News and Analysis 2/9/23

The “leader of Turkey’s main opposition party … accused the government of failing to cooperate with local authorities and weakening non-governmental organisations that could help”:

• Turkey and Syria Earthquake Death Toll Passes 15,000 as Erdo?an Defends Response (The Guardian)

A report on digital rights by Israel, the PA, and Hamas in Gaza and tech companies “especially with regard to the right to freedom of opinion and expression, the right to privacy, and the right to assembly and organization”:

• Palestine: Online Free Expression Battles Escalated Censorship in 2022 (7amleh / ifex)

Insider “critics have called for meaningful change if the Islamic Republic is to weather the storm. But there is no evidence that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is listening”:

• Iran’s Hard-Liners Are Winning: How Months of Protest Forged an Even More Intransigent Regime (Foreign Affairs)

The IDF “destroyed hundreds of dunams of wheat crops without a giving the owners notice” and for good measure razed a cemetery as well …

• Israel Razes Lands, Destroys Crops in Rahat (Middle East Monitor)

… and destroyed “property during barbaric incursions” into the Aqabet Jaber refugee camp:

• Grief-stricken Palestinians Recount Deadly Israeli Raids (Aljazeera)

Modi “has cast India (and … himself) as a kind of universal mentor…. It’s not a claim that goes well with a recent past riven with bigotry” and continuing “to profit electorally from his reputation as an anti-Muslim strongman?”:

• Narendra Modi Is Struggling to Be Both Anti-Muslim Strongman and Global Leader (The Guardian)

Administrative detentions now exceed 1,000, almost 50% above the peak during the second intifada; but the world doesn’t seem to care:

• Israel Breaks 20-year Record for Administrative Detention of Palestinians – Analysis (Jerusalem Post)

“With an estimated 2,000 Muslim students on campus, yet only one prayer room that accommodates 35 people, some reported having no choice but to pray in closets and stairwells” — Western University’s Anti-Racism Working Group’s final report:

• ‘We Pray with Fear’: Muslim Students Worship in Stairwell amid Limited Prayer Space (Western University Gazette)

As 20,000 protest bulldozers targeting the “largest concentration of Muslims [in Jammu City,] … the most prominent politicians of J&K [who] also have large homes in the area … are not being targeted”:

• All Is Not Well in Jammu and Kashmir (The Wire)

ImadadDean