The demonstrations after death of young woman have continued amid internet restrictions imposed for ‘security reasons’. Demonstrators gather around a burning barricade during a protest in Tehran on September 19 [AFP] By Maziar Motamedi Tehran, Iran – Protests that erupted in many parts of Iran following the death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, entered their 11th day on Tuesday, even as authorities continued to restrict access to the internet. The 22-year-old was arrested earlier this month in the capital, Tehran, by Iran’s so-called “morality police” for allegedly not following the country’s dress code for women. Authorities said she later had a stroke while in custody and died in a hospital on September 16, three days after falling into a coma. Amini’s family, in interviews with local media, have rejected authorities’ claims that she suffered from pre-existing conditions and said she may have been beaten. A state investigation into the cause of her death is expected to turn up results within weeks. In the meantime, protests that began in Amini’s hometown of Saqqez in Kurdistan province have since spread to most of Iran’s 31 provinces. Dozens of people are believed to have been killed and an unknown number arrested. The authorities have not released official figures yet. Citing “security reasons”, authorities have imposed severe internet restrictions that ban access to social media and messaging platforms and become more limited from the afternoon. But hundreds of clips of sporadic protests continue to come out daily, in which demonstrators can be heard chanting anti-establishment slogans. In some videos, women are seen burning their hijabs and cutting their hair. The United States, the European Union and human rights organisations have condemned the use of violence against protesters. The US has also imposed sanctions on the morality police for alleged abuses and violence against women and demonstrators. There have also been demonstrations outside Iran in support of the nearly-two week protests, with a number of international celebrities also expressing solidarity. State response Inside Iran, there have so far been two state-organised counter-demonstrations to express support for the establishment. The authorities have denounced “riots” during which public property has been burned. They also say “anti-revolutionary” elements guided by foreign powers are driving these movements. President Ebrahim Raisi and other top officials have met or spoken on the phone with the families of several police officers and members of the Basij paramilitary forces who have been killed during the protests. These officers also received state-backed funerals. Meanwhile, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) attacked positions in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq four times during the past few days, saying the target was “terrorist” groups that brought guns into the country to take advantage of the protests. The elite force has also said secessionist elements have been arrested on Iranian soil and a bomb plot was defused in Tabriz, a city in northwestern Iran. “We will hit anti-revolutionaries anywhere they are based and become a source of operations against the Islamic Republic and the nation of Iran,” Abbas Nilforushan, the force’s deputy for operations, said in an interview with state media published late on Tuesday. Local media have reported how intelligence authorities are analysing CCTV camera footage in areas where there are protests to arrest “rioters”. “There is not a big deal going on in Iran,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian told United States media outlet NPR in an interview published on Tuesday. “There is not going to be regime change in Iran. Don’t play with the emotions of the Iranian people.” Reactions and arrests Two respected Muslim leaders have so far commented on the protests. Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi and Grand Ayatollah Hossein Noori Hamedani said Iranians, especially the youth who have featured prominently in the protests, have a right to protest and officials must listen to them. They warned, however, that protests must not be in such a way that “enemies” of the Islamic Republic can take advantage of, and religious tenets must not be violated during demonstrations. At least two renowned Iranian celebrities have also been making headlines. Ali Karimi, a former star player of the country’s national football team, has been regularly posting on his social media in support of the protests. Karimi reportedly lives in the United Arab Emirates, so some state-affiliated media have mentioned the possibility of his arrest through Interpol for allegedly inciting protests. Officials have not commented. There were reports that his properties have been confiscated, with images on Tuesday showing a luxury villa in Lavasan near Tehran being sealed by the judiciary. But the semi-official Fars news website said Karimi had liquidated or transferred his assets prior to leaving Iran. Mehran Modiri, a comedian and television personality, has also posted a video online against the authorities’ response to the protests. The semi-official Tasnim news website reported on Wednesday that Modiri was not in the country, without saying how he had left despite a judicial order that barred him from exiting. There have been several high-profile arrests since the protests broke out. Niloufar Hamedi, a reporter with the daily Shargh newspaper, one of the first to report on Amini’s hospitalisation and death, was arrested in her home in Tehran last week. One of several journalists arrested, she is now in solitary confinement at the Evin prison, according to her husband Mohammad Hossein Ajorlou. State-affiliated media reported late on Tuesday that Faezeh Hashemi, the daughter of late President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, has been arrested by intelligence authorities for “inciting rioters to street protests in eastern Tehran”. Hashemi, who has a history of making anti-establishment comments, had previously been barred from official political activity. Semi-official media reported she had also been arrested during previous street protests, without specifying when. © 2022 Al Jazeera Media Network

Fighting erupts in the breakaway region between its forces and anti-government fighters, a Somaliland official says. The Republic of Somaliland, which is governed by President Muse Bihi Abdi's administration, is seeking international recognition but is still considered internationally as part of Somalia [File: Tiksa Negeri/Reuters] At least 34 people have been killed in fighting in Somalia’s northern breakaway region of Somaliland, two doctors at a public hospital in the town of Laascaanood say. Fighting broke out in eastern Somaliland on Monday morning between forces from the region, which declared its independence in 1991, and fighters opposed to its government, Somaliland’s interior minister said. The battle was reported a month after about 20 people were killed in protests over control of disputed areas. Somaliland has not gained widespread international recognition for its independence and has seen opposition to its claims over land on its eastern border with Puntland, one of Somalia’s semi-autonomous regions. Mohamed Farah, a doctor at Laascaanood Hospital in the administrative capital of the Sool region, said at least 34 people were killed and 40 injured in Monday’s fighting. Farah said he had seen the bodies brought to the hospital. A second doctor at the hospital confirmed the death toll and said the facility had been targeted with mortar shells. Somaliland authorities could not immediately be reached for comment on the death toll. © 2023 Al Jazeera Media Network

Increase in displacement comes amid threats, murders and violence between armed groups, human rights ombudsman says. People take part in a rally against violence, following a car bomb explosion, in Bogota, Colombia, on January 20, 2019 [File: Luisa Gonzalez/Reuters] More than 27,000 people have been displaced in Colombia in the first quarter of 2021, the country’s human rights ombudsman has said, as the South American nation grapples with a surge of violence. People have been forced from their homes amid threats, murders, forced recruitment by armed gangs and clashes between armed groups in lawless areas, the ombudsman said on Monday. Displacement in the first quarter of 2021 jumped by 177 percent compared with the same period last year. Colombia has witnessed an uptick in violence amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with the United Nations saying in February that the country “continued to face endemic violence” throughout 2020. “In various parts of Colombia, there has been an intensification of violence and increased territorial and social control by non-state armed groups and criminal groups,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said in its annual report. The UN said it had documented an increased number of massacres and human rights violations against rights defenders last year in areas without a strong state presence. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) also said in March that Colombia was facing at least five continuing conflicts with armed groups that were affecting the daily lives of Colombians. The group reported at least 389 people – mostly civilians – were killed by explosive devices in 2020, the highest tally since 2016. The Colombian government signed a peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) left-wing rebels in 2016 that aimed to end a conflict that killed more than 260,000 people and displaced millions. But violence has been gradually increasing. In late March, the government accused FARC dissidents – who have rejected the 2016 peace agreement – of detonating a car bomb in the town of Corinto, about 60 kilometres (37 miles) south of Cali in western Colombia. The attack injured dozens, including several public officials. Around the same time, one of the most notorious ex-FARC leaders urged the United States to help Colombia implement the peace accord. In a letter, Rodrigo London highlighted the continued killings of ex-fighters and social leaders and asked the US Congress to “again call on the government of Colombia to make a final decision to implement the Peace Agreement in a comprehensive way”. He also urged the US to encourage Bogota “to begin the promising process of developing our country to embrace lasting proposals to eradicate drug trafficking, modernise the territory and protect life”. © Copyright 2021 Al Jazeera

Belarusian president accused of crimes against humanity in response to anti-government protests, lawyers say. Ten Belarusians have asked Germany’s federal prosecutor to open a criminal investigation against President Alexander Lukashenko and Belarusian security officers for alleged crimes against humanity during a crackdown on anti-government protests. Lawyers who brought the case for the 10 people, who are now living across Europe, cited universal jurisdiction laws that allow countries to prosecute crimes against humanity, including war crimes and genocide, regardless of where they were committed. Germany has been particularly active in pursuing such cases linked to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government. The lawyers said their clients had documented more than 100 examples of “violence, systematic torture and other abuses” during the Belarusian government’s crackdown on protests, which broke out after Lukashenko won a presidential election last August that the opposition claims was rigged. “The incumbent government is severely oppressing its own population with a crackdown including arbitrary arrests, politically motivated criminal persecution and other forms of repression,” they added. The lawyers said their clients had all been imprisoned and reported instances of “spurious arrests, torture and abuse” while they were held. The Belarusian government did not immediately comment on the case. Police have arrested thousands of people for taking part in the demonstrations against Lukashenko. Authorities characterised participants as criminals or violent revolutionaries backed by the West and described the actions of law enforcement agencies as adequate and necessary. Syrian case provides ‘precedent’ Germany’s universal jurisdiction laws were used in February to secure a guilty verdict against a former member of Assad’s security services for abetting the torture of civilians. Citing that case, the lawyers representing the 10 Belarusians said in their filing that the group was seeking an independent investigation and the prosecution of those found guilty. The Syrian precedent showed that “if the will of the law enforcement agencies is there, they can do it,” said Onur Ozata, one of the lawyers. Opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who is in self-imposed exile in Lithuania, welcomed the legal filing. “There will never be impunity in Belarus, and today’s news is a clear example of this,” she said in a statement. In March, the United Nations’ top human rights body agreed to set up a team of investigators to gather evidence about the alleged excessive use of force and torture by authorities in Belarus. Yury Ambrazevich, the Belarusian ambassador to the UN in Geneva, described that move as “yet another attempt to interfere in the domestic affairs of our state”. Despite being slapped with sanctions by the European Union and the United States over its response to the protests, Lukashenko’s government has held firm against pressure from abroad to change course. The 66-year-old leader, who is backed by ally Russia, has instead claimed to have withstood a revolution directed by the West. © News Agencies and Al Jazeera, 2021

At least 19 people killed when armed men raided two villages in Kaduna state, the government said. At least 19 people were killed when armed men raided two villages in northwest Nigeria’s Kaduna state, the government said. Late on Saturday, bandits riding on motorcycles killed 14 people and injured others when they invaded Kutemeshi where they looted shops, Internal Affairs Commissioner Samuel Aruwan said in a statement. On the same day, motorbike-riding gunmen also stormed Kujeni where they killed five people and burned “several” houses, warehouses and a church, according to the statement. Gunmen from kidnapping and cattle-rustling gangs – called bandits by locals – often raid villages in northwest Nigeria, stealing cattle, kidnapping for ransom and burning homes after looting them. “Kaduna State Government has received reports from security agencies of the killing of 19 citizens by armed bandits at Kutemeshi village in Birnin Gwari and Kujeni village in Kajuru, where several others were left with bullet wounds,” Aruwan said. But residents said 19 people were killed just in the raid in Kutemeshi. “We lost 19 people in the attack. We buried them yesterday [Sunday],” said Kutemeshi resident Ayuba Abdullahi. Last month, bandits killed 12 people and kidnapped 30 others in attacks on three villages in Birnin Gwari district and neighbouring Katsina state. The gangs maintain camps in the Rugu forest straddling Kaduna, Katsina, Zamfara and Niger states. The gangs have no ideological leanings, but there are concerns that they may be gradually infiltrated by armed groups from the northeast. Violence across the northwest has killed 8,000 people since 2011 and displaced more than 200,000, some into neighbouring Niger, according to a report last year by the International Crisis Group (ICG). SOURCE : AFP, © Al Jazeera 2021

Recent hearings reveal new details about 1981 massacre of civilians in northeast El Salvador during country’s civil war. By Anna-Cat Brigida | 2 May 2021 A woman holds a balloon that reads, 'Justice', during a protest against an amnesty bill to avoid prosecuting crimes committed during the civil war in San Salvador, El Salvador, on October 9, 2019 [File: Jose Cabezas/Reuters] Expert testimony delivered in El Salvador this week has revealed significant new details about what many consider to be the most brutal massacre of the country’s 12-year civil war decades ago. Victims, experts and lawyers say the five days of hearings in the El Mozote trial uncovered new information about the extent of the United States’s knowledge of the 1981 massacre of nearly 1,000 civilians by US-trained Salvadoran forces, as well as the Salvadoran chain of command. “The fact that there are experts giving professional testimony reiterating and corroborating the truth that the victims have maintained during all these years, is a form of reparations, of clarifying the truth and of sending an echo through the international community,” Eduardo Guerrero, a lawyer with the victims’ legal team through the Costa Rica-based Center for International Justice and Law (CEJIL), told Al Jazeera in a phone interview. The hearings came at a moment when US President Joe Biden’s administration is pressuring Central American governments to practice good governance, crack down on corruption and reduce impunity. They also are fuelling renewed demands for accountability and for an apology from the US, which, in the 1980s, funnelled billions of dollars to the Salvadoran government as part of its push to fight communism in the region, often turning a blind eye to rights abuses. A man reads the names on a memorial monument during the 38th anniversary of the El Mozote massacre in the village of El Mozote, on December 7, 2019 [File: Jose Cabezas/Reuters] The US government has yet to issue an apology for its role in human rights violations in El Salvador, including the El Mozote massacre, even though it has apologised for other Cold War-era atrocities in the region, such as the Guatemalan genocide and the Argentine Dirty War. “It would be a great relief for us as survivors, who lost so many family members, [to receive an apology from the US government],” said Rosario Sanchez, a survivor of the El Mozote massacre who attended the hearings at the court in San Francisco Gotera, Morazan, this week. “The US also has a responsibility because they shouldn’t have given money for such atrocities,” she told Al Jazeera by phone. ‘Extermination strategy’ The El Mozote case was reopened in 2016 after the country’s Supreme Court overturned a 1993 amnesty law that prevented the prosecution of human rights abuses carried out during the war. An estimated 75,000 Salvadorans were killed in the fighting between a leftist armed rebellion and the US-backed Salvadoran army between 1980 to 1992. A UN Truth Commission attributed about 85 percent of the violence during the conflict to the Salvadoran state. The El Mozote massacre took place during the course of three days in December 1981, as Salvadoran soldiers raped and killed civilians in several villages in El Salvador’s northeast region of Morazan. Seventeen Salvadoran military officers are currently facing charges in relation to the killings, including torture, rape and enforced disappearances. Lawyers for the victims say a judge could decide that the case, still in its discovery phase, will continue to the second, formal trial phase by the end of 2021. During the hearings this week, US academic and Central America expert Terry Karl testified that the Salvadoran army employed an “extermination strategy” in El Mozote and described a subsequent cover-up by Salvadoran and US officials. Karl said a US military adviser, Sergeant Major Allen Bruce Hazelwood, was present in Morazan department, where the massacre took place. “If this had been made public, aid from the US would have been cut because that was illegal,” Karl said during her testimony, which was based on research in El Salvador dating back to 1981, extensive interviews with key players in the Salvadoran civil war and a review of archival materials. She also said the US was aware that the Salvadoran army was using napalm, a highly flammable mixture banned by the United Nations for use against civilians in 1981. Salvadoran command David Morales, a lawyer with San Salvador-based human rights group Cristosal who is part of the victims’ legal team, told reporters at the court that Karl’s account overwhelmingly showed that this type of military operation “could only be carried out with the planning, orders, supervision and cover-up by the Salvadoran high command”. Clever Pino, a former Peruvian colonel and expert in counterinsurgency tactics, also testified on April 29 and 30 that a new military document showed Operation Rescate, the army’s official name for what occurred in December 1981, was ordered by high-level officials. This detail was especially revealing as the army has refused to comply with a judicial order to allow the judge in the case to review military archives – a major challenge for the case. A forensic team works at an exhumation site in the village of Yancolo as they search for human remains of the El Mozote massacre [File: Jose Cabezas/Reuters] “The systematic denial by the Salvadoran Armed Forces of Operation Rescate is a disinformation strategy,” Pino said during his testimony, adding that the tactic “is used when the facts are too obvious or compromising and all that’s left is denial”. The Salvadoran government has not issued any public statements about this week’s testimony through official channels. Neither the president’s office nor the defence ministry responded to Al Jazeera’s request for comment in time for publication. In the past, the Salvadoran Armed Forces have said the fighting at El Mozote was between the army and rebel fighters, rather than unarmed civilians. Reparations and justice In the immediate aftermath of the El Mozote killings, the US Embassy in El Salvador also denied a massacre occurred and rejected that US-trained troops were involved in any way. But the publication of declassified State Department documents in 2018 showed a shift in the US Embassy’s stance. Jean Manes, the US ambassador to El Salvador from 2015 to 2019, wrote in the State Department cables about the El Mozote case that the “Embassy continues to support creating strong democratic institutions in El Salvador, including the judiciary, which should help strengthen accountability and transparency for all types of crime, both current and historic.” This week, a US embassy political attache told reporters at the trial that the US was “supporting the rule of law and an independent trial here in El Salvador”, without directly mentioning US involvement in what happened in El Mozote. “We believe that efforts to guarantee accountability for human rights violations are important for ensuring justice for the victims,” the official said. For his part, Biden has said tackling impunity and corruption are priorities for his administration as it develops a $4bn aid package to Central America to address what it considers the root causes of migration amid an increase in arrivals at the southern US border. A woman prays during a memorial to the El Mozote Massacre, in the village of El Mozote, on December 7, 2019 [File: Jose Cabezas/Reuters] “The jury is still out on whether everything that has been said up until now is really rhetoric or if there is an interest from the US government to correct such horrible episodes,” Oscar Chacon, executive director of Alianza Americas, an immigrant rights organisation with a focus on Central America, told Al Jazeera. Meanwhile, for victims of the El Mozote massacre, the trial presents an opportunity to demand accountability – and to have their voices heard. In addition to an apology, Sanchez said she believes the US should contribute to reparations for the victims. The Inter-American Court for Human Rights ordered reparations in 2012 and the Salvadoran government at the time agreed to a list of them, but lawyers for the victims say the state has only followed through with about 15 percent of those promises. Sanchez added that anyone involved in the killings should face justice. “No matter what country they’re from, if they were involved in what happened in El Salvador, we have the right that they face a trial.” © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network

Mulu Nega, who was appointed in November as fighting raged in northern region, is replaced by Abraham Belay, federal government says. Ethiopia’s federal government has replaced the head of the interim administration of Tigray, a region racked by more than six months of catastrophic conflict. Mulu Nega had held the position since November, shortly after Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced a military campaign against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the northern region’s ruling party that had dominated national politics for decades. Mulu was replaced by Abraham Belay, who had been serving as minister of innovation and technology in the federal government, Abiy’s office said in a Twitter post on Thursday. “The appointment is a result of a six-month performance review of the role,” Abiy’s spokeswoman Billene Seyoum told the AFP news agency. Abraham is a member of Abiy’s Prosperity Party. Abiy said on November 4 he was sending troops into Tigray after accusing the TPLF of orchestrating attacks on federal army camps. The TPLF, which was at the helm of Ethiopia’s governing coalition for nearly 30 years until Abiy took office in 2018, denied responsibility and said the reported attack was a pretext for an “invasion” by federal forces and allied troops from neighbouring Eritrea. After federal troops took the regional capital Mekelle in November, Mulu set about trying to establish an interim government even as fighting raged elsewhere in the region. In an interview with AFP in February, he said he knew Mekelle residents had “mixed feelings” about his presence in the office formerly occupied by their overthrown leaders. “They want to have a government take over the governance activities in the region,” he said. “On the other hand, as we are not elected, they have also some doubts. That’s natural.” Mulu said he was happy in the job but did not want to stay on for long, and that he was planning to leave after elections are held in Tigray. The region will not take part in national elections planned for June 5 and it is unclear when voting will happen there. Mulu had acknowledged the presence of Eritrean troops in Tigray weeks before Abiy finally came clean about it in late March. “The TPLF attacked the federal government’s army in the [Tigray] region, which is what exposed their location and led the Eritrean forces to enter,” he told Al Jazeera in late February. “It happened against our will.” Abiy, the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, declared victory in Tigray in late November, but TPLF leaders remain on the run and fighting rumbles on. The conflict is believed to have killed thousands of people, if not more and displaced more than one million, including some 60,000 who fled to neighbouring Sudan. Increasing reports of mass killings, rape and widespread hunger have prompted international alarm and pressing calls for the withdrawal of Eritrean troops, who have been implicated in some of the worst attacks on civilians documented so far, including brutal gang rapes. Eritrea denies involvement in atrocities. During a visit on Wednesday at Um Rakuba refugee camp in Sudan’s Gadarif state, US Senator Chris Coons told Al Jazeera “there are still Eritrean troops all throughout Tigray and other places in Ethiopia”. “It (the conflict) is not over and not resolved,” he said. “There still needs to be accountability for human rights violations, a ceasefire, the removal of foreign troops – the Eritrean troops in particular – from Tigray and a path towards the resolution of this conflict.” Over the weekend, Abiy’s Council of Ministers approved a resolution classifying the TPLF as a “terrorist” group, dealing a blow to the prospect of peace talks. © Al Jazeera, 2021

US, UK and Germany urge China to allow UN ‘immediate, unfettered’ access to region amid concerns over Beijing’s treatment of the Uighur minority. The United States, Germany and Britain have clashed with China at the United Nations over its treatment of the Uighurs and people from other mostly Muslim groups in Xinjiang, as they pressed ahead with a virtual event that Beijing had lobbied UN member states to stay away from. “We will keep standing up and speaking out until China’s government stops its crimes against humanity and the genocide of Uighurs and other minorities in Xinjiang,” US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the event, which organisers said was attended by about 50 countries on Wednesday. The UN, some western countries, academics and rights groups say hundreds of thousands of Uighurs have been sent to re-education camps in the far western region. China has acknowledged the camps’ existence but says they are vocational skills training centres necessary to tackle hardline groups. “In Xinjiang, people are being tortured. Women are being forcibly sterilised,” Thomas-Greenfield said. Amnesty International Secretary-General Agnes Callamard told the event there were an estimated one million Uighurs and predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities being arbitrarily detained. In a note to UN member states last week, China’s UN mission rejected the accusations as “lies and false allegations” and accused the organising countries of being “obsessed with provoking confrontation with China”. It urged countries “NOT to participate in this anti-China event,” but on Wednesday a Chinese diplomat did address the accusations. “China has nothing to hide on Xinjiang,” said Chinese diplomat Guo Jiakun. “Xinjiang is always open. We welcome everyone to visit Xinjiang but we oppose any kind of investigation based on lies and with the presumption of guilt.” The event was organised by Germany, the US and Britain and co-sponsored by Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several other European nations. Barbara Woodward, the British ambassador to the UN told the meeting there was “evidence of mass arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances and incidences of torture. There are further reports of widespread forced labour and sterilisation”. 'Unprecendented’ drop in birth rates On Thursday, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) published new research based on official Chinese data saying that coercive policies on the part of Beijing had led to an “unprecedented and precipitous drop in official birth-rates” in Xinjiang since 2017. ASPI said the birth rate in the region had fallen by 48.74 percent in the two years following the introduction of the Communist Party’s “strike-hard” campaigns against “illegal births” in the region following years of preferential exceptions from China’s strict family planning laws for indigenous communities. ASPI noted the largest declines took place in counties where Uighurs and other indigenous communities were concentrated. The birth-rate in counties with a 90 percent or greater indigenous population declined by 56.5 percent, on average, between 2017 and 2018, it said. As well as population control, there have also been reports of the destruction of Muslim cemeteries, the separation of children and Uighurs being forced to eat pork in violation of their religious beliefs. Human Rights Watch alleged last year that repression was being “turbocharged by technology” with people being selected for detention through algorithms flagging connections, travel patterns and even wearing a headscarf. “We are here today to face these facts. And to ask China to allow immediate, meaningful and unfettered access to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and her Office,” said Woodward. “We appeal on China to respect the universal declaration of human rights and we asked China to tear down the detention camps,” German ambassador Christoph Heusgen added. “If you have nothing to hide, why don’t you finally grant unimpeded access to the high commissioner for human rights?,” he asked of China. UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet was not at the event and her absence was noted by Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth. “I’m sure she’s busy,” he said. “You know we all are. But I have a similar global mandate to defend human rights and I couldn’t think of anything more important to do than to join you here today.” Ravina Shamdasani, the deputy spokesperson for the UN Human Rights office, said Bachelet – who has expressed serious concerns about the human rights situation in Xinjiang and repeatedly request unimpeded access – was unable to participate. “The High Commissioner continues to engage with the Chinese authorities on the modalities for such a visit,” she said, adding that Bachelet’s office “continues to gather and analyse relevant information and follow the situation closely.” Later on Wednesday, at the launch of its annual report on the state of religious freedom around the world, a US State Department official, accused China of turning Xinjiang into an “open-air prison“. Daniel Nadel, a senior official in the State Department’s Office of International Freedom, said the population was being closely monitored. “People’s movements are closely tracked,” he said at a news briefing. “You have minders who have been assigned to live with Uighurs to keep tabs on them. You have people going to the market who have to check in every time they go to a different market stall,” he said. The report also detailed China’s persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual group. © Al Jazeera, 2021

Experts say they established convincing evidence that ISIS committed genocide ‘against the Yazidi as a religious group’. Evidence collected by UNITAD also details how the group used laboratories at Mosul University to produce chemical weapons [File: Reuters] A United Nations team investigating atrocities in Iraq found “clear and compelling evidence” that ISIL (ISIS) “committed” genocide against the Yazidi minority in 2014, its head has said, adding that the armed group successfully developed chemical weapons and used mustard gas. In a report to the UN Security Council on Monday, Karim Khan said the team had also concluded that ISIL committed war crimes against predominantly Shia unarmed cadets and personnel from the Tikrit Air Academy who were captured, tortured and subjected to mass killings in June 2014. He said an ISIL video released in July 2015 showing the killings “constitutes a direct and public incitement to commit genocide against Shia Muslims”. The Security Council voted unanimously in September 2017 to ask the UN to establish an investigative team to help Iraq preserve evidence and promote accountability for what “may amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide” committed by ISIL, in Iraq and the Levant region, which includes Syria. In his sixth report to the council, Khan said the Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh/ISIL (UNITAD) rapidly expanded the amount of evidence it has over the past six months. He said “significant developments” in collecting forensic evidence from mass grave sites, digital data extracted from hard drives that belonged to ISIL, digitisation of case files, and use of advanced technological tools to process and search databases has allowed the team “to establish clear timelines of activities of key ISIL members.” ‘Landmark moment’ Khan called it “a landmark moment” that UNITAD had established convincing evidence that ISIL committed genocide “against the Yazidi as a religious group” in the Sinjar region with the intent “to destroy the Yazidi physically and biologically.” This was manifest in the ISIL ultimatum applied to all Yazidis “to convert or die” and led to thousands killed, “either executed en masse, shot as they fled, or dying from exposure on Mount Sinjar as they tried to escape”, Khan said. “Thousands more were enslaved, with women and children abducted from their families and subjected to the most brutal abuses, including serial rape and other forms of unendurable sexual violence” that for many lasted years, “often leading to death”. The Yazidis are an ethno-religious minority numbering approximately 550,000 in their heartland of northwest Iraq before ISIL swept through the rugged region in 2014. Their belief combines elements of several ancient Middle Eastern religions. ISIL, which considers the Yazidis heretics, slaughtered thousands of Yazidi men, abducted women and girls and forced boys to fight on its behalf during the time it controlled large swaths of Iraq and Syria. Khan said crimes against the Yazidis continue, with thousands of women and children separated from their families or missing and some still with their ISIL captors or those to whom they were sold. Last year, Amnesty International warned that nearly 2,000 Yazidi children and other survivors who were subjected to horrendous human rights abuses at the hands of ISIL were not getting the help they needed to deal with lasting physical and mental trauma, as well as severe debilitating long-term illnesses or physical impairments. In 2016, the UN-mandated Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria also said ISIL was committing genocide against Yazidis, and several NGOs have echoed that conclusion. But Khan said what UNITAD has done in terms of the Yazidis is more important because the team was mandated to look at a variety of evidence that could stand up in court where the burden of proof is on the prosecution – “and to not just draw brush strokes from a survey of victims”. Khan further said information from electronic devices that belonged to the armed group also led UNITAD to open a new investigation “into the development and successful deployment of chemical and biological weapons by ISIL in Iraq.” Evidence collected by UNITAD details how the group used laboratories at Mosul University “as the epicentre of its chemical weapons program, drawing on the expertise of scientists and medical professionals from Iraq and abroad,” Khan said. Initially, he said, ISIL weaponised chlorine from water treatment plants captured by its fighters in 2014 and subsequently developed “toxic lethal compounds including thallium and nicotine that were tested on live prisoners, leading to death”. ISIL then developed a system to produce mustard gas, also called sulfur mustard, “that was deployed in March 2016 through the firing of 40 rockets at the Turkmen Shia town of Taza Khurmatu,” Khan said. Khan, who will become the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court on June 15, said the investigation is rapidly progressing, with initial results anticipated to be completed within five months. By the end of the year, he said, the team also anticipates initial results “addressing crimes against minority Christians, Kaka’i, Shabak, Shia Turkmen and Sunni communities in Iraq, as well as the massacre of predominantly Shia inmates at Badush prison.” Khan said the next step is to use the information and evidence collected by UNITAD “to meet the expectations of survivors” and put it before national courts to prosecute those responsible for these “horrific crimes.” He expressed hope that Iraqi legislators will adopt a legal basis to prosecute ISIL members for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. He welcomed legislation presented to parliament in Iraq’s Kurdistan region last week to establish a court with jurisdiction over international crimes committed by ISIL. © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network

Victims of mass forced sterilisations in the 1990s fear upcoming Peru presidential runoff results could close door to justice. Women hold signs reading 'We are 2,074 and more, forced sterilisations never again' during a protest against violence against women in Lima, Peru, in 2017 [File: Mariana Bazo/Reuters] By Simeon Tegel 19 May 2021 Lima, Peru – Maria Elena Carbajal still vividly recalls the doctor’s chilling response when, from her hospital bed, she asked repeatedly to see her newborn son, Francisco. “Once you have the procedure, you can see him,” the mother of four said the doctor told her, before asking: “You’re thinking of having more kids, like guinea pigs?” It was September 18, 1996, at Maria Auxiliadora Hospital in the Peruvian capital, Lima – and Carbajal, then 26, had given birth around 4am. Within three hours, she had been sterilised. Now a quarter of a century later, she is one of thousands of Peruvian women hoping to finally receive justice for one of the most notorious cases of mass forced sterilisationsin history. The tubal ligations, irreversible surgeries that prevent women from having children, occurred under the guise of a family planning and population control programme during the 1990-2000 government of Peru’s then-strongman President Alberto Fujimori, who is now serving a 25-year jail sentence for ordering two massacres of suspected subversives. After decades of legal roadblocks, a judge finally heard details of the case against Fujimori and three of his former health ministers earlier this year. The judge is due to decide soon whether the case can finally go to trial. If Fujimori is eventually found guilty, the sterilisations would constitute a crime against humanity as defined by the International Criminal Court. Yet the case is at serious risk of collapsing before it even begins. Peru presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori will face opponent Pedro Castillo in a runoff vote on June 6 [Angela Ponce/Reuters] Fujimori’s daughter, Keiko Fujimori, 45, is running for president and has promised to pardon her father if elected. It is widely assumed in Peru that she would also seek to shut down new prosecutions of her father, including for the sterilisations case. Alberto Fujimori remains revered by some Peruvians for ending a hyperinflation crisis and presiding over the crushing of the Shining Path, a group that Peru had declared a “terrorist organisation”. But Transparency International accused Fujimori of stealing $600m from public coffers. He has consistently denied the allegation and the many others made against him by prosecutors and human rights groups. His daughter has acknowledged the former president made “errors” but has insisted that corruption “attacked” his presidency. During the weekend, Keiko Fujimori also dismissed the “so-called forced sterilisations”, saying, “That was a family-planning plan. These are investigations that have been going on for 20 years and which have been shelved on four occasions.” ‘Risk to rule of law’ Meanwhile, she has been quickly making up ground on the presidential frontrunner, leftist candidate Pedro Castillo, in advance of the June 6 presidential runoff, and some commentators now regard her as the favourite. Keiko Fujimori, whose Popular Force party is widely blamed for destabilising Peru since she narrowly lost a 2016 election, also faces a trial of her own; She has been accused of laundering $17m and prosecutors are seeking a 31-year sentence. Keiko Fujimori has denied the money laundering allegations. But if she were to become president, her trial would be postponed until she steps down in 2026 – unless she were to emulate her father’s control of the judiciary in the 1990s. According to the International Commission of Jurists, by the end of Alberto Fujimori’s decade in power, the executive ended up manipulating the courts, even using them to attack opponents. Antonio Maldonado, the prosecutor who oversaw Alberto Fujimori’s extradition from Chile, said her victory would pose “a serious risk to the rule of law and democratic order” in the country. “It would be the triumph of impunity,” Maldonado told Al Jazeera. “It would be a grave wound to Peru’s international image. Little by little, Peru could end up like Venezuela or Nicaragua, facing serious reproach from the international community.” Thousands sterilised Alberto Fujimori unveiled the birth control programme in 1995. In its early days, it was funded by a $36m donation from the United States and a smaller amount from the United Nations. But allegations soon emerged of medical personnel bullying and tricking women, often Indigenous and with limited education, into undergoing sterilisations. So, too, did claims of doctors – under pressure to meet unrealistic quotas – cutting corners, failing to use sufficient anaesthetic, and ejecting patients in severe pain from clinics almost as soon as the procedures were completed. Keiko Fujimori, whose team did not respond to Al Jazeera’s requests for comment, was first lady during the latter part of the programme after she replaced her mother, Susanna Higuchi, who had a bitter separation from the former president. According to Peru’s health ministry, 272,028 women were sterilised, although it remains unclear how many of those procedures were carried out against the wishes of the patients. Human rights groups believe the number likely runs into the tens of thousands. Amid a storm of national and international criticism, the programme was eventually ended in 2000. To this day, the Fujimoristas insist that any abuses were the isolated acts of rogue doctors rather than state policy. Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori unveiled the birth control programme in 1995 [File: Mariana Bazo/Reuters] Upcoming vote Despite a deep dislike of the Fujimori dynasty’s alleged crimes, many Peruvians equally fear Keiko Fujimori’s surprise opponent in the presidential runoff next month. Castillo, a firebrand teachers’ union leader, ran on an explicitly Marxist platform and has argued that Venezuela is a democracy. The 51-year-old also has pledged to free Antauro Humala, a radical army officer who led a 2005 military insurrection against the elected government of then-President Alejandro Toledo. There are also concerns that Castillo might attempt to interfere in the justice system on behalf of the leader of his Free Peru party, Vladimir Cerrón, a Cuban-trained doctor and former regional governor who is serving a suspended sentence for corruption and also faces nearly a dozen more graft cases. Maldonado, the prosecutor, regards him as also being a threat to Peru’s fragile institutions. Castillo and Keiko Fujimori made it to the runoff with record-low support in the first round of voting – at 19 percent and 13 percent, respectively – with Peruvians ground down by five years of political scandals, as well as the world’s worst per capita COVID-19 death rate. “People are hurting and need to be able to get on with rebuilding their lives. What they are most afraid of is more chaos,” said Norma Correa, an anthropologist at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. “This is a campaign that is only going to get more emotional, reopening old wounds and triggering more fears as we get closer to the election.” Esperanza Huayama, 59, a victim of forced sterilisation procedures in the 1990s poses for a picture during a news conference in Lima in 2015 [File: Cris Bouroncle/AFP] For Carbajal, now 51, those fears all centre around the possibility of the Fujimori family returning to power. She still suffers from health problems linked to her unwanted sterilisation, which she said messed with her hormones, leading to arthritis and forcing her to retire from her job as a geriatric assistant. Carbajal said she is now unable to even lift her two-year-old grandchild. “It’s like a bucket of cold water in the face,” said Carbajal, about the looming possibility that the next government will shield the former president from justice. “After all these years, we were finally getting close to justice. They treated us like animals, like cattle, and now they could be about to get away with it forever.” See article here. © 2021 Al Jazeera

Police confirm the abduction of at least 317 girls from school in Zamfara state, second kidnapping in more than a week. Unidentified gunmen have kidnapped 317 schoolgirls in the northwest Nigerian state of Zamfara, police said in a statement on Friday, the second such kidnapping in little over a week. Earlier, Sulaiman Tanau Anka, information commissioner for Zamfara state, told Reuters news agency that “unknown gunmen … took the girls away” in a midnight raid on the Jangebe Government Girls’ Secondary School. “Information available to me said they came with vehicles and moved the students, they also moved some on foot,” Anka said, adding that security forces were hunting through the area. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) also confirmed, saying more than 300 girls were estimated to have been abducted. “We are angered and saddened and by yet another brutal attack on schoolchildren in Nigeria,” said Peter Hawkins, UNICEF’s Nigeria representative. Police spokesman Mohammed Shehu said in a statement that “the Zamfara State Police Command in collaboration with the military have commenced a joint search and rescue operations with a view to rescuing the 317 students kidnapped by the armed bandits in Government Girls Science Secondary School Jangebe”. A parent said two of his daughters were among the missing girls. “Two of my daughters aged 10 and 13 are among the about 300 girls the school authorities told us are missing,” parent Nasiru Abdullahi told DPA news agency via telephone. Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris reporting from Minna in Niger state said: “[According to local people] the gunmen arrived shortly midnight and operated for hours in this all-girls school in Zamfara state.” “This is one of the states that is continuously being attacked by these gun-men, abductions for ransom and raiding for villages … this is practically one of the major things that people in the north of the country are facing on a daily bases,” he added. The charity Save the Children said it was “horrified” about the news of the abductions. “It is unacceptable that attacks on schools and students has become a recurring scenario in Northern Nigeria,” said Mercy Gichuhi, Save the Children’s Nigeria director. “These attack … puts (the children) at risk of never returning to school, as they or their parents think it’s too dangerous.” Amnesty International Nigeria said the abductions was “a serious violation of international humanitarian law”. “Nigerian authorities must take all measures to return them to safety, along with all children currently under the custody of armed groups,” the rights group said on Twitter. Previous incidents This is the second such kidnapping in a little more than a week in Nigeria’s north, which has seen a surge in activity by armed groups leading to a widespread and worsening breakdown of security. Last week, unidentified attackers killed a student in an overnight attack on a boarding school in the north-central Nigerian state of Niger and kidnapped 42 people, including 27 students. The hostages are yet to be released. More than 300 boys were kidnapped from a school in December in Kankara, in President Muhammadu Buhari’s home state of Katsina, while he was visiting the region. The boys were later released after negotiations with government officials but the incident triggered global outrage. © Al Jazeera 2021

Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman faces 31 charges, including persecution, murder, torture and rape. The situation in Darfur was referred to the ICC by the UN Security Council in 2005 [File: Peter Dejong/AP Photo] Prosecutors have accused a man of being a “feared and revered” militia leader behind a campaign of deadly raids in Sudan’s Darfur conflict, in the build-up to the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) first trial linked to the violence. The war crimes prosecutors said on Monday that Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman was also known as Ali Kushayb, a senior commander of thousands of government-backed “Janjaweed” fighters during the height of the conflict between 2003 and 2004. Abd-Al-Rahman, wearing a face mask and a dark suit, did not speak as a court officer read out 31 charges against him, including persecution, murder, torture and rape. He has yet to make a plea, though his defence team has argued in earlier legal filings that Abd-Al-Rahman is not the man known as Ali Kushayb, among other arguments. Fatou Bensouda, the chief ICC prosecutor, told the confirmation of charges hearing she would show that Abd-Al-Rahman had led attacks on towns and villages and was implicated in more than 300 murders and raids that forced 40,000 mainly ethnic Fur civilians from their homes. “The evidence shows that Mr Abd-Al-Rahman was a knowing, willing and energetic perpetrator of these crimes,” she told the hearing. “Feared and revered in equal measure as the ‘colonel of colonels’, he was a senior leader of the infamous Janjaweed militia in the Wadi Salih and Mukjar localities during the charged period,” she said. Darfur violence Darfur’s conflict erupted in 2003 when mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms against Sudan’s government, accusing it of neglecting the arid, western region. Khartoum mobilised mostly Arab militias to crush the revolt, unleashing a wave of violence that the United States and some activists said amounted to genocide. Abd-Al-Rahman, who surrendered in June last year to face an outstanding arrest warrant, is the first suspect to be tried at the international tribunal over the conflict. Sudan’s former leader Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who is facing ICC charges of orchestrating genocide and other atrocities in Darfur, was removed from office in 2019 and remains in prison in Khartoum. Sudan is not a state party to the court but the situation in Darfur was referred to The Hague-based court by the United Nations Security Council in 2005. Defence lawyer Cyril Laucci said he intends to contest the ICC’s jurisdiction over crimes committed in Darfur because of issues with the UN referral. © Copyright 2021 Al Jazeera