CR IP TI ON BS SU
MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 2013
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US considers military action as Syria warns Damascus okays UN probe, Washington says ‘too late’
Kuwait backs AL call for Syria crisis session CAIRO: Kuwait yesterday supported a call by Arab League Secretary General Nabil Al-Araby to convene an emergency session of the UN Security Council for issuing a resolution aimed at bringing a ceasefire in Syria. Kuwait’s permanent delegate at the Arab League Ambassador Jamal Al-Ghunaim renewed Kuwait’s rejection and condemnation of usage of chemical arms against the Syrian people. He called upon United Nations Secretary General Ban ki-Moon to investigate reports about the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons against civilians in Al-Ghouta on outskirts of Damascus last Wednesday and communicated the country’s demand that the Security Council shoulder the historic responsibility toward “the ugly crime and its call upon the international community to hold investigations immediately.” Kuwait’s stance is totally in harmony with the initiative, launched by the Arab League Secretary General, which also calls for adoption of a practical mechanism to supervise execution of the resolution under UN supervision, and then allowing entry of humanitarian aid to the stricken regions as well as start of implementation of what had been agreed upon regarding the holding of the Geneva-two con ference to find a political settlement to the crisis, Ambassador Al-Ghunaim stated. He also welcomed the League’s call to hold an emergency session of the permanent delegates tomorrow to discuss the steps to be taken at the international level to deal with the dangerous developments in Syria. — KUNA
DAMASCUS: A Syrian man mourns over a dead body after an alleged poisonous gas attack fired by regime forces, according to activists, in Douma town, Damascus. — AP
TEHRAN: President Hasan Rouhani (right) with Omani Sultan Qaboos for photographers in an official arrival ceremony in Tehran yesterday. — AP
DAMASCUS: UN experts are today to start investigating the site of an alleged Syrian chemical weapons attack after a go-ahead from Damascus, as a skeptical Washington said Syria’s acceptance had come too late. In an escalation of a showdown over a suspected chemical weapons attack near Damascus last week, the United States pointed the finger of blame at President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime as it weighed military action. “There is very little doubt at this point that a chemical weapon was used by the Syrian regime against civilians in this incident,” based on the reported number of victims and their symptoms, as well as US and other foreign intelligence, one official in Washington told AFP. Syria’s opposition says more than 1,300 people died when regime forces unleashed chemical weapons against rebel-held towns east and southwest of Damascus on August 21, while Doctors Without Borders said 355 people had died of “neurotoxic” symptoms. Damascus has strongly denied it carried out such an attack, instead blaming the rebels. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told a Jerusalem press conference yesterday there was “no doubt” the Damascus regime was behind the suspected attack. Meanwhile, Syria’s information minister said any US military action would “create a ball of fire that will inflame the Middle East”. He said Damascus had evidence chemical weapons were used by rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Al-Assad, not by his government. Western countries say they believe the rebels do not have access to poison gas. “From the moment the substance of the facts is established incontestably (by the UN inspectors), there Continued on Page 15
‘Trial of two regimes’ in Egypt
Oman’s Qaboos in Iran on historic visit DUBAI: Oman’s Sultan Qaboos yesterday began the first visit to Iran by a foreign leader since moderate President Hassan Rouhani took office and Iranian media said his trip might be an effort to mediate between Tehran and Washington. Oman, a Gulf Arab state that maintains unusually friendly ties with both the United States and Iran, has previously been an important go-between for the two countries that severed diplomatic relations in 1980 and are in a protracted stand-off over the disputed Iranian nuclear program. The West suspects the Islamic Republic is working to develop a nuclear arms capability, an accusation Iran denies, and has brought about increasingly strict international sanctions against Tehran. President Barack Obama’s administration has said Washington is open to direct talks with Iran to resolve the nuclear and other disputes, and Iranian officials have not ruled them out. The landslide election of Rouhani, who took office on Aug 3, has raised hopes of a negotiated settlement to the nuclear dispute and an end to sanctions that have halved Iran’s oil exports since 2011 and put immense pressure on the economy. “It can be guessed that the Sultan of Oman’s trip to Iran can mean that afterward this country, instead of playing the role of mediator in relation to Iran and America, wants to play the role of host for these two countries with regard to Continued on Page 15
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CAIRO: Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak (center) and his sons Gamal (left) and Alaa (right) are seen behind bars during their trial yesterday in Cairo. — AFP
Bedoon weddings start with a bang
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CAIRO: Three leaders of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and the movement’s former arch-foe Hosni Mubarak faced separate trials yesterday on similar charges of involvement in the killing of protesters. With Egypt now under an armyinstalled government after last month’s overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, local media seized on the symbolism of scheduling both sessions on the same day. “ Trial of two regimes,” headlined Al-Shorouk daily. In the end, Mohamed Badie, the Brotherhood’s “General Guide”, and his deputies did not appear at the opening of their trial for security reasons, a judicial source said. Citing their absence, the judge adjourned the proceedings until Oct 29. The case against Badie, Khairat AlShater and Rashad Bayoumy relates to unrest before the army removed Morsi on July 3. Morsi has been detained in an undisclosed location since then. More
than 1,000 people, including about 100 soldiers and police, have died in violence across Egypt since Morsi’s fall, making it the bloodiest civil unrest in the republic’s 60-year history. Brotherhood supporters say the toll is much higher. Mubarak, who left prison on Thursday after judges ordered his release, appeared in a courtroom cage in a wheelchair, wearing sunglasses and dressed in white, along with his jailed sons Gamal and Alaa and former interior minister Habib Al-Adly. After a hearing that lasted about three hours, the judge set the next session for Sept 14, pending further investigation. The former president was sentenced to life in prison last year for complicity in the killing of protesters during the 2011 revolt against him, but an appeals court ordered a retrial. A helicopter flew Mubarak to the court in the Police Academy on the eastern outskirts of Continued on Page 15
Mumbai police arrest last of 5 rape suspects
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‘Hijab appeal’ splits Sweden STOCKHOLM: In gender-equality Sweden, a grassroots movement defending women’s right to wear hijab has split the nation, backed by politicians and celebrities while critics say it supports a symbol of female “oppression”. Hundreds of Swedish women have posted photographs of themselves wearing headscarves on social media sites to show solidarity with a heavily pregnant Muslim woman who says she was attacked outside Stockholm for wearing a veil. Police are searching for witnesses to the incident, which is being treated as a hate crime, and has sparked a wave of online protest. Leftist politicians and celebrities were among those who lent their support to the movement, dubbed “The hijab appeal”, by tweeting pictures of themselves wearing the Islamic headscarf. By Thursday, more than 2,000 people had posted pictures tagged with the “hijab appeal” hashtag on Instagram, mostly featuring women of different faiths wearing the veil. A Facebook “event” page set up by the activists garnered 10,000 attendees but had to be removed after the comments section was swamped with racist and sexist remarks. “The number of hate crimes
against Muslim women has increased lately,” one of the campaign organizers, Foujan Rouzbeh, said. However, critics say the campaign trivializes the suffering of women forced or pressured into covering their heads, in Sweden and elsewhere. “I support protesting against the treatment of the woman who was attacked, absolutely. Holding speeches, demonstrating,” said Sara Mohammad, the head of a charity for victims of honor crimes. “Not by wearing the veil, which is known around the world as an Islamic symbol for oppressing women. It’s not just being forced on women in Iran and Saudi Arabia, it has also become the flag for political Islam in the west.” The Swedish politicians wearing the hijab this week rarely displayed the same support for those fighting for the right not to wear it, sometimes risking their lives in doing so, Mohammad argued. “This is an injudicious and populist measure designed to attract votes from the Muslim community,” she said. Rouzbeh said critics of the Swedish hijab campaign had taken it out of context. “We’re not trying to belittle people’s experience of having been forced to wear the veil ...we’re basing this on
veiled women who wear it out of choice. Those women should have the right to do that without being attacked,” she said. Muslim women were being used as scapegoats in the face of rising unemployment in Sweden and the rest of Europe, said Rouzbeh, who met the justice minister on Wednesday. “None of us are saying this started under the current government, but we would argue that it has increased because they haven’t taken this threat seriously.” The group is demanding a commission be set up to investigate the problem of violence against veiled women, and also wants the government to ensure a ban on newsreaders for public broadcaster SVT wearing the garment is lifted. Rouzbeh said the rise of the antiimmigrant Sweden Democrats, which the latest polls indicate would be the third largest party in an election, and a negative image of Muslims in the media had stoked violence and harassment of women wearing the hijab. But there is little data to support claims of a surge in the number of Islamophobic hate crimes. The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention said 306 such crimes were reported last year, compared with 278 the previous year and 272 in 2008. — AFP
Fatima Doubakil, one of the initiators of the "hijab outcry" campaign speaks to journalists outside the government building in Stockholm.— AFP