The Kurdish administration in northeastern Syria has handed over 12 French and two Dutch orphans born to fighter families to respective government delegations, an official has said.

The children, the oldest of whom is aged 10, had been living in camps where tens of thousands of people who fled recent fighting against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), are still housed.

Kurdish officials handed over “12 orphaned French children from IS families to a delegation from the French ministry of foreign affairs,” top foreign affairs official Abdulkarim Omar said in a statement on Monday.

He said the transfer took place in the town of Ain Issa on Sunday and added that two orphaned Dutch children were also handed over to a government delegation from the Netherlands.

The Dutch foreign ministry had yet to confirm the development.

France has one of the largest contingents of suspected fighters who were captured or turned themselves in, together with their families, in the final stages of the US-backed Kurdish assault on the last fragment of ISIL’s “caliphate”.

The proto-state eventually died in the village of Baghouz, on the banks of the Euphrates, in March this year, after a months-long US-backed Kurdish assault.

Larger than expected numbers of families emerged from the ruins of the last ISIL enclave and the fate of tens of thousands of them remains unclear.

Death sentences

The move to hand over French and Dutch orphans to government delegations comes amid increasing alarm over Iraq‘s handling of cases involving French citizens suspected of being ISIL members.

Nearly a dozen individuals with French nationality are at risk of execution in Iraq after an Iraqi court sentenced them to death over ISIL affiliation.

In an open letter published earlier this month on French state radio Franceinfo’s website, a group of 45 lawyers urged French President Emmanuel Macron to keep the men alive, irrespective of their alleged crimes, and said allowing them to be put to death would be a “great disgrace for our country”.

“We have taken a historic risk, which, if it is realised, will leave an indelible stain on the mandate of Emmanuel Macron,” the letter said.

Iraq is conducting trials of thousands of suspected ISIL fighters, many of whom were arrested as its strongholds fell, and has pledged to take a hard line against anyone convicted of involvement with the group.

Among those detained are hundreds of foreign nationals from Europe.

However, European powers, including France and Britain, have repeatedly ruled out repatriating such individuals, arguing instead that they should face trial for any alleged crimes before local courts.

But human rights groups have accused Iraqi authorities of inconsistencies in the judicial process and flawed trials, leading to unfair convictions – concerns that have been heightened by Iraq’s application of the death penalty.

France abolished the death penalty in 1981, four years after the country last applied capital punishment when convicted murderer Hamida Djandoubi, 27, was executed by guillotine.

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir – Six men have been convicted in the infamous case of gang rape and murder of a young girl from a Muslim nomadic tribe in 2018 that provoked horror and stoked interreligious tensions.

A special court in Pathankot in India‘s northern state of Punjab on Monday found the men guilty of the rape and murder of the eight-year-old girl in Kathua village of Indian-administered Kashmir last year.

The six Hindu men were due to be sentenced later on Monday.

The barbarity of the case came to the fore in a 16-page charge sheet presented by the crime branch – a special wing of the Jammu and Kashmir police – in April last year.

The investigation had revealed that the rape and murder were systematic, preplanned and rooted in religious hatred harboured by Sanji Ram, a Hindu, against the Muslim nomadic community of Bakarwals – a tribal community.

As the incident had created communal tension in the restive region last year, authorities made elaborate security arrangements at the court complex in Pathankot and Kathua in the run-up to the verdict.

Charges of rape and murder were framed by the district and sessions judge against seven of the eight accused, all Hindus.

The trial against one of the accused – a juvenile – is yet to begin as his petition on determining his age is to be heard by the Jammu and Kashmir High Court. Another accused was acquitted by the court on Monday.

The accused face a minimum sentence of life imprisonment and maximum the death penalty. However, the argument on the quantum of punishment is yet in progress and is likely to be announced later on Monday.

‘Heavily sedated’

The nomad girl, who enjoyed taking horses for grazing in the forest near her home, was abducted by eight people with an aim to drive the minority Muslim community out of the village, according to the police investigation.

In captivity inside a temple, the girl was heavily sedated and gang-raped by at least three men over the course of four days, the police probe stated. The report described the victim as an “innocent budding flower, a child of only eight years of age, who being a small kid became a soft target”.

The crime, however, was rooted in a conspiracy and the girl’s rape and killing were the means to an end – create fear among the Muslim nomadic Bakarwal community and force them to leave, according to the police report. 

The girl was raised by her maternal uncle, Mohammad Yusuf, who adopted her when she was a toddler and the family lived in Rasana, a Hindu-majority village in the southernmost Jammu region.

Three police officers were also involved in destroying the evidence, the report said.

The incident, which initially appeared to draw a reluctant outrage, snowballed into a major crisis for India’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after two of its ministers rallied in support of the accused.

However, after the details and motives of the rape and killing came into the public domain, street protests rocked the Muslim-majority region in Kashmir. Thousands of people also rallied in support of the victim in several parts of India.

Human rights groups have repeatedly claimed that religious minority groups, particularly Muslims, face increasing threats by Hindu groups in India.

Following the incident, the Indian Parliament in August last year passed stringent legislation prescribing the death penalty to those convicted of raping girls below the age of 12 years and making the law against such sexual offences harsher.

Brazil‘s justice minister and prosecutors collaborated to convict left-wing icon Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on corruption charges to prevent him from contesting the 2018 election, an investigative news outlet has reported.

The Intercept said on Sunday an anonymous source provided material, including private chats, audio recordings, videos and photos, that show “serious wrongdoing, unethical behaviour, and systematic deceit”.

“Secret documents reveal that Brazil’s most powerful prosecutors … plotted to prevent the Workers’ Party [PT] from winning the 2018 presidential election by blocking or weakening a pre-election interview with former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva,” said the news report. 

Among the explosive claims, The Intercept said prosecutors in a massive, years-long anti-corruption probe known as “Car Wash” had expressed “serious doubts whether there was sufficient evidence to establish Lula’s guilt”.

Justice Minister Sergio Moro was the anti-corruption judge who handed Lula his first conviction in 2017, which prevented him from running in a presidential election he was widely expected to win.

President Jair Bolsonaro, who said during his campaign that he hoped Lula would “rot in prison”, later made Moro part of his cabinet.

Glenn Greenwald, a cofounder of The Intercept and member of the team that first interviewed Edward Snowden in 2013, said on Twitter the leak was “one of the largest & most important in years”.

This is “just the very beginning of what we intend to reveal from this massive archive about him [Moro] & the prosecutors with whom he unethically worked”, said Greenwald.

The claims come at a bad time for Bolsonaro, who is already facing mounting opposition less than six months into his term, as Latin America’s biggest economy teeters on the edge of recession and his signature pension reform remains stuck in a hostile Congress.

‘Out of context’

In response to The Intercept’s stories, Moro defended his actions as a judge in the ongoing Car Wash probe, and said the material obtained through the “criminal invasion of prosecutors’ cell phones” had been “taken out of context”.

“Careful reading reveals that there is nothing there despite the sensational material,” Moro said on Twitter.

The Car Wash task force confirmed its investigators had been hacked, but said it did not know the extent of the breach.

1/ EXCLUSIVE: We obtained one of the largest & most important archives of leaked material in years: containing the secret chats, audios, videos & documents of the prosecutors & Judge – now Bolsonaro’s Justice Minister, Sergio Moro – who imprisoned Lula. It shows vast wrongdoing. pic.twitter.com/opSgTrzQ77

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 9, 2019

Politically motivated

Lula, who led Brazil through an historic boom from 2003 to 2010, has denied all corruption charges against him, arguing they were politically motivated to prevent him from competing in the elections.

He is serving a reduced jail term of eight years and 10 months after being convicted of accepting a seaside apartment as a bribe for helping the OAS construction company get lucrative deals with state oil firm Petrobras.

While behind bars, Lula’s Workers’ Party registered him as its presidential candidate in August 2018 – two months before the election. However, an electoral court barred him two weeks later.

A second conviction was handed down in February, for which he was sentenced to almost 13 years.

Fernando Haddad, PT’s election candidate who lost to Bolsonaro, said on Twitter “we could be facing the biggest institutional scandal in the history of the republic”.

“The truth will prevail” was posted on Lula’s Twitter account above a link to The Intercept stories. 

Days before filing the indictment that put Lula in jail, group chats involving prosecutors in the case showed that chief prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol “expressed his increasing doubts over two key elements of the prosecution’s case: whether the triplex was in fact Lula’s and whether it had anything to do with Petrobras”.

The leaked material also shows “Car Wash prosecutors spoke openly of their desire to prevent the PT from winning the election and took steps to carry out that agenda”, The Intercept reported.

“Moro secretly and unethically collaborated with the Car Wash prosecutors to help design the case against Lula … only for him to then pretend to be its neutral adjudicator.” 

Hong Kong‘s pro-Beijing leader said on Monday she had no plans to withdraw a controversial plan to allow extraditions to the Chinese mainland, a day after an estimated one million people marched to oppose the proposal.

“This is a very important piece of legislation that will help to uphold justice and also ensure that Hong Kong will fulfil her international obligations in terms of cross-boundary and transnational crimes,” Chief Executive Carrie Lam told reporters.

Al Jazeera’s Adrian Brown, reporting from Beijing, said: “In the face of the protests, in the face of all her critics, Carrie Lam remains undeterred”.

“It’s pretty clear she is not going to shelve this controversial bill that has caused so much alarm and agitation in Hong Kong.

“She says the bill is necessary and sensible and that is also the view of the government here in Beijing,” Brown said.

Riot police surrounded Hong Kong’s parliament on Monday after a mass rally descended into violence as several hundred protesters clashed with police, who responded with pepper spray before the standoff ended.

The protests plunged Hong Kong into a new political crisis, heaping pressure on Lam’s administration and her official backers in Beijing. Veteran legislators have called on her to resign.

Organisers claimed more than a million people marched on Sunday against the proposed bill [Anthony Kwan/Getty Images]

The semi-autonomous city’s government is pushing a bill through the legislature that would allow extraditions to any jurisdiction with which it does not already have a treaty – including mainland China.

The proposals have sparked an outcry and birthed an opposition that unites a wide cross-section of the city, with opponents fearing the law would entangle people in China’s opaque and politicised court system.

Protesters believe the proposed law would damage the city’s rule of law and put many at risk of extradition to China for political crimes.

Public backlash

Sunday saw huge crowds march in blazing summer heat through the cramped streets of the financial hub’s main island in a noisy, colourful demonstration calling on the government to scrap its planned extradition law.

Police estimated the crowd at 240,000, but organisers said more than one million took part in what appeared to be the biggest protest since 2003 – presenting Lam with a major political crisis.

But in her first comments since the mass rallies, Lam said she had no plans to change the current law’s wording or withdraw it from the city’s legislature.

“The bill will resume its second reading on the 12th June,” she said.

Lam denied ignoring the huge public backlash and said her administration had already made major concessions to ensure the city’s unique freedoms would be protected and that the bill’s human rights safeguards met international standards.

“I and my team have not ignored any views expressed on this very important piece of legislation. We have been listening and listening very attentively,” she said.

Demonstrators clash with riot police during the protest [Thomas Peter/Reuters]

But Al Jazeera’s Brown said that many people are not convinced by Lam’s arguments that there are sufficient safeguards in the new bill to address their concerns.

US and European officials have issued formal warnings, matching international business and human rights lobbies that fear the changes would dent Hong Kong’s rule of law.

The former British colony was handed back to Chinese rule in 1997 amid guarantees of autonomy and various freedoms, including a separate legal system, which many diplomats and business leaders believe is the city’s strongest remaining asset.

“It’s a proposal, or a set of proposals, which strike a terrible blow … against the rule of law, against Hong Kong’s stability and security, against Hong Kong’s position as a great international trading hub,” the territory’s last British Governor, Chris Patten, said on Thursday.

‘Foreign forces’

Guards removed damaged barricades from the front of the Legislative Council building during Monday’s morning rush hour and cleaning crews washed away protest debris.

All but one protester had been cleared from the area, with residents back to work as normal.

Hong Kong newspaper Mingpao said in an editorial the government should take the protesters seriously and that pushing the legislation forward would exacerbate tensions.

The official China Daily newspaper said in an editorial on Monday that “foreign forces” were trying to hurt China by creating chaos in Hong Kong.

“Any fair-minded person would deem the amendment bill a legitimate, sensible and reasonable piece of legislation that would strengthen Hong Kong’s rule of law and deliver justice,” the mainland paper said.

Amnesty International said the amended extradition law was a threat to human rights.

“If enacted, this law would extend the ability of the mainland authorities to target critics, human rights activists, journalists, NGO workers and anyone else in Hong Kong, much in the same way they do at home,” it said in a statement.