World

Jailed Russian opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza is the winner of this year’s Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) said on Monday.

“It takes incredible courage in today’s Russia to stand against the power in place. Today, Mr Kara-Murza is showing this courage, from his prison cell,” PACE president Tiny Kox said. 

Kara-Murza, long bitterly critical of President Vladimir Putin, was jailed in April for denouncing the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine and has now been charged with high treason which could see him imprisoned for two decades.

“The current Russian authorities — without intending to do so — have painted the portrait of a true patriot. Vladimir Putin’s government sees such people as traitors,” Kara-Murza’s wife Yevgeniya said as she received the award on his behalf.

“Well, I could not be prouder of my partner, my best friend, the father of my children.”

She read a statement her husband had written to acknowledge the award from jail.

“With the start of Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, he launched a war on truth in our country,” Vladimir Kara-Murza said. 

“In Vladimir Putin’s Russia, speaking the truth is considered a crime against the state.”

He said that he dedicated the award to other political prisoners in Russia and the money that comes with it would go into a fund for their families.

The prize is named after the former Czech dissident and playwright who became president of the Czech Republic with the fall of Communism.

The award comes after the Russian rights group Memorial was a co-winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Protesters in Iran remained defiant in the fourth week of a movement against the Islamic republic despite a crackdown including the use of tear gas in Tehran and reports Monday of heavy weaponry used in the Kurdish-populated northwest.

Videos posted on social media indicated that protests flared at various points in the capital and other cities nationwide over the last days, with women seen burning headscarves and shouting slogans against the Islamic system.

Meanwhile, the Kurdish rights group Hengaw accused the authorities of using heavy weaponry, including “shelling” on neighbourhoods and “machine gun fire”, in the northwestern city of Sanandaj — claims which could not be independently confirmed.

The unrest erupted over three weeks ago over the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, an Iranian woman of Kurdish origin who died in hospital following her arrest by the notorious Tehran morality police who enforce the strict dress rules on women including compulsory headscarf.

Activists say she was beaten in custody, which is not confirmed by the authorities in Iran, who have ordered an investigation, and where a the medical report released blamed a pre-existing condition.

Outrage over her death sparked protests which have channelled anger among some Iranian women over the compulsory headscarf but have also seen repeated slogans against the Islamic system created by late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after the ousting of the shah in 1979.

The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) posted videos it said were of protests in Tehran on Sunday, including at several universities including Amir Kabir and Azad.

Footage shared on social media, including by news site Iran Wire, said that students at the women’s university Al-Zahra in Tehran had shouted slogans against the regime on campus during a visit by President Ebrahim Raisi on Saturday.

Student at universities including Tehran Azad also painted their hands red to evoke the crackdown by the authorities on the protests, images showed. 

State news agency IRNA said police used tear gas “to disperse the crowds in dozens of locations in Tehran”, adding that the demonstrators “chanted slogans and set fire to and damaged public property, including a police booth.

– Multi-faceted protests –

Analysts say that the multi-faceted nature of the protests — ranging from street marches to student strikes to individual actions of defiance — has complicated attempts by the authorities to quell the movement.

This could make them an even bigger challenge to the authorities under supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 83, than the November 2019 protests against energy price hikes that were bloodily put down.

One viral video said to show a woman bare-headed in defiance of the dress code, in a street in the northwestern city of Kermanshah with outstretched arms and offering “free hugs” to passers-by.

There have also been signs of labour unrest and videos broadcast by Persian media based outside Iran showed striking workers burning tyres outside the Asalouye petrochemical plant in the country’s southwest.

Meanwhile videos have shown schoolgirls removing headscarves and taking down pictures of Khomeini and Khamenei in their classrooms. There have also been unverified reports that subsequently several of these pupils were arrested.

The protests first erupted in the Kurdistan region of northwestern Iran where Amini hailed from and activists have claimed that protesters have on occasion even taken control of some streets.

Norway-based Hengaw said that Iranian security forces had shelled and fired on neighbourhoods in the city of Sanandaj after protests overnight in several districts. 

Gunshots were also heard in Amini’s home town of Saqqez, it added.

AFP was no immediately able to confirm the veracity of the videos. Internet access remains patchy across the country due to restrictions which have particularly affected the north.

– Mass arrests –

In an act of cyber defiance, the hacking group Edalat-e Ali (Ali’s Justice) had posted an image during the main state TV evening news on Saturday of Khamenei in crosshairs and being consumed by flames.

The crackdown on the protests sparked by  Amini’s death has claimed at least 95 lives according to Norway-based group Iran Human Rights.

Another 90 people were killed by the security forces in Iran’s far southeastern city of Zahedan from September 30 after protests sparked by the alleged rape of a teenage girl by a police chief in the Sistan-Baluchistan province, said IHR, citing the UK-based Baluch Activists Campaign.

Activists also accuse the authorities of carrying out a campaign of mass arrests and travel bans to quell the protests that have not spared even the famous.

Ali Daei, once the world’s top international goalscorer in men’s football, had his passport confiscated on returning to Tehran from abroad after bitterly criticising the Islamic republic on social media, Iranian media reported.

Air France and Airbus will go on trial on Monday on charges of involuntary manslaughter over the fatal 2009 crash of a jet heading to Paris from Brazil, killing all 228 people aboard.

Victims’ families and some aviation experts say the pilots were insufficiently trained to handle a loss of speed readings caused by crucial equipment freezing over in a storm.

Flight AF 447 from Rio de Janeiro plunged into the Atlantic Ocean in the early hours of June 1, 2009, after entering a zone near the Equator known for strong turbulence.

The Airbus A330 was carrying 12 crew members and 216 passengers. It was the carrier’s deadliest crash.

It took nearly two years to locate the bulk of the fuselage and recover the “black box” flight recorders.

French flagship carrier Air France and aircraft maker Airbus were charged as the inquiry progressed. 

Experts determined the crash resulted from mistakes made by pilots disorientated by so-called Pitot speed-monitoring tubes that had frozen over in thick cloud.

But investigating magistrates overseeing the case dropped the charges in 2019, a decision that infuriated victims’ families.

Prosecutors appealed against the decision and in 2021 a Paris court ruled there was sufficient evidence for a trial to go ahead. 

Ophelie Toulliou, who lost her brother on the flight, said it was essential “the truth come out, and that the sentences, if deserved, are handed down”.

“But the message is also to make companies that think they’re untouchable understand ‘You’re like everyone else and if you make mistakes, they will be punished,'” she told AFP.

– ‘Lost our speeds’ –

The court will hear testimony from dozens of aviation experts and pilots over two months of hearings, and each company faces a maximum fine of 225,000 euros ($220,000).

There will also be analysis of the final minutes in the cockpit before the plane went into free-fall after entering a so-called “intertropical convergence zone” that often produces volatile storms with heavy precipitation.

In the cold, the Pitot tubes froze, a problem that had already been reported by other pilots. The tubes were quickly replaced on planes worldwide in the months after the accident.

“We’ve lost our speeds,” one pilot is heard saying in the flight recordings, before other indicators mistakenly show a loss of altitude and a series of alarm messages appear on the cockpit screens. 

The pilots start climbing and even though a “STALL” alert sounds, reach 11,600 metres (38,060 feet). 

“I don’t know what’s happening,” one of the pilots is heard saying as the stall begins.

– Training overhaul –

Air France pilots’ union SPAF said it was now “indispensable for a court to hear all the parties and decide where responsibility lies in a public hearing”.

The crash prompted an overhaul of training protocols across the industry, in particular to prepare pilots to handle the intense stress of unforeseen circumstances.

Pilots are also now required to continually practice stall responses on simulators.

“That was the big change after this accident for all civil airline companies. Before, it was something pilots learned in basic training and then they were never trained again,” one airline executive told AFP, on condition of anonymity.

Testimony will also be heard from some of the 476 members of victims’ families who are civil plaintiffs in the case.

But Nelson Faria Marinho, president of the Brazilian association of victims’ relatives, said, “I’m not expecting anything from this trial.”

“Even if there is a conviction, who will be punished? The CEOs? They were changed at Airbus and Air France a long time ago,” he told AFP during an interview at his Rio home.

He will be represented by former French pilot Gerard Arnoux, who has advised several of the victims’ families and wrote a book titled “Rio-Paris Is Not Responding: AF447, the Crash that Should Not Have Happened”.

China recorded more than 2,000 Covid cases on Monday, its highest level for a month, as officials imposed new lockdowns and restrictions to stop outbreaks from spreading to the capital ahead of the Communist Party Congress.

Although the latest case numbers are small by global standards, Beijing’s strict zero-Covid policy means any outbreaks must be immediately eradicated.

President Xi Jinping, who is expected to secure a historic third term in office, has championed the policy, and any significant outbreak ahead of Sunday’s Congress opening would prove highly embarrassing for the party.

In Shanghai, tens of thousands of people were under lockdown on Monday, after multiple neighbourhoods were suddenly closed off over the weekend, following the discovery on Friday of 23 new infections.

Over 2,100 households in the financial hub were affected because of just one infection on Sunday, according to a government briefing.

Residents reacted in shock as green fences were erected around buildings, recalling the city’s harsh two-month lockdown in spring, which saw widespread complaints over shortages of food and medical treatment.

As of Monday, Shanghai has nine “medium-risk” locked-down neighbourhoods across six districts, authorities said, but there are likely many more lockdowns of individual buildings that have not been announced officially.

“After hearing about some situations, most people feel that it seems to have returned to April and May,” said one resident surnamed Li.

– Travel chaos –

Other Chinese cities were also affected.

On Friday, Yongji city in northern Shanxi province ordered a two-day lockdown of its three million residents after cases were found in a neighbouring city — despite Yongji itself recording no new infections at all.

Some travellers arriving in Beijing reported receiving a notification on their Covid tracking app which required them to undergo multiple PCR tests to access public spaces — even though they had come from areas without cases.

And some Beijing residents who had travelled during last week’s long public holiday were stranded after receiving a Covid tracking app notification which prevented them from boarding trains or flights back to the city.

Many left desperate pleas for help on the Weibo page of the official Beijing citizens’ helpline, but these comments were censored by Monday.

Several tourist hotspots imposed lockdowns last week, including Haikou city in tropical Hainan province and Xishuangbanna in the southern province of Yunnan, where hundreds of angry tourists were stranded at an airport after flights were abruptly cancelled.   

Northwestern China’s Xinjiang also banned all people from leaving the region last week after an outbreak was detected, as local authorities made a rare public admission of failure in controlling the virus.

One recent news report about a Shanghai tourist stranded in Xinjiang who took up a grape-picking job was later censored, while officials in one district last week urged tourists to “consider” taking up local employment.

Domestic tourism revenues and daily passenger trips during the October public holiday have fallen over 55 percent and 58 percent respectively from pre-pandemic levels, Nomura analysts wrote in a note. 

North Korea’s recent missile tests involved “tactical nuclear” drills to simulate hitting the South, and were overseen by leader Kim Jong Un in response to US-led joint military exercises in the region, state media said Monday.

Kim made acquiring tactical nukes — smaller, lighter weapons designed for battlefield use — a top priority at a key party congress in January 2021, and this year vowed to develop North Korea’s nuclear forces at the fastest possible speed.

The country revised its nuclear laws last month to allow pre-emptive strikes, with Kim declaring North Korea an “irreversible” nuclear power — effectively ending the possibility of negotiations over its arsenal.

Since then, Seoul, Tokyo and Washington have ramped up combined military exercises, including deploying a nuclear-powered US aircraft carrier to the area twice, infuriating Pyongyang, which sees such drills as rehearsals for invasion.

In response, North Korea “decided to organise military drills under the simulation of an actual war” that gamed out hitting South Korea’s ports, airports and military command facilities, the Korean Central News Agency said.

North Korean army units involved in “the operation of tactical nukes staged military drills from September 25 to October 9 in order to check and assess the war deterrent and nuclear counterattack capability,” the report said.

Kim “guided the military drills on the spot,” KCNA said, with images released by state media showing him clad in a white shirt, cheerfully giving instructions to uniformed soldiers.

Kim, who was also shown watching missiles soaring into the sky trailing columns of fire, dismissed the idea of restarting talks, saying North Korea “felt no necessity to do so,” KCNA reported.

The report also said that North Korea’s October 4 missile launch, which flew over Japan and prompted rare evacuation warnings, involved a “new-type ground-to-ground intermediate-range ballistic missile”.

That test — for which state media images showed Kim observing the missile flight data — aimed to “send more powerful and clear warning to the enemies”.

China’s foreign ministry spokesperson acknowledged KCNA’s reports, and echoed North Korea’s mention of the US-led joint drills in the region.

“We noted the relevant reports. We also noted the recent (US-Japan-South Korea) drills in the seas around DPRK,” Mao Ning told a regular briefing Monday, using the acronym for North Korea’s official name.

– Dangerous dynamic –

North Korea’s claim its missile launches are a “response” to US-South Korea drills is part of a “familiar spiral dynamic” on the Korean peninsula, said US-based security analyst Ankit Panda.

“I worry that this is the start of a dangerous dynamic on the Korean Peninsula, where we have two states in a bitter rivalry and each faces strong incentives to fire first in a serious crisis,” he said.

“We also have no real measures of negotiated restraint or hotlines to manage crises,” he told AFP.

It is significant that North Korea is not framing the recent launches as tests of the missiles themselves, but of the units that launch them, analysts said.

“That suggests these systems are deployed,” Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies wrote on Twitter.

– ‘Nuclear harbinger’ – 

In addition to the array of “tactical nuclear” drills, North Korea said it had carried out “a large-scale combined air-attack drill”, which was also overseen by Kim.

KCNA said this involved “more than 150 fighter planes” but analysts dismissed this as domestic propaganda, and Seoul said last week it had only detected 12 North Korean warplanes flying in formation.

The volley of KCNA statements about its recent tests — which are unusual, as state media no longer routinely comments on launches — indicates Pyongyang is concerned about the recent US-led joint drills, analysts said.

“To strengthen its self-proclaimed deterrent, it is making explicit the nuclear threat behind its recent missile launches,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.

“The KCNA report may also be a harbinger of a forthcoming nuclear test for the kind of tactical warhead that would arm the units Kim visited in the field,” he added.

Officials in Washington and Seoul have been warning for months that North Korea has completed preparations for another nuclear test — which would be the country’s seventh, and first since 2017.

“The fears of a nuclear war in Ukraine are no longer someone else’s concern,” Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University, told AFP.

“We need to take more seriously the fact that the possibility of a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula has increased.”

Taiwan’s leader warned Beijing on Monday that the island would never give up its democratic way of life in a national day speech in which she drew parallels with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The self-ruled democracy’s 23 million people live under the constant threat of invasion by China’s Communist Party, and Moscow’s war in Ukraine has deepened fears that Beijing might attempt something similar with the island.

In her speech, President Tsai Ing-wen compared Moscow’s invasion to Beijing’s goal of one day taking control of Taiwan — which it has vowed to do, by force if necessary.

“We absolutely cannot ignore the challenge that these military expansions pose to the free and democratic world order,” she said.

“The destruction of Taiwan’s democracy and freedom would be a grave defeat for the world’s democracies,” she added.

Taiwan and China split at the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949.

China’s President Xi Jinping has ramped up diplomatic, economic and military pressure on Taipei in recent years and is a key ally of Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Xi, China’s most authoritarian leader in a generation, is on the cusp of securing a third term later this month and has made taking Taiwan a key plank of his landmark “national rejuvenation” project.

But Tsai said becoming part of China was not acceptable to people in Taiwan, which has become a progressive democracy with a distinct Taiwanese identity.

“During the past 73 years, the people of Taiwan have lived and grown together on this land, and have formed our own strong sense of identity and belonging,” she said.

“The broadest consensus among the Taiwanese people and our various political parties is that we must defend our national sovereignty and our free and democratic way of life. On this point, we have no room for compromise.”

China cut off official ties with Taiwan after Tsai’s 2016 election because she regards the island is an already independent nation and not part of “one China”.

Beijing hit back at Tsai’s speech, calling her political party the “root cause of the current tension” between the two sides.

“We are willing to create broad space for peaceful unification, but we will never leave any space for Taiwan independence and separatist activities,” said foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning.

– ‘Porcupine strategy’ –

Taiwan is massively outgunned by China, which has the world’s largest military in terms of personnel, and has spent decades expanding its invasion capabilities.

Beijing hosted huge war drills in August around Taiwan to protest against a visit to Taipei by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Allies have urged Taiwan to adopt an asymmetric “porcupine strategy” that would make it hard for China’s larger military to invade, an argument that has been bolstered by the stout defence that Ukraine’s much smaller forces have put up against Moscow.

Tsai addressed this strategic shift directly in her speech. 

“We are ramping up the mass production of precision missiles and high-performance naval vessels,” she said. 

“In addition, we are working to acquire various small, highly mobile precision weapons that will help us develop comprehensive asymmetric warfare capabilities, ensuring that Taiwan is fully prepared to respond to external military threats,” she added.

She also reiterated the need to mobilise and train more civilians to work with the military, a strategy that Ukraine successfully adopted after Russia’s invasion.

“Every citizen is a guardian of our nation,” she said.

Taiwan’s national day comes shortly after China’s and the period can be a time of heightened tensions.

China sent more than 150 warplanes into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone (ADIZ) in the first 10 days of October last year for what was then a record. 

So far this October has been much calmer with 25 incursions, according to an AFP database.

But the total number of flights has risen dramatically with nearly 1,300 recorded ADIZ incursions so far in 2022 compared to 969 for all of last year.