Report alleges ethical abuses at UN agency for Palestinians

Yahoo – AFP, Joe Dyke, July 29, 2019

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said it is cooperating fully
with the investigation into allegations of mismanagement and abuses of authority
at the highest level of the agency (AFP Photo/MOHAMMED ABED)

Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - An internal ethics report has alleged mismanagement and abuses of authority at the highest levels of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees even as the organisation faced an unprecedented crisis after US funding cuts.

The allegations included in the confidential report by the agency's ethics department are now being scrutinised by UN investigators.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said it is cooperating fully with the investigation and that it cannot comment in detail because the probe is ongoing.

AFP has obtained a copy of the report which describes "credible and corroborated" allegations of serious ethical abuses, including involving UNRWA's top official, Commissioner-General Pierre Krahenbuhl.

It says the allegations include senior management engaging in "sexual misconduct, nepotism, retaliation, discrimination and other abuses of authority, for personal gain, to suppress legitimate dissent, and to otherwise achieve their personal objectives."

One senior official named in the report has left the organisation due to "inappropriate behaviour" linked to the investigation, UNRWA said, while another has resigned for what the agency called "personal reasons."

UNRWA said in response to AFP questions that it "is probably among the most scrutinised UN agencies in view of the nature of the conflict and complex and politicised environment it is working in."

"Over the past 18 months, UNRWA has faced immense financial and political pressure, but its entire staff body has steered it, serving 5.4 million Palestine refugees through the most unprecedented financial crisis in its near 70 years of history," it said.

The report was sent to the United Nations secretary general in December and UN investigators have since visited UNRWA's offices in Jerusalem and Amman, collecting information related to the allegations, sources familiar with the matter said.

Krahenbuhl said in a statement to AFP that "if the current investigation... were to present findings that require corrective measures or other management actions, we will not hesitate to take them."

'Nepotism'

UNRWA was set up in the years after more than 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled their lands during the 1948 war surrounding the creation of Israel.

It provides vital schooling and medical services to millions of impoverished refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and the Palestinian territories.

It employs around 30,000 people, mostly Palestinians, and its UN mandate is set to be debated later this year.

The report paints a picture of a small number of mostly foreign senior leaders centralising power and influence while disregarding UN checks and balances.

Pierre Krahenbuhl, Commissioner General for the United Nations Relief and 

Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (AFP Photo/THOMAS COEX)

Krahenbuhl himself is alleged to have been romantically involved with a colleague who was appointed in 2015 to a newly created role of senior advisor to the commissioner-general after an "extreme fast-track" process, the report says.

This enabled her to join him on business class flights across the globe, the report claims.

In 2018 the United States suspended and later cut all funding for UNRWA, causing a financial crisis that threatened to see its schools and hospitals closed.

US President Donald Trump's administration, along with Israel, accuses UNRWA of perpetuating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The agency disputes that and says the services it provides would otherwise not be available to Palestinians.

Trump's Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt said Monday that he was "extremely concerned" about allegations against UNRWA and demanded a full UN probe.

"UNRWA's model is broken/unsustainable & based on an endless expanding # of beneficiaries," he wrote on Twitter.

After the crisis began, Krahenbuhl established a fund-raising unit outside of the traditional mechanisms but it "reportedly raised only modest amounts," the report says.

At the same time, it enabled him to continue travelling with his partner, it says.

Separately, a Krahenbuhl deputy is accused of manipulating the system to find a well-paid job for her husband during the 2018 financial crisis.

Her management style is alleged to have included bullying, cutting those she disliked out of decision-making and avoiding checks and balances, it says.

The deputy left UNRWA last Thursday for what the agency said was "personal reasons".

She could not be reached for comment.

Another senior official is described in the report as bullying staff and acting like a "gangster" and a "thug".

UNRWA said the official was recently "separated from the agency as a result of inappropriate behaviour" linked to the investigation.

He could not be reached for comment.

'Warnings ignored'

A senior UNRWA staffer was fired in early July after what she said was several years of trying to raise ethical concerns.

UNRWA said she was "separated" following a different investigation unrelated to the internal report, calling it a "stand-alone case of misconduct".

She claimed she was fired for retaliation and is appealing.

Documents seen by AFP show multiple times she raised concerns over potential mismanagement, including employees allegedly being promoted beyond their qualifications and supposed nepotism.

She told AFP she met directly with Krahenbuhl, but nothing was done.

"Most of the time it felt like working for a private company not the United Nations where we are supposed to comply with strict rules and regulations", she said.

'It's our America,' reminds Michelle Obama

Yahoo –AFP, 20 July 2019

"What truly makes our country great is its diversity," tweeted former US first lady
Michelle Obama (pictured April 2019), reminding her followers that "it's our America"

Former first lady Michelle Obama added her voice Friday to the Democratic outcry following President Donald Trump's attack on four ethnic minority congresswomen, saying "there's a place for all of us."

"What truly makes our country great is its diversity... Whether we are born here or seek refuge here, there's a place for all of us," Obama tweeted, without mentioning Trump.

"We must remember it's not my America or your America. It's our America."

Trump has come under intense fire after he attacked four first-term Democratic congresswomen known as the "Squad."

In a rare move, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives on Tuesday rebuked Trump for "racist comments" after he said the four should "go back" to their countries of origin if they are not happy in the United States.

But chants of "Send her back!" directed at Somali-born congresswoman Ilhan Omar broke out at Trump's "Make America Great Again" rally in Greenville, North Carolina on Wednesday night.

Trump claimed to reporters in the Oval Office the following day that he was not pleased by the taunts and attempted to cut them short.

Television footage, however, showed he let the chant continue for more than 10 seconds before he resumed speaking.

"Those are incredible people. Those are incredible patriots," Trump told reporters outside the White House on Friday when asked about the chants.

"She's lucky to be where she is, let me tell you," he added about Omar.

The first-term lawmakers -- all but one of whom, Omar, were born in the United States -- are of Hispanic, Arab, Somali and African-American descent.

Some Republicans have urged Trump to tone down the rhetoric, but the president has made it clear that attacks on the "Squad" will be a centerpiece of his 2020 re-election strategy -- despite the risk of inflaming racial tensions and widening the partisan divide.

Omar responded to the chants by condemning Trump's "racist remarks" and branding him a "fascist."

The president's "nightmare is seeing a Somali immigrant refugee rise to Congress," she told supporters when she returned home to Minnesota Thursday night.

"We are going to continue to be a nightmare to this president, because his policies are a nightmare to us," she said through a megaphone to the cheering crowd at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

"What truly makes our country great is its diversity," tweeted former US first lady Michelle Obama (pictured April 2019), reminding her followers that "it's our America"

In rare US criticism, Pence urges Saudis to free blogger Badawi

France24 – AFP, 18 July 2019

US Vice President Mike Pence addresses a ministerial meeting at the State Department
on religious freedom (AFP)

Washington (AFP) - Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday urged Saudi Arabia to free Raif Badawi, a blogger jailed and publicly whipped for insulting Islam, in a rare criticism of the US ally as he vowed to champion religious freedom worldwide.

Speaking to dozens of government ministers who flew in for a conference on religious liberty, Pence offered usual US denunciations of adversaries such as China, Iran and Venezuela.

But Pence also raised the case of Badawi, whose public flogging in a Jeddah square in 2015 prompted an international uproar, as he grouped him with prisoners from Eritrea, Mauritania and Pakistan who he considered as being held for religious expression.

"In Saudi Arabia, blogger Raif Badawi is still in prison for the alleged crime of criticizing Islam through electronic means," Pence said.

"All four of these men have stood in defense of religious liberty, the exercise of their faith, despite unimaginable pressure. And the American people stand with them," Pence said.

"So today the United States of America calls upon the governments of Eritrea, Mauritania, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to respect the rights of conscience of these men and let these men go," Pence said to applause.

President Donald Trump's administration has faced anger from rival Democrats and some fellow Republicans for not doing more to punish Saudi Arabia over last year's killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a writer and US resident who was strangled and dismembered after being lured into the ultraconservative kingdom's Istanbul consulate.

Trump instead has hailed Saudi Arabia's powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and said that human rights concerns should be secondary due to the kingdom's ample purchases of US weapons and shared hostility toward Iran.

Canada, which granted Badawi's wife and three children asylum in 2013, has been particularly outspoken on his case, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau calling his release a top priority.

Saudi Arabia has reacted with fury to Canada's statements, last year pulling its ambassador and severing trade ties in what was widely seen as a warning to other nations.

Lashed in public

Badawi was arrested under Saudi Arabia's draconian cyber crime law and his website shut down after he blogged his criticism of the "mutawa," the religious police force that enforces the law.

Badawi had also called for peaceful assembly to mark a "day of liberalism," as well the end to the role of religion in politics.

He was sentenced to 10 years in jail and 1,000 public lashes.

He was lashed 50 times before the public in Jeddah, with witnesses remarking how he did not cry out. Authorities have repeatedly postponed the rest of his lashes.

In a letter afterward published by German weekly Der Spiegel, Badawi recalled being "surrounded by a cheering crowd who cried incessantly 'Allahu Akbar' (God is greatest)."

"All this cruel suffering... because I expressed my opinion," he wrote.

Among other cases raised by Pence, he urged Pakistan to free Junaid Hafeez, a university lecturer known for his liberal views and accused of insulting the Prophet Mohammed.

Blasphemy is an incendiary issue in Pakistan, where mere allegations of insulting Islam have sparked lynchings, although activists say many cases stem from personal disagreements.

The call to free Hafeez came days before Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan visits Washington on a trip in which he hopes to rebuild an often rocky relationship.

Raising rights with North Korea

The Trump administration has generally played down human rights other than with adversaries. But it has put a high priority on religious freedom, an important issue for Trump's evangelical Christian base.

Pence also pledged to support religious freedom in North Korea -- which advocacy groups say is perhaps the world's most repressive state, with even possession of the Bible banned.

Trump has met three times with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and voiced a fondness for him, with talks focused on ending Pyongyang's nuclear program.

"You can be confident, as President Trump continues to pursue the denuclearization of North Korea and a lasting peace, the United States will continue to stand for the freedom of religion of all people of all faiths on the Korean peninsula," Pence said.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo earlier called China's mass incarceration of mostly Muslim Uighurs "the stain of the century" and pledged to build a standing global alliance to promote religious freedom.

Press rights group in secret Riyadh mission to urge journalists' release

Yahoo – AFP, Anne CHAON and Stuart WILLIAMS, July 10, 2019

Saudi blogger Raif Badawi is among 30 journalists which Reporters Without Borders
(RSF) wants to see released (AFP Photo/TOBIAS SCHWARZ)

Paris (AFP) - French press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) confidentially met top Saudi officials in Riyadh to press for the release of journalists after the murder of dissident writer Jamal Khashoggi, it revealed Wednesday.

The RSF delegation went to Riyadh in late April and urged Saudi authorities to release 30 journalists who it says are imprisoned in the kingdom for their work.

The group said it was only confirming the visit now after the prospect of pardons did not materialise and as Saudi Arabia prepares to host next year's G20 summit.

"We had a series of meetings from 21-23 April and we could meet officials at a high level," RSF's secretary general Christophe Deloire told AFP.

"It was an unprecedented mission," he added.

Khashoggi, a former royal insider turned dissident, was strangled to death and his body dismembered inside Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul last year.

Agnes Callamard, a UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, reported "credible evidence" last month that linked the powerful crown prince Mohammed bin Salman to the killing.

"We were able to discuss on each occasion the assassination of Khashoggi and the situation of journalists, without any exception," said Deloire.

He defended the secrecy of the mission, only revealed now at the start of a Global Conference for Media Freedom in London, saying "there needs to be public and non-public pleading".

Jamal Khashoggi was murdered inside Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul last year in 

a killing linked by some to crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (AFP Photo/

MOHAMMED AL-SHAIKH, OSCAR DEL POZO)

'Saudi did not act'

RSF added in a statement that its delegation led by Deloire had met key Saudi figures usually out of reach for a foreign NGO, including Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir and public prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb.

"The mission remained confidential until now as the possibility of pardons during the Ramadan period was discussed -- a point the Saudi government did not act on," RSF said.

RSF said that the release of the journalists would be the only way to clear Riyadh's way to the G20 chairmanship and hosting the annual summit following the assassination of Khashoggi.

The prospect of Mohammed bin Salman -- known as MBS and seen by many as the country's de-facto leader -- greeting world leaders at the next G20 summit has already raised eyebrows.

"Political accountability for Mr Khashoggi will mean that it (the Saudi G20) doesn't happen or it's moved elsewhere, or something is being done to ensure that the political system in the US and in other countries does not become complicit of that international crime," Callamard said in Washington earlier this month.

The communique issued at the end of the G20 summit in Japan last month confirmed that Saudi would host the next summit in 2020.

So far no G20 member has mulled any kind of boycott.

The assassination of Khashoggi further darkened Saudi Arabia's already bleak press freedom credentials.

For the first time, Saudi Arabia dipped into the bottom 10 countries in RSF's 2019 World Press Freedom Index, and is now ranked 172nd out of 180 countries.

Among the 30 that RSF wants released is Saudi blogger Raif Badawi who was jailed for 10 years for insulting Islam and has received 50 lashes of 1,000 to which he was sentenced.