Human Rights

02 Nov 2020; MEMO: Egypt will reopen the Rafah crossing with the blockaded Gaza Strip on Monday, the Palestinian Interior Ministry said on Sunday.

“The terminal will be open in both directions for four days until Thursday,” the Hamas-run ministry said in a statement.

This is the third time for the Egyptian authorities to reopen the Rafah crossing since March.

02 Nov 2020; MEMO: France is to return its ambassador to Turkey, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said yesterday, one week after recalling him.

France summoned its official after weeks of increasing tensions between the two countries over French President Emmanuel Macron’s support for a satirical magazine which insulted Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).

02 Nov 2020; MEMO: Saudi authorities have been using social media platforms mainly to crackdown on opponents and critics of the state and to curtail freedom of expression in the kingdom.

AFP reported that the crackdown has included intellectuals as well as senior state officials.

Chandigarh, Nov 1 (PTI) A day after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced his government would bring a law against "love jihad", his Haryana counterpart M L Khattar said his government is also considering legal provisions against it to ensure "the guilty cannot escape".

Citing the recent murder of a student in Faridabad's Ballabhgarh, Khattar said the incident is being linked to "love jihad", a derogatory coinage used by right-wing activists to refer to the alleged campaign of Muslims forcing Hindu girls to convert in the guise of love.

New Delhi, Nov 1 (PTI) Secularism as principle and practice in India is in "danger" and the ruling dispensation may even try to remove the word from the Constitution, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has said, but asserted that "forces of hatred" cannot alter the country's secular character.

Secularism is only a word and even if the government takes it out of the Constitution, it would still be a secular Constitution because of its basic structure, Tharoor told PTI in an interview on his new book 'The Battle of Belonging'.

31 Oct 2020; MEMO: The US Justice Department has announced that Washington sold around 1.1 million barrels of Iranian oil from four tankers headed for Venezuela, Anadolu Agency reported on Friday.

“Upon being presented with the court’s seizure order, the ships’ owner transferred the petroleum to the government, and we can now announce that the United States has sold and delivered that petroleum,” Deputy Attorney General John Demers announced on Thursday in a press release.

31 Oct 2020; MEMO: Israeli settlers cut off electricity poles in the village of Al-Sawiya in the northern occupied West Bank, Maan News Agency reported.

The Palestinian official in charge of the settlement file in the northern West Bank, Ghassan Douglas, confirmed that the settlers from the Jewish-only illegal settlement of Rahalim were responsible for chopping down a number of wooden electric poles with chainsaws, causing power outages in the area near Nablus.

30 Oct 2020; MEMO: The head of French Muslim NGO BarakaCity has publicly requested asylum in Turkey for himself and his organisation, following the French government’s crackdown against its Muslim population and its dissolution of the NGO.

Idriss Sihamedi, BarakaCity’s founder and head, whose house was raided by anti-terror police two weeks ago over allegations of harassment and extremism, announced his request for asylum in Turkey on Twitter yesterday.

30 Oct 2020; MEMO: The Israeli occupation police prevented more than 2,000 Palestinians from entering the Ibrahimi Mosque in the city of Hebron on Thursday where they were hoping to take part in a celebration of the birthday of Prophet Muhammad, Anadolu has reported.

30 Oct 2020; MEMO: Israel will impose sanctions and penalties on Palestinian banks which process payments from the Palestinian Authority (PA) to the families of Palestinians who have spent time in Israeli jails, lsraeli media reported.