UN Watch testimony delivered by Maryam Wahida, a 21-year-old Iraqi Christian woman, to the UN Human Rights Council special session on ISIS, Sept. 1, 2014
Thank you, Mr. President.
My name is Maryam Wahida, and I am a Christian born and raised in Iraq, where most of my family remains. I am privileged to speak on behalf of UN Watch.
I have come here today, with my family, to bear witness before the world about the horrific crimes perpetrated by the Islamic State against my relatives, against the Christians, Yazidis and other minorities in Iraq.
For many weeks now, the terrorists have invaded our villages, destroyed ancient churches, and burned historical archives dating back many centuries.
Mr. President, I welcome today’s meeting. But given the extreme life-and-death urgency, we must ask: Why has the UN waited so long?
The victims of Iraq want to know: What could be more urgent than stopping the terrorists of the Islamic State from persecuting, attacking, enslaving, raping and beheading our men, women and children?
Mr. President,
Those who survived were forced to flee their homes. As displaced persons, they now live in horrible conditions, without basic hygiene and sanitation. They sleep in the streets, on the floor, inside and outside of churches. Children and the elderly suffer the most, and there are many illnesses that quickly spread among the victims.
I speak on the telephone to my relatives in Iraq. I learned about how my cousin Nawar, a 25-year-old pharmacist in Erbil, started collecting money to buy medical supplies for the sick. He managed to buy a wheelchair for one refugee, a 90-year-old woman, who was very happy to receive the help.
I wish to thank all of the governments that have helped so far. But the international community must do more—whatever it can—to help the victims, such as by creating a safe region for displaced persons within Iraq, and to facilitate asylum and migration.
Mr. President, I hope that I can call my relatives in Iraq tonight with news of strong and effective action from the UN, to save the victims who are in such desperate need of the world’s help.
ROME – The appointment of Federica Mogherini, Italy’s foreign minister, as the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy has exposed two fictions. One is that EU member states care about a common foreign policy; the other is that Italy has a strong and credible government.
To be sure, the selection of the 41-year-old Mogherini scores well for gender, age, and political affiliation. But it also sends a strong message that foreign policy remains a low priority for the EU’s new leadership. Despite the difficult geopolitical situation now confronting Europe, the post of High Representative still carries little influence. Indeed, until early this year, Mogherini had little exposure to foreign policymaking.
Henry Kissinger famously (if apocryphally) asked, “Who do I call if I want to speak to Europe?” Today, he would know to call Mogherini, but then he would ask, “Mogherini who?” Four decades later, Europe has still not found an effective and plausible way to speak with one voice on foreign policy.
No one doubts that Mogherini will try her best to learn the nitty-gritty of her new job, but it will be like learning to fly by piloting a jumbo jet. Most of the time, an inexperienced pilot can avoid serious problems by relying on her more experienced crew and various technologies. But in the event of severe turbulence, only a pilot with sufficient skill and practice will be able to maintain control of the aircraft and keep the passengers calm.
So it is disturbing, to say the least, that with Ukraine at war with Russia, and the Middle East in a spiraling crisis of fanaticism, Europe’s leaders did not seek a candidate with a proven ability to forge an effective foreign policy from different – and often opposite – positions. EU foreign policy is now being piloted by an apprentice.
Mogherini’s appointment bodes ill for progress toward a more assertive, or at least unified and coherent, European foreign-policy stance. But it is also a bad outcome for gender equality and for Italy. Women should be picked because their skills, qualifications, and experience are relevant to the job. Appointing women should not be an exercise in ticking boxes. A lack of qualified women in Europe is no excuse for not making a meaningful appointment.
The perversity of Mogherini’s appointment is that Italy does have highly qualified women candidates. Emma Bonino, a former foreign minister, trade minister, and EU Commissioner, is outstandingly qualified. So is Marta Dassù, a former deputy foreign minister and foreign-policy intellectual. Both women would have been more convincing appointments, particularly to those, like Vladimir Putin, who do not wish the EU well.
By insisting on Mogherini, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has squandered much of the political capital that he gained from the outcome of the European Parliament election in May, when his government performed better than any other in the EU. By refusing to budge, despite strong opposition to Mogherini from the EU’s Eastern European members, he has painted himself (and Italy) into a corner, revealing the limits of his leadership.
Renzi himself is not well versed in foreign affairs. Indeed, he had no experience in government or parliament whatsoever until he became, at 39, the youngest person to become Prime Minister of Italy. His only significant public service was a stint as Mayor of Florence, a city of less than a half-million people.
Many Italians applauded Renzi’s meteoric rise. But many more have remained indifferent to his promise to shake up the status quo. His charisma has not lifted confidence; on the contrary, the latest consumer and business surveys indicate weakening sentiment. His brusque and sometimes arrogant manner and his preference for loyalty over skill have led many to question his ability to lead, much less transform the country.
With Italy on the brink of a Japanese-style recession – GDP is expected to contract by 0.2% this year, and inflation entered negative territory in August – one would have expected Renzi to focus on the economy, and on Italy’s role in Europe’s single market and monetary union. And yet, bizarrely, he shifted the European debate from German-led budgetary austerity to Mogherini.
Is the Italian government really so eager to take the lead on EU foreign policy? If so, where is the plan?
Renzi needs to shift gears and make friends, at home and abroad. Reforming Italy, and changing the narrative in Europe, is a huge task that requires the careful formulation of an agenda containing detailed, feasible objectives, as well as the patience to engage other EU governments in a constructive policy dialogue, not horse-trading.
Above all, Renzi needs to reflect on the fact that Italy remains the eurozone’s weakest link, because it is the only member that can bring down the currency union. Italy’s economic health is thus a “public good” for all of Europe. Dismissing this responsibility and declaring to Europe that no one can teach lessons to Italy, as he did during the fight to appoint Mogherini, is both shortsighted and potentially dangerous.
Italian Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini has underscored the need for Iran’s participation in any effort aimed at settling the crisis in Syria.
Speaking at a seminar organized by the Aspen Institute in Rome on Thursday, Mogherini said that the Syrian crisis worries her the most, as it has lingered for three years, with the humanitarian situation getting worse.
Ways should be found to involve Iran and all regional actors, the Italian foreign minister said, adding that ‘otherwise, we do not go forward.’
She further noted that the Syrian conflict should not be overshadowed by the West’s tension with Russia in the wake of Crimea’s integration into the Russian Federation.
Mogherini warned that focusing on new conflicts and forgetting about the old ones would be a historic mistake.
On March 15, the UN secretary general highlighted Iran’s role in resolving the Syrian crisis, urging Tehran to use its influence on Damascus to help revive the talks aimed at ending the conflict in the Arab country.
“Iran is one of the important regional countries who can play an important role, including impressing upon the Syrian authorities to come to the Geneva conference in a more constructive way,” Ban Ki-Moon said after an informal meeting of the UN General Assembly attended by UN-Arab League Special Representative for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi.
The second round of the talks between delegations representing the Syrian government and the foreign-backed opposition in Geneva hit a deadlock in mid-February with both sides sticking to their positions.
The Syrian delegation said fighting terrorism should be the top priority, but the opposition insisted that the formation of a transitional government and resignation of President Bashar al-Assad must come first.
Syria has been gripped by deadly violence since 2011. Some sources say over 140,000 people have been killed and millions displaced due to the violence fueled by Western-backed militants.
Iran has said that it will engage in any diplomatic efforts to bring an end to the crisis in Syria. However, due to opposition by the US and the so-called Syria opposition, Tehran has been excluded from the two rounds of international talks on the crisis.
Federica Mogherini: ‘her strong points are not to be underestimated’. Photograph: Alain Jocard/AFP/Getty Images
In late November 2012, while Matteo Renzi was making an ill-fated bid for leadership of the Italian centre-left, a young MP from his Democratic Party (PD) piped up on Twitter to remark: “OK, Renzi has quite a lot to learn about foreign policy … He won’t make the pass mark, I fear #thirdgrade.” When he won the PD primaries the following winter, Renzi – canny as ever – hired his sharp-tongued critic as the party’s spokesperson on Europe and international affairs. Once prime minister, he ushered her into the top job at Italy‘s foreign office.
Now, the shoe is firmly on the other foot: it is Federica Mogherini – on her way to Brussels to become Cathy Ashton’s successor in the EU – who, according to her critics, has a lot to learn. And the jury is out on whether the 41-year-old Roman- who has six months’ experience in government as foreign minister, no more and no less – will make the grade. Le Monde, the French daily, last week said her appointment would be “a sad day for Europe”.
To Brussels box-tickers, Mogherini, as a woman and a social democrat, meets two of the chief criteria for the job. But her critics believe she lacks the proper credentials for a role that has always struggled to be as grand in practice as it is on paper. More than a decade younger than Ashton was when she started in 2009, the Italian had her first taste of executive power in late February, when she replaced the highly experienced Emma Bonino, a former European commissioner, in the Farnesina.
In Rome, she was viewed as the archetypal Renzi government minister: fresh-faced, vigorous and, it was hoped, effective. In Brussels, when her name started circulating as a potential new high representative several months later, it was inextricably linked with the suddenly risen star of Italy and the PD, boosted on the international stage by a landslide European election victory in which Renzi emerged as a powerful new force on the centre-left.
Despite her charismatic champion, Mogherini, to many, still lacked clout. But others say that, while her relative youth and lack of high-level experience are undeniable, she has other strengths that could yet see her thrive. “I believe her strong points are not to be underestimated,” said Ettore Greco, director of the Institute for International Affairs in Rome. “She knows how to work hard, how to work in a team; and she has always conducted herself with, I’d say, great composure … I can see her as a mediator. And then there’s her experience, her contacts built up gradually during years of work at relatively high levels … Ever since the start of her political career, she has worked on foreign policy. She is not a political neophyte.”
Born in the Italian capital in 1973, the daughter of a set designer who worked with some of the giants of Italian postwar cinema, Mogherini graduated with a degree in political science from La Sapienza university. Her thesis was on political Islam.
An active member of the Democrats of the Left (DS), a social democratic party containing many former Communists, she soon got noticed, and specialised in foreign affairs, working particularly on ties with the US Democrat party. In 2008, the year after the DS merged with others into the centre-left PD, she was elected as an MP for the first time. In February, aged 40, she became the youngest foreign minister in the history of the Italian republic.
Since her arrival on the national and international stage in February, Mogherini has quietly impressed many with her knowledge and self-assurance, demonstrating, too, that not all Italians’ English is as comic as the premier’s. (Hers is near perfect; she also has fluent French and, according to her online biography, a little Spanish.) She keeps an impressive pace of international visits, all of which she details on her website, BlogMog.it, in the manner, sniped the Berlusconi family newspaper, Il Giornale, of “a teenager confiding” in the pages of her journal.
But these haven’t all gone smoothly. She raised eyebrows in a July dominated by concerns over Russia’s stance on Ukraine, when she visited Kiev and Moscow and invited Vladimir Putin to an economics summit in Milan in October. Soon after, a group of eastern European countries united to try to block her candidacy for the high representative job, which they said was unacceptable due to Rome’s approach to Moscow.
“But I think when she was doing that, she was probably just following her brief from the [Italian] machine,” said a diplomatic source. “This is a question of differences over the tactical and possibly even strategic attitude towards Russia which is Italy’s rather than hers.” Greco said: “On the European stage, she will of course have to take into account a quite different mood and quite different climate where Moscow is concerned and she should not be – one would hope – conditioned by these Italian reflexes.”
On the BlogMog, Mogherini, a married mother of two, says that, as well as reading crime novels and spending time with her family, her big passion is travel: “Anywhere, anytime, and anyhow.” (The Farnesina said she flies economy class “whenever possible”.) Even if question marks remain over her experience and diplomatic clout, on the globe-trotting front, at least, she should be on safe ground.
Muslim Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie (R) is seen during his trial at a court in Cairo in this May 18, 2014 file picture. (Reuters/Al Youm Al Saabi Newspaper)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published — Saturday 30 August 2014
Last update 31 August 2014 9:56 am
CAIRO: An Egyptian court sentenced Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Mohammed Badie and seven others to life in prison Saturday on charges of planning riots, murder and sabotage, state news agency MENA reported.
The case stems from violence that took place last summer after the ouster of Islamist President Muhammad Mursi, when fighting killed 10 people and injured 20.
Presiding judge Mohammed Nagi Shehata also sentenced six Islamists to death in absentia. Under Egyptian law, they will face a retrial once in custody.
Prosecutors charged the defendants with using force and carrying weapons while gathering in several marches around the Istiqama mosque in Giza, Cairo’s twin city. They also were charged with vandalizing public property, setting two security installations on fire and terrorizing citizens.
After Mursi was overthrown, authorities launched a sweeping crackdown on his supporters, killing hundreds of people and detaining tens of thousands, including many senior Brotherhood members. The government designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group late last year, though the group says it does not use violence to advance its goals.
Badie has been sentenced to death and to life in prison in two other cases but can still appeal.
(CNN) — The ISIS terror group has published a video titled “A second message to America,” showing the beheading of American journalist Steven Sotloff.
The video also threatens the life of British captive, David Haines.
Sotloff speaks to the camera before he is killed, saying he is “paying the price” for U.S. intervention.
The masked ISIS figure in the video speaks to U.S. President Barack Obama, telling him, “Just as your missiles continue to strike our people, our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people.”
Last week, Sotloff’s mother Shirley Sotloff released a video pleading with ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi not to kill her son.
“Steven is a journalist who traveled to the Middle East to cover the suffering of Muslims at the hands of tyrants. Steven is a loyal and generous son, brother and grandson,” she said. “He is an honorable man and has always tried to help the weak.”
Sotloff appeared last month in an ISIS video showing the decapitation of another American journalist, James Foley. The militant in the video warned that Sotloff’s fate depended on what President Barack Obama did next in Iraq.
Steven Sotloff disappeared while reporting from Syria in August 2013, but his family kept the news secret, fearing harm to him if they went public.
Out of public view, the family and a number of government agencies have been trying to gain Sotloff’s release for the past year.
Sotloff, 31, grew up in South Florida with his mother, father and younger sister. He majored in journalism at the University of Central Florida. His personal Facebook page lists musicians like the Dave Matthews Band, Phish, Miles Davis and movies like “Lawrence of Arabia” and “The Big Lebowski” as favorites. On his Twitter page, he playfully identifies himself as a “stand-up philosopher from Miami.”
In 2004, Sotloff left UCF and moved back to the Miami area.
He graduated from another college, began taking Arabic classes and subsequently picked up freelance writing work for a number of publications, including Time, Foreign Policy, World Affairs and the Christian Science Monitor. His travels took him to Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey — among other countries — and eventually Syria.
CNN’s Christiane Amanpour said that Sotloff’s killing will step up pressure on Obama to devise a strategy to combat ISIS.
On Friday, Obama said it’s too soon to discuss what steps the U.S. would take against the militant group inside Syria. On how to deal with the group in Syria — where it was born and has a safe haven, mostly in the city of Raqqa — the president said: “We don’t have a strategy yet.”
Obama said on Friday that he has asked America’s top defense officials to prepare “a range of options.”
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