United Nations welcomes ceasefire after 176 soldiers killed in two days of fighting, which each side blames on the other. Armenia and Azerbaijan have repeatedly traded blame for the fighting this week [File: Umit Bektas/Reuters] 15 Sep 2022 Azerbaijan says 71 of its troops have been killed this week during border clashes with Armenia, which marked the worst fighting between the rival neighbours since their 2020 war over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Armenia said 105 of its soldiers died in the violence, which each side blames on the other. The flare-up threatened to drag Turkey, Azerbaijan’s key backer, and Armenia’s ally Russia into a wider conflict at a time of already high geopolitical tensions. A senior Armenian official said the two sides had negotiated a ceasefire, which took effect at 8pm local time (16:00 GMT) on Wednesday. The United Nations welcomed the ceasefire on Thursday. UN Assistant Secretary-General Miroslav Jenca said: “The international community must remain fully committed to a peaceful settlement between Armenia and Azerbaijan and spare no effort to de-escalate the current tensions, bring the parties back to the negotiation table and help them achieve peace and stability in the region.” Armenia’s defence ministry said the situation along the shared border was quiet following the deal, and that no ceasefire violations were reported. There was no immediate comment from Azerbaijan on the reported agreement. A previous ceasefire brokered by Russia on Tuesday quickly failed. Armenia and Azerbaijan have repeatedly traded blame for the fighting this week, which first broke out in the early hours of Tuesday morning and has taken place in areas away from Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave that lies inside Azerbaijan but is mainly populated by ethnic Armenians. Armenian authorities have accused Baku of unleashing a number of unprovoked cross-border attacks, while Azerbaijani officials claim their forces responded to initial Armenian “provocations”. Al Jazeera was unable to independently verify the battlefield accounts from either side. Tensions simmer The recent fighting has sparked fears of another full-fledged war between the ex-Soviet states, which have been locked in a decades-old conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. The two countries fought a war over the contested region in late 2020 that killed more than 6,500 people in little more than six weeks. The conflict saw Azerbaijan successfully win back swathes of territory in and around Nagorno-Karabakh that had been controlled by ethnic Armenian forces backed by Yerevan since an earlier war in the area ended in 1994. Russia, a regional power broker, oversaw a ceasefire deal in November 2020 to end the fighting and deployed nearly 2,000 peacekeepers to the region as part of the agreement. Armenia has appealed to Moscow for assistance again this week following the latest clashes. Meanwhile, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has signalled that his government is ready to recognise Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity in a future peace treaty, provided that it relinquishes control of areas in Armenia its forces have seized. “We want to sign a document, for which many people will criticise and denounce us and call us traitors, and they may even decide to remove us from office, but we would be grateful if Armenia gets a lasting peace and security as a result of it,” Pashinyan told Armenian legislators on Wednesday. But some in the opposition saw the statement as a sign of the prime minister’s readiness to cave in to Azerbaijani demands and recognise Azerbaijan’s sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh. Thousands of angry protesters quickly descended on the government’s headquarters, accusing Pashinyan of treason and demanding he step down. Protests were also held in other Armenian cities. SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

Libya’s Red Crescent says local authorities found bodies washed up onshore after a migrant shipwreck off western coast. A group of migrants rescued by volunteers of the Ocean Viking rescue ship, run by NGOs SOS Mediterranean and the International Federation of Red Cross [File: Jeremias Gonzalez/AP Photo] Libyan rescue workers have recovered at least 15 bodies found on the coast in Sabratha, including a number burned in a boat and others on the beach, a member of the Red Crescent in the city said. A spokesman for Libya’s Red Crescent, Tawfik Al Shukri, said on Friday that local authorities had informed the aid group of bodies washing up onshore after a shipwreck off the country’s western coast. He said they were retrieved and transported to a hospital, where the remains would be examined to determine the cause of death. A security source in Sabratha, 70km (43 miles) west of the capital Tripoli, also said that the dead people were migrants caught in a dispute between two rival groups of people smugglers in the northwest city. Migrants regularly try to cross the Mediterranean from Libya in a desperate attempt to reach European shores. Sabratha is a major launching point for the mainly Africans making the dangerous voyage across the Mediterranean. A video and pictures circulated online showed a burning boat on a beach with dark smoke pouring from it and what appeared to be the same vessel, scorched inside and containing charred human remains. The video and pictures could not be immediately verified. The cause of the deaths was not immediately clear, nor was it apparent when the fire started. The International Organization for Migration said in June that at least 150 migrants departing from Libya were feared to have drowned in the first sixth months of 2022. Crossings typically increase around the middle and late-middle of the year. Libya has emerged as the dominant transit point for people fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East amid internal strife. Torn by civil war since 2011, the oil-rich country is divided between rival governments, each backed by international patrons and multiple armed militias on the ground. Human traffickers in recent years have benefitted from the chaos in Libya, smuggling in people across the desert country’s lengthy borders with six nations. They are then typically packed into ill-equipped rubber boats and set off on risky sea voyages. Many of those who have been intercepted and returned to Libya – including women and children – are held in government-run detention canters rife with abuse, including torture, rape and extortion, according to rights groups.

Lack of security has become widespread in Nigeria and is a key concern for voters ahead of a February 25 election. Authorities in Nigeria have warned against people taking the law into their own hands after deadly clashes between gunmen and vigilantes left more than 40 dead [File: Ben Curtis/AP Photo] (AP Photo) 4 Feb 2023 More than 40 people have been killed in clashes between gunmen and vigilantes in Nigeria’s northern Katsina state, the latest violence ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections. Katsina state police spokesperson Gambo Isah said on Friday that an armed gang, known locally as bandits, attacked a village in Katsina’s Bakori local government area and had rustled cattle and sheep before fleeing into the bush. A local vigilante group mobilised and pursued the gunmen, which led to the deadly clash and large loss of life on Thursday, the spokesperson said. “A joint security operations is currently ongoing with a view to bringing the perpetrators to book,” Isah said. Katsina is one of the northern states hardest hit by armed gangs who attack and kidnap people from villages and highways in remote parts of the region where security forces are stretched. Lack of security has become widespread and is a key concern for voters ahead of the February 25 election to choose new members of parliament and a successor to President Muhammadu Buhari, a former military ruler who came to power eight years ago promising to end insecurity. Two security sources put the death toll in Katsina at 50. The bodies of those killed were recovered on Friday from the bush. Those injured in the clashes were taken to Kankara hospital in the state, the sources said. Katsina special adviser on security Ibrahim Ahmed said communities were discouraged from taking the law into their own hands through vigilantism as it would lead to deadly consequences. SOURCE: REUTERS © 2023 Al Jazeera Media Network

All eligible civilians should join the military to stop Tigray forces ‘once and for all’, PM Abiy Ahmed’s office says. Abiy sent troops into Ethiopia's northernmost Tigray region last November to topple the TPLF [Eduardo Soteras/AFP] Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has issued a call for all eligible civilians to join the armed forces as fighting raged in multiple regions of Africa’s second-most populous nation. The call on Tuesday by the Nobel Peace Prize-winning leader represented the further crumbling of the unilateral ceasefire his government declared in June as its military retreated from Tigray or the abandonment of the ceasefire altogether. “Now is the right time for all capable Ethiopians who are of age to join the Defence Forces, Special Forces and militias and show your patriotism,” Abiy’s office said in a statement. Abiy sent troops into Ethiopia’s northernmost Tigray region last November to topple the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the regional party that dominated national politics for nearly three decades until 2018. The move came in response to TPLF attacks on federal army camps, said Abiy, winner of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize. Although Abiy promised a swift victory, the war took a stunning turn in June when Tigrayan forces recaptured the regional capital, Mekelle, and the Ethiopian army largely withdrew. Abiy also declared a unilateral ceasefire, saying it would facilitate aid access to a region where 400,000 people are facing famine-like conditions, according to the United Nations. Since then, the TPLF has pushed east into neighbouring Afar and south into the Amhara region. Last week, its forces seized the Amhara town of Lalibela, home to 12th-century rock-hewn churches that are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. On Tuesday, the government’s patience appeared to have run out, with its statement ordering security forces “to halt the destruction of the treasonous and terrorist TPLF organisation and the machinations of foreign hands once and for all”. Earlier on Tuesday, a medical official in Afar told the AFP news agency that 12 people were killed and dozens wounded in a recent attack on displaced civilians. The incident occurred on August 5 in Galicoma town, said Dr Abubeker Mahammud, medical director of the Dubti Referral Hospital, where victims were being treated. “Twelve dead bodies arrived at the hospital,” Abubeker said. “The total number of injured victims is more than 46, almost around 50. Almost 75 percent of them had bullet injuries.” Survivors told hospital officials they were shot by fighters from the TPLF, Abubeker said. Two officials with Afar’s regional government put the death toll in Galicoma at more than 200, but that figure could not be independently verified. Ayish Yasin, head of Afar’s bureau for women and children, told AFP on Tuesday that “200 bodies of civilians have been recovered so far, while more than 48 are still missing.” Ayish, who visited Galicoma on Monday, said many of the victims were killed by artillery fire and buried immediately. “Out of the 200 bodies recovered, 107 are children – 48 girls and 59 boys,” she said. “The victims are civilians who had no role in the conflict.” The head of the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, Henrietta Fore, said Monday she was “extremely alarmed by the reported killing of over 200 people, including more than 100 children, in attacks on displaced families” in Afar. UNICEF officials in New York and Addis Ababa said they could not provide more information than what was in Fore’s statement. Ethiopian officials have seized on the deaths in Galicoma as proof of the TPLF’s disregard for the worsening humanitarian situation in Tigray. But TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda said on Twitter late on Monday that government troops “launched an offensive on August 5 against our forces in Galicoma”. He said the TPLF would “work with relevant bodies to investigate any incident that may have occurred”. Aid agencies have struggled to get urgently needed humanitarian supplies to cut-off populations in Tigray as the violence has worsened. On Tuesday, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR said it had regained access to two Eritrean refugee camps in Tigray for the first time since July 13, warning of the dire conditions facing the 23,000 people living there. Although aid deliveries resumed on August 5, UNHCR spokesman Boris Cheshirkov told reporters in Geneva that access to the Mai Aini and Adi Harush camps continues to be “limited by a complex and fluid security situation”. “Basic services such as healthcare remain unavailable, and clean drinking water is running out,” he added, reiterating a call to ease the passage of humanitarian convoys. The TPLF has repeatedly said that it does not have designs on holding territory in Amhara and Afar and is instead focused on facilitating aid access and preventing pro-government forces from regrouping. © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network.

Even though they are born in Pakistan, ethnic Bengalis are deprived of official recognition and citizenship. By Hajira Maryam Kulsoom Yamir training at a gym in Pakistan [Hajira Maryam/Al Jazeera] Kiran Jaffar and Kulsoom Yamir are teenage gymnasts in Pakistan’s southern city of Karachi who are hoping to represent the country at international events. But both know that, as things stand, they stand no chance of fulfilling that dream. They are stateless Bengalis in Pakistan. Without any official identification document, they can’t move forward. Jaffar, 15, and fourteen-year-old Yamir live in Machar Colony, one of Karachi’s largest slums that is home to an estimated 700,000 people. For these girls and their families, living there means living within the streams of densely packed houses, unfinished roads and poor sanitary conditions as a part of their daily life. Approximately 65 percent of Machar Colony inhabitants are ethnic Bengalis and more than half of them have no citizenship or are stuck in a process of getting one, according to Tahera Hasan, lawyer and director of the charity Imkaan Welfare Organisation. Yamir says she wants to “proceed in my life as a gymnast, perhaps even become a coach”. Jaffar, with her vivid smile, shares the same aim: “When I grow up, I want to be a professional gymnast and become a coach, teaching the sport to others.” “But our family is struggling to get an ID card, due to which going to a proper school and even something basic as having a bank account is very difficult for us,” Yamir tells Al Jazeera. Growing up in extreme poverty The girls train at a learning and recreational centre called Khel (which means sport in Urdu) located in the slum. The centre provides a space through educational learning and sports to 170 underprivileged children, including Jaffar and Yamir. Inside, the appearance of Khel is a contrast to the grim reality of the slum in which it is located – colourful walls, upbeat music, floor mats and balance beams. Jaffar and Yamir, as well as their parents, were born in Pakistan [Hajira Maryam/Al Jazeera] Stateless Bengali, as well as Pathan children, wearing yellow tights and shirts, aged five to 15, rigorously perform acrobatic moves with the help of their coaches. “It was a great challenge to train these children as gymnasts,” coach Muhammad Furqan, who has been training these children for the past five years, tells Al Jazeera. “All of them have grown up in extreme poverty. They have never even seen a park in their life. Living under such hardships, they don’t know what compassion and gymnastics really was.” He then gets busy assisting energetic young gymnasts to perform backflips and cartwheels. There is laughter and some teasing if one loses balance and falls over. Ethnic Bengalis in Pakistan – an estimated two million – are the most discriminated ethnic community. Many of them have been living in the country even before the 1971 civil war which led to the creation of present-day Bangladesh which was previously East Pakistan. Even though they are born in Pakistan, ethnic Bengalis are deprived of any official recognition and citizenship. They can’t vote or have access to public health or government schools. “They label us as aliens, refugees, foreign, depriving us of our rights,” Sheikh Muhammad Siraj, chairman of the Pakistan Bengali Action Committee, told Al Jazeera. He has been advocating and fighting legal battles for the rights of the Bengali community since 1993. “We are stuck in a constant struggle to get recognition in this country. Many people in my community don’t have ID cards and are stateless. Even though they have been living on this land even before the 1971 war. We are Bengalis, but we are Pakistani Bengalis.” Digitisation process Initially, many Bengalis who decided to stay back in Pakistan after the war were given the first manual ID cards, which were issued in the country in 1973 and onwards. But the main issue for the population started after the digitisation of ID cards and the establishment of the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) in 2000. “People started facing problems after the digitisation process came into being,” said the lawyer Hasan. “Documentation requirements changed and it made it difficult for people to fulfil them.” Following digitisation, the establishment of the National Alien Registration Authority (NARA) the same year – to register immigrants and foreign residents – let Bengalis fall into the category of aliens, despite them residing in Pakistan for decades. “The implementation of NARA systematically began to discriminate against the Bengali-speaking population,” added Hasan. “There were Bengali people with Pakistani passports and ID cards who, later, were forcefully given NARA cards. The Bengali community was forcibly forced to take biometrics on NARA, automatically cancelling their citizenship.” According to Siraj, “since 2002, their ID cards started getting blocked and they were considered foreign cases”. In 2015, NARA merged with NADRA but the issue regarding ID cards for Bengali citizens has still not reached any solution. Even though the most recent alien registry process, introduced by NADRA, aimed to facilitate the registration of non-natives and foreigners residing in Pakistan under the “alien” category, it is set to further discriminate against the rights of the Bengali community. “The scheme completely ignores the right to have citizenship as granted under the birthright law. It violates that right,” said Hasan. Siraj, meanwhile, reminded authorities that “many Bengalis have been living in Pakistan since before 1971, we have the right to vote and be legal citizens of the state”. NADRA authorities did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment. PM Khan ‘did not fulfil his promise’ In 2018, prior to his election win, Imran Khan promised to grant Bengalis in Pakistan national ID cards and citizenship. “There are [Bengali] children who are born in Pakistan, and even their ancestors are living in the country for decades and are not getting citizenship despite birthright laws. This is exploitation and the issue must be resolved,” Khan said at the time. Three years on, the statements are yet to be realised. Issues for people like Kiran and many stateless Bengalis in Pakistan started after the digitisation of ID cards and the establishment of the National Database and Registration Authority in 2000 [Hajira Maryam/Al Jazeera] “Khan promised that if his PTI party wins, Bengalis will get ID cards,” said Siraj. “He said this in Governor House in Karachi and even in the National Assembly. But he did not fulfil his promise.” Shireen Mazari, senior PTI politician and Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Human Rights, refused to comment when approached by Al Jazeera. Shafqat Mehmood, another senior PTI leader, did not respond when contacted through email while current Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed, through his assistant, said he has “no idea about the issue due to a lot of technical aspects”. ‘Children suffer the most’ Jaffar and Yamir, as well as their parents, were born in Pakistan. According to Pakistan’s Citizenship Act of 1951, any person born in Pakistan after the commencement of the Act has the right to claim citizenship. None of Jaffar and Yamir’s family members has an ID card. For them, competing at the national level or representing Pakistan in an international tournament is impossible. “Pakistan has one of the most progressive birthright laws. They are not discriminatory at all,” Hasan said. “The main problem comes at the implementation level.” As a result, children suffer the most. Without any legal document confirming citizenship, they can’t get admission to public schools. Their prospects of attaining proper education, or anything similar, are stymied. “The children of our community are denied all rights. The children can’t even go to state schools and get an education,” Siraj told Al Jazeera. Hasan added that “as the life of these kids hits a deadlock, without hope and no progress, [children] get trapped into undertaking unwanted activities”. As the life of these kids hits a deadlock, without hope and no progress, they get trapped into undertaking unwanted activities. Since Jaffar and Yamir are not formally enrolled in a school, they get some tutoring at Khel, the centre, for two hours a day. The pair is energetic, disciplined and determined. Their day starts early. They train strenuously as gymnasts until midday but also help their families with domestic chores before that. In the afternoon, they attend a local madrassa (religious school). For Jaffar’s mother, Khalida, the bureaucracy of getting an ID card has been tiresome. She’s 40 and lost her parents when she was only five. “I’ve been in Machar Colony since my childhood. My parents were also born here. Yet, I still can’t get an ID card,” says Khalida. With meagre resources and a husband who works as a watchman, Jaffar’s mother prays for the brighter days for the children, hoping for the day her daughter becomes a successful gymnast. “I don’t have a son, but I don’t care. My daughter is really good at gymnastics. We really support her and are always hoping for her success in the sport and her life for the future.” The international community has taken no notice of the human rights violations taking place against the Bengali community in Pakistan, said social worker and lawyer Rana Asif Habib. “Even international humanitarian organisations are failing to recognise this pressing issue,” Habib said. “Pakistan is a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and also the United Nation Convention on the Right of a Child. Yet, the government is not complying with these international instruments and the Bengalis here are still struggling.” For Hasan, “it is vital to simplify the birth registration process, and make it a one-window operation to ensure that children who are born in Pakistan are not deprived of basic rights.” For Jaffar, the hope is “a solution regarding the ID card”. “My parents are always stressed because we can’t achieve anything without citizenship. Only after I become a citizen, I can proceed and play at the national level,” she says. But as both girls balance on the beam together, their expressions while performing gymnastics do not betray their worries. “Me and my family have the right to become citizens. But how can we proceed to that point without any ID?” asks Yamir. © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network

Calling the vote a major setback, Dutch ambassador Peter Bekker says the Council ‘has failed the people of Yemen’. The conflict erupted in 2014 when Houthi rebels seized the capital Sanaa, prompting a Saudi-led military coalition to intervene in support of the government [File: Khaled Abdullah/Reuters] The UN Human Rights Council voted to end the mandate of experts investigating war crimes in Yemen in a blow to Western nations who wanted the probe to continue. The 47-member council voted against renewing the mandate of the Group of Eminent International and Regional Experts on Yemen (GEE) on Thursday, which in August 2018 reported evidence of possible war crimes committed by all sides, including a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has been in the past accused of attempting to shut down the investigation, with Human Rights Watch in September 2018 saying Riyadh was making a “blatant attempt to avoid scrutiny” of its conduct in Yemen. The Human Rights Council in 2017 agreed to send a group of “eminent experts” to Yemen to investigate abuse nearly two years after the Saudi-led coalition launched a devastating military offensive in support of internationally recognised President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who was toppled by the Houthi rebels. The Saudi-led coalition has been accused of bombing schools, hospitals and other civilian targets while the Houthi rebels, who control much of northern Yemen, were also accused of major violations. Catherine Shakdam, former Security Council consultant on Yemen, told Al Jazeera that the vote was not a surprise. However, she added, “A lot of people will be disappointed because it is a failure on the part of the UN, but from a political perspective … finding a real solution to the ongoing crisis in Yemen, pointing fingers may not be the right way to reaching a peaceful resolution to the conflict.” First draft resolution rejected This is the first time the United Nations’ top rights body has ever rejected a draft resolution since its foundation in 2006, a spokesman for the council told AFP. The draft resolution seeking to extend the GEE’s mandate for a further two years was brought forward by several European nations and Canada. Some 21 countries voted against the draft resolution, 18 voted in favour, seven abstained and Ukraine did not register a vote at all. Those voting in favour included Argentina, Brazil, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico and South Korea. The countries voting against included Bangladesh, China, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Libya, Pakistan, the Philippines and Russia. Japan was among the abstentions. Saudi lobby The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) said the vote amounted to “a blatant attempt by Saudi and its allies to ensure blanket impunity for themselves after having been linked to war crimes and other grave violations of international law in the country”. Rights activists said this week that Saudi Arabia lobbied heavily against the Western resolution. The kingdom is not a voting member of the UN Human Rights Council and its delegation did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment. During the debate, Bahraini ambassador Yusuf Abdulkarim Bucheeri said that the international group of investigators had “contributed to misinformation on the ground” in Yemen. ‘Grave failure’ Yemen’s grinding conflict has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions, resulting in what the UN calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. About 80 percent of Yemen’s 30 million people are dependent on aid. The conflict erupted in 2014 when Houthi rebels seized the capital Sanaa, prompting a Saudi-led military coalition to intervene the following year in support of the government. Jeremie Smith, director of the CIHRS Geneva office, said: “Today’s vote represents a grave failure – one that will inevitably lead to more violence and suffering in Yemen. “States who voted against the renewal or abstained have chosen to appease Saudi Arabia instead of protecting the lives of millions.” Dutch ambassador Peter Bekker said the vote was a major setback. “I cannot help but feel that this Council has failed the people of Yemen,” he told delegates. “With this vote, the Council has effectively ended its reporting mandate, it has cut this lifeline of the Yemeni people to the international community.” Speaking earlier before the council, UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said there was no peace in sight in Yemen. “Parties to the conflict have continued to act with little regard to their obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law,” she said. “Numerous attacks targeting or disproportionately impacting civilians or civilian objects during the past year may amount to war crimes." “Parties to the conflict also continue to commit extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, torture, child recruitment, and forced displacement, among other violations and abuses of international human rights and humanitarian law.” She said urgent funding was needed to avert large-scale famine in the impoverished country. © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network

UN finds evidence of systematic attack on civilians ‘amounting to crimes against humanity’ in Myanmar since the coup. The February 1 coup followed November elections which Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party won overwhelmingly and the military rejects as fraudulent [File: Reuters] The head of the United Nations body investigating the most serious crimes in Myanmar has said that preliminary evidence collected since the military seized power on February 1 shows a widespread and systematic attack on civilians “amounting to crimes against humanity”. Nicholas Koumjian told UN reporters on Friday that the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, which he heads, has received more than 200,000 communications since the army seizure and has collected more than 1.5 million items of evidence that are being analysed “so that one day those most responsible for the serious international crimes in Myanmar will be brought to account”. In determining that the crimes against civilians appear to be widespread and systematic, he said investigators saw patterns of violence – a measured response by security forces to demonstrations in the first six weeks or so after the military takeover followed by “an uptick in violence and much more violent methods used to suppress the demonstrators”. “This was happening in different places at the same time, indicating to us it would be logical to conclude this was from a central policy,” Koumjian said. “And, also, we saw that particular groups were targeted, especially for arrests and detentions that appear to be without due process of law. And this includes, of course, journalists, medical workers and political opponents.” Myanmar for 50 years had languished under strict military rule that led to international isolation and sanctions. As the generals loosened their grip, culminating in Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s rise to leadership in 2015 elections, the international community responded by lifting most sanctions and pouring investment into the country. The February 1 coup followed elections in November which Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party won overwhelmingly and the military rejects as fraudulent. Since the military takeover, Myanmar has been racked by unrest, with peaceful demonstrations against the ruling generals morphing first into a low-level armed uprising in many urban areas after security forces used deadly force and then into more serious combat in rural areas, especially in border regions where ethnic minority militias have been engaging in heavy clashes with government troops. Christine Schraner Burgener told The Associated Press news agency shortly before her three-and-a-half year term as the UN special envoy for Myanmar ended on October 31 that “civil war” has spread throughout the country. The UN investigative body was established by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council in September 2018 with a mandate to collect, consolidate, preserve and analyse evidence of the most serious international crimes and violations of international law committed in Myanmar. Koumjian, an American lawyer who served as an international prosecutor of serious crimes committed in Cambodia, East Timor and Bosnia, was appointed by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as its head in 2019 with instructions to prepare files that can facilitate criminal prosecutions in national, regional or international tribunals to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Koumjian said his team has been collecting evidence from a wide variety of sources including individuals, organisations, businesses and governments, and the evidence includes photographs, videos, testimonies and social media posts “that could be relevant to show that crimes happened and who is responsible for those crimes”. The investigative body has received information from social media companies, which he would not name except for Facebook because it had made its cooperation public. “We began engaging with Facebook as soon as we were created in 2019, and they have been meeting with us regularly,” Koumjian said. “We have received some, but certainly not all, that we have requested. We continue to negotiate with them and actually, I am hopeful that we are going to receive more information.” He said the Human Rights Council specifically instructed the investigators to cooperate with the International Criminal Court’s probe into crimes committed against Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority and the case at the International Court of Justice brought by The Gambia on behalf of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation accusing Myanmar of genocide against the Rohingya. “So we are sharing documents with those proceedings,” Koumjian said. The court actions stem from the Myanmar military’s harsh campaign against the Rohingya in August 2017 in response to an attack. More than 700,000 Rohingya fled to neighbouring Bangladesh to escape what has been called an ethnic cleansing campaign involving mass rapes, killings and the torching of homes. Koujian said: “All we’re doing is collecting evidence of the very worst violence, hopefully sending a message to perpetrators: `If you commit this, you run the risk that you will be held to account.’” © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network

USHMM report says Beijing is committing ‘multiple crimes against humanity’ against Uighur community. The US Holocaust Museum has said repression of Uighur Muslims in China has gotten worse [File: Lee Jin-man/The Associated Press] The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has released a report detailing evidence of increasing government repression against Uighur Muslims in China’s western Xinjiang region. The report released on Tuesday “expresses the Museum’s grave concern that the Chinese government may be committing genocide” against the Uighurs, the organisation’s Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide said in a statement. [Genocide Watch comment: CHINA IS COMMITTING GENOCIDE AGAINST THE UIGHURS. Either the lawyers at the USHMM don't follow the Genocide Convention, or they are trying to placate China. China is committing every act of genocide listed in Article 2 of the Genocide Convention: a. killing members of the group; b. causing serious bodily or mental harm to the members of the group; c. deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d. imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and e. forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.] The abuses detailed in the report, the most recent in a years-long deluge of condemnations of Beijing’s policies towards Uighurs, include allegations of forced sterilisation, sexual violence, enslavement, torture and forcible transfer. The findings served as an update to the organisation’s previous report. It said there is now “a reasonable basis” to believe that previously alleged crimes against humanity are growing amid a campaign by Chinese officials to hide their severity in response to international condemnation. The report, which cites witness testimony, publicly available information from dissidents and accounts provided by human rights groups, said that “recently surfaced information signals that the Chinese government’s conduct has escalated beyond a policy of forced assimilation.” “This includes, in particular, a deepening assault on Uighur female reproductive capacity through forced sterilisation and forced intrauterine device (IUD) placement as well as the separation of the sexes through mass detention and forcible transfer,” the report said, using an alternative spelling for Uighurs. Tom Bernstein, the chairman of the museum’s Committee on Conscience, told The Associated Press, “The Chinese government has done its best to keep information about crimes against the Uighurs from seeing the light of day.” He called on Beijing to “halt its attacks on the Uighur people and allow independent international monitors to investigate and ensure that the crimes have stopped.” Calls for access Beijing has repeatedly rejected charges of human rights abuses, forced detention, and other atrocities in the region, saying its policies are necessary to “fight extremism” and to promote upward economic mobility for Uighurs and other Muslim minorities. The US and several other governments, meanwhile, have already said that China’s actions against Xinjiang’s Uighur Muslim and other minority populations amount to genocide. In October, 43 countries again called on China to allow independent observers “immediate, meaningful and unfettered access” to Xinjiang. That came after United Nations Human Rights High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet told the UN Human Rights Council in September that China had again rebuffed requests to access the region. In response to the countries’ appeal, China’s Ambassador to the UN Zhang Jun accused critics of spreading “groundless accusations” and unfounded “lies”. He further accused the US and other Western countries of “using human rights as a pretext for political manoeuvring to provoke confrontation”. © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network

ICC complaint says coup leader ‘criminally responsible’ for the security forces under his command committing mass atrocity crimes. By Ted Regencia and Al Jazeera Staff Since the coup, at least 1,305 people, including more than 75 children, have been killed due to the military crackdown on anti-coup protests [File: Sai Aung Main/AFP] Myanmar’s military leader Min Aung Hlaing has been accused before the International Criminal Court (ICC) of committing crimes against humanity for overseeing, as army chief, a deadly crackdown on protesters and activists opposed to the February 1 coup. In a submission on Friday, the Myanmar Accountability Project (MAP) urged The Hague tribunal to open a criminal investigation “into the widespread and systematic use of torture as part of the violent crackdown against the protest movement” in the Southeast Asian country. A United Nations Rapporteur in July characterised the military government’s tactic against dissenters “as a brute force terror campaign”. “The leader of the illegal coup is criminally responsible for the security forces under his command committing mass atrocity crimes,” MAP Director Chris Gunness said in a statement. “The prospects of a conviction are good and we believe that grounds for issuing an arrest warrant against Min Aung Hlaing are overwhelming.” Since the coup, at least 1,305 people, including more than 75 children, have been killed due to the military crackdown on anti-coup protests as of Wednesday, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a rights group tracking deaths and detentions. At least 10,756 people have been arrested. The increasingly violent military response to demonstrations has also prompted protesters to arm themselves, triggering more violence. On Wednesday, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric reported more bloodshed, accusing security forces of shooting villagers, including five children, in the northwest Sagaing region and burning them alive in retaliation of recent attacks on the military. “We strongly condemn such violence and remind Myanmar’s military authorities of their obligations under international law to ensure the safety and protection of civilians. Those individuals responsible for this heinous act must be held to account,” Dujarric said during his regular briefing. On Thursday US State Department spokesman Ned Price said the US was “outraged by credible and sickening reports” of the incident. “Appallingly, this is not the first time we have seen reports of the Burmese military using such tactics to oppress the people of Burma,” he told reporters, referring to the country by its old name. “The military’s widespread use of horrific and brutal violence underscores for us the urgency of ending the Burmese military’s culture of impunity by holding military actors accountable and restoring Burma’s path to inclusive democracy.” Social media posts on Thursday also reported more violence, including burning of homes and the shooting of at least one civilian in Mon state. ‘Widespread, systematic torture’ (Warning: tweet shows graphic content) MAP said that the evidence of violence they had gathered, as well as the recent incidents, show that the use of torture in Myanmar “is widespread, systematic and the result of state-wide policies.” “This clearly meets the threshold of crimes against humanity,” the statement said. “Our submission to the ICC sets out a powerful case for criminal responsibility for these crimes going all the way up to Min Aung Hlaing himself,” Gunness said. MAP’s allegations have been supported by recent preliminary findings of the UN’s Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) that recent attacks on civilians amount “to crimes against humanity”. According to Nicholas Koumjian, head of the UN investigating body, more than 219,000 items of information have been collected since the coup to support the allegations. In a recent briefing to the Human Rights Council, he argued that “evidence shows security forces acting in a coordinated manner across different regions, systematically targeting specific categories of persons, such as journalists and medical professionals.” “More than ever, there is a need to end impunity,” Koumjian said. In the first six weeks following the coup, the UN investigators also found “an uptick in violence and much more violent methods used to suppress the demonstrators”. “This was happening in different places at the same time, indicating to us it would be logical to conclude this was from a central policy,” Koumjian said. One such incident was detailed in a Human Rights Watch report published earlier this month. The report said that the killing of at least 65 protesters on March 14 in Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city, was planned and premeditated. HRW said that security forces deliberately encircled and used lethal force against crowds calling for the reinstatement of the democratically-elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. The military has said its power grab was necessary because of fraud during the November 2020 parliamentary polls. But independent observers have reported no evidence to support the claim. The elections were won by the National League for Democracy party of Aung San Suu Kyi in a landslide. The generals mounted their coup hours before the new parliament was due to sit and arrested Aung San Suu Kyi. On Monday, she was sentenced to four years of detention in an undisclosed location after a trial in a closed court on various charges widely dismissed as politically motivated. A few hours later, the generals reduced the sentence to two years. © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network

US says presence of Eritrean forces in Ethiopia ‘an impediment’ to ending conflict and increasing humanitarian access. The conflict in Ethiopia has displaced more than two million people and pushed hundreds of thousands into famine-like conditions, according to the UN [File: Baz Ratner/Reuters] The United States has sanctioned the Eritrean military and the country’s ruling party for “contributing to the crisis and conflict” in Ethiopia, which has displaced more than 2.5 million people and killed thousands. In a statement on Friday, the US Treasury Department said it was sanctioning the Eritrean Defence Forces and the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice, as well as other individuals and entities. The Eritrean military’s presence in Ethiopia, the department said, “is an impediment to ending the ongoing fighting and increasing humanitarian access”. “We condemn the continued role played by Eritrean actors who are contributing to the violence in northern Ethiopia, which has undermined the stability and integrity of the state and resulted in a humanitarian disaster,” Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control Andrea M Gacki said in the statement. The sanctions come just days after United Nations political chief Rosemary DiCarlo warned that Ethiopia risks “descending into widening civil war”. The Ethiopian government’s conflict with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) began a year ago and has accelerated in recent days, with a nationwide state of emergency declared this month and residents of the capital, Addis Ababa, told to be ready to take up arms to defend residential areas. Thousands have been killed and more than two million have fled their homes since last November, when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched a military offensive against the TPLF, which had long run Tigray and was a main player in Ethiopia’s national politics. Hundreds of thousands are also facing famine-like conditions, according to the UN, and the fighting has spread from Tigray into the neighbouring Afar and Amhara regions. Eritrea in April acknowledged for the first time that its forces were taking part in the war in Tigray and promised to pull them out in the face of mounting international pressure. For months, the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments had denied Eritreans were involved, contradicting testimony from residents, rights groups, aid workers, diplomats and even some Ethiopian civilian and military officials. In August, the US sanctioned General Filipos Woldeyohannes, the chief of staff of the Eritrean Defence Forces, for “serious human rights abuse” by his forces in Tigray. The US at that time urged the Eritrean military “to immediately and permanently withdraw its forces” from Ethiopia. Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Ghebremeskel, Ethiopian government spokesperson Legesse Tulu and Abiy’s spokesperson Billene Seyoum did not immediately respond to requests for comment by the Reuters news agency on Friday’s sanctions. Sanctions also were issued against the economic adviser of the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) and the head of the Eritrean national security office, the Treasury Department said. Hidri Trust, which the US Treasury said is the holding company of all the business enterprises of the PFDJ, and the Red Sea Trading Corporation, which manages its property and financial interests, were also sanctioned. Separately on Friday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that Ethiopia risked imploding, with disastrous consequences for the region, unless the government and rebels negotiate a deal. A failure to reach a settlement “would lead to the implosion of Ethiopia and spillover into other countries in the region, and that would be disastrous for the Ethiopian people and also for countries in the region”, Blinken, who will travel next week to neighbouring Kenya, told reporters. He also reiterated his support for African Union mediation led by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, saying the US was “working very closely” to support those efforts “to mediate a way forward with all the Ethiopian parties”. Meanwhile, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the Biden administration is delaying plans to issue sanctions against “elements aligned with the TPLF and the Ethiopian military” to see if African Union efforts make progress. “If they do not seize the opportunity and the parties continue escalating the war, we will move forward with these sanctions, but we are currently leaving space for these talks to continue,” Psaki said on Friday. A day earlier, the Ethiopian government set out conditions for possible ceasefire talks with leaders of the TPLF. Foreign Ministry spokesman Dina Mufti told reporters on Thursday that one of the conditions for possible talks – which he stressed had not been agreed to – would be for the TPLF to withdraw from the Amhara and Afar regions bordering Tigray. “In order for there to be a peaceful solution, they say it takes two to tango,” Dina said. TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda has previously said that pulling out from Amhara and Afar before talks begin is “an absolute non-starter”. © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network

Police file case after videos go viral on social media of a meeting in which Hindu religious leaders called for mass killings and use of weapons against Muslims. Muslim devotees offer Namaz at Sector 37 parking area amidst protests, on December 3, 2021 in Gurugram, India [Vipin Kumar/Hindustan Times via Getty Images] Videos showing Hindu religious leaders in India calling for genocide against Muslims have sparked outrage and prompted demands for action. Indian police said on Friday they had launched a hate-speech investigation into last week’s event in Haridwar, in northern Uttarakhand state, in which participants called for the mass killings and use of weapons against Muslims. A speaker at the gathering told the crowd that people should not worry about going to jail for killing Muslims, according to a video that went viral. “Even if just a hundred of us become soldiers and kill two million of them, we will be victorious … If you stand with this attitude only then will you able to protect ‘sanatana dharma’ [an absolute form of Hinduism],” the woman said. The meeting was attended by at least one member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The party stands accused of encouraging the persecution of Muslims and other minorities by hardline Hindu nationalists since coming to power in 2014, allegations it denies. Prominent Muslim MP Asaduddin Owaisi tweeted that the inflammatory comments in the video were a “clear case of incitement to genocide”. Modi’s government has not commented on the event. The woman in the video reportedly added that Indians should “pray to Nathuram Godse”, the Hindu hardliner who assassinated Indian independence icon Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. Another delegate, Prabodhanand Giri – the head of a hardline Hindu group who is often photographed with senior BJP members – called for a “cleansing” and for those present to be “ready to die or kill”. “Like Myanmar, the police, politicians, the army and every Hindu in India must pick up weapons and do this cleansing. There is no other option left,” he is heard to say. A military crackdown in Myanmar on the heavily persecuted Muslim Rohingya minority has killed thousands and forced hundreds of thousands to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh. A third speaker is heard saying that he wished he had killed Modi’s predecessor, the main opposition Congress party’s Manmohan Singh, who was the first Sikh prime minister of India. Another said he had asked hotels from his state not to allow Christmas celebrations. The statement was met with cheers from the audience. ‘Deafening silence’ The BJP denies accusations that its agenda is to turn officially secular and pluralistic India into an ethnic Hindu nation. A military crackdown in Myanmar on the heavily persecuted Muslim Rohingya minority has killed thousands and forced hundreds of thousands to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh. The police chief of Uttarakhand state, Ashok Kumar, said such incidents would not be tolerated. He added that a case had been registered under a section of Indian law that prohibits promoting enmity among different groups on grounds of religion. Such offences can get a jail term of up to three years. Kumar said the case was registered as soon as a formal complaint was made. The case names only one person, a former Muslim who converted to Hinduism, and other unknown people. Al Jazeera’s Pavni Mittal, reporting from New Delhi, said none of the other leaders in attendance, despite the evidence, have so far had any cases registered against them. “All of this is on tape, the speeches went viral, so the police have evidence but nothing else has actually been done,” she added. Many in the Muslim community say they have been increasingly subject to attacks and threats since Modi, a lifelong member of a hardline Hindu group, came to power. The president of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, India’s largest socio-religious Muslim organisation, accused the government of turning a blind eye to the hate speech against the Muslim community. In a letter to various officials, Maulana Mahmood Madni demanded “strong actions” against the offenders. “They have posed threat to the peace and communal harmony of the country,” he said. Michael Kugelman, from the Wilson Center, hit out at the Indian government over its silence. “Not a peep, much less a condemnation, from the gov’t. Sad truth is that this deafening silence isn’t the least bit surprising,” he tweeted on Thursday. Christians have also been subject to violence and harassment, with the BJP government in the southern state of Karnataka this week becoming the latest to introduce legislation outlawing “forceful” religious conversions. © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network

Ethiopia had earlier slammed decision to hold special session and had urged countries to vote against the draft text. Nearly 10 million people in northern Ethiopia face acute food insecurity, and at least two million have been forced to flee their homes [Giulia Paravicini/Reuters] The UN Human Rights Council has voted to launch an international investigation into abuses in Ethiopia, despite protests from Addis Ababa, amid warnings of looming generalised violence. The 47-member council voted with 21 in favour, 15 opposed and 11 abstentions on Friday to order the establishment of “an international commission of human rights experts on Ethiopia” to probe a wide range of alleged violations and abuses by all sides. Speaking at the largely virtual one-day session, Nada al-Nashif, the deputy rights chief, said the UN was continuing to receive “credible reports” that all sides in the brutal 13-month conflict have been committing severe human rights violations amid a deepening humanitarian crisis. Al-Nashif warned that the risk in Ethiopia “of increasing hatred, violence and discrimination is very high”, which could lead to “generalised violence, [with] major implications, not only for millions of people in Ethiopia, but also across the region”. Ethiopia would like to reiterate that it will not cooperate with the established mechanism imposed upon it against its consent,” the government said in a statement. “No more to double standards; no more to unilateral coercive measures; and no more to meddling in internal affairs under the pretext of human rights.” The government had earlier slammed the decision to hold the special session and has urged countries to vote against the draft text. "Ethiopia would like to reiterate that it will not cooperate with the established mechanism imposed upon it against its consent,” the government said in a statement. “No more to double standards; no more to unilateral coercive measures; and no more to meddling in internal affairs under the pretext of human rights.” The government had earlier slammed the decision to hold the special session and has urged countries to vote against the draft text. “We call on all council members to … stand against short-sighted interests and refuse the politicisation of human rights by rejecting this resolution,” said Ambassador Zembe Kebede, accusing the Geneva-based body of having been “hijacked” and used as an “instrument of political pressure”. “My government will not cooperate with any mechanisms that may be imposed on it because this is … a deliberate destabilisation effort.” Nearly 10 million people in northern Ethiopia face acute food insecurity, and at least two million have been forced to flee their homes. Humanitarian workers have little access and face hostility. Ethiopia’s government has sought to restrict reporting on the war and arrested some journalists. Between 5,000 and 7,000 people swept up under Ethiopia’s new state of emergency remain imprisoned, most of them Tigrayans, al-Nashif said. “Many are detained incommunicado or in unknown locations. This is tantamount to enforced disappearance, and a matter of very grave alarm.” The Ethiopian ambassador said Ethiopia’s government had set up an “inter-ministerial task force” in response to the human rights report issued last month, and it has begun work. A joint investigation by the UN rights office and Ethiopia’s human rights commission warned last month that possible war crimes and crimes against humanity had been committed by all sides during the Tigray conflict. The government-created Ethiopian Human Rights Commission acknowledged in a statement this week that there was “value-added” in encouraging the joint investigation to continue, but said the creation of a new body “is repetitive, counterproductive to ongoing implementation processes, and further delays redress for victims and survivors”. © 2021 Al Jazeera Media Network