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The United States said on Tuesday it was “deeply troubled” by Turkey’s re-arrest of the chairman of the local arm of Amnesty International, and called on its NATO ally to end its state of emergency and safeguard the rule of law.

U.S.-Turkish relations have been strained recently by a series of disagreements, especially over the Syria crisis.

Taner Kilic was one of 11 human rights activists arrested last year on what Amnesty International has said were “bogus terrorism charges.” He is the only one of the 11 still jailed after eight months in detention, the rights group said.

Kilic was conditionally released last week, but the prosecution successfully appealed the decision and he was re-arrested before he had even arrived home, Amnesty said in a statement.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told a briefing the United States was “deeply troubled” by Kilic’s re-arrest on Feb. 1.

She said Washington was closely following Kilic’s case, as well as those against other human rights defenders, journalists, civil society leaders and opposition politicians detained in the state of emergency that followed a failed coup against President Tayyip Erdogan on July 15, 2016.

“We call on the Turkish government to end the protracted state of emergency, to release those detained arbitrarily under the emergency authorities and to safeguard the rule of law,” Nauert said, noting that the emergency had “chilled freedom of expression” and raised concerns about judicial independence.

In the year after the coup, Turkey arrested more than 40,000 people and fired 125,000, including many from the police, army, and judiciary. Erdogan blames the attempted coup on Fethullah Gulen, an exiled cleric and former ally based in the United States. Gulen has denied any role in the plot.

 
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The 28-member European Union faces an aggregate of pressures, including slow economic growth, persistently high unemployment, escalating populism, a migrant wave, the threat of terrorism, and a resurgent Russia. Amid these difficulties, the future shape and character of the EU is being questioned. VOA’s Jela de Franceschi probes the topic with three veteran observers of all things Europe.
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A Paris judge on Tuesday denied bail to a controversial Swiss Muslim scholar facing rape accusations, as fresh allegations promise to further complicate one of France’s most prominent sexual assault cases to date.

Oxford University professor Tariq Ramadan, 55, was charged with rape late last week, following two French women’s accusations of brutal sexual experiences in hotel rooms years before. Ramadan was questioned for two days before being taken into custody Friday.

Swiss media have reported allegations that Ramadan had sexual relations with teenage girls at a Geneva school where he taught in the 1980s. In addition, French media have reported that police have testimonies from other women, who have not leveled charges.

The allegations first surfaced last fall, as the Harvey Weinstein scandal triggered a broader #MeToo outcry against sexual assault and harassment.

Ramadan, a married father of four, adamantly denies the charges, claiming they amount to slander from enemies intent on demolishing him. The case has stunned the Muslim world and further fueled the many critics of Ramadan, who has long been a polarizing figure in Europe.

The accusations

Both of the women pressing charges describe similar episodes — of hotel room meetings, ostensibly for religious discussions, that quickly turned into violent sexual encounters. One woman — a handicapped, 45-year-old convert to Islam using the pseudonym “Christelle” — described in interviews a particularly brutal and humiliating encounter with the scholar in the French city of Lyon in 2009.

During recent questioning, “Christelle” allegedly identified a scar on Ramadan’s groin, which he reportedly confirmed existed. She turned over a USB flash drive to investigators allegedly containing compromising text messages from Ramadan, according to Le Parisien newspaper.

But the newspaper also reported a plane reservation that, if confirmed, would show Ramadan flying from London to Lyon at about the same time the woman said the assault took place.

The second woman, Henda Ayari, a former Salifist-turned-feminist activist, went public with her accusations in October. She was the first to openly accuse Ramadan of sexual assault, earning insults and threats in the weeks that followed. Like “Christelle,” Ayari said the experience took place in a hotel in 2012.

But Ayari’s account, too, has been compromised in recent days, with reports of a man claiming she threatened to press rape charges against him in 2013 — a year after her alleged encounter with Ramadan —after he rebuffed her advances.

Beginning of the end?

Regardless of the outcome, the charges amount to a significant blow to Ramadan, once seen as an inspiration to a generation of young European Muslims. In conferences and television interviews, he preached that Islam and Europe were compatible. Still, critics claimed Ramadan, the grandson of Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, wielded a double discourse, hiding political Islam behind unifying rhetoric.

Following last fall’s allegations, Ramadan took a leave of absence from his teaching post at Oxford University. More recently, French media report that Qatar — which financed his Islamic Studies chair at Oxford — has also distanced itself from him.

“He has a real hold on his [sexual] prey, as on his faithful,” feminist writer Caroline Fourest, a longtime Ramadan foe, told Le Journal du Dimanche.

“I don’t think people realize his impact on Europe as a preacher,” she added. “He has radicalized brilliant students — young Muslims —and transformed them into vindictive paranoids. He has divided European citizens with the kind of harm that few extremists can match.”

A number of prominent Muslims have chosen to remain silent, saying they will wait for French justice to weigh in. Analysts claim Ramadan’s star was fading long before the allegations surfaced — and especially after the Arab uprisings starting in 2011.

“It’s a whole myth that is collapsing. Tariq Ramadan will have a hard time continuing his preaching career based on his personality and a discourse of religious puritanism,” Islam specialist Omero Marongui-Perria told Le Parisien.

For their part, Ramadan’s backers have launched a petition and written an open letter of support in which they denounce an alleged campaign against him carried out by French media and politicians.
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North Korea has been getting equipment and technology for its nuclear weapons program through its embassy in Berlin, Germany’s intelligence chief says.

“When we detect something of this sort, we prevent it,” BfV head Han-Georg Maassen told German public television NDR Monday. “But we can’t guarantee that we will be able to detect and thwart all cases.”

Maassen says German authorities suspect underground markets and shadow buyers got their hands on the parts and the North Koreans procured them in Germany. 

He did not say exactly what equipment the North Koreans bought, but said it is likely duel-use technology, meaning it has civilian and military purposes.

The German TV report says the North carried out its activities in Germany in 2016 and 2017, but that a North Korean diplomat tried to buy a monitor used in chemical weapons production as early as 2014.

A North Korean embassy spokesman denies the report, telling CNN it is “simply not true.”

The United Nations has imposed a series of increasingly stronger sanctions on North Korea because of its refusal to stop developing nuclear weapons and testing ballistic missiles that could carry such bombs.

But a recent U.N. report says the North earned nearly $200 million last year ignoring sanctions and exporting such goods as coal, iron, and steel.
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European Central Bank head Mario Draghi said Monday that it’s too soon to declare victory over weak inflation – indicating it would be premature to set a definite end date for the bank’s money-printing stimulus despite a strengthening economy.

Draghi’s statement to a session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, said that continuing economic growth means inflation would eventually tick up toward the bank’s goal of just under 2 percent, from an annual 1.3 percent in January. 

“While our confidence that inflation will converge towards our aim of below, but close to, 2 percent has strengthened,” Draghi said, “we cannot yet declare victory on this front.”

He said that “new headwinds” had arisen from a recently stronger euro. The stronger currency can hurt exporters _ and therefore growth _ and makes it harder to raise inflation, since it reduces the costs of imports. The euro was little changed after Draghi spoke, trading around $1.242, down 0.3 percent on the day. 

Draghi offered no indication of any looming change in the bank’s statement that it would continue purchasing 30 billion euros ($37 billion) per month in bonds at least through September, and longer if necessary. The purchases pump newly created money into the economy, driving down longer-term interest rates in an effort to raise inflation and growth.

The ECB head said that “overall, while we can be more confident about the path of inflation, patience and persistence with regard to monetary policy is still warranted for underlying inflation pressures to build up and inflation to converge durably towards our objective.”

An end to the purchases would eventually mean higher long-term borrowing costs for governments and companies. The ECB’s stance is being closely watched in currency markets, which tend to send the euro higher against the dollar on any indication that the stimulus might come to an end. Monetary stimulus tends to lower a currency’s exchange rate, while interest rate increases tend to raise the exchange rate against other currencies. 

The ECB has made clear that interest rate increases will only occur well after the end of the purchases. That means the next rate increase likely won’t happen until sometime in 2019. Currently, the bank’s main benchmark interest rate is at a record low of zero.
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The United States says it is confident that both the U.S. and Russia will have honored their commitments under the bilateral Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) by the Monday deadline. 

U.S. State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said there is good news to report on deadline day, which is also the eighth anniversary of the new Start treaty taking effect.

“The United States has met the central limits of the New Start treaty in August 2017. We assess at this time that Russia has also progressed toward meeting those limits. We have no reason to believe that the Russian government will not meet those limits as well.” 

The State Department said in a release late Sunday that both countries will exchange data on their respective nuclear arsenals “within the next month, as we have done twice per year over the last seven years in accordance with the Treaty.”

Treaty signed in 2010

The New START Treaty was signed in Prague on April 8, 2010 by then U.S. President Barack Obama and then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and came into force on Feb. 5, 2011. 

It limits the U.S. and Russia to no more than 1,550 nuclear warheads and also limits deployed and non-deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles, heavy bombers and submarine-launched ballistic missiles. 

Under the treaty, both sides are to exchange information twice a year on the number of warheads and delivery vehicles, and are allowed to conduct on-site inspections to verify each other’s compliance.

Olga Oliker is the Director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.  She told VOA the ability to deploy “boots on the ground” for inspections helps build trust.

“It limits your incentives to try to cheat, and it gives everyone also the opportunity to meet one another and to actually build relationships that are based on verifying compliance with the treaty that everyone agreed to.”

Trump calls for upgrade

At his State of the Union speech last week, President Donald Trump outlined his approach to nuclear weapons.

“We must modernize and rebuild our nuclear arsenal, hopefully never having to use it, but making it so strong and powerful that it will deter any acts of aggression. Perhaps someday in the future there will be a magical moment when the countries of the world will get together to eliminate their nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, we are not there yet.”

Experts say despite a widening rift between Moscow and Washington on Russia’s election interference, Syria, Crimea, Ukraine and other issues, the fact that both sides are still cooperating and complying with nuclear monitoring and verification is crucial to global security and stability.

Treaty is crucial

Olga Oliker says the disagreements between Washington and Moscow make the treaty even more crucial.

“I think the United States and Russia disagree on a great many things and have some interests that are very misaligned. This means all the more that we need to work to make sure that our disagreements don’t escalate and that if they do get worse, we don’t run the risk of blowing up the world many times over.”

Oliker says the New START treaty is key to global security and stability because the U.S. and Russia have about 95 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons.
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Israel’s education minister is set to visit Warsaw amid uproar over proposed legislation that would outlaw blaming Poland for crimes committed during the Holocaust.

Naftali Bennett said Monday he would “make it clear: the past can’t be rewritten, the future should be written together.”

The bill sparked outrage in Israel, raising tensions with a close ally.

It calls for up to three years in prison for any intentional attempt to falsely attribute crimes of Nazi Germany to the Polish state or people.

Israel sees it as an attempt to whitewash the role some Poles played in the killing of Jews during World War II.

Bennett noted ahead of his trip Wednesday that while thousands of Poles helped Jews during the war many others participated in their persecution.
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British officials reacted angrily Monday to President Donald Trump’s stark criticism of the U.K. health care system, which he said was breaking down.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said he is proud of the National Health Service and rejected Trump’s claim that it’s collapsing.

The “NHS may have challenges but I’m proud to be from the country that invented universal coverage – where all get care no matter the size of their bank balance,” he said.

Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn called Trump’s comments “wrong” and said Britons love the NHS.

The latest dispute between Trump and Britain started when Trump criticized Democrats and the British approach to health care in a single tweet.

“The Democrats are pushing for Universal HealthCare while thousands of people are marching in the UK because their U system is going broke and not working,” he tweeted Monday. “Dems want to greatly raise taxes for really bad and non-personal medical care. No thanks!”

His comments followed a march in London on Saturday that drew thousands of people demanding more government funding for Britain’s NHS, which has been badly overstretched this winter, in part because of a rise in severe flu cases. Emergency rooms have at times been overwhelmed, causing long waits.

The march was organized by the People’s Assembly and Health Campaigns Together group, which on Monday condemned Trump’s comments.

“We don’t agree with your divisive and incorrect rhetoric. No thanks,” the group said in a statement.

It said the marchers wanted to show their support for the principle of universal, comprehensive medical care that is free to the user and paid for through general taxation.

Trump has sought to repeal the health care law of his predecessor, Barack Obama.

Congress repealed the unpopular requirement that most Americans carry insurance or risk a tax penalty. That takes effect next year. But other major parts of the overhaul remain in place.

Trump’s relationship with Britain has been strained by his retweeting of videos by the far-right group Britain First and disagreements over his policies on climate change, immigration and other matters. Nonetheless, officials in both countries are working on plans for him to visit Britain later this year.
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Russia sentenced 43 people to jail over online posts last year, a rights group said Monday, warning that the country is slowly criminalizing internet use as the security service tightens its grip.

The Agora rights group presented a report in Moscow on “the creeping criminalization of the internet,” in which it registered 115,706 cases of restrictions on internet freedom last year.

The report said there was a rise in physical attacks and criminal convictions, with the 43 people sentenced to prison in 2017 up from 32 in 2016.

In a new trend, five people were placed in isolation in psychiatric hospitals.

A total of more than 10 million websites have been blocked in recent years, less than half of those after a court decision, said the internet rights group RosKomSvoboda.

The Agora report listed one murder and 66 cases of violence or threats of violence against bloggers and online journalists in 2017. This was the highest number since they started monitoring this issue since 2011.

Some of the measures that criminalize restrictions on internet freedom in Russia include anti-extremism and anti-separatism laws.

However the report noted a surge in convictions for “inciting terrorism”, which increased 20-fold in the last five years.

The Federal Security Service, the feared KGB successor that probes major crimes against the state, now handles a third of all cases relating to freedom of expression on the internet — up from just 16 percent in 2015.

“The role of the FSB is growing significantly. De facto it is becoming the main controller of the Russian internet, both technologically and as the main repressive organ,” the report said.

 
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Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades won reelection to second five-year term Sunday, promising to continue economic recovery and the island’s reunification efforts.

The conservative Anastasiades beat his leftist challenger Stavros Malas 56 to 44 percent. The two also faced-off in the 2013 election.

“I will continue to be president for all Cypriots,” Anastasiades told cheering supporters in Nicosia. “Tonight, there are no winners of losers. There is only a Cyprus for all of us.”

Malas told his backers they can be disappointed, but said “the battle” does not begin or end with a single election. He said he telephoned Anastasiades and told him to “take care of our Cyprus.”

Anastasiades is credited with helping the Greek Cypriot economy bounce back from a severe recession that required a bailout from the European Union and International Monetary Fund.

But there has been little progress in U.N.-sponsored reunification talks with the Turkish Cypriot north.

Anastasiades promises to resist Turkish demands to keep a military presence on a reunified Cyprus and continue oil and gas exploration off the Greek Cypriot coast – an enterprise that also angers Turkish Cypriots.

Cyprus has been split between a Greek Cypriot south and Turkish Cypriot north since 1974, when Turkish forces invaded in response to a military coup aimed at unifying the entire island with Greece.

Only Turkey recognizes an independent northern Cyprus while the southern half enjoys international recognition and the economic benefits of EU membership.
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