A REUTERS SPECIAL REPORT By MAGGIE MICHAEL and RYAN MCNEILL, Photography by EL TAYEB SIDDIG Filed Nov. 22, 2023, 11 a.m. GMT ON THE CHAD-SUDAN BORDER Arab-led RSF forces have pressed ahead this month with their expulsion of Sudan's ethnic-African Masalit tribe from West Darfur. Survivors described large-scale killings of Masalit captives at a soccer field and a bridge in the regional capital. As assaults mount, some fear a possible partition of the country. Earlier this year, Arab forces waged a campaign of killing and rape that expelled most of the ethnic-African Masalit tribe from the Sudanese city of El Geneina. This month, they returned to finish the job. In early November, fighters led by Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) sought out members of the Masalit community for killing, dozens of survivors told Reuters. The focus: Ardamata, an outlying district in El Geneina, capital of West Darfur state. RSF forces overpowered a Sudanese army base in Ardamata, using drones to attack the soldiers there, survivors said. Sudanese army commanders abandoned their troops during the fighting, said 11 people present at the base. The RSF and its allied Arab militias then intensified their attacks on civilians living in a camp for internally displaced people in Ardamata and in surrounding neighborhoods, launching an assault on many of the tens of thousands of people living there, most from the darker-skinned Masalit tribe. Dozens of survivors of this month’s attacks spoke to Reuters. Many of them described seeing Masalit men rounded up and shot. Some said they saw people being hacked to death with axes and machetes. Hundreds were taken to a soccer field in the area, where two eyewitnesses said they saw people being executed by Arab captors. Bloated corpses lay in the streets of Ardamata for days. Homes were burned and looted, some stripped bare as looters made off with TVs, kitchenware, and even doors and windows. A group of Masalit fighters allied with the Sudanese army gather in Adre, Chad, after fleeing the West Darfur capital of El Geneina. The men fled the city’s Ardamata district after RSF and Arab militia forces attacked the Sudanese army base where they were holed up. REUTERS /El Tayeb Siddig A Sudanese woman crosses into Chad this month after escaping the renewed ethnic purge of the Masalit tribe in El Geneina. The European Union estimates more than 1,000 Masalit were killed in the latest round of violence. REUTERS /El Tayeb Siddig “Everyone ran for their lives. If someone was injured, you didn’t have time to help them up.” Mohammed Ahmed Goma, a grocery shop owner, who fled El Geneina through the mountains to Chad. The attack on Ardamata comes after the RSF, a paramilitary force drawn mainly from Arab tribes, and allied Arab militia forces earlier this year drove hundreds of thousands of El Geneina’s former Masalit majority out of the city. In a campaign that lasted almost two months, Arab forces killed hundreds of residents of El Geneina, most of them members of the Masalit tribe. Many of the survivors fled to Chad. It’s unclear how many Masalit remain in El Geneina. In 2022, the multiethnic city had a population of 540,000, according to UNICEF, the United Nations children’s agency. In the wake of this year’s fighting in Darfur, almost half a million Sudanese refugees now live in camps on the Chad side of the two nations’ border. Ardamata represented one of the last pockets of the Masalit’s presence in the city. In the days after the recent attacks, Reuters journalists saw dozens of people, some of them injured, crossing into Adre, a town on Chad’s border with Sudan. Reuters spoke to more than 70 people for this report, including civilians and Sudanese army soldiers who survived the carnage and made it to Chad. The interviews took place in Adre, at a border crossing as escapees entered Chad, and at refugee sites in the area. This account of the latest phase of the Arab forces’ purge of the Masalit is based on their testimony, as well as on Reuters analysis of satellite images, photographs and social media footage of the violence. A wounded man lies in a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders in the town of Adre on the Chad-Sudan border. Survivors of the ethnic violence said they saw Masalit men being shot or hacked to death with axes and machetes. REUTERS /El Tayeb Siddig “I covered myself with the dead body and his blood.” Sudanese soldier Gamareldin Mohammed, explaining how he hid when RSF forces surged into his base. The European Union estimates that more than 1,000 Masalit were killed in Ardamata. Josep Borrell, the EU’s chief diplomat, said earlier this month that the “latest atrocities” in Ardamata were part of “a wider ethnic cleansing campaign conducted by the RSF with the aim to eradicate the non-Arab Masalit community from West Darfur.” The Sudanese army did not respond to questions about the RSF’s advances or the conduct of its forces. The RSF and Arab militias didn’t respond to questions about the witness reports of killings and looting in the latest fighting. In a statement on Nov. 13, an RSF spokesperson blamed the Sudanese army for the fighting. The group’s commander, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, had ordered a probe into what happened in Ardamata, and would “not provide any protection to any individual proven to be complicit in any violations of innocent civilians’ rights,” the statement said. Dagalo, known as Hemedti, has made similar statements before. After the earlier violence in El Geneina, he said the RSF would investigate. The bloodletting in Darfur erupted days after war broke out in April in the capital, Khartoum, between Sudan’s regular army and the RSF over a plan to integrate the two forces as the country transitioned to civilian rule. The war has displaced more than 6 million people, including the nearly 500,000 who have crossed into Chad, mostly from West Darfur, according to the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR). West Darfur is the Masalit’s historic homeland. Violence in the region has long been stoked by competition for land and water between non-Arab farming peoples like the Masalit and nomadic Arab herders. The RSF has gained ground in recent months. After seizing swathes of Khartoum, it has forced retreats by the Sudanese army in parts of the Darfur and Kordofan regions. In late October, the RSF overran army headquarters in Nyala and Zalingei, two of the five state capitals in Darfur. Source: Natural Earth The group has said it wants to bring democracy to Sudan. Diplomats say it is seeking to expand its access to resources including gold, which it has used to help build a financial empire, and to secure its role in any political settlement after seven months of fighting. The RSF has vowed to reach the nation’s economic hub of Port Sudan on the eastern coast. Its advances have raised fears that Sudan could suffer another split, 12 years after losing South Sudan. In early November, the RSF turned to its next target in El Geneina – the army base in Ardamata, which served as the Sudanese military’s central command for all of West Darfur. ‘The defeat was swift’ The Sudanese army had done little fighting in El Geneina until this month. When the RSF and allied militias began rampaging in the city in late April, army forces largely remained in the Ardamata base, dozens of witnesses told Reuters in July. By Wednesday, Nov. 1, the RSF and allies had surrounded the base, located on the far northeastern edge of the city. Inside were several thousand Sudanese army troops and allied fighters from the Sudanese Alliance, a group of armed factions that have fought in previous wars in Darfur. Civilians were sheltering there as well. Army officers now had a decision to make. Local authorities in El Geneina aligned with the RSF had sent envoys to the base to propose a deal, according to soldiers and local media reports: If the troops surrendered and left, a war could be avoided. When the army didn’t comply, the RSF began shelling the base on Nov. 2, according to eight soldiers and Sudanese Alliance fighters who were there. The army returned fire, shelling RSF positions. The defenders were no match for the RSF, which deployed drones for surveillance and to strike targets inside the base. Abdullah Omar Abdullah, a 32-year-old soldier, said drones dropped munitions on tanks and armored vehicles. At least six colleagues were killed, he said. Abdullah Omar Abdullah, a 32-year-old soldier who made it to Chad, said six of his colleagues were killed in the attack on the Sudanese army base in Ardamata. The RSF and allied Arab militias stormed the base after senior commanders left during the night, soldiers and allied fighters said. REUTERS /El Tayeb Siddig Civilians also were dying. Al Fadhl Abdullah, 22, said his mother, two sisters and grandmother were all killed in the shelling of the base. In the rush to flee, he had to leave their bodies behind. “I couldn’t bury them,” he said. On Nov. 4, two days after the fighting began, soldiers at the base awoke to discover they had been abandoned by their Sudanese army commanders. The officers quietly pulled out during the night, according to 11 soldiers and allied fighters who fled to Adre. “The forces inside had no clue” about the leadership’s sneak retreat, said Khamis Hassan, a senior commander of the Sudanese Alliance. “The defeat was swift.” Ibrahim Youssef, a Sudanese army soldier, said he was in the base when the commanders disappeared. “They left the junior ones without telling them anything,” he said. “We suddenly found the RSF in front of us.” The Sudanese army did not reply to questions about the commanders’ conduct. Youssef said he was in the base’s medical facility being treated for a shrapnel wound when the clinic came under attack. RSF and allied militiamen stormed the facility, shooting the wounded, he said. He managed to escape by crawling behind walls and through bushes. He eventually made it to the displaced persons camp in Ardamata, where he briefly found refuge. As the attackers poured in, Sudanese soldier Gamareldin Mohammed said he lay down, pulled the corpse of a comrade over him and played dead. “I covered myself with the dead body and his blood,” he said. He later fled to Adre. Upon learning their commanders had deserted them, soldiers and Sudanese Alliance fighters hurriedly hatched an escape plan. They shed their uniforms and split into three groups. A contingent of about 2,000 soldiers and fighters fled with civilians through the mountains to the west of El Geneina, heading for Chad. Many didn’t make it. Mohammed Ahmed Goma, a grocery shop owner from Ardamata, was among the fleeing civilians. He rode in a landcruiser with dozens of people piled in and atop the vehicle. When they were ambushed by Arab militiamen and came under fire along the route, the vehicle’s occupants scattered. “Everyone ran for their lives,” he said. “If someone was injured, you didn’t have time to help them up.” Mohammed Ahmed Goma, a grocery shop owner from the Ardamata district of El Geneina, said he hid from RSF and Arab militia forces in the mountains for four days before making it to safety in Chad. REUTERS /El Tayeb Siddig Goma said he spent four days hiding in the mountains as RSF and Arab forces hunted for Sudanese soldiers and civilian Masalit men. To keep alive, he drank juice from raw sugar cane. He raised his lip to show red bumps that formed from sucking on the cane. Since reaching Adre, Goma said he has been at the border crossing, hoping to get news of the people who fled with him in the landcruiser. He knows of only one other person who has made it to Chad. Two senior commanders of the Sudanese Alliance told Reuters they were keeping a record of how many of the 2,000 soldiers and fighters who fled through the mountains had reached Adre. By mid-November, they had counted 340. On Saturday, Nov. 4, the deputy leader of the RSF, Abdelrahim Hamdan Dagalo, stood in front of the conquered army base and congratulated his forces. Standing next to him was Abdul Rahman Juma, the RSF commander in West Darfur. Both men are under U.S. sanctions, imposed in September, for alleged human rights abuses. Dagalo, brother of RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, called the U.S. move “unfair.” “This is a great victory,” Dagalo said in comments posted on an RSF social media account. “God is great.” Targeting the Masalit Once the base fell, a killing spree ensued. RSF and Arab militia forces focused their operations on the largely Masalit civilian population in the nearby displaced persons camp and surrounding neighborhoods of Ardamata. After the base was overrun, tribal leaders in Ardamata negotiated a deal with the RSF and Arab militias, according to five residents. All assault rifles in the displaced persons camp would be surrendered, the sources said. In return, the Arab forces would guarantee the safety of the camp’s occupants and allow safe passage out of El Geneina for those who wanted to leave. But as soon as the weapons were handed over, RSF and Arab militiamen began killing people and looting homes in Ardamata, targeting the Masalit in particular, according to dozens of survivors. “They ordered all men out of the houses and all the women to remain inside,” said a local government employee, who is a Masalit. He said he watched the Arab forces from his hiding place behind a wall at his home. “Slaves, get out,” the man recalled RSF and Arab militiamen saying. “Then they started shooting.” Some civilians were targeted even before the base fell. Hussein Fayez, an 18-year-old Masalit, said he and his twin brother Hassan were having tea with family on the morning of Friday, Nov. 3. RSF forces in uniform and militiamen on horseback and motorbikes pulled up outside their home, Hussein said. Hussein Fayez, a Masalit teenager, was saved by his female relatives who dressed him in this abaya, the robe worn by some Muslim women, to conceal him from RSF and Arab militia forces. REUTERS /El Tayeb Siddig Hassan rushed to hide his father’s old army uniform: His father had served in the Sudanese military and Hassan wanted to keep the militiamen from finding it. Hassan was too late. The militiamen shot him in front of his mother and then looted the home, taking money, phones and other valuables, Hussein said. Hussein’s aunts quickly surrounded him, shielding him from the militiamen and dressing him in an abaya, the full-length robe worn by some Muslim women. As he stepped outside in the abaya, Hussein said he saw the bodies of young men, many his age, lying in the street, some with their hands tied behind their backs and gunshot wounds to the head. Hussein fled to Adre with his family, still in the abaya. The female members of his family formed a tight ring around him along the way, distracting militiamen who stopped them at several checkpoints so he wouldn’t be found out. His father is still missing, he said. At least 30 survivors told Reuters they saw groups of men being rounded up and executed during the assault in Ardamata. Yassin Ahmed, a 23-year-old Masalit man, said he saw uniformed RSF fighters and Arab militia members hacking more than two dozen Masalit men with axes and machetes on a bridge that spans a ravine in Ardamata. Three social media videos reviewed by Reuters show scores of men and boys held on the same bridge by armed fighters. Some were whipped. Multiple eyewitnesses said that RSF and Arab militia forces rounded up hundreds of Masalit men, some of whom were executed. The bridge shown in this Nov. 5 Planet Labs satellite image is one spot where men were herded together by militiamen. In the video, which was verified by Reuters as showing captives at the bridge, some of the men are seen being whipped. Two survivors said they witnessed large-scale killings at a soccer field. Abdu Mohammed Ibrahim said he was at his home, which overlooks the field, around midday on Nov. 4. He heard gunshots, he said, and saw RSF members in uniform and Arab militiamen leading a group of young men, numbering in the low hundreds, to the field. They divided the captives into groups and sent them to different corners of the field, before opening fire on them. Some were killed and some wounded, he said. Ibrahim said he knew seven of the victims. “There were youth among them,” he said, as young as 12. “I know them by name.” A shopkeeper who also lived near the soccer field said he saw Arab militiamen bringing groups of as many as 150 men there that same day. He said he heard some screaming “don’t burn us,” before gunshots rang out. The U.N.’s human rights agency said on Nov. 17 that some victims of the Ardamata attack had been burned alive, without saying where the killings happened. Reuters couldn’t independently determine the number of men taken to the soccer field. Families escaping the violence in Ardamata cross into Chad in early November. Survivors said their homes were ransacked by looters who took TV sets, money and even doors. REUTERS /El Tayeb Siddig Adam Mohammed, 38, said he escaped from Ardamata on Nov. 4. As he fled, Mohammed said he counted dozens of bodies with gunshot wounds near the main Ardamata market and in several neighborhoods. Near the Al Mashtal neighborhood, he said he saw militiamen flogging a group of young men while shouting, “This is our country, not yours.” Some survivors said the RSF and its allies took hundreds of captives to El Geneina’s airport, as well as to detention centers. Ibrahim Youssef, the soldier who escaped the clinic at the military base, said he was among the airport captives. After reaching what he thought was a safe haven at the displaced persons camp at Ardamata, he said he was captured by RSF forces. Along with hundreds of others, he was taken to the airport. Many of the captives were interrogated there, he said. Some were executed. “They torture and question you,” grilling the captives about whether they are in the army or an army-allied force. “Some deny, and some confess and get killed. In front of me, there were many shot dead.” He didn’t put a figure on the killings he saw. Youssef said he ultimately escaped from the airport under cover of night, spending six days on the road before making it to Adre. “I left many people dead behind me,” he said. Women on the Chad side of the border with Sudan await news of missing relatives in the Ardamata district of El Geneina. RSF and Arab militia forces targeted Masalit men, many of whom are still missing. REUTERS /El Tayeb Siddig © 2023 Reuters

An elderly woman carrying a baby on her back crosses the Mweso market, Masisi Territory, North Kivu province, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo on April 10, 2019. By Rédaction Africanews and AP A rebel group with alleged links to neighboring Rwanda claimed Wednesday (Nov. 22) to have seized a new town in DR Congo’s conflict-hit eastern region amid intense fighting, raising further security concerns ahead of the country’s Dec. 20 presidential election. Mweso town, which is about 100 kilometres (62 miles) from the North Kivu provincial capital of Goma, came under the control of the M23 rebel group following days of fighting with government-backed forces, Lawrence Kanyuka, the group’s spokesman, claimed. Residents in the area told The Associated Press they witnessed gunfire between the rebels and security forces. "The enemy has managed to reoccupy Mweso,” said one, Alain Kamala. The AP was not immediately able to verify who was in control of the town. The Congolese army confirmed there was fighting under way around the area. M23 rose to prominence 10 years ago when its fighters seized Goma, eastern Congo’s largest city on the border with Rwanda. It derives its name from a March 23, 2009, peace deal which it accuses the Congo government of not implementing. Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi blames Rwanda for destabilizing Congo by backing the M23 rebels. U.N. experts have linked the rebels to Rwandan forces. Rwanda denies this. Fighting in eastern Congo has been simmering for decades as more than 120 groups fight for power, land and valuable mineral resources, while others try to defend their communities. But it spiked in late 2021 when M23, which had been largely dormant, resurfaced and started capturing territory. The rebels said the latest round of fighting started after government-backed forces “attacked heavily populated areas and our positions on many axes” and that they “will not hesitate to protect the civilian population and its belongings.” Residents fear for their safety. Tshisekedi, who seeks reelection, has said rebel-controlled territories might not participate in the December vote for security reasons. Copyright © africanews

China is closing, destroying and repurposing mosques, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has alleged in a new report. Beijing has removed minarets and domes from some mosques, replacing them with Chinese-style elements. [Credit: Getty Images] Kelly Ng November 22, 2023 The crackdown is part of a "systematic effort" to curb the practice of Islam in China, HRW said. There are about 20 million Muslims in China, which is officially atheist but says it allows religious freedom. Observers, however, say there has been an increased crackdown on organised religion in recent years - with Beijing seeking greater control. The BBC contacted China's foreign ministry and ethnic affairs commission for comment in advance of publication of the HRW report. "The Chinese government's closure, destruction and repurposing of mosques is part of a systemic effort to curb the practice of Islam in China," said Maya Wang, acting China director at Human Rights Watch. The report follows mounting evidence of systematic human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims in China's north-western Xinjiang region. Beijing denies the accusations of abuse. Most of China's Muslims live in the country's north-west, which includes Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu and Ningxia. In the Muslim-majority village of Liaoqiao in the autonomous region of Ningxia, three of six mosques have been stripped of their domes and minarets, according to HRW. The rest have had their main prayer halls destroyed, it said. Satellite footage obtained by HRW showed a round dome at a mosque in Liaoqiao village being replaced by a Chinese-style pagoda sometime between October 2018 and January 2020. About 1,300 mosques in Ningxia have been closed or converted since 2020, Hannah Theaker, a scholar on Chinese Muslims, told the BBC. That number represents a third of the total mosques in the region. Under China's leader Xi Jinping the Communist Party has sought to align religion with its political ideology and Chinese culture. In 2018, the Chinese Communist Party's central committee published a document that referred to the control and consolidation of mosques. It urged state governments to "demolish more and build fewer, and make efforts to compress the overall number" of such structures. The construction, layout and funding of mosques must be "strictly monitored", according to the document. Such repression has been most longstanding and severe in Tibet and Xinjiang, but it has also extended to other areas. There are two major Muslim ethnic groups in China. The Huis are descended from Muslims who arrived in China in the 8th Century during the Tang Dynasty. The second group is the Uyghurs, mostly residing in Xinjiang. About two-thirds of the mosques in Xinjiang have been damaged or destroyed since 2017, according to a report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, an independent think-tank. "Generally speaking, Ningxia has been a pilot site for implementation of the 'Sinicisation' policy, and hence, both renovations and mergers appear to have begun in Ningxia ahead of other provinces," says Dr Theaker, who is co-writing a report on Hui Muslims with US-based academic David Stroup. "Sinicisation" refers to Mr Xi's efforts to transform religious beliefs to reflect Chinese culture and society. The Chinese government claims the consolidation of mosques - which often happens when villagers are relocated or combined - helps reduce the economic burden on Muslims, but some Hui Muslims believe it is part of efforts to redirect their loyalty towards the Party. Some residents have publicly opposed these "Sinicisation" policies, but their resistance has so far been futile. Over the years, many have been jailed or detained after clashing with authorities over the closure or demolition of mosques. After removing external elements from mosques, local governments would then remove facilities essential for religious activities such as ablution halls and preacher's podiums, according to US-based Hui activist Ma Ju. "When people stop going [to the mosques, the authorities] would then use that as an excuse to close the mosques," he is quoted as saying in the Human Rights Watch report. Another video verified by HRW showed an ablution hall in Liujiaguo mosque in southern Ningxia being demolished shortly after the removal of its two minarets and a dome. In Gansu province, which shares a border with Ningxia, officials have made periodic announcements of mosques being closed down, consolidated and altered. In 2018, authorities banned minors under 16 from participating in religious activities or study in Linxia, a city in the province previously known as China's "Little Mecca". A 2019 report by a local television station said authorities converted several mosques into "workspaces" and "cultural centres" after "painstaking ideological education and guidance work". Before the "Sinicisation" campaigns, Hui Muslims have in many ways been receiving support and encouragement from the state, said Dr Theaker. "The campaign has radically narrowed the space in which it is possible to be Muslim in China, and thrown the weight of the state behind a very particular vision of patriotism and religious observance. "It reflects the profoundly Islamophobic orientation of the state, in that it requires Muslims to demonstrate patriotism above all, and views any sign of 'foreign' influence as a threat," she said. Arab and Muslim leaders across the world should be "asking questions and raising concerns", said Elaine Pearson, Human Rights Watch's Asia director. Other ethnic and religious minorities have also been affected by the government's campaign. For instance, Beijing has in recent months replaced the use of "Tibet" with "Xizang" - the region's name in Mandarin - on official diplomatic documents. The authorities have also removed crosses from churches, arrested pastors and pulled Bibles from online stores. © 2023 BBC

Migrants getting on a train near the Greek border. Credit: Freedom House. Greece Country Report October 2023 Genocide Watch Eleven percent of Greeks are immigrants. Albanians make up about 52% of these immigrants. Greece has become a transit country into Europe for Syrian, Kurdish, Afghan, and Asian immigrants. Greece is the nearest entry route into the Schengen zone of the European Union from Asia. Turkey has facilitated transit of immigrants into Greece. To reach Greece, immigrants often pay smugglers $4000 or more per person. Indeed, in 2022, a reported 18,780 immigrants entered Greece, a 105.9% increase from 2021. The immigration surge has fueled backlash from the Greek government and citizenry. Greek border forces enforce a ‘push-back’ policy, whereby migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers are detained and deported from Greece without any assessment of their claims for asylum, breaking local and international law. This policy has been condemned by the European Court of Human Rights. In June 2023 a Greek fishing boat loaded with up to 750 migrants capsized in the presence of a Greek Coast Guard vessel. Over 300 drowned. Greece legally recognizes Turkey as a third country safe haven, meaning that Greek officials reject asylum applicants who have come through Turkey even though Turkey bars their reentry. Greek security services systematically extort migrants, detain them, and force them to participate in push-back operations. Refugees cannot access basic healthcare. Greek detention centers are unsafe for unaccompanied children. Only 30.9% of unaccompanied children succeed on their first application to obtain asylum. The Greek government does not offer unsuccessful applicants a residence permit, leaving them unable to work, without access to education, and vulnerable to exploitation. NGOs that focus on helping migrants face harassment and governmental discrimination. NGO employees have even faced criminal charges, including for human trafficking. The Greek government bars reporters from refugee camps, part of its wider crackdown on media freedom. Greek politicians have scapegoated migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees for recent forest fires. Greek residents in Evros claim that migrants want to destroy them and have formed anti-migrant militias. Ukrainian refugees who come to Greece are welcomed warmly by the government. The government uses polarizing rhetoric that paints Ukrainian refugees as fellow Orthodox Christians who belong in Greece, in contrast to Middle Eastern Muslims. This classification has created a two-tier refugee system. Femicide has grown annually in Greece. A woman is murdered every month. The government responded by introducing a national ‘Speak Up’ campaign, but it has not reduced impunity for crimes of domestic violence. Greece amended its child custody laws, forcing victims to share custody with abusers. Due to the Greek government’s discriminatory anti-immigrant policies and its patriarchal laws on domestic violence and child custody, Genocide Watch considers Greece to be at Stage 1: Classification, Stage 3: Discrimination, Stage 4: Dehumanization, and Stage 8: Persecution. Genocide Watch recommends that the government of Greece: ● Stop recognizing Turkey as a third country safe haven for refugees and asylum seekers. ● Allow migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers to apply for asylum in Greece. ● Stop applying the ‘push back’ policy and provide asylum seekers with prompt adjudications. ● Stop harassing and prosecuting NGO staff who assist migrants. ● Allow reporting on refugee issues and give reporters access to refugee camps. ● Amend the child custody law so it will protect abused women and children.

UNHCR requests Indonesia to save the lives of 250 Rohingya refugees on board a decrepit boat off the coast of Aceh. credit AFP by ARNA November 20, 2023 Beginning 17 November 2023, three boats carrying about 600 Rohingya refugees which sailed from Bangladesh reached the beaches of the Aceh province one after another in just three days. The first two boats carrying 146 and 194 refugees respectively were allowed to land. However, the third boat carrying about 250 refugees met resistance from locals and was pushed back out to the sea. The boat was sighted on Saturday (21.11.23) several miles off the coast of Indonesia’s westernmost region according to a local commander. In a statement Friday, UNHCR called on Indonesia to facilitate the boat’s landing and provide lifesaving assistance to the refugees. Indonesia, which is not a signatory to a 1951 refugee convention, says it is not compelled to accept arriving Rohingya refugees. Locals have complained of lacking the resources to absorb hundreds of refugees into their communities. As of today, the where-about of the boat could not be determined. It is feared that the boat may soon lose its fuel and the passengers may have no food and water for their survival. There is real danger of loss of lives under this situation. The ARNA would like to draw urgent attention of UNHCR, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the ASEAN and International Humanitarian Organisations to intervene in this dire situation and request the government of Indonesia to allow the refugee boat to land on humanitarian grounds. The ARNA would also like to remind the international community that resumption of fighting and the serious situation prevailing in Rakhine state after the breakdown of temporary ceasefire between Myanmar military regime and rebel Arakan Army and the unpredictable, insecure and difficult situation prevailing in the Bangladesh refugee camps have compelled them to embark on this risky journey to search for a safe and better future. Until and unless the core problem the refugees are facing in their homeland of Rakhine in Myanmar is solved this kind of tragedy will be repeated with the danger of loss of lives and misery.

One boat out of 270 Rohingya refugees detained by Malaysian Navy after weeks at sea Source: BBC Genocide Watch: Malaysia January 2023 By Mia Baxley Malaysia gained independence from Great Britain in 1957 following a brutal decade-long war known as the “Malayan Emergency”. British forces routinely tortured and executed Malay civilians and suspected insurgents during the war. They held over 500,000 civilians in squalid camps called “New Villages”. Many Chinese citizens were detained as suspected communists. Similar "strategic hamlets" were used by the U.S. during the Vietnam war. Indian, Chinese, and indigenous minorities (known as Orang Alsi) still face discrimination and violence in social and political life. The 1969 Sino-Malayan race riots killed hundreds of Chinese citizens. Whilst Malay, Chinese and Indian relations mostly remained calm under Prime Minister (PM) Mahathir Mohamad’s twenty-year rule from 1981, violence occasionally flared up, such as the Indian-Malay clashes in 2001. Despite its economic boom, Malaysia’s political environment has become increasingly oppressive. During the Covid-19 Pandemic, a state of emergency allowed the government to suspend parliament and curtail civil liberties. Police arrested peaceful free-speech protesters. Instability during the 2022 elections saw a rise in racial hate speech, particularly on social media sites such as TikTok, inflaming lingering polarization from the 1969 race riots. Malay populist politicians, including Mahathir, demonize ethnic minority groups. In 2022, a hung parliament was elected. Anwar Ibrahim became the Prime Minister, leading a coalition government. In 2015, the government strengthened the colonial 1948 Sedition Act and the Communications and Multimedia Act (CMA), using them to criminalize political criticism, arrest activists, and curtail freedom of the press. The 2015 Prevention of Terrorism Act allowed the government to detain suspects without trial for two years. Despite a history of police abuse and numerous deaths in custody, the government passed the 2021 Independent Police Conduct Commission Bill (IPCC) that weakened government oversight of police. Malaysia violates international refugee law. About 185,000 refugees and asylum seekers – the majority from Myanmar, including over 100,000 ethnic Rohingya Muslims – are registered with UNHCR in Malaysia. The Myanmar genocide against the Rohingya has pushed Myanmar refugees to board rickety fishing boats to flee to Malaysia. Over 1,400 annually drown at sea. Malaysia’s Navy refuses to assist boat people, Malaysia adopted a policy in 2020 to force them back onto their unseaworthy boats and driving them out to sea. Malaysia refuses to accept any more Rohingya refugees. In defiance of a Malaysian court order, the government deported 1,086 migrants back to Myanmar in 2021. The Covid-19 pandemic legitimized the rounding up of thousands of migrants into detention centres. Over 17,500 people are being held in 21 immigration detention centers across the country, including more than 1,500 children. UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, has been denied access to the detainees since August 2019. . At least 23 detainees have died in detention centers since 2021. Life in Malaysia is challenging for its LGBTQ+ community. In 2021, the government sent 1,733 people to sexual ‘rehabilitation’ camps called mukhayyam. The state has also criminalized LGBTQ+ relations with a maximum sentence of twenty years in jail and mandatory whipping for offenders. Many federal states have passed Sharia laws that have increased the persecution of the LGBTQ+ Community. Genocide Watch views Malaysia’s treatment of its LGBTQ+ community as Stage Three: Discrimination and Stage 8: Persecution. The increase in ethnic hate speech exemplifies Stage Four: Dehumanization and Stage Six: Polarization. Detention, expulsion, and refusal to rescue Rohingya refugees indicates Stage Eight: Persecution. Genocide Watch Recommends: · Malaysia must ratify and comply with the 1951 Refugee Convention. · Malaysia must rescue Rohingya boat people and accept and not expel Rohingya refugees. · Laws criminalizing LGBTQ+ relations must be repealed. · ‘Sexual rehabilitation’ camps should be shut down. · Gender tolerance awareness campaigns should be created to counteract homophobia. · Restore the 2021 Independent Police Conduct Commission Bill to strengthen oversight of police. · Repeal the colonial 1948 Sedition Act and the Communications and Multimedia Act (CMA).

UN Photo/ICJ-CIJ/Wiebe Kiestra. Courtesy of the ICJ UK, Germany, Canada, Denmark, France, Netherlands, Maldives join Gambia's ICJ case against Myanmar for commission of the Rohingya genocide Two Burmese anti-genocide organizations comment. Free Rohingya Coalition The Free Rohingya Coalition welcomes and thanks the German and UK governments for their decision to intervene in the case of The Gambia vs Myanmar at the International Court of Justice. In yet another sign of the winds of change, and on the day of the 5th anniversary of the Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day, 25th August 2022, both states announced their historic decisions. In Germany, a spokesperson of the German Federal Foreign Office announced, “…we support The Gambia in order to enforce international law and to strengthen it in the fight against human rights violations. Therefore, Germany will intervene in the proceedings before the International Court of Justice.” In the UK, Minister for Asia, Amanda Milling, declared, “UK confirms its intention to intervene in The Gambia v. Myanmar International Court of Justice Case to support international justice efforts.” Free Rohingya Coalition believes that these resolutions further reinforce the case against the Burmese military. The growing number of countries declaring their support for The Gambia now include Canada, the Netherlands and the Republic of Maldives. Additionally and significantly, in March of 2022, the US government formally determined that Myanmar military committed crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity against Rohingya. “The reality is that the Burmese military will continue their atrocities across the country as long as countries stand by and do nothing,” said Nay San Lwin, FRC co-founder and coordinator. “This inaction is the source of their impunity and so it is heartening to witness these examples of practical political solidarity ,” he said. The 5th anniversary of the Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day should be a moment for the world to reiterate that “justice delayed in justice denied.” Over a million refugees are languishing in the camps of Bangladesh, waiting to be repatriated. There is a lost generation of children who receive little or no education. In Rakhine State, Myanmar, six hundred thousand Rohingya live precariously. Many have been interred in camps for over a decade. They are all at risk of catastrophic and genocidal violence by the Myanmar military. Welcoming the decisions, Maung Zarni, FRC co-founder and coordinator, said, “Since the coup of February 2021, there has been non-stop abuse and violation of rights. The military have displaced hundreds of thousands, killed over 2200 people in Myanmar and are working their way through every war crime and genocidal act. Yet the people are fighting back with almost nothing. The least we expect is that countries pursue political, diplomatic and international legal mechanisms to help end the military’s impunity and impose accountability.” Free Rohingya Coalition appeals to the USA to formally back the ongoing case brought by Gambia at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which contends that Myanmar’s decades-long persecution of the Rohingya violates the Genocide Convention. The US administration should consider the establishment of a special tribunal to try Myanmar military criminals under its own universal jurisdiction statutes concerning the crimes of genocide. Moreover, whilst we recognise that The Gambia has support from the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries, we appeal to individual OIC member states to formally declare and extend their support to The Gambia. In conclusion, Free Rohingya Coalition appeals to all UN member states whose laws permit their judicial institutions to investigate and prosecute crimes under international law – no matter where they are committed – to do so with respect to Myanmar. For more information, please contact: Nay San Lwin: +49 176 62139138 | nslwin@rohingyablogger.com Burma Campaign UK Burma Campaign UK welcomes UK Intervention in Rohingya genocide case at World Court Burma Campaign UK today welcomed news that the British government has filed its intervention in the Rohingya genocide case at the International Court of Justice. The UK government filed a joint declaration of intervention in the case with Canada, Denmark, France, Germany and the Netherlands. The British government finally announced its intention to intervene in the case in August 2022, after a sustained campaign by Burma Campaign UK, Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK, and with the support of more than 100 MPs, led by Rushanara Ali MP, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Groups on Rohingya and on Democracy in Burma. “This strong intervention is significant and very welcome,” said Karin Valtersson, Campaigns Officer at Burma Campaign UK. “The British government failed to take action to try to prevent genocide so now has an obligation to hold those responsible to account. We now need to see the British government call a meeting of the UN Security Council to address the fact that the Burmese military are ignoring the court orders to prevent ongoing genocide of the Rohingya.” The British Government statement on its intervention is available here. Burma Campaign UK is also calling on the British government to reverse aid cuts of over 80% since 2020 to Rohingya refugees, who are genocide survivors, in Bangladesh. Background: The British government has a poor track record on the Rohingya, supporting permanently lifting economic sanctions in 2013 and offering training to the Burmese military despite escalating violence against the Rohingya at that time. The British government deliberately misrepresented escalating violence and repression of the Rohingya as communal violence, as what was taking place did not fit the reform narrative the British government was promoting, prioritising trade and investment opportunities. The British government also funded a census which excluded the Rohingya and provided support to the 2015 election, which excluded the Rohingya. These exclusions were stepping-stones towards genocide, funded and supported by the British government and other international donors. The lack of international action on repression of the Rohingya gave a green light for continued repression, leading to the military offensives in 2016 and 2017, which United Nations investigators determined was genocide. The British government consistently ignored and downplayed warnings about escalating attacks and repression of the Rohingya, including a call from Burma Campaign UK just before the 2017 offensive to call a UN Security Council meeting and try to avert new attacks. Even after these genocidal attacks in 2016 and 2017, the British government refused to sanction senior leaders of the military and military companies providing revenue to the miliary. It was only after the coup began in 2021 that such sanctions were brought in. No comprehensive review was ever carried out by the Foreign Office into mistakes that were made in the run up to the genocide of the Rohingya, so no lessons can be learned at an institutional level. It took three years to persuade the British government to agree to intervene in the Rohingya genocide case at the ICJ, and it was only in September 2022 that the British government finally agreed that it would support the UN Security Council referring Burma to the International Criminal Court. Despite evidence that the Burmese military is ignoring the provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice to prevent ongoing genocide of the Rohingya, the British government has so far failed to act upon requests from Burma Campaign UK and Rohingya civil society organisations to convene a meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss this. The ICJ is a UN court and the UN Security Council has a responsibility to uphold rulings by the court. The British government is penholder on Burma at the UN Security Council so should be taking the lead in convening such a meeting. The British government has also slashed aid to Rohingya refugees by a staggering 81% since 2020. Copyright 2023 Burma Campaign UK

Barzani cemetery, Kurdistan, Iraq. April 2023. credit: TedStantonPhoto.com The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), has nearly unanimously approved a Resolution proposed by Genocide Watch and the KGLobby, both institutional members of the IAGS. The IAGS resolution declares that the crimes of ISIS and the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq were crimes against humanity and genocides. Following a thorough study of thousands of pages of documentary evidence and multiple trips to interview Kurdish eyewitnesses in Iraq, Genocide Watch and the KGLobby issued reports on the Kurdish Genocides. Both organizations published reports concluding that the crimes constituted seven separate genocides.from 1980 to the present. The iAGS Resolution and the Genocide Watch Report on the Kurdish Genocides are attached below. IAGS Resolution to Declare that Massacres and Persecution of Iraqi Kurds were Crimes of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity The International Association of Genocide Scholars, Recognizing the prohibition of genocide in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (hereinafter Genocide Convention), customary international law, and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court; Recognizing the prohibition of crimes against humanity in customary international law and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court; Recognizing that hundreds of thousands of Kurds in Iraq, including the Feyli, Barzani, Christian, Yazidi, Kakai, Badinan, Shabak and Shi'a Kurdish groups, were subjected to crimes against humanity such as mass killings, torture, chemical warfare, forced displacements, mass rapes, arbitrary detention, forced labor, and the destruction of their villages; Recognizing that stripping the citizenship, deportation to Iran of more than 300,000 to 500,000 Feyli Kurds, and mass killings of thousands of Kurds between 1970 to 2003 constituted genocide and the crime against humanity of forced displacement; Recognizing the 1983 genocide against the Barzanis wherein Saddam Hussein regime forcefully resettled thousands of Barzanis, killed 8,000 Barzani Kurds, and put many of these Barzani Kurds in mass graves; Recognizing the 1988 Anfal genocide from February to September 1988 wherein Saddam Hussein’s regime killed 182,000 Kurds in eight comprehensive stages, destroyed 4,500 villages, and engaged in the worst chemical attack since World War II in Halabja; Recognizing the genocide by ISIS (ISIL) (Da’esh) between 2014 and 2018 against the Yazidis, Shi’a, and Christians wherein ISIS subjected Yazidi women to rape and sexual slavery, killed 5,000 Yazidi men, forced the deportation of approximately 50,000 Yazidis, killed myriad Christians, raped numerous Christian women, forcedly deported between 100,000 to 200,000 Christians, executed 1,700 Shi’a army cadets, and forcedly displaced tens of thousands of Shi’as; Recognizing the acts by ISIS (Da’esh) between 2014 and 2018 against the Kurds and religious groups in the Iraqi Kurdish region were crimes against humanity wherein ISIS engaged in mass killings, deportations, mass rapes, kidnappings, disappearances, among others; Recognizing that on June 23, 2007, the Iraq Special Court held that the Barzani, Anfal, and Halabja massacres constituted genocides against the Kurds in Iraq; Recognizing that on April 14, 2008, the Iraq Parliament deemed the Anfal campaign a genocide against the Kurdish people; Recognizing that in 2008, the Iraq Presidential Council approved Parliamentary Resolution 26, which declared Saddam Hussein’s campaign against the Kurds to be genocide; Recognizing that in March 2010, the Iraq Supreme Court held the Anfal campaign was a genocide and also included crimes against humanity; Recognizing that by 2010, the Iraq Supreme Court, the Iraq Council of Representatives and the Iraq Parliament acknowledged that the Barzani massacres were acts of genocide and crimes against humanity; Recognizing that in March of 2011, the Iraq Parliament voted to acknowledge that the deadly chemical attack on Halabja constituted genocide; Recognizing that in August of 2011, the Iraq Supreme Court, Iraq Council of Representatives, and the Iraq Parliament officially determined that the Fayli killings constituted genocide; Recognizing that on November 21, 2012, the Norwegian Parliament formally acknowledged the Anfal campaign as genocide; Recognizing that in December 5, 2012, the Swedish Parliament adopted a resolution to officially acknowledge the Anfal campaign as genocide; Recognizing that on March 1, 2013, the British Parliament formally acknowledged the Anfal campaign of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq government against the Kurdish population as the “Kurdish genocide;” Recognizing that on June 13, 2013, the South Korean Parliament adopted a resolution that formally acknowledged the Anfal campaign to be genocide; Recognizing that on March 14, 2016, the United States Congress determined that the mass murders, destruction of living conditions, causing of serious mental and bodily harm, mass rapes, abductions of women and children, and prevention of births against the Yazidis, Christians, and Shi'a Muslims and other groups by ISIS (Da’esh) were acts of genocide; Recognizing that in 2016, the United States Department of State formally acknowledged the destruction of Yazidi, Christian, Shi'a and other religious minorities by ISIS (Da’esh) as acts of genocide; Recognizing that on April 20, 2016, the United Kingdom House of Commons declared that the treatment of the Yazidis and Christians by the Islamic State (ISIS) amounted to genocide and referred the issue to the United Nations Security Council; Recognizing that the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt, Germany convicted Taha Al J., a member of the armed group Islamic State (ISIS), of genocide and crimes against humanity; Recognizing that on October 25, 2016, the Canadian House of Commons formally acknowledged that ISIS (Da’esh) was committing genocide against the Yazidi people; Recognizing that on December 6, 2016, the French Senate unanimously approved a resolution stating that acts committed by the Islamic State (ISIS) against "the Christian and Yazidi populations, other minorities and civilians" constituted "war crimes," "crimes against humanity," and "genocide;” Recognizing that on March 23, 2017, the Scottish Parliament adopted a statement that the brutal acts by ISIS (Da’esh) against the Yazidi people constituted genocide; Recognizing that the Scottish Parliament also welcomed the actions of the European Parliament and the United Nations formally acknowledging the genocide against the Yazidi people; Recognizing that in January 2018, the Armenian Parliament formally acknowledged and condemned the 2014 genocide of Yazidis by the Islamic State (ISIS), and called on the international community to conduct an international investigation; Recognizing that on March 1, 2021, the Iraq Parliament passed the Yazidi [Female] Survivors Law which provides assistance to survivors and determined that the atrocities perpetrated by ISIS (Da’esh) against the Yazidis, Turkmen, Christians and Shabaks to be genocide and crimes against humanity; Recognizing that on June 30, 2021 the Foreign Relations Commission of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives unanimously approved a resolution to formally acknowledge ISIS's August 2014 massacre of thousands of Yazidi men and enslavement of thousands of Yazidi women and children as genocide; Recognizing that on July 6, 2021 the House of Representatives of the Netherlands unanimously passed a motion that formally acknowledged the crimes of the Islamic State (ISIS) against the Yazidi population as genocide and crimes against humanity; Recognizing the research and findings by numerous human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and many genocide scholars that crimes against humanity and genocide have been committed against the Kurds in Iraq; Recognizing that Iraq is a state party to the Genocide Convention and thereby has obligations to prevent and punish genocide; Therefore, the International Association of Genocide Scholars: 1. Declares that the atrocities perpetrated by the Iraq government of Saddam Hussein and by ISIS (Da’esh) against the Kurds constituted genocide and crimes against humanity; 2. Condemns the genocides and crimes against humanity committed by the Iraq government of Saddam Hussein and by ISIS (Da’esh) against the Kurds and other groups in the Iraqi Kurdish region; 3. Calls Upon the government of Iraq to fully implement the Yazidi Survivors Law and carry out the process of reparations to the survivors and victims of the Yazidi genocide; 4. Calls Upon the United Nations, national governments, and international human rights organizations to recognize the atrocities perpetrated against the Kurds and other Iraqi minority groups by the Saddam Hussein regime and by ISIS (Da’esh) as genocide and crimes against humanity, and to take appropriate measures to prevent future genocide and crimes against humanity in Iraq; 5.. Recommends appropriate measures, including, but not limited to: • Nations with universal jurisdiction and nations whose citizens or corporations aided and abetted or were complicit in genocides by the Saddam Hussein regime and ISIS (Da’esh) should prosecute such persons or corporations in their national courts. • Nations with universal jurisdiction for the crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity committed by the Saddam Hussein regime and ISIS (Da’esh) should prosecute persons accused of committing such crimes who are resident in or are citizens of such countries. • The government of Iraq and other governments that were complicit in or aided and abetted these genocides should pay reparations to survivors and victims of the genocides of Kurds by the Saddam Hussein regime and by ISIS (Da’esh). • The United Nations Security Council should refer jurisdiction for the genocides and crimes against humanity by ISIS (Da’esh) in Iraq to the International Criminal Court.

Uyghur poet, filmmaker, and activist Tahir Hamut Izgil is seen in this undated photo. [Creative Commons] Kasim Kashgar November 17, 2023 Tahir Hamut Izgil witnessed firsthand, China’s repressive treatment of the Uyghur ethnic minority group and experienced how society changed over time in Xinjiang, an autonomous region in northwest China. His memoir, published this year has gained attention by readers and recognition by two prominent U.S. publications this week, while China describes accusations of repression as a false narrative. Izgil’s memoir, Waiting to be Arrested at Night: A Uyghur Poet’s Memoir of China’s Genocide, has been listed as one of the “50 notable works of nonfiction,” by The Washington Post and as the “100 Must-Read Books of 2023,” by Time magazine. Now living in the U.S., Izgil, a Uyghur, was born in Kashgar in 1969 and lived through some of the most drastic changes in Xinjiang in the region’s modern history. While preparing to leave for Turkey to study in 1996, the Chinese government accused him of "trying to take illegal and confidential materials out of the country" and he was imprisoned for three years. He was able to establish a career in filmmaking after his confinement. In his book, Izgil wrote about people he knew disappearing and described what he did — fearing he would be next. "As the situation worsened, like many others, I spent hours 'cleaning out' my phone, just as I had cleaned out my computer three years earlier," Izgil wrote in his book. "I deleted pictures, videos, audio records, and even chat records on QQ and WeChat one after another." In 2017, as the Chinese government intensified its crackdown on Uyghurs in Xinjiang, Izgil and his family managed to flee the region and seek asylum in the United States. China’s response Beijing has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in Xinjiang and dismissed genocide and crimes against humanity allegations as “lies and fabrications,” asserting that Xinjiang has achieved remarkable economic growth and social development in recent years. “People of all ethnic backgrounds in Xinjiang are entitled to the rights and interests under China's Constitution and other laws,” wrote Liu Pengyu the spokesperson from the Chinese Embassy in Washington, in an email response to VOA’s inquiry. “In recent years, China's Foreign Ministry and the government of Xinjiang have held multiple press briefings for domestic and international media to learn more about real life in Xinjiang. Regrettably, however, a few people in some Western countries, including in the U.S., would rather buy into false narratives than acknowledge the truth and the real progress in Xinjiang,” wrote Liu. Concerns of Chinese repression President Joe Biden “raised concerns regarding PRC (People’s Republic of China) human rights abuses, including in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong,” during his meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in San Francisco this week. The U.S. has accused China of “genocide and human rights abuses” and called on China “to address forced labor in Xinjiang.” Last year, the U.N. Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner released a report which documented credible evidence of torture or other ill-treatment and sexual and gender-based violence against the Uyghurs. The report stated the violations may constitute crimes against humanity. The European Parliament also adopted a resolution in 2022 condemning “in the strongest possible terms the fact that the Uyghur community in the People’s Republic of China has been systematically oppressed by brutal measures, including mass deportation, political indoctrination, family separation…” Personal testimony and beyond “As the world takes notice of my storytelling, my memoir stands as a testament to the resilience of the Uyghur people amid the challenges posed by China's genocide,” Izgil told VOA. He said he is preparing to write another book on his firsthand experience in a Chinese prison. “I am now writing the book because nowadays, when I attend book interviews and other gatherings on my book, a lot of readers mention that my years in a Chinese prison in the second half of the 1990s were largely absent in my book. Now I want to fill that gap and inform the world about Chinese prison life in the 1990s.” Izgil said his memoir is contracted to be translated into 15 languages. © 2023 VOA News

Previously, authorities detained them for 11 months on the same offense. Map of Sichuan Province created with Datawrapper. [Credit: Radio Free Asia] RFA Tibetan November 16, 2023 China has sentenced four Tibetans from Sertar county in Sichuan province to two years in prison each for engaging in religious activities — the second time they have been arrested and given jail time, said two Tibetans with knowledge of the situation. The four men — Gyalo, Tsedho, Bhamo and Kari, each going by just one name — are being held at Yaknga Prison in Sichuan province, according to the sources. “In September when they were sentenced to two years in prison, none of their families were informed,” said a Tibetan who lives in exile. “Neither are the families aware that the court has issued this judgment.” Authorities previously arrested the four men on Aug. 24, 2022, for engaging in religious activities such as sang-sol, a purification or cleansing of spiritual pollution or blockages, and reciting prayers for the longevity and wellbeing of Tibetan Buddhist religious leaders, said another Tibetan source who lives in exile. They were detained until July 2023, when they were released, though it is not known why they were freed. It is not unusual for Chinese authorities in the Tibet Autonomous Region and Tibetan-populated areas of western provinces like Sichuan to arrest, detain and abuse Buddhist monks, nuns and others on account of their religious practices, without giving them trials. There also have been reports of individuals dying in custody after being beaten, according to the U.S. State Department’s 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom, issued this May. Such arrests are part of a larger campaign by the Chinese Communist Party to Sinicize Tibetans by eroding their religion, language and culture, bring them into line with the party’s ideology, and compel them to be loyal to the state, rather than to the Dalai Lama, the Tibetans’ exiled spiritual and political leader. At the time of the first arrest, a fifth Tibetan named Chukdhar, 52 was also taken in, but he died in custody after a week or so because of severe beatings and torture by Chinese police, the second source said. “However, they have been arrested again and now all of them are sentenced to two years in prison,” he said. The first Tibetan source said Chukdhar’s family accused Serta county police of killing the man by physical torture in the prison, but police denied it. “The families were also offered 100,000 yuan [US$1,400] by the police station if they collected Chukdhar’s body immediately after he died, but they declined to accept the offer, and were given nothing,” he said. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster. © 2023 Radio Free Asia

By Karishma Mehrotra and Joseph Menn (Illustration by Shubhadeep Mukherjee for The Washington Post; Manish Swarup/AP; Imtiyaz Khan/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images; Altaf Qadri/AP) NEW DELHI — For years, a committee of executives from U.S. technology companies and Indian officials convened every two weeks in a government office to negotiate what could — and could not — be said on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. At the “69A meetings,” as the secretive gatherings were informally called, officials from India’s information, technology, security and intelligence agencies presented social media posts they wanted removed, citing threats to India’s sovereignty and national security, executives and officials who were present recalled. The tech representatives sometimes pushed back in the name of free speech. One company resisted the most: Twitter. But two years ago, these interactions took a fateful turn. Where officials had once asked for a handful of tweets to be removed at each meeting, they now insisted that entire accounts be taken down, and numbers were running in the hundreds. Executives who refused the government’s demands could now be jailed, their companies expelled from the Indian market. New regulations had been adopted that year to hold tech employees in India criminally liable for failing to comply with takedown requests, a provision that executives referred to as a “hostage provision.” After authorities dispatched anti-terrorism police to Twitter’s New Delhi office, Twitter whisked its top India executive out of the country, fearing his arrest, former company employees recounted. Right-wing activists march in 2019 to Twitter’s office in New Delhi, alleging that their political views were being silenced on the platform. (Burhaan Kinu/Hindustan Times/Getty Images) In the past two years, the Indian government has dramatically tightened its grip on American social media companies. Silicon Valley firms that were at times defiant are now far more accepting of Indian government dictates to censor material, in particular criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Indian officials say they have accomplished something long overdue: strengthening national laws to bring disobedient foreign companies to heel. This escalating censorship in the world’s largest democracy is part of a wider campaign by Modi and his Hindu nationalist allies to monopolize public discourse: tightening their grip on power, advancing their Hindu-first ideology and squeezing out critical and dissenting voices. American technology companies have increasingly fallen in line, fearing for their employees’ security and their profits. Among the Big Tech companies, the shift has been most notable at Twitter, once seen as Silicon Valley’s flag-bearer for resisting government pressure worldwide. A company that not long ago adopted the risky strategy of fighting government censorship in the Indian courts now consistently bends to official demands. It has repeatedly taken down posts critical of Modi and his administration and accounts belonging to journalists and the BJP’s political opponents. “The [stuff] that they’re doing in India should be freaking everybody out,” said a former U.S. Twitter policy staffer. In January, Twitter and YouTube complied with orders to remove links in India to a BBC documentary that faulted Modi, while chief minister of Gujarat state, for allowing the spread of intercommunal riots in 2002 that left more than 1,000 people dead, most of them Muslims. Citing a legal basis for the order, a senior adviser to the Broadcasting Ministry tweeted that the documentary was “hostile propaganda and anti-India garbage.” In January, people watch the BBC documentary "India: The Modi Question" on a screen installed in the city of Kochi by the opposition Congress party. (Arun Chandrabose/AFP/Getty Images) In October, Twitter, now renamed X, agreed in India to block the accounts of two U.S.-based groups, Hindus for Human Rights and the Indian American Muslim Council, both nonprofits advocating for pluralism and religious freedom in South Asia. Twitter became increasingly compliant under immense Indian government pressure even before Elon Musk bought the company just over a year ago. But after he did, Musk proved even less willing to contest takedown orders and discontinued transparency reports about how the company responded to them. In more than 50 interviews, current and former technology executives and Indian officials detailed how the government broke Twitter’s resistance through a raft of new regulations, a streamlined censorship process — and the coercive muscle of law enforcement agencies. Many spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe such private interactions as well as the 69A committee meetings, which have not been previously reported in detail. (The name 69A refers to the section of the information technology law providing for government censorship.) Some executives wanted to share their concerns about how dire the situation has become and the industry’s complicity in the increasing censorship, while government officials wanted to highlight their success in reining in what they say are irresponsible companies. Members of the Congress party's youth wing protest outside Twitter's New Delhi office in 2021 over the temporary suspension of party leader Rahul Gandhi's account. (Sanjeev Verma/Hindustan Times/Getty Images) Digital and human rights advocates warn that India has perfected the use of regulations to stifle online dissent and already inspired governments in countries as varied as Nigeria and Myanmar to craft similar legal frameworks, at times with near-identical language. India’s success in taming internet companies has set off “regulatory contagion” across the world, according to Prateek Waghre, a policy director at India’s Internet Freedom Foundation. “India is steadily becoming a norm-shaping country,” said Neeti Biyani, a researcher at the Internet Society, a Virginia-based global internet advocacy organization. “Being the strongest economy in South Asia and one of the strongest emerging economies in the Asia-Pacific, it’s considered one of the first movers on new regulations.” Bangladesh, for example, adopted internet regulations in 2022 that were a “copycat” of India’s, Biyani said. Despite the huge size of China’s market, companies like Twitter and Facebook were forced to steer clear of the country because Beijing’s rules would have required them to spy on users. That left India as the largest potential growth market. Silicon Valley companies were already committed to doing business in India before the government began to tighten its regulations, and today say they have little choice but to obey if they want to remain there. “We are toeing the line, not antagonizing the government, knowing very well that this is a government that can come after you,” said an industry official. “All governments in India have been intolerant. But now, they are putting in place the mechanisms and measures. They are going about it in a systematic manner.” Neither Twitter nor Musk responded to written questions for this article. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the deputy technology minister in India's BJP government, oversees many of the new tech regulations. (Sonu Mehta/Hindustan Times/Getty Images) Silicon Valley companies once believed that “ideology trumped local law. They have been moved from that delusion,” said Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the deputy technology minister in the BJP government who oversees many of the new regulations, speaking in an interview. “The shift was really simple: We’ve defined the laws, defined the rules, and we have said there is zero tolerance to any noncompliance with the Indian law.” “You don’t like the law? Don’t operate in India,” Chandrasekhar added. “There is very little wiggle room.” The Information Technology Ministry did not respond to a list of subsequent questions for this article. Brewing trouble In 2018, Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s co-founder and its chief executive at the time, flew to New Delhi for a visit that would foreshadow trouble to come. Clad in a black hoodie and beanie, the bearded billionaire posed for a photo with Indian anti-caste and feminist activists while holding a poster that read: “Smash Brahminical Patriarchy!” The picture went viral and incensed the Indian right wing, which viewed Dorsey as the archetype of an elite American trampling over traditional Indian culture. Many denounced Twitter as “racist,” and the company apologized on behalf of its chief executive. Twitter, Facebook and other U.S. companies were already grappling with how to moderate speech in India. They were seeing a deluge of anti-Muslim and other hateful posts by BJP leaders and their Hindu nationalist supporters, and on occasion the companies called out and pushed back against activity they considered abusive. Prominent BJP supporters accused Twitter of suppressing their online reach and denying them the blue check marks given to other high-profile individuals. The Modi administration began to ramp up censorship requests, and the 69A committee meetings grew longer, spilling into days, executives recalled. Often, officials simply called Twitter to demand takedowns, industry and government officials said. Records published by the Indian Parliament show that annual takedown requests for posts and accounts increased from 471 to 6,775 between 2014 and 2022, with those to Twitter soaring from 224 in 2018 to 3,417 in 2022. Government demands to block entire accounts and topic hashtags also soared. Twitter’s transparency reports show that 77 accounts were suspended in the country in 2020. In 2021, there were nearly 1,400. (The company stopped publishing transparency reports after that.) One former IT Ministry official involved in the orders defended the blocking of accounts. “There are certain accounts that continue to spew venom,” he said. “I have to go by what content you have posted, how much of it is anti-India.” A farmer shouts as demonstrators block a major highway during a 2020 protest to abolish newly enacted farming laws. (Altaf Qadri/AP) A defining moment In late 2020, hundreds of thousands of Indian farmers descended on New Delhi, demanding that Modi withdraw new laws that reduced crop subsidies and price supports and overhauled state-regulated agricultural markets. The farmers, drawn in large part from members of the Sikh religion in Punjab state, occupied highways for months. They brought food, tents, tractors and something unexpected: social media savvy. The protesters formed an “IT cell” and connected with the Punjabi and Sikh diaspora around the world. They waged a social media campaign that attracted support from NBA players, Greta Thunberg and Rihanna. The protest movement posed a rare — and unexpectedly serious — challenge to the BJP government. It was a “defining moment,” said Raman Jit Singh Chima, Asia policy director at Access Now, a digital rights group. “The government realized, ‘We need to cement our power in the tech sector,’” he said. “The digital authoritarian turn accelerated in 2021.” A farmer sits near barricades erected by police outside New Delhi in anticipation of a major protest in 2021. India's government also asked Twitter to block the accounts of key protest leaders. (Nindito Mukherjee/Bloomberg/Getty Images) Soon, the censorship orders flooded in. Government officials, who argued that the farmers’ movement harbored ties to separatists seeking an independent Sikh country, saw any posts that could be linked to the secessionist movement as a clear “no-go zone,” a tech executive said. But the government’s net went far beyond that. Officials balked at posts critical of Modi and started to block journalists. Sandeep Singh, a freelance journalist who spent months following the farmers’ protest, recalled tracking dozens of Twitter accounts that were taken down. The farmers’ “IT cell” was silenced. So were a news magazine, a Sikh politician and a poet from Canada. “We were shocked to see the scale,” Singh said. While Twitter agreed to remove most of the accounts and posts flagged by the government, the company occasionally resisted. The Indian IT Ministry told Parliament that of 3,750 URLs ordered removed between August 2020 and December 2021, 167 were either left up by Twitter or taken down but restored. In a public statement, Twitter declared it would not take down accounts of journalists, activists and politicians because the orders were not “consistent with Indian law” or its own “principles of defending protected speech and freedom of expression.” Twitter’s defiance infuriated the Indian officials, who accelerated the adoption of new rules that in part required social media companies to respond to takedown requests within set time periods, and to appoint a compliance manager, a grievance officer and a liaison with law enforcement, all based in India. Members of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation burn an effigy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a 2020 rally in Kolkata held in solidarity with farmers. (Bikas Das/AP) The boiling point While the farmers’ protest raged in the spring of 2021, a devastating delta variant of the coronavirus swept through India, ultimately killing more than 200,000 people. As criticism of the government response swelled on social media, Modi officials issued waves of new takedown orders. In response, Twitter even removed straightforward commentary, such as the tweet: “Second wave of COVID-19 in India = @narendramodi made disaster. #ResignModi” When opposition leader Rahul Gandhi accused the prime minister of failing to distribute vaccines and shedding insincere “crocodile tears” about pandemic deaths, the speech set off a flood of anti-Modi and anti-government tweets with the hashtag “#crocodiletears.” In New Delhi, officials ordered Twitter to remove all posts with that hashtag and demanded that the company hand over information identifying users who tweeted it, two former employees recalled. After Twitter resisted, Indian officials claimed that the hashtag was being used by terrorists and later alleged it was being used to distribute pornography, the former employees said. Indeed, some posts with the #crocodiletears hashtag contained pornographic images. But a Twitter investigator found that some of the posts came from a location near a police building, and a Twitter team concluded that the government itself was planting the images to justify social media restrictions, the former employees recalled. Women from Punjab and Haryana states gather in March 2021 to join the farmers' protest against the new agricultural laws. (Idrees Mohammed/AFP/Getty Images) Tensions between Twitter and the Modi administration reached a boiling point after the company labeled some BJP leaders’ posts as “manipulated media,” meaning they contained images that had been deceptively altered. An elite police force showed up outside Twitter’s New Delhi office in May 2021 with television cameras in tow. The promised raid, however, never materialized because the office was empty amid the pandemic. In a separate dispute, police in the BJP-ruled state of Uttar Pradesh summoned Twitter India’s managing director, Manish Maheshwari, for questioning over accusations that the platform showed a disputed map of India that did not reflect the country’s declared borders, according to internal company documents. Although Twitter lawyers staved that off, a subsequent police visit to his home and escalating anonymous threats made Twitter’s U.S.-based leadership conclude that it had become “very, very dangerous for him and his family,” a former company executive said. Twitter hurried Maheshwari out of India in mid-2021, and he has not returned. Maheshwari declined to comment for this article. In a photo distributed by the Indian government's press bureau, Elon Musk meets with Modi on June 20 in New York. (Indian Press Information Bureau (PIB)/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)) In a tweet that May, Twitter highlighted “the use of intimidation tactics by the police” and said it was “concerned by recent events regarding our employees in India and the potential threat to freedom of expression for the people we serve.” The IT Ministry hit back by calling Twitter’s noncompliance “an attempt to dictate its terms to the world’s largest democracy.” But despite Twitter’s public rebuke of the Indian government, employees inside the company were growing concerned about how much it was bowing to the government’s censorship demands. At an annual presentation to the company’s leadership in 2021, Twitter’s communications team singled out India and delivered a warning about the global precedent the company was setting, according to a person familiar with the presentation. “The concern was that if we were beginning to make exceptions for a certain government, a whole host of other governments would come to us, and it would be difficult to explain why we could not do the same for them,” the person said. Farmers sit atop trucks during a march toward New Delhi in late 2020. (Amarjeet Kumar Singh/SOPA Images/Sipa USA/AP) The ‘hostage provision’ As India’s new IT rules kicked in, the government told a Delhi court in summer 2021 that Twitter did not have local officers responsible for addressing grievances, coordinating with law enforcement and other tasks mandated by law, and thus had lost its “safe harbor” status, leaving it potentially liable for content deemed illegal. These local officers had to be based in India and could face penalties of five years in jail for failing to comply with government orders. The threat of arrest “shifts the calculus significantly” for corporate decision-making, said Waghre, of the Internet Freedom Foundation. “You can draw a line in the sand from when the IT rules 2021 went into effect. There was a sudden drop in reported instances of any sort of pushback.” Former Twitter and Facebook executives agreed, saying in interviews that they could not allow colleagues to be jailed. To meet the government mandate, Twitter hired Vinay Prakash — whose longest previous job had been as a political analyst for Chandrasekhar, then in Parliament and now the deputy IT minister in the BJP government — to be both grievance and compliance officer. India's IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, left, and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar at a February 2021 news conference announcing new regulations for social media companies. (Manish Swarup/AP) Because of the sensitivity of the position — compliance officers typically have access to internal discussions about legal and human-resource issues as well as user information — Twitter had asked a Florida-based boutique research firm, Divine Intel, to conduct an independent appraisal and background check on Prakash. The firm raised concerns, according to two people familiar with the events. “Our assessment identified one applicant as high-risk/high-threat and we advised against hiring the individual due to the potential for undue influence from members of Parliament” and other issues, said a Divine Intel executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity to comply with the company’s secrecy policy. The executive said that despite these findings, the person was hired. Divine Intel did not identify Twitter as its client, saying only that it was a major U.S. tech company. But the people familiar with the episode said it was referring to the vetting of Prakash. Prakash did not respond to requests to comment for this article. Last year, former Twitter head of security Peiter Zatko filed a whistleblower complaint with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department alleging that around the time of the farmers’ protest, the Indian government “forced Twitter to hire specific individual(s) who were government agents.” In testimony before Congress, he said that the government agent was to secretly monitor how Twitter responded to political and public pressure and that the company had known about it. Zatko, who was fired in January 2022, never publicly named the employee he believed to be working for the Indian government. Twitter has denied Zatko’s allegations. Loss of appetite In July 2022, Twitter took the Indian government to court, suing over the continuing demands to censor tweets about the farmers’ protest. Twitter lost. A judge in Karnataka state sided with the government in June, ruling that posts it wanted censored were “anti-India & seditious … designed to incite violence.” Twitter appealed. But the company lost much of its appetite to challenge the government after Twitter was acquired a year ago by Musk, former employees said. “Twitter doesn’t have a choice but to obey local governments,” Musk said in June to Geeta Mohan, executive editor of the India Today news channel. “If we don’t obey local government law, then we will get shut down. The best we can do is really to hew close to the law in any given country, but it’s impossible for us to do more than that or we will be blocked and our people will be arrested.” Other U.S. companies also opted for a less confrontational approach. After the new IT law was adopted in 2021, for example, Google chief executive Sundar Pichai became one of the first tech leaders to say his company would adhere to it. “When you comply, you make more revenue. We gained from that,” said a former Google global affairs executive. Google spokeswoman Christa Muldoon said that the company examined removal requests to see if the content violated local laws, removing it for users in the relevant country, and that revenue was not a factor in decisions. The company reported that the number of items removed from all Google platforms in India soared from about 11,000 in 2019 to more than 23,000 in just the first half of 2023. Lokman Tsui, who oversaw Google’s free expression program in the Asia-Pacific region in the early 2010s, said the company began a global shift away from its “moral stance” in his region, notably in India, before this spread worldwide. Doubling down Now, Indian officials say they want to tighten their regulations further. The “Digital India” bill being drafted is likely to weaken legal protections afforded to the companies for hosting content deemed illegal, according to Chandrasekhar. “There will no longer be blanket immunity” for social media companies that do not obey, he said. He added that online anonymity and safe harbor protections have been abused to spread harmful misinformation and hate speech. Other government officials, meanwhile, say it has become easier to make companies take down content because they have turned over many of the decisions to India-based staff, who focus more on complying with local laws and less on company policies. One former IT Ministry official praised the companies for becoming more “understanding” of the government’s perspective, noting that they increasingly comply with its orders. Just the prospect of further regulation is being used by the government to bend the tech companies to its will, according to Chima, of the Access Now digital rights group. “It’s not only the issue of what actually will get into the law,” he said. “It’s that legal threats are used as a form of negotiation, to get companies to do or not do certain things.” Gerry Shih contributed to this report. About this story Design by Anna Lefkowitz. Visual editing by Chloe Meister, Joe Moore and Jennifer Samuel. Copy editing by Gaby Morera Di Núbila and Martha Murdock. Story editing by Alan Sipress. Project editing by Jay Wang. By Karishma Mehrotra Karishma Mehrotra is the South Asia correspondent for The Washington Post. She was previously a Fulbright fellow and has written or worked for Radiolab, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, the Indian Express, Scroll.in, and Bloomberg Businessweek. By Joseph Menn Joseph Menn joined The Post in 2022 after two decades covering technology for Reuters, the Financial Times and the Los Angeles Times. His books include "Cult of the Dead Cow: How the Original Hacking Supergroup Might Just Save the World" (2019) and "Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords who are Bringing Down the Internet" (2010). © 1996-2023 The Washington Post

Senator Peters Leads Passage of S.3000 Removing the Biden Administration's Authority to Waive Section 907 in Fiscal Year 2024 & FY 2025 Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI): “I urge my colleagues to join me in holding Azerbaijan accountable for their actions, enforce our agreements with them, and stand with the Armenian people in the face of unprovoked aggression.” The US Senate unanimously voted to stop all US military aid to Azerbaijan in FY2024 and FY2025. WASHINGTON, DC – Michigan Senator Gary Peters (D-MI) led the unanimous U.S. Senate passage of the “Armenian Protection Act of 2023” (S.3000) which aims to block all U.S. military assistance to Azerbaijan by removing President Biden’s authority to waive Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act for Fiscal Years 2024 and 2025. The vote comes in response to mounting pressure from the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), Congressional allies, and a diverse coalition of pro-Armenian civil society advocates in the face of Azerbaijan’s genocidal ethnic cleansing of Artsakh’s Christian Armenian population. “We thank Senator Peters for his leadership and welcome the Senate’s adoption of S.3000 as a first step toward holding Azerbaijan accountable for its genocide of Artsakh and deterring renewed aggression toward Armenia,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian. “For his part, President Biden – given his role in arming Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing of Artsakh – needs to do far more at this point than simply signal a willingness to enforce an existing U.S. statute, for example, by leading a UN Security Council resolution to establish an international mandate providing security for the safe and sustainable return of Armenians to Artsakh.” In remarks on the Senate Floor during consideration of the measure, Sen. Peters detailed Azerbaijan’s aggression against Artsakh. “Not only did they blockade the Lachin Corridor for 10 months, creating significant hardships, they also violently attacked innocent Armenians and forced the dissolution of the government of Nagorno-Karabakh on September 20th.” Noting that President Biden failed to stop military aid to Azerbaijan in the face of their escalating aggression, Sen. Peters urged his Senate colleagues to act. “If we do not take action when countries willfully ignore the terms of our agreements with them, our agreements will become effectively meaningless and toothless,” stated Senator Peters. “I urge my colleagues to join me in holding Azerbaijan accountable for their actions, enforce our agreements with them, and stand with the Armenian people in the face of unprovoked aggression.” Sen. Peters travelled to Armenia’s southern Syunik region in September to assess the devastating impact of Azerbaijan’s 10 month blockade of Artsakh. “This visit confirmed that we must do more to protect Armenian lives and prevent ethnic cleansing. Increased aid to the Armenian people is critical, and we must stop providing aid to Azerbaijan and impose targeted sanctions on the Aliyev regime,” stated Sen. Peters. Sen. Peters introduced S.Res.3000 upon his return which received bipartisan support from Senators Robert Casey (D-PA), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), John Kennedy (R-LA), Pete Ricketts (R-NE), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) in the run up to its unanimous passage. The ANCA is encouraging immediate passage of two measures in the U.S. House – H.R.5683 & H.R.5686 – which would block U.S. military aid to Azerbaijan by calling for the complete repeal of Presidential waiver authority of Section 907. The measures also urge expanded humanitarian and military assistance to Armenia to address Azerbaijan’s ongoing aggression against Armenia and provide assistance to Artsakh’s forcibly displaced Armenian population. © Armenian National Committee of America, 2015