Catholics at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Managua, Nicaragua, on March 17.Inti Ocon / AP file July 10 (Reuters) - Nicaraguan police detained another Catholic priest critical of the government, two sources close to the Church told Reuters on Monday, making him the latest cleric to be targeted in a deepening crackdown on clergy in the country. Fernando Zamara, a priest who also serves in an administrative role in the northern diocese of Siuna, was arrested on Sunday in the capital Managua after assisting at a mass presided by the country's senior Catholic leader, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, according to the sources. It was not immediately clear what charges Zamora faces. Neither the government nor the police responded to a request for comment. Nicaragua's Catholic Church has been in the crosshairs of a five-year-long campaign by the government that has targeted priests and nuns for both arrest or expulsion, as well as a sweeping money laundering investigation announced by officials in late May that froze all church bank accounts. The crackdown has intensified this year, with priests reporting government surveillance of services and assaults. President Daniel Ortega has accused Catholic leaders of criminal activity, including seeking to overthrow his government. Zamora's jailing adds to four other priests already behind bars in the Central American nation, including Bishop Rolando Alvarez, who in February was convicted and sentenced without a trial to a 26-year prison term on treason charges. Last week, Alvarez was briefly released from prison as church representatives unsuccessfully sought to negotiate the terms of his freedom with Ortega's government. Media outlet Confidencial also reported on Monday that another Catholic priest, Nicaraguan national Juan Carlos Sanchez, was denied entry into the country after traveling to Bolivia and the United States. Just this year, at least seven priests have been expelled, six priests have fled the country, while three others have been denied re-entry. Reporting by Ismael Lopez; Writing by David Alire Garcia; Editing by Alistair Bell © 2023 Reuters. All rights reserved

Dozens of Syrians wait at the President's Bridge in Damascus, Syria, for relatives they hope would be among those released from prison on May 3, 2022, on the second day of the Muslim Fitr holiday. The UN General Assembly approved Thursday June 29, 2023, to form an independent international institution to search for the missing in Syria in both government and opposition-held areas. (AP Photo / Omar Sanadiki) BY KAREEM CHEHAYEB AND GHAITH AL-SAYED IDLIB, Syria (AP) — In her small apartment in opposition-held Idlib in northwest Syria, Umm Mohammed is depressed and lethargic. But when her phone rings or someone knocks on the door she becomes suddenly alert. Maybe, finally, her husband has come back. In 2013, Syrian soldiers broke into the couple’s home in Damascus as they were having breakfast, she said. She and her husband had previously taken part in anti-government protests. “They beat him up in front of my young daughter” and then took him away, said Umm Mohammed, or “mother of Mohammed,” the name of her oldest son. She did not want to give her own full name for fear the authorities would harm her husband if he is still alive. The only news she has received about him since that day came in 2015, when someone claimed to have seen him in the Syrian military intelligence’s 248 Branch prison — which former detainees and human rights groups have called a torture center. “When someone is martyred, they’re buried and you know they’re dead,” she said, sitting on floor cushions. “In this case, you don’t know and you’ll always be wondering.” Her husband is among more than 130,000 people believed to have gone missing in Syria since the 2011 uprising against President Bashar Assad that quickly turned into a civil war. Their families, trapped in painful uncertainty for years, might now have reason for hope. The U.N. General Assembly voted Thursday to form an independent international institution to search for the missing in Syria in both government and opposition-held areas. The resolution was adopted by the 193-member world body on a vote of 83-11 with 62 abstentions. The countries voting for the resolution included the United States and other Western nations. Syria and key allies Russia, Iran, and China opposed the move. Arab countries that in recent months rekindled ties with Damascus abstained, except for Assad skeptics Qatar and Kuwait, which endorsed the move. Some of the missing are believed to be languishing in government prisons. Others were taken by non-state armed groups. Others are buried in mass graves, which have been found on both sides of the front line. The newly created institution would collect information from families, Syrian civil society organizations, whistle blowers, U.N. agencies and through inquiries to the Syrian government and authorities in opposition-held areas. The resolution gives three months for U.N. officials to set up the institution’s structure and start recruiting staff. There have been long-standing demands to investigate the fate of the missing, from the families and from human rights activists. Hanny Megally, a member of a commission set up by the U.N. in 2011 to investigate human rights violations in Syria, said he hopes a single team focusing on the missing could encourage more whistle blowers to come forward, and could collect scattered data from rights groups. In recent years, whistle blowers and defectors have come forth with some information, including the so-called Caesar photos, a trove of 53,000 images taken in Syrian prisons and military hospitals. The photos showed the bodies of detainees with signs of torture. A video shot in the Damascus suburb of Tadamon in 2013 revealed the fate of dozens of Syrians who went missing. The video showed Syrian security agents leading blindfolded men into a pit, shooting them and setting the bodies on fire. The Caesar photos allowed some families to identify missing loved ones. The leak also enabled European courts to try and convict former Syrian military officers who were seeking asylum in European countries for their involvement in forced disappearances and torture. Setting up an international body would be a significant move in a region scarred by war, where tens of thousands of families in neighboring countries are waiting for information about their loved ones. In Lebanon, family members of some 17,000 people kidnapped by sectarian militias during its 1975-1990 civil war are dying of old age, never knowing the fate of their loved ones. In Yemen, despite recent prisoner swaps between Saudi Arabia and Iran-backed Houthi rebels, human rights groups say hundreds are still missing. In Iraq, over 43,000 people remain missing since a U.S.-led invasion in 2003 toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, followed by a ferocious civil war and the rise of the Islamic State extremist group. The UN set up an investigation in 2017 into human rights abuses by the militant group, including enforced disappearances, which led to the discovery of over a dozen mass graves. Setting up an investigative body for Syria’s missing “might set a precedent for addressing the suffering of different people in different parts of the world,” said Wafa Mustafa, whose father Ali disappeared in July 2013 in Damascus. Mustafa had joined her father, an outspoken Assad critic, in protests. Mustafa, who welcomed the vote, is one of many Syrian civil society activists who have spent years campaigning for international action on the missing. Investigating their fate should also pave the way for addressing other human rights issues in Syria, including the dire conditions for political prisoners. “A lot should be happening, a lot should be done in parallel to this institution,” Mustafa said. In the Kurdish-held city of Qamishli in northeast Syria, Hamed Hemo believes that an investigation could uncover the fate of his missing son. Hemo has turned his living room into a shrine for his son, Ferhad, a journalist who went missing after IS militants kidnapped him and a colleague, Masoud Aqil, in 2014. Aqil, released in a prisoner swap, relocated to Germany. Ferhad never came home. “To this day our lives have completely changed,” Hemo said, taking a drag from his cigarette. “His mother once weighed 70 kilos (154 pounds), and she’s dropped to 40 (88 pounds).” Islamic State’s so-called “caliphate” once stretched across large areas of Syria and Iraq, but the extremists lost their last hold on the land in 2019. Thousands of captured IS fighters are held in prisons run by Kurdish-led forces who Hemo believes could provide information about the missing. Umm Mohammad is less hopeful of getting information about her husband from Syrian authorities. Assad has denied holding political prisoners, labeling the opposition as terrorists. Direct cooperation with Syria by investigators could also be difficult as it does not extradite its citizens. “What’s he going say?” she wondered. “All those people I detained were killed under my custody?’” — Chehayeb reported from Beirut. Associated Press writer Fay Abuelgasim contributed to this report from Beirut, and Hogir Al Abdo from Qamishli, Syria. Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

U.S. maternal mortality more than doubled since 1999, and most deaths were among black women. There were an estimated 1,210 maternal deaths in 2019, compared with 505 in 1999, according to the study. Getty Creative By Reuters The number of U.S. women who died within a year after pregnancy more than doubled between 1999 and 2019, with the highest deaths among Black women, researchers said on Monday. There were an estimated 1,210 maternal deaths in 2019, compared with 505 in 1999, according to a study published in the medical journal JAMA. The greatest increases over time were seen among American Indian and Alaska Native women, the researchers said. The number of deaths per 100,000 live births rose from 12.7 to 32.2 overall, from 14.0 to 49.2 among American Indians and Alaska Natives, 26.7 to 55.4 among Blacks, 9.6 to 20.9 among Asians, Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders, 9.6 to 19.1 among Hispanics and 9.4 to 26.3 among whites, they estimated. Unlike previous U.S. studies of maternal mortality, which focused on national trends, the current study analyzed data state-by-state. To the researchers’ surprise, Black women had the highest maternal mortality rates in some Northeast states. “Often, states in the South are called out as having the worst maternal mortality rates in the nation, whereas California and Massachusetts have the best. But that doesn’t tell the whole story,” study leader Dr. Allison Bryant of Mass General Brigham in Boston said in a statement. “It’s essential to look at the disparities between populations that exist even in the ‘best’ states. Southern states had high maternal mortality across all race and ethnicity groups, but especially for Black individuals, while Midwest and Great Plains states had the highest rates for American Indian and Alaskan Native women. The most common causes of death within one year after the end of pregnancy include mental health conditions, excessive bleeding, cardiac and coronary conditions, infections, blood clots and pregnancy-related high blood pressure, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Our findings provide important insights on maternal mortality rates leading up to the pandemic, and it’s likely that we’ll see a continued increase in the risk of maternal mortality across all populations if we analyze data from subsequent years,” Bryant said. “Black individuals would likely still have the highest rate, but there may be a higher uptick in some of the other groups in the last few years.” © 2023 NBC UNIVERSAL

A Senegalese opposition politician was on Tuesday charged with committing an offence against the president, his lawyer said, in a case over recent comments he made about President Macky Sall. Senegal's President Macky Sall, pictured here at an African Union summit in February 2023, has said he will not run for a third term in next year's presidential election. © Tiksa Negeri, Reuters file photo The charges against Birame Souleye Diop, a senior member of the Pastef political party and the Yewwi Askan Wi opposition coalition, are tied to a blistering statement he made last week regarding the president's political intentions. Sall on July 3 announced he would not run for a controversial third term in next year's election, ending months of tense uncertainty. At a press conference the following day, Diop suggested that the president could make a U-turn on his announcement. He issued a "warning" to future candidates of Sall's party. "Avoid eating at his house, avoid drinking his water – he is capable of poisoning you and saying, 'As we no longer have a candidate, I'm coming back'", Diop said. Diop, who later apologised for the comments, was charged Tuesday with committing "acts likely to jeopardise public peace" and an "offence against the President of the Republic", his lawyer, Moussa Sarr, told AFP. He was remanded in custody, Sarr said. His Pastef party is led by Ousmane Sonko, Sall's fiercest opponent, who was handed a two-year prison sentence in June for moral corruption of a young woman. The verdict, which rendered Sonko ineligible for the February 2024 presidential election, sparked the most serious unrest in Senegal for years, leaving at least 16 dead. (AFP) © 2023 France24

Under a previous arrangement, the U.N. and other aid agencies had Security Council approval to deliver humanitarian aid to Syria’s northern areas. That agreement, in place since 2014, fell apart two days ago. Bags of food aid at a warehouse near the Syrian Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey this month.Credit...Omar Haj Kadour/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images By Farnaz Fassihi Syria announced on Thursday that it would give state approval for the United Nations to deliver humanitarian aid into rebel-held northern areas through a contentious border crossing with Turkey, effectively giving President Bashar al-Assad’s government control over all aid deliveries to the northern areas of the country. Until two days ago, the U.N. and other international aid agencies had access to the Bab al-Hawa border crossing based on a 2014 mandate from the Security Council. Syria’s government abided by the resolution and was not involved in the aid deliveries, but attempts by the Council this week to extend the authorization failed. In a letter submitted to the United Nations and the Security Council, Syria said it would allow the United Nations access to the crossing for six months “in full cooperation and coordination” with the Syrian government. It is unclear whether U.N. convoys will now require permits from the Syrian government to cross Bab al-Hawa, if they will face inspections, and if they will be able to continue working with local partners. Aid agencies have said their convoys traveling inside the country between government-held territory and rebel-held areas face hurdles and slowed movement. The United Nations said on Thursday it was studying Syria’s letter and the potential effects on its aid delivery operations. “The coordination and cooperation with the U.N. has always been there and will be there,” Bassam al-Sabbagh, Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters. He did not elaborate on requirements by his government, but said the U.N. should not work with “terrorists” in the north, an apparent reference to opposition groups that control the area. Syria’s surprise move came two days after Russia, its ally, vetoed a Security Council resolution backed by the United States and its European allies to extend the authorization for the U.N. to use the crossing for nine months. A rival resolution by Russia for a six-month extension did not meet the quorum required to pass, and aid operations at the crossing came to a halt. “Now President Assad has said he will open Bab Al-Hawa for six months. But without U.N. monitoring, control of this critical lifeline has been handed to the man responsible for the Syrian people’s suffering,” Barbara Woodward, the United Kingdom’s ambassador to the United Nations, who holds the monthly rotating presidency of the Council this month, said in a statement. With the help of distributors and local partners, the U.N.’s humanitarian agency moves 85 percent of its aid to northern Syria through the Bab al-Hawa crossing, for deliveries of food, medicine and other lifesaving assistance. After the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria in February, the Syrian government opened two other border crossings from Turkey for a period that ends in mid-August. But Bab al-Hawa remained the main lifeline, and more than 3,000 trucks of goods have passed through it since the earthquake, the U.N. said, compared to about 622 that crossed from the other two crossings. Andrew Tabler, the National Security Council’s former Syria director, called Syria’s decision a “checkmate from Moscow” for the United States and its allies, and another blow to the West’s Syria policy. Arab countries that are allies of the U.S., such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, have recently restored ties with Mr. al-Assad after a decade of shunning him, and allowed Syria to re-enter the Arab League, to the dismay of Washington. “The announcement essentially gives Assad and Putin a stranglehold on Syrian civilians who have suffered from 12 years of war and displacement,” said Mr. Tabler, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Russia’s mission to the United States did not comment on the new development, but its ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, told the Council on Tuesday that aid delivered through the U.N. would go to “terrorists” and that the previous cross-border mechanism was a “show” that undermined Syria’s sovereignty. © 2023 The New York Times Company

Muhoozi Kainerugaba (right), son of Uganda's president, Yoweri Museveni, in Entebbe, Uganda, last year. Photograph: Hajarah Nalwadda/AP By Caroline Kimeu July 12, 2023 The Uganda president, Yoweri Museveni, and his son Muhoozi Kainerugaba have been accused of sponsoring violence and abusing critics in harrowing testimony filed before the international criminal court. The submissions contain detailed allegations of the torture of opposition figures and activists who report being arrested arbitrarily and being held incommunicado in “torture centres”, where they were reportedly interrogated about their links with the opposition figure Bobi Wine and subjected to physical harm and indignifying treatment. The documents, containing testimonies of 215 people, were disclosed to the Guardian in a private briefing with the claimants’ lawyer Bruce Afran on Wednesday after a court filing in May, and support of a complaint made two years ago by Wine in connection with the country’s troubled 2021 elections. Nine top Ugandan officials were named. Museveni, 78, who has ruled Uganda since 1986, has been implicated due to his role as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, while Kainerugaba, 49, has been accused of controlling the alleged torture centres. “I was beaten badly on the face and every part of my body. They said to me: ‘Who are you to be against the president?,’” read one testimony given to lawyers by a Wine supporter, who reported having their toenails pierced with needles, being subjected to noise torture, having their teeth forcibly removed and being given electric shocks. Most of the figures involved in the case have asked to remain anonymous because they are still in Uganda and fear for their safety. But a handful have gone public with their claims, including the Ugandan satirist Kakwenza Rukirabashaija and Amos Katumba, an associate of Wine’s who runs an organisation called Caring Hearts Uganda. “It’s really hard when you try to raise your voice in Uganda to talk about what’s going on every day in our dear country,” said Katumba, who said even speaking about issues like healthcare and the high cost of living can put one in danger. “I wasn’t even in politics, which makes me worried because it means that no single Ugandan is safe,” he said. Kainerugaba’s spokesperson, Andrew Mwenda, denied the general’s involvement in a text message to the New York Times, saying: “Were they tortured? YES! Who directed it? We need to find out. It makes sense for them to accuse a son of the president since it increases the profile of their case.” Museveni’s deputy press secretary, Faruk Kirunda, also dismissed the claims against him, telling the NYT that the president’s political rivals were “peddling wrong information” at the international court to tarnish his image. Afran said: “What we’ve seen is the complete loss of civil liberties and respect for human rights in Uganda in recent years under the Museveni regime. We are seeing literally hundreds of almost identical reports of abductions from the street, and various forms of gross and abusive torture.” These include having chemicals being forced into people’s eyes, people being whipped with wires, and in some cases having testicles removed. “What we’re seeing is throughout the Ugandan governmental system, these forms of torture are being routinely used as to anyone active in any way in the political opposition, even low-level figures,” he said. Wine, a singer turned politician, was Museveni’s main challenger in the 2021 elections. Museveni claimed victory in the contested polls. Wine repeatedly claimed there was a systematic crackdown by the government against his campaign, which he says included “assassination attempts” against him. Wine is seen by some Ugandans as a symbol of resistance against Museveni’s decades-long rule, and has repeatedly called on other countries to make their economic dealings with Uganda conditional on its observance of certain human rights standards. In the testimony submitted before the court, Katumba, who is living in the US where he was granted asylum, alleged he was confronted in his home in 2018 by men in plain clothes carrying guns who asked about his NGO’s activities. He said the men said he had been seen in a Facebook video with Wine, who had spoken favourably about his organisation. Katumba said the men said they suspected the organisation was being used to “win the love of the Ugandan people” and to “funnel money from foreign countries in order to financially provide for Bobi Wine’s political future”. Katumba reported the men kicked him in his genitals and kept him locked standing in a wooden holding box that had protruding nails, where he could not move without “tearing … flesh”. He reported being left to stand there for 10 hours and then being placed neck-high in a tank of freezing cold water. He said that before he was released he was told by one of the men that he would have to become “a key witness against Bobi Wine … giving proof that the nonprofit was being used to destabilise President Museveni’s power and that Mr Wine was guilty of treason”. “It’s important that the court takes this case because there’s a burgeoning use of such practices among central African countries, and without question in Uganda, where torture has become routine as a means of government,” said Afran. The ICC has lost some sway in Africa within the last decade, as many countries on the continent threatened to leave it over its apparent disproportionate focus on prosecuting crimes occurring within Africa over those happening elsewhere in the world. Uganda was among the countries threatening to leave the court. Museveni has previously expressed disdain for it, calling its officers “a bunch of useless people”. However, Uganda remains a party to the Rome statute, meaning the court can prosecute cases involving crimes against humanity that occur in the country. The ICC is yet to decide if it will take on the case. Only a fraction of the cases submitted to it move forward. © 2023 The Guardian. All Rights Reserved.

Reuters July 10, 2023 A U.N. peacekeeper holds his weapon while on patrol in Paoua, Central African Republic, Dec. 5, 2021. An unidentified armed group attacked one of the peacekeeping patrols on Monday, killing a peacekeeper from Rwanda, the U.N. said. A United Nations peacekeeper from Rwanda was killed on Monday in an attack on their patrol in northeast Central African Republic (CAR), the U.N. said. The attack took place 3 km (1.86 miles) from the town of Sam-Ouandja. Three of the assailants were killed and one captured during the attack, it said in a statement. U.N. peacekeepers were deployed to CAR in 2014 to help curb violence that broke out a year earlier when mainly Muslim Seleka rebels ousted then president Francois Bozize, prompting reprisals from mostly Christian militias. No militia was directly blamed for the latest attack, which the peacekeeping mission MINUSCA said was carried out by armed elements. "Despicable attack on a (U.N.) patrol aimed at protecting civilians & humanitarians in #CAR led to the death of a peacekeeper," the U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix said on Twitter. Violence waned in CAR after a shaky peace accord was signed in February 2019 between the government and 14 armed groups, but the situation remains volatile as swathes of territory are still outside government control in one of the world's poorest countries. Reporting by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Sandra Maler © 2023 Reuters. All rights reserved.

Reuters Reporting by Reuters staff; Additional reporting by Kanupriya Kapoor, Fanny Potkin; Writing by Kanupriya Kapoor; Editing by Devika Syamnath July 4, 20238:26 AM EDT Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen attends a celebrations marking the 66th anniversary of the country's independence from France, in central Phnom Penh, Cambodia, November 9, 2019. REUTERS/Samrang Pring/ July 4 (Reuters) - Cambodia said on Tuesday Meta Platforms Inc's (META.O) 22-member oversight board was unwelcome in the country, days after the panel recommended suspending Prime Minister Hun Sen's Facebook account over content violations. The board's recommendation was "political in nature", Cambodia's foreign affairs ministry said. Hun Sen's Facebook account went offline last week after the Oversight Board, which is funded by Meta but operates independently, said the platform had been wrong not to remove a video he published in January that breached rules against violent threats. Meta did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. "It intends to obstruct the freedom of the press for the citizens of Cambodia," the ministry said of the board's recommendation in a statement shared with the media. Hun Sen, one of the world's longest-serving leaders with nearly four decades in power, last week declared ahead of his account suspension that he would switch to communicating with his people via Telegram. The suspension comes ahead of a July 23 general election that critics have said will be a sham because of the government's moves to stamp out all opposition. The offending video was one where Hun Sen said those who accused his Cambodian People's Party (CPP) of buying votes in a 2022 local election should file a legal case, or face a beating from CPP's supporters. One Oversight Board member, veteran Indonesian journalist Endy Bayuni, said he was not aware if any colleagues were in Cambodia or had to leave. © 2023 Reuters. All rights reserved.

Human Rights Watch July 3, 2023 9:00AM EDT Analysis of 2022 Commune Voting Suggests Tampering, Improper Counting A police officer drops his ballot at a polling station in Takhmau in Kandal province, southeast of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, June 5, 2022. © 2022 Heng Sinith/AP Photo (Bangkok) – Cambodia commune election results in 2022 showed numerous and significant irregularities that raise concerns for the July 23, 2023 national elections, Human Rights Watch said today. A systematic analysis of ballot forms in Phnom Penh suggests that election fraud and vote tampering may have occurred, and that ballots across the capital were not properly counted and reported. The National Election Committee (NEC) should promptly adopt measures that would ensure the fair tabulation of votes in the upcoming national election. The committee did not respond to questions that Human Rights Watch submitted on June 5, 2023, regarding alleged irregularities. “Serious allegations of vote tampering, fraud, and improper counting of votes during the 2022 commune elections call into question the credibility of Cambodia’s National Election Committee,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “While it’s already clear that the national election in July will be a mockery of the democratic process, a toothless and incompetent National Election Committee only makes matters worse.” The Human Rights Watch analysis relies on official polling station result forms published online by the National Election Committee several days after the June 5, 2022, vote. In that election, there were 23,602 polling stations across the country, including 2,197 in Phnom Penh. The NEC required officials at each site to submit a results form, called an “1102 form,” after counting the ballots on election day. Those forms served as the basis for official vote counts. Human Rights Watch reviewed the Phnom Penh forms because the voting results were markedly different from in previous elections. For example, based on the official NEC document from the 2017 elections, ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) won in 690 of 2,080 polling places, or 33 percent; but in the 2022 election, the CPP won 99.9 percent, or all but 1, of the 2,155 polling places in Phnom Penh for which Human Rights Watch examined the 1102 forms. Moreover, during the 2022 election, the main opposition Candlelight Party (CLP) reported widespread intimidation of its polling place observers in Phnom Penh, which severely hampered its ability to observe the vote casting and counting. During the ballot counting in 2022, local independent monitors and volunteers told Human Rights Watch that in at least five polling places in Phnom Penh, officials shuttered windows and counted the votes behind closed doors. But limiting observation of the vote counting was not widely seen or reported during the previous 2017 commune election, The Human Rights Watch review found the following irregularities: The number of votes did not correctly add up on the 1102 form in 19 percent of total stations. Corrections, correction fluid, or crossed-out sections were found in key sections on 1102 forms in 15 percent of the polling stations. The 1102 form was missing the breakdown of valid votes, spoiled/invalid votes, or total votes listed underneath the vote counts in 3.5 percent of the polling stations. The name of the contesting party and/or associated vote count was not recorded on the form in 3 percent of the polling stations. Only CPP-aligned observers were present in 44 percent of total polling stations. The irregularities in the 1102 forms are especially important because the commune elections are often seen as a testing ground for the national elections. While it is not possible to determine from the 1102 forms alone whether vote totals were purposefully manipulated, the fact that even basic numbers do not add up and no one corrected them before they were submitted to, and officially recognized by, the NEC raises concerns that such manipulation could occur in future elections. The unaddressed irregularities are especially troubling given the reported 99 percent vote for the ruling party in Phnom Penh in the 2022 elections compared with much lower CPP vote totals in Phnom Penh in previous elections, and the absence of any non-ruling party-aligned observers in nearly half of the polling places in 2022. These defects provide additional reasons for concern regarding the conduct of the July 23 election. The NEC’s decision on May 25 to block the Candlelight Party, the sole major opposition political party, from registering its candidates, means that the elections will not reflect the will of the voters, as required by international human rights law. In addition, at least seven physical attacks in broad daylight on opposition party members were reported between March 18 to April 8, which the authorities have not seriously investigated, Human Rights Watch said. Tampered or improperly counted 1102 forms can also change vote totals to show a high voter turnout, which long-time Prime Minister Hun Sen has touted as an important indicator of legitimacy. In 2018, the CPP threatened legal action against opposition party members who called for voters to boycott the national election. On June 13, Hun Sen proposed amending election laws to require prospective candidates to have voted in the two previous elections. The CPP-only National Assembly quickly and unanimously passed amendments to the election law on June 23, 2023. Passage of the measure appears to have been in response to recent Candlelight Paty calls to its supporters not to vote. The NEC also stated that it would take legal action against any calls for an election boycott. On June 26, a coalition of civil society organizations, associations, and trade unions released a joint statement expressing their concern about the election law amendments. It stated that the “amendment was made in a hasty manner,” and “did not go through consultation with stakeholders … which is a departure from the democratic path that requires their input.” The groups asked for Cambodia’s Senate and Legislative Council to “delay the proposed amendments … to allow enough time for the thorough study and deliberation on the impacts on free democracy, electorate’s freedom of expression as well as the right to vote and to stand as a candidate.” Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Cambodia is a state party, states that “Every citizen shall have the right and the opportunity … To take part in the conduct of public affairs, directly or through freely chosen representatives; To vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret ballot, guaranteeing the free expression of the will of the electors; To have access, on general terms of equality, to public service in his country.” On June 16, United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, said he was deeply concerned by the curtailing of civic space ahead of the election, and urged the Cambodian government to swiftly enable and protect a conducive environment for a free and fair general election. “Cambodia’s National Election Committee should publicly explain the serious irregularities from the 2022 election and the steps it’s taking to prevent such problems in the July national election,” Robertson said. “Donors should recognize that this and other affronts to the democratic political process in Cambodia are not anomalies, but fully reflect a government that cannot be considered a democracy.” For detailed findings, please see below. The Human Rights Watch review of the “1102 forms” from 2,155 polling stations in Phnom Penh, found the following irregularities: Votes Don’t Add Up – 19 percent of polling stations The number of votes listed on the 1102 form does not correctly add up in the case of 19 percent of the polling places examined. This occurred even though instructions are printed on each form to ensure these numbers add up, such as “Number of ballots in box = Number of ballots cast = Total ballots – (Unusable ballots + remaining ballots).” In many cases, the numbers that did not add up appear to be attributable to incorrectly listing “Total ballots” as “Ballots cast,” or “Spoiled/invalid ballots” as “Unusable ballots.” In other cases, the error was unclear. But in all cases, numbers that did not add up meant that the site’s ballots were not properly accounted for. Yet despite this fundamental problem, polling place staff still certified the forms and submitted them to the election committee. Unexplained Corrections on Forms – 15 percent of polling stations Correction fluid or crossed-out content is visible on 15 percent of 1102 forms. While tolerance for a certain number of mistakes is reasonable, the 15 percent error rate is notable. In many cases, officials made the corrections in multiple places on the form. Many of the corrections were made in critically important areas such as the party/vote count sections or the total ballot sections. Officials conducted the voting in polling stations, but the actual tallying of votes was often written on separate papers, with the final results then being copied onto the 1102 forms. For this reason, uncovering that there were significant corrections on the 1102 forms in the vote count area raises serious concerns. Other Numbers Missing on Forms – 3.5 percent of polling stations In 1102 forms from 3.5 percent of polling places, numbers other than vote counts were missing. The missing numbers were most often the breakdown of valid votes, spoiled/invalid votes, and total votes underneath the vote counts. In some cases, this meant that there appeared to be no spoiled votes, which is unlikely when hundreds of ballots are cast per polling station. Party Name or Vote Count Not Recorded on Form – 3 percent of polling stations In approximately 3 percent of the polling stations, the form published by the election committee is missing the names of contesting parties, the number of votes they received, or both. In many cases, observers signed the forms despite the clear irregularities. The NEC apparently either did not notice these irregularities or chose not to investigate why observer(s) signed a form that did not contain all necessary information, including the crucial information about the name of each contesting party and the number of votes each received. It is unclear how the NEC tabulated these results. Only Ruling-Party Observers in Polling Places – 44 percent of polling stations The forms also show that approximately 44 percent of the polling places only had party observers from the ruling party and/or non-party observers from ruling party-led groups, based on observers’ signatures at the stations, which are included at the bottom of the forms. Across the country, 88 percent of non-party observers came from government-aligned groups such as the Union of Youth Federations of Cambodia, led by Prime Minister Hun Sen’s son Hun Many, or Cambodian Women for Peace and Development, led by Deputy Prime Minister Men Sam An. Observers documented a campaign of intimidation and harassment across the country against people registered as Candlelight Party election observers. Non-ruling party observers are crucial to ensuring that votes are appropriately counted, and results are not tampered with in polling places. The following re: examples of 1102 forms with irregularities: © 2023 Human Rights Watch

In earlier decisions, the court had endorsed taking account of race as one factor among many to promote educational diversity. By Adam Liptak Demonstrators in favor of affirmative action in Washington on Thursday.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected affirmative action at colleges and universities around the nation, declaring that the race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina were unlawful and sharply curtailing a policy that had long been a pillar of higher education. The vote was 6 to 3, with the court’s liberal members in dissent. “The Harvard and U.N.C. admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the equal protection clause,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority. “Both programs lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping and lack meaningful end points.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor summarized her dissent from the bench, a rare move that signals profound disagreement, and said that affirmative action was crucial to countering persistent and systematic racial discrimination. “The court subverts the constitutional guarantee of equal protection by further entrenching racial inequality in education, the very foundation of our democratic government and pluralistic society,” she said in her written dissent. The decision all but ensured that the student population at the campuses of elite institutions would become whiter and more Asian and less Black and Latino. It was also expected to set off a scramble as schools revisit their admissions practices, and it could complicate diversity efforts elsewhere, narrowing the pipeline of highly credentialed minority candidates and making it harder for employers to consider race in hiring. The ruling demonstrated that the court’s conservative supermajority has been moving at a brisk pace to take on some of the thorniest and most divisive issues in American society including abortion, guns and now race — all in the span of a year. It also reflected President Donald J. Trump’s outsize imprint on the court after his appointment of three justices, renewing questions about whether the court’s approach, which on Thursday upended more than 40 years of precedent, threatens the stability of the law and the court’s legitimacy. Public opinion polls offer a complicated picture of where people stand on affirmative action, and the numbers vary with how questions are phrased. But on balance, race-conscious admissions programs are unpopular, suggesting that Thursday’s ruling will not give rise to a backlash like the one that followed last year’s decision eliminating a constitutional right to an abortion. Democrats, including President Biden, assailed the ruling as a step backward. In a televised address hours after it was handed down, Mr. Biden urged the country to make sure the decision was not “the last word” on affirmative action. “Discrimination still exists in America,” he said, repeating his words for emphasis. “Today’s decision does not change that.” Mr. Biden paused as a reporter asked if the court was “rogue.” “This is not a normal court,” he responded. Conservative leaders and advocacy groups celebrated the outcome, with some saying it would make the admissions process more fair. Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, one of the nation’s largest conservative groups, said that the decision, paired with the court’s abortion ruling last year, “serve as a triumphant return to restoring our tattered Constitution.” In dissent, Justice Sotomayor wrote that the majority had abandoned principled adjudication. “At bottom,” she wrote, “the six unelected members of today’s majority upend the status quo based on their policy preferences about what race in America should be like, but is not, and their preferences for a veneer of colorblindness in a society where race has always mattered and continues to matter in fact and in law.” The chief justice wrote that admissions officers could sometimes still take account of race, including in the college essay. “Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration or otherwise,” he wrote. The point, Chief Justice Roberts said, was that applicants must be assessed individually. “In other words,” he wrote, “the student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual — not on the basis of race.” Justice Sotomayor said that was thin gruel. “This supposed recognition that universities can, in some situations, consider race in application essays is nothing but an attempt to put lipstick on a pig,” she wrote. But she acknowledged that the majority had left colleges and universities with some tools to admit students of different backgrounds, notably by focusing on socioeconomic factors. The chief justice wrote that educational diversity, the idea that students of different backgrounds learn from one another, is a commendable goal. But he added that such a goal resists the demanding judicial scrutiny that is required when race is a factor because it cannot be measured. In dissent, Justice Sotomayor wrote that the majority had effectively jettisoned the rationale that had justified affirmative action for decades. “Without any new factual or legal justification,” she wrote, “the court overrides its longstanding holding that diversity in higher education is of compelling value. To avoid public accountability for its choice, the court seeks cover behind a unique measurability requirement of its own creation.” Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett joined the chief justice’s majority opinion. Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined Justice Sotomayor’s dissent. In all, six justices issued opinions, collectively spanning more than 200 pages notable for sometimes harsh language and starkly differing accounts of the nation’s history and the role race plays in contemporary society. The two sides, for instance, offered competing understandings of the meaning of Brown v. Board of Education, the towering 1954 decision that barred racial segregation in public schools. The lesson of Brown, Chief Justice Roberts wrote, was that “the time for making distinctions based on race had passed.” Justice Sotomayor said the decision stood for a different principle and accused the majority of engaging in revisionist history. “Brown was,” she wrote, “a race-conscious decision that emphasized the importance of education in our society.” She added: “At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, and as Brown recognized, the 14th Amendment was intended to undo the effects of a world where laws systematically subordinated Black people and created a racial caste system. Brown and its progeny recognized the need to take affirmative, race-conscious steps to eliminate that system.” Justices Thomas and Jackson, the court’s Black members, traded particularly sharp barbs. “As she sees things,” Justice Thomas wrote of Justice Jackson, “we are all inexorably trapped in a fundamentally racist society, with the original sin of slavery and the historical subjugation of Black Americans still determining our lives today.” Justice Jackson responded that her colleague’s “prolonged attack responds to a dissent I did not write in order to assail an admissions program that is not the one U.N.C. has crafted,” adding that “Justice Thomas’s opinion also demonstrates an obsession with race consciousness that far outstrips my or U.N.C.’s holistic understanding that race can be a factor that affects applicants’ unique life experiences.” She said she would not engage on every one of his points, as “Justice Thomas ignites too many more straw men to list, or fully extinguish, here.” (Justice Jackson recused herself from the Harvard case, having served on one of the university’s governing boards.) Chief Justice Roberts, in a footnote, limited the sweep of the decision in one respect, saying that the court was not deciding whether military academies may take account of race in their admissions decisions as they have “potentially distinct interests.” The sharp divisions were also evident in the courtroom, where three justices spoke from the bench. Between Chief Justice Roberts’s announcement of his majority opinion and Justice Sotomayor’s oral dissent, Justice Thomas summarized his concurring opinion in his booming baritone. He said he was compelled to address “race-based discrimination against Asian American students,” adding that “such discrimination is plainly and boldly unconstitutional.” Then Justice Sotomayor, seated directly to Justice Thomas’s right, offered her dissent, speaking for almost 20 minutes. “In a society where opportunity is dispensed along racial lines, equality cannot be attained through race blindness,” she said. The two cases decided Thursday were not identical. As a public university, U.N.C. is bound by both the Constitution’s equal protection clause and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars race discrimination by institutions that receive federal money. Harvard, a private institution, is subject only to the statute. In the North Carolina case, the plaintiffs said that the university discriminated against white and Asian applicants by giving preference to Black, Hispanic and Native American ones. The university responded that its admissions policies fostered educational diversity and were lawful under longstanding Supreme Court precedents. The case against Harvard has an additional element, accusing the university of discriminating against Asian American students by using a subjective standard to gauge traits like likability, courage and kindness, and by effectively creating a ceiling for them in admissions. Lawyers for Harvard said the challengers had relied on a flawed statistical analysis and denied that the university discriminated against Asian American applicants. More generally, they said race-conscious admissions policies were lawful. Both cases — Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, No. 20-1199, and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, No. 21-707 — were brought by Students for Fair Admissions, a group founded by Edward Blum, a legal activist who has organized many lawsuits challenging race-conscious admissions policies and voting rights laws, several of which have reached the Supreme Court. The universities both won in federal trial courts, and the decision in Harvard’s favor was affirmed by a federal appeals court. The key precedent was Grutter v. Bollinger, a 2003 decision in which the Supreme Court endorsed holistic admissions programs, saying it was permissible to consider race to achieve educational diversity. Writing for the majority in that case, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said she expected that “25 years from now,” or in 2028, the “use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary.” Chief Justice Roberts wrote on Thursday that “there is no reason to believe that respondents will — even acting in good faith — comply with the equal protection clause any time soon.” In his concurring opinion, Justice Thomas wrote that the majority opinion “rightly makes clear that Grutter is, for all intents and purposes, overruled.” For her part, Justice Sotomayor struck a defiant note. “The pursuit of racial diversity will go on,” she wrote. “Although the court has stripped out almost all uses of race in college admissions, universities can and should continue to use all available tools to meet society’s needs for diversity in education. Despite the court’s unjustified exercise of power, the opinion today will serve only to highlight the court’s own impotence in the face of an America whose cries for equality resound.” © 2023 The New York Times Company

Sweden has been widely condemned for allowing the burning of the Muslim holy book outside a mosque on Wednesday during Eid al-Adha, a major Islamic holiday. By Alissa J. Rubin and Isabella Kwai Protesters outside the Swedish Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, on Thursday, a day after two men in Stockholm burned a Quran outside a mosque.Credit...Ahmed Saad/Reuters The burning of a Quran outside a mosque in Sweden on one of the holiest days in Islam sparked outrage Thursday in many Muslim countries and widespread condemnations of the Swedish authorities. In Iraq, several hundred people protested outside the Swedish Embassy in Baghdad at the urging of Muqtada al-Sadr, a populist cleric who called on the Iraqi government to break off diplomatic relations with Sweden, which he called “hostile” to Islam. The crowd became increasingly angry, scaling the wall surrounding the compound and pushing through an external gate. There was no sign that Iraqi diplomatic police forces attempted to stop them. The protesters did not enter the embassy itself, which was closed for the Islamic holiday, and eventually left. Mr. Sadr called for larger protests after prayers on Friday. Iraq’s foreign ministry also condemned Sweden “for allowing an extremist to burn a copy of the holy Quran.” In the incident in Stockholm on Wednesday, two men, watched by a crowd of people, tore pages out of a Quran and burned them outside a mosque. In an application for the permit, one of the men, Salwan Momika, identified by Swedish media as an Iraqi immigrant living in Sweden, said he wanted to express his opinion about the Quran by tearing it up and burning it. The police had granted a permit for the demonstration after a Swedish court ruled that banning it would impinge on the right to freedom of speech. However, the permit says that demonstrators are not allowed to burn objects in Stockholm. The timing of the burning of Islam’s holy book, during the important Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, further angered and pained Muslims in many countries, who were celebrating the holiday, which honors the end of the hajj pilgrimage. Morocco summoned Sweden’s representative in Rabat to ask him to condemn the act and recalled its own ambassador in Sweden according to the Moroccan state news agency. Jordan also said it had expressed its displeasure to Sweden’s ambassador, according to the state news agency, calling it “a racist act of serious hate.” Egypt called the burning of the Quran “a disgraceful act” and Saudi Arabia said that such “hateful and repeated acts cannot be accepted with any justification.” Malaysia’s foreign minister said the desecration of a holy book while Muslims celebrated such an important holiday was “offensive to Muslims worldwide.” And President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey said in an address Thursday that the country would never bow to “the politics of provocation,” in a reference to the incident in Sweden, according to the Anadolu state news agency. Insulting things that were sacred to Muslims, he said, was “not freedom of thought.” His condemnation came as diplomatic ties are already strained between Turkey and Sweden, with the Turkish government holding up a Swedish bid to join NATO. Turkey wants Sweden to take a tougher line on pro-Kurdish activists and members of an outlawed religious group whom it considers terrorists living in Sweden. The burning of the Quran in Stockholm on Wednesday followed a similar incident in January in which a far-right Danish-Swedish figure burned a copy of the holy book outside the Turkish Embassy in the Swedish capital, which also exacerbated tensions with Turkey. Since then, the police in Stockholm said they had rejected two other requests to protest by burning Qurans and that Sweden’s security apparatus had expressed worries that such acts would raise security concerns and pose a threat to embassies abroad. A Swedish court in April overturned the police’s decision, saying that the police did not have sufficient evidence to ban the protests. Sweden has long grappled over whether to allow such demonstrations, with the implications they have for free speech and religious tolerance. The Stockholm police said they were investigating Mr. Momika for violating the burning ban and for incitement against a group of people. The Quran burning in Stockholm was particularly troubling to many Iraqis because it was widely reported that it was carried out by an Iraqi immigrant, Mr. Momika. Calls to Mr. Momika on Thursday were not answered. Mr. Sadr, the Iraqi cleric, called on the government in Iraq to strip Mr. Momika of his citizenship and for Sweden to repatriate him for prosecution. If Sweden failed to do, he said, he should be tried in absentia in Iraq. There are more than 140,000 Iraqi-born immigrants in Sweden, the second largest immigrant group in the country after Swedish Finns. © 2023 The New York Times Company

Iranians protests the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after she was detained by the morality police, in Tehran, October 1, 2022.© 2022 AP Photo/Middle East Images Iranian authorities are summoning, arresting, and sentencing activists who were released from detention and granted amnesty only months ago. In February 2023, Iranian authorities announced a broad amnesty, which included releases, pardons, or reduced sentences for those arrested, charged, or detained during Iran’s widespread protests. Iranian authorities brutally cracked down on the protest movement. Following the amnesty announcement, Iranian authorities released many of those who had been detained. Now, according to media reports, Iranian authorities are summoning, arresting, and sentencing several activists and protestors just recently released. It is unclear whether these people are being picked up on old or new charges. Human Rights Activists News Agency reported that activist Kamiyar Fakour was granted amnesty and released from detention in February. Yet, in March, Branch 26 of Tehran’s appeal court sentenced Fakour to three and a half years in prison. Alireza Ramezani was reportedly granted amnesty in February, but in May, the Qazvin revolutionary court sentenced him to one year of imprisonment and two years of exile to Barazjan for "propaganda against the state." Abbas Sharifi, Reza Mohammad Hosseini, Farhad Sheikhi, Hamideh Zarai, who were all granted amnesty and released in February, were arrested once again in April and May 2023. Armita Abbasi and Alireza Fazeli, both arrested during the protests and released following the February amnesty, have recently been summoned to the revolutionary court in Tehran. According to Committee Follow up Iran, in May, Branch 28 of Tehran's revolutionary court sentenced Ruhollah Nakhai, a journalist, who was released in January, to two years and 7 months in prison. Saeid Khalili, Nakhai’s lawyer, tweeted that he was sentenced even though he satisfied the conditions of the amnesty. © 2023 Human Rights Watch