Nigerians displaced after clashes

Up to 18,000 people are homeless after days of fighting between Christians and Muslims in the Nigerian city of Jos.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that people have been sheltering in colleges, hospitals and schools since clashes began in the capital of the central Plateau state on Sunday.

More than 460 people in and around Jos are thought to have been killed as of Thursday.

Nigerian authorities relaxed a 24-hour curfew to allow thousands of residents whose houses have not been destroyed, to return home.

The strong presence of troops and police helped restore a measure of calm in Jos on Thursday.

But Andrew Simmons, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Abuja, said: "There has been a fresh outbreak of violence on the outskirts of Jos in a place called Bakuru.

"Six people have been treated for gunshot wounds. And a Red Cross [ICRC] official has confirmed that a woman was attacked by a gang who snatched her baby, twisted the baby's nose and broke it.

"We've had persistent reports saying gangs have been using police uniforms, knocking on door by door, masquerading as security forces and then killing people in their homes. It's a grim situation.

"But in Jos itself, the focus [on Thursday] was on the funerals of the hundreds of people who have been killed."

Earlier, Rob Waudo, from the ICRC in Kano, told Al Jazeera that since the military came in, the situation has been calm.

"[The arrival of soldiers] has allowed us to survey what the needs are. Many people have been able to leave the camps and return home," he said.

"There are so many people that need clothing, food and water. The Red Cross is focusing on those injured and referring some to hospital."

Mosque officials have estimated the number of dead Muslims since Sunday to be about 400.

US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Wednesday said at least 65 Christians had died.

Official government figures were significantly lower at 75 dead, more than 200 injured and 200 arrested.

HRW called for the Nigerian military to show restraint as additional soldiers were ordered onto the streets of Jos.

"Nigeria should ensure that its security forces use restraint and comply with international standards on the use of force in responding to the latest deadly outbreak of inter-communal violence," HRW said.

Charles Dokubo, from the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, told Al Jazeera: "There is more than the religious aspect of it. There are two communities - one that call themselves settlers and one that call themselves indigenous communities.

"The crisis in the north started with the creation a local government."

Dokubo said Muslim settlers wanted to manage the government, which was unacceptable to the indigenous Christian community who regard the former as non-citizens.

"The main cause of the crisis is about administration and the place where people belong," he said.

The fighting erupted on Sunday in a Christian area due to a dispute over the building of a mosque, residents said.

Jos, which is home to 500,000 people, along with other central and northern areas in Nigeria have been plagued by religious violence in recent years.

In November 2008, hundreds of people were killed in Jos in two days of fighting triggered by a rumour that the mainly Muslim All Nigerian Peoples Party had lost a local election to the Christian-dominated People's Democratic Party.

Al Jazeera

White flags and prejudice: Latest anti-Israeli screed from Human Rights Watch lapped up by BBC

With its reputation for objective analysis on the Israel-Palestine conflict now thoroughly discredited, one might wonder why Human Rights Watch (HRW) still bothers to pretend. Then again, one turns to

the BBC website and understands why. The latest screed from HRW has top billing in the section on

the Middle East. The substance (for want of a better word) of the HRW report is that 11 Palestinian civilians, nine of them women and children, were killed by Israeli forces in seven incidents during operation Cast Lead while carrying white flags or waving them from the vehicles they were travelling in.

The report concludes that “…at the least, Israeli soldiers failed to take feasible precautions to distinguish between civilians and combatants before carrying out the attack. At worst, the soldiers deliberately fired on persons known to be civilians.”

The evidence?

Er, there isn’t any, not in any meaningful sense at least.

What Human Rights Watch will accept as evidence is the testimony of obviously biased NGOs or of Palestinians relating such accounts in the full knowledge that whatever they say will get back to the Hamas operatives who run their neighbourhoods. It does not, therefore, take a genius to see the fatal flaw in the methodology.

The BBC, however, was lapping it all up with a story which also used the opportunity to signpost readers to the now infamous report last month on Israeli “war crimes” by Breaking the Silence whose own methodology was as shoddy as HRW’s.

The invaluable watchdog organisation NGO Monitor has produced a systematic critique of the HRW report which highlights the following issues:

** “HRW had no presence in Gaza during the conflict. Therefore, the organization’s Gaza ‘reports’, including “White Flag Deaths” are based entirely on unverifiable claims wrapped in a façade of research.”

** “HRW’s publication fails to investigate incidents in which “white flags”, ambulances and hospitals were used by Hamas to hide military activity. Instead, the entire report is designed to provide “evidence” of alleged Israeli war crimes (a term used 15 times).”

** “Six of the seven alleged incidents are based on the unprovable ‘evidence’ from journalists or NGOs with highly biased agendas, including Breaking the Silence, Al Mezan and Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR).”

Human Rights Watch’s reputation as an objective observer of events in the Middle East was definitively destroyed after revelations that an HRW delegation had attempted to raise funds from prominent Saudis by highlighting HRW’s ongoing battles with pro-Israel groups.

In an entry last month I related an email exchange about the matter between Jeffrey Goldberg and HRW’s director Ken Roth. In that exchange Roth referred to the “lies and deception” employed by Israel’s supporters — as clear an admission of anti-Israeli bias from the head of an NGO as one could ever hope to find.

To re-read that entry, click here:

http://www.robinshepherdonline.com/landmark-moment-in-debate-about-ngo-bias-over-israel-after-sensational-revelations-are-published-about-human-rights-watch/

To read the full critique of HRW’s latest report by NGO Monitor, click here:

http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article.php?id=2547

To read the HRW report in full, click here:

http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/ioptwf0809web_1.pdf

To read the BBC story, click here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8198863.stm

Source: Robin Shepherd

While Raising Money in Saudi Arabia, Human Rights Watch Boasts About Israel-Bashing

Human Rights Watch (HRW), an organization that routinely attacks Israel, is trying to raise money in Saudi Arabia. The Arab News, a Saudi English-language newspaper, reported that Sarah Leah Whitson, director of HRW's Middle East and North Africa Division, was given a welcoming dinner in Riyadh hosted by a prominent Saudi businessman and attended by "human-rights activists."

The Saudi businessman, Emad bin Jameel Al-Hejailan, said the credo of human rights was rising in Saudi Arabia. He commended Human Rights Watch for its work on Gaza – which included issuing a report depicting Israel as violating human rights and international law during its recent military campaign against the terror group Hamas.

"Human Rights Watch provided the international community with evidence of Israel using white phosphorous and launching systematic destructive attacks on civilian targets," the Arab News quoted Whitson as stating. "Pro-Israel pressure groups in the U.S., the European Union and the United Nations have strongly resisted the report and tried to discredit it."

After NGO Monitor (a website that documents the anti-Western, anti-Israel bias of many nongovernmental organizations) publicized the Arab News story, the Wall Street Journal reprinted a blog posting on the site by George Mason University law professor David Bernstein. Now the Israeli government is pointing to the story as an example of HRW's fervent anti-Israel bias

"A human rights organization raising money in Saudi Arabia is like a women's rights group asking the Taliban for a donation," a spokesman for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the Jerusalem Post on Monday. "If you can fundraise in Saudi Arabia, why not move on to Somalia, Libya and North Korea?" Read more ...

Source: IPT Blog

Spotlight on Pakistani terror suspect's trial

Correspondents in Mumbai | April 13

THE trial of the lone Islamist militant suspect captured by police during the Mumbai attacks is due to start on Wednesday, amid tight security and under close international scrutiny.

Mohammed Ajmal Amir Iman, also known as Kasab, is to make his first public appearance since being arrested on November 26, soon after 10 gunmen began an assault that left more than 160 dead and more than 300 others injured.

The 21-year-old Pakistani national, said to belong to the banned Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Toiba, faces charges including "waging war" against India, murder, attempted murder and kidnapping. He faces the death penalty if convicted.

The trial is being held before a single judge without a jury at a special court in Mumbai's Arthur Road jail because of the same security fears that led to all previous hearings being held by video-link or behind closed doors.

Proceedings have been delayed while workers reinforced the structure and reportedly built a bomb-proof tunnel from Iman's cell after he received death threats.

There was also uncertainty about whether he would even be represented in court after the home of his state-appointed lawyer, Anjali Waghmare, was attacked by irate Hindu radicals and she was denounced for taking on the case. She has since been given the highest level of police protection.

Iman, the nine dead gunmen and 35 other LET "terrorists" sought in connection with the attacks are said to have carried out a "heinous criminal conspiracy" against the city and people of Mumbai and India, according to the charge sheet.

Two other men are also on trial, Indian nationals Fahim Ansari, 35, and Sabauddin Ahmed, 24, who are said to have provided the group with invaluable logistical support before the attacks.

Iman was arrested as he and an accomplice tried to flee after planting a bomb in a taxi.

Meenakshi Ganguly, from Human Rights Watch in Mumbai, said since 26 foreigners had been killed in the attacks, the case was assured of international attention.

HRW has already expressed concern about the delay in Iman getting legal representation and over calls, including from some senior lawyers, that no Indian counsel should agree to defend him.

"The fair-trial issue is the most important thing," Mr Ganguly told Agence France-Presse.

"It's important to understand that there are reasons why the law exists and the law is followed."

Prosecutors say they have ample evidence that "undoubtedly and conclusively" links the attacks to Pakistan, including mobile and satellite phone communication between the gunmen and their LET "handlers".

Iman's DNA and fingerprints were found on items retrieved from the hijacked Indian fishing trawler the gunmen used to get to the Mumbai coast, according to a version of the charge sheet released in February.

Police and security experts say Iman was ripe for recruitment by Islamist militants. "He fits the profile if you look at the terrorists recruited by Lashkar-e-Toiba," said Wilson John, senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi and a specialist in extremist groups.

Source: The Australian