Latest news with #minorityRights
Russia Today
a day ago
- Politics
- Russia Today
NATO member names key reason behind ‘bad relations' with Ukraine
Ukraine's poor treatment of ethnic Hungarians is the root cause of tense relations between the neighboring countries, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said. According to various estimates, between 100,000 and 150,000 ethnic Hungarians live in Ukraine's western Zakarpattia region. Over the past decade, Kiev has adopted laws restricting the use of non-Ukrainian languages in education and public life. These policies have drawn criticism from Budapest and prompted accusations of discrimination. In an interview with Russian news agency RIA Novosti published on Monday, Szijjarto said tensions with Ukraine go beyond the ongoing conflict with Russia. 'Right now we have very bad bilateral relations with Ukraine, which have nothing to do with the ongoing war,' he said. 'These bad relations emerged about ten years ago when the Ukrainian government began violating the rights of national minorities.' 'We hope one day Ukraine will have an administration that respects minorities and restores their rights,' Szijjarto added. Hungarian officials have also protested the forced conscription of ethnic Hungarians into the Ukrainian military, along with alleged cases of violence by draft officers. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Viktor Orban blamed the Ukrainian army for the death of Jozsef Sebestyen, a 45-year-old ethnic Hungarian who had been drafted. The Ukrainian military stated that Sebestyen died of a medical condition and showed no signs of violence. Nevertheless, Hungary has requested that the EU impose sanctions on three Ukrainian officials involved in mobilization efforts. A Hungarian church in Zakarpattia was also set on fire earlier this year, prompting condemnation from Hungarian authorities. Orban has opposed Ukraine's efforts to join NATO and the EU, arguing that such moves risk triggering a full-scale war with Russia. He has also refused to send weapons to Kiev and continues to advocate for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict. Ukraine has denied the allegations of discrimination but maintains that a comprehensive treaty with Budapest is not possible without Hungarian support for its NATO membership bid.
Arab News
03-07-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Pakistan dismisses Indian rights abuse claims, accuses New Delhi of persecuting minorities
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has strongly rejected Indian allegations of minority rights violations, accusing New Delhi of persecuting its own citizens and 'exporting chaos abroad,' the state-owned Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) news agency reported on Thursday. The exchange took place during a debate in the United Nations General Assembly on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), a global commitment aimed at preventing genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Addressing the session, Pakistan's Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Usman Jadoon, criticized what he described as the selective application of the R2P doctrine, saying it had become 'meaningless' in the face of the international community's failure to prevent mass atrocities in Palestine and Indian-administered Kashmir. India responded by accusing Pakistan of violating the rights of its minorities and being complicit in a recent militant attack in Pahalgam, in Indian-administered Kashmir. Exercising her right of reply, Pakistani delegate Rabia Ijaz, a second secretary at Pakistan's UN Mission, dismissed the accusations as 'a textbook case of the perpetrator posturing as a victim.' 'A state that has weaponized hate, normalized mob violence and codified discrimination against its own citizens – and against those it occupies – has no moral standing to speak on the Responsibility to Protect,' the APP quoted her as saying. Ijaz went on to describe India as a 'majoritarian autocracy,' where minorities, particularly Muslims, Christians and Dalits, face discrimination. 'Lynching is met with silence,' she continued. 'Bulldozers become tools of collective punishment. Mosques are razed. Citizenship is denied based on religion.' 'This is not the protection of people,' she added. 'This is their persecution, sanctified by law and celebrated by power.' Ijaz maintained India had launched an 'unprovoked and deliberate' cross-border attack on civilian areas in Pakistan earlier this year in May, killing 35 people. 'R2P cannot become a slogan for serial violators to hide behind,' she said. 'It cannot be invoked by those who deny rights at home and export chaos abroad.' India and Pakistan have long been at odds with each other, though diplomatic tensions have intensified in recent years. The two nuclear-armed neighbors have repeatedly traded barbs at international forums particularly after their relationship deteriorated following the recent four-day military standoff, one of the most serious flare-ups in several decades.
The Standard
27-06-2025
- Politics
- The Standard
'She's not coming back': Alawite women snatched from streets of Syria
Alawite Syrians, who fled the violence in western Syria, walk in the water of the Nahr El Kabir River, after the reported mass killings of Alawite minority members, in Akkar, Lebanon March 11, 2025. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir/File Photo
Bloomberg
22-06-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Britain's Labour Party Needs to Listen to Its Social Conscience
Progressives on both sides of the English-speaking Atlantic have focused much of their energy and attention on championing minority rights and indulging in identity politics. Standing up for groups who've suffered historic discrimination is laudable; removing barriers to Black employment and giving gay people the right to marry are hard-fought achievements. Transgender people deserve protections too, with trade-offs necessary given the clashes of biological sex and gender ideology. But whether by preference or distracted by such concerns, social evils which used to fire up the liberal-left conscience — class inequality, lack of economic opportunity and cohesive societies — have been in danger of being overlooked or even downgraded. In the UK, a horrific, decades-long scandal of grooming and rape gangs of mainly Pakistani Muslim men who preyed on young white women has revealed the pitfalls of this lopsided approach.
Bloomberg
16-06-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Latvia Questions Party Leader for Russian Comments in Parliament
Latvian authorities detained and questioned the leader of a political party catering to the country's Russian-speaking minority for allegedly inciting hatred in parliament earlier this month. Aleksejs Roslikovs was ejected from a parliamentary session earlier this month during a debate on restricting the public use of the Russian language, in which the party leader said 'there are many more of us' in Russian and made a vulgar gesture. The episode lays bare the tension in the Baltic nation over its biggest minority group.
