ISLAMABAD (AP) — The United States and the United Kingdom have expressed concern over convictions imposed by Pakistani military courts to 25 civilian supporters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan over their alleged involvement in riots last year.
The convictions had previously also been criticized by the European Union and domestic human rights activists.
“The United States is deeply concerned that Pakistani civilians have been sentenced by a military tribunal for their involvement in protests on May 9, 2023. These military courts lack judicial independence, transparency, and due process guarantees,” the State Department said in a statement on Monday.
It asked Pakistan to respect the right to a fair trial and due process.
The Foreign Office in London said that while the U.K. respects Pakistan’s sovereignty over its own legal proceedings, “trying civilians in military courts lacks transparency, independent scrutiny and undermines the right to a fair trial.”
It added: "We call on the government of Pakistan to uphold its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.”
The statements were referring to the violence that erupted after Khan’s arrest in Islamabad in May 2023.
The former premier was ousted through a no-confidence vote in the parliament in 2022, and he was convicted of corruption and sentenced in August 2023. Since then, he has been behind bars. Khan’s popular opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, or PTI, is in talks with the government to secure his release.
Responding to the growing international criticism, Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday that the country is "fully committed to fulfilling all its international human rights obligations.”
In a statement, it said Pakistan’s legal system was in consistent with international human rights law, and the verdicts by the military courts had been made under a law enacted by the parliament and in line with the judgment of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
It said Pakistan will “continue to engage with the international partners, including the European Union to uphold the international human rights law, without any discrimination and double standards.”
The 25 supporters on Monday received prison terms ranging from two years to 10 years, which the army in a statement warned acted as a “stark reminder” for people to never take the law into their own hands.
The PTI has rejected the convictions of civilians, demanding they should be tried in the normal courts if they were involved in the riots.
Without mentioning international criticism of the convictions, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar on Tuesday accused the PTI of “hiring foreign lobbying groups to run campaigns against Pakistan."
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government has accused Khan of masterminding the violence, a charge he denies.
Earlier this month, Khan and dozens of others were indicted by a civilian court on charges of inciting people on that day, when demonstrators attacked the military’s headquarters in Rawalpindi, stormed an air base in Mianwali in the eastern Punjab province and torched a building housing state-run Radio Pakistan in the northwest.
FILE - Paramilitary soldiers from Frontier Corps stand guard outside their headquarters, where supporters of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan protest against the arrest of their leader, in Peshawar, Pakistan, Tuesday, May 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Muhammad Sajjad, File)
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — The Palestinian city of Bethlehem is preparing for a somber Christmas Eve under the shadow of war in Gaza, with most festivities cancelled and crowds of tourists absent Tuesday in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Israel's bombardment and ground invasion in Gaza has killed over 45,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its count.
Winter is hitting the Gaza Strip and many of the nearly 2 million Palestinians displaced by the devastating 15-month war with Israel are struggling to protect themselves from the wind, cold and rain.
The war was sparked by Hamas’s attack on southern Israel in October 2023, during which about 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage by Palestinian militants.
A 78-year-old Israeli woman who was among those hostages, and who was freed during a brief ceasefire last year, has died, her family said Tuesday.
Here’s the latest:
DAMASCUS — Scores of Syrian Christians protested in the capital Damascus on Tuesday, demanding greater protections for their religious minority after a Christmas tree was set on fire in the city of Hama a day earlier.
Many of the insurgents who now rule Syria are jihadis, although Ahmad al-Sharaa, the leader of the main rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, has renounced longtime ties to al-Qaida and spent years depicting himself as a champion of pluralism and tolerance.
It remains unclear who set the Christmas tree on fire Monday, which was condemned by a representative of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham who visited the town and addressed the community.
“This act was committed by people who are not Syrian, and they will be punished beyond your expectations," the HTS representative said in a video widely shared on social media. "The Christmas tree will be fully restored by this evening.”
On Tuesday, protesters marched through the streets of Bab Touma in Damascus, shouting slogans against foreign fighters and carrying large wooden crosses.
“We demand that Syria be for all Syrians. We want a voice in the future of our country,” said Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II of the Syriac Orthodox Church as he addressed the crowd in a church courtyard, assuring them of Christians’ rights in Syria.
Since HTS led a swift offensive that overthrew President Bashar Assad earlier this month, Syria’s minority communities have been on edge, uncertain of how they will be treated under the emerging rebel-led government.
“We are here to demand a democratic and free government for one people and one nation,” another protester said. “We stand united — Muslims and Christians. No to sectarianism.”
DOHA — Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said that ceasefire negotiations to end the war in Gaza were ongoing in Doha in cooperation with Egyptian, Qatari, and American mediators.
“We will not leave any door unopened in pursuit of reaching an agreement,” said Majid al-Ansari, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Tuesday.
Al Ansari added that rumors the ceasefire would be reached before Christmas are “speculation.”
The ceasefire negotiations come at a time when winter is hitting the Gaza Strip and many of the nearly 2 million Palestinians displaced by the devastating 15-month war with Israel are struggling to protect themselves from the wind, cold and rain. Families of the approximately 100 hostages who have been held for 445 days in Gaza are also worried their loved ones will not survive another winter.
In a press conference, al-Ansari also called on the international community to lift sanctions on Syria as quickly as possible on Tuesday.
“The reason was the crimes of the previous regime, and that regime, with all of its authority, is no longer in place, therefor the causes for these sanctions no longer exist today,” he said.
DAMASCUS, Syria — American journalist Austin Tice is believed to be still alive, according to the head of an international aid group.
Nizar Zakka, who runs the Hostage Aid Worldwide organization, said there has never been any proof that Tice, who has been missing since 2012, is dead.
Zakka told reporters in Damascus on Tuesday that Tice was alive in January and being held by the authorities of ousted Syrian President Bashar Assad. He added that U.S. President Joe Biden said in August that Tice was alive.
Zakka said he believes Tice was transferred between security agencies over the past 12 years, including in an area where Iranian-backed fighters were operating.
Asked if it was possible Tice had been taken out of the country, Zakka said Assad most likely kept him in Syria as a potential bargaining chip.
Biden said Dec. 8 that his administration believed Tice was alive and was committed to bringing him home, although he also acknowledged that “we have no direct evidence” of his status.
TEL AVIV, Israel — Hannah Katzir, an Israeli woman who was taken hostage on Oct. 7, 2023, and freed in a brief ceasefire last year, has died. She was 78.
The Hostages Families Forum, a group representing the families of people taken captive, confirmed the death Tuesday but did not disclose the cause.
Her daughter, Carmit Palty Katzir, said in a statement that her mother’s “heart could not withstand the terrible suffering since Oct. 7.”
Katzir’s husband, Rami, was killed during the attack by militants who raided their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz. Her son Elad was also kidnapped and his body was recovered in April by the Israeli military, who said he had been killed in captivity.
She spent 49 days in captivity and was freed in late November 2023. Shortly after Katzir was freed, her daughter told Israeli media that she had been hospitalized with heart issues attributed to “difficult conditions and starvation” while she was held captive.
TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel's military said the projectile was intercepted before crossing into Israeli territory, but it set off air raid sirens overnight in the country's populous central area, sending residents looking for cover.
Israel’s rescue service Magen David Adom said a 60-year-old woman was seriously wounded after being hurt on her way to a protected space.
There was no immediate comment from Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.
It was the third time in a week that fire from Yemen set off sirens in Israel. On Saturday, a missile slammed into a playground in Tel Aviv, injuring 16, after Israel’s air defense system failed to intercept it.
Earlier last week, Israeli jets struck Yemen’s rebel-held capital and a port city, killing nine. Israel said the strikes were in response to previous Houthi attacks.
Nuns walk along the Church of the Nativity, traditionally believed to be the birthplace of Jesus, on Christmas Eve, in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, Tuesday, Dec. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Worshippers pray at the Church of the Nativity, traditionally believed to be the birthplace of Jesus, on Christmas Eve, in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, Tuesday, Dec. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Israeli soldiers and relatives carry the flag-draped casket of 1st Sgt. Hillel Diener, who was killed in combat in the Gaza Strip, during his funeral at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem, Israel, Tuesday, Dec. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
A Syrian Muslim woman poses for a picture in front of a Christmas tree in Bab Touma neighbourhood, in Damascus, Syria, Tuesday, Dec. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Syrian Christians hold up crosses and shout slogans in Damascus, Syria, Tuesday, Dec. 24, 2024 as they march during a protest after a Christmas tree was set on fire in Hamah city on Sunday. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A dead man is taken into the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital after a car was hit by an Israeli airstrike killing four people in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Monday Dec. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana).
Palestinians mourn over the bodies of five policemen killed Monday by an Israeli strike in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday Dec. 24, 2024. According to witnesses at the scene, the policemen fired shots to prevent a group of bandits blocking the road from stealing aid from a truck. The Israeli army immediately struck the policemen after that.(AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
A worshipper walks through the Church of the Nativity, traditionally believed to be the birthplace of Jesus, on Christmas Eve, in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, Tuesday, Dec. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Palestinian scouts carry posters, one reads "Peace for Gaza and its people," while they march during Christmas Eve celebrations at the Church of the Nativity, traditionally recognized by Christians to be the birthplace of Jesus Christ, in the West Bank city of Bethlehem Tuesday, Dec. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
FILE - A poster calling for the release of Hannah (Chana) Katzir is taped to the door of her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, on Nov. 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo, File)
