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‘He’s close to us’: Wheelchair users in Africa await pope

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'He's close to us': Wheelchair users in Africa await pope

When Pope Francis arrives in Congo and South Sudan next week, thousands of people will take special note of a gesture more grounded than the sign of the cross. Watching from their wheelchairs, they will relate to the way he uses his.

The pope, who began using a wheelchair last year, is visiting two countries where years of conflict have disabled many, and yet they are among the world’s most difficult places to find accessibility and understanding. His visit is heartening Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

“We know that it’s a suffering, but it also comforts us to see a grand personality like the pope using a wheelchair,” said Paul Mitemberezi, a market vendor in Goma, at the heart of the eastern Congo region threatened by dozens of armed groups. “Sometimes it gives us the courage to hope that this isn’t the end of the world and one can survive.”

Mitemberezi, a Catholic and a father, has been disabled since he was 3 because of polio. He works to support his family because he can’t imagine a life of begging. On the way to market, his three-wheeled chair crunches the stones of unpaved roads. Without a ramp at home, he must leave the brightly painted vehicle outdoors, at risk of theft.

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Every morning, before he leaves for basketball practice, he makes sure the chair’s still there before crawling out his front door. “It is my legs, which helps me to live,” he said. He applies a bicycle pump to the wheels and is off, weaving through traffic of motorcycles and trucks.

Pope Francis is still adjusting to a life that Mitemberezi has long accepted. The pope was first seen publicly in a wheelchair in May, with an aide pushing it. The pope, at age 86, never propels himself. Sometimes he walks with a cane, but he uses the chair for longer distances and has a wheelchair lift to get on and off planes.

Francis has insisted that his mobility limitations don’t affect his ability to be pope, saying “You lead with your head, not your knee.” He has lamented how today’s “throwaway culture” wrongly marginalizes disabled people. He makes it a point to visit places serving the disabled during his foreign trips, and routinely spends time greeting wheelchair users at the end of his general audiences.

“No disability — temporary, acquired or permanent — can change the fact that we are all children of the one Father and enjoy the same dignity,” Francis wrote in his annual message for the U.N. International Day of Persons with Disabilities in December. He said people with different abilities enrich the church and teach it to be more humane.

Such messages are warmly awaited by wheelchair users in South Sudan, where a five-year civil war killed hundreds of thousands of people. As in Congo, data is lacking on just how many people are disabled by conflict or other means.

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While the road leading to the Vatican’s embassy in the South Sudan capital, Juba, was paved by city authorities this month for ease of travel, residents who use wheelchairs said they have long gone without easy access to schools, health centers, toilets and other public facilities.

South Sudan, unlike Congo, is yet to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Both countries, however, face vast challenges including underfunded health systems, poor infrastructure and conflicts that leave many disabled people vulnerable as others flee.

Even displacement camps and shelters often are not accessible, the United Nations has said, and wheelchairs are not always available.

Discrimination is another problem. “People see those who get around using a wheelchair as useless,” said James Moses, who leads a local organization in South Sudan for disabled people and uses crutches after being wounded by a land mine.

He and others called on South Sudan’s government to give them special consideration during the pope’s visit, and they hope that Francis will advocate for them. “He’s close to us,” said Susan Samson, a wheelchair user and mother.

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They hope they will have a chance to greet the pope at the airport with congratulatory messages and flowers. ”Put us in front so the pope will see us,” urged wheelchair user Seme Lado Michael.

The Vatican’s ambassador to Congo, Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, said he believed the sight of a wheelchair-using pope could be a powerful teaching moment in a culture where disabilities are often viewed with suspicion and superstition.

Families often abandon their disabled children, he said.

Seeing someone like the pope suffer should make Francis more approachable for people during his visit, Balestrero said. “They identify, in a way, even more with him.”

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Rahul Gandhi: India’s Congress leader sentenced to jail for Modi ‘thieves’ remark

Rahul Gandhi: India’s Congress leader sentenced to jail for Modi ‘thieves’ remark

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Rahul Gandhi: India's Congress leader sentenced to jail for Modi 'thieves' remark

Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi has been sentenced to two years in prison in a criminal defamation case.

Mr Gandhi was convicted by the court in Gujarat state for 2019 comments about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surname during an election rally.

He will not go to jail immediately – he was granted bail for 30 days and will file an appeal against the conviction.

The Congress party MP was present in court for sentencing, which comes a year before general elections are due.

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Speaking at an election rally in Karnataka state in April 2019, ahead of the last general election, Mr Gandhi had said: “Why do all these thieves have Modi as their surname? Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi, Narendra Modi.”

Nirav Modi is a fugitive Indian diamond tycoon while Lalit Modi is a former chief of the Indian Premier League who has been banned for life by the country’s cricket board. Mr Gandhi argued that he had made the comment to highlight corruption and it was not directed against any community.

The case against him was filed on the basis of a complaint by Purnesh Modi, a lawmaker from India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party, who said that Mr Gandhi’s comments had defamed the entire Modi community.

But some have said they are puzzled by the order.

Legal scholar Gautam Bhatia tweeted that “references to a generic class of persons” – surnames in this case – are not “actionable unless an individual can show a direct reference to themselves”.

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“If a man says ‘all lawyers are thieves’, then I, as a lawyer, cannot file a case against him for defamation unless I can show its imputation aimed at me,” Mr Bhatia said.

India’s criminal defamation law is British-era legislation under which there can be a maximum prison sentence of two years, a fine or both.

Free speech advocates have often argued that the law goes against the principles of freedom and that it is is used by politicians to silence their critics.

In 2016, some top Indian politicians including Mr Gandhi filed legal pleas arguing for defamation to be decriminalised. But India’s Supreme Court upheld the validity of the law, saying that the “right to free speech cannot mean that a citizen can defame the other”.

The Congress party tweeted that Mr Gandhi would appeal and said “we will fight and win”.

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Mr Gandhi has not commented publicly yet but has tweeted a quote in Hindi from India’s independence leader Mahatma Gandhi: “My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God, and non-violence the means to get it.”

His lawyer, Kirit Panwala, told BBC Gujarati that Mr Gandhi had told the judge after the order that he had made the speech “in favour of democracy”.

He also said that their defence of Mr Gandhi was based on four points: “Firstly, Mr Gandhi is not a resident of Gujarat and so, before the complaint, an inquiry should be conducted. Secondly, there is no community named Modi. Thirdly, there is no association of people with Modi as their surname and lastly, there was no ill intention behind Mr Gandhi’s speech.”

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Lebanese security forces fire tear gas at crowds protesting pound devaluation

Lebanese security forces fire tear gas at crowds protesting pound devaluation

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Lebanese security forces fire tear gas at crowds protesting pound devaluation

Lebanese security forces on Wednesday fired tear gas at hundreds of protesters, mostly retired members of the security forces, who had gathered near government buildings in Beirut in anger at deteriorating economic conditions.

Crowds gathered in the streets of downtown Beirut between parliament and the government serail, carrying Lebanon’s tricolour or flags bearing the logos of security forces.

They were outraged at the deteriorating value of state pensions paid in the local currency. The pound has lost more than 98% of its value against the U.S. dollar since 2019.

“Our kids are hungry. We’re hungry,” said Mohamad el-Khateeb, a 59-year-old who had served in the army for 32 years.

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“We left the army with nothing. No healthcare, no welfare, our kids are out of school and prices are rising obscenely. What do you expect?” Khateeb told Reuters.

Some of the men tried to cross one of the checkpoints leading to a government building, prompting security forces to fire tear gas to keep them back, according to a Reuters witness.

Protesters dashed away from white clouds emanating from locations around the serail. One soldier was seen treating a young boy who was affected by the tear gas.

“If he fires on us, he’s firing on our rights and on his rights at the same time,” said army veteran Ahmad Mustafa, 60.

“He’s suffering just like me,” he told Reuters, clutching two of the tear gas canisters fired just moments earlier.

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There was no immediate statement from the Lebanese army.
Lebanon’s economic meltdown began in 2019 after decades of profligate spending and alleged corruption. Its onset prompted the most wide-ranging protests the country had seen in years, but they fizzled out and rallies have been sporadic since.

The country’s top financial and political leaders have allowed the crisis to fester, with the Lebanese pound hitting an all-time low of 140,000 to the U.S. dollar on Tuesday before an intervention by the country’s central bank.

Lebanon’s army troops and members of the security forces are receiving salary support in U.S. dollars from the United States and Qatar for the first time.

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Four killed in Russian drone strike on Kyiv region, officials say

Four killed in Russian drone strike on Kyiv region, officials say

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Four killed in Russian drone strike on Kyiv region, officials say

 At least four people were killed early on Wednesday in a Russian drone strike near Kyiv which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said showed Moscow was not interested in peace.

The State Emergency Service said on the Telegram messaging app that two dormitories and an educational facility in Rzhyshchiv, 40 miles (64 km) south of the capital, had been partially destroyed in the overnight attack.

Regional police chief Andrii Nebytov said 20 people had been taken to hospital and several were still missing following a series of explosions after 3 a.m. (0100 GMT) that killed four people.

A large part of the top floor of a five-storey dormitory building had been knocked out by the attack. Workers in white helmets and reflective jackets clambered through the rubble of another badly damaged building.

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“We see that the enemy has once again attacked civilian infrastructure (and) innocent people have died,” Nebytov wrote on Telegram, adding that one of the victims was an ambulance driver who had arrived to help.

State emergency officials said the search for survivors was continuing after attacks that the Ukrainian military said involved Iranian-made Shahed drones.

“Over 20 Iranian murderous drones, plus missiles, numerous shelling incidents, and that’s just in one last night of Russian terror against Ukraine,” Zelenskiy wrote on Twitter.

“Every time someone tries to hear the word ‘peace’ in Moscow, another order is given there for such criminal strikes.”

The Ukrainian military said it had shot down 16 of the 21 drones launched at Ukraine overnight from the north.

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Russia, which invaded Ukraine 13 months ago, did not immediately comment on the latest attacks.

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