By Nat Hill The welcome sign to GBAO province, ‘the roof of the world’. The region makes up 45% of Tajikistan, but is home to only 3% of the population. Photograph: Pascal Mannaerts/Alamy Genocide Watch is issuing a Genocide Watch for Tajikistan. Ethnic Pamirs in the autonomous oblast of Gorno-Badakhshan are facing increased surveillance, persecution, and detention at the hands of the Tajik government. The Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) comprises the entire eastern portion of Tajikistan. While GBAO comprises 45% of Tajik territory it only holds 3% of the population. Most of the GBAO population are Pamirs, an ethnic group that is linguistically and culturally distinct from the rest of the Tajik population. Most of the population of Tajikistan are ethnic Tajiks, speak Tajik (a variety of Persian) and practice Sunni Islam. The Pamirs speak a language closer to Pashto and Balochi and adhere to the Nizari sect of Shia Islam, which looks to the Aga Khan as its spiritual leader. Tajikistan is currently led by Emomali Rahmon, who has been President since the independence of Tajikistan from the Soviet Union in 1994. Rahmon has ruled Tajikistan with an iron grip by suppressing opposition, setting up a cult of personality, and creating a corrupt bureaucracy staffed by his family and sycophants. Rahmon came to power following the Tajik Civil War (1992-1997) which pitted the former Tajik Communist party against the United Tajik Opposition (UTO), which was an alliance of liberal reformers and Islamist forces. The former Communists prevailed. The Civil war killed upwards of 150,000 people and displaced over 1.5 million. The UTO had strong support among the Pamirs in GBAO, which is a contributing factor to their ongoing persecution in the region. Map of Tajikistan and the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region Source: The Guardian On May 21, 2022, Tajik police killed four people in the city of Khorugh, the administrative center for Gorno-Badakhshan. Following the killings, civilian protests broke out and the police headquarters in Khorugh was burned down. Tajik security forces began a brutal crackdown in the region and killed a least a dozen protestors. The Tajik government is also accused of abducting Pamir activists in Moscow and flying them back for detention in Tajikistan. Tajikistan typically goes unmentioned in global news reporting. While events in GBAO have not reached the stage of civil war, the situation remains precarious. Exacerbating the unrest, the Tajik economy is in serious jeopardy due to the coronavirus and the war in Ukraine. Over 25% of the Tajik economy is supported by remittances from migrant workers in Russia, and the recent collapse of the Russian economy has created severe vulnerability for Tajikistan. The ongoing crisis in neighboring Afghanistan and succession issues concerning the eventual end of Rahmon’s dictatorship also pose potential risks to both the Pamir minorities and Tajik dissidents. Genocide Watch considers Tajikistan to be at Stage 5: Organization, Stage 7: Preparation, Stage 8: Persecution Genocide Watch recommends: • The European Union, the United States, and NATO should be more attentive to the persecution of Pamirs in Tajikistan and the potential for civil war. • The EU and US should consider providing relief to Central Asian economies when issuing new sanctions against the Russian Federation. • The United Nations should consider reestablishing the United Nations Mission of Observers in Tajikistan (UNMOT) which was discontinued in 1997. ©GenocideWatch2022

Thousands take to the streets of Mexico City amid a worsening wave of violence and enforced disappearances nationwide. Last month, the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances urged Mexico to tackle 'the alarming trend of rising enforced disappearances' that is facilitated by 'almost absolute impunity' [Toya Sarno Jordan/Reuters] Thousands of women in Mexico have spent Mother’s Day marching in the nation’s sprawling capital, chanting and carrying pictures of their missing relatives, to demand accountability amid a worsening surge in violence. “Where are they, where are they? Our children, where are they?” the women shouted on Tuesday as they demonstrated with supporters along Mexico City’s main avenue under the banner, “March for National Dignity”. Protesters blocked traffic while pumping their fists and chanting, “What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!” According to the United Nations, more than 95,000 people in Mexico were officially registered as disappeared as of November 26, 2021, while the National Register of Disappeared Persons says 8,000 new cases were reported annually over the past five years. Relatives of Mexico’s disappeared march every year, but this year, they were joined by a caravan of Central American mothers searching for loved ones who went missing while on their journey to the United States. Their protest began in the southern Mexican city of Tapachula, often the first city migrants reach on their way north. More than 95,000 people in Mexico were registered as disappeared as of November last year, the UN says [Marco Ugarte/AP Photo] Precise figures on the violence migrants face in Mexico are difficult to come by, but rights groups monitoring towns along the US-Mexico border say they are exposed to kidnapping, torture, rape and other violent attacks. Araceli Hernandez, 50, from the Mexican city of Guadalajara, has photos of her daughter Vanessa and son Manuel, in their 20s, on an altar in her home. She has not heard from them since 2017, when first Vanessa disappeared. Her brother disappeared while searching for her. “They had been missing for about four months when I grabbed a backpack, some bottles of water, a wooden stick and started walking in the hills,” Hernandez told the AFP news agency. She joined the growing number of mothers who have formed nationwide associations that comb the countryside for clandestine graves that might hold their children’s remains. “It’s my mission as a mother,” she said. Disappearances began during the Mexican authorities’ so-called dirty war against revolutionary movements of the 1960s to 1980s. More recently, disappearances and homicides have soared amid a nationwide push to crack down on drug cartels and organised criminal groups in the country. Since 2006, more than 340,000 people have been murdered in a spiral of worsening violence. According to the government, there are around 37,000 unidentified corpses lying unclaimed in forensic services, though activists believe the number is higher than 50,000. The violence and disappearances disproportionately affect women and girls. In Mexico, an average of 10 women a day are killed, and tens of thousands more go missing. Last month, the disappearance of Debanhi Escobar, an 18-year-old law student, sparked fresh outrage amid a spate of disappearances of women in Nuevo Leon’s capital, Monterrey. Her body was found two weeks later submerged in a cistern inside the grounds of a motel near where she was last seen alive, according to authorities. Hundreds of women blocked a highway in downtown Monterrey in the days following, demanding an end to gender violence. Twenty-six women and girls have disappeared in Nuevo Leon this year, and five more have been found dead after being reported missing. Last month, the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances urged Mexico to tackle “the alarming trend of rising enforced disappearances”, saying the problem is facilitated by “almost absolute impunity”. “Organized crime has become a central perpetrator of disappearance in Mexico, with varying degrees of participation, acquiescence or omission by public servants,” the Committee said in a report after a delegation visited Mexico in November of last year. The report found that less than 6 percent of disappearances had resulted in prosecutions. “Impunity in Mexico is a structural feature that favours the reproduction and cover-up of enforced disappearances and creates threats and anxiety to the victims, those defending and promoting their rights, public servants searching for the disappeared and investigating their cases, and society as a whole,” the committee said. In 2014, 43 teaching students went missing after they were detained by local police in Iguala in the southern state of Guerrero while they were on their way to a protest. Most of their bodies have never been found, and experts with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights found that investigators, prosecutors, and military personnel had altered crime scenes and records. On Tuesday, Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who campaigned on a promise to tackle the nation’s soaring crime rates but has struggled to achieve that goal since taking office in 2018, alluded to the Mother’s Day march. “Many congratulations to all [mothers], to those who are suffering for their children, for their disappeared, to those who are sick or are worried about their sick relatives, the humble, poor women of all the communities, towns, to the working women, to the all women, all mothers,” Lopez Obrador said during his daily morning news briefing. © 2022 Al Jazeera Media Network

A Comparative Study of China, Myanmar, and India Published by Genocide Watch on July 25, 2022. Muslim devotees offer Friday prayers in an open ground in Gurgaon on the outskirts of New Delhi on 17 December, 2021 (AFP) The past two decades have witnessed a dramatic global rise in Islamophobic attitudes and anti-Muslim violence in Asia and around the world. From hate speech on social media to illegal detention and torture under the pretext of countering violent extremism, Muslims are facing an unprecedented assault on their human rights, religious freedoms, and even their very existence. Among the countries that have exhibited the most overt genocidal violence against Muslims in recent years, three blatant examples can be found in Asia. This study seeks to better understand these developments by examining the case studies of China, Myanmar, and India. China and Myanmar are actively committing genocide against the Uyghur and Rohingya communities, respectively. India is moving towards the brink of genocide against its Muslim population at an alarming rate. Key Findings The feeling of Islam being an alien and foreign religion that is incompatible with the beliefs of the majority underlies Islamophobia narratives in each country. The more alien their religion seems, the less Muslims are seen as citizens and human beings in the eyes of broader society. Majoritarianism of this kind helps fuel Islamophobia. The Global War on Terror has become an easy justification used by the state in all three countries to mask their own hatred towards Muslims. However, the problems lying at the heart of all these Islamophobic campaigns are historically and territorially entrenched within the political and social fabric of each country. The targeting of innocent, unarmed Muslim civilians cannot ever be justified as counter-terrorism operations. Population control is an important part of the genocidal campaigns underway in China and Myanmar. To bring down the reproductive capacity of a group is an intentional attempt to destroy in part a religious group. It is genocide. Resettlement of the majority population in Muslim-dominated areas by the government is a recurring feature in all three countries. Chinese authorities are offering incentives to Han Chinese citizens to set up businesses and residences in East Turkistan. A similar pattern has been seen in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, where the government has lured Buddhist citizens to settle on land abandoned by fleeing Rohingya residents. The revocation of Kashmir’s special status will also allow non-Kashmiri Indian citizens to buy land and settle in Kashmir. It is intended to reverse the displacement of over 100,000 Hindu Kashmiri Pandits in the 1990’s. Recommendations The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues should investigate China, Myanmar, and India's discrimination against Muslims and report to the U.N. Human Rights Council. Frequent reports on Islamophobia in the three countries have been published by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights but little action has come of this. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter must carry out rigorous training programmes for employees to make them better equipped to deal with hate content against Muslims. They must invest in employing many more moderates who speak local languages and are familiar with the specific contexts of each country. The U.S. along with the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Canada placed sanctions on Chinese officials in March 2021 to punish them for human rights abuses. This kind of multilateral effort must be sustained to pressure China to end the Uyghur genocide. In response to the Rohingya crisis, the U.S., E.U., and U.N. have devoted considerable funds for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. Now that there is a military government in power in Myanmar, they should invest in foreign aid for Myanmar’s civil society. The military junta in power today committed the Rohingya genocide. Trials of the Myanmar military leadership should be seen as a necessary step to address the Rohingya crisis. The U.S. should recognize the Islamophobic nature of India's current leadership and reconsider its relations with India accordingly. The U.S. and the E.U. should impose targeted Magnitsky sanctions against officials responsible for anti-Muslim policies in China, Myanmar, and India. The U.S. has thus far refused to publicly criticise the Indian government. The U.S. should strongly and publicly oppose the Islamophobic policies of the Indian government. Methodology This report is based on detailed interviews with individuals and human rights organizations working for Rohingya, Uyghur, and Indian Muslim organizations. Interviews were conducted online and in person by Genocide Watch between June 2021 and July 2022. The participants were human rights specialists working with a rights organization for Rohingyas; survivors of the Rohingya genocide currently based in a refugee camp in Bangladesh; Uyghur survivors and human rights specialists on the Uyghur genocide currently based in the United States; and human rights specialists working with organizations that advocate for religious minorities in India. None of the interviewers or interviewees received any form of compensation. All participants were informed of the nature and purpose of the study and the ways that the information they shared might be used. Informed consent was obtained from each participant following explanation of the purpose of the interviews. In the interest of the security of people who spoke to Genocide Watch, the names of interviewees and other identifying information are not revealed in this Genocide Watch report. Islamophobia In China: The Uyghur Genocide Han are the majority ethnic group of China that comprises more than 90 percent of the population. The Muslim population of China, estimated to be around 20 million, includes a variety of ethnic groups. Islamophobia in China manifests itself in two ways: First, Islamophobia across the country that targets all Muslim groups, including the Hui, Uyghurs, Khalkhas, Kazakhs, and Uzbeks, who are discriminated against based on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) atheist ideology that discourages all religious practices; and second, specific state-sponsored genocide targeting Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang. The Hui have not been subjected to the same severe persecution as the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Some scholars surmise that this greater tolerance might be due to the greater assimilation of Hui into Han culture. The Hui have undergone a gradual Sinicization of their Islamic beliefs. Anti-Muslim sentiments and actions have long existed in China, but since 2014 the CCP has subjected the Uyghur community to large scale state-sponsored repression. Uyghurs are an ethnic minority residing in the northwest region of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. They are a Turkic ethnic group whose language and culture bear a strong resemblance to other Turkic Muslim cultures. Uyghurs face religious discrimination and racial othering, which allows the government to label them as outsiders. Xinjiang has become a mass surveillance state, with the government forcing Uyghurs into so-called “re-education facilities” that are actually concentration camps. China has illegally detained more than one million Uyghurs in these mass internment camps. In the camps, they are subjected to indoctrination, torture, sexual abuse, and forced labour. The Uyghur population outside the internment camps is subject to strict surveillance, and their freedom of movement has been severely curtailed. Uyghurs are followed and video-recorded in their everyday activities, with individuals identified by facial recognition and artificial intelligence. Uyghur families are forced to live with Han Chinese spies in their own households. “Radical activities,” which include praying in a mosque, possessing a Quran, growing a long beard, and eating halal, are punished. The Chinese government contends that its actions in Xinjiang are designed to combat religious extremism and separatism. Under the pretext of eliminating terrorism, the Chinese authorities have subjected religious worship to continuous surveillance. They have banned the use of the Uyghur language in education and relocated Uyghur children to boarding schools where they are taught solely in Mandarin Chinese. This forcible transfer of children directly violates Article 2(e) of the Genocide Convention. There is overwhelming evidence to support the claim that China is committing genocide against Uyghurs. Among the acts of genocide against Uyghurs are the mass sterilization and forced birth prevention policies in Xinjiang, a violation of Article 2(d) of the Genocide Convention. In 2018, the region had the highest number of forced intrauterine device (IUD) placements in China. Another act of genocide is the forced removal of Uyghur children to Mandarin Chinese boarding schools. This forcible transfer of children directly violates Article 2(e) of the Genocide Convention. The goal is not only to destroy Uyghurs physically through the prevention of births and transfer of their children but also to destroy Uyghurs as a culturally distinct people. Note on Genocide Denial by Professors William Schabas and Jeffrey Sachs Professors William Schabas and Jeffrey Sachs and a few other commentators deny that the Chinese government’s attempt to destroy the Uyghur people constitutes genocide because China has not relied primarily on mass killing. However, Schabas and Sachs and other deniers adopt a truncated and incomplete definition of genocide, inconsistent with the explicit language of the Genocide Convention. Such denial is especially astonishing coming from Schabas, who wrote an influential treatise, The Genocide Convention in International Law. The Genocide Convention prohibits more than mass killing. It outlaws “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group”; “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, in whole or in part;” “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;” and “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” China has committed every prohibited act of genocide listed in the Genocide Convention. Notes Genocide Watch talked to Uyghur representatives based in the U.S. to better understand what is going on inside China and what role anti-Muslim sentiments play in the Uyghur genocide. Religion versus Communism: For the Chinese communist government, Islam is a foreign religion. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) does not consider Islam or Christianity to be part of Chinese culture. In fact, the Chinese communist party is officially atheist and is highly intolerant of all religions, including Islam. The Chinese Communist Party considers religion poisonous and the antithesis of everything communism stands for. Marxists and Maoists say that “religion is the opiate of the people.” This animus towards religion is deeply ingrained from childhood in the primary school curriculum, which brainwashes students into believing that religion is an anti-socialist, regressive ideology. Teachings against religion form the dominant discourse in Chinese education, media, and politics. Because of the CCP’s heavy propaganda, most Chinese do not believe in religion and regard those who do believe with suspicion and disgust. “Communism is the best thing; only communism can save you.” This is what they taught me in school. - quote from a Chinese student. “It was very difficult, as I belonged to a religious Uyghur family and when I went to school, from a very young age they were teaching something entirely different from what I was taught at home. Uyghur people are kind and religious people find it tough to comply with this ideology of the Chinese government. This non-compliance with their communist ideology is one reason for the persecution of our community.” - quote from a Uyghur interviewee. Islamophobia, The Global War on Terror and the Uyghur Genocide: The 9/11 attacks in the U.S. marked the beginning of the Chinese crackdown on Uyghurs as a Muslim group. The “War on Terror” became a pretext for repressing Uyghurs as Muslims. The Chinese government equated Uyghur religious practices with terrorism and criminalized the practices. Many normal religious activities have been legally criminalized, which legitimizes persecution of Uyghurs. “Something as basic as giving Muslim names like Ayesha or Mohammad to new-born children have been banned.” Islamophobia has been an excuse for the government’s discriminatory policies in Xinjiang. However, the discrimination runs deeper. Ethnicity is the crucial factor. In addition to practising a different faith, Uyghurs are also ethnically, linguistically, and racially different from the Han Chinese majority population. Another key factor is the political rift created by the nationalist separatist movement for East Turkistan, which the Uyghurs claim is their homeland that has been forcibly occupied by China. The policies of the Chinese government are inherently in contradiction with Islamic values. Uyghur families are monitored by atheist Chinese officials to restrict any religious activity in the household. Male Han officials live literally embedded with Uyghur families. The male members of many families are in detention centres, and it is the women of the family who are left behind to be monitored by male officers who forcibly live in Uyghur households. This humiliating invasion of Uyghur peoples’ privacy is also an insult to their Islamic doctrines about relationships within the family. There are widespread allegations of rape within such relationships. The Chinese government’s claim that it is countering terrorist activities is a mirror image of what the Chinese state itself is really doing. It is the government that is the terrorist force: invading peoples’ homes, holding Uyghurs in concentration camps, kidnapping Uyghur children, and forcing Uyghurs into slave labor. Violence against innocent and unarmed citizens is what defines terrorism. The Chinese government is terrified by the Uyghurs. It even prohibits shops from selling nail cutters, knives, or anything that could possibly be used as a weapon by Uyghurs. Internment Camps: The concentration camps today teach that Xi Jinping is the only god. The officers in internment camps make claims such as the following: There is no God. Xi Jinping is the god. If there is a god, why does he not come and save you from these concentration camps, why does he not save you when we torture you, beat you, rape you? Xi Jinping, on the other hand, can come here and tell us to stop and save you. Han Chinese Nationalism: Chinese nationalism is what allows the CCP and its ideology to thrive. The idea of a Chinese nation consisting of only Han Chinese people with no “foreigners” is appealing to the nationalism of Han Chinese people. To strengthen feelings of Chinese nationalism, the entire non-Chinese world, especially the West, is portrayed as evil. The CCP constantly compares China with the U.S. and contends that one day China will surpass it as a global power. International criticism of China’s policies in Xinjiang is also rejected by the government on the grounds that western powers are jealous of China’s development. In China there are no alternative, independent media. Ordinary Chinese find it impossible to travel to other countries that are not approved by the CCP. There are no free social media, so the Chinese people have no option but to accept whatever disinformation the government feeds them. Those who try to reveal the truth are arrested and confined in detention centres. Many journalists and writers are in jail simply because they have criticized the government and tried to expose its abuses. The majority of the Han population believes the government and is convinced that repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang is necessary for Chinese national security. The Erasure of Uyghur culture: Those who have not been detained in camps are not allowed to pray or to live an ordinary life following their customs and beliefs. There is a slow-motion genocide underway of the Uyghur ethnic and religious group, with a calculated and vicious erasure of the Uyghur culture. The government is offering incentives to Han Chinese people to settle in East Turkistan and establish businesses there. These resettlement plans aim to challenge the Uyghurs’ legitimate claim to their homeland. Chinese policies are a naked attempt to change the demographic character of Xinjiang. The Han Chinese government is carrying out a similar demographic invasion of Tibet. In both cases, the goal of Chinese policy is colonization. Islamophobia in Myanmar: The Rohingya Genocide In Myanmar, Muslims account for five percent of the population. Rohingya are a predominantly Muslim ethnic group that mostly resides in western Myanmar’s Rakhine State. In 1982, Burma stripped the Rohingya of their national citizenship. Since then, they have been one of the most persecuted ethnic minorities in the world. They first faced massive genocidal massacres in 2012. Genocide Watch declared a Genocide Emergency for the Rohingya in 2012, the first international human rights NGO to do so. As Genocide Watch predicted, the Myanmar Army launched a full-scale genocide against the Rohingya in August 2017, which drove more than a million Rohingya to flee Myanmar into neighboring Bangladesh. Since then, the Rohingya have also been persecuted as refugees in Bangladesh, India, and other neighboring countries. The Rohingya have their own language and culture, making them ethnically, linguistically, and religiously distinct from Myanmar’s majority Bamar Buddhist population. Islamophobia has been a strong driver behind the anti-Muslim genocide in Myanmar. Myanmar’s military, the Tatmadaw, is most responsible for the genocide against the Rohingya. The Tatmadaw have been joined in their massacres by Rakhine Buddhist militias who also live in Rakhine state. Myanmar’s military rulers contend that the Rohingya are illegal settlers who arrived during the colonial period, a narrative contradicted by documented historical evidence proving that the Rohingya have been one of the indigenous ethnic groups of Myanmar since at least the 1700s. The ethnic Bamar government and military junta in Burma (Myanmar) have an exclusionary policy classifying Rohingya as “foreign Bengalis.” Under Myanmar’s 1982 Citizenship Law, only people belonging to one of 135 national ethnic groups recognized by the state are accorded citizenship. Rohingya are not on the list. Without citizenship, Rohingya lack any civil rights. Discrimination against Rohingya has been institutionalized through the imposition of severe restrictions on marriage, family planning, employment, education, religious practices, and freedom of movement. This discrimination led to several waves of migration from Myanmar to neighbouring countries, especially Bangladesh, in 1978, 2012, and 2016, totalling over 400,000 refugees. In August 2017, the Myanmar Army’s massive attack on the Rohingya turned into an intentionally genocidal campaign that resulted in the forced deportation in under three months of over 700,000 additional Rohingya, who fled and sought asylum in Bangladesh. In August 2017, Myanmar pre-positioned tens of thousands of troops on the borders of Rakhine State in preparation for a “clearance operation” against the Rohingya population. The Tatmadaw began the “clearance operation” on August 24, 2017 immediately after The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) attacked 30 police and army posts, killing twenty police. Using these attacks as a pretext, the Myanmar Army invaded Rakhine State, claiming they were fighting a “counter-insurgency.” The fact that the Tatmadaw had pre-positioned thousands of troops belies Myanmar’s claim that its “clearance operation” was a response to the ARSA attacks on 30 police posts. In fact, the Tatmadaw executed a planned genocide. Supported by Rakhine Buddhist militias, the military burned down over 400 Rohingya villages, raped thousands of Rohingya women in the initial days of their attack, and murdered every Rohingya in sight. According to Doctors Without Borders, more than 6,700 Rohingya were killed in the first month of attacks. Other estimates place the total Rohingya killed at over 10,000. Myanmar used these genocidal massacres to terrorize 700.000 Rohingya into fleeing into Bangladesh. Most refugees currently live in Bangladesh in crowded camps with limited resources. The Kutupalong refugee camps near Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh house nearly a million refugees and constitute the world’s largest refugee camp complex. Other Rohingya refugees fled to Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Nepal, and Saudi Arabia. Some six hundred thousand Rohingya remain internally displaced within Myanmar, where they continue to suffer from discrimination and constant attacks. On February 1, 2021, the Tatmadaw carried out a coup d’état that overthrew the elected National League for Democracy government of Aung San Suu Kyi. Aung Suu Kyi was an apologist for the Tatmadaw’s genocide against the Rohingya. Nevertheless, the junta placed her under arrest on trumped up charges and convicted and sentenced her to years in prison Since the coup, the junta has murdered over 7000 Burmese protesters. The Tatmadaw’s reimposition of a military dictatorship means that the situation of the Rohingya Muslims is likely to get much worse. Note on Genocide Denial by Professor William Schabas in the International Court of Justice In his defence of Myanmar in the Gambia v. Myanmar case at the International Court of Justice, legal scholar William Schabas denied that Myanmar committed genocide against the Rohingya because Myanmar’s intention was “ethnic cleansing,” not destruction of the Rohingya group as such. Schabas’ misinterpretation of the Genocide Convention treats genocide and “ethnic cleansing” as mutually exclusive intents. Schabas’ mistaken interpretation of specific intent was adopted by the International Court of Justice in its Bosnia v Serbia and Croatia v Serbia judgments. In those judgments, the ICJ held that if any other intent can be inferred from a state’s actions besides the destruction of a protected group, the intent cannot conclusively be proven to be genocide. This “only intent” or “single intent” test to prove “specific intent” to commit genocide is not only wrong to prove genocide. It is wrong to prove criminal intent for any crime. When a murderer intends to kill, his intent is not negated if he also has the intent to rob his victim. There are always multiple “intents” behind a genocidal campaign. Having more than one intent does not negate the specific intent to commit genocide. If such an “only intent” or single intent test were applied, even the Holocaust could not be proven to be genocide. Schabas also denies many other clear historical and ongoing cases of genocide, including the Ukrainian Holodomor, the Bangladesh Genocide, the Cambodian Genocide, and China’s genocide against the Uyghurs. Notes Human rights specialists spoke to Genocide Watch about the terrible conditions of Muslims in Myanmar, especially the Rohingya in Rakhine state. Most of the claims made by these experts have been corroborated by interviewees who spoke to Genocide Watch from a refugee camp in Bangladesh. The Rohingya are facing genocide, but other Muslim ethnic groups around the country are suffering widespread discrimination and persecution as well. Freedom of religion is severely limited, and mosques have been shut down around the country. The Rohingya are a minority in Rakhine state; Rakhine Buddhists form the majority group. Rohingya are not only Muslim, but are believed to look different from the majority population. Because they commonly possess distinguishable physical and cultural traits, it is easy for the police to identify and target Rohingya at checkpoints. Kaman Muslims, another ethnic Muslim group, are among the 135 officially recognized national ethnic communities in Myanmar. Despite being one of seven Rakhine sub-groups and the only Muslim group among the 135 recognized ethnic groups by Myanmar, Kaman Muslims also face institutional discrimination and suffered many deaths during the genocidal campaigns of 2017. Myanmar laws that create conditions for genocide: National Verification Cards (NVCs) – The NVC has been an important administrative tool used to dispossess Rohingya Muslims of their fundamental rights. The cards categorize the Rohingya as foreigners, stripping them of any chance to obtain citizenship. Rohingya people who have tried to refuse National Verification Cards have been tortured by officials in order to make them accept them. These coercive procedures increased before the genocide of 2017, a fact that is in direct contradiction with the claims by the Myanmar government that the NVC process started in response to the Rakhine State crisis. Genocide Watch’s interviewees confirmed that their family members were forced to accept the NVC, which classified them as “Illegal Bengalis.” The 1982 Burmese citizenship laws rendered the Rohingya stateless. Until 1982, the Rohingya were known as Arakanese. The Burma Citizenship Law deleted the term “Arakanese” from the list of eight indigenous groups and replaced the term with “Rakhine,” a word that denotes only the Buddhist community in Arakan State. Rohingya couples need to report their relationship to the state and have to remove any religious ornaments in order to get married. This process takes somewhere between six months and one year, and they also have to pay a fine to register their marriages. Travel restrictions are severe against Muslim communities. Rohingya need official documents and permits for traveling from one township to another, even within Rakhine State. Those found traveling without a permit are jailed for years, including children as young as five. Buddhist monks incite anti-Muslim hatred and violence: Buddhist monks have played a central role in inciting violence against Muslims in Myanmar for decades. They give incendiary speeches full of anti-Rohingya and anti-Muslim statements in front of large Buddhist audiences. Buddhist monks often refer to Muslims as “Kalar,” a derogatory term for Muslims and foreigners, and compare the Rohingya to ghosts and ogres that need to be removed from the country. Monks portray Islam as opposed to Buddhism. Many monks hold a narrow, exclusionary vision of Buddhist nationalism. Bamar Buddhist monks incited genocidal massacres of Rohingyas. Myanmar’s Buddhist and Muslim communities have been residentially separated by the Myanmar government in Sittwe and Maungdaw. In urban centers like Yangon and Mandalay, polarization of Buddhist and Muslim populations is slowly changing because Buddhist and Muslim youth now mingle with each other more than they did in the past. Social media spread hate and incitements to genocide: Facebook played a key role in spreading malicious hate speech in Myanmar, making it easy for the military to circulate incitements to genocide. The Tatmadaw has a special unit to spread hate speech and propaganda on Facebook. Facebook has become the dominant source of news and social discussion in Myanmar. It has quickly become the alternative to traditional news media. People who read Facebook often cannot differentiate between real news and propaganda. The Burmese language media were equally responsible for creating an atmosphere of antipathy toward Muslims. They identified the Rohingya as “Bengali” “foreigners” throughout the genocide. This "othering" desensitized the general citizenry to the plight of the Rohingya, entrenching the belief that they are illegal Bengali foreigners. Islamist militancy was a pretext for disguising the Tatmadaw genocide as "counter-insurgency": The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a tiny Rohingya militant group, has been involved in terrorist activities, including attacks on 30 police posts in August 2017. The Myanmar government cites these attacks as the justification for the Tatmadaw’s genocidal massacres in August 2017. Some experts contend that ARSA is actually sponsored and funded by the Myanmar government to engage in terrorist activities so that the government can justify its attacks on Rohingya civilians. The police arrest Rohingya leaders and imprison them. Those charged with terrorism are forced to accept national verification cards before going to prison. The cards identify them as “Illegal Bengalis”, not as “Rohingya,” a symbolization name that is still forbidden by the Myanmar junta. The NASAKA – An oppressive state authority: Myanmar’s border security force, formerly called and still sometimes referred to as the NASAKA, or “Border Immigration Headquarters,” has a heavy presence in the Muslim-dominated western region, including Rakhine State. It is an inter-agency force comprised of immigration, police, intelligence, and customs officers. It is tasked with securing the Burmese border. It is a state authority funded by the government that has been used to control and repress the Rohingya in Rakhine state. The NASAKA agency is responsible for enforcing discriminatory policies against the Rohingya – including travel restrictions, marriage restrictions, and the recently reactivated “two child” limit. It has also imposed forced labour and has extorted bribes for basic government services. The charges of NASAKA extortion were corroborated by our interviewee in Bangladesh. He told Genocide Watch that NASAKA officials extorted hefty bribes in exchange for not shutting down his business in Rakhine and for not evicting him from his land. Rakhine State’s population is strictly monitored. To keep a check on population growth, NASAKA officials take photographs of each Rohingya family in Rakhine every six months. Families have to report each death immediately or else they are fined by NASAKA. If visitors come into the Rakhine state, the head of the household must declare them to be guests or else everyone in the household can be arrested. During family list registrations, Muslims are humiliated by being asked to remove prayer hats or facial coverings. Islamophobia In India: The Hindutva Project In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), promote an exclusionary ideology called Hindutva. The Hindutva ideology contends that India must become a Hindu nation, a “Hindu Rashtra,” in which non-Hindus will be second class citizens. BJP leaders espouse Islamophobia as a key doctrinal tenet of Hindutva. Partition at independence in 1947 drove Hindu-Muslim hatred into a double genocidal frenzy and cost hundreds of thousands of lives. The hatred and genocide were rooted in deep animosity that has existed since the time of Mughal rule. Pakistan became an Islamic republic in 1947. But India under Nehru and the Congress Party made India a secular state with constitutional freedom of religion. While religious fault lines continued in post-independence India, the period up to the 1990s was one of relative calm. As the Sangh Parivar (RSS), comprised of several Hindu nationalist parties rose to political prominence, so did instances of mass violence against Muslims. The BJP is the electoral representative of the Sangh Parivar. After Narendra Modi’s BJP victory in the election of 2014, communal fissures have widened like cracks along like a geological fault line. Lynching has become the most common atrocity crime against Muslims. Lynchings of Muslims are increasingly deemed acceptable by extremist Hindutva leaders. Hindu mobs and right-wing militant groups beat up and kill Muslims in broad daylight. Perpetrators of such violence not only go unpunished but are even given rewards by community leaders and BJP leaders themselves. Muslims live in constant fear of violence, harassment, and bullying in north Indian states that are increasingly turning into a “Hindu Rashtra.” Kashmir has been a contested state between India and Pakistan since 1947. It is divided between the nations. Kashmir has been a hotbed of activities by Kashmiri separatists and pro-Pakistani militants. In the 1990s Kashmiri Muslim militants drove over 100,000 Kashmiri Hindu Pandits out of Kashmir. The Modi government uses this as a pretext to demonize the entire Muslim population of Kashmir and accuse Kashmiri Muslims of engaging in terrorist activities. In August 2019, Modi’s Central government revoked the Special Autonomous Status of India Administered Jammu and Kashmir provided by Article 370 of the Constitution of India. India currently has over 600,000 troops in Kashmir. The Indian Army and police have tortured, raped, and killed Kashmiri citizens with impunity. The Citizenship Amendment Act grants refugees from neighboring countries preferential access to Indian citizenship based on their religion. It excludes Muslims. This act, coupled with the nationwide verification process to identify “illegal migrants,” threatens the citizenship rights of millions of Indian Muslims, especially in Assam. Laws such as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) are used to detain Muslim students, activists, and others who speak up for Muslims. The BJP’s propaganda includes the perpetuation of Islamophobic conspiracy theories such as “Love Jihad,” which claims that Muslim men lure Hindu women to marry them to convert them to Islam. Hindutva thugs attack Hindu-Muslim couples, sometimes murdering them. Police file cases against them. The police, in most cases, support Hindu assailants and charge couples under anti-conversion laws. Men and women in interfaith relationships live in mortal fear of their lives. The media has become a tool for the government to vilify Muslims by spreading disinformation, holding highly provocative debates by religious fanatics, and depicting harmful stereotypes of Muslims. A government promoted film, “The Kashmir Files” is promoting anti-Muslim hatred. In December 2021 in Hardiwar, Hindutva leaders openly called for arming Hindus to murder Muslims. There has been a drastic rise in Islamophobic hate speech on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. Inflammatory posts made on social media have, in many cases, translated into actual violence. Normalization of anti-Muslim violence is a disturbing early warning sign of an approaching genocide. Genocide Watch has issued several Genocide Emergency Alerts for India since 2019. The Alerts warn that if concerted efforts do not stop genocidal processes, India could descend into genocide. Notes Genocide Watch spoke to human rights experts from U.S.-based human rights organizations about the rise of Indian Islamophobia and the Hindutva campaign to turn India into a “Hindu Rashtra.” Roots of Indian Islamophobia: Sporadic instances of inter-religious conflict have always existed in India, but the roots of modern Islamophobia can be traced back to the lead up to Partition in 1947. Over the course of a century of colonial rule, British authorities, as part of their divide-and-rule strategy, constructed a Hindu-Muslim binary opposition, casting the two groups as distinct and opposed political and national communities. Partition with its genocidal massacres sowed seeds of bitterness as both sides blamed the other for the extreme violence and suffering even though there were many perpetrators from both communities. Many Muslims migrated to the newly created Pakistan, but many also decided to remain in India. In the aftermath of these events, Islamophobia became centred around the idea of who “belongs” to India, and who is an Indian citizen. Hindu nationalism was also quick to rise following Partition. Muslims who remained in India were accused of not being Indian enough. India’s Muslims were portrayed as hiding disloyalty towards India. Extremist Hindus came to believe that they are the “true” Indians, with a more inherent connection to the land. Hindu nationalism has swelled under the BJP, based on the goal of a “Hindu Rashtra.” To push this religious of nationalism, Hindutva extremists portray Muslims as enemies of India, traitors, and potential terrorists that the entire country must stand against. Islam and Muslims are the “others” that true Indians must destroy. Religious division serves as a unifier of Hindus. Fear of Muslims is a strong attractor for votes and political power. In today’s India, Islamophobic narratives dominate media discourse.. The BJP knows that structural issues like poverty and hunger affect all groups, but Muslims have become a scapegoat to blame for the BJP’s failures. Anti-Muslim sentiments in India arise not only from religious hostility but also from an imagined idea of Indian identity and history. An example is the current government program to change names of cities named after historical Muslim rulers, such as Aurangzeb. Muslim rulers are portrayed as foreign oppressors, whose names must be eradicated from Indian history. Global War on Terror: India has been deeply affected by terrorism in the past few decades, including deadly Islamist attacks on major buildings, assassinations, and murders of political candidates and journalists. The Indian public and political leaders support the Global War on Terror. However, Muslims in India face a much higher likelihood of being arrested on charges of terrorism than Hindus, usually without any proof. Police persecution of Muslims has become acceptable and normalized. “In reality, the ‘Global War on Terror’ is actually a ‘Global War on Islam’.” The Hindutva project has particularly benefited from the Global War on Terror for two reasons. First, the Indian state has found opportunities to accuse Pakistan of supporting terrorism, sometimes with justification, as in the terrorist attack in Mumbai. Second, Indian Muslims are often suspected of secretly supporting Pakistan. Extremist Hindu groups refer to Muslims as Pakistanis even though Muslims have lived in India for hundreds of years. There are in fact more Muslims in India (over 200 million) than in Pakistan. Pakistan and Indian Muslims have become scapegoats for the failures of Indian leadership. Anti-Muslim laws and policies: The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was passed ostensibly for the benefit of refugees from neighbouring countries. However, its benefits are denied to Muslims from those countries. The law represents blatant discrimination as it grants citizenship in a way that explicitly separates Muslim refugees from non-Muslim refugees. Muslims from neighbouring countries, such as the Shias and Ahmadiyyas from Pakistan and Rohingya from Myanmar, have sought refuge in India, but the CAA has excluded them from such protections. The CAA is even more problematic in conjunction with the National Register of Citizens (NRC). The NRC requires all citizens to present documents to prove that they were Indians before 1971. It was aimed to exclude millions of Muslims who came to Assam to escape the Bangladesh Genocide of 1971. Refugees from that genocide cannot prove they were Indian citizens before 1971. Under the NRC, over two million Muslims from Bangladesh have been classified as deportable “foreigners.” Both Muslims and Hindus often lack documents to prove their citizenship. But differential application of the law has meant that Hindus are never classified as “foreigners,” whereas Muslims often are. The revocation of Article 370, which had given special status to Kashmir, has further served as an important piece of legislation aimed at depriving the Muslim-majority region of Kashmir of a political voice and ending the few remaining civil liberties Kashmiri citizens enjoy. In addition to these policies, there have been other laws that do not explicitly remove the rights of Indian Muslims but that slowly erode their cultural rights. In Assam, a law was enacted that anybody within a ten-kilometre radius of a Hindu village cannot slaughter a goat. This decision came exactly ten days before the Muslim festival of Eid al Adah, in which goats are traditionally slaughtered. “Now when an ardent BJP supporter sees a Muslim man 9.8 kilometres away from a Hindu village slaughtering an animal on Eid al Adah and no police is around, he decides to take law and order into his hands because the state can’t police such policies.” Dehumanization: There is an entire political, social, and ideological ecosystem that factors in the root causes of violence. Sometimes we only focus on its physical aspects, but there are many other forms of violence. Language is also a potent weapon. “Violence doesn’t start from sticks and stones. Violence starts from language, especially in a country like India where language of the leaders is extremely violent.” Whether it is Home Minister Amit Shah describing Bangladeshi migrants as “termites” or senior BJP leader Anurag Thakur making statements like “Goli maar salon ko” (Shoot the bloody traitors), this sort of public incitement to violence by political leaders can quickly lead to violence. Dehumanization is an important stage in the genocidal process wherein leaders replace the name of a community with another label and encourage the general populace to use dehumanizing language too. This process helps to deny a community’s existence and strips entire groups of their historical ties to a place and their present identities. Role of social media and traditional media: Social media has been an excellent platform for connecting people around the world. But it has also been a platform for hate groups to propagate hate speech. Vitriolic voices on the fringes who, until the advent of social media, had no platform to disseminate hateful content, can now disseminate hatred to hundreds of thousands of followers. Wars of words ensue between increasingly vocal and polarized voices on the political extremes. Moderates in the middle are vilified. “If you’re not with us, you’re against us,” becomes the exclusionary ideology to silence the people who can best stop members of their own groups from fomenting violence. Extremists occupy more and more of the political debate. Many people feel forced to choose between extremists from their own group and the “enemy.” This process of polarization in which society becomes divided has occurred not only in India but in other countries affected by populism worldwide. The political right in India has succeeded in creating an entire vocabulary (pseudosecular, anti-national, tukde gang, Khalistani, Pakistani) which has become extremely popular on social media. Social media, in general, is ill-equipped to deal with malicious content, but WhatsApp especially has no fact-checking mechanism. WhatsApp lacks any hate speech monitors at all, making it the most notorious platform that spreads anti-Muslim messages like wildfire. Videos showing young Muslim men being beaten up are circulated without fear of consequences. The highest level of the Indian state has effectively blessed Hindu mobs and vigilante groups to carry out attacks against Muslims without any consequences. The most disturbing part is that people know there is an large audience for this kind of incitement to violence. Every lynching has witnesses to film it and spread it across social media. The BJP has been able to capitalize on social media hate speech. The BJP even has its own IT Cell that churns out hateful rhetoric constantly. Traditional media have also contributed to Islamophobia. Many owners of newspapers, radio, and television support the Modi government and share the BJP’s Islamophobia.. Print media, including many revered newspapers, have resorted to writing hateful content to maintain their popularity with their readership. The Modi government is actively hostile towards the opposition press. The BJP has complete disregard for press freedom and honest independent journalism. Most of India’s broadcast channels serve as mouthpieces for the Modi government and have significantly lowered their journalistic standards.

Genocide Watch staff have published the thirteenthTimestream in a series of critical genocides in the world. This Timestream highlights important events in South Sudan prior to its emergence as an independent state in 2011 through the events leading up to the outbreak of civil war and genocide in 2013. Though Peace agreements have been signed, the violence continues. The existing humanitarian efforts of international and domestic NGOs are not enough to help the South Sudanese people escape from genocide. See the full Timestream here and view our other Timestreams here.

By Ethan Walton Serbians gather in anti-government protests, 2019 (Image Credit: DW) Serbians were both victims and perpetrators of genocide during the 20th century. Serbs were victims during World War II, when the Ustaše, Croatian Nazi collaborators who wanted an “ethnically pure Croatia," murdered over 500,000 Serbs, as well as most of the Jewish and Roma populations. This genocide by the Croatian Ustaše included forced deportations, mass rape, and genocidal massacres. Following Yugoslav President Tito’s death in 1980, Slobodan Milošević ignited Serbian nationalism, and Serb militias took over parts of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzogovina to create a “Greater Serbia.” Croatia and Bosnia declared their independence. Serb militias supported by Serbia carried out genocide and forced deportations of Croatians and Bosnians. Among the genocidal massacres were the Vukovar Massacre, in which Serbian militias murdered 264 captured civilians and prisoners of war (POWs) and buried them in a mass grave. Under Ratko Mladić’s command, Serb forces perpetrated genocide in Srebrenica, massacring at least 8,372 Bosnian men and boys. Over 50,000 women and girls throughout Bosnia were subjected to mass rape as a weapon of war, often in camps established specifically for rape. Similar crimes occurred during the 1998-99 Kosovo War. Serbian war crimes included the forced deportation and massacre of entire villages, including mass rape of women and girls. NATO intervention and the Kumanovo Treaty ended the war, but Serbia still does not recognize Kosovo’s independence. Slobodan Milošević was tried at the ICTY on 66 counts of war crimes and genocide but he died during his long trial while in custody. Ratko Mladić and Radovan Karadžić were convicted of genocide and sentenced to life imprisonment along with Serbian military leaders responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Many Serbs adamantly deny the atrocities Serbs perpetrated in Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo. In 1995, the Serbian Army exhumed mass graves and reburied bodies multiple times to hide evidence of the genocide at Srebrenica. The government of the Republika Srpska, the majority Serbian section of Bosnia, has published revisionist reports that minimize the number of Bosnian Muslims killed and make false claims that the graves in the Srebrenica memorial cemetery are empty. Serbian political leaders, including Milorad Dodik, current President of the Republika Srpska, deny the Srebrenica genocide. The Serbian government rejects the judgment of the International Court of Justice that the massacres in Srebrenica constituted genocide. Serbia refuses to pass laws, similar to those in Bosnia, that ban genocide denial. The Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), an offshoot of the ultranationalist SRS, has controlled the Serbian government since 2012. Popular desecration of Muslim religious sites and graveyards, personal attacks on Bosnians, and hate speech against Muslims remain rampant. Ratko Mladić’s name was recently chanted as a war hero by the crowd at Serbia’s national commemoration day. In January 2022, Milorad Dodik threatened secession of the Republika Srpska from Bosnia and the creation of a separate Serb army, in violation of the Dayton Agreement that ended the Bosnian war. These moves could reignite the civil war. Dodik postponed his plans when Russia invaded Ukraine, to keep Republika Srpska’s neutrality. Due to the threatened secession of the Republika Srpska from Bosnia and the potential for renewed civil war, political tensions with Kosovo, and official Serbian genocide denial. Genocide Watch recognizes Serbia to be at Stage 5: Organization, Stage 6: Polarization, Stage 7: Preparation and Stage 10: Denial. Genocide Watch recommends that: Serbia and Republika Srpska should accept the ICJ judgment that the Srebrenica massacre was genocide. Dodik should withdraw his threats that Republika Srpska should secede from Bosnia. If Dodik begins secession or organizes a Republika Srpska army, he should be removed from office by the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzogovina under the Dayton Agreement. Serbia should recognize the independence of Kosovo. © Genocide Watch 2022

By Ethan Walton (Press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Reuters) Russia’s history as a colonial empire has repeatedly brought genocide, forced deportation, and totalitarian tyranny to Ukraine. On 24 February 2022, after amassing 190,000 troops on Ukraine’s border, Russia began its war of aggression into Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin considers himself the restorer of the Russian Empire. Putin and Russian media prepared Russians for the invasion by claiming that Ukraine is governed by Nazis. This is genocidal “mirroring.” Putin’s claim that Ukraine intended to commit genocide against Russia justified Russia’s invasion and genocide as “self-defense.” Many Russian troops explicitly profess neo-Nazi sentiments. Russian generals support aggression, random violence, torture, and war crimes, as they proved in Chechnya and Syria. Planned cultural genocide in Ukraine is disguised as “de-Nazification.” In reality, this means the destruction of Ukrainian culture, history, and traditions. Putin claims that Ukraine is historically Russian territory. Appealing to Russia’s defeat of German Nazis in World War II, Putin claims that the intent of his invasion is to “de-Nazify Ukraine and end the “genocide” in the Donbas region. Putin’s real intentions are to depose the Ukrainian government, control Ukraine from Russia, ensure its neutrality, and seize Ukraine’s wealth. As Ukraine has retaken Russian forces from northern and central Ukraine, Putin has temporarily revised his goals to be the “liberation of Donbas”, Ukraine’s richest Russian speaking province, and control of Black Sea ports. During the past six months, Russia has indiscriminately and intentionally targeted civilian housing, apartment buildings, shopping centers, the Mariupol theatre, a maternity hospital and 226 other healthcare facilities, and other areas where civilian non-combatants have taken refuge. Russia’s policy is “Urbicide” – the destruction of whole cities with the intention of destroying a significant part of the Ukrainian national group. This is genocide. As Russian forces retreated from the suburbs of Kyiv, Ukraine uncovered numerous mass graves in Bucha and other towns. The bodies of many victims had their hands tied behind their backs, indicating that they were tortured before being executed. Putin has given “approval” to these acts of genocide, by decorating the brigade that committed war crimes and genocide in Bucha. The United Nations (U.N.) has documented 5,000 civilian deaths at the hands of Russian forces. Ukrainian government investigators claim at least 12,000 have been killed. In many areas taken by Russian troops but reconquered by Ukraine, women survivors have reported mass rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war. Urbicide is both genocide and also a policy of forced deportation. Russia’s Urbicide is meant to empty Ukrainian cities so they can be permanently occupied and controlled by Russia. 1.6 million Ukrainians have been forcibly deported to Russia by the Russian Army. They go through “filtration camps” where families are often separated and then sent as far as Siberia. Those found disloyal to Russia are imprisoned, tortured, and often summarily executed. Over 5 million Ukrainians have also voluntarily fled into Europe, and 7 million are internally displaced in Ukraine. Due to Russia’s intentional massacres of Ukrainian civilians, forced deportations, torture, sexual violence, and hate speech to incite, justify and deny genocide, Genocide Watch recognizes Ukraine to be at Stage 4: Dehumanization, Stage 8: Persecution, Stage 9: Extermination, and Stage 10: Denial. Genocide Watch recommends that: The US and other NATO countries should increase military aid to Ukraine and the Baltic states, including cruise missiles, fighter jets, torpedoes, tanks, and advanced anti-aircraft systems. The U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) should increase its Blue Dot Protection and Support Hubs in neighboring countries to provide aid, healthcare, education, and psychological support to refugees. International Criminal Court investigators should work with Ukrainian investigators to build cases to try perpetrators of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Ukrainian courts and in the ICC. The US and other countries should join other states-party as Intervenors in the case against Russia for violation of the Genocide Convention in the International Court of Justice. © Genocide Watch 2022

By Ethan Walton October 2022 Georgian troops riding in a civilian vehicle as a Georgian Armored Personnel Carrier lies wrecked on the road on August 11, 2008 near Gori, Georgia. Russia denied reports of Russian troops advancing during a fragile ceasefire declared in the region. (Credit: Cliff Volpe/Getty Images) Georgia declared its independence in 1991 as the former USSR (now Russia) collapsed. Since then, it has been beset by disputed territories seeking secession. With support from the Russian government, South Ossetian separatists attempted to break away from Georgia in 1991, as did ethnic Abkhaz in Abkhazia in 1992. The two territories seceded in 2008 following the Russo-Georgian war. During the conflicts in these breakaway regions, all parties committed war crimes. Most significantly, Abkhaz troops supported by Russia violated the ceasefire of September 1992 and forcibly expelled 250,000 Georgians from Abkhazia. In towns such as Sukhumi and Akhaldaba, Russian and Abkhazian soldiers massacred 5,000 ethnic Georgians, and tortured and raped many others. These crimes lack international recognition despite clearly being genocidal. Preceding the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, tensions between the two countries steadily increased and were exacerbated by troop buildups, military exercises, and the 2006 deportations or imprisonment of several thousand ethnic Georgians from Russia. A Russian artillery bombardment on Georgian positions on August 1st, 2008 sparked the subsequent twelve-day conflict. Russia believed controlling South Ossetia would prevent Georgia from obtaining NATO membership. The ceasefire agreement of the 12th of August 2008 firmly established the separatist regions and left Georgia with drastically reduced military capabilities. As a result of the conflict, Abkhazia and South Ossetia became de-facto independent territories with close ties to Russia. South Ossetia and Abkhazia are not recognized as independent states by the UN. Western states consider them occupied by the Russian military. The United Nations (UN) established the United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) in 1993, but Russia vetoed an extension of the mission in 2009, forcing the UN observers to withdraw. Georgia has accused Russia of war crimes including the forced removal of ethnic Georgians from South Ossetia, surrounding and burning Georgian villages, summary executions, and at least 100 documented instances of targeted rocket and artillery strikes on civilian areas. The Russian military used banned cluster munitions as well as minefields, both of which disproportionately killed non-combatants. In the city of Gori, President Putin ordered all ethnic Georgians to leave or be shot. Russian state television claimed that Georgia was carrying out a genocide in South Ossetia. These false claims were genocidal "mirroring" that presaged actual genocide by Russia. They were followed by Russian looting and burning of ethnic Georgian towns. Georgian minorities still living in the separatist regions face the eradication of their culture, the removal of the Georgian language from schools, and the denial of citizenship, which is only granted to ethnic Abkhazians. As a result, they cannot graduate from high school or buy and sell property without renouncing their Georgian identity. In 2021, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that Russia committed crimes against humanity, including torture, murder of civilians, and the burning of houses during the 2008 war. The International Criminal Court also issued arrest warrants for three South Ossetian officials deemed responsible for atrocities committed against ethnic Georgians. The Georgian Dream (GD) party, which now holds power in the country, has been accused of creating a one-party state and committing human rights violations against civilian protestors and political opponents. Opposition leader and former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili was arrested and imprisoned in January 2021. Law enforcement abuses against protestors and members of the LGBTQ+ community have also drastically increased. Due to Russia’s military domination of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Russia's denial of the crimes against humanity it committed against ethnic Georgians, and the erosion of political and cultural freedoms at the hands of the Abkhazian, South Ossetian, and Georgian authorities, Genocide Watch recognizes Georgia to be at Stage 3: Discrimination, Stage 5: Organization, Stage 8: Persecution, and Stage 10: Denial. Genocide Watch Recommends: The US and other nations should recognize the expulsion and mass murder of ethnic Georgians in Abkhazia as the crime against humanity of forced deportation as well as genocide. Authorities in Abkhazia and South Ossetia should protect the rights and culture of Georgian citizens, including the right to obtain citizenship without renouncing their ethnic Georgian heritage. Russia should remove all its forces from South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The Georgian government should cease crackdowns on protests and build a multi-party democracy.

By Christian Solidarity International (CSI) A checkpoint on the road between Armenia and Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh. January 2021. Yesterday at 10:30 am, Azerbaijani activists and soldiers set up a blockade on the only road connecting Nagorno Karabakh to Armenia, and thus to the rest of the world. As of 6 pm Armenia time, 13 December, the road is still blocked. The 120,000 Armenian Christian residents of Nagorno Karabakh are now effectively under siege. Hundreds of Armenian residents of Karabakh are stranded in Armenia, unable to return home. The Karabakh health authorities are unable to transport patients to Armenia for treatment. Local authorities are warning of a humanitarian disaster if Nagorno Karabakh is cut off from fuel, medicine, food, and other vital supplies from the outside world. Reached today by phone, Vardan Tadevosyan, the director of the Lady Cox Rehabilitation Centre in Stepanakert and CSI’s project partner in Karabakh, made these comments: "It is freezing cold and today there is no electricity. The disabled children and adults at the Rehabilitation Centre are anxious. The Azeris and their Turkish allies could attack again at any time. Everyone here recalls the Armenian Genocide and the ethnic cleansing and atrocities committed against Armenians in 1988-1994 and 2020. The Azeris circulate on their social media photos and videos of beheadings and other executions of Armenians, just like the Islamic State. There is a real danger of Armenians being trapped and massacred here if Azerbaijan is allowed by its partners in the West and elsewhere to take further special military operations against us. “We hope the great powers' oil interests in Azerbaijan and geopolitical interests in Turkey will not lead them to turn a blind eye to a resumption of the Armenian Genocide in Nagorno Karabakh. We appeal to Azerbaijan's economic and military partners to put a halt to the Aliyev regime's aggression.” Since Azerbaijan and Turkey’s 2020 war of aggression against the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh, the self-governing region has been almost completely surrounded by the Azerbaijani military, with only a small Russian peacekeeping force to protect the population. Thus far, the Russians have not used force to end the blockade. Azerbaijan’s campaign of ethnic cleansing in Nagorno Karabakh in 1988-1994 began similarly, with a blockade of road and rail traffic into the region, followed by armed attacks. The clear aim of the Azerbaijani dictatorship is to make it impossible for Armenian Christians to live in their homeland. CSI stands in solidarity with the Armenian Christians of Nagorno Karabakh. We support their right to govern themselves in their homeland, and we call on the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, and the Russian Federation to compel Azerbaijan to end the siege of Nagorno Karabakh. Christian Solidarity International (CSI) is a Christian human rights organization promoting religious liberty and human dignity. ©2022 CSI

Russian and Rwandan security forces patrol around election meeting in Bangui Central African Republic on December 25, 2020. Nacer Talel / ANADOLU AGENCY / Anadolu Agency via AFP Country Report: The Central African Republic December 2022 Since 2004, the Central African Republic (CAR) has been in a perpetual cycle of civil war. While CAR’s conflicts have historically been blamed on religion, classifying CAR's current conflict as a religious war overlooks its complexities and contributes to simplistic peacebuilding responses. CAR's civil war has also been driven by extreme poverty, socioeconomic inequality, unemployment, lack of education, and a struggle to control CAR's rich resources, which include diamonds, uranium, oil, gold, cobalt, and lumber. Despite its natural wealth, the CAR had the world's third lowest per capita GDP in 2022 according to the IMF. The current conflict began in 2013 and was mainly fought between Séléka rebels from the marginalized Muslim community and Anti-Balaka militias claiming to defend their Christian communities. 80% of the persecuted Muslim community was driven from the country. While the conflict has subsided in the capital city of Bangui, its dynamics have shifted to unlikely alliances, including one between the Séléka and Anti-Balaka. In 2020 they established several anti-government alliances, including the Front Populaire pour la Renaissance de la Centrafrique, Coalition des Patriotes pour le Changement (CPC) and Unité pour la Paix en Centrafrique (UPC). In response to new attacks by rebels, the CAR government hired the Russian "private" military Wagner Group, to provide “security” for CAR's diamond and other mines. The Wagner Group is a mercenary army financed by Russian billionaires and the Russian government. Wagner mercenaries have perpetrated war crimes and widespread crimes against humanity against civilians. Since 2017, the Russian military has donated large shipments of arms and sent an increasing number of Russian “military instructors” to support the CAR military. As of 2022, there are an estimated 2,000+ Russian mercenaries in the CAR. In return for its "services", the Wagner Group receives huge profits from its control of diamond, gold, uranium, and cobalt mines. The Central African government credits the Wagner Group with providing military training and helping the government push back rebel forces. Credible reports reveal that these Russian mercenaries have been involved in active combat, execution, torture, and beating of civilians. Some of their attacks have even targeted members of CAR government forces under the justification of “disciplinary action,” including the torture and murder of a government soldier for "drunkenness." The Wagner group has carried out bloody massacres in mining areas on the border of the CAR and Sudan, in order to control CAR's valuable gold trade. In the Western grasslands of the country, the Wagner Group has targeted Muslim Fulani herders. Known as “Mbororo” in Sango, the trade language of the CAR, the Fulani are a predominantly Muslim pastoralist group with Chadian origins. Given their nomadic livelihoods, the Fulani are often referred to as ‘foreigners’. They are suspected of disloyalty to the CAR though many have resided in the CAR for generations and have CAR citizenship. The Wagner Group considers all Muslims, particularly Fulani, to be enemy insurgents. This classification has put Fulani civilians at risk of genocidal massacres. The Front Populaire pour la Renaissance de la Centrafrique (FPRC) and the UPC, which are closely affiliated with the CPC, have been identified in United Nations reports as the perpetrators of massacres, crimes against humanity, and sexual violence against over 200 victims in the Mbomou and Haute-Kotto prefectures. Most of the target victims, aged between age eight and 55 years old, were gang raped. The Special Criminal Court in the Central African Republic issued its first verdict on October 31, 2022. The Court is staffed by international and national judges and prosecutors. It is supported by the United Nations and international donors. It has jurisdiction over grave crimes committed in the Central African Republic since 2003. The International Support Mission to the Central African Republic (MISCA) – was authorized in December 2013, following a series of UN and AU peacekeeping operations since 1997. This African Union force of 6,000 personnel was accompanied by the French Operation Sangaris from 2013 - 2016. The UN replaced the peacekeeping operation with MINUSCA. It has 14,000 troops as of 30 September 2022. Due to the atrocities committed against numerous civilians during its civil wars, Genocide Watch considers the CAR to be at Stage 5: Organization, Stage 6: Polarization, Stage 8: Persecution, and Stage 9: Extermination. Genocide Watch recommends that: The government must gain control over the CAR military and expel the Wagner Group from the CAR. MINUSCA's UN mandate and troop strength must be renewed. The Special Criminal Court must try perpetrators of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. Donor countries must increase funding to care for and resettle internally displaced persons and refugees.

By Ethan Walton Russia Country Report January 2023 Russian National Guard (Rosguardia) servicemen march through a street with a letter Z, which has become a symbol of the Russian military. Sevastopol, Crimea in May 5, 2022. As dominant nation in the Soviet Union, Russia ensured that political groups were not included as protected groups in the definition of genocide in the Genocide Convention. If they had been included, Stalin’s political purges would have been genocides. From Ivan III in 1478, the Russian Empire was built on genocide. Conquests of indigenous peoples of Siberia were genocidal. The Soviet Union continued Russia's history of genocide. Russia is now committing genocide in Ukraine. In 1932 the Holodomor famine in Ukraine starved 3.5 million Ukrainians and suppressed the Ukrainian independence movement. In 1931-33 Stalin also mandated collectivization in Kazakhstan, compelling peasants to turn over their food production to the Soviet Union. The resultant famine starved 1.5 million Kazakhs. Russia denies these genocides. During the 1979-89 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan one million Afghan civilians were killed, due to shelling, rocket strikes, and bombing campaigns. The Soviet army killed thousands of civilians in mass executions in retaliation for resistance. In the 1990s, Russia assisted the breakaway region of Abkhazia in genocidal massacres against ethnic Georgians, killing at least 5,738 and forcing 200,000 from their homes. Russia provided military support to the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the 2008 Russo-Georgia war. Russia used cluster munitions, burned Georgian dwellings, and forcibly displaced civilians from their homes under death threats. In Syria, the Russian military has kept the brutal Assad regime in power since 2015, and prevented rebel forces from overthrowing the government, solidifying Russian regional interests. A UN investigation concluded that Russian airstrikes during the seven years of conflict have constituted war crimes, because civilian zones were bombed at random with no military objective and targets were often hit repeatedly in order to kill rescue workers. Russian bombing has resulted in thousands of casualties. Russian destruction of Syrian cities has resulted in 700,000 refugees. In 2014, Russia illegally invaded Ukraine and annexed the Crimean Peninsula. On February 24th, 2022, Russian forces invaded eastern and southern Ukraine. This crime of aggression was condemned by 141 members of the United Nations General Assembly. Russia continues to carry out massive missile and drone strikes on civilian targets. Russian forces have committed mass murder, torture, mass rape, and genocidal massacres of Ukrainians in occupied areas. Putin denies the right for the Ukrainian nationality to exist. Russian propaganda dehumanizes and demonizes Ukrainians as "Nazis." This is genocidal "mirroring" in which Putin accuses Ukrainians of the very crimes Russian forces commit. Putin's threat of nuclear war is a bluff. Putin knows that first use will result in massive retaliation against Russia itself. Since 2014, the Russian mercenary organization, the Wagner Group, has fought in support of Russian interests in many nations, including Ukraine, Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic, and Mali. The group has targeted and executed hundreds of civilians in Mali. In other conflicts, including in the CAR and Syria, the Wagner mercenaries have sexually assaulted, robbed, tortured, and murdered thousands of civilians. The Wagner Group is funded by gold and gem mines it controls and by the Russian Ministry of Defense. The Wagner Group operates with no accountability for its crimes. Throughout Vladimir Putin’s presidency, the Russian FSB secret police have intimidated, imprisoned, murdered and repressed dissidents. In 2020, opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned and then imprisoned upon his return to Russia. Putin has cracked down on all protests, arrested journalists and human rights defenders, and suppressed free speech and journalism. Putin imposed a lawbanning homosexual “propaganda,” further limiting LGBTQ+ rights. Freedom House has classified Russian elections as non-democratic and authoritarian. Due to Russia’s genocide denial, its occupation of Georgian and Ukrainian territory, its genocide in Ukraine, its war crimes in Syria, its crimes against humanity by the Wagner Group, and its authoritarian repression, Genocide Watch considers Russia to be at Stage 4: Dehumanization, Stage 8: Persecution, Stage 9: Extermination, and Stage 10: Denial. Genocide Watch Recommends: Russia must withdraw its forces and stop its attacks on Ukraine and withdraw from South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The US and NATO must supply Ukraine with heavy battle tanks, artillery, and ammunition to defeat Russia. The US and NATO should supply Ukraine with cruise missiles and jets to destroy Russian missile and air bases. Vladimir Putin must be removed as the President of Russia. Putin's imperialist aggression must be defeated. The US and NATO should abandon their gradualist approach and fully support Ukraine now.

Special Report: March 2023 Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images Although Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex (LGBTQI+) people are not a protected group under the Genocide Convention, Raphael Lemkin's definition of genocide recognizes their intentional destruction as genocide. Nazis rounded up LGBTQI+ people and sent them to the same death camps as Jews. Genocide Watch believes that Lemkin was right to include their destruction as genocide. Cultural or state-led killings of gay people constitute Stage 9: Extermination in Genocide Watch's Ten Stages of Genocide. Sixty-seven countries still criminalize same-sex relations, and fourteen criminalize transgender and gender diverse people. States that actively target LGBTQI+ people often persecute other social groups as well. Death penalties for gay sex are enforced in several Middle Eastern countries. Iran has executed thousands of gay people since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran differs from most countries with anti-gay laws by authorizing "gender reassignment." Gay Iranians are forced through this process to "cure" their sexuality, with up to 4,000 surgeries reportedly carried out each year. After surgery, people are often shunned by their families. Many turn to sex work to support themselves. Areas controlled by religious fundamentalist groups can be deadly for LGBTQI+ people. Saudi Arabia punishes gay sex in some cases with death by stoning. In Somalia, Al-Shabaab uses Sharia Law as justification to execute people for gay sex. In Iraq, militias rounded up and killed gay people in 2009. The Islamic State executed gay people in Iraq and Syria until its defeat in 2019. Al-Qaeda has killed gay men in Yemen. In Afghanistan, the Taliban killed gay men in a “wall-toppling” execution in 2015. The Taliban's Sharia court system ran parallel to the state judicial system. Since regaining power in Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban has targeted LGBTQI+ people and has openly threatened to exterminate them. The death penalty for gay sex is technically in place in 11 countries but not enforced in all these countries. Yemen, Mauritania, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, Brunei, and Qatar are countries where the death penalty is still legally in place but not known to have been enforced. Northern Nigeria is another area with Sharia law that does not execute gay people. But in July 2022, a Sharia court sentenced gay men to death. A 2014 anti-gay law hardened sentences across all of Nigeria. In 2019, a global outcry pressured Brunei to cancel plans to enforce the death penalty by stoning for gay sex. Uganda’s parliament just passed a bill imposing life sentences for people who identify as gay and the death sentence for certain cases of “aggravated homosexuality.” The Constitutional Court overturned a similar “Kill the Gays” law in 2014, but hate crimes against gay people increased. Christian groups from the United States have promoted homophobia in Uganda. Ghana has proposed an anti-LGBTQI+ law. In 2017, Chechnya in the Russian Federation had a “gay purge.” The state rounded up and tortured gay people and encouraged “honor killings.” French activists filed a complaint at the International Criminal Court accusing Chechnya of genocide. Russia persecutes LGBTQI+ people. In 2016, Tanzania began an LGBTQI+ crackdown, though the situation seems to have improved since 2021. Globally, LGBTQI+ persecution is fueled by descriptions of homosexuality as ‘Western barbarism’ and a ‘virus’ that people should ‘kill.’ Britain punished gay sex with death until 1861 and spread homophobia globally along with other European colonizers. African and Asian societies were overall more tolerant of gay sex. Many countries have been repealing colonial-era anti-gay laws. Sudan lifted the death penalty for gay sex in 2020. Genocide Watch urges the United Nations (UN) to continue to advocate for the global abolition of the death penalty and the decriminalization of LGBTQI+ sexual relations in all countries.

Mladić mural in Belgrade. Credit: Danas/B.Č.B. Serbia Country Report August 2023 By Bekir Hodzic, Genocide Watch Genocide has defined Serbia’s modern history. During World War II, the Ustaše, a Croatian Nazi militia, committed genocide against Serbs, Jews, Roma and other non-Catholic minority groups. Chetniks, a Serb nationalist resistance force, committed genocide against Catholic Croats and Bosnian Muslims. These ethnic armies massacred hundreds of thousands of Yugoslavs. In Yugoslavia after Tito's death in 1980, Slobodan Milošević called for a "Greater Serbia" incorporating Serb populations in neighboring states. Serbia supported armed Serb militias to break away from Bosnia and join Serbia. Slobodan Milošević stoked hatred between Yugoslavia's national, ethnic, and religious groups. After Croatia and Bosnia seceded, Serb paramilitary militias sought to "ethnically cleanse" them by expelling non-Serb populations from Serb areas, subjecting them to crimes against humanity, including forced deportation, mass rape and mass murder. At Srebrenica in July 1995, Bosnian-Serb forces committed genocide, murdering over 8,000 Bosnian-Muslim men and boys. Map Image Credit: Britannica, Inc The Serbian Army invaded Kosovo in 1998 to defeat Kosovar-Albanian rebel groups fighting for Kosovar independence from Serbia. Serb forces perpetrated war crimes against ethnic Albanians, including massacres of over 10,000 Kosovars, forced deportations, and mass rapes. US War Crimes Ambassador David Sheffer declared on April 9, 1999, "We point to indicators of Genocide." A NATO bombing campaign on Belgrade resulted in Serbia's surrender and Kosovo’s autonomy. Yet Serbia still refuses to recognize Kosovo's independence. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) tried many Serbs for war crimes in Bosnia, resulting in high-profile Serb convictions. But in Serbia today, convicted war criminals are glorified by the government and media. Belgrade even contains a large mural devoted to Ratko Mladić, who ordered and carried out the Srebrenica genocide. Convicted war criminals hold prestigious political and social positions following their release from prison. Denial dominates political discourse. Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vučić, denies Serb atrocities in Bosnia and Kosovo. School textbooks inculcate Serbian nationalism and incite “hatred toward neighboring nations under the guise of patriotism.” Media freedom in Serbia is restricted. Dissenting voices on television are silenced and the right to public assembly is curtailed. Recent protests against mass shootings drew vitriolic condemnations by officials. Tensions in Kosovo between Serbs and Albanians have flared again, with violent ethnic clashes, Serbian military mobilization, and fear of renewed civil war. Genocide Watch considers Serbia to be at Stage 6: Polarization and Stage 10: Denial. Genocide Watch recommends: Serbia’s EU membership must be conditioned on an end to official genocide denial. Serbia must cut ties with secessionist leaders in the Republika Srpska. Serbia must reform its educational system to stop inculcating ethno-nationalism. Serbia must recognize Kosovo's independence.