EU ISIS PRISONERS IN IRAQ: EU adopts wait-and-see stance as European IS followers face execution

Dreams of living in an Islamic caliphate or dying as martyrs dashed, many former jihadi fighters from Europe now face the death penalty. Will the EU campaign to save citizens who reject its values?


"Kill lists" didn't eradicate them on the battlefield and local judicial systems won't resolve the dilemma created for the European Union by citizens who joined Islamic State and now are detained by the Iraqi government or Syrian militia groups. Most EU governments, some of which openly admit targeting their nationals with airstrikes, have no intention of bringing home almost anyone over the age of 10.

Having helped the Iraqi government push IS out of its territory, many EU leaders are relieved to hand over responsibility for holding and prosecuting the jihadis and their followers to the Iraqi judicial system. But Iraq says the death penalty is a likely sentence for those found to have been active fighters or even in key support roles. Vocal against capital punishment everywhere else in the world — even when former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein was sentenced to die — the EU has been virtually silent on its own citizens' fates.

Pieter van Ostaeyen, a Belgian expert on jihad movements, elaborated on the EU's dilemma regarding the detainees. "Are we outsourcing their executions to Iraq? That's a moral issue," he told DW. "But then of course we have to face the fact that these guys who have been captured and would return do have to fit in again in our society and what are we going to do with them?"

Read more: EU adopts wait-and-see stance as European IS followers face execution | Europe| News and current affairs from around the continent | DW | 26.03.2018

Suriname president acts to again avoid trial in 1982 deaths - by Pieter Van Mael

Bouterse, Suriname's President stops his own murder trial

President Desi Bouterse sought again Wednesday to prevent authorities from putting him back on trial for the abduction and summary execution of 15 political opponents when he was the military dictator of this South American nation.

Bouterse instructed Suriname's attorney general to immediately halt proceedings against him, invoking an article of the constitution that allows the president to issue such an order in the interests of national security.

The action follows a June court ruling that invalidated an amnesty law pushed through parliament by Bouterse's supporters after he was elected president. The court ordered the resumption of the trial against him and 24 co-defendants.

Since then, the political mood has been tense amid expectations that the president would seek to prevent the case from moving forward. Bouterse had said the trial poses a danger to the internal security of the country, which is struggling through a recession because of the sharp drop in commodity prices.

Justice Minister Jennifer Van Dijk-Silos confirmed that the government had invoked Article 148 of Suriname's constitution in the matter but declined to discuss the decision.

Bouterse said little as he entered and left a closed session of parliament. "Every decision has its advantages and disadvantages," he said, without providing details.

A court session in the case was scheduled for Thursday but it was not immediately clear how the judges would react to the government's action.

"We are shocked, not only because of the president's decision, but also because it was unanimously backed by the entire government," said Eddy Wijngaarde, whose brother, Frank, was among those killed by the regime. "We had hoped at least some ministers would have refused to back the president's latest attempt to make the trial impossible."

Bouterse and 24 allies from his time as a military dictator in the 1980s avoided trial until November 2007 on charges stemming from the execution of the 15 prominent political opponents, an event known locally as the "December killings" that stunned the lightly populated nation on the northern tip of South America.

The former strongman returned to power in 2010 when he was elected president by parliament. Two years later, lawmakers passed an amnesty law and court proceedings were put on hold in a decision that outraged human rights activists.

Bouterse, who was re-elected by parliament last year, has accepted what he calls "political responsibility" for the military's killing of the 15 well-known journalists, lawyers and union leaders but said he was not present when the executions took place. Witnesses in the trial have disputed that claim.President Desi Bouterse sought again Wednesday to prevent authorities from putting him back on trial for the abduction and summary execution of 15 political opponents when he was the military dictator of this South American nation.

Bouterse instructed Suriname's attorney general to immediately halt proceedings against him, invoking an article of the constitution that allows the president to issue such an order in the interests of national security.

The action follows a June court ruling that invalidated an amnesty law pushed through parliament by Bouterse's supporters after he was elected president. The court ordered the resumption of the trial against him and 24 co-defendants.

Since then, the political mood has been tense amid expectations that the president would seek to prevent the case from moving forward. Bouterse had said the trial poses a danger to the internal security of the country, which is struggling through a recession because of the sharp drop in commodity prices.

Justice Minister Jennifer Van Dijk-Silos confirmed that the government had invoked Article 148 of Suriname's constitution in the matter but declined to discuss the decision.

Bouterse said little as he entered and left a closed session of parliament. "Every decision has its advantages and disadvantages," he said, without providing details.

A court session in the case was scheduled for Thursday but it was not immediately clear how the judges would react to the government's action.

"We are shocked, not only because of the president's decision, but also because it was unanimously backed by the entire government," said Eddy Wijngaarde, whose brother, Frank, was among those killed by the regime. "We had hoped at least some ministers would have refused to back the president's latest attempt to make the trial impossible."

Bouterse and 24 allies from his time as a military dictator in the 1980s avoided trial until November 2007 on charges stemming from the execution of the 15 prominent political opponents, an event known locally as the "December killings" that stunned the lightly populated nation on the northern tip of South America.

The former strongman returned to power in 2010 when he was elected president by parliament. Two years later, lawmakers passed an amnesty law and court proceedings were put on hold in a decision that outraged human rights activists.

Bouterse, who was re-elected by parliament last year, has accepted what he calls "political responsibility" for the military's killing of the 15 well-known journalists, lawyers and union leaders but said he was not present when the executions took place. Witnesses in the trial have disputed that claim.

EU-Digest

Isis, Isil, IS or Daesh?-has journalistic quest for sensationalism glorified these "Crapules"?

Daesh executions - a daily ritual

The western corporate owned press, obsessed by sensationalism to meet their profit motives has been going overboard in publicizing the exploits of a band of, nothing less than derelict, deranged murderers, who have killed thousands of innocent people, including their own, by terrorist acts, and plain brutal murder.

In this process of extremely poor journalism, a large number of press outlets have indirectly glorified this bunch of brutal  murderers, their followers and ideology,  by giving them a variety of  names, including,but not limited to - Isis to Isil, IS and  Daesh.

Maybe the worst thing the Press did was naming the land occupied  by this band of  killers, the "Islamic State".

You don't need to be Einstein to understand that these swatches of land are not a state, will never be a state, and have very little to do with Islam.

"Daesh" (or Da'ish) is probably a far better name to call this group of murderers.

 Both in the Middle East and further afield, it has been used as a way of challenging the legitimacy of the group, due to the negative connotations of the word.

Daesh is essentially an Arabic acronym formed from the initial letters of the group's previous name in Arabic - "al-Dawla al-Islamiya fil Iraq wa al-Sham".

Although it does not mean anything as a word in Arabic, it sounds unpleasant, and the group's supporters object to its use.

Daesh also sounds similar to an Arabic verb that means to tread underfoot, trample down, or crush something.

So if  one feels the need to identify this group of terrorists, please use the name  "Daesh", or you can also simply call them "les Crapules", as the French like to call them.

 EU-Digest.

Middle East: IS prisoners reportedly executed by Kurds

"IS prisoners have been executed by Kurdish fighters in Syria and Iraq., said a Dutch citizen from Kurdish descent, Serdar Dosky, who is fighting with the Kurds against ISIS.  He told this to a Dutch TV reporter from the Nieuwsuur (Newshour) TV news station, when he thought the camera and mike had been turned off.

He said that wounded IS fighters were immediately excecuted . "A bullet costs only about about fifty cents he said. We just do not want to take any prisoners of war "

It was also reported that Kurdish fighters had completely destroyed the Arab city of Barzan.  Inhabitants of the village who escaped also reported Kurdish fighters gruesomely murdered many of the inhabitants as an act of revenge against IS..

The videos and pictures made by Nieuwsuur were submitted to Human Rights Watch and they have requested a full investigation.

Later in the day Dosky said his comments that were picked up were just a joke. "These kind of statements we often just make in anger about the horrors committed by IS," he said.

He also said that in reality there were no prisoners taken at all. .

Read more: original report in Dutch - PowNed : IS-gevangenen geëxecuteerd

Excecutions: Outrage Across Ideological Spectrum in Europe Over Flawed Lethal Injection in U.S. - by Steven Erlanger

Europeans largely consider the death penalty a particularly brutal American anachronism, but the prolonged death of Clayton D. Lockett in Oklahoma, after a botched execution by lethal injection, produced more than the usual horror on Wednesday.

The death penalty is banned in the European Union, which has also moved to ban the export of sedatives like sodium thiopental for use in lethal injections. The drug’s producer has stopped making it, and other European companies have sought to prevent their drugs from being used for executions, fearing European Union sanctions. As a result, the authorities in Oklahoma, and officials in other states, have been improvising new mixtures of drugs.

According to the International Commission Against the Death Penalty, based in Switzerland, Belarus is the only European country that still carries out legal executions, usually by a gunshot to the head.

But for some Europeans on Wednesday, even that method of killing seemed humane compared with what Mr. Lockett suffered until his heart stopped, about 43 minutes after the process began. Many here agreed with Madeline Cohen, a lawyer who witnessed the execution, who said that Mr. Lockett had been “tortured to death.”

Read more: Outrage Across Ideological Spectrum in Europe Over Flawed Lethal Injection in U.S. - NYTimes.com