Spirit of revolt lives on in Syria's exiles

Yahoo – AFP, Serene ASSIR, November 30, 2020 

Spirit of revolt lives on in Syria's exiles

They may be scarred, but nothing, not even torture, bombing or exile, could break them. 

As the Arab Spring revolts swept through the Middle East and North Africa region like a wildfire, thousands of young Syrians joined protests in March 2011 demanding change in a nation ruled by the family of President Bashar al-Assad since 1970. 

The regime's revenge was swift and brutal, and many of the non-violent activists at the heart of the uprising paid with their freedom and their lives. 

AFP interviewed four Syrian activists who ended up as refugees after surviving extreme violence and immeasurable loss. 

But even now, with no end in sight to their exile, they do not regret their revolution. 

Here are their stories. 

Omar Alshogre was tortured while held in one of Syria's most notorius
detention centres

Stockholm: The public speaker 

The first thing Omar Alshogre sees when he wakes up in his Stockholm flat are the photographs of two prison guards who tortured him in Branch 215, one of Syria's most notorious detention centres. 

It may seem surprising but Alshogre wanted the pictures, which he had to buy off the guards' families and keeps on his bedside table, as a reminder to himself that: "They could not break me, and I'm still alive." 

Alshogre, now 25, says he was just 15 when regime forces first arrested him "along with all the men" in his village near Baniyas city -- a protest hub in a largely pro-government province -- on the Mediterranean coast. 

He was released two days later -- but only after his interrogators had pulled out his fingernails and broken his leg. 

"I understood what freedom meant for the first time, and that's when I started protesting," Alshogre tells AFP via a videoconference app. 

Over the next 18 months, he was detained six more times in different places, including at his cousin's home, in the classroom and at checkpoints. 

In May 2012, regime troops attacked his village, killing his father, a retired army officer, and his two brothers. 

Following his final arrest in November 2012, he was transferred to a total of 10 different prisons and detention centres. 

"I saw more of Syria's prisons than I ever saw of Syria itself," he says. 

Released in 2015, he was a shadow of his former self, weighing just 34 kilos (just under 75 pounds). 

To save her sons' lives, his mother smuggled Omar and his younger brother Ali, then 20 and 11 years old, into Turkey. 

At the height of Europe's migrant crisis, they boarded a smuggler's boat to Greece and crossed Europe to Sweden, where they were granted asylum. 

Alshogre has since learned Swedish and English and speaks both fluently. 

Now, he works for the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a US-based advocacy organisation, and has testified before Washington's Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on torture in Syria's prisons. 

He has given TED talks on his experience, inspiring his audience with a universal message on overcoming pain by finding meaning even in one's darkest hour. 

And recently he won a place at Georgetown University in Washington DC to study business and entrepreneurship. 

"It is not easy to lose your home, your father, your brothers, your school, your town, your mountains and your memories," he says. 

"But if I had the possibility to go back in time, I wouldn't do it. Because the revolution is the first thing we did right in Syria." 

Nivin Al-Mousa learned that her younger brother Hamza, also a non-violent
activist, had been tortured to death

Berlin: The humanitarian 

"When I was pregnant and I had pain in my belly, I would cry. Not for me, but for the Syrians living in displacement camps who can't see a doctor, and for the detainees who suffer constantly," says Nivin Al-Mousa, who has lived in Berlin since 2015. 

When she joined the protests in her town of Taybet al-Imam in the central province of Hama, she never imagined she would end up seeking refuge abroad. 

In 2013, her younger brother Hamza, also a non-violent activist, was detained at a checkpoint. 

"We later learned that he had been tortured to death," says Al-Mousa, who identified his body in one of the pictures of torture victims' corpses released by a former Syrian military police photographer, codenamed "Caesar", who fled the country taking thousands of photographs documenting abuse and torture. 

"The moment you see that picture, a wound opens inside you, and the pain never heals," she tells AFP. 

Al-Mousa, her mother and siblings fled to Turkey in an escape "worthy of a James Bond movie. There were warplanes above us, bombing all around us, and the driver was speeding at 200 kilometres (125 miles) an hour," she says. 

In Turkey, she met her husband Mohammad, who originates from the central Syrian city of Homs and had narrowly survived being randomly shot in the head by a sniper while coming home from university. 

In 2015, he was granted a visa to seek medical treatment in Berlin. There, the family received refugee status. 

Al-Mousa, now 36, has frequent nightmares. "We are all traumatised," she says. 

But for her two daughters' sake, she works hard to adapt to her new life. 

She now speaks fluent German as well as English and Arabic, as do her girls, who are six and four. 

She works for international aid group Humanity & Inclusion, formerly known as Handicap International, helping refugees with disabilities in Germany. 

She also participates in protests in Berlin, home to a large Syrian refugee community, to help shine a light on the suffering of Syria's detainees. 

"All we want is a government that respects our basic rights," Al-Mousa says. "One day, the regime will get the fate it deserves." 

Colmar: The feminist 

Tohama Darwish survived an August 2013 chemical attack on the besieged Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta blamed on the regime, in which rights groups say 1,400 people were killed. 

Then in 2018, the area faced an onslaught when the army, backed by Russian warplanes, crushed the armed opposition. 

"The bombing was so intense, I wished my daughter had still been in my belly so I could run faster," says Darwish, whose daughter Sumu was two at the time. 

Darwish, then a volunteer nurse, and her family joined the tens of thousands who fled Eastern Ghouta to the rebel-held northern province of Idlib. 

There, Islamist fighters accused her of spreading "obscenities" through her work raising community awareness about violence against women. 

"We didn't want to leave Syria," the 30-year-old tells AFP. "Unfortunately, there was no difference between the regime and the Islamists ruling Idlib." 

The family went to Turkey, from where Darwish and her husband applied for asylum in France. 

They now live in state housing in the northeastern French town of Colmar, where they are learning the language as they wait for their residence permits to come through. 

"From a gender perspective, life is better here. It's hard to be a feminist in Syria," she says. 

"I feel guilty for leaving my relatives behind. But I am happy that Sumu is at school here," she says. 

"She will always be Syrian, but her life is here now. When she's older, I will tell her everything that happened." 

Detained for joining protest, doctor Bashar Farahat said the cell in which he and
90 to 100 other prisoners were held was so tiny they had to take it in turns to
sleep while the others stood

London: The doctor 

When Bashar Farahat was released from detention in early 2013, he was barred from resuming his postgraduate paediatrics training at a government hospital in Latakia in western Syria. 

He had been jailed for joining the protests, and beaten by his interrogators "even harder" because he was a doctor with a degree from a public university. 

In April 2013, he was detained again for another six months. 

"In prison, the torture during interrogations was bad. But the worst was the constant torture of living in a tiny cell of 30 square metres (320 square feet) with 90 to 100 other detainees," says Farahat, who is now 36 and a registered doctor working in London. 

"We would take turns to sleep while the others stood," he says. 

As a doctor, his cellmates would ask him to treat their wounds. "But I had nothing to treat them with," he tells AFP of his time in a military intelligence detention centre in Damascus. 

"Occasionally, the guards would give us two vitamins or two anti-inflammatory pills to share among 100 people. People would lose limbs because of simple injuries becoming severely infected," he adds. 

Following his release in November 2013, he fled to neighbouring Lebanon, where he applied for resettlement through the United Nations. 

He arrived in Britain in March 2015, and has since passed the conversion exams allowing him to practise medicine there. 

Now married to an interior designer, he works at a National Health Service (NHS) hospital in north London. 

"When the Covid-19 pandemic began, of course I worried for my loved ones, but I think my experiences in Syria prepared me to work well in a crisis," says Farahat, who feels proud to be able to give back to Britain in its time of need. 

He has also set up a telemedicine website offering vulnerable Syrians online consultations free of charge. 

"We have to be strong, work hard and build good lives, so that when the regime falls we can contribute to Syria's future," he says. 

Looking back, knowing now what he didn't know in 2011, what would Farahat tell his younger self? 

"I would say: go out. Protest. Even more than I did. Do I regret the revolution? Never, not for a second. The revolution made me who I am today."

Arab leaders condemn US Golan decision at summit

Yahoo – AFP, March 31, 2019

Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani (2L) left the 30th Arab League summit
shortly after it began Sunday, state media said, without explaning why (AFP
Photo/FETHI BELAID)

Tunis (AFP) - Arab leaders slammed the US decision to recognise the Golan Heights as Israeli territory at a summit in Tunis on Sunday, but struggled for further unity as Qatar's emir left the meeting early.

In a final declaration the Arab League summit said it "affirmed that the Golan is occupied Syrian territory according to international law, the decisions of the United Nations and the Security Council".

A separate statement dedicated solely to the issue called Washington's move "invalid and illegitimate".

"It is true that America is the strongest military force in the world, but its decision is absolutely worthless," League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit told a closing news conference.

President Donald Trump signed a proclamation Monday in which the United States recognised Israel's annexation of the strategic plateau that it seized in 1967 and annexed in 1981.

Israel's move has not been recognised internationally, and three UN Security Council resolutions have called for it to withdraw from the territory.

Trump's shift on Golan had already drawn a string of angry reactions from Arab capitals, despite proving problematic for key regional US allies such as Saudi Arabia.

The decision has also drawn criticism from other Security Council members and been rejected by the European Union.

The united front shown at the Tunis summit on the issue failed to mask other deep divisions inside the Arab League, as it struggles with major headaches such as a diplomatic crisis in the Gulf and conflicts in Syria and Yemen.

In an apparent sign of the tensions, Qatar's Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani quit the gathering "after attending the opening ceremony", the Gulf state's official QNA news agency reported, without giving any further details.

A Tunisian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Qatari leader had walked out during the speech of League chief Aboul Gheit, and "has left Tunisia".

Qatar is at the centre of a bitter Gulf standoff since June 2017, when Saudi Arabia along with the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain severed ties with Doha.

The Saudi-led bloc accuses Doha of supporting extremist groups and being too close to Iran, charges Qatar denies.

The meeting in Tunis had brought together Saudi King Salman and the emir for a rare encounter.

But an appeal by Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi for the region to "overcome its differences" appeared to have little impact as the Qatari ruler left prematurely.

In his opening speech Aboul Gheit had blasted Turkey and Iran for their "interference" in Arab countries, insisting that Tehran and Ankara had worsened regional crises.

Related Article:

Arab leaders slam Trump's recognition of Golan Heights as Israeli

Red Cross chief sees Syria aid shift towards 'rehabilitation'

Yahoo – AFP, Nina LARSON, May 2, 2018

Syria's seven-year conflict has killed more than 350,000 people and displaced
millions (AFP Photo/LOUAI BESHARA)

Geneva (AFP) - Providing humanitarian aid in war-ravaged Syria looks set to shift increasingly away from emergency, life-saving assistance towards rehabilitating devastated areas to help Syrians return home, the head of the Red Cross said Wednesday.

Peter Maurer told reporters in Geneva that the conflict appeared to be entering a new stage, with fewer "big-battle" moments and perhaps even a chance to provide displaced Syrians with a sense of normalcy after seven years of devastating violence.

"Syria to us looks very different from Syria last year or from Syria two years ago," Maurer said.

Syria has been torn apart a war that has left more than 350,000 people dead and displaced millions.

But Maurer said that as the situation in many parts of the country appears to be stabilising, he expected to see a shift away from a pure focus on emergency assistance towards reestablishing services in areas people want to return to.

"For us it is just important that we get the rehabilitation thing going," he said.

Maurer pointed out that Syria now appeared to be split into fairly clearly defined territories, and said the "big actors" seemed ready to work towards "consensus to stop the war and to go into a phase of more tranquility."

'Post-big-battle era'?

"I have the impression we are at a little bit of a threshold moment," he said, adding that he believed "we are entering the post-big battle era."

The Damascus regime has retaken large parts of Syria since 2015 with Russia's backing, but opposition groups with Western backing still control most of the northern Idlib province.

Turkey also controls an area in the north after launching an operation into Syria in January to root out the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia in the Afrin enclave.

Maurer acknowledged that the situation could still spiral in a "dangerous" direction.

But he said his recent visits to Moscow and other capitals had convinced him there was now a "minimal consensus" to stabilise the country.

Peter Maurer, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, says

the Syria conflict may be changing (AFP Photo/HAMZA AL-AJWEH)

Despite a relative calm in a number of places across the country, Maurer stressed that "humanitarian assistance (must) continue to go into Syria, because ... there are a lot of humanitarian needs."

But he said the nature of the assistance would evolve in many places away from pure emergency assistance towards "protection activities".

Chance of normalcy?

Such activities include helping reestablish basic services, assisting people to find lost family members and also help provide protection to avoid communities coming under attack.

ICRC said it had received some 13,000 tracing requests from people looking for loved ones since the start of the conflict, with the number of requests soaring 25 percent in 2017.

This increase, Maurer said, indicated that people were no longer focused only on emergency needs but could concentrate more on broader necessities.

These include reestablishing basic services in relatively stable areas that people want to return to, he said.

Maurer insisted that this should not be seen as a reconstruction bid -- a controversial issue that is politically fraught, with widespread disagreement on whether to work with the regime of President Bashar al-Assad to rebuild the country.

"When you bring a mobile medical clinic in to a destroyed city in Syria to which people are returning, that is not reconstruction. That is to us rehabilitation."

Maurer said he believed there was "the chance in Syria, with a little bit of support to bring back normalcy to Syrians," adding though that "just to do minimal humanitarian assistance won't do the trick."

Pope Francis to receive Sunni Muslim leader at Vatican

Yahoo – AFP, Angus MacKinnon, 19 May 2016

Pope Francis (left) is to receive the spiritual leader of the world's Sunni Muslims,
Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb (right), at the Vatican (AFP Photo/Kenzo Tribouillard,
Filippo Monteforte)

Vatican City (AFP) - Pope Francis is to meet the grand imam of Cairo's Al-Azhar at the Vatican on Monday in an unprecedented encounter between the leader of the world's Catholics and the highest authority in Sunni Islam.

Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, who heads the mosque and seat of learning considered the most prestigious institution in the main branch of Islam, will have an audience with the leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told AFP.

"This audience is being prepared and has been scheduled for Monday," he said. "It will be a first".

The hugely symbolic visit comes against the backdrop of a recent improvement in relations between the two faiths after serious tensions during the time of Francis's predecessor, Benedict XVI.

Ties were badly soured when the now-retired Benedict made a September 2006 speech in which he was perceived to have linked Islam to violence, sparking deadly protests in several countries and reprisal attacks on Christians.

Dialogue resumed in 2009 but was suspended again by Al-Azhar in 2011 when Benedict called for the protection of Christian minorities after a bomb attack on a church in Alexandria, an intervention that was perceived as meddling in Egypt's internal affairs.

Relations have steadily improved since Francis became pope in 2013 with inter-faith dialogue near the top of his agenda, something he underlined with a personal message to the Muslim world to mark the end of the first month of Ramadan of his pontificate.

A representative of the Al-Azhar mosque, Mahmoud Azab, took part in an inter-faith conference at the Vatican in March 2014 aimed at fostering cooperation on combating modern slavery and people trafficking.

"The dialogue was never cut, it was just suspended," Azab said at the time, adding that the idea was not "dialogue for its own sake. There has to be a clear agenda."

On a trip to Jordan and Israel in May 2014, Francis was accompanied by two old friends from his days in Buenos Aires, the Rabbi Abraham Skorka and Islamic studies professor Omar Abboud.

Pope hosts Muslim families

He has also pursued a historic rapprochement with the Orthodox Church, meeting the Russian patriarch in Cuba last year, and overseen the finessing of Catholic thinking on the need for Jews to convert, easing long-standing tensions with Judaism.

The 79-year-old pope made headlines in April when he returned from a trip to the migrant crisis island of Lesbos with three Syrian Muslim families who are now being put up by the Vatican as they apply for asylum in Italy.

Church officials say the choice of families was random but the gesture was nevertheless highlighted by media throughout the Islamic world and Francis came under fire from some on his own turf for not picking some of the Christians asylum-seekers in limbo on Lesbos.

The pope has however shown himself willing to speak out about aspects of Islam he has issues with, most notably in December 2014 when he said it would wonderful if some Muslim leaders "spoke up clearly and condemned" extremist violence carried out in the name of their religion.

Those remarks were seen at the time as reflecting mounting concern over the plight of Christians in the Middle East against the backdrop of the civil war in Syria and the rise of the Islamic State (IS) group.

The Vatican sees IS as determined to drive Christian and other non-Muslim minorities out of Iraq and Syria, and that has helped to accelerate the push for dialogue with Muslim leaders willing to try and stop that happening, experts say.

There is also a view in the Holy See that there is a struggle for the soul of Islam going on and that Vatican diplomacy should focus energetically on ensuring the right side comes out on top.

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Pope Benedict XVI to resign in historic move

Activists who lit Syria revolt washed away in migrant wave

Yahoo – AFP, Serene Assir, 12 March 2016

Migrants and refugees warm themselves around a bonfire at a makeshift camp

on the Greek-Macedonian border (AFP Photo/Dimitar Dilkoff)

Beirut (AFP) - When hopeful pro-democracy activists in Syria took to the streets in 2011, they couldn't have imagined that five years later they might end up living as refugees in Europe.

Using smartphones to keep up with the news from camps and relatives' homes thousands of kilometres (miles) away, they mourn a revolt that gave way to an internationalised war.

"When I arrived in Germany, I felt like I was living with an open wound, like I'd lost my soul. I felt guilty for leaving everything behind," says Jimmy Shahinian, a 28-year-old activist with sharp features and jet-black hair.

Syria's conflict erupted on March 15, 2011, 

when protesters massed on the streets

 to demand that President Bashar al-Assad

step down (AFP Photo/Anwar Amro)

"We had made a promise that we would change things," he tells AFP by phone from his new home, an apartment he shares with five other young men in Genthin, about 100 kilometres (62 miles) west of Berlin.

Syria's conflict erupted on March 15, 2011, when protesters massed on the streets to demand that President Bashar al-Assad step down.

Activists took the lead, using Facebook and Skype to organise protests, speak with international journalists, and broadcast clever slogans calling for the regime's downfall.

Shahinian, a Christian, joined the movement, and was subsequently jailed and tortured.

When the jihadist Islamic State group took over his native city Raqa in 2013, he began receiving terrifying death threats.

Smuggled into Turkey in an ambulance, Shahinian became one of nearly five million Syrians who have fled the country since the conflict began.

But even in Turkey, where at least three young anti-IS activists have been assassinated in recent months, he felt unsafe.

"I had no choice but to leave," he says.

Like most other new arrivals in Germany, his first port of call was an asylum-seeker camp, where he shared a room with some 10 other people.

He tries to keep his cause alive by volunteering for a civil society group in Berlin named Citizens for Syria and learning German, though he admits "it is very hard to get used to the new life".

"I suppose it's always this way. We sparked the revolution, and the spark is always the first to burn."

'Besieged in my head'

Some, like citizen journalist Yazan, are unable to abandon a cause that they were ready to die for.

Syrian rescue workers and residents try to pull a man out from under the rubble of 

a building following a reported air strike on the rebel-held neighbourhood of Salhin in the

northern city of Aleppo (AFP Photo/Thaer Mohammed)

Yazan lived through a brutal, nearly two-year siege in the Old City of Homs, once known as the "capital of the revolution" but now squarely back in regime hands.

He would spend his days snapping photos of children playing in rubble, rebels standing guard, wounded being rushed to dismally equipped field hospitals and cats wandering through ancient architectural gems reduced to ruins.

By night, Yazan would sign into Skype to speak to journalists covering Syria, shedding light on the destruction of Homs and on military developments on the frontlines.

After surviving daily bombardment and eating little more than weeds for months, he has spent the past year in the quiet comfort of his uncle's idyllic home in Saint Etienne, central France.

Although he lives in a different world, Yazan says the conflict, and its root cause, remain with him.

He spends his nights poring over activists' Facebook pages, following minute-by-minute developments on the ground.

"In Syria my body was besieged. Here, I am besieged in my head," says the 30-year-old.

He admits he can't move on while his father and brother remain among the estimated 200,000 people held in the regime's hellish jails.

"Here I can eat, I can sleep in safety. But however hard I try, I can't imagine the future," Yazan says.

"My whole life is on hold until the regime falls."

Activists took the lead when Syria's conflict erupted in 2011, using Facebook and

 Skype to organise protests, speak with international journalists, and broadcast 

clever slogans calling for the downfall of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad 

(AFP Photo/Anwar Amro)

Major powers' 'playing field'

Ahmad al-Rifai, a 24-year-old who spent months taking photos in opposition strongholds across northern Syria, is also in Germany -- where more than one million asylum requests were registered last year.

He blames the Syrian government but also the international community for the transformation of the revolt into a war that has killed 270,000 people.

"In the good old days, the people would decide when and where to protest, or when to go on strike," Rifai says.

"Now, the Syrian people have no decision-making power at all. Syria has become a playing field for major powers like Russia, the United States and Iran."

Despite the pain of watching his ravaged country from afar, Rifai tries to stay hopeful.

He has learned to speak German since arriving in Aachen city in 2014, and he serves as a translator between newly arrived refugees and Red Cross volunteers.

In April, he will start an internship with a digital media company. He hopes one day to return to Syria, to help rebuild.

"Once an activist, always an activist," he says.

Pope hails Iran accord, urges end to 'absurd violence' in Easter message

Yahoo – AFP, Jean-Louis De La Vaissiere, 5 April 2015

Pope Francis speaks from the central loggia of St Peters' basilica during the

 "Urbi et Orbi" blessing for Rome and the world following the Easter Mass in the

Vatican on April 5, 2015 (AFP Photo/Filippo Monteforte)

Vatican City (AFP) - Pope Francis appealed Sunday for an end to "absurd violence" in hotspots around the world and said the international community must not stand by in the face of the "immense humanitarian tragedy" in Syria and Iraq.

In his traditional Easter message, the 78-year-old pontiff said he was praying for those killed in armed conflict, including the students massacred by Somali gunmen at a university in Kenya.

Tens of thousands of pilgrims huddled under a sea of umbrellas in a rain-soaked St Peter's Square to hear the pope deliver his "Urbi et Orbi" (To the City and World) blessing, broadcast live to dozens of countries.

Pope Francis greets the crowd from the

 popemobile after the Easter Mass at

 St Peter's square in the Vatican on

April 5, 2015 (AFP Photo/Gabriel Bouys)

In his third Easter message since his election as pope in 2013, the head of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics prayed "for peace, above all, for Syria and Iraq, that the roar of arms may cease".

He called on the international community to "not stand by before the immense humanitarian tragedy unfolding in these countries and the drama of the numerous refugees" created by the two conflicts.

He also prayed for the victims of Thursday's attack in Kenya that left 148 people dead, with survivors sayng the militants spared Muslim students but taunted Christian and Jewish students before killing them.

"I think in particular of the young people who were killed last Thursday at Garissa University College in Kenya," he said.

Earlier Francis greeted pilgrims personally as he rode through the flower-bedecked square aboard his open Popemobile after presiding over Easter mass.

The most important and joyous moment of the Catholic calendar, Easter celebrates the day when Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead.

Pope Francis greets the crowd from 

the popemobile after the Easter Mass 

at the Vatican on April 5, 2015 (AFP

Photo/Filippo Monteforte)

Speaking from the balcony of St Peter's Basilica, Francis also said the framework nuclear accord reached Thursday between Iran and six major world powers inspired hope for "a definitive step toward a more secure and fraternal world".

The Argentine pope pleaded for "absurd bloodshed and all barbarous acts of violence" in Libya to be halted, and voiced his "desire for peace, for the good of the entire people" in war-battered Yemen and Ukraine.

Without referring to a particular hotspot, Francis said: "Those who bear within them God's power, his love and his justice, do not need to employ violence."

Be 'respectful, ready to help'

He prayed for "all who have been kidnapped, and for those forced to abandon their homes and their dear ones" in armed conflict and attacks by extremists in Nigeria and South Sudan as well as parts of Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In addition, he urged "peace and freedom for the many men and women subject to old and new forms of enslavement on the part of criminal individuals and groups (and) for the victims of drug dealers... And we ask peace for this world subjected to arms dealers."

Pope Francis greets the crowd from

 the popemobile after the Easter Mass

 at the Vatican on April 5, 2015 (AFP

Photo/Filippo Monteforte)

Francis also sounded his trademark appeal to the rich and powerful to care for the world's poor and downtrodden, saying: "The world proposes that we put ourselves forward at all costs, that we compete."

Instead, Christians should "seek to live in service to one another, not to be arrogant, but rather respectful and ready to help," he said.

Sunday's Easter observances capped a long and demanding Holy Week that left Francis at times appearing tired.

On Friday he presided over the traditional Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) procession at Rome's Colosseum evoking the last hours of Jesus's life.

The day before Francis celebrated two masses -- one for priests, and the other at Rome's Rebibbia prison, where he washed the feet of 10 inmates symbolically evoking Christ's humility -- a theme he took up again on Sunday.

"To enter into the mystery, we need to 'bend down', to abase ourselves," Francis said.

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'Urgent need' for unified anti-jihadist force: Arab League

Yahoo – AFP, 9 March 2015

Nabil al-Arabi (left), pictured in Cairo on March 9, 2015, has called for the creation

 of a unified Arab force to battle the spread of Islamic extremist groups (AFP Photo/

Mohamed El-Shahed)

Cairo (AFP) - Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi called on Monday for the creation of a unified Arab force to battle the spread of Islamic extremist groups.

"There is an urgent need for the creation of a multi-purpose common Arab military force... able to intervene rapidly to fight terrorism and the activities of terrorist groups," Arabi told a meeting of league foreign ministers in Cairo.

Egyptian troops guard a polling station

 in Alexandria on May 25, 2014 ahead 

of the presidential election (AFP 

Photo)

He also stressed the importance of "cooperation in areas related to security protection and the exchange of information between Arab countries."

Arab League deputy chief Ahmed Ben Helli told reporters last week that the bloc's leaders are expected to focus on the creation of such a common force when they meet for its annual summit on March 28-29 in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

He had said such a force was important as a "symbolic" show of deterrence at times of "conflict or disasters".

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has also called for such a force, saying it is needed to confront security threats in a region where the jihadist Islamic State group holds swathes of Syria and Iraq and has gained a foothold in Egypt's neighbour Libya.

He has suggested that a number of Arab League members, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, are considering supporting the idea.

Several Arab nations have joined the US-led coalition carrying out air strikes against IS in Syria.

Egypt has meanwhile launched its own strikes against IS targets in Libya, where the jihadists last month murdered 21 mainly Egyptian Coptic Christians.

Clerics denounce 'IS' militants after Jordanian pilot's death

A prominent Sunni Islam cleric has called for the execution of 'IS' militants who burned a Jordanian pilot to death. Other influential Imams called burning the pilot un-Islamic.

Deutsche Welle, 4 Feb 2015

Ahmed al-Tayeb, head of the 1,000-year-old Al-Azhar center for Sunni Islam in Egypt, called for the execution of "Islamic State" (IS) militants, one day after the jihadists publicized the video of a Jordanian pilot being burnedalive.

The Egyptian cleric expressed "strong dismay at this cowardly act," and said the perpetrators should be punished through "killing, crucifixion or chopping of limbs." He termed the Islamic State a "satanic" organization that spread corruption on earth and waged war against God.

IS had earlier posted a religious edict on Twitter saying Islam permitted burning an infidel to death, as a justification for burning Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kaseasbeh while he was still alive.

'Only God tortures by fire'

Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kaseasbeh
was captured by the IS last year

Al-Kaseasbeh's barbaric death apparently served to weaken IS' popularity, but it was not clear whether conservative clerics condemned the killing itself or the method used to end his life.

"Burning is an abominable crime rejected by Islamic law regardless of its causes," Saudi cleric Salman al-Odah wrote on his Twitter page, adding that "Only God tortures by fire."

"Even if the Islamic State says Muath had bombed, and burned and killed us, and we punished him in the way he did to us, we say, okay but why film the video in this shocking way?" Abu Sayaf, a Jordanian Salafist cleric who spent ten years in Amman's prisons, told Reuters news agency.

Islamic State militants released a video on Tuesday, which purportedly showed the pilot Muath al-Kaseasbeh being burned to death. The Jordanian national was captured by the jihadists last year in Syria while flying on a US-led coalition mission against the IS.

Amman had attempted to exchange jihadi prisoner Sajida al-Rishawi for al-Kaseasbeh, but those negotiations fell through after Jordanian officials said IS failed to prove he was still alive.

mg/kms (dpa, AFP)

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