Tag Archives: Violence

Zimbabweans suffer ‘savage’ police abuse and torture

Zimbabwean Pastor Mawarire addresses followers after his release at Harare Magistrates court

By Ed Cropley

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – A 10-year-old girl knocked out by tear gas from a grenade thrown into her home. A disabled boy beaten and left unconscious at a bus-stop. A 17-year-old set upon by six police dogs.

The list of cases recorded by a trauma clinic is detailed and varied – men, women and children whose only fault was being in the wrong place at the wrong time when Zimbabwean police cracked down on a rare outbreak of dissent this month against President Robert Mugabe.

“Torture, Torture, Torture, Intimidation, Torture, Torture, Intimidation, Assaulted, Torture…”, reads one column of the spreadsheet prepared by the clinic, which was seen by Reuters.

The violence occurred during a “stay-away” inspired by Evan Mawarire, a 39-year-old preacher, whose call for workers to stay home in protest against corruption and economic decline amounts to the biggest challenge to Mugabe’s rule in nearly a decade.

Police spokeswoman Charity Charamba and information minister Chris Mushowe did not answer their mobile phones or reply to text messages requesting comment on the allegations of abuse.

The clinic that prepared the spreadsheet redacted the names and ID numbers of victims. Officials from the clinic asked that it not be identified for fear of reprisals, and Reuters was not able to confirm the individual incidents directly.

But Frances Morris, a doctor who treated some of the victims, said the injuries included broken arms and hands, and were indicative of “savage” treatment.

The victims, she said, were mainly civilians who were not involved in protests, even though the injuries were of a severity that the clinic normally confronts only among participants of riots.

“The dog bite injuries reflect the use of uncontrolled dogs,” she said.

In a July 11 Twitter post, former information minister Jonathan Moyo, a leading Mugabe defender, accused the anti-government protest movement inspired by Mawarire of fomenting violence.

“In Germany when you want to kill dogs you cause rabies. In Zimbabwe when you want to grab power unconstitutionally you cause social unrest!” Moyo said.

Mawarire, who says he promotes only peaceful protest, was arrested on Tuesday but released a day later when a magistrate threw out charges of attempting to overthrow the state, an offense that carries up to 20 years in jail.

A warrant seen by Reuters for a police raid on his home accused him of having a stolen police helmet and other “subversive material” used to incite unrest on July 6, the day of the “stay-away” protest.

As Mawarire appeared in court on Wednesday, dozens of riot police backed by armored vehicles and water cannon took up position outside the building.

BATONS, DOG BITES

Television footage and pictures this month from the southern African country have shown baton-wielding riot police taking on groups of young men in restive Harare townships.

In one incident described in the clinic’s spreadsheet, three riot police assaulted a mother of a newborn in her home in Epworth, a Harare township well-known as a hotbed of opposition to Mugabe and his ruling ZANU-PF party.

“When my child started crying my husband opened the door and was manhandled by the police and they took him away,” the 24-year-old woman recounted.

“I tried to ask them why they were taking away my husband. They started beating me with baton sticks all over the body. I told them I had an operation – I had a caesarian section. The police said they were having a much more important operation than mine.”

In another, a 17-year-old boy who had left home to collect his school examination results was set upon by riot police and beaten with truncheons and fists before being held for two nights at Harare’s central police station.

Another 17-year-old was accosted by six riot police with dogs at his home. “They commanded their dogs to bite me and two others,” the boy said.

Photographs provided by the clinic and dated July 14 showed one dog-bite victim lying in a hospital bed with flesh wounds on his left lower leg. The largest wound was 10 cm across.

Beatrice Mtetwa, Zimbabwe’s top human rights lawyer, said she would be raising the issue of police brutality when those arrested in the crackdown next appeared in court on July 28. She did not yet have full details of the incidents, she said.

“We are still in the process of collating that information and deciding which one of the persons who are in court have also been treated by the medical facility,” Mtetwa told Reuters.

On Tuesday, Interior Minister Ignatius Chombo said police would be out in full force to prevent any repeat of last week’s Mawarire-inspired “stay away”.

“We have sufficient contingent of police to deal with the issue. There is no need for the army. This is their daily bread and they will deal with any eventuality,” Chombo said.

“PRAY FOR ZIMBABWE”

Zimbabwe has a history of violence against opponents of Mugabe, the only president the country has known since independence from Britain in 1980.

In 2008, after hundreds of his supporters were beaten up, then-opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai pulled out of an election run-off against Mugabe to prevent anybody being killed.

A year earlier, Tsvangirai himself was beaten after being arrested on his way to a Harare prayer rally. When he emerged from custody, his face was severely swollen and he had deep gashes in his head.

Edward Chikombo, a freelance cameraman who obtained pictures of Tsvangirai’s injuries, was later abducted from his Harare home. His body was found a week later.

Mindful of such events, father-of-two Mawarire had pre-recorded a video to be released should he disappear. Within minutes of his arrest this week, his supporters put it out.

“You are watching this video because I have either been arrested or I have been abducted,” he said in the grainy clip posted under his #ThisFlag Twitter hashtag.

“Maybe we shall see each other again. Maybe we shall never see each other again. And maybe we succeeded, or maybe we failed. Whatever the case, you and I have stood to build Zimbabwe,” he continued. “Remember to pray for Zimbabwe.”

(Reporting by Ed Cropley; editing by Peter Graff)

Mass killings, forced evictions threaten indigenous, minority groups to point of “eradication”: rights group

By Lin Taylor

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Mass killings, forced evictions and conflicts over land put indigenous and minority groups at risk of being eradicated from their ancestral lands, a human rights group said on Tuesday.

From Ethiopia, China and Iraq, the combination of armed conflicts and land dispossession has led to the persecution of minority groups and the erosion of cultural heritage, according to a report by the Minority Rights Group (MRG).

Carl Soderbergh, MRG director of policy and communications, said while discrimination against ethnic or religious minorities is not new, the level of targeted abuse is getting worse.

“The conflict that’s happening in Syria and Iraq right now is leading to the massive displacement of smaller and very ancient religious minorities like the Yazidis and the Sabean Mandeans,” said Soderbergh, lead author of the ‘State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2016’ report.

“They are essentially at risk of being totally eradicated in their traditional areas of origin.”

Civil conflicts and sectarian tensions have engulfed Iraq since 2003 when a U.S.-led coalition toppled Saddam Hussein. In 2014, Islamic State militants declared a caliphate after capturing swathes of Iraq and Syria.

Minorities including the Yazidi, Turkmen, Shabak, Christians and Kaka’i have been disproportionately affected by the recent violence in Iraq.

According to U.N. officials, Islamic State, also referred to as ISIS, has shown particular cruelty to the Yazidis, whom they regard as devil-worshippers, killing, capturing and enslaving thousands.

The persecution of Yazidis was recognized as genocide by the United Nations in June.

“It is getting worse. Whether it’s armed groups like ISIS or (Nigerian Islamist group) Boko Haram or it’s governments, there’s this targeting of heritage that we’re seeing, which is extremely worrisome,” Soderbergh said.

He said many minorities and indigenous peoples also face forced resettlement or evictions from their ancestral lands to make way for large-scale infrastructure or agricultural businesses, which further threatens their cultural heritage and identity.

For example, in parts of East Africa, governments are pushing for pastoralist communities to switch to settled farming with supporters saying such a move will create better food security, curb conflict between herders and farmers and free up land.

But Maasai herdsmen say the privatization and subdivision of their ancestral lands threatens ancient pastoralist practices, endangering livestock on which they depend and eroding communal rights to land and natural resources.

“Once a community is removed from the land, they really struggle to  maintain their cultures and convey their cultures to the next generation,” Soderbergh said.

By 2115, it is estimated that at least half of the approximately 7,000 indigenous languages worldwide will die out, the report said.

Although some governments see these groups as a threat to the state, Soderbergh said minorities and indigenous peoples must be included in decisions that affect their communities.

(Reporting by Lin Taylor @linnytayls, Editing by Katie Nguyen.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters that covers humanitarian issues, conflicts, global land and property rights, modern slavery and human trafficking, women’s rights, and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org to see more stories)

Protests on Saturday shut down main highways, numerous arrests

People gather on Interstate 94 to protest the fatal shooting of Philando Castile by Minneapolis area police during a traffic stop, in St. Paul, Minnesota,

By Bryn Stole and David Bailey

BATON ROUGE, La./MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) – Protests against the shootings of two black men by police officers shut down main arteries in a number of U.S. cities on Saturday, leading to numerous arrests, scuffles and injuries in confrontations between police and demonstrators.

Undeterred by heightened concerns about safety at protests after a lone gunman killed five police officers in Dallas Thursday night, organizers went ahead with marches in the biggest metropolis, New York City, and Washington D.C., the nation’s capital, among other cities.

It was the third straight day of widespread protests after the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling, 37, by police in Baton Rouge on Tuesday and the death of Philando Castile, 32, on Wednesday night in a St. Paul, Minnesota suburb, cities which both saw heated protests on Saturday.

The most recent shooting deaths by police come after several years of contentious killings by law enforcement officers, including that of Michael Brown, a teenager whose death in the summer of 2014 caused riots and weeks of protests in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson.

On Saturday evening, hundreds of protesters shut down I-94, a major thoroughfare linking the Twin Cities, snarling traffic.

Protesters, told to disperse, threw rocks, bottles and construction rebar at officers, injuring at least three, St. Paul police said. Police made arrests and used smoke bombs and marking rounds to disperse the crowd.

Protesters at the scene said police fired tear gas and rubber bullets. Police said early on Sunday they had begun clearing the highway of debris in preparation for re-opening it.

A march in Baton Rouge saw scuffles between riot police and Black Panther activists, several of whom carried shotguns. Louisiana law allows for weapons to be carried openly.

After a short standoff later in the evening, riot police arrested as many as 30 demonstrators and recovered weapons. Prominent black activist and former Baltimore mayoral candidate Deray McKesson was among those arrested.

Protests also took place Saturday in Nashville, where protesters briefly blocked a road, and in Indianapolis. A rally in San Francisco also briefly blocked a freeway ramp, according to local media.

Hundreds of protesters marched from City Hall to Union Square in New York. The crowd swelled to around a thousand people, closing down Fifth Avenue.

Some chanted “No racist police, no justice, no peace” as rain fell in New York.

“I’m feeling very haunted, very sad,” said Lorena Ambrosio, 27, a Peruvian American and freelance artist, “and just angry that black bodies just keep piling and piling up.”

New York police said they arrested about a dozen protesters for shutting down a major city highway.

(Additional reporting by Laila Kearney, Elizabeth Barber and Chris Michaud in New York; Writing by Nick Carey; Editing by Mary Milliken and Ryan Woo)

Wave of anti-police protests strains U.S. law enforcement

People hold their hands in the air as they yell "hands up, don't shoot!" during a protest for the killing of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile in the Manhattan borough of New York

By Curtis Skinner

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A wave of anti-police protests since the 2014 killing of an unarmed black teen in Ferguson, Missouri, is creating strains at law enforcement agencies across the United States, forcing out some police chiefs and top prosecutors.

A driving force behind the change has been Black Lives Matter, a national organization whose name is a potent symbol for demonstrators railing against police violence, according to law enforcement officials and academics.

“What Black Lives Matter has been able to do is to maintain a focus on this issue and a persistence that has lasted for over two years now,” said Jody Armour, a professor at University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law.

Armour, who has expertise in police and racial profiling, called the movement “the power of democracy unleashed.”

“Black Lives Matter” has again been used as a rallying cry in the cases of two unarmed black men shot dead by police this week in Baton Rouge and Minneapolis, and organizers have begun mobilizing.

Formed in 2012 after the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman in Florida, Black Lives Matter’s national profile exploded in mid-2014 after white police officer Darren Wilson shot dead unarmed black teen Michael Brown in Ferguson.

Angry protests have roiled the country since, and police chiefs and top prosecutors in big and small cities have been ousted.

In San Francisco, the police killing of 26-year-old Mario Woods in December sparked months of protests and demands for the ouster of police chief Greg Suhr. In May, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee asked him to step down, saying tensions between police and people of color had “come into full view.”

In Chicago, two-term Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez lost her Democratic primary bid by a landslide in March, after activists dogged her campaign over her handling of the 2014 police killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.

Her loss came just months after Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel ousted then-police superintendent Garry McCarthy, saying it was an “undeniable fact” that public trust in police had eroded. As evidence, he cited Black Lives Matter protests organized after a video of the killing was released.

BATON ROUGE AND MINNEAPOLIS

The group has used demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience to pressure police chiefs and elected officials. At times their lead has been followed by more established groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and local clergy, as was the case in Chicago.

Darrel Stephens, executive director of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, said local politicians were much more responsible for the string of departures and firings than protesters.

“I know from being involved in this work for around 50 years, that (since Ferguson) we’ve seen more of these political terminations than we’ve seen in years past,” he said.

Hundreds of demonstrators converged on a convenience store in Baton Rouge on Wednesday where two police officers fatally shot 37-year-old Alton Sterling, an unarmed black man who was selling CDs, early on Tuesday morning.

Protesters on Thursday also gathered at the mansion of Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton in St. Paul, about 10 miles (15 km) southeast of where 32-year-old Philando Castile was shot by a police officer after a traffic stop on Wednesday.

Both of the killings were captured on video.

Jim Pasco, executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police, said heightened media attention and the ubiquity of cell phones have fueled recent firings and resignations.

“There’s a far greater public awareness that’s going on and it’s increased (protesters’) ability to affect the process,” Pasco said.

He said the attention has made police chiefs an easy scapegoat for politicians aiming to quell unrest.

“Whenever there is a problem, is Rahm Emanuel going to resign or is he going to fire the police chief?” Pasco said, referring to the Chicago mayor. “Is the mayor of San Francisco going to resign, or is he going to fire the police chief? That’s the question.”

Melina Abdullah, professor and chair of pan-African studies at California State University Los Angeles, said keeping the heat on elected officials has been critical to the movement’s success.

“With sustained pressure there, we can make sure there is a response,” said Abdullah, an organizer of the local Black Lives Matter chapter. “We know another murder is going to happen.”

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Jason Szep and Richard Chang)

U.N. peacekeepers preparing for possible Congo political violence

broken glass of looted store

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Political uncertainty over Democratic Republic of Congo’s next presidential election could spiral into a severe crisis and United Nations peacekeepers are developing contingency plans for widespread violence, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned.

In a report to the U.N. Security Council released on Tuesday, Ban said that under those plans peacekeepers in Congo might need to ask for help from other U.N. missions.

“I am concerned that in the absence of a credible and meaningful political dialogue among Congolese stakeholders, tensions could degenerate into a severe crisis, with a high risk of relapse into violence and instability,” Ban said.

The Congolese government has said it is unlikely it will be able to hold elections in November for logistical reasons but opponents of President Joseph Kabila accuse him of trying to cling to power. The government has denied the claim.

Kabila, who has been in power since 2001, is barred by the constitution from standing for a third term. But a Kabila ally has raised the prospect of a referendum to allow him to run.

Dozens of Kabila’s critics have been arrested since last year as part of what the United Nations and rights groups say is an escalating crackdown on political dissent ahead of a presidential election.

“I urge the government of Democratic Republic of Congo to respect freedom of expression, assembly and information as fundamental rights that are essential to the conduct of free and fair elections,” Ban said.

Dozens died in street protests in January 2015 against a revision to the election code that could have pushed the election back by years.

“(The U.N. peacekeeping mission) MONUSCO is developing contingency plans in the event of widespread violence in the context of the electoral process,” Ban said.

The U.N. Security Council is due to be briefed on the U.N. peacekeeping mission on Thursday.

The overthrow of longtime Congolese ruler Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997 fuelled years of conflict in the mineral-rich east that sucked in more than half a dozen countries and killed millions of people. U.N. peacekeepers have been deployed in Congo since 2000.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

Murders, violence rises as parched Central India battles for water

By Shuriah Niazi

BHOPAL, India (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Imrat Namdev and her younger sister Pushpa Namdev were neighbors in Chhatarpur district, in the drought-hit Indian region of Bundelkhand. Both relied on the same well for water and, according to police, frequently quarreled over how much the other was using.

In May, during one fight over water, Pushpa, 42, beat Imrat, 48, with a stick, police say. The injured sister was rushed to a hospital, but died there, and Pushpa was charged with murder.

“Our village faces a severe shortage of potable water,” Imrat’s son, Jitendra, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “Pushpa always felt my mother drew more water from the well.”

As northern and central India continue to suffer thorough severe drought and oppressive heat, police in Bundelkhand and several other regions are reporting a rise in violent – and often deadly – clashes over water.

After almost 10 years of below-average rainfall and several consecutive years of drought, the region’s rivers, lakes, reservoirs and wells are drying up.

Disputes are a common problem in many places in India that face water shortages. But Indian police report that the fighting is getting more frequent and bloody. In many parts of the country, neighbors, friends and family are turning on each other, desperate to protect what little water they have left, police records suggest.

Last month, in the tribal-dominated Alirajpur district of Madhya Pradesh, 13-year-old Surmada, her brother and her uncle used a neighbor’s hand-pump, without permission, to get water for the family’s houseguests.

According to police, the owner of the pump and his son attacked the group with arrows. One pierced Surmada’s eye, killing her.

And in the village of Kanker, in Shivpuri district, a large-scale argument broke out after two motorcyclists got into an accident, causing one to spill the 15-litre (4 gallon) container of water he was carrying.

“The two later called their family members and friends and attacked each other with spears, axes and sticks,” said investigating officer Jaisingh Yadav of Sathanwada police station. Fifteen people were injured, five of them women, he said.

Lal Singh Arya, Madhya Pradesh’s urban administration and development minister, said the government is using all its resources to try to make sure everyone has water. But he predicted tensions will remain high until monsoon rains – which began recently in some areas – take hold.

“There have been disputes over water in many parts of the state because of two consecutive droughts,” he said. “The situation will improve with the monsoon rains.”

ONLY DRINKING WATER

Activists say the government’s failure to act to better manage water is partly to blame for the rise in violence.

“The present crisis is the fallout of over-consumption, wasteful use and inefficient water governance systems,” said Ajay Dubey, an activist with the environmental non-governmental organization Prayatna, based in Madhya Pradesh.

“People are going to any lengths for the sake of water. They’ve lost hope that the situation will ever improve. Things were never so bad,” Dubey said.

According to the Madhya Pradesh water resource department, out of the state’s 139 main reservoirs, 82 are at only 10 percent capacity and 22 are empty. As authorities try to make the remaining water last until monsoon rains help refill the reservoirs, the measures they have implemented have only exacerbated the sense of desperation.

Across much of the region, authorities have banned the use of water for washing cars or trucks, bathing cattle or irrigating crops. In most cities in Madhya Pradesh, the local government only supplies drinking water on one out of every two to seven days.

The district administration of Sehore in Madhya Pradesh has temporarily taken charge of all water sources, whether government or privately owned, so that it can manage use of the dwindling resource. And in three towns in Madhya Pradesh, the use of water for anything other than drinking is banned.

Lokesh Kumar, sub-divisional magistrate of Ichhawar town, said water can’t be used for farming or industrial purposes until July 5, when the monsoon is underway and authorities hope water sources will be replenished.

For many in rural India, the struggle to survive with very little water is proving too difficult. In areas like Bundelkhand, a growing number of people are leaving their homes and abandoning their work in hopes of finding water – even just a little more – somewhere else.

Asandi Das, who lives in a village in Chhatarpur district, plans to take his family to Agra, where the famous Taj Mahal is located, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. He said that right now his family has neither food nor water.

He knows it won’t be easy even in Agra – or anywhere else – but hopes to get enough work to make ends meet.

“We’ll not be able to survive in our village,” Das said. “There’s just no water. We’ll have to go to some other place if we want to live.”

(Reporting by Shuriah Niazi; editing by Jumana Farouky and Laurie Goering :; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, women’s rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit http://news.trust.org/climate)

California police probe violent clash at white supremacist rally

Anti-fascist counter-protestors parade through Sacramento after multiple people were stabbed during a clash between neo-Nazis holding a permitted rally and counter-protestors on Sunday at the state capitol in Sacramento, California, United States, June 26,

By Eric M. Johnson and Justin Madden

(Reuters) – At least 10 people were injured at a rally outside the California state capitol in Sacramento on Sunday as members of a white supremacist group clashed with counter-protesters, authorities said.

The melee erupted during a rally staged by the Traditionalist Worker Party, described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a white nationalist extremist group.

One of its leaders, Matt Parrott, said the party had called the demonstration in part to protest against violence that has broken out outside recent rallies by Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

The incident may fuel concerns about the potential for violent protests outside the major party conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia this summer and in the run-up to the Nov. 8 presidential election.

“With the eyes of the world’s media on both Philadelphia and Cleveland, no doubt there will be significant protests,” said Democratic strategist Steve Schale. “The extreme rhetoric, combined with the nonstop media attention, does encourage these kinds of events.”

In Sacramento, when the white supremacists arrived at the capitol building at about noon on Sunday, “counter-protesters immediately ran in – hundreds of people – and they engaged in a fight,” said George Granada, a spokesman for the Capitol Protection Service division of the California Highway Patrol.

In announcing the counter-protest, a group called Anti-Fascist Action Sacramento said on its website that it had a “moral duty” to deny a platform for “Nazis from all over the West Coast” to voice their views.

“We have a right to self defense. That is why we have to shut them down,” Yvette Felarca, a counter-protester wearing a white bandage on her head, told reporters after the clash.

The Sacramento Fire Department said 10 patients were treated at area hospitals for multiple stabbing and laceration wounds.

None of the injuries were life-threatening and there were no immediate reports of arrests, Granada said. The building was placed on lockdown.

Matthew Heimbach, chairman of Traditionalist Worker Party, said his group had expected violence even though it planned a peaceful rally and had a permit.

“We were there to support nationalism. We are white nationalists,” Heimbach told Reuters. “We were there to take a stand.”

Representatives of the Sacramento police could not be reached immediately for further comment.

Video footage on social media showed dozens of people, some of them wearing masks and wielding what appeared to be wooden bats, racing across the capitol grounds and attacking others.

Photos on social media showed emergency officials treating a victim on the grass in the area as police officers stood guard.

The melee comes about four months after four people were stabbed during a scuffle between members of the Ku Klux Klan and counter-protesters near a KKK rally in Anaheim, California.

In recent months Trump has blamed “professional agitators” and “thugs” for violence that has broken out at many of the Republican candidate’s rallies.

In Albuquerque, New Mexico, last month, anti-Trump protesters threw rocks and bottles at police officers who responded with pepper spray. A month earlier, some 20 demonstrators were arrested outside a Trump rally in Costa Mesa, California.

(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle, Fiona Ortiz and Justin Madden in Chicago; Writing by Frank McGurty; Editing by Chris Reese)

Israeli troops say kill Palestinian attacker in West Bank

Israel security after the death of a Palestinian attacker in the West Bank

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian woman who rammed a vehicle into a parked car near an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank on Friday, injuring two people sitting inside, the army said.

“Forces on site responded and fired toward the attacker, resulting in her death,” a military spokeswoman said.

Palestinian officials had no immediate comment.

Palestinian knife, shooting and car ramming attacks have killed 32 Israelis and two visiting U.S. citizens over the past eight months. Israeli forces have shot dead at least 198 Palestinians, 135 of whom Israel has said were assailants. Others were killed in clashes and protests.

Religious and political tensions over a Jerusalem site sacred to both Muslims and Jews have fueled the worst wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence since the 2014 Gaza war.

Confrontations have been exacerbated by Palestinians’ frustration over Israel’s 48-year occupation of land they seek for an independent state and the expansion of settlements in those territories which were captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Looters ransack shops on third day of South African vote violence

Shell of a burnt out truck

By Dinky Mkhize

PRETORIA (Reuters) – Looters raided shops and burned-out cars blocked roads in South Africa’s capital on Wednesday, the third day of violence triggered by the ruling party’s choice of a mayoral candidate for local polls.

Police said rioters were targeting foreigners’ shops as public anger mounted over economic hardships in the build-up to Aug. 3 elections likely to become a referendum on President Jacob Zuma’s leadership.

Residents of Pretoria’s townships started setting cars and buses alight on Monday night after the ruling African National Congress’ (ANC) named a candidate in the Tshwane municipality where the capital city is located, overruling the choice of regional branches.

Violence flared again on Tuesday night and continued in parts of the capital on Wednesday, Tshwane Metro police spokesman Console Tleane said.

“There is calm in some hot spots, (but) the navigation of the streets is difficult because of the rubble and the debris,” he told eNCA television.

Protesters were continuing to clash with police and “a disproportionate part of the looting was taking place at shops owned by foreign nationals,” he added.

Foreigners, many of them from other African countries, last suffered a wave of attacks in April last year, by crowds blaming them for taking jobs and business.

Analysts warned of more unrest in the commercial hub of Gauteng province, which includes Pretoria and Johannesburg.

“Intra-ANC, election-related, factional violence is being ignored by markets trading on external factors, but is worrying,” London-based Nomura emerging markets analyst Peter Attard Montalto said in a note.

FACTIONS

The mayoral dispute flared at the weekend after an ANC member was shot dead on Sunday as party factions met to decide on a candidate for mayor of Pretoria’s Tshwane municipality.

The ANC leadership then named senior party member and former cabinet minister Thoko Didiza as its candidate for Tshwane, overriding regional branch members and refusing to back down as the violence mounted.

The ANC said it picked the candidate as a compromise between two rival factions in Tshwane. But critics say the decision by the party, which has been in power since the end of white-minority rule in 1994, showed that it is losing its touch in areas – including Pretoria – where it was once unassailable.

Zuma survived impeachment in April after Constitutional Court ruled that he breached the constitution by ignoring an order by the anti-graft watchdog to repay some of the $16 million in state funds spent renovating his home.

“Ahead of the August elections, disgruntled ANC supporters in Gauteng will be motivated by the Pretoria riots to stage further protests to demonstrate the unpopular ANC leadership’s decisions,” Robert Besseling, head of the EXX Africa business risk intelligence group said in a note.

(Writing by James Macharia; Editing by Andrew Heavens)