Report finds instances where the Syrian government first struck a target, then struck the nearby hospital, 'maximising damage to the wounded Plumes of smoke rise following Russian air strikes on the village of al-Bara in Syria's Idlib province, on 5 March 2020 (AFP) A new investigative report published on Thursday has identified nearly a dozen instances where it says the Syrian government and allied forces engaged in "double-tap" air strikes to target hospitals and "intentionally harm persons and objects protected by international humanitarian law". The report, published by the Washington-based Syria Justice and Accountability Centre, builds on a previous study on "double-tap" strikes in Syria. "Double-tap" strikes have become increasingly common in modern warfare. The military tactic, which could violate international humanitarian law, is when armed drones or warplanes attack a site and then return to attack the same area again as people carry out rescue work. Thursday's report highlights what it refers to as a variation of these strikes, in which the Syrian government and allied forces struck an initial location, then struck the hospital where the injured were brought, "maximizing damage to the wounded as well as medical personnel and facilities". "The cases examined in this report constitute an especially pernicious variation on such tactics, in which Syrian government and allied forces first struck a civilian target and subsequently attacked a nearby medical facility," the report said. "By destroying the health infrastructure, the Syrian government has nullified the ability of these areas to provide care for injuries, chronic diseases (such as cancer), and communicable diseases." Using a combination of Syrian government documents obtained by the group, satellite imagery, social media, and direct interviews, the report found 11 instances that matched the patterns of these types of consecutive air strikes. The report detailed five of these instances. "This investigation is another example which shows the extent to which the Syrian government and its allies have pursued military strategies designed to maximize civilian harm," Zachary Cuyler, lead author of the investigation, said in a news release on Thursday. "Our report identified a pattern in which pro-government forces would first launch a strike on a target and then attack the hospital to which casualties from the first strike were brought." Pro-government forces in Syria, the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen and Israeli operations in Gaza have all come under fire for reportedly intentionally targeting civilians and first responders attending to the injured. The report also said that the Russian military was likely involved with the "double-tap" strategy, given that media sources and independent war monitors identified several of the strikes stemming from Russian warplanes. Russia has been among the top political, economic and military backers of the government in Damascus, and at the invitation of Syria, intervened militarily in the conflict in September 2015. Moscow has maintained a military presence at its Hmeimim air base, near the city of Latakia, since it entered the civil war. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has put the total death toll from the Russian air strikes in Syria at more than 21,000, including 8,697 civilians, a quarter of whom were children. Almost half a million people have been killed in the civil war, with millions more displaced and large parts of the country devastated. Since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, which began in February, Russian air strikes in Syria have decreased, resulting in fewer deaths, according to the Observatory. A total of 241 people have been killed by Russian strikes in Syria during the past year. Most of these were Islamic State (IS) fighters, but the figure also includes 28 civilians, said the UK-based advocacy group said. Link to article: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/new-report-double-tap-air-strikes-syria-allied-forces Copyright © 2014 - 2022. Middle East Eye. All rights reserved. Only England and Wales jurisdiction apply in all legal matters.

Bishkek Court Sends Critics Of Kyrgyz-Uzbek Border Deal To Pretrial Detention. On October 24, hundreds rallied in Bishkek demanding the detained activists and politicians be released and urging the government to revise the border demarcation deal. BISHKEK – A court in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek, has sent to pretrial detention for two months 20 politicians and activists accused of planning riots over the government’s border demarcation deal with neighboring Uzbekistan. The Birinchi Mai district court ruled on October 25 that the group must stay in pretrial detention until at least December 20. The Interior Ministry's spokesman, Erkebek Ashirkhojaev, said on October 25 that 21 persons were detained over the weekend after the homes of 22 persons were searched by police. Those detained include the former Kyrgyz ambassador to Malaysia, Azimbek Beknazarov; former lawmaker Asia Sasykbaeva; well-known politicians Kanat Isaev, Jenis Moldokmatov, and Ravshan Jeenbekov; human rights defender Rita Karasartova; and other noted public figures and activists. "They were all charged with planning mass disorder; the Birinchi Mai district court sent 20 of them to pretrial detention and one was placed under house arrest due to health issues," Ashirkhojaev said. The group was detained on October 23 over their opposition to the draft agreement Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan are expected to sign to resolve all land disputes between the two countries. According to the deal, Kyrgyzstan will hand over the territory of the Kempir-Abad water reservoir covering 4,485 hectares to Uzbekistan in exchange for over 19,000 hectares elsewhere. On October 24, hundreds rallied in Bishkek demanding the detained activists and politicians be released and urging the government to revise the border demarcation deal. Similar protests were held in the country’s second-largest city, Osh. In a statement on October 25, Human Rights Watch urged the government of the Central Asian nation to immediately release the politicians and activists and publish all of the details of the deal on the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border demarcation. The Kempir-Abad reservoir, which was built in 1983, is located in the fertile Ferghana Valley and is a vital regional water source. Uzbekistan, whose population of 35 million is five times larger than that of Kyrgyzstan, uses the majority of the water. The two Central Asian countries share a border of more than 1,300 kilometers. Many Kyrgyz civil activists, opposition politicians, and residents living close to the dam are against the deal. They say Uzbekistan could continue using the dam's water, but the reservoir's land should remain within Kyrgyzstan's border. Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov and his allies claim the deal benefits Kyrgyzstan and that Kyrgyz farmers will still have access to the water. © 2022 RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. All rights reserved.

New York Times, October 23, 2022 Thousands of Ukrainian children have been transferred to Russia. ["Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group" is an act of genocide under Article 2(e) of the Genocide Convention.] A broken window at a hospital in March in Mariupol, Ukraine. Russian officials have made clear that their goal is to replace any childhood attachment to home with a love for Russia. Credit: Evgeniy Maloletka/Associated Press By  Emma Bubola As Russian forces laid siege to the Ukrainian city of Mariupol this spring, children fled bombed-out group homes and boarding schools. Separated from their families, they followed neighbors or strangers heading west, seeking the relative safety of central Ukraine. Instead, at checkpoints around the city, pro-Russia forces intercepted them, according to interviews with the children, witnesses and family members. The authorities put them on buses headed deeper into Russian-held territory. “I didn’t want to go,” said Anya, 14, who escaped a home for tuberculosis patients in Mariupol and is now with a foster family near Moscow. “But nobody asked me.” In the rush to flee, she said, she left behind a sketchbook containing her mother’s phone number. All she could remember were the first three digits. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in February, Russian authorities have announced with patriotic fanfare the transfer of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia to be adopted and become citizens. On state-run television, officials offer teddy bears to new arrivals, who are portrayed as abandoned children being rescued from war. In fact, this mass transfer of children is a potential war crime, regardless of whether they were orphans. And while many of the children did come from orphanages and group homes, the authorities also took children whose relatives or guardians want them back, according to interviews with children and families on both sides of the border. As Russian troops pushed into Ukraine, children like Anya who were fleeing newly occupied territories were swept up. Some were taken after their parents had been killed or imprisoned by Russian troops, according to local Ukrainian officials. This systematic resettlement is part of a broader strategy by the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, to treat Ukraine as a part of Russia and cast his illegal invasion as a noble cause. His government has used children — including the sick, poor and orphaned — as part of a propaganda campaign presenting Russia as a charitable savior. Through interviews with parents, officials, doctors and children in Ukraine and Russia, The New York Times identified several children who had been taken away. Some returned home. Others, like Anya, remain in Russia. A photograph provided by the Kremlin shows President Vladimir V. Putin meeting in March with Maria Lvova-Belova, his commissioner for children’s rights. Credit: Pool photo by Mikhail Klimentyev The Times interviewed Anya several times through instant messages, exchanged voice memos with her and verified key details through her friends, photographs and a journal she kept identifying other children she had been with. She asked reporters not to contact her foster parents, who had told her not to talk to outsiders. Anya had lived apart from her mother and was in only sporadic contact with her before the war. Without the phone number, Anya said she could not reach her. At first, reporters could not, either. The Times is not identifying Anya’s full name. A shy girl with a passion for drawing, she said that her Russian foster family treated her well but that she ached to return to Ukraine. Soon, though, she said she would become a Russian citizen. “I don’t want to,” she said. “My friends and family aren’t here.” Anya and others described a wrenching process of coercion, deception and force as children were shipped to Russia from Ukraine. Together, their accounts add to a growing body of evidence from governments and news reports about a removal-and-adoption policy that targets the most vulnerable children in the most dangerous situations. Transferring people out of an occupied territory can be a war crime, and experts say the practice is especially thorny when it involves children, who may not be able to consent. Ukrainian officials accuse Russia of perpetrating a genocide. The forced transfer of children, when intended to destroy a national group, is an act of genocide under international law. Russian officials have made clear that their goal is to replace any childhood attachment to home with a love for Russia. Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, has organized the transfers and said that she herself adopted a teenager from Mariupol. Ms. Lvova-Belova, who is under Western sanctions, said the boy had been homesick at first and even attended a demonstration supporting Ukraine. “He was yearning for the house in which he grew up, friends and his dear Mariupol,” she wrote on Telegram. But the children soon come to appreciate their new home, she said. The exact number of resettled children is not clear. Russian authorities did not respond to questions from The Times. Ukrainian authorities said they did not have an accurate count, but placed the figure in the thousands. In April, Russian authorities announced that more than 2,000 children had arrived in Russia. Most came from group homes and orphanages in territory long occupied by Russia. Russian officials said that 100 had come from recently occupied areas. In the following months, they announced hundreds of new arrivals. Olga Druzhinina said she had adopted four children, aged 6 to 17, from the Ukrainian city of Donetsk more than 1,600 miles from her home in Siberia. Credit: Courtesy of Olga Druzhinina While the resettlement of children from newly occupied lands has so far been sporadic, the Russian government recently announced plans to resettle these children more efficiently, raising the prospect of many more transfers. Russia’s wartime tactic exploits some of the thorniest and most intimate family dynamics. Russian families spoke of adoption as a matter of patriotism, but also expressed a heartfelt desire to provide a better life for the children. And while many Ukrainian parents try to recover their children, others do not, whether for financial reasons or because their relationships were severed even before the war. In the Siberian city of Salekhard along the Arctic Circle, Olga Druzhinina said she adopted four children, aged 6 to 17, from around the Ukrainian city of Donetsk more than 1,600 miles away. Russia recently illegally annexed the Donetsk region and three others in eastern and southern Ukraine. “Our family is like a small Russia,” Ms. Druzhinina said in an interview. “Russia took in four territories, and the Druzhinin family took in four children.”She said she was awaiting a fifth child and considered the children fully Russian. “We are not taking what is not ours,” she said. ‘They Simply Took Away All the Children’ A‌nya was living and recovering from tuberculosis in a group home on a wooded campus with a red swing set. As explosions blew out the building’s windows and doors, the children fled to the basement. Anya read fairy tales to the youngest ones and passed the time by drawing. Children in government homes are often labeled orphans, but most do have families. Ukraine makes it easy for parents struggling with illness, substance abuse or financial hardships to place their children — temporarily or permanently — in state-run institutions. The United Nations estimated that about 90,000 children were in such homes across Ukraine before the war. Many parents rescued their children from Anya’s building. Others did not, whether because they could not make their way through the war zone or, like Anya’s mother, they were unreachable. A Ukrainian volunteer crammed Anya and the 20 or so remaining children into an ambulance bound for the city of Zaporizhzhia, other children recalled. But they were rerouted at a Russian checkpoint, they said, and ended up with dozens of children at a hospital in the city of Donetsk, the capital of a region that Russia has occupied since 2014. This region is the heart of Russia’s removal-and-adoption policy. Since the invasion began, Mr. Putin’s government has promoted the systematic transfer of children from the area’s orphanages and group homes. For Anya and others taken from newly occupied territories in Ukraine, Donetsk also served as a sort of way station en route to Moscow. Ivan Matkovsky, 16, said he, too, ended up in a Donetsk hospital after fleeing a government boarding school in Mariupol and being rerouted at a Russian checkpoint. Ivan Matkovsky Credit: Courtesy of Ivan Matkovsky Among the other children in the hospital, Ivan said, was an 8-year-old boy named Nazar, who had hidden with his mother in a Mariupol theater that was pummeled by airstrikes in one of the war’s defining atrocities. He survived but never found his mother. Local authorities around Mariupol told similar stories of children who survived the Russian assault and ended up at nearby hospitals. One toddler arrived in a stroller along with a handwritten note that read, “This is Misha. Please help him!” said Vasyl Mitko, an official in the town of Nikolske who helped at the hospital. But one by one, Mr. Mitko said, the children vanished. “They simply took away all the children who were left without parents,” he said. “We still do not know where these children are.” ‘We Will Show You Moscow’ Ukrainian parents who managed to locate their children in Donetsk, gather the right paperwork and contact the right people had a chance at reunification. But even then, children and parents say, the authorities pressured children to go to Russia voluntarily. “They were promised a new, wonderful life,” said Natalia, a foster mother from Mariupol. Her 15-year-old foster son agreed to go to Russia, she said. She asked not to be identified by her full name because she worried it would make it harder to get him back. “These are children of a difficult fate,” she said. “They are easily deceived.” Timofey Chmel, 17, who was in the Donetsk hospital with Anya, said the authorities promised lives of leisure and love in Moscow. “We were told: ‘If you need gadgets or clothes, just tell us. We will buy everything. If you want, you can just go and relax. We will show you Moscow,’” he said. “‘If your parents abandoned you, they do not need you. We will help you.’” Timofey Chmel, left, watching TikTok videos from Ukraine this summer in Loué, in western France. Credit: Jeremias Gonzalez/Associated Press Timofey refused and was later reunited with his foster mother. Ivan, the 16-year-old boarding school student, said he and one of his schoolmates managed to contact their school’s headmaster, their legal guardian, and arrange their return. When children had nobody to call, or when parents were unable or unwilling to brave the journey to Donetsk, the children were given no choice. While Ivan was waiting for the headmaster to pick him up, he said, the other children were put on a bus for Russia. They protested. “No one listened to them,” Ivan said. “They had no choice.” Ivan is still in contact with three of the children in Russia. He does not know what became of Nazar, the boy who survived the theater attack. Anya, too, had no choice. She said a doctor told her that she would rest in an institution in the Moscow region for three weeks. That was months ago. “I was just told,” she said. “And that was it.” ‘Our Little Fellow Citizens’ The Russian government carefully choreographs the pipeline from the Donetsk region to Moscow. “Now you are at home, in a circle of friends,” the Russia-imposed mayor of Donetsk told a group of boys from Mariupol. He shared a video of the moment on Telegram. Russian officials in Donetsk invite reporters into group homes to witness children receiving cellphones, gifts and clothes. State-run television airs the children’s arrival in Moscow by train. Mr. Putin instituted a streamlined process in May allowing the swift nationalization of Ukrainian children. The first group became Russian citizens in July, officials announced. “I did not recognize those kids with whom we traveled in April on the train to their new life,” Ksenia Mishonova, the children’s rights commissioner for the Moscow region, said in a statement. “Now they are our little fellow citizens!” Some children were indeed orphaned or abandoned in Ukraine and prefer their lives in Russia. The Times spoke to one teenager from Mariupol who said he had no family back home. He said his foster family loved him like he was their own. Others, like Anya, long to return. She participated in a weekly class called Conversations About Important Things. The half-hour lesson, introduced recently by Mr. Putin, teaches children to be proud of Russia. Sometimes, Anya said, she cries, wondering if something horrible has happened to her family. After more than a month of reporting, Times reporters reached Anya’s mother, Oksana, in Ukraine. With no job, no internet access, a small disability pension and a war going on, she said she had no idea how to find her daughter. “I’m looking everywhere, but I can’t find her,” she said. “She is looking for me.” She said she did not know that Anya had been taken to Russia. Reporters told Anya and Oksana how to contact each other. The prospect of Anya returning home, though, is unclear. Ukrainian officials have been tight-lipped about how they have gotten dozens of children back from Russia. “Is this really her number?” Anya asked. Emma Bubola, a Times reporter based in London, spent weeks locating Ukrainian children and families affected by Russia’s resettlement policy. Anastasia Kuznietsova, Alina Lobzina  and  Maria Varenikova contributed reporting. A version of this article appears in print on Oct. 23, 2022, Section  A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Taken by Russia, Children Become the Spoils of War Copyright 2022 The New York Times Company

Trump’s Backers in Congress Use ‘Devil Terms’ to Polarize Voters New York Times. October 23, 2022 In vilifying tweets and speeches, G.O.P. lawmakers who contested the election have far outpaced other Republicans and Democrats in fueling polarization. By Jennifer Valentino-DeVries and Steve Eder As Representative Mary Miller embarked on her first congressional campaign, she described herself in salt-of-the-earth, all-American terms: a mother, grandmother and farmer who embodied the “Midwestern values of faith, family and freedom.” “Hard work, using God-given talents, and loving each other well,” a voice declared over video clips of Ms. Miller, a 63-year-old Illinois Republican, embracing her family, praying and walking on her farm in an ad in early 2020. “In the world today,” the ad continued, “we could use a lot more of this.” But there is another side to Ms. Miller’s wholesome image. Since entering Congress, she has routinely vilified Democrats and liberals, calling them “evil” communists beholden to China who want to “destroy” America and its culture. And President Biden’s plan, she seethed on Twitter this spring, is to “flood our country with terrorists, fentanyl, child traffickers, and MS-13 gang members.” Ms. Miller’s inflammatory words underscore the extent to which polarizing rhetoric is now entrenched among Republicans in the House of Representatives, especially among those like Ms. Miller who voted against certifying the Biden victory, according to an examination by The New York Times of partisan language over the past 10 years. The analysis of tweets, Facebook ads, newsletters and congressional speeches — more than 3.7 million items in all — relied largely on natural language processing, a technique that uses software to extract information from large amounts of text. The Times tallied words that were linked in academic research to divisive political content, as well as those identified by linguists and computer scientists to be used in polarizing ways — “fascist” and “socialist,” for example, “far right” and “far left.” Republican representatives have ratcheted up such rhetoric since former President Donald J. Trump took office, the analysis found. In the year and a half after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Republicans on average used divisive words and phrases more than twice as often as Democrats in tweets, and six times as often in emails to constituents. At the forefront of this polarization are Republicans who voted to reject the Electoral College results that cemented Mr. Trump’s defeat last year. A recent Times investigation revealed how those lawmakers helped engrave the myth of a stolen election in party orthodoxy. Now, a Times analysis shows that the language of the 139 objecting members is markedly more hostile than that of other Republicans and Democrats. In their telling, those who oppose them not only are wrong about certain policies but also hate their country. The Times found that in the current Congress, representatives who fought certifying the election used polarizing language on Twitter about 55 percent more often than other Republicans, and nearly triple the rate of Democrats. Objectors referred to their opponents as “socialist” in more than 1,800 tweets, more than twice as often as other Republicans. Democrats called the other side “fascist” about 80 times. While provocateurs like Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado have etched out combative personas, the analysis found that dozens of rank-and-file members, such as Ms. Miller, also joined the drumbeat of polarization. Ms. Miller, who did not respond to repeated requests for comment, is squarely among the dozens of objectors using the most negative language. The Times examined Democrats as well as Republicans. In the first years of the Trump presidency, Democrats on average spoke in a more outraged way than Republicans on Twitter and in constituent emails. A few Democrats, including Representative Bill Pascrell of New Jersey, were among those lawmakers who most frequently used demonizing speech on Twitter, even into the current congressional term. But Republicans have otherwise eclipsed Democrats, the analysis revealed. Republicans have more than quadrupled their use of divisive rhetoric since the early 2010s in the Congressional Record, which is dominated by stately and tedious speeches from the House floor. Among other things, the algorithmic techniques used by The Times compared statements with one another and with examples of known incendiary language. Similar tools are used in spam filters and by companies tracking discussions about their products on social media. (One complexity is that this technique cannot always distinguish between incendiary rhetoric and factual descriptions of antidemocratic behavior.) Political scientists at New York University reviewed and corroborated The Times’s findings and said the results underscored a broad shift in Republican rhetoric. “We are clearly living in a time in politics where this kind of aversion is increasing, and also where we are seeing the emergence of an extreme faction in the Republican Party,” said Joshua Tucker, a politics professor and co-director at the university’s Center for Social Media and Politics. Polarization on the Rise Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the minority leader and an objector, doubled down on combative language after advocating civility. Credit: Tom Brenner for The New York Times Five days after the Capitol riot, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican leader, implored members of his party to tone down their speech. “We all must acknowledge how our words have contributed to the discord in America,” he said, according to a recording included in the audio version of “This Will Not Pass,” a book by Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, who covered the 2020 election for The Times. Mr. McCarthy added, “No more name calling, us versus them.” But this spirit of reconciliation did not last. In dozens of tweets since then, Mr. McCarthy has referred to Democrats as “radical” leftists, said they prefer China to the United States and accused them of ruining America. Mr. McCarthy’s rhetoric is in line with that of other Republicans who objected to the election. “They are using what are called ‘devil terms’ — things that are so unquestionably bad that you can’t have a debate about them,” said Jennifer Mercieca, a professor at Texas A&M University who studies the history of political rhetoric. Although a demonizing communication style has been in use for years among media personalities and the occasional firebrand lawmaker, Mr. Trump popularized it among elite politicians. “His party has adopted these strategies as well, because they work,” said Dr. Mercieca, who reviewed The Times’s findings. The rise of polarization is not limited to Republicans, though their rhetoric tends to be more combative. One of the legislators who has most often lashed out is Mr. Pascrell of New Jersey, who tweets almost daily about Republicans, particularly what he says are their efforts to “overthrow democracy” and install Mr. Trump as a “dictator.” Mr. Pascrell, in a statement, said Republican leaders were “attacking the legitimacy of our government” and he felt compelled to respond. “I talk about that threat every day in clear, unmistakable terms because it is essential the American people understand what we are facing.” Members of “the squad,” the group of progressive Democrats that includes Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, have used that angry language less frequently than most others, despite often voicing far-left views that rattle many Republicans, the analysis found. Overall, legislators of all stripes are more likely to use provocative language on social media and in Facebook ads than in House speeches and official emails. The majority of messages sent out by congressional offices have remained anodyne — well wishes on holidays, descriptions of services for constituents and details of town hall meetings. Even so, several political scientists say that the factionalism is alarming because it makes compromise harder and normalizes such rhetoric throughout the population. Messages are particularly pernicious if they claim that political parties hate the United States, are in league with its enemies or cheat to win elections, the experts said. “The Leftists, who are authoritarians with a DNA that leans toward tyranny, believe that loading up the nation with unskilled workers from underdeveloped nations will provide Democrats with voters,” Representative Andy Biggs, a Republican objector from Arizona, wrote in an email in March 2021. “Democrats are so enamored of power that they want to legalize cheating in elections,” he added. On Twitter, objectors described liberals or Democrats as hating America or Americans more than 40 times during this congressional term. Other Republicans used those phrases twice, while one Democrat, Representative Eric Swalwell of California,  did so three times. “Over time, this negative aspect grows like a cancer,” said Monty G. Marshall, longtime director of the Polity IV Project, which collects data on governments worldwide and rates how democratic and autocratic they are. “It’s like a tumor on the body politic.” ‘Negative Partisanship’ Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, speaker of the House, was evacuated during the Capitol riot. She is a frequent online target of objectors. Credit: House Select Committee, via Associated Press Last February, Representative Mike Rogers of Alabama joined the Republican National Committee chairwoman on Twitter in accusing the newly elected Democratic district attorney in Manhattan of having “radical pro-criminal” policies. On its face, the attack had nothing to do with the House of Representatives or its speaker, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California. But Mr. Rogers made it about her. “Socialism on the march,” he wrote. “We must fire Pelosi.” That same week, Republicans tweeted more than 180 times about Ms. Pelosi; 165 of those posts were from objectors like Mr. Rogers. The legislators were addressing subjects as varied as  a technology bill, the Beijing Olympics and the investigation of Jan. 6. Their messages were biting: Representative Barry Moore of Alabama  wrote, “It’s simple — Speaker Pelosi wants to put America LAST.” Representative Barry Loudermilk of Georgia  tweeted, “Speaker Pelosi has turned the people’s House into a dictatorship, and is apparently using her power to try to destroy her political enemies.” And two members  retweeted the official Twitter account of the House G.O.P., saying simply, “Pelosi ♥️ Communist China.” Ms. Pelosi is a favorite target of Republicans: Objectors in the current term mentioned her on Twitter more than “abortion” and “crime,” two of their other frequently used words. Party leaders typically attract criticism, but Democrats posted about Mr. McCarthy, the Republican leader, about 1,100 times, while objectors tweeted about Ms. Pelosi more than 6,000 times. Objectors referred to Mr. Biden nearly 50,000 times — in more than 20 percent of their tweets — while other Republicans did so about half as often. Republicans overall mentioned Democrats twice as often on Twitter as they did their own party. Democrats followed the opposite pattern. During the first two years of Mr. Trump’s presidency, Democrats discussed him frequently, though not as much as Republicans now denounce the Democrats. Even when Republicans have power, vilifying their opponents has worked well for them, said Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University. It is part of a broader trend in American politics toward “negative partisanship,” he said. “On both sides there’s a very intense mistrust or dislike of the other party.” The Capitol Riot The authorities tried to repel Trump supporters from the Capitol during an attempt to block the Electoral College count. Credit: Kenny Holston for The New York Times On the first anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack, Representative Betty McCollum, Democrat of Minnesota, sent an email to her constituents calling the event an “attempted coup” and asserting that “our democracy is in danger.” Ms. McCollum was among dozens of Democrats who sent such missives that week. In a statement to The Times, she said she felt obliged to point out the threat posed by the objectors. “I intend to defend our democracy, and if that is ‘polarizing,’ so be it.” Republicans, on the other hand, had little to say about the riots. Fewer than 20, mostly objectors, published newsletters mentioning the anniversary. And the objectors mainly used it as an opportunity to assail the House investigation of the violence. “The mainstream media and Democrats’ decision to hold the actions of the few who engaged in violence that day as representative of all those they oppose or as a legitimate attempt to overthrow the government is dishonest,” wrote Representative Randy Weber, a Texas objector. Representative Matt Gaetz, a Florida objector and one of Mr. Trump’s most vocal proponents, proudly proclaimed that he had “stood up to this singular narrative of ‘threats to American democracy,’” while “most Republicans shied away.” His messages to constituents focused on baseless accusations that F.B.I. informants had incited protesters to storm the Capitol. “We will get the truth out,” he promised. Hot-Button Issues The border wall near the Rio Grande in McAllen, Texas. Objectors have used the spread of fentanyl in the country to attack Democrats’ border policies.Credit...Christopher Lee for The New York Times It is common fare for House Republicans to vent their frustrations of the moment: government spending, immigration and inflation, for example. But among objectors, those subjects often become slogans of outrage and disdain: the Democrats’ “socialist spending spree,” the “Biden border crisis” and “bidenflation.” There are telling differences between objectors and other Republicans in both their phrasing and the topics they emphasize, the analysis of their emails to constituents showed. Those who challenged the election tend to sensationalize hot-button issues, but other Republicans are likelier to focus on mundane subjects: holidays, local meetings and committee work. In more than 200 emails, objectors tried to stir up fear around efforts to “defund the police” or law enforcement, while other Republicans raised the topic at roughly 60 percent of that rate. Although some progressives have advocated defunding police departments, Democrats used that phrasing only once in their constituent emails, when one wrote, “Don’t defund law enforcement.” Republicans have turned again and again to problems associated with synthetic opioids like fentanyl, a drug that has ravaged many of the communities they represent and that has barely registered in Democratic communications, according to the analysis. But objectors are more likely to speak about fentanyl in accusatory, hyperbolic tones, blaming Democrats and “open borders” for its rise and seeking to have it labeled a “weapon of mass destruction.” Objectors particularly stand out in culture-war issues like transgender rights and teaching the history of race in America, weighing in far more often than other Republicans and doing so in a more vitriolic way. In June, Ms. Greene of Georgia  raged on Twitter that liberals were “grooming our children, pushing drag queen shows in elementary & middle schools, teaching gender lies and advocating teenagers go through genital mutilation.” A Media Bubble Objectors on social media link more often than other Republicans to conservative media outlets, including Fox News and The Daily Caller, co-founded by Tucker Carlson, center. Credit: Bryan Anselm for The New York Times The articles and videos that lawmakers share on social media serve as a guide to their most trusted information sources, as well as evidence of a widening gap in the news partisans consume. Again, the objectors stand out, turning to one source above all others: Fox News. In the most recent Congress, they tweeted links to the network more than 5,300 times, at nearly twice the rate of other Republicans. Democrats almost never link to Fox, preferring CNN, The Times and The Washington Post. They also link much more frequently to government websites such as those for finding vaccines or health coverage — sites Republicans have almost never promoted. Objectors differ not only from Democrats but from their fellow partisans in their willingness to direct followers to more stridently right-wing sources, including The Daily Caller, co-founded by the Fox News host Tucker Carlson, and Breitbart News, once led by the erstwhile Trump strategist Stephen K. Bannon. They linked to Breitbart in nearly 900 tweets, compared with about 70 for other Republicans. “#BidenBorderCrisis costs more lives,” wrote Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama, sharing a Breitbart article about the murder of a woman in Pennsylvania. “When will Socialists support border security?” The most vocal Trump supporters are also much likelier to link to sites with a reputation for circulating conspiracy theories, including Gateway Pundit and The Epoch Times. In January, Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona  tweeted a link to a Gateway Pundit article about a nonprofit that assists states with voter rolls and registrations. The article accused the group of running “essentially a left wing voter registration drive,” and Mr. Gosar agreed, saying it was an example of efforts by George Soros — the billionaire Democratic donor who is a common target of right-wing conspiracy theories — “to undermine fair elections.” A spokesman for Mr. Gosar would not address the tweet, instead decrying Democrats’ rhetoric and suggesting that Mr. Biden’s denunciation of extremism and MAGA Republicans counted as “hate speech” against conservatives. In interviews with The Times, several objectors said that partisan-fueled information wars were a major contributor to polarization and that it was increasingly difficult to know whom to trust — even for them. But some gave surprising answers about their own habits, stating they consumed a greater variety of media than they shared. “You’ve got to be willing to listen and look at things objectively from people whom you might not be on their radar, or them on yours,” said Representative Pete Sessions of Texas, who said he regularly listened to NPR and The Daily podcast of The Times. Still, the political news sources he shared on Twitter were Republican staples, with Fox News topping the list. The Language of Faith Objectors often invoke their faith to inspire or celebrate, but they also use it to attack Democrats. Credit: Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times For objectors, evangelical Christianity often shapes their messaging and sometimes their portrayal of the political system as a battleground between right and wrong. They refer to their religion more than other lawmakers, including Republicans, The Times found. And while they often invoke their faith to inspire or celebrate, they also use it to attack Democrats, depicting them as hating Christianity. “The liberal woke mob are attacking everything. Our National Anthem. Our Christian Faith. Our Gun Rights,” Representative Buddy Carter of Georgia said last year in a  tweet. “These people are SICK.” On social media, Ms. Miller of Illinois regularly quotes the Bible and writes “Happy Sunday” messages to her followers. She posted one such tweet while taking respite from the campaign trail in June, sharing a photo of herself on the sofa with seven of her grandchildren. She wrote, “I am so blessed!” Five days later, Ms. Miller’s Twitter took a different tone. “The Left tells our children a hopeless message that they do not come from God, they are not born for any purpose, and they cannot obtain salvation,” she  wrote, before pledging to defend the right to bear arms. Last December, Ms. Miller  tweeted a picture of a cloven-hoofed sculpture that the Satanic Temple, a self-described nontheistic religious group, had installed near a Christmas tree and Nativity scene inside the Illinois State Capitol. A  sign said the state, which is led by Democrats, could not “legally censor” such controversial installations under the First Amendment. Ms. Miller turned it into a line of attack — tweeting that “the left cheers this” because they “are not only an anti-American party, they are an anti-Christian party.” “We’re at war for the heart & soul of our country,” she added, concluding, “Christ is on our side and we will prevail!” Michael H. Keller contributed reporting. Produced by Hang Do Thi Duc and Rumsey Taylor. Methodology: The Times studied lawmakers’ rhetoric by evaluating nearly three million tweets, more than 100,000 email newsletters, 300,000 Facebook ads and 350,000 statements from the Congressional Record from 2010 through this past June. The analysis employed language software, Receptiviti, to tally how often the legislators used words that academic researchers had linked to antagonistic speech online. Times reporters checked thousands of randomly selected tweets and newsletters to see whether the words were indeed being used in a hostile way. This resulted in some words being removed from the evaluation list. Reporters also performed a computer analysis on another large sample to determine which words were much more likely to appear in messages that expressed anger, disdain or distrust toward the opposing party. When negative terms were strongly identified with one party — such as “left-wing” — reporters included a corresponding term from the other whenever possible. The material went through further analysis. Tweets were counted as polarizing if they included any words from the revised list, but in longer texts such as newsletters, multiple words were required. The Times worked with Patrick Wu, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Social Media and Politics at N.Y.U. Using a technique called trained machine learning, he found the same pattern as The Times in recent tweets. Ashique KhudaBukhsh, a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology who researches political polarization, also reviewed the methodology and findings. To learn about different subjects lawmakers discussed, The Times relied on topic modeling, a machine learning technique that calculates which words are likely to cluster together to form topics. And The Times evaluated religious content using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count, a tool that checks texts for related words. All of these methods are widely used by academic researchers and can evaluate enormous amounts of text, but they are not precise enough to rank individual lawmakers. This is because any given message can produce a false positive or negative. Someone may use an angry word in criticizing such language, for example, or speak in terms too subtle to register as polarizing. Over hundreds of thousands of examples, these types of errors tend to even out to produce reliable indications of patterns. The Times’s findings about the current congressional term were statistically significant. The Times obtained data from Twitter; the Congressional Record; Facebook’s Ad Library; the Congressional tracking company LegiStorm; and DCinbox, an academic project that collects email newsletters. Tweets and ads from government accounts as well as campaign accounts were included. The Times collected the data in conjunction with the Tow Center at the Columbia Journalism School. Jennifer Valentino-DeVries is a reporter on the investigative team, where she specializes in using data to shed light on complex issues. In 2021, she was part of a team that won the Pulitzer Prize in national reporting, for coverage of systemic failures in American policing that lead to avoidable deaths. @jenvalentino Steve Eder is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for The Times. He is based in New York. @SteveEder A version of this article appears in print on Oct. 23, 2022, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Backers Use ‘Devil Terms’ to Rally Voters. Copyright 2022 The New York Times Company

Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan border tensions simmer amid a flurry of accusations. Both sides are accusing one another of secretly returning troops and weapons to the contested border. Oct 19, 2022 An image that Kyrgyzstan says shows Tajik troops being moved to an area of the contested border. (Photo: Kyrgyzstan GKNB) Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have once again traded accusations of covertly mustering their armed forces along a contested section of their shared border, stirring worries that a fresh bout of unrest may be looming. In a statement on October 19, the Tajik security services accused Kyrgyzstan of deploying military equipment and digging trenches along the border, as well as repeatedly violating Tajikistan’s airspace with unmanned drones. The Tajik security services say this photo shows a truck carrying a Kyrgyz armored vehicle to the border. (Photo: Tajikistan GKNB) “[This] is a clear confirmation of the Kyrgyz side’s malicious plans,” the Tajik State Committee for National Security, or GKNB, said in the statement. Kyrgyzstan’s security services, also known as the GKNB, fired back with their own statement, expressing bewilderment at the accusations made by Tajikistan. Tajik border forces are “deliberately disseminating distorted information in an attempt to provoke the population on the border into committing illegal actions,” the Kyrgyz GKNB said. It is Tajik armed forces that have been installing firing positions, digging trenches across the entire perimeter of the border, and making incursions with unmanned aerial vehicles, Kyrgyz security services said. “Since September 25, 2022, there have been more than 10 instances of [Tajik] drones conducting reconnaissance activities and violating the airspace of the Kyrgyz Republic,” they said. More than 100 people were killed in mid-September when a clash between border patrols in an isolated mountain area escalated into what both sides later went on to claim were broad, premeditated military assaults by one against the other. Civilians bore the brunt of the violence. Most available evidence strongly suggests non-combatants in Kyrgyzstan sustained a particularly heavy toll. The uneasy peace that has prevailed since that time is underpinned by a September 25 protocol that committed Kyrgyz and Tajik troops to vacating four border posts apiece in the areas where clashes took place. The parties also agreed to withdraw heavy military equipment from the border and install surveillance cameras in particularly sensitive locations so as to minimize the likelihood of one or other side initiating hostilities. Kyrgyzstan has furthermore pleaded with the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, a defense bloc of which Tajikistan is also a member, to station troops along the border to help prevent a repeat occurrence of violence. "I recently met with CSTO Secretary General Stanislav Zas. I told him that there would be no peace between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Why? Because the Kyrgyz have their own truth, and the Tajiks have their own. Until an arbitrator comes between us, say a small contingent from the CSTO, peace will not be achieved,” Kyrgyz Defense Minister Baktybek Bekbolotov told reporters on October 19. Earlier this week, a senior security official in Bishkek told reporters that Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov appealed for help to Russian President Vladimir Putin in resolving the border impasse. “He said: ‘Maybe you could assist, since our two countries are finding it difficult to resolve things and everything ends in conflict,’” the secretary of Kyrgyzstan’s security council, Marat Imankulov, said, citing remarks purportedly made by Japarov to Putin. The dueling statements released on October 19 highlight that mutual suspicion is deep and intense. Tajikistan has accused Kyrgyz civilians of also getting involved in what it described as constant assaults on people attempting to reach the Tajik enclave of Vorukh, which is separated from the mainland by Kyrgyz territory. “Residents of the village of Ak-Sai, which has a population of 3,500, have for an extended period been systematically attacking Tajik citizens and their vehicles, blocking the only road to Vorukh and thereby restricting the movement of 45,000 Tajik civilians … infringing their rights and isolating them from the outside world,” the Tajik GKNB stated. The GKNB produced several images it said proved that Tajik homes and cars have been coming under attack. Kyrgyz civilians in Ak-Sai came in for particularly brutal treatment during September’s unrest. Dozens of homes were destroyed by rampaging mobs. Eyewitnesses reported seeing uniformed Tajik men among the attackers. The Kyrgyz security services have responded with their own set of allegations. One was the claim that mosques in Tajikistan are being used for training mercenaries and storing weapons and ammunition. Kyrgyz officials also say that Tajik armed groups are using ambulances to transport weapons. “The border service of the State Committee for National Security of Kyrgyzstan notes with regret that despite the signing of the protocol and [an agreement on] measures to stabilize the situation in the border areas, the Tajik side continues to pursue activities that could serve as a catalyst for another border conflict,” the security services said. The apparent increased use of drones by both armed forces is another signal of the relentless escalation in the standoff between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Clashes in earlier years have largely involved the use of light weapons, mortars and portable rocket launchers. In September’s fighting, it appears that Tajikistan made use of multiple rocket launchers, while both sides deployed heavy armored vehicles. In another precedent, Kyrgyzstan’s armed forces reportedly struck targets within Tajikistan by means of a Turkish-manufactured Bayraktar drone of the type that has been used to great effect by Ukrainian forces resisting the Russian invasion. On October 12, the head of the Kyrgyz GKNB, Kamchybek Tashiyev, uploaded a photo to his Facebook page showing himself posing next to a Bayraktar drone, the full Turkish name of which is Bayraktar Akinci. “The Akinci is ours!” Tashiyev wrote in a message with the photo. “Thank you to our brother nation.” The post has widely been interpreted as an indication that Kyrgyzstan may have acquired more of the drones from Turkey since September’s troubles. In more circumstantial evidence that Kyrgyzstan is seeking to build a broader fleet of drones, unattributed footage circulated online this week displaying an armed drone purportedly designed and built in Kyrgyzstan. Sections of the footage show what appear to be Kyrgyz soldiers handling the aircraft. Nothing certain is known about the drone other than its name – SAARA-02. Tajikistan likewise has drones at its disposal. In May, the chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, Major-General Mohammad Bagheri, traveled to the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, to attend the opening of a facility for the production of Iranian-designed Ababil-2 tactical drones. The unmanned aerial vehicle is described by U.S. military sources as a single-engine, long-range, low-technology drone that is mainly used as a target drone for training anti-aircraft defense crews, but which can also be deployed for “rudimentary surveillance capabilities” and as “a loitering munition.” Tajikistan is also being supplied with $20 million worth of Puma reconnaissance drones by the U.S. government, although the expectation is that those aircraft are to be used for patrolling the border with Afghanistan. © 2022 Eurasianet. All rights reserved.

Canada supreme court refuses to hear appeal in blow to residential school survivors. Survivors of St Anne’s Indian residential school allege government withheld key evidence in determining compensation for victims Names of lives lost to residential schools are displayed in ceremonies for the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation in Ottawa on 30 September. Photograph: Sean Kilpatrick/AP Canada’s supreme court has declined to hear an appeal brought by a group of Indigenous residential school survivors, dealing a major blow to their decade-long fight against federal government over thousands of unreleased documents. Survivors of St Anne’s Indian residential school had hoped the country’s top court would take their case, which alleges Canada’s federal government withheld crucial evidence in determining compensation for victims of abuse at the school in northern Ontario. The court did not say why it declined to hear the case, as is standard practice. But the decision was met with sharp criticism and disbelief by prominent Indigenous voices. “No words for how horrible this is, how justice is continually denied for St Anne’s Indian Residential School survivors, their families,” the writer Tanya Talaga tweeted. “Canada should have done the right thing when this all first started. Release the records and OPP reports which detail abuse. How hard is this?” Pam Palmater, a law professor, called the decision “disgusting”, writing on social media that prime minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet should be “ashamed” after fighting the release of the documents. St Anne’s, which operated from 1902 to 1976 in the community of Fort Albany, was part of the network of church and state-run institutions where 150,000 Indigenous children were sent as part of a campaign of forced assimilation. The school was notorious for its widespread abuses, including the use of a homemade electric chair constructed to punish Indigenous children. In 2006, following an apology from the federal government over widespread abuse and neglect within the schools, a framework was announced to determine compensation. The process began in 2007 and the settlement agreement between survivors and the federal government included a provision that assigned a fixed payout for children who had suffered extreme abuse while at residential schools. But survivors of St Anne’s say the federal government breached its obligations under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement after withholding documents that could have affected compensation. Under the agreement, the federal government was obliged to hand over documents that would help in the adjudication of abuse claims and to determine fair compensation. But the government withheld thousands of relevant documents, part of an investigation by the Ontario provincial police into allegations of sexual and physical abuse at the school in the 1990s. As a result of the investigation, four former staff members of the school, as well as one Indian Affairs employee, were charged. The judge overseeing the settlement said the omission was a “mistake” and appeared to be unintentional. But some survivors of the school allege they lost compensation cases – or received lower payouts – over doubts about the abuse they suffered. A subsequent investigation into the missing documents concluded the federal government should revisit 11 cases of abuse. The federal government said it would reopen the specific cases. Before the top court’s decision, the Liberal government had urged the supreme court, through court filings, not to intervene in the case. Charlie Angus, a lawmaker representing the area where the school operated, criticized the court’s decision. “The Justice Department suppressed evidence of crimes at St Anne’s. Government lawyers attacked survivors in private hearings. Liberals spent millions to perpetuate this injustice. "Now the supreme court says it trusts the government,” he tweeted. “There is no reconciliation.”

Vetting, Demobilization Program Needed People fleeing fighting between Congolese forces and M23 rebels near Kibumba in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, May 24, 2022 (2022 AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa) (Goma) – Congolese army units backed armed groups implicated in serious abuses in the recent conflict with M23 rebel forces in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Human Rights Watch said today. Between May and August 2022, the Congolese army with a coalition of Congolese militia as well as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) fought against Rwandan-backed M23 rebels in North Kivu province. At times, some Congolese army officers provided the armed groups with direct support. Since late August, most groups have withdrawn from their front-line positions. “Congolese army units are again resorting to the discredited and damaging practice of using abusive armed groups as their proxies,” said Thomas Fessy, senior Congo researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Congolese government should end this support, which leads to military complicity in abuses, identify officers responsible, and hold them accountable.” The M23 offensive in May and the takeover of Bunagana, a trading town at the Uganda border, in June displaced tens of thousands of people. Despite a lull in the fighting since mid-August, the humanitarian situation in Rutshuru territory, North Kivu, remains critical, adding to an already dire situation in eastern Congo. Over the past year, armed groups and at times government soldiers have committed widespread abuses, including unlawful killings, sexual violence, and theft, causing the security situation to deteriorate. Since June, Human Rights Watch has interviewed five fighters from armed groups, seven witnesses of abuses and family members of victims, as well as activists, Congolese civilian and military officials, United Nations staff, and aid workers. On May 8 and 9, leaders of several Congolese armed groups, some of them rivals, met in the remote town of Pinga and agreed to a non-aggression pact forming a “patriotic” coalition to join forces with the Congolese army against “the aggressor,” namely the M23. The groups included the Patriots’ Alliance for a Free and Sovereign Congo (Alliance des patriotes pour un Congo libre et souverain, APCLS) of Janvier Karairi, the Coalition of Movements for Change (Coalition des mouvements pour le changement, CMC/FDP) of Dominique Ndaruhuste, known as “Domi,” the Nduma Defense of Congo-Renovated (Nduma défense du Congo-Rénové, NDC-R) faction of Guidon Mwisa Shimirai, and the Nyatura Abazungu’s Alliance of Congolese nationalists for the defense of human rights (Alliance des nationalistes congolais pour la défense des droits humains, ANCDH/AFDP) of Jean-Marie Bonane. Members of the groups and witnesses circulated pictures of the meeting, which several Congolese army officers attended, led by Col. Salomon Tokolonga, who oversees operations and military intelligence at the 3411th regiment. Two FDLR senior commanders were also reportedly present. All of these armed groups are known human rights abusers in their strongholds. Human Rights Watch has previously documented widespread abuses by forces under the command of NDC-R leader Guidon, who remains under UN sanctions. Congolese authorities issued an arrest warrant against him in 2019 for recruiting children, insurrection, and the crime against humanity of rape. The coalition of armed groups is commonly referred to as the forces amies or friendly forces. Colonel Tokolonga told Human Rights Watch by phone that he attended the Pinga meeting “by coincidence” because he was “visiting troops deployed in the area.” At the time, Tokolonga was under the command of Gen. Peter Cirimwami, himself in charge of Sokola II military operations in North Kivu between early April and early July. Cirimwami was then reassigned to Ituri province “following persistent allegations of the [Congolese army] using local armed groups as proxies in Rutshuru territory,” UN investigators reported. Human Rights Watch received credible information that Congolese army members from Tokolonga’s 3411th regiment provided more than a dozen boxes of ammunition to FDLR fighters in Kazaroho, one of their strongholds in the Virunga National Park, on July 21. Two months earlier, dozens of FDLR and CMC/FDP fighters reportedly took part in a large counteroffensive with government soldiers in the area around Rumangabo and Rugari. One FDLR fighter told Human Rights Watch that he witnessed four transfers of ammunition. “It’s the government [troops] that would always provide us with ammunition,” he said. “They also gave us uniforms and boots.” Two fighters from the Mai-Mai Kabidon (FPP-AP) militia also said that the Congolese army supplied them with ammunition. “The army contacted us,” a 42-year-old commander said. “They provided us with ammunition in Kiwanja and we went straight to the front line. … once there, collaboration happens thanks to communication devices as each group deploys to a position.” In an unpublished July report submitted to the UN Security Council that leaked to the media, the UN Group of Experts on Congo found that on May 30, an APCLS senior commander “met with a commander of the 34016th regiment in Kitchanga, and received arms and ammunition as well as food stuff.” The investigators stated that “members of the coalition of armed groups received weapons and ammunition from some [Congolese army] members on several occasions.” Several witnesses and fighters told Human Rights Watch that once near or at the front line, these armed groups would need to find their own food and supplies. Some illegally taxed civilians as a result. “We try to avoid contact with them [the armed groups], but they have requested a contribution from every household for their survival,” a man from Kabaya said. “It can be beans or even a cow for herders.” Human Rights Watch also documented several other cases of abuses against civilians, including at least three killings by FDLR fighters in May and July and two cases of rape by Congolese soldiers in July. On July 7, FDLR fighters executed Kaseba Nyangezi, 25, who was born in an ethnically mixed Hutu-Tutsi family. He and his family fled Bunagana following the takeover by M23 rebels and sought refuge in Kabaya. A family member said that fighters from both FDLR and Nyatura armed groups accused Nyangezi of collaborating with the M23 and harassed him. Feeling threatened, he fled to Goma, where fighters eventually picked him up. “They took him away and sent him to the FDLR in Rugari,” the family member said. “[FDLR fighters] killed him and we have yet to find his body.” The FDLR is a largely Rwandan Hutu armed group, some of whose leaders took part in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. FDLR fighters have killed hundreds of civilians over the years in eastern Congo, at times hacked them to death with machetes or hoes, or burned them in their homes. The fighters have committed countless rapes and other acts of sexual violence. Congolese armed groups that formed the coalition in May also have a long history of attacks against civilians, including summary killings, recruitment of children, extortion, and sexual violence. President Felix Tshisekedi, spoke against any alliance between military commanders and armed groups before an audience of senior army officers in Kinshasa on May 12. “I will not accept that individuals act unethically to make schemes with negative forces to fight other negative forces,” he said. “One does not put out a fire by throwing oil on it.” Human Rights Watch has received credible information that General Cirimwami, who headed military operations in North Kivu until July, has been recalled to Kinshasa since September 21 but could not confirm whether he was being investigated. A day earlier, Lt. Gen.Philemon Yav, in charge of eastern provinces, was arrested for reasons not made public and remains in detention in Kinshasa. In 2008, UN investigators found that Yav actively collaborated with and funnelled weapons to armed groups, including the FDLR. Tokolonga has remained in North Kivu and has not been investigated. Tshisekedi’s administration should carry out a security sector overhaul, including adopting a plan to address impunity for grave human rights violations, with a vetting mechanism for the military and other security services, an internationalized justice entity, and a comprehensive reparations program for victims of abuses, Human Rights Watch said. Such systemic reform as well as an effective demobilization program aimed at militia and armed group fighters should be central in ongoing regional discussions regarding the security threat posed by the M23 and other armed groups. “Congolese officers who collaborate with abusive armed groups undermine the armed forces’ duty to protect all Congolese,” Fessy said. “With regional initiatives underway, Tshisekedi and regional leaders have an opportunity to address impunity and break these cycles of abuse.” © 2022 Human Rights Watch

October 2022 A protester holds a placard as they demonstrate against the ruling CNDD-FDD party's decision to allow Burundi President Pierre Nkurunziza to run for a third five-year term in office, in Bujumbura, on May 4, 2015 (© Jean Pierre Harerimana, Reuters) From the 16th century, Burundi was ruled by a monarchy from the Tutsi Ganwa aristocracy. German and Belgian colonial rule, which ended in 1962, maintained the monarchy and Tutsis (15% of the population) were given preference for positions in the army, government, and priesthood. Hutus (85% of the population) were mostly subsistence farmers on land owned by the Ganwa. In pre-independence elections the Ganwa Prince Rwagasore received 80% of the vote. He was assassinated a month later. King Mwambutsa appointed a Hutu Prime Minister in 1963. He was assassinated in 1965. In 1966, army captain Micombero carried out a coup d'état and abolished the monarchy. He purged Hutus from the army. In 1972 the Tutsi army perpetrated The First Burundi Genocide which killed over 100,000 mostly educated Hutus and purged Hutus from civil society. 5000 Hutus were massacred in the northern communes of Ntega and Marangara in August 1988. These massacres were personally investigated at the sites of the massacres by Prof. Gregory Stanton, who then met with Burundian President Buyoya to urge him to appoint a broad, ethnically balanced government. Hutu leaders also asked Buyoya to appoint Hutus to ministerial positions, which he finally did in 1993. Buyoya gave Burundi a new constitution and a multiparty system. Whilst these political reforms saw a Hutu President elected in 1993, the army revolted and assassinated him. Hutu rebel groups then killed over 100,000 Tutsis in The Second Burundi Genocide, prompting retributive reprisals by Tutsis and sparking a civil war from 1993 to 2005. Prof. Stanton wrote UN Security Council Resolution 1012 in 1995, which established the UN Commission of Inquiry on Burundi. The Commission concluded that Burundi had had two genocides and could have more genocidal violence if the divisions in Burundian politics were not addressed. The Burundi Policy Forum was established in Washington, DC to address the crisis. It included NGOs, State and Defense Department, UN, and academic experts who met monthly to plan preventive measures without the institutional silos that deter creative action. Search for Common Ground, SAIS, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Council on Foreign Relations, the State Department's Stanton and Ambassador Bogosian and former Congressman Howard Wolpe played key roles in its work. In Burundi, negotiations between the Buyoya government and Hutu rebel groups were conducted with the assistance of President Nyerere of Tanzania and President Nelson Mandela of South Africa. Security was provided by South African police, who physically protected Buyoya and others in the peace talks. The civil war ended with the implementation of a new constitution in 2005, which included an ethnic quota system ensuring a 60% - 40% ratio between Hutus and Tutsis in political and military leadership, and a 30% quota for women in parliament. The largest Hutu party, the Force for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD-FDD), won the first election, and Pierre Nkurunziza became President in 2006. He was reelected in 2010 in an unopposed election. In 2015, Burundi faced a new crisis when Nkurunziza announced he would run for a third term, which seemed to be illegal according to the constitution. The Supreme Court ruled that a third term would not violate the constitution. Mass protests broke out, and the government violently shut down media and killed key opposition figures, leading to sanctions from the United States and the European Union. The army raided Tutsi homes and ethnic slurs against Tutsis were widespread. Burundi faced economic decline and political instability under Nkurunziza’s tenure. Burundi ranks at the bottom of all nations in annual per capita income ($270). Hoping for "reform", the CNDD-FDD put Evariste Ndayishimiye forward for the 2020 election. The 2020 election was conducted without international scrutiny as opposition members were detained and the press was muzzled. Ndayishimiye has implemented no substantial political reforms despite an easing of Western sanctions. Fear, repression, and impunity have characterized Burundi’s political culture. A 2018 press law requires journalists to provide ‘balanced’ reporting with only the government’s ‘facts’ considered publishable. In 2018, all NGOs were expelled for three months. They are now tightly monitored and restricted. Most Burundian newspapers no longer exist as their staffs have been exiled or silenced. Burundi is a police state. The CNDD-FDD’s youth wing, the Imbonerakure, intimidates voters, conducting assault, murder, and sexual violence with impunity. The International Criminal Court authorized an investigation of crimes against humanity in Burundi in 2017 and that year, Burundi became the first country to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the ICC. Ethnicity remains the key issue in Burundi’s politics. Since 2015 Tutsi officers have been driven out of the army. This has increased the insecurity many Tutsis feel. Social media has seen an increase in ethnic hate speech. A 2018 constitutional amendment removed the ethnic quotas safeguarding Tutsi and Twa minority representation in parliament. Land laws discriminate against the hunter-gatherer Twa (1% of the population), by expropriating their land for farming. Due to the Imbonerakure’s ability to operate with impunity, Genocide Watch considers Burundi to be at Stage Five: Organization. Removal of ethnic quotas in parliament, the increase in ethnic hate speech on social media, and targeting of Tutsis by the army and militias, put Burundi at Stage Six: Polarization and Stage Eight: Persecution. Genocide Watch recommends: The US and the EU should target their sanctions to deter specific individuals engaged in repression. The CNDD-FDD must disband the Imbonerakure and prosecute the crimes of its members. The Burundian government allow NGOs and the press to have unrestricted access to all of Burundi. Burundi must revoke its 2018 press law and permit free speech and a free press. Burundi should re-join the International Criminal Court and fully accept the ICC's jurisdiction.

A police officer fires at a flying drone following attacks in Kyiv this morning KYIV/WASHINGTON, Oct 17 (Reuters) - The United States will hold Russia accountable for "war crimes", the White House said on Monday, hours after Russia attacked Ukrainian cities with drones during morning rush hour, killing at least four people in an apartment building in Kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his Monday evening video address, said there had been more attacks. "Right now, there is a new Russian drone attack. There are (drones) that have been shot down." Interfax Ukraine news agency said Telegram users had reported blasts in the town of Fastiv just outside Kyiv, as well as in the southern port of Odesa. Russian forces also targeted infrastructure across Ukraine in the second wave of air strikes in a week, like the first coming in the morning with people going to work and school. Ukrainian soldiers fired into the air trying to shoot down the drones after blasts rocked the capital Kyiv on Monday morning. An anti-aircraft rocket could be seen streaking into the morning sky, followed by an explosion and orange flames, as residents raced for shelter. U.S. President Joe Biden's press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that the White House "strongly condemns Russia’s missile strikes today" and said the attack "continues to demonstrate (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s brutality". Mentioning a new, $725 million military aid package announced for Ukraine last Friday, she said: “We will continue to stand with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes. “... We will continue to impose costs on Russia, hold them accountable for its war crimes." A pregnant woman was among four people killed in the attack on the residential building, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Ukraine's Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi said there had been deaths in other cities but did not provide a full toll. Black smoke poured out of the windows of the Kyiv apartment building and emergency service workers toiled to douse flames. "I have never been so afraid ... It is murder, it is simply murder," said Vitalii Dushevskiy, 29, a food delivery courier who rents an apartment in the building. His flatmate, who gave his name only as Nazar, said they had tried to leave only to find the staircase "all gone". Nearby, Elena Mazur, 52, was searching for her mother, who had managed to call her to say she was buried under rubble. "She is not picking up the phone," Mazur said, hoping her mother been rescued and taken to hospital. 'SUICIDE' DRONES Ukraine said the attacks were carried out by Iran-made "suicide drones", which fly to their target and detonate. The United States, Britain and France agreed that Iran supplying drones to Russia would violate a U.N. Security Council resolution that endorsed the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six powers. Iran on Monday stuck to its denial that it is supplying the drones to Russia, while the Kremlin has not commented. The White House accused Iran of lying when it says Iranian drones were not being used by Russia in Ukraine. Asked for comment, the Iranian mission to the United Nations repeated a statement issued by the government on Friday that said it supports upholding the U.N. Charter and the U.N.'s attempts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Ukraine. Several EU foreign ministers on Monday called for sanctions against Iran over the transfer of drones to Russia. Russia's defence ministry said it had carried out a "massive" attack on military targets and energy infrastructure across Ukraine using high-precision weapons. Reuters saw pieces of a drone used in the attack that bore the words: "For Belgorod" - an apparent reference to Ukrainian shelling of a Russian border region. "This is already a tradition: to wake Ukrainians with missiles on Mondays," said Alla Voloshko, a 47-year-old lawyer who took shelter in the basement of her apartment block. Ukraine's military said it had destroyed 37 Russian drones since Sunday evening, or around 85% of those used in attacks. Reuters was not able to independently verify that tally. A drone attack hit the Everi marine terminal in the southern port of Mykolaiv on Sunday night, officials said, damaging sunflower storage tanks and setting leaking oil aflame. Russia denies targeting civilians in what it calls its "special military operation" in Ukraine, launched on Feb. 24 and including the biggest annexation of territory in Europe since World War Two. RUSSIAN FIGHTER CRASH In Russia itself, a Russian fighter plane crashed into a residential building in the southern city of Yeysk, engulfing apartments in flames, the regional governor said. At least four people were reported killed, according to Interfax. RIA news agency said the crash took place during a training flight. It quoted the defence ministry as saying the pilots, who ejected, had reported an engine caught fire on takeoff, and that the plane's fuel had ignited when it struck the building. Russia's state Investigative Committee said it had opened a criminal case. Yeysk is separated from occupied Russian territory in southern Ukraine by a narrow stretch of the Sea of Azov. Elsewhere, Russian shelling near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe's largest, caused it to be disconnected again from Ukraine's power grid, Ukrainian state energy firm Energoatom said. It was soon connected to a backup system, the International Atomic Energy Agency (AEA) said. The plant, which has been shelled during the war, is occupied by Russian forces but operated by Ukrainian staff. Its reactors need power to keep the fuel inside cool and prevent a meltdown. Russia has long blamed Kyiv for shelling at the plant. Moscow and Kyiv on Monday meanwhile carried out one of the biggest prisoner swaps of the war so far, exchanging a total of 218 detainees, including 108 Ukrainian women, officials from both sides said. © 2022 Reuters. All rights reserved

Exhumed graves at a mass burial site in Izium, Ukraine. Credit: Nicole Tung for The New York Times KHARKIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian police have recovered 534 bodies of civilians in territory recaptured by the Ukrainian Army since early September, Serhii Bolvinov, head of the investigative department of the regional police force in Kharkiv, said at a news briefing on Thursday. The bodies included 226 women and 19 children. Most of the civilian bodies recovered — 447 — were found in a mass burial site in Izium. The police have also discovered 22 locations that they suspect were used as torture chambers in areas of Kharkiv Province that were recently freed from Russian control, he said. Investigators have been gathering documents and other evidence from the sites and witness testimony, including from former detainees. “Russian units set up such places of detention of civilians and prisoners of war in almost all the settlements where they were based,” Mr. Bolvinov said. Ukrainian troops have recaptured nearly 500 towns and villages since Sept. 7 in a sweeping counterattack that has pushed Russian forces out of most of Kharkiv Province after nearly seven months of occupation. “The most common torture techniques were electric shocks and severe beatings with sticks and other objects,” Mr. Bolvinov said. “There are cases of pulling out nails and using gas masks to restrict breathing.” Most of the victims were residents who were detained for violating the nightly curfew or accused of acting as target spotters for Ukrainian artillery attacks. Regional police investigators showed where Russian forces held and interrogated prisoners in a basement in Kozacha Lopan, in northern Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Thursday. Credit: Ivor Prickett for The New York Times In one instance, Mr. Bolvinov said, a pensioner from Izium traveled out of the city but then returned for personal reasons. After a Ukrainian artillery strike on Izium on Aug. 29 the pensioner was detained at his home and taken to the local police station, which Russian troops were using as a military headquarters, Mr. Bolvinov said. The building is one of the locations being investigated as a torture chamber. “People speaking with a Russian accent demanded to know who he was passing the coordinates to,” Mr. Bolvinov said, reading from the witness record. They hit the pensioner with a tube, breaking his arm, and pushed metal spokes from a bicycle wheel under his skin in the area of ​​his shoulder blades. After two hours of torture, the man lost consciousness from the pain, Mr. Bolvinov said. The police were also investigating a case in the village of Pisky-Radkivski, east of Izium, where a group of about 10 Russian soldiers, including a commander, set up a headquarters in a private house, Mr. Bolvinov said. They seized the home and two cars from a resident, he said. “We have witnesses who heard screams from the basement, pleas for help,” Mr. Bolvinov said. “Sometimes, after the screams, the locals heard bursts of shots, after which the screams stopped.” In the basement of the house, the police found ropes, Ukrainian army jackets, a gas mask, a dildo and a plastic container with dentures and gold teeth. Investigators also found records of testimony by Ukrainian prisoners. Mr. Bolvinov said the authorities were investigating whether the teeth were evidence of torture or had been taken from a dentist’s practice. The teeth have been sent for DNA analysis, he said. Mobile phones confiscated from local residents by Russian forces nailed to a tree in Kozacha Lopan, to deter others from trying to conceal phones during the occupation. Credit: Ivor Prickett for The New York Times © 2022 The New York Times Company

More than 140 people have been killed in horrific intercommunal violence in the west of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Tuesday, briefing journalists in Geneva, that some victims had been beheaded. A displaced man rests in a community shelter in Bandundu, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (© UNHCR/Simon Lubuku) The conflict between the Teke and Yaka communities was reportedly sparked by a dispute over customary land taxes. Since July, the insecurity has forced thousands from their homes in Kwamouth, near the border with the Republic of Congo. Latest data indicates that 27,000 mainly women and children have been displaced and need urgent assistance in Kwilu and Mai Ndombe provinces. Another 2,600 people have sought refuge in the Republic of Congo after crossing the Congo River in canoes. Many have become separated from family members while fleeing for safety. “Heavy rains have made getting to safety more difficult for civilians and several key routes have become impassable to humanitarian vehicles delivering life-saving assistance,” said UNHCR Representative in the DRC, Angele Dikongue-Atangana. She noted that aid teams who had reached displaced communities reported that people fled for their lives, seeking safety in the forest. Many had to leave their farms and abandon their harvests, and walk for days to reach Bandundu town, some 245 kilometres – or 152 miles - away. Host families in Bandundu and other towns have welcomed those forced to flee, the UN agency said. One local chief took in 28 people, including a young man who was injured in the fighting. Another host family has opened its doors to 77 people, but resources are running low and other households have begun rationing meals to one a day. (© UNHCR/John Wesseles) At the border with the Republic of the Congo, UNHCR has supported the authorities by registering new arrivals and providing relief items. Once in the Republic of the Congo, many asylum-seekers find shelter with host families. But conditions are precarious and some have to sleep out in the open, while others have erected makeshift shelters. Those who are living with host families face crowded conditions. “Food is scarce (and) over 30 malnourished children have been identified by local health staff, including one child with severe malnutrition who was referred to the nearest hospital in Gamboma,” said UNHCR’s Ms. Dikongue-Atangana. The latest displacement in the DRC had placed additional pressure on the agency’s already severely underfunded response to assist 521,000 refugees and more than 5.5 million internally displaced people. With only three months of the year left, only 40 per cent of the $225.4 million appeal has been funded. Similarly, in the Republic of the Congo, UNHCR has only received 16 per cent of the $37.4 million it needs for its refugee response this year. © United Nations 2022

Human rights groups say at least 185 people have been killed and thousands injured or arrested, but demonstrations that began after the death of Mahsa Amini have continued nearly a month. Tehran, the capital, on Sunday. Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images By Farnaz Fassihi and Jane Arraf Defying a lethal crackdown in cities across Iran, protesters demanding the ouster of Iran’s Islamic Republic have driven their uprising into a fourth week, with workers from the country’s vital oil sector going on strike this week and activists calling for further work stoppages and protests on Wednesday. Despite efforts by Iran’s security forces, including the feared plainclothes Basij militias, to crush the protests, they have only widened. Some have turned into chaotic street battles, with the security forces opening fire and protesters fighting back and refusing to give ground, according to witnesses, rights groups and videos of the clashes on social media. The internet and popular communications applications in Iran have been disrupted for weeks, making it difficult to confirm the true toll of the government’s crackdown on the protests, which have been led and inspired by women from their start in mid-September. But human rights groups said Tuesday that at least 185 people had been killed, including 28 children, with thousands injured or arrested so far. The government said that 24 of its security forces had been killed and about 2,000 wounded. The protests were sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the morality police after they arrested her under the country’s rule requiring women to wear dress modestly and cover their hair in public. Iran’s security forces claimed she died of a heart attack, but her family said she had been killed by blows to her head and was healthy at the time of her arrest. The government’s violent crackdown has been intense in many cities across the country, and in recent weeks it has escalated in the Kurdish region where Ms. Amini lived and the protests began. One city there, Sanandaj, about 250 miles from Tehran, came under intense fire over the weekend, according to residents, rights groups and videos posted on social media. Security forces indiscriminately opened fire on residents and homes and threw tear gas into residential buildings, killing at least seven people and injuring more than 400, according to the Kurdish rights group Hengaw. A still image taken from a video showed Iranian women cheering and waving their hijabs above their heads in a street in Sanandaj, the capital of Iran’s Kurdistan province, in September. Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Since the protests began in September, two teenage girls have joined Ms. Amini as the faces of the uprising, appearing on posters and street art across the country, their names chanted as rallying cries and trending on Persian-language Twitter. The girls — Nika Shakarami and Sarina Esmailzadeh, both 16 but from different towns — went missing after they joined the protests in September, their families only learning their fates after the authorities suddenly returned their bodies. The government claimed that the girls had killed themselves by jumping from buildings. But family members immediately rejected those accusations, telling the media and human rights groups that the girls had been beaten to death. Last week, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, broke weeks of silence over the protests, accusing the United States and Israel of aiding the demonstrators, and voicing support for the security forces’ actions. But scenes like those this month at the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran — Iran’s most elite academic institution, where the authorities shot rubber bullets into crowds of young people and beat and arrested dozens, according to witnesses — have reverberated, outraging even some Iranians who had formerly supported the revolutionary government. Iran has been rocked by nationwide protest movements before, most notably over contested election results in 2009, and over the economy in 2017 and 2019. Those also brought a swift and deadly reaction from the authorities. But the current uprising has not only been able to survive weeks of crackdown attempts; it has also grown and taken a tone directly threatening the country’s theocratic leadership, with women burning their hijabs, campuses erupting into protest, and marchers chanting “Death to the dictator!” and “We don’t want an Islamic republic!” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, center, at the police academy in Tehran, Iran, last week. Khamenei responded publicly on Monday to the biggest protests in Iran in years, breaking weeks of silence to condemn what he called “rioting” and accuse the U.S. and Israel of planning the protests. Credit...Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader, via Associated Press Now nearing the month mark, the protests have taken on a rhythm. Larger demonstrations erupt across the nation every few days, including one this past Saturday. Those have been backed by smaller neighborhood-scale protests nearly every day, and by widespread daily acts of civil disobedience, including women walking with their hair uncovered, shops closing, and people chanting against the regime nightly from rooftops and open windows. Activists called for another nationwide protest on Wednesday, and called for workers and businesses to join. More professionals have been answering the call recently. Saeed Dehghan, a prominent lawyer, said a group of lawyers planned to stage a protest outside the judiciary building in Tehran on Wednesday to denounce “the state violating the rights of the people.” The country’s main medical association issued a statement on Tuesday signed by 800 physicians condemning the violence and stating that they consider “the people as the real owners of the country, and we support their just demands.” Workers in the oil and energy sector have staged strikes for two days. On Monday, workers from the Abadan and Kangan oil refineries and the Bushehr Petrochemical Project in Asaluyeh went on strike, and a video showed the workers in Asaluyeh blocking a road and chanting “Death to the dictator!” Eleven workers were arrested on Tuesday, but the walkouts continued, according to media reports, and more were expected on Wednesday. Strikes that could further damage the economy, particularly those called by the unions representing the bazaar merchants and the oil and energy sector, carry a heavy weight in Iran’s history. During the 1979 Islamic revolution, strikes in those sectors were a powerful tool that accelerated the Shah’s collapse. Amnesty International and rights groups sounded the alarm on Tuesday about the violence unfolding in Sanandaj, the city in the Kurdish region, which has a strong tradition of civil society and organized opposition parties. Rebin Rahmani, director of the France-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network, said that it had identified four demonstrators killed by security forces in Sanandaj since the protests began, including a man in his 20s who was shot in his car by a plainclothes security officer. Videos posted on social media and supported by witness accounts were said to show the security forces standing in the middle of a road in broad daylight in Sanandaj, shooting at crowds. At night, people barricaded the streets with debris and bonfires, and fought back by throwing bricks at the security forces. One video appeared to show the forces lining up on an empty street at night and firing at the windows of homes. Haider, a resident of Sanandaj in his 20s who works in sales and marketing and asked to only be identified by his middle name out of fear of retribution, told The New York Times that he had heard gunfire and the sound of protesters from his balcony on Saturday and Sunday night. “We were shocked, they were trying to kill people,” he said. When he and his family left for a farm just outside the city on Monday, they saw surveillance drones overhead, he said. Iran’s interior minister, Ahmad Vahidi, traveled to Sanandaj on Tuesday and said in a speech that those protesting in the city were “the enemy of the Iranian nation,” according to Iran’s official media. The sound of gunfire continued even as the minister toured the city. In Qom, a religious city that has traditionally been a power base for the state, young protesters blocked the streets and chanted for the downfall of Ayatollah Khamenei, videos on social media showed. “We need to live in freedom!” said Haider, the Sanandaj resident. He said a friend of his had lost an eye after being shot by pellets. “The government shouldn’t choose what we wear or what we hear.” A still image taken from a video showing employees blocking a road leading to the Asaluyeh Petrochemical Refinery in Iran’s southwestern Bushehr province on Monday. Credit...Ugc, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The official response has mostly been dismissive. President Ebrahim Raisi on Saturday compared protesters to flies and labeled them enemies during a speech at a university campus. Afterward, university demonstrations took on a new chant: “Raisi, get lost!” The head of the country’s judiciary, the hard-line cleric Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei, has played a central role in the crackdown on protesters, officials say. But on Sunday, he appeared to be attempting damage control, saying that he was ready for dialogue with protesters and that the government was willing to make “corrections” to policies. But many Iranians viewed Mr. Mohseni Ejei’s gesture as insincere, and instead took it as a sign that the state was realizing that crackdowns alone might not resolve the current crisis. The government is also facing increasingly vocal criticism for its handling of the crisis from its power base, including some conservative politicians. Mohammad Sadr, a member of the powerful Expediency Council that advises the supreme leader and has oversight over the government, said on Tuesday that Ms. Amini’s death had ignited “pent-up frustrations, demands and rage especially among the young generation,” and added that “you cannot rule by force.” Sangar Khalil contributed reporting. © 2022 The New York Times Company