James Gregory Finland's new economy minister has resigned after just 10 days in office over remarks he made at a far-right event four years ago. Vilhelm Junnila apologised for his remarks but has now stepped down from his ministerial position (Reuters) Vilhelm Junnila, of the nationalist Finns Party, has been accused of making repeated Nazi references. He apologised and survived a no-confidence vote, but announced his resignation on Friday. Mr Junnila said he was stepping down so as not to harm the reputation of both the government and Finland. "I see that it is impossible for me to continue as a minister in a satisfactory way," Mr Junnila added in a statement. His resignation comes after it emerged he addressed a Nationalist Alliance event in the south-western city of Turku in 2019. At the event, held to commemorate the victims of a stabbing in the city two years earlier, he remarked that the local party chairman's election number was 88, the same number Mr Junnila himself had in elections the same year. The number 88 is seen among neo-Nazis as a symbol for the greeting "Heil Hitler", since H is the eighth letter in the alphabet, making 88 signify "HH". Then, in March, Mr Junnila congratulated another candidate who received the same number at a Finns campaign event, according to Finnish public broadcaster Yle. "First of all, congratulations on an excellent election number. I know it is a winning card. This 88 refers, of course, to the two 'H's, but let's not dwell on that," the 41-year-old is said to have joked. Writing on social media last week, Mr Junnila said he had "done something wrong" and he was "sorry for my actions". "I hope everyone is clear that I condemn the Holocaust, anti-Semitism and all anti-Semitic acts strongly and definitely," he added in a separate Facebook post. Mr Junnila survived a no-confidence vote in parliament earlier this week after being accused by opposition parties of repeatedly making statements linked to the Nazis. His resignation comes just 10 days after his party was officially sworn in as a junior partner in Finland's new right-wing coalition government. Petteri Orpo, Finland's prime minister and leader of the National Coalition Party which came first in April's election, said Mr Junnila's resignation was the "right and only possible decision". The Finns Party member has also been criticised for his suggestion in 2019 that Finland should promote what he called "climate abortions" in African nations, national daily Helsingin Sanomat reports. © 2023 BBC.

‘Triumph of the Spirit’ is not just a recounting of World War II, but looks to ‘uplift’ the viewer, one of its creators says By Judah Ari Gross Filmmakers Miriam Cohen, Chani Kopilowitz and Yuti Neiman film Holocaust researcher Yisrael Goldwasser to make their virtual reality documentary, 'Triumph of the Spirit,' in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland in May 2020. Only Pope Francis had ever walked through Auschwitz alone before. Not even Steven Spielberg – at the height of his powers in the mid-1990s – was allowed to film inside the Nazi concentration camp for his film “Schindler’s List." But that’s what Haredi filmmakers Miriam Cohen, Chani Kopilowitz and Yuti Neiman wanted to do – to film a 50-minute, 360-degree, virtual reality guided tour of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Approximately four years ago, they learned about VR-filmmaking and became convinced that this was the way to educate people – “Jews in general and ‘believing Jews’ specifically,” as Cohen phrased it – about the Holocaust. (They are now working to adapt the film to non-Jewish audiences as well.) The film is entitled “Triumph of the Spirit.” It has already been seen by upwards of 90,000 people, either in privately arranged viewings of up to 200 people or in the basement of Jerusalem’s Mamilla Mall, where anyone over the age of 15 can buy a ticket to see it. It is available in Hebrew and English. Cohen grew up in the Haredi community of the Hashmona’im settlement between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, where she enviously watched her non-Haredi peers traveling to Poland with their high schools. “Everyone goes on a trip to Poland. It’s not even a question, and when the kids came back, I remember seeing them after they went through such a significant experience, and I just felt that I missed something serious,” Cohen told eJewishPhilanthropy. While most secular and national-religious high schools in Israel take students to Poland to learn about the Holocaust, this practice is almost unheard of in Haredi schools for both logistical and ideological reasons. Cohen said she and her partners felt that just because Haredi students and Haredi Jews in general wouldn’t travel to Poland, shouldn’t mean that they can’t learn about the Holocaust in an immersive way. “Everyone told us it was a mistake. They said, ‘No one is going to sit there with those glasses on their heads for an hour. You can’t make a full-length documentary with VR. VR is for gaming, applications, avatars. Maybe you should make a “Catch the Nazi” app,’” Cohen told eJP. “When we heard that, we realized that no one understood our vision.” Going it alone, they learned to use the VR equipment and started looking into what it would take to film inside Auschwitz. They quickly realized that this would be the hardest part. This was in early 2020, just at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic when air travel was limited and Auschwitz-Birkenau was closed to visitors. They reached out to Yad Vashem, the Polish Embassy in Israel and other Holocaust memorial organizations for help. “They all told us Auschwitz-Birkenau is such a big bureaucracy… Steven Spielberg didn’t get permission – who are you?” Cohen said. “As a believing person, when all the doors seemed to close in our faces, the only thing I could do is to look up and say, ‘Creator of the World, help me!’ and pray for it,” she said. They eventually got the phone number of a woman from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum who organized a special meeting of the institution’s board to consider their request. At the end of the meeting, four and a half hours later, the woman called Cohen. “She said, ‘I just got out of the meeting. I fought for you. You can come next Monday. The museum will be open only for you for three days.’ Crazy! It was a miracle,” she said. “Throughout this project, I have always said that I have six million souls pushing me forward,” Cohen added. Getting to Poland in time proved to be its own struggle. This was in May 2020, with the pandemic in full swing, so multiple flights that they’d booked to Poland were canceled, but they eventually made it, the three Haredi filmmakers and the guide for the video, Rabbi Yisrael Goldwasser, a member of the Ger Hasidic community, the grandson of four Holocaust survivors and a Holocaust researcher. It was Cohen’s first time in Auschwitz, realizing the dream she’d had since high school. “I didn’t know that when I would go, I would be taking tens of thousands of people with me,” she said. The film has mostly been available only in Israel, but earlier this year, it was also shown in the United Kingdom, where it was screened at the House of Lords. Though the film was made by and for religious Jews, Cohen said they have shown it to all types of Jews, as well as groups of non-Jews, who have praised it. Cohen said she has received multiple requests to show the film in North America as well, but that they require funding to do so. “Getting into the U.S. takes a lot of money,” she said. In addition to developing the concept of the VR film by themselves, Cohen and Kopilowitz also funded the project almost entirely on their own, putting in their savings and getting loans from friends and family. (The Maimonides Fund, whose logo appears at the beginning of the film, helped fund the screening in the U.K., Cohen said.) “People think that the Holocaust is something that there’s always funding for, but what happened was we got permission to film [in Auschwitz] so suddenly that we just had to take loans from cousins, friends, parents and family. And then once we did it, we just wanted to get the movie out, so we took more loans,” she said. “Now we are looking to return that money.” The documentary begins before the Holocaust, exploring the religious Jewish history of Krakow, Poland, with a tour of the city’s Jewish quarter and its Old and New Synagogues. Before entering Auschwitz, Goldwasser tells the viewers that they are not “tourists” but are instead “mourners,” paying their respects to the victims of the Nazis. The documentary is not a value-neutral, factual recounting of the events of the Holocaust. Cohen said the movie is geared toward religious Jews, considers their sensitivities and needs, and has a hopeful religious message. “It’s not graphic at all. There are no difficult images,” she said. Cohen, who was pregnant when they were filming, said that being in Auschwitz was incredibly difficult for them. “It shattered us to pieces. We didn’t think that we’d be able to work. We could barely stand. What gave us the strength to continue was the desire to tell this story in a way that gives strength, a way that gives hope,” she said. Goldwasser fills the 50 minutes of the film with anecdotes and stories, sometimes assisted by survivors’ own testimonies, which can be seen on screens that pop up inside the video. All of these stories have a hopeful, if not happy, ending and often a religious bent. The boy who plans to kill himself by throwing himself onto an electric fence but stops when he hears other Auschwitz inmates singing the Hanukkah song “Maoz Tzur”; the man who was killed for running back to a train car to retrieve his tallit and tefillin, whose son survived and purchased such a train car for the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, putting inside a tallit and tefillin in memory of his father; the woman who was meant to undergo a surgery that would make her infertile as part of an experiment by Nazi scientist Josef Mengele but who was secretly spared by a Jewish doctor who only pretended to perform the operation. “There are no stories that don’t have a light at the end of the tunnel. Our goal was not to destroy the viewer – the opposite. Our goal was to tell the story, with all the pain in it, but in a way that is uplifting and full of spirit. That’s why we called it, ‘Triumph of the Spirit,’” she said. © 2021 · eJewish Philanthropy ·

KYIV, July 9 (Reuters) - The Ukrainian and Polish presidents jointly marked the anniversary on Sunday of World War Two-era massacres of Poles by Ukrainian nationalists, killings that have caused tension for generations between countries that are now close allies. Reporting by Max Hunder in Kyiv and Alan Charlish in Warsaw Editing by William Maclean, Sharon Singleton, Peter Graff [1/5]Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Polish President Andrzej Duda attend a church service, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Lutsk, Ukraine, July 9, 2023. REUTERS/Alina Smutko Warsaw has positioned itself as one of Kyiv's staunchest supporters since Russia invaded the country in 2022. But the Volhynia massacres have continued to hang over ties between the two nations, particularly ahead of the July 11 anniversary of one of the bloodiest days of a series of killings that took place from 1943 to 1945. Poland says around 100,000 Poles were killed in the massacres by Ukrainian nationalists. Thousands of Ukrainians also died in reprisal killings. Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda attended a church service together in the western Ukrainian city of Lutsk, in memory of the victims. "Together we pay tribute to all the innocent victims of Volhynia! Memory unites us!," Duda's office and Zelenskiy both wrote on Twitter. "Together we are stronger." The service was attended by the heads of the largest Orthodox and Catholic churches in Ukraine and the head of the Polish Bishop's Conference, Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki. The Ukrainian president's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, wrote on Telegram that Ukraine and Poland were "united against a common enemy who dreamed of dividing us". Duda called the service "a testimony of friendship in the face of a difficult history". In a post on Twitter, Zelenskiy said he had a "brief but very substantive" discussion at the event with Duda about the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius, where Ukraine is hoping for decisions that will hasten its goal of membership in the alliance. "We agreed to work together to get the best possible result for Ukraine," Zelenskiy wrote. The head of Duda's office said the fact that the presidents were commemorating the victims together was "historic", but that more work was needed. "This is not the end of this difficult road, explaining to our Ukrainian friends about the historical truth, it will of course be continued," Pawel Szrot told private broadcaster Polsat News. The Polish parliament has said that the murders, carried out between 1943 and 1945 by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists under the leadership of Stepan Bandera, bore elements of genocide. Ukraine has not accepted that assertion and often refers to the Volhynia events as part of a conflict between Poland and Ukraine which affected both nations. Warsaw and Kyiv have also clashed over the issue of whether Polish specialists can search for and exhume the remains of Poles that died in Ukraine. The massacre caused an unusually public row between Poland and Ukraine earlier this year, after a Polish foreign ministry spokesman said that Zelenskiy should apologize and ask for forgiveness for the events in Volhynia. However, Ukraine's parliament speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk moved to defuse tensions in May when he told the Polish parliament that Kyiv understood Poland's pain. © 2023 Reuters.

The standards, which were blasted by a statewide teachers' union as a "step backward," were approved Wednesday by the State Board of Education. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida education commissioner Manny Diaz Jr.AP/Getty Images By Antonio Planas Florida’s public schools will now teach students that some Black people benefited from slavery because it taught them useful skills, part of new African American history standards approved Wednesday that were blasted by a state teachers' union as a “step backward.” The Florida State Board of Education’s new standards includes controversial language about how “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit,” according to a 216-page document about the state’s 2023 standards in social studies, posted by the Florida Department of Education. Other language that has drawn the ire of some educators and education advocates includes teaching about how Black people were also perpetrators of violence during race massacres. That language says, “Instruction includes acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans but is not limited to 1906 Atlanta Race Riot, 1919 Washington, D.C. Race Riot, 1920 Ocoee Massacre, 1921 Tulsa Massacre and the 1923 Rosewood Massacre.” The Florida Education Association, a statewide teachers’ union representing about 150,000 teachers, called the new standards “a disservice to Florida’s students and are a big step backward for a state that has required teaching African American history since 1994.” “How can our students ever be equipped for the future if they don’t have a full, honest picture of where we’ve come from? Florida’s students deserve a world-class education that equips them to be successful adults who can help heal our nation’s divisions rather than deepen them,” Andrew Spar, president of the union, said in the statement. “Gov. DeSantis is pursuing a political agenda guaranteed to set good people against one another, and in the process he’s cheating our kids," Spar said. "They deserve the full truth of American history, the good and the bad.” The union said it is troubling that at the high school level, the standards conflate the 1920 Ocoee Massacre, when at least 30 African Americans were killed for attempting to vote, with “acts of violence perpetrated by African Americans.” And in middle school, the standards require students be taught slavery was beneficial to African Americans because it helped them develop skills, the union said. Updates to the African American history curriculum were required by a controversial 2022 law that Gov. Ron DeSantis dubbed the “Stop Wrongs To Our Kids and Employees Act,” or “Stop WOKE Act,” NBC South Florida reported. A spokesperson from the Florida Department of Education on Thursday provided a response to NBC News’ questions through a statement from Dr. William Allen and Dr. Frances Presley Rice, who are members of Florida’s African American History Standards Workgroup. The new standards were defended in the statement as “comprehensive and rigorous instruction on African American History. We proudly stand behind these African American History Standards,” the statement said. “The intent of this particular benchmark clarification is to show that some slaves developed highly specialized trades from which they benefitted. This is factual and well documented," it added. The statement continued, “Some examples include: blacksmiths like Ned Cobb, Henry Blair, Lewis Latimer and John Henry; shoemakers like James Forten, Paul Cuffe and Betty Washington Lewis; fishing and shipping industry workers like Jupiter Hammon, John Chavis, William Whipper and Crispus Attucks; tailors like Elizabeth Keckley, James Thomas and Marietta Carter; and teachers like Betsey Stockton and Booker T. Washington.” It’s “disappointing” that some detractors would devalue the research from the work group and reduce it to “a few isolated expressions without context," the statement said. A representative for Gov. DeSantis could be immediately reached for comment Thursday. In January, DeSantis’ administration blocked a new Advanced Placement course on African American studies from being taught in high schools, saying it violates state law and was historically inaccurate. The state pointing to six areas of concern and works by Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, bell hooks, Angela Davis and other Black authors. That same month, DeSantis and Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. discussed the issue at a news conference. They said that the course was a Trojan horse for “indoctrinating” students with a left-wing ideology under the guise of teaching about the Black experience and African American history. © 2023 NBC UNIVERSAL

BEIRUT (AP) — The United Nations food agency said Tuesday it will reduce monthly cash aid for 120,000 Syrian refugees living in two camps in Jordan because of what it described as an “unprecedented funding crisis.” FILE - Syrian refugees line up to register their names at an employment office, Feb. 18, 2018, at the Azraq Refugee Camp, 100 kilometers (62 miles) east of Amman, Jordan. The United Nations food agency said Tuesday, July 18, 2023, that it will reduce monthly cash aid for 120,000 Syrian refugees living in camps in Jordan because of what it described as an “unprecedented funding crisis.” (AP Photo/Raad Adayleh, File) BY KAREEM CHEHAYEB Jordan is a country of 11 million people and hosts some 1.3 million refugees from Syria. Most of them live in towns and cities across the kingdom, while several tens of thousands have settled in two camps — Zaatari and Azraq. Starting in August, the monthly cash allowance for camp residents will be reduced from $32 to $21, the World Food Program said. Jordanian officials have warned that the kingdom cannot fill the gap left by international donors. The announcement by the World Food Program comes after the agency said last week it would gradually cut off 50,000 refugees in Jordan from its assistance altogether. The program had initially covered 465,000 refugees. U.N. agencies and international humanitarian organizations for years have struggled to reach budgetary requirements for their assistance in Syria and for Syrian refugees in neighboring countries due to donor fatigue, the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic and Ukraine’s war with Russia. Though Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government was able to reclaim large swaths of territory with the help of allies Russia and Iran, the crisis in the war-torn country remains in a stalemate. “As funding dries up, our hands are tied,” said Alberto Correia Mendes, the WFP representative for Jordan. The agency said that even with the current cuts, it still faces a funding shortfall of some $41 million and may have to impose additional measures. Funding cuts have also impacted millions of Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Turkey, where anti-refugee rhetoric and calls for mass deportations have surged in light of economic and political turmoil. Syria’s uprising turned civil war, now in its 13th year, has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half of its prewar population of 23 million. Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi spoke about the kingdom’s inability to fill in funding gaps at this year’s annual donor conference on Syria in Brussels last June. Last week, he warned again that “refugees will suffer”. “This is not on Jordan. It is on those who are cutting support,” he said. “Providing dignified lives to refugees is a global responsibility. It is not ours alone as host country.” Dominik Bartsch, the U.N. refugee agency’s representative to Jordan, said the aid rollback has forced agencies to look only to the most vulnerable families, leaving many in need without assistance. “There is an imminent risk that the situation is sliding back into a humanitarian crisis with serious consequences for refugees and host communities,” Bartsch said. In a visit to Damascus on July 4 where he met Assad, Safadi called on investment into Syria’s battered infrastructure to speed up voluntary refugee returns. Jordan has also spearheaded regional talks with Damascus to reach a solution to end the conflict. Western countries still sanction Syria, including for alleged war crimes and involvement in the drug trade, and have not endorsed restoring ties with Assad or funding reconstruction, as Arab countries have. © 2023 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

By Kocha Olarn and Duarte Mendonca, CNN Updated 10:37 AM EDT, Wed July 19, 2023 Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images Pita Limjaroenrat, leader of the Move Forward Party and Prime Ministerial candidate, arrives at the parliament on July 13, 2023 in Bangkok, Thailand. CNN — Thailand’s parliament blocked the prime ministerial nomination of the winner of May’s nationwide elections, Pita Limjaroenrat, on Wednesday, a blow to his progressive opposition party after nearly a decade of military-backed rule. Out of the 715 members of parliament present, 395 voted to block the second nomination, 312 voted for it, eight abstained and one – Pita himself – didn’t cast the vote, according to the house speaker. He was temporary suspended as a lawmaker by the country’s constitutional court after a complaint filed by the Election Commission against the Move Forward Party leader accusing him of violating election laws for allegedly holding shares in a media company. Pita has denied he broke election rules and previously accused the Election Commission of rushing the case to court. Move Forward Party had pledged deep structural reforms to how the Southeast Asian country of more than 70 million people is run: changes to the military, the economy, the decentralization of power and even reforms to the previously untouchable monarchy. The May election, which saw a record turnout, delivered a powerful rebuke to the military-backed establishment that has ruled Thailand since 2014, when then-army chief Prayut Chan-o-cha seized power in a coup. The court and parliament’s decision will likely add fuel to the fire of Move Forward’s young support base, with the potential for mass street protests. The party’s platform for change proved enormously popular with the party winning by far the largest share of seats. A group of opposition parties then formed a coalition aimed at forming a majority government and put forward Pita as a prime minister candidate. Pita, a 42-year-old Harvard alumni, called the coalition “the voice of hope and the voice of change” and said all parties had agreed to support him as the next prime minister of Thailand. Establishment’s Headstart Last week Pita failed to secure enough parliamentary votes to become prime minister in a political system that was created by the previous junta and heavily favors the royalist, conservative establishment that has long held the levers of power in Thailand. In Thailand, a party or coalition needs to win a majority of 375 seats in both lower and upper houses of parliament – currently 749 seats – to elect a prime minister and form a government. But the conservative establishment has a head start. The unelected 250-member Senate was appointed by the military under a post-coup constitution and has previously voted for a pro-military candidates. Pita received just 324 votes out of the 376 needed for a majority and the kingdom is still without a prime minister as the political jostling continues. He addressed parliament on Wednesday to bid “farewell,” while the investigation is underway. “Due to the Constitutional Court has ordered me to temporarily suspend my duty, I would like to use this opportunity to bid my farewell to Mr. Speaker, until we meet again,” Pita said in parliament. “I would ask my fellow members to continue using the parliamentary system to take care of the people. I think Thailand has already changed and won’t turn back since May 14. The people have already come halfway, for another half even though I can’t perform my duty, I would ask my fellow members to continue taking care of the people.” The court ruling now threatens his status as a lawmaker. Thailand’s powerful conservative establishment – a nexus of the military, monarchy and influential elites – has a history of blocking fundamental changes to the status quo. Over the last two decades Thailand’s Constitutional Court has repeatedly ruled in favor of the establishment, dissolving several parties that had challenged the political elite. The military also has a long track record of toppling democratically elected governments and seizing power during moments of instability. Thailand has witnessed a dozen successful coups since 1932, including two in the past 17 years. © 2023 Cable News Network. A Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All Rights Reserved.

July 17, 2023 8:54 PM Noeurn Davin Lors Liblib FILE - Cambodia Prime Minister Hun Sen delivers a speech during his party election campaign in Phnom Penh, July 1, 2023. The Cambodian government has ordered the blocking of media outlets' websites and social media accounts as the July 23 election nears. PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA — The Cambodian government has ordered internet service providers (ISPs) to block the websites and social media accounts of nine domains of at least three news outlets, including the Cambodia Daily Khmer and Radio Free Asia, just a week before the uncontested national election on July 23, according to an official letter obtained by VOA Khmer. The letter dated on July 12, issued by the Telecommunications Regulator of Cambodia, an entity under the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications, stated that the government ordered ISPs to block the domains including the Twitter, Instagram and YouTube accounts of the Cambodia Daily Khmer and Radio Free Asia, which, like VOA, is an independent entity operating under the U.S. Agency for Global Media. Both distribute news in Khmer and English, and both are headquartered outside Cambodia. The government also blocked the Twitter account and website of Komnotra, the new database of Voice of Democracy, which the government closed. Komnotra remains live on Facebook. Komnotra was the newly launched public database that was run by the Cambodian Center for Independent Media (CCIM), which ran the Voice of Democracy. In the letter, the Telecommunications Regulator of Cambodia said the government was blocking the outlets because their news reporting could “make confusion, affect the government’s honor and prestige, and fail to fulfill the operating conditions of the Information Ministry.” The Information Ministry regulates news media outlets operating inside Cambodia. The Ministry of Post and Telecommunications is a separate entity. The ISPs, according to the letter, were told to block access to those websites and social media accounts “immediately” and are required to the telecommunications regulator within seven days of the date of the letter. The decision to block the outlets came after the proposal of the Information Ministry. Meas Sophorn, the spokesperson for the Information Ministry confirmed to VOA Khmer that an order was issued by the Telecommunications Regulator to block the outlets. He added that the Kamnotra website operated as a media outlet but did not fulfill its obligations as a news agency that is required to register with the government. Chea Vandeth, the minister of Post and Telecommunications, referred questions to the ministry spokesperson. So Visothy, the ministry spokesman, couldn’t be reached for comment. RFA Chief Communication Officer Rohit Mahajan on Monday evening said, “RFA condemns the order from the government of Cambodia for internet service providers to block RFA content on online platforms — which is in clear violation of Cambodian law and an attempt to censor the free flow of information ahead of the July 23 election. Access to timely, accurate news and information, which RFA’s programming and content provides to the Cambodian people on a daily basis, is essential in any democracy where the rule of law supports free speech and a free press. Despite these unfortunate efforts, RFA will keep striving to inform its audience in Cambodia with up-to-the-minute journalism during this critical time and beyond.” Ith Sothoeuth, media director of the Cambodian Center for Independent Media, which runs the Komnotra website, said that as of Monday, his team could not access the site via some internet providers. “It is a regret that the Komnotra website is blocked since we aim to use this website to publish information which is issued by the state ministry or institutions,” he told VOA Khmer. “It serves the public interest,” he said. Sothoeuth’s organization launched Kamnotra at the end of June after the government revoked the license for its Khmer and English language news outlet, Voice of Democracy, in February. Nop Vy, executive director of the Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association (CamboJA), said the blocking of websites and social media just before the election will “affect access to diversified information and it impacts the rights to information.” “It also impacts the rights to information and publishing information as stipulated in the article 41 of the constitution,” he told VOA Khmer. “It is a worry and I think there is no benefit to the government and the general public.” It is the latest move to further restrict press freedom in a country that ranks 147th out of 180 countries, where 1 denotes the best media environment, according to the Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom index. In July 2018, the Cambodian government ordered ISPs to block at least 15 news websites of independent outlets, including Voice of America, for two days before and during the country’s election. The rights to press freedom and freedom of expression in Cambodia have been deteriorating since the crackdown on the now-banned opposition party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), and the closures of two main media outlets, the 25-year-old Cambodia Daily Khmer and the Phnom Penh bureau of Radio Free Asia in 2017 during the run-up to the 2018 national elections. The radio licenses of all radio stations airing programs by Radio Free Asia and Voice of America were revoked as well then. Most have been restored and several FM radio stations in Cambodia have carried VOA Khmer international news broadcasts twice-daily for the past two-plus years. After the media crackdown in 2017, journalists who used to work for independent media have left their jobs. In 2018, the Phnom Penh Post newspaper lost its editorial independence after a public relations company affiliated with the government assumed ownership and forced many of its professional journalists to resign and turn to freelance work. Many professional journalists who lost their jobs looked for opportunities in other sectors. Several of them are still living in limbo as asylum-seekers after fleeing the country for safety. © VOA News 2023

A diplomatic fight breaks out after a man desecrated the Quran. Protesters scale a wall at the Swedish Embassy in Baghdad Thursday. (AP Photo / Ali Jabar) BY ALI JABAR, ABBY SEWELL AND DAVID KEYTON BAGHDAD (AP) — Protesters angered by the planned burning of a copy of the Quran by an Iraqi man in Sweden stormed the Swedish Embassy in Baghdad, overrunning the diplomatic compound and starting a fire Thursday. Hours later, Iraq’s prime minister cut diplomatic ties with Sweden in protest over the desecration of the Islamic holy book. Protesters stormed the diplomatic post early Thursday, waving flags and signs showing the influential Iraqi Shiite cleric and political leader Muqtada al-Sadr, and set a small fire. The attack on the embassy came ahead of a planned burning of the Quran in Stockholm by an Iraqi asylum-seeker who burned a copy of the Islamic holy book during a previous demonstration last month. Following the incident, the Swedish Embassy announced it had closed to visitors, without specifying when it would reopen. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said in a statement after meeting with security officials that Iraqi authorities would prosecute those responsible for the arson as well as referring “negligent security officials” for investigation. However, the statement also said that the Iraqi government had informed its Swedish counterpart on Wednesday that Iraq would cut off diplomatic relations should the Quran burning go forward. Hours later, Sudani announced he had ordered the expulsion of the Swedish ambassador from Iraq and the withdrawal of the Iraqi charge d’affaires from Sweden. The announcement came after two men held an anti-Islam protest on a lawn about 100 meters (300 feet) from the Iraqi Embassy in Stockholm. One of them, identified by Swedish media as Salwan Momika, an Iraqi of Christian origin who lives in Sweden as a self-identified atheist, stepped on and kicked the Quran, but didn’t set it on fire. Momika also stepped on and kicked an Iraqi flag, as well as photographs of al-Sadr and of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. About 50 people, including journalists and a handful of counter-demonstrators chanting religious slogans, watched the demonstration from behind police barricades as plainclothes and uniformed officers stood by. Following the protest and Sudani’s announcement, the head of Iraq’s Media and Communications Commission announced it had suspended the license of Swedish communications company Ericsson to operate in Iraq. The Ministry of Communications later said it would sever all its dealings with Swedish companies. Before the planned protest in Stockholm, dozens of men climbed over the fence at the complex containing the Swedish Embassy in Baghdad. Video footage showed men trying to break down a door, setting a fire and standing, some shirtless in the summer heat, inside what appeared to be a room at the embassy, an alarm audible in the background. Others later performed predawn prayers outside of the embassy. As dawn broke, police and other security officials gathered at the embassy as firefighters tried to douse the flames from the ladder of a fire truck. Some demonstrators still stood at the site, holding placards showing Sadr’s face, apparently left alone by police. The Swedish Foreign Ministry said in a statement that its staff were safe. “We condemn all attacks on diplomats and staff from international organizations,” the ministry said. “Attacks on embassies and diplomats constitute a serious violation of the Vienna Convention. Iraqi authorities have the responsibility to protect diplomatic missions and diplomatic staff.” Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström called the attacks “completely unacceptable” and said the ministry would summon Iraq’s charge d’affaires in Stockholm. In a statement, Billström slammed Iraqi authorities for “seriously failing” in their responsibility to protect the embassy and its personnel. The Finnish Embassy in Baghdad is adjacent to the Swedish Embassy, in an area enclosed by blast walls. Finland’s ambassador to Iraq, Matti Lassila, told Finnish public broadcaster YLE that the staffs of both embassies were proactively evacuated Wednesday and were uninjured. Iraq’s Foreign Ministry also issued a statement condemning the attack and promising to hold the perpetrators accountable, without explaining how it allowed the breach to happen or identifying who carried out the assault. Stockholm police spokesman Mats Eriksson confirmed that police had granted permission for a demonstration involving two people outside the Iraqi Embassy in Stockholm on Thursday. He could not say whether the protesters were planning to burn the Quran, although Momika had announced in videos posted on social media that they planned to do so. The right to hold public demonstrations is strong in Sweden and protected by the constitution. Blasphemy laws were abandoned in the 1970s. Police generally give permission based on whether they believe a public gathering can be held without major disruptions or risks to public safety. However, for Muslims, the burning of the Quran represents a blasphemous desecration of their religion’s holy text. Quran burnings in the past have sparked protests across the Muslim world, some turning violent. In Afghanistan, the Taliban have suspended all the activities of Swedish organizations in the country in response to the recent Quran burning. Last month, a man identified by local media and on his social media as Momika burned a Quran outside a Stockholm mosque during the major Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, triggering widespread condemnation in the Islamic world. A similar protest by a far-right activist was held outside Turkey’s Embassy earlier this year, complicating Sweden’s efforts to convince Turkey to let it join NATO. In June, protesters who support al-Sadr stormed the embassy in Baghdad during daylight hours over that Quran burning. Another day of protests saw thousands of demonstrators on the streets in the country. Protesters then, as well as early Thursday, called on Iraqi officials to expel Sweden’s ambassador to Iraq. Al-Sadr, the son of a prominent Shiite cleric assassinated in a 1999 attack believed to be organized by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, quickly organized Shiite dispossessed under Saddam against the American occupation after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Saddam loyalists and Shiite extremists alike would soon fight an insurgency against the American forces. Al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia fought American forces throughout much of 2004 in Baghdad and other cities. Al-Sadr’s forces are believed to have later taken part in the sectarian killings between Shiites and Sunnis that plagued Iraq for several years after the bombing of one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam. Since that time, much has changed. Al-Sadr’s followers have taken part in Iraqi military offensives against the Islamic State group in Tikrit and other cities. He has organized rallies against government corruption, including breaching the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, the highly secure area housing government offices and many foreign embassies. He claimed he would bow out of politics last August, following a nearly yearlong deadlock in the formation of a new Cabinet. His party won the largest share of seats in the October 2021 parliamentary elections, but not enough to secure a majority government. © 2023 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

Columbus Mavhunga Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa attends a joint press conference with Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi (not pictured) at the State House in Harare, Zimbabwe, July 13, 2023. (West Asia News Agency Handout via Reuters) Rights activists and opposition groups in Zimbabwe say President Emmerson Mnangagwa's signing into law a so-called "Patriotic Bill" is a grave attack on fundamental freedoms and rights. The new law authorizes harsh penalties, including the death penalty, for anyone found guilty of "willfully damaging the sovereignty and national interest of Zimbabwe." Zimbabwe’s main opposition party and human rights groups are calling Mnangagwa to repeal the bill he signed into law last Friday. “We condemn their signing into law of the unconstitutional ‘Patriotic Bill,’ which will criminalize free speech and freedom of association which are protected under our constitution,” said Fadzayi Mahere, spokesman for Citizens Coalition for Change. “The introduction of this repressive legislation confirms beyond any doubt that Mr. Mnangagwa is worse than Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe as become a full-blown dictatorship in an outpost of tyranny.” Mahere called on Zimbabweans to, as he put it, “vote decisively for change” in the August 23 general election. Obert Masaraure is spokesman for another rights group, the Crisis Coalition of Zimbabwe. His group says the new law is vague in its definition of offenses. “Some of the penalties proposed by the law for deliberately injuring the sovereignty and national interests of Zimbabwe, such as the death penalty, long imprisonment, loss of citizenship and binding of persons from electoral participation for five years, are too harsh and inappropriate for vaguely defined offenses,” he said. “The provision of the death penalty means that the new law violates the constitution which only allows for the death penalty in cases of murder and aggravating circumstances. We firmly oppose the death penalty without exceptions. We are completely against the death penalty and we condemn it and unreservedly.” Amnesty International said the new law is evidence that Zimbabwean authorities are “bent on closing civic space as well as suppressing any form of dissent.” But Rutendo Matinyarare, chairman of the pro-government Zimbabwe Anti-Sanctions Movement, has a different view. “I'm over the moon because of the fact that the president is finally signed this criminal law amendment,” Matinyarare said. “And I'm happy because I was one of the people that proposed the Patriotic Bill.” Matinyarare said his group is pleased about laws that punish people who advocate for sanctions and call for the invasion of the country and stabilization of the country. “It puts us in step with other nations across the world that have similar laws,” Matinyarare said. “Let's hope it deters people and unites Zimbabweans to not sabotage their own country.” Mnangagwa and the ruling ZANU-PF party have pushed for years for an end to Western sanctions against Zimbabwean leaders. The sanctions were imposed during the rule of the late Robert Mugabe for human rights violations and alleged election rigging. Mnangagwa has not commented on the law, known as the Criminal Law Codification and Reform Amendment Act, since he signed it into law last week. © 2023 Voice of America

Phil Robertson Human Rights Watch Deputy Director, Asia Division July 12, 2023 9:00AM EDT Progress Requires Rights Respecting Reforms Truong Van Dung celebrates the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, December 10, 2020.© 2020 private One dissident at the time, the Vietnamese government is pursuing a campaign to systematically eliminate what’s left of the country’s human rights and democracy movement. By inexorably adding peaceful activists to the growing list of more than 150 Vietnamese political prisoners, Hanoi is violating international human rights law and betraying its duty as a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council to protect, rather than trample, fundamental human rights. The latest appearing in court is the land rights activist Truong Van Dung, 65. On July 13, the appeals court in Hanoi will hear his appeal of his six-year prison sentence for “propaganda against the state.” However, like virtually every other appeals trial held in Vietnam for activists convicted on politically motivated charges since 2016, no one expects any reduction of sentence, much less a reversal of the conviction and release. So what in the government’s view were Truong Van Dung’s crimes? Essentially, he exercised his rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly. For example, he took part in various public protests on such topics as Vietnam’s policies towards China, public action on environment and land rights issues, ending government corruption, and upholding basic human rights principles. He publicly boycotted Vietnam’s national elections, which the ruling Vietnam Communist Party ensures are neither free nor fair. And despite his limited means, he provided financial and other support for political prisoners, land rights petitioners, and their families. Truong Van Dung has experienced years of government harassment and intimidation, including police interrogations, house arrest, a travel ban, and physical assaults. In March 2014, after being assaulted by unknown assailants in civilian clothes, he told Radio Free Asia: “I will not budge. The more they act this way, the more inspired I will be on my path … I am very proud of myself. I did nothing to be ashamed of.” Every time the authorities throw an activist like Truong Van Dung behind bars, respect for human rights in Vietnam takes a hard knock. Donors and international trade partners should be clear that if Vietnam wants growing trade and investment, its leaders need to recognize that people speaking their minds are part of the solution that strengthens, not weakens, the country. © 2023 Human Rights Watch

Trucks loaded with United Nations humanitarian aid for Syria following a devastating earthquake are parked at Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey, in Syria’s Idlib province, on Feb. 10, 2023. On Tuesday, July 11, 2023, the U.N. Security Council failed to renew the Bab al-Hawa border crossing into opposition-held northwestern Syria from Turkey. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed, File) By Abby Sewell BEIRUT (AP) — The United Nations agency responsible for overseeing humanitarian aid has described conditions placed by the Syrian government on aid deliveries from Turkey to northwest Syria as “unacceptable.” The future delivery of aid across Syria’s northern border was thrown into question Tuesday after the U.N. Security Council was unable to agree on either of two competing proposals to extend the mandate for bringing aid from Turkey by way of the Bab al Hawa border crossing. Two days later, Syria’s ambassador to the U.N. said Damascus would give voluntary permission for the U.N. to use the crossing for six months, on condition that aid delivery would be done “in full cooperation and coordination with the government,” that the U.N. would not communicate with “terrorist organizations” and their affiliates, and that the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent would run aid operations. In a letter sent to the Security Council on Friday, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press on Saturday, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, said the Syrian proposal called two of those conditions “unacceptable” for carrying out “principled humanitarian operations.” The prohibition on communicating with groups considered “terrorist” by the Syrian government would prevent the U.N. and partner organizations distributing aid from engaging “with relevant state and non-state parties as operationally necessary to carry out safe and unimpeded humanitarian operations,” the letter said. Stipulating that aid deliveries must be overseen by the Red Cross or Red Crescent is “neither consistent with the independence of the United Nations nor practical,” since those organizations “are not present in north-west Syria,” it said. The letter also noted that the Syrian government’s request that aid deliveries should be carried out in “full cooperation and coordination” with Damascus requires “review” and that the mechanism for aid delivery should not “infringe on the impartiality.., neutrality, and independence of the United Nations’ humanitarian operations.” Aid delivery to the rebel-held enclave in the northwest has been a perennial point of contention during Syria’s 12-year-old uprising-turned-civil war. The Syrian government of Bashar Assad and its ally, Russia, which is a member of the Security Council, want all aid deliveries to be run through Damascus. Opponents of Assad and humanitarian organizations say this could lead to aid being diverted from the vulnerable population in the northwest. Emma Beals, a non-resident fellow at the Middle East Institute who has studied aid delivery, said people living in northwest Syria “face grave risks” if humanitarian assistance depends on permission from Damascus. “The regime has used aid denial and attacks on aid workers as a military strategy for twelve years,” she said. The Security Council initially authorized aid deliveries in 2014 from Turkey, Iraq and Jordan through four crossing points into opposition-held areas in Syria. But over the years, Russia, backed by China, had pushed the council to reduce the authorized crossings to only one - Bab al-Hawa - and the mandates from a year to six months. After a deadly magnitude 7.8 earthquake that hit Syria and Turkey in February, Assad opened two additional crossing points from Turkey, at Bab al-Salameh and al-Rai, to increase the flow of assistance to victims, and later extended their opening until Aug. 13. However, in practice, most aid has continued to cross via Bab al Hawa. A limited amount of U.N. aid has entered the opposition-held northwest by crossing battle lines from government-held areas. After February’s earthquake, aid convoys were blocked from entering the province of Idlib from government-held areas by the militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, originally an offshoot of Al Qaida, which dominates the area. The group accused Assad of trying “to benefit from the aid intended for victims of the earthquake.” In June, in an apparent bid to convince Russia to allow the extension of aid deliveries through Bab al Hawa, the group allowed a shipment to cross from from a government-controlled area in the province of Aleppo into Idlib. Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

The country’s morality police disappeared from the streets late last year as the authorities tried to calm anti-government protests. Now, patrols are once again watching for violators. Iranian police officers patrolling the streets of the capital, Tehran, on Sunday. It was unclear whether the authorities were again deploying the morality police, or were requiring the regular police to take on that role. Credit: Wana News Agency, via Reuters. By Vivian Yee and Leily Nikounazar Iran is once again deploying police officers on the streets to enforce its conservative dress code for women, which many have flouted since the protest movement that rattled the country began last fall, according to state news media and social media posts. Months into the protests, Iran quietly withdrew the morality police from the streets in an apparent concession to try to calm the nationwide upheaval against the government. The protests began last September after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, died in custody after the morality police accused her of violating the dress code and arrested her on a Tehran street. A spokesman for Iran’s police force, Gen. Saeed Montazer al-Mahdi, said on Sunday that effective immediately, police officers would begin patrolling to “deal with those who, unfortunately, regardless of the consequences of dressing outside the norm, still insist on breaking the norm.” He added that the patrols would “expand public security and strengthen the foundation of the family.” He said the police would first warn people caught breaking the hijab law governing dress, which requires women to cover their hair and wear long, loose clothing that hides the shape of their bodies. Those who still refuse to comply, he said, will be prosecuted. It was unclear whether the authorities were again deploying the morality police — a force that an official said in December had been dismantled — or were requiring the regular police to do what the morality police had once done. The mass antigovernment demonstrations focused at first on the mandatory hijab law, then expanded to encompass a variety of grievances, including other social restrictions, corruption, soaring inflation, a perpetually limping economy and political repression. The movement morphed into the biggest challenge in decades to Iran’s entire system of authoritarian clerical rule. Women tore off their head scarves and burned them, dancing in front of the flames. Many refused to put them back on even after the protests dissipated amid a violent government crackdown, in which thousands of protesters were arrested, hundreds killed and at least seven executed. University students chanted, “To hell with morality police!” For months, the government largely looked the other way as bare heads proliferated across Iranian cities, hemlines got shorter and more Western-style clothing appeared in the streets. But the hijab is too important a symbol of Iran’s ultraconservative Islamic system of government for its clerical leadership to let go entirely, and while some conservatives called for compromise, others urged the government to do more. Earlier this year, the authorities began shutting down businesses that they accused of serving customers who were not wearing the hijab, and announced they would use surveillance cameras to track women who were violating the dress code, among other enforcement measures. In recent weeks, several celebrities have faced prosecution for breaking the law, including Azadeh Samadi, an actress who appeared unveiled at a funeral two months ago, according to local news reports. She was banned from social media and ordered to see a psychologist to secure written proof that she was not a sociopath. Another woman caught driving without a hijab in Varamin was sentenced to a month of washing and preparing corpses for burial, the reports said. After Sunday’s announcement, it was not long before the promised patrols appeared to re-emerge. That evening, several photos of police officers and the white vans they use to transport detainees to law enforcement centers were published on Gershad, an application and Twitter account initially created by antigovernment activists that crowdsources user reports of police patrols so people can avoid those areas. Users had spotted the vans around Tehran, Iran’s capital, as well as in the cities of Kermanshah and Shiraz. Gershad said on Twitter that one user had sent in a photo on Sunday of two women police officers standing by a white van outside a mall in eastern Tehran. They warned passing women about wearing their hijabs improperly before entering the mall, it said. State news media pushed back on such reports in an apparent attempt to downplay the new measure. Tasnim, a semiofficial news agency, said that “under no circumstances” would the vans of the morality police return to the streets, though it acknowledged that police would once again enforce the hijab law. If a video appeared on social media purporting to show police officers forcing people into vans, Tasnim said, “it is either fake or from an archive.” The report went on to suggest that the purpose of such videos would be to undermine the government. Yet, marked with the morality police’s logo or not, the vans are widely viewed with fear and anger by many Iranians. One such video sparked outrage on social media when it went viral over the weekend. It showed a woman in a chador — the long black cloak commonly worn by conservative Iranian women and female officers of the morality police — pulling a woman who was not wearing her head scarf toward a van. “Help, help,” the woman who is being pulled shouts in the video. But Javan, a newspaper affiliated with Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, declared the video “fake” on Monday, saying it and others like it “were distributed to create confrontation between women and the government.” For many Iranian women, the broader confrontation over the hijab is already resolved — decisively in their favor. There is no going back to the days before the protests, they have said repeatedly in recent months. Shiva, 44, a translator in Tehran who asked to be identified only by her first name to avoid legal repercussions, said she expected the new crackdown to play out differently in different neighborhoods, depending on how socially liberal they already were. “How long will we endure this push and pull?” she said. “The taboo of the veil has been broken in our society. On the other hand, the regime is brutal.” In one indication of how inflamed the hijab issue has become, Iranian news media and social media alike were abuzz on Monday about the violent arrest of Mohammad Sadeghi, a theater actor who had been vehemently criticizing the new crackdown on an Instagram livestream at the moment of his arrest. “If my friend, my sister and my mother want to wear clothes in a certain way, that has nothing to do with you,” Mr. Sadeghi said, addressing the government and calling for resistance. Soon after, the police raided his home, setting off a tussle during which he tried to escape out a window while screaming for help. It was no good: Mr. Sadeghi was soon taken into custody. © 2023 The New York Times Company