Author: aejay_wp

The two women who broke with centuries of conservative taboo Wednesday to enter a temple in the southern Indian state of Kerala are now in hiding, as violent protests left at least one person dead.

The pair, aged 42 and 44, became the first women to access the shrine after the country’s Supreme Court overturned a centuries-old ban on women aged 10 to 50 from entering the temple in September last year, ruling it to be discriminatory and arguing that women should be able to pray at the place of their choice.

A police spokesman told CNN Thursday that the women — identified only by their given names Bindu Ammini and Kankadurga — are currently in an undisclosed location along with some of their relatives. The spokesman added the women had previously attempted to enter the temple in December but were stopped by mobs of angry hardliners shouting and blocking their path.

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Those same protesters were out in force again Wednesday, forcing police to deploy tear gas and water cannon to separate demonstrators both for and against the ban.
Police said a protester belonging to India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who are seeking to uphold the gender ban, died Wednesday night after being hit in the head by a stone thrown by counter demonstrators.

Secret mission

The Sabarimala shrine, which is thought to be more than 800 years old, is considered the spiritual home of Lord Ayyappa, a Hindu god of growth. Proponents of the ban on women of menstrual age argue that since Ayyappa is considered celibate, allowing “impure” women into the temple would be disrespectful.

For months, the area around the Sabarimala Temple complex has been the scene of angry clashes, as protesters attempted to prevent the court’s decision from being enacted.

A 1,300-strong contingent of police officers, deployed to ensure the safety of any woman wishing to visit the temple, had previously not been enough to resist the overwhelming hostility of thousands of Hindu traditionalists bent on preventing them from entering.

“Many people … came to enter the Sabarimala Temple (since September) but these people were blocked by the public, so they couldn’t enter into the temple,” said Prasad Amore, a supporter of the women. “Thousands of police were deployed at the temple premises but they were helpless.”

Amore was part of a group which accompanied Ammini and Kankadurga on the long, arduous trek up the mountainside to the famous golden-roofed temple under the cover of darkness in the early hours of Wednesday morning, when they successfully entered the shrine.

“We found many devotees who did not make any trouble on the way to the Sabarimala Temple,” he said. “We were a total of six people, including police officials. It was the first time I visited the temple.”

In the wake of Wednesday’s visit, priests at the temple moved to “purify” the grounds, leading to the temporary closure of the site. “These two women broke the social taboo,” said Amore. “I gave advice (to them) on the way and how to behave… how to distract people who opposed (them), how to deal with panic situations,” he added.

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Battleground state

Speaking Thursday, Pinarayi Vijayan, chief minister of Kerala, blamed the BJP for politicizing the issue and turning the state into a battleground.

“The two women asked for police help to enter the temple and we provided that to them because that was our duty,” he said. “We fulfilled our constitutional responsibility.”

The issue has become a point of contention between the local government, run by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPIM), and the ruling Hindu nationalist BJP.

Amit Shah, the leader of the BJP, has characterized the debate as one between people of faith and an “oppressive” state government in Kerala. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also appeared to support the ban Wednesday, highlighting that some temples do not allow men to enter.

Earlier this week, as many as five million female protesters took part in a peaceful “women’s wall” protest organized in part by the CPIM in support of gender equality and the right of women to enter the temple freely. They formed a human chain, extending an estimated 620 kilometers (385 miles) across Kerala.

“There were so many women and there wasn’t even space for women to extend arms. If they had extended their arms, the length of the wall would have increased so much that women would be falling in the Arabian Sea,” said Subhashini Ali, a local civil servant and CPIM member.

Vijayan said police will provide protection for any other women seeking to enter the temple. Those against the move will likely now turn their attention back to the Supreme Court, which is due later this month to hear petitions to revise its order.

Source: edition.cnn 

South Korea’s spy agency has told officials that North Korea’s ambassador to Italy has disappeared.

The announcement follows unconfirmed reports that Pyongyang’s top diplomat in Italy had sought asylum from an unidentified Western country.

The last senior diplomat to defect was the deputy ambassador in London.

Thae Yong-ho abandoned his post in 2016, along with his wife and children. He defected to South Korea.

As one of the highest-ranking officials to ever defect from the North, his move was seen as a blow to Kim Jong-un’s regime. He would go on to urge the world to spread information in North Korea to undermine Mr Kim’s status among his people.

Speaking after a briefing from the spy agency on Thursday, Kim Min-ki, a government MP, told reporters that Mr Jo fled the Rome embassy more than a month ago.

“Acting ambassador Jo Song-gil’s term was ending in late November last year and he escaped the diplomatic compound in early November,” the MP said.

South Korean’s National Intelligence Service, which interrogates all defectors from the North, told lawmakers they had not had any contact from him since then. The agency would not confirm that he is trying to defect to another country.

Mr Jo’s wife is believed to be with him.

Italy’s foreign ministry has told the BBC that it has no record of an asylum request made by Mr Jo.

Diplomatic sources said the last Italy heard of him was when officials received a note last year from the North Korean government saying that Mr Jo was being replaced.

South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo has reported that Mr Jo is in a “safe place” with his family, citing a diplomatic source.

What do we know about Mr Jo?

Mr Jo, 48, has been acting ambassador in Rome since October 2017 after Italy expelled then-ambassador Mun Jong-nam in protest over a North Korean nuclear test a month earlier.

North Korea’s embassy in Italy manages relations with the UN’s Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization, which provides important aid to the country.

North Korean diplomats stationed abroad usually have to leave several family members behind in Pyongyang to prevent their defection.

But Mr Jo is thought to have been in Rome with his wife and children, privileges that suggest his family is influential.

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Both his father and father-in-law were diplomats. His father-in-law Lee Do-seop was a well-known ambassador to Thailand and Hong Kong, according to Thae Yong-ho.

How unusual is this?

North Korean representatives overseas are said to be closely watched by their fellow diplomats for any sign of disloyalty to the regime.

However several have defected over the past few decades.

Image caption: Thae Yong-ho was North Korea’s deputy ambassador to Britain when he defected in 2016

They include Ko Yong-hwan and Hyon Song-il, who defected to the South in 1991 and 1996 respectively after abandoning their posts in Africa.

Jang Sung-gil, a former ambassador to Egypt, took asylum in the US in 1997 with his family, including a brother who was a diplomat working in London.

The disappearance of Jo Song-gil comes after a year that saw a dramatic turnaround in relations between North and South Korea, with three meetings held between the countries’ leaders.

But if Mr Jo has indeed defected, it will not impact inter-Korean relations, “unless Pyongyang thinks the escape was arranged by South Korean authorities”, Koh Yu-hwan, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul, told the AFP news agency.

Source: BBC 

Algeria has banned all Syrians from entering the country via its southern borders, hours after a rights group reported that 50 Syrians and Palestinians had been deported to neighbouring Niger in the last week.

Hassen Kacimi, the head of migrants policy at the interior ministry, said that Syrians seeking refuge this way were suspected to be armed fighters.

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“We have hosted 50,000 Syrians in the past few years for humanitarian reasons,” Kacimi told Reuters news agency, alluding to refugees from Syria’s civil war.

“But we cannot accept members of armed groups fleeing from Syria when it comes to our security.”

Algeria went through years of devastating civil war with armed groups in the 1990s. While violence is now greatly diminished, sporadic attacks continue in isolated areas.

Kacimi said around 100 people had reached the southern border with the help of local armed escorts in recent weeks but were intercepted and expelled shortly after they slipped into Algeria.

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He said that the Syrians had transited Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan and Niger or Mali using fake Sudanese passports.

“This is a criminal network and we must be very vigilant not to allow them get into Algeria,” he added.

Earlier on Wednesday, a local human rights group said Algerian authorities had deported 50 Palestinians and Syrians on December 25 and December 26.

According to La Ligue Algerienne pour la Defense des Droits de l’Homme (LADDH), the majority of the refugees were Syrian nationals and were transferred via buses to Niger.

Algeria’s south and southeast are largely empty desert regions but it has beefed up its security presence there after neighbouring Libya and northern Mali and Niger fell into the hands of various armed factions.

Since its 1990s civil war, Algeria has become an important ally against armed groups active in the arid Sahel region of north and west Africa.

Source: aljazeera.com

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