The Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) on Monday said Governor Nasir El-Rufai’s religious bill before Kaduna State House of Assembly is capable of setting Kaduna State on fire if it is not withdrawn.
Addressing journalists in Kaduna, Chairman of the PFN, Kaduna State chapter, Reverend Professor Femi Ehinmidu alongside representatives from churches within Kaduna metropolis said, the body will do everything legal to ensure that the rights of Christians to preach are not curtailed.
According to him, there is no basis for restricting and regulating religious activities.
“We expect the Government of Kaduna State instead of delving into sensitive religious matter should place priority on how to put food on the table of every family.
“It is unimaginable to see our erudite Governor exhuming a military era edit which came into being when the constitution was suspended. It smacks of mischief.
“Now with this bill that he has sent to the house, he is opening up new vistas of hostilities between Christians and Muslims when biased implementation is carried out if the bill is passed into law.”
He submitted that the bill is obnoxious and directly offends Christian faith.
While explaining that Bible commands Christians to, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature and 1 Thesselonians 5 vs 29 also said “pray without ceasing” this is the life wire of the Christian religion” , Reverend Ehinmidu pointed out that taking away the rights to preach and evangelise is telling the Christians not to practise their religion as commanded by the Lord Jesus.
“There are many laws that legislate on trampling on the rights of other people. Let those laws take full course, the bill should not take Kaduna State backward. We oppose the bill in its entirety and we shall do everything legal to ensure that our rights as Christians are not curtailed.
“We call on well meaning Nigerians and relevant stakeholders to prevail on the Government of Kaduna State to withdraw that vexing bill before Kaduna State House of Assembly.
“The bill has latent explosive heat that can set Kaduna State on fire if not tamed with proper stakeholders engagements or better still withdraw the bill from being processed in the house of assembly and use existing laws to address the re-emerging religious challenges.”
According to him, the Nigeria constitution guarantees freedom of worship and rights to propagate religious beliefs. Adding that Kaduna State government is not wiser than the whole lot of eminent Nigerians, who gave the nation the constitution.
The executive bill on religious activities in Kaduna State seek to contain hate speeches, licenced preachers, contain use of loud speakers among others.
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Empowering women will mean little without decent jobs, UN panel warned
Bold promises to empower women economically will come to nothing if the structural barriers that prevent women from getting decent jobs are not removed, civil society groups have warned.
A high-level panel backed by the World Bank, UN Women, the International Monetary Fund and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) is producing an action plan to improve women’s economic opportunities over the next 15 years.
The panel, launched during the World Economic Forum in January, held its first consultative meeting at the UN on Wednesday during the annual Commission on the Status of Women. It includes business leaders, politicians, academics and civil society, and is chaired by Luis Guillermo Solis, the president of Costa Rica, and Simona Scarpaleggia, CEO of Ikea Switzerland.
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Campaigners said they were disappointed not to have heard more from panellists about women’s unpaid work, exploitative contracts that keep women poor, and dangerous working conditions
Chiara Capraro, gender policy adviser at Christian Aid, said empowering women is not just about getting more female CEOs.
“The ILO estimates that, by 2020, 80% of people across the world will be affected by austerity policies. When services are cut, women have to pick up the slack and that affects their ability to make a living and access decent work,” she said.
Many women work in special economic zones, or for companies that don’t pay tax, or a living wage, and are denied access to unions, she added. “It’s really essential to see these dimensions reflected [in the panel],” she said.
Rachel Noble, women’s rights policy adviser at ActionAid, said: “It’s absolutely critical they pay attention to the fundamental structural issues blocking women from participating in the economy.
“There’s not nearly enough recognition of the fact that this is about women’s human rights, not just about creating economic growth.
“The biggest role companies can play is ensuring women have access to decent work, paying a living wage, giving them secure contracts, and ensuring their right to form unions and engage in collective bargaining.”
Ann Kargbo, head of Rehabilitation and Development Agency, a Sierra Leonean NGO working on gender equality in Bo county, added that women’s economic empowerment goes hand in hand with gender equality and will only be fully realised when women can take control of what they earn.
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“We need to know who owns the resources, who controls the resources and who makes decisions on the utilisation of resources.”
Allison Julien, from the National Domestic Workers Alliance, told the panel that the right to organise “has a profound impact on women’s ability to move from poverty and negotiate for a living wage and have access to social protection”.
“Unpaid care is the major structural barrier for women’s economic empowerment. Domestic work makes all other work possible. Without someone taking care of your home and children, people wouldn’t be able to take their jobs.”
According to the McKinsey Global Institute, if women in every country were to play an equal role to men in labour markets, up to $28tn could be added to the global annual GDP by 2025.
But women spend more than twice as much time as men doing unpaid care and domestic work, while earning on average 24% less than men for doing the same work. Women in poorer areas are more likely to work in informal unprotected jobs.
Tackling gender inequality could add $12tn to world economy, study finds
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The high-level panel will continue its consultations over the coming months before publishing the first of two reports in September. The report promises to include practical ways to improve women’s lives and “promote women’s leadership in driving economic growth”.
“I assure you, this panel is going to be bold, aim high and keep it focused,” said Solis. “We can’t afford to wait. It’s clear we need to move forward very fast and do everything that needs to be done to give more autonomy to women. We have to inspire.”
Justine Greening, the UK’s international development secretary, who sits on the panel but was not in New York for Wednesday’s meeting, said in a statement that the panel marked “a major step forward in the battle to close the gender gap in economies around the world. We now need to work hard to make sure it delivers real change for the world’s poorest women.”
Isis mortar kills at least 13 police at Egyptian checkpoint
At least 13 Egyptian policemen were killed in the Sinai peninsula when Islamic militants fired a mortar round at a security checkpoint in the city of Arish, security and medical sources said on Saturday.
Islamic State claimed responsibility on several websites for the attack and Egyptian state media later confirmed it.
Ambulances were subjected to heavy gunfire as they attempted to reach the wounded, sources said. Eyewitnesses reported hearing a massive explosion and said the city’s entrances and exits had been closed off by security forces.
Security sources said government forces later killed five of the militants who had carried out the attack.
Egypt is battling an insurgency that gained pace after its military overthrew President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s oldest Islamist movement, in mid-2013 following mass protests against his rule.
The insurgency, mounted by Isis’s Egyptian branch, Sinai Province, has killed hundreds of soldiers and police and started to attack western targets in the country.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the former military chief who led the overthrow of Morsi, describes Islamic militancy as an existential threat to Egypt, which is an ally of the United States. Isis controls large parts of Iraq and Syria and has a presence in Libya, which borders Egypt.
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Benin Elections: Incumbent PM Zinsou Loses To Opposition Candidate
Businessman Patrice Talon won the second round of Benin’s presidential election, his adversary and incumbent Prime Minister Lionel Zinsou told AFP before the release of official results.
“The provisional results point to a decisive victory for Patrice Talon,” Zinsou told AFP by telephone. “The difference is significant, (Talon’s) electorial victory is certain.
“I have called Patrice Talon this evening to congratulate him on his victory, wish him good luck and put myself at his disposal to prepare for the handover.”
Some 4.7 million people were eligible to cast their ballots in the vote to elect a successor to Benin’s outgoing President Thomas Boni Yayi.
He is bowing out after serving a maximum two five-year terms, marking him out from many African leaders who have tried to change their country’s constitution to stay in power.
Benin’s electoral commission is expected to announce provisional results at some time on Monday, Zinsou said.
The 61-year-old came out top in the first round of elections held on March 6 with 27.1 percent of the vote, compared to 23.5 percent for Talon.
The prime minister, who was a candidate for Boni Yayi’s Cowry Forces for an Emerging Benin (FCBE), was seen as the frontrunner with the support of most lawmakers in parliament.
But Talon, a 57-year-old entrepreneur who made his money in cotton and running Cotonou’s port, billed himself as the authentic Beninese candidate and repeatedly attacked his opponent’s dual French nationality.
Zinsou, who attended an elite French university and was a speechwriter for the former prime minister Laurent Fabius, has been called a “yovo” or “the white man” during the campaign.
He also took a knock when 24 of the 32 other candidates who stood in the first round came out in support of the businessman, including third-placed Sebastien Ajavon, who won 22 percent of votes.
– ‘World’s laughing stock’ –
On Thursday, the two candidates took part in Benin’s first-ever presidential debate in which Zinsou ran through his key manifesto pledges to cut poverty, and improve power supplies and healthcare.
But Talon harped on the record of Boni Yayi, whom he said had created “a banana republic” that had become “the laughing stock of the world”, as well as questioning Zinsou’s knowledge of Benin.
He also launched a string of personal attacks against Zinsou, accusing him of acting like “a governor in a land of savages”.
Talon had portrayed himself as a big-spender and a self-made man in his campaign, turning up for the first-round vote in a Porsche, white open-necked shirt, a fitted suit and sun-glasses.
From humble beginnings in the coastal town of Ouidah, he rose to become one of the most powerful men in Beninese business and bankrolled Boni Yayi’s successful 2006 and 2011 presidential campaigns.
But he fled to exile in France after being accused of masterminding an alleged plot to poison the president in 2012, and only returned last October after receiving a presidential pardon.
His success and taste for luxury have attracted support from many young Beninese, who hope he can create jobs and wealth on a national scale.
His major challenges will be tackling high youth unemployment, corruption and improving health and education in the country of 10.6 million people.
Diversifying an economy that largely relies on agriculture, trade and exports with its neighbour to the east, Nigeria, will also be high on the agenda.
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Troops Kill Ameer Of Dalore, 18 Other Terrorists
The Nigerian Army said its troops have killed the Ameer of Dalore and 18 other Boko Haram Terrorists in fresh raid, adding that 67 hostages were rescued from the terrorists.
A statement by Colonel Acting Director, Army Public Relations, Sani Kukasheka Usman reads; “Elements of 22 Brigade Garrison carried out clearing operation at Dalore camp on Sunday in which they killed 19 Boko Haram terrorists among whom was Ameer of Dalore. The troops also captured 2 AK-47 Rifles, 1 Small Machine Gun and 1 Hand Grenade and recovered 4 pickup vehicles.
“The troops also rescued 67 hostages from the terrorists. The freed hostages are undergoing screening at Internally Displaced Persons in Dikwa.
“Unfortunately, during the operation the troops Mine Resistant Anti-Personnel (MRAP) vehicle ran into an Improvised Explosive Device and had a damaged tyre, Usman said.
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Congo politician guilty in first ICC trial to focus on rape as a war crime
The former Congolese vice-president, Jean-Pierre Bemba, has been found guilty in the first trial at the international criminal court to focus on the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war.
The 53-year-old warlord commanded a militia that committed mass murder, rape and pillage in the neighbouring Central African Republic, the court ruled at the end of his trial in The Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
More than 5,000 victims were granted the right to participate in the hearings – the highest number in any of the cases before the court.
The verdicts mark the first time the ICC has convicted defendants of rape or command responsibility for the actions of their troops, a legal principle established by other UN tribunals that makes a commander responsible for failing to take action to stop crimes he knows are being committed by subordinates.
Prosecutors told the court that Bemba, who led the Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC), “knew that the troops were committing crimes and did not take all necessary and reasonable measures within his power to prevent or repress their commission”.
Bemba was convicted of two counts of crimes against humanity, involving murder and rape, as well as three counts of war crimes – murder, rape and pillaging – all connected to attacks in CAR between 2002 and 2003. His troops had entered the country to prop up the country’s president, Ange-Félix Patassé, who was eventually ousted.
The presiding Brazilian judge, Sylvia Steiner, said that MLC soldiers had opened fire on civilians without regard to age or gender. “The civilian population was the primary rather than the incidental target of the attack,” she said in her judgment.
In a graphic description of the attacks, Steiner said: “MLC soldiers by force knowingly and intentionally invaded the bodies of the victims by penetrating the victims’ anuses, vaginas or other bodily openings with their penises.” On occasions family members were forced, at gunpoint, to watch.
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Bemba, who fled the Democratic Republic of Congo after losing a presidential poll, was arrested in Belgium in 2008 and transferred to the ICC’s detention centre in The Hague. His trial started in November 2010 and lasted four years. It heard from 77 witnesses.
His defence lawyers insisted he had no control over his 1,500 troops. “There is not a single documentary piece of evidence that shows any orders passing from Bemba and going to his troops in the Central African Republic,” Kate Gibson, representing him, said in her closing argument.
Bemba, dressed in a suit and burgundy-coloured tie, sat at the back of the court, occasionally shaking his head, as Steiner detailed the atrocities for which he was responsible. He will be sentenced at a later hearing.
Amnesty International said the guilty verdict against Bemba was an “historic moment in the battle for justice” for victims of sexual violence in the CAR and around the world.
“It sends a clear message that impunity for sexual violence as a tool of war will not be tolerated,” said the group’s west and central Africa director, Samira Daoud. “It also makes clear that military commanders and political superiors must take all necessary steps to prevent their subordinates from committing such heinous acts and will be held accountable if they fail to do so.”
Angelina Jolie Pitt, co-founder of the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative, said in a statement issued through the UK Foreign Office: “My thoughts and my admiration go out to the survivors and witnesses who bravely testified in this case and contributed to this landmark conviction. I can only imagine the reaction of victims who in their hearts probably never thought that this day would come.
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“It is shocking that this conviction is the first of its kind. It is a reminder of how long it has taken us to reach this point, and how many victims have never seen justice.”
Karine Bonneau, international justice director at the Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH), which supported victims from the Central African Republic at the trial, welcomed the decision.
“There were more than 1,000 rapes,” she said. “This is the first time that the ICC has convicted anyone of command responsibility. It’s very important that the people who gave the orders should be held responsible.
“It will now be up to the court to determine reparations and restitution. They may be more medical and psychological support for the victims as well as compensation.” Bonneau was critical, however, of the two years it had taken the court to deliver its verdict. “Two years is too long,” she added.
The convictions will be a boost for the court’s prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, who has made the fight against sexual assault in conflict one of her priorities.
Descartes Mponge, secretary general of Congolese rights group ACADHOSHA, said the judgment “strengthens the ICC’s credibility in Africa where it is accused of bias and politicisation”.
James Goldston, executive director of the Open Society Justice Initiative in New York, said: “The guilty verdict marks another important milestone for the ICC, both in dealing head-on with the issue of sexual violence in war, and in making clear the responsibility of military commanders for the actions of those under their command.”
Bemba and four others are also on trial in a second case in which they are accused of bribing witnesses in his main trial. He will be sentenced after a separate hearing.
Black Americans and encryption: the stakes are higher than Apple v FBI
When the FBI branded Martin Luther King Jr a “dangerous” threat to national security and began tapping his phones, it was part of a long history of spying on black activists in the United States. But the government surveillance of black bodies has never been limited to activists – in fact, according to the FBI; you only had to be black.
In the current fight between Apple and the FBI, black perspectives are largely invisible, yet black communities stand to lose big if the FBI wins. A federal judge in California is set to rule on Tuesday whether the FBI will be granted a request compelling Apple to unlock the iPhone of a San Bernardino shooter.
While seemingly about protecting national security – the same rationale used to justify 20th century surveillance of MLK, the Black Panther Party and others – this case is about much more. It could establish a legal precedent used to suppress the growing movement for black lives that is deposing public officials and disrupting the daily assault on black people in cities across the country.
Building off the civil rights and black power movements of the 1960s, a 21st century movement for black lives is coming of age, mobilizing the same courageous methods of non-violent direct action, using the same local-to-local strategy, and making many of the same demands. An intersectional approach is replacing old identity politics, and a newfound digital landscape is making communication possible in more directions and at previously unimaginable speeds. The movement for black lives is attracting the brightest minds and bravest bodies. Black activists are developing new ways of grassroots organizing in an information economy.
Like its predecessors, the democratic movement for black lives has been met by anti-democratic state surveillance and anti-black police violence. New “smart” policing methods are being used by modern-day gumshoes who, fueled by the false rhetoric of black criminality, experiment with high-tech tools to the detriment of black democratic engagement.
In the 20th century, the FBI admitted to overreaching and violating the constitution when it used its counter intelligence program, COINTELPRO, for domestic surveillance that spied on black activists. Last year, FBI director James Comey admitted in a congressional committee hearing to flying spy planes that monitored protests in the wake of police killings of black people in Ferguson and Baltimore with the agency working in tandem with local police. In Chicago, home of the infamous “red squad”, police collected “First Amendment Worksheets” on black organizations such as We Charge Genocide, and Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Push Coalition.
There are reports from activists on the front lines of protests about police employing “kill switch” technology to cut off live-streaming, using Stingrays to intercept phone calls, or flying drones overhead for crowd control, but such claims are unconfirmed as police refuse to reveal their techniques and are not compelled by law to do so.
Twentieth century surveillance is alive and well in the 21st century, and is one powerful reason why, in a digital age and era of big data, the fight for racial justice must also include a fight for the equal and fair application of first and fourth amendment rights.
A letter was sent by some of us in the Black Lives Matter movement to California federal magistrate judge Sheri Pym, who is overseeing the Apple case, warning of the dangerous implications of siding with the FBI. It was signed by Beats, Rhymes & Relief, the Gathering for Justice, Justice League NYC, writer Shaun King, Black Lives Matter co-founder and Black Alliance for Just Immigration executive director Opal Tometi, as well as the organization I work for, the Center for Media Justice.
I signed because, as the child of a Black Panther, I grew up with the persistent threat of police spying. The police “watched” my family in the name of “safety” and “national security”, but I knew that we became targets of government surveillance because my mother advocated for black bodies abandoned and abused by state violence.
That is why the FBI case is not only against Apple, but is also against communities of color and communities of resistance. It is against democracy. It is against the black immigrant worker who has fled political persecution, the black and Latino youth putting themselves on the line to catalyze deep change, the gender non-conforming bodies subjected to daily assaults, the Muslim communities regularly targeted by bias and hate crimes. We don’t have the same protections others take for granted, we are instead treated as perpetually guilty.
Reports have surfaced that the Department of Homeland Security has been monitoring the movement for black lives since the initial uprisings in Ferguson. We know that police are watching the tweets we write, the Facebook event pages we set up, and the demonstrations we organize in the streets. If we are arrested, our phones will be confiscated. Whether or not police can look into our phones, whether or not they need a warrant, is being tested in court. This is not a vision of some distant dystopic future, this is happening right now. This is why the FBI case against Apple, is also against us.
For black communities and others pushed to the margins of political and economic power – democratic engagement and the exercise of our human and civil rights in a digital age demands the ability to encrypt our communications.
It isn’t just Black activists either – Latino activists are raising a similar rallying cry. Consider the prospect of a President Trump, who has notoriously expressed his anti-immigrant views, and sided with the FBI in its fight against Apple. With record numbers of deportations already at hand – could undocumented immigrants be rounded up using the information transmitted from their cellphones?
A newly developed open source app for iPhones called Signal, which encrypts phone calls and text messages, has become a favorite among organizers as well as Edward Snowden. It allows for free and instant encryption of messages that cannot be cracked by anybody wanting to eavesdrop. Activists across the world have adopted the app as one way to protect their right to organize.
Yet encryption technology is for more than just activists. Whether protecting from identity theft or government surveillance – all communities need to protect their data in the digital age. We cannot have a healthy democracy without everyone’s voice.
Black voices, and other voices of color, have long been missing from the debates on government surveillance – but not anymore. We’re here, and we are calling on companies to protect the rights of consumers, and on legislators to protect the rights of residents. One way to do both is to pass the Encrypt Act 2016, which would, if passed, prevent the government, or a contracted company, from altering the security functions of computers and cellphones, or decoding encrypted information, in order to conduct a search. Even now, members of congress are bizarrely moving to ban encryption at the state level using the rhetoric of terrorism and black criminality.
Encryption is necessary for black civil and human rights to prosper, but isn’t enough. While it protects our democratic right to organize for change, we must fight for a world in which those rights are not under persistent threat. The Apple v the FBI case is a test case for democracy. It will determine, for this and the next generation, who has the right to communicate, and therefore the power to define reality.
In the encryption debate, the stakes are high for black people. Indeed, we are in a fight for our lives. I believe that we will win. Thanks for reading.
