learning of a group of asylum seekers stranded on a dinghy.

A total of 26 asylum seekers were taken to the shore, according to the statement.

Separately, another Turkish Coast Guard team was dispatched off the coast of Ayvacik in the northwestern Canakkale province and rescued at least 22 asylum seekers.

The asylum seekers' rubber raft was pushed back to Turkish territorial waters by the Greek Coast Guard, said the sources, who asked not to be named due to restrictions on speaking to the media.

After routine checks, the asylum seekers were taken to the provincial migration authority.

Turkey has been a key transit point for asylum seekers who want to cross into Europe to start new lives, especially those fleeing war and persecution.

Earlier this year, Turkey opened its gates to irregular migrants, accusing the EU of failing to keep its promises under a 2016 migrant deal.

Turkey hosts nearly 4 million Syrians, more than any other country in the world.

ERBIL(AA) 

The Prime Minister of Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), Masrour Barzani, said Wednesday that the PKK has not withdrawn from Sinjar district in Nineveh province.

"We are waiting for the Sinjar Agreement to be implemented, but it has not yet been applied,” Barzani told reporters.

He went on to say that "The PKK and other affiliated forces have not withdrawn from Sinjar. They just changed their clothes for a few hours and went to Mount Sinjar and returned again. On the contrary, their number increased even more."

The Sinjar deal, inked between Baghdad and Erbil under the auspices of the UN on the status of the region, envisages clearing the region of the PKK terrorists.

The PKK terror organization managed to establish a foothold in Sinjar in 2014 under the pretext of protecting the Ezidi community from Daesh/ISIS terrorists. Some 450,000 Ezidis fled Sinjar after Daesh/ISIS took control of the region.

Commenting on recent violent demonstrations in Sulaymaniyah, Barzani implied that PKK elements were involved in the unrest to disrupt stability in the region.

"We want our people to be free to express themselves. Unfortunately, we are aware that the people are in a bad situation and we are part of it. Everyone has the right to voice his/her demands. But for the past few days, demonstrations have been abused and turned into violence," the premier said.

"The demonstrations saw the participation of Syrian citizens and those from outside the Kurdistan Region," Barzani said, stressing that "a group had infiltrated the demonstrators and changed the direction of the protests and attacked party and public buildings."

Since Dec. 7, seven people have lost their lives and dozens have been injured in the protests against the KRG government due to the delay in the salaries of civil servants in Sulaymaniyah and Halabja. 

The protests saw demonstrators setting ablaze the offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the Kurdistan Islamic Union, and the Islamic Group. 

"This is not the right way to demand for rights and salaries,” Barzani said. He also pointed out that a Peshmerga soldier was killed by a sniper rifle during the protests.

The KRG has been struggling to pay the salaries of civil servants since April, when Baghdad stopped paying them as a result of disputes over oil wealth management and the distribution of its revenues, as well as revenues from border crossings.

The number of KRG civil servants is estimated at 1.2 million, receiving total salaries of $700 million per month.

A report on the 2019 Christchurch attack in New Zealand which was recently made public has been widely criticized in the local media.

Compiled in 20 months, the nearly 800-page report contains some key conclusions and recommendations, including that "there was an inappropriate concentration of counter-terrorism resources on the threat of Islamist extremist terrorism" before the March 15, 2019 attacks.

The report, which has become the number one item on the country's agenda, made headlines in the most widely read local newspapers. Media outlets noted that the law enforcement agencies avoided holding a certain institution and security unit responsible.

The newspapers included the views of representatives of the Muslim community.

New Zealand Herald published a frontpage story with the headline: "We failed. We must not fail again".

"Muslim leaders, shooting survivors, and grieving families reacted to the report's release with concerns it lacked conclusions on accountability," read the story.

Otago Daily Times published a full-page story on Wednesday titled "It’s time for change" including New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's remarks saying: "We all have a role to play in ensuring an event like March 15 never happens again."

The daily also included remarks by Abdigani Ali, spokesman for the Al Noor and Linwood mosques at Christchurch.

Ali said the community found it “alarming” that the risk posed by right-wing extremism was “so poorly understood and resourced” by intelligence services and that before May 2018 resources were allocated almost exclusively to the threat of Islamist terrorism.

Meanwhile, The Press also ran a story including Al Noor Mosque's Imam Gamal Fouda's comments saying: "We should have been safe here."

On March 15, 2019, a terrorist attacked two mosques in the city of Christchurch during Friday prayers and killed 51 people and wounded 49 others.

The terrorist was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole this year in August in the first such ruling ever handed down in the country.