In this mailing:
- Khaled Abu Toameh: Why Are Palestinians 'Disappearing' in Saudi Arabia?
- Maria Polizoidou: Greece: Reminding the New Government Why It Was Elected
by Khaled Abu Toameh • October 17, 2019 at 5:00 am
The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor (Euro-Med), a youth-led independent organization that advocates for human rights across Europe and the Middle East, said it has collected names of about 60 Palestinians detained by the Saudi authorities in recent months
Euro-Med said it considers the "practices of the Saudi authorities a flagrant violation of the requirements of justice, which guarantees everyone the right to a fair trial, including knowing charges against and the right to defense and access to a lawyer... [and] affirms that the relevant authorities do not comply with the international legal rules that guarantee the simplest rights of litigation for any individual..."
The Saudi authorities have offered no explanation for the widespread campaign targeting Palestinians in the kingdom. It appears that PA President Mahmoud Abbas and his officials in Ramallah fear that any critique of this behavior would jeopardize the financial handouts and political support they receive from Saudi Arabia.... For Palestinian leaders, Saudi money and political backing far outweigh the fate of a few dozen Palestinians held without trial in an Arab country.
It is only Palestinians who are held by Israel for terrorist-related crimes who Abbas and his friends remember to mention in their endless litanies of complaints.
The issue of the Palestinian detainees in Saudi Arabia seems to have missed the agenda of the discussions. For Palestinian leaders, Saudi money and political backing far outweigh the fate of a few dozen Palestinians held without trial in an Arab country. Pictured: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas visits Saudi King Salman bin Abdel Aziz on December 30, 2015 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (Photo by Thaer Ghanaim/Palestinian Press Office via Getty Images)
Dozens of Palestinians have been "disappearing" in Saudi Arabia in recent months and are believed are being held in detention in the kingdom's prisons, according to Palestinian sources and international human rights organizations.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership in the West Bank, which regularly condemns Israel for arresting Palestinians suspected of involvement in terrorism and other anti-Israel activities, has been reluctant to speak out against the Saudi purge of Palestinians, ostensibly for security reasons, not to harm its relations with the kingdom.
The PA is not only keeping mum about the unprecedented Saudi crackdown, but it is also trying to prevent the families of the detainees from protesting in public. Last week, the PA's Preventive Security Service summoned the family of Palestinian engineer Abdullah Odeh, being held in a Saudi prison, and warned them not to protest their son's detention.
by Maria Polizoidou • October 17, 2019 at 4:00 am
A press report on September 24 revealed that Greece's National Intelligence Service is investigating five Greek NGOs operating in tandem with Turkish intelligence agencies and people-smugglers to transport illegal immigrants to the Greek islands.
Ankara's goal in this operation is an open secret: to unleash a flow of Muslim migrants on Europe.
On September 27, Greek Minister of Defense Nikos Panagiotopoulos said that illegal immigration "is taking on the dimensions of a national crisis, and poses a threat to the country's internal security."
The emergency measures appear laughable, however, when one considers that about 500 people are entering Greece illegally each day, and millions more are waiting to come over from the other shore of the Aegean Sea.
Illegal immigration into Greece cannot be tackled as long as the left-wing elites and media -- with a solid push from neighboring Turkey -- continue to cloak what constitutes a hostile invasion in a mantle of political correctness.
The weakness of the new government of Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis consists of a fear of angering the left. Mitsotakis needs desperately to be reminded why he was elected to replace his left-wing predecessor in the first place. (Photo by Michele Tantussi/Getty Images)
A resolution adopted by the European Parliament on September 20, "paying tribute to the victims of communism, Nazism and other totalitarian and authoritarian regimes," was passed by an overwhelming majority. This is as it should be, given that communist regimes around the world have caused the deaths of more than 100 million people.
Surprisingly, however, only one out of 21 Greek members of the European Parliament -- the New Democracy Party's MEP, Anna Michel Asimakopoulou -- voted in favor of the resolution. This was in spite of the thousands of casualties and massive damage resulting from the Greek Civil War in 1945-1949 between the communists and the democratic forces in the country.
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