‘Man of the hole’ had lived in isolation for 26 years after other members of his tribe were killed by illegal loggers and miners. The man, whose name was never known, had lived in isolation for 26 years after other members of his tribe were killed by illegal loggers and miners in Tanaru territory, Brazil [File: National Indian Foundation via AFP] The last of his people, a Brazilian Indigenous man known only as “the man of the hole”, has been found dead, decades after the rest of his uncontacted tribe were killed off by ranchers and illegal miners, officials said. The man — whose real name was never known to the outside world — was found in a hammock in a hut in the Tanaru Indigenous territory in Rondonia state on the border with Bolivia on August 23, Brazil’s National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) said in a statement. He had been living in complete isolation for 26 years. Since losing everyone he knew, the man had refused all contact with the outside world and supported himself by hunting and raising crops. His nickname derived from his habit of digging deep holes inside the huts he built, possibly to trap animals but also to hide inside. He lived in an Indigenous territory surrounded by vast cattle ranches and under constant threat from illegal miners and loggers in one of the most dangerous parts of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, according to Survival International. Authorities in Brazil did not comment on the cause of the man’s death, nor his age, but said “there were no signs of violence or struggle”. They also found no evidence of the presence of anyone else in his home or around it. “Everything indicates that the death was from natural causes,” said FUNAI, a government agency under the justice ministry that handles Indigenous affairs. Local media reported that the man’s body had been covered in macaw feathers, prompting one expert to speculate that he had known he was about to die. The man was believed to have been alone since the remaining members of his small tribe were killed in the mid-1990s by illegal loggers and miners seeking to exploit the tribal area. Rights groups said that the majority of the tribe had been killed in the 1970s when ranchers moved into the area, cutting down the forest and attacking the inhabitants. “With his death, the genocide of this Indigenous people is complete,” said Fiona Watson, Survival International’s director of investigation, who visited the Tanaru territory in 2004. “It really was genocide: the deliberate elimination of an entire people by ranchers hungry for land and wealth,” she added. According to the most recent government data, there are some 800,000 Indigenous people belonging to more than 300 distinct groups living in Brazil, a country of 212 million. More than half live in the Amazon, and many of those are under threat from the illegal exploitation of natural resources that they rely on for their survival. According to FUNAI, there are 114 records of isolated Indigenous groups in Brazil, although that number varies. Under Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, Amazon deforestation reached a record level in the first half of 2022. The president, who is trailing in the polls ahead of this year’s elections, has encouraged mining and farming activity in protected areas, sparking anger among environmentalists. © 2022 Al Jazeera Media Network

Analysts, legal experts and human rights groups condemn the move, which they say violates international law. Supporters of President Daniel Ortega took part in a pro-government march last week as Ortega continues to crack down on opponents [Stringer/Reuters] 16 Feb 2023 Nicaragua has stripped 94 political opponents of their citizenship, including prominent writers, activists and journalists. The 94 people were “traitors” and would have their properties confiscated, Appeals Court Justice Ernesto Rodríguez Mejía said in a statement on Wednesday. He claimed those on the list – among them rights activist Vilma Núñez, former Sandinista rebel commander Luis Carrión and journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro – were guilty of “spreading false news” and “conspiracy to undermine national integrity”. Most of those named fled Nicaragua when President Daniel Ortega began arresting opponents two years ago and Mejía said they had been declared “fugitives”. There was no mention of what might happen to those named who are still in Nicaragua. Analysts, legal experts and human rights groups say the move violates international law and is unprecedented – at least in the Western Hemisphere – in terms of scale and impact. Alvaro Navarro, a journalist stripped of his nationality, was defiant. “I am Nicaraguan by the grace of God… if they think they’re going to bring me to my knees, they are tangled. Long live Nicaragua!” Navarro wrote on Twitter. The move comes days after Ortega freed 222 political prisoners and put them on flights to the United States. Shortly after, Ortega’s government voted to strip the expelled former prisoners of Nicaraguan citizenship. Thousands have fled into exile since Nicaraguan security forces violently put down mass anti-government protests in 2018. In the run-up to Ortega’s reelection in November 2021, Nicaraguan authorities arrested seven potential opposition presidential candidates to clear the field. The government also has closed hundreds of non-governmental groups Ortega accused of taking foreign funding and using it to destabilise his government. Peter Spiro, an international law professor at Temple University, and others say stripping away citizenship in this context violates a treaty adopted in 1961 by countries in the United Nations, including Nicaragua, which sets clear rules meant to prevent statelessness. The treaty states governments cannot “deprive any person or group of persons of their nationality on racial, ethnic, religious or political grounds”. Spiro noted there are some circumstances when governments can terminate citizenship, such as ending nationality for someone who acquires citizenship in another country when the first nation prohibits dual citizenship. But, he said, ending citizenship is not allowed when it is used as a political weapon. Spain has offered citizenship to the 222 exiles, while the US granted the Nicaraguans two-year temporary protection. © 2023 Al Jazeera Media Network

In the Sinjar region of Iraq in 2014, ISIL fighters systematically killed and enslaved thousands of men and women. An Iraqi Yazidi refugee boy attends a commemoration in Thessaloniki, Greece, to mark three years since ISIL launched what the United Nations said was a genocidal campaign against Yazidis [File: Alexandros Avramidis/Reuters] The United Kingdom has acknowledged that the ISIL (ISIS) group committed “acts of genocide” against the Yazidi people in 2014. Marking the ninth anniversary of atrocities committed by ISIL against the Yazidi community, the UK’s decision on Tuesday follows a ruling by the German Federal Court of Justice which found a former ISIL fighter guilty of acts of genocide and crimes against humanity. In the Sinjar region of Iraq in 2014, ISIL fighters systematically killed and enslaved thousands of men and women they considered “infidels” due to their religious beliefs. While many fled to camps for internally displaced people (IDP) in Syria and Iraq, others found refuge abroad. Britain’s Minister of State for the Middle East, Lord Ahmad, said the Yazidi population “suffered immensely at the hands of Daesh [ISIL] nine years ago, and the repercussions are still felt to this day. Justice and accountability are key for those whose lives have been devastated.” He added: “Today, we have made the historic acknowledgement that acts of genocide were committed against the Yazidi people. This determination only strengthens our commitment to ensuring that they receive the compensation owed to them and can access meaningful justice. “The UK will continue to play a leading role in eradicating Daesh, including through rebuilding communities affected by its terrorism and leading global efforts against its poisonous propaganda.” The UK recognises five genocides: the Holocaust, Rwanda, Srebrenica, Cambodia and now the massacres against the Yazidi people. Nadia Murad, president of Nadia’s Initiative, advocating for survivors of sexual violence, welcomed the move as a “significant gesture to the Yazidi people, as we continue to fight for accountability”. “I hope that the British government will now begin to seek justice for the victims by holding British-born fighters to account. The world cannot afford to let [ISIL] members walk free. It sends a message to the world that you can murder and rape with impunity”. In 2021, a Frankfurt court sentenced Taha al-Jumailly, a former ISIL fighter, to life imprisonment for acts of Yazidi genocide, including the death of a five-year-old girl he bought as a slave and then chained up in the hot sun to die. In June, Germany jailed a woman who joined ISIL for more than nine years for crimes against humanity after she kept a Yazidi woman as a slave. The UK’s ambassador to Iraq, Stephen Hitchen, will formally announce the decision to recognise the treatment of the Yazidi people as genocide at a commemoration event in Baghdad, Iraq. © 2023 Al Jazeera Media Network

Action for the Rights of Muslims sought injunction against ban saying it was discriminatory and could incite hatred. A young woman wearing an abaya, centre, on a street in Nantes, western France, on August 31, 2023 [File: Loic Venance/AFP] Al Jazeera September 8, 2023 France’s top administrative court has upheld a government ban on the wearing of traditional abaya – long and loose garments worn by some Muslim women – in public schools, dismissing complaints that the ban was discriminatory and could incite hatred. The State Council, France’s highest court for complaints against public authorities, said on Thursday that it had rejected a request for an injunction against the ban. Ahead of the court’s ruling on Thursday, France’s Council of the Muslim Faith, established to represent Muslims before the government, warned that banning the garments could create “an elevated risk of discrimination” and said it was considering lodging its own court complaint with the Council. French President Emmanuel Macron’s government announced last month that it was banning the abaya and qamis – also a long, loose-fitting garment worn by some Muslim men – in schools, claiming the attire broke the rules on secularism in education. Muslim headscarves have already been banned on the grounds that they constitute a display of religious affiliation. Action for the Rights of Muslims (ADM) – an association representing Muslims – filed the motion with the State Council seeking an injunction against the ban saying it was discriminatory and could incite hatred against Muslims. After examining the motion, the State Council on Thursday rejected the argument, saying that wearing the garments “follows the logic of religious affirmation”. The ban was based on French law, which did not allow anyone wearing visible signs of any religious affiliation in schools, the Council said. The government ban did not, the Council added, cause “serious or obviously illegal harm to the respect for personal lives, freedom of religion, the right to education, the wellbeing of children or the principle of non-discrimination”. ADM’s lawyer Vincent Brengarth argued during the court hearing that the abaya should be considered a traditional garment, not a religious one. He also accused the French government of seeking political advantage with the ban. “A very unmotivated decision after a hearing of nearly two hours. This decision, which simply endorses the government’s position, is not up to the challenge,” Brengarth wrote later on social media. Nearly 300 schoolgirls defied the ban and refused to remove their abayas on the first day of the French school year this week. Most agreed to change garments but 67 refused and were sent home, Education Minister Gabriel Attal said. On Wednesday, teachers and students at a French high school went on strike in protest against the ban. “We want to distance ourselves from the government’s Islamophobic policy,” read a statement from the protest group at the Maurice Utrillo High School in Stains, Seine-Saint-Denis, northeast of Paris. “Students must be welcomed at the Maurice Utrillo High School, and we do not have to police the clothing. We refuse to stigmatise students who wear an abaya or a qamis,” the group said. In 2016, the State Council overturned a ban in a French Riviera resort against the “burkini”, saying it failed to see any threat to public order from the long bathing suit worn by some Muslim women. © 2023 Al Jazeera Media Network

Dirdeiry MAhmed Former foreign minister of Sudan Drone footage shows black smoke over Khartoum North on May 1, 2023 [Reuters] Two hundred days into the war in Sudan, the Sudanese people remain trapped in a conflict not of their own making. More than 9,000 civilians have been killed and 5.6 million forced to flee their homes, while the capital, Khartoum, continues to be ravaged by savage internecine warfare. Meanwhile, the world’s attention is gradually shifting elsewhere. When the war erupted on April 15, the story circulated by international media outlets was that this is a typical power struggle between two generals who were once allies: Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the commander-in-chief of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, the commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Nothing is further from the truth. Recently, in a statement marking the six months of the war, United Nations Under-Secretary-General Martin Griffiths said this is “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history”. He emphasised the horrific reports of rape and sexual violence and asserted that the country has been engulfed in chaos. Yet, he said nothing as to why the war is being fought. If the media have mischaracterised the reason behind the eruption of the war, high-level statements from the international community, like the one above, have been completely silent about it. Neither have tried to envision Sudan’s path forward. On April 11, 2019, an uprising triggered by the deteriorating economic situation toppled President Omar al-Bashir, ending his three-decade-long rule. Sudan formerly experienced two uprisings that brought down military regimes – in 1964 and 1985. Given their experience with past uprisings, in 2019, the Sudanese people widely expected a brief political transition that would address economic issues – with the help of the international community – and prepare the country for multiparty elections within a year or two. However, that was not to be. This time around, two factors that were nonexistent in 1964 and 1985 came into play and proved to be paramount. First, because of the “Islamist” comportment of al-Bashir’s regime, regional and international players were more focused on “dismantling” it so the elections would not end up bringing Islamists back to power. For this purpose, the international community had to start a project to remake the country. Dissolving the former ruling NCP and hunting its leaders outside the purview of the law became the main objective of the transition. A commission that was not accountable to the attorney general or subjected to judicial review was formed for this purpose. The comprehensive overhaul of the country included calls for Sudan to join the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), to rush into convening pride parades even before homosexuality is decriminalised, and to normalise relations with Israel by joining the Abraham Accords. These controversial issues were imposed on the schedule of the transition, even though they are the business of an elected parliament. Second, uninitiated neoliberals – mostly former communists and Baathists – were anointed by the international community as the legitimate heirs of al-Bashir. As soon as they became comfortable in their new positions, they completely forgot about the economic woes of the country and failed to produce any programme for reform. Additionally, they did not want to hold any elections, bearing in mind the narrowness of their support base. Soon enough, they locked horns for power, each wanting to have a larger piece of the cake in this exceptionally long transition. As a matter of fact, the entire transition was transformed into an exercise in fielding the neoliberals as the newfound political elite of the country. When the Constitutional Charter of August 2019, which sealed a marriage of convenience between the military component (both SAF and RSF) on one the hand and the neoliberals on the other, frayed in October 2021, the international community pushed another deal down the throat of the two sides. That was the Framework Agreement of December 2022. Eventually, Hemedti – already beleaguered and fearing international sanctions for launching a bloody crackdown on a sit-in in Khartoum in June 2019 – threw in his lot with the neoliberals in a bid to improve his political fortunes. Allegedly, he was also on a mission “to restore democracy and civilian rule”. By then, it was clear to diplomats in Khartoum that an eventual showdown between SAF and RSF was inevitable. Yet, nobody was willing to call for ending the faltering transition and convening elections. Sudan sits at the intersection of the Middle East, North Africa, East Africa, and the Sahel. As such, it is very much in the throes of all ills of these regions. In this accursed quarter, if you profess a position tolerating the possible return of Islamists to power, you are grabbing the third rail with both hands. That is mainly because some groups and countries in this region are very quick to attack anyone who questions whatever they are doing to exclude Islamists. For them, any Islamist is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and a likely operative of ISIL (ISIS), al-Shabab or Boko Haram. In Sudan, in particular, such conversation takes place in the shadow of three decades of government that the West abhorred and always accused of doing something nefarious. This had been the case even though that government went to great lengths to gain Western acceptance, including by agreeing to the secession of South Sudan, adopting the 2005 constitution, and opening unprecedented avenues for women in education, employment, and leadership. Yet, in this part of the world, it is the past rather than the present that shapes how current events are seen. It is the stereotype and the cliche rather than the reality that matters. When CNN asked the RSF spokesperson on April 26 about their objective, he said the group was “seeking to capture” al-Burhan and bring him to justice for “many treasons acts against the Sudanese people”. Because RSF was fighting at the beginning of the war for the cause of the neoliberals – namely, to rid the country of the Islamists – international think tanks, the likes of the International Crisis Group (ICG), have not hesitated to wish it well. In a report released in July 2023, the ICG stated: “The RSF has held the upper hand in Khartoum since the early days of the war, but that advantage is only growing more apparent. Even some army backers suggest the RSF is on the cusp of decisive military victory in the capital, especially if it can soon overrun the compound where army leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and some of his key lieutenants are sheltering. The RSF has besieged the headquarters almost since the conflict began; it has now tightened its grip.” Calling the SAF’s claim to the title of national army “dubious”, the report went on to assert: “Given internal fissures and the deep hostility toward the RSF, any settlement raises the risk of a split in the army, including the possibility that hardliners team up with Bashir-era Islamists to fight on. An RSF victory would likely leave no place for those Islamists, who might then face a difficult choice among negotiating surrender terms, battling on in a losing cause or seeking safe passage to a third country.” The sidelining of Islamists in Sudan is clearly a top item on foreign agendas for Sudan. Apart from failing to see the military progress made by SAF, courtesy of its air superiority, the ICG also did not register the change in RSF’s goals for the war. While RSF needed the neoliberals for the purposes of winning international legitimacy, talk of “restoring civilian rule” figured prominently in its rhetoric. But as the war scales tipped in favour of SAF, RSF was more in need of a source of fighters to join the war. The neoliberals were of little help in this regard. As a result, the RSF spokespeople started to claim that their goal is to end “the 1956 state” controlled by riverine communities of central and northern Sudan and to replace it with one controlled by Junaid tribes, the ethnic groups of Arab origin that live in the Kordofan and Darfur regions of Sudan, as well as Chad and Niger. The involvement of fighters from these tribes, be they Sudanese or non-Sudanese, is now a prominent feature of this war. Of course, this has momentous implications for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Sudan and for the peace and security of the region. As Rosalind Marsden, the former UK ambassador to Sudan and associate fellow at Chatham House, has warned: there is a risk of a “de facto partition, in which Hemedti controls Darfur and much of Khartoum, SAF controls much of the rest of the country, especially the east and the north, and an armed movement led by Abdel Aziz Al Hilu contests South Kordofan and southern Blue Nile. Indeed, in an audio recording released on September 14, Hemedti suggests for the first time that, if Burhan establishes a government in Port Sudan, he will form a government in Khartoum”. Yet this dimension is not taken seriously enough by the international community. For the United States, for instance, the most urgent concerns in Sudan shifted from the exclusion of Islamists to addressing humanitarian needs, not putting the country’s transition back on track. Being Sudan’s largest contributor of humanitarian aid, the US has expressed its support for a ceasefire and peace negotiations to make delivering aid possible. Indeed, providing humanitarian assistance to displaced Sudanese people should be the top priority, particularly in the Chadian border town of Adre, where many have fled from neighbouring Darfur. Nonetheless, if the transition is not fixed, the humanitarian crisis will persist for years to come. Last week, it was announced that SAF and RSF have resumed talks in Jeddah with the hope of agreeing on a ceasefire, and possibly a deal to end the war. With SAF gaining the upper hand on the main battlefield and RSF losing military momentum, it is expected that the latter will sue for peace. This is particularly so because the meandering lines of tribal fighters from Western Sudan to Khartoum started to dwindle. About two weeks ago, mediators from the African Union and the subregional Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD) visited Cairo to consult with politicians on how to start an all-inclusive process to restore the Sudan transition to its path. Perhaps there is a ray of hope after all. The Sudanese people are hardwired for freedom. A call for elections will resonate with many. Sudan is not new to multiparty elections which were held even during al-Bashir’s regime. In 2010, the polls that were convened at the end of the transition period following the second Sudanese civil war were monitored by the Carter Center and were seen as highly credible. It is not true that the Sudan war is a fight between two generals. Nor is it a war that was “decades in the making”, as the ICG report would have us believe. To be sure, this is a war that was triggered by a derailed political transition. The parties who caused that to happen still do not see the need for the country to pivot to the path of its transition. For them, a return to the transition implies the vanquishing of RSF and, even worse, the return of Islamists. If that is the likely outcome, for some, it is better to see the country disintegrate. Yet, many active players are now convinced that there is no viable alternative for this country other than to restore the transition to its path. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance. © 2023 Al Jazeera Media Network

Reporters Silvia Nayssa Arce, Alberto Sanchez and Marco Antonio Toledo have been released unharmed, officials say. Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries for journalists, with more than 150 killed since 2000 [File: Francisco Robles/AFP] Al Jazeera November 26, 2023 Three Mexican journalists, who were abducted over the past week, have been released after authorities launched search operations in the southern province of Guerrero, according to the state attorney general’s office. The state’s prosecutor said on Saturday that Reporters Silvia Nayssa Arce, Alberto Sanchez and Marco Antonio Toledo were released unharmed. Toledo, editor of the weekly newspaper El Espectador, was kidnapped by armed men on November 19 in the tourist town of Taxco, while Silvia Nayssa Arce and Alberto Sanchez, reporters for digital media site RedSiete, were abducted from their offices on Wednesday in the same city. The prosecutor’s office also confirmed the release of Toledo’s wife, Guadalupe Denova, but said the couple’s son, who was kidnapped along with his parents, is still missing. The Mexican army, police and national guard will “continue with search operations”, it said. Mexico is considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world to practise journalism, according to the organisation Reporters Without Borders (RSF). On November 16, photojournalist Ismael Villagomez was shot dead in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez. Three people have been arrested over the killing. At least five other journalists have been killed in Mexico this year, and more than 150 since 2000, according to the RSF. Guerrero is a hotbed of gang activity and crime, with armed groups frequently carrying out kidnappings for ransom there. © 2023 Al Jazeera Media Network

Tom Andrews accuses Myanmar military of mounting ‘relentless attacks’ on children since seizing power in February 2021. UN expert Tom Andrews accuses the Myanmar military of actively targeting children in its crackdown on opponents [File: Stringer/EPA] The world risks creating a “lost generation” of children in Myanmar unless it takes immediate steps to protect them from the violence perpetrated by the military since it seized power in February 2021, a United Nations human rights expert has said. “The junta’s relentless attacks on children underscore the generals’ depravity and willingness to inflict immense suffering on innocent victims in its attempt to subjugate the people of Myanmar,” Tom Andrews, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, said in a statement this week. He said children were not only being caught in the crossfire of the military’s crackdown on opponents, but were also being deliberately targeted in what he said amounted to crimes against humanity and war crimes. Myanmar was plunged into crisis after the generals, led by Min Aung Hlaing, removed the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and took power for themselves. The coup led to mass protests and a popular uprising with some civilians forming rebel groups to fight against the military. Nearly 2,000 people have been killed by the military since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a monitoring group. More than 11,000 are in detention. According to Andrews, the military has killed at least 142 children and arbitrarily detained more than 1,400. At least 61 children, including several under three years of age, are reportedly being held as hostages, while the United Nations says it has documented the torture of 142 children since the coup. “I received information about children who were beaten, stabbed, burned with cigarettes, and subjected to mock executions, and who had their fingernails and teeth pulled out during lengthy interrogation sessions,” Andrews said. The UN expert said the attacks on children showed the international community’s response to the coup had failed. “States must take immediate coordinated action to address an escalating political, economic and humanitarian crisis that is putting Myanmar’s children at risk of becoming a lost generation,” he said, urging increased pressure on the coup leaders, and stronger measures to curb the military’s ability to finance atrocities. “States must pursue stronger targeted economic sanctions and coordinated financial investigations. I urge member states to commit to a dramatic increase in humanitarian assistance and unequivocal regional support for refugees.” Countries including the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom have imposed sanctions on the coup leaders and some parts of the military’s sprawling business empire. In February, the European Union expanded its measures to include state-owned Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), which is thought to be a lucrative source of revenue for the military, and civil society groups are urging the United States to follow suit. Andrews noted that the international community had committed only 10 percent of the funds required to implement the Myanmar Humanitarian Response Plan 2022 and that lifesaving programmes for children had had to be shelved as a result. The UN estimates that about 7.8 million children are out of school as a result of the continuing violence in Myanmar, while tens of thousands have missed out on routine immunisations and other essential healthcare with the collapse of the public health system. © 2022 Al Jazeera Media Network

Popular civilian leader faces a series of trials brought by the military, which seized power from her government in a coup in 2021. Aung San Suu Kyi faces numerous cases in secretive military courts and could be jailed for years [File: AFP] A court in Myanmar has convicted deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi on charges of corruption, adding six years to her prison sentence, according to a legal official. She had already been sentenced to 11 years in prison on sedition, corruption and other charges at earlier trials after the military detained her in February 2021 as it seized power from her elected government in a February 2021 coup. Aung San Suu Kyi, 77, was convicted of misusing funds from the Daw Khin Kyi Foundation – an organisation she founded promoting health and education – to build a home, and leasing government-owned land at a discounted rate. The trial was held behind closed doors, with no access for media or the public. Her lawyers have been ordered not to speak about the proceedings. In the four corruption cases decided on Monday, Aung San Suu Kyi was alleged to have abused her position to rent public land at below-market prices and to have built a residence with donations meant for charitable purposes. She received sentences of three years for each of the four counts but the sentences for three of them will be served concurrently, giving her a total of six more years in prison. Aung San Suu Kyi denied all the charges and her lawyers are expected to appeal. Zin Mar Aung, the foreign minister for Myanmar’s National Unity Government, set up by the politicians ousted in the coup, said the decision was “yet another act of (the) junta’s desperate attempts to discredit those democratically elected” and called for Aung San Suu Kyi’s release. The condemnation was echoed elsewhere with the European Union’s top diplomat Josep Borrell calling for the release of all political prisoners and urging the coup leaders to “respect the will of the people”. Military’s power grab Analysts say the numerous charges against Aung San Suu Kyi and her allies are part of the military’s attempt to legitimise its power grab and remove the hugely popular politician from politics ahead of an election it has said it will hold next year. Aung San Suu Kyi and her co-defendants are expected to file appeals in the coming days, said the legal official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorised to release information and he feared punishment by the authorities. Other top officials from Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party and her government have also been arrested and imprisoned, and the authorities have suggested they might dissolve the party before the next election. Malaysia’s Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah, who has been pressing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to take a firmer line on Myanmar, which is a member of the 10-member group, also condemned the latest jail term. “The additional sentencing of Aung San Suu Kyi and the recent execution of four democracy activists proved that the junta repeatedly disregarded calls by ASEAN leaders for concrete and inclusive dialogue for national reconciliation in Myanmar and to fulfil the ASEAN 5PC,” he wrote on Twitter, in reference to the Five Point Consensus to end the crisis that the military agreed to shortly after the coup. The army seized power on the day the NLD was set to have started a second-five year term in office after winning a landslide victory in the previous November’s general election. The army said it acted because of alleged voting fraud but independent election observers have said there was no evidence of any significant irregularities. The army’s takeover has plunged Myanmar into crisis, sparking peaceful street protests and a nationwide civil disobedience movement. The military responded with force, triggering armed resistance that some UN experts now characterise as civil war. Nearly 2,200 people have been killed by the military since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which has been monitoring the crackdown. The military regime has been accused of human rights abuses including arbitrary arrests and killings, torture and military sweeps that include air attacks on civilians and the burning of entire villages. Aung San Suu Kyi has been the face of opposition to military rule in Myanmar for more than 30 years. She won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize while under house arrest. The military remained powerful, even during her five years as leader of the country’s elected civilian government, which was Myanmar’s most democratic period since a coup in 1962. Aung San Suu Kyi has been criticised for defending Myanmar military and police actions in Rakhine state in 2017, which forced more than 750,000 mostly Muslim Rohingya to flee their homes and seek refuge in neighbouring Bangladesh. © 2022 Al Jazeera Media Network

28 Nov 2022 Karakalpakstan is home to fewer than two million people in a nation of 35 million, but it covers more than a third of Uzbek territory [Al Jazeera] Uzbekistan has put 22 people on trial, accusing them of “undermining constitutional order” by taking part in unprecedented anti-government protests in July. Officially, 21 people died in the autonomous Republic of Karakalpakstan in the protests, sparked by a planned change to the constitution that would have undermined the region’s right to self-determination. The violence in Nukus, the main city in Karakalpakstan, forced President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to make a rare about-face and scrap the proposal. Aziz Obidov, the spokesman for the Supreme Court of Uzbekistan, confirmed to the AFP news agency the trial started on Monday. Writing on Telegram, Obidov said “22 people” were in the dock, of whom 20 were in custody, with one under house arrest and one out on bail. They are accused of several offences. The most serious, “undermining constitutional order”, carries a 20-year jail sentence. Uzbek service members are seen in Nukus, the capital of Karakalpakstan [KUN.UZ/Handout via Reuters] Journalists are authorised to cover the trial. However, it was announced only on Sunday evening and takes place in Bukhara, about 600km (370 miles) from both Nukus and Tashkent, the national capital. Karakalpakstan is home to fewer than two million people in a nation of 35 million, but it covers more than a third of Uzbek territory. Protests erupted in Nukus on July 1 and 2 over a move to remove Karakalpakstan’s right, under the constitution, to hold a referendum on self-determination. Hundreds of people were arrested. ‘Foreign forces’ The president accused “foreign forces” of being behind the unrest, without further explanation, before scrapping the proposed changes. Mirziyoyev came to power in 2016 after the death of his predecessor, Islam Karimov. He has pushed through significant economic and social reforms, but his regime is accused by aid organisations of trampling on people’s basic rights. In early November, Human Rights Watch said the authorities “unjustifiably used lethal force … to disperse mainly peaceful demonstrators” after verifying dozens of videos and photos of the protests and victims. © 2022 Al Jazeera [original]

Published by Al Jazeera on Jan. 24 2023 Serbian president says Belgrade could face international isolation if it rejects a Western plan to normalize ties with Pristina. Kosovo special police officers patrol as hundreds of Kosovo Serbs protest against a government ban on entry of vehicles with Serbian registration plates in Jarinje, Kosovo © Laura Hasani/Reuters Serbia has been given an ultimatum from powerful Western nations to normalisze ties with Kosovo or face measures that would do “great damage” to the country, the president has said. On Monday evening, President Aleksandar Vucic said he had been presented with a proposal, as part of a Western push to solve long-simmering tensions with Kosovo, during a meeting last week with representatives of the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States. “[They] said – you must accept this plan, or you will face the interruption of the process of European integration, the halting and withdrawal of investments and comprehensive economic and political measures that will cause great damage to the Republic of Serbia,” Vucic said. Speaking during a televised press conference, Vucic said Serbia’s parliament would have to discuss the proposal, and hinted at a possible referendum. He underlined that without the EU, Serbia would become “isolated”. The new Western plan for normalizing Serbia-Kosovo relations has not been officially made public. Vucic said in his televised address that the plan stipulates that Serbia would not object to Kosovo’s membership in international organizations, including the United Nations. The US and EU want to push forward an EU-mediated dialogue that has been stalled for months because they fear Russia, a Serbia ally, could try to stir instability in the Balkans to divert attention from the war in Ukraine. “These talks were among the toughest in the past decade,” Vucic added, describing the meeting. “It was never like this.” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Monday that the meetings in Kosovo and Serbia had focused on “discussions on the proposal on normalization of relations. We stressed that advancing on this proposal would bring considerable benefits for both sides”. Serbia has been a candidate to join the EU for more than a decade, and normalizing ties with Kosovo has been a key condition to advance its application. “Serbia must remain on its EU path … because we would be lost without it, economically and politically. If we were to be alone and isolated, that is not something I would accept as a president,” Vucic said. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, after a bloody war in the late 1990s between an ethnic Albanian armed uprising and Serbian forces ended with a NATO intervention that forced Serbia to pull out of the territory. Belgrade and its key allies Russia and China refused to recognize the move, effectively denying Pristina a seat at the UN. Vucic previously said Serbia would never recognize the independence of Kosovo, which many Serbs consider the country’s historic heartland, and the dispute between Serbia and Kosovo has remained a source of instability in the Balkans. Last month, Western officials mediated in resolving a tense situation in northern Kosovo, where Serbs erected barricades on the main roads to protest the arrest of a former Serb police officer. In the latest incident, Serb officials said Kosovo police wounded a Serb man on Monday in the Serb-dominated north of the country. Serbia has often drifted from Brussels’ foreign policy line, most recently when Belgrade refused to sanction Moscow after the invasion of Ukraine. However, it has condemned Moscow’s aggression at the UN. Vucic said he believes that the pressure to resolve the Kosovo issue is a result of “changed geopolitical circumstances”. “They [the West] have their own agenda, which is Russia’s defeat, and everything that stands in the way of that agenda will be crushed,” Vucic said. “Europe is de-facto in war, whatever they may say,” said Vucic. “They [EU] want everything in their back yard – and Balkans is their back yard – to be the way they want it.” © 2023 Al Jazeera Media Network

Julio Obama Mefuman was serving a 60-year jail term after being taken from South Sudan in a suspected kidnapping. 17 Jan 2023 A prominent dissident in Equatorial Guinea has died in prison while serving a 60-year jail sentence, his group said. Julio Obama Mefuman, 51, who was also a Spanish citizen and was taken from South Sudan in a suspected kidnapping in 2019, “died in Oveng Azem prison” in the eastern city of Mongomo, the MLGE3R movement said. It gave no date for Obama Mefuman’s death but accused the country’s hardline government of “torture”. MLGE3R stands for the Movement for the Liberation of the Third Equatorial Guinea and is based in Spain, the central African state’s former coloniser. On Monday, Equatorial Guinea’s foreign minister Simeon Oyono Esono Angue said Obama Mefuman “died in a Mongomo hospital following illness” but refuted any accusation of torture. A spokesman for the Spanish foreign ministry confirmed the death but declined to give details. Calls for inquiry Andres Esono Ondo, head of the Convergence for Social Democracy, Equatorial Guinea’s only authorised opposition party, published a tweet in which he condemned “Julio Obama’s death in prison”. He called for an international inquiry “to clarify what happened and ensure that all prisoners have the right to family visits”. Ondo took part in presidential elections last November in which 80-year-old President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo was credited with 94.9 percent of the vote. Amnesty International urged President Obiang to “ensure an independent and urgent investigation” is opened into Obama Mefuman’s death. Obama Mefuman’s death came less than two weeks after Spain’s High Court announced an investigation into his suspected kidnapping and torture and that of a second dissident, Feliciano Efa Mangue, who also has Spanish citizenship. A judicial source said the two, along with two Equatorial Guinea nationals who reside in Spain, were seized in South Sudan in late 2019 and flown to Equatorial Guinea. In March 2020, Mangue was handed a 90-year term and Obama Mefuman 60 years for allegedly having taken part in an attempted coup against Obiang in 2017. SOURCE: AFP © 2023 Al Jazeera Media Network

The worst religious violence in the capital in decades followed months of mass protests against an ‘anti-Muslim’ citizenship law. Police photograph burnt-out properties owned by Muslims in a riot-affected area in New Delhi [File: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters] An Indian court has jailed a man for five years in the first conviction over religious riots in New Delhi in 2020, when more than 50 people, most of them Muslims, were killed. The riots, the worst such violence in the capital in decades, followed months of protests against a citizenship law that critics say discriminates against the Muslim minority in the Hindu-majority country. Prosecutors and witnesses on Thursday said Dinesh Yadav was part of a mob of up to 200 mostly Hindu rioters who vandalised and set fire to the house of a woman named Manori. Yadav’s lawyer, Shikha Garg, said that apart from the jail term, New Delhi’s Karkardooma Court on Thursday also ordered him to pay a fine of 12,000 rupees ($161). “We will file an appeal before a higher court,” Garg told Reuters news agency. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which draws its support mainly from the majority community, changed the citizenship law in 2019 to expedite citizenship for persecuted Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians who arrived in India before December 31, 2014, from Muslim-majority Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Many Muslims in India opposed the exclusion of their community in the law and launched protests, with a women-led sit-in in New Delhi being the epicentre of the demonstrations. The sit-in protests in the northeastern part of the Indian capital were attacked by mobs, which soon escalated into religious violence towards the end of February 2020, in which dozens of people were killed and houses and mosques torched. There are an estimated 200 million Muslims in India out of a population of 1.35 billion – the biggest Muslim minority in the world. © Al Jazeera 2022