Al-Ahram Weekly | Region

		Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 22 - 28 March 2001 Issue No.526
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'Butcher' gets hero's welcome
MUSLIM-American groups have accused the United States of double standards for welcoming Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to Washington this week instead of demanding his trial for war crimes, as it did with former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
Leaders of the American Muslims for Jerusalem (AMJ), the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim-American Society (MAS) asked why the US was determined to see Milosevic delivered to an international court for trial for alleged crimes against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, but unwilling to treat Sharon in the same way.
The Israeli prime minister has been held responsible by Israel's highest court for allowing right-wing Lebanese groups to massacre over three thousand Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982. As a result, he was forced to resign from his top army post.
The Muslim-American groups were among eight groups who asked United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in an open letter to set up a war crimes tribunal for Israel such a those created for Rwanda's genocide and Yugoslavia's ethnic conflicts. The letter was published as an advertisement in Monday's Washington Times.
Women activist shot dead
A LEADING Kuwaiti woman journalist known as a veteran women's rights campaigner was shot dead in the streets of the Gulf Arab state on Tuesday, eye-witnesses said.
Hedayet Sultan Al-Salem, editor-in-chief and owner of Al-Majales magazine, was killed by a burst of sub-machinegun fire as she sat in her chauffeur-driven car at a traffic light.
It was not immediately clear whether the attack was politically motivated. Journalists in Kuwait said Salem was involved in several financial and other disputes, including some with members of her own family.
Salem, who was in her late 70s, was regarded as a leading female journalist in conservative Kuwait. She was active with groups working to secure full political rights for women, including the right to vote in general elections and to run for elected public office.
Eye-witnesses said three men were involved in the attack.
Back from Congo
BEREAVED relatives wailed and Qur'anic verses blared from tape players on trucks on the tarmac earlier this week as a plane brought home 10 Lebanese killed in the chaos following the assassination of Congolese President Laurent Kabila. The victims had been accused of involvement in the assassination.
A chartered plane dispatched by the Lebanese government brought the bodies in wooden coffins from the Congolese capital, Kinshasa. Security troops strained to keep a crowd of some 1,000 people from coming too close to the plane, which also carried a number of Lebanese foreign ministry officials and relatives of the dead.
Sheikh Mohamed Hussein Fadlallah, spiritual guide of the Shi'ite movement Hizbullah, criticised the Lebanese government for its handling of the case. "We would have wished that Lebanon mobilised quickly upon the news of their (the victims') arrests ... but the problem is that we have no clear policy regarding the Lebanese diaspora," he told relatives of the victims at a funeral service held in a southern Beirut Shi'ite suburb on Monday.
Tunisian take on human rights
Tunisian take on human rights TUNISIA has reacted angrily to accusations by human rights group Amnesty International of an "unprecedented escalation in the harassment" of human rights activists in the country. The London-based organisation said in a statement issued late last week that "the most common methods (of repression) include constant surveillance and shadowing of human rights defenders and their families, the cutting of their telephone lines, the confiscation of their mail, the vandalising of their offices and cars, the surrounding of private and public places by the police to prevent meetings from taking place and offensive and defamatory attacks against them in the state-controlled media."
Tunisia responded in a statement issued from its London embassy that it was deeply offended by Amnesty's accusations, describing them as "crude lies."
"Tunisia is a country that is deeply attached to human rights, in their widest interpretation. Amnesty International does not seem to be aware of that fact, as it has gone too far along the path of misrepresentation and propaganda against Tunisia," it concluded.
Iran bans reformist publications
AN IRANIAN court has banned four reformist publications in the latest setback to President Mohamed Khatami and his reform programme. The bans bring to more than 35 the number of independent publications closed in the past year.
Iran's reformist culture ministry has denounced the latest closures of independent publications by the hard-line judiciary, and has promised to fight to uphold press freedom in the Islamic republic.
"We deplore the ban on a new series of publications. Such bans fan tension in the country's cultural climate," the official IRNA news agency quoted a ministry statement as saying.
Roadway to Brussels
TURKEY has pledged a wholesale reform of its legal system, promising to abandon the death penalty and end strict curbs on freedom of expression in an attempt to foster its bid to join the European Union.
Coming on the same day as an International Monetary Fund framework agreement to extricate the country from financial crisis, Turkey's national programme toward EU membership foresees sweeping legal reform to usher the predominately Muslim country into the wealthy western bloc.
"Our most important aim now is to start full membership talks as soon as possible," deputy Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz told reporters in Ankara at the unveiling of the programme.
Compiled by Rasha Saad

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