Iraqi Yazidis and Christians were driven out of their homes by ISIS in 2014. Ten years later, they can't return. March 18, 2024 USCIRF Calls for U.S. Government to Support Iraq’s Religious Communities on Anniversary of Genocide Determination Washington, D.C. – The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) solemnly marks the eighth anniversary of the U.S. Department of State’s determination in 2016 that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) perpetrated a genocide against northern Iraq’s Yazidis, Christians, and Shi’a Muslims. The State Department also determined that ISIS carried out crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing directed toward these same groups and, in some cases, Sunni Muslims, Kurds, and other minorities. USCIRF reiterates its call for the U.S. government to give greater support to Iraq’s diverse religious communities still suffering from the aftereffects of ISIS’s genocidal campaigns. “ISIS’s atrocities against Iraq’s religious and ethnic minorities were part of a deliberate campaign of genocide and crimes against humanity. Although ISIS’s threat has diminished, militant non-state actors and government-affiliated militias continue to perpetrate abuses against Yazidis, Christians, Shabaks, Shi’a and Sunni Muslim Turkmen, and other religious and ethnic minorities,” stated USCIRF Commissioner Stephen Schneck. “USCIRF urges the United States to encourage the Iraqi government to curb the power of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and other state-affiliated forces who subject religious minorities to checkpoint harassment, interrogation, detention, torture, and efforts to usurp their political representation and leadership.” In 2014, ISIS surged to dominance in northern Iraq. ISIS has systemically subjected the region’s diverse array of ethnic and religious minorities, including several indigenous groups, to atrocities such as mass execution, mass rape, systematic sexual slavery and forced labor, and forced religious conversion. On March 15, 2016, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution finding that ISIS’s crimes against religious minorities in Iraq and Syria constitute genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. On March 17, 2016, Secretary of State John Kerry declared that ISIS had committed genocide and crimes against humanity against Yazidis, Christians, Shi’a Muslims, and others. In 2019, the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS—including the United States and its local partners—achieved its territorial defeat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. “Today, minorities in Iraq continue to suffer for their religious and ethnic identity,” said USCIRF Commissioner Frank Wolf. “USCIRF calls on the U.S. government to support the governments of Iraq and its Kurdistan Region in their missions to rescue the 2,700 missing and enslaved Yazidi women and girls. The U.S. must also emphasize to the Iraqi and Kurdistan Regional governments the urgency of fully implementing the 2020 Sinjar Agreement and making the region safe for the return of genocide survivors, so that hundreds of thousands of Yazidis and others among the 1 million-plus Iraqis languishing in internal displacement can go home.” USCIRF has consistently highlighted the long aftermath of ISIS’s genocide against Iraq’s religious minorities, including threats to their administrative autonomy and political representation. USCIRF recently held a hearing identifying ways the U.S. government can work with the Iraqi federal government (IFG) and the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to address religious freedom concerns, especially for the country’s vulnerable religious minorities. In September 2023, USCIRF also published a report examining recent developments as well as ongoing factors affecting religious freedom in Iraq. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is an independent, bipartisan federal government entity established by the U.S. Congress to monitor, analyze, and report on religious freedom abroad. USCIRF makes foreign policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and Congress intended to deter religious persecution and promote freedom of religion and belief. To interview a commissioner, please contact USCIRF at media@uscirf.gov.

U.N. Panel Says Russian War Crimes Are Widespread The New York Times March 15, 2024 In a report headed to the Human Rights Council in Geneva next week, an investigative commission outlines the ongoing torture and starvation of Ukrainian prisoners. Demonstrators gathered in Kyiv last year to call attention to Ukrainian prisoners of war.Credit...Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times By Nick Cumming-Bruce Reporting from Geneva. Two years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, United Nations investigators say they have uncovered new evidence of systematic and widespread torture of Ukrainian prisoners held by Russian security forces. A United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Friday detailed a range of what it described as Russian war crimes, including summary executions, sexual violence and forced transfer of Ukrainian children into Russia. The commission paid special attention to “horrific” treatment of Ukrainian prisoners by Russian security services at detention centers in Russia and occupied Ukraine. The commission will deliver a report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva next week, detailing accounts of torture from four locations in Russia and seven in occupied Ukraine, strengthening previous findings that the use of torture had become widespread and systematic. “We are concerned at the scale, continuation and gravity of violations and crimes that the commission has investigated and the impact on victims,“ Erik Mose, chairman of the three-person panel, said in a statement. “Victims’ accounts disclose relentless, brutal treatment inflicting severe pain and suffering for almost the entire duration of their detention,” the commission said, adding that this resulted in long-lasting physical and mental trauma. The commission, set up in 2022, said it had previously expressed concern over arbitrary arrest and ill treatment by Ukrainian authorities of people suspected of collaborating with Russian authorities. But in this report, its fifth, the commission recounted only two new cases of Ukrainian aggression, in addition to three previously reported ones. They included the experience of a Ukrainian woman who said she was detained and hit repeatedly by men in Ukrainian military uniforms who carried out a mock execution before releasing her. “We are concerned at the scale, continuation and gravity of violations and crimes that the commission has investigated and the impact on victims,” said Erik Mose, right, the chairman of the three-person panel.Credit...Martial Trezzini/EPA, via Shutterstock United Nations human rights monitors who have access to Ukrainian detention centers have also described abuse of Russian soldiers taken prisoner by Ukraine. The rights monitors said that beatings and ill treatment of these soldiers occurred mainly at the initial moment of capture and that cases of torture were sporadic. Mr. Mose said the commission had written to Russian authorities 23 times requesting information, meetings and better access, but had received no response. The Russian authorities have yet to comment on the report’s allegations of torture. Russian guards told one prisoner “welcome to hell,” the commission said, describing brutal admissions procedures that included beatings and electric shocks. Torture was reportedly carried out “everywhere”: in cells, corridors, courtyards and the bathhouse. “I lost any hope and will to live,” a former prisoner told the panel, saying he begged his inquisitors to kill him after undergoing repeated beatings that broke a collarbone, knocked out teeth and left him with a gangrenous foot, unable to stand. After release, the commission said, the former prisoner had undergone 36 hospitalizations as of January. Former prisoners said that in Russian detention centers in occupied Ukraine, torture was carried out by the Russian military, but prisoners held in Russia were tortured by Russian special forces units known as Spetsnaz, and that interrogations were led by agents of Russia’s main intelligence service, the Federal Security Bureau. The commission said it had interviewed former Spetsnaz members who said torture and ill treatment of prisoners appeared to be encouraged or, at a minimum, tolerated by their commanders, quoting one general as instructing them to “work harshly with no pity.” Ukrainian military prisoners were tortured for information about their units and the Ukrainian armed forces, but the report said the torture was also used to intimidate and punish. Prisoners described conditions in some of the prisons where they were held as “inhuman.” There was little food, resulting in acute hunger that drove some to “eating worms, soap, paper and remnants of dog food,” the commission reported. Nick Cumming-Bruce reports from Geneva, covering the United Nations, human rights and international humanitarian organizations. Previously he was the Southeast Asia reporter for The Guardian for 20 years and the Bangkok bureau chief of The Wall Street Journal Asia. More about Nick Cumming-Bruce A version of this article appears in print on March 16, 2024, Section A, Page 7 of the New York edition with the headline: U.N. Investigators Detail Vast Russian War Crimes. Copyright 2024 The New York Times Company

By Gavin Jones Faithful gather to pray for peace in Ukraine, amid Russia's invasion in Ukraine, in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, March 2, 2022. REUTERS/Remo Casilli/File Photo VATICAN CITY, March 12 (Reuters) - The first condition for any negotiations to end the war in Ukraine is that Russia should halt its aggression, the second in command to Pope Francis said in a newspaper interview on Tuesday. Ukraine's foreign ministry summoned the papal nuncio on Monday to express "disappointment" with previous comments by Francis that Ukraine should "show the courage of the white flag" and open talks with Russia to end the two-year-old war. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican's secretary of state, told Corriere della Sera daily on Tuesday that the Vatican was pressing for a ceasefire and "first of all it should be the aggressors who stop firing." Francis' comments, part of an interview recorded last month but made public only on Saturday, triggered very different reactions from NATO and Moscow. The Kremlin said the pope's call to end the war was "quite understandable", but the boss of the Western military alliance said now was not the time to talk about "surrender." Attempting to defuse the situation and clarify Francis' remarks, Parolin said the pontiff wanted "to create the conditions for a diplomatic solution in the search for a fair and lasting peace." To do this, Parolin said it was "obvious" that both sides must come to the negotiating table and the first condition must be "putting an end to the aggression." Making clear that he considered Russia the aggressor, Parolin said "the war unleashed against Ukraine was not the effect of a natural disaster," but of human choices. "The same human will that caused this tragedy also has the possibility and the responsibility to take steps to end it and to open the way to a diplomatic solution," he was quoted as saying by the newspaper. © 2024 Reuters. All rights reserved

By Ivana Kottasová, Olga Voitovych and Svitlana Vlasova Teenagers attend a ceremony at a military-patriotic educational camp in Russia's southern Rostov region on June 9, 2023. AFP/Getty Images Russian forces deported Bohdan Yermokhin from the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol in the spring of 2022, flew him to Moscow on a government plane and placed him into a foster family. He was sent to a patriotic camp near the capital where flag-waving staff praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and tried to teach him nationalistic songs. The Ukrainian teenager was given a Russian passport and sent to a Russian school. And then, in the fall of 2023, not long before his 18th birthday, he received a summons from a Russian military recruitment office. Yermokhin, who’s now back in Ukraine and recovering from his ordeal in Kyiv, told CNN he believed this was the last step in Russia’s attempt to bully him into submission – a bid to sign him up as a soldier to fight against his own people. “(I was told that) Ukraine was losing, that children were used for organ donations there, and that I would be sent to war right away. I told them that if I was sent to the war, at least I would fight for my own country, not for them,” he said. Yermokhin was part of a group of children known as the “Mariupol 31,” who were taken to Russia. Ukrainian authorities estimate that 20,000 children have been forcibly transported to Russia since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022. More than 2,100 children remain missing, according to official statistics, but the government says the real number could be much higher. Bohdan Yermokhin, 18, in central Kyiv. Ivana Kottasova/CNN Last March, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Putin and the Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova, for their alleged role in abducting and deporting Ukrainian children. Russia has publicly acknowledged the transfer of Ukrainian children without guardians, despite some having guardians or parents. Ukraine’s human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets said his office was convinced that Russia’s efforts to turn Ukrainian teenagers deported to Russia – or living in occupied areas of the east – into soldiers were part of a wider drive by Putin to erase the Ukrainian identity. It is also an opportunity for Moscow to replenish its forces on the front lines. “It’s not theoretical,” he said. “We now have examples of forcible mobilization of Ukrainian people. All Ukrainian teenagers held in Russia, when they turn 18, they are put on a (recruitment) list of Russian military,” told CNN. (I was told that) Ukraine was losing, that children were used for organ donations there, and that I would be sent to war right away. I told them that if I was sent to the war, at least I would fight for my own country, not for them.” Bohdan Yermokhin According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, it is illegal under the Geneva Conventions for an occupying power to compel or pressure the local population to serve in its armed forces. Human Rights Watch has said Russia is committing a war crime by doing so. But Lubinets told CNN that Ukrainian authorities have seen Russian officials do just that in occupied areas, compelling Ukrainians to serve. The conscription efforts start with the opening of regional offices for various Russian government departments, including health and social services. “Then comes education. All schools must use new books where the message is that Ukraine and the Ukrainian nation never existed and that Ukrainian children have always been Russian children,” Lubinets told CNN. “The next step is forcing everyone to take Russian passports. If you don’t, you can’t access any services, you can’t get medical care in hospitals, for example… and the next step is mobilization. All men in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine are put in a special recruitment database for the Russian military.” Yermokhin said he went through the entire process described by Lubinets — although he said the Russians didn’t seem very consistent at times. “I was always told that I was from Russia and that I was born in Russia, that there is no Ukraine, and that it simply did not exist, that Mariupol was Russia. But in my Russian passport, my place of birth was listed as ‘Ukraine, the city of Mariupol,’” he said, smirking. Lvova-Belova herself confirmed that Yermokhin received a Russian passport and military summons. In a statement posted on her Telegram channel in November she said that the summons was not unusual, because “all citizens of Russia receive” it. She said that since Yermokhin was still a student, he would be able to defer his military service until after finishing his education. ‘We are losing these children’ Many of the children deported to Russia came from socially vulnerable Ukrainian families. Some had been orphaned or were placed in foster homes when their birth parents became unable to care for them. It’s these children that Mykola Kuleba is most worried about. He heads Save Ukraine, a Kyiv-based non-governmental organization that specializes in bringing deported children back to Ukraine. “We are losing these children. Many of them will never come back because they are growing up with this poison, with this horrible propaganda, they are very vulnerable to it,” he said. Yermokhin said he saw this firsthand. He spent years living with foster families and in group homes after losing his parents as a small child and was in a boarding school in Mariupol when Russian troops took over the city in May 2022. “Many of us were abandoned by our guardians, abandoned by foster parents during the war… and then the Russians come in and they act in this hypocritical way, offering warmth and pretending that they care, and these children see this and think, well, this is better than it was there (in Ukraine),” Yermokhin said. How one Ukrainian teen was deported to Russia before being summoned to fight Bohdan Yermokhin is one of the nearly 20,000 children Ukraine says have been deported to Russia. He was taken from Mariupol to Moscow in the spring of 2022. He was given a Russian passport and placed into a foster family. Shortly before his 18th birthday, he received a summons from the Russian military. Bohdan’s journey 1 Mariupol Occupied Ukraine Bohdan was among a group of children known as the "Mariupol 31," who were taken from the city by Russian troops, according to Ukrainian authorities. 2 Donetsk Occupied Ukraine He was first taken to Donetsk, a city in eastern Ukraine that has been controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014. 3 Moscow Russia Bohdan was then transported by plane to Moscow, where he was placed in a foster family. He said this happened to Filip, his best friend from Mariupol, who was reportedly adopted by Lvova-Belova. “His foster parents abandoned him in Mariupol during the war and he hadn’t seen any warmth since his (birth) mother died. Now he has it… but I want him to know that we are waiting for him here.” “Out of the four of us mates from Mariupol, three are now here (in Ukraine) and we are waiting for him,” he added. The office of Lvova-Belova did not respond to CNN’s request for comment. However, in a statement posted to her Telegram channel in November 2022, Lvova-Belova recalled adopting a teenage boy called Filip from Mariupol. “If you look at history, Russians have done this (before), they also took children out of Chechnya and now these children (now adults) are fighting for them,” Yermohkin said, referring to Russia’s wars to reclaim the breakaway republic of Chechnya in the 1990s and early 2000s. Kuleba said there is no doubt that the deportations are part of a wider strategy. “It’s a Russian strategy to turn Ukrainian children into Russian children and militarize them. They are kidnapping children, and they are erasing their identity, because they want to destroy the Ukrainian nation,” he said. Singing the Russian anthem, wearing Russian uniform Sixteen-year-old Artem’s experience is eerily similar to that of Yermokhin. He too feels like he was being groomed to become a Russian soldier. He was one of 13 children taken by Russian soldiers from a school in the Kharkiv region in 2022. “We had no choice whether to go or not. We were told we were being evacuated, boys, girls, and small children,” he said. CNN spoke to Artem at a Kyiv center for children who have been returned from Russian captivity. His social worker was present during the interview but did not interfere in the conversation. Save Ukraine, which runs the center, asked CNN not to release Artem’s last name due to his age. “The Russian soldiers asked us whether we were (supporting) Ukraine or Russia. And we did not answer anything. The younger children were crying, and we tried to calm them down. We were scared ourselves, but we had to comfort the small children,” he added. Artem said the group was taken to several locations within occupied areas of Ukraine before being brought to the city of Luhansk, where they started school. “All the lessons were in Russian, and we were always told that Ukrainians were killing Russians,” he said. “It was clear they wanted us to turn against Ukraine, but we made a pact (with the other children from his school) that we would not give into the attempts to turn us into Russians and we did not speak Russian,” he said, adding that the smaller children in the group were more at risk of being influenced by the propaganda and were often kept away from the older Ukrainian kids. “We went to classes every day and were told to sing the Russian anthem. We tried to stand back and pretended to sing, but we did not sing,” he added. The worst part, Artem said, was the uniform. When I saw myself in the uniform in photos and videos on the Internet, I thought for myself that I was a traitor and that I betrayed Ukraine, I swapped Ukraine for Russia… even though I knew I was forced to do it.” He said he and the other older children from the cohort were made to wear a uniform that was very similar to the Russian military uniform and had the letter Z — a symbol of support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — on its sleeve. “It was made of rough material, similar in color to the uniforms of the Russian military. We were given it and told that when there were holidays, we had to wear it,” he said. “I really thought that this was it and that they gave me the uniform because I might be sent to the Russian army. It was scary.” Artem said it was impossible to refuse — the teachers threatened the children with severe punishment if they failed to wear the uniform. Yet even then, he felt horrible about putting it on – especially when he found out he was used by Russia for propaganda machine in nationalistic videos. In one video, Artem is seen with a group of children receiving boxes of tangerines from uniformed members of the National Guard. The children are prompted by their teacher to say, “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” and give a thumbs up. CNN has seen several images of Artem wearing uniform-like clothing at the boarding school in the occupied city of Luhansk. He is shown wearing a camouflage top and trousers with a black armband that prominently features a white letter Z in two photographs, one of which shows him sitting in a classroom during a lesson. In another, he is in what appears to be a full replica of a Russian military uniform during what the school described as a celebration of the Russian national holiday known as “Defender of the Fatherland Day.” All the photographs were published by the school and are still publicly accessible. “When I saw myself in the uniform in photos and videos on the Internet, I thought for myself that I was a traitor and that I betrayed Ukraine, I swapped Ukraine for Russia… even though I knew I was forced to do it,” he said. Ultimately, both Artem and Yermokhin are among the lucky ones – they have managed to return to Ukraine. Artem said he got hold of a cell phone and was able to reach his mother, who had spent six months not knowing what had happened to him. She was able to locate him and get him back home with the help of Save Ukraine. Yermokhin tried to escape Russia twice, once through Belarus and once through occupied Crimea, but was caught and returned to Moscow on both occasions. The Ukrainian authorities and his lawyer had been trying to get him out of Russia for some time before he received his Russian military summons, but those attempts were unsuccessful. He was only allowed by Russia to return to Ukraine upon his 18th birthday. They tried to break me… Thinking of it all now, I am shocked that I got through it.” Ukrainian authorities do not reveal the details of negotiations that lead to the return of Ukrainian children. They said a number of international organizations and third countries, including Qatar, were involved in Yermokhin’s repatriation. Thousands of Ukrainian children remain in Russia and, according to Save Ukraine, some of them have been enrolled in military and naval academies across the country. The charity says it has been able to return 251 children to Ukraine so far and is helping them to readjust. Every Monday for more than a year, Yermokhin recalled, he was expected to sing the Russian anthem during a flag-raising ceremony at his school. He tried to avoid it but, when forced to attend, found a way to avoid listening to the anthem and the nationalistic lecture that followed. “There is such a thing as headphones,” he said. “You put them on and sit there, and no one sees what you’re doing.” Looking back at his experience, Yermokhin said he might not have realized at the time how much pressure he was under. “They tried to break me,” he said. “Thinking of it all now, I am shocked that I got through it.” © 2024 Cable News Network.

Turkey’s Defense Minister Yasar Guler, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Ibrahim Kalin, head of the Turkish National Intelligence Agency, met in Ankara on March 11, 2024. - X ANKARA — The Turkish foreign policy, defense and spy chiefs will travel to Baghdad for counterterrorism talks on Thursday, as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dials up threats against the outlawed Kurdish militants in northern Iraq. Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Defense Minister Yasar Guler and Intelligence Chief Ibrahim Kalin will discuss security and military cooperation as well as “concrete steps” that can be taken in Turkey’s fight against terrorism, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oncu Keceli said on Wednesday. The talks will mark the second round of the “security summit” that the three held with their counterparts — Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Mohammed Hussein, Defense Minister Thabet al-Abbasi and other high-level officials — in December, Keceli added. The visit comes as Erdogan escalates his nearly daily threats to launch a fresh military operation against outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets during his election rallies across the country for the upcoming local polls on March 31. Headquartered in Mount Qandil in northern Iraq, the PKK has been fighting for Kurdish self-rule inside Turkey since 1984 and is designated as a terror organization by Ankara, Washington and the European Union. “We will not allow the establishment of a ‘terroristan’ along our southern borders under any circumstances,” Erdogan said on Tuesday during a fast-breaking dinner, or iftar, with foreign ambassadors in Ankara. He echoed a similar message on Wednesday while speaking at a rally in the country’s Kurdish-majority southeastern province of Sirnak on the Iraqi Kurdistan border. Kalin and Guler paid separate visits to Baghdad in January amid the increasing PKK attacks on Turkish military outposts in the northern region. More than two dozen Turkish soldiers have been killed in the attacks since December in the region. Turkey retaliated with large-scale airstrikes against the PKK positions in northern Iraq. Thursday’s talks follow Kalin’s and Fidan’s high-level meetings in Washington last week. “The United States has troops in Iraq. Therefore, we are holding talks with them too over our fight against the PKK,” Keceli said Wednesday when asked whether the issue was raised during Fidan's and Kalin’s visits. But he added that those talks weren’t aimed at seeking Washington’s greenlight for a potential operation. “If we are going to carry out an operation against a terrorist organization that threatens our security, the only authority which we will seek permission from is Article 51 of the United Nations Charter,” Keceli added, referring to the document’s provision outlining the legality of self-defense . Erdogan is also expected to travel to Baghdad in April, the Turkish president said last month. Sulaimaniyah under radar Analysts believe that improved weather conditions in spring may allow the Turkish military to launch a limited incursion in the region with harsh terrain in a bid to reinforce Turkish military outposts and prevent further attacks. Turkey has hundreds of outposts scattered along a large territory stretching from Iraqi Kurdistan’s border with Iran in the east and with Syria in the west. The central Baghdad government deems Turkey’s military operations and expanding military presence in the country a violation of its sovereignty and doesn’t consider the PKK a terror outfit, despite repeated calls from Ankara to designate it as such. Yet in a joint communique issued after the first round of the talks in December, the Iraqi side for the first time acknowledged the outlawed militant group as a “threat.” Erdogan last month committed to drive the PKK out of the region before summer. Such an operation could also enhance the chances of Erdogan's ruling coalition ahead of key nationwide elections by riding nationalist waves in the country. Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party and their nationalist allies are seeking to recapture metropolises — particularly Istanbul — from the opposition. The hardening rhetoric is also aimed at piling pressure on the Iraqi Kurdish Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party, which controls the northern Iraqi province of Sulaimaniyah. Ankara accuses the PUK — one of the two dominant political parties in Iraqi Kurdistan — of cooperating with the PKK. Erdogan openly threatened the party last month, saying that “Sulaimaniyah administration continues to support the terrorist organization despite our repeated warnings. … We have zero tolerance when it comes to our national security. We will do whatever is necessary.” Keceli said on Tuesday that the PUK had not taken the steps to "bring our relations back to the point they were a few years ago." Turkey’s air space at the international Sulaimaniyah airport has been closed to inbound and outbound flights since April in a move that aims to turn the heat up on the PUK, which is led by the family members of late Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. A few days before the flight ban, Turkey also conducted a drone strike in Sulaimaniyah near a convoy carrying Commander in Chief of the US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) Mazlum Kobane as well as US officials. While there were no casualties, the attack was seen as a warning message to both the PUK and the United States. Ankara has repeatedly asked Washington to cut off its alliance with the SDF, citing its ties to the PKK. © 2023 Al-Monitor, LLC. All rights reserved.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited troops at an undisclosed location March 7 2024 [KCNA via Reuters] North Korea Country Report December 2023 By Prabhleen Kaur, Genocide Watch For over seven decades, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has been governed by three generations of the Kim dynasty. Under current Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, North Korea continues to be an isolated totalitarian regime. The government tightly controls the media as well as all citizens’ speech, movement, and religious expression. State-sponsored surveillance of citizens is pervasive. The country abides by the songun or military-first policy. The state prioritizes the allocation of resources to the Korean People’s Army, the fourth largest in the world, while half of its citizens grapple with extreme poverty. North Korea is rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal in pursuance of Kim’s military modernization program. In 2023, it conducted a record number of nuclear weapon and ballistic missile tests, in violation of United Nations sanctions. The country’s parliament enshrined its nuclear program in the constitution, making nuclear proliferation the “basic law of the state.” The United States claims that North Korea supplies arms to Russia to sustain its invasion of Ukraine in exchange for Russian satellite technology. In November 2023, Pyongyang launched North Korea’s first military spy satellite, Malligyong-1, to monitor South Korean and US military activity. South Korea responded by partially withdrawing from the 2018 Comprehensive Military Agreement, which the North then completely suspended. Kim ordered his Army to “prepare for war.” Human rights are systematically denied. The discriminatory songbun system classifies people according to their perceived political loyalty. Any perceived threat to the communist regime is met with brutal suppression and even execution. Police and Army officials have full Impunity. Civil society organizations are barred from operating. North Korea sends thousands of workers to China and Russia where they are forced to work sixteen-hour days in food processing and construction. Their wages are confiscated by the Kim regime. They are treated as slaves. Leaving the country without permission remains a crime punished by death or imprisonment in North Korea’s prison gulag. North Korea has tightened security along its border with China to curb unauthorized escapes. Chinese authorities regard North Korean refugees as illegal economic migrants. China forcibly repatriated over 500 defectors in 2023, in violation of the UN Refugee Conventions and the Convention Against Torture. Repatriated women experienced infanticide and forced abortions in detention in North Korea. The Kim regime justifies these crimes as necessary to maintain “racial purity.” Political dissidents, religious practitioners, and defectors are regarded as enemies of the state. They face arbitrary detention in abusive political prison camps. In 2022, the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution reaffirming the findings of its 2014 Commission of Inquiry (COI) regarding evidence of crimes against humanity in the DPRK. These include torture, extermination, enforced disappearances, starvation, enslavement, sexual and gender-based violence. The regime denies the existence of prison camps or any human rights violations. Genocide Watch considers the DPRK to be at Stage 3: Discrimination, Stage 7: Preparation. Stage 8: Persecution, Stage 9: Extermination and Stage 10: Denial. Genocide Watch recommends: The UN Security Council should refer the situation in the DPRK to the International Criminal Court. The UNSC, US, and EU should adopt targeted sanctions against DPRK officials and companies that do business with North Korea. South Korea, the US, and other nations should grant asylum to North Korean defectors. The UN Human Rights Council should continue to collect evidence of crimes by DPRK officials for prosecutions when the Kim regime falls. The US and South Korea should actively support North Korean churches and resistance groups.

Genocide Watch seeks Summer 2024 Interns Genocide Watch, Inc., the world’s first anti-genocide NGO, and the founder and Chair of the Alliance Against Genocide, is currently hiring unpaid interns and volunteers for the Summer of 2024. If you are passionate about the prevention of genocide and crimes against humanity, please apply to join our team. Research Team interns write special reports about topics of concern to be posted as Genocide Watch Special Reports or as Blogposts on the GenocideWatchBlog.com website. Podcast Team members create and publish podcasts for our “Conversations on Genocide” podcasts on Spotify and other platforms. The podcasts are of interviews with experts on genocide, survivors, and members of ethnic and religious groups targeted in past or present genocides. Advocacy and Alliance interns work with members of the Alliance Against Genocide to communicate with government and UN officials concerning situations of concern. They recruit new members of the Alliance and maintain communications with Alliance member organizations. They develop contacts with Congressional staff members, State Department and UN personnel, and representatives of other Alliance members. Communications team members post to X, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram about recent reports by Genocide Watch and notable events in the coming weeks. Legal team interns are law school graduates or law students. They work on projects to bring perpetrators to justice, file legal cases against inciters of genocide, and write legal articles and briefs on issues related to genocide and the Genocide Convention. Each intern monitors and reports on warning signs of genocidal processes in five countries. They post relevant news articles on the Genocide Watch website www.genocidewatch.com. Each Intern writes three country reports on countries they monitor. The deadline for applications for Summer 2024 staff positions is April 1, 2024. Applications received for our special Summer 2024 internship positions will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Visit our website at https://www.genocidewatch.com/internships for more information about how to apply.

Potential conscripts fear they could be forced to carry out atrocities or be used as human shields by the military By Rebecca Ratcliffe and Aung Naing Soe Military officers on Armed Forces Day in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, 27 March 2023. Many in Myanmar have expressed alarm at the conscription law. Photograph: Aung Shine Oo/AP Passport offices and embassies in Myanmar have been flooded with applications, with a queue of more than a thousand people on a single day trying to secure a visa for neighbouring Thailand. Helplines offering advice on ways to leave the country – how to manage checkpoints, what documents are needed – have been inundated. Across Myanmar, the young and middle aged, both men and women, are desperately searching for ways to flee their homes, after it was announced the military junta will impose a mandatory conscription law from mid-April. The law, which would force people to serve a military many despise, has sent a wave of terror across the country. “If I joined the military, I would have to fight my own people. I do not want to do that,” says Thura, who spoke under a fake name, from Shan State. “The military is infamous – they are killing people, arresting people, doing so many unjust things.” His wife, he added, had urged him to leave her and their eight-year-old daughter behind. UN special rapporteur for Myanmar Tom Andrews warned last week the number of people fleeing across borders to escape conscription “will surely skyrocket”. In Thura’s area, streets are now empty by early evening. “It’s very unusual to see any people, any young people, on the road,” he says. “All the shops and cafes – they are closed by 6pm.” Even before the conscription was announced, there were reports of people being snatched on the streets and forcibly recruited. Young people are terrified they might be kidnapped by the military. Activists fear conscripts will be used as porters to carry supplies on the frontline. In the past, the military has used porters as human shields, sending them out in front to trip landmines and shield soldiers from gunfire. Junta facing mounting losses on the battlefield Under the 2010 People’s Military Service Law, to be enacted next month, men aged 18 up to 35, or women aged 18 to 27, will be conscripted for up to five years in an emergency situation. For men and women who are considered professionals, a vaguely defined category that includes medical doctors, engineers, or others professional groups, the age cut-off is higher – 35 for women, and 45 for men. The junta recently clarified its initial announcement, saying that women will not be conscripted for now. This claim has been treated with scepticism by the public, however, and many women are still trying to flee. The military, which seized power in a coup in February 2021, a move that has been strongly opposed by the public, has been unable to control an armed opposition to its rule, which includes citizens who have taken up arms as well as older ethnic armed organisations that have long fought against the military. The junta’s decision to impose conscription reflects the recent devastating losses it has faced on the battlefield, in which entire battalions have surrendered, and key territory lost along the border with China. “There’s already a refugee crisis and it’s going to get worse,” says Debbie Stothard, founder of the regional human rights group Altsean. “Even low-ranking civil servants are sneaking away and disappearing because they know they are likely to be drafted if push comes to shove,” she adds. Until now, for many in military-controlled areas, there was a sense that, as long as they were not associating with anti-junta activists or doing anything remotely political, they could remain somewhat safe, she says. “All they had to do was focus on survival,” says Stothard. The conscription law changes this. “Now they are at risk of being forced to join the army that’s committing these atrocities.” Options for fleeing Myanmar are limited and fraught with danger: cross legally or illegally into a neighbouring country, or travel to an area that’s controlled by anti-coup groups, and hope that you do not get stopped by junta officials along the way. Getting the correct papers takes time and money, a luxury most don’t have. Appointments for the passport office are booked until August, according to media reports, and some have been so overwhelmed that overcrowding has proved deadly. In Mandalay, two women were crushed as huge crowds gathered at a passport office last week. For people who belong to ethnic minorities, which have long been oppressed in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, there are even fewer options. Thura, a Rohingya Muslim, has been unable to get a new passport because officials say his national ID card lists him as being Bengali – a racial slur used to imply that Rohingya people are not true citizens. In the eyes of the military he does not belong in Myanmar; this means he is unable to leave the country legally. Activists have reported several cases in which Rohingya have been arrested from villages or a refugee camp in Rakhine state over the past week, alleging they have been forcibly enlisted in the military. The military is facing a genocide case in The Hague over its previous violence against Rohingya. 'The military does whatever it wants' Naung Yoe, of the civil society group People’s Goal, which supports people who want to defect from the military and join the pro-democracy resistance, told a recent press conference that he fears new conscripts could be used as human shields. They could also, based on accounts of other defectors, likely be “cut off entirely from their families and their communities. Their mobile phones and their computers will be taken or removed and they will have no access to the outside world,” he says. In Mandalay city, junta officials toured townships last week, using loudspeakers to try to reassure people and dispel reports that people were being kidnapped and forcibly recruited, according to a report by Myanmar Now. In Tanintharyi region, in the south, pamphlets with similar messages, denying there had been arrests and saying there were no barriers to leaving the country, were also distributed, according to Dawei Watch. Kyaw Gyi, an activist who supports workers, including garment workers, who are mostly women, and who spoke under a fake name, says they do not feel safe returning from work in the evening. Even at home, they are afraid. “The military has already collected a list of names for each household in our township. We thought it was just for the census but then they unexpectedly announced conscription. It’s made us more worried – they have lists of everyone’s names,” Kyaw Gyi says. He is 36 and not a professional, he adds, so he should be exempt, but he is hardly reassured. “The military does whatever it wants,” he says. Thura fears he will be required to serve, even though he is 38, because he is a lawyer and therefore a professional. Fleeing to a resistance-controlled area isn’t an option because he does not know how he would be able to work there, he says, and he needs to support his family. But he worries about making the journey to the border, where roads are restricted and junta soldiers are likely to interrogate anyone passing through. Even if he manages to cross, he faces the risk of being sent back by the Thai authorities. Thai prime minister Srettha Thavisin has warned people from Myanmar not to enter the country illegally. Authorities in the Thai border town of Mae Sot have told people to comply with a law that requires them to register any foreigner visitors staying at their home. Thura dreads having to leave his wife and eight-year-old daughter behind. “It would be very difficult for them,” he says. “They would be on their own. But if there’s no option left, I would have to go.” © 2024 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved

Iran’s 2022 Protest Crackdown Included Killings, Torture and Rape, U.N. Finds New York Times March 8, 2024 By Nick Cumming-Bruce Reporting from Geneva A fact-finding mission looking into the demonstrations that followed the death of Mahsa Amini found brutality and rejected Iran’s version of Ms. Amini’s death. Iranian police officers confronting protesters at a demonstration over the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini in 2022 in Tehran.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images United Nations investigators say Iranian authorities killed, tortured and raped women, men and children in a brutal repression of mass protests that erupted over the death in police custody of a young Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for allegedly wearing a mandatory hijab incorrectly. A U.N. fact-finding mission reporting to the Human Rights Council in Geneva cited as credible estimates that 551 people were killed by security forces, most of them by gunfire, as part of a widespread and systematic crackdown on the protests, which were mostly led by women. The casualties included at least 49 women and 68 children. “Many of the serious human rights violations outlined in the present report amount to crimes against humanity, specifically those of murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, persecution, enforced disappearance and other inhumane acts, that have been committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against a civilian population,” the mission states in the report. The Human Rights Council will discuss the report next week. The use of lethal force during largely peaceful protests was unlawful and the deaths amounted to extrajudicial executions, the investigators said. But they also reported that the authorities had summarily executed at least nine young men after cursory trials on charges linked to the protests and that several people had died in custody as a result of torture. The report also contained findings on Ms. Amini, 22. Iranian authorities claimed that a government investigation into Ms. Amini’s death concluded it was caused by underlying medical issues. The U.N.’s investigators flatly rejected that finding. “The mission is satisfied that Ms. Amini was subjected to physical violence that led to her death,” it said, drawing attention to evidence of trauma inflicted on her body while in police custody. “On that basis, the state bears responsibility for her unlawful death.” Iranian authorities, instead of impartially investigating Ms. Amini’s death, “took active steps to obfuscate the truth,” the mission reports, harassing and intimidating her family and prosecuting the family’s lawyer and three journalists reporting on her death. “The Islamic Republic’s violent repression of peaceful dissent and severe discrimination against women and girls in Iran has been confirmed as constituting nothing short of crimes against humanity,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran. “These violations disproportionately affect the most vulnerable in society, women, children and minority groups,” he added. The fact-finding team, which was set up at the end of 2022, was refused access to Iran. It said it faced obstacles from government electronic surveillance, harassment and intimidation of some witnesses and victims, deterring many people from giving evidence. But through in-depth interviews with others, along with access to independent reports, medical imaging and official documents, the mission said it was able to collect sufficient evidence to establish facts. It details patterns of the use of lethal and less lethal force by security forces to disperse protests, including using weapons armed with birdshot and systematically targeting the head, face, neck and genitals of protesters, often inflicting permanent, life-changing injuries. In their crackdown, the authorities arrested tens of thousands of people, including hundreds of children, some as young as 10, the mission said, noting official statements that the government had pardoned 22,000 people and that the average age of those detained was 15. But the mission also unveiled evidence of the torture and sexual violence directed at detainees to extract confessions and information and to punish and humiliate the victims. Physical abuse included beating, burning, electric shocks and being held in stress positions. The sexual violence, which investigators said was used against women, men and children, included rape and threats of rape, electrocution of genitals, forced nudity and groping. Children were held for days, even weeks, without knowing the reasons for their detention and without contact with their families, the investigators reported. “As with adults, they were subjected to severe physical, psychological and sexual torture, including rape.” The worst abuses, the mission found, were carried out in unofficial places of detention run by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and the intelligence ministry. In some cases, the mission reported, the authorities justified sexual violence on the basis that this was “the freedom they wanted.” Nick Cumming-Bruce reports from Geneva, covering the United Nations, human rights and international humanitarian organizations. Previously he was the Southeast Asia reporter for The Guardian for 20 years and the Bangkok bureau chief of The Wall Street Journal Asia. More about Nick Cumming-Bruce A version of this article appears in print on March 9, 2024, Section A, Page 4 of the New York edition with the headline: Rape, Killings And Torture Of Protesters. More on Iran Parliamentary Elections: Iranians delivered a stinging rebuke to the country’s ruling conservatives in the parliamentary election on March 1, as millions boycotted the vote and a far-right faction made striking gains. A $2.8 Billion Hole: A New York Times investigation found that American sanctions have failed to stop oil worth billions of dollars from leaving Iran over the past year, revealing a significant gap in U.S. oversight. Crackdown on Protests: The Iranian authorities hanged a 23-year-old man, the latest in a string of executions linked to the large-scale protests that shook the country in the fall of 2022 after the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody. Prison Time: The Iranian regime sentenced Narges Mohammadi, the jailed human rights activist who received the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize, to 15 more months in prison. The news came a day after Iran released on bail two journalists who helped break Amini’s story. Copyright 2024 The New York Times Company

Mother of abducted school girl. credit: AP They went to school but ended up as hostages. 287 children are missing in Nigeria's forests Washington Post March 8, 2024 By Chinedu Asadu | AP ABUJA, Nigeria — Security forces swept through large forests in Nigeria’s northwest region on Friday in search of 287 children abducted from their school by motorcycle-riding gunmen in the latest mass kidnapping, which analysts and activists blamed on the failure of intelligence and a slow security response. The abduction of the 287 children in Kaduna state, near the West African nation’s capital, is one of the largest school kidnappings in the decade since the kidnapping of schoolgirls in Borno state’s Chibok village in 2014 stunned the world. Analysts and activists say the security lapses that allowed that mass abduction remain. The victims of the latest attack — among them at least 100 children aged 12 or under — were surrounded and marched into a forest just as they were starting the school day, said locals in Kuriga town, located 55 miles (89 kilometers) from the city of Kaduna. One man was shot dead as he tried to save the students, school authorities said. Parents of abducted children seek meeting with Kaduna governor. credit AFPTV/AFP VIA GETTY As Kaduna Gov. Uba Sani and security officials met with aggrieved villagers on Thursday, they pleaded with the governor to ensure the release of the students and secure their town — like many in the area, once a bustling agrarian community but now sparsely populated and where roads are often avoided because of rampant kidnappings. “Please stay and help us, please don’t leave us,” one woman cried as the governor’s convoy sped off. Kaduna police spokesman Mansur Hassan told The Associated Press that a search operation is taking place in the nearby forests, which often serve as enclaves for armed gangs. “All the security agencies are trying their best to ensure the rescue of the children,” Hassan said. The school, which had no fencing, was “surrounded from all angles” by the gunmen who arrived on motorcycles just after 8 a.m., said Joshua Madami, a youth leader in the area. Security forces did not arrive at the scene until several hours later, locals said, prompting concerns from families and analysts that the gunmen might have gone deep into the forest with the children. Confidence MacHarry, a security analyst with the Lagos-based SBM Intelligence firm, said such delayed response is common and worsens the situation in hotspots, in addition to the failure to act on intelligence. “I am confident that the victims will be rescued,” said Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, who was elected last year after promising to end the country’s kidnapping crisis. “Nothing else is acceptable to me and the waiting family members.” No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks but locals blamed it on the bandits who carry out frequent mass killings and abductions for huge ransoms in remote villages across Nigeria’s northwest and central regions. The bandits are mostly Fulani herders who had been in conflict with host communities. They are different from Boko Haram Islamic extremist rebels who had abducted more than 200 people, mostly women and children, in recent days. James Barnett, a researcher specializing in West Africa at the U.S.-based Hudson Institute, said the bandits have focused on consolidating their influence over rural communities, often in the form of levies. “Since the start of the year, we’ve seen the bandits being more aggressive,” said Barnett. “This attack may be an attempt by some of the gangs to signal to the government that they can turn back the clock to 2021, when mass kidnappings led to a wave of school closures across the northwest.” Copyright 2024 The Washington Post Kaduna Residents Charge Security Forces with Malfeasance By Truth Nigeria Reporters (Kaduna) – Terrorist-kidnappers have marched 17 hostages pulled from their homes in Gonin Gora, near Kaduna City, 35 miles south into the infamous terrorist stronghold in Niger State close to Shiroro Dam, TruthNigeria has learned from credible sources.  The hostages include men and women carrying babies on their backs, according to citizen guards in Chikun County’s forest who tracked the column for more than a day. The dense forest in northeastern Niger State is an ungoverned space home to numerous bandit gangs including the mercenaries loyal to crime kingpin Dogo Gide and armed forces of the Boko Haram insurgency. The most notorious Fulani bandits have taken over hundreds square miles of land as their fiefdom. The attack on Gonin Gora began at 11 p.m. Wednesday night and lasted for up to four hours, as reported by TruthNigeria March 1. Two civilian guards lost their lives repelling the attackers who retreated into scrub forest west of the city around 4:00 a.m. on Thursday. The civilian guards wanted to pursue the band of kidnappers estimated to have 50 armed men, but said they were overwhelmed by the firepower of assault weapons. Nigerian security men refused to join, according to guards who spoke to TruthNigeria. Official accounts from the State Commissioner on Security contradicted the claims of locals and insisted that the police and army acted promptly to defend the town. “On Thursday afternoon, we noticed heavily armed Fulanis moving from Kudenda Forest toward Garu, also called Galu,” said Amos Bahago, a member of the local civilian guards (dubbed “vigilantes”) who lives in Danya Village about 15 miles west of Gonin Gora, to Truthnigeria. “From there, we tracked them to Kurmin Kaduna as they kept moving towards the Kaduna River. There is nothing we can do than just watch them move as we follow them secretly until they arrive around Chikun Village,” Bahago said. “It was there that they moved to Garu which is a small village just very close to Chikun village by the river. It is from there that we saw them cross a shallow side of the river, and they emerged around Kaure, a small town in Niger State not far from Shiroro Dam,” Bahago said. “We saw them. The women were carrying babies on their backs, and the men had their hands tied to their backs. The Fulani were much more in numbers. And we are almost certain that they were those kidnapped from Gonin Gora,” according to Bahago. Military Nowhere Seen as Hostages Marched to Bandit Stronghold Hostage: Mr. Sunday Iremiren, resident of Gonin Gora, who was kidnapped by terrorists on the night of Feb. 28 along with his wife and four of his children. His seven-year old daughter, Helen, escaped or was released by the kidnappers and was found wandering in the forest alone that night. photo courtesy of Ehis Adouna. Bahago said his team informed all their usual contacts in the military. He added that the military knew all the paths taken by the terrorists to all the forests in Kaduna and Niger State. “The soldiers and those mobile police and the Kaduna state government know the paths that these bandits use very well. There are times that they come up to our place, and we set up an ambush for the terrorists and kill some of them,” he said. “At times, after giving them information, we see those tiny flying things (drones) fly over the paths used by the terrorists,” he said. “So, they are very well familiar with the path taken by the Fulani bandits. And I believe that in this kidnapping, both the army and Kaduna state government are not interested in rescuing the victims, because we gave all of them the information we usually give when we see them pass our villages with their victims,” he said. Two brutalized youths still under military custody “Two people were arrested from the peaceful protest on Thursday morning and till now they are not yet back,” said Baba. “We don’t know what their offense was other than to say that their communities were attacked, and the military did not know about it,” he said. Dangana Baba gave the names of those arrested as Samuel Marcus and Chawaza Dung . According to him, they were beaten up, pushed around and then hit with rifle butts after they were arrested during Thursday’s peaceful demonstration against Wednesday’s invasion. Attempts by TruthNigeria to confirm the true state of things from the military and Commissioner for security and Home Affairs, Samuel Aruwan, about the youths proved abortive as the Army Public Relations Officer For Division 1 refused to answer calls.  Samuel Aruwan also refused to pick calls even though the arrest took place in his presence and by his approval. Blaming the Victims During the two-hour long protest on Thursday morning  the Kaduna-Abuja Expressway was blocked by a line of small curbstones and rocks.  The Commissioner of Security announced in a press release that he came on scene to reopen the highway, calling the roadblock a “menace.” With no expressions of empathy for families who lost loved ones in the attack or relatives marched into the forest, the statement points out this: “The members of the Kaduna State Security Council while interacting with community leaders, expressed dissatisfaction with the menace of blocking roads, a situation which infringes on the rights of citizens and travelers using these roads and other public utilities,” the statement read in conclusion. The Press statements further states:  “The Kaduna State Security Council has warned against blockage of public roads and harassment of innocent citizens by persons conducting protests. “This follows the blockage of the Gonin Gora axis of the Kaduna-Abuja Road by some protesters on Thursday morning, in response to reports of a bandit attack in Unguwan Auta of Gonin Gora general area, Chikun Local Government Area(county) thus denying commuters access through the route,” according to Aruwan’s statement. Gonin Gora is one of Kaduna town Christian’s strongholds in a city that has been divided by a blurred green line between Muslim and Christians after decades of intermittent violence in the secular town of about 1.2 million has led to thousands of deaths. Sources from Layin Fumigi, New Nigeria and Aguwan Auta parts of Gonin Gora who gave gave insight into the attack said that  for over 4 hours when Fulani bandits attacked the communities, the Nigerian military and police did not show up nor respond to their distress calls and  text message. That the military personnel only arrived four hours after the armed Fulani terrorists had carried out the crime and had left with only poorly armed vigilantes standing up to them and were able to frustrate them from causing much havoc to the community. ‘We responded on time and made rescues:’ Nigerian Army The Nigerian Military, however, insisted that it responded on time and helped to rescue three victims from the terrorists, a claim that the residents of Gonin Gora denied. A military source who spoke to TruthNigeria and pleaded that his name is not mentioned said that he was part of the operation that night. “The way civilians see things and do things is different from our ways. We don’t go from street to street saying this is what we have done, but we responded in good time, that was why the bandits ran away. We even rescued three victims,” he said. “Those that were rescued were the efforts of our boys in the vigilante, not the military” Dangana Baba told TruthNigeria. Grieving: Family of slain civilian guard, Thomas Illiya. Mrs. Thomas Illiya seen the day after the attack with her eldest son, Luis, 8, and Wisdom, 18 months. photo by TruthNigeria Staff. “It was our boys that pursued the bandits and is the cause some two of them were killed,” Baba said.  Two civilian guards were killed in the attack, including Mr. Thomas Illiya. The other guard killed has not been identified. “During the pursuit, some of the victims were abandoned by the bandits and one escaped making them three,” Baba said. “It was our vigilante that got them back just for the military to take them over and start claiming glory,” he argued. There is a Forward Operation base of the Nigeria military on the Gonin Gora – Abuja by-pass less than half a mile from where the bandits struck, TruthNigeria can confirm. At approximately 11 pm that Wednesday, Feb. 28, more than 200 community residents mobilized themselves led by volunteer citizen guards using home fabricated single shotguns, machetes, clubs and stones and faced the heavily bandits. “The Fulani men were operating in groups and were going from house to house forcing people out and making them lie down. The sound of the guns was causing serious fear, and we could only hide and either shoot occasionally at them or shout out loud that people should leave their houses and come out to safety,” said a vigilante requesting anonymity. “Some of were going from compound to compound gathering women and children and directing them to safer areas where they can run to before the terrorists arrived, that is why they met some compounds empty,” | he said. “It was like we were acting in a film. But the screaming of the women and children who were captured I can never forget,” he said. Dueling Accounts as to Whether Nigerian Army Failed to Arrive to Defend the Town “The military showed up after the terrorists retreated into the bushes with a few of us pursuing them,” said Dangana Baba, a sub-chief from Unguwan Auta to TruthNigeria. “Though we were angry that the military only showed up late, we nonetheless told them that we were ready to lead them to the direction that the terrorists followed and that since we were in our hundreds, young and healthy were sure to catch up with them if the military would back us up,” he said. According to him, the military refused, saying that they were not given orders from their superior officers to pursue the bandits. “How can you convince us in Gonin Gora that the late arrival of the military and their refusal to take advantage of our volunteers to go after the bandits is not because they are all working with the bandits?” Baba asked. “Personally, I begged them that there is still time to rescue, since we could hear the cries of kidnapped babies and mothers far away in the dark night,” said Dangana Baba, a sub-chief from Unguwan Auta  parts of Gonin Gora that was affected. “But they just stood by and kept vigil in the communities, occasionally harassing some of our youths who were voicing out their disappointments,” he said. “It was the community that took the wounded to the hospital. It was like the soldiers were just there to ensure that the Fulani got away with our people safely,” he said. Report filed by a team of investigators both in Nigeria and the United States. https://truthnigeria.com/2024/03/exclusive-17-gonin-gora-hostages-seen-crossing-kaduna-river-into-niger-state-bandit-refuge/ Copyright 2024 Truth Social

BROKEN FRAME, SHATTERED GLASS: RECOGNIZING CRIMES PERPETRATED AGAINST THE HAZARAS OF AFGHANISTAN By Regina M. Paulose and Timothy Franklin The Hazaras are an ethnic group from Afghanistan known to reside mainly in Hazarajat (also referred to as Hazaristan), in the central highlands of Afghanistan. The Hazaras are a predominantly Shi’a Muslim group. Since the late 19th century, the Hazara people have been victims of unspeakable acts of violence and mass killings committed at the hands of different leaders who have come to power in Afghanistan. This policy paper provides a brief overview of some key events that have contributed to the deteriorating human rights conditions of the Hazara people, which the authors suggest are tantamount to genocide. The authors seek to inform the American Bar Association (ABA) and the international community of the importance of a) recognizing the Hazara genocide by the U.S. State Department and the international community; b) encouraging the ABA to work closely with lawyers in Afghanistan, especially Hazara lawyers, to document and investigate crimes perpetrated against the Hazara community; c) calling upon the international community to stop and punish international crimes consistent with international treaties through avenues such as the International Criminal Court or Universal Jurisdiction; and d) calling upon the ABA to develop further policy regarding mass atrocity prevention. Context and Background to International Crimes Perpetrated Against the Hazara Genocide prevention scholars focus on indicators to determine whether a genocide is being perpetrated against a specific group of people. The most commonly used indicators, known as “warning stages” or “warning signs” was developed by Dr. Gregory Stanton. Dr. Stanton posits ten stages that are not linear but predictable in a genocide.1 The authors submit that before the accession of Afghanistan to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in February 2003,2 all ten stages have been continuously present. The following events––the massacres under Abdur Rahman Khan, the Afshar Massacre, and the Mazir-i-Sharif massacre––are examples of the failure of the international community to respond quickly enough to stop the genocide that is now in progress. The views expressed herein represent the opinions of the authors. They have not been reviewed or approved by the House of Delegates or the Board of Governors of the American Bar Association and, accordingly, should not be construed as representing the position of the Association or any of its entities. Read full report:

A Hindu devotee prays Monday near the Lord Ram temple in Ayodhya, India, after its consecration. (Adnan Abidi/Reuters) NEW DELHI — In north India, Hindu nationalists clambered atop a mosque to plant the Hindu saffron flag. They did the same in central India, unfurling the standard of Lord Ram atop a Christian church. In the south, they burned down a Muslim fruit seller’s shop. And outside Mumbai’s financial capital, they pressured local police to bulldoze Muslim businesses. In the past week, a spate of attacks by triumphant Hindu nationalist mobs against minorities, chiefly Muslims, has raised fears across India of religious tensions flaring following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s consecration of a temple in Ayodhya that was seen in some quarters as a symbol of Hindu vengeance against India’s centuries-long oppression by Muslims. Modi’s party has pushed for a more explicitly Hindu vision of India’s identity in contrast to the post-independence leaders who saw the country more as a secular, multicultural democracy. From northern Uttar Pradesh to southern Telangana, each of the attacks in at least six Indian states followed a near-identical pattern: They erupted after men on motorcycles and jeeps waved Hindu nationalist saffron flags, blared loud devotional music from speakers and chanted the slogan “Jai Shri Ram,” or victory to Lord Ram, as they drove through Muslim neighborhoods. In each case, the violence either immediately preceded or followed the religious ceremony presided by Modi himself on Monday. In a soaring address from the temple premises, the prime minister, a staunch Hindu nationalist, congratulated citizens for successfully “untangling a historical knot” and building a “brighter future.” The 71-acre temple complex is built at the site of the demolished Babri mosque that Hindu nationalists say was itself built on top of a razed Hindu temple in the 16th century and served as a reminder of Muslim domination over the majority Hindu subcontinent as long as it stood. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives for the dedication of the Lord Ram temple. (Rajesh Kumar Singh/AP) The mob attacks in the last four days have raised uneasy parallels to December 1992, when a Hindu mob agitating for the Ram temple in Ayodhya tore the Babri mosque down, sparking nationwide religious riots that killed more than 2,000 people, mostly Muslims. Mumbai was particularly hit hard by rioting, and months later, the Muslim mafia boss Dawood Ibrahim carried out revenge attacks that killed hundreds in early 1993. Irfan Engineer, director of the Mumbai-based Center for Study of Society and Secularism, a nonprofit founded after the violence of 1993 to study riot-affected areas and propagate peaceful coexistence, compared the Hindu nationalist processions in Muslim neighborhoods to wartime marches performed by occupying militaries “for establishing control.” “Muslims are slowly accepting that they must gulp down every insult because even the mildest reaction will invite trouble from the state,” he said. In visuals circulating widely on social media in recent days, saffron-flag-wielding mobs have been seen pelting shops selling meat with stones or clothing stores with apparently Muslim business names. The provocative marches through Muslim neighborhoods have prompted Modi’s critics to caution against growing Hindu triumphalism under his watch. The worst of the clashes took place in a suburban neighborhood north of Mumbai called Naya Nagar. The conflict started the evening before Monday’s temple consecration ceremony, when a Hindu motorcycle procession was stopped with barricades put up by Muslim residents. The situation escalated when Nitesh Rane, a lawmaker from the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, demanded that the barricades be removed and threatened to “find and kill” those who blocked the Hindu processions. Muslim residents then threw stones at another procession that passed through their neighborhood the next day. Rane blamed the clashes on Muslim refugees from Myanmar and Bangladesh and called in government bulldozers as punishment. “Naya Nagar is not the new Pakistan,” he told reporters on Tuesday at a news conference. “We know very well what needs to be done there and how many bulldozers are needed.” Rane could not be reached for comment. An Indian air force helicopter drops flower petals on the site of the temple on the day of its consecration. (Rajesh Kumar Singh/AP) Bulldozers then came through and destroyed illegally built structures belonging to 55 shopkeepers in Naya Nagar and another Muslim-majority neighborhood. As of Thursday, an uncertain peace has prevailed with 13 arrests, mostly of Muslims, according to local officials. Tariq Chaudhary, a Muslim student, was driving his father’s truck around 8 p.m. on Tuesday near Mumbai when a mob of more than 200 young men charged at him armed with iron rods and wooden sticks and shouting, “Hail, Lord Ram.” They smashed the truck’s windshield, dragged him out and rained blows and kicks on him before moving on to another vehicle. Tariq suffered numerous cuts and bruises on his face, hands and back. His co-worker suffered a head injury and received four stitches at a local clinic. “In Ayodhya, they said Lord Ram belongs to us all,” Chaudhary said by telephone. “Does Lord Ram teach them to drag Muslims out, beat them with sticks and force them to say, “Hail, Lord Ram”? Even though reports in local media have trickled in this week of clashes in small towns and on college campuses, police have rarely made arrests or filed cases against Hindus and often punished Muslims or dissidents instead. One exception was in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh state, where police arrested three men for replacing a green Islamic flag on top of a mosque with a saffron banner. On several campuses, heated debates have erupted over the temple inauguration, and in two cities, students were beaten or harassed when they tried to organize screenings of “Ram ke Naam,” or “In the Name of God,” a 1992 documentary film that delves into the controversial history behind the Hindu nationalist campaign to build the temple in Ayodhya. After students at a film school in Pune promoted the documentary screening, a group of more than 20 men barged onto campus on Tuesday, scuffled with students and set their posters aflame. The police briefly detained six of those involved before releasing them. On Wednesday, they filed a complaint against six of the organizers of the screening for “outraging religious feelings” and acting against “national integration.” By Anant Gupta Anant Gupta is a researcher with the India bureau of the Washington Post. He is based in New Delhi.Twitter washingtonpost.com © 1996-2024 The Washington Post