Ankara expects Iran to support, not oppose, Turkey’s fight against terrorism, Turkish Foreign Ministry tells ambassador

ANKARA, FEB 28 – Turkey on Sunday summoned the Iranian ambassador in the country over remarks alleging it violated Iraq’s sovereignty, according to diplomatic sources.

Summoning Ambassador Mohammad Farazmand, the Turkish Foreign Ministry expressed the country’s rejection of the accusations leveled by Iran’s envoy in Baghdad, underlining that Ankara is fighting the PKK terrorist organization, which targets Iraq’s stability, security and sovereignty, said the sources.

They added that Ankara also told Farazmand that it expects Iran to support, not oppose, Turkey’s fight against terrorism.

Official says Indian government restrictions on right to information and debate impair people’s rights

Raids on human rights defenders in Indian-administered Kashmir show continued restrictions on civil society, which impair the public’s rights to impart and receive information and debate the government policies affecting them, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said in a statement on Friday.

Bachelet said restrictions on communications and the clampdown on civil society activists in Kashmir “remain of concern.”

“Despite the recent restoration of 4G access to mobile phones, the communications blockade has seriously hampered civic participation, as well as business, livelihoods, education, and access to health-care and medical information,” the statement said.

High-speed internet was restored on Feb. 6 after a shutdown since Aug. 4, 2019, when India imposed a military and communications clampdown, besides arresting thousands of pro-freedom activists.

Last October, India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) raided the offices of the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society and the home of Khurram Parvez, its coordinator.

The NIA also raided the office of the Association of the Parents of Disappeared Persons, which seeks the whereabouts of thousands of Kashmiris allegedly subjected to forced custodial disappearance by Indian forces.

Global human rights groups have expressed concern over these raids. In a statement last October, Amnesty International said these raids were “an alarming reminder that India’s government is determined to suppress all dissenting voices in Jammu and Kashmir.”

Last Thursday, seven UN rapporteurs said in a statement that India’s decision to strip Kashmir’s autonomous status in 2019 and the introduction of new residency laws “could curtail the previous level of political participation of Muslims and other minorities.”

On Friday, Shehryar Khan Afridi, the head of the Pakistani Parliament’s Committee on Kashmir, asked the UN secretary-general to act on a report of UN rapporteurs and “impose sanctions on India for its demographic terrorism” in Jammu and Kashmir.

Speaking at a seminar at Nishtar Medical University in Multan, Pakistan, Afridi said top rights groups have also asked India to “immediately halt its suppression of Kashmiri voices.”

Disputed region

Kashmir, a Muslim-majority Himalayan region, is held by India and Pakistan in parts and claimed by both in full. A small sliver of Kashmir is also held by China.

Since they were partitioned in 1947, the two countries have fought three wars-in 1948, 1965, and 1971-two of them over Kashmir.

Some Kashmiri groups in Jammu and Kashmir have been fighting against Indian rule for independence or unification with neighboring Pakistan.

According to several human rights groups, thousands of people have been killed in the conflict since 1989.

On Aug. 5, 2019, the Indian government revoked Article 370 and other related provisions from its Constitution, scrapping the country’s only Muslim-majority state with its autonomy. Jammu and Kashmir was also split into two federally administered territories.

Simultaneously, it locked the region down, detaining thousands of people, imposing movement restrictions, and enforcing a communications blackout.

The junta is battling to contain a massive street movement demanding it yield power and release ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was detained along with top political allies at the start of the month.

Police and soldiers had already fired rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannon on demonstrations in recent weeks in an effort to bring the civil disobedience campaign to heel, with live rounds used in some isolated cases.

Large numbers were again mobilised on Sunday morning to scatter crowds in several parts of the country, after online calls for protesters to once again flood the streets.

Three men were killed and at least 20 others injured when security forces moved on a rally in the southern coastal hub of Dawei, a volunteer medic and a media outlet based in the city said.

Rescue worker Pyae Zaw Hein said the trio were “shot dead with live rounds”, while the injured were hit by rubber bullets.

“More wounded people keep coming in,” he told.

Two teenagers were also gunned down in Bago, a two-hour drive north of commercial capital Yangon.

Ambulance driver Than Lwin Oo told he had sent the bodies of the 18-year-olds to the mortuary at Bago’s main hospital.

The deaths were confirmed by media based in the town.

Officers in Yangon began dispersing small crowds minutes before the slated beginning of the day’s protest, with one 23-year-old shot dead in the city’s east.

“His wife is heartbroken,” Win Ko, a social worker who visited the man’s widow, told. “She’s three months pregnant.”

Local lawmaker Nyi Nyi who was ousted from his parliamentary seat by the coup, confirmed the details of the death in a Facebook post.

Elsewhere in the city, protesters took up positions behind barricades and wielded homemade shields to defend themselves against the onslaught, with police using tear gas to clear some rallies.

One man in Mandalay was taken to hospital in critical condition after a projectile pierced his helmet and lodged in his brain.

A doctor in the city, Myanmar’s second-largest, said it was not known whether the 41-year-old had been struck by a live round or a rubber bullet.

At least one journalist documenting Sunday’s assaults by security forces was beaten and detained further north in Myitkyina, a city at the headwaters of the Irrawaddy river, according to local outlet The 74 Media.

Another reporter was shot with rubber bullets while covering a protest in the central city of Pyay, their employer said.

Weeks of unrest

Since the February 1 military takeover, Myanmar has been roiled by giant demonstrations and a civil disobedience campaign encouraging civil servants to walk off the job.

Sunday’s crackdown followed a similar wave of violent action against angry but largely peaceful anti-coup rallies around the country a day earlier.

Several journalists documenting Saturday’s assaults by security forces were detained, including an Associated Press photographer in Yangon.

More than 850 people have been arrested, charged or sentenced since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners monitoring group.

But the weekend crackdown was expected to raise that number dramatically, with state newspapers reporting 479 arrests on Saturday alone.

International condemnation of the coup has been fierce, with the United States, the European Union and other major powers denouncing violence against protesters.

‘Anything can happen’

Suu Kyi has not been seen in public since she was taken into custody during pre-dawn raids in the capital Naypyidaw as the coup was launched.

A court hearing will be held on Monday for the ousted leader, who faces obscure charges for possession of unregistered walkie-talkies and violating coronavirus restrictions on public gatherings.

But her lawyer Khin Maung Zaw told he had still been unable to meet with Suu Kyi ahead of the hearing.

“As a lawyer, I put my trust in the court,” he said. “But in this period of time anything can happen.”

State media announced Saturday that the junta had sacked the country’s United Nations envoy, who gave an impassioned plea for help on behalf of Myanmar’s ousted civilian government.

Before Sunday, at least five people had been killed since the army takeover — four from injuries sustained at anti-coup demonstrations.

One police officer also died while attempting to quell a protest, the military has said.

TASHKENT, FEB 28 – President of the Republic of Uzbekistan “On measures to further improve the system of execution of court documents and documents of other bodies” to the command Mainly, from March 1, 2021, the execution of alimony obligations on enforcement documents will be carried out by the debtors through a single information system of enforcement and control of alimony obligations.

The single information system for the execution and control of alimony obligations is combined with a separate bank account for alimony obligations. In this case, the MIB opens a bank plastic card in the name of the claimant (alimony recipient) on the execution documents, as well as alimony money, including alimony withheld from the debtor’s work.

Farrukh Toshpulatov, head of the public relations and legal information department of the Interior Ministry, told Kun.uz that now the state executor will be able to monitor the implementation of alimony obligations via mobile phones.

As a result:

• Execution of executive documents on alimony collection and control over alimony collection will be partially automated;
• convenience for alimony payers and recipients;
• alimony payers are remotely controlled;
• the number of citizens’ appeals will decrease.

For information, more than 268 thousand (24.6%) of the current 1 million 90 thousand enforcement documents in the Enforcement Bureau are enforcement proceedings on alimony payments.