Detainees report severe restrictions on movement,. suicidal ideations, and threats. (BANGKOK, August 5, 2020)—The Government of Bangladesh should free more than 300 Rohingya refugees detained on Bhasan Char island and cease plans to transfer additional refugees from mainland camps to the island, said Fortify Rights today. Testimonial evidence from 15 Rohingya refugees reveals severe restrictions on freedom of movement and serious mental-health concerns for Rohingya confined on Bhasan Char—a poorly equipped, flood-prone island located off the coast of mainland Bangladesh. “The confinement of Rohingya refugees on Bhasan Char is unlawful mass arbitrary detention,” said Matthew Smith, Chief Executive Officer of Fortify Rights. “The government should immediately reunite Rohingya on the island with their families and communities on the mainland.” From April to July 2020, Fortify Rights interviewed 15 Rohingya refugees, including two Rohingya women and a 16-year-old girl currently detained on Bhasan Char as well as family members of those detained on Bhasan Char, Rohingya camp leaders, and other Rohingya refugees. “We can go out of our room only when we go to collect our food,” said an 18-year-old Rohingya woman currently detained on the island. “Apart from that, we are not allowed to go outside. If we go out, the police are [there] holding batons.” Another Rohingya refugee woman detained on Bhasan Char told Fortify Rights how Bangladesh authorities threatened her life. She said: The authorities came to us and tried to make videos of us and told us to say we feel good here. The authorities told us, “Say you feel good here and that you will stay here.” I refused to make the video, and they said, “Why are you not making the video? We will not be challenged. If we kill you here, we will say you had coronavirus.” A Bangladesh officer told the woman: “There is no justice for you, even if we kill you here.” “We are very sad and keep crying all day here,” she told Fortify Rights. “All the women are saying that they will die of hanging here.” Another Rohingya woman on Bhasan Char told Fortify Rights that some women on the island are considering suicide. “The women are planning to commit suicide because they cannot tolerate the suffering anymore,” she said. She told Fortify Rights that she experienced hardship traveling by boat from Bangladesh in an attempt to reach Malaysia: “We had also suffered on the boat,” she said. “It was like Kiyamot er Alamot [the “the sign of the day the universe is damaged” in Rohingya language, or a “vanishing of all creatures,” roughly translating to “hell” in English] . . . Oh Allah, what we can tell you about our suffering here?” “They keep crying there all the time,” the father of one of the Rohingya women detained on the island told Fortify Rights. “They cannot go outside.” There are an estimated 300 Rohingya, including some 30 children, currently detained on Bhasan Char after Bangladesh authorities rescued them from a ship stranded at sea in May 2020. Between May 3 to 7, the Bangladesh Navy rescued at least 329 Rohingya refugees from a ship adrift at sea for months after passengers could not disembark in Malaysia. Malaysia has repeatedly pushed boats of Rohingya out to sea, putting refugees and survivors of human trafficking at grave risk. The Bangladesh authorities transferred the rescued refugees to Bhasan Char island, justifying the use of the island as a quarantine facility to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The government continues to confine the refugees on the island despite the completion of the recommended 14-day quarantine period to prevent COVID-19. Fortify Rights also documented coercive government plans to transfer Rohingya refugees from mainland camps to Bhasan Char. In mid-July, Camp-in-Charge (CiC) officials operating under the authority of the Bangladesh government’s Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner called on Rohingya camp leaders, known as Majhis, to identify Rohingya refugee families to participate in a “go and see visit” to Bhasan Char. “The CiC said that we need to go and see Bhasan Char first [and], after coming back, that we must tell the people we feel good about the island,” one of the Majhis told Fortify Rights. “[The CiC] said, ‘We will take people there because the people here [in the camp] are now overcrowded.’” A CiC in Cox’s Bazar District confirmed to Fortify Rights that the government is planning a “go and see visit” for Rohingya refugees to Bhasan Char. “I heard that the Bangladeshi government wants to send some Rohingya refugees to the island, but I will not go,” a Rohingya woman living in a mainland camp told Fortify Rights. “No one came to tell us about the island.” Fortify Rights previously documented a similar pattern of planned forced relocation to Bhasan Char in October 2019, exposing how Bangladesh authorities created a list of Rohingya refugees slated for relocation without consulting or obtaining consent from them. The Bangladesh government subsequently suspended its plans. Any plans for relocations to alternative locations should be developed in close consultation with the refugee community to ensure relocations are safe, dignified, and voluntary, Fortify Rights said. Expressing concern about the use of Bhasan Char, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres sent a letter to Bangladesh Foreign Minister A. K. Abdul Momen on May 15, recommending that the government move the refugees from Bhasan Char to the mainland camps after they complete a quarantine. “While those rescued at sea may be quarantined for public health purposes, they must also be extended the protection they deserve as refugees,” Guterres wrote. “I trust that they too, will benefit from the humanitarian services offered to the Rohingya in Bangladesh and that, at the end of their quarantine period . . . they will be allowed to rejoin their families in Cox’s Bazar.” More recently, on July 23, the United States House of Representatives passed a bipartisan amendment to a bill that would prohibit the use of U.S. funds to support any forced relocation of refugees to the island. In an open letter to Prime Minister Sheik Hasina on November 12, 2019, Fortify Rights and 38 other organizations, including Rohingya-led organizations, expressed concern about the island and called on the government to facilitate a U.N. technical assessment of its facilities. The government has yet to facilitate such an assessment and questions remain about arrangements on the island. Dhaka should urgently provide access to the island for a U.N.-led technical assessment team, said Fortify Rights. Article 9 and 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Bangladesh is a state party, protects rights to liberty and freedom of movement, respectively. These rights apply equally to refugees, who should never be detained solely on the basis of their immigration status. Given the remote and isolated nature of the island, the inability of refugees to leave the island, and the severe restrictions on freedom of movement on the island, Bhasan Char is essentially an island detention center. Indications of the lack of adequate healthcare and unmitigated traumatic stress on the island further violates detainees’ right to health, which is protected by Article 12 of International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. More than a million Rohingya refugees, most of whom fled genocidal attacks by the Myanmar military in 2016 and 2017, live in overcrowded refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar District, Bangladesh. Since September 2019, the Government of Bangladesh has restricted mobile internet communications in the camps and surrounding areas, limiting access to vital information during COVID-19. “Bhasan Char is a floating prison for genocide survivors, and it’s unconscionable,” said Matthew Smith. “It is no place for Rohingya refugees. The Rohingya detainees have a right to protection and to be reunited with their families.” SOURCE: FORTIFY RIGHTS

Activists and rights groups condemn series of raids by National Investigation Agency in disputed Kashmir, New Delhi and Bengaluru. Al Jazeera \ 30 October 2020 AFP’s Kashmir correspondent Parvaiz Bukhari, right, talks to his colleagues after NIA officers searched his premises on the outskirts of Srinagar [Mukhtar Khan/AP] Activists and rights groups have condemned Indian agency’s raids on non-governmental organisations, activists and journalists in Indian-administered Kashmir, national capital New Delhi and the southern city of Bengaluru over alleged “terror funding” in the disputed region. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) conducted a series of raids in those places on Wednesday and Thursday, accusing several “non-profit groups and charitable trusts” of collecting funds and using them for “carrying out secessionist and separatist activities”. India’s crackdown on Kashmiri rebels, leaders and activists has escalated since August 2019 when New Delhi scrapped the special status of the Muslim-majority region, also claimed by Pakistan. Among those raided were Kashmir-based rights activists Khurram Parvez and Parveena Ahangar, the office of the Greater Kashmir newspaper, the house of Agence France-Presse’s (AFP) Kashmir correspondent Parvaiz Bukhari, and the properties of former Delhi Minority Commission chairman Zafarul Islam Khan in the national capital. The groups raided by the NIA included the Falah-e-Aam Trust, Charity Alliance, Human Welfare Foundation, JK Yateem Foundation, Salvation Movement, and J&K Voice of Victims. ‘Himalayan lie’ Khan, 72, who heads the New Delhi-based Charity Alliance, told Al Jazeera the NIA’s allegation of his NGO funding terror in Indian-administered Kashmir was a “Himalayan lie”. “Apart from some relief work like sending medicines, blankets and giving some very small monetary help to flood victims, we have no work worth mention in Kashmir,” he wrote. Calling the raids “well-planned and choreographed”, Khan said he had “no contacts” with Kashmiri rebels and has not visited the region in many years. The former Delhi state minority panel chief accused the government led by right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of targeting him for his report on the religious violence in the city earlier this year – the worst in decades, which killed at least 53 people, most of them Muslims. “They are trying to penalise me for my work in the Delhi Minorities Commission, especially the report on the northeast Delhi riots,” Khan said. ‘Authoritarian tactics’ The NIA raids were also criticised by global rights watchdogs. The Human Rights Watch on Friday said the BJP government was using “counterterrorism operations to silence peaceful dissenters, human rights activists, and journalists” by bringing in “politically motivated criminal cases” against them. “Using authoritarian tactics against outspoken critics and journalists needs to stop,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, HRW’s South Asia director. Another statement released by the Amnesty International on Thursday said there was a “worrying pattern” in India where anti-terror and foreign funding laws were “being repeatedly and deliberately weaponised to intimidate, harass and restrict the ability of civil society groups from operating”. “These raids are an alarming reminder that India’s government is determined to suppress all dissenting voices in Jammu and Kashmir,” said Amnesty’s Julie Verhaar. The raids came days after Indian authorities sealed the office of an English daily, the Kashmir Times, causing outrage from journalists and condemnation from global media watchdogs. Last week, the office of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet called out India’s “problematic” and “vaguely-worded” laws that are increasingly being used to quell voices in civil society. The three such laws Bachelet identified were the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Last month, Amnesty International’s India office said it was forced to halt its work after its bank accounts were frozen by the government over alleged FCRA violations. India’s Hindu nationalist government has used the stringent UAPA to arrest and jail dozens of Muslim activists who had protested against the passage of the CAA in December last year. The law fast-tracks Indian nationality for all minorities from neighbouring Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, except Muslims, a provision critics say is unconstitutional. Bilal Kuchay contributed to this report. © Al Jazeera 2020

The arrest of Mir Shakeel-ur-Rehman, editor-in-chief of the Jang Group, in March was seen as an attack on press freedom. Last week, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called on Pakistan's supreme court to order Rehman's release, saying he was being held on a 'spurious charge' [Arif Ali/AFP] 9 Nov 2020 Pakistan’s Supreme Court has granted bail to the owner of one of the country’s largest media groups, after a months-long detention condemned by rights groups as suppression of the press. “The court has granted bail to Mir Shakeel-ur-Rehman, he is going to be released after spending more than 200 days in detention”, Rana Jawad, Geo TV’s director of news, told AFP news agency on Monday. Mir Shakeel-ur-Rehman’s Jang Group, which includes some of Pakistan’s biggest newspapers and the Geo television network, has frequently been critical of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government as well as the country’s powerful military. He was arrested in March over alleged corruption in a land transaction dating back to 1986, an accusation denied by his representatives who in turn alleged that Pakistan’s corruption watchdog targeted him because Rehman’s media group looked into the agency’s workings. Last week, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called on Pakistan’s supreme court to order Rehman’s release, saying he was being held on a “spurious charge”. Employees work at the newsroom of Geo News television channel in Karachi, Pakistan April 11, 2018 [Akhtar Soomro/Reuters] RSF added Rehman’s group was targeted because its journalists “dare to tackle stories that are supposed to be off-limits”. Pakistan routinely ranks among the world’s most dangerous countries for media workers and criticism of the country’s powerful security establishment has long been seen as a red line. Journalists and bloggers have complained of intimidation tactics, including kidnappings, beatings, and even killings if they cross that line. Last month, a Geo journalist briefly went missing after reporting on the controversial arrest of an opposition politician. Geo News, which has been critical of both the government and the army, has faced several brief broadcast suspensions. In recent years, the space for dissent has shrunk further, with the government announcing a crackdown on social networks and traditional media houses decrying pressure from authorities, which they say has resulted in widespread self-censorship. SOURCE:AFP See article here. © 2020 Al Jazeera

A spokesman for Pakistan’s Ahmadi community said he believed Mahmoob Khan was killed because of his faith. Police confirmed the shooting took place, but declined to offer any motive [Courtesy: Anjuman Ahmaddiya] Gunmen shot and killed an 82-year-old Ahmadi man on the outskirts of Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar, officials said on Monday, the fourth-such alleged targeted killing of a member of the minority group in recent months. The attackers shot Mahmoob Khan on Sunday as he stood at a bus terminal, said Saleem ud Din, a spokesman for Pakistan’s minority Ahmadi community. Ud Din said he believed the gunmen had attacked Khan because of his faith. He demanded that the government must take “decisive action” against perpetrators. “One after another, Ahmadis are being targeted in Peshawar while the government has repeatedly failed to protect and stop the violence against the members of the Ahmadiyya Community,” the spokesman said in a statement sent to Al Jazeera. Police confirmed the shooting took place but declined to offer any motive. Last month, a professor from the Ahmadiyya sect was killed by his colleague following arguments on religion. The Ahmadi faith was established on the Indian subcontinent in the 19th century by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, whose followers believe he was a prophet. Many Muslims claim Ahmadiyya beliefs are heretical to Islam because they believe Muhammad was the last prophet. Pakistan’s parliament classified Ahmadis as non-Muslims in 1974. Ahmadis have repeatedly been attacked by armed groups since the law was passed, drawing condemnation from human right groups. Scientist Abdus Salam who was also from the community, who shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics, has largely been ignored in Pakistan due to his religious identity. Human Rights Watch (HRW) in May called the Pakistani government’s exclusion of members of the Ahmadiyya religious movement from a commission on safeguarding the rights of minorities “absurd”. “The Ahmadis are among the most persecuted communities in Pakistan and to exclude them from a minority rights commission is absurd,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at HRW, a US-based rights group. SOURCE:AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES © 2020 Al Jazeera Media Network

Pakistan submits UN chief a dossier accusing India of ‘stoking terrorism’ a day after New Delhi gave a dossier to some UNSC members against Islamabad. India and Pakistan have accused each other of supporting rebels in their respective territories [File: Mohsin Raza/Reuters] 25 Nov 2020 Pakistan gave UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres a dossier on Tuesday accusing India of stoking “terrorism” in Pakistan, a day after India provided a dossier to some UN Security Council (UNSC) members accusing fighters from Pakistan of attempting an attack in the disputed Kashmir region. The tit-for-tat moves come ahead of India joining the 15-member council for a two-year term starting January 1, 2021. Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Munir Akram accused India of violating international law, the UN Charter and Security Council resolutions, by sponsoring “terrorism”. He said Pakistan called on Guterres and the international community “to take note of Indian terrorism and subversion against Pakistan and to prevail on India to desist from these illegal and aggressive activities.” "Their lies have no takers." - INDIA'S MISSION TO THE UNITED NATIONS Earlier this month, Pakistan’s foreign minister and military spokesperson released details of what they termed “India’s state sponsorship of terrorism”, alleging the Indian government and intelligence agencies were funding the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and ethnic Baloch armed separatist groups that conducted attacks on Pakistani soil. The exchange of such allegations between the two South Asian countries is common, but the specificity of this round of Pakistan’s accusations, which included names of alleged Indian intelligence agents, dates of alleged meetings, audio clips of purported intercepted phone conversations and documentation of bank transfers was unprecedented in recent history. ‘Zero credibility’ A spokesperson for India’s mission to the United Nations in New York denied the charges. “Pakistan can cry hoarse from the rooftops. But they cannot change the fact that they are the epicentre of terrorism,” the spokesperson said. “Their lies have no takers.” India’s permanent representative to the UN, TS Tirumurti, dubbed it “dossier of lies” that enjoyed “zero credibility”. “Concocting documents and peddling false narratives is not new to Pakistan, host to worlds largest number of UN proscribed terrorists and entities,” tweeted. Pakistan’s foreign ministry on Tuesday slammed India’s submission of the dossier to some UN Security Council members accusing Islamabad of backing “terrorism”. 'Divert international attention’ The Himalayan region of Kashmir has long been a flashpoint between nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan, with both claiming Kashmir in full but governing it in part. UN peacekeepers have been deployed since 1949 to observe a ceasefire between India and Pakistan in the Muslim-majority region. "The completely baseless and unsubstantiated Indian allegations are nothing but a reflection of desperate efforts on India’s part to salvage its false terrorism narrative against Pakistan..." - PAKISTAN'S FOREIGN OFFICE SPOKESPERSON ZAHID HAFEEZ CHAUDHRI India said on Monday four rebels, belonging to the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Muhammad, made their way into Kashmir through a tunnel last week and opened fire when their truck was stopped for a routine inspection. Pakistan has rejected allegations of any involvement in the alleged attack and said they were aimed at diverting attention from India’s repression of the people of Kashmir. “The completely baseless and unsubstantiated Indian allegations are nothing but a reflection of desperate efforts on India’s part to salvage its false terrorism narrative against Pakistan and to divert international attention from its state-terrorism in IIOJK [Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir] and state-sponsorship of terrorism against Pakistan,” said Pakistan’s foreign office spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri in a statement. Last August, India’s Hindu nationalist government stripped Kashmir of its limited autonomy and brought the region under central rule. Kashmiris have accused New Delhi of trying to bring demographic changes by amending laws that allow outsiders to buy land in the Himalayan region. The UNSC blacklisted the head of Jaish-e-Muhammad in May last year after China dropped its objection to the move, ending a decade-long diplomatic impasse. SOURCE : AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES See full article here. © 2020 Al Jazeera Media Network

Allegations made in a 338-page report by the International Commission of Inquiry for Mali which investigated violence between 2012-2018. United Nations investigators into violence in Mali have told the Security Council of evidence that security forces committed war crimes, and fighters and other armed groups perpetrated crimes against humanity. The allegations were made in a 338-page report by the International Commission of Inquiry for Mali, a three-member panel which investigated violence that unfolded over six years from 2012-2018. The probe, whose conclusions have been sent to the Security Council but have not yet been made public, recommends setting up a court that specialises in prosecuting international crimes. “The Commission has reasonable grounds to believe that the Malian defence and security forces committed war crimes, including violence to the life and person of civilians and persons hors de combat suspected of being affiliated or cooperating with extremist armed groups,” says the report, acquired by the AFP news agency on Tuesday. The landlocked Sahel country descended into violence in 2012 when ethnic Tuareg separatists launched an armed uprising in the north of the country, which was then overtaken by an armed campaign of fighters. France, the former colonial power, launched a military operation in 2013. The fighters then regrouped and expanded their campaign into central Mali, inflaming a region with ethnic rivalries, before advancing into neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger. Thousands have died and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes. “The Commission considers that extremist armed groups committed crimes against humanity and war crimes,” the report says. These include “murder, maiming and other cruel treatment, rape and other forms of sexual violence, hostage-taking and attacks against personnel of humanitarian organisations and MINUSMA”, the UN peacekeeping force in Mali. The report was drawn up by a commission comprising Lena Sundh of Sweden, Simon Munzu of Cameroon and Vinod Boolell, a Mauritian, who were appointed by the UN secretary-general in January 2018. They handed their report to UN chief Antonio Guterres in mid-2020, and he sent it last week to the 15-member Security Council. The investigation details in chronological order 140 cases of violence or abuse between 2012 and 2018. In 2013, security forces in northern Mali carried out “many killings” of Tuareg, Arabs and Fulani, also called Peuls, who were suspected of links to armed groups, it found. From 2015, violence on civilians moved to the volatile centre of the country, starting with the Fulani community, which had become associated with the fighters after a firebrand Fulani preacher named Amadou Koufa set up an armed group. In one incident, on June 17, 2017, an armed group called Dan Na Ambassagou, which is drawn from the Dogon community, retaliated for the death of one of their members by attacking several Fulani hamlets, killing at least 39 civilians, including children. The raids marked the beginning of “systematic” attacks on the Fulani in Koro, the report says. “The Commission has reasonable grounds to believe that those acts amount to murder that constitutes a crime against humanity,” it says. It also names three Tuareg or Arab armed groups as having committed war crimes – the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, known by its acronym in French of MNLA; the Self-Defence Group of Imghad Tuareg and Their Allies (GATIA), and the Arab Movement of Azaward-Platform (MAA-Plateforme). Unlike other UN reports, the conclusions of the International Commission of Inquiry can be used as a legal basis for possible prosecution. © Al Jazeera 2020

Videos circulating on social media showed men using hammers to damage the temple after an address from Muslim leaders. Pakistan has approximately eight million Hindus, the majority of whom are based in the southern province of Sindh, near the border with India [File: Akhtar Soomro/Reuters] 30 Dec 2020 Hundreds of Muslims attacked and set fire to a Hindu temple in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday, police and witnesses said. Videos circulating on social media showed men using hammers to damage the temple walls as thick grey smoke rose from the site. The incident took place in a remote village in Karak district, some 100km (62 miles) southeast of Peshawar, the capital of the northwestern province of Khyber Pakthunkhwa. “A charged mob of some 1,000 to 1,200 people were incited by the local Muslim clerics to destroy the Hindu temple,” district police chief Irfanullah Khan told the AFP news agency. Discrimination and violence against religious minorities is commonplace in Pakistan, where Muslims make up 97 percent of the population and Hindus just approximately 2 percent. Earlier this month, the United States placed Pakistan on a list of “countries of particular concern” for religious freedom violations. Khan said resentment towards the temple, which was not in regular use, has been brewing for years, particularly after recent renovation work was carried out. “The police have registered a case against some 20 people and with the help of videos, we will trace more culprits,” Khan added. Kamran Bangash, the provincial information minister, also confirmed the attack and the veracity of the videos seen on social media to AFP. “We believe in freedom of religion and those who were involved will not be spared,” Bangash said. Local resident Sulaman Khattak told AFP the crowd marched towards the temple after they were addressed by Muslim leaders. “They were prepared, some were carrying hammers and jerry cans of oil with them”, Khattak told AFP. “We will stage a protest in front of the Supreme Court against the attack on our temple which is one of the four largest holy sites of the Hindu community in Pakistan,” Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, a governing party legislator and head of the Pakistan Hindu Council, told the dpa news agency. Vankwani added that Pakistan was already “facing pressure in terms of religious freedom and minorities’ rights, therefore such acts of extremism must be curbed at any cost”. The country’s human rights minister, Shireen Mazari, said the government has a responsibility to “ensure safety and security of all our citizens and their places of worship”. Mazari said the local authorities had registered the incident and “further action being taken”. The temple was vandalised and demolished in 1997 but, in 2015, the Supreme Court ordered its restoration. Pakistan has approximately eight million Hindus, the majority of whom are based in the southern province of Sindh, near the border with India. See article here. © Al Jazeera/AFP News Agency 2021

Almost 4,000,000 Sudanese have been forced from their homes in 14 years of tribal violence and battles between government and opposition fighters, the Norwegian Refugee Council says. The aid group listed Sudan as number three in its latest report, The World's Most Neglected Displacement Crises, saying almost five million Sudanese were now dependent on humanitarian aid, with three million of those living in the war-scarred region of Darfur. "Hundreds of thousands of people do not receive the lifesaving help they need because of challenges in accessing communities," the council said before blaming "a 40 percent shortage in funding and a lack of international media attention to the crisis". Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said: "The international community has not only forgotten these crises but has never really shown sufficient willingness to contribute to a solution. "Many of the displaced people have fled their homes multiple times, and each time they get increasingly vulnerable." Darfur has been unstable since 2003 when different groups complaining of marginalisation by the Sudanese government started an armed campaign. The conflict attracted a government-backed militia known as the Janjaweed, who were blamed for widespread killings that have been labelled as genocide. OPINION: The hidden impediment to political change in Sudan Babar Baloch, spokesman for the UN refugee agency UNHCR, told Al Jazeera: "You have a situation where people are running from a conflict in South Kordofan [Sudan] and coming to South Sudan. "But South Sudan is also in conflict, there is famine, more than half of the population is facing food insecurity and a quarter of them are displaced, including in Darfur and Kordofan." The UN estimates as many as 300,000 people have been killed in the Darfur conflict, but the Sudanese government says the death toll has been grossly inflated. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Aljazeera

The Indian government has adopted attitudes similar to Myanmar's towards the Rohingya Earlier this month, India sparked panic among its long-suffering Rohingya refugee population by deporting a family of five to their home country ofMyanmar, where they will most certainly face human rights violations and imprisonment. This expulsion came on the heels of the controversial forced repatriation of seven Rohingya men last October. For Rohingya refugees currently residing in India, who the authorities claims are as many as 40,000, this second deportation seemed to harbinger a frightful pattern, especially as India's far-right government had previously pledged to deport all Rohingya. Ruling party officials have made such threats despite international law prohibiting states from refoulement, sending persons to nations where they risk persecution. In Myanmar, such persecution is a near-certainty. More than 700,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh after an army crackdown more than a year ago. UN officials have described the Myanmar military's action as genocide and called for government officials to be prosecuted. The United Nations and many other rights groups and international bodies still deem Myanmar unsafe for repatriation. In response to the latest deportation, Rohingya refugees eager to avert similar fates began pouring from India into Bangladesh. Bangladeshi authorities estimate that over 1,300 Rohingya refugees have left India and sought refuge in its territory within the last month. Most recently, 31 refugees - including 16 children and 6 women - were left stranded in the barren "no man's land" along the India-Bangladesh border for four days after Bangladesh denied them entry and the two nations failed to agree on what to do with them. Eventually, India arrested the group on January 22. Like others apprehended as "illegal migrants", these detainees will likely face lengthy jail terms. Such imprisonment violates not only India's own law but also international law prohibiting arbitrary arrests and detentions, as well as the customarily recognised right to seek asylum. Yet, given the pattern of behaviour the current Indian government has displayed towards the Rohingya, it is hardly surprising that many Indian officials feel emboldened enough to routinely violate international and national legal norms with impunity when dealing with Rohingya refugees. BJP's anti-Rohingya policies The majority of India's Rohingya came to India either prior to 2012 or following that year's violence in Myanmar - all well before the 2017 genocide. At the time, Bangladesh was much less welcoming to refugees, but India appeared to offer great promise. "Most of us went to Bangladesh first, but with little or very bad work, and the government didn't support us like it supports the refugees who are there now," one Rohingya refugee, who had been residing in India for over five years told me. "People were saying that in India, there were better economic opportunities - real jobs for us." Unfortunately for many, upon arrival, those opportunities proved largely illusory. Still, they found India more peaceful and welcoming than Bangladesh. Although living conditions remained challenging and work scarce, the government did little to prevent refugees from pursuing better futures. At the time, more refugee children were allowed to attend school, and some areas even offered basic assistance. In the years since, however, attitudes towards minorities - particularly Muslims - have shifted dramatically in India, devastating the livelihoods and prospects of many Rohingya living there. In 2014, Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the majority in parliament and its firebrand leader, Narendra Modi, became prime minister. Modi’s government made short work of vilifying Muslims and particularly Rohingya, recasting them as terrorists and "illegal Bengalis" (just like the Myanmar authorities do). The BJP has characterised Muslim refugees in India as threats to the very fabric of Indian society and used them as a tool to draw the country's Hindu majority into their far-right movement. Indeed, over less than a decade, the Hindu-nationalist government and its supporters succeeded in drastically eroding many of the most fundamental human rights of the Rohingya refugees, including access to work, education, shelter, sanitation, healthcare, and basic human dignity, among others. Most recently, Indian authorities ceased to recognise the UNHCR-issued refugee cards of Rohingya, effectively taking away the little amount of legal protection some 18,000 registered Rohingya refugees had in the country. At the moment, virtually all activities and services (including education, work, and healthcare) require a residency-based Aadhar card. According to Rohingya advocates and refugees, these were previously issued to some Rohingya who met the government’s criteria, but this practice has since ceased. Rohingya also face increased surveillance, at times going as far as harassment, with officials repeatedly collecting biodata, fingerprints, and paperwork. In areas where the police are most hostile - like Jammu and Hiryana - refugees fleeing to other parts of the country or to Bangladesh report extortion, arbitrary arrests and detentions, and beatings are also on the rise. The government also bars Rohingya from owning property or building permanent structures. This limits them to either renting dirt patches in remote settlements and constructing jhuggis (slum-like shanties), or - for a fortunate few - renting urban flats from sympathetic landlords. Jhuggi dwellers typically face the greatest hardships, as most work in rag picking (waste collection) or other irregular, poorly-paid labour. Rag picking in particular - perhaps the most common occupation among India’s Rohingya - poses serious health risks, as constantly handling and living amidst waste causes workers - including children as young as five - to frequently contract myriad unidentifiable maladies, while dire sanitation conditions further exacerbate widespread illness. In the squalid settlement of Faridabad, for instance, 180 refugees all working as rag pickers have no latrine in the entire camp, while nearly all residents' income goes to healthcare. Hate crime and extremist rhetoric Since 2014, there has also been an uptick in hate crimes against Rohingya throughout India, with verbal and physical assaults becoming familiar occurrences for some. Last April, on the very night that an international Rohingya conference was held in New Delhi, the Kalindi Kunj jugghi settlement was burned to the ground. When its 226 residents relocated and rebuilt, their attackers attempted (though fortunately failed) to destroy their settlement again. Further, in 2017, as Myanmar's Rohingya genocide escalated, fear of a massive Rohingya influx permeated the northern Jammu region, where most of Rohingya refugees in India reside. Extremist rhetoric grew especially venomous, with one Jammu official even advocating for an "identify and kill" movement. Extremists have since adopted this mantra, protesting to demand full deportations and using billboards and front-page advertisements to convey propaganda and threats to local Rohingya. In light of all these abuses, many Rohingya are trying their best to assimilate. Some managed to adjust their appearance and even learn Hindi well enough to pass as Indian, and as a result face relatively less harassment in their daily lives. Few others, who still hold Aadhar cards and have been able to secure steady, relatively reasonably paid work, also manage to get by. Yet even these relatively privileged Rohingya lack full protection, and they do not see a path towards citizenship or at least residency permit. Thousands of less privileged Rohingya, on the other hand, continue to live in a state of fear, deprivation and debilitating uncertainty while facing daily harassment, discrimination and persecution. Recent deportations have drawn some attention to the serious dangers that still await Rohingya in Myanmar and encouraged the international community to take a stand against forced repatriations. However, the world also needs to pay attention to the plight of Rohingya still living in India. The Indian government appears intent on following dangerously in the footsteps of the Myanmar authorities: intentionally fomenting religious-nationalist fervour and placing thousands of already traumatised Rohingya in a state of constant fear and deprivation. If we don't act now and pressure the Indian government to reverse its divisive rhetoric and dangerous policies, Rohingya will continue to be victimised by aggressive nationalism and Islamophobia in yet another country. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.

Police blame riot after 115 Rohingya and 16 other people from Myanmar escaped the facility on Thursday night. 2 Feb 2024 Malaysia is searching for dozens of Rohingya refugees and other people from Myanmar after they escaped from a temporary immigration detention centre in the country’s north. One man was killed after 131 men escaped from the Bidor facility in the northern state of Perak on Thursday night, the Immigration Department said in a statement. Perak police said the man had been hit by a car when he tried to cross the main north-south highway, and that the men fled following a riot at the camp. Some 115 of the men were Rohingya and the remaining 16 of other Myanmar ethnicities. Immigration Department director-general Ruslin Jusoh said 375 police, soldiers and reservist volunteers had been deployed to look for them. Malaysia is a popular destination for the mostly Muslim ethnic Rohingya, hundreds of thousands of whom fled Myanmar for neighbouring Bangladesh in 2017 after a brutal military crackdown that is now the subject of a genocide investigation at the International Court of Justice. Many have sought to escape the grim conditions in Myanmar and the Bangladesh refugee camps by making dangerous journeys by boat to Southeast Asia. Some 569 died or went missing at sea last year, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said last month. People from Myanmar made up 88 percent of the 185,300 people registered with the UNHCR as refugees and asylum-seekers in Malaysia at the end of 2023. Some 107,670 of those registered with the agency are Rohingya who were stripped of their citizenship by a military government in the 1980s. Other people from Myanmar have sought sanctuary in Malaysia amid a deepening civil war since the military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi three years ago. Malaysia has no system to process applications for asylum, and refugees are considered undocumented migrants. Most live a precarious existence, at risk of arrest as “illegal migrants” or exploitation in low-paid jobs that Malaysians do not want. The immigration department has accelerated a crackdown on undocumented migrants in recent months, reporting regular raids, but the UNHCR has not been allowed to visit immigration detention centres to verify the status of refugees since August 2019. More than 500 Rohingya refugees, including children, fled a temporary detention centre in Penang state in April 2022, and six were killed trying to cross the highway. That incident was also blamed on a riot. © 2024 Al Jazeera Media Network

Luis Enrique Mendoza, on the run since 2011, faces charges for his alleged role in 1982 massacre of Maya Ixil people Guatemala City - Guatemalan police have arrested a former military commander accused of genocide and crimes against humanity when he came out to cast his ballot in the general election. Luis Enrique Mendoza was the military head of operations under former dictator Efrain Rios Montt, who ruled from March 1982 to July 1983. Mendoza, who has been in hiding since an arrest warrant was issued in 2011, faces charges for his alleged role in the massacre of 1,771 Maya Ixil villagers in 1982. He went on to become defence minister in the early 1990s and was later elected to the Congress. He is also the father-in-law of Estuardo Galdamez, a legislator and the ruling FCN party's presidential candidate in Sunday's election. "We cannot speak of democracy if the justice system does not work to protect life and human dignity." -MIGUEL DE LEON, A TRADITIONAL MAYA IXIL AUTHORITY Relatives of genocide victims and survivors around the country celebrated the news of Mendoza's arrest on Sunday, said Edwin Canil, the president of the Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR), an indigenous survivor-led group. Much of Canil's own family was killed in a massacre when he was a child. 'Feeling of jubilation' "As survivors from different regions, we have been communicating, and there is a feeling of jubilation and hope," he told Al Jazeera. "We are ready for whatever hearings are necessary." Indigenous authorities also welcomed the news. It is one more step forward in a long struggle, according to Diego Ceto, a traditional indigenous Maya Ixil authority in Nebaj, 240km northwest of Guatemala City. "We have never stopped in our search for justice and truth," Ceto told Al Jazeera. "It is a struggle of all the [indigenous] peoples." Police arrested Mendoza outside an elementary school serving as a polling station in his hometown in the department of Baja Verapaz, 115km north of Guatemala City. "He was apprehended for the crimes and genocide and crimes against humanity due to an arrest warrant issued on October 11, 2011," police said in a public statement following the arrest. An estimated 200,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed during Guatemala's 36-year civil war between the military and leftist guerrilla forces. More than 80 percent of the victims were indigenous Maya. Over the course of the war, the military carried out more than 600 massacres, a United Nations-backed truth commission found. The commission also concluded that the military committed acts of genocide in four parts of the country, including the Maya Ixil region. Mendoza evaded arrest in 2011, but former dictator Efrain Rios Montt and his chief of military intelligence Jose Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez were arrested and stood trial for genocide and crimes against humanity. In 2013, Rodriguez Sanchez was acquitted but Rios Montt was convicted and sentenced to 80 years in prison. 'Weak judicial system' The conviction and some of the proceedings were overturned shortly thereafter, and a partial retrial later took place. Rios Montt died in April 2018 before the retrial concluded, and Rodriguez Sanchez was acquitted in September. But in the tribunal's ruling, the three judges unanimously concluded the state committed genocide during Rios Montt's rule. Genocide survivors have been asking officials to execute the 2011 arrest warrant against Mendoza for years, according to Edgar Perez. An indigenous lawyer from the Bufete de Derechos Humanos human rights law firm, Perez represented Maya Ixil relatives of victims as well as AJR in court proceedings. "The accused have faced a weak judicial system, but on two occasions it has said that genocide occurred in Guatemala," Perez told Al Jazeera. After his arrest, Mendoza was taken to appear before a presiding judge. Due to the severity of the charges and the potential flight risk, he will likely be remanded into custody pending an initial hearing. Victims, survivors, and future generations all need a sign that justice will be served regardless of social status, said Miguel de Leon, a traditional Maya Ixil authority. "We hope the judges carry out their work and that the victims get justice," de Leon told Al Jazeera. "We cannot speak of democracy if the justice system does not work to protect life and human dignity," he said. © 2019 Al Jazeera

Special Rapporteur Yanghee Lee says US sanctions should be tougher and international community must step up. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - The United Statessanctions imposed on senior military leaders in Myanmar should have been tougher and applied to more generals, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar has said. Speaking to reporters on Thursday at the end of a working visit to Thailand and Malaysia, Yanghee Lee said the measures against Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing and three others as a result of their role in the "ethnic cleansing" of the Rohingya in the restive western state of Rakhine did not go far enough. "It's better late than never," she said of the US move on Tuesday, but added, "they should freeze all their assets; the assets of their families too, and the travel ban should include the families of these individuals." Lee, who says Myanmar's crackdown on the majority-Muslim Rohingya in 2017 was a war crime, arrived in Malaysia on Tuesday after her visit to Thailand was cut short because of what she described as "interference" targetted at those she was working with. Lee, who said she continues to be denied access to Myanmar, declined to go into further detail. She said, however, that she was concerned that Myanmar appeared to "be increasing pressure and engaging governments of neighbouring countries in its efforts to violate rights and avoid scrutiny". Last week, Singapore returned to Myanmar six people it said were involved in funding the Arakan Army, a rebel group fighting for greater autonomy for ethnic Rakhine people who are largely Buddhist. An estimated 35,000 people have fled the escalating conflict between the military and the Arakan Army in Rakhine this year. Earlier this month, Lee warned that both security forces and the rebels were committing human rights violations against civilians that could amount to fresh war crimes. More than 730,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh after the army crackdown in 2017 that UN investigators have said was executed with "genocidal intent" and included mass killings, gang rape and widespread arson. 'ASEAN has to step up' The situation in Myanmar posed an increasing risk to the peace and security of countries in South and Southeast Asia, Lee warned, urging the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to prioritise human rights in its dealings with Myanmar. Lilianne Fan, founder of Geutanyoe Foundation, an NGO that works with Rohingya refugees, echoed Lee's call. "ASEAN has to step up," she told Al Jazeera. "So far, Malaysia is the only country taking a human-rights view, which is very different from the other countries, which are more or less supporting Myanmar's claim that it is doing everything it can to create conducive conditions for return. Malaysia is the only one asking difficult questions." Rights groups have criticised an ASEAN report, titled Emergency Response and Assessment Team, for allegedly whitewashing the persecution of Rohingya. The report predicted that voluntary returns would be completed in two years and did not use the word "Rohingya" - an identity denied to them inside Myanmar where they are instead labelled "Bengalis". Lee said the international community also needed to do more given the continuing conflict. "The UN Security Council needs to put its head together and put out a strong resolution; a resolution that will refer the Tatmadaw to the International Criminal Court," she said, referring to Myanmar's military. While in Malaysia, Lee met government officials, civil society representatives as well as refugees and asylum seekers from Myanmar - both recent arrivals and those who have lived in the country for years. Lee said she was of the view that the deepening conflict in Rakhine, where an internet blackout remains in force in nine townships, had led to worsening abuses against the civilian population. It had also hindered the government's own disaster planning and response at a time when the monsoon increases the risk of severe flooding, she said. She also expressed concern about the continued spread of hate speech and disinformation on social media. Facebook remains the most popular platform for people in Myanmar and Lee said that it appeared the campaigns were becoming increasingly sophisticated, coordinated and strategic in their attempt to manipulate public opinion. "Social-media companies are taking inadequate and inconsistent action on this," she said. Lee will present the findings from her visit to the Human Rights Council in September and at the 74th session of the UN General Assembly in New York in October. © July 2019 Al Jazeera. All Rights Reserved.