Rohingya refugees from Myanmar's Rakhine State are still crossing into Bangladesh though the two countries are expected to start the repatriation of the Rohingyas, who have already taken shelter here, in weeks. On an average, four to five Rohingya families are entering Bangladesh through different border points every day, said aid workers. The refugees said they had to leave home as they had been facing a severe food crisis. Locals loyal to the Myanmar army did not allow them to work or harvest their standing crops or even go to markets to buy essentials, they alleged. Four such Rohingya families that crossed the border on Thursday, are now living in a transit camp set up by the UNHCR -- the UN refugee agency -- in the reserve forest area near Balukhali in Cox's Bazar. "Now, they [the army] are not torching our homes or killing our people. They [the locals] just don't let us collect our crops from the field," one of the Rohingyas, Nur Fatema of Kuaichhang village in Rakhine State's Bhutidawng, told this newspaper at the camp yesterday. “They also don't allow us to go the market. If the locals find any valuables from us, they take it away," said, Rehana Begum, another new arrival. She said her fisherman husband, Abdul Zalil, was also not allowed to go to the sea to fish. Nur Fatima said she and her brother Ali Zoha came to Bangladesh along with 13 others as they were facing food crisis in their village in Bhutidawng's Wamagna. All the Rohingyas, who are coming to Bangladesh, are being brought to the transit camp for medical checkup and biometric registration, said an aid worker there. “If they do not have any diseases, we send them to any of the Rohingya camps as per their wish. Usually, they want to go to their relatives or friends who are already here," said the worker, wishing not to be named. Currently, the transit camp is accommodating some 200 Rohingyas of 50 families. All of them arrived last week. Earlier, 56 refugees were shifted to Balukhali Rohingya camp from the camp yesterday morning, said another aid worker. So far, the Bangladesh government has created a database of 923,000 Rohingyas, who have fled Myanmar to escape persecution in recent months. The database has their fingerprints and other necessary information. The refugees included 19,000 displaced orphans. As per an arrangement reached between Dhaka and Naypyidaw on November 23, the repatriation of the Rohingyas must start within two months of the signing. Under the arrangement, all Rohingyas who entered Bangladesh after October 9, 2016 would be sent back. The two countries have already formed a joint committee, which will sit in the next 10 days, in this regard. http://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/rohingyas-keep-coming-1515634 (c) 2018 The Daily Star

On the eve of the third anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) deplores the fact that dozens of journalists worldwide are still the targets of calls for their execution or are sentenced to death because they are deemed to be guilty of blasphemy or apostasy. Writing or talking about religious matters continues to be delicate, to the point that you can risk losing your life. Three years after 12 people were killed at the Paris headquarters of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo on 7 January 2015, those who censor in the name of God still pose one of the gravest threats to the freedom to inform almost everywhere in the world. From one continent to the next, calls for the deaths of journalists accused of blasphemy circulate widely on social networks. In France, anonymous Internet users call for more attacks on Charlie Hebdo. In Bangladesh, calls are being made for Shyamal Dutta, the editor of the daily newspaper Bhorer Kagaj, and his staff to be publicly hanged because a 23 December article said a book about the Hadiths (sayings of the Prophet) that had been published by a government entity contained “vulgarities.” In Bangladesh, as in Pakistan, fundamentalist groups and religious extremists tolerated by the authorities threaten journalists and bloggers with complete impunity, when they don’t abduct them or hack them to death*. It was exactly one year ago, on 7 January 2017, that the Pakistani blogger Samar Abbas disappeared. He was the founder of Civil Progressive Alliance Pakistan, a group that posted articles online defending religious freedom. Four other bloggers were abducted around the same time. After they went missing, a massive online smear campaign began accusing them of blasphemy, which carries the death penalty in Pakistan. Four of the five bloggers were released after several weeks but none of them dared to identify their abductors. The threat received by the family of one of the victims was explicit: “You who have blasphemed deserve death. You are out of Islam and should be ready for a painful punishment, which will be remembered by your generations to come.” In Algeria, Abdou Semmar, the editor of the investigative online newspaper Algériepart and host of “L’Emission Impossible,” a programme on privately-owned Beur TV, has been reduced to hoping that he and his colleagues do not have to pay the highest price for the programme broadcast on 22 December, a debate about religious fanaticism that angered radical Islamists. “Ever since then, we have been subjected to a major campaign of threats and harassment,” he said. A video accusing them of attacking Islam, that was broadcast on the Qatari TV channel Al Jazeera, served to fuel the outrage. “The fanatics are using it to attack us, and our families are beginning to be very afraid for our lives.” “In many parts of the world, reporting the facts is regarded as heretical behaviour,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said. “Fanatics do not just harass and threaten cartoonists, subjecting them to extreme violence. They also target journalists who cover religious matters and even just social issues and public affairs. The prohibitions that these extremists try to impose extend far beyond the religious domain". “The charge of blasphemy cannot, under any circumstances, justify an exception to the freedom to inform. This is contrary to international law and we therefore call for the repeal of all legislation that restricts the freedom to inform in the name of religion.” Charlie Hebdo continues to be at the front line of the unequal battle between fanatical censors and satirical journalists or cartoonists. Just two months ago, the magazine’s front page that showed Tariq Ramadan – a Swiss Islamic scholar accused of sexual assault – declaring himself to be the “6th pillar of Islam” triggered a virulent campaign of insults and death threats on social networks. The continuing threats against Charlie Hebdo have a cost. A high one. In its latest issue, the magazine reported that the proceeds from more than one of every two copies that it sells have to be used to pay for protecting its headquarters and the journalists who work there. Freedom of expression “is in the process of becoming a luxury product,” publisher Riss said in an editorial. “Three years after the tragedy, solidarity with Charlie Hebdo is still a moral obligation,” Deloire added. “The lives of its employees and the magazine’s economic survival must be defended because Charlie is a symbol that we cannot abandon without accepting defeat at the hands of religious intolerance.” 70 countries still have blasphemy laws It is not just anonymous religious extremists who want blasphemy and apostasy to be punishable by execution or other drastic penalties. No fewer than 71 countries still had laws penalizing blasphemy at the start of 2017, according to a report by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom. Since then, only one of these countries – Denmark in July – has repealed its blasphemy legislation. Some countries envisage reinforcing their laws in order to punish blasphemers more severely. They include Mauritania. “Any Muslim, man or woman, who mocks or insults Allah or His Messenger (Mohammed), peace be upon him, His angels, His books or one of His Prophets, is punishable by death (...) even in the case of repentance,” says a law approved by the Mauritanian government on 16 November. It was because he repented that the death sentence imposed on the blogger Mohamed Ould Mkheitir for a “blasphemous” post had been commuted to two years in prison just four days earlier. Now repentance is no longer possible. Mkheitir qualified for release on 9 November but his fate is still highly uncertain. The authorities are holding him in a secret location, officially for his own safety. But friends fear that he is being held to give the supreme court time to reconsider his case and parliament time to make the new law retroactive. RSF laureates convicted of blasphemy Blasphemy and apostasy are also punishable by death in Iran. Soheil Arabi, an Iranian photographer and citizen-journalist who was awarded the RSF Press Freedom Prize in 2017, has been held for the past four years for his alleged role in creating a Facebook network that “blasphemed” Islam and criticized the regime. After being sentenced to three years in prison and 30 lashes, he was retried a few months later and was sentenced to death. The death sentence was eventually overturned and in 2015 he was finally sentenced to seven and a half years in prison. What with being mistreated and recently going on hunger strike for 52 days, he is now in very poor physical and psychological health. Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, a 2014 RSF Press Freedom laureate, has spent the past five years in prison for “insulting Islam.” Arrested for criticizing and mocking the religious police on his online discussion forum, called the “Liberal Saudi Network,” he was sentenced to ten years in prison, 1,000 lashes, a fine of 1 million riyals and a ban on leaving the country for ten years after his release. As in other cases, the sentence is out of all proportion to the alleged offence. Blasphemy charge used to censor critics Far from protecting what is sacred, these laws are mostly used in practice to stifle dissent, harass journalists and prevent any form of criticism of the system of government and those in power. Vague concepts serve as tools for persecuting dissident or minority views, as in the case of Sudanese journalist Shamael al-Nur last February. For writing in a column in the independent newspaper Al-Tayyar that, “Islamic regimes are preoccupied with matters of virtue, women’s dress, appearance, more than health and education issues,” she was threatened with violence and with prosecution for apostasy, a charge punishable by death under the Sharia law in force in Sudan since 1983. In a December 2013 report entitled “Blasphemy: Information sacrificed on altar of religion,” RSF examined the impact of the use of blasphemy charges against journalists worldwide, in particular the danger that they pose when used to restrict freedom of expression. https://rsf.org/en/news/three-years-after-charlie-tragedy-death-still-threatens-blaspheming-journalists (c) 2018 Reporters Without Borders

Simon Murphy has documented human rights abuses in countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Colombia. But nothing prepared him for a trip to Bangladesh with the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund (SCIAF). The charity has so far helped more than 40,000 families who have fled Myanmar. But Simon, from Glasgow, told how many have been left traumatised after witnessing atrocities ranging from sexual violence to mass murder. He said: "One girl I photographed saw her parents being killed. "Others told how they had witnessed villages being torched, children being raped and families being butchered with machetes. "The Rohingya have lost so much and their experiences are beyond comprehension." Shawkat Ara, 38, hid in the jungle and watched her village burn after it was attacked by soldiers in the middle of the night. She said: "The military told the young boys to stand in a line and told them to run. "When they were running they rushed them from behind and they were falling in ditches. "Some were cut into pieces and thrown into ditches. "They were all between 10 and 12 years old. "The military were actually playing with the boys. "They were telling them to run and then cutting them." Although she survived the slaughter Ms Ara, who is five months pregnant, lost her son and parents to hunger as the family fled. Despite a recent agreement with the Burmese government for repatriation, refugees continue to arrive in Bangladesh. But Mr Murphy said the situation facing those who brave the dangerous border crossing is desperate. He said: "New arrivals are taken to a reception area near the harbour. "They are tired and hungry and have witnessed unspeakable horrors but they have to stay in wooden pens until they are processed. "It can take up to 48 hours for this to happen and there is a real sense of hopelessness." Conditions in the camp are also bleak and there are genuine fears about what will happen when the heavy rains come. SCIAF director Alistair Dutton said: "Over 620,000 people have arrived since August alone, overwhelming the camps and those trying to help. "After 20 years of working in some of the world's worst humanitarian emergencies, I'm deeply worried by the conditions I've seen. "Families are living in crowded, makeshift huts made of bamboo and plastic that provide little protection from the baking heat of the sun or the cold of winter nights." Mr Dutton warned many shelters are precariously perched on muddy hillsides and at risk of being washed away in the rainy season. He also expressed concerned about the alarming sanitary situation. Mr Dutton said: "Raw sewage is seeping into people's huts where they cook and sleep. "Filthy water runs along channels between huts, collecting in stagnant, polluted ponds dotted around the camps." He said the refugees' graphic accounts of the horrors which forced them to flee beggar belief. Mr Dutton added: "The Rohingya have experienced unimaginable, barbaric crimes against humanity. "Many are traumatised, having seen members of their family and loved ones butchered by machetes, shot or burned alive. "Everything they owned was stolen or destroyed. "Now they're in Bangladesh with absolutely nothing and desperately need our help." The SCIAF director said Scottish donations, which so far exceed £160,000, are saving lives in Bangladesh. To date the charity, working with its partner Caritas Bangladesh, has provided rice, lentils, sugar and oil, as well as plates, saucepans, glasses and cooking utensils to more than 40,000 families. And in the coming days it will start to distribute blankets and sleeping mats to 14,600 families so they can keep warm at night. But Mr Dutton urged world leaders to do more as the average length for someone to remain a refugee is 17 years. He added: "Despite all the efforts by diplomats and world leaders to negotiate a return, it is likely that the Rohingya will be in exile for many years. "The international community must prepare for this and ensure that the conditions in the camps improve. "Otherwise, an already appalling situation in Bangladesh will get much, much worse." http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-42425411 (c) 2017 BBC News

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the Iranian government’s attempt to silence coverage of the current wave of protests by Persian-language media based outside the country, which are a major source of alternative news and information for Iranians. Domestic media outlets under strict government control have ignored the anti-government protests in more than 100 cities throughout the country during the past eight days, in which 22 people been killed and around 17,000 have been arrested, including several citizen-journalists. Yesterday, the Iranian embassy in London wrote to the United Kingdom’s Office of Communications (OFCOM), which regulates the broadcast media, asking it to censor Persian-language media based in the UK on the grounds that their coverage of the protests had been inciting people to “armed revolt.” The letter’s two main targets are Manoto, a privately-owned TV channel based in London, and BBC Persian, the state-owned BBC’s Persian-language TV channel, which many Iranian activists and intellectuals nonetheless criticize for not distancing itself sufficiently from the Iranian government line. “After disrupting Internet access and blocking social networks, the Islamic Republic of Iran is using the need to combat calls for violence and support for terrorism as a pretext for silencing the last sources of freely and independently reported news and information used by many Iranians,” said Reza Moini, the head of RSF’s Iran/Afghanistan desk. RSF has previously criticized the attempts by the Iranian judicial system and intelligence services to influence the Persian-language sections of international media outlets by putting pressure on Iranian journalists based abroad and on their families still in Iran. Iran is ranked 165th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2017 World Press Freedom Index. https://rsf.org/en/news/iran-tries-censor-coverage-protests-media-based-abroad (c) 2018 Reporters Without Borders

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is appalled by the eight-year prison sentence that a Chinese court has imposed on Wu Gan, a blogger who campaigned tirelessly against government corruption until his arrest in 2015. A court in the northern city of Tianjin passed the sentence on 26 December after convicting Wu of “subverting state power” at the end of a trial held behind closed doors. Aged 44, Wu had used the blog name of “Super Vulgar Butcher” ever since taking up the case of a rape victim who fatally stabbed her assailant, a Chinese Communist Party official. “Wu Gan’s conviction just for expressing his opinions is a flagrant violation of the Chinese constitution, which guarantees free speech,”said Cédric Alviani, the head of RSF’s East Asia bureau. “After reasserting control over the media, President Xi Jinping is now in the process of silencing individual bloggers and commentators, the last obstacles to his goal of a society in which news and information is totally controlled.” Wu was arrested on 19 May 2015 as part of a round-up of around 200 human rights lawyers and activists who worked on sensitive cases. Several members of this group, dubbed “709,” have received prison sentences but Wu has been given a heavier sentence than anyone else, almost certainly because he refused to plead guilty. Another member of this group of activists, human rights lawyer Xie Yang, was convicted of subversion in the south-central city of Changsha on the same day but was not given a sentence after pleading guilty. The world’s biggest prison for journalists and bloggers, China is ranked near the bottom of RSF's 2017 World Press Freedom Index – 176th out of 180 countries. https://rsf.org/en/news/eight-year-jail-term-chinese-anti-corruption-blogger (c) 2018 Reports without Borders

Myanmar’s civilian president called in an Independence Day speech on Thursday for reform of a military-drafted constitution and for justice for all recognised minorities under a federal system, but made no mention of the treatment of its Rohingya Muslim people. Amending the charter to remove a dominant political role for the military has been one of the most contentious issues facing Myanmar as it emerges from nearly half a century of strict army rule. The debate over constitutional reform, however, has been muted since the assassination in January last year of a lawyer advising government leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s ruling party on the issue. “As we build the Democratic Federal Republic, in accordance with the results of the political dialogues, we all need to work collectively for creating a suitable constitution,” President Htin Kyaw said in his speech marking the 70th anniversary of Myanmar’s independence from Britain. Htin Kyaw’s post is largely ceremonial but he is a close ally of Suu Kyi. He did not elaborate on what he meant by suitable or spell out why he was suggesting the 2008 constitution drawn up by the military was unsuitable. The constitution bars Suu Kyi from becoming president because it rules out candidates with a foreign spouse or child. Suu Kyi’s late husband was British as are her two sons. It also reserves for the military one quarter of the seats in parliament and several major cabinet posts, including defence, interior and border affairs, giving it an effective veto over constitutional change and control of security affairs. Myanmar began emerging from 49 years of military rule in 2011. Suu Kyi’s party swept a 2015 election and formed a government but concern is growing that the reform programme is stalling or even sliding back. This has been compounded by attacks on press freedom, including the detention of several journalists over the past year. On Dec. 12, the authorities arrested two Reuters reporters who had covered the army crackdown that has led to the mass flight of Rohingya residents of Rakhine State across the border into Bangladesh. Htin Kyaw called for respect for human rights but he did not refer to the crisis over the exodus of 655,000 Rohingya people, nor to the international condemnation it has generated. “We are working for the emergence of a democratic state based on the principles of freedom for all ethnic national races, justice, equality and right of self-determination,” he said. “National race” is a term used by Myanmar referring to what it categorises as indigenous ethnic groups. The Rohingya, who have traditionally lived in Rakhine, have been denied inclusion as authorities regard them as illegal immigrants who have crossed over from Bangladesh. The Rohingya crisis erupted in late August after Rohingya insurgent attacks on security posts in Rakhine triggered a fierce military response that the United Nations denounced as ethnic cleansing. Myanmar denies ethnic cleansing saying its security forces have mounted legitimate clearance operations. Htin Kyaw called for an end to conflict with insurgents from various ethnic minorities who have been battling for autonomy for decades. Clashes have flared in recent weeks between the army and guerrillas in Kachin and Shan states in the north. Myanmar’s minorities have long demanded self-determination under a federal system. The army has traditionally seen itself as the only institution preventing the country’s disintegration and has favoured a unitary state. Amending the constitution would not be easy. Changes require a 76 percent majority vote in a parliament dominated by military members and their allies. The killing of lawyer and constitutional expert Ko Ni last year has not been fully explained even though the gunman was caught at the scene. Many activists believe Ko Ni, who was Muslim, was targeted for his efforts to reduce the military’s political role. https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-myanmar-independenceday/myanmar-president-calls-for-reform-of-nations-military-drafted-constitution-idUKKBN1ET0QL?rpc=401& (c) 2018 Reuters

The Yangon School of Political Science, squashed into an upper floor of a grimy old apartment block, is almost as hard to find as the liberalism that it tries to teach. Inside, the head of the school, U Myat Thu, concedes that the small foundation he has created to nurture “tolerance, liberal individualism and freedom of conscience” suddenly finds itself out of step with the times. Beyond the walls, the rest of the country has largely given itself up to the easy certainties of prejudice, hatred and ignorance. Yet Myat Thu has spent many years as a member of National League of Democracy (NLD), the party co-founded by Aung San Suu Kyi in 1988 to challenge the murderous military regimes that hijacked Burma in the early 1960s. He thought, like many other members of the opposition, that he was fighting for those hallowed values of a liberal, tolerant and open society. In November 2015, his devotion finally seemed to have been vindicated when the NLD won a landslide majority in a historic general election, ushering in Suu Kyi as the de facto leader of the country. He was hopeful. But a great deal has happened since then — above all, the military-led ethnic cleansing campaign that has terrorized hundreds of thousands of Burma’s ethnic Rohingya minority into fleeing the country. “It’s horrible, and people have no feelings for them at all, no sympathy at all.” Sadly, he is right. But what most worries him is that none of his fellow political warriors in the NLD have spoken out in the same way. Indeed, merely his use of the R-word marks him out in contemporary Burma as something of a hero of our time. The term “Rohingya” is officially banned, and so cowed are most people by this edict that almost no one uses it in private conversation, either. Myat Thu believes that one reason for the NLD’s silence is that party members have for so long taken their cue from the top. If Suu Kyi is not going to say anything about the Rohingya, then they aren’t going to, either. In this sense, he, and others, wonder whether the NLD was ever the human-rights-based democratic movement that its Western supporters took it to be. Today it looks more as if it was merely a Suu Kyi fan club all along. Now that she is in power, nobody seems interested in advancing the values that the NLD was supposed to have stood for. “The process of democratization has stopped,” laments Myat Thu. Anti-Muslim prejudice has a long history in Burma. The British encouraged millions of South Asians, many of them Muslims, to emigrate to Burma during the colonial period to run and exploit the latest addition to the empire. Burmans bitterly resented this, particularly the consequent loss of cultural and political control even in the Burman heartlands. By the eve of World War II, Yangon, the political and commercial capital, was an Indian-majority city. The independence movement, and radical politics in general, thus became as much an anti-Muslim and anti-foreigner struggle as it was a specifically anti-British one. Suu Kyi herself is only one NLD activist to have written eloquently about the existential threat that Burman Buddhists felt from the unwelcome, uncontrolled influx of Indian Muslims, particularly when the men, relatively privileged in the colonial pecking order, started marrying Buddhist women. These same fears dominate political discourse in Burma today, and they are as deeply embedded in the NLD as anywhere else. When the Rohingya issue first flared up before the 2015 election, some local party committees started to expel their Muslim members — despite orders to the contrary from NLD leaders. Animus against Muslims is widespread. The militant, xenophobic Buddhist monks who have whipped up most of the anti-Muslim and anti-Rohingya rhetoric in the country regard Rakhine state as the “Western Gate,” the first bastion against the oncoming Muslim hordes of South Asia. The Rohingya breached that bastion and have to be pushed out again. It is a view shared by many Burman Buddhists. Furthermore, although NLD activists still use a lexicon of human and political rights, as Suu Kyi sometimes does, the Rohingya can effectively be excluded from this because they are not citizens of Burma. Notoriously, they were not granted citizenship in the old military regime’s deeply flawed 1982 Citizenship Act, despite the fact that many of them had been living in Rakhine state since precolonial times. Often, young NLD supporters, sounding very progressive, tell me that they want to extend the same democratic and political rights to all “citizens” of Burma, but it does not seem to occur to them that this should include the Rohingya, as they are not citizens. Too often, I suspect that this is an easy excuse, masking deeper, rather less progressive sentiments. Maybe it is just ignorance, but they seem to forget all too easily that the Citizenship Act was designed by the military regime — their enemy — to divide and rule. Now many in the NLD seem happy enough to play the same game. Myat Thu will keep on teaching against the current, but fewer and fewer want to hear what to has to say. He himself is a practicing Muslim, but he proudly traces his ancestry to many of the ethnic groups of Burma, intertwined over many generations. He embodies the promise of a different NLD, but one that now, sadly, appears to be gradually receding. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2018/01/04/why-even-burmas-democracy-activists-dont-stick-up-for-the-rohingya/?utm_term=.02e9b183afce (c) 2018 The Washington Post

Manifold reasons lie behind Iran’s ongoing protests, but the immediate trigger appears to be widespread disgruntlement over the country’s economic performance, especially cuts in President Hassan Rouhani’s new budget. Neither a revolution nor a political movement, the crisis is an explosion of the Iranian people’s pent-up frustrations over economic and political stagnation. Beyond a struggle between state and society – or a standoff between security forces and political figures on the one hand, and young, working-class, unemployed citizens on the other – the demonstrations are putting on full display the fault lines that also divide Iran’s political establishment. That the protests originated on 28 December in Mashhad, a bastion of Rouhani’s opponents and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s hometown, is highly significant. Hardliners and conservatives initially welcomed the unrest in the holy city, showcasing the way that elite factionalism has worsened to the point that some of Rouhani’s opponents favour instability over siding with his political agenda. The lack of uniformity in the government’s response to the protests has also highlighted these divisions. Rouhani initially struck a much softer tone than many other establishment figures, asserting people’s right to peaceful protest, and admitting that protesters are not lackeys of foreign powers but people who are suffering economically and seeking a more open society. In stark contrast, others – including Khamenei – have publicly blamed unrest on undefined external forces rather than legitimate grievances. A Champion for Change In part, the unrest stems from widespread discontent directed at Rouhani’s inability to activate the economic dividends of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with the P5+1/E3+3. It may seem counterintuitive, but the clear new distance between Rouhani and his conservative critics offers the former a unique opportunity to pivot himself away from being the demonstrators’ target to becoming their champion for reform. Rouhani can leverage public discontent to push the political establishment toward structural changes so fervently desired by the population. The chance that he can successfully take advantage of this dynamic is made greater by the way many Iranians are wary of taking part in the protests, even though sympathetic to the demands raised in them. Specifically, he could submit to parliament a package of major reforms, including constitutional amendments to empower elected institutions and a timetable for implementing them. If his reform package is blocked, it will be clear to the Iranian people where the problem lies, positioning Rouhani as a motor for change rather than a bulwark against it. Getting there will require resisting the temptation of pursuing superficial reforms. Shy steps, like the ones reformists are suggesting at present, are not going to cut it with the protesters. Rouhani has nothing to lose by taking a bold step. Without empowering the government and the parliament, and reining in tutelary bodies, like the unelected Guardian Council, vested interests in the status quo are bound to thwart structural economic reforms that are needed to fight corruption and open Iran up to the world market. The reality is that Rouhani over-promised and under-delivered on the July 2015 nuclear agreement, which many Iranians hoped would bring speedy economic rewards. Five months after the JCPOA was signed, Crisis Group warned that rapid economic transformation was unlikely, as foreign firms and financial institutions were always likely to find it difficult to overcome deeply-entrenched hesitancy regarding doing business with Iran. Despite a number of marquee deals and recovering oil sales, the government has failed to significantly redress issues of unemployment, corruption and income inequality. Perennial Demands As the crisis continues, the more violent alternative left open to the Iranian government will not address the underlying causes of unrest. While the state security apparatus might crush the protesters, as it has done at least once every decade since 1979, it cannot eliminate the perennial popular demand for fundamental change, which last reared its head in 2009. Today’s unrest is different from the 2009 protests, not least because protesters are not asking for U.S. help. Demonstrations are more geographically scattered than during the 2009 revolt, and they seem to involve young and unemployed Iranians more than the middle class. One interior ministry official estimated that 90 per cent of those arrested in the first few days of the most recent unrest were younger than 25. Rouhani’s initial response to the unrest seemed to acknowledge the notion that the crisis offers an opportunity. Whether he will use it is another question. Without real reform, domestic turmoil is likely to continue and will also afford U.S. President Donald Trump a new chance to kill the JCPOA. Trump will have to decide on 12 January 2018 whether he wants to extend sanctions relief and remain party to the JCPOA. A violent crackdown by Iran’s security forces could give him justification for not waiving sanctions, or even imposing new ones. https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/gulf-and-arabian-peninsula/iran/how-irans-president-rouhani-can-turn-crisis-opportunity?utm_source=Sign+Up+to+Crisis+Group%27s+Email+Updates&utm_campaign=638957c11f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_01_04&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1dab8c11ea-638957c11f-359909997 (c) 2018 International Crisis Group

As French President Emmanuel Macron prepares to receive a visit from his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) stresses the urgency of defending media freedom in Turkey, where the unprecedented persecution of journalists is a source of destabilization both for Turkey and all of Europe. It will be President Erdoğan’s first visit to France since a bloody coup attempt in July 2016 that plunged his country into an unparalleled spiral of repression. Turkey’s already worrying media situation has become critical since then. Ranked 155th out of 180 countries in RSF’s latest World Press Freedom Index, it is now the world’s biggest prison for professional journalists, while around 150 media outlets have been closed, reducing pluralism to a handful of embattled newspapers. President Macron promised yesterday that he would “in a few days continue to raise with Turkey the situation of journalists who are imprisoned and prevented from practising their profession.” “President Macron, we are counting on you to keep your promise and to firmly request the restoration of pluralism in Turkey and the release of journalists who are unjustly imprisoned,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said. “President Erdoğan’s strategy of maintaining tension, which electrifies the political climate and prevents a democratic public debate, is fraught with danger both for Turkey and for Europe. It is liable to increase instability and accentuate the deep fracture lines in a very polarized society. It is in no one’s interest to allow Turkey to become so unpredictable.” Most of Turkey’s imprisoned journalists are being held pending the outcome of their trials. Some have already been held for more than a year. They include Ahmet Şık, an investigative reporter who was cut shortafter speaking for two minutes during his last court appearance and was expelled from the courtroom; Şahin Alpay, a 73-year-old editorialist who has been held for more than 500 days despite having heart problems; and Ahmet Altan, a well-known commentator who is facing the possibility of three jail terms for supposedly sending “subliminal messages” during a TV appearance. Most of the imprisoned journalists are accused of links to terrorist groups or complicity in the coup attempt – charges that carry possible life sentences. But in practice, criticizing the government, working for a “suspect” media outlet, contacting a sensitive source or using an encrypted messaging app are all regarded by the courts as grounds for imprisoning a journalist without having to prove any individual involvement in criminal activity. https://rsf.org/en/news/turkish-president-about-visit-france-must-stop-crushing-media-freedom (c) 2018 Reporters Without Borders

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is relieved to learn that Dhondup Wangchen, a well-known Tibetan filmmaker who was under house arrest in the central city of Xining after being imprisoned for six years, has finally managed to leave China. He arrived in the United States ten days ago. With the help of Jigme Gyatso, a monk also known as Golog Jigme, Wangchen made a 25-minute documentary entitled “Leaving Fear Behind” in 2007 that showed the culture of the Tibetan people and their attachment to their exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. Wangchen was arrested after the documentary was secretly screened to a small group of foreign journalists in Beijing during the 2008 Olympic Games and was given a six-year jail sentence in late 2009. Gyatso was imprisoned for seven months after being interrogated and tortured. At the time, RSF launched a petition in support of Wangchen that ended up gathering nearly 14,000 signatures. He was finally released in June 2014 but remained under a form of house arrest. “Many recent cases, including those of Liu Xia and Gui Minhai, have shown that the Chinese authorities can no longer be believed when they say a prisoner of conscience has been released, so departure from China is the only real proof that they have recovered their freedom, although pressure can always be put on family members still in China,” said Cédric Alviani, the head of RSF’s East Asia bureau. China is one of the world’s worst countries in terms of the freedom to inform and is ranked near the bottom of RSF's 2017 World Press Freedom Index – 176th out of 180 countries. https://rsf.org/en/news/well-known-tibetan-filmmaker-manages-leave-china (c) 2018 Reporters without Borders

Sudan’s Public Order Law’s legal framework is composed of a set of legal provisions from the Sudanese Criminal Law Act and the Community Safety Act. It came into effect and was applied for the first time in Khartoum State as the Public Order Act (hereinafter the Act), following the 1989 coup, which brought the National Islamic Front into power. Its name was later changed to Community Safety Act. The Act includes several provisional articles on the general appearance, dress code as well as the individual and social behaviour of citizens. Furthermore, it gives the State the power to act as a “regulator” of the Sudanese people’s behaviours, in a way that is deliberately humiliating, insulting and degrading to their dignity and in violation of their rights. These legal provisions and their application raise wide controversy on two levels. Firstly, the contents of the Act itself is in contrary to the emphasis of basics personal freedoms, which are embedded within Sudan’s 2005 Constitution and its subsequent amendments. Secondly, the excessive execution of the Act and the methods of its application in most cases result in judicial violations, especially against women, ethnic groups from the marginalized areas, religious sects that do not subscribe to government’s version of Islam and the vulnerable strata of society. The past few weeks witnessed a steady increase in the frequency of these violations by the police in the application of the Act. In one case, the Community Security Police unannounced, stormed into a private women’s only party and arrested dozens of women on charges of indecent clothing. The women were acquitted and released by the court the following day. Moreover, at the court hearing of the arrested women, the police arrested and charged the female activist Ms Winnie Omar who was present at the hearing in solidarity with the arrested women, with charges of indecent clothing. However, when asked by the judge about the reasons of arrest, the arresting police officer justified that he “did not like the way she was walking”. In another case, the Police arrested Mr Montasir Ibrahim, a Sudanese writer, after beating him in the street under charges of opposition of the authorities and impeding the work of a public servant. These allegations came when Mr Montasir objected to the harsh treatment of Ms Winnie during her arrest. These are only a few examples, which have received wide media coverage because the victims are known activists. Courts and Police statistics shows that more than 40,000 similar cases are recorded per year in the Khartoum State alone. However, a large number of the cases in the Public Order Courts do not receive sufficient media coverage because most of the victims are from the poorest classes or do not have a high profile within the civil and political community. The government justifies these violations using the Public Order Act which include articles from chapter 15 of the Sudan Criminal Code and the Community Safety Law (formerly known as the Public Order Act). These articles criminalize certain personal behaviours such as indecent clothing, drinking of alcohol, offensive acts and seduction among others. The Public Order Act was initiated by the Sudanese government in the Khartoum State in 1992 and then amended in 1996 before it was applied in all States. The law includes a number of articles and provisions that were specifically formulated in vague language, to give the Police and the courts a free hand in its execution. Moreover, it covers a wide jurisdiction that includes; the organizing of music concerts; the gathering of women and men in in certain places; the use of public transportation; opening of hairdressing shops; conditions of “good conduct” for female workers; the use of loudspeakers; the opening hours of restaurants and shops and other aspects that constitute a flagrant violation of the personal freedoms of individuals and society. The law also gave the Public Order Police (which was established to apply these provisions) the powers of intrusion in private domains to enforce its articles and as such making the police a watchdog of the behaviours of citizens. In 2009, the name of the law was changed to the Community Safety Act and the Public Order Police was changed to the Community Security Police. The promulgation of this law within the framework of the so-called Civilizational Project of the ruling National Congress Party, is a means of reforming and moulding the Sudanese citizens to live in abidance with the strict definitions of Islamic teachings. The law gives wide discretionary authorities to the Public Order Police in the application of its loose provisions. It allows for the use of deadly force in its implementation, as was the case in the murder of Ms Awadia Agabna, a Sudanese citizen, by the police in 2012, whose family continue to be harassed by the police until today. Furthermore, Article 152 of the Criminal Code, on indecent clothing, is a good example of the vague definitions and language of the Public Order Law. The article does not set a concise definition of what constitutes “indecent clothing”. Thus, the application of this Article depends on the personal judgment of the arresting police officer. In addition to this, it has led misuse of the law by Public Order Police Officers and aided the spread of bribery and other forms of corruption. There are numerous cases where girls and women who have been arrested from the streets and humiliated, were extorted financially, physically and even sexually assaulted by the police in exchange for their release. This makes this law not only a threat to society because of its provisions, but also because of the wide discretion granted to the Police. These practices turn the Law into a repressive tool to enforce a particular behaviour and image of society. The most prominent defaults of the Public Order Laws can be summarized in the following points: The legislative framework of the law violates many constitutional rights and is fundamentally incompatible with the freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights of the Sudanese Interim Constitution of 2005. The Public Order Law articles gives the State the role of the guardian of morality and a watchdog of people’s individual behaviours, while significantly violating their privacy and freedoms. The provisions of the Public Order Laws, both in the Criminal Code and in the Community Security Act, have been vaguely worded, giving broad discretionary power to the public order police to interpret the articles of the law according to their personal judgment, allowing for abuse and other violations. The application of the Public Order Act is selective and hence allows for class, gender and ethnic discrimination. The laws are applied mostly in the slums and against the most vulnerable groups in the community, while the Public Order Police avoid rich residential neighbourhoods, which are often inhabited by rich people who are related to government. The provisions of the Public Order Law are clearly discriminatory against non-Muslims, especially Christian. There are many incidents of Christian girls being arrested by Public Order Police after leaving churches and taken to police stations on charges of indecent clothing. The articles of the law also allow intransigence against Christians in their religious rituals and ceremonies. The Public Order Law promote discrimination against women with most of its articles (indecent clothing, women’s hairdressing shops, etc.) focusing on their activities. The application of these articles systematically targets the presence of women in the public sphere in an attempt to limit their mobility and social activities. The detainees of the Public Order Law are usually presented to specialized courts which are held urgently on the day following their arrest. The defendants are not allowed to defend themselves or consult lawyers, and in most cases, the sentence is issued and executed immediately. The Public Order Judge is not required to prepare or complete a trial report to ensure that a record of the trial exists for court records and proceedings. Usually, the Judges issues their ruling immediately after hearing the prosecuting witnesses, who are usually the arresting Public Order Police themselves. Furthermore, the defendants are brought to the court without being informed of the charges against them. In almost all these trials, the police officer is the complainant and the witness at the same time. All these points constitute a serious breach of the principles of right and guarantee of a fair trial. All articles of the Public Order Laws include the penalty of a fine, which turns the public order courts into a source of revenue for the State. A recent report estimated that the average monthly revenue from the fines of the Public Order Courts are 600,000 SDG in Khartoum State alone. What makes the situation worse, is that up to 10% of the fines collected is allocated to the judge who issued the verdict, which creates a conflict of interest and makes the judge a personal beneficiary of the conviction sentences.Thepunishments provided in the Public Order Laws include some humiliating ones such as flogging, which are carried out openly in order to humiliate the victims. According to an estimate in 2011, almost two million and six hundred thousand lashes flame the bodies of Sudanese citizens every year as a result of judicial decisions issued by the Public Order Courts. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights issued a resolution in 2000 demanding the Sudanese Government to abolish the punishment of flogging and compensate those affected. However, the Sudanese government ignored the resolution and continued to enforce such punishments. This incident raised questions around the lack of enforcement mechanisms for resolutions issued by regional and international human rights bodies, making them ineffective and without any real impact on the ground. The Sudanese government uses this law as a political tool to appease the radical religious groups and gain their political support. This is evident with the strict application of the law against the Christian communities. Raids and attacks by the Public Order Police increases significantly as Christian holidays, such as Christmas, New Year’s eve and the Easter approach. The Sudanese Government also uses the Public Order raids to send political signals, such as the current crackdown that followed the visit of the US Deputy Secretary of State, during which he formally demanded the Sudanese Government to consider changing the Legal provisions that restrict freedoms. Subsequently, the Sudanese Government stepped up the application of these provisions of the Public Order Laws in response to this request. The framework of the Public Order Laws in Sudan remains one of the most central instruments of repression by the regime. It is used by the Government as a tool to show strength and bully citizens in order to create a continuous state of fear, despair and loss of hope for any prospect of change. http://www.democracyfirstgroup.org/public_order_act_sudan/ (c) 2017 Sudan Democracy First Group

At Balukhali refugee camp in Bangladesh, unclean water, cramped living quarters and squalid conditions create a prime environment for outbreaks of preventable diseases among the estimated 650,000 Rohingya Muslims who have fled strife in neighboring Myanmar. While 900,000 doses of oral cholera vaccine already have been delivered by more than 200 mobile vaccination teams, another contagious bacterial infection, diphtheria, has emerged. "Diphtheria is a vaccine preventable disease. It's an illustration of how the Rohingya population that are living in the makeshift settlements here had very little access to health care in their place of origin in Myanmar," said Kate Nolan, emergency coordinator with international aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders. Diphtheria often causes the buildup of a sticky grey-white membrane in the throat or nose. The infection causes airway obstruction and damage to the heart and nervous system. The fatality rate increases without the diphtheria antitoxin. "This is an extremely vulnerable population with low vaccination coverage, living in conditions that could be a breeding ground for infectious diseases like cholera, measles, rubella and diphtheria," said Dr. Navaratnasamy Paranietharan, the World Health Organization representative to Bangladesh. Myanmar's health sector is rated among the worst in the world, particularly in the ethnic regions where conflict and poverty have delayed medical development. The Rohingya refugees fled Myanmar's northern Rakhine state after insurgents attacked security forces in late August, prompting a military crackdown that has since been described as ethnic cleansing. 'Appalling' health care Myanmar's government denies it has engaged in ethnic cleansing, and it insists that a majority of the violence and burning of Rohingya villages was done by the Rohingya militants who attacked the Myanmar security forces. "The health care facilities for the Rohingya in Rakhine state are appalling and just a small amount of the needs were being met, even before the attacks in August," said Rohingya expert Chris Lewa of the Arakan Project, a human rights organization that monitors and documents the situation. According to Lewa, the impoverished Rohingya population in northern Rakhine say they are treated with discrimination by Myanmar medical staff at government hospitals and face severe movement restrictions when traveling to health care facilities. Lewa points to Myanmar's Maungdaw District, where the army conducted so-called "clearance operations" following deadly insurgent attacks last year. "Health facilities set up by INGOs [international nongovernmental organizations] in Maungdaw have been burned to the ground, which will make it even more difficult for them if and when they are allowed to return," Lewa added. Currently, INGOs are not allowed in the areas outside Maungdaw. Doctors Without Borders has responded to the rapid spread of diphtheria in neighboring Bangladesh by converting one of its mother and child inpatient facilities at the Balukhali makeshift settlement, and at another inpatient site, into treatment centers. "The emergence of this disease is a concern because it contributes to an existing precarious public health situation that we have in the makeshift settlements," Nolan said. Tracking down carriers Now, potential carriers must get antitoxins and antibiotics to prevent the further spread of the bacterium and kill it. "We need to find all the suspected cases in the camps and get them all here to start the antibiotic treatment and keep them isolated for 48 hours," said on-duty doctor Thomas Hansen. Because the disease spreads easily through water droplets from sneezing and coughing, medical teams are tasked with following up on initial quarantine with visits to a patient's family to trace and treat people who might have come in contact with the disease in the community. Doctors Without Borders and health partners like the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies are working together to isolate suspected cases. One of the biggest challenges for health workers, however, is getting to remote locations where potential outbreaks can occur. With the sudden influx of the 650,000 refugees, new land clearance has led to huts being constructed well beyond the main roadways. "They live in areas that are difficult to reach. You cannot reach them by cars or Tom Toms [three-wheeled taxis] because of no roads, so they will have to carry their patients to where they can get treatment," said Dagne Hordvei, team leader with the Norwegian Red Cross. "We have an agreement with [Doctors Without Borders] that we take the measles patients from them, and they take the diphtheria patients, with lots of activity going out to the communities to try to reduce the speed of the spreading of diphtheria." Vaccination campaign As Bangladesh's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare — working with the World Health Organization, UNICEF and other health partners — implements a vaccination campaign to prevent future outbreaks of diphtheria, it appears that at least some of the next generation of Rohingya will have protection from preventable diseases. "We are working with partners to ensure that clinical guidance is available to health workers, and that there are enough beds and medicines for those who get sick. But the only way to control this outbreak is to protect people, particularly children, through vaccination," said the WHO's Paranietharan. As of December 21, Doctors Without Borders has seen more than 2,000 suspected diphtheria cases in its health facilities, and the number is rising daily. Most of the patients are between the ages of 5 and 14 years old. More than 20 Rohingya in Bangladesh have died from the disease. https://www.voanews.com/a/disease-plagues-rohingya-refugees-bangladesh/4190663.html (c) 2018 VOA