February 5, 2023 Pope Francis arrives to celebrate mass at the John Garang Mausoleum in Juba, South Sudan, Sunday, Feb. 5, 2023. Francis is in South Sudan on the second leg of a six-day trip that started in Congo, hoping to bring comfort and encouragement to two countries that have been riven by poverty, conflicts and what he calls a "colonialist mentality" that has exploited Africa for centuries. Gregorio Borgia/AP JUBA, South Sudan — Pope Francis made a final appeal for peace in South Sudan on Sunday as he celebrated Mass before tens of thousands of people to close out an unusual mission by Christian religious leaders to nudge forward the country's recovery from civil war. On the last day of his African pilgrimage, Francis begged South Sudanese people to lay down their weapons and forgive one another, presiding over Mass at the country's monument to independence hero John Garang before an estimated 100,000 people, including the country's political leadership. "Even if our hearts bleed for the wrongs we have suffered, let us refuse, once and for all, to repay evil with evil," Francis said. "Let us accept one another and love one another with sincerity and generosity, as God loves us." His message aimed to revive hopes in the world's youngest country, which gained independence from the majority Muslim Sudan in 2011 but has been beset by civil war and conflict. President Salva Kiir, his longtime rival Riek Machar and other opposition groups signed a peace agreement in 2018, but the deal's provisions, including the formation of a national unified army, remain largely unimplemented and fighting has continued to flare. "We have suffered a lot," said Natalima Andrea, a 66-year-old mother of seven who wiped a tear from her eye as she waited for Francis' Mass to begin. "We need a permanent peace now and I hope these prayers would yield to lasting peace." The Vatican said more than 100,000 people attended the service, filling the field of the Garang Mausoleum and surrounding roads. In a bid to spur the process along, Francis was joined on the novel ecumenical peace mission by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and the moderator of the Church of Scotland, the Rt. Rev. Iain Greenshields. The aim of the Catholic, Anglican and Presbyterian leaders was to push Kiir and Machar to recommit themselves to the 2018 deal. Welby and Greenshields joined Francis on the altar at Mass on Sunday and were to accompany him on the flight back to Rome. The three also aimed to put a global spotlight on the plight of the country, oil-rich and yet one of the world's poorest, where humanitarian needs are soaring for the 2 million people who have been displaced by continued clashes and years of above-average flooding. Watchdogs' allegations of corruption are also widespread; some South Sudanese upon the pope's arrival noted that his modest vehicle was overshadowed by local officials' luxury ones. During the three-day visit, Francis, Welby and Greenshields sought to draw attention to the plight of South Sudan's most vulnerable people, the women and children who have borne the brunt of displacement and make up the majority of people living in temporary camps. They raised in particular the plight of women in a country where sexual violence is rampant, child brides are common and the maternal mortality rate is the highest in the world. "If we look at South Sudan, I would just use one word: South Sudan is a patriarchal country," said Elizabeth Nyibol Malou, a lecturer in economics at the Catholic University of South Sudan. Citing cultural norms in which wealth is passed down to male heirs and women are married young for dowries, she said it is a constant struggle to keep girls in school. Women in South Sudan, she said, "are tired. They are struggling. They are frustrated, and they're stuck." Edmund Yakani, executive director of the Community Empowerment for Progress Organization, said the visit of the three leaders was an important push to the peace process. He called it a "critical exposure of our political leaders towards their personal responsibility for making peace and stability prevail in the country." © 2023 npr

Sudan would become the latest Arab League country to normalise ties with Israel By Raffi Berg BBC News Israel and Sudan will sign an "historic peace agreement" in Washington in a few months' time, Israel's foreign minister announced following talks in Khartoum. Eli Cohen said the text of the agreement was finalised during his one-day visit to see Sudanese leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Sudan agreed two years ago to normalise relations with Israel but a deal has never been implemented. It would become the latest Arab League country to establish such ties. The UAE, Bahrain and Morocco have officially normalised relations with Israel since 2020 as part of the US-brokered Abraham Accords. Historically, members of the Arab League had refused to recognise Israel, a factor in perpetuating the Arab-Israeli conflict. Egypt became the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, followed by Jordan in 1994. An accord with Sudan holds particular symbolic importance as Khartoum was the venue for an Arab League meeting in 1967 where members vowed not to recognise Israel, after the Arab-Israeli war three months earlier. Sudan's foreign ministry said Mr Cohen and Lt-Gen Burhan had "discussed means for establishing fruitful relations with Israel" and strengthening cooperation in "agricultural, energy, health, water, education fields with special emphasis on security and military fields". It did not say whether a peace agreement would be signed. The growing number of Arab countries formalising relations with Israel has been condemned by the Palestinians, who see it as a betrayal of their cause. For years, Arab countries conditioned peace talks with Israel on its withdrawal from territories occupied in the 1967 war, and the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. Speaking on his return to Israel on Thursday night, Mr Cohen said his trip had been made "with the consent of the United States". The visit, he said, "lays the foundations for a historic peace agreement with a strategic Arab and Muslim country. The peace agreement between Israel and Sudan will promote regional stability and contribute to the national security of the State of Israel". Mr Cohen said a signing ceremony is expected to take place after the planned transfer of power in Sudan to a civilian government following a military coup in October 2021. © 2023 BBC.

PUBLISHED WED, FEB 1 20235:59 PM EST Amanda Macias Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said authorities have registered more than 65,000 Russian war crimes since Moscow’s conflict began nearly a year ago. He said the crimes include “indiscriminate shelling of civilians, willful killing, torture, conflict-related sexual violence, looting and forced displacement on a massive scale.” Kostin also slammed Russian attempts to weaponize the winter season by targeting critical energy infrastructure across Ukrainian cities. War crime prosecutor of Kharkiv Oblast stands with forensic technician and policeman at the site of a mass burial in a forest during exhumation on September 16, 2022 in Izium, Ukraine.Yevhenii Zavhorodnii | Global Images Ukraine | Getty Images News | Getty Images WASHINGTON – Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said Wednesday that regional authorities have registered more than 65,000 Russian war crimes since Moscow’s conflict began nearly a year ago. “We have all witnessed with horror the evidence of atrocities committed in Bucha, Irpin, Mariupol, Izium, Kherson, Kharkiv regions and other liberated cities and towns,” Kostin said, adding that Ukrainian authorities have discovered mass burial sites in areas occupied by Russian troops. “These crimes are not incidental or accidental, they include indiscriminate shelling of civilians, willful killing, torture, conflict-related sexual violence, looting and forced displacement on a massive scale,” he added in remarks at the Georgetown Law School in Washington. His comments add to an emerging picture of the horrors experienced during nearly a year of war in Ukraine. The conflict has shown few signs of ending soon, even as local and international officials try to probe potential crimes committed over recent months in Ukraine. In a separate discussion with journalists, Kostin said he believed Kyiv was close to gaining U.S. support to establish a special tribunal to prosecute Russia’s crimes of aggression. Because potential war crimes cross a range of jurisdictions, the International Criminal Court cannot prosecute them, or heads of state such as Russian President Vladimir Putin. A special tribunal endorsed by the United Nations Security Council also seems unlikely, since Russia holds veto authority on all measures put forth by the 15-member group. Beth van Schaack, President Joe Biden’s ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice, said on Wednesday that the U.S. is considering a proposal that would name an interim prosecutor to start recording evidence of potential crimes that could be used later. Kostin recently said European countries like France and the United Kingdom have agreed to help create a special tribunal. Russia has repeatedly denied that its troops have committed war crimes or deliberately targeted civilians. The Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request to comment. Kostin outlined even more of what he described as Russian abuses. He said his teams have also documented more than 14,000 Ukrainian children forced into adoption in Russia. “This is a direct policy aimed at demographic change by cutting out Ukrainian identity,” Kostin said. “These actions are characteristics of the crime of genocide,” he added. The death toll in Ukraine is mounting as the conflict persists. As of Monday, the United Nations had confirmed at least 7,110 civilian deaths in Ukraine since Russia’s late-February invasion. The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said the death toll in Ukraine is likely higher, because the armed conflict can delay fatality reports. Kostin added that so far, more than 75,000 buildings, including homes, schools and hospitals, have been reduced to rubble. People keep warm by fires outside the main rail terminal in Lviv, Ukraine. Dan Kitwood | Getty Images News | Getty Images Kostin also slammed Russian attempts to weaponize the winter season by targeting critical energy infrastructure across Ukrainian cities. “Russia resorts to prohibited methods of warfare like weaponizing winter and aiming to starve, freeze and terrorize the civilian population in the whole territory of Ukraine,” Kostin said. He noted that approximately half of Ukraine’s energy sector has been destroyed by Russian shelling. Last year as winter approached the region, America’s top military officer called Moscow’s deliberate targeting of energy infrastructure in Ukraine a war crime. U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told reporters in November that the Kremlin’s “deliberate targeting of the civilian power grid, causing excessive collateral damage and unnecessary suffering on the civilian population,” was a war crime. Milley at the time said that more than a quarter of Ukrainians are estimated to be without power throughout the country during winter. Alongside Milley, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin at the time described Russia’s missile and rocket attacks on civilian infrastructure as “deliberate cruelty” and called on the Kremlin to end its “war of choice.” © 2023 CNBC LLC. All Rights Reserved. A Division of NBCUniversal

08 February 2023 By Antony Sguazzin In 2021 sub-Sahara Africa accounted for 48% of all deaths from violent extremism and 21% of attacks, the UNDP said in its 'Journey to Extremism in Africa' report released on Tuesday. Image: Bloomberg The inability of states to provide basic services and security and create jobs across much of Africa, ranging from the Sahel zone in the west to Somalia in the east and Mozambique in the south, has made the continent the global epicentre of extremist violence, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said. In 2021 sub-Sahara Africa accounted for 48% of all deaths from violent extremism and 21% of attacks, the UNDP said in its Journey to Extremism in Africa report released on Tuesday. A third of those deaths were in only four countries — Somalia, Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali. Between 2011 and 2020 more than 50,000 people died as result of extremist violence on the continent. “In the absence of the state institution providing for the basic services of security, rule of law or functioning courts, people essentially turn to these violent extremist groups,” Achim Steiner, administrator of the UNDP, said in an interview. “They provide in whichever form an alternative.” While the spread of extremist groups is creating mounting problems for Africa, with deaths from terrorism rising tenfold in the Sahel since 2007 and economic costs between 2007 and 2016 estimated at $97bn (about R1.7-trillion), the collapse of state services in countries such as Burkina Faso and Somalia threatens the world. “We are at a point where development is imploding and the conditions that drive violent extremism are growing exponentially,” Steiner said. “More and more people are trying to get out of their own country they call home.” In addition to migration, both to developed countries and overburdened neighbouring states, letting extremist groups flourish could see them export the violence globally, as happened with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, he said. The UNDP report was based on interviews over two years with 2,196 people, three times as many as in a 2017 study carried out by the programme. Of those, 1,000 were former members of violent extremist groups, some of whom were forcibly recruited and others who joined voluntarily. Recruitment factors included a lack of education, isolation and the brutality of government forces. Most of those interviewed were former members of Boko Haram in Nigeria, al-Shabaab in Somalia and Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin, the al-Qaeda-affiliated coalition in West Africa. While most extremist groups focused on in the study are Islamists, religion is a secondary factor, providing a “platform and also a narrative”, Steiner said. If more money was directed to development rather than fighting extremists, with sub-Saharan military expenditures amounting to $20.1bn (about R353bn)in 2021, fewer people would be pushed into extremist groups, the UNDP said in the report. The economic impact of the violence can be seen. Much of northern Nigeria, Mali and Burkina Faso are inaccessible because of the security threat, and TotalEnergies SE has halted a $20bn (about R351bn) natural gas project in Mozambique after an attack by Islamist militants. “We need to have a much more fundamental reflection on what is working, what is not working,” Steiner said. “These essentially nation state collapses we are witnessing are ultimately going to have a cancer-like effect not only on neighbouring countries, but ultimately the global sense of human security.” © 2023 Arena Holdings (Pty) Ltd. All rights reserved.

What's life like under Hamas? 'Whispered in Gaza' offers unique, courageous testimony. By Center For Peace Communications and Times of Israel 16 January 2023 In an unprecedented series of animated videos, drawn from interviews carried out by the NY-based Center for Peace Communications, ordinary Gazans tell heartwrenching stories. Image from the Center for Peace Communications’ ‘Whispered in Gaza’ series of animated interviews with Gazans (Courtesy) This article, the first in a series of three, presents eight short, animated interviews with residents of the Gaza Strip. Produced by the Center for Peace Communications, a New York nonprofit, they are being published by The Times of Israel because they represent a rare opportunity for ordinary, courageous Gazans to tell the world what life is like under the rule of Hamas. The Times of Israel’s French site is carrying a French edition of the clips. An Arabic-language edition is being presented on alarabiya.net, a Persian edition via the newspaper Kayhan, a Spanish edition on Infobae, and a Portuguese edition on RecordTV. The short clips — none of them longer than two and a half minutes — offer poignant insights into day-to-day life in the Strip, an area that most outsiders cannot reach and whose residents directly suffer from the consequent lack of understanding. We meet ordinary people telling authentic stories about common problems that are drastically exacerbated by Hamas’s control, ordinary people with expectations and aspirations and dreams — from running a pharmacy to working as a journalist to simply dancing — that they are forbidden from realizing. All names have been changed, and CPC employed animation and voice-altering technology to protect speakers’ identity. The participants consented to be interviewed for the sake of relaying their ideas and experiences to an international audience, noted CPC president Joseph Braude, adding, “They want these stories to be heard.” You can watch the entire first week’s playlist of eight videos here: Or watch the clips one by one below, alongside context and sources about the widespread phenomena they portray: “Don’t Tell Me How to Resist” Everywhere Iyad turns in Gaza, he finds Hamas’s leaders looking back at him. Their portraits and slogans cover the walls and alleys. “Is this a city or a military barracks?” he asks. When his fellow Gazans declare themselves “ready for martyrdom,” he hears only despair. “OK, Palestine is our cause, and it is a just one,” he says, “but that doesn’t mean you should keep getting Palestinians killed, again and again, without any result.” While open criticism of Hamas’s war footing remains rare, a closer look shows a population questioning the wisdom of perpetual conflict. Last August, on a rare occasion when Hamas refrained from firing rockets into Israel during a period of escalation, 68 percent of Gazans supported the decision. Gazan mother Halima Jundiya, noting the trauma her children still endure from the 2014 conflict, told The New York Times, “We don’t want Hamas to fire rockets. We don’t want another war.” Another 2022 poll found that 53 percent of Gazans agree at least somewhat that “Hamas should stop calling for Israel’s destruction, and instead accept a permanent two-state solution based on the 1967 borders.” Indications of Gazan discomfort with Hamas ideology and policies, which have been growing, are likely understated, given the recent finding that 62 percent of Gazans believe “people in the Strip cannot criticize Hamas’s authority without fear.” One dissenter, speaking with +972 Magazine on the condition of anonymity, said, “We’ve been through four horrific wars and accomplished nothing.” “My Brother is Gone” Fatima’s brother used to work as a street vendor, selling vegetables his mother grew. But Hamas police in Gaza would confiscate his wares, demanding bribes to let him work and threatening him with jail, beatings, and worse. Under Hamas rule, the line between taxation and racketeering is a blurred one. According to Palestinian polling, 73 percent of Palestinians believe Hamas institutions are corrupt. In 2019, after Hamas imposed a series of new taxes, approximately 1,000 Gazans waged street demonstrations under the banner “We Want to Live.” One protester observed, “Dozens of Hamas officials have grown their wealth through financial corruption” while “draining our people by imposing more taxes [and] ignoring [our] poverty.” In 2022, the U.S. Treasury Department targeted Hamas finance official and a network of Hamas-affiliated individuals and companies for having funneled over $500 million into a secret investment portfolio, noting that Hamas “has generated vast sums of revenue… while destabilizing Gaza, which is facing harsh living and economic conditions.” The kind of extortion Fatima describes has driven many Gazans, including her brother, to flee the Strip. A 2018 poll found that 48 percent of Gazans want to emigrate. The journey is a dangerous one, leaving would-be migrants vulnerable to further exploitation by black market smugglers. One mother recounted how her escape to Belgium with a daughter who has autism cost $11,000 in bribes. Others perish in the attempt. In 2014, nearly 400 Gazans drowned after smugglers rammed their boat as it attempted to flee to Europe. As one young man put it, “there isn’t anyone [here] who doesn’t know someone who’s migrated to Turkey to sell his organs to help his parents… Hamas glorifies itself as the resistance to the occupation, but they sit in their palaces with their Qatari passports while we pay the price.” “With Stones … Again” When Hamas police came to cut off power to Ahmed’s home, his cousin, a child with Down syndrome, tried to stop them. They beat him and fired live ammunition at his house. After Ahmed uploaded footage of the incident to social media, the clip went viral. He spent the next three days on the run from Hamas authorities. Hamas routinely deploys coercive tactics in an effort to silence critics. According to Palestinian polling from 2022, 62 percent of Palestinians believe “people in the Strip cannot criticize Hamas authorities without fear.” This fear is justified: a 2017 Human Rights Watch investigation concluded that “[s]ince it seized control of Gaza in June 2007… [Hamas] authorities have harassed critics and abused those in its custody.” The report noted that after one Gazan journalist asked Hamas leaders on Facebook, “Do your children sleep on the floor like ours do?” he was arrested, charged with “misuse of technology,” and instructed by Hamas officers that “it’s forbidden to write against Hamas; we will shoot you.” “Bring Back the Dabke” Mariam, a professional dancer of dabke, an Arabic folk style, believes in the power of art to improve the world. But after Hamas gained control of Gaza in 2007, they told her to stop dancing and study Quran instead. When she refused, they began to threaten her family. Mariam is not alone. Since taking power, Hamas has reportedly clamped down on women’s basic freedoms and artistic expressions deemed un-Islamic. In July 2022, Hamas banned street concerts. “[Hamas has] imposed unjust measures,” one musician told Al-Monitor, “as it deemed art and music to be against Islamic law.” In 2021, Hamas ruled that women require the permission of a male guardian to travel. In 2018, Hamas blocked the launch of a women’s television channel and banned the opening of a ballet school for girls. In 2017, it banned dog walking “to protect women and children.” In 2013, a marathon organized by the United Nations was canceled after a Hamas decision to ban women from competing. The organization shows no sign of changing course. “Bermuda Triangle” Billions in foreign aid have poured into Gaza. But as far as Isma’il is concerned, the sea might as well have swallowed it. “Gaza is like the Bermuda Triangle,” he says. “Everything that enters, vanishes.” In 2014-2020, UN agencies sent nearly $4.5 billion in aid to Gaza, and Qatar has provided an additional $1.3 billion since 2012. Yet the population lives at a subsistence level. Hamas alleges that it does not “touch a single cent” of international aid, despite the active role it plays in its distribution. Most of the population is skeptical, however. A recent survey found that 73 percent of Gazans believe Hamas-run institutions are corrupt. On occasion, Hamas has been caught in outright theft. In 2009, the UN was briefly forced to halt aid shipments after Hamas gunmen stole several hundred tons of flour, blankets, and other aid. An UNRWA spokesman told the New York Times, “They were armed and we were not.” “There’s No Making Peace With Them” Basma, a licensed pharmacist in Gaza, was repeatedly harassed by Hamas over her affiliation with the rival Fatah group. After she opened her own pharmacy, Hamas priced her out of the market, forcing her to shut it down. Hamas rule in Gaza, which began in 2007 after a lethal battle against Fatah and PA officers, has been marked by a combination of violent and nonviolent tactics aimed at eliminating all political opposition. In the years following the Hamas takeover, PA officials accused Hamas of “turning its rifles in the direction of Fatah members,” and local rights groups have documented continual abuse and periodic killings. In 2014, Amnesty International’s report “Strangling Necks: Abductions, Torture, and Summary Killings of Palestinians by Hamas Forces During the 2014 Gaza/Israel Conflict” documented “serious abuses against Fatah members and former members of the PA security forces in Gaza, including abductions, torture, shootings, and other assaults.” Less lurid, but more ubiquitous in daily life, are the various means by which Hamas has created a patronage network that bestows benefit on its members while shutting out other Palestinians. Tens of thousands have been hired and promoted in the civil service based on loyalty to the movement, while many others have been granted profitable stakes in Hamas-owned businesses. Meanwhile, doctors and other medical professionals have been summarily dismissed for retaining ties to Fatah. Indeed, despite the Strip’s chronic healthcare crisis, whole clinics have been forced to shut down for the same reason. “A Policy of Muzzling” Maha once aspired to be a journalist in her native Gaza, but no longer tries. First her Facebook page was taken down. Then Hamas told her, “If you don’t stop, something bad might happen to your family.” Hamas maintains strict control over media based in Gaza. Freedom House gives the coastal Strip a score of 0/4 for “free and independent media,” noting “a pattern of arrests, interrogations, and in some cases beatings and torture of journalists in Gaza.” Hamas often silences journalists by targeting their families. In October 2022, one Gazan media activist posted a video of such a threat after a Hamas enforcer threatened his parents. A few weeks later, according to the International Federation of Journalists, another reporter was arrested by Hamas after he exposed its involvement in an operation smuggling Gazans into Europe. Interrogated by the Hamas security apparatus, he was told he had “stepped into forbidden territory.” The IFJ report adds that security officers subsequently broke into his home and threatened his family. “Where’s the Victory?” “Back in the days of the first and second intifadas, we used to believe in something called resistance,” says Othman. “But today, the ‘resistance’ has become a business.” Every tobacco stand and coffee shop is forced to pay Hamas protection money, he says, and when war breaks out, “[Hamas] sit in their bunkers while we have to bear the brunt. And at the end they tell us it’s a victory.” From its inception, Hamas has cultivated an image of incorruptibility. In 2006, its candidates ran successfully in Palestinian elections in Gaza under the motto “Reform and Change.” They promised “a new breed of Islamic leadership” that was “ready to put into practice faith-based principles in a setting of tolerance and unity,” and “pledged transparency in government.” Instead, Hamas proceeded to build an economy based on patronage and political favoritism, exacting a heavy toll on essential services including healthcare and education. It then exploited Gaza’s isolation under closure to build and institutionalize a network of smuggling which it exclusively controlled. According to a report by The International Crisis Group, five years after taking power, Hamas’s network of smuggling tunnels was transferring half a billion dollars in goods annually, and exacting “import duties” in excess of 14.5 percent. As one smuggler put it, the choice is to pay Hamas “or get shot in the legs.” Meanwhile, despite Gazans’ impoverishment, Hamas imposes a range of taxes to fund an opaque budget, even the purpose of which is secret. The AP reported that Hamas “offers few services in exchange [for these taxes], and most aid and relief projects are covered by the international community.” Unsurprisingly, Palestinian opinion polling found that 73 percent of Gazans believe Hamas-run institutions are corrupt. When Hamas wages war, ordinary Gazans pay an even steeper price. As one young Gazan told the Financial Times, “When the Israelis came, Hamas went and hid in the tunnels, and left us outside.” A participant in the 2019 “We Want to Live” protest movement told +972 magazine, “None of us young people actually voted for Hamas… [it] glorifies itself as the resistance to the occupation, but they sit in their palaces with their Qatari passports while we pay the price.” © 2023 THE TIMES OF ISRAEL, All Rights Reserved

Lawyer and journalist Dauletmurat Tajimuratov was given 16 years in prison on charges of plotting to seize power by disrupting the constitutional order, organizing mass unrest, embezzlement, and money laundering. A court in Uzbekistan's southwestern city of Bukhara has started the trial of another 39 Karakalpak activists accused of taking part in unsanctioned anti-government protests in the Central Asian nation's Autonomous Republic of Karakalpakstan last year. Uzbekistan's Supreme Court said on February 7 that 20 of the defendants are charged with organizing mass unrest, while seven are charged with distributing materials inciting social discord, seven others with inflicting serious bodily damage, four with the illegal use of firearms, and one person is charged with torture and blackmail. The same court last week sentenced the first group of Karakalpak activists -- 22 individuals -- sending lawyer and journalist Dauletmurat Tajimuratov to prison for 16 years on charges of plotting to seize power by disrupting the constitutional order, organizing mass unrest, embezzlement, and money laundering. Four defendants, including another journalist, Lolagul Qallykhanova, were handed parole-like sentences and immediately released from custody. Another 17 defendants were sentenced to prison terms of between three years and 8 1/2 years. It remains unclear how the defendants pleaded. Uzbekistan's Prosecutor-General’s Office said on February 6 that one of the activists convicted last week and handed a six-year prison term, Polat Shamshetov, had died over the weekend while in custody of "thromboembolism of the pulmonary artery and acute heart failure." Self-exiled Karakalpak activists have expressed suspicions that the 45-year-old Shamshetov might have been tortured to death in custody and have demanded a thorough investigation of his death. Uzbek authorities say 21 people died in Karakalpakstan during the protests, which were sparked by the announcement in early July 2022 of a planned change to the constitution that would have undermined the region's right to self-determination. The violence in Nukus, the main city in Karakalpakstan, forced President Shavkat Mirziyoev to make a rare about-face and scrap the proposal. Mirziyoev accused "foreign forces" of being behind the unrest, without further explanation, before backing away from the proposed changes. Karakalpaks are a Central Asian Turkic-speaking people. Their region used to be an autonomous area within Kazakhstan before becoming autonomous within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1930 and then part of Uzbekistan in 1936. Karakalpakstan is home to fewer than 2 million people, out of a nation of 35 million, but it covers more than one-third of Uzbekistan's territory. The European Union has called for an independent investigation into the violence. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty © 2023 RFE/RL, Inc.

'We will slaughter Muslim women and children' painted on bridge in Capljina Originally published by Anadolu Agency on February 5, 2023 Islamophobic graffiti triggers backlash from Bosnians BELGRADE, Serbia - Islamophobic graffiti and murals painted in Capljina in Bosnia and Herzegovina triggered a backlash from residents Saturday. Threatening articles such as "Kill Balija (an expression used to insult Bosnian Muslims)" and "We will slaughter Muslim women and children," were written on the Franje Tudjman Bridge in Capljina, where the Croat population is concentrated. "The murals were written by irresponsible people who aim to humiliate the Bosniak population and spread hatred, intolerance and division among the residents of Capljina. We hope that the perpetrators are found and the different institutions react." said City Administration spokesperson Danijela Nogolica. She urged residents to be responsible to themselves and others and added the city government condemned the action and the graffiti was painted over. Capljina police said an investigation was launched to find and punish the perpetrators. Vandals attack a mosque last weekend in northeastern Bosnia Herzegovina that sparked backlash and widespread criticism. The Dasnica Mosque in Bijeljina had its walls urinated on by unknown persons, according to the Islamic Union Assembly. Anadolu Agency © 2023

‘The government was banning the use of a language that didn’t exist’: Why some descendants of an ethnic minority in Greece still keep their identity secret Today, the country of North Macedonia lies just to the north of Greece. But until 2018, the country wasn’t called North Macedonia. Eugenia Natsoulidou, 67, introduces herself as a Greek citizen. She was born and still lives in Edessa, a city in northern Greece, but has worked all around the country in the hotel industry. Her best friend is Greek, and like many Greeks, she speaks impeccable English — in her case, due to living in Chicago for three years in the early 1980s. But she always had questions. “‘Why doesn’t grandma speak a word of Greek? Why does grandpa struggle to speak a few words in Greek? Did they come from another country?’ “My mother told me, ‘No, no, they are from here, but don’t ask. You’d better not ask.’” Natsoulidou spent her teenage years in Italy, and kids there had questions. She was tall, blond, and blue-eyed: Was she really Greek? Of course she was — that’s what she’d been told all her life. When someone told her she looked Slavic, she said, she almost cried. She had to be Greek. Shortly before she turned 30, she finally learned the truth: She might be a Greek citizen, but ethnically, she was Macedonian. First, a bit of terminology and history. Today, the country of North Macedonia lies just to the north of Greece. But until 2018, the country wasn’t called North Macedonia. They called themselves Macedonia and spoke what they called the Macedonian language, a Slavic language like Polish, Croatian or Russian. Greece objected to this, because there was a region of Greece — right across the international border — that they called Macedonia and that they considered to be the true Macedonia. Macedonia was originally a kingdom during the time of Ancient Greece, lying mainly in the territories of modern-day Greece and North Macedonia. Alexander the Great, the most famous king of this ancient Macedonia and, indeed, of Ancient Greece, ruled over an empire extending all the way to India. The modern-day country of Greece is only roughly 200 years old. It owes much of its existence to support by other major European powers, who were taken by the idea of a Christian country (at the time, Greece was under the control of the Muslim Ottoman Empire) that could trace its heritage to the Ancient Greeks — and that included the kingdom of Macedonia. So the prevailing Greek view was that by calling itself Macedonia, that country to its north was stealing its heritage, said Axel Sotiris Walldén, a former Greek official at the European Commission who has written numerous books on the Balkans and on Greek foreign policy. It didn’t help that nationalists took control of that country to the north in the 2000s, said Anastasios (Sakis) Gekas, an associate professor of history at York University who specializes in modern Greek history. They renamed their main airport Skopje Alexander the Great Airport, and circulated new maps claiming that parts of the Greek region of Macedonia were actually theirs. In June 2018, Greece and North Macedonia signed the Prespa Agreement, on the shores of the lake with the same name that straddles the two countries. At first deeply unpopular in both countries, it meant that the country of Macedonia was now the country of North Macedonia but that they could continue to call themselves Macedonians and say that they spoke Macedonian. Relations between the two countries have improved. Greece stopped blocking North Macedonia’s bids to join NATO and the European Union. But the agreement completely overlooked one group of people: ethnic Macedonians living in Greek Macedonia, the northern provinces of Greece next to the border. Petros Karatsareas, a senior lecturer in English language and linguistics at the University of Westminster in London, England, is ethnically half-Greek and half-Macedonian. Something funny would happen whenever he posted anything about this minority online. “My grandmother’s sister would ring my grandmother and tell her to tell me to take those posts down …because the police would come to my house and I would lose my job in London. This is the scale of the trauma and fear they lived under in terms of using the language … that even post-2010, she thought it would have real repercussions for my life!” said Karatsareas. Life was not easy for ethnic Macedonians who lived in Greece for much of the 20th century. During the dictatorship of the 1930s, speaking Macedonian was banned. Policemen would go so far as to listen at windows to see whether Macedonian was being spoken in homes. Right after the Second World War, many ethnic Macedonians fought for their own independent state and ended up on the losing side during the Greek Civil War. Many of them, like Karatsareas’s great-aunt, fled north after their side’s defeat, not only into North Macedonia but also into the rest of Yugoslavia and Eastern Europe. Even if such persecution was no longer officially sanctioned after the 1950s, there was still a climate of fear, said Natsoulidou. The tax authorities might contact you more often, and teachers might beat their students. But the government considered there to be no such thing as the Macedonian language in Greece, because Macedonia was part of Greece and everyone in Greece spoke Greek. In other words, the Greek government considered the Macedonian language (in Greece, at least) to be the Greek language and the Macedonian people to be Greeks. (The only Macedonian language they recognize is that that is spoken in North Macedonia, and the Prespa Agreement leaves the situation somewhat ambiguous.) “You have this very ironic situation where the government (historically) was banning the use of a language that didn’t exist,” said Karatsareas. Outside of Greek Macedonia, most Greeks don’t even know about the existence of this ethnic minority. Florina is a quiet town on the mountainous border between Greece and North Macedonia; it’s the largest of any size near Lake Prespa and within striking distance of a ski resort. Its proximity to the border means that ethnic Macedonian culture is relatively strong here. Last year, a local judge gave the Centre for the Macedonian Language permission to operate in the town. This past week, the public prosecutor challenged that decision, on the basis that no such language exists in Greece, but also on the basis that the centre presents a danger to the Greek state. The Greek government is afraid of a possible loss of the hearts and minds of Greek citizens to North Macedonia if a Macedonian minority, culture or identity is officially acknowledged, said Victor Roudometof, an associate professor at the University of Cyprus originally from Greek Macedonia himself. That would threaten Greece’s unity. Greece — and particularly the Greeks living in Greek Macedonia — is also afraid of demands for houses and property that ethnic Macedonians who fled Greece in the 1940s and 1950s might make. These homes have been in others’ possession for more than half a century, and even though both Roudometof and Walldén believe these concerns are only a remote possibility, they still galvanize public fear. But perhaps they — and particularly the Greeks living in Greek Macedonia — are most sensitive about their possibly tenuous connection to the region. Greek Macedonia has only been part of Greece since 1913, and most of the Greeks living there can only trace their ancestry in Macedonia back a century. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Treaty of Lausanne and the ensuing population transfer between Greece and Turkey. For the most part, Muslims living in present-day Greece were moved to Turkey, while Orthodox Christians living in present-day Turkey were resettled in Greece. Most of the more than a million Christians who arrived in Greece were settled in Greek Macedonia. Almost half of the population in Greek Macedonia at the end of the 1920s were refugees. All of the great-grandparents of Christina Flora, a PhD student studying sociolinguistics with Karatsareas, came from present-day Turkey to Greek Macedonia. “My grandmother, her mother tongue was Turkish,” says Flora. “(Her parents) didn’t speak Greek at all when they came from (present-day Turkey), but my grandmother (almost) never spoke Turkish again” in her adult life, the Greek language having quickly taken over in the region. Many of those who stayed in Greek Macedonia after the population transfer were members of ethnic minorities: not just the ethnic Macedonians, but also Albanians, Sephardic Jews and Vlachs (a group of Orthodox Christians that speak a language similar to Romanian; tennis star Simona Halep is one of their most famous members). It is still common today for people in the region to ask each other about their ethnicity, said Karatsareas. How do they refer to the Macedonians? They use the Greek word “dopii” – “local.” The Macedonian language is not the major concern of most ethnic Macedonians in Greece today. The court case against the Centre for the Macedonian Language wasn’t covered much in the news, said Roudometof. Most ethnic Macedonians are probably more concerned with learning English or German, said Gekas, as those are more useful on the job market. Macedonians in North Macedonia have other concerns, said Walldén. This is an internal Greek problem, and even though North Macedonia’s dispute with Greece is over, it has a new dispute with Bulgaria to handle. Many marriages have taken place between ethnic Macedonians and ethnic Greeks — both Karatsareas and Natsoulidou are half-Greek. Education is all in Greek, as are television and radio stations (there are no Macedonian-language outlets in Greece, as there is, officially, no Macedonian language in Greece). Army service is mandatory for men, which furthers assimilation and integration. The language has also been lost with time. Natsoulidou’s grandmother could only speak Macedonian; her mother was bilingual; and for many years, Natsoulidou couldn’t speak Macedonian at all. There are probably no monolingual Macedonians left, said Karatsareas. While the language is likely still strong in some rural villages, Karatsareas believes that most people can only say basic phrases and speak a Macedonian that is highly influenced by Greek. And nobody knows exactly how many ethnic Macedonians live in Greece. The census doesn’t ask the question, and because of the long periods of persecution, many would prefer to claim that they are Greek or might not even know that they are ethnically Macedonian. There are no famous ethnic Macedonians in Greece today, said Natsoulidou, as they wouldn’t dare admit it. So where does that leave the community’s future? It all made sense for Natsoulidou after she learned that she was part-Macedonian. She started researching her roots and her culture, and in 2009, she helped found a non-profit organization in her hometown of Edessa to promote Macedonian as a mother tongue. (As a non-profit organization, she didn’t need to get the permission of a judge.) In 2018, they started offering Macedonian language courses online. In Greece, Macedonian was only a spoken language. No one could teach reading, writing or grammar, so they found a teacher from North Macedonia. They now offer four levels of Macedonian and subsidize 50 per cent of the course’s cost, so students only pay 35 euros for a 35-week course. Natsoulidou estimates that this year, 20 students are studying in these subsidized courses, and a further 35 or 40 are taking private lessons — a massive increase in interest from 2018, when they struggled to find a class of just five students. While most students are working-age adults or the elderly, who learn for nostalgic reasons, young people have started attending music festivals and public events, where bands from both Greece and North Macedonia perform traditional Macedonian songs about rural life, migration, love and death, said Karatsareas. They might not speak or understand the language, but they learn the lyrics by heart and sing along. “I’m 67 years old and I’m ashamed to go to these festivals because there are schoolchildren — 14, 15 years old!” laughs Natsoulidou. This wouldn’t have been imaginable before the Prespa Agreement. Persecution of the language meant that Macedonian folk music could be played, but without any singing. Natsoulidou said she has no family in and no links to North Macedonia, and she dismisses the idea of any independence or secessionist movement: ethnic Macedonians have intermarried and integrated too much into Greek society for that to ever happen. “Why is it not normal for Macedonians to be friendly with their neighbors?” she asks. “Minorities are the bridges of friendship.” The court’s decision on the Centre for the Macedonian Language should come very soon. Originally published by the Toronto Star on February 5, 2023 © Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd. 1996 - 2023

Bulgarians trying to enter North Macedonia to celebrate the birthday of a hero shared by both countries said they encountered difficulties at the border, yet the overall celebrations passed without major incident, despite fears and toxic rhetoric. Originally published by Euractiv on February 6, 2023 During the days leading up to the 151st anniversary of the birth of Gotse Delchev, a national hero for both countries, tensions simmered between Skopje and Sofia as politicians traded barbs and even threats. [EPA-EFE/GEORGI LICOVSKI] During the days leading up to the 151st anniversary of the birth of Gotse Delchev, a national hero for both countries, tensions simmered between Skopje and Sofia as politicians traded barbs and even threats. On Saturday, the Bulgarian Interior Ministry said that North Macedonian authorities had not allowed Bulgarians into the territory of the neighboring country and claimed that Macedonians have an “unofficial” Bulgarian blacklist. The authorities in Skopje however said that delays on the border and with crossing into the country were due to a computer system failure. Later, North Macedonia’s Interior Ministry announced that three Bulgarians, including former Vazrazhdane deputy Angel Georgiev, had been detained at the border for insulting and attacking police officers. “They first behaved rudely and inappropriately using the most derogatory words and then tried to physically attack the police officers while performing their duties, which was a reason to be detained,” the Macedonian police said in a statement. However, the Bulgarian delegation, led by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Internal Affairs Ivan Demerdzhiev, managed to lay a wreath on the grave of Gotse Delchev in the Church of St. Spas in Skopje. “There were various attempts at provocation, I think we behaved in the most correct way possible, as required by responsible political and statesmanlike behavior,” Demerdzhiev told Bulgarian journalists. “The mutual respect we declare for the people of North Macedonia and the assurances we received meant (Skopje) to give everyone the opportunity to come and honour the memory of Gotse Delchev,” Demerdzhiev said. Relations between the two countries reached their lowest point after Hristiyan Pendikov, the secretary of the Bulgarian cultural club in Ohrid “Tsar Boris III”, was beaten, which coincided with the pre-election period in Bulgaria. The name is considered provocative by Macedonians as Boris led Bulgaria into the German-led Axis in WWII and occupied most of what is now North Macedonia. North Macedonia’s Interior Minister Oliver Spasovski said the police acted appropriately. “I want to congratulate and acknowledge the professionalism and dedication of all parts of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the exceptionally well-done operational work in ensuring security during the celebration of Gotse Delchev’s birth,” said Spasovski. “Thanks to the citizens, media and journalists who have shown understanding and in the most professional way possible contributed to a dignified celebration of the great Gotse Delchev,” he added. Last year, Bulgaria adopted the so-called “French proposal” and announced that it will remove the veto on the EU integration of North Macedonia. The condition is that the Bulgarians are added to the other peoples in the North Macedonian constitution. So far, there is no majority in the parliament in Skopje to fulfil these demands. The events of recent weeks put the agreements between Bulgaria, North Macedonia and the EU at risk of being cancelled. © 1999 - 2023 | Efficacité et Transparence des Acteurs Européens. EURACTIV MEDIA NETWORK BV.

Originally published by N1 on February 2, 2023. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told the Parliament on Friday that twenty-year-old Boban Djuzic was stabbed with a knife in the shoulder in the village of Mogila near Vitina in Kosovo. He showed photos of what he said was a young man attacked by two Albanians, adding he fears that European officials will “call on the two sides to exercise restraint” even after this incident. The Serbian Government’s Office for Kosovo said Boban Djuzic was attacked in the village of Mogila by a group of local Albanians while walking his dog. Djuzic was stabbed twice in the shoulder, he was given first aid at the Vrbovac clinic and then transported to the hospital in Pasjan near Gnjilane for further medical care, said the Office. It stressed that this attack is a result of the “anti-Serb policy and tensions” that it accused Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti of provoking on a daily basis and added that it expects international representatives to react. The Belgrade-backed Serb List said the responsibility for attacks on the Serbs lies with Prime Minister Kurti, his followers and the international community that “tacitly looks the other way” when ethnically-motivated attacks happen. "The consequence of the anti-Serb hysteria of Albin Kurti’s dictatorial regime every day produces an attack on Serbian children, Serbian youths, property or the Serbian Orthodox Church,“ said the Serb List. Boban Djuzic said that three Albanians attacked him from behind, for no reason, and that he knows them because they live in the same village as he does. “Today I was attacked by Albanians for no reason. Three of them attacked me, from behind. I know the attackers, they are from my village – one is 12, the second is 17 and the third is 46,” said Djuzic. He explained that he called the police, who came, but that there were no witnesses who could testify to the stabbing. A doctor at the Pasjan hospital, Dejan Jocic, said Djuzic has two stab wounds, that he is stable but that he will be monitored and would probably stay in the hospital for a few days. Member of United Media - Copyright 2023.

An average of 329 mortar shells per day claimed over 11,000 lives in Bosnian capital, according to estimates Originally published by Anadolu Agency on February 4, 2023 BELGRADE / SARAJEVO - Thousands of civilians in Bosnia and Herzegovina were a target of countless massacres during the siege of Sarajevo amid the Bosnian War between 1992 and 1995. Sarajevo was exposed to daily bombings and mortar attacks by Bosnian Serb troops for 1,425 days. Shoppers in markets, people waiting in the queue for bread, children playing in schoolyards – civilians, no matter who they were or what they did – were targeted indiscriminately. The bloodiest massacres took place in the Markale marketplace, whose 29th anniversary will be marked on Sunday. The bombardment on Feb. 5, 1994, took the lives of 68 people and injured nearly 150. Meanwhile, on Aug. 28, 1995, a second mortar exploded in the main market square, killing 43 people and injuring 75. Victims everywhere Besides the Markale massacres, thousands of civilians trying to meet their daily needs in the besieged capital became victims to the attacks. On June 26, 1993, as many as seven children, who were playing on the Bakareva street in Bistrik district, were killed in firing from mountains where Serb forces were stationed. While many perished in attacks on streets in the Dobrinja 3 district, others died when mortar shells hit funerals. On May 27 in 1992, civilians were hit with mortar shells when they were waiting in queues to get free bread on the Vase Miskina street in Ferhadija district. Twenty-six people were killed, and 108 others hurt. Residents on the Halaci street in the historical Ottoman bazaar Bascarsija were also among the victims of mortar shells. On Aug. 23 in 1992, eight people died and three others were injured here. An average of 329 mortar attacks daily During the nearly four-year siege, 11,541 civilians, 1,601 of whom were children, were killed, while more than 50,000 were injured, records show. According to estimates, an average of 329 mortar shells were fired on Sarajevo every day, with more than 500,000 bombs dropped in total. Historical and cultural artifacts and infrastructure of Sarajevo, which has hosted many civilizations throughout history, were also damaged during the prolonged blockade. Buildings in Sarajevo still carry the traces of the pogrom, and the places where people lost their lives in the bombardments are known as the "Sarajevo Rose," and marked with a red sign. The Boljakov Potok area in Sarajevo's Novi Grad municipality was targeted by howitzers on Sept. 28, 1992. The mortar shell that hit the Bosniak civilians gathered for funeral prayers killed nine and seriously wounded 20 others. Similarly, 11 civilians fell victim to artillery weapons on Aug. 30, 1992 at the marketplace in Alipasino Polje. Six children lost their lives in the same vicinity when on June 22, 1994 they were hit by three mortar shells. Anadolu Agency © 2023

The Hill January 14, 2023 BY MOHAMMAD MUSA MAHMODI The family of 20-year-old Vahida Heydari, who was a victim of a suicide bombing on a Hazara education center, goes to her grave for a mourning ceremony, in Kabul, Afghanistan. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction reports the Taliban have essentially wiped out 30 years of developments, concluding that “current conditions are similar to those under the Taliban in the 1990s.” AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi In the final weeks of 2022, the Taliban made headlines for banning women in Afghanistan from working in humanitarian organizations and attending universities. These moves are being rightfully condemned but should come as no surprise. Since taking control of Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban has worked to exclude parts of Afghan society from public life. The increasing exclusion of women has drawn the most international attention. But the Taliban has also sought to erase religious and ethnic minority groups. Often, these aims converge. In September, a suicide bombing of the Kaaj Education Center in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, killed more than 50 people, most of them high-school-aged girls. The attack was a particularly horrific example of the brutal campaign against girls’ education. It also targeted a minority group that has suffered decades of violence and discrimination: the Hazaras, a predominantly Shia Muslim ethnic minority. As a Hazara and the former executive director of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, I stand with Afghan women and with the Hazara people. I urge the United States to recognize the atrocities in Afghanistan for what they are: crimes against humanity and acts of genocide. The Kaaj Center attack, which cut short the lives of brave and talented Hazara students who were preparing for the Afghan college entrance exam, was not an isolated incident. Since the Taliban took control, its forces and the Islamic State of Khorasan have escalated their attacks on Afghan Hazaras. These attacks have killed or injured at least 700 people. The perpetrators of these atrocities have often explicitly singled out Hazaras, pulling them out of buses or cars and executing them while sparing members of other groups. Although the Taliban treats many segments of Afghan society cruelly, the Hazaras are uniquely vulnerable. The Taliban governs by spreading hatred based on religious, ethnic and racial divisions — and the Hazaras, who are the Taliban’s primary targets along each of these axes of difference, suffer the most destructive consequences. In an attempt to moderate their international image after the fall of Kabul, Taliban authorities pledged to ensure security for Afghanistan’s religious minorities. These were false promises. In reality, the Taliban has used its power to remove Hazara leaders from all levels of government, discriminate against Hazaras in distributions of humanitarian aid and evict thousands of Hazara families from their homes. Today, the lives of millions of Hazaras are increasingly precarious. A 20-year-old woman who was a victim injured in the Kaaj Center attack told a human rights investigator: “Whenever we go out, there is a possibility that we will not live to return home. Our cars will be attacked, as will our schools. Wherever we are, at any moment, we will be attacked. We are their target.” The United States has a legal obligation to prevent the crime of genocide. President Biden has a moral duty to keep his promises to the Afghans who worked to achieve a free, equal and democratic Afghanistan. The United States should, as a start, publicly condemn and investigate atrocities like the Kaaj Center attack. International scrutiny is important because, in the resurgence of violence against the Hazaras, it is not always clear who is directly responsible for the attacks. The relationship between the Taliban and the Islamic State of Khorasan, which includes many former Taliban members, is murky. In the past, both groups have exploited this uncertainty by exaggerating their role in some attacks and denying responsibility in others. The United States should support a United Nations inquiry into attacks in Afghanistan, including the attacks against the Hazaras — just as it supported the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, which collected evidence of crimes, including genocide, against the Rohingya. Without international pressure, attacks on Hazaras will continue with impunity. In the months since the Kaaj Center bombing, the Taliban has made no effort to investigate the attack or hold the perpetrators accountable. Victims see no prospects for justice in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. The 20-year-old Kaaj Center attack survivor said: “In the previous government, there were some who could hear our voice, but now, there is no one left who cares about us. On the day of the attack, the Taliban didn’t even allow people to give blood to the wounded.” The brutal tactics that the Islamic State of Khorasan is directing against Hazaras under the Taliban recall the darkest days of Afghanistan’s history. For more than a century, successive Afghan regimes have oppressed, enslaved and exploited Hazaras. Between 1892 and 1901, Abdur Rahman Khan, Afghanistan’s ruling Amir, led a merciless military campaign — a state-backed jihad — against Hazaras. Historians estimate that more than 60 percent of the Hazara population was killed or enslaved. When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s, its forces massacred thousands of Hazara civilians in Mazar-i-Sharif and Bamiyan and imposed food embargoes on areas where Hazaras resisted the Taliban and al Qaeda. Neither the United States nor the international community has ever recognized the long history of genocide against the Hazaras in Afghanistan. This failure — and the impunity that international silence allows — has set the stage for the genocidal campaign that the Taliban and the Islamic State of Khorasan are waging today. Formally recognizing the 1892-1901 Hazara genocide and investigating ongoing crimes are important first steps. But the United States must also provide concrete support to the Hazaras, as part of its commitment to provide essential assistance to the Afghan people after the August 2021 military withdrawal. The Biden administration should prioritize providing humanitarian visas for Afghan Hazaras, especially the young Hazara women whose futures are being deliberately destroyed. After the tragic losses of the Kaaj Center attack, protesters took to the streets both inside and outside Afghanistan to demand an end to Afghanistan’s genocide of the Hazaras. Online, millions of people have joined the movement; the hashtag #StopHazaraGenocide has been used on Twitter more than 16 million times. The international community, led by the United States, must heed these calls and take action. The survival of the Hazaras depends on it. Mohammad Mahmodi is a Tom and Andi Bernstein Visiting Human Rights Fellow at the Schell Centre for International Human Rights at Yale Law School. He previously served as executive director of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission for 10 years, from 2009 to 2019. Copyright 2023 The Hill