Spying Operation Causes German-Afghan Rift

By Lucy Jones

AFGHANISTAN’S government said it is “disappointed” with revelations that Germany’s foreign intelligence service (BND) has been spying on the country’s trade and industry minister, Deutsche Welle radio reported April 25.

The BND allegedly read e-mail correspondence between Der Spiegel reporter Susanne Koelbl and an Afghan politician between June and November 2006. Afghan Trade and Industry Minister Amin Farhang was apparently the target of the operation, although no explanation has been given for why he was under scrutiny, Deutsche Welle said.

Farhang, who lived in Germany for several years, told the German newspaper Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung on April 25 that his life is at risk because the monitoring implied he was co-operating with hostile forces.

“The central problem is that many in the [intelligence] service seem to think they have license to do as they please. The main reason for this is lax [parliamentary] supervision,” Financial Times Deutschland (FTD) said the same day.

“The BND president has tried to ease people’s minds…by saying Koelbl’s e-mails had been caught coincidentally in the BND’s net. But it was a deliberate catch…They knew what they were doing,” opined the center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung of April 25.

“This sanctioned cloak-and-dagger stuff needs to end,” editorialized that day’s edition of the left-leaning Die Tageszeitung.

But the conservative Die Welt on April 25 wrote that while there is “a lot to clean up and explain,” it is “worth reminding ourselves that a war is on in Afghanistan, and German soldiers require every protection—from our intelligence services, too.”

The chancellor’s office ordered disciplinary measures to be taken against three intelligence service members for the spying operation, Deutsche Welle said.

The German news weekly Der Spiegel said on April 24 that it was considering legal action against the BND. Two years ago, the BND admitted spying on journalists to discover their sources but apologized, calling it a one-off.

Should the British Leave Basra? U.K. Newspapers Ask

Why are the British still in Basra? asked Britain’s Guardian on March 29. “Britain has 4,000 troops on the edge of a battle, but no plans to get involved,” noted the newspaper, as the Iraqi army launched an offensive against Shi’i militants in the southern Iraqi city. “If Britain is distancing itself from a battle raging in a sector for which it had responsibility until September last year, then what are British troops still doing in Iraq?” the newspaper questioned. “If the fighting continues, Britain has only two options: either to get back into a messy and bloody street battle, or to leave altogether. Staying put in Basra airport will not go down in the annals of military history as its most glorious moment.”

However, the previous day’s London Times called on Britain to suspend the withdrawal of its troops from southern Iraq. “It would be little short of a disaster to allow Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s drive to end in humiliation while some 4,000 British troops sat on their hands at Basra airbase,” the newspaper argued. “This is a crucial moment not only for Iraq’s second city but for the whole quest for normalization. If the militias are disbanded, free elections are held and the oil industry can function properly, then wider political reconciliation in Iraq will be lubricated,” it continued. “Britain could bring about that outcome in Basra. It would be a gross dereliction of duty not to try.”

Boosting Scientific Study in the Islamic World

In its April 17 issue, the British science journal Nature urged financial commitment from Islamic nations to boost science in the Muslim world. Member states of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) are among the world’s lowest producers of patents and research papers, the publication said in a lead article. According to the OIC’s own data, scientists from Islamic-majority countries contributed just 2.5 percent of articles in peer-reviewed journals between 1995 and 2005, Nature reported. It said the OIC wants to turn this situation around and see at least 20 of its universities join the world’s top 500. There are currently none. It is also planning a center for science and innovation policy and centers of research excellence. “The plans are ambitious and impressive, and deserve the whole-hearted support of [the OIC’s] member states. But the big test now is whether that support will be forthcoming,” said Nature. “In principle, money should not be a problem: OIC member states include some of the wealthiest nations in the world. Unlike other wealthy states, however, they allocate less than 0.5 percent of their gross domestic product to research and development,” the publication continued. “The OIC is right to engage the private sector and development banks in efforts to reform science and technology, but public institutions must also play their part,” Nature concluded.

Closure of Women’s Magazine After 17 Years Said to Show “Growing Repression” in Iran

Iran’s government has shut down the women’s magazine Zanan after 17 years, “ending [the publication’s] advocacy of women’s rights and its fearless exposures of wrongs against women under the current regime,” France’s Le Monde diplomatique reported in its April issue. “The closure of the Zanan (Women) on Jan. 28 clearly shows that women’s rights activists in Iran face growing repression,” said the publication’s Wendy Kristianasen. She quoted the Iranian Student News Agency as reporting on Jan. 28 that the grounds for closure were that the magazine “endangered the spiritual, mental and intellectual health of its readers” and gave them the idea of “insecurity in society, disturbed public rights, weakened military and revolutionary institutes.” This was just a pretext to close the magazine, according to Kristianasen, because the women’s rights movement was working, through the Campaign for Equality, to get a million Iranians to sign a petition calling for a change to laws that discriminate against women. The peaceful gathering of signatures has been under way since 2006, attended by online blogs and YouTube videos.

In Iran, women still face widespread discrimination under the law and are excluded from areas of public life, Kristianasen continued. Not only can they not be full judges in a criminal or revolutionary court or stand for the presidency, but they do not have equal rights in marriage, divorce, child custody or inheritance. The legal age for marriage is 13, she added, but fathers can apply for permission to marry their daughters younger, and to much older men.

Key to Ka’ba Sells for 18 Times Estimated Price

A 12th-century iron key to the Ka’ba in Mecca was sold for £9.2 ($18.4 million) at Sotheby’s on April 9, the London Times reported the following day. Its existence was previously unknown and prompted a bidding battle that took the price to more than 18 times the $400,000 estimate in an auction of Islamic art. The key was formerly in a private collection in Lebanon. It was bought anonymously and is the second-earliest of only 58 known examples, which are in European and Middle Eastern museums.

Lucy Jones is a free-lance journalist based in London.