Al-Ahram Weekly | Region

		Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 10 - 16 May 2001 Issue No.533
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UNIFIL begins redeployment
ON MONDAY United Nations peace-keepers started redeploying in southern Lebanon as part of a recently adopted plan to reduce the number of UN soldiers in the zone formerly occupied by Israel.
Fijian troops of the UN Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) began dismantling nine positions east of the southern port city of Tyre. The 600-strong Fijian battalion is to replace the Nepalese battalion along the border with Israel, from the coastal town of Naqura to the village of Rmaich.
"The final composition is not clear yet," said UNIFIL's Timor Goksel, adding that the Nepalese would leave by the end of July, while Irish and Finnish troops would leave by October and November, respectively.
On 2 May, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan outlined plans to reshape the peace-keeping force into more mobile units and reduce it from 4,600 to 2,000 troops over a one-year period beginning in July.
The next day, Lebanese parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri denounced Annan's decision to reduce the forces, warning that the reduction would pave the way for future Israeli military offensives. Berri noted that Israel continues to occupy Lebanese land, specifically the disputed Shebaa Farms.
Longest-held journalist released
SYRIA has released an opposition journalist one year before his term ends, a human rights official said on Tuesday. Aktham Naesa, head of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights in Syria (CDHRS), said that Nizar Nayyouf was freed on Sunday after nine years imprisonment and is now with his family in the northern coastal region of Jabla.
Nayyouf was sentenced to 10 years for accusing the authorities of "irregularities" during the 1991 general elections. Paris-based Reporters San Frontières (RSF) had repeatedly called for the release of Nayyouf, who started a hunger strike on 24 April.
Naesa welcomed the release of CDHRS member Nayyouf but appealed for a further 800 political prisoners to be freed.
"We also call for the restoration of civil rights for all those who were deprived of them for political reasons." Naesa said there were nearly 1.5 million voluntary exiles who had left the country for political reasons and that they should be allowed to return home. Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad has already released 600 political prisoners belonging to various banned political parties.
Cooperation talks
MASSOUD Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the leading Kurdish faction in northern Iraq, arrived in Ankara on Monday for talks with Turkish officials on cooperation against Turkey's Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
"I came here on the invitation of the Turkish government. We see it as necessary to hold consultations with Turkish officials from time to time," Barzani said. The KDP leader controls the stretch of land along Turkey's border in northern Iraq, which has been outside Baghdad's control since the 1991 Gulf War.
The KDP has been Ankara's main ally in its struggle against PKK rebels, who have waged a 15-year armed campaign for Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Turkey. Ankara believes that some 5,000 PKK militants have crossed into northern Iraq since 1999, when the group said it was laying down its arms and withdrawing from Turkey to seek a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish conflict.
Rights group slams prison conditions
THE MOROCCAN Prison Observatory (OMP) said in a report published in The Liberation newspaper on Monday that Moroccan prisoners live in unhealthy, overcrowded conditions in a prison system rife with corruption.
"Overpopulation, corruption, cronyism, disease and arbitrary practices" dominate the north African country's 44 prisons, the report said. The OMP, a non-governmental organisation with representatives from several human rights groups, based its findings on a study carried out between February and July last year.
Commenting on the report, The Liberation said: "The prison system belongs to an earlier age in Morocco. The system based on security first is a total failure. If this scandal goes unresolved any talk of reforming the Moroccan justice system is in vain."
Compiled by Rasha Saad

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