World roundup: November 13 2023
Stories from Israel-Palestine, Myanmar, Argentina, and elsewhere
TODAY IN HISTORY
November 13, 1002: In an event that’s been commemorated as the “St Brice’s Day Massacre,” English King Æthelred the Unready orders the execution of all Danes in his kingdom. Æthelred’s relationship with the Danes was poor. He’d been defeated by a Danish army at the Battle of Maldon in 991 and forced to pay tribute, and Danish raiders routinely swept through the English countryside. There was a historical memory of the depredations of the Danelaw that likely contributed to general anti-Dane sentiment in England. At some point in 1002 Æthelred was apparently convinced that any Dane living in his domain would gladly assassinate him, and under this vaguely perceived notion of a “threat” he issued an order for their mass killing. The actual number of people killed is unclear but the massacre is thought to have contributed to Danish King Sweyn Forkbeard’s invasion of England in 1003. It’s said that Sweyn’s sister and her husband were among the massacre’s victims.
November 13, 1918: Allied forces occupy Istanbul. Under the Armistice of Mudros, the Ottoman Empire’s World War I surrender document, Allied soldiers were permitted to garrison the empire’s Bosphorus Fort. A military occupation of the entire city was something of a gray area, though the Ottomans were in no position to object. The later Treaty of Sèvres would have made Istanbul an “international city,” but the Turkish War of Independence and subsequent Treaty of Lausanne incorporated it into the new Republic of Turkey.
MIDDLE EAST
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
Amid a generally dire environment for basic press and speech freedoms, NBC News reports on the Israeli government’s attempts to intimidate Palestinian journalists:
Israeli authorities have cracked down on broadcasts, reports and social media posts that they consider to be a threat to national security or in support of terror organizations since Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault. Press freedom and human rights groups say the approach is stifling speech and freedom of the media.
Dalia Nammari, a journalist with state-funded Russia Today, said she was accosted by armed police as she tried to file a live report in southern Israel on Oct. 16. She and her camera crew had stopped by the side of the road in an agricultural area of no apparent military importance, Nammari said.
“One police car stopped, took our IDs. … Soon, another military police force came, six or seven armed men with rifles, live bullets and ammunition. They surrounded me and the cameraman,” she told NBC News.
Nammari said she tried to call a police spokesman but was told to put her phone away.
“One soldier had his finger on the trigger and told me not to talk. … For the first time in my 14 years of journalism, I felt a direct threat to my life,” she said.
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