The Disappearing Acts
NEED TO KNOW
The Disappearing Acts
KENYA
Last summer, the so-called Gen-Z protests erupted in Kenya against a controversial finance bill pushed by the president to raise taxes on everyday essentials, an attempt to cut the country’s debt burden and bring its finances under control.
Kenyans, struggling with high inflation, were outraged by the measure. Tens of thousands took to the streets in protests with the demonstrations turning violent – dozens were killed by security forces. Even though President William Ruto scaled back the bill afterward, the protests became a significant threat to his presidency.
Then the protesters began disappearing.
“(We) continue to monitor with concern the worrying pattern of abductions in several parts of our country … perpetuated clandestinely, with unidentified armed persons,” wrote the Kenya National Human Rights Commission in a report last month, noting “that those abducted have been vocal dissidents.”
The commission documented 82 disappearances of government critics from June to December, further outraging the public, leading the courts to threaten the authorities with jail, and bringing even more protesters out into the streets – and another violent crackdown.
One of those people who disappeared was Aslam Longton who had helped organize protests against the bill in the town of Kitengela near the capital, Nairobi. He had been warned by security officials to stop his activism. He didn’t.
In August, he was forced into a car, hooded and handcuffed, and taken to an unknown location where he was held in dark cells, beaten, and questioned.
“I was very scared,” Aslam told the BBC. “When the door was opened that man would come with a fiber cable and a metal rod. “I was scared he had come to beat me or finish me off.”
He was released 32 days later, without being taken to court, given a lawyer, or the opportunity to speak with his family, who were frantic. After being released, he was told he would be killed if he spoke to the media. Three months later, the government said it was a lawful arrest.
And Ruto and other government and police officials for months denied any abductions, calling them “fake news.”
But in December, Ruto admitted and promised to stop the kidnappings after public protests and concern from Western allies grew. Still, critics say, he has declined to take responsibility for these extrajudicial disappearances, instead admonishing parents to “take care” of their children.
These so-called children were the base of voters that propelled Ruto to the presidency in September 2022 as an agent of change, CNN noted.
Meanwhile, a high court judge has ordered top security officials to appear in court this week to answer questions on the matter or face jail for contempt of court charges, after they failed to appear twice when summoned to account for the abductions.
Already in December, the court had forced two top police officials to produce seven social media activists who disappeared. Five reappeared soon after.
Still, the bodies of people showing signs of torture continued to turn up in rivers, forests, abandoned quarries, and mortuaries, wrote Human Rights Watch.
And despite the announcement of police investigations into these murders or disappearances, no one has been charged, let alone convicted, for carrying them out, the organization added.
In a detailed Reuters investigation, however, killings by security officials were often “mischaracterized” as road accidents or drownings or in morgue logs to cover their tracks, police officers told the newswire.
Some Kenyans say they are shocked that such a situation has resurfaced, noting that these abductions were hallmarks of prior Kenyan regimes in the 1980s and 1990s. Still, others note how now, with the advent of social media, Kenyans are far more aware of their rights, able to organize, and far more difficult to repress.
Still, even government officials are having issues.
After hearing that his son had been seized by armed, hooded men, Kenya’s then attorney-general, Justin Muturi, approached the president.
Justin Muturi told the Times that Ruto agreed to phone his spy chief. An hour later, his son was free.
Shaken by that episode and now openly critical of the government, he began receiving threats including impeachment but said he must speak out. “We have seen so many young people held, kidnapped, extrajudicial killings,” he told the British newspaper. “We can’t say we don’t know about what is going on.”
Muturi said he sympathizes with those families whose loved ones are still missing.
“I didn’t know if he was dead or not,” he added, referring to his son’s disappearance. “I try and put myself in the shoes (of those) who can’t access the president and whose children are still missing.”
THE WORLD, BRIEFLY
A Virtual War
ALGERIA
French authorities arrested at least seven Algerian ultranationalist social media influencers this month for inciting violence against Algerian dissidents and calling for terrorist attacks across France, as relations between Paris and its former colony continue to deteriorate, Politico reported.
According to French officials, a handful of online influencers, some of them living in France, have built large audiences, with as many as 800,000 followers inside and outside of France. In some cases, they have targeted France-based opponents of the Algerian regime. In others, they have called for terror attacks on French soil.
French officials, who have been grappling with terror attacks on Paris and other cities for a decade, often perpetrated by nationals of former colonies such as Morocco, Tunisia, or Algeria, are nervous, Politico said.
The influencers are “profiteering from a context of heightened tensions between France and Algeria,” French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau told L’Express, adding that the online incitement of violence is fostered by the complicated, centuries-long relationship between France and Algeria.
France’s brutal rule of Algeria lasted for 132 years and ended with Algerian independence after a bloody war in 1962.
More recently, tensions between the two countries have been fueled by migration issues and French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent backing of Morocco’s autonomy plan for the disputed region of Western Sahara, the Associated Press reported. Algeria has long supported independence for that region and afterward withdrew its ambassador from Paris.
Further straining relations is Algeria’s arrest of French-Algerian writer and Algerian regime critic Boualem Sansal in November. Algeria detained Sansal on national security charges, prompting Macron to accuse Algiers of “dishonoring itself.”
France, meanwhile, has not accused Algeria of supporting these influencers. None of the posts have yet resulted in violence.
France is home to more than two million Algerian immigrants and descendants of immigrants, according to the French national statistics institute Insee.
On Repeat
SUDAN
International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Karim Khan will seek arrest warrants for individuals accused of atrocities in Sudan’s western Darfur region, an announcement that comes amid international concerns that genocide and other war crimes are being committed in the country’s nearly two-year conflict, the Guardian reported.
On Monday, Khan told the United Nations Security Council that “criminality is accelerating in Darfur.” He alleged that the fighting has targeted civilians, subjected women and girls to sexual violence, and left many communities destroyed.
The ICC prosecutor stressed that the allegations come from “a hard-edged analysis based on verified evidence,” but gave no details on the specific crimes or the individuals the ICC wants to detain.
Sudan erupted in civil war in April 2023 following a feud between the country’s military leader and the commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The conflict initially began in the capital Khartoum, but later spread into other regions, including Darfur.
More than 20 years ago, the western Sudanese region became synonymous with genocide and war crimes during a brutal conflict that saw government forces of then-President Omar al-Bashir and its Janjaweed Arab militia allies launch a brutal war against non-Arab populations there.
Around 300,000 people were killed and 2.7 million were displaced.
Currently, the ICC has outstanding arrest warrants for Sudanese officials and leaders involved in an earlier conflict in Darfur, including al-Bashir, who was ousted in 2019 and is currently in jail.
During the UN meeting, Khan warned that the current conflict bears “very clear echoes” to the events that occurred decades ago in Darfur, according to Euronews.
Observers noted that Khan’s comments came weeks after the ICC prosecutor told the UN Security Council that there were grounds to believe that both Sudan’s army and the RSF – which evolved from the Janjaweed – may be committing genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes in Darfur.
Before leaving office, the Biden administration imposed sanctions against Sudan’s army chief and de facto leader, Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and RSF commander Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo for their roles in the conflict, the Middle East Eye noted.
Resignation 101
SERBIA
Serbia’s prime minister Milos Vučević stepped down Tuesday in an attempt to calm political tensions following weeks of massive student-led anti-corruption protests over the deadly collapse of a concrete canopy in November, the Associated Press reported.
The accident, at a rail station in the northern city of Novi Sad, killed 15 people and sparked protests. Demonstrators initially demanded justice for the victims amid allegations of corruption in the procurement process for the canopy. However, after a heavy-handed crackdown on protesters by the government, the protests broadened with calls for the autocratic rule of populist President Aleksandar Vučić and his administration to end.
“In order not to further raise tensions in society, I made this decision,” said Vučević, announcing his resignation, even as pressure grows on Vučić, who has been in power for more than a decade.
Vučević said the immediate cause for his quitting was an attack on a female student in Novi Sad early Tuesday by assailants allegedly from the ruling Serbian Progressive Party.
Vučević’s resignation could lead to an early parliamentary election.
The protests, which have become a daily event, have shut down universities, schools, businesses, and roads, and led to strikes. Some have drawn up to 100,000 people, the largest demonstrations in the country since those that overthrew longtime ruler Slobodan Milošević in 2000.
The student-led protests have grown to include lawyers, farmers, and actors, with much of the public backing them, recent polls showed. The president has launched counter-protests.
Meanwhile, on Monday, the striking university students began a 24-hour blockade of a key traffic intersection in Belgrade, AP reported separately.
Later Monday, Vučić and other officials said they would initiate talks with the protesters, who declined.
DISCOVERIES
The Northern Ghost
For years, those gazing up into the night at the northern lights wondered what the white-gray patch around them could be.
Now, scientists have an answer.
According to a new study, the white or gray light that is sometimes visible alongside the aurora borealis is a “structured continuum emission,” meaning a light with a continuous spectrum and a structured pattern.
“You’d see this dynamic green aurora, you’d see some of the red aurora in the background and, all of a sudden, you’d see this structured – almost like a patch – gray-toned or white-toned emission connected to the aurora,” study lead author Emma Spanswick said in a statement.
The researchers explained how the emission of this light is “most certainly a heat source” produced through a phenomenon called “chemiluminescence” – light resulting from a chemical reaction.
It represents a new response of our atmosphere to solar activity, suggesting that northern lights are much more complex than previously thought.
Auroras are the result of charged particles generated by the sun which get trapped in Earth’s magnetic field and then collide with atoms and molecules in the atmosphere, releasing energy and causing auroras’ colors.
Spanswick explained that the white-gray patch became visible thanks to advancements in camera technology. Using high-resolution, broad-band color cameras the researchers were able to study 30 separate events where the white-gray continuum was visible, StudyFinds reported.
Color cameras were used to see the shape and movement of the patches, while an instrument called a meridian imaging spectrograph analyzed the spectrum of light they emitted.
Whereas normal auroras shine brighter in specific colors, these patches glow consistently and more brightly across all colors of light, ensuring that this is a real phenomenon and not just a camera illusion.
Spanswick’s fascination with this white-gray ghost sparked from a newly renewed interest in a long, glowing purple ribbon that can appear near northern lights known as Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement (STEVE).
The study highlighted the relationship and the differences between the white-gray light, auroras, and STEVE. The latter is caused by the energy release of ions moving at supersonic speed in Earth’s magnetosphere.
Spanswick confirms there are similarities between STEVE and the white-gray patches she and her team studied. The spectrum elevation of the two is very similar.
But, while STEVE is an independent phenomenon that can appear even when auroras are absent, the white light is something nearly embedded into the aurora, that would likely have gone unnoticed by the human eye if it weren’t for advancements in digital photography.