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The United Nations human rights office is echoing a recent call by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for an independent investigation into Israel’s use of force against Palestinians who staged protests in Gaza on March 30. The call came Friday as Israeli troops again clashed with Palestinians staging “right of return” border protests.

What began as a peaceful demonstration along the Gaza-Israeli border Friday turned deadly shortly after the U.N. human rights office in Geneva called for restraint by both the Israeli security forces and Palestinians. Spokeswoman Liz Throssell told reporters U.N. officials feared a repeat of last month’s riots, which resulted in the deaths of 16 people and injuries to more than 1,000.  

She said several hundred protesters reportedly were wounded by live ammunition. She noted the victims reportedly were unarmed or did not pose a serious threat to the Israeli security forces, who were well protected. The rights office said Israeli security forces used excessive force last month. Throssell told VOA that Israel denies the accusation.

“From what we have documented, it is certainly that the killings and the injuries do actually point to an excessive use of force and, in particular lethal force,” said Throssell. “And, that was in a situation where there was no threat of death or serious injury. And, that is why we have made this call. This is a law enforcement issue. This has law enforcement principles.” 

Under international human rights law, firearms may be used only as a last resort, only in response to an imminent threat of death or risk of serious injury. Throssell said international law obliges Israel’s security forces to respect the rights of peaceful assembly.  

She said in the context of a military occupation, as is the case in the self-governing Palestinian territory, the unjustified and unlawful recourse to firearms by law enforcement resulting in death may amount to a willful killing and a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The Palestinians have constructed protest tent camps along the entire length of the Gaza Strip in five locations. They are expected to stay in place for six weeks.

The protests are designed to commemorate the Nakba or “catastrophe” when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had to flee their land or were expelled during the 1948 war that led to the creation of Israel. Israel has deployed more than 100 snipers along the Gaza Strip.

 
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When calls to a Polish domestic violence helpline in Britain plunged last year, its founder Ewa Wilcock was puzzled.

Since its launch in 2014, she had been receiving more calls from compatriots living in Britain than she could handle. Yet they halved — to just over a dozen a month — in mid-2017.

“People would start the conversation saying they were not sure if they should be calling at all because they were afraid of the social services,” Wilcock told Reuters by phone from Cheshire in northwest England.

Wilcock soon discovered that myths were spreading among Poles on social media — and by abusers — that parents who reported domestic violence would lose their children, making victims too scared to seek help.

“Some people said that social services remove children from homes and put them up for adoption,” she said.

“[They said] that foster families get a lot of money for caring for children, that it’s a great business.”

There is no reliable data on domestic violence among the 900,000 Poles in Britain — its largest overseas-born population — but nearly 2 million people, mostly women, are physically or emotionally abused by a partner or relative each year.

“They are ashamed to tell family in Poland,” Wilcock said. “They don’t want them to worry, but they have no one to talk to in Britain.”

Scared

Services provided by Polish charities are often the first point of contact because they make the process of accessing support and finding safety less intimidating for victims.

“When you’re stressed, it’s very difficult to communicate even in your own language,” domestic violence counselor Anna Janczuk told Reuters.

“It’s even more difficult using a second language and finding appropriate words to describe what is happening,” said Janczuk, who runs the London-based nonprofit Familia Support Centre, which provides legal and psychological consultations.

Katarzyna Zatorski, a family solicitor based in the northern town of Huddersfield, said most of her Polish clients dealing with domestic violence are referred to her by Polish charities.

“The most difficult thing is to seek a lawyer’s help,” she told Reuters by phone. “If it’s difficult for a Briton, then it’s much more difficult for someone living in a foreign country.”

Hanna, who declined to give real name, said her husband used to suffocate and beat her, once breaking her nose. He told her that social workers would take their daughter away if she reported him.

“I didn’t know what to start with, how to do it, because I was very scared,” she said.

“In a situation like this, you don’t even know what your name is. When you speak about legal matters, you don’t understand the meaning of certain expressions.”

Without Janczuk’s support “nothing” would have changed, Hanna said, nearly a year after she left her abusive husband.

“Contact [with Janczuk] calmed me,” she said.

Volunteers

Wilcock’s helpline only takes calls twice a week, while Janczuk’s support center is open for less than 20 hours a week because of funding shortages.

“Some funders don’t like it that we help just one minority,” Janczuk said, sitting next to a donated computer in the modest room from which she runs her organization with the support of volunteers.

“We are doing more than the limited resources that we have allow us to do,” said Janczuk, who helps about 25 victims of domestic violence per month.

“Sometimes it’s just this one piece of information that we give the victims that allows them to go on.”

Hanna said she still calls Wilcock’s helpline about once a month when she is worried about issues like child custody.

She used to call every week.

“If they were open more than twice a week, I would have called them more often,” she said.
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The European Union said Friday Facebook has told it that up to 2.7 million people in the 28-nation bloc may have been victim of improper data sharing involving political data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica.

EU spokesman Christian Wigand said EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova will have a telephone call with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg early next week to address the massive data leaks.

The EU and Facebook will be looking at what changes the social media giant needs to make to better protect users and how the U.S. company must adapt to new EU data protection rules.

Wigand said that EU data protection authorities will discuss over the coming days “a strong coordinated approach” on how to deal with the Facebook investigation.

Separately, Italy’s competition authority opened an investigation Friday into Facebook for allegedly misleading practices following revelations that the social network sold users’ data without consent.

Authority chairman Giovanni Pitruzzella told Sky News24 that the investigation will focus on Facebook’s claims on its home page that the service is free, without revealing that it makes money off users’ data.

The investigation comes as Italian consumer advocate group Codacons prepares a U.S. class action against Facebook on behalf of Italians whose data was mined by Cambridge Analytica. Codacons said just 57 Italians downloaded the Cambridge Analytica app, but that an estimated 214,000 Italians could be affected because the data mined extended to also the users’ friends.

A top Facebook privacy official is scheduled to meet with the authority later this month.

This story was earlier corrected to show that the EU call will take place with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg not with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
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A German court ruled Thursday that Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont cannot be extradited to Spain on charges of revolution and can be freed from a German jail on bail.

Puigdemont supporters say they expect Catalonia’s former president to be out of jail by Friday morning.

The judges in Schleswig in northern Germany based their ruling on German law, saying while rebellion may be a crime in Spain, it is not a criminal offense in Germany.

The judges also ruled Puigdemont could still be extradited to Spain on charges of embezzling public funds not rebellion, but could only be tried for embezzlement if he is sent back.

If Puigdemont posts bail, he can only leave Germany with prosecutors’ permission, inform them when he changes his address, and must report to police once a week.

Pro-independence Catalans celebrated when they heard the German court’s decision and some cried openly.

Spanish officials and the country’s supreme court have not yet commented on the German ruling.

German police arrested Puigdemont on a Spanish warrant last week. He crossed into Germany from Belgium, where he fled on October to avoid arrest.

He is wanted in Spain on charges of inciting rebellion by defying the central government and going ahead with a Catalan independence referendum in October, leading to a violent police crackdown.

Twenty-four other Catalan separatist leaders are also facing rebellion charges.

Pro-independence lawmakers won a slim majority in December’s parliamentary elections in Catalonia. But parliament has been unable to name a new president since Puigdemont fled, and the future of independence is murky.

Catalonia, in northeast Spain, and its capital Barcelona are major tourist destinations. It has its own language and distinct culture. But the separatist crisis has hurt tourism and the regional economy.

Catalan separatists call the region a powerful economic engine that drives Spain, and they have demanded more autonomy.

Those who want to stay united with Spain fear the region will sink into an economic abyss without the central government, its ties to the European Union, and its numerous existing bilateral relations.

This story was written by VOA News.
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A District of Columbia judge on Thursday sentenced two Turkish-Americans to one year and one day in prison after they pleaded guilty of assaulting pro-Kurdish demonstrators during Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Washington last year.

Sinan Narin, 46, of Virginia and Eyup Yildirim, 51, of New Jersey each pleaded guilty in December to one count of assault with significant bodily injury in connection with the May 2017 clashes with protesters near the Turkish ambassador’s residence.

Judge Marisa Demeo of the Superior Court for the District of Columbia accepted their plea agreements and imposed the previously agreed upon sentence on each.

The two have been in jail since their arrest last June and will receive credit for time already served, the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia said.

The street brawl that led to the pair’s arrest started after a small group of Kurdish demonstrators gathered near the Turkish ambassador’s residence to protest Erdogan’s arrival, only to be confronted by the president’s supporters, security guards and other members of his delegation.

WATCH: Demonstration at Turkish Embassy in DC Turns Violent

Video of the confrontation recorded by a VOA journalist showed what appeared to be Erdogan’s security guards pushing, shoving and kicking the protesters, some of whom were carrying Kurdish flags.

A grand jury last August indicted 19 people — 15 members of Erdogan’s security detail, the two Turkish-Americans and two Turkish-Canadians — on charges of conspiracy to commit a crime of violence, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

But U.S. prosecutors later dropped charges against 11 of the guards for what a government official described as “evidentiary reasons.”

Criminal charges against the other four bodyguards remain pending, as do ones against the two Canadian citizens of Turkish ancestry.

The Turkish-Canadians have not been arrested, and it remains unclear whether they’ll be extradited to the U.S. to stand trial.
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A U.N. rights watchdog called on Hungary on Thursday to crack down on hate speech by politicians against Roma, Muslims and other minorities, and to repeal a law allowing migrants to be deported without a chance to seek

asylum.

It urged the nationalist government to reject draft laws known as the “Stop-Soros Package” that would empower the interior minister to ban nongovernmental organizations that support migration and pose a “national security risk.”

The government says the bill is meant to deter illegal immigration that Prime Minister Viktor Orban says is eroding European stability and has been stoked in part by Hungarian-born U.S. financier George Soros. It says its policies are to ensure Hungarians can live in safety.

Orban, seeking a third consecutive term Sunday, has campaigned on a strong anti-migration message, although a U.N. panel expert said the timing of the watchdog’s comments, at the end of a four-week meeting, was not directed at voters.

The U.N. Human Rights Committee voiced concern at “hate crimes and about hate speech in political discourse, the media and on the internet targeting minorities, notably, Roma, Muslims, migrants and refugees, including in the context of government-sponsored campaigns.”

The panel issued its findings and recommendations after its 18 independent experts reviewed Hungary’s record on upholding civil and political rights.

“The concern we saw in Hungary is that sometimes hate speech is accompanied by hate crimes which are directed against minorities and against migrants,” Yuval Shany, the panel vice chair, told Reuters TV.

​Security issue

Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto defended Hungary’s policies, telling the U.N. panel last month: “First and foremost, it is a firm conviction of the government that the Hungarian people have the right to live a life in security, without fear of terrorist atrocities.”

In 2015, the central European country had a “sad experience” when 400,000 migrants passed through on their way to Western Europe, “ignoring all rules,” he said.

The U.N. panel also decried a Hungarian law adopted a year ago that allows for automatically removing all asylum applicants to transit zones for indefinite confinement.

People should be allowed freedom of movement while their asylum claims are examined to see whether they are refugees fleeing war or persecution, the committee said.

The panel added that Hungary should repeal a June 2016 law that enables police to summarily expel anyone entering irregularly.

The committee also voiced concern at the “prevalence of anti-Semitic stereotypes” and how “high-ranking officials have nurtured conspiracy theories relating to George Soros.”

Orban has waged a billboard and media campaign asserting that Soros would “settle millions from Africa and the Middle East,” among other allegations.

Soros, who is Jewish, has rejected the campaign against him as “distortions and lies” meant to create a false external enemy.
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Three buses believed to be carrying expelled diplomats have departed from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

Before the Thursday morning departure, journalists outside the embassy compound saw people leaving the residences, placing luggage on trucks. Some toted pet-carriers.

Russia last week ordered 60 American diplomats to leave the country by Thursday, in retaliation for the United States expelling the same number of Russians.

The moves were part of a deepening dispute over the nerve-agent poisoning in Britain of a Russian former double-agent and his daughter. Britain alleges Russian involvement, which Moscow vehemently denies.

More than 150 diplomats have been expelled by Britain and allies, and Russia has ordered reciprocal moves.
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Hungary’s foreign minister is rejecting accusations his government is racist, but said it does not accept that a multicultural society is better than a homogeneous one. 

“We don’t accept that multiculturalism is a value by itself,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó told VOA on Wednesday in an interview at the United Nations. “We don’t accept that multiculturalism would be better than a homogeneous society, for example. We think it’s up to the given nation, it’s up to the given society, to decide what is considered to be a value.”

Szijjártó was responding to a question about remarks made by the U.N. high commissioner for human rights last month, accusing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban of being a “racist,” a “bully” and a “xenophobe” because Orban said he did not want Hungary to be “multicolored.”

The foreign minister added that Hungary has been “a homogeneous united Hungarian Christian society” for 1,100 years and considers “this as a value.” 

His comments came amid a rise in nationalist and anti-immigrant sentiment throughout parts of Europe.

Migration

Migration has been a key election issue in several recent European elections, and Hungary is no different. This Sunday, Hungarians will vote in general elections, and Orban and his right-wing Fidesz party are overwhelmingly favored to stay in power.

Szijjártó is at the United Nations this week for negotiations on a Global Compact on Migration. In December, the United States pulled out of the discussions, saying the proposed pact was not consistent with Trump administration immigration policies.

“We agree with the American administration that this is a very biased, very unbalanced and very extremely radically pro-migration document,” Szijjártó told VOA on Wednesday. “So this goes totally against our migration policy, just like it goes against the migration policy of the current administration here.”

But despite its objections, Szijjártó said Hungary would remain in the migration negotiations and seek changes to the document. 

UN agreement

The U.N. discussions are part of a process to draft a multilateral agreement that would cover all aspects of safe, orderly and regular migration. The United Nations estimates there are about 244 million migrants in the world,  or just over 3 percent of the world’s population.

Hungary’s location at the crossroads of two popular migration routes brought it more than 440,000 mostly Syrian and Afghan refugees and migrants in 2015, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Most were passing through to reach other European Union countries, but the massive influx was seen as disruptive and unwelcome by the Hungarian government.

Hungary has since constructed fences along its southern border and enacted legislation that has significantly reduced irregular migration across its territory. 

“We don’t think it’s a fundamental human right that to wake up in the morning, you finger-point on some country on the globe that you want to live there,” Szijjártó said. “And in order to get there you violate borders and you make everything to get there.”

The foreign minister told VOA that Hungarians do have a fundamental human right to live in safe conditions in their own country and that security comes first. 

“We will never accept that anyone gives priority to the questionable rights of migrants against the right of the Hungarian people to have a safe life back in Hungary,” he said.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hosted his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ankara Wednesday for a second trilateral summit, part of ongoing efforts to end the Syrian civil war.

Iran, Russia and Turkey, the main backers of the opposing sides in the seven-year war, may make unlikely partners for peace. Increasingly, the leaders see one another as key to ending the conflict and achieving their regional goals.

At the end of the summit, a commitment was made by the attending leaders to return Syrian refugees. Such a commitment is particularly important for Ankara, given its hosting of about 3 million displaced Syrians from the conflict.

​Refugees will return

Erdogan has pledged a return of the refugees, analysts say, because the Turkish president is aware they are increasingly becoming a political liability, with growing Turkish public unease over their presence.

A declaration released at the end of the summit saw the presidents committed to maintaining Syria’s territorial integrity.

“Maintaining Syria’s territorial integrity depends on preserving equal distance from all terrorist organizations,” Erdogan said at the summit’s closing press conference. “It’s very important that all terrorist organizations that are posing a threat not only to Syria and Turkey, but to all neighboring countries and even the whole region, are excluded without exceptions.”

Kurdish militia

Erdogan also reiterated his threat to expand Turkey’s military offensive against the U.S.-backed Syria Kurdish militia, the YPG, which Ankara accuses of secessionist aspirations and links to an insurgency inside Turkey.

Turkish-led forces last month ousted the militia from the Syrian Afrin enclave. The YPG is a key ally in Washington’s war against Islamic State, with U.S. forces deployed with the militia.

During his talks with his Russian and Iranian counterparts, Erdogan reportedly pressed for their support. It remains unclear if he was successful.

​Turkish offensive

Tehran has voiced opposition to the Turkish offensive in Syria, calling for its immediate end. Analysts suggest the Iranians will likely be wary of a growing Turkish military presence in Syria that could ultimately challenge its power. Iran and Turkey are historical regional rivals.

At a closed-door meeting, Rouhani reportedly pressed Erdogan to hand over the recently captured Syrian Afrin enclave to Syrian regime forces. Ankara has in the past ruled out such a move.

Common ground on U.S.

But common ground was found in criticizing the U.S. role in Syria.

“Some big powers, particularly the United States, wanted terrorist organizations such as Daesh and al-Nusra to remain in our region as their tool so they can benefit from this,” Rouhani said at the summit’s press conference. “But big countries like Syria and Iraq destroyed this conspiracy with the help of friendly countries.”

Rouhani also mocked U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement hours before the summit that he wanted to “bring our troops back home” from Syria.

“The Americans say something different every day,” the Iranian president said at the press conference.

Putin also joined in criticizing Washington’s role in the region. For now, the U.S. appears to be providing strong new common ground for the three leaders to unite on, rather than focus on their considerable differences.

The presidents agreed to hold another summit in Tehran.
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William spreads cream over a lemon sponge cake, as another cook ladles steaming platefuls of paella. The kitchen staff is in rush mode on a recent weekday, not to serve a hungry restaurant crowd, but prison officials on their lunchtime break. 

Welcome to Eysses detention center in Villeneuve-sur-Lot, a picturesque southern French town abutting the Garonne River better known for its medieval architecture than its penal population. But, in some ways, Eysses inmates like William are test cases for a sweeping government effort to slash recidivism and tackle one of Europe’s highest rates of prison overcrowding. 

Last month, President Emmanuel Macron outlined measures that would scrap or reconsider short-term prison sentences in favor of options such as home detention with electronic tagging, and building 7,000 cells over the next four years to ease overcrowding. Proposals also call for creating jobs to reinforce probation and re-insertion programs for an inmate population that has soared from 48,000 in 2001 to nearly 70,000 today.

“Sentences must be credible and understandable, not necessarily in terms of being the most severe possible,” said Macron.

Some call Macron’s plan soft on crime, while others suggest it doesn’t go far enough, particularly when it comes to radicalism flourishing in French jails. Yet, it has drawn support for encouraging experiments, like the Respect pilot rolled out just over a year ago at Eysses, which is based on a Spanish model.

“We don’t have results yet,” when it comes to shrinking the number of repeat offenders, Eysses detention head Philippe Sperandio said. “But we see a drop in physical violence among inmates; there are fewer infractions.” 

The 18 prisons that have launched Respect since 2015 also report a drop in suicide rates. Another 20 are expected to introduce the pilot project over the next two years. 

Options to delinquency

Respect is run in only one Eysses wing, and getting into the program is competitive. Those accepted must a sign a contract listing a series of obligations, and risk expulsion for infractions like possessing a cellphone. Rules include spending 25 hours weekly either working or participating in educational or health-related activities. Inmates also take shifts cleaning up communal spaces; but, the plusses include keys to their cells — a powerful symbol of limited liberty, even if guards have copies. 

“Just getting up in the morning, going to work, participating in activities, helps them to get back into life and to realize there are other possibilities besides delinquency and crime,” says prison psychologist Ludmilla Issanchou. 

Detention head Sperandio recounts one departing inmate telling him he had never experienced anything like Respect before. 

“Will that help ensure he won’t come back? I don’t know,” he added. “But he sees things differently. He knows what he’s lost.” 

For 32-year-old pastry maker William, the pilot program marks a sharp break from previous penitentiary experiences during his decade behind bars. 

“Some are hotter then others,” he says. “Here, we have a semblance of liberty within the walls, even if there are always bars.” 

​In the small prison garden, guard Carol Cerjak helps several inmates pull out the last of the winter greens. The pilot has also helped to build better relations between guards and inmates, Eysses staff say – a stark contrast from other French prisons, where several attacks by radicalized inmates unleashed a nationwide prison guard strike in January over prison conditions. 

“I am very rarely confronted by violence, and we’re a lot more relaxed,” Cerjak says. “You see a prisoner coming here, and a week later, they’re completely different.” 

Not for radicalized inmates

A recent report by the Council of Europe, the region’s top rights watchdog, counted French jails among the most overcrowded in western Europe, and France among the few where the penal population is rising. While Danish and Dutch prisons average one prisoner per cell, it found France averages 117 inmates per 100 cells, with even higher rates in areas like Paris. 

Alternatives to 24/7 incarceration encouraged under Macron’s reforms have their limits, however. For the country’s roughly 1,600 radicalized inmates — whose numbers have swollen with returning jihadi fighters, and those charged for plotting or carrying out attacks at home — the answer is building more cells and isolation blocks to stop the spread of radical Islam. 

“The idea is not to ostracize them so they leave embittered,” says Justice Ministry spokesman Youssef Badr, describing small units and one-on-one attention for radicalized inmates. “There’s real effort made to rehabilitate them.”

Experts suggest countering radicalism should include more open systems, pointing to Denmark, where inmates wear their own clothes, participate in sports and cook their own meals to prepare for life outside. 

Yet, “if one of these jihadists in open spaces become violent and kills people, it would be very politically costly for the government,” says leading prison expert Farhad Khosrokhavar, “so they don’t dare do it.” 

“They stress the repressive side and not the integration side,” he adds. “And that is the attitude, I would say, of many European governments nowadays.” 

At Eysses, inmate Jean-Luc digs his hands deep into the earth, preparing the prison garden for spring planting. After 29 years behind bars, he is a believer of Respect’s “tough love” approach. 

“I’ve been in some where even a dog wouldn’t enter,” he says. “Here, Respect gives us back our dignity.”
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The family of a British-Iranian woman jailed in Iran on espionage charges has demanded that the British government take a bigger role in securing her release, two years after the young mother was detained while visiting relatives. 

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is being held in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison. The 39-year-old was arrested at Tehran’s airport as she tried to leave Iran in April 2016 and later sentenced to jail for five years on charges of seeking to overthrow the government. Nazanin and her family have maintained she was in Iran on vacation.

In an interview with VOA, her husband, Richard, said their hopes had been raised in recent weeks that her release was imminent — but she is caught in the middle of a diplomatic tussle between London and Tehran. 

“The head of the prison, of Evin prison, said to her, ‘Look, I’ve approved your release. I approved your release months ago, but it’s not in my hands.’ And then the judge in charge of parole said, ‘Look, we can move you to guarded house arrest if you want something, but we can’t release you at the moment. There’s this problem between the British government and the Iranian government over the interest calculation on an old debt,’” Ratcliffe told VOA.

That debt is believed to concern an arms deal that collapsed with the Iranian revolution in 1979, leaving Tehran millions of dollars out of pocket.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s family wants British Prime Minister Theresa May to become more involved in the case, given its apparent political nature.

Last year, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson pledged to leave ‘no stone unturned’ to secure Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release. He traveled to Tehran to discuss the matter with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif. Richard Ratcliffe said there has been little communication since then.

“Part of what we’re pushing for now is to meet with the foreign secretary again, to meet with him in the presence of lawyers and to talk through — given it feels like there’s a standoff between both governments — what do they think Nazanin’s rights are?”

Richard Ratcliffe hasn’t seen his daughter for two years. Gabriella was just a year old when her mother was detained, leaving her in the care of her grandparents. 

“Now, she’s a little girl. She speaks Farsi, she doesn’t speak English. Her relationship with both her parents, but certainly with me, is a much more remote relationship. We do sort of funny faces and games on the phone, but she’s still too small to really engage on the phone. And there will be — we’ll need to learn to be a parent again,” Ratcliffe said.

Family and supporters held an event in London Monday to mark the two-year anniversary of Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s detention.

In a statement Tuesday, the British Foreign Office said it is continuing to approach the case “in a way that we judge is most likely to secure the outcome we all want,” adding it would not provide a running commentary “on every twist and turn.”

Each of those twists continues to cause anguish for Zaghari-Ratcliffe, her family and friends. 
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French railway transport has been disrupted following a launch of a three-month strike to protest President Emmanuel Macron’s labor reforms. The start of the action led by the employees of the state railway SNFC was dubbed “Black Tuesday” and was followed by a street demonstration. The strike will affect railway transport for two days in every five over a three-month period. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports Tuesday protest turned unruly in some places.
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Queen Elizabeth II’s 96-year-old husband, Prince Philip, has been admitted to a London hospital for a previously scheduled hip surgery, Buckingham Palace said Tuesday.

The palace said the prince entered the King Edward VII Hospital in the afternoon and would have the surgery Wednesday. It said the hospital admission and surgery were planned.

Officials declined to provide additional details about the surgery and said “further updates will be issued when appropriate.”

The prince announced in May that he was retiring from most public duties after decades of royal service. The palace said at the time he had carried out roughly 22,000 solo royal engagements since Elizabeth ascended to the throne in 1952.

Philip has missed several public events in recent weeks, including an Easter Sunday church service in Windsor. He has been reported to be hobbled by hip pain, but the news of the planned surgery took many by surprise.

The health scare comes at a busy time for the royal family. Prince William and his wife Kate are expecting their third child this month, and Prince Harry plans to marry American actress Meghan Markle on May 19 at Windsor Castle.

Philip has sharply reduced the number of charity events he attends since announcing his retirement, but still accompanies the queen on occasion.

Philip has been in generally good health for his age, but he was briefly hospitalized over Christmas in 2011 for angioplasty treatment of a blockage in his coronary arteries. He has suffered from other ailments as well but has not spoken about them in public.

He and Elizabeth celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary in November.

The queen has praised her husband for his devotion and long years of service, calling him the rock she depends on.

 
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