Excerpts: UNHRC urged anti-terror action. Record refugees,migrants cross
Mediterranean. Jordan MPs on Flotilla ship July 02, 2015

+++SOURCE:Saudi Gazette 3 July’15:”Choke terror support networks,UN urged”,Saudi
Gazette Report
SUBJECT:UN Human Rights Council urged anti-terror action

QUOTE:”Saudi Arabia,Jordan Egypt,Algeria and Morocco urged the UN Human
Rights Council to impose a tight embargo on terrorist groups by choking
their supply networks”

FULL TEXT:

Geneva — Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Algeria and Morocco urged the UN Human
Rights Council to impose a tight embargo on terrorist groups by choking
their support networks.

In a joint statement before the UN Human Rights Council, the five Arab
countries said that terror funding should be stopped, safe havens identified
and dismantled and media propaganda glorifying the ideas of terrorist groups
countered through well-thought-out strategies that promote shared values of
tolerance. The statement also called for measures to save young people from
extremist organizations and their deviant ideologies.

Presenting the joint statement, Egyptian Ambassador to the UN in Geneva Amr
Ramadan said these efforts would not succeed unless the marginalization of
some sections of society and the hypocrisy in human rights standards in the
West are addressed.

The grievances of some people and the absence of justice are factors that
constitute a favorable climate for the seeds of terrorism to grow, he said.
Amr Ramadan said the contemporary world is exposed to successive waves of
terrorist acts that take different and variable forms.

The statement stressed the critical importance of not linking the criminal
and deplorable phenomenon of terrorism with the faiths and religions of
people. It called for closer regional and international cooperation to
systematically fight terrorism at the economic, social and political levels.

The statement emphasized the importance of strengthening the role of the
United Nations and its bodies in addressing the phenomenon of terrorism.
Saudi Arabia stressed that terrorism has no religion, nationality or
homeland, and that this scourge will not stop without international
solidarity.

These remarks were made by Dr. Khalid Al-Ghannam, a member of the Saudi
delegation participating in the the UN Human Rights Council discussion. He
said that the Kingdom wanted efforts and measures to be used to prosecute
parties involved in such activities and bring them to justice. He said
Interpol should be notified about the names of wanted people.

Dr. Al-Ghannam highlighted in detail the work and goals of the Muhammad Bin
Naif Center for Advice and Care which was established in 2005.

The Saudi delegation distributed a list of the most prominent terrorism
crimes that occurred in the Kingdom from 1965 to 2015.

+++SOURCE:Saudi Gazette 2 July ’15:”Record 137,000 refugees, migrants
crossed Mediterranean this year: UN”, Agence France Presse
SUBJECT:Record 137,000 crossed Mediterranean this year-UN

QUOTE: “The immigrant crisis is a burning issue for the UN

FULL TEXTGENEVA — A record 137,000 people made the perilous journey across
the Mediterranean to Europe in the first half of 2015, most of them fleeing
war, conflict and persecution, the United Nations said on Wednesday.[1 July]“Europe
is living through a maritime refugee crisis of historic proportions,” the UN
refugee agency warned in a report.

The numbers flooding across the Mediterranean, often in rickety boats and at
the mercy of human traffickers, have swelled 83 percent compared to the
first six months of 2014, when 75,000 people made the journey, it said.

The situation is expected to deteriorate further as more clement summer
weather allows ruthless people smugglers to dispatch more people.

Arrivals in the second half of 2014 were for instance nearly double those of
the first half, UNHCR pointed out.

The immigration crisis is a burning issue for the EU, where member states
have been wrangling over the best ways to tackle human trafficking and
arguing over how to share the burden of helping new arrivals, many of them
ill, starving and destitute.

The soaring numbers arriving in Italy and Greece, before moving on to other
northern European states in the hope of finding jobs, has sparked outcry and
growing anti-foreigner rhetoric in many countries.

The report hailed Brussel’s decision to distribute 40,000 Syrian and
Eritrean asylum-seekers who have already arrived in Europe among EU members
but called for greater solidarity between countries — to help both the
migrants and the states worst affected by the crisis.

UN refugee chief Antonio Guterres stressed most of those attempting the
dangerous journey across the Mediterranean are not economic migrants.

“Most of the people arriving by sea in Europe are refugees, seeking
protection from war and persecution,” he said in a statement.

A third of those who have arrived by sea in Italy or Greece this year came
from war-ravaged Syria, while people fleeing violence in Afghanistan and
Eritrea’s repressive regime each made up 12 percent of arrivals.

Other top countries of origin include conflict-wracked Somalia, Nigeria,
Iraq and Sudan, the report said.

This year has also seen a sharp increase in the numbers of people dying as
they try to cross the Mediterranean. So far 1,867 have been killed — 1,308
of them in April alone.

The unprecedented number of deaths that month spurred European leaders to
significantly broaden search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean,
cutting fatalities to 68 in May and 12 in June.

“With the right policy, backed by an effective operational response, it is
possible to save more lives at sea,” Guterres said.

Still, “for the thousands of refugees and migrants who continue to cross the
Mediterranean every week, the risk remains very real,” he added.

Many of those fleeing to Europe first seek safety in overburdened
neighboring countries such as Lebanon, where a quarter of inhabitants are
now Syrian refugees, the report said.

The UN also noted a shift in migration patterns, with the number of people
travelling the eastern Mediterranean route from Turkey to Greece now
surpassing the route from north Africa to Italy.

Italy, which last year had 170,000 people land on its shores — more than
three quarters of all maritime arrivals in Europe — saw that slump in the
first half of 2015 to 67,500.

In Greece, however, arrivals have more than doubled to 68,000 so far this
year compared to 43,500 in all of 2014, the report said.

Greece has fewer than 2,000 reception places, and many refugees and migrants
push on, aiming often for northern and Western Europe, particularly Sweden
and Germany, which are seen as offering better protection and support.

But getting there often requires a long and dangerous journey, often at the
hands of smugglers who route migrants through the Balkans and onward through
Hungary.

Every day, an average of 1,000 people enter Macedonia from Greece, up from
200 just a few weeks ago, UNHCR said.

Broad European cooperation is needed to face the challenge, the report said,
warning that controversial anti-migration policies like Hungary’s planned
four-meter (13-foot) high border fence, will not halt the influx.

“In times of conflict, fences and borders will not stop people fleeing for
their lives,” the report said. — AFP

++SOURCE: Jordan Times 3 July ’15:”Ship carrying Jordanian MPs prevented
from setting sail to Gaza”, by Raed Omari

SUBJECT: Jordanian MPs on Freedom Flotilla III ship

FULL TEXT:AMMAN — Israeli occupation naval forces prevented a Freedom
Flotilla III ship carrying two Jordanian MPs, among other activists, from
breaking the blockade of the Gaza Strip, MP Yihya Saud said on
Wednesday.[1July]

Saud, who heads the Lower House’s Palestine Committee, added that the Greek
authorities only allowed four boats of the flotilla to head to Gaza.

“The boat carrying me and MP Zakaria Sheikh and another European lawmaker
was not allowed to set sail by Greek authorities after news about the
hijacking of boats carrying activists,” Saud told The Jordan Times.

“Even the boats that left the shores of Greece only anchored at Rhodes as
they were intercepted by the Israeli naval forces that prevented them from
proceeding to Gaza.”

The first of four vessels from the Freedom Flotilla III set sail for the
coastal enclave from the Greek island of Crete last Thursday night, carrying
70 rights activists, journalists, lawmakers and politicians, together with a
cargo of humanitarian aid.

Israel on Monday[20 June] commandeered the Swedish-flagged Marianne of
Gothenburg, part of the Freedom Flotilla III, and accompanied it to the Port
of Ashdod, Agence France-Presse reported.

Sixteen foreign nationals were on board along with two Israelis, Arab
lawmaker Basel Ghattas and a television reporter.

The two Israelis have been released, though Ghattas could face a
parliamentary hearing on whether he should face sanctions.

On Tuesday[30 June], Israel deported Tunisia’s former president Moncef
Marzouki and European parliament member Ana Miranda after they took part in
the flotilla.

“There are another 14 who have begun the expulsion process,” the agency
quoted a spokesperson for Israel’s immigration authority as saying.

The flotilla was the third of its kind to attempt to break the nearly
nine-year Israeli blockade of Gaza.

In May 2010, Israeli forces launched a raid on a six-ship flotilla which
ended in bloodshed, claiming the lives of 10 Turkish activists.
====================
Sue Lerner - Associate, IMRA