U.N. Approves China-Backed Internet Convention, Alarming Rights Advocates

The United Nations on Friday approved a Russian-led bid that aims to create a new convention on cybercrime, alarming rights groups and Western powers that fear a bid to restrict online freedom.

The General Assembly approved the resolution sponsored by Russia and backed by China, which would set up a committee of international experts in 2020.

The panel will work to set up “a comprehensive international convention on countering the use of information and communications technologies for criminal purposes,” the resolution said.

The United States, European powers and rights groups fear that the language is code for legitimizing crackdowns on expression, with numerous countries defining criticism of the government as “criminal.”

China heavily restricts internet searches to avoid topics sensitive to its communist leadership, as well as news sites with critical coverage.

A number of countries have increasingly tried to turn off the internet, with India cutting off access in Kashmir in August after it stripped autonomy to the Muslim-majority region and Iran taking much of the country offline as it cracked down on protests in November.

“It is precisely our fear that (a new convention) would allow the codification at an international and global level of these types of controls that’s driving our opposition and our concerns about this resolution,” a US official said.

Any new UN treaty that spells out internet controls would be “inimical to the United States’ interests because that doesn’t tally with the fundamental freedoms we see as necessary across the globe,” he said.

Human Rights Watch called the UN resolution’s list of sponsors “a rogue’s gallery of some of the earth’s most repressive governments.”

“If the plan is to develop a convention that gives countries legal cover for internet blackouts and censorship, while creating the potential for criminalizing free speech, then it’s a bad idea,” said Human Rights Watch’s Louis Charbonneau.

The United States argues that the world should instead expand its sole existing accord on cybercrime, the 2001 Budapest Convention, which spells out international cooperation to curb copyright violations, fraud and child pornography.

Russia has opposed the Budapest Convention, arguing that giving investigators access to computer data across borders violates national sovereignty.

The Budapest Convention was drafted by the Council of Europe, but other countries have joined, including the United States and Japan.

A new UN treaty on cybercrime could render the Budapest Convention obsolete, further alarming rights groups.

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/12/28/u-n-approves-china-backed-internet-convention-alarming-rights-advocates/

Major Afghan Politician Allegedly Collecting Benefits in Sweden

Afghanistan politician Razaq Ahmadzai, a close ally of President Ashraf Ghani, has been accused of actively collecting pension payments from the Swedish government for his mother who died in 2017.

According to the accusations, the Afghan’s mother was not reported to the Swedish state as having died in 2017, but rather that she had left the country and returned to Afghanistan. The Swedish state is then said to have kept up pension payments that were actually received by Ahmadzai, Nyheter Idag reports.

Ahmadzai had previously admitted to living in Sweden in an election campaign video released earlier this year in which he stated, “After spending much of my life in Sweden, my desire for Afghanistan and its climate became too great.” The video is said to have been filmed at his luxury home in the Shahr-e Naw area of the Afghan capital of Kabul.

Evidence that his mother had died in 2017 was provided by Swedish news website Friatider who revealed a Facebook post from Ahmadzai’s 62-year-old cousin who lives in the Netherlands that claimed the woman had died in January of 2017. The site also posted a photograph allegedly from a memorial service to the woman in Gothenburg later in the same month.

The website adds that the Gothenburg police have also launched an investigation into the matter and that Ahmadzai has maintained the Swedish identity that he allegedly provided a false first name and date of birth for despite moving to Afghanistan several years ago.

He is said to owe several hundred thousand Swedish kronor to the Swedish government and to a Swedish bank after taking out large loans.

The allegations come just weeks after former Iraqi Defence Minister Najah al-Shammari was accused of also committing benefit fraud in Sweden. The dual national is said to have claimed various kinds of benefits under the name Najah al-Adeli and was registered at an address in Stockholm, despite actually living in Baghdad.

Both cases come after revelations in 2017 that the Swedish state was paying various kinds of benefits to Islamic State fighters who had left the country to fight for the terror group overseas.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/12/27/afghan-politician-allegedly-collecting-benefits-in-sweden/

Death Toll Reaches 27 in India’s Citizenship Protests

As of December 27, 2019, at least 27 people have been killed and thousands have been arrested amid demonstrations in India against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), a new law that allows immigrants of religious minorities in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh to seek Indian citizenship while excluding Muslims from that prerogative.

Passed in early December, the new law has put India’s 200 million Muslims on high alert and joins a growing list of controversies spurred by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government, which is accused of pushing a Hindu-nationalist agenda. Critics say that the CAA undermines India’s secular 1949 Constitution which ensures equality for all religions.

Mass demonstrations have engulfed both large and small cities nationwide, including Mumbai, New Delhi, Lucknow, Bangalore, and Malegaon. Authorities have responded with a brutal crackdown, as well as restrictions on street protests and internet shutdowns.

https://www.activistpost.com/2019/12/death-toll-reaches-27-in-indias-citizenship-protests.html

=9 People Who Allegedly Double Voted in 2018 Election Are Referred for Prosecution: Officials

Nine people allegedly voted twice in the 2018 general election, Iowa officials said this week.

The nine people were referred to prosecutors in the counties they reside in. None were named.

“One fraudulent vote is too many. It nullifies a legally cast vote,” Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate said in a statement. “Iowans take the integrity of our elections very seriously and we will not stand for people trying to cheat the system.”

The nine accused voted in a different state before voting in Iowa in the same election, according to Pate’s office. Of the nine alleged instances, four were in Polk county and one each took place in five other counties.

Pate also uncovered 27 other suspected instances of voters casting ballots in Iowa before casting ballots in another state in the same election. That information has been shared with the respective states’ commissioner/board of elections.

Voters arrive to cast their ballots at the Legion Hall in Van Meter, Iowa in a 2018 file photograph. (Steve Pope/Getty Images)

The alleged crimes were discovered through Iowa’s partnership with other states through the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC.

The center “is a non-profit organization with the sole mission of assisting states to improve the accuracy of America’s voter rolls and increase access to voter registration for all eligible citizens,” according to its website. “ERIC is governed and managed by states who choose to join, and was formed in 2012 with assistance from The Pew Charitable Trusts.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/9-people-who-allegedly-double-voted-in-2018-election-are-referred-for-prosecution-officials_3187153.html

Gregg Jarrett: McConnell should go ahead with impeachment trial in Senate without Pelosi

“The framers never envisioned a stunt pulled by a speaker of the House like Nancy Pelosi holding onto articles of impeachment. Two decades ago it was sent over immediately, within minutes. There was a vote to convey and transmit it,” Gregg Jarrett said on “Hannity” on Friday. “The Constitution is actually silent about that. It doesn’t say that the Senate has to wait until it’s transmitted. It’s simply a Senate rule.”

“Mitch McConnell shouldn’t be subjecting himself to the extortion of Nancy Pelosi,” Gregg Jarrett continued. “He can, beginning in January, simply alter the rule or eliminate it entirely and set a date for an impeachment trial.”

“Mitch McConnell can say, ‘Well, if you’re not going to send them over, I don’t care. We’re not we’re not going to deal with it,'” Jarrett said. “Nancy Pelosi, though, could then use it as a cudgel to hit Trump over the head at every turn — add things to it.”

“Simply change the rule, hold a trial, do it. Do it on your own terms,” Jarrett advised McConnell.

https://saraacarter.com/gregg-jarrett-mcconnell-should-go-ahead-with-impeachment-trial-in-senate-without-pelosi/