No coalition consensus on foreign fighters detained in Syria
DUBAI: Human Rights Watch yesterday urged Saudi Arabia to allow independent observers access to detained women’s rights activists, saying Riyadh’s assurances of their well-being could not be trusted following the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The kingdom last month denied as ‘false’ and ‘unfounded’ reports published by HRW and Amnesty International that three women activists had been tortured and sexually harassed in detention.
“Saudi Arabia’s consistent lies about senior officials’ role in Jamal Khashoggi’s murder mean that the government’s denials that it tortured these women activists are not nearly good enough,” said HRW’s deputy Middle East director, Michael Page.
Khashoggi, a dissident columnist who lived in self-imposed exile in the United States, was killed inside the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul in early October.
His murder has put mounting pressure on Riyadh and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Salman, who Turkish officials – and reportedly the CIA – have concluded gave the orders.
The New York-based watchdog said it received a new report on November 28 from an ‘informed source’ indicating that Saudi authorities had tortured and sexually harassed a fourth woman activist.
Sources told HRW the torture of Saudi women activists ‘may be ongoing’. — AFP CHELSEA, Canada: The fate of 700 foreign fighters detained in Syria as part of the USled campaign against Islamic State militants will be up to each of their countries to decide, Canada’s defence minister said Thursday.
The prisoners are being held by Arab-Kurdish fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces, which seized swaths of northern and eastern Syria from the IS in a months-long assault backed by US-led coalition air support.
The detainees hail from some 40 countries, according to US Secretary of Defence James Mattis.
“Every nation will have to go through their own due process on this,” said Harjit Sajjan, speaking after a meeting of the coalition members in Chelsea, near the Canadian capital Ottawa.
He added that much investment had gone into ensuring their detention facilities were ‘in accordance with our standards’.
IS overran large parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq in 2014, declaring a ‘caliphate’ across territories it controlled.
But various offensives in both countries have routed the jihadists from most of that land, crushing their dreams of statehood.
Coalition states are wary of bringing home nationals detained in the campaign because of difficulties in gathering evidence from a war zone and the threat of returning jihadists radicalizing domestic inmates.
There is currently a demarcation line between areas controlled by the US-led coalition battling IS jihadists, mainly in eastern Syria, and those controlled by Syria and its Russian allies in western Syria.
The Syrian regime and its allies dispute the legality of the coalition’s effective control of the north of the country, where there is a Kurdish majority, and are likely to challenge it.
Western nations say they want to ‘stabilise’ the region to avoid a resurgence of IS and continue to fight its propaganda while attacking its jihadist networks. The aim of Thursday’s talks was to firm up those plans.
“There’s still work to be done,” said Mattis.
The coalition gathering brought together defense ministers and representatives from the top 13 military contributing nations known as the Restricted Group, which includes Australia, Britain, Canada, Germany and the United States. — AFP
Saudi guarantees on detained activists ‘not good enough’ – HRW