BRUSSLES: The European Parliament came under pressure on Friday to investigate a Russia-financed network that wielded influence across Europe and involved EU lawmakers.
The Czech Republic said on Wednesday its spies discovered the network had been spreading Russian propaganda through the Prague-based Voice of Europe news site.
Moscow also paid money to MEPs to promote Russian propaganda, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said on Thursday.
The EU parliament’s political groups now want the assembly to probe the latest claims.
Valerie Hayer, who heads the centrist Renew grouping, wrote to parliament president Roberta Metsola to demand “a full and transparent internal investigation.”
“If sitting MEPs or candidates in the upcoming European elections have taken money from the Russian government or their proxies, they must be exposed and action taken,” she said.
The Renew group also called for an “urgent debate” in the parliament.
The Greens said there needed to be a “swift and thorough” investigation.
“This is how (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is trying to get away with his war in Ukraine.... It’s a direct attack on the very fabric of our democracy,” said Terry Reintke, one of the lead candidates for the Greens in the European elections in June.
“The politicians who have received money from Russia should be severely punished, both politically and legally,” she added in a statement.
A spokesperson for the parliament said it was “currently looking into the findings of the Czech authorities regarding outlet ‘Voice of Europe’ in coordination with its institutional partners.”
The spokesperson added that the parliament already prohibits access to the institution for media that are EU sanctions lists.
EU lawmakers face strict rules regarding independence and ethics and can face penalties — financial and otherwise — if they violate them.
The European politicians involved have not been named but the Greens and a Czech daily claimed they came from Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands and Poland.
EU parliament urged to probe Russian propaganda network
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EU parliament urged to probe Russian propaganda network
- Moscow also paid money to MEPs to promote Russian propaganda, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said
- The EU parliament’s political groups now want the assembly to probe the latest claims
Russia accuses NATO of ‘aggressive actions’ in Baltic Sea after Estonia tries to seize tanker
MOSCOW: Russia on Tuesday accused NATO of carrying out what it called aggressive actions in the Baltic Sea that impeded the freedom of shipping after Estonia tried and failed to seize a tanker.
Estonia said on Thursday last week that Moscow had briefly sent a fighter jet into NATO airspace over the Baltic Sea during an attempt to stop a Russian-bound oil tanker thought to be part of a “shadow fleet” defying Western sanctions on Moscow.
Asked about the matter at her weekly news briefing, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Moscow was closely monitoring events in the Baltic and would react to what she called illegal actions by NATO vessels if they caused risks.
A London court sentences an Egyptian man to 25 years for smuggling people from Africa to Italy
- Ahmed Ebid pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court to conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration
- Judge Adam Hiddleston said Ebid played a key role in an organized crime group
LONDON: A London court on Tuesday sentenced an Egyptian man to 25 years in prison for smuggling people from North Africa to Italy.
Ahmed Ebid, who arrived in the UK in October 2022 after crossing the English Channel in a small boat, pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court to conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration.
Judge Adam Hiddleston said Ebid played a key role in an organized crime group and that his “primary motivation was to make money” from human trafficking.
Since his arrival in Britain and until June 2023, Ebid, 42, was implicated in at least seven separate boat crossings as part of a 12 million-pound ($16 million) operation that carried 3,781 people, including children, into Italian waters from North Africa.
Britain’s National Crime Agency cited some of those who had entered the UK illegally as saying that Ebid even told an associate to kill and throw into the sea anyone onboard caught with a mobile phone.
Ebid “preyed upon the desperation of migrants to ship them across the Mediterranean in death trap boats,” said Jacque Beer of the agency.
In one crossing, on Oct. 25, 2022, more than 640 people were rescued by the Italian authorities after they attempted to cross the Mediterranean Sea in a wooden boat, the agency said. The boat was taken into port in Sicily and two bodies were recovered.
“Vulnerable people were transported on long sea journeys in ill-equipped fishing vessels completely unsuitable for carrying the large number of passengers,” said Tim Burton, specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service.
“His repeated involvement in helping to facilitate these dangerous crossings showed a complete disregard for the safety of thousands of people, whose lives were put at serious risk,” Burton added about Ebid.
Families wait for word of Rohingya said to have been abandoned at sea by India
- “We are helping them as human beings and we will let them go where they want if it is safe,” a spokesman for the group said
- The mostly Muslim Rohingya have been persecuted in Myanmar for decades
NEW DELHI: It has been more than a week since Akbar, a Rohingya refugee in India, has heard his niece’s voice, the longest they have not spoken to each other.
She is among more than 40 Rohingya alleged by the United Nations, family and lawyers to have been forced off an Indian navy ship this month near the shores of war-torn Myanmar with only a life jacket.
“I got her out of the lion’s mouth when we escaped Myanmar almost eight years ago. And now this has happened,” Akbar, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, said of his niece, who is around 20 years old.
Myanmar’s Ba Htoo forces — opposition fighters battling the junta that took power in a 2021 coup — say the group landed on May 9 on a beach in Launglon Township near southern Dawei city, a region that regularly witnesses gunbattles and air strikes.
“We are helping them as human beings and we will let them go where they want if it is safe,” a spokesman for the group said.
The mostly Muslim Rohingya have been persecuted in Myanmar for decades, with many fleeing a 2017 military crackdown. More than a million escaped to Bangladesh, but others fled to India.
There are around 22,500 Rohingya in India registered with the United Nations refugee agency, according to the advocacy group Refugees International.
Two other Rohingya refugees told AFP their relatives were part of the group that was detained by Indian authorities.
Tom Andrews, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, has called the repatriation an “unconscionable” act.
Andrews said he was “deeply concerned by what appears to be a blatant disregard for the lives and safety of those who require international protection.”
New Delhi has not commented on the reports.
Family members say the group was summoned by authorities in New Delhi on May 6, allegedly to collect biometric data.
They were moved to a detention center and then to an airport outside the Indian capital.
From there they were flown to India’s Andaman and Nicobar islands, an archipelago that lies a few hundred kilometers southwest of Myanmar.
Two days after being detained, the refugees called family members back in Delhi saying they had been dropped off in the seas off Myanmar.
The Ba Htoo spokesman said one member of the group was a cancer patient, adding that the “rest of them just feel tired from the long trip.”
AFP could not independently verify the claims.
Dilwar Hussain, a New Delhi-based lawyer representing refugees from the community, said they were “concerned about the safety and well-being of these refugees.”
A petition filed in India’s Supreme Court by two refugees whose family members are among the 43 people allegedly deported said it was carried out illegally.
India is not a signatory to the UN’s 1951 Refugee Convention, which prohibits returning individuals to countries where they face harm.
However, New Delhi rights lawyer Colin Gonsalves, who has challenged the group’s detention and deportation, said India’s “constitutional laws cover protection” of the personal liberty and right to life of non-citizens.
This case is not the first to be reported.
Indian media reported this month that more than 100 Rohingya were “pushed back” across the northeastern border into Bangladesh.
India’s Hindu nationalist government has often described undocumented immigrants as “Muslim infiltrators,” accusing them of posing a security threat.
Yap Lay Sheng, from the campaign group Fortify Rights, said the deportation of the Rohingya group was a “targeted attack against anyone perceived to be Muslim outsiders.”
Ramon, another relative of one of the deported group, said his brother told him he had been verbally abused.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, Ramon said the group was “accused of being involved” in the April 22 attack targeting tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir, in which gunmen killed 26 men. The attack sparked a four-day conflict between India and Pakistan.
“My brother asked me to leave India to avoid being in a situation like his,” said Ramon, who has been in India for more than a decade.
Their mother has been inconsolable since receiving news of her son’s deportation. Ramon struggles with sleepless nights over his brother’s safety.
“They should have deported all of us and thrown us into the sea,” he said. “We would have been at peace knowing we are together.”
Germany counts on the US to pressure Russia into a ceasefire, says minister
- Officials in both the European Union and in the United States are ready to consider more sanctions on Moscow
BRUSSELS: Germany is still counting on the US to pile more pressure on Russia for an immediate ceasefire in its war on Ukraine, Berlin said on Tuesday, despite a call between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin that did not yield progress in that respect.
“We have repeatedly made it clear that we expect one thing from Russia — an immediate ceasefire without preconditions,” German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said on the sidelines of a meeting with his EU counterparts in Brussels.
“It is sobering to see that Russia has not taken this step, and we will have to react. We also expect our US allies not to tolerate this.”
He added that there was a lot of readiness both in the European Union and in the United States to consider more sanctions on Moscow but did not give any details what additional sanctions might look like.
EU seeks to relax rules on turning away asylum seekers
BRUSSELS: The EU on Tuesday unveiled plans to make it easier to send asylum seekers to certain third countries, in the latest overhaul aimed at reducing migration to the bloc, sparking criticism from rights groups.
The European Commission said it proposed broadening the so-called “safe third country” concept, which allows member states to “consider an asylum application inadmissible when applicants could receive effective protection” elsewhere.
“EU countries have been under significant migratory pressure for the past decade,” said migration commissioner Magnus Brunner, describing the proposal as “another tool to help member states process asylum claims in a more efficient way.”
Brussels has been under pressure to clamp down on arrivals and facilitate deportations, following a souring of public opinion on migration that has fueled hard-right electoral gains in several member states.
Under current rules, asylum seekers can have their application rejected if they could have filed it in a “safe” third country where they have “a genuine connection.”
This is normally understood to mean a nation where the applicant has lived and worked or has family.
The commission proposal weakens such requirements to include any country that an asylum seeker has transited through on the way to Europe, as long as it is considered safe. This opens the way for failed applicants to be sent there.
The planned reform also says that the safe third country concept can be applied in absence of any connection or transit, if there is a deal between member states and a third “safe nation,” and removes the suspensive effect of appeals.
The change would significantly boost the number of those who could see their applications refused and become eligible for deportation, as many cross numerous borders on their way to Europe.
In April for example, of almost 20,000 people who reached Europe via sea from northern Africa, many came from as far away as Bangladesh, Eritrea, Pakistan and Syria, according to the EU’s border agency.
The proposal needs approval from the European Parliament and member states to become law — but has already triggered fierce criticism.
Sarah Chander, director of the Equinox Initiative for Racial Justice, said the EU was “cynically distorting the concept of ‘safety’ to meet its own repressive ends.”
“It is paving the way for migrants to be removed and deported basically anywhere, putting people in danger,” she said.
