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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Friday, January 9, 2015 | A5
*****
WORLD NEWS
U.S. Rebukes Saudis for Lashing Sentence
Unusual Criticism of Judicial Verdict Against Opposition Blogger Highlights Strategic Disagreements With Key Arab Ally
Pentagon
To Shift
Forces
In Europe
BY DOUG CAMERON
The Pentagon said it would
close a number of military bases
in Europe as part of an effort to
save an estimated $500 million a
year without reducing military
readiness.
The U.S. plans to return 15
sites to their European host nations and relocate personnel
within the region, the Pentagon
said on Thursday.
The changes include the pullout by the U.S. Air Force from
RAF Mildenhall in the U.K., one
of the largest base closures since
the end of the Cold War, though
it is expanding nearby RAF Lakenheath by opening the first European base for F-35 fighter jets.
Bases are also being closed in
Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, with around 1,100 hostnation jobs expected to be eliminated over the next several years.
An additional 1,500 local jobs
could be affected by the restructuring, which will cost $1.4 billion
and is to be completed over five
years, Assistant Defense Secretary Derek Chollet said.
“There will be job losses in
these countries,” he said, adding
that the U.S. planned to help mitigate the local impact.
Pentagon officials said the
two-year review of European
bases continued through the escalation of tensions in Ukraine,
with Defense Secretary Chuck
Hagel making the final decision
and talking with defense ministers from the four countries
most affected by the changes.
President Barack Obama meets with Saudi King Abdullah at Rawdat Khuraim, Saudi Arabia, in March. Relations are coming under strain.
A senior U.S. official said the
sentencing was so harsh that the
administration felt it had to
speak out immediately. “In this
case someone was scheduled to
receive 1,000 lashes tomorrow,”
the official said.
Officials with Saudi Arabia’s
government declined to comment on the State Department’s comments Thursday.
But academics close to the
Saudi government said the
statements would further impede relations between Wash-
in Iraq and Syria. The Pentagon
plans to train Syrian rebels at
Saudi facilities in the coming
months.
Still, Saudi officials have
publicly and privately criticized
President Barack Obama for
what they say has been a timid
U.S. response to strategic gains
made by Iran, Riyadh’s archenemy, in recent years. Saudi diplomats said they were blindsided by the revelation last
year that the White House had
been holding secret negotia-
ington and Riyadh.
“Not only will this statement
make no difference, but it will
surely encourage the authorities to go ahead with the court
verdict,” said Nawaf Obaid, a
visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Belfer Center who has
advised the Saudi government
on foreign policy.
The Obama administration is
seeking to work closely with
Saudi Arabia against Islamic
extremism, and particularly to
counter Islamic State militants
adh is becoming more assertive
in its foreign policy, officials
have said, while the U.S. is becoming less dependent on the
Saudi monarchy for energy.
The State Department’s comments on the Saudi legal decision were particularly harsh
when compared with comments
made recently about Egyptian
and Iranian legal rulings.
In March 2014, an Egyptian
court sentenced 529 people to
death after concluding they
had engaged in terrorist activities against the state. Most of
those convicted were members
of the banned Muslim Brotherhood political movement.
The State Department called
on Cairo to overturn the verdicts, but stressed that legal
process needed to be followed.
“There are many avenues of legitimate review for this judgment, and I urge the appropriate Egyptian authorities to
remedy the situation,” Secretary of State John Kerry said at
the time. Most of the sentences
were later reduced.
U.S. officials have also been
lobbying Iran to drop charges
against an Iranian-American
journalist who has been detained without trial since July.
But the State Department again
has said that Iran’s legal process should be respected.
Current and former U.S. officials said the rebuke against
Saudi Arabia seems to highlight the changing nature of
the alliance.
“This does seem to be
tougher than the U.S. government usually is with Saudi Arabia,” said Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow at the Council on
Foreign Relations and a top official in the George W. Bush
White House. “Maybe it’s the
product of $50 oil.”
Indian Activist Presses 14-Year Hunger Strike
BY KRISHNA POKHAREL
IMPHAL, India—In a 14-year
annual legal ritual, police have
arrested, briefly released and
then rearrested a prominent Indian activist who is on a hunger
strike to stop her from committing suicide.
A local court was expected
to decide Thursday whether
Irom Sharmila Chanu should be
charged again, or freed, but the
court adjourned without a ruling, her lawyer said. A new ruling date was set for Jan. 22.
Ms. Irom, 42 years old, is being force-fed through a tube in
her nose under a law that prohibits suicide, while being detained in a hospital here. She is
protesting a security law designed to rein in terrorists and
separatists.
Laws like these are divisive
in some of India’s most politically sensitive regions, including Kashmir on the Pakistan
border, because they give security officials special enforcement powers and protect them
against civilian prosecution.
Ms. Irom said the law is
abused, leading to killings, “disappearances,” rape and other
violent acts. “Innocent people
are harassed daily,” she said, on
“mere suspicion of being revolutionary.”
Her hunger strike—one of
the longest-running anywhere,
according to Human Rights
Watch and Amnesty International—is notable in several respects.
Under India’s antisuicide
law, a person may not be held
for longer than a year without
a conviction. Ms. Irom’s lawyer
had expressed optimism that
on Thursday, she would be released and not rearrested.
In December, India’s Home
Irom Sharmila Chanu leaving court in New Delhi last year. A court put off a decision on her case Thursday.
Ministry announced it is considering decriminalizing suicide—which would remove the
rationale for Ms. Irom’s detention. If that occurs, she could
become one of the first prominent tests of the revised law.
In a recent interview here in
Manipur State, Ms. Irom said
she would be willing to die if
the security law she is protesting isn’t repealed. “If I have to
die for a right cause, God will
accept it,” she said.
The law Ms. Irom is protesting, the Armed Forces (Special
Powers) Act, applies in seven of
India’s 36 states and territories,
bordering on China, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Bhutan in
the nation’s northeast. A similar law applies in Jammu &
Kashmir, the disputed state
bordering Pakistan.
Under both versions of the
law, if there is “reasonable suspicion” that a person is acting
against the state, security
forces are empowered to search
properties without a warrant,
and to arrest and to shoot.
India’s northeastern states,
sometimes referred to as the
“seven sisters,” are ethnically
and linguistically distinct from
other parts of India. More than
5,500 people have died in terrorist violence in the region
since 2005, the New Delhibased South Asia Terrorism
Portal said. Often the demands
include greater political autonomy and, in some cases, independence from India.
On Dec. 21, a bomb at a bus
station killed three people and
banking system in the past
two months, Finance Minister
Gikas Hardouvelis (below)
said in an interview with The
Wall Street Journal.
The sum is small compared
with the roughly €70 billion
that has fled banks over the
past five years, said Mr.
Hardouvelis, who added that
some of the outflows may be
the result of increased tax
payments falling due this
year.
But it could be a harbinger
of things to come, he said.
Since early December,
Greece has been thrust into
political turmoil by an
inconclusive parliamentary
vote for president that forced
the government to call
national elections on Jan. 25.
Since then, businesses have
frozen investments,
privatizations have stalled,
and tax collections have
slumped.
If this uncertainty isn’t
resolved soon, said Mr.
Hardouvelis, months of
economic growth could be
undone.
—Nektaria Stamouli
GREECE
UNCERTAINTY JEOPARDIZES
RECOVERY, OFFICIAL SAYS
Greece’s economy,
struggling to emerge from
years of deep recession, could
be knocked back if the
country enters a period of
protracted political
uncertainty and breaks with
its international creditors, the
finance minister said.
Elections this month, with
the antiausterity Syriza party
leading in public-opinion
polls, already have fanned
fears: €3 billion ($3.5 billion)
of deposits have left the
injured five in Imphal, the capital of Manipur, one of the
“seven sisters” states. No one
claimed responsibility. A few
days later, at least 63 people
died in the neighboring state of
Assam when an insurgent
group attacked settlers working
on tea plantations.
The Home Ministry spokesman said the federal government “isn’t considering lifting
of the law or changing it in the
immediate future.” He acknowledged the defense ministry
wants to retain it while some
state officials disagree.
International bodies including the United Nations have argued for a repeal of the law on
human-rights grounds. A panel
appointed by India’s Supreme
Court said in a 2013 report that
security forces acting under the
law were committing humanrights violations.
Ms. Irom, a member of Manipur’s Meitei ethnic majority,
said her hunger strike was
prompted by the death of 10 civilians, shot in November 2000
by the military after a bomb explosion. The government said
the soldiers acted in self-defense. Last month, a Manipur
high court rejected that argument and ordered the government to pay $7,900 apiece to
the families of the dead.
Ms. Irom was arrested
shortly after beginning her
hunger strike. “She is doing all
this for us,” said Chandrajini
Devi, who lost her two sons in
the November 2000 shootings.
Ms. Irom said she resisted
force-feeding at first but eventually gave in once she realized
“I need to be patient and I need
to endure.”
Her protest has inspired others, said her friend Babloo
Loitongbam, another activist.
In one case after a woman was
raped and murdered, allegedly
by security personnel, a group
of women stripped naked in
public and displayed banners
saying “Indian Army Rape Us,”
a highly unusual protest that he
believes wouldn’t have happened if not for the publicity
from Ms. Irom’s fast.
Ms. Irom said she looked forward to a normal life once the
Armed Forces (Special Powers)
Act is repealed. A few years ago
she became engaged to a 52year-old British man, Desmond
Coutinho, whom she first met,
and fell in love with, through
an exchange of letters.
They both say they want to
marry. “Until [the act] ends, we
can’t have a future together,”
Mr. Coutinho said.
Trailing in Vote, Sri Lankan
Pledges ‘Smooth Transition’
BY GORDON FAIRCLOUGH
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka—President Mahinda Rajapaksa, trailing
his challenger in national elections, left his official residence Friday as votes were still being
counted “in order to respect the
verdict of the people,” a spokesman said.
Local television footage showed
the president getting into a car
and leaving Temple Trees, the executive mansion in the capital.
Neither the president, nor his challenger, Maithripala Sirisena, had
made a public statement by 9 a.m.
With results in from 77 of 160
electoral districts, the Election
Commission said that Mr.
Sirisena was leading with 51.89%
of the vote. Mr. Rajapaksa had received 46.85%.
Mr. Rajapaksa had a predawn
P2JW009000-5-A00500-1--------XA
in oil prices has left
households with more money
to spend on other goods and
services. The pickup was
driven by a 1.4% rise in sales
of goods other than food and
gasoline.
—Paul Hannon
Francois Lenoir/Reuters
WORLD WATCH
Composite
EUROZONE
RETAIL SALES RISE AS DROP
IN OIL PRICE SPURS SPENDING
Retail sales in the eurozone
rose for the second straight
month in November, an
indication that falling oil
prices are boosting consumer
spending and helping to
support economic growth.
Still, any rapid turnaround
in the economy seems
unlikely in early 2015. A
separate survey also released
Thursday found that
manufacturers became less
optimistic about their
prospects as 2014 drew to a
close, as the flow of new
orders weakened and
inventories began to build up.
The European Union’s
statistics agency, Eurostat,
said retail sales rose 0.6% for
the second month, bringing
the rise from November 2013
to 1.5%. That suggests the fall
tions with Tehran over its nuclear program.
Saudi oil officials also have
charged U.S. oil producers with
causing a glut in the energy
markets, leading to a sharp collapse in prices over the past
two months. Riyadh’s decision
to maintain its oil output is designed, in part, to chase American producers out of the market as prices fall.
U.S. and Saudi officials have
said their countries are entering a new era of relations. Riy-
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
WASHINGTON—The Obama
administration publicly called
on Saudi Arabia to rescind its
sentencing of a political activist that includes the punishment of 1,000 lashes.
The unusual diplomatic rebuke is expected to strain
Washington’s relations with the
Arab monarchy at a time of serious disagreements over strategic and economic policies.
The State Department regularly calls on foreign governments to respect human rights
and to observe due process of
law when confronting political
opponents. But senior U.S. officials said Thursday it is extremely rare for Washington to
demand the reversal of a legal
decision, particularly by an important U.S. ally.
A Saudi court sentenced
blogger Raif Badawi last year
to 10 years in prison and 1,000
lashes for his political activism. The lashes are expected to
beginthis week, according to
U.S. officials.
On Thursday, State Department officials criticized Riyadh
for meting out such a brutal
punishment on Mr. Badawi for
“exercising his rights to freedom of expression and religion,” and called on the Saudi
government to cancel his sentence and review the case.
“The United States strongly
opposes laws, including apostasy laws, that restrict the exercise of these freedoms, and
urges all countries to uphold
these rights in practice,” State
Department spokeswoman Jen
Psaki said. She said the U.S.
had also privately communicated its desire that Saudi Arabia cancel the punishment.
Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated Press
BY JAY SOLOMON
AND FELICIA SCHWARTZ
meeting with a senior opposition
leader and pledged to “ensure a
smooth transition of power,” said
a presidential spokesman.
Mr. Rajapaksa, a wartime
leader who defeated the longrunning separatist insurgency
and who was seeking an unprecedented third term in Thursday’s
vote, faced a stiff challenge from
an opposition that accused him
of leading Sri Lanka toward authoritarianism and family rule.
The opposition, including onceclose allies of the president who
deserted him in November, said
Mr. Rajapaksa—who pushed
through legal changes ending presidential term limits and expanding
the office’s clout—had concentrated too much power in his own
hands, and those of his relatives.
—Uditha Jayasinghe
contributed to this article.
MAGENTA
BLACK
CYAN
YELLOW