EHRC says rebel group killed 150 people in Oromia region last week, and 60 others were killed in reprisal attacks. A woman holds a baby as she rests over a sack of wheat during a food distribution organized by the Amhara government near the village of Baker. EDUARDO SOTERAS/AFP - Copyright © africanews More than 210 people have been killed across several days of ethnic violence in Ethiopia’s tense Oromia region last week, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has said. The state-affiliated but independent commission said on Thursday that witnesses described gunmen affiliated with the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), a rebel group, arriving on August 18 after security forces withdrew from Gida-Kirimu in the western region. “The area’s residents and others have told the commission more than 150 people were killed by the gunmen,” the human rights body said. The attack forced women and children to flee to neighbouring areas, and sparked a wave of revenge killings. “In subsequent days, some residents carried out ethnic-based reprisal attacks, killing more than 60 people” and triggering a further exodus of civilians fleeing the violence, the commission said. The government-appointed body did not state who was responsible for the acts of revenge. “The attack happened a day after the relocation of security forces to other areas,” the statement said. Local reports and sources said the initial attack targeted ethnic Amharas who have often faced similar attacks in the past. The panel called for “immediate action” to prevent the instability from spreading further and an investigation into why security forces withdrew from the troubled area. In a statement, the OLA denied responsibility for the attacks. The group is believed to be active in the area where the latest attack took place. Odaa Tarbii, spokesperson for the rebel group, said in a tweet on Thursday such reports were a “gross distortion of the facts on the ground”. The OLA was designated a “terrorist organisation” by lawmakers in May alongside the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), whose rebel forces have been fighting in Ethiopia’s north since November. The government has accused the OLA of massacring civilians in Oromia, the country’s largest region, and in Amhara, the second largest. Clashes involving the two ethnic groups killed more than 300 people across several days in March, federal officials said. The group has denied allegations of spearheading the grisly massacres. Believed to number in the low thousands, the OLA broke off from the Oromo Liberation Front, an opposition party that spent years in exile, but was allowed to return to Ethiopia after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office in 2018. Earlier this month, the OLA and the TPLF announced that they had reached an agreement to fight together against Abiy’s forces and his allies. A spokesman for the OLA said the two groups mutually agreed that Abiy’s “dictatorship” must be removed and that they were sharing intelligence and coordinating on strategy. The government denounced the pact as a “destructive alliance” between two groups seeking to destabilise the country. Northern Ethiopia has been racked by conflict since November when Abiy, the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner, sent troops into Tigray to topple the TPLF. He said the move came in response to TPLF attacks on federal army camps and victory would be swift. But nine months later, the conflict has spread into the neighbouring regions of Afar and Amhara, and drawn in forces from across Ethiopia. © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network

From targeted attacks to land grabs, the country’s most marginalised people suffer as little help comes from the government. Buddhist monk Agrojyoti Bhante who was brutally attacked by two machete-wielding men at a monastery in Khagrachari, Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh [Courtesy of Kapaeeng Foundation] By Zarif Faiaz 30 Jul 2021 Dhaka, Bangladesh – On the night of May 31, Agrojyoti Bhante was brutally attacked by two machete-wielding men at a monastery in Khagrachari, 270km (168 miles) south of capital Dhaka in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). The attackers, later identified as two Bengali construction workers who worked at the monastery, also looted about 60,000 takas ($700) from the monastery and left the 47-year-old Buddhist monk, belonging to one of Bangladesh’s Indigenous communities, for dead. While no accurate data on the number of Indigenous people in Bangladesh is available, a census conducted by the government in 2011 found they are about 1.6 million. But Indigenous and activist groups claim their population is at least 3 million, or 2 percent, of more than 160 million people in the Muslim-majority country. There are about 54 different Indigenous communities in the country, the majority of them living in the northern and southeastern plains. The rest, about 20 percent, are in CHT – most of them Buddhists. In the plains, most are Christians. Three attacks in a week Indigenous groups and activists say the communities suffer from gross human rights violations and disparities. On May 30, a day before the Khagrachari incident, a case of arson against the Indigenous Khasi people was reported at Baralekha in Moulvibazar district, 278km (170 miles) from CHT. Unknown miscreants had cut down thousands of betel leaf trees at an Indigenous farm that served as the primary source of income for at least 48 families in the area, who, according to sources, incurred a loss of at least $8,000. A general view of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh [Zarif Faiaz/Al Jazeera] According to local media reports at the time, unidentified settlers were busy illegally occupying three other Indigenous betel leaf farms in a different area of the town, triggering anger among the Khasi community. On June 6, The Daily Star newspaper reported that in Dinajpur, some 350km (217 miles) from Moulvibazar on the other end of the country, a lawsuit was filed against 22 Indigenous Santal community members. Plaintiff Mahbubur Rahman, a local Bengali, claimed the men, led by Rabindranath Soren, the president of a local Indigenous rights organisation, allegedly pillaged his crop worth $530. Santal community leaders protested against the lawsuit, calling it a false allegation to harass the Indigenous people who were engaged in a land dispute with Rahman. While the monk in Khagrachari survived the attack, the local administration ultimately came to evict the illegal occupiers in Moulvibazar, and promises were made by the local law enforcement authority to look into the land dispute in Dinajpur. But three separate incidents of attacks on Indigenous people in a span of a week sparked an atmosphere of fear among the marginalised communities. Land grab by Bengali settlers Locals believe the attacks were carried out as part of a larger ploy to grab the lands belonging to the Indigenous people – an issue far too common in a country facing a decades-old rift between the Indigenous communities and the Bengali settlers. The strife between the settlers and the Indigenous communities has a long and complex history that goes back to 1980, when landless Bengali families first began migrating to CHT en masse. In the years that followed, Bengali settlers outnumbered the Indigenous population in the southern region. A 2002 paper by Zobaida Nasreen and Masahiko Togawa, titled Politics of Development: “Pahari-Bengali” Discourse in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, shows that in 1959, the Indigenous population in CHT was 91 percent, with the rest being settlers. In the next 30 years, by 1991, the settler population had risen to 48 percent in the region, displacing much of the Indigenous people, causing them to drop to 51 percent. Citing a 2016 book by Devasish Roy, circle chief of the Chakmas, the largest Indigenous group in the country, The Daily Star reported that approximately 200,000 to 450,000 Bengali people were rehabilitated in the region between 1979 and 1985. More than 100,000 Indigenous people migrated to neighbouring India during this time, though many of them returned in the 1990s. The trend picked up in other parts of Bangladesh as Bengali settlers continued to move into Indigenous territories – in the hills as well as the plains – to accommodate a booming Bengali population. The settlements sparked land disputes and violent clashes between the settlers and the local communities that continue to this day. An Indigenous child in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh [Zarif Faiaz/Al Jazeera] Phillip Gain, researcher and director of Society for Environment and Human Development (SEHD), outlines how land disputes have always been at the centre of contention between settlers and Indigenous communities. According to his book, Survival on the Fringe: Advisasis of Bangladesh, 85 percent of Indigenous people in the northwestern region of the country are now completely landless, even though they held much of the lands in the region prior to the arrival of the Bengali settlers. Khokon Suiten Murmu, programme coordinator at Kapaeeng Foundation, an Indigenous rights watchdog and son-in-law of Soren, the Indigenous leader sued in Dinajpur, says that land-grabbing is a common tactic used by the Bengali settlers. “The case in Dinajpur, where 22 Indigenous men were sued along with my father-in-law, is a prime example of how land grabbers manipulate the system in order to harass the less fortunate Indigenous groups,” Khokon told Al Jazeera, calling the case against them “false and fabricated”. “Land grabbers like (Rahman) even have records of hiring armed hitmen to carry out attacks on the local Indigenous men in order to intimidate them. This is nothing new. We just live to fight another day,” he added. Activists say the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the crisis, with land-grabbing continuing “with full force” in the absence of active media. A report by the non-profit Kapaeeng Foundation reveals that between March and June 2020, at least 6,504 acres of Indigenous land were either fully occupied or under a process of occupation. “Most members of the local Indigenous communities are uneducated peasants who have been historically enjoying rights to their ancestral lands,” says Khokon. “Settlers tend to assume these lands are unoccupied since there is no paperwork and they use the system to their advantage by deceit or by force.” Khokon said the Bengali settlers are well-connected with local influential men “which makes it tougher for the Indigenous communities to take legal actions against them”. That is why lodging formal complaints with the police does little to help the situation. ‘A lot more remains to be done’ A 2019 report in The Daily Star revealed that some 22,000 complaints filed with the Chittagong Land Dispute Resolution Commission since its inception in 1999 have not been resolved since the government failed to formulate the panel’s rules of business all these years. Kyaw Shwe Hla, chairman of Bandarban Hill District Council in CHT and a member of the commission, says there has been no progress in formulating the rules of business. “We were supposed to wait for instructions from the land ministry in a meeting, but due to COVID-19, everything is suspended now. We will hopefully resume operations after things calm down a little. But as of now, there is no progress.” In 1997, the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord promised “to uphold the political, social, cultural, educational and economic rights of all the people of Chittagong Hill Tracts region”. Even the government’s Seventh Five Year Plan for 2016-2020 outlined several commitments towards addressing the problems faced by the Indigenous population of the country, both in CHT and the plains, showcasing commendable goodwill on the government’s part. But issues such as the Land Dispute Resolution Commission’s ineffectiveness pit the government’s actions against its words. Pallab Chakma, an Indigenous rights activist and executive director of Kapaeeng Foundation, says the government urgently needs to act on its promises. “In the past years, there have been a few positive notes from the government and its agencies. Even in the Moulvibazar case of attack on the betel leaf farm, we have seen the authorities take prompt action, thankfully. But a lot more remains to be done and the progress is slow,” Pallab told Al Jazeera. Meanwhile, attacks on the disadvantaged and socially excluded groups continue. On June 15, unidentified perpetrators raped and assaulted an Indigenous woman in Tangail, northwest of capital Dhaka. On June 19, an Indigenous man was killed in Bandarban, CHT, allegedly by hardline Indigenous activists because he had converted to Islam. As the list of assaults grows, Indigenous community members say equality and justice remain a far cry for them in Bangladesh. © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network

Medical sources say at least 60 people were killed in attack in Afghan capital claimed by ISIS affiliate. Injured people being carried to a hospital as unspecified number of casualties reported after two explosions outside Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul [Sayed Khodaiberdi Sadat/Anadolu/Getty Images] At least 60 people have been killed in two powerful explosions outside Kabul’s international airport, medical sources have told Al Jazeera, amid a huge and chaotic evacuation effort from Afghanistan. On Thursday two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked crowds of Afghans that had flocked to Kabul’s airport, in the waning days of an airlift for those fleeing the Taliban takeover. The attacks killed at least 60 Afghans and 12 US troops, Afghan and US officials said. A Taliban official earlier said children were among the dead. The city’s main Emergency Hospital said on Twitter that at least 60 wounded people were transferred to their facility so far. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said one blast occurred near the airport’s Abbey Gate and the other close to the nearby Baron Hotel. “We can confirm that the explosion at the Abbey Gate was the result of a complex attack that resulted in a number of US & civilian casualties,” Kirby said on Twitter. “We can also confirm at least one other explosion at or near the Baron Hotel, a short distance from Abbey Gate.” Medical and hospital staff bring an injured man on a stretcher for treatment in Kabul [Wakil Kohsar/AFP] Sources told Al Jazeera that tens of thousands of people had been waiting outside the Abbey Gate earlier in the day. The explosions came after US officials and allies had warned people not to come to the area around Hamid Karzai International due to the threat of an attack. The Afghan affiliate of the ISIL (ISIS), known as the Islamic State Khorasan Province, ISKP (ISIS-K), claimed responsibility for the attack. Russian officials said two suicide bombers and gunmen had targeted crowds massing near the Kabul airport. Turkish officials confirmed there were two separate blasts. There were chaotic scenes outside the Emergency Hospital as dozens of cars and ambulances brought in the wounded including the elderly and children. Family members seeking information about their relatives who were reportedly wounded in the blasts were waiting anxiously outside the hospital. The Emergency Hospital said on Twitter that at least 60 injured people have been transferred to their facility so far [Wakil Kohsar/AFP] Talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan are under way as buses with French citizens and people France wants to protect are at the entrance of Kabul airport, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday, while visiting Ireland. Speaking at a joint news conference with Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin, Macron said he could not guarantee that France would be successful in evacuating people from the country. The blast marks the first such attack in the country since the Taliban took control of Kabul 10 days ago and before the group had fully announced its new government. They will now be left to tend to any casualties with whatever resources are currently at their disposal, as much of the Afghan National Security Forces were left without jobs or direct orders since President Ashraf Ghani fled the country on August 15. Warnings issued Several countries urged people to avoid the airport earlier in the day, with one saying there was a threat of a bombing. But just days – or even hours for some nations – before the evacuation effort ends, few appeared to heed the call. Overnight, warnings emerged from Western capitals about a threat from Afghanistan’s ISIL group affiliate, which likely has seen its ranks boosted by the Taliban’s freeing of prisoners during their blitz across the country. British Armed Forces Minister James Heappey told the BBC early Thursday there was ”very, very credible reporting of an imminent attack” at the airport, possibly within “hours”. Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said his country had received information from the US and other countries about the “threat of suicide attacks on the mass of people”. The acting US ambassador to Kabul, Ross Wilson, said the security threat at the Kabul airport overnight was “clearly regarded as credible, as imminent, as compelling”. A while later, the blast was reported. US President Joe Biden has been briefed on the explosion, the White House said. Wilson also said there remain “safe ways” for Americans to reach the airport, but “there undoubtedly will be” Afghans who had worked with or for the US in Afghanistan who will not be able to get out before the evacuation ends. Late Wednesday, the US Embassy warned citizens at three airport gates to leave immediately due to an unspecified security threat. Australia, the UK and New Zealand also advised their citizens Thursday not to go to the airport, with Australia’s foreign minister saying there was a “very high threat of a terrorist attack”. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied that any attack was imminent in the wake of those warnings. Earlier Thursday, the Taliban sprayed a water cannon at those gathered at one airport gate to try to drive the crowd away, as someone launched tear gas canisters elsewhere. Ali M Latifi contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan. SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

Jimmy Cherizier, known as ‘Barbecue’, has repeatedly called for Prime Minister Ariel Henry to resign. A notorious gang leader in Haiti has called for the United Nations and the United States to break ties with the country’s government in order to help “liberate Haiti”. Jimmy Cherizier, known as “Barbecue”, the leader of the G9 Family and Allies, a federation of nine violent gangs that control much of Port-au-Prince, issued the appeal during a news conference on Wednesday in La Saline, one of the capital’s poorest areas. “We take this opportunity to invite the United Nations in general and the so-called friendly countries of Haiti, in particular the United States of America, to register in this page of history as loyal allies who want the well-being of the Haitian people by divorcing the status quo,” Cherizier said. The G9 controls entire sections of the capital and have been accused of assassination and mass killings, including the murder of infants. Cherizier has roundly denied responsibility for the crimes. The grouping of gangs is also accused of burning neighbourhoods to the ground forcing thousands to flee, and of demanding extortion payments from businesses. Those who do not comply see their businesses looted or the owners killed. Insecurity in Haiti, which was already experiencing economic and political crises, has spiralled since President Jovenel Moise was assassinated in July. Cherizier, who has positioned himself as a voice of the people, even as his gangs are accused of adding to the country’s woes, has repeatedly called for the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, blaming him for much of the unrest. The gang leader has accused Henry of taking part in the assassination of Moise after mobile phone calls between Henry and Joseph Felix Badio, one of the prime suspects in the killing, became public. The calls were made on the night of the assassination. Henry has said he does not remember the calls while maintaining he spoke to many people that night. Badio’s whereabouts remain unknown. Gangs under Cherizier’s control, meanwhile, have been accused of causing significant fuel shortages by sealing off access to the country’s main port in the capital. The shortages have caused outbursts of violence near gas stations and a general strike by workers unions. He had previously said he would assure the safe passage of fuel if Henry resigned. His latest comments come as the US continues to struggle to negotiate the release of 17 members of a missionary group from the US. The missionaries were abducted while leaving an orphanage outside of Port au Prince in October. Wilson Joseph, the leader of the 400 Mawozo gang, has threatened to kill the group, which includes five children if a ransom of $1 million per member is not paid. The 400 Mawozo gang is a rival of the G9 Family and Allies. © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network

Gregory Stanton, who founded the Genocide Watch group, is sounding the alarm on violence against Muslims in India. A genocide of Muslims in India could be about to take place, an expert said to have predicted the massacre of the Tutsi in Rwanda years before it took place in 1994, has warned. Gregory Stanton, the founder and director of Genocide Watch, said during a US congressional briefing there were early “signs and processes” of genocide in the Indian state of Assam and Indian-administered Kashmir. “We are warning that genocide could very well happen in India,” Stanton said, speaking on behalf of the non-governmental organisation he launched in 1999 to predict, prevent, stop and seek accountability for the crime. Stanton said genocide was not an event but a process and drew parallels between the policies pursued by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the discriminatory policies of Myanmar’s government against Rohingya Muslims in 2017. Among the policies he cited were the revocation of the special autonomous status of Indian-administered Kashmir in 2019 – which stripped Kashmiris of the special autonomy they had for seven decades – and the Citizenship Amendment Act the same year, which granted citizenship to religious minorities but excluded Muslims. Stanton, a former lecturer in genocide studies and prevention at the George Mason University in Virginia, said he feared a similar scenario to Myanmar, where the Rohingya were first legally declared non-citizens and then expelled through violence and genocide. “What we are now facing is a very similar kind of a plot,” he said. Stanton said the Hindutva ideology was “contrary to the history of India and the Indian constitution and referred to Modi as an “extremist who has taken over the government”. In 1989, Stanton said he had warned the then-Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana that “if you don’t do something to prevent genocide in your country, there is going to be a genocide here within five years”. The early warning signs were followed by the massacre of 800,000 Tutsis and other Rwandans in 1994. “We cannot let that happen in India,” Stanton said. Genocide Watch began warning of genocide in India in 2002, when a three-day period of inter-communal violence in the western Indian state of Gujarat resulted in the killing of more than 1,000 Muslims. ‘Take it seriously’ Aakar Patel, a Bengaluru-based rights activist, writer and the former head of Amnesty International in India, told Al Jazeera that the reports should be taken “very seriously”. “I think the history on the record of India’s civic violence shows either the state does something that provokes the violence (against Muslims) or does not do enough to stop it,” Patel said. “I think the government of India needs to take it seriously … The people outside are naturally alarmed when such things are said in India and nothing is done by the state,” he said referring to a recent call for Muslim genocide made at an event by right-wing Hindu groups. MM Ansari, a former information commissioner and educationist based in New Delhi, termed the report “alarming”. “The fear is very genuine,” he said. Other experts have denounced rising attacks on Muslim vendors and businesses by Hindu supremacist groups. In November, Hindu hardliners set fire to the home of a Muslim former foreign minister, Salman Khurshid, who had compared the kind of Hindu nationalism that has flourished under Modi with “extremist groups” such as ISIL (ISIS). Videos of Hindu religious leaders calling for mass killings and for the use of weapons against Muslims that went viral on social media last month prompted the Supreme Court to order an investigation into hate speech in Uttarakhand state. “Under BJP’s leadership, India became one of the most dangerous countries for Muslims and Christians in the world. They are being persecuted physically, psychologically and economically,” activist and academic Apoorvanand wrote in an OpEd for Al Jazeera. “Laws are being passed to criminalise their religious practices, food habits and even businesses.” Syed Zafar Islam, the spokesperson of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, rejected Genocide Watch’s report, saying “no such things exist as [is] being portrayed”. “First of all the impression they have created is factually incorrect,” Islam said, adding that many instances being highlighted by the media were far from reality. “There have been instances (of attacks) but it is not restricted to one community. In society, we have sometimes attacks on each other over reasons like property disputes or other disputes. These things do not only happen between Hindu and Muslims only but they happen among Hindus as well,” he said. Muslims comprise nearly 14 percent of India’s 1.4 billion people, while Hindus still form nearly 80 percent of the population. Modi’s BJP and its ideological parent, the far-right Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), have warned Hindus about religious conversions to Islam and Christianity, and called for action to prevent a “demographic imbalance” in the world’s second most populous nation. Modi’s BJP has been accused of encouraging the persecution of Muslims and other minorities by hardline Hindu nationalists since coming to power in 2014, allegations it denies. © Al Jazeera 2022

Police called Yati Narsinghanand Giri, an outspoken supporter of far-right nationalists who also heads a Hindu monastery, a ‘repeat offender’. Police personnel stand guard on the banks of the River Ganges during Makar Sankranti, a day of great religious significance in Hindu mythology, on the first day of the Kumbh Mela festival in Haridwar on January 14, 2021 [Money Sharma/AFP] Indian authorities have charged a Hindu monk with inciting religious violence after he called for the “genocide” of India’s Muslims at a meeting of right-wing supporters, police said. Senior police officer Swatantra Kumar on Monday said Yati Narsinghanand Giri, an outspoken supporter of far-right nationalists who also heads a Hindu monastery, was initially arrested on Saturday on allegations that he made derogatory remarks against women. He appeared the following day in a court in the town of Haridwar, where he was sent into 14 days of custody for hate speech against Muslims and calling for violence against them. Kumar said the monk Giri, whom he described as a “repeat offender,” was formally charged on Monday for promoting “enmity between different groups on grounds of religion”. The charge can carry a jail term of five years. In December, Giri and other religious leaders called on Hindus to arm themselves for “a genocide” against Muslims during a meeting in Haridwar, a northern holy town in Uttarakhand state, according to a police complaint. He is the second person to be arrested in the case after India’s Supreme Court intervened last week. Uttarakhand is ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The political party’s rise to power in 2014, and landslide reelection in 2019, has led to a spike in attacks against Muslims and other minorities. Muslims comprise nearly 14 percent of India’s 1.4 billion people, a largely Hindu country that has long proclaimed its multicultural character. The three-day conference that Giri helped organise was called the Dharam Sansad – or Religious Parliament – and followed on years of rising anti-Muslim hate speech. The closed-door meetings witnessed some of the most explicit calls for violence yet. Videos from the conference showed multiple Hindu monks, some of whom have close ties to Modi’s ruling party, saying Hindus should kill Muslims. “If 100 of us are ready to kill two million of them, then we will win and make India a Hindu nation,” said Pooja Shakun Pandey, a Hindu nationalist leader, referring to the country’s Muslim population. Her calls for a massacre were met with applause from the audience. Pandey is being investigated by police for insulting religious beliefs. During the congregation, Hindu monks and other supporters, including Giri, took an oath calling for the killing of those who were perceived to be enemies of the Hindu religion. The calls for violence were met with public outrage and drew sharp criticism from former military chiefs, retired judges, academics and rights activists. Many questioned the Modi government’s silence, warning that hate speech against Muslims will only grow as several Indian states, including Uttarakhand, head to the polls in February. Last week, students and faculty at the Indian Institute of Management – one of India’s most prestigious business schools – submitted a letter to Modi in which they wrote his silence “emboldens” hate and “threatens the unity and integrity of our country”. Modi’s ruling party has faced fierce criticism over rising attacks against Muslims in recent years. Opposition leaders and rights groups have accused it of encouraging violence by hardline Hindu nationalists against Muslims and other minorities. The party denies the allegation. SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES © 2022 Al Jazeera Media Network

Police called Yati Narsinghanand Giri, an outspoken supporter of far-right nationalists who also heads a Hindu monastery, a ‘repeat offender’. Yati Narsinghanand Giri speaking at Hardiwar meeting credit: BBC News Indian authorities have charged a Hindu monk with inciting religious violence after he called for the “genocide” of India’s Muslims at a meeting of right-wing supporters, police said. Senior police officer Swatantra Kumar on Monday said Yati Narsinghanand Giri, an outspoken supporter of far-right nationalists who also heads a Hindu monastery, was initially arrested on Saturday on allegations that he made derogatory remarks against women. He appeared the following day in a court in the town of Haridwar, where he was sent into 14 days of custody for hate speech against Muslims and calling for violence against them. Kumar said the monk Giri, whom he described as a “repeat offender,” was formally charged on Monday for promoting “enmity between different groups on grounds of religion”. The charge can carry a jail term of five years. In December, Giri and other religious leaders called on Hindus to arm themselves for “a genocide” against Muslims during a meeting in Haridwar, a northern holy town in Uttarakhand state, according to a police complaint. He is the second person to be arrested in the case after India’s Supreme Court intervened last week. Uttarakhand is ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The political party’s rise to power in 2014, and landslide reelection in 2019, has led to a spike in attacks against Muslims and other minorities. Muslims comprise nearly 14 percent of India’s 1.4 billion people, a largely Hindu country that has long proclaimed its multicultural character. The three-day conference that Giri helped organise was called the Dharam Sansad – or Religious Parliament – and followed on years of rising anti-Muslim hate speech. The closed-door meetings witnessed some of the most explicit calls for violence yet. Videos from the conference showed multiple Hindu monks, some of whom have close ties to Modi’s ruling party, saying Hindus should kill Muslims. “If 100 of us are ready to kill two million of them, then we will win and make India a Hindu nation,” said Pooja Shakun Pandey, a Hindu nationalist leader, referring to the country’s Muslim population. Her calls for a massacre were met with applause from the audience. Pandey is being investigated by police for insulting religious beliefs. During the congregation, Hindu monks and other supporters, including Giri, took an oath calling for the killing of those who were perceived to be enemies of the Hindu religion. The calls for violence were met with public outrage and drew sharp criticism from former military chiefs, retired judges, academics and rights activists. Many questioned the Modi government’s silence, warning that hate speech against Muslims will only grow as several Indian states, including Uttarakhand, head to the polls in February. Last week, students and faculty at the Indian Institute of Management – one of India’s most prestigious business schools – submitted a letter to Modi in which they wrote his silence “emboldens” hate and “threatens the unity and integrity of our country”. Modi’s ruling party has faced fierce criticism over rising attacks against Muslims in recent years. Opposition leaders and rights groups have accused it of encouraging violence by hardline Hindu nationalists against Muslims and other minorities. The party denies the allegation. © 2022 Al Jazeera Media Network

UN official says the body is investigating the incident involving CAR troops and ‘other security personnel’. The United Nations is investigating the alleged killing of dozens of people in the Central African Republic last week by CAR forces and mercenaries with the Russian private military company Wagner. More than 30 civilians were reportedly killed, some by stray bullets, in the January 16-17 operation near the town of Bria that targeted the Union for Peace rebel group, according to UN officials speaking anonymously on Friday. UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the UN mission known as MINUSCA in the country received reports of the incident involving CAR troops and “other security personnel”. “We are currently confirming the number of casualties and displacement,” Dujarric said. MINUSCA dispatched a human rights team accompanied by security personnel to the area, and it “continues to assess the situation, ensuring necessary measures to be taken to protect civilians”, said Dujarric. A military source in the country suggested the fighting could still be ongoing. “Central African forces and the Russians are committing a massacre,” the source told AFP news agency, declining to be identified. “There have been summary executions and we are talking about 50 deaths.” ‘Grave abuses’ Albert Yaloke Mokpeme, spokesman for the CAR presidency, said he had “no knowledge of this attack”. But in mid-2021, UN experts deployed to CAR expressed concerns over reports of “grave human rights abuses” by Russian mercenaries who are contracted to support government forces. The Wagner group is reputed to be close to the Kremlin, and critics say it takes orders from the Russian defence ministry. Russia, however, rejected criticism and said at the time Wagner used only “instructors” for the CAR military. Moscow has said it has 1,135 “unarmed trainers” in the country. But local independent groups, France, and the United Nations say at least some are from the Wagner group, which now has an armed presence in several African countries including Libya and Mali. At the last meeting of the UN Security Council on the conflict in the Central African Republic, the United States demanded that Moscow investigate the abuses blamed on the Russians. The UN experts group – with about a dozen people sent to monitor an arms embargo on the war-torn country – has not been functioning since August 31. Russia has blocked a renewal of its mandate, claiming its makeup is tilted towards the West and does not reflect true geographic diversity. On Friday diplomats said the block remains in place, and Western officials say Russia sees it beneficial to prevent a renewal of the UN group’s mission. © Al Jazeera 2022

Visuals of Muslim students being shut outside college gates in Karnataka state for wearing the hijab have led to outrage on social media. By Rushda Fathima Khan Protest in Udupi district attended by the six girls who first protested against the hijab ban [Al Jazeera] Bengaluru, India – For four days a group of 28 Muslim girls stood in protest in front of the Junior Pre-University college in the Karnataka state after they were denied entry for wearing hijab – an issue that has snowballed to other colleges in the southern state. On Monday morning Farheen (name changed) and her friends were allowed to enter the premises of the college located in the coastal town of Kundapur in Udupi district, but they were in for a shock after college authorities did not allow them to sit in their respective classrooms with other students. On the same day, the college officials posted a notice outside the gate declaring prohibition of hijab in classrooms as part of the college uniform code. “Our teachers told us they will not allow our entry in classrooms or teach us without government orders”, Farheen, a commerce student, told Al Jazeera. It left Farheen and her friends “hurt and humiliated”. An official from the education department visited the girls while they were seated in a separate classroom. “Give up on your hijab. If you hold on to this, you will lose out on your education’, he told us,” Farheen recounted. “How is it fair that other students are being taught and we are told to sit separately and self-study just for wearing a headscarf,” said Farheen’s friend, who also wanted to remain anonymous. “We used to sit in class all these years with hijab. Now suddenly, they are treating us like criminals and keeping us in a separate classroom. We are hurt.” The decision of the Kundapur college to segregate Muslim girls, however, has angered students and activists who called it a form of “religious apartheid” and “untouchability”, a reference to the banned practice of discrimination against members of lower castes in the Hindu socio-religious hierarchy. The Campus Front of India (CFI), an organisation of Muslim students active in southern Indian states said in a statement on Sunday that a ban on hijab is “an organised nationwide conspiracy [that] is systematically executed by the right-wing Hindutva [Hindu-ness] groups to dehumanise Muslim women”. Outrage, Protests Visuals of students being shut outside the gate by several colleges in the state have caused mounting outrage among the Muslim minority and triggered protests since last week, with rights groups alleging that the move violates the rights of Muslim students to practice their religion and access education. The tensions escalated after students and activists allegedly backed by Hindu nationalist groups started to wear saffron colour scarves, calling for hijab ban in educational institutions in the state – where Muslims form 12 percent of the population. Protest against the hijab ban in Kalaburgi district [Al Jazeera] On Tuesday, students and Hindu right-wing activists were seen marching into campuses wearing scarves and turbans in many colleges across the state and in some cases, clashing with police. A viral video showing a student in hijab being heckled by a group of Hindu men in Mandya district has caused an online outrage, with many hailing the girl for her bravery in standing up to the “mob”. Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced a three-day closure of educational institutes across the state and appealed for calm. “I appeal to all students, teachers and management of schools and colleges, as well as people of Karnataka, to maintain peace and harmony,” Bomai said in a tweet. Last week, his government issued a directive that all educational institutions should follow dress codes set by management. Siddaramaiah, former chief minister and main opposition leader in the state, blamed the government for “trying to create communal disharmony throughout the state in the name of hijab”. The government was “denying education to Muslim girls”, he said. The right of freedom of religion On Wednesday, the state high court which is hearing a petition by the Muslim girls to allow the use of hijabs in educational institutions has referred the case to a bigger panel of judges. The lawyers appearing for the girls on Tuesday argued before the court that the practice of hijab is protected under the right of freedom of religion guaranteed in the Indian constitution and that the state has no power to ban it. Kaneez Fathima, a member of the state legislative assembly from the opposition Congress party, who led a demonstration in Kalburgi city in support of girls said that she wears a hijab and sees it as an essential part of a Muslim woman’s life. “We have been wearing hijab for years without any problem but now, the issue has been suddenly taken up by the BJP and Hindutva groups to rake up communal tensions”, she told Al Jazeera, referring to the Hindu far-right groups. The controversy over hijab first started a month back when a group of six Muslim students at a government-run women’s college in Udupi district was denied entry into their classrooms because the administration alleged they were defying the rules by wearing the hijab. The girls, however, defiantly resisted the pressure even as they were made to sit outside the classrooms on stairs. Students asked to sit separately in a classroom for wearing Hijab at a college in Basrur district [Al Jazeera] BJP defends ban The controversy has reignited the debate about the rights of India’s minorities under the Hindu nationalist government. Activists have said attacks against Muslims and their religious symbols have increased under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The hijab ban came as the religious minorities, mainly Muslims and Christians, faced attacks from the right-wing Hindu groups in the state – home to the Indian IT hub of Bengaluru. The state’s Hindu-nationalist BJP government has passed laws against cow slaughter and anti-conversion believed to target minorities. Students donning saffron scarves at a private college in Basrur District [Al Jazeera] However, the governing BJP defended the hijab ban, arguing that it violates rules on uniform. “Educational institutions are not the place to practice one’s religion. The girls must focus on education and come to college to study not to assert identity,” Ganesh Karnik, the party spokesperson, told Al Jazeera. He said that it was a small group of students stirring up the issue as the government on Monday ordered an investigation into the role of “vested interests” supporting students demanding entry of hijab-wearing girls. But the girls said they cannot be forced to give up their hijab. “We can’t just remove it. This is targeted harassment by the authorities,” Al-Rifaa, a student from another college in Kundapur, told Al Jazeera. “For the last 30 years, the college had no issue with hijab. Why is it suddenly a problem, what has triggered this?,” Rifaa asked. © Al Jazeera 2022

By Ali Haj Suleiman Dead in the attack on al-Jadidah included four children from one family, the White Helmets and residents have said. A member of the White Helmets carries the body of a child killed in an air attack on al-Jadidah in Idlib, on July 22, 2022 [Ali Haj Suleiman/Al Jazeera] Al-Jadidah, Syria – Seven civilians, including four children from one family, have been killed in a Russian air attack in northern Syria’s opposition-held Idlib province, according to the Syrian Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets, as well as family members and medical staff. Friday’s attack on the village of al-Jadidah, near the city of Jisr al-Shughour, also injured 12 others, including eight children. The attack is the first of its kind in months, and has disturbed the relative calm the area, which lies away from the region’s front lines, has enjoyed recently. A local monitor told Al Jazeera that two Russian Su-34 planes had targeted the area with four air attacks in the early hours of the morning. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said that Russian aircraft had conducted four strikes. Munir al-Mustafa, the deputy director of the White Helmets, said that the group’s teams in the area had found seven bodies and transferred 12 injured people to a local hospital, adding that the attacks hit a chicken farm and a displaced family’s home on the outskirts of al-Jadidah. “It took almost three hours to take the victims out from under the rubble, while the Russian planes were still flying in the sky, and the possibility that they would target the rescue teams,” al-Mustafa told Al Jazeera. Ahmed al-Khatib, a surgeon at the local hospital in the village of al-Qaniyah, confirmed that the hospital had received 12 injured people, mostly children, and that seven people had died, including the four children, who were between one and seven years old. The four bodies of the children, two girls and two boys, lay on the floor of the hospital wrapped in blankets, the girls’ hair still tied with red hair bows. Family members of the victims could not believe what had happened. One of the relatives of the children sat in tears next to their bodies, struggling to understand why the attack had taken place. “What did these small children do? Were these sleeping children terrorists?” the man, who did not give his name, asked, while also calling for justice. Ahmed Abdul Hayy, a 36-year-old originally from government-held Hama province, said that his home was hit, and that some of his family members had been killed in the attack. “We were trying to find somewhere safe for our children and our families, but the third strike hit my home directly and killed my nephew, and injured three of my children,” Abdul Hayy told Al Jazeera, who said the youngest injured child was only two and a half. “It was a terrifying experience, it was very difficult to see my children injured. The minutes it took to transfer them to the hospital felt like hours. “We moved here from Hama because it is relatively safe as the people are Christians, but it seems that Russia and [Syrian President Bashar] al-Assad kill everyone on the opposite side,” Abdul Hayy added. The United Nations’ Deputy Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria Crisis, Mark Cutts, condemned the attack. “Parties to the conflict have a responsibility to ensure that civilians are protected,” Cutts said. “Attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure must stop.” Syrian government attacks in Idlib had been focused on the area of Jabal al-Zawiyah in the south of the province. In recent weeks the intensity of shelling has increased between government and opposition forces across front lines in Idlib, and a recent attempt by government forces to advance in Maarat al-Naasan, in the east of Idlib. The uptick in violence comes as Turkey continues to insist that it will carry out a military operation against the mostly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, despite opposition from the Syrian government, as well as Russia and Iran. A 2011 uprising in Syria turned into war after the government responded violently to the country’s protest movement. Russian intervention on the side of the government in 2015 turned the tide of the conflict, with Idlib now the only largely opposition-held province. The war has killed more than 300,000 civilians, according to the UN. © 2022 Al Jazeera Media Network Link to Article: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/7/22/civilians-killed-in-russian-air-attack-on-syrias-idlib

Reported executions mark first use of capital punishment in the Southeast Asian country since the 1980s. Myanmar's military has executed four democracy activists, according to state media [File: Aung Shine Oo/AP] Myanmar’s military regime has executed four anti-coup activists, including a close ally of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, drawing widespread condemnation and outrage. The four men were hanged over their involvement in organising “brutal and inhumane terror acts”, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported on Monday. The men were sentenced to death in a closed-door trial in January after being accused of helping armed groups fight the military, which seized power in a February 2021 coup led by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing. Phyo Zeya Thaw, a former legislator from Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party, and prominent democracy activist Kyaw Min Yu were found guilty of offences under anti-terrorism laws. Their appeals were rejected last month. Thaw, a hip-hop artist who was previously detained over his lyrics, had been accused of leading attacks on security forces, including a shooting on a commuter train in Yangon in August that left five policemen dead. The two other men, Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw, were handed the death penalty for allegedly killing a woman they accused of being an informant for the military government in Yangon. The executions mark the first use of capital punishment in the Southeast Asian country in decades. The last judicial executions took place in the late 1980s, according to the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners (AAPP), a human rights group. Executions in Myanmar have previously been carried out by hanging. ‘Brazen act of cruelty’ Dr Sasa, spokesperson for Myanmar’s National Unity Government, established by members of the elected government the military threw out of office. said the killings were a “dark day” for democracy and human rights. “We all are devastated by this acts of terror,” Dr Sasa, who goes by the single name, told Al Jazeera. “Indeed they can take away their bodies, but the military generals in Myanmar will not take away the vision of these matters of democracy.” Yadanar Maung, a spokesperson for Justice For Myanmar, said the executions amounted to crimes against humanity and called for further sanctions against the military’s State Administration Council. “All perpetrators from Min Aung Hlaing down must be held accountable for this brazen act of cruelty,” Maung told Al Jazeera. “The international community must act now to end the terrorist junta’s total impunity. The international response to these executions and the junta’s other international crimes must involve coordinated targeted sanctions against the junta and its business interests, a ban on jet fuel and a global arms embargo. Sanctions must be imposed on Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise, to stop oil and gas funds bankrolling the junta’s atrocities.” Thomas Andrews, the UN special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, said he was “outraged and devastated” over the executions. “My heart goes out to their families, friends and loved ones and indeed all the people in Myanmar who are victims of the junta’s escalating atrocities … These depraved acts must be a turning point for the international community.” Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said the executions would further isolate Myanmar in the international community. In a statement, Hayashi called the move a matter of deep concern and said it will sharpen national sentiment and deepen conflict. A military spokesperson did not answer calls seeking comment. The men’s death sentences had been condemned by human rights groups, the United States, France and the United Nations, with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres describing the planned executions as “a blatant violation to the right to life.” The government, which has sentenced dozens of activists to death since the coup, defended the planned executions as lawful and necessary. “At least 50 innocent civilians, excluding security forces, died because of them,” military spokesperson Zaw Min Tun told a televised news conference last month. “How can you say this is not justice?” Myanmar was plunged into crisis by the coup, which removed Aung San Suu Kyi from power, with violence spreading across the country after the army crushed mostly peaceful protests in cities. More than 2,100 people have been killed by the security forces since the coup, according to the AAPP. The government has said that figure is exaggerated. © 2022 Al Jazeera Media Network

Pope Francis steps up his apology, saying the technical word for the wiping away of a people’s culture was ‘genocide’. The pope made the comment while flying back to Rome after a week-long trip to Canada [File: Carlos Osorio/Reuters] Pope Francis has said the treatment of the Indigenous people in Canada amounted to a “genocide”, after a six-day trip in which he apologised to survivors of abuse at Catholic-run schools. The leader of the Catholic Church on Saturday said “taking away children, changing the culture, changing the mentality, changing the traditions, changing a race” amounted to genocide. “I didn’t say the word [in Canada] because it didn’t come to my mind, but I did describe [it]. And I asked for forgiveness for this process which was genocide. I condemned it too,” he told reporters on board his plane returning to Rome. During his trip, the pope apologised for the “evil” inflicted on Indigenous communities at Canada’s residential schools, where children were sent as part of a policy of forced assimilation. He cited the “cultural destruction” and the “physical, verbal, psychological and spiritual abuse” of children over decades. From the late 1800s to the 1990s, Canada’s government sent about 150,000 children into 139 residential schools run by the church, where they were cut off from their families, language and culture. Many were physically and sexually abused, and thousands are believed to have died of disease, malnutrition or neglect. Since May 2021, more than 1,300 unmarked graves have been discovered at the sites of the former schools, sending shockwaves throughout Canada — which has slowly begun to acknowledge this long, dark chapter in its history. The pope’s tour of Canada ended on Friday in the northern territory of Nunavut, where he met residential school survivors. “I thank you for having had the courage to tell your stories and to share your great suffering, that I could not imagine,” Pope Francis told the crowd. At the start of the week, the pope apologised for the first time in Canada. “I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples,” he said on Monday. For decades, Indigenous leaders had called on the church to apologise for its role in the residential school system, and the papal apology offered this week has been welcomed by some survivors as an important step in the path to healing. © 2022 Al Jazeera Media Network