By Alim Seytoff The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill on Tuesday to that would block imports from in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) unless proof can be shown that they are not linked to forced labor. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act was introduced in March, amid growing evidence that internment camps in the region have increasingly transitioned from political indoctrination to forced labor, with detainees being sent to work in cotton and textile factories. The House vote of 406-3 for the bill, which requires the Secretary of State to determine if imposing forced labor on Uyghurs and other Muslim Turkic groups constitutes crimes against humanity or genocide under U.S. law, clears the way for a vote in the Senate. The bill follows a year of heightened U.S. scrutiny of Beijing’s sprawling network of camps in the XUAR, where authorities are believed to have held up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities since April 2017. Washington is also taking measures to block imports of suspect goods and to sanction and hold to account Chinese officials responsible for human rights violations in the XUAR. The U.S. has warned U.S. firms to ensure supply chains in China do not involve forced labor. The legislation says that supplier vetting in the XUAR is “unreliable due to the extent forced labor has been integrated into the regional economy, the mixing of involuntary labor with voluntary labor, the inability of witnesses to speak freely about working conditions given government surveillance and coercion, and the incentive of government officials to conceal government-sponsored forced labor.” The bill notes that goods made by forced labor are illegal under the Tariff Act of 1930, which rules that such products are “subject to exclusion or seizure and may lead to criminal investigation of the importer.” The bill would ban as products of forced labor “all goods, wares, articles, and merchandise mined, produced, or manufactured wholly or in part in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China,” the legislation says. Exceptions for XUAR goods will be made when the Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection “determines, by clear and convincing evidence, that any specific goods, wares, articles, or merchandise … were not produced wholly or in part by convict labor, forced labor, or indentured labor under penal sanctions,” it said. Tuesday’s vote follows the announcement on Sept. 14 of new customs actions to block imports of Chinese products believed to be produced with forced labor. The Withhold Release Orders, measures intended to prevent goods suspected to have been made with forced labor from entering the United States, targeted a vocational school and three hair, apparel and fabric entities from Xinjiang, as well as a computer parts firm from Anhui province in eastern China. The Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) welcomed Tuesday’s approval of what it called the “the first national legislation anywhere in the world enforcing human-rights standards to end the import of goods made with Uyghur forced labor.” “Americans do not want to be complicit in buying products made by Uyghurs locked in Chinese forced-labor factories,” said UHRP Executive Director Omer Kanat in a statement. “The Senate must also act, and all governments must enact measures to counter the Chinese government’s mass atrocities, committed on a scale not seen since World War II,” added Kanat. From Germany, World Uyghur Congress President Dolkun Issa called the vote a “historic day for the Uyghur people” and urged swift follow-up. “I hope the US Senate pass the Act in a speedy manner and President Trump to sign it into law,” he told RFA. © 2020 Radio Free Asia

Updated 6:16 PM ET, Fri February 12, 2021 By Caitlin Hu and Etant Dupain Tires are set ablaze during a march in Port-au-Prince on February 10, 2021, to protest against the government of President Jovenel Moise. Turmoil in Haiti could soon test democratic leaders' support for embattled president Jovenel Moise, a former banana exporter whose claim to another year in office has sparked protests in the capital, arrests and the abrupt dismissal of several Supreme Court judges. Hundreds of protesters took to the streets in Port-au-Prince this week, with plumes of black smoke from burning tires and flags seen in the capital city, as well as white clouds of tear gas. At least two journalists were injured, a witness told CNN. "I heard people saying I'm a dictator, but I want to be clear; I have a mandate for five years and I will finish my term," Moise said in a televised speech on Sunday. The United Nations, the Organization of American States , and the Biden Administration support his plan to remain in office until 2022 — but Moise's attempts to end the debate domestically have taken an undemocratic cast that has his backers worried. On Monday, Moise ordered the retirement of three of 10 Supreme Court judges, raising the question of what institutional guardrails now remain on the presidency. Moise has ruled by decree since letting the parliament's mandate expire in January 2020. "Jovenel Moise destroyed every institution, from the parliament to local government. It is clear what he wanted to do. Unfortunately, we have an international community who don't support the fight against this corrupt dictator," opposition leader and former senator Nenel Cassy told CNN. Moise's office declined to comment directly for this story, instead referring questions to Haiti's ambassador to the US. Haiti's opposition has called for a three day "general uprising" this weekend. It will be the latest in a succession of anti-government demonstrations that have marked Moise's term, fueled by anger over Haiti's foundering economy, a sweeping corruption scandal and surging criminal violence. A president accused of dismantling democracy Haiti's democratic institutions have been crippled under Moise, who has not organized parliamentary or local elections, leaving the legislative branch of government largely vacant and powerless. His new order for judges from Haiti's highest court to retire now deals a blow to the country's judicial branch. In an interview with Voice of America, Moise accused all three of designs on the presidency, and said his order was intended to keep the Court from getting involved in politics. "As a guarantor of the institutions, we cannot allow an institution such as the Supreme Court to stray from its mission," he said. "President Moise did not remove the judges. He only asked them to exercise their right to retire," Haiti's Ambassador to the US, Bocchit Edmond, told CNN. Judge Jean Wilner Morin, President of the National Association of Haitian Judges, explains to CNN that the President has no constitutional authority to unilaterally retire a judge, or appoint a new one. "One cannot remove a judge in the course of his term. It is impossible. Therefore the decision to remove three judges from the Supreme Court by the President of the Republic, the order given by the president, is an illegal and unconstitutional order." Without a functioning legislature, though, who is left to challenge the move? The US said it is monitoring developments. "We are deeply concerned about any actions that risk damaging Haiti's democratic institutions. The Executive Order is now being widely scrutinized to determine whether it conforms to Haiti's Constitution and laws," the US Mission to Haiti said in a statement. In the coming year, critics fear that yet another blow to Haiti's democracy could take the form of changes to the constitution, which Moise sees as his legacy project. The new constitution, aimed to further empower the presidency, will go to a referendum in April — and only afterward will elections to fill parliamentary, mayoral and other posts follow. "The new constitution will guarantee when a president is elected they can do the job they were elected to do," Moïse said in his Sunday speech. Backed by foreign support Haiti's political opposition say that Moise completed his constitutionally mandated five-year term on Sunday and is now illegally occupying his office. But the President argues that he deserves more time because although he was elected in 2016, he was only sworn in 2017. A Constitutional Court could issue a definitive ruling on this. The problem, as Morin points out, is that such a court only exists in theory. "Haiti's 1987 constitution provides for this constitutional court — but it has never actually been created and that's why today we find ourselves in a situation where the president says his term ends in 2022 and the political opposition says it ends in 2021," he says. "If (Moise) wants to stay in power, he must find a political consensus with other political actors and civil society," he added. In the court's absence, Haiti's national bar association and its Superior Council of Judiciary Power (CSPJ) — a powerful body that appoints, fires, and disciplines judges — have sided with the opposition, in calling for Moise to step down. But the current government dismisses domestic criticism, pointing instead to its foreign support . "That's the issue in Haiti. ... Everybody thinks they can do everything, but do not listen to the Bar Association of Lawyers," said Edmond. Last week, US State Department spokesman Ned Price echoed Moise when he told reporters that "a new elected president should succeed President Moise when his term ends ... on February 7, 2022" — though in tacit acknowledgement of the country's hamstrung democracy, he also urged Moise to let voters pick a parliament and to "exercise restraint in issuing decrees." Such support is key to Moise's continuation in office, said Nicole Phillips, a law professor at the University of California, Hastings and Université de la Foundation Dr. Aristide (UNIFA) in Port-au-Prince. She describes US endorsement of the president's stance, despite his erosion of democratic norms, as a short-sighted campaign to keep Haiti in stasis in the immediate term "as opposed to figuring out policies in the long term that will actually sustain democracy and justice in Haiti." "The international bodies are not following Haitian constitutional experts and legal bodies in their interpretation," she said. "You have Haitian constitutional scholars as well as the CSPJ and the federal bar association who are making their interpretations and the international community doesn't care." Some US lawmakers have called on the US State Department in an open letter to "condemn President Moise's undemocratic actions, and support the establishment of a transitional government." Without support from Haiti's powerful neighbor, efforts to form any transitional government will hold little clout while Moise retains control of the country's police and military. Edmond, the ambassador, argues there would be nothing democratic about appointing a transitional government, and urges observers at home and abroad to wait for the next general elections to select a new president to take office in 2022. "Transitional governments have never been useful to Haiti," he said. "It's really important to strengthen the democratic process, and to make sure that a democratically elected president is replaced by another democratically elected one." But with an emboldened president, no functioning legislature and only a partial Supreme Court, the question is whether Haiti's shaky democracy can make it until then. Link to Original Article

The junta says it is keeping the country together. Governments must stop buying its brutal excuses. By Andrew Nachemson Protesters take part in a demonstration against the military coup in Yangon, Myanmar, on May 15. STR/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES Myanmar’s military is still killing its own citizens by the dozens. Ethnic fighting against the regime has reignited in the borderlands, and civilians in the country’s heartland are picking up guns to defend themselves. But Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who seized power in a Feb. 1 coup, insists the military—known as the Tatmadaw—is the only thing holding Myanmar together. “[No one can] deny that the Tatmadaw has been striving to prevent the country’s disintegration,” he said in March. The next day, as Myanmar marked Armed Forces Day, the Tatmadaw again cracked down violently against peaceful protesters, killing more than 100 people. There were reports of shocking cruelty, including soldiers burning a 40-year-old man alive and fatally shooting a 17-year-old who wasn’t involved in the demonstrations as he rode past on a motorbike. Although there are no longer hundreds of thousands of protesters in the streets, smaller demonstrations continue, and some civilians are turning to armed revolt. Since the military ousted the civilian government led by the National League for Democracy (NLD) party, it has killed more than 800 people, all the while claiming that it is delivering peace and stability. This dark propaganda would be easy to dismiss, if not for the fact that regional diplomats seem to buy it—or are at least going along with the narrative as a necessary part of negotiations. Most of Myanmar’s neighbors are pushing for a solution to the crisis that includes the Tatmadaw, while the pro-democracy movement seeks to remove the military from politics. But engagement with the junta only emboldens the regime and legitimizes its rule. Southeast Asian officials purport to fear the potential chaos the Tatmadaw’s removal from power could cause while ignoring the tangible chaos it has created. Philippine Foreign Minister Teddy Locsin Jr. said in February that the “army is indispensable to the unity of Myanmar” and that the Philippines is “cognizant of the army’s role in preserving its territorial integrity and national security.” Likewise, the veteran Singaporean diplomat Bilahari Kausikan wrote in Foreign Affairs in April that the military has a “record of holding an otherwise fissiparous postcolonial country together” and that without it, Myanmar could become mired in conflict like Iraq, Libya, or Syria. Regional diplomats and observers are understandably concerned that a power vacuum in Myanmar could provoke greater conflict. In Shan state, for example, fighting among ethnic groups has continued after the coup, rather than the groups uniting against the military. The Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) has clashed repeatedly with the Taang National Liberation Army, which both seek greater autonomy, and the Shan State Progress Party, another Shan nationalist group. During a trip to the state last year, Taang people told me that they viewed the RCSS as a colonizing force, similar to the Tatmadaw. But the Tatmadaw itself seems intent on dragging Myanmar into a period of major instability. The protest movement against the coup was possibly the largest in Myanmar’s history, and it was met with mass violence. In Yangon, the country’s largest city, bomb blasts targeting military officials have become a regular occurrence. Across Myanmar, local junta administrators and alleged informants are frequently targeted in extrajudicial killings . Armed conflict has broken out in areas that were peaceful before the military takeover, with pro-democracy civilians teaming up with ethnic armed groups in some areas. The Tatmadaw government’s history of violent oppression against ethnic minority groups drove their militarization in the first place. Over several decades, the military has sent thousands of Karen refugees fleeing across the Thai border, where some 100,000 people from Myanmar remain in refugee camps as of 2019. In 2009, it attacked the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army’s stronghold in Shan state, pushing around 30,000 refugees into China. And in 2017, the Tatmadaw’s campaign in Rakhine state killed thousands of Rohingya civilians and forced more than 700,000 people to seek refuge in Bangladesh—one of the worst refugee crises in modern history. The coup has only reignited conflicts between ethnic armed groups and the government, threatening to destabilize swaths of Myanmar’s borders with China, Thailand, India, and Bangladesh. Saw Kapi, an ethnic Karen conflict analyst and director of the Salween Institute for Public Policy, said Myanmar’s “internal politics have been very divided all along,” with most conflict caused by the military’s treatment of ethnic minorities. He added that the Tatmadaw may be the “most potent institution” in Myanmar, but he rejected that it holds the country together. “[The Tatmadaw] has been able to hold itself together at the expense of the country,” Saw Kapi said. The Tatmadaw is not protecting Myanmar but rather holding the country hostage, preventing economic and political development to maintain its own power and wealth and using the threat of violence against civilians to keep foreign intervention at bay. Although many of Myanmar’s neighbors in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have vocally condemned the coup and subsequent violence, they are dragging their heels as the junta gradually solidifies control. Hamstrung by wrongheaded notions of noninterference and the fact that most members are also authoritarian regimes, the bloc even reportedly shot down a proposed arms embargo. The bloc has also refused to recognize the underground National Unity Government made up of deposed lawmakers from the civilian government. When ASEAN held an emergency summit in April to address Myanmar’s political crisis, it invited Min Aung Hlaing. But the implicit threat of further military violence largely restrained the bloc’s ability to pressure the Tatmadaw government. It stripped a line from the consensus reached at the summit demanding the release of political prisoners and allowed Min Aung Hlaing to set an indefinite timeline for fulfilling other demands, including a call to end the violence and a visit from a special envoy, which still has yet to be appointed. “We don’t care who’s causing it. We just stressed that the violence must stop,” Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said at the time. Meanwhile, the top priority of many people in Myanmar is not to end the violence but to achieve democracy. Hundreds of protesters have already died for this cause, and the armed uprisings show many more are willing to risk their lives for it. The coup and the subsequent violent crackdowns have undermined the Tatmadaw government’s legitimacy and made compromise with the pro-democracy movement impossible, according to Saw Kapi. “It is now considered a murderous insurgent regime. The prevailing desire of the people now is that the top leadership of Tatmadaw must go, the Tatmadaw must be reformed,” he said. Civilian government representatives continue to reject negotiations with the military regime, choosing instead to form a new armed group to take on the Tatmadaw. The junta has piled charges on civilian leaders and announced plans to dissolve the NLD, the party of former leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who faces six criminal charges. The military plans to hold new elections, likely without the NLD’s participation and almost certain to be skewed in its favor to lend a veneer of legitimacy to its illegal power grab. The coup put an end to Myanmar’s brief and already compromised experiment with democracy. The military-drafted 2008 constitution gave the Tatmadaw a guaranteed 25 percent of the seats in parliament—a built-in veto to any constitutional amendment. The constitution also made every election an existential vote between democracy and dictatorship. After voters resoundingly chose democracy again last November—even as the NLD had failed to live up to expectations—the military realized its only path back to power was through force. If ASEAN leaders intend to play a constructive role in resolving the Myanmar crisis, they should recognize the Tatmadaw for what it is: a brutally violent occupying force with no political legitimacy that shows no reluctance to destroy the country in order to rule over the rubble. © 2021, THE SLATE GROUP

Baloch National Movement's human rights department, Paank, released a report highlighting the alarming rise in enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in Balochistan. Despite protests, there has been no discernible change. The Pakistan Army's military aggression disproportionately impacts civilians, violating the rules of war and human rights. Pakistan's prominent human rights organisation, Baloch National Movement's human rights department, Paank, in their monthly report highlighted worrisome statistics about the human rights oppression in Pakistan. In the report, Paank mentioned that a total of 28 torture victims, five extrajudicial killings, and 33 enforced disappearances were recorded in February. The same report further mentioned the alarming rise in cases of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in Balochistan. It further said that the issue of enforced disappearances is a "persistent source of fear and anguish within the Baloch society, perpetuating an unending cycle of pain". "Despite vigorous protests from the Baloch nation and international organizations issuing statements, there has been a distressing lack of discernible change," it added. The report highlighted the enormous instances on social highlighting statistics of those released from enforced disappearance and illegal detention. It called for an urgent need for in-depth research to comprehend the profound damage inflicted upon the consciousness and social development of Baloch society. A scientific observation is imperative. "Baloch youth, brimming with life and hope, are forcibly plucked from educational institutions and streets upon arrest and consigned to torture cells for extended periods. Even upon release, many are left mentally paralyzed, their thoughts monitored by the Pakistaarmy and its clandestine agencies. Individuals are coerced into forced exile, transformed into living corpses, or coerced to assist the Pakistani army against their people, remaining indifferent members of their society," it stated. The report mentioned that between January 29 and February 2, a conflict between Baloch Sarmachars (insurgents) and the Pakistani Army in the Kachi district of Balochistan led to many loss of lives. Among the Baloch victims whose bodies have been identified, Bashir Ahmad Marri and Arman Marri were forcibly disappeared on July 2, 2023. Sobdar was forcibly disappeared from Harnai Bazaar on September 9, 2023. The relatives of these individuals took part in the Islamabad sit-in, urging their recovery. The fourth body was identified as Shakeel Ahmed, a resident of Zehri, who, according to his family, was forcibly disappeared on June 4, 2023. The report also mentioned the issue of military aggression. The Pakistan Army is engaged in "extensive operations against Baloch militants" across a wide area and these actions are "disproportionately impacting the civilian population" rather than specifically targeting Baloch militants. "Pakistan's occupation of Balochistan and its conflict with the Baloch nation cannot be justified under any circumstances. The Baloch nation has an inherent right to defend itself in the face of this imposed war. In this conflict, the Pakistani army assumes the role of an aggressor, while Baloch Sarmachars strive to defend their national identity and survival," it stated. The Pakistan Army, despite its claim to professionalism, consistently violates the rules of war and human rights in this ongoing struggle, the report said. It also highlighted that contrary to the claims made by Pakistani military officials, the actual situation presents a starkly different reality. "Pakistani military personnel deliberately targets civilians, engages in looting, torturing unarmed women, children, and the elderly, and perpetrates sexual abuses against women," the report stated. "Although the Army attempts to justify these actions in the media as counteractions against 'Sarmachars' it is evident that their primary targets have consistently been the civilian population," it added. The same report also mentioned that the highest number of enforced disappearances was recorded in the Awaran district. Copyright © 2024 Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All rights reserved

Prosecutors levelled allegations including 'broadcasting, publishing, and spreading false news and statements' and 'financing and promoting violence'. More than 30 Egyptians appeared at headquarters of the country's Supreme State Security Prosecution (SSSP) on Friday after periods of enforced disappearance. After investigations were completed, it was decided to detain all 35 people until Saturday, The New Arab's Arabic edition Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reported. The SSSP said they would keep them jailed for 15 days pending ongoing investigations related to several cases. Prosecutors levelled a number of allegations against the detained in different cases, including "broadcasting, publishing, and spreading false news and statements", "joining and participating in a terrorist group to achieve its goals with knowledge of its aims", and "financing and promoting violence". The detainees include Ibrahim Salem Hussein, Karim Al-Din Fathi Shehab, and the young woman Nourhan Al-Sayed Daraz. The families of the detained had submitted reports to the public prosecutor saying their children had been subjected to enforced disappearance despite being arrested by security authorities. Egypt has faced significant criticism over its human rights record. "SSSP prosecutors and judges routinely renewed pretrial detention orders for thousands of detainees without allowing them to meaningfully challenge the legality of their detention," Amnesty International said in a report covering the year 2023. "Detention renewal hearings took place via videoconference with detainees connected from prison, denying them the right to adequate defence and exposing them to reprisals for reporting abuse in front of prison guards." Local and international human rights groups estimate that Egypt has been holding as many as 60,000 political prisoners and detainees behind bars since president Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi took office after overthrowing Mohamed Morsi, the country's first democratically elected leader, in a military coup in 2013. In 2022, the New York Times reported that no public records exist of how many people are held in pretrial detention in Egypt and that Egyptian security forces regularly use enforced disappearances against dissidents in the country, with some detainees appearing days or weeks later at a prosecutor's office to face charges, while others have disappeared entirely, and others  dying  due to torture. Last month, the death of six detainees in  Egyptian  prisons in the space of one week sparked concerns among rights groups, further highlighting terrible conditions in prisons across the country. The Egyptian Network for Human Rights (ENHR) reported that the six political prisoners died in a detention centre in the Sharqia governorate while tens of thousands of other detainees enter their 12th year behind bars. © 2024 The New Arab

August 13 2024: The UN human rights chief has strongly condemned the recent storming of his team’s headquarters in Sana’a, Yemen, by the de facto authorities Ansar Allah, and renewed his call for the immediate and unconditional release of all UN staff detained in the country.   Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, sent a “delegation” to the UN human rights office in the Yemeni capital on 3 August, and national staff were forced to handover documents, furniture and vehicles, as well as the office’s keys. They remain in control of the premises. A 'Serious Attack' “Ansar Allah forces must leave the premises and return all assets and belongings immediately,” said High Commissioner Volker Türk. He said entering a UN office without permission and seizing documents and property by force are wholly inconsistent with the Privileges and Immunities of the Organization. “This is also a serious attack on the ability of the UN to perform its mandate, including with respect to the promotion and protection of human rights, which my Office is there to defend,” he added. UN Staff Detained Ansar Allah and Yemeni Government forces, backed by a Saudi-led coalition, have been battling for nearly a decade. Following the start of the war in Gaza, the rebels have also launched attacks against commercial ships in the Red Sea. The de facto authorities also detained more than 60 people who work with the UN and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in early June.   Those being held include 13 UN staff, including six employees of the UN human rights office, more than 50 NGO workers, and an embassy staff member.   Two other UN human rights staff had already been detained since November 2021 and August 2023, respectively.  All are being held incommunicado. The High Commissioner and other top UN officials have repeatedly called for their release, but he said their pleas have fallen on deaf ears. “I appeal again, with a heavy heart, for their immediate and unconditional release,” said Mr. Türk. “We are doing all we can to make sure they are united with their loved ones as soon as possible. Until then, the de facto authorities must ensure they are treated with full respect for their human rights, and that they are able to contact their families and legal representatives.” Disputing 'Baseless' Allegations One of the two staff detained earlier had appeared in videos published online, in which he was forced to confess to allegations, including of espionage, in a clear violation of his basic human rights protected under international law.  “All such claims are baseless,” Mr. Türk stressed. “At no time has my Office engaged in any activities other than those in the service of the people of Yemen, in accordance with my mandate.” In the wake of the detentions, and given the security situation, the High Commissioner decided to suspend temporarily the Office’s operations in Sana’a and other areas under Ansar Allah control, though it continues to operate in other parts of Yemen. Respect the UN The UN Human Rights Office in Yemen works to promote the rights of all citizens without distinction.  This has included monitoring the impact of armed conflict and violence on civilians – irrespective of the parties that may be responsible – including by documenting deaths, injuries, destruction of essential infrastructure and the capacity of the Yemeni people to earn a living.  The Office’s work also focuses on promoting the rights of vulnerable groups, including women, children, people with disabilities, older people and minorities. “It is crucial that the de facto authorities respect the United Nations and its independence, release all detained UN staff immediately, and create conditions in which my Office and other UN agencies can continue their critical work for people of Yemen without threats or hinderance,” said Mr. Türk.

By Sabrina Nelson " Iranians Regime Change Now Protest " by Geoff Livingston. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran’s Islamic Republic has had a theocratic form of governance, in which religious and political authority have been blended. Shia Islam forms the basis of the state’s ideology. The Supreme Leader of both religion and state is the Ayatollah Khamenei.  The Supreme Leader governs with an appointed, unelected  Guardian Council , half of which is made up of  Islamic jurists . Candidates for president and parliament must be approved by the Guardian Council, which often rejects them.   Iran’s Islamic Republic has severely restricted social and political freedoms, especially for women. Religious minorities, including Baha’is, Sunni Muslims, Mandeans, Yaresanis (Kaka'i), Christians, Gonabadi Dervishes and Jews, have been severely persecuted and discriminated against.   Baha’is have been particularly targeted, including  closure  of Baha’i holy sites and institutions, property confiscation , and the denial of their right to higher education.  The treatment of the Baha’is indicates a genocidal intent to destroy them in part as a religious group, including destruction of their cultural identity, heritage, and existence in Iranian society. Women face systematic discrimination  relating to inheritance, marriage, divorce and family. The Islamic Republic has imposed strict dress codes since the early 1980s . Women are required to wear the hijab and to cover their bodies in loose-fitting clothing in public. Law enforcement agencies, known as the “ morality police ,” patrol the streets and arrest women who do not follow the dress code. In 2022, Jina (Mahsa) Amini  was detained and beaten to death by Iran’s ‘morality’ police for not properly wearing her hijab . Her death resulted in a massive protests in Iran and around the world. Iranian police and Revolutionary Guards violently suppressed the protests. The beatings, imprisonment, and torture they inflicted were crimes against humanity.   Ethnic minorities are disproportionately targeted by the security forces. Azerbaijani Turks, Kurds, Ahwazi Arabs, Turkmen, and Baluchis face widespread discrimination. They are denied education, health care, and other government services. They may not attend school in their minority languages. They face obstacles  in obtaining employment and in exercising their rights to vote and publicly assemble. LGBTQIA+ people are victims of discrimination and abuse, including flogging, arbitrary imprisonment, and execution. Many are forced to undergo “conversion therapy.” Under Iran’s penal code, homosexuality is punishable by death. President Ebrahim Raisi, who signed the death warrants for 38,000 people during the Islamic Revolution, recently died in a helicopter crash. A new election resulted in victory  for reformist Masoud Pezeshkian who defeated hardliner Saeed Jalili. Pezeshkian promised  to make Iran more prosperous, open, and engaged with the West. Many experts doubt that Pezeshkian will be able to accomplish reforms in a country still ruled by an ultraconservative theocratic establishment. Genocide Watch considers Iran to be at Stage 3: Discrimination, Stage 4: Dehumanization, Stage 5: Organization, Stage 8: Persecution, Stage 9: Extermination, and Stage 10: Denial . Genocide Watch recommends: The UN, EU and the US should pressure President Pezeshkian to abolish policies that discriminate against religious and ethnic minorities, women, and LGBTQIA+ people. The US, Canada, EU, and UN should sanction Iran for promoting terrorism by Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthis. The UN Human Rights Council should authorize an independent fact-finding mission to investigate violations of human rights against religious and ethnic minorities, LGBTQIA+ people, women and girls. The UN, EU and the US should engage with Middle Eastern and Islamic countries to pressure Iran to respect and protect religious and ethnic minorities.

By Rachael Burns Seventy years after the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide came into force, its effectiveness is disputed. Jewish laywer and Polish refugee, Raphael Lemkin, coined the word “genocide” in 1943 to describe the killing and destruction of peoples, deriving the word from the Greek “genos” (people, tribe or race) and the Latin “cide” (killing). Against the backdrop of the Holocaust, this had been, in the words of Winston Churchill, a “crime without a name” – at least officially. But on December 9, 1948, the international community formally adopted a definition of genocide within the 1948 convention – essentially enshrining the message of “never again” in international law. But questions over whether the convention has achieved what it set out to do focus on three key failings. First, the very application of the term “genocide” is applied too slowly and cautiously when atrocities happen. Second, the international community fails to act effectively against genocides. Third, too few perpetrators are actually convicted of their crimes. Failure to define Consider how many genocides have occurred since the 1948 convention and its ratification in 1951. Now consider that only three have been legally recognised – and led to trials – under the convention: Rwanda in 1994, Bosnia (and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre), and Cambodia under the 1975-9 Pol Pot regime. The widespread killing and displacement of Yazidi by IS and Rohingya in Myanmar are ongoing and recognised by the UN as a whole, but have yet to be officially recognised as genocides by some individual states. Similarly, 13 years after atrocities took place in the Sudanese region of Darfur, criminal investigations continue but no official charges of genocide have been made under the convention. Perhaps more broadly applied than the legal definition is the academic one – something which changes subtly depending on who is defining it. Criminologist Nicole Rafter, for example, also specifically named the Indonesian genocide of 1965-66 and the Guatemalan genocide of 1981-83. Political scientist Adam Jones, meanwhile, also names the genocides committed under Saddam Hussein against the Kurds in 1988-91 in Iraq, and by West Pakistan forces against Bangladeshis in 1971. He also highlights crimes committed during Stalin’s “Great Terror” and by China in Tibet. And the list of “genocides” that might fall under the UN definition is frighteningly long. The International Criminal Court is investigating several states in which human rights violations and war crimes “may” have occurred. Myanmar already is under criminal investigation over its treatment of its Muslim Rohingya minority, and the genocide against the Yazidi has been defined by the UN as such. Other “genocides”, such as that involving Australia’s “stolen generations”, are academically debated but have never formally or legally been recognised as such. Indeed, many states may not acknowledge a genocide when others do. The US, for example, famously never officially recognised the 1915 Armenian genocide as one. In her 2018 Nobel lecture, Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad, a survivor of the most recent (Yazidi) genocide, referred to several other instances when the Yazidi people have been victims of the same crime, but these atrocities have never officially been recognised. There is, it seems, an ongoing distinction between “genocide” and genocide. Failure to act Prevention is a critical part of the convention and parties can call upon the UN to intervene when they have evidence of a genocide. The actual application of this, however, has been woeful. Former UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, acknowledged, for example, that UN troops were pulled out of Rwanda “when they were most needed” and further acknowledged that the innocent at Srebrenica were “abandoned to slaughter” in 1995. Atrocities committed by government troops against Tamils in Sri Lankabetween 1983 and 2009 were never officially recognised as a genocide, but UN troops stationed there also stood by impotently as thousands were massacred, and the world watched in apparent indifference. On December 15, 2018, The US House of Representatives formally labelled the crimes against the Rohingya in Myanmar as a genocide but still there is inaction to support those displaced in Bangladesh and help them to rebuild their lives. Meanwhile, Myanmar remains unsafe for them. The status of Yazidi refugees is also still in a state of flux and many are fearful of returning to their homes. Some criminal investigations are underway while the genocides continue. And when the physical evidence of killings is uncovered, evidence of the criminal intent for genocide must also be gathered, and the ringleaders identified and caught. Failure to prosecute The true number of perpetrators in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia and Cambodia is unknown, but still only a handful have been convicted. So far, 93 Rwandans and 161 former Yugoslavian perpetrators have been indicted. But there have been only two UN-backed prosecutions of Cambodian perpetrators of genocide. Indeed, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan were already serving life sentences for their crimes against humanity in Cambodia when they were convicted, while countless others live freely in the country, untouched by international law. Surely more must be done. In thanking the Nobel committee for her peace prize, Murad stated that “the only prize in the world that may restore our dignity, is justice and the prosecution of criminals”. With so few convictions to date, the international community has much catching up to do if Murad’s wish for a more peaceful future is to be realised. Seventy years after the UN Convention, genocide remains ever present in our global society. For Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, “never again” was “a prayer, a promise, a vow”. Unfortunately, this vow is all too often broken. Copyright © 2010–2019, The Conversation US, Inc.

By Fransjohan Pretorius More than a century after 48 000 people died in concentration camps in what’s known as the South African War between 1899 and 1902 – or the Anglo-Boer War – the events of that period are back in the headlines. The camps were established by the British as part of their military campaign against two small Afrikaner republics: the ZAR (Transvaal) and the Orange Free State. The scandalous campaign is back in the news following controversial comments by British Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg on a BBC television programme. Rees-Mogg’s statements have caused consternation because they were riddled with inaccuracies. It’s time to set the record straight and to refute his inaccuracies one by one. I do this based on the historical research I’ve done on the South African War for the last 49 years. Setting the record straight The claim that caused the most upset was Rees-Mogg’s allegation that the concentration camps had exactly the same mortality rate as was the case in Glasgow at the time. This is simply factually incorrect. In its recent Glasgow Indicators Project the Glasgow Centre for Population Health gives the death rate of people in the city as 21 per 1000 per annum in 1901. The death rate for Boer civilians in the concentration camps in South Africa exceeded this by a factor of 10. It’s well established that 28 000 white people and 20 000 black people died in various camps in South Africa. Between July 1901 and February 1902 the rate was, on average, 247 per 1000 per annum in the white camps. It reached a high of 344 per 1000 per annum in October 1901 and a low of 69 per 1000 per annum in February 1902. The figures would have been even higher had it not been for the fact that British welfare campaigner Emily Hobhouse exposed the deplorable conditions in the camps. A subsequent report by the Government’s Ladies Commission prompted the British Government to improve conditions. Another factor that reduced the fatality rate was that Lord Milner, High Commissioner for South Africa and Governor of the Cape Colony, took over administration of the camps from the military from November 1901. Rees-Mogg also revealed his total lack of understanding why the British military authorities established the concentration camps in statements such as: Where else were people going to live when … (the Boers were fighting the war)? People were put in camps for their protection. They were interned for their safety. They were being taken there so that they could be fed because the farmers were away fighting the Boer War. The reality was very different. The origins of the camps After Lord Roberts, chief commander of the British forces, occupied the Free State capital, Bloemfontein, on 13 March 1900, he issued a proclamation inviting the Boers to lay down their arms and sign an oath of neutrality. They would then be free to return to their farms on the understanding that they would no longer participate in the war. Eventually about 20 000 Boers – about a third – made use of this offer. They were called the “protected burghers”. Roberts had banked on this policy to end the war. But after the British occupation of the Transvaal capital, Pretoria, on 5 June 1900, there was no end in sight. On the contrary, the Boers had started a guerrilla war, which included attacks on railway lines. In reaction Roberts issued a proclamation on 16 June 1900, stating that, for every attack on a railway line the closest homestead would be burnt down. This was the start of the scorched earth policy. When this didn’t work, Roberts issued another proclamation in September stating that all homesteads would be burnt in a radius of 16 km of any attack, and that all livestock would be killed or taken away and all crops destroyed. This policy was intensified dramatically when Lord Kitchener took over from Roberts as commander in November 1900. Homesteads and whole towns were burnt down even if there was no attack on any railway. In this way almost all Boer homesteads – about 30 000 in all – were razed to the ground and thousands of livestock killed. The two republics were entirely devastated. Meanwhile the Boer leaders were reorganising their commandos after some major setbacks. One action was to remobilise the Boers who had laid down their arms. Roberts felt he should protect his oath takers and gather them in refugee camps. The first two were established in Bloemfontein and Pretoria in September 1900. But the scorched earth policy had led to more and more Boer women and children being left homeless. Roberts decided to bring them into the camps too. They were called the “undesirables” – families of Boers who were still on commando or already prisoners of war. They were given fewer rations than others in the camps. These families eventually outnumbered the protected burghers and their families by 7:3. These families were taken against their will. They were forcibly put on ox wagons and open railway trucks and taken to the camps. They were not, as Rees-Mogg claimed, moved for their protection and safety. Nor were they moved to the camps to be fed. Rather, their internment had everything to do with ending the resistance of Boers still fighting the British. The administration of the camps was appalling. Food was of a very poor quality, sanitation deplorable, tents were overcrowded and medical assistance shocking. Little was known at the time about how to handle epidemics of measles and typhoid. This isn’t all. Rees-Mogg is also obviously unaware of the action that the British commanders took against black South Africans. A total of 66 black concentration camps where set up across the Transvaal and Free State where conditions were just as bad and the death rates similar. These camps were set up to get black people off the land so that the Boers couldn’t get supplies from them. In addition, forcing black farmers off their land also enabled the British to use black men as labourers on gold mines. Rees-Mogg was right on one point: the concentration camps didn’t have the same aims as Adolf Hitler’s extermination camps during the Second World War. The aim in South Africa wasn’t systematic murder. But this shouldn’t detract from his numerous other falsehoods.

By Jason Beaubein Diphtheria poses one more threat to already beleaguered Rohingya refugees. The outbreak started in the sprawling camps in Bangladesh in November soon after hundreds of thousands of Rohingya arrived. It appeared to have peaked around New Year's but now there is renewed concern as the potentially fatal disease continues to spread. "Yesterday was a very busy day for us," Dr. Andy Doyle said earlier this week at the Samaritan's Purse diphtheria treatment center in the Balukhali refugee camp. "We saw 117 patients come in to be screened [for diphtheria]. That's the most we've seen in any given day." Doyle is the medical director of the tented field hospital. The waiting area, which is just some benches under a tarp roof, is jammed with people waiting to be checked for diphtheria. Doyle says it looks as if they could have a record number of patients for a second day in a row. Doyle and his team only treat diphtheria at this facility. So the very first thing the staff members do is screen the patient for the disease and make sure it's not just a bad cold. "[Diphtheria] is not something we see in the West," Doyle says of the airborne bacterial infection. "Most of us from the West that are working here never saw this disease until we got here a week or two ago. And now we're experts on it." Article continues after sponsorship Diphtheria isn't seen in the West because almost everyone is vaccinated against it. Doyle says the disease turns out to be pretty easy to identify. The patients have high fever, a sore throat, often a runny nose and severe inflammation in the back of their throat. "Sometimes they get swelling in their necks, especially in the younger children, and their neck itself will get really big," he says. "It's called bull neck. And those are the signs that the airway is in impending danger. So that's what we look for." That's how diphtheria kills: The neck swells up and a membrane develops in the throat that blocks breathing. As of the middle of January there'd been nearly 5,000 reported cases of diphtheria in the camps and 33 deaths. This is a far lower fatality rate than in past diphtheria outbreaks. That's probably because patients get access to health care quickly in the half a dozen clinics that have sprung up in the camps. Simple cases of diphtheria can be treated with antibiotics. But if the airway is in danger of being blocked, an anti-toxin is administered via an intravenous drip to wipe out a poison that the bacteria makes. But the anti-toxin has the potential to spark a fatal reaction. Bangladesh Postpones Controversial Plan To Send Rohingya Refugees Back HomeJan. 22, 2018 In a ward in a white tent behind the reception area, Nur Aysia Begum is on hour two of what could be a six-hour treatment with the anti-toxin. She's one of the more than 650,000 Rohingya refugees who arrived in this camp five months ago to escape what the U.N. has called a campaign of ethnic cleansing by the Myanmar military. Her mother, Nayna Khatun, who's sitting by her side, says they feared they'd be killed by the soldiers if they stayed. Now her family depends on international food aid to survive. When her daughter got sick, Khatun was worried because she didn't have any money to pay for a doctor or medicine. All of the treatment at this clinic is free. Doyle says administering the anti-toxin is difficult and time-consuming. "That nurse," he says pointing to the nurse at Begum's bedside, "will sit at that bedside watching for the slightest hint that an allergic reaction is about to start." Public health officials are very concerned how vulnerable the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees are to diphtheria and other infectious diseases. The refugees are packed together in makeshift shelters. Toilets and water wells have been randomly dug all over the camps, often side by side. Marcella Kraay, a project coordinator with Doctors Without Borders, says another key factor putting the Rohingya at risk is that back in Myanmar they lacked access to even the most basic immunizations. "We've had a big measles outbreak and we've also had the biggest diphtheria outbreak that the world has seen in a long time," she says. Health care isn't the only thing the long-persecuted Rohingya lacked in Myanmar. Myanmar doesn't consider the Rohingya to be citizens. The Muslim minority have faced discrimination in schools and the workforce. They need permission from the government to leave their villages. Some were forced to live in camps. And this was all before the military started attacking them and burning their villages to the ground last year. Myanmar denies harassing the Rohingya. Myanmar officials say the military was conducting a cleanup operation against terrorists at the time that hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled across the border in to Bangladesh. Kraay with Doctors Without Borders says the Rohingya had very little access to health care. Some had never been to a clinic or seen a doctor. Humanitarian groups have launched a massive campaign to try to counter that long history of medical neglect. Health workers from international nonprofits and the Bangladesh ministry of health are trying to immunize nearly a million people in and around the refugee camps against diphtheria and other vaccine-preventable diseases. The diphtheria vaccine, however, is a difficult one to administer. It requires three shots spaced usually several months apart. Health officials here did a first round of diphtheria vaccinations at the end of December and hope to cram in the final two rounds in the coming weeks. Until then diphtheria has hundreds of thousands of susceptible targets in the camps. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/01/27/581070933/rare-disease-finds-fertile-ground-in-rohingya-refugee-camps (c) 2018 NPR

By Jason Beaubein History unfortunately does repeat itself. Two thousand years ago the Romans laid siege to Carthage, killing more than half of the city's residents and enslaving the rest. Hitler attempted to annihilate the Jews in Europe. In 1994 the Hutus turned on the Tutsis in Rwanda. The Khmer Rouge killed a quarter of Cambodia's population. After the breakup of Yugoslavia, Serbs slaughtered thousands of Bosnians at Srebrenica in July of 1995. Last year when Buddhists attacked Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, many people were shocked to hear that mass killings still occur in the 21st century. But they do – and there's growing evidence that these events follow familiar patterns. And if they do, we should be able to see them coming. "Genocides are not spontaneous," says Jill Savitt, acting director of the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. "In the lead-up to these types of crimes we do see a consistent set of things happening." Since 2014, the Holocaust Museum and scholars from Dartmouth have mapped the conditions that precede a genocide. They built a database of every mass killing since World War II. Then they went back and looked at the conditions in the countries where the killings occurred just prior to the attacks. And now they use that computer model to analyze which nations currently are at greatest risk. "We're not forecasting with precision. That's not the intention of the tool," Savitt says. "What we're doing is trying to alert policymakers that here's a situation that is ripe for horrors to happen and give them a heads up that there are actions that can be taken to avert it. "In the three years prior to the attacks on the Rohingya, Myanmar ranked as the country most likely to have a mass killing for two of those years and ranked No. 3 the other year. The museum's computer model analyzes statistics that you might think have nothing to do with genocide — fluctuations in per capita gross domestic product, infant mortality rates, overall population. Such factors, they believe, are indicators of inequality, poverty and economic instability. They also plug in data about recent coup attempts, levels of authoritarianism, civil rights, political killings and ethnic polarization. Lawrence Woocher, the research director at the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the U.S. Holocaust Museum, has worked on the Early Warning Project since 2014. He says that the form of government is one of the key data points in their computer model. The most dangerous appears to be a regime that's not a full dictatorship but also not a full democracy. "The prevailing view about why mass atrocities occur is that they tend to be decisions by political elites when they feel under threat and in a condition of instability," Woocher says. "And there's lots of analysis that suggests that these middle regime types are less stable than full democracies or full autocracies. "The Early Warning Project ranks 162 countries by their potential for a new mass killing to erupt in the coming year. They define a "mass killing" as more than 1,000 people being killed by soldiers, a militia or some other armed group. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is currently the most at risk followed by Afghanistan. Egypt is No. 3 on the list. The researchers note that Egypt was ranked so high because of a variety of factors including a lack of freedom of movement of men, a history of mass killings and a recent coup d'etat. They add that Egypt faces multiple security threats and that "there have been reports of large-scale attacks by extremist groups, including IS [Islamic State], on Christians and Sufi Muslims, and violence against civilians perpetrated by both insurgents and government forces in the Sinai Peninsula. "War-torn South Sudan is No. 4 on the list. Its incredibly brutal civil war is expected to get even worse. Greg Stanton, a professor at George Mason University and the president of Genocide Watch, agrees with the goal of the Early Warning Project rankings but disagrees with their methods. Stanton says the Holocaust Museum's model is overly dependent on national data that's often released only once a year. "They tend to notice that there is a risk of genocide too late," Stanton says. Rather than looking at statistics to try to predict mass killings, he argues that you should look at events."In other words, it's not enough to know that you have an authoritarian regime," he says. "It's important to know what that authoritarian regime is doing. "Stanton has come up with a genocide prediction model based on 10 stages of genocide. His model starts with classification of people by ethnicity, race or religion, moves through dehumanization, persecution and extermination before stage 10 — denial during and immediately after a genocidal act. Interestingly, the U.S. currently ticks off many of the early stages of a country headed for a bloodbath, according to Stanton. There's polarization, discrimination, dehumanization. But strong legal and government institutions in the U.S. are likely to block such a disaster from happening, he says. The information that Genocide Watch and the Holocaust Museum are sifting through has been available to national security agencies for decades. The big question is what to do with this information. At the time of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, Stanton was working in the State Department; he says top government officials knew that the violence was about to begin. "When President Clinton said after the Rwandan genocide, 'We really didn't know.' I'll be direct. He was lying. He did know," Stanton says. "I've read the confidential cables that came in from Rwanda from our ambassador there months before that genocide. And they knew it was coming. "Stanton's 10 stages of genocide and the Holocaust Museum's Early Warning Project are both attempts to spread information more widely about the early rumblings of a genocide so that world leaders and others might be able to stop it. © 2018 npr

By Jehanne Henry Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir speaks during a press conference after the oath of the prime minister and first vice president Bakri Hassan Saleh at the palace in Khartoum, Sudan March 2, 2017. © 2017 Reuters Last week, Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir released 193 Darfuri rebel fighters from prison, some of whom had been there for nine years. He also waived the death penalty against 66 others. Days earlier, a Khartoum court released three civil society activists after ten months in detention. These developments, lauded by onlookers, burnish Sudan’s image at a time when al-Bashir – wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged atrocities in Darfur – has been improving diplomatic alliances with the Gulf, Europe, and the US. In January, the US eased economic sanctions against Sudan, and the EU has earmarked major funds to Sudan for migration control. But these prisoner releases are a standard piece in al-Bashir’s political playbook and do not signal real change to Sudan’s abysmal rights record. A deeper look shows that Sudan’s sprawling National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) detains activists for extended periods, often accusing them of espionage and other crimes that are punishable by death to intimidate and silence them. NISS has also targeted female activists with sexual violence and reputation smearing. Human rights defender Dr. Mudawi Ibrahim Adam has been in prison since December 7. He has yet to be charged. He went on hunger strike twice to protest the lack of charges. His driver and several associates, including Darfuri activist Hafiz Idris, were also detained. Idris, who hails from a sprawling displaced person’s camp in South Darfur, also remains in detention without charge, and credible sources report he was badly beaten. Other, lesser-known activists are also locked up – not just in official prisons, but in unmarked buildings, offices, and private houses – today’s version of the eponymous 1990s “ghost houses” where torture and ill-treatment were commonplace. A former detainee, a member of the opposition Sudanese Congress Party, who was held for 50 days after being picked up during the November 2016 crackdown on “civil disobedience”, was so badly beaten by security agents that he needed surgery. He told me that he saw other detainees who were beaten and even electrocuted in custody. The reason for these violent, repressive tactics has always been clear to those detained. One opposition leader, a father of two who was held for 55 days in last November’s crackdown, explained to me, “It is to kill our will for change.” Sudan has not succeeded in this, judging by the proliferation of protest movements. Sadly, the government is still trying. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Human Rights Watch