By Haroon Siddique Palestinian civilians search through the rubble in al-Maghazi refugee camp, Deir al-Balah, after an Israeli attack on Thursday. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images A fourth former supreme court justice has put his name to a letter warning Rishi Sunak that the UK is breaching international law by continuing to arm Israel, as the number of legal experts signing the letter rose to more than 750. Lord Carnwath joins Lady Hale, who was president of the UK’s highest court, and lords Sumption and Wilson, in urging ministers to act to prevent the “plausible risk” of genocide in Gaza. Another new signatory is Lord Brennan KC, the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on legal and constitutional affairs, who is the second former chair of the bar of England and Wales to add his name to the letter. The 17-page letter and legal opinion, also signed by four former court of appeal judges, more than 70 KCs, more than 100 partners and directors of law firms, and dozens of law professors, has added to already mounting pressure on the government to suspend arms sales in the wake of the Israeli airstrike that killed seven international aid workers, three of them British, on Monday. Citing both the international court of justice’s conclusion that a plausible risk of genocide exists in Gaza, and the UK’s obligations under the 1948 genocide convention, the letter states that halting weapons sales is a “‘means likely to deter’ and/or ‘a measure to prevent’ genocide”. It also calls for the government to work towards a permanent ceasefire, impose sanctions against those inciting genocide against Palestinians, restore funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa. UK support for Unrwa was withdrawn after Israel’s so-far unsubstantiated allegations that 12 staff were involved in the Hamas attacks in southern Israel on 7 October. The letter says the decision must be reversed for “effective entry and distribution of the means of existence to Palestinians in Gaza, and by extension the prevention of genocide”. The fifth action it says the government should take in light of international law is “to suspend the 2030 road map for UK-Israel bilateral relations and negotiations towards an enhanced trade agreement, and to initiate a review into the suspension of the UK’s bilateral trade agreement with Israel and consider the imposition of sanctions”. © 2024 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. The number of signatories and the fact the letter has been signed by senior retired judges, who rarely comment publicly on politically sensitive issues, makes the message difficult to ignore. The letter has also increased pressure on the government to publish the legal advice it has received on whether UK arms are at risk of being involved in a breach of humanitarian law. Ministers continue to say that they keep the advice under review and act accordingly.

Complainants hope to use principle of universal jurisdiction in three separate cases An apartment block on Odesa destroyed by Russian missiles in April 2022. One of the cases concerns an attack on Odesa that killed 22 people. Photograph: Future Publishing/Getty Images. Julian Borger Thu 26 Oct 2023 04.00 EDT Dossiers of evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine have been presented to German federal prosecutors at the start of a campaign to use the principle of universal jurisdiction to bring war criminals to justice. The cases were filed on Thursday morning by the Clooney Foundation for Justice (CFJ), representing 16 survivors and the families of victims in three separate war crimes cases: an indiscriminate missile attack on a coastal resort near Odesa that killed 22 people; the execution of four men in occupied territory in the Kharkiv region in spring and summer last year; and a series of executions and acts of torture and sexual violence committed outside Kyiv in March 2022. The first cases have been brought to Berlin because the German judicial system has been at the forefront of prosecuting war crimes and crimes against humanity under the principle of universal jurisdiction, by which some abuses are deemed to be so serious that the duty to investigate and prosecute goes far beyond the territory on which the crimes were committed. Anya Neistat, the legal director of the Docket, a CJF initiative to collect evidence and build war crimes cases, said international support was high for prosecuting the widespread abuses committed in Ukraine, but added: “It is now the time to see words turn into real action – and we are counting on German prosecutors to lead the way.” The evidence has also been shared with the prosecutor’s office at the international criminal court (ICC), which is investigating war crimes. However, the ICC only has the capacity to pursue a limited number of cases with the aim of seeking accountability at the highest level. The prosecutor has already issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin. At the other end of the spectrum, Ukrainian prosecutors are collecting vast amounts of evidence on a large number of crimes. The country’s criminal code allows prosecutions of only the immediate perpetrators of crimes, not those higher up the chain of command, without proof of specific orders to commit the crimes, although it does recognise the principle of command responsibility. The Docket initiative seeks to fill the gap between the ICC and the Ukrainian courts. In all three cases that it has presented in Germany, it is pursuing investigations of senior and mid-level military officers. If and when federal prosecutors open investigations into war crimes cases from the invasion of Ukraine, arrest warrants can be issued and shared with Europol and Interpol, and in theory significantly reduce the freedom of movement of the suspects into the indefinite future, offering the prospect of a modicum of justice for victims and their families. In another initiative involving the war in Ukraine, the Docket intends to build criminal cases against Russian propagandists who have frequently used genocidal language, called for mass killings of civilians, and helped build popular support for the war in Russia. The crime of incitement to genocide exists in international humanitarian law, but it has not been used for a prosecution since the Rwanda tribunal, and is hard to make stick without a ruling that genocide did occur. An alternative is to use laws criminalising war propaganda, which are still on the statute books of some east European countries as remnants of the communist era. The main hurdle on that route is that the crime has never successfully been prosecuted. “The real challenge there is to convince the prosecutors of what this crime is, and then connect it to what is happening now around Ukraine and Russian propaganda,” Neistat said. Building war propaganda cases will not necessarily need to invoke universal jurisdiction, because much of the propaganda in question was broadcast by Russian television channels into the territory of several east European nations. Maryna Slobodianiuk, head of investigations at Truth Hounds, a Ukrainian NGO that jointly filed the Kharkiv case with the CFJ, said she hoped the presentation of the first three war crimes cases would represent a breakthrough in pursuing accountability for mass atrocities. “We believe that by opening these proceedings, Germany can significantly contribute to the efforts of ensuring justice for all Ukrainian survivors,” Slobodianiuk said. The cases in Germany are intended to be pilots for the widespread pursuit of Russian war crimes in courts around the world that have universal jurisdiction laws. Another batch of cases is being readied for presentation to prosecutors in another central European country. “Ultimately, what is likely to happen is that some of the perpetrators that we’re talking about are likely to travel to Switzerland or Germany or elsewhere in the world. It sounds very remote now, but it has happened in the past,” Neistat said. “What we do know for sure is that, if we don’t have this web of arrest warrants, it means they can go anywhere in the world and still not be arrested. They can go to die happily in Miami or somewhere.”

By Philip Oltermann Visitors view the work of photojournalist Hannah Reyes Morales at the Hungarian National Museum's World Press Photo exhibition. Photograph: János Kummer/Getty Images The director of Budapest’s National Museum has been fired from his role over a contentious anti-LGBTQ+ law that he himself voted for when he was a member of parliament. Hungary’s government on Monday dismissed director László Simon after his museum allowed under-18s to visit a World Press Photo exhibition featuring images of LGBTQ+ people, despite laws banning the “promotion of homosexuality” to minors. Simon, a former secretary of state for culture and member of parliament for Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party, had taken up the role as the National Museum’s director in August 2021, shortly after his party passed the controversial law restricting LGBTQ+ content. Tensions over the exhibition surfaced last month when the far-right Mi Hazánk (Our Homeland) party launched a government inquiry over the issue. The photos at the heart of the inquiry, Home for the Golden Gays by the photojournalist Hannah Reyes Morales, follow the inhabitants of a community-run elderly care home for LGBTQ+ people in Manila, the Philippines. Mi Hazánk cited a 2021 law that bans the “display and promotion of homosexuality” in books and films accessible to under-18s. The law, which Orbán’s government says aims to protect children, has come under fire from the EU and human rights groups. After the government inquiry, the museum said it had no right to ask visitors for ID to determine their age but it included a message on its website calling on under-18s not to visit the exhibition. The minister for culture and innovation said on Monday that Simon, the museum’s director, had been dismissed for failing to comply “with the legal obligations of the institution”. In a Facebook post, Simon acknowledged his sacking but said he could not accept its reasoning. “The museum did not deliberately violate any legislation by presenting the pictures of the World Press Photo exhibition”, he said, adding that the institute had immediately flagged the age restriction on its website “without delay”. In an earlier Facebook post Simon had sarcastically thanked Mi Hazánk’s vice-president, Dóra Dúró, for giving the exhibition at the museum publicity. “The National Museum is alive and well,” read the post, next to pictures of long queues outside the museum. “Thank you, dear representative Dúró.” Dúró, a former politician for nationalist party Jobbik, last month held a press conference in which she described the World Press Photo exhibition as “harmful”, and objected to its highlighting of a case in Kenya, where a 25-year-old non-binary lesbian was raped and murdered. This year some Hungarian booksellers were fined for selling books depicting homosexuality, which were not wrapped in plastic as required by the legislation. © 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies.

By Luke Harding Russian soldiers march toward Red Square to attend a Victory Day military parade in Moscow, Russia, on 9 May, 2023. Photograph: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP The US has charged four Russian soldiers with war crimes after they allegedly abducted and tortured an American citizen last year who was living in southern Ukraine, according to court documents unsealed on Wednesday. The US Justice Department said the accused Russians kidnapped the American in April 2022 from his home in the village of Mylove, in Kherson province, where he lived with his Ukrainian wife. Russian troops swept into the region during the first days of Vladimir Putin’s invasion, seizing the city of Kherson and surrounding rural settlements. The soldiers took the American to a military compound where he was held for 10 days and interrogated. According to the indictment he was severely beaten on several occasions. They stripped him, tied his hands behind his back and hit him with their fists, feet and the stocks of their guns. They also photographed him naked, threatened him with sexual assault and carried out a “mock execution”. This involved asking the American for his last words, putting a gun to the back of his head and then firing a bullet just past him, it said. The case is the first time the US government has used a decades-old law which allows the prosecution of individuals who commit war crimes against US nationals. It follows a major global investigation by FBI special agents and the Department for Homeland Security, with assistance from the Metropolitan police in London. In a press conference on Wednesday the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, said the charges were “an important step towards accountability for the illegal war in Ukraine”. He described the crimes committed by “Russia-affiliated military personnel” as heinous, and a part of Moscow’s “brutal invasion”. The four soldiers were named as Suren Seiranovich Mkrtchyan, Dmitry Budnik and two other men known only by their first names, Valerii and Nazar. They have been charged with four counts of unlawful confinement, conspiracy to commit war crimes, inhuman treatment and torture. According to locals who spoke to the Guardian, Mkrtchyan was the Armenian-born commander of a military outfit from the “Donetsk People’s Republic” or DNR, a Russia proxy force which arrived in Mylove from the occupied east of Ukraine. Some 300 to 400 civilians – from a pre-war population of 1,000 – stayed in the village during Russian rule. Mkrtchyan and his men tortured anyone connected with the Ukrainian state, including policemen and government employees, locals said. In March he arrested two teenage boys after they tore down Russian and DNR flags from the village’s Soviet war memorial. “An officer put them up against a wall and shot over their heads. They were made to dig trenches,” Serhii Melnikov, a villager, recalled. The US citizen was also made to do forced labour and to dig trenches for the Russian military. He was eventually released and managed to leave Ukraine with his wife. Mkrtchyan was subsequently sacked as commander after illicitly selling petrol allocated for his vehicles, villagers said. In November 2022 Ukraine’s armed forces liberated Mylove, which is situated on the right bank of the Dnipro River. “In the midst of war, Ukrainian prosecutors and investigators have risked their lives to bring justice to the Ukrainian people,” Garland said. “When the time comes, the United States and our partners will be ready to bring accountability to Russia.” He added: “The rule of law is how we protect people and protect our shared humanity.” “The evidence gathered by our agents speaks to the brutality, criminality, and depravity of Russia’s invasion,” the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, added. Investigators interviewed the American, his family and others who were in Mylove at the time to identify the Russians, Mayorkas said. The attorney general, Merrick Garland, has been outspoken on war crimes in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began in February 2022. The international criminal court issued an arrest warrant for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in March for war crimes, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine. The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Russia did not recognise the ICC and considered its decisions “legally void”. He called the court’s move “outrageous and unacceptable”. The United States is not a member of the ICC, but the justice department has been cooperating with it and supporting Ukrainian prosecutors as they carry out their own war crime investigations. The charges carry mostly symbolic significance for the moment given the unclear prospects that any of the four defendants would ever be brought to an American courtroom to face justice. They come as the Biden administration, in an effort to show continued support for Ukraine during a separate war between Israel and Hamas, is pressing Congress to approve military and economic aid for Kyiv’s war effort. The US and Russia do not have an extradition treaty, but the justice department has brought repeated criminal cases against Russian nationals, most notably for cyber crimes and including for interference in the 2016 presidential election. In some of those cases, the defendants have been taken into custody by American officials, such as when they have traveled outside Russia. © 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies.

A new exodus of boats carrying Rohingya fleeing from Myanmar has begun, with at least six boats carrying hundreds of refugees intercepted at sea or washing ashore over the past month. The recent flurry of voyages making the treacherous crossing of the Andaman sea to seek refuge in Thailand and Malaysia is close to reaching levels last seen in 2015, which prompted the Thai authorities to crack down on human smuggling networks. Voyages tend to stop completely during monsoon season, which begins in June and creates dangerous conditions, but the end of the rains in October often leads to a fresh wave of boats taking to the calmer seas. Since August 2017, over 200 lives are estimated to have been lost in the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea, mainly in the crossing from Myanmar to Bangladesh. On Tuesday morning, 20 men believed to be Rohingya arrived on the shores of the Indonesian island of Aceh in a small rickety boat, seeking refuge. The arrival comes after the Myanmar navy picked up 38 Rohingya, 19 men, 11 women, and eight children last week in the Andaman sea, who were heading for Malaysia. After their boat was apprehended, they were detained by the Myanmar police and sent back to Rahkine state, where tens of thousands of Rohingya are forced to live in displacement camps.It is not known yet whether the men who arrived in Aceh this week had fled Rahkine or Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, where almost one million Rohingya refugees are living after fleeing a brutal campaign of violence by the military and Buddhist locals, which the UN has described as ethnic cleansing.“We can’t communicate with them because they don’t speak Indonesian, Acehnese, or English. So we don’t know much about them,” said Iswandi, the head of Idi Rayeuk district in Aceh where the Rohingyas’ boat washed ashore.The surge in those attempting to escape by boat is an indicator that the situation in Rahkine, where the UN says Rohingya are subject to “apartheid-like conditions”, remains desperate for the Muslim minority.Displacement camps in Rahkine are home to tens of thousands of Rohingya, who live in dire living conditions with limited access to food and no freedom of movement.On 18 November, 93 Rohingya left their villages near Rahkine’s Sittwe township and Darpaing displacement camp and boarded a small boat to Malaysia, but were found by the Myanmar navy a week later. Days earlier, two boats carrying Rohingya living in Darpaing displacement camp were discovered, both attempting to make it to Malaysia.Caroline Gluck, UNHCR spokesperson, said that while previously, most boats from Myanmar had been headed for Bangladesh, “there are now indications of boat movements resuming with different destinations”.“There are differences between the pattern of these movements compared with 2015,” said Gluck, emphasising that a regional approach was needed to deal with refugees taking to the sea. “The boats are smaller and hold fewer passengers. The disembarkation points have changed. And more robust efforts are being made by the authorities both in Bangladesh and Myanmar to prevent the boats from setting out to sea in the first place.”The renewed exodus from Rahkine throws the possibility of repatriating the 700,000 refugees living in Bangladesh further into turmoil. The tension between the Buddhist communities in Rakhine and the Rohingya has not eased and last week a group of Buddhist Rahkine held a protest against the possible return of the Rohingya and any move to give them citizenship.AFP contributed to this report © 2018 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro clenches his fist after he was sworn in, in Caracas, on March 8, 2013. Genocide Watch Alert: Venezuela June 2020 Genocide Watch is issuing a Genocide Alert for Venezuela. Political opponents of President Nicolás Maduro’s United Socialist Party are regularly being arrested and detained. More than 900 political prisoners are currently being held in Venezuela, according to Foro Penal, a non-profit human rights organization. This past year has seen the highest number of Venezuelan political prisoners in the past two decades. Maduro launched Operation Peoples’ Liberation to control political dissidents. He refers to his political opponents as “terrorists,” saying they are threats to “national security.” This dehumanizing rhetoric provides an excuse for grave human rights violations. Political dissidents are being held for long periods on baseless charges. Foro Penal has documented over fifty cases where detainees suffered “systematic, planned, and structural” torture by Venezuela’s military counterintelligence forces. Venezuela’s military and police are inflicting sexual abuse, asphyxiation, electric shock, sleep deprivation, starvation, and razor blade torture on political prisoners. Since President Maduro’s election on April 14, 2013, Venezuela’s government has increasingly cracked down on opposition political parties. The state has reinforced its control over oil resources. Peaceful protesters are regularly arrested by state police and militias. Maduro’s opponents are denied basic food and health care. The state restricts freedom of the press, and arrests journalists who report human rights violations. Professional and business elites are threatened by the military if they do not support the Maduro regime. Those who protest openly are arrested, tortured, or “disappeared,” often a euphemism for murder. In 2017, Maduro bypassed the legislature – which he does not control – and convened a constituent assembly to create a new constitution. The new constitution ensures one-party domination by Maduro’s United Socialist Party. The public was denied the right to vote on the new constitution. Since the strengthening of Maduro’s authoritarian regime, Human Rights Watch has reported on grave human rights violations by 314 government officials in 13 Venezuelan states. There have probably been many more that remain unreported. No one has been prosecuted for these crimes against humanity. The Maduro regime denies any government-sponsored torture or human rights violations. Instead, Maduro blames protesters, and uses his accusations to justify violently dispersing protests. Venezuela’s economy has collapsed. Food is so expensive that most people cannot afford it. There is widespread starvation. Hospitals lack even basic supplies and good health care cannot be obtained. Three million Venezuelan refugees and migrants have fled to neighboring nations. Genocide Watch urges regional nations in the Organization of American States to condemn Maduro’s tyranny and demand restoration of basic human rights protections in Venezuela. Refugees must be granted amnesty from any prosecution if they return. The Venezuelan government must be held accountable for its crimes against humanity in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Genocide Watch recognizes these trends in Venezuela as examples of persecution, Stage 8 in Genocide Watch’s "Ten Stages of Genocide." Because the persecution targets opposition political groups, it is politicide, a form of genocide as originally defined by Raphael Lemkin, author of the Genocide Convention.

Genocide Watch's Eric Ross has created a video showing the spreading genocidal massacres by jihadist terrorist groups such as Boko Haram, Fulani jihadists, and the Islamic State West Africa Province. The massacres have killed over 27,000 people, including thousands in 2019 and 2020, making them the deadliest genocidal massacres committed by any terrorists since 2010, more than by ISIS in Iraq and Syria. They have especially targeted Christians. The map was compiled using authenticated data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. https://acleddata.com To view the video click HERE.

Eric Ross of the Genocide Watch staff has compiled a spreadsheet of online sources of verified data on genocidal massacres in Nigeria and the Sahel from 2010 - 2020. The sources are in the public domain and they are downloadable for research and planning of programs to stop and prevent these acts of genocide. Genocidal massacres are acts of genocide that are crimes under Article 2, a,b, and c of the Genocide Convention. Data sources are hyperlinked below: ACLED Council on Foreign Relations UCDP/PRIO National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) SAIS (Johns Hopkins) Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law (UT-Austin) Institute for Economics & Peace International Committee on Nigeria (ICON) Center for Systemic Peace Action on Armed Violence Combatting Terrorism Center at West Point The Correlates of War Project The Political Terror Scale V-DEM Pew Research Center UNHCR The Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) Program World Bank

Genocide Watch is issuing a Genocide Emergency for Mali. Insurgents and security forces have killed thousands of civilians and created a catastrophic humanitarian crisis that is internally displacing hundreds of thousands of Malians. The roots of the current conflict are linked to the 2011 Libyan Civil War. Ethnic Tuareg, members of a minority group in northern Mali that have historically faced intense Malian government persecution, joined the fighting to support Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. When NATO-backed rebels overthrew Gaddafi in 2011, mercenary Tuareg fighters returned to northern Mali and brought with them a flood of heavy weapons. After the fall of Gaddafi, a small number of Tuaregs then revived a long-standing separatist movement. The Tuareg separatists, under the banner of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), joined in a tacit alliance with armed Islamist groups in northern Mali. Alongside Ansar Dine, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), the MNLA led an insurgency against the Malian government in January 2012. In April 2012, military officials orchestrated a coup d’état to oust Mali’s democratically elected leader, Amadou Toumani Touré in April 2012. The MNLA insurgent coalition seized control of northern Mali aiming to establish a state based on their unique ethnic identity. However, the secular, nationalist goals of the Tuareg MNLA clashed with the jihadists vision to implement a strict interpretation of sharia across the region. By June, the Islamists fully co-opted the movement and pushed out the Tuareg MNLA. In a controversial French-led military intervention in 2013, government forces regained control over northern Mali. The intervention expelled the Islamists from their strongholds in the north and in doing so, unintentionally scattered the fundamentalists across central and southern Mali, where jihadist violence is currently gripping the region. Since 2015, jihadist attacks in central Mali have spiked dramatically. Fundamentalists have recruited militants primarily from the Peules/Fulani ethnic group, stoking a regional conflict that has directly instigated ethnic violence. In response to the increasing Islamist attacks, various Malian ethnic groups have formed self-defense militias, which has created a tit-for-tat cycle of attacks against neighboring ethnic groups. Dan Na Ambassagou, a Dogon ethnic self-defense militia, has committed executions of hundreds of Peules/Fulani civilians. Despite the presence of a UN peacekeeping mission since 2013 and a French-led counterterrorism force in operation since 2014, the security situation in central Mali has continued to deteriorate. In 2019, fundamentalists killed 4,000 people across Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. In the first six months of 2020 alone, the UN reported 589 civilians killed by various armed groups in central Mali. Genocide Watch recognizes the alarming situation in Mali as Stage 9: Extermination. To prevent further bloodshed in Mali, Genocide Watch recommends: The United Nations peacekeeping force in Mali (MINUSMA), the French-led counterterrorism force (Operation Barkane), and the regional G5 Sahel Joint Forces review their tactical plan to ensure that they are not providing proxy support to security forces and allied militia members who are themselves committing mass atrocities across Mali. The Malian government provide increased protection to villages in central Mali to reduce the need for self-defense militias and break the cycle of vigilantism. The Malian government work with local spiritual and community leaders to foster dialogue between ethnic groups and deescalate ethnic tensions through education and outreach aimed at alleviating the root causes of the violence. NGOs and other international actors increase humanitarian assistance to Mali and provide economic opportunities to individuals tempted to otherwise join armed Islamist groups. Download Alert

Genocide Watch is issuing a Genocide Warning for the Philippines under the Duterte regime. President Rodrigo Duterte’s government is committing crimes against humanity in the Philippines, through a state-sponsored mass murder campaign Duterte portrays as a “War on Drugs.” Under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, police officers engage in extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests of dissenters, and suppression of media freedom. At least 5,000 mostly poor Filipinos have been killed since 2016, though Amnesty International reports that the figure could be as high as 12,000. On July 3, 2020, President Duterte signed the “Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020” which creates a presidential appointed anti-terrorism council with the power to designate individuals and groups as terrorists, and detain them without charge. The law also allows for 90 days of surveillance and punishments that include life imprisonment without parole. The Supreme Court has received six petitions challenging the Act. The Anti-Terrorism Act is used against critics of the Duterte administration by naming them ‘terrorists’ or members of a ‘terrorist organization.’ The Act permits warrantless arrests and allows authorities to hold individuals for weeks without charge. The Act is used to grant impunity for killings of persons who are falsely implicated as drug users, as well as detention of those who criticize Duterte’s policies. In the name of combating drug use, the Philippine National Police kill drug addicts, and justify these murders of civilians as national self-defense. To promote the self-defense narrative, police plant false evidence, including guns, ammunition, and drugs on victims’ bodies. While the government claims that vigilantes or rival drug gangs commit most of the killings, international media report that masked gunmen work closely with police. With growing international criticism of the “War on Drugs,” the Duterte administration has widened its targets to include all those opposed to the “war,” including human rights groups, activists, journalists, and media outlets. Encouraged by Duterte, nearly 3,000 Duterte opponents have been gunned down by police and vigilante death squads. Duterte has even pledged to pardon policemen implicated in these killings. Many critics of the Duterte regime are now caged in overcrowded prisons. Yet his campaign remains politically popular. The Abu Sayyaf Group is the most violent of the Islamic separatist groups operating in the southern Philippines. It claims it is fighting for an independent Islamic state. Since 1991, Abu Sayyaf has engaged in kidnappings for ransom, bombings, beheadings, assassinations, and extortion. Most Filipinos condemn Abu Sayyaf. The group relies on its Muslim members’ families and friends for support and recruitment. Abu Sayyaf blends into surrounding populations, complicating government attempts to defeat it. Genocide Watch recognizes the situation in the Philippines as Stage 5: Organization; and Stage 6: Polarization. Genocide Watch urges the Philippine government to repeal the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020. Genocide Watch urges the United Nations Human Rights Council to conduct an impartial investigation. We support an International Criminal Court preliminary examination into these crimes against humanity. Download Alert

Genocide Watch is issuing a Genocide Warning for Mozambique. Since 2017, the homegrown fundamentalist group al-Sunnah wa Jamaah (ASWJ) has violently targeted residents of Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province. What began as a series of sporadic attacks has transformed into a brutal insurgency with the death toll now reaching more than 1,100 people, including 700 civilians. The Islamic State is growing its stronghold across Mozambique-- the group claimed responsibility for recent attacks and local militants are now reportedly operating under the banner of the Islamic State Central Africa Province (ISCAP). In recent months there has been a dramatic escalation in the fighting: armed clashes have risen from only three in 2017 to 43 in just the first four months of 2020. In March, the group briefly seized control of two towns and declared its intention to establish a caliphate in the north of the country. In April, the Islamist militants perpetrated their deadliest assault yet, massacring 52 villagers who refused to join their cause. With more than 250,000 residents now internally displaced within Cabo Delgado and in neighboring Nampula province, the Islamic State has created another humanitarian crisis. If action is not taken to address the root causes of the insurgency, Islamic fundamentalists could seize control of northern Mozambique and the border with Tanzania, threatening regional security. Due to the province’s estimated $50 billion worth of offshore gas reserves, the government has initiated a heavy-handed crackdown in Cabo Delgado. National security forces, alongside foreign mercenaries from South Africa, Russia, and the United States, have attempted to repress the Islamic fundamentalist insurgency. However, these security actions have been exacerbating the conflict, as local residents are wary of state-led interventions following a civil war from 1977 to 1992 that killed as many as one million people. The fundamentalists capitalize on this distrust in the government by handing out food and preaching to Cabo Delgado residents about the government’s campaign to “humiliate the poor”. Genocide Watch recognizes the rapidly developing situation in Mozambique as Stage 7: Preparation in our Ten Stages of Genocide. To prevent the crisis in northern Mozambique from further devolving into genocide, Genocide Watch recommends: The Mozambique government stop the use of brutal counterinsurgency tactics, refrain from deploying foreign mercenaries, and instead use the military to protect civilians from attacks and forced recruitment. The Mozambique government cooperate with local corporations to prioritize investment projects in Cabo Delgado and ensure that residents also benefit from the resource-rich region as a means to reverse the decades of economic marginalization that is driving Islamist recruitment in the province. NGOs and local civil society work together to combat the ideological roots of violent extremism in Cabo Delgado through an educational campaign to promote tolerance both in the classroom and through local religious institutions. Download Alert

Genocide Watch is issuing a Genocide Warning for both Israel and Palestine. Photo Credit: Sebastian Scheiner, AP and the Indy Star Under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli government has systematically discriminated against its Palestinian population, including Palestinians who are legal citizens of Israel. Israel’s 2018 “Basic Law” removed Arabic as an official state language and defined self-determination in the State of Israel as uniquely for the Jewish people. These are denials of Palestinian culture and nationality. Palestinians have been forcibly transferred to settlements in the West Bank, and movement of goods and people out of the Gaza Strip is restricted. These actions are violations of the rights of residence and travel under Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The U.N. has identified 46 Palestinian communities at “high risk of forcible transfer,” which could make their residents into internally displaced persons. Thousands of Palestinians have fled to refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. According to Amnesty International, 38 Palestinians, including 11 children, were killed by the Israeli Defense Forces in 2019. The Israeli government is responsible for arbitrary detention, torture, and killings of political dissidents. As of November 2019, 182 Palestinian children were in prison. Under cover of night, Israeli military and police have raided hundreds of homes in the West Bank. Hamas, a militant Palestinian organization based in the Gaza Strip, has sent thousands of rockets into Israel, killing over 30 civilians and wounding over 2000 more. Israel, the United States, and the European Union recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization. The founding charter of Hamas calls for the destruction of Israel, an incitement to genocide. The Israeli government desires increased national security against attacks from Hamas, the Palestine Liberation Organization in the West Bank, and from Palestinian terrorists based in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt. European and U.S Jews have faced a rise in anti-Semitic attacks. To demonstrate his support for Israel, U.S. President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, angering Palestinian groups. Genocide Watch recognizes the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Both Jewish and Palestinian groups claim religious and political rights over their territories. Criticism of the Israeli government is not an attack on the Jewish right to a national homeland. Israel was created legitimately by the United Nations and has a right to defend itself. Genocide Watch has no sympathy with groups advocating destruction of Israel, as Arab states have repeatedly waged war to do since Israel’s creation, and as Hamas still advocates. Genocide Watch opposes Israel’s violations of Palestinian human rights as Persecution, Stage 8 in the genocidal process. Genocide Watch condemns the goals of Hamas, many Arab states, Iran, and other groups that reject Israel’s existence as incitements to genocide. Past peace agreements between Israel and Palestine have been unsuccessful. On Jan. 28, President Trump proposed a two-state solution that recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of both Israel and Palestine and demilitarizes Palestine. However, key Palestinian leaders rejected this proposal, saying Palestinian human rights would not be protected. Genocide Watch urges Israel, the U.S. and other nations, and Palestinian leaders to work toward a peace treaty that secures both Palestinian human rights and Israel’s security. Download Alert