To be a Refugee in Saudi or the Gulf

Mohamed Ghlian

The following is a translation of an Arabic article written by Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and published in September 12, 2015 on Al Hayat’s website. This article came as a response to the international media and rights organizations scrutiny of Saudi Arabia and Arab Gulf countries for their refusal to accept Syrian refugees. Article displays how propaganda and media spin work in Saudi Arabia. According to Khashoggi, poor Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries don’t have the resources or economic power to handle even those who reside there, let alone accept a “flood” of Syrian refugees. Sadly, even supposedly intelligent people in Saudi Arabia fall for this type of rhetoric and against all evidence to the contrary, they believe Saudi Arabia is hosting 0.5-2 million Syrian refugees and is doing more than enough to help them.

Why doesn’t the Kingdom and Gulf countries receive Syrian refugees instead of having them die in the sea? Some of us ask this in a simpleton manner, whereas others pose this question with malice to change the subject and throw the circle of guilt far away from the regime that pushed its people to choose either dying in the sea or not live in their home country.

From the beginning of the Syrian tragedy the Kingdom has been receiving Syrians. An official I spoke with estimates them to be around half a million, but they were not registered as refugees. The Kingdom is not a bordering country with Syria, and they didn’t come as refugees. Rather, they came with visitor visas throughout the crisis, and the Kingdom didn’t feel fed up with them, ask them to leave, or arrest anyone carrying an expired visa (as a bordering country that’s supposed to be a sister one to Syria has done). Some [Syrians] have found good opportunities for work, and others didn’t. The government has allowed them to send their children to public schools. But this doesn’t mean they’re happy. I have a Syrian friend whose small apartment in Jeddah has doubled in inhabitants, and he has nothing but patience.

The Kingdom can receive more of them, as some European countries and rights organizations have requested, with simplicity or malice. But they don’t want them to come [to the Kingdom] as refugees. There’s no benefit in the Kingdom or other Gulf countries constructing more camps, because Syrians are fed up with camp life and want to live. If we don’t return their country to them, they will remain nomads searching for a country to secure them so they can build their futures in it. The Kingdom and Gulf countries can’t make this option available to them.

I know another Syrian living in the Kingdom and intending to migrate by any means possible to Europe. He hears of his cousin who got an opportunity to work, and before long became Swedish, the same as thousands of Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans, Somalis, and others from among the miserable Arabs and Muslims whose countries have become fed up with them as they blunder between failure, war, and extremist liberalism, religiosity, and sectarianism.

We in Saudi don’t grant citizenship easily, and this is the same for most Gulf countries. The reason is not racism or a feeling of superiority. A country like Saudi, its citizens are from all the races that shape the rainbow of migrants awaiting at European gates. The reason is solely economic. Our state is the same as the state of European countries that don’t want foreign migrants, such as Hungary and Greece, because their economies can’t take them. We’re not a great economic power like Germany, which can – even needs – to take up more migrants but abstains because it wants to be selective with them and not receive them as a torrential flood.

We’re from the first group [i.e., Hungary and Greece], and if our brotherhood with Syrians has overcome us to open our doors as much as we can, our economy can’t withstand more refugees turning into permanent residents. Our market is saturated with foreign workers, most of which we don’t even need. This has reflected negatively on our society and economy. We think reluctantly about how to solve this accumulated problem, we get confronted with its numbers and the reality of unemployment among our own citizens every time we hold a conference on “Foreign Workers in Gulf Countries, Current Reality and Future” (a title given to a study published last week in Al Jazeera by Dr. Jassim Husain). Anyone who read it must have felt worried and understood the dangers facing the Gulf as it delves into the sea of foreign workers, who will remain foreign in a society that doesn’t want and can’t make them citizens. But we quickly forget or ignore our concern, and resume our deformed economic life because we’ve become “addicted” to foreign workers, which form one third of the Saudi “nation” and more than half or even up to 80 percent of inhabitants in the rest of Gulf countries. Some of us want to lower their numbers (I’m sure that officials in the Kingdom want this and are planning for it). Therefore, resettling hundreds of thousands of Syrians will unsettle all our economic calculations and services for citizens. I said “resettling” because that’s what Syrians want. They don’t want a tent or an iron fence like the one they left in the Za’tari camp in Jordan or the Ghazi-Aintab camp in Turkey. There’s nothing that distinguishes one camp from another. They’re all miserable after you spend one or two years in them waiting to return home. Syrians want to settle, to become “citizens”. To be Jordanians, but they don’t have enough jobs there. To be Turkish citizens so they can argue with their bosses in order to receive an equal salary to their Turkish co-workers.

The father of Aylan, the drowned Kurdish boy whose picture exploded the issue of Syrian refugees across the world, didn’t flee from Kobani directly to the sea. Before that he lived in Turkey for many months. He tried camp life, and accepted a modest salary equal to a quarter of what a Turkish worker receives. But he became fed up and saved the $4000 he needed to join the trip “gambling with death.” Either he wins Europe, its social security, job opportunities, settlement, then becoming a citizen, or death. His family’s destiny was death, and his share was to narrate to us his tragedy and live the rest of his life in depression from loss.
Syrians don’t need refugee camps. There are refugee camps for them in Jordan, Turkey, and Lebanon where 4 million Syrians are officially registered as refugees. They’re in need of a home. Saudi and Gulf countries can’t be that alternative home.

The Syrian refugee crisis should expose to Saudis and Gulf citizen the job market faults they have. The grave mistake they made is in fighting the natural order that gave the Arabian Peninsula a determined amount of natural resources. They’ve burdened it with a number of inhabitants that can’t be supported with what they need from food and water. The Gulf citizen consumes from natural resources multitudes more than what God has determined for the inhabitants of the Peninsula. The destiny of God and history have run a course such that the overflow of Arabs left the Peninsula every time the balance between their numbers and its ability to provide them with sustenance was upset. Syria and Iraq were always the preferred destination, until oil and national borders stopped this migration. Now the Arabian Peninsula has become for the first time since God created it an attractive destination for inhabitants, until it’s become saturated to the point where it can’t receive those who want to return to it – it can barely handle its own people.

The solution is for us to go there, and fix the conditions in Syria no matter how much it costs, so that its people can stay in it and return to it. What we’ve witnessed in Saudi and the Gulf without complaint, and what Europe has witnessed and complained, is the tip of a massive iceberg of people that’s been forming for four years, and it will flood all of us, because the Syrian people also want a life.

Saudi Arabia: A Family Man In Hiding

By Tariq A. Al-Maeena


Other people’s problems often hit a nerve, a nerve that invokes passion, anger and the need for justice.  Such were my emotions when I read a blog by Ali Shah titled “Our lives-KSA.”  Ali Shah, the CEO of Ali Shah Consulting Services (ASCS) runs several blogs.  He proudly traces his roots to Makkah, directly through the lineage of Ali Bin Abu Talib.  He is the great grandson of Syed Siddique Hasan Al-Qanauji, the ruler of Bhopal state in colonial India.

Ali was an infant, barely 60 days old, when he arrived in this country several decades ago.  He knows of no other home and has become a successful and enterprising entrepreneur, one who has given back to Saudi society in the form of helping Saudi youth find gainful employment.  His other services include providing consulting services to expatriate companies and individuals considering opening businesses in this country.  He also runs several blogs.

The blog piece in question deals with the dilemma of the visa trade.  It reads: “A family man. A man with a wife and three kids. An educated man. He was at my office last night. He had a ‘small’ issue according to someone going through his file.

“He is listed as ‘huroub’ (an expatriate worker who has run away from his sponsor). He has had this status for the past two years. For the past two years, his kids have not gone to school. For the past two years, he has been working illegally as a private driver to make ends meet and running from checkpoints. For the past two years, his life has been hell. His wife has lost hope and become depressed. His kids simply watch TV all day.

“Why does he have huroub status?  His sponsor reported this and gave him this status. And then immediately called him and said: ‘Give me SR10,000, and I will remove this status’. The man sent his sponsor the money and then the sponsor disappeared for a year.

“Suddenly, last week a man appeared from nowhere and told this man that he would fix the status and get him transferred to a new sponsor. This gave great hope to the family. But then, the man called him and said: ‘Oh! You are wanted by the police because your sponsor reported that you borrowed SR50,000 from him and did not pay it back!’

“He never borrowed this money and there was no paper to prove he did.

“The family panicked and begged for a solution. The man said that he would discuss the matter with the sponsor and get a solution. The sponsor, according to him, asked for SR5,000 and promised he would take back his complaint from the police and release him as well. The victim paid this money.

“When I heard this, I went straight to the police station and by luck found a senior officer whom I knew. I asked him about the policy when it comes to reporting money issues. He said they did not get involved unless it’s a ‘bounced check’ case.

“Such claims go to court and he doubted very much that a sponsor would go to court without documentary evidence and even if he did, the judge would summon both parties.

“The huroub victim was tricked again. So far, his expenses have reached SR25,000. And he is ‘illegal’. This means if the authorities catch him with this status, he will be deported and blacklisted with his family. This also means he cannot work anywhere. This means the family is barely surviving. What did he do to deserve this?  What did his wife and kids do to deserve this?

“I told him to leave Saudi Arabia. Be blacklisted. Do not return. He looked at me with a wry smile and asked: after 30 years and penniless? Is this what I get for coming to live and work in the land of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)?

                                      “I had no words in response. Ali Shah.”

While Ali Shah may have been stumped for words, I am angry enough to ask: Why is such a situation allowed to exist?  Why have the authorities neglected the crimes perpetrated against expatriates through visa trading and extortion?  Who are these sponsors selling their visas in the open market and getting rich off hapless workers?  Holding workers in bondage and playing with their lives is no different than slavery.
Why are these Saudis allowed to violate the norms of humanity through loopholes in the Ministry of Labor?  Would somebody answer please!

This article appeared at Saudi Gazette.

LIBYAN CRISIS: IS THERE ANY HOPE FOR A POLITICAL SETTLEMENT?

Geopolitics\Christopher Bowerin

In the aftermath of Colonel Gadaffi’s regime and personal demise in 2011, Libya has slipped back into Civil War as the country’s hoped for transition from dictatorship to democracy has stalled, and the country has fragmented.
Today, Libya is facing political, economic and social turmoil with the two rival governments of the Toburk Government in the East and the New General Congress in Tripoli fighting for power and resources, each backed by several militias.
As a result of these tensions between Nationalists, Islamists and militias, ISIL has been able to establish a presence; migrants have crossed the Mediterranean and died in the process; criminal gangs have flourished, and the economy is in meltdown. As the conflict unfolds, so does the true complexity of the situation as the major political challenges move into yet sharper focus. Time is running out, and the need for a peace agreement is pressing, but do the politicians and the powerful militias have an appetite for peace or for the continued turmoil of an extended civil war?
How did Libya Descend into Chaos?
In the Post-Gaddafi era, Libya has failed to cement a strong and stable Government despite the 2012 elections which partially achieved a peaceful transition of power to a democratically elected government. However, the ever-increasing power of militia groups and the government’s failure to control and disarm revolutionary brigades, has meant that the elected Libyan authorities never achieved full control over the country.
In early 2014, protests began in response to the then elected General National Congress (Libya’s legislative authority) refusal to disband despite the expiration of its electoral mandate. As a result, in May 2014 General Haftar, who later became the military leader of Operation Dignity, tried to dissolve the General National Congress (GNC) by force through conducting military operations in Benghazi. The GNC responded by calling national elections in June 2014.
In the resulting election for the Council of Deputies Islamic representation suffered a landslide defeat, however the 18% (630,000) turnout, down from 60% in 2012, provided the Islamic movement with a rationale for rejecting the outcome. In the uncertainty prevailing at the time, the self-proclaimed new GNC used militia groups such as Misratan and Berber to take control of Tripoli by force, obliging the internationally recognised Council of Deputies to retreat to Toburk in the East. At one point the Council had to meet on a car ferry, such was the confusion caused by the crisis.
From then on, Libya has had two separate administrations vying for power – a clear indication of a divided and troubled nation.
The Role of the UN Peace Negotiations
The United Nations (UN), in the aftermath of the original 2011 civil war, launched a support mission in Libya (UNSMIL), which was political in nature, seeking to help the National Transition Council rebuild state institutions and the rule of law, control unsecured arms and support Libya’s transition to democracy. With Libya’s path to democracy collapsing and a new civil war breaking out, UNSMIL has led a political dialogue to find a solution to the crisis.
The UN envoy to Libya, Bernardino Leon, has been successful in initiating talks between the two rival governments and some of the militia groups to try to reach a political settlement, but both Governments have rejected various UN proposals for reconciliation and unification.
In January 2015 there were promising signs with a partial ceasefire agreed after UN-sponsored talks. In May, after months of talks Leon issued a promising statement that 80% of UN proposals had been agreed and that a Unity Government could be established in weeks.
The UN’s proposal to date, announced in June, was to bring the two rival governments together to form a one-year National Unity Government where a Council of Ministers would be headed by a Prime Minister, which would reinstall the Toburk parliament in Tripoli, in conjunction with a Libyan Dawn-Affiliate consultative body. This represents an attempt to bring the factions together, control the Militia groups and establish a new constitution.
Other measures such as the UN Arms Embargo have remained in place since the 2011 Civil War despite actors in Libya and Egypt urging an end to the embargo so the Libyan Army could use heavy weaponry and increase its strength in the east.
Where does the Toburk Government stand?
The Toburk Government, also known as the Council of Deputies or House of Representatives, is the internationally recognized government of Libya. It is supported by a military alliance known as Dignity, led by General Hafter, a former servant and a later opponent of Gaddafi. The Council has received strong support from Egypt and the UAE through airstrikes and the confidence of the US.
However, international support is only a part of the story. Domestically, the Libyan Supreme Court based in Tripoli declared last November that the 2014 election result was unconstitutional and that the House of Representative should be dissolved. This ruling was decisively rejected by the Toburk Government who continue to make a stand with superior military assets such as air power and artillery at its disposal. Dignity forces are currently fighting to take full control of Benghazi and other eastern cities to establish a stronghold in the East. General Hafter has called those who serve with Libyan Dawn ‘extremists and terrorists’, making it clear that Dignity is out to eliminate political Islam wherever it is found.
When it comes to the prospects of a negotiated settlement, the Council rejected the UN’s June proposals on a potential power-sharing agreement between the two rival governments. The UN proposal of a one-year government would have created a 120 member state council, including 90 members from the General National Congress.
The Council of Deputies spokesman stated categorically that they would not accept any deal that compelled it to share power with the second legislative body. The Council continues to oppose sharing or increasing the power of the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies in the Dawn Coalition. However there is the potential for compromise with the Toburk Government signing peace agreements with some local factions to live, work and govern together.
Where does the New General National Congress stand?
The rival government is the New General National Congress (GNC), led by Nouri Abushamain as its President. The Muslim Brotherhood, who is supported by its own militia alliance known as Libya Dawn, masterminds the GNC and The Dawn coalition took over Tripoli and its international airport in August. Allegedly the GNC is supported through cash and weapons by states such as Turkey, Qatar and Sudan. The GNC claims that Dignity’s Army Chief Hafter is a Gaddafi Loyalist, and they have issued a warrant for his arrest.
In April 2015, the GNC, along with the Council, rejected the UN’s earlier draft proposals which called for a two-year transitional period to respect the results of a parliamentary election, the expansion of the mandate of the Council and the creation of a new Libyan army and police force. Representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood described the proposal as ‘shocking and disappointing’ as the proposal did not mention the GNC and stated that the Council was the only legislative authority in the country. However encouraging signs have recently emerged as it has been reported that the GNC support the UN’s latest June 2015 proposal for a one-year unity Government that the GNC believe is necessary to combat terrorism and illegal immigration and ensure stability.
ISIL Affiliates Step In and Establish Safe Havens
ISIL has seized the opportunities presented by Libya’s Civil War to establish a footprint in Libya, overrunning the city of Sirte, Gaddafi’s hometown, while also capturing many neighborhoods within the cities of Derna and Benghazi. These cities are strategically significant as it is widely believed that ISIL is using its strongholds to smuggle fighters across the Mediterranean to expand and execute terror operations in Europe and Africa, causing major international concern. In February ISIL beheaded 20 Egyptian Christians, and Egypt responded with airstrikes on ISIL positions.
It is estimated the ISIL has around 3,000 fighters at their disposal in Libya. In addition, they have gained the support of the Ansia-Al Sharia Islamist terror group who are fighting against the Dignity coalition. It is this group who is accused of conducting the attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi back in 2012, resulting in the death of US Ambassador Chris Stevens.
Despite the divisions between the rival governments, it is increasingly clear that ISIL and its affiliates represent the greatest impediment to peace, security and democracy in Libya.
Future Prospects – Hope is not a strategy!
Libya faces two options: a peace settlement requiring compromises and the political will from both sides to break the political and military deadlock, or full-scale civil war for the foreseeable future.
The devastation from civil war is already clear. According to a report from the UN Secretary General, since the conflict began the number of people displaced is estimated at around 400,000, and over 3,000 Libyans have died. This could be just the start of the humanitarian cost the country could face if it continues on its path towards becoming a failed state.
The UN can only go so far in bringing the two Libyan governments together. Support and pressure from major international partners such as the US, UK and France, and in particular other countries in the region, to secure a diplomatic solution is essential. Their influence and powers of persuasion is required to bring the two sides together and reunite the nation. This could put the country back on the road to democracy and help a new government combat the greatest threat to Libya’s stability and prosperity, ISIL.

Israeli Terror Expert: Training Camps for Girls in Gaza Another Form of Palestinian Child AbuseThe

Hundreds of ‘black hat’ accounts on English Wikipedia were found to be connected during the investigation. The usernames (green) and IP addresses (yellow) have been removed from the image. Graph by James Alexander, freely licensed under CC-by-SA 3.0.

After weeks of investigation, volunteer editors on English Wikipedia announced today that they blocked 381 user accounts for “black hat” editing.[1] The accounts were engaged in undisclosed paid advocacy—the practice of accepting money to promote external interests on Wikipedia without revealing their affiliation, in violation of Wikimedia’s Terms of Use. The editors issued these blocks as part of their commitment to ensuring Wikipedia is an accurate, reliable, and neutral knowledge resource for everyone.

The community of volunteers who maintain and edit Wikipedia vigilantly defend the Wikimedia sites to ensure that content meets high editorial standards. Every day, volunteer editors make thousands of edits to Wikipedia: they add reliable sources, introduce new topics, expand articles, add images, cover breaking news, fix inaccuracies, and resolve conflicts of interest. Wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can edit, and its open model makes it a rich and reliable resource for the world.

Neutrality is key to ensuring Wikipedia’s quality. Although it does not happen often, undisclosed paid advocacy editing may represent a serious conflict of interest and could compromise the quality of content on Wikipedia. The practice is in conflict with a number of English Wikipedia’s policies, including neutrality and conflict of interest, and is a violation of the Wikimedia Foundation’s Terms of Use.

With this action, volunteer editors have taken a strong stand against undisclosed paid advocacy. In addition to blocking the 381 “sockpuppet” accounts—a term that refers to multiple accounts used in misleading or deceptive ways—the editors deleted 210 articles created by these accounts. Most of these articles, which were related to businesses, business people, or artists, were generally promotional in nature, and often included biased or skewed information, unattributed material, and potential copyright violations. The edits made by the sockpuppets are similar enough that the community believes they were perpetrated by one coordinated group.

Community opposition to undisclosed paid advocacy editing on English Wikipedia has a long history, reaching back to at least 2004 when the first conflict of interest guidelines were introduced. Since then, the English Wikipedia community has been vocal about its opposition to this practice. In October 2013, Wikipedia volunteers blocked hundreds of accounts related to the consulting firm Wiki-PR. The Wikimedia Foundation responded with a formal statement, which described undisclosed paid advocacy as “violating the core principles that have made Wikipedia so valuable for so many people,” and sent a cease and desist letter. The Foundation later amended its Terms of Use to clarify and strengthen its ban on the practice.

Not all paid editing is a violation of Wikipedia policies. Many museum and university employees from around the world edit by disclosing their official affiliations, and several prominent public relations firms have signed an agreement to abide by Wikipedia’s paid editing guidelines. Editing Wikipedia is completely free, and only requires compliance with the project’s editorial guidelines. If someone does have a conflict of interest or is uncomfortable editing the site directly, there are several other options to bring the subject to a volunteer’s attention.

Readers trust Wikipedia to offer accurate, neutral content, and undisclosed paid advocacy editing violates that trust. Sadly, it also deceives the subjects of articles, who may simply be unaware that they are in violation of the spirit and policies of Wikipedia. Wikimedia volunteers are vigilant, and articles created by paid advocates will be identified in due time. The Wikimedia Foundation stands with the Wikipedia community in their efforts to make reliable, accurate knowledge available for everyone.

The vanishing Jews of Egypt

MEE

A community that lived in Egypt since Biblical times died out in the 90s; since then a handful of Egyptian Jews have returned to their homeland 

Decades after he first started working in Cairo’s Jewish Quarter, Metwallyabd El Samad still lives in the area that was at one time filled with thriving jewellery shops and other businesses run by Egyptian Jews.
Now 73, Samad remembers the hustle and bustle of the tiny neighbourhood with fondness.

“I used to work in a silver shop owned by Livy Haroni,” he told Middle East Eye wistfully.

“I started working at his shop when I was young, about 12 years old, earning 70 piasters a week. I was so proud of my job because I was one of the few Muslim boys who worked in a Jewish-owned shop.

Generally only Christians worked there, but Livy knew my father and trusted me with his work.”

“I kept working in his shop till he left directly after the 1967 war.”

It was the founding of the state of Israel in 1948 that changed the fortunes of Egypt’s Jewish population. Up until then, Jews had fled to Egypt from all over the world – seeking solace from worsening conditions in countries like Spain, Russia, Romania, Poland, Syria and Morocco.

But with the creation of Israel came arrests, segregation, deportation and persecution.
The Jews of Egypt were subject to waves of repression from 1948 till 1967, that were always related to the wars Egypt fought with Israel.

Mohamed Tareq, a local journalist, told MEE that parallels could be drawn between the violence faced by the Jews and the current government’s crackdown on protesters and activists.
“Many people were surprised by the rates of state violence against Islamists and activists, but it is actually the same with what happened in Egypt 60 years ago with the Jews,” he said.
“Ultra-nationalism, hysteria, the creation of an enemy of the state as a prerequisite to the continuity of a corrupt repressive state, it is just the same.”

Martial law was declared in Egypt after Israel was formed in 1948, and thousands of Jews were arrested over the course of a single week. Those who were not detained were effectively put under house arrest, with police officers standing guard outside their homes.

Nadia Ishak, now 78, is one of the few Egyptian-born Jews still living in Egypt, after she returned to the country of her birth in the early 2000s. She still remembers the night her family was taken by the police.
“I was very young, the memories fade each year. All I can remember is the knocking on the door, a police officer ordering us to get our clothes, and the smell of the night and the early dawn while we were loaded into the back of the truck with the officers.”

“My father and my mother left France escaping the shadow of the imminent war in 1909, but the consequences of another war had reached us in a different country.”

Ishak and her family were placed in detention for 50 days, along with hundreds of other families, and when they were released they were given a month to leave the country.

The charges against them were that they were Zionists – something Ishak denounced vehemently to MEE.
“My father and my mother had no intention of betraying the country they lived in for about 30 years. They came searching for peace, safety and stability - we never did or had the intention to engage in any of the activities we were falsely accused of.”

A similar fate befell Livy Haroni, El Samad’s former boss.

Haroni was fortunate because he had a British passport – and Jews with foreign nationalities were generally treated better than those who were Egyptian born and bred.

He was first put under house arrest during the Suez Canal war in 1956, but it was not until the 1967 war that he was eventually arrested, deported and had all his assets nationalised.

Haroni managed to sell his shops to the Egyptians working for him – and one went to El Samad.
“Part of me was very happy for this unexpected fortune that came to me, but the other part was very sad over the injustice and the ordeal of the kind old man.”

“He clung to the hope that he was going to come back one day. He gathered the people he gave his shops to, and made them promise him that they would return the shops to him if he ever came back.
“He never came back. I heard of his death about 10 years later.”

Nadia Ishak was not the only Egyptian-born Jew to return to her home country at the start of the 21st century.

In the early 90s, there were reports that the last Jew living in Egypt had died. However, it was not the end of the long story of the Jews of Egypt that dates back to the time of the Pharoahs.
With the advance of the year 2000, some Egyptian Jews living in European countries came back to Egypt. There were no more than 20, and half of them returned to Europe again.
Sara Kuhin, a 75-year-old Egyptian-born Jew who returned to Egypt in 2002, spoke to MEE about what she went through when she came back.

"I left Egypt in 1965. When I made the decision to come back, I knew for sure that things weren't going to be the same, but I was totally surprised by what I saw. I spent my early youth in the beautiful streets of Cairo and I was deeply connected to the city. When I came back after 37 years, it wasn't the same city at all - a horrendous, crowded and polluted city is what I found. The streets are ugly, the buildings are also ugly. They succeeded turning Royal Cairo to a symbol of savage urbanism and decay."

Now, according to the Jewish people MEE spoke to, there are only eight Egyptian-born Jews living in Cairo, a number that is highly unlikely to increase. All of them are over 70, yet they try to be as active as they can, attending cultural events, celebrating their religious holidays and making regular visits to the neglected abandoned synagogues.

Nadia says the reaction from Egyptians she meets is mixed. "I receive compassion, sympathy and offers of help from some; others give me stares and aggressive looks. However, I am happy with a trend among the young who want to hear our side of the story about what happened in the 50s and the 60s."
As Livy Haroni cherished the hope to return to Egypt, Sara and Nadia also have their own hopes that a day will come when people of all faiths will live together again. That hope was their key motive behind their decision to return.

Sara tells MEE: "We have a right to live here, despite all the hardships, and despite what Egypt turned into under the rule of the so-called Free Officers. Despite all of that, Egypt remains my country. I consider myself one of the few who state that, and I hope I live long enough to show more widely that there are still some Egyptian Jews who continue to live in this country."

Many hoped that the return of the handful of Jews to their homeland would be the dawning of a new era. The government, however, failed to offer any help to the minority community trying to re-forge their lives here.
Even finding someone to conduct burial rites according with their beliefs is a struggle.

When asked if there would be more support from the government towards the problems faced by the Jewish community, Tareq was not optimistic.

“I actually predicted that the government would address this issue when [President] Sisi came to power, that they would use this issue in their search for more international legitimacy, but they didn’t. And it doesn't look like they will start doing so any time soon."

In Ghana, Student’s Radicalization Prompts Fears ISIS Is Infiltrating Universities

BY SIOBHÁN O'GRADY\FP

Between Boko Haram and al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, North and West Africa have in recent years fallen victim to an epidemic of Islamist extremism that threatens the stability of the entire region.
But as Mali, Cameroon, Nigeria, and other turbulent nations came under attacks by militants in those groups, nearby Ghana took comfort in its relative freedom from the violence and chaos sparked by the other Islamist insurgencies.

That all changed this week, when Ghanaian National Security Coordinator Yaw Donkor confirmed that at least two Ghanaian citizens have left the country to join the Islamic State. One of them, Mohammad Nazir Nortei Alema, a 25-year-old university student, contacted his family via WhatsApp on Aug. 16 to tell them he had joined the Islamist extremists. Donkor did not reveal the identity of the second individual who allegedly joined the group, but the cases are the first ever reported in Ghana.

According to Donkor, who spoke to state media, Alema likely traveled through neighboring Burkina Faso or nearby Nigeria before reaching a training camp in Niger and then moving forward to Turkey or Syria. Donkor also confirmed that Alema was radicalized in an online forum, raising fears that the Islamic State is using social media to persuade other Ghanaian university students to join the group in Iraq or Syria — or potentially, return home to take up arms in Ghana itself.

Alema’s family has been vocal about his departure, speaking to multiple international news outlets about his choice to join the extremists, and reiterating that he was radicalized online, not in a mosque in Ghana. Alema, who reportedly finished a government internship in July, displayed no signs of outwardly supporting radical Islam, his family members have said. His brother told Reuters that two weeks after telling his family he was traveling from Accra to a mining town in the country’s west, they received WhatsApp messages revealing he left the country to join the group and abandon what he called “the corrupt system.”

“He said he loves us so much and that we should forgive him for not making his intentions known to us from the beginning,” his brother told the news agency.

According to a spring report from the United Nations, more than 25,000 foreign fighters — many of whom were similarly radicalized online — have traveled to Iraq and Syria to join the Islamic State. Both male militants and women who joined the group to marry the extremists are among the thousands of radical supporters from an estimated 100 countries now represented in the group’s self-declared caliphate, which stretches between Syria and Iraq. Speaking to the BBC Tuesday, Alema’s father said hearing his son joined the group was like hearing “someone in the family has died.”

The presence of sophisticated Islamic State training camps in Niger where Donkor claims Alema was trained is particularly frightening because Niger, which borders Libya, is not only under repeated attack by Boko Haram extremists but is also a passover stop for many migrants attempting to reach Europe through North Africa.

For such camps to exist in Niger poses an added threat as the country is already facing considerable social and political turbulence. Boko Haram, which is based in Nigeria but launches attacks in Niger, Cameroon, and Chad, declared allegiance to the Islamic State in March, and now refers to itself as the self-declared caliphate’s “West African Province” although whatever ties may exist between the two groups remain murky.
Donkor said that Alema’s case has sparked an investigation by Ghanaian authorities into any possible links between the country’s universities and the Islamic State. But he also insisted that there only a “handful” of cases in Ghana, and there is “no reason to fear” large scale radicalization there

Collateral damage: The Sudanese in Syria

By MINDY BELZ

PERSECUTION | In 2002, WORLD went to Damascus and witnessed how Sudan’s Islamic regime created a flood of Christian refugees, with terrorism perpetuating their plight


Like the Apostle Paul before him, Hakim discovered that the road to Damascus is no picnic. A Christian from South Sudan, Hakim was an adolescent at the time his brother joined the rebel army to fight Sudan’s Islamic regime. When government soldiers invaded his village near Yei, they captured Hakim and others. Eventually he wound up in a prison cell in Khartoum after refusing to fight for the Muslim-led government based in northern Sudan. His brother was killed there.

WORLD Magazine’s Sept. 21, 2002, cover

“They kept me in prison,” he said, “put sticks in fire and with them burned my legs for two or three hours at a time.” At this point Hakim hikes the hem of his trousers, revealing pitted, scarred gashes across both shins. The torture was meant to force him to renounce Christianity. He was told he must convert to Islam. He endured the injuries and harassment for 10 months, he says, until officials turned him over to a security officer who took pity on him. The officer arranged his passage on a plane out of Khartoum. He told him what to say when he showed up in the Middle East without papers. When Hakim’s plane touched down just outside Syria’s capital city, Hakim wasn’t sure where he had landed. He did not really care, except he hoped he could be free.

With its 18-year-long civil war, Sudan is one of the leading exporters of refugees. Ten percent of the world’s uprooted people come from Sudan. Last year [2001] alone, more than 250,000 Sudanese became either new refugees or displaced people living within the country. Most who flee their own borders wind up in neighboring African nations. But more and more are turning up in the Middle East. There, they face an array of factors—an unbending UN refugee bureaucracy, U.S. homeland-security imperatives, and a developing pan-Arab relationship—that threatens to turn them back to their tormentors.

Arab countries traditionally ease travel restrictions for fellow Arabs, which includes Sudan’s National Islamic Front government. This means Sudanese passport holders may enter Syria without filing and waiting for a visa. For that reason, some Sudanese who fear persecution at home will turn out of necessity to a place like Syria. Under cover of these liberal travel measures, however, it appears that Khartoum could be offloading POWs like Hakim to Damascus and other Middle East cities like Beirut. While not all Sudanese refugees arrive without documentation or intent, as Hakim did, many say they had no choice but to flee here.
(How do refugees book these escape flights? They don’t. Some were put on cheap flights chartered by Islamic relief groups, some on government flights or state-run airlines.)

SYRIA IS A LONG WAY FROM PARADISE. A failed Soviet puppet where the cars are 40 years old and the internet was banned until two years ago, the Assad regime—first of Hafez and now his son, Bashar—practices ruthless suppression of political opponents and haphazard crackdowns on religious minorities. Not a government of Islamic radicals like those who rule Sudan, the Assad regime does have this in common with the Sudanese government: Both make the U.S. list of seven nations sponsoring international terrorism (others are Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, and North Korea).

Since last Sept. 11, however, President Assad has signaled that he wants to be on the right side of history. He publicly distanced himself from Syria’s longstanding support of Palestinian terrorist factions, particularly Hezbollah. He also got serious about cleanup measures, including tightening immigration standards and monitoring undocumented aliens. Syria has long faced condemnation for incubating Palestinian terrorists on its own soil, and, more recently, tolerating visits from al-Qaeda operatives. Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta is believed to have made several visits to Syria for al-Qaeda meetings. Under the new regulations, nonresidents must register with Syrian police and report their status every three months.

The new rules, however, exist apart from overall reform. Syria is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention and offers no due-process protections of its own to refugees. Applications for political asylum and resettlement to another country must be made through the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Damascus. UNHCR is currently approving only about one in 10 applications. In addition to facing those hurdles, Sudanese refugees say they cannot overcome a bias among the UN agency’s Arab officers against Christians from South Sudan. Most plead not to be returned to Sudan. But without UNHCR approval, they cannot resettle elsewhere, including the United States. Limbo in Syria at least meant survival; now it means no place to turn.

WILLIAM IS ANOTHER SOUTH Sudanese who, like Hakim, in public goes only by first name to protect his identity (and family who may remain in Sudan). He was rejected by UNHCR, appealed, and was again rejected since arriving in Damascus without a passport in 1995. He was a secondary schoolteacher in South Sudan until he lost his home. Government forces destroyed it during fighting near Juba in 1992. After soldiers bombed and shelled his and surrounding villages, they took him to a refugee camp near Khartoum. At el Fashir in northern Sudan, National Islamic Front soldiers imprisoned and tortured him. One day he, too, was put on a plane and flown to Damascus.

In Damascus he has a four-digit file number with UNHCR and little else. He shares a second-floor apartment of four small rooms with a cousin, Mary, and five of her eight children in one of the rundown neighborhoods not far from the historic Old City.

Mary arrived in Damascus from Khartoum on Nov. 23, 1999, according to her UNHCR records. The records also say she entered the country legally as a tourist. But Mary says she “escaped from Sudan to avoid tortures and humiliation that resulted from my family’s refusal to be converted into Islam.” Government soldiers also burned her house during the 1992 fighting around Juba. The soldiers captured Mary’s husband. They threatened to shoot him unless he converted to Islam and served in the government army. He disappeared soon after, she told WORLD.

Mary found herself taken north with her five daughters and three sons. In Jebel Aulia refugee camp, military officials applied the same pressure to Mary and her children. They forced the boys (now ages 23, 20, and 18) into the army. They punished her and her daughters for refusing to convert to Islam. Camp security applied hot embers to Mary’s face. Dawa el Islamia, an Islamic organization, managed relief services at Jebel Aulia. Mary said the relief agents denied her family food, water, and medicine because they were Christians. Other reports, particularly from Anglican workers and a Sudan Council of Churches team who later visited Jebel Aulia, confirmed the abuses. Dawa el Islamia workers forced South Sudanese to change their names to Muslim names and their religion to Islam in order to receive help.

In the spring of 1999 government bulldozers entered Jebel Aulia and leveled Christian homes in the camp. They destroyed an Anglican church, along with homes for 200 mainly Christian families from South Sudan. The government said it was clearing the land for agriculture. Mary and her girls were among the completely homeless Christians. Two other women in the group died of heat exposure during that summer. Mary escaped to Damascus.

Her passport, issued in 1999 just before her departure from Sudan, expired last year. The Sudanese Embassy in Damascus refused to renew it. She was also denied refugee status from UNHCR. Like others WORLD interviewed, she has a letter from the UN agency stating: “Upon consideration of the claims you presented, it has been decided that, at the moment you are not in need of international protection.”
LAST DECEMBER MORE THAN 200 Sudanese, fearing deportation to Sudan because of Syria’s new rule on nonresidents, protested their nonstatus outside the Damascus offices of UNHCR. The peaceful sit-in lasted four days, according to participants WORLD interviewed. Although the crowd remained constant, it won none of the international press coverage Palestinian demonstrations of fewer people routinely receive outside the U.S. Embassy in Damascus. At UNHCR’s request, police stepped in on Dec. 11 to arrest the demonstrators: 53 children, 77 women, and 136 men, according to the refugees.

“We told them we have nothing against this country,” said William, who was among those arrested. “Our problem is we are refugees and we have no place to go.” William said that a threatening letter sent from the Sudanese Embassy prompted the demonstration. It said the refugees must “regularize their status” in Syria or face deportation to Khartoum. “There,” said William, “we know we will be killed or sent off to fight our brothers in the South.”

Adel Jasmine, UNHCR senior protection officer in Damascus, told WORLD his office called for the arrests when the Sudanese would not leave the compound, even though he knew they felt threatened by notices from the Sudanese Embassy. “They were asked to leave but refused. Then we asked the authorities to remove them and they did. Women and children were released the same day, but single men were kept,” he said. Over 90 men were held—some for over six months and all without legal representation or due process—at a military installation outside Damascus. UN officials worked to resolve their cases, according to Jasmine. UNHCR sent additional investigators from Cairo to interview the detainees and reassess their status.

In the end, however, UNHCR determined that “a very few” previously turned-down cases were eligible for legal protection as refugees, said Jasmine. Most were not. Neither William nor Hakim won legal status during the review process.

During that time UNHCR did successfully negotiate with Syrian authorities to extend the time refugees must report to police, from every three to every nine months. With that deadline now looming, the refugees WORLD interviewed again fear deportation. Jasmine told WORLD his agency is working to keep that from happening. But the refugees see Syria-Sudan relations tightening against them.

Since 2001 top government officials have been meeting almost monthly to negotiate about two dozen cooperative agreements between Syria and Sudan, mostly to increase trade. The agenda is to create “a new era of investment and economic cooperation,” according to Syrian Prime Minister Mustapha Miro. Both nations aspire someday to be part of an Arab common market (much like the predecessor to the European Union). So far the pacts boost agriculture, electricity, postal services, along with bolstering the campaign for a Palestinian state. Perhaps it was coincidental, but just as Sudanese refugees were notified to report to Syrian police, President Bashar al-Assad was in Khartoum, meeting with Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir.

“Once a case is rejected by UNHCR, they have no protection,” said U.S. Committee for Refugees policy analyst Steve Edminster. “They are at the mercy of whatever the police want to do.”
The refugee bureaucracy would like to deny its responsibility to Sudanese like William and Mary. Adel acknowledged that 90 percent of UNHCR’s Sudanese applicants are from the South. But he claimed that the caseload includes no torture victims ferried to Damascus without choice. “All left Sudan voluntarily and with passports,” he argued. “Most have jobs on the outskirts of the city in agriculture. But they say they cannot get the Sudanese Embassy to renew their passports.”

Officers at the International Office of Migration, the contract agency to resettle Damascus refugees in the United States and other third countries, would not speak for the record but said they are not aware of Sudanese with legitimate claims for protection being denied refugee status.

At the U.S. State Department, officials say privately that the U.S. Embassy could issue “P1” or Priority 1 status to a select group of needy refugees, thus bypassing the UNHCR bureaucracy altogether. But with the United States already applying closer scrutiny to immigrants from Arab nations, it is a hard sell for any refugees from Syria.

Private groups are raising concern about UNHCR procedures in Syria. “We uncovered enough problems with refugee status determination procedures that make the quality of those decisions suspect,” said Edminster. “The lack of training and experienced staff has led to erratic decision-making.” After a monitoring trip to the region earlier this year, his organization, along with an independent European group, plans to issue a report on its findings later this month.

On the part of the Sudanese “there is a lot of fear about the intentions of the Syrian government, a lot of fear about being sent back,” said Edminster. “The South Sudanese stick out more because they are darker skinned, and Christians.”

Church groups in Damascus are trying to help. Several churches in the city assist Sudanese families with food and other necessities. The Order of Franciscan Monks provides jobs to some of the refugees at the religious tour sites run by the group. A few, like Hakim, are grateful to find menial work. He cleans bathrooms and the kitchen at a restaurant down an alley just off the Street Called Straight. For a 10-hour shift he is paid 100 Syrian pounds—about $2. And he is waiting in Damascus, he says, just like the Apostle Paul.