Human Rights

Turkey today called on the international community to condemn Israel’s plan to annex the West Bank.

Presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said the occupation and annexation are crimes, calling on the world to take a stand.

“We reject Israel’s plan to annex the West Bank and call for the world to take a stand against it. Occupation and annexation is a crime,” Ibrahim Kalin said on Twitter.

Kalin said Turkey is ready to cooperate with authorities who are willing to take action against the occupation and annexation of Palestinian land.

20 May 2020; MEMO: Over 150 well-known personalities from the Arab world have called for the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails and political prisoners from jails in Arab states, citing the coronavirus pandemic during imprisonment as a “double punishment”.

The Arab figures consist of diplomats, journalists, artists, academics, human rights activists and intellectuals, all of whom contributed to the call in a column published yesterday on the French-language political site Orient XXI.

20 May 2020; MEMO: British based charity Human Aid, has written to the UK’s police watchdog demanding an investigation into allegations of police harassment of Gaza-bound aid workers and the seizure of cash donations last year, Middle East Eye (MEE) reported.

Surat, May 20 (PTI) A 20-year-old migrant labourer from Assam, who had lost his job due to the COVID-19-enforced lockdown, allegedly committed suicide at a slum in Gujarat's Surat city on Wednesday, police said.

Sunil Rijajagan Maheli was found hanging from the ceiling of his tenement in the Bhestan locality in the morning, inspector D K Patel of Pandesara police station said.

"The deceased, who was living with other Assamese labourers, had lost his job and had stayed behind even as others left for their home state," the official said.

Jaipur, May 20 (PTI) An assistant sub-inspector of the Rajasthan Police was arrested for allegedly molesting a 23-year-old woman in Alwar district of the state, officials said on Wednesday.

The woman, who works in a company in Neemrana in Bhiwadi, had gone to file a complaint at the Neemrana police station after being referred there by a police chowki, they said.

After registering the complaint, chowki in-charge Surendra Singh, an ASI aged around 45 years, took the woman in his vehicle on the pretext of dropping her to her place, the officials said.

New Delhi, May 20 (PTI) The Congress on Wednesday condemned what it termed was "shameless" politics of the BJP and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath over the issue of providing buses for ferrying migrants to the state.

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi alleged the "Ajay Bisht government" is creating hurdles in the Congress help reaching migrants in terms of buses for ferrying them home as they walk on the roads without food and water in the summer heat of May.

RAMALLAH, May 20 (NNN-WAFA) – Palestine, on Tuesday, declared the abolition of all agreements and understandings with Israel and the U.S., in protest against Israeli plan to annex parts of the West Bank.

Srinagar, May 19 (UMMN): Two Kashmiri separatists were killed on Tuesday in an encounter with Indian security forces in Nawakadal area of Kashmir's Srinagar district, officials said.

Two security personnel -- a CRPP jawan and a Jammu and Kashmir policeman were injured.

19 May 2020; MEMO: Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, has been lobbying in favour of Israel’s annexation plans, fearful of the plan being scrapped should Joe Biden become US president.

Three sources reported by the Israeli TV Channel 13 said that Dermer is leading a campaign targeting Trump administration officials, congressmen and women, journalists and other influencers to convince them that Israel must move forward on annexation plans.

19 May 2020; MEMO: Israel’s newly appointed Foreign Minister, Gabi Ashkenazi, expressed his support for US President Donald Trump’s ‘deal of the century’, stressing it is a “historic opportunity” to shape Israel’s borders, local media reported yesterday.

“We are facing significant regional opportunities, primarily President [Donald] Trump’s peace initiative,” Ashkenazi was reported by the Times of Israel as saying.