Court issues Bashir arrest warrant

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has ordered the arrest of Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the country's western Darfur region.

The issuing of the warrant was announced at a news conference at the home of the court in The Hague in the Netherlands on Wednesday.

Sudan immediately rejected the decision of the three-judge panel describing it as part of a "neo-colonialist" plan.

"They do not want Sudan ... to become stable," Mustafa Osman Ismail, an adviser to the Sudanese president, said.

"The court is only one mechanism of neo-colonialist policy used by the West against free and independent countries."

Hundreds of Sudanese took to the streets of the capital, Khartoum, to protest against the warrant. The country's ruling party, the National Congress party, said a "million man march" was planned for Thursday.

'Directing attacks'

Laurence Blairon, a spokeswoman for the ICC, said al-Bashir was accused of "intentionally directing attacks against an important part of the civilian population of Sudan; murdering, raping, torturing, forcibly transferring large numbers of the population and pillaging their property".
"Omar al-Bashir's official capacity as a sitting head of state does not exclude his criminal responsibility, nor does it grant him immunity from prosecution," she said.

He is the first sitting head of state to be ordered to face the tribunal since it began work in 2002.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC prosecutor who called for an arrest warrant to be issued in July last year, said that al-Bashir must be arrested "to stop him from destroying evidence and committing new crimes".

"It is time to protect the victims, to stop bombing civilians, to stop rapes, to stop the crimes," he said after the judges' decision was announced.

Moreno-Ocampo says he has strong evidence that al-Bashir personally instructed his forces to annihilate three ethnic groups - the Fur, the Masalit and the Zaghawa - and says about 2.5 million people have been victimised by his actions.

The panel decided there was insufficient evidence to support additional charges of genocide requested by the prosecution.

The UN says up to 300,000 people have died since conflict broke out in the western Darfur region in 2003, when ethnic minority fighters took up arms against Sudan's Arab-dominated administration for a greater share of resources and power.

ICC powers

The ICC has no powers to enforce its own arrest warrants, but suspects can be arrested on the territory of states which have signed up to the court's founding Rome Statute.
"The court doesn't have a police force and therefore relies on those countries who have signed up to the court ... to use their power and their police forces to make the arrest," Stuart Alford, of the war crimes committee at the International Bar Association, said.

"As long as he is president and retains power within his borders ... it will be practically difficult to enforce his arrest," he told Al Jazeera.

Moreno-Ocampo said Sudan was obliged under international law to carry out the arrest on its territory.

"If it does not, the UN Security Council will need to ensure compliance," he said.

But Abdel Basit Sabdarat, Sudan's justice minister, said on Wednesday that Khartoum would not co-operate with the ICC.

"It has no jurisdiction, it is a political decision," he said.

The president has refused to acknowledge the authority of the court and, ahead of the announcement, he told reporters that any attempt to prosecute him would have "no value".

Licences revoked

Sudan revoked the operating licences of up to 10 aid agencies in the country on Wednesday, the UN said.

Alun McDonald, a spokesman for Oxfam, one of the agencies to have its licence revoked, said it was "going to have a devastating effect on hundreds of thousands of people".

"We work with 600,000 people in north Sudan, 400,000 of them in Darfur. It is of the utmost importance the government agrees to let us continue that work."

Al Jazeera's Mohammed Adow, reporting from Juba in southern Sudan, said that the issuing of the warrant could harm the stability of Africa's largest nation.

"No doubt this is a decision that is going to have wide-reaching ramifications on Sudan's stability," he said. "Definitely it is going to embolden the rebels in Darfur.

"Also at stake are agreements that have been signed across the country with various rebels, and chief among them the comprehensive peace agreement that has given autonomy to the south."

The Khartoum government signed a deal with rebel forces in the south in 2005 to end 21 years of fighting.

China, the African Union and the Arab League have suggested an indictment could worsen the Darfur conflict and destabilise the entire region.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

Liberal Netherlands in Identity Crisis

The Netherlands, one of the world's most socially-liberal countries, is in the grip of a full-blown identity crisis after being hit hard by the ills of its famed anything-goes policies, once a matter of national pride.

"The nation's ideals are being tested by the reality they brought," Dick Houtman, a sociology professor at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, told Agence France Presse (AFP) on Monday, December 15.

"The test is severe."

Houtman notes that the longtime free-for-all policies on issues like prostitution and soft drugs are now at the center of a heated debate.

"The Netherlands went further in allowing all sorts of liberties than many other countries."

For centuries the country has adopted liberal policies that attached greater value to individual choice and freedom.

In the low-lying country on the North Sea, drugs' possession and personal use are allowed.

Prostitution, euthanasia, abortion and same-sex marriage are legalized.

Houtman said many cross-sections of society are now questioning the liberal way of life.

"There is a feeling that our tolerance is the principal cause of many of the problems we experience now."

A 2007 study by the Justice Ministry highlighted the negative impact of liberal policies, warning that the country has become Europe's second most criminal country after Britain.

It said crime has cost society over 31 billion euros in 2006.

"The debate is about where liberty and tolerance should end and where order should begin," stressed Houtman.

Tilting Conservative

The debate over liberality and its ills is pushing the Netherlands towards a striking metamorphosis.

"The country is turning more conservative," believes Han van den Horst, a historian and author.

"There is a move away from sex, drugs and rock'n'roll towards some pretty bourgeois values."

Experts believe conservatism is now gaining ground in the Dutch society.

"The change started out as a rightist phenomenon, but is now becoming more of a mainstream feeling. It is gaining legitimacy and credibility among the working classes," agrees Houtman, the sociologist.

Even politicians, who have long been outspoken proponents of freedoms, are now embracing the new conservative wave.

"Liberal parties have moved a little to the right," maintains Geert de Vries, a sociologist at the Free University Amsterdam.

"They didn't want to go against this popular upsurge."

In cities nationwide, mayors and town councils are closing down brothels and shops where marijuana is sold, rolled, and smoked.

A government ban on hallucinogenic "magic mushrooms" entered into force earlier this month.

This week, the cab said it wanted to regulate the sex industry more strictly by imposing a more onerous licensing system.

In Amsterdam, city fathers said they planned to halve the number of prostitution windows and cannabis-vending coffee shops.

"We have allowed it to become too massive," Deputy Mayor Lodewijk Asscher told AFP.

"This is a necessary correction."

Source: IslamOnline