Former justice minister Irwin Cotler calls on Israel to end war, starvation in Gaza

2025/08/16 Leave a comment

Better late than never:

Former Liberal justice minister Irwin Cotler has joined thousands of Jews calling on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war and starvation in Gaza.

The longtime human rights activist is a staunch supporter of Israel and has faced death threats from Iran over his support for the Jewish state and democracy worldwide. He has signed an open letter saying Netanyahu is jeopardizing peace at home and abroad.

“The policies and rhetoric of the government you lead are doing lasting damage to Israel, its standing in the world and the prospects of secure peace for all Israelis and Palestinians,” the letter reads.

“This has severe consequences for Israel but also for the well-being, security and unity of Jewish communities around the world.”

The letter, organized by a group called the London Initiative, calls Israel’s aid restrictions on Gaza “a moral and strategic disaster” that hands a “propaganda victory to Hamas” and undermines the important work of countering Hamas and Iran.

“We do not deny the despicable role of Hamas in stealing aid and preventing its distribution, but nor can we reject the evidence of our eyes and ears as to the extent of the human suffering and the role of your government’s policies in it,” the signatories argue.

The letter also calls out Israel’s failure to suppress settler violence, which it says has helped fuel the current “diplomatic tsunami” of criticism from Israel’s historical peers.

“If Israel’s military, when given the bold order by you, can send a missile through a window in Tehran to take out an Iranian general with unerring accuracy, it surely has the ability to maintain order in the West Bank, prevent Jewish extremist violence, protect Palestinian civilians and apply the law,” the letter says.

The letter also calls out rhetoric used by Netanyahu’s cabinet ministers that it describes as “a moral abomination and a chilul hashem — a desecration of Jewish values and Israel’s founding principles.”

It cites the example of Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, who said his government is “erasing Gaza” and that the territory will be entirely Jewish.

Netanyahu governs with a coalition that includes Jewish supremacist parties which have cited religion to advocate for policies widely seen as ethnic cleansing.

“Members of your government have used language of racism, hatred and incitement without censure,” the letter reads.

“Any opportunity to release all the hostages must be seized, and prioritized above appeasing extremist members of your coalition.”

The letter warns that this “language of incitement” erodes efforts to strengthen Jews’ ties to Israel and is “undermining Jewish communities as we face a surge in antisemitic, antizionist hate.”

The letter was also signed by Canadian philanthropist Charles Bronfman, one of the founders of the Birthright program, which sends Jewish youth on trips to Israel.

Its listed signatories also include prominent Canadian professors and volunteers with projects like the New Israel Fund and the Herzl Project, though it notes that the signatories are speaking as individuals and not on behalf of their institutions.

Netanyahu does not appear to have responded directly to the letter since it was made public a week ago, though he defended the war on Sunday, saying Israel’s only choice is to completely defeat Hamas.

Source: Former justice minister Irwin Cotler calls on Israel to end war, starvation in Gaza

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Russia forces occupied Ukrainians to change citizenship

2023/05/06 Leave a comment

Citizenship warfare and erasing identity:

A convoy of empty buses sweeps into a town, alongside members of Russia’s domestic intelligence agency FSB. They cite a decree issued by the Russian president regarding the deportation of anyone without Russian citizenship from the occupied territories. “They radically demand that people either give up their Ukrainian passport in favor of a Russian one, or their property will be confiscated immediately and they will be resettled,” according to the Ukrainian military.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree according to which citizens of Ukraine living in the Russian-occupied parts of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Donetsk who wish to keep their Ukrainian citizenship can only stay there until July 1, 2024. After that, they can be deported from those occupied regions.

“Constant threats”

DW spoke to people from the occupied parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions who confirmed that Ukrainians are being forced to take Russian passports. For security reasons, none of the people want to be named.

“Russian soldiers searched everything in our house. When I showed my Ukrainian passport, they shouted that I should change it for a Russian one, and that otherwise my car would be taken away, and I would be deported,” an elderly man from near Kherson said.

A woman from the Zaporizhzhia region was in tears as she recounted how Russian occupiers threatened to deport her young children to Russia if she didn’t immediately apply for a Russian passport.

Another woman was threatened by Russian soldiers who “put a bag over her head” because she refused to change citizenship. “We held out until the end, we didn’t want to accept a Russian passport. But it’s just unbearable and scary,” the woman from near the Azov Sea told DW.

Why the rush?

The first deputy chairman of the Kherson regional council, Yuriy Sobolevsky, said the pressure on the people living in the occupied territories has recently increased significantly. “Access to medical care and freedom of movement between cities will be restricted for those who refuse to accept Russian passports,” he said. He thinks the Russians are now resorting to terror because not as many people in those territories want to become Russian citizens as Moscow had hoped.

According to the British Ministry of Defense, Moscow apparently wants to speed up the integration of the occupied territories into Russia to sell the invasion of Ukraine as a success to its own people, particularly in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election.

But people are afraid of ending up in Russian databases, a young man from Khrustalnyi in the Luhansk region told DW. He’s from an area which has been occupied since as early as 2014. Many don’t know what to do. “More and more employers are demanding a Russian passport,” the young man explained. But anyone who applies for a Russian “residence permit” is handing themselves over to the occupying forces. Then there is also the risk of being drafted into the war.

Conflicting signals from Kyiv

Should people have a Russian passport forced on them or not? There are conflicting takes on this among Ukrainian politicians. Dmytro Lubinets, human rights commissioner in the Ukrainian parliament, said on TV that Ukrainians in the occupied territories should accept Russian passports if they fear for their lives. He stressed that Ukraine does not recognize such forced passports and that it would not mean that they lose their Ukrainian citizenship.

However, the Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories, Mychajlo Podoljak, said Ukrainians should not accept Russian passports. “Do not cooperate with the occupiers, do not accept Russian passports, flee if possible or wait for our army,” she said on TV.

Life under occupation not a crime

“I’m ashamed and afraid to accept a Russian passport, but I’m also afraid of being deported,” said one desperate woman from the occupied part of the Kherson region. “We can’t leave, as the Ukrainian authorities advise us, because we have an old, sick mother.”

According to Alyona Lunyova from Ukraine’s ZMNINA Human Rights Center, the contradictory advice from Ukrainian officials is confusing people. She stressed that living under occupation is not a crime. “On the contrary, not everyone should leave the occupied territories, it shouldn’t become an empty country and we cannot take in four to five million people from there.” She added that it is not a crime to accept a Russian passport under duress.

Meanwhile, an adviser to Ukraine’s presidential office, Mykhailo Podolyak, said Lubinets’ and Vereshchuk’s advice was not contradictory. He tweeted this advice for Ukrainians in the occupied territories: “If it is possible not to take a Russian passport, then try not to take one. But if you have to take a Russian passport to avoid oppression and torture, then take one.”

Podolyak stressed that Ukraine would not persecute citizens who “passively obtained Russian citizenship.”

Source: Russia forces occupied Ukrainians to change citizenship

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Federal government warns Canadians against fighting for Russia in Ukraine

2022/03/05 Leave a comment

Of note. Apart from some of the legal issues raised in the article, always felt from a citizenship perspective that taking up arms for another country suggested a higher loyalty to that country than Canada (which country are you willing to die for?). The citizenship oath requires one to “faithfully observe the laws of Canada,” which again, as noted by the experts cited in the article, have considerable ambiguity.

And of course, there are differences in terms of which military one fights for (formal allies such as NATO members or informal ones such as Ukraine and more arguably Israel) or whether, more questionable, fighting for foreign brigades or irregular forces (fighting for a listed entity like ISIS would be in contravention of Canadian laws):

Ottawa is warning that Canadians who decide to fight for Russia in Ukraine could face severe consequences, even as it acknowledges for the first time uncertainties about whether it is legal to bear arms for the Ukrainian side.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland delivered the warning to anyone contemplating joining the Russian military invasion of Ukraine on Thursday as she announced more Canadian sanctions on Moscow and support for Kyiv in response to that attack.

Asked at a news conference whether Canadians who pick up arms for Russia would be prosecuted, Freeland said: “We are very clear that this war is illegal. And Canada will take a very appropriately severe view of anyone who is fighting this war.”

Yet federal ministers appeared less confident about the legality of fighting for Ukraine, whose government appealed last weekend for foreign volunteers to join an “international brigade” to help defend the country from Russia.

Numerous Canadians have since said they plan to answer the call to arms, with some having already flown overseas.

Appearing alongside Freeland, Defence Minister Anita Anand told reporters that while she understood the desire that many Canadians have to bear arms for Ukraine, “the legalities of the situation … are indeterminant at this time.”

The federal government had previously avoided directly addressing the legality of Canadians fighting in Ukraine, or whether it supports those who want to do so. Federal ministers instead couched the issue as a matter of personal risk.

That stood in stark contrast to the United Kingdom and Australia, whose governments have noted the potential legal issues that their citizens could face if they fight in a conflict that does not involve their countries.

Anand instead encouraged people to enlist with the Canadian Armed Forces, which has launched a new recruitment drive as it struggles with a shortfall of thousands of active service members while facing growing demands at home and abroad.

“If there are Canadians who are interested in the Armed Forces, the Canadian Armed Forces is currently recruiting,” said Anand, who worked as a lawyer and legal scholar at the University of Toronto prior to entering politics.

“And we would very much welcome applications from across the country to the Canadian Armed Forces, where we have had a training mission in Ukraine since 2015 and have trained over 33,000 Ukrainian soldiers.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau later sidestepped a similar question about the legality of Canadians fighting for Ukraine, referring back to the government’s previous warnings about the risks of travel in Ukraine before adding that he was not a lawyer.

While Freeland did not say whether Canadians who fight for Russia could be prosecuted, author and historian Tyler Wentzell suspected federal lawyers are now taking a hard, long look at the Foreign Enlistment Act and how it can apply today.

Passed in 1937, the act was intended to keep Canada neutral during the Spanish Civil War and basically banned joining a foreign military to fight a country Canada considers “friendly.” Those who violate the law can face a fine of up to $2,000 and two years in prison.

But exactly what counts as a friendly country is not defined, and Wentzell noted the act specifically gives cabinet the power and flexibility to determine which foreign conflicts are allowed or banned.

“They can issue regulations that unequivocally say: You can’t join the Russian Armed Forces,” said Wentzell, who has studied Canadians’ involvement in previous foreign conflicts and written a book on Canadians fighting in the Spanish Civil War.

“They can also issue regulations that say: We will not prosecute anyone, or we require ministerial authorization to prosecute anyone for the following offences.”

Some experts have noted that certain paramilitary units in Ukraine, and even some segments of the Ukrainian military, have been linked to far-right extremism and hate, and even accused of past war crimes.

That has raised concern about Canadians who decide to fight against Russia either knowingly or unknowingly becoming involved with such units and becoming complicit in such activities and later held to account.

Wentzell said it is noteworthy that the government is not only discouraging Canadians from fighting in Ukraine, “they’re not promising anything. In fact, what they’re really saying is that they’re not promising anything.”

Source: Federal government warns Canadians against fighting for Russia in Ukraine

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