By Andrés Mourenza and Lola Hierro, El País Flames burn a forest in Sykorrahi, in the northeast of the Evros region of Greece, on August 23, 2023. ACHILLEAS CHIRAS (AP). The Greek province of Evros, where at least 18 migrants were found burned to death Tuesday in a wave of wildfires ravaging the country, was already a hell on earth for those fleeing their countries in search of a better life in Europe. For more than a decade, countless cases of abuses and violations of the most basic rights against people attempting to cross the territory — where the homonymous river serves as a natural border between Greece and Turkey — have been reported. Beatings, forced deportations, rapes, and illegal detentions have been recorded by human rights organizations. But if the situation for people attempting to reach EU territory was already dangerous, now it has become considerably worse: since the most recent fire broke out last Saturday, groups of local residents have organized themselves into militias to hunt down migrants. It is not the first time such practices have been witnessed, but tensions have been stoked further by the popular belief that they are to blame for the fires. The chief prosecutor of the Greek Supreme Court, Georgia Adilini, on Wednesday ordered a double investigation to look for possible evidence of “an organized plan” to provoke the fire — although the police later stated that it had been caused by lightning — and to discover more details about the “alarming phenomena of violence” against migrants and incitements to “racist pogroms.” These investigations have arisen following a video shared on social networks on Tuesday in which a man triumphantly displays the result of what he considers his hunting booty. The man, who is also the alleged author of the recording, opens the hatch of a trailer attached to a van to display an undetermined number of captured men looking confusedly at the camera. Their captor refers to these people as “pieces,” claims there are 25 of them and that he has “hunted them down” because they are responsible for the fires. “The mountains are full of these,” he adds. “Part of the population thinks that the fires are the fault of the migrants and that’s why they chase them,” explains Lefteris Papayannakis, director of the Greek Institute for Refugees, in an interview with EL PAÍS. “They function as a militia; they arrest them on their own account and use violence against them.” The owner of the vehicle and suspected author of the video, a resident of the province of Albanian origin, and two other people of Greek nationality were arrested Wednesday. But Vassilis Kerasiotis, director of the NGO HIAS Greece and a lawyer specializing in migration, says that these militias are far from a one-off phenomenon and are organized with absolute impunity because the authorities prefer to look the other way. “There is tolerance on the part of the authorities, that’s why they feel they can freely publicize these criminal acts,” he adds. “Obviously, when a criminal act occurs, the authorities must react. That’s why they have arrested them,” he insists. “It’s frightening how openly accepted hostility against migrants is in a certain part of society,” says a spokesman for Alarm Phone, an organization dedicated to receiving messages from migrants in distress throughout the Mediterranean area and passing them on to the relevant authorities. Appeals to chase and capture migrants are spread through messages on social networks such as Facebook, X or TikTok. The video of the Albanian citizen showing the result of his “hunt” was uploaded to a channel on the Viber messaging network, with 240 members. Another recording released Wednesday shows a man dressed in military attire instructing several dozen residents of Evros to organize another pogrom. “Whoever can, start patrolling [...] But I’m going to ask you, no guns, no knives, or you’re going to get in trouble. It’s illegal. You will be arrested,” he says. Before the video of the illegally detained migrants appeared, Paris Papadakis, deputy of the far-right Greek Solution party for the province of Evros, published another inflammatory tirade in which he accused the migrants of “obstructing the work of firefighters” and of starting the blaze. Several left-wing MPs have called for Papadakis to be investigated by the Greek Parliament’s Ethics Committee. In his publication, the far-right MP described the situation as a “war” and called on his fellow citizens to organize raids to “arrest” illegal migrants “in the same way as in March 2020,” during the Greek-Turkish border crisis, when the government of Ankara facilitated the arrival of tens of thousands of migrants on the frontier with Evros. At that time, some locals organized themselves into militias to assist the police and the Greek Army in their defense of the border. Hiding for fear of deportations Evros was the main entry route to Greece and Europe until 2015 and 2016, when migrants started using boats to reach Aegean islands such as Chios or Lesbos. However, the transit of refugees has never stopped. So far in 2023, around 3,700 migrants have entered Greece via the land route, compared to some 6,000 in total in 2022, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It is possible that the numbers of those who have made it into Greek territory via Evros is in fact much higher. “More than 250,000 illegal entries were prevented at the Evros border during 2022,” the Ministry of Citizen Protection said in a statement. Some of that number probably crossed the border but were illegally deported by the Greek authorities, a very common practice in the area despite the fact that it violates both Hellenic and European laws. Various NGOs and human rights organizations have collected testimonies and evidence of about 400 such incidents during the last six years, in which some 20,000 migrants were illegally deported, in most cases with violent methods and having been stripped of their money and belongings. Between Tuesday and Wednesday, Alarm Phone passed on alerts about four groups comprising hundreds people trapped in the area affected by the wildfires: three of them on islets in the river and another in a wooded area near the town of Sufi. “The fact that in the face of a fire people are hiding in the forest instead of trying to get to safety gives an idea of the need they feel to hide for fear of deportations,” Vassilis points out. The Alarm Phone spokesman explains that the authorities contacted them and assured them that they had not found anyone at the indicated points. The organization also adds that on Wednesday, contact was lost with two of the four groups and that only the two larger ones, stranded on islets, remained in contact: one, of about 250 people, had been surrounded by the police. Another, of about 100 people trapped on an islet near the town of Lagina, was rounded up by officers and taken to a detention center. “We cannot say much more about the situation [of the groups], but previously, when the authorities claim they cannot find them, what they do is to attack the migrants and return them illegally to Turkey. It’s an excuse they often use,” says Vassilis. Groups of civilians hunting for migrants is yet another threat that adds to the already treacherous conditions they face when crossing the border. The route involves a militarized zone where no one is permitted to enter, not even humanitarian aid organizations. They use the dense forests to hide for indeterminate periods of time during which they have no access to food, sanitation, or any other basic necessity. “There is no assistance there. It is almost impossible to help them when they are in hiding. Sometimes they take food with them, sometimes they go somewhere nearby to look for it,” says Lefteris Papayannakis of the Greek Refugee Institute. “We know that sometimes the Turks give them food while forcing them to cross, or give them access to power to charge their phones.” Papayannakis adds that road accidents involving vehicles carrying migrants are frequent. “They are trafficked in cabs or vans to the cities. It is illegal, so sometimes the traffickers go very fast, in the wrong direction... We know of people who have died or been seriously injured because they were involved in an accident.” For his part, the Minister of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection, Vassilis Kikilias, has attributed the death of migrants to not having followed the evacuation orders that are sent automatically, in Greek and English, to all cellphones in the affected area: “In Evros there have been 15 fire outbreaks at the same time, which have joined together to form a huge fire,” read one. Satellite images show an immense area in flames, with a front reaching 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) and advancing “uncontrollably” in several directions. The dense smoke from this large fire, together with that of other fronts in Greece, has reached the islands of Sicily and Malta, more than a 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) away, and now covers 80% of Greek territory. Kerasiotis, of HIAS, takes a different view of the tragedy: “The cause of these 18 deaths is a combination of the absence of legal and safe entry procedures on Greek and European territory, together with the fact that potential asylum seekers are afraid of being illegally returned to Turkey.” © EDICIONES EL PAÍS

Peru has one of South America’s largest Indigenous populations. They are located in the Andean and Amazonian regions. From 1996 to 2000 former President Alberto Fujimori's regime performed coercive sterilizations (tubal ligation and vasectomies) on 272,000 women and 22,000 men by health workers who did not speak Indigenous languages or provide translators to explain what they were doing. Neo-Malthusian population notions inspired this racist campaign. European and Asian elites perceived Indigenous people as ‘the cause of poverty’ and sought to reduce their numbers. Article II(d) of the 1948 Genocide Convention, ratified by Peru in 1960, defines as acts of genocide "imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group." Peru's Programa de Salud Reproductiva y Planificación Familiar (PSRPF) or Programa Nacional de Población constituted genocide. Fujimori faced several legal procedures, but no prosecution resulted in conviction. Impunity remains. In the 1980s, nearly half of the Nahua people died following Shell Oil’s incursions onto their land. Logging, gas, and oil corporations threaten Indigenous ways of life. Their attacks include land invasions and murders. Violence against women, violent attacks by security forces, suppression of freedom of expression, corruption, and political violence remain major concerns in Peru. President Pedro Castillo, son of Indigenous peasant farmers, was hailed as a champion of the rural poor and Indigenous groups. Wealthy political elites had Castillo arrested. They accused him of illegally seizing control of Congress on December 7, 2021. Protests by poor and indigenous Peruvians ensued after President Dina Boluarte took Castillo’s place. The protests have resulted in scores of deaths at the hands of Peru's military and police. Peru's economy is at a standstill. Indigenous Peruvian communities in Lima have come together to support the protestors. They are calling for a new election and a new constitution. President Boluarte calls the protestors violent radicals who are being paid to promote drug traffickers, illegal miners, smugglers, and other criminal groups. These are false claims. Boluarte also claims it has been protestors, not police officers, who have killed civilians. As of Jan. 25, 2023, 45 of the 56 dead were protestors killed in direct clashes with security forces. Genocide Watch is issuing a Genocide Watch for Peru. Genocide Watch considers Peru to be at Stage 3: Discrimination against Indigenous people; Stage 4: Dehumanization of Indigenous people as ‘drug traffickers’ and ‘criminals.’; Stage 6: Polarization between wealthy European and poor Indigenous Peruvians; and Stage 10: Denial due to continuing failure to prosecute the architects of Fujimori's genocidal policies against Indigenous people. Genocide Watch recommends the following: · Peru should prosecute the architects of Fujimori's genocidal sterilization campaign and pay reparations to its victims. · New presidential elections should be held, and Pedro Castillo should be permitted to run again. · President Boluarte should stop dehumanizing protestors as criminals and drug traffickers. · Peru should improve its health and educational programs for Indigenous Peruvians. · Peru should withdraw military troops and police officers from non-violent protests. · Peru should write a new constitution with significant representation for Indigenous groups.

People look at portraits of victims who lost their lives during ethnic clashes, at a memorial in Churachandpur district in Manipur. | AFP GENOCIDE WARNING: ETHNIC CONFLICT IN MANIPUR, INDIA October 2023 Manipur, one of India’s northeastern states, has witnessed violent ethnic conflict between the majority Meitei community and the minority tribal Kuki community for the past five months. The deadly clashes have left over 200 people dead and over 70,000 displaced. Manipur, with a total population of 3.2 million, is geographically divided into the central valley, largely populated by the mostly Hindu Meitei, and the surrounding hills, inhabited by the predominantly Christian Kuki, Naga and other tribal communities. The trigger for the violence was a Manipur High Court order directing the state government to consider inclusion of the Meitei in the Scheduled Tribe category. This inclusion would grant them reservations (quotas) in jobs and educational institutions. The Kuki and Naga already enjoy Scheduled Tribe status. They protested granting the same status to the Meitei, who constitute a majority in numbers and in political power. After the protests turned violent on May 3, 2023, many incidents of murder, rape, kidnapping, torture, sexual assault and arson ensued, affecting people from both communities. The violence has driven nearly all the Meitei living in the hills to the valley and forced almost all Kuki inhabiting the valley into the hills. The state is completely segregated along ethnic lines. Even police officers are ethnically divided. Theft of weapons and ammunition from police armories has worsened the security situation. Members of both communities are crammed into overcrowded relief camps. Scarcity of basic resources and medical supplies in these camps has turned the conflict into a humanitarian crisis. The state government, run by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has done little to restore trust between the communities. It took BJP prime minister Narendra Modi two months to even acknowledge the Manipur violence, when a video showing two Kuki women being paraded naked by a Meitei mob caused public outrage. The state has imposed long internet shutdowns, restricting access to information and stifling public protest. Manipur chief minister N. Biren Singh, himself a Meitei, blames illegal Kuki immigration from neighboring Myanmar and drug trafficking for the violence. The indigenous Kuki, ethnically similar to tribes in Myanmar, fear displacement from their ancestral lands. Manipur has a history of insurgencies. The current conflict has a communal character. Hundreds of Kuki churches and Meitei temples have been destroyed. Genocide Watch considers the ethnic conflict in Manipur to be at Stage 3: Discrimination, Stage 4: Dehumanization, Stage 5: Organization, Stage 6: Polarization and Stage 8: Persecution. The government’s repeated attribution of violence to Illegal immigration and external forces is characteristic of Stage 10: Denial. Genocide Watch recommends that the state and union government: Adhere to directions issued in the Supreme Court order of Aug. 7, 2023, for an impartial investigation into crimes perpetrated during the conflict and during distribution of relief supplies. Ensure adequate supply of medicines, food, and other provisions to relief camps. Take immediate measures to recover the weapons and ammunition looted from state armories. Restore internet services. Assist families of missing persons to identify unclaimed bodies in mortuaries. Set up a truth and reconciliation commission to initiate ethnic reconciliation and restore stability.

By Genocide Watch Members of the Kuki Tribe protesting against the killing of tribals in their northeastern home state of Manipur, hold Indian flags during a sit in protest in New Delhi, India, Monday, May 29, 2023. (AP Photo/ Manish Swarup) As India revels in its G20 Presidency, Manipur, one of its northeastern border states, has been burning with ethnic conflict for the past six months. The violence broke out between the majority non-tribal Meitei community and the minority tribal Kuki community. The state is now in shambles with scores of settlements reduced to ashes. Genocide Watch has issued a Genocide Warning for the ethnic conflict, which has left over 200 people dead and 70,000 displaced. The state is now completely segregated along ethnic lines. Paddy fields have turned into battle grounds. Armed civilians have taken it upon themselves to guard their villages from ‘outsiders’. The state is governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), also in power at the center. While one might expect this to make it easier for the government to contain the violence, the BJP has left the people to their own devices. It took Prime Minister Narendra Modi two months to even acknowledge the violence, when a horrifying video of a Meitei mob parading two naked Kuki women went viral. The Supreme Court of India has censured the Manipur state government for its ‘tardy pace of investigation’. However, the government has not just been a bystander to the violence, but has actively contributed to it. Manipur has witnessed several insurgencies led by tribal groups demanding greater autonomy. Indian federal and state governments have done little to respond with positive programs to build trust among minority communities. The state is geographically divided into the central valley dominated by the mostly Hindu Meiteis, and the surrounding hills, inhabited by the mostly Christian Kukis, Nagas, and other tribes. The majority Meiteis dominate the state’s politics. For years, the valley has received most of the state’s budget and development funds, marginalizing the hill districts. Image Source: BBC The state’s current Chief Minister N. Biren Singh, himself a Meitei, has declared several tribal settlements as reserved or protected forests, citing encroachment by ‘illegal immigrants’. Singh’s crackdown on Kuki immigration from neighbouring Myanmar has pushed the hill tribes into a precarious position. Indigenous Kukis, ethnically similar to tribes in Myanmar, fear displacement from their ancestral lands. The government’s proposal to implement the contentious National Register of Citizens (NRC) to reduce the influx of ‘illegal immigrants’ threatens to disenfranchise undocumented members of native hill tribes. Singh’s ‘war on drugs’ is seen as another anti-tribal move as many tribal farmers rely on opium cultivation in the hills for their livelihood. The Chief Minister, refusing to call the current clash an ethnic conflict, continues to blame illegal immigration and drug trafficking for the violence. The state has imposed long internet shutdowns, some stretching over 150 days. These internet blackouts have done little to quell the violence but have further isolated Manipur from rest of India and stifled public protest. To make matters worse, the Solicitor General of India declared in the Supreme Court that all the unclaimed bodies lying in mortuaries belonged to ‘infiltrators’. He ignored the fact that relatives of dead tribal protestors could not claim their bodies because of ongoing blockades and lack of security. The Manipur state’s policies have widened the schisms between the Meitei and tribal communities. The conflict is now perceived by both groups as a struggle for survival, with each community seeking to emphasize its victimhood. What sets the current wave of violence apart from previous insurgencies is its communal character. The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has a history of exploiting communal differences for political gains across the country. With the BJP at the helm in Manipur, hundreds of Kuki churches and Meitei temples have been destroyed. While the Manipur state government has repeatedly called for a return of law and order, it has been part of the problem, not the solution. The Manipur government must no longer exploit ethnic rifts for political gains. This crisis is a humanitarian one that compels the Manipur BJP government to look beyond ethnic identities to promote India's common humanity.

Hezbollah's rockets and drones sparked a number of fires in northern Israel. EPA By David Gritten The Lebanese armed group Hezbollah has launched more than 200 rockets and attack drones into northern Israel, in response to the killing of one of its senior commanders. Israel's military said one of its officers was killed in the barrage, which started a number of fires. The military also said it had targeted Hezbollah “military structures” and other targets in southern Lebanon in response. Lebanese media reported that one person was killed in an Israeli drone strike in the town of Houla. The latest barrage, which followed one comprising 100 rockets on Wednesday afternoon, was one of the biggest so far in the nine months of cross-border violence which have raised fears of an all-out war. The Hezbollah commander killed in an Israeli air strike near the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, Mohammed Nimah Nasser, was one of the most senior figures in the group to have been killed in the conflict. The Israeli military said Nasser commanded Hezbollah’s Aziz Unit, which is responsible for launching rockets from south-western Lebanon, and accused him of directing a “large number of terror attacks”. It also described him as “the counterpart” of Taleb Sami Abdullah, the commander of another unit whose killing last month prompted Hezbollah to launch more than 200 rockets and missiles into northern Israel in a single day. There have been almost daily exchanges of fire across the Israel-Lebanon border since the day after the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza on 7 October. Hezbollah has said it is acting in support of the Palestinian group that is also backed by Iran. Both groups are proscribed as terrorist organisations by Israel, the UK and other countries. So far, more than 400 people have been reported killed in Lebanon, the vast majority of them Hezbollah fighters, and 25 people in Israel, mostly soldiers. The hostilities have also displaced tens of thousands of people from border communities in northern Israel and southern Lebanon. “The response to the assassination of the dear leader Hajj Abu Nimah [Nasser]... started last night and quickly," senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine warned at Nasser’s funeral in Beirut on Thursday. “This series will continue to target new sites that the enemy did not imagine would be hit.” Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said its military was “countering this Hezbollah aggression”. “We will use all and every means necessary to restore security to our northern border,” he told a briefing. A spokeswoman for the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, Unifil, said the exchanges were now extending deeper into both sides of the border, and called on both Israel and Hezbollah to show restraint. “We're very concerned... because any exchange, any incident, can escalate into something greater if there is a misunderstanding,” Kandice Ardiel told the BBC. There has been a flurry of diplomatic efforts to de-escalate tensions in recent weeks, with the UN and US warning of the potentially catastrophic consequences of a war that could also draw in Iran and other allied groups. Israeli officials have repeatedly warned that they are ready for a war if diplomacy fails. Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Wednesday that the military would soon be ready to “take any action required in Lebanon, or to reach an arrangement from a position of strength”. Hezbollah, which is seen as a significantly superior foe to Hamas, has said it does not want a full-out war with Israel and that it will observe in Lebanon any ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. But it has also warned Israel that it would fight “without rules” if there was a war. Copyright 2024 BBC.

By Christy Cooney Viktor Orban has been at odds with most of the rest of the EU about the appropriate response to the war in Ukraine. Credit: EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock The European Union's foreign policy chief, Josep Borell, has stripped Hungary of the right to host the next meeting of foreign and defence ministers over its stance on the war in Ukraine. It comes weeks after Hungary assumed the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, a role in which it would normally host the event, and amid anger over a meeting Prime Minister Viktor Orban held with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow earlier this month. Mr Borrell said Hungary's actions should have consequences and that "we have to send a signal, even if it is a symbolic signal". Hungary described the move as "completely childish". Every six months, under each new council presidency, the EU's foreign and defence ministers hold informal meetings to discuss the biggest global issues facing the bloc. The next set of meetings will take place on 28-30 August and were to be held in Budapest, but on Monday Mr Borrell announced they would instead take place in Brussels. Citing comments made after the meeting with Mr Putin in which Mr Orban accused the EU of having a "pro-war policy", Mr Borrell told reporters: "If you want to talk about the war party, talk about Putin. "I can say that all member states - with one single exception - are very much critical about this behaviour. "I think it was... appropriate to show this feeling and to call for the next foreign and defence council meetings in Brussels." Of the 26 other countries in the EU, only Slovakia has backed Hungary in the dispute. However, Luxembourg's Foreign Minister Xavier Bettel, told reporters that he would go to Budapest because a boycott would be "nonsense". Mr Bettel felt that it was better to tell the Hungarians the EU was unhappy with their actions as "ignoring or not choosing dialogue would be a mistake". Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski proposed that the August meeting should take place in western Ukraine, but that idea was blocked by Budapest. Responding to Mr Borrell's decision, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto wrote on Facebook: "What a fantastic response they have come up with. "I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but it feels like being in a kindergarten." Mr Orban's meeting with Mr Putin came as part of what he described as a "peace mission" - launched days after Hungary assumed the council presidency - that also saw him visiting the leaders of Ukraine and China, as well as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in the US. The trip sparked condemnation from leaders across the EU, with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen describing it as "nothing but an appeasement mission". Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said Mr Orban had "no mandate to negotiate or discuss on behalf of the EU", while Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said the trip sent "the wrong signal to the outside world and is an insult to the Ukrainian people’s fight for their freedom". The episode is one of numerous occasions since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on which Hungary has been at odds with most of the rest of the EU about the appropriate response. After winning re-election in April 2022, just months after the invasion, Mr Orban told a crowd of supporters that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was among the people he would have to "battle" in his fourth term. Last year, he repeatedly used Hungary's veto to delay a €50bn (£42bn) package of non-military financial aid to Ukraine. Copyright 2024 BBC. All rights reserved.

By Felix Horne Since the last election, the ruling party has exerted more control and increased its repression of basic liberties. There are few ways for Ethiopians to peacefully express dissent. This is what an election campaign looks like in Ethiopia, where the ruling coalition took 99.6 percent of parliamentary seats in the last national elections, in 2010. Jirata, who asked that his real name not be used, is a 19-year- old student who was campaigning for a legally registered opposition party recently, when security officials arrested him. They told him that he was working for a terrorist group" that sought to forcibly bring down the government. He was badly beaten over the course of three nights and released on the condition that he end his involvement in politics. He is still limping from his injuries, and he told me he no longer has any interest in getting involved in politics. He says he will vote for the government party "because life is easier that way. Ethiopia: Journalism under anti-terrorism law Jirata was working for an Oromo party, representing an ethnic group long targeted by the government. But as Ethiopians go to the polls in late May, the prospects for opposition parties to fully and fairly campaign are grim. Since the last election, the ruling party has only exerted more control and increased its widespread repression of basic liberties, including the rights to free expression, assembly, and association. The courts provide no justice in cases of political importance. While election day is unpredictable, it's clear that the avenues by which opposition parties can fully function and citizens can engage on political issues are largely closed. While there are 75 registered opposition groups, several of the largest parties have talked of boycotting the elections because of flawed electoral processes. Challenges with registering candidates, acquiring the funds they are legally entitled to, mobilising their supporters, and keeping their members out of prison have taken their toll. In short, there is limited space for government critics to play a peaceful and constructive role. Suppression of non-governmental voices The Ethiopian media provides little coverage of relevant political issues ahead of the election since what vestiges of independent media existed have largely been eliminated since 2010. Reporters critical of the government are regularly harassed, threatened and detained. In 2014 alone, over 30 journalists fled Ethiopia and at least six publications were closed down. Sources providing information to media and human rights groups are regularly targeted. Many diaspora media websites, while heavily politicised, remain blocked in Ethiopia. Journalists must choose between self-censorship, harassment, imprisonment, and exile. The situation has't been much better for opposition parties that want to organise peaceful protests and rallies ahead of the election. The Semayawi party (Blue Party), for example, is one of the newcomers in Ethiopia's electoral landscape, and since 2013 has tried to hold regular and peaceful issue-based protests. Protesters and organisers have frequently been arrested and harassed, their equipment has been confiscated, and permits unfairly denied. One of their leaders is on trial on trumped-up terrorism charges. The lone opposition parliament member is not running this time due to a split in his party, the Union of Democracy and Justice, in which Ethiopia's national electoral board played favourites. The net effect is that the government awarded the party name to an offshoot of the party that is more closely aligned to government policies and interests. No dissent allowed There are few ways for Ethiopians to peacefully express dissent or to contribute to the national political dialogue. Dissent of any type, particularly in rural areas, is dealt with harshly. The long-standing 5:1 system of grassroots surveillance - under which one individual is responsible for monitoring the activities of five households - has let local officials clamp down on dissent before it spreads beyond the household level. Telephone surveillance is commonplace, and the ongoing trial of a group of bloggers called Zone 9 has resulted in increased self-censorship online. In short, there is limited space for government critics to play a peaceful and constructive role. The only international observers to the election will be the African Union. The European Union is not sending observers, noting that Ethiopia has not implemented recommendations by previous election observers. As Human Rights Watch documented after the 2010 elections, those who complain about election irregularities risk arrest and harassment. "If we have an issue with government where do we go?" an Ethiopian who lives in a rural area recently told me, summing it up: There is no media that will write our story, there are no more organisations that work on issues that the government does not like, if we take to the streets we are arrested, and if we go to their office to question we are called terrorists. If we go to the courts, there is no independence - we go to jail. There are no large opposition parties to vote for in the election, and even if there were, if we vote for them our lives then become very difficult. So what can we do? The elections are just another sign of our repression (c) 2015 Al Jazeera

Members of Afro-descendant communities, rendered 'foreigners' due to a discriminatory nationality law, are speaking up. By Ana Naomi de Sousa Lisbon, Portugal - "Our nationality law is one of the best in the world," says Portugal's deputy minister, Eduardo Cabrita, whose office overlooks the 25th April Bridge - named after the 1974 revolution which spelled the end for the fascist dictatorship and, eventually, for Portugal's long-running colonial projects. "I worked on it myself," he adds. Cabrita is referring to the recent amendments that make Portugal one of the more generous countries in Europe for resident, tax-paying migrants and for descendants of Portuguese nationals anywhere in the world, seeking to naturalise. Not everyone, however, is reaping the benefits. An unknown number of young men and women, born in Portugal since 1981, have found themselves excluded from Portuguese citizenship because of a change in the nationality law that year. Despite having been born and spending all their lives in Portugal, this misplaced generation are legally considered "foreigners" because their parents' immigration status was not regularised at the time of their births. It is an issue that, for reasons that are at the same time historical, socioeconomic and political, predominantly affects Portugal's black, Afro-descendent communities, who originate mostly in the African former colonies of Cape Verde, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Sao Tome and Principe, and Mozambique. Illegal migrants in a country they've never left "I didn't really notice it until I started school, and then I realised that my ID card was blue," says Nuno Dias, who was born in Lisbon in 1983, "whilst the other kids had a yellow one. Even my teachers at school didn't understand why, if I was born in Portugal, I couldn't get Portuguese nationality." Both of Dias' parents are Cape Verdean and had not yet applied for Portuguese nationality when he was born - so, from birth, Dias had the ID card of a "foreigner". "My older brother was born in 1981, just before the law changed, so he was already considered Portuguese; my sister was born in 1992, and by then my parents had naturalised, so she was considered Portuguese. But I, the middle child, was the only foreigner - I got stuck in the middle," Dias says. Like many of his generation, Dias' parents did not at the time understand the impact of the law change, nor could they easily access information on how to navigate Portugal's notoriously complex bureaucracy. "You're talking to one case," says Dias, "but our entire generation was marred by this issue." At his practice in Amadora, on the outskirts of Lisbon, lawyer Jose Semedo Fernandes has seen many cases like Dias'. "With nationality laws, at different points in history, one criteria becomes dominant over another," he says. "From 1959, the dominant criteria in Portugal was 'Jus Soli' [right of land], meaning that anybody born in Portugal, wherever their parents were from, was considered Portuguese," he says. "But from 1981, the predominant criteria became 'Jus Sanguis' [right of blood]. So, from then, lots of people born in Portugal were actually considered 'foreigners" or even illegal immigrants - illegal immigrants who have never left Portugal." The 1981 law was introduced just six years after the former colonies gained their independence. Its critics, like Semedo Fernandes, believe that the new law unfairly targeted the first and second generation who began to move to Portugal in significant numbers during that period. A matrix of problems The case files testing the shelves of Semedo Fernandes' office serve as a catalogue of the challenges facing Portugal's black, Afro-descendent communities: summary house demolitions, police harassment, deportations, and discrimination. To these could be added poverty, marginalisation, low literacy levels and unemployment - issues that they have faced ever since arriving here. For Afro-Portuguese activist and social worker Ana Tica Fernandes, the situation has changed since her parents first arrived in the 1970s from Cape Verde - but not enough. "Our problem is with institutional racism - it's not so much day-to-day manifestations of prejudice, unpleasant as those are, but it has to do with the policies and institutions that we need ... addressing the nationality law is one aspect of this." Despite the nationality law having been debated and amended several times since 1981, notably in 2006 when it was made easier for those born since then to nationalise, sufficient provisions have not been made for those previously affected. Those born in the 1981 to 2006 window - to parents whose immigration status had not been regularised - face a particular matrix of problems: they are prevented from joining official sports teams, cannot access national or local funding to study and, as foreign citizens, do not have the same employment rights as Portuguese nationals. Once they turn 18, they can supposedly apply for nationality through one of several loopholes, but the process is often prohibitively complicated - and costly. "In order to obtain nationality, an adult born in Portugal has to prove that they have been living uninterrupted in the country for the last 10 years," Semedo Fernandes says. He points out that many in this situation are forced to go abroad to study or work because they don't, in the first place, have the authorisation to do so in Portugal. "Many people just don't have this proof that they demand. So, I think it's hard to say that the Portuguese nationality law is good, despite what they claim. For those of us who were born here, for the Afro-descendants here, it's not good - it's quite unjust," he says. "Not only have they not resolved the situation of those already affected, but now what they're doing is the opposite: they've actually been taking nationality away from people who already had it." A campaign, "For a New Nationality Law", launched last month by grassroots organisations and activists including Ana Fernandes, has already gained national mediaattention. One of its most important demands of the state is the collection of specific data. However, there are no signs from the government that the law will be amended any further. "Our law is already one of the most open in Europe and it's allowed for significant growth," says Cabrita, the deputy minister. Complications in proving nationality The impact of not having Portuguese nationality, despite being born in the country, can be huge: it can leave people without the right to live, study and work in the European Union, and has even resulted in the deportation of some, after serving a criminal sentence, to a country they have never set foot in. One of Semedo Fernandes' recent cases involves a young man living in the UK, who had returned to Portugal to get a new national identity card after his previous one was damaged. "He booked a fast-track appointment to get it done quickly," recalls Fernandes, "but two days later, he received a letter telling him that he was no longer Portuguese - apparently, there had been an 'error', and they had made a mistake in giving him Portuguese nationality to start with." Fernandes laughs in disbelief, shaking his head. Although the man, after protesting, was given the option of re-applying for nationality, Fernandes believes he will now face a common problem: he has a criminal record, for a minor offence. "The issue of the criminal record is actually the main problem with the nationality law," Fernandes says, explaining that someone convicted of a crime with a potential sentence of three years or more is unable to claim nationality. "Even if you were given a small fine for a crime for which the maximum sentence is three years, that's what counts - you lose your right to nationality," he says. "But there are hardly any crimes that have a potential sentence of less than three years." In communities suffering from heavy-handed policing, social marginalisation and poor access to education and employment, "the likelihood of an applicant having a criminal record, however minor, is high," according to Fernandes. Structural racism Portugal's structural racism is, visibly, deeply embedded in its urban geography. The centuries-old historical centre of Lisbon and the city's wealthy waterfront and hillside areas belie what urban researcher Antonio Brito Guterres has dubbed "the invisible city" - a sprawl of neglected self-built neighbourhoods and shoddy tower blocks. Much of the newer housing was rapidly constructed from the 1990s to replace the "bairros de barracas" shantytowns which sprung up in the post-colonial period. While often demolishing the sense of community and resilience that was incubated within the bairros, these bleak, state rehousing projects have done little to alleviate the social and economic marginalisation of the people who live there. In projects like Casal da Boba and Bela Vista, police stations were actually built into housing estates, exacerbating tensions between police and residents and increasing the sense among communities that they are being unfairly marginalised. The killing in 2009 of Elson "Kuku" Sanches, an unarmed, 14-year-old boy by a police officer, is by no means the only - for many, still unresolved - allegation of racialised police violence and impunity - but it is perhaps the one that has left the deepest scar. "I feel like we have never recovered from the death of Kuku," says Mamadou Ba, the director of SOS Racismo Portugal, and a member of the left-wing Bloco de Esquerda (Left Bloc) political movement. "Not only because we are talking about the death of a child - but also because the police officer walked free. It proved that the police have total impunity - and it deeply affected the [anti-racist] movement." Semedo Fernandes, who himself grew up in the bairro of Santa Filomena, which has since been demolished, says: "In these neighbourhoods, the police cruise around and provoke people. All you need to do is look sideways for them to stop and frisk you - it used to happen to me all the time." From a young age, the horizons are limited for many Afro-Portuguese children growing up in these environments. "They are ghettos," says sociologist Cristina Roldao who focuses on education and exclusion, "and there are also schools that in reality only serve these ghettos." Secondary school pupils surveyed in a recent study conducted by Roldao, who are from the PALOPS - the international community of mostly African, Portuguese-speaking countries - were three times more likely to be held back a year at school, and 80 percent more likely to be pushed towards vocational courses instead of higher education. The PALOP designation is the closest Roldao can get to analysing the issues affecting Portugal's black, Afro-descendent communities, because the Portuguese authorities say the constitution does not allow for the collection of statistics based on race or ethnicity. Likewise, the number of people from any specific group affected by the 1981 nationality law change remains unknown. Roldao is one of many calling on the Portuguese state to disregard the constitutional clause. By making it impossible to collect data that could prove the existence of institutional racism, say activists, the government is able to perpetuate a long-standing Portuguese myth. "They try to make it seem - and perhaps some of them even believe it," says prominent community activist Flavio "LBC" Almada, "that in Portugal there is no racism; so why separate data to reveal a problem that doesn't exist?" According to Ana Fernandes, this is one of the main problems activists and community workers in the Afro-descendent communities face in convincing the Portuguese state to take their concerns seriously. "When the UN committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination visited Portugal last year, they recommended - for the second time - that Portugal implement specific measures for the Afro-descendent community," she says. "And once again, Portugal simply told them they aren't going to do that, and that there was no need because there's no racism here." This dismissive assertion, often repeated in official and public discourse, is part of a historical complex that continues to haunt Portugal today, angering those in minority communities whose lived experience is very different. "When Portugal ranked as the second-most welcoming country for foreigners, it made me think of a man who commits domestic violence," says Semedo Fernandes, laughing but with indignation. "Outwardly, they're seen as good people: respectful, hardworking and responsible, but when they get home, they beat their wives and children - that's what happens to us." With pressure building behind the campaign to change the nationality law, the government may be forced to readdress its flaws, but to do so may also involve confronting some inconvenient truths about the historical treatment of Portugal's black population. For Ana Fernandes, it cannot come soon enough. "My daughter is three years old - but I don't want her generation to still have to struggle for the same things that my parents and I have struggled for. That's why I fight." (c) Al Jazeera 2017

By Danna Wilken and Sarah Kane Genocide Watch staff have published the fifth Timestream in a series of critical genocides in the world. The war in Yemen between the Houthis and Saudi-led Coalition has severely affected the civilian population. The people continue to experience famine, cholera, and thousands of casualties. UN programs meant to address the humanitarian crisis are dangerously underfunded. Yemen is in a state of genocide. This Timestream illustrates the rise of the Houthi rebels in Yemen and the resulting war and humanitarian crisis through the events of July 2020. See the full Timestream here and view our other Timestreams here.

By Deanne Wilken and Tom Shacklock Genocide Watch staff have published the ninth Timestream in a series of critical genocides in the world. This Timestream details the history of the Indo-Pakistani conflicts over the Kashmir region since 1947 and how the people have been affected by the violence. Since revoking Article 370 of the constitution, which granted autonomy to Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian government has incrementally attacked the rights and livelihoods of the country's Muslim minority. Kashmiri residents continue to face repression, violence, and human rights abuses, and fear becoming increasingly marginalized by India's Hindu majority. See the full Timestream here and view our other Timestreams here.

Prominent British Jews warn China’s treatment of its minority Uighur population has chilling echoes of past genocides. At least one million Uighurs have been detained in internment camps in China's northwest Xinjiang province, according to the United Nations [File: Huseyin Aldemir/Reuters] London, United Kingdom – Prominent Jewish figures in the United Kingdom are marking Holocaust Memorial Day by speaking out over China’s treatment of its minority Uighur population, saying they have a “moral duty” to do so. Held every year on January 27, Holocaust Memorial Day commemorates the people systematically killed by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany during World War II – six million Jews, many Roma, the disabled, and others – as well as victims of later genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Darfur. Now, leading British Jews have warned there are chilling similarities between contemporary events in China’s northwest Xinjiang province, where there is mounting evidence of a state-orchestrated campaign of repression against the Uighurs, and those historic tragedies. According to the United Nations, at least one million Uighurs, a mostly Muslim minority, have been detained in internment camps in the Xinjiang region, which borders eight countries including Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Mia Hasenson-Gross, executive director of the Jewish human rights organisation Rene Cassin, said China was effectively attempting to “eradicate” the Uighur language, culture and tradition. “Rather than allowing this to escalate to the point where the Uighur will become another people whose genocide we remember in [the] future, we have the opportunity now to prevent that from happening,” Hasenson-Gross told Al Jazeera. “Holocaust Memorial Day is designed to remind us of the atrocities that can happen and the important lessons we need to learn from the early stages of indifference and complicity that enabled these final acts of physical destruction,” she said ‘Grievous horror’ in Xinjiang In the build-up to Holocaust Memorial Day, Rene Cassin co-hosted an interfaith event on Monday to highlight the Uighurs’ plight. Uighur advocate Ziba Murat, who participated, said it was “incredibly meaningful [to] recognise our suffering”. Murat’s mother, a Uighur doctor, was sentenced to 20 years in jail in China in March 2019 after disappearing six months earlier. Gulshan Abbas was officially sentenced on terrorism-related charges, but relatives say she was jailed because of family members’ human rights activism in the United States. “It is bittersweet to see the situation acknowledged for the grievous horror that it is,” Murat told Al Jazeera, adding she did not “know for certain” whether her mother was still alive. “It’s so hard to be recognising that things have built to this point, but it’s important to acknowledge how the international community is failing the mandate of ‘never again’,” she said. Murat warned of a “dire future” for China’s Uighur population unless other countries stop conducting “business as usual” with Beijing and instead press for closing the internment camps. “Our entire ethnic identity and very lives have been targeted, that is the meaning of genocide,” she said. “Any government who cares about human rights and human dignity must bring these horrific abuses and those missing Uighurs to any dialogue with China going forward.” Other events drawing attention to the issue in line with this year’s commemoration include a special ceremony at the West London Synagogue on Wednesday. “We believe that, as survivors of intolerance, persecution and ultimately genocide, and as ‘speakers by experience’ … we have both the moral authority and with it the moral duty to act,” Hasenson-Gross said. ‘One cannot stand silently by’ Jonathan Wittenberg, the senior rabbi of Masorti Judaism in the UK, said Beijing was in effect executing a “deliberate state-sponsored policy to destroy” the Uighurs through its treatment of the minority group. “One cannot stand silently by while such things happen in the world,” Wittenberg, whose parents fled Nazi Germany as refugees, told Al Jazeera after taking part in Monday night’s interfaith event. “This is about our shared common humanity, and that’s a call to us all,” he said. “There’s something very important about not letting persecutors feel as though they have the power to do anything they like.” Critics of Xinjiang’s internment camps, including the UK government, say inmates at the network of facilities have been subjected to human rights violations including arbitrary detention, forced labour, torture and forced sterilisation, among others. China denies those accusations and claims the camps are “re-education” centres. Chinese officials have long insisted that mass “education and training” is necessary in Xinjiang in order to fight what they call the “three evil forces of extremism, separatism and terrorism”, and boost economic development there. At the time of publication, the Chinese embassy in the UK had not responded to Al Jazeera’s request for comment. © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network

By Anna Killen Genocide Watch Country Report: Guatemala February 2021 Maya women mourning those killed during the 'Silent Holocaust' (Credit - ImpakterLimited) Since the arrival of Spanish colonizers in 1534, Guatemala’s indigenous population has endured centuries of racism and exploitation. Guatemala has eighteen million people. Forty-three percent belong to 23 Mayan groups. Fifty percent are "mestizo" (mixed) and six percent are of European descent. In the 1870's, Guatemala's government confiscated huge swathes of Mayan land and sold it to the United Fruit Company. Mayans are now low wage plantation labor on what was once their own land. Mayans have little voice in politics, the economy, or in the judicial system. In 1951, the democratically elected President of Guatemala, Jacobo Árbenz announced plans to redistribute land to 100,000 families. The United Fruit Company opposed the land redistribution. A CIA backed military coup d'état overthrew Árbenz. A series of military dictatorships followed. The Guatemalan military received counter-insurgency training from the CIA at the School for the Americas, and military equipment, including tanks and helicopters. During the 1970-80’s, the Guatemalan Army conducted an outright genocide against the Mayan population. The U.S. supported the genocide, claiming that Marxist rebels threatened a communist takeover. Over 200,000 people were killed. Eighty-three percent of the victims were Mayans. A Historical Clarification Commission concluded that 93 percent were murdered by the Army and police death squads. The bloodiest period of the genocide, known as ‘The Silent Holocaust’, occurred between 1982-83 under General Efraín Ríos Montt. The Guatemalan military and paramilitary razed between 430-630 villages and killed over 200,000 Mayan peasants living in the highlands. 200,000 refugees fled into neighboring Mexico. One million Guatemalans were internally displaced. One million Guatemalan refugees fled to the USA. Survivors’ testimonies and the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala have revealed that the Mayan population experienced severe dehumanization, mass executions, mass rape and torture. Indigenous activists, students, professors, trade unionists, religious leaders, journalists, and government opponents were also targeted. Today, impunity in Guatemala remains high. Only a few low-level perpetrators received sentences in the years following the genocide. Hundreds of cases remain open. Despite a historic conviction on May 10, 2013 which sentenced Ríos Montt to life in prison for genocide, the Ríos Montt appointed Supreme Court overturned the verdict on a technicality. Ríos Montt died during his re-trial. After persistent government denial, a unanimous court ruling in 2018 acknowledged that the military carried out genocide against the Mayan people. Accountability remains out of reach as prosecutors refuse to press charges due to fear of military reprisals. Journalists and indigenous rights defenders are often "disappeared", arrested, or murdered. During the Guatemalan Genocide all of the Ten Stages of Genocide were evident. Today Guatemala is at Stages 3: Discrimination and 8: Persecution against Mayan people. Guatemalan leaders are at Stage 10: Denial due to failure to prosecute the architects and perpetrators of the Guatemalan genocide. Genocide Watch recommends: - Enforce Guatemalan and international laws against crimes against humanity, murder and genocide. - Provide real protection for indigenous rights defenders and journalists. - Fund organizations like the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala and the Centro Para la acción Legal en Derechos Humanos (CALDH) which work for accountability and the rule of law. - Include indigenous languages in schools and offices in Mayan communities in Guatemala. GENOCIDE WATCH is the founder and coordinator of the Alliance Against Genocide E-mail: president@genocidewatch.org Website: www.genocidewatch.com Tax exempt EIN: 26-1672589 Download report