Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn (seated, center), surrounded by his security detail, at the ceremony marking the opening of the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway in early October. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
ADDIS ABABA, Dec 21 2016 (IPS)

Smart phone users in the Ethiopian capital are rejoicing. After a two-month blackout the Ethiopian government has permitted the return of mobile data.

Most Ethiopians who access the Internet do so through their phones, and previously the government had singled out social media activity as a major influence in agitating unrest that has doggedly seethed across the country since breaking out a year ago.“They’ve broken promise after promise, so people won’t believe them—that’s the problem.” --Merera Gudina, Chair of the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress Party

But now, more than two months into the six-month state of emergency declared by the government on Oct. 9, protests previously rocking the country’s two most populous regions appear to have subsided, and gangs of young men are no longer prowling the country setting fire to buildings, blocking roads and clashing with security forces.

But despite the appearance of order being restored, no one seems to know what may happen next, or whether this calm will hold.

The current situation may simply serve as a temporary break in Ethiopia’s most sustained and widespread period of dissent and protests since the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) ruling party came to power following the 1991 revolution.

“The protests have shaken the EPRDF regime in ways not seen in more than two decades and a half,” says Mohammed Ademo, an Ethiopian journalist in Washington, D.C., and working alongside diaspora activists following events. “It did more to challenge the regime’s grip on power in one year than what some opposition groups have done in years.”

Oromo culture includes an important role for elders based on the “Gadaa system”, a form of Oromo traditional government, with leadership being attained by passing through numerous age-related grades. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

For up until now, the political gamble underpinning the EPRDF’s developmental state project—similar to China’s strategy—has been that the material transformation of Ethiopia would ultimately satisfy the divergent populations comprising Ethiopia’s ethnic federation.

With months of the state of emergency still to run, however, the EPRDF now has a critical opportunity to forge a sustainable route out of the mire. The big question is whether it will seize the opportunity or is capable of doing so.

Because since 1991, dogged by criticism over its authoritarian style and human rights record with Western observers and governments calling on it to deepen its commitment to democratic reforms, it hasn’t shown much interest in listening.

A more overt security presence is now visible in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, such as this armoured vehicle parked in iconic Meskal Square. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

“If you look at our history, the present system is the best in terms of development,” says Abebe Hailu, an Addis Ababa-based human rights lawyer who lived through the 1974 downfall of Emperor Haile Selassie and the ensuing military dictatorship that eventually fell in 1991 to the EPRDF’s founders. “But there’s still a lot to do when it comes to developing democracy.”

Protests that began last November with Oromo farmers objecting to land grabs have mushroomed into an anti-government movement which now includes the Amhara, Ethiopia’s second largest ethnic group after the Oromo (together the two groups represent about 60 percent of the population).

And protests have occurred in places transformed by economic growth, such as the Amhara capital, Bahir Dar, and Adama, Oromia’s most cosmopolitan city. Meanwhile, the rhetoric of ethnic hatred and cleansing has already shown itself.

The Oromo are proud of their cultural traditions and enjoy opportunities to celebrate that heritage. They also share a common language, Afaan Oromoo, also known as Oromoiffa, which belongs to the Cushitic family, unlike Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia, which is Semitic. A different language is only one of many sources of tension the Oromo have within the Ethiopian federation. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

This all illustrates that despite the EPRDF’s efforts to forge a new nation-state identity bolstered by economic transformation, ethno-regional loyalties have lost none of their appeal; especially in the face of government oppression identified with a Tigrayan elite—from an ethnic group forming only 6 percent of the population—accused of usurping power and much of that new wealth.

“The constitution the government came up with is a perfect match for a country like Ethiopia,” says one Addis Ababa resident, explaining how this ethnic federalism best matches Ethiopia’s diversity—he himself is of mixed ethnic heritage. “But you have a group of Tigrayans in government deciding the fate of 100 million people who aren’t allowed to say anything,” The result, he adds, is the constitution is shown to be only as good as the paper it is written on.

Against such a background, these protests have illustrated that the perennial problem for Ethiopia’s rulers over the centuries remains unsolved: maintain the integrity of a country and people whose boundaries are those of a multi-ethnic former empire forged by violent conquest of subjugated peoples (such as the Oromo).

Admittedly until recently, and for most of the last two decades, it appeared the EPRDF was on top of this challenge, demonstrating the most impressive economic and development-driven track record of any Ethiopian government in modern history.

Against the fiasco of international assistance in Somalia, Ethiopia is a development darling, held up as a heartening example of indigenous government and international partners succeeding in reducing the likes of poverty and mortality rates.

Geopolitical considerations also mean Ethiopia is an important peace and security bulwark for the West in the Horn of Africa, a region troubled by internecine fighting in South Sudan, Islamic insurgents in Somalia and floods of refugees abandoning Eritrea.

But statistics that wowed the international community have masked the more complex reality in which most Ethiopians, while not as susceptible to famine and disease, remain utterly stifled in their lives’ endeavors.

“Usually protests start in towns where you have the politically active but this has been a popular revolution at the grassroots in rural areas in Amhara and Oromia,” says Yilikal Getenet, chairman of the opposition Blue Party. “People are dying and people are protesting about clear [issues].”

During its rule the EPRDF has shunned diversity of political opinion, repeatedly cracking down on opposition parties, putting their politicians in jail of forcing them into exile. The 2015 election produced a parliament without a single opposition representative. Freedom of expression in Ethiopia is strictly curtailed—an independent civil society no longer exists.

Meanwhile, Ethiopia’s citizenry is increasingly angry at seemingly never-ending government corruption. And a mushrooming youthful population means the number of young unemployed men across the country irrevocably rises, their thoughts and frustrations turning toward the center of power that is Addis Ababa.

Numbers killed during protests range upward of 600, with thousands imprisoned, according to rights and opposition groups.

“We now have names, and in most cases even photos, of the more than 1,000 victims who were killed by security forces since the protests began,” Mohammed says.

Having built a brand over the last 25 years as the safest and most reliable country in the volatile Horn of Africa, Ethiopia has found its reputation on the line amid the upheaval. Now it’s trying to repair the damage to that brand and to society itself.

“The government must be ready to accept fundamental reforms,” Abebe says.

Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn conducted a major cabinet reshuffle at the end of October, changing 21 of 30 ministerial posts, including 15 new appointees.

The selection of technocrats without party affiliation is a positive signal the party is serious about delivering changes, say some, while others argue it perpetuates the monopoly rule of a select few, an intelligentsia judged worthy to lead the perceived ignorant Ethiopian masses.

The government is also promising “deep reforms” to solve root causes of protests. But for a country with a millennia of centralized, autocratic rule, that’s much easier said than done.

A prevailing accusation among its opponents is the EPRDF still clings to the same left-wing revolutionary ideology of 1991 that insists on Leninist single-party control, hence it remains fundamentally anti-democratic and unable to countenance reform.

Others claim moderates exist in the party who could help change its direction for the better. But that’s a tough sell.

“This government is the most isolated government from the Ethiopian people,” says Merera Gudina, Chairman of the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress Party, who was arrested at the beginning of December for allegedly flouting state of emergency laws. “They’ve broken promise after promise, so people won’t believe them—that’s the problem.”

Hence many argue the EPRDF has lost all legitimacy and must make way for a transitional government. Others counter that’s neither feasible nor in Ethiopia’s best interests.

“People need to recognize that if you push too fast you can get more chaos,” Abebe says.

Instead, according to many, the EPRDF should focus on the following: purge its ranks of the corrupt and ineffective; reform key public institutions found wanting; release political prisoners; take seriously negotiations with opposition elements home and abroad; ensure Ethiopia’s youth are given jobs and hope.

Also, at the same time, the government must establish a new electoral commission to guarantee the next local elections in 2018 and national elections in 2020 are freely contested.

“If we don’t achieve free and fair elections then, this country will be in serious danger—that is the last chance we have—really,” Lidetu said. “But we also can’t wait until those elections: so starting from now we have to have dialogue between the different political groups in an open manner.”

Participants in the march for recognition of Israel’s Bedouin villages, which began in the unrecognised village of Wadi Al Nam in the Negev desert in southern Israel and ended with delivery of ‘The Alternative Master Plan for Unrecognised Bedouin Villages’ to the Head of State’s office in Jerusalem, March 2015. Credit: Silvia Boarini/IPS

By Silvia Boarini
JERUSALEM, Apr 4 2015 (IPS)

There was a symbolic dimension to a recent four-day march from the periphery of Israel to the corridors of power in Jerusalem to seek recognition for Bedouin villages.

The march, which began in the unrecognised Bedouin village of Wadi Al Nam in the Negev desert in southern Israel, ended on Mar. 29 with delivery of ‘The Alternative Master Plan for Unrecognised Bedouin Villages’ to the Head of State’s office in Jerusalem.

On this occasion, Negev Bedouin community leaders and hundreds of representatives of civil society organisations (CSOs) were joined by Arab and Israeli members of the Knesset from a political society actor, the Joint List, a political alliance of four Arab-dominated parties in Israel – Hadash, the United Arab List, Balad and Ta’al.

The Joint List, headed by Knesset member Ayman Odeh, was born out of Arab civil society’s need for unity and is now very much a player able and willing to gain power and mediate between its constituency and the state.“We are trying to present a different narrative [of Bedouin villages] to the people based on history, on facts, on legal rights and international human rights” – Professor Oren Yiftachel, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

A recent European Commission report mapping CSOs in Israel describes their space for dealing with human and civil rights as shrinking and their contribution to governance often misunderstood or perceived as a threat by state authorities.

In this context, although it may not change the state’s perception of CSOs, a strong partnership with a recognised political society actor such as the Joint List might at least mean that the mobilisation achieved by these organizations at the grassroots level can translate into change at legislative level.

“Because the Joint List is stronger now and we have a common goal, we think we can put more efficient pressure on the parliament and on the government to find a just solution for the people in the unrecognised villages,” Fadi Masamra of the Regional Council of Unrecognised Villages (RCUV) told IPS.

RCUV is an elected civil society body that seeks to advance the rights of Bedouins in unrecognised villages,.

The common goal is gaining recognition for some 46 unrecognised Bedouin villages in the Negev which do not exist on any map and do not receive any basic services such as running water or electricity.

In 2011, the Israeli government approved a unilateral plan, known as the Prawer Plan, to “regularise Bedouin settlement” within five years by demolishing these unrecognised villages and forcibly relocating Bedouins to new localities. The plan sparked mass outcry and was eventually shelved in 2013.

Activists take pride in recalling that the Prawer Plan was stopped by people in the streets who demonstrated against it and not by representatives in the Knesset. They say that it this disconnect that both CSOs and the Joint List hope to be able to bridge by working together.

“I am very proud that the Joint List called for this march,” Hanan al Sanah of womens’ empowerment NGO Sidre told IPS as she walked with the marchers. “It shows that their commitment is real and they haven’t forgotten their electoral promise. They are making the issue of recognition more visible and they can build on the mobilisation that has gone on for years within the community.”

CSOs have worked tirelessly in the Negev not only to mobilise Bedouins against the Prawer Plan but also to produce alternative literature, reports and campaigns that challenge the government’s classification of Bedouin presence in the Negev as “illegal”.

By re-framing the issue of recognition around land rights, human rights and equality, they have been able to reach Jewish and international audiences and further shape the public debate.

CSOs have also been using a powerful state tool, that of mapping, to propose a tangible and viable solution in the form of the ‘The Alternative Master Plan for Unrecognised Bedouin Villages’.

The plan was drawn up by a team led by Professor Oren Yiftachel, who teaches political geography, urban planning and public policy at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in collaboration with the RCUV and Bimkom, an NGO promoting equality in planning practices.

“We are trying to present a different narrative to the people based on history, on facts, on legal rights and international human rights,” Yiftachel told IPS. “We worked for three years on the Alternative Plan and we have created a different scenario for the future.”

The Alternative Plan draws a different map of the Negev in which unrecognised villages are “legalised” and can access the same development opportunities as their Jewish neighbours.

“This is a very scientific and detailed solution that fits within state planning and comes from the community, it is not imposed on them. It can make the process easier,” explained RCUV’s Masamra.

Although Yiftachel admits that since it was first presented in 2012 the Alternative Plan has largely been ignored by Knesset commissions, he believes attitudes have shifted and CSOs must continue to push for change.

“After all, a solution is overdue since the future of the unrecognised villages, and of the 100,000 Bedouins living in them, remains uncertain,” he said, adding that “it is important to remember that the state is not a homogeneous body. There are people willing to consider recognition.”

For the CSOs and activists working day in day out in the field, mobilisation remains key. “I would say that the real challenge remains mobilising both the Jewish and the Bedouin community,” Michal Rotem of the Negev Coexistence Forum, a Jewish Arab NGO working in unrecognised villages, told IPS.

“Politicians come and go but it is the NGOs’ role to bring more communities and groups into the struggle and to maintain engagement.”

For Aziz Abu Madegham Al Turi, from the unrecognised village of Al Araqib, working closely with CSOs is important to bring new people to the Negev and come together in actions that reverberate beyond the Negev. “The worse it get gets the more united we become,” he told IPS.

“The state tries to break us up but we connect through different organisations and committees and we find new strength. We come together to support each other.”

Amir Abu Kweider, a prominent activist in the campaign against the Prawer Plan, sees the arrival of the Joint List as an occasion to form new alliances. “We need to intensify efforts to safeguard our rights against racist legislation and reach out to new Israeli audiences,” he told IPS.

In this sense, the march can certainly be judged a success. Tamam Nasra, for example, travelled from the north of Israel to join the march. “Arabs in the South are no different from me, their problems are my problems. Their oppression is my oppression. This is why I heeded (Knesset member) Ayman Odeh’s call,” she told IPS.

Omri Evron, a Joint List voter from Tel Aviv, also joined out of a sense of collective responsibility. “It is not possible that in 2015 in Israel there are people who are effectively not recognised by the state,” he told IPS. “This has to change.”

The positive atmosphere was not dampened even by the knowledge that a new Benjamin Netanyahu government will be sworn in shortly.

“It doesn’t matter if the right wing gets stronger,” stressed Masamra. “If you think that it is not worth struggling then nothing will be changed. We have a responsibility towards our people and this is about human rights, not about who is more powerful.”

Edited by Phil Harris    

Folk singer Joan Baez and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei were announced Tuesday as the winners of Amnesty International’s Ambassador of Conscience Award.

Baez was recognised for her lifetime of “non-violence, and civil and human rights activism,” according to Amnesty, which includes civil rights marches with Dr Martin Luther King Jr, advocacy against the death penalty, support of LGBTI campaigns, and peace campaigns in Vietnam, as well as contributing her musical talents to countless charity events.

“With her mesmerizing voice and unwavering commitment to peaceful protest and human rights for all, Joan Baez has been a formidable force for good over more than five decades,” said Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

Weiwei is a well-known and outspoken critic of the Chinese government, with his work exploring human rights and prison.

Weiwei was incarcerated and beaten by officials before he was due to testify during the trial of an environmental activist in 2008, then held without charge for over 80 days in 2011.

“Through his work Ai Weiwei reminds us that the right of every individual to express their self must be protected—not just for the sake of society, but also for art and humanity,” Shetty said.

The Ambassador of Conscience Award is Amnesty International’s top honour. It recognises “those who have shown exceptional leadership in the fight for human rights, through their life and work,” according to the organisation.

Both Weiwei and Baez expressed thanks at the announcement.

“I am very privileged to receive this special honour, and shall not fail the encouragement and profound expectation of me with this Award,” Weiwei said.

“Amnesty International attracted me because of its founding principle that all human rights abuses and the suffering they create are unacceptable,” Baez said.

“The process of eliminating those abuses, even one step at a time, has created a compassionate, non-partisan, powerfully effective movement. I’m lucky to be part of it and proud to be honored with this Award.”

The awards will be officially presented in Berlin on May 21.

Follow Josh Butler on Twitter @JoshButler

"Hands Up, Don't Shoot": A rally in support of Michael Brown. Credit: Shawn Semmler/cc by 2.0

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Aug 18 2014 (IPS)

The shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer in the southern United States earlier this month has led to widespread public outrage around issues of race, class and police brutality.

In particular, a flurry of policy discussions is focusing on the startling level of force and military-style weaponry used by local police in responding to public demonstrations following the death Aug. 9 of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.“We have a lot of military equipment and hardware looking for a place to end up, and that tends to be local law enforcement.” -- WOLA's Maureen Meyer

The situation has galvanised support from both liberal and conservative members of Congress for potential changes to a law that, since the 1990s, has provided local U.S. police forces with surplus military equipment. The initiative, overseen by the Department of Defence and known as the “1033 programme”, originally came about in order to support law-enforcement personnel in the fight against drug gangs.

“We need to de-militarise this situation,” Claire McCaskill, one of Missouri’s two senators, said last week. “[T]his kind of response by the police has become the problem instead of the solution.”

In a widely read article titled “We Must Demilitarize the Police”, conservative Senator Rand Paul likewise noted that “there should be a difference between a police response and a military response” in law enforcement.

During attempts to contain public protests in the aftermath of the shooting, police in Ferguson used high-powered weapons, teargas, body armour and even armoured vehicles of types commonly used by the U.S. military during wartime situations. Now, it appears the 1033 programme will likely come under heavy scrutiny in coming months.

“Congress established this programme out of real concern that local law enforcement agencies were literally outgunned by drug criminals. We intended this equipment to keep police officers and their communities safe from heavily armed drug gangs and terrorist incidents,” Carl Levin, chair of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, said Friday.

“[W]e will review this programme to determine if equipment provided by the Defense Department is being used as intended.”

Drugs and terrorism

Despite this unusual bipartisan agreement over the dangers of a militarised police force, there appears to be no extension of this concern to rising U.S. support for militarised law enforcement in other countries.

While a 2011 law requires annual reporting on U.S. assistance to foreign police, that data is not yet available. However, during 2009, the most recent data available, Washington provided more than 3.5 billion dollars in foreign assistance for police activities, particularly in Afghanistan, Colombia, Iraq, Mexico, Pakistan and the Palestinian Territories.

According to an official report from 2011, “the United States has increased its emphasis on training and equipping foreign police as a means of supporting a wide range of U.S. foreign-policy goals,” particularly in the context of the wars on drugs and terrorism.

In the anti-terror fight, African countries are perhaps the most significant recipients of new U.S. security aid. Yet a new report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) highlights the dangers of this approach, focusing on the U.S.-supported Anti-Terrorism Police Unit (ATPU) in Kenya.

The report, released Monday, builds on previous allegations against the ATPU of arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. Yet neither the Kenyan authorities nor the ATPU’s main donors – the United States and United Kingdom – have seriously investigated these longstanding allegations, HRW says.

Washington’s support for the ATPU has been significant, amounting to 19 million dollars in 2012 alone. Yet while U.S. law mandates a halting of aid pending investigation of credible reports of rights abuse, HRW says Washington “has not scaled down its assistance to the unit”.

“The goals of supporting the police in general are laudable and in line with concerns over rule of law,” Jehanne Henry, a senior researcher with HRW’s Africa division, told IPS.

“The problem here is it’s clear that, notwithstanding the goals of the assistance, it’s serving to undermine rule of law because the ATPU is taking matters into its own hands. So, our call is for donors to be smarter about providing this kind of assistance.”

Unseen since the 1980s

Meanwhile, Mexico and Latin American countries have been seeing an uptick in U.S. assistance for security forces as part of efforts to crack down on the drug trade.

“Currently the Central American governments are relying more and on their militaries to address the recent surge in violence,” Adriana Beltran, a senior associate for citizen security at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a watchdog group here.

“While the U.S. is saying it’s not providing any assistance to these forces, there is significant assistance being provided through the Department of Defence for counter-narcotics, which is channelled through the militaries of these countries.”

According to a new paper from Alexander Main, a senior associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), a think tank here, U.S. security assistance to the region began strengthening again during the latter years of President George W. Bush’s time in office.

“Funding allocated to the region’s police and military forces climbed steadily upward to levels unseen since the U.S.-backed ‘dirty wars’ of the 1980s,” Main writes, noting that a “key model” for bilateral assistance has been Colombia. Since 1999, an eight-billion-dollar programme in that country has seen “the mass deployment of military troops and militarized police forces to both interdict illegal drugs and counter left-wing guerrilla groups”.

Yet last year, nearly 150 NGOs warned that U.S. policies of this type, which “promote militarization to address organized crime”, had been ineffective. Further, the groups said, such an approach had resulted in “a dramatic surge in violent crime, often reportedly perpetrated by security forces themselves.”

Mexico has been a particularly prominent recipient of U.S. security aid around the war on drugs.

“From the 1990s onward, the trend has been to encourage the Mexican government to involve the military in drug operations – and, over the past two years, also in public security,” Maureen Meyer, a senior associate on Mexico for WOLA, told IPS.

In the process, she says, civilian forces, too, have increasingly received military training, leading to concerns over human rights violations and excessive use of force, as well as a lack of knowledge over how to deal with local protests – concerns startlingly similar to those now coming out of Ferguson, Missouri.

“You can see how disturbing this trend is in the United States, and we are concerned about a similar trend towards militarised police forces in Latin American countries,” Meyer notes. “We have a lot of military equipment and hardware looking for a place to end up, and that tends to be local law enforcement.”

Edited by: Kitty Stapp

The writer can be reached at cbiron@ips.org

Turkey’s new democratisation reform package may mark a step forward for civil rights, but it does not go far enough to ease social tension and feelings of mistrust that are afflicting the country, analysts say.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced the long-awaited reform package on Sep. 30, saying it ushered in “a new, decisive phase” in Turkey’s democratisation process.

But after a summer during which Erdoğan’s reformist reputation was shredded by a violent police crackdown on anti-government protests, many Turks see the package mostly as an attempt to repair the prime minister’s battered image.

“The fact that this is being marketed as a big reform package is precisely because the government is seeing that they are failing on that front,” said Aslı Aydıntaşbaş, a political columnist at Milliyet newspaper, an influential publication generally critical of the government. “It’s not enough, it’s hardly enough, but it’s a start.”

The measures, to be enacted through a mix of administrative and legislative changes, include the strengthening of minority language rights, the lifting of a ban on Islamic headscarves for women in public institutions, and alterations to the electoral system to benefit smaller political parties.

The package did not include widely anticipated enhancements of cultural and religious rights for Alevis, a Shi’a-Islam-influenced sect whose adherents comprise the country’s largest religious minority.

The bulk of the measures are aimed at addressing the grievances of Turkey’s 15 million ethnic Kurds, who have endured forced assimilation since the early years of the republic. The government currently is engaged in a peace process with the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), whose 30-year-long separatist insurgency has cost 40,000 lives. A ceasefire has held since March, with government officials holding direct talks with the PKK’s imprisoned leader Abdullah Öcalan.

However, those talks have come to a standstill, with the rebels recently freezing a withdrawal from Turkey after accusing Ankara of failing to deliver on promised reforms.

On Sep. 30, Erdoğan announced that education in mother-tongue languages other than Turkish will be allowed for the first time, but only in private schools.

A ban on the letters q, w, and x, which are found in the Kurdish, but not the Turkish alphabet, will be lifted, allowing for their use in names and official documentation. Kurdish place names that were “Turkified” in the past will be restored to their original spelling.

Meanwhile, a “student oath,” which begins with the words “I am a Turk,” will be abolished in schools.

Erdoğan also proposed a debate on lowering the existing 10-percent threshold that a political party must clear in an election in order to secure seats in parliament. In many Western democracies, such as Germany, the threshold for representation is five percent of the popular vote. The high electoral barrier in Turkey has generally been seen as a means to stymy Kurdish political representation.

Overall, though, the reform measures fell short of several key Kurdish demands, including a loosening of the country’s draconian anti-terror laws. Many observers were also disappointed that Kurdish-language education will be restricted to private schools.

“Was this really a package worth waiting for?” asked Gültan Kışanak, co-chair of the main pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party in a televised statement.

“Kurds wished for the Kurdish problem to be solved, Alevis wished for freedom of religion, and other discriminated groups in Turkey wished for more participatory governance,” Kışanak continued. “It is not a package that responds to Turkey’s need for democratisation.”

Analysts interpreted the cautiousness of the measures as a sign of the government’s sensitivity over a possible Turkish nationalist backlash against Kurdish initiatives, particularly in the context of municipal and presidential elections next year.

“I think there’s been a growing unrest across the country since the peace talks began and the government began speaking to Öcalan directly,” said Ziya Meral, a London-based Turkey researcher, and former human rights advocate.

“It is not so much because of a lack of political will, but because elections are coming and the Turkish public is not necessarily on board with such a speedy resolution of the Kurdish issue.”

Hugh Pope, country director for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, expressed a belief that the government’s fears are largely misplaced.

“This imaginary Turkish nationalist resistance to reform is very real in the mind of Ankara, but I don’t think it’s reflected on the ground,” Pope said. “Erdoğan is pushing through an open door, and the better he explains it, the easier this process will go.”

Meral believes that Erdoğan will likely announce further substantial reforms in the coming months as the elections draw nearer — especially on the Alevi issue.

“If you unveil all your major reforms in one go, the public will quickly forget, “ he drily noted, “but if you spread out the love a bit, your actions might be remembered much closer to the election date.”

The generally negative reception of the package from key opposition groups, including the Kurds, highlighted deeper social problems that the reforms did not address, he added.

Editor’s note: Alexander Christie-Miller is a freelance reporter based in Istanbul. This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

The Muslim Brotherhood has its own army of the young that will not easily be defeated. Credit: Hisham Allam/IPS.

By Emad Mekay
BERKELEY, California, Sep 29 2013 (IPS)

Gory social media images that fueled the global Jihadist influx into Syria 18 months ago are back. But this time the outpouring is coming from Egypt.

Pictures on Facebook and Twitter show dozens of bodies wrapped in white burial sheets lying in rows in morgues, hospitals and even mosque hallways. Others show charred bodies with the victims’ brains visible from sniper shots to the head. Most of the posts urge one thing: justice."There's a valid fear that some of them may turn to violence after they have despaired that democracy could ever be a means towards meaningful change.” -- Sami Al-Dalaal

“Our self-control now is not out of fear. It’s out of respect for human blood and for the safety of our country,” said one post on an Islamist Facebook page. “If we are pushed too hard and our back is to the wall, we’ll defend ourselves.”

Three months after a Jul. 3 military coup that removed Egypt’s first elected government, hundreds of anti-coup activists have been killed, thousands injured and many more, mostly Islamists, thrown behind bars without charge or trial. The achievements of the country’s brief two-and-a-half years of freedom have been all but erased.

Amnesty International estimates that at least 1,089 people were killed in just four days – the period between Aug. 14 and 18 during the military operation to disperse anti-coup protestors at Rabaa square and Al-Nahda square in Cairo.

Human Rights Watch called the carnage the largest mass killing in Egypt’s modern history.

Weeks later, the military crackdown is still raging, with casualty numbers reportedly rising almost by the day, prompting calls for self-defence among the country’s targeted Islamists.

Al-Qaeda’s ideology of violence as the only path to change, which was discredited by the mostly peaceful changes of the Arab Spring in Egypt, has now received a new lease on life as a possible and viable option after all, according to several observers of Islamic political movements.

“We followed Western democracy prescriptions to the letter, but the minute a Muslim man comes to office, the world looks away. Nobody really respects democracy,” said one Islamist’s Facebook page.

The urge to resist the bloody crackdown has been most pronounced among young people. In private discussions, many of them, especially from the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s largest Islamist organisation, express frustration with their leaders for preaching gradual rather than “revolutionary” change.

Some activists described the top policy-making body of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Group’s Shura Council, as “dervishes”, an Arabic word connoting being detached from reality.

“The Iranian revolution model might not be so bad after all,” said one activist who asked not to be identified.

The current military crackdown is so ruthless, sweeping and indiscriminate that it has become a personal daily story for many young people, especially the Islamists. There’s hardly anyone who hasn’t had a brother, father or sister killed, arrested or tortured since the coup, the activist said.

If the young decide to take up arms, it will be on a massive scale. Senior Muslim Brotherhood leader Salah Sultan, before his arrest earlier this week, estimated the group’s active membership to be between 800,000 and a million, not including their families and sympathisers.

Pressure on Islamists towards self-defence comes from unlikely outside corners as well.

The militant Somali Shabab group, which was at the receiving end of preaching from the Muslim Brotherhood that violence was counter-productive, got a chance for payback.

In August, the Somali militant group issued a statement taunting the Brotherhood and urging them to condemn democracy. The call was spurred by the scenes of carnage against defenceless anti-coup protestors in Cairo.

“You are leading Muslims to extermination by your insistence on democracy,” the Shabab said.

The pressure on the Brotherhood’s aging leadership has been so intense since the coup that Essam Erian, parliamentary majority leader before the coup, had to issue several audio messages urging a continuation of “peaceful protests”.

On Sep. 25, the Muslim Brotherhood issued a statement insisting on “peaceful resistance”.

“We all should resist the coup and resist oppression peacefully and without any violence and in a civilised manner,” the group said. “The coup leaders and the oppressors want to create waves of violence that they can use as a cover for their murderous police practices that they excel at.”

Elder Islamists justify their pacifist position on the grounds that there are religious admonitions against bloodletting. From a political standpoint, taking on the U.S.-backed and armed military and their pro-government militias will drag both sides into a civil war that would only strengthen U.S. and Israeli hegemony, they argue. Impoverished and violence-torn Somalia is hardly a model, they say.

“Democracy is still the main option for most Islamists now,” Sami Al-Dalaal, an expert on Islamic movements in the Middle East, told IPS. “Yet there’s a valid fear that some of them may turn to violence after they have despaired that democracy could ever be a means towards meaningful change.”

Dalaal said excluding political groups by force often leads to violence.

“There’s a precedent to that. When the military thwarted democracy in Algeria after Islamist democratic wins, they found no option but to start an armed revolution,” he said.

Dalaal was referring to a bloody civil war two decades ago in Algeria that started after army generals launched a coup and denied the Islamists the chance to take power in elections. Some 100,000 people died in the violence that ensued. The Syrian pro-democracy protests also started peacefully until Bashar al-Assad reacted violently and bloody pictures went viral on social media, starting another civil war.

In Egypt, with the military showing no sign of letting up on use of excessive force, it might be only a matter of time before at least some young Egyptians decide to do what their elders have refused to do: defend themselves.

The Supreme Court of the United States. Credit: Mark Fischer/CC by 2.0

By Matthew Charles Cardinale
ATLANTA, Georgia, Jun 25 2013 (IPS)

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a key provision, Section 4, of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965 in a five to four ruling today, halting enforcement of Section 5 of the act.

One of the key achievements of the Civil Rights Movement, the act was intended to address historical, entrenched racial discrimination in voting policies and practises.

Even though black people in the United States have ostensibly possessed the right to vote since 1870, under the 14th and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution, multiple federal civil rights acts were enacted in 1957, 1960, 1964 and 1965 to address discriminatory practises at state and local levels, including in elections.

Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito ruled to strike down the Section 4(b) of the 1965 act. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented.

Section 5 of the VRA of 1965 is one of the strongest enforcement provisions of the act. It requires that the U.S. Department of Justice pre-clear any changes to “any standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting”, including district maps, in any of the “covered jurisdictions”, which include all or part of 16 states in the United States, mainly in the South. Section 4 defines what areas Section 5 covers."Hubris is a fit word for today's demolition of the VRA."
-- Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

“Equal sovereignty”

The case, Shelby County, Alabama v. Attorney General Robert Holder, argued that, on its face, the 2006 Congressional reauthorisation of sections of the act was unconstitutional because it was based on historical data of racial discrimination in election practises that are no longer relevant.

A majority of the court agreed with Shelby County, arguing there is a “fundamental principle of equal sovereignty” between states that requires the federal government to treat states equally.

Section 5, the court wrote, “requires States to beseech the Federal Government for permission to implement laws that they would otherwise have the right to enact and execute on their own. And despite the tradition of equal sovereignty, the Act applies to only nine States (and additional counties)”.

The court also ruled the criteria defined in Section 4 – a history of discriminatory practises, along with a low level of voter turnout – were antiquated and no longer justified by current conditions, because of the very success of the act.

Voter turnout and registration rates in covered jurisdictions “now approach parity”, the court wrote, and minorities hold elected office “at unprecedented levels”. It added that discriminatory practises like literacy tests have disappeared and that blatant discrimination is rare.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg blasted the majority opinion in her dissent, writing, “Hubris is a fit word for today’s demolition of the VRA.”

“In the Court’s view, the very success of [Section] 5 of the Voting Rights Act demands its dormancy… Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet,” she wrote.

“The question this case presents is who decides whether, as currently operative, Section 5 remains justifiable, this Court, or a Congress charged with the obligation to enforce the post-Civil War Amendments ‘by appropriate legislation,'” she wrote.

Ginsburg noted an current, ongoing problem of a second generation of tactics designed to dilute black voting strength, including redistricting practises and a move to change some elections to at-large voting.

Ginsburg wrote that the Congressional record showed that covered jurisdictions were more likely to be the subject of prevailing discrimination complaints and that there was a procedure for covered jurisdictions to apply to be bailed out of Section 5, and for non-covered jurisdictions to be bailed in, if necessary.

Further, she argued that because Shelby County, the actual plaintiff in the case, clearly qualified for Section 5 coverage, that the court had overreached. “The Court’s opinion can hardly be described as an exemplar of restrained and moderate decisionmaking.”

“Congress approached the 2006 reauthorization of the VRA with great care and seriousness. The same cannot be said of the Court’s opinion today,” she wrote.

Fury from civil rights advocates

Voting rights and civil rights advocates are infuriated at the ruling and are scrambling to take action.

Some activists are urging Congress to enact a new Section 4 based on modern-day criteria to identify which states and other jurisdictions should require preclearance for any election-related changes

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) already has a petition on its website calling on Congress to act.

Justin Levitt, associate professor of law at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, told IPS that such a move may be more complicated and politically challenging than it sounds.

“The court… certainly left the door open. If Congress chooses to return to ‘where’ question [where preclearance should be required], it would have to articulate a set of jurisdictions and the reason for including those and not others responsive to facts on the ground,” Levitt said. “That’s really hard to do.”

“It’s like asking Congress to try to figure out and come up with…current measures for places that are most sick even though they’re taking medicine. Now we’re taking the medicine away and now Congress needs to show it needs the medicine,” he said.

Possible new criteria that have been discussed so far include a history of other voting rights litigation under other provisions of the VRA, the degree to which an electorate is racially polarised or levels of prejudice, he said.

As for the court’s disregard for Congress’s renewal of the act in 2006, “there is not a tremendous amount of consistency in the amount of deference other branches of government get,” Levitt said.

Other activists are looking for a more radical and fundamental change. Rashad Robinson, executive director of ColorofChange.org, said his organisation is pushing for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote.

“The right to vote is not enshrined in our Constitution. There’s a host of different requirements and laws, everything from registration to ballot access, in different states,” Robinson said.

“We can continue to be on the defensive, or we can sort of advance a new framework for how elections should be run in this country, and that’s what we’re doing here,” Robinson told IPS.

“We’ve got to be more aspirational,” he said. “We’ve got to think bigger.”