Tag: confrontations

Thousands of Moroccan teachers stage protest over pay terms

March 24, 2019

By Ahmed Eljechtimi

RABAT (Reuters) – About 10,000 teachers staged a new protest in the Moroccan capital Rabat on Sunday to demand permanent jobs, hours after police had used water cannon to disperse an overnight demonstration.

The teachers, many of whom had spent the night in the streets of Rabat after the first event, marched from the education ministry to the square in front of parliament where police had intervened after midnight to prevent them from spending the night in the main Mohammed V Avenue.

They want an end to renewable contracts in favor of permanent jobs that offer civil service benefits, including a better retirement pension.

Some also shouted political slogans such as “This is a corrupt country” and “We are ruled by a mafia,” urging Prime Minister Saad Eddine El Othmani and Education Minister Said Amzazi to step down.

Morocco, which has avoided the turmoil seen by other countries during and after the Arab Spring of 2011, regularly sees protests though they rarely draw several thousands or involve confrontations with police.

The protest was organized by an alliance of leftist opposition parties, main unions, civil society organizations and university students. The teachers have been striking for three weeks in a row.

The protesting teachers were threatened by the ministry to return to the classroom or be sacked.

“We are not intimidated by the threats of the education ministry’s because we came to claim our right to be integrated in the civil service and defend the public school,” Abdelilah Taloua, a young teacher, told Reuters.

About 55,000 teachers have been hired under the new contract system since 2016 out of 240,000 teachers in total.

The government insists that teachers working by contracts have the same starting salary of 5,000 dirhams (around $520) like regular teachers.

Morocco has come under pressure from international lenders to trim the civil service wage bill and strengthen the efficiency of the public sector.

(Reporting by Ahmed Eljechtimi; Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

US Navy Sends First Ship Into Black Sea Since Kerch Strait Incident

The US Navy has confirmed the dock-landing vessel USS Fort McHenry has entered the Black Sea at moment tensions with Russia remain high following the Kremlin’s seizure of three Ukrainian vessels in November in the Kerch Strait. This marks the first US vessel to enter the region since the Nov. 25th incident, which Russia said was an illegal and provocative violation of its territorial waters, and which as a result Ukraine has called on NATO powers, including the US and UK, to beef up its presence in the area to counter Russian aggression. 

The USS Fort McHenry, via Wikimedia Commons

Navy officials stated the Fort McHenry transited the Dardanelles Strait en route to the Black Sea on Sunday, according to Stars and Stripes military newspaper, while noting the operation is a “regularly scheduled Black Sea operation” — though also referencing the dispute between Russia and Ukraine as part of the statement. 

“We routinely operate in the Black Sea consistent with international law and the Montreux Convention and will continue to do so,” Cmdr. Kyle Raines, spokesman for the 6th Fleet, said. “We also continue our call for Ukraine and Russia to seek a diplomatic resolution to their dispute.”

While Russia has in recent years viewed any NATO-member vessel in the Black Sea, especially the United States, as an intrusion on its sphere of influence, the Fort McHenry is unlikely to provoke further hostilities as it possesses little offensive capability. Its weapons are commonly described as merely “defensive” in nature, including machine guns, small cannons, with its most significant being short-range anti-missile systems.

But Russia could be sensitive to what may be the West upping surveillance vessels dispatched to the region, given that days after the Kerch Strait incident, Britain sent the HMS Echo, a UK Royal Navy survey vessel and monitoring ship, to the Black Sea. At the time there were calls from top British commanders to send a much more powerful and capable Type 45 destroyer, or guided missile warship, to counter perceived Russian aggression toward Ukraine. 

Though at the end of November Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that Russian military buildup in Crimea meant that Ukraine is “under threat of full-scale war with Russia” in an apparent effort to hype a coming conflict and attract the support of Western allies, calm has ensued with no further direct military confrontations. 

However, deployment of more offensive-capable US or British battleships would put Russian forces on high alert that a potential confrontation with the West in the Black Sea could be on the horizon, but it appears for now cooler minds are prevailing. 

Protests in India after women defy ancient ban on visiting Hindu temple

January 2, 2019

By Jose Devasia and Neha Dasgupta

KOCHI/NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Two women defied a centuries-old ban on entering a Hindu temple in the Indian state of Kerala on Wednesday, sparking rowdy protests and calls for a strike by conservative Hindu groups outraged by their visit.

Police fired teargas and used water cannons to disperse a large crowd of protesters in the state capital of Thiruvananthapuram, television news channels showed.

There were protests in several other cities in the state, media reported.

India’s Supreme Court in September ordered the authorities to lift the ban on women or girls of menstruating age from entering the Sabarimala temple, which draws millions of worshippers a year.

But the temple refused to abide by the court ruling and subsequent attempts by women to visit it had been blocked by thousands of devotees supporting the ban.

The Kerala state government is run by left-wing parties and it has sought to allow women into the temple – a position that has drawn the criticism of both of the main political parties, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The uproar has put the issue of religion, which can be highly contentious in India, squarely on the political agenda months before a general election, which is due by May.

The possibility of more confrontations was raised by a call from an umbrella group of right-wing Hindu groups in Kerala, the Sabarimala Karma Samithi, which is supported by the BJP, for a state-wide protest strike on Thursday.

The BJP called for protesters to be peaceful.

Earlier, the Kerala state president of the BJP described the visit to the temple by the two women as “a conspiracy by the atheist rulers to destroy the Hindu temples”.

The party’s state president, P.S Sreedharan Pillai, told TV channels the BJP would “support the struggles against the destruction of faith by the Communists”.

“Let all the devotees come forward and protest this,” he said.

Officials from the main opposition Congress party in the state, in a rare alignment with their main rival for power at the national level, the BJP, also called for protests.

“This is treachery … The government will have to pay the price for the violation of the custom,” K. Sudhakaran, vice-president of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee, said in a statement.

The women who entered the temple premises were in their 40s, according to Reuters partner ANI. The ban has been imposed on all women and girls between the ages of 10 and 50.

Conservative Hindu groups say they believe women of menstruating age would defile the temple’s inner shrine. News channels reported the chief priest briefly shut the temple for “purification” rituals after the women visited.

Later, media reported that the temple had re-opened.

‘POLICE PROTECTION’

A video from a police official posted online by ANI showed two women in the temple with their heads covered.

One of the women, who gave her first name as Bindu, 42, told a television channel about their stealthy trek to the temple in the middle of the night.

“We reached Pampa, the main entry point to the temple at 1.30 a.m. and sought police protection to enter the temple. We walked two hours, entered the temple around 3.30 a.m. and did the darshan,” the woman said, referring to a ritual of standing in front of the temple’s Hindu image.

Bindu said she and the second woman would go back to their homes in other parts of Kerala.

The state government defended its decision to protect the women as they went into the temple, saying it was a matter of civil rights.

“I had earlier made it clear that the government will provide protection if any women come forward to enter the temple,” said Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

Vijayan told a news conference the women, who had previously tried to enter the temple but were blocked by devotees, faced no obstruction on Wednesday.

It was not immediately clear how the women managed to avoid devotees guarding the temple.

On Tuesday, the state government backed a protest by thousands of women, who formed a 620 km (385 mile) human chain, termed the “women’s wall”, in support of “gender equality” and access to the temple.

Modi, in an interview with ANI on Tuesday, indicated he felt that the temple issue was more about a religious tradition than gender equality.

Modi said there were temples where men were barred from entering.

(Reporting by Jose Devasia; Editing by Martin Howell, Robert Birsel)

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