Polls include runoff votes in 49 electoral districts and first-round voting in 69 districts where violence stopped elections from taking place in December. Published by Al Jazeera on March 14, 2021. People wait as an electoral commission official checks a voter's roll at a polling station in Bangui [Camille Laffont/AFP] Voters in the Central African Republic (CAR) have cast their ballots under tight security, in a second round of parliamentary elections after an outbreak of violence severely disrupted polls late last year. Forty-nine of the National Assembly’s 140 seats are up for grabs in Sunday’s vote, after 22 members of parliament were elected outright in the first round. For the other 69 seats where the unrest stopped the December 27, 2020 vote from taking place, the polls will serve as the first round – to be followed, if necessary, by a second on an as-yet unscheduled date. Authorities are anxious to avoid a repeat of the turmoil surrounding last year’s legislative and presidential polls when President Faustin-Archange Touadéra won re-election, but a new alliance of rebel groups – who the United Nations say are backed by former President François Bozizé – sought to take control amid allegations of voting irregularities. A little more than a week before the last vote, six of the armed groups that control two-thirds of the country joined forces and pledged to disrupt the election, march on the capital and overthrow Touadéra’s government. They laid siege to Bangui in January, strangling food supplies, forcing more than 200,000 from their homes and raising concerns that the country was slipping back into the kind of conflict that has killed thousands over the past decade. ‘When you vote, you want peace’ The government and the UN peacekeeping mission MINUSCA have both expressed confidence Sunday’s election will be peaceful due to extra forces on the ground and the capture of rebel strongholds since their initial offensive. Touadéra’s party is expected to easily retain its majority in the National Assembly, but there are fears the vote could again be disrupted by the rebels, who have withdrawn to the countryside but are still threatening to overthrow the government. In the capital, Bangui, the electoral body reported a smooth process with only slight delays. Small lines of residents could be seen waiting to vote as large numbers of security forces stood by. Retired teacher Bertrand Dena, 50, said he was reassured by the heavy police presence at his polling station in Bangui. “When you vote, you want peace,” he told the Reuters news agency. At Bangui’s Barthelemy Boganda high school, the number of voters was small. After casting his ballot, office worker Godefroy Mokoamanede said that “unlike December 27, there is not a real passion”. “When people vote for the first time they no longer see the point of voting a second time,” he told the AFP news agency. Thousands of people have been killed in the CAR since the civil war erupted in 2013 when a mainly Muslim coalition called the Seleka overthrew Bozizé in a coup. The conflict erupted after a coalition of rebel groups from the lawless and largely Muslim north of the country fought their way into Bangui and deposed the president. In response, mostly-Christian militias known as the Anti-balaka struck back, exacting revenge on Muslim civilians. The ensuing chaos displaced hundreds of thousands of people and spawned a hotchpotch of armed groups as the rebel coalition disintegrated. A peace deal signed in 2019 eased the bloodshed, but the recent violence has heightened concerns and deepened an acute humanitarians crisis. More than 30,000 people have fled the country due to the violence surrounding the latest elections, according to the UN, while tens of thousands more have been internally displaced. © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network.

The UN refugee agency says attacks blamed on ISIL affiliates in northeastern DR Congo killed more than 200, displaced 40,000. Published by Al Jazeera on March 19, 2021. (UNHCR/Frederic Noy) More than 200 people have been killed and an estimated 40,000 displaced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since January in attacks attributed to armed groups affiliated to ISIL (ISIS), the United Nations has said. The UN refugee agency reported on Friday an “alarming increase” in attacks by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) – an historically Ugandan group present in eastern DRC since 1995. Since the start of the year, attacks blamed on the ADF “have killed nearly 200 people, injured dozens of others, and displaced an estimated 40,000 people in DRC’s Beni Territory in North Kivu province as well as nearby villages in Ituri province,” UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch said. “In less than three months, the ADF has allegedly raided 25 villages, set fire to dozens of houses and kidnapped over 70 people,” he told reporters in Geneva. The ADF has a reputation of being the bloodiest of the 122 militias that plague the eastern DRC. It killed an estimated 465 people last year. According to the Kivu Security Tracker (KST), an NGO that monitors violence in the DRC’s troubled east, the group has killed more than 1,200 civilians in the Beni area alone since 2017. The massacres have become more frequent since the army launched an offensive in October 2019, forcing the ADF to break up into smaller, highly mobile units, say experts. Baloch said the latest surge in attacks appeared to be due to reprisals by armed groups, their search for food and medicine, and accusations against communities of sharing information on ADF positions. Funding shortage The UN agency expressed concern for those displaced, whom it said were at increased risk due to food and medicine, particularly in the context of the current coronavirus and Ebola outbreaks in the region. Those forcibly displaced this past month had fled to the towns of Oicha, Beni and Butembo. “The majority are women and children, as men stay behind to protect properties, exposing themselves to the risk of further attacks,” Baloch said. Even before the recent mass displacement, some 100,000 internally displaced people were already in need of shelter and protection in Beni, according to UNHCR figures. But funding shortages were seriously limiting the agency’s ability to provide shelters and other aid, Baloch warned. Last year, UNHCR was able to build more than 43,000 family shelters in eastern DRC, but this year, it so far has funding to build just a tenth of that. “Only 4,400 families can be assisted out of hundreds of thousands in need,” Baloch said, adding that a vital cash programme for displaced women at risk had also been cut due to lacking funds. The UN refugee agency urgently needs $2m (1.7 million euros) to beef up its response in Beni and Irumu Territory in Ituri, he said. As of now, the $33m the agency has requested to provide assistance throughout eastern DRC in 2021 is only 5.5 percent funded. © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network.

Some politicians have attacked the charter saying it damages family unity, encourages divorce and acceptance of the LGBTQ community. Turkey has pulled out of the world’s first binding treaty to prevent and combat violence against women, a presidential decree said Friday, in the latest victory for conservatives in President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s governing party. The 2011 Istanbul Convention requires governments to adopt legislation prosecuting domestic violence and similar abuse, as well as marital rape and female genital mutilation. No reason was provided for the withdrawal, but officials in Erdogan’s governing AK Party had said last year the government was considering pulling out amid a dispute about how to curb growing violence against women. “The guarantee of women’s rights are the current regulations in our bylaws, primarily our Constitution. Our judicial system is dynamic and strong enough to implement new regulations as needed,” Family, Labour, and Social Policies Minister Zehra Zumrut said on Twitter, without providing a reason for the move. Conservatives had claimed the charter damages family unity, encourages divorce, and that its references to equality were being used by the LGBTQ community to gain broader acceptance in society. The opposition CHP party criticized the move. Gokce Gokcen, deputy chairman of the CHP responsible for human rights, tweeted that abandoning the treaty meant “keeping women second class citizens and letting them be killed.” Turkey had been debating a possible departure after an official in Erdogan’s party raised dropping the treaty in 2020. Since then, women have taken to streets in Istanbul and other cities calling on the government to stick to the convention. Increasing femicide Turkey is not the first country to move towards ditching the accord. Poland’s highest court scrutinized the pact after a cabinet member said Warsaw should quit the treaty, which the nationalist government considers too liberal. Domestic violence and femicide remain a serious problem in Turkey. Erdogan has condemned violence against women, including saying this month that his government would work to eradicate violence against women. But critics have said his government has not done enough to prevent femicides and domestic violence. Turkey does not keep official statistics on femicide. World Health Organization data has shown 38 percent of women in Turkey are subject to violence from a partner in their lifetime, compared with about 25 percent in Europe. Last year, 300 women were murdered in Turkey according to the rights group We Will Stop Femicide Platform. Ankara has taken measures such as tagging individuals known to resort to violence and creating a smartphone app for women to alert police, which has been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times. Erdogan’s decision came after he unveiled judicial reforms this month that he said would improve rights and freedoms, and help meet EU standards. Turkey has been a candidate to join the bloc since 2005, but access talks have been halted over policy differences and Ankara’s record on human rights. Access the full article here. Anger, condemnation after Turkey exits treaty to protect women Since last year, women have taken to the streets across the country calling on the government to stick to the convention. Turkey has sparked local and international outrage after it withdrew from the world’s first binding treaty to prevent and combat violence against women. The 2011 Istanbul Convention, signed by 45 countries and the European Union, requires governments to adopt legislation prosecuting domestic violence and similar abuse as well as marital rape and female genital mutilation. On Friday, Turkey pulled out of the treaty by a presidential decree in a shocking move for human rights activists in the country. No reason was provided for the withdrawal, but officials in Erdogan’s governing Justice and Development (AK) Party had said last year that the government was considering pulling out amid a dispute about how to curb growing violence against women. Europe’s top rights body, the Council of Europe, denounced Turkey’s withdrawal from a treaty it sponsored and expressed concern about global efforts to protect women and girls. The body’s secretary-general, Marija Pejcinovic Buric, said the treaty was a “gold standard” in international efforts to protect women. “This move is a huge setback to these efforts and all the more deplorable because it compromises the protection of women in Turkey, across Europe, and beyond,” said Buric in a statement. “The Istanbul Convention … is widely regarded as the gold standard in international efforts to protect women and girls from the violence that they face every day in our societies.” Erdogan’s communications director Fahrettin Altun said Turkey continues to work to make women participate more in social, economic, political, and cultural life. “We will always say strong women, strong Turkey,” he said on Twitter. “The guarantee of women’s rights are the current regulations in our bylaws, primarily our Constitution. Our judicial system is dynamic and strong enough to implement new regulations as needed,” Family, Labour, and Social Policies Minister Zehra Zumrut said on Twitter, without providing a reason for the move. Making women’s life ‘hell’ Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) slammed the government’s move. In a video published on Twitter, CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu said that the government had taken away the rights of 42 million women through a fait accompli. “I call on all women to protect their rights,” he said, adding that the government sought to make the lives of Turkish women “hell”. Gokce Gokcen, deputy chairman of the CHP responsible for human rights, tweeted that abandoning the treaty meant “keeping women second class citizens and letting them be killed”. Since last year, women have taken to the streets in cities across the country calling on the government to stick to the convention. Ipek Bozkurt of We Will Stop Femicide Platform said women were shocked by the government’s move. “There was a great campaign against the Istanbul Convention in Turkey last summer. All women’s NGOs, including the ones close to the government, said then it is not possible to discuss anything against the convention,” Bozkurt told Al Jazeera from Istanbul. “It basically lays down the legal grounds for all the national laws to combat violence against women. So it seems like it is a decision that is not inspired by the women and women’s movements in the country,” she said, adding that last year alone, 300 women were killed by men in Turkey. Pride march banned The 2011 Istanbul Convention requires governments to adopt legislation prosecuting domestic violence and similar abuse, as well as marital rape and female genital mutilation. Rights groups accuse Erdogan of taking mostly Muslim but officially secular Turkey on an increasingly socially conservative course during his 18 years in power. Turkish conservatives claimed the charter damages family unity, encourages divorce and that its references to equality were being used by the LGBTQ community to gain broader acceptance in society. After a huge Pride March in Istanbul drew 100,000 people in 2014, the government responded by banning future events in the city, citing security concerns. In January this year, Turkish police detained four people after artwork depicting Islam’s holiest site viewed as offensive by Ankara was hung at an Istanbul university at the center of recent protests. Access the full article here. Al Jazeera © 2021

At least six civilians, including a child, were killed after government forces fired on a hospital in western Aleppo. Syrian mourners pray during a funeral in the the village of Atareb in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo [Aaref Watad/AFP Artillery shelling has killed six civilians, including a child when it hit a surgical hospital in rebel-held northwest Syria, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has said in a statement. The attack on Sunday in the town of Atareb has also wounded 16 civilians including five health staff, the IRC said. The hospital is now out of service. “Four of the injured are in a critical condition,” IRC said, adding that the hospital is run by its partner organisation SAMS. The attack came despite a Russian-Turkish ceasefire in force since March 2020, covering the wider rebel-held stronghold in northwest Syria. Turkey’s defence ministry and a war monitor earlier reported that Syrian government artillery fire hit the hospital’s main entrance inside a cave. A man walks past a damaged room at the entrance of a field hospital in the the village of Atareb after it was reportedly targeted by regime shelling [Aaref Watad/AFP] “Although SAMS shared the hospital’s coordinates through the UN’s notification system, it came under attack and has now been damaged so severely that it can no longer be used,” Rehana Zawar, the IRC’s country director for northwest Syria said in a statement. “This is the fifth attack on health care that has been recorded so far this year, and brings the total number of attacks on health care since January 2019 to 118. “Health facilities are protected under international law and should be safe havens in times of crisis, but after 10 years of war this is not the case in Syria. Since the start of the conflict, Physicians for Human Rights have documented close to 600 attacks on health care,” Zawar said. Al Jazeera’s Adham Abu Hussam, reporting from neighbouring rebel-held Idlib province, said that the hospital used to serve some 100,000 people in the area. The area is also included in the de-escalation zone agreed upon by Russia, Iran and Turkey – an area which stretches from the northeastern mountains of Latakia to the northwestern suburbs of Aleppo city. A man stands amid the debris at the entrance of a field hospital in the the village of Atareb in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo [Aaref Watad/AFP] The hospital is located underground, a tactic used by the opposition to avoid being targeted in the conflict-prone area. In a statement, the White Helmets – a volunteer search-and-rescue group that operates in rebel-held parts of Syria – said the attack is a “continuation of the regime and Russia’s systematic policy of targeting medical facilities and hospitals”. Hospitals and clinics have been targeted and destroyed in cities across the country amid fighting between government forces – backed by Russia and Iran – and armed opposition groups. In a report released earlier this month, the IRC highlighted the ways in which the war in Syria has turned hospitals from places of shelter to danger zones. According to the report, an estimated 70 percent of the health workforce has left the country, leaving just one Syrian doctor for every 10,000 civilians. Only 58 percent of hospitals remain fully functional, the UN says. Rebel-held Idlib province, which was dubbed a “dumping ground” for evacuees who fled government offensives in other parts of the country, is now facing a raging coronavirus pandemic while much of its healthcare facilities are in ruins. The region is home to nearly 3 million people, most of whom are internally displaced. The ceasefire brokered by rebel-backer Turkey and regime ally Russia last March stemmed a months-long regime military offensive on the region – the last rebel-held bastion – that killed hundreds of civilians and displaced more than a million people from their homes. It has since largely held despite repeated violations including Russian air strikes on the region, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Meanwhile, the United States-based Physicians for Human Rights has documented 598 attacks on at least 350 separate healthcare facilities in Syria since March 2011, the vast majority of them allegedly committed by the Syrian government and allied forces, including Russia. In the same 10-year period, at least 930 medical personnel were killed, the rights group said. Between 2016 and 2019, the World Health Organization documented up to 337 attacks on healthcare sites in Syria’s northwest. The health directorate in the rebel-controlled northwest said Sunday’s attack was the first on a medical facility in the region since February 2020. The war, now widely seen as a proxy conflict, has killed more than 388,000 people and displaced millions at home and abroad since starting in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests. © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network

Newly elected President Mohamed Bazoum denounces ‘barbaric’ attacks in the border region near Mali. Attackers on motorbikes have raided several villages in southwestern Niger, killing at least 137 people in the bloodiest violence to hit the country in years, the government said. The gunmen on Sunday attacked the villages of Intazayene, Bakorat and Wistane, located near the border with Mali, shooting “at everything which moved”, according to a local official. On Monday, the government said the attacks had left 137 people dead. Local officials have previously given a death toll of at least 60. “In treating civilian populations systematically as targets now, these armed bandits have gone a step further into horror and brutality,” government spokesman Zakaria Abdourahamane said in a statement read on public television. The coordinated raids underscore the greatest challenge facing Mohamed Bazoum, Niger’s new president whose election victory in a runoff vote last month was confirmed on Sunday by the country’s top court. Niger, the world’s poorest nation according to the United Nations’ development rankings for 189 countries, is struggling with armed campaigns that have spilled over from Mali and Nigeria, killing hundreds of people and displacing nearly half a million others. The three villages attacked on Sunday are located in the arid Tahoua region, abutting the Tillaberi border area, a hotspot of the conflict plaguing the western portion of the Sahel for much of the past 10 and is also fueled by fighters linked to al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS). On March 15, fighters killed 66 people in the Tillaberi region, attacking a bus carrying shoppers from the market town of Banibangou, and then raided the village of Darey-Daye, killing inhabitants and torching grain stores. The same day, an attack claimed by ISIL in the so-called “tri-border area”, where the frontiers of Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali converge, killed 33 Malian soldiers. “After the Banibangou massacre, yesterday the terrorists, in the same barbaric way, struck the peaceful civilian populations of Intazayene and Bakorat,” Bazoum said in a Twitter post on Monday, offering “heartfelt condolences to the victims’ relatives”. Bazoum, elected on February 21, is a former interior minister who was the preferred successor and right-hand man of the outgoing President Mahamadou Issoufou. He has pledged to fight insecurity and ordered army reinforcements to the Tillaberi region after the bloodletting of March 15. Niger is part of a France-backed alliance of countries in the Sahel region known as the G5. A contingent of 1,200 soldiers from the Chadian army, considered the region’s toughest, has been deployed under the G5 banner. On January 2, 100 people were killed in attacks on two villages in the Mangaize district of Tillaberi. The massacre, one of the worst in Niger’s history, occurred between two rounds of the country’s presidential election. A year earlier, on January 9, 2020, the Niger army lost 89 men in an attack on a military camp in Chinegodar. In December 2019, 71 Nigerien soldiers were killed in an attack in Inates in the Tillaberi region, and the following month 89 were killed in an assault on their base at Chinedogar. © Al Jazeera 2021

Fatalities include seven people whose convoy of vehicles was ambushed as they attempted to flee assault on northern town of Palma. Mozambique’s government has said dozens of civilians were killed in an attack this week on the northern town of Palma, including seven people whose convoy of vehicles was ambushed as they attempted to flee. Omar Saranga, a spokesman for the defence and security forces, told journalists on Sunday that hundreds of other people – locals and foreigners – were rescued from Palma, a logistics hub for international gas projects in Cabo Delgado province. “A group of terrorists sneaked into … Palma and launched actions that resulted in the cowardly murder of dozens of defenceless people,” Saranga said. The exact number of people wounded and killed, or still unaccounted for, remained unclear, while most communications with Palma have been cut off. The town of some 75,000 people had previously been a refuge for people fleeing growing insecurity and violence elsewhere in the province. ‘In all directions’ The assailants struck Palma on Wednesday, in a seemingly coordinated attack from several directions. Human Rights Watch said the attackers indiscriminately shot civilians in their homes and on the streets. Witnesses described bodies in the streets, some of them beheaded. Many residents ran into the dense tropical forest surrounding the town to escape the violence, according to Mozambican news reports. But a few hundred foreign workers from South Africa, Britain and France clustered at hotels that quickly became targets for the rebel attacks. An estimated 200 foreign workers were at the Hotel Amarula. On Saturday, a group of them in 17 vehicles drove together to try to reach the beach, where they hoped to be rescued, but their convoy came under heavy fire, according to local reports. “The defence and security forces registered the loss of seven lives of a group of citizens that left the Amarula hotel in a convoy that was ambushed by the terrorists,” Saranga said. “We understand that a lot of civilians are fleeing the insecurity and violence,” Laura Tomm-Bonde, of the International Organization for Migration, said earlier on Sunday. “Initial reports indicate that civilian population has been fleeing Palma in all directions, some all the way up into Tanzania, while others are moving down south in Cabo Delgado to areas such as Nangade, Mueda and Pemba districts.” Some residents fled to the peninsula, home of a multibillion-dollar gas project being built by France’s Total and other energy companies. A boat that left Afungi on Saturday landed in the provincial capital of Pemba around midday, according to police patrolling the city port. Reports said there were “about 1,400” people on board. The evacuees included non-essential staff of Total and Palma residents who had sought refuge at the gas plant. Several other small boats packed with displaced people were on their way to Pemba and expected to arrive overnight or Monday morning, according to humanitarian aid agencies. Airport officials in Pemba said humanitarian aid flights had been suspended to free up space for military operations. In the last three days, government forces prioritised “the rescue of hundreds of citizens, nationals and foreigners,” said Saranga, without giving a breakdown of the numbers. He added that the security forces were seeking to “eliminate some pockets of resistance”. The battle for Palma highlights the military and humanitarian crisis in northern Mozambique, where a three-year armed campaign by shadowy armed groups has displaced an estimated 670,000 people, according to the United Nations. The worsening violence has left at least 2,600 people dead, half of them civilians, according to the US-based data-collecting agency Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED). The fighters are known locally as al-Shabab, although they do not have any known connection to Somalia’s armed group of that name. NJ Ayuk, a member of the African Energy Chamber, said Mozambique needed “strong attention” and “the necessary support” from the international community as the attacks have become much more sophisticated and frequent in the past year. “We are seeing a well-coordinated insurgency. They are very properly financed, and this is not something for Mozambique (to deal with) alone,” he told Al Jazeera from Mozambique’s capital, Maputo. “Mozambique as a country has already been struggling to [help] people emerge out of poverty,” he said, adding that the military “is not very strong to take on some of these insurgencies, which are [employing] guerilla tactics.” The United States said on Sunday it “continues to monitor the horrific situation in Palma”. Its embassy announced earlier this month that US military personnel will spend two months training soldiers in Mozambique. Total said on Saturday it was calling off a planned resumption of construction at its development following the attack and would reduce its workforce to a “strict minimum”. The company pulled out the majority of its workforce in January due to security issues. Rights groups say the fighters in Cabo Delgado have carried out summary executions, beheadings, raids on villages, looting, and destruction of infrastructure, including schools and medical facilities. Government forces have also been implicated in grave human rights abuses during operations in the province including arbitrary arrests, torture, wrongful use of force against civilians and extrajudicial executions. © Al Jazeera 2021

Office of prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said it cannot act on the complaint because China is not a signatory to The Hague-based court. According to reports and witness testimonies, there are more than a million Uighurs held against their will in different camps in Xinjiang [File: Human Rights Watch] 15 Dec 2020 International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors have rejected calls by exiled Uighurs to investigate China for alleged genocide and crimes against humanity, in a blow to the Muslim-minority group in Xinjiang. The Uighurs handed a huge dossier of evidence to the court in July accusing China of locking more than one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities in re-education camps and of forcibly sterilising women. But the office of prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in a report on Monday that it was unable to act because the alleged acts happened on the territory of China, which is not a signatory to The Hague-based ICC. In its annual report, Bensouda’s office said: “This precondition for the exercise of the court’s territorial jurisdiction did not appear to be met with respect to the majority of the crimes alleged”. There was also “no basis to proceed at this time” on separate claims of forced deportations of Uighurs back to China from Tajikistan and Cambodia, the ICC report said. The Uighurs had argued that even though the alleged deportations did not happen on Chinese soil, the ICC could act because they happened on Tajik and Cambodian territory and both of them are ICC members. Lawyers for the Uighurs had now asked the court to reconsider “on the basis of new facts or evidence”, the ICC prosecutor’s report said. China has called the accusations baseless and says the facilities in the northwestern Xinjiang region are job-training centres aimed at steering people away from hardline views. According to reports and witness testimonies, more than a million Uighurs are held against their will in different facilities in Xinjiang. Human rights activists and former detainees refer to them as concentration camps. The ICC has no obligation to consider complaints filed to the prosecutor, who can decide independently on what cases to submit to judges at the court, set up in 2002 to achieve justice for the world’s worst crimes. © 2020 Al Jazeera Media Network

‘Father of democracy’ Martin Lee and media tycoon Jimmy Lai are among seven found guilty over 2019 protest. A court in Hong Kong has found seven prominent pro-democracy politicians and campaigners guilty of organising and taking part in an unauthorised assembly over their role in a peaceful protest that was one of the biggest rallies in the Chinese-controlled city in 2019. Those convicted on Thursday include media tycoon Jimmy Lai, as well as 82-year-old Martin Lee, who helped launch the city’s largest opposition Democratic Party in the 1990s and is often called the former British colony’s “father of democracy”. The silver-haired Lee and the others sat impassively as district court judge Amanda Woodcock handed down her decision. “I have found after trial the prosecution able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that all of the defendants together organised what amounted to an unauthorised assembly,” the district court judge noted in the full written judgement. They were also found guilty of knowingly participating in an unauthorised assembly. Although Hong Kong’s mini-constitution guarantees the right to peaceful assembly, Woodcock added, “restrictions are imposed, including those for preserving public safety and public order, and protecting the rights of others”. Sentencing will come later, with some legal experts expecting jail terms of 12-18 months. The maximum possible sentence is five years. The other defendants included prominent barrister Margaret Ng and veteran democrats Lee Cheuk-yan, Leung Kwok-hung, Albert Ho and Cyd Ho. Two others, Au Nok-hin and Leung Yiu-chung had earlier pleaded guilty. ‘We will continue the struggle’ A small group of supporters displayed banners outside the West Kowloon court building, including one that read “Oppose Political Persecution”. “We will continue the struggle,” said Lee, 64, just before entering court. “We believe in the people of Hong Kong, in our brothers and sisters in our struggle, and the victory is ours if the people of Hong Kong are persistent.” The group of activists were convicted for their involvement in a protest held on August 18, 2019. Organisers of the protest say that 1.7 million people marched that day in protest of a proposed bill that would have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China for trial. During the trial, defence lawyers argued that freedom of assembly is a constitutional right in Hong Kong and noted that police had approved the peaceful demonstration in the city’s Victoria Park, which grew into an unauthorised march as numbers swelled into the hundreds of thousands. The prosecution argued that the freedom of assembly is not absolute in Hong Kong. Critics, including Western governments, have condemned the arrests of Lee and other democrats amid the ongoing crackdown. Some 47 other high-profile democratic campaigners are facing subversion charges under a sweeping national security law and have mostly been denied bail and are being held in detention. Al Jazeera’s Sarah Clarke, reporting from Hong Kong, said the latest verdicts were a “blow” to the pro-democracy movement. “Nearly every major voice of dissent, or figure of opposition, is either in exile, in jail or on trial,” she said. “Now, more than 2,400 people have been charged as part of this crackdown. One democracy activist said the movement will simply have to find other ways of showing opposition to China.” The United States said on Wednesday that Hong Kong does not warrant preferential treatmentunder the Hong Kong Policy Act, a law that had allowed Washington to maintain a special relationship with the city. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a news release that China had “severely undermined the rights and freedoms of people in Hong Kong”, through arbitrary arrests and politically motivated prosecutions as well as “pressure on judicial independence and academic and press freedoms”. The 2019 pro-democracy protests were spurred by Beijing’s tightening squeeze on wide-ranging freedoms promised to Hong Kong on its return to Chinese rule in 1997, and plunged the semi-autonomous city into its biggest crisis since the handover. The movement eventually fizzled out amid mass arrests, the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic, as well as Beijing’s enactment of the national security law. The legislation, imposed on June 30 last year, punishes anything Beijing deems as secession, subversion, terrorism or collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison. Lai, the media tycoon convicted on Thursday, is being held without bail on charges under the national security law. Since the legislation’s promulgation, the government has sought to crush the opposition movement, barred protests and curbed political expression, and overhauled the city’s electoral system to ensure only pro-China “patriots” govern Hong Kong. Hong Kong and Chinese authorities, however, say the security law and electoral reforms are needed to “restore stability” and to resolve “deep-seated” problems, and that human rights will be safeguarded. © Al Jazeera, 2021

Spokesman Serge Bozanga confirms former president agreed to become ‘general coordinator’ of alliance aiming to overthrow central government. Published by Al Jazeera on March 21, 2021. François Bozizé had seized power in 2003 but was overthrown 10 years later [File: AFP] François Bozizé, former president of the Central African Republic (CAR), has taken charge of a rebel alliance aiming to overthrow the central government, according to the coalition’s spokesman. Bozizé had seized power in a 2003 coup but was removed 10 years later, an act that sparked a brutal civil war that killed thousands of people and tipped CAR further into instability. The country’s current government has accused him of being behind a recently failed offensive by the so-called Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC) against President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, who won re-election in a December 2020 vote marred by insecurity and low turnout. Spokesman Serge Bozanga confirmed to the AFP news agency on Sunday that Bozizé had agreed in February to become the CPC’s “general coordinator”. Bozanga confirmed the authenticity of a document dated February 18 stating that Bozizé had accepted the CPC’s leadership “call”. The coalition brought together six of the armed groups that control much of the country in mid-December to launch the offensive against Touadéra, just more than a week before the December 27 presidential and legislative elections. Bozizé, who voiced support for the CPC in December while urging a boycott of the elections, had denied allegations of heading the group. On January 4, the government launched an inquiry into him for “rebellion”. Up against a 12,000-strong UN peacekeeping force as well as hundreds of Russian and Rwandan soldiers and paramilitaries deployed in late December, the rebels have been in retreat since a January 13 attack on the capital, Bangui, was thwarted. The government alleged they had acted in concert with Bozizé, who returned to the country in late 2019. The constitutional court had earlier blocked Bozizé’s bid to stand in the presidential election, on the grounds that he was under United Nations sanctions over his alleged support for militias held responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the conflict that began in 2013. Bozizé, who fled abroad after his removal and returned to CAR in late 2019, denies the accusations against him. The gold- and diamond-rich country of nearly five million people has failed to find stability since the 2013 rebellion. The latest surge in violence linked to last year’s election forced more than 200,000 civilians to flee their homes, stalled flows of food and drove up prices for basic goods. © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network

As anti-Asian hate crimes rise in the Western world, can Brazil avoid joining the trend? Gabriel Leão | Al Jazeera Gabriel Leão is a journalist based in São Paulo, Brazil. 2 Apr 2021 Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's anti-China rhetoric may result in a surge in anti-Asian racism in Brazil, writes Leao [Ueslei Marcelino/File Photo/Reuters] The March 16 Atlanta spa shootings, in which eight people including six Asian women were killed by a white assailant, brought renewed attention to the rise in anti-Asian sentiment and hate crimes in the United States and beyond. Indeed, since the emergence of COVID-19, East and Southeast Asian communities in the US, United Kingdom and continental Europe have been facing a new wave of hate, discrimination and abuse. Former US President Donald Trump tried to blame the pandemic on China, not only to gain leverage against a powerful rival but also to avoid being criticised for his failure to respond to this global public health emergency efficiently. As he repeatedly referred to COVID-19 as the “Chinese virus” and “Kung-flu”, politicians and influential public figures in other countries swiftly adopted his inflammatory anti-China rhetoric. This coupled with existing anti-Asian prejudices, resulted in Asians becoming a primary target of white supremacist and racist violence in many countries. For example, in the first year of the pandemic, nearly 3,800 anti-Asian hate crimes have been recorded in the US, and Britain’s East and Southeast Asian communities have seen a 300 percent increase in hate crimes. As I watch the deadly virus of racism devastate Asian communities across the Western world, I cannot help but fear Asians in my country, Brazil, may soon face the same fate. Brazil is home to a large Asian community, including the world’s largest community of Japanese descendants outside of Japan, numbering about 1.9 million people. Asian communities in Brazil are economically better off than other racial groups on average, but this does not protect them fully from racism. Anti-Asian bias has a long history in Brazil. First Japanese immigrants arrived in Brazil in 1908 to work in coffee plantations. As their numbers slowly increased over the years, they faced abuse and discrimination not only from the landowners they worked for, but also the Brazilian state itself. In 1934, the government of Getulio Vargas passed an Immigration Quota Law, limiting the number of new immigrants from each country to two percent of the number of their citizens who had already settled in Brazil in the previous 50 years. While the law appeared to be an attempt to limit all migration on paper, it was actually aimed at curtailing Japanese migration, in particular. As there was only a small number of Japanese nationals settled in Brazil before the passing of this law, the two percent quota ensured that only a handful of new Japanese migrants could enter the country each year. According to historians, the Vargas administration’s anti-Japanese policies were rooted in its concerns about Japan’s “imperial ambitions” – Brazilian leaders feared that the Japanese community in Brazil could act as an outpost of Japan and pose a threat to Brazil’s sovereignty. These fears, and the consequent rise in anti-Japanese sentiment in the country, only heightened after Brazil declared war against Japan in 1942. During the war, the Brazilian government severely restricted the movement of Japanese nationals within the country and banned Japanese language education in schools. Japanese language newspapers were also banned and thousands of Japanese nationals were arrested or expelled from Brazil on suspicion of espionage. After the war, the Brazilian state’s perception of Japanese migrants gradually changed. As Japanese migrants in the country achieved great economic success despite many obstacles, and as Japan emerged as a peaceful economic powerhouse in the international arena, the Brazilian state started to see the Japanese as good migrants who added value to the country. While this significant change in perception helped people of Japanese descent gain some prestige and respect in Brazil, it did not save them from racism that remained entrenched in Brazilian society. Despite joining the Brazilian middle classes and obtaining some of the privileges that came with that status, Japanese Brazilians, like other Asian migrants, have never been fully accepted as equal members of Brazilian society. They continued to face racist “jokes” about their appearance and culture as well as race-based discrimination in their daily lives. In my teenage years, I attended a predominantly white Catholic private school and witnessed first-hand the bullying of a pupil of Japanese descent because of his ethnicity. I was bullied and ostracised for being Black, while he faced similar abuse for being Asian. Students who pestered me to “sing and dance Samba” repeatedly asked him whether he knew “martial arts”, or told him he should be a “math wiz”. Over the following decades, most Brazilians’ opinion of Asians continued to be shaped by racial stereotypes and simplifications. It is, for example, still common for Brazilians to refer to all Asians, regardless of country of origin, as “Japanese”. And things got significantly worse after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, following in Trump’s footsteps, treated the emergence of the novel coronavirus as an opportunity to attack China. According to renowned Brazilian journalist Tales Faria, Bolsonaro became convinced that COVID-19 is “part of a Chinese government scheme to expand its global power” in early 2020, and started feeding his staff conspiracy theories about China. On March 18, 2020, Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of President Bolsonaro, publicly blamed China’s governing Communist party for the coronavirus crisis sweeping the world. “It’s China’s fault,” he claimed on Twitter, retweeting a message that said: “The blame for the global coronavirus pandemic has a name and surname: the Chinese Communist party.” After facing a major backlash, he tried to walk back on his words and tweeted that he has “never wanted to offend Chinese people”. The damage, of course, was already done. A month later, Bolsonaro’s then-Education Minister Abraham Weintraub insinuated that the coronavirus pandemic was part of a Chinese “plan for world domination”. “Geopolitically, who will come out stronger from this global crisis?” he wrote on Twitter. “Who in Brazil is allied with this infallible plan for world domination?” In the original Portuguese, his tweet substituted the letter “r” with a capital “L” – “BLazil” – in a style commonly used to mock a Chinese accent. Brazil’s former Foreign Minister, Ernesto Araujo – who resigned from his role on March 29 – meanwhile, repeatedly assailed China’s Communist Party leaders and called coronavirus the “communa-virus”. Bolsonaro also initially refused China’s offers of help during the coronavirus pandemic and questioned the efficacy and safety of China’s vaccines. Bolsonaro and his supporters’ efforts to blame the pandemic on the Chinese government irreparably damaged Brazil’s relations with China, put the economic future of the country at risk and left it unable to control the spread of the virus. Moreover, just like it has been the case in the US, the government’s anti-China rhetoric led to a rise in anti-Chinese, and consequently anti-Asian, sentiment in the country. We have already seen reports of people of Asian descent facing pandemic-related harassment and shunning in Brazil. Many Asian-Brazilians and Asians living in Brazil said that they have been told to “go back to their country” or accused of “spreading the virus” by aggressive strangers on Brazilian streets. I myself heard acquaintances casually curse the “Chinese virus”. Luckily, anti-Asian hate crimes do not appear to be as widespread in Brazil as they are in the Northern Hemisphere, at least for now. But there is a volatile and lawless side to Brazil, and as the country continues to be devastated by COVID-19, things can escalate quickly. Today the world is fighting not only the coronavirus pandemic, but also a pandemic of racism. And if Bolsonaro’s government does not immediately change course and start working to repair the damage it has caused, I fear that Brazil may soon end up being the new epicentre of both. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance. See article here. © 2021 Al Jazeera

Minister for public security says decision has been taken on ‘national security’ grounds; activists decry announcement. The wearing of the burqa in the majority-Buddhist nation was temporarily banned in 2019 after the bombing of churches and hotels by armed fighters that killed more than 250 [Danish Siddiqui/Reuters] Originally published on 13 Mar 2021 Sri Lanka’s government says it will ban the wearing of the burqa, a full-body veil that covers the face as well, and close more than 1,000 Islamic schools, the latest actions affecting the country’s minority Muslim population. Separately, the government on Saturday announced using a controversial anti-terror law to deal with religious “extremism” and gave itself sweeping powers to detain suspects for up to two years for “deradicalisation”. Minister for Public Security Sarath Weerasekera told a news conference he had signed a paper on Friday for cabinet approval to ban the burqa – an outer garment that covers the entire body and the face and is worn by some Muslim women – on “national security” grounds. “In our early days, Muslim women and girls never wore the burqa,” he said. “It is a sign of religious extremism that came about recently. We are definitely going to ban it.” The minister said he signed documents outlawing the burqa, but they need to be approved by the cabinet of ministers and Parliament where the government has a two-thirds majority to see its bills through. Weerasekera also said the government plans to ban more than 1,000 Islamic schools that he said were flouting national education policy. “Nobody can open a school and teach whatever you want to the children,” he said. The government’s moves on burqas and schools follow an order last year mandating the cremation of COVID-19 victims – against the wishes of Muslims, who bury their dead. This ban was lifted earlier this year after criticism from the United States and international rights groups. Shreen Saroor, a Sri Lankan peace and women’s rights activist, said the moves come “at a time when the Muslim community has been constantly targeted”. “It’s part of the Islamophobic reaction in Sri Lanka,” Saroor told Al Jazeera from the capital, Colombo. “The compulsory cremation policy was revised, and now we hear so many other measures to some form of punishing the Muslim community,” she added, noting that Muslims in the country were not consulted in advance. Citing the fact that the wearing of the mask has been made compulsory in the country during the coronavirus pandemic, Saroor said the burqa “looks [like] a very political revenge move”. The wearing of the burqa in the majority-Buddhist nation was temporarily banned in 2019 after the Easter Sunday bombing of churches and hotels by armed fighters that killed more than 250 people. The move drew a mixed response, with activists saying it “violated Muslim women’s right to practise their religion freely”. PREVENTION OF TERRORISM ACT Meanwhile, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was elected president in 2019, after promising a crackdown on “extremism” promulgated regulations allowing the detention of anyone suspected of causing “acts of violence or religious, racial or communal disharmony or feelings of ill will or hostility between different communities”. The rules, effective on Friday, have been set up under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), which local and international rights groups have repeatedly asked Colombo to repeal. “Anybody can be arrested for saying anything,” said Saroor, calling PTA “very problematic”. Sri Lanka’s previous government, which was defeated by Rajapaksa at the 2019 elections, had pledged to repeal the PTA after admitting it seriously undermined individual freedoms, but failed to do so. Muslims make up about 9 percent of the 22 million people in Sri Lanka, where Sinhalese Buddhists account for some 75 percent of the population. A former defence secretary, Rajapaksa is immensely popular among the Sinhala Buddhist majority, who credit him with ending the island nation’s 26-year civil war in 2009. Critics, however, say during the war he crushed the dissident Tamil Tigers with little regard for human rights, allowed abductions and gave consent to extrajudicial killings. He has rejected all the allegations. SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

Deposed leader charged under the natural disaster management law in a court hearing where she appeared via video link. Aung San Suu Kyi has not been seen in public since being detained on February 1 [File: Jorge Silva/Reuters] Myanmar’s deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been hit with another criminal charge as protests against a military coup continue amid a deadly crackdown by security forces. The 75-year-old Nobel laureate, who was charged on Monday, has not been seen in public since being detained in the early hours of February 1 as the military deposed her government and seized power. “Amay Suu has been charged again under section 25 of the natural disaster management law,” lawyer Min Min Soe told AFP news agency after a court hearing in the capital Naypyidaw, where Aung San Suu Kyi appeared by video link. “She has been charged in six cases altogether – five charges in Naypyidaw and one in Yangon.” The generals have used increasingly brutal methods to try to quell a growing protest movement against their rule, while Aung San Suu Kyi faces a raft of criminal charges that could see her barred for life from office. The most serious charge she faces falls under Myanmar’s official secrets laws. Min Min Soe said Aung San Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest in Naypyidaw, appeared in good health but it is not clear if she has any idea of the turmoil that has unfolded in Myanmar over the past two months. Bloody crackdown Near-daily protests seeking her release and the restoration of democracy have been met with rubber bullets, live rounds, and even rocket-propelled grenades by the security forces. More than 700 civilians have been killed in just 70 days since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners monitoring group, which says more than 3,000 people have been arrested. In one of the bloodiest days of the unrest so far, on Friday more than 80 protesters were killed by security forces in the southern city of Bago. Witnesses described seeing bodies piled up, then loaded into army trucks and driven away, while the UN said many of the wounded were denied medical treatment. Despite the dangers, protesters continue to rally. Monday, the eve of Myanmar’s Buddhist new year celebrations, saw demonstrations in the second-biggest city Mandalay as well as Kalay in the north. In Yangon, a number of city transport buses were torched overnight. The bloody crackdown has brought widespread international condemnation and calls for restraint. On Friday, Myanmar’s own ambassador to the United Nations called for a no-fly zone and sanctions, as the international community puts more pressure on the military government to end its deadly crackdown and restore democracy. © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network