james glanz clearance there's a lot of the material once again. because of the oregon fire starts aug 12th on. hello and welcome to a new edition of focus on europe we begin today's show with a conflict that might be far away from europe geographically but still has a direct impact on our continent witness says of the syrian war a tale harrowing stories of arbitrary arrests torture and killings by the syrian secret police 2 officials believed to be part of president assad's regime are

currently on trial in germany these are some of the victims' families in front of a court in cordons a visual to remember those who were disappeared or killed in syria it's the 1st time suspected perpetrators are standing trial to face charges of crimes against humanity the principle of going to wrestle jurisdiction allows prosecution to take place in germany even though the crimes against humanity were committed in syria. is one of those who are closely following the court proceedings she is one of the countless syrians whose families have fallen victim to the civil war that's why she left her home country and fled to germany and now she has hope for long awaited justice. mahmoud in her apartment in the german capital berlin the opponent of the regime in syria lives here on her own in exile this is she this is my

husband. says 2012 he's been missing disappearing in a prison run by the syrian secret service. just like her son my here. they've been mediators for the opposition and had been on their way back from outside syria when the protests against the regime in syria started. aired. them and i called our son my hair after they arrived at the airport in damascus he said we're getting into the car now and will be home soon please set the table for that. but father was husband and son never got back home. the syrian secret services crimes are cruel these photos from inside syrian prisons were leaked in 2013 victims of torture photographed by a military policeman who managed to get them out of the country. today the photos

are important evidence against assad's torturers in europe the authorities were investigating them when they made a discovery and 2018 secret service members have allegedly come to europe from syria this guys this refugees one of them is this man and where are the alleged head of the department in the secret service he and another suspect that secret service members have been on trial in germany since april it's the 1st trial ever for crimes against humanity committed by members of the assad regime. from as a darwish a syrian opposition where the trial is a historic step towards more justice. in the city star which was there for the start of the trial he lives in exile in europe to. decode example. when you're talking just. when we are talking. to the.

process of these words for us. the 1st. earth and. you know. when the trial started syrians opposed to the regime came together outside the court building to demand that a son be brought to trial. assad himself denies any responsibility for wrongdoing. but the evidence against the syrian regime is overwhelming. it's kept here at this secret location in western europe. william wiley used to work for the united nations investigating human rights abuses for u.n. courts in former yugoslavia and rwanda he heads the commission for international justice and accountability and gathers evidence against assad's regime. basically. what you have in this room are materials generated by the security

intelligence structures of sure the military structures of syria and the party or political structures of syria at the top level and the government level. records and files of the syrian regime cleaned examined and archived especially for the investigating authorities and courts in europe. wiley and other investigators are financially supported by european governments when the war in yugoslavia ended in the 9. the international tribunal was missing many important files to prevent this from happening again the commission secured smuggled over 800000 documents out of the case of the syrian civil war. while he is convinced that it will be enough to prove the syrian leadership's responsibility

for human rights abuses. as to his father while mom was living in exile in berlin i don't. understand if i could end up as in a no no and i think justice will take its course and she did and i'm happy when i see that those people should the prisoners and i know what that's i've had that experience myself so therefore sightly very happy if those responsible for techno chewing men and women are punished to get passed out we're caught up. in to night biggest dream is to see their leadership being brought to justice for. them to pass out. mahmoud hopes that one day all the crimes of assad's regime will come to light including her husband's and her son's fate.

london is not just the capital of the u.k. it's also the country's traffic jam capital last year drivers in london spends nearly a 150 hours stuck in traffic that's 150 hours of people being idle and that's wasted time has cost the city billions now of course the streets of london are much empty or because many people are working from home and that has given way to bikers we met one of them and he is calling for a bicycle revolution on the streets of his city. the cyclists in london us to be quite confident. when you're with the road what they see if you're a competent cyclist is not really much of a problem but you have to be going at more or less the speed of the trough and a new presence on the road has to be quite strong or. flip phones and rides his

bike everywhere he cycle some 20000 kilometers e.-m. . caltech finished films and his family are pleased that more and more london as a discovering the joys of cycling. that will the cycling enthusiast from the time they point young children grow that bikes to school. that's still something of an audit seen on t.v. that happen could soon change. in schools by playing dancing get people cycling. the next generation i think the bethany be more confident that on the buy a person would think they should just go ahead and close 50 percent. sidestreets just close the lid cause don't need to go on 50 percent so give us access to everybody on clothes as much as possible. those kinds of demands get nandan is taxi driver has the riled up the city's cabbies are among cyclists crisis

critics. who don't are cyclists get rid of old and get over cycles or buses. they would and then it says the traffic at the moment is terrible so i buy cars in . roads or whatever making more cycle lanes is just going to make the traffic even worse just i dress herself the people who saw it drag the moment the high white collars on the small percentage of do not highlight charge. so this should be some sort of a test for cyclists and yes london's in a city is currently swarming with bicycles as the qur'an the crisis in a new age of majority. cyclists now have some powerful supporters behind them there will be a huge amount of planning going into helping people to get to work other than by mass transit and this will be i hope and of that my writing free will as

a former secretary of transport i would agree this is should be a new golden age for cycling but they must act fast when commuters return on mass and won't be enough buses or trains to accommodate them and attend to social distancing missions if even a small percentage of these commute to start using cars instead london will be fixed with 10 children. the temptation to get into medical will be very very strong and understandable so i think we've got a short window of time to reach out to both the politicians and to the public a large to say there is a better way of to. manage the city london's financial district is leading the way . down during the day access is restricted to process and bikes only. and sidewalks are being widened to give kids estrin small room. and in some residential districts streets are being close to 3 traffic drivers are having

to find other bricks 1. oh oh. now this just in these few weeks is an amazing opportunity to connect a lot of the unconnected parts to get the local councils on board to get the local . resignation cycle again says don't this because central university. during the current crisis london feels a bit like punk friendly amsterdam. think up the internet is finally open it will stay that way i think this new golden beach for cycling seems almost too good to be true. do you like oysters i have to admit it's not a huge fan but if you are then you surely know what a costly delicacy they are well in france this delicacy now needs its own security

detail as thieves have also come to realize their value they break into farms and steal the oysters to sell them later for a profit it's a huge loss for oyster farmers like nicole that more name is now hoping that the local police can help protect his precious smallest. it's early morning this is the bay that often name on the french brittany coast. is an oyster farmer he loves working here but for months he's been extremely worried because thieves have been stealing the precious molluscs. if the tide is out we come here in the mornings to check if everything is all right. soon he spots a basket that has been cut open again oysters these have struck it's a major financial loss it takes 3 years until the oyster can be sold until then

they need to be carefully tended to. weeks ago says 3 and a half tons of oysters were stolen and one night. the boss gets 7 or 8000 euros and they still 250 of them all. last year many tons of oysters were stolen across france and the situation seems to be getting worse and once the valuable mollusks have been taken they're impossible to trace back. some coastal towns are now set up a special police force like here and on the monday as. oh main job is to prevent oyster so. we go one patrol every morning noon and all that sort of night i mean yeah.

they use drones to keep an eye on the coast hoping to catch oyster thieves red handed. so far they've proven elusive the thieves seem to know their way around the oyster farms and so usually all the special police force can do is act when it's already too late. we then look at the. other and if. we have to look at. sending such a big load of stolen all the. key ploy. the. only people from within the trade are capable to do so so. he's convinced the thieves are from the area. nobody else has the local knowledge and tools necessary

to collect the baskets from the bay. thinking of all kinds of people who. have a suspicion but no proof that it could also turn out to be one of my friends. could experience a bits of disappointment and. another problem is that an increasing number of oysters are catching a disease during farming the rare virus was previously found only in warmer waters . and the town of there's a market every saturday. are extremely popular and he doesn't have to wait long for customers. full of very healthy very pure like the sea and also a bit nutty. these oysters have an extraordinary taste that we are particularly fond of. the oysters are sold out before noon. like so often

he says he could have sold a lot more if it weren't for the oyster thieves in his view their crimes are an forgivable. i know your yes we've also had to go to jail but we'd never ever think of robbing neighbors. it's not nice. to sleep. in the ne now hopes that the police can finally catch the thieves but the odds are against him. despite intensive investigations very few oyster thieves have been caught for decades thousands of people were disenfranchised or abused by the swiss state even the young children were torn from their parents well the spirits allegation that they didn't come for him to social norms. is one of the many victims now fighting for compensation the atrocities he suffered as

a child still haunts him to this day. the swiss authorities took him away from his mother put him in a home and locked him away. at age 6 voter in his spare go was placed in foster care with a parish couple who abused him. by hair a lot and beat me he would lock me in the basement or in the broom closet. and there is still traumatized by his experiences to this day he struggles to set foot in a church. the 64 year old set up a small museum in the basement of the community center of his village affair. which makes 10 people how this was state condemned him. around 60000 people in switzerland were submitted to so-called administrative care

by the can tunnel authorities because they were judged to be socially different the practice continued until 981 people including his mother were put in prisons like this one was born here in 1957. move because my name i suspect that my mother was administratively cared for because she was expecting and even just i'm a child. and that's what they did at the time. they put such mothers away they didn't fit into swiss society. well that's right. people deemed as being work shy drinkers or of having loose morals were taken to prison without trial to foster families or to a psychiatric ward there they were to be reeducated. by a system that had stripped them of their rights and excluded them from society. historians like or scare mine confirmed that these people were not criminals

conducted research for this was government as part of an independent commission of inquiry. even for in the case of those receiving administrative care it was usually not a matter of criminal offenses but simply a way of life that did not conform to social norms and. stories like voter m. asparagus have cast a shadow over swiss history there around $650.00 prisons and other institutions in switzerland in which children and young adults were imprisoned exploited and in many cases severely mistreated. or was locked up for hours on end at his foster parents house he was forced to clean and work in the garden and fields he didn't accompany us to the house as he suffered a panic attack when he tried to visit a few years ago. for the hut was so strange i hid in a bush like an animal i really felt that this was the end. when he was 11 the

parish couple took him to the psychiatric clinic in mr ling and there the boys plight worsened near the it illegally constance the hospital director tested psychiatric medication on him in the 1960 s. and seventy's the crisis time for all i know is that i felt a lot of north korea just generally bad and lousy. and every now and again i'd also have something like a seizure fall because. the boy does not seem to tolerate tougher until well and we believe that the unpleasant symptoms he is showing are side effects of this medication. it makes my skin crawls out of me and i ask myself why they did that. simmons spare is fighting to have what happened to him and others forced into administrate of care publicly recognized. my hope is that something like

this never happens again though and also that this whole dark chapter of switzerland's post goes into the history books writes. in his bag and other victims have already received a small sum from the swiss government but he insists that his fight is not just about the money we now take you to a roma settlement in eastern bulgaria the roma are a minority group that has been marginalized for decades many roma grow up in poverty with no formal education the poor health care services and this small future prospects it's particularly tough on children they often can't make it out without outside help. yet the roma settlement in slieve in is called. which means hope. but there is little sign of hope here. the people are poor.

25000 roma live in this ghetto it's one of the largest and most kariya here the law of the street prevails demeter have never let his 12 year old daughter mariana out of the house alone it's too dangerous girls live in constant danger of being kidnapped child marriage is common the last of the according to our tradition girls get married when they're 12 or 13 then they have children but i don't want to live like that. since her mother left mariana lives alone with her blind father he's constantly worried that he won't be able to protect his daughter. i have a dream to get out of this get so there's no future here in the dish to. marry on his cello helps distractor she practices for hours every day she's able to leave the ghetto with her instrument 3 times a week into another world. into

gear argue world. famous bulgarian violinist has performed on the big stages in europe today he lives in germany but he grew up in a desert. i was just like these kids mr issues and do it today here in this host my father gave me my 1st violin and it was here that i started playing because a person's mind that you know. is familiar with poverty he also knows that for most roma children especially girls it's difficult to escape. 10 years ago he got the chance to do something about it and took it. roared through my partner's father died and the fountain and of the look with money it's not much money neither it's the folk who are children so we decided to do something for the money in the room

a quarter instead of that was lost among my wife said you're a musician the children with your violin is. decided to open a music school and his sister's garage with the help of donations 300 roma children have since been given the chance to learn an instrument here for mariana it was a long and hard way. the other kids teased me when i went to music class to want to sit when they heard me play in concert they apologised to me and i even proud of me for them my dream is to play the cello and to teach that to. mary on a school principal insists she has to study hard and to speak bulgarian well only then will she have a good chance for a musical career. omo. they have to have at least to see a great average gotten otherwise they can't develop musically. yorkie shows his

scholars the country's most important stage the concert hall book area and sophia. mariano and her fellow students played together with the virtue of the national symphony orchestra. her father couldn't afford the trip to sofia but he knows that mary on his concert is a good chance for her. with music lessons our children don't only learn music they also experience a whole new culture which helps them to break the roman mentality of the roman traditional all that the. nicolo demeanor of wants to accompany his daughter on her journey leaving the streets and as best as he can. in the meantime what more people have decided to support mariana and her fellow musicians so we will definitely catch up with her and to find out how she has been faring well that's all we have time for on today's focus on europe's

a well and see you next week you. yes the area yeah yeah yeah. absolutely to.

come. into the conflict zone mckim sebastian. punggol never used the news for long nice days now it's the draft of a new security laws to be imposed by beijing the fulcrum oking controversy and protests joining me this week from long gone is regina if a member of the city's legislative council and chair of the probation newfie force policy follow for complex the for. 90 minutes on w. what's going on here oh no house of your furry only

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the law but . this is news to live from a race to save lives and beirut a day after a massive blast it devastated the city the explosion it flattened the capital's leaving at least 130 people and injuring a thousands more. presidents are demanding answers and some port officials are now . also coming up.