Monthly Archives: December 2015

Race + Color + Ethnicity

Israel News | Arabs

Israel announces multibillion-shekel plan to improve living conditions of Israeli Arabs
  • The government announced that 13 billion shekels ($3.3 billion) will be allocated towards education, infrastructure, culture, sports, and transportation over five years in predominantly Arab areas.
  • Poverty, unemployment, underemployment, and lower educational achievement and attainment have long plagued Israel’s Arab minority, which comprises around a fifth of the total Israeli population.
  • The Mossawa Center, an Arab advocacy organization, criticized the announcement as vague and far short of the funding requested to bring the living standards of Israel’s Arab citizens in line with its Jewish population.

Read more:
“Israel to spend $3 billion more to improve living standards of Arab minority” (Reuters)
“Israel Seeks to Bring Arab Citizens Into Mainstream With Funds” (Bloomberg)

Race + Color + Ethnicity

Israel News | Interethnic

Israel’s education ministry denies inclusion of novel featuring Jewish-Arab romance
  • The request to include Borderlife by Dorit Rabinyan in the high school curriculum was denied out of fear of escalating already tense relations between Jews and Arabs in the country as violence continues.
  • As teachers and students protested, the ministry relaxed its ruling, saying the work could be studied in advanced literature classes, but that other controversial content—including its depiction of soldiers—and concerns about national identity would keep the book from the general curriculum.
  • The book centers on a Jewish Israeli woman and a Palestinian man, who fall in love while overseas in New York.

Read more:
“Israel bars novel about Jewish-Arab love affair from school curriculum” (Reuters)
“Bennett Backs School Ban on Novel About Jewish-Arab Love Affair” (Haaretz)
“Education Ministry under fire for excluding novel about Jewish-Arab love story” (The Jerusalem Post)

(Image Credit: Ofer Vaknin/Haaretz)

Ideology + Affiliation, Nationality + Migration

China News | Foreign Journalists

French journalist denied credentials, expelled from China following controversial article
  • China’s foreign ministry refused to renew the press credentials of Ursula Gauthier, a reporter for the French magazine L’Obs, following a controversial article crticizing China’s anti-terrorism policies in Xinjiang.
  • Chinese officials accused her of sympathizing with terrorists and demanded a public apology from her, which lead to the credential revocation when she refused.
  • Although China’s domestic press is heavily regulated, foreign press have typically had considerably more freedom to report on controversial topics, with the last foreign reporter expelled in 2012.

Read more:
“Plane carrying expelled French reporter leaves China” (France 24)
“French journalist forced to leave China after article on troubled Xinjiang” (Reuters)
“French media denounce expulsion of straight talking China correspondent” (RFI)

(Image Credit: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

Race + Color + Ethnicity

Rwanda News | Tutsi

Rwandan pastor convicted of involvement in 1994 genocide
  • Jean Uwinkindi, a former Pentecostal pastor, was sentenced to life imprisonment after being convicted of contributing to the slaughter that left 800,000 minority ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus dead in 1994.
  • The court found that Uwinkindi, arrested in 2010, was responsible for coordinating and leading attacks against Tutsis at Rwankeri and Kanzene hills
  • Uwinkindi had been a pastor at the time of the genocide and reportedly executed Tutsi women and children who sought refuge in his church.

Read more:
“Rwandan pastor jailed for life for genocide-era crimes” (Reuters)
“Rwanda : Génocide, un ancien pasteur condamné à la prison à vie” (Koaci, in French)
“Rwanda genocide: Jean Uwinkindi sentenced to life in prison” (BBC)

(Image Credit: Getty Images, via BBC)

Gender

South Korea News | Women

Protesters demonstrate against Japan’s accord with South Korea over Korean “comfort women”
  • Hundreds protested in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul following the release of the terms of the agreement between the two countries over the long-divisive issue of the Korean women forced to work in Japanese military brothels in WWII.
  • The terms included a 1 billion yen ($8.3 million) fund for survivors and the reiteration of an official national apology.
  • Protesters argued that none of the 46 public survivors had not been consulted when the terms were set and that the agreement still allowed Japan to evade responsibility in educational and diplomatic channels.

Read more:
“South Korea ‘comfort women’ reject deal with Japan” (Deutsche Welle)
“South Korean ‘comfort women’ protest against accord with Japan” (Reuters)
“Group says as victims were not consulted, ‘comfort women’ deal not final” (The Japan Times)

(Image Credit: K. Hong-Ji/Reuters, via Deutsche Welle)

 

Nationality + Migration

Central America News | Cuban Migrants

1 Comment
Cuban asylum-seekers bound for U.S. stranded in Costa Rica and Panama as Nicaragua refuses entry
  • As the influx of Cuban asylum-seekers increases to levels not seen since 1994’s “raft exodus,” more than 6,000 have found themselves stranded in Costa Rica and Panama for the last six weeks after having been refused entry to Nicaragua, whose government is allied with Raúl Castro’s.
  • As Costa Rica has reversed its open transit policy for Cuban migrants, the Central American Integration System has arranged a massive airlift to El Salvador, allowing refugees to bypass Nicaragua, although thousands who began their journey in Ecuador are unaccounted for.
  • Emigrant Cubans, fearing a revision of the U.S.’s “wet foot, dry foot” immigration policy allowing Cubans who land in the U.S. a path to permanent residency, have taken to Central American land routes in addition to well-known routes by sea.

Read more:
“Central American countries agree airlift of Cuban migrants seeking to enter US” (The Guardian)
“Central American nations announce deal on Cuban migrants” (Miami Herald)
“Costa Rica deports Cubans amid ‘transit crisis’” (Deutsche Welle)

(Image Credit: Marcelino Rosario/EPA, via the Guardian)

Sexual + Gender Minorities

Turkey News | LGBT

Court fines Turkey’s football governing body for firing gay referee
  • Istanbul’s 20th Court for Serious Crimes fined the Turkish Football Federation 23,000 Turkish lira ($7,900) for revoking the refereeing license of Halil İbrahim Dinçdağ, the country’s first openly gay referee, in 2009.
  • Dinçdağ’s release came after the TFF declared him unfit for military service due to the military’s exemption of gay men from military service, with which referees are required to be in good standing.
  • Dinçdağ’s lawyer plans to appeal the ruling, which fell considerably short of the 110,000 lira originally demanded.

Read more:
“Turkey’s top football body fined over dismissal of gay referee” (Hürriyet News Daily)
“Turkish Football Federation fined for sacking gay referee” (BBC)
“Turkish FA ordered to compensate referee who lost licence for being gay” (AFP, via the Guardian)

(Image Credit: DHA Photo, via Hürriyet News Daily)