By Akhal-Teke: A Turkmenistan Bulletin Far from Turkmen people acquiring new rights, there is every reason to believe things are poised to get worse on at least one front, if that is even possible. Turkmenistan’s new president seems to be trying to erase women from public life. (government handout) The regime in Turkmenistan is not interested in improving its human rights record. It is, however, prepared to engage in the choreography required to convince foreign partners that it is committed to doing so. On July 21, Deputy Foreign Minister Vepa Khadzhiyev met in Ashgabat with Ryzsard Komenda, the Central Asia representative for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, for a bout of seat-warming. A Turkmen Foreign Ministry statement has the pair discussing Turkmenistan’s supposed efforts to live up to the human rights conventions to which it is a signatory. Naturally, no officials in Ashgabat have the slightest interest in any such thing. One bone that Turkmenistan is throwing the meddlesome outsiders is a pledge to improve the effectiveness of the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman role was created in 2016, and Yazdursun Gurbannazarova was given the role of heading that institution the following year. Since 2018, Turkmenistan has produced four annual digests on human rights, all of dubious merit. The most recent edition, released in May, was a fairly useless document that devotes most of its pages to praising government policies. The figures speak for themselves – or don’t, in fact. All of 33 petitions were submitted to the Ombudsman over allegations of poor behavior by law enforcement authorities, for example. This may well be an accurate figure, since few trust the Ombudsman’s office to do anything, but it obviously does not reflect the real scale of the problem. The only detail that the human rights digest does reveal about the police is what pleasant conditions various precincts have installed for people that they detain. The few incidents that are recounted in detail attest to the absurdity of the report. Take the plight of Citizen V.K, a resident of the Balkan province, who filed a petition to the highest enforcer of human rights standards in Turkmenistan to complain, among other things, that a shopkeeper was rude to them. Following an investigation, the Ombudsman’s Office was unable to determine definitively if any rudeness had occurred, although the shopkeeper was nevertheless penalized for an unspecified trading violation. To suggest this is the most that long-suffering shoppers must endure feels like an almost calculated mockery – not just of the Turkmen people, but also the foolish foreigners who behave as though there is any sense in engaging with Ashgabat on human rights questions. Recurrent shortages of basic staples like flour, bread, and cooking oil means strict quotas are enforced at state stores, where those items are traded at subsidized rates. As RFE/RL’s Turkmen service reported earlier this year, police even film and take photographs of shoppers to keep tabs on how much they are buying. Quota-flouters face two weeks in jail. At one point last year, stores were only operating under cover of darkness, so that the long lines could not be seen by the larger public. One apparent recurrent concern is that these queues might be spotted by the president. Gurbannazarova’s report had next to nothing to say about women either. She only notes in passing that a representative from Turkmenistan was in April 2021 appointed to the executive committee of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, also known as UN Women. “This is a worthy reflection of our country's policies in the field of gender equality,” she concludes, evoking the knowingly mendacious remarks made in May by President Serdar Berdymukhamedov, who shamelessly talked in an introductory speech at an Ashgabat conference on the role of women in public life about how “gender equality is important in ensuring stability and harmony in society.” In reality, Berdymukhamedov’s young presidency has been cataclysmic for women’s basic freedoms. As the London-based International Planned Parenthood Federation noted in a statement raising the alarm in May, “since April 2022, the government has taken policing over women’s bodies to a whole new level: imposing a virtual ban on abortion care, enforcing a ban on a range of beauty services, forbidding women from sitting in the front seat of private cars and prohibiting male taxi drivers from offering rides to women.” Things have only got worse since then. In June, RFE/RL’s Turkmen service reported from the Balkan province how traffic police had increasingly taken to stopping women drivers on flimsy pretexts and confiscating their cars and driver’s licenses. At least a dozen women, who seem to have been specifically targeted for this action, were affected, a resident told the broadcaster. When victims of this treatment went to their local city hall to complain, they got brusque treatment. “Why do women need to drive anyway? Go home and take care of your children,” one was allegedly told by a female city hall employee. “Are you not ashamed, making eyes at young men like that?” Remarkably, the series of nationwide roundtables held in May under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Ashgabat office to discuss implementation of the National Action Plan for Gender Equality for 2021-2025 does not seem to be having any noticeable effect yet. Far from Turkmen people acquiring new rights, there is every reason to believe things are poised to get worse on at least one front, if that is even possible. At a get-together of Central Asian presidents in Kyrgyzstan last week, Berdymukhamedov expressed his concern about what he termed “the illegal use of information technologies” and followed that up with a complaint about the “outside imposition of ideas and attitudes that run counter to the historical traditions of the peoples of Central Asia.” Such rhetoric, which can also be heard from other leaders in the region, is surely a prelude to more constraints on the right to “hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers” – Universal Declaration of Human Rights be damned. Turkmenistan may be a party-pooper when it comes to many other forms of international coordination, but officials in Ashgabat evince great eagerness to adhere to initiatives like the Information Security Strategy being implemented under the auspices of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a post-Soviet club of mostly undemocratic nations. There is not much clarity about what such strategies have in mind, although the dream must be a regional internet firewall along similar lines to the one enforced by China. In the meantime, internet users in Turkmenistan are already forbidden from visiting any number of dangerous foreign websites. Anybody unhappy with this state of affairs is free to raise it with the Ombudsman. © 2022 Eurasianet. All rights reserved.

New Draft Falls Short of Promised Reforms to Protect Victims’ Rights Nepalese human rights activists and relatives of disappeared persons, make a formation with lighted candles that reads 1350+ (referring to the number of victims) at an event to mark the International Day of the Disappeared in Kathmandu, Nepal, August 30, 2017. © AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha The Nepali government’s bill to amend its current transitional justice law marks some progress toward accountability but will not fully provide justice to victims or meet Nepal’s obligations under international law in its current form, said Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Commission of Jurists, and TRIAL International today. Nepal’s government and parliament should amend the bill to align with international legal standards. “Victims and their families who have waited anxiously for amendments to the law, hoping that their demands for truth and justice will be met, are disappointed,” said Mandira Sharma, senior international legal adviser at ICJ. “Despite the promise of reform, this bill, if implemented as it stands today, would shield many perpetrators from being brought to justice.” Successive Nepali governments have stalled the transitional justice process since 2015, when Nepal’s Supreme Court ruled that the current law fails to meet Nepal’s domestic and international legal obligations on several grounds, including that it empowers the two transitional justice commissions to grant amnesties to perpetrators of serious violations of international law. Although the new bill removes some of the previous amnesty provisions, it would still be difficult or impossible to prosecute those responsible for serious violations of international law including war crimes and crimes against humanity, the groups said. Several other provisions of the new bill, including those introducing limitations on the right to appeal, would also prevent accountability as required by international legal standards. The major sections of the bill that violate international law include: Section 2(5) categorizes violations to make it possible that perpetrators of gross violations of human rights, crimes against humanity, and war crimes could be granted amnesties; and Section 29 (5) provides that verdicts of the Special Court which will try transitional justice cases cannot be appealed to the Supreme Court, in violation of international fair trial guarantees. The bill also contains significant omissions: The bill does not establish any special investigation unit in the transitional justice commissions or the prosecutor’s office tasked with evidence collection. Investigation units with expertise in human rights violations would ensure that investigations are prompt, thorough, and effective in accordance with international human rights law and standards and that victims can access effective remedies; and The bill does not clarify the principle of non-retroactivity of criminal law in a manner consistent with international law. This omission makes it unclear how the Penal Code can be used to prosecute conflict-era crimes, as stipulated by the bill, and allows the operation of statutory limitations for the crime of rape. “A credible transitional justice process is essential to ensure the right of access to justice and effective remedies for victims, who have suffered for years while struggling for justice,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Without major revisions, this bill won’t address the legal obstacles that have repeatedly thwarted the transitional justice process in Nepal.” Victims’ groups and civil society organizations have issued statements calling on the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs and the Federal Parliament to amend the bill, to ensure that it respects international law and the aspirations of victims which were expressed during recent, brief, consultations organized by the government. “The endless wait by the victims of conflict, and indeed all Nepalis, for truth and justice which political leaders first pledged in the 2006 Comprehensive Peace Agreement is already getting to a critical point,” said Dinushika Dissanayake, deputy South Asia director at Amnesty International. “This bill should be urgently amended to address its serious weaknesses, because in its current form it cannot address Nepal’s long wait for a credible and lawful transitional justice process.” The bill has some positive aspects, including on the right to reparation and interim relief for victims who were left out earlier, the groups said. It prevents amnesty for certain categories of violations, and promises the establishment of a Special Court to try cases recommended by the transitional justice commissions. It also guarantees the right of the families of “disappeared” persons to their relative’s property. The bill mandates the transitional justice commissions to study the root causes and impact of the conflict and recommend institutional reforms. Nepal has two transitional justice commissions, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons, which were set up under the current transitional justice law in 2015. That law was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2015 for the failure of its amnesty provisions to comply with Nepal’s constitution and international obligations of Nepal. The two commissions have received over 60,000 complaints from victims, but have failed to resolve a single case. For over 15 years the failure to deliver transitional justice has caused deep distress to conflict victims, and continues to undermine human rights and the rule of law in Nepal. All responsible authorities should play constructive roles to amend this bill and ensure victims’ rights to truth, justice, and reparation without further delay, the groups said. Though the current bill shields those allegedly responsible for serious international crimes committed in Nepal from prosecution, judicial authorities in other countries could pursue investigations under the principle of universal jurisdiction in accordance with their national laws, the groups said. “It is essential that parliament amend the transitional justice bill to conform with Nepal’s own legal standards, as repeatedly articulated by the Supreme Court, as well as international legal obligations,” said Cristina Cariello, head of Nepal programs at TRIAL International. “A sound transitional justice law is needed to end the impunity of perpetrators, and to reduce the risk that gross violations of human rights, crimes against humanity and war crimes are ever committed again in Nepal." © Human Rights Watch 2022

By Sum Lok-kei At least three booksellers say they were banned from the annual jamboree as the city embarks on ‘new form of censorship’ People browse a stall at the annual book fair in Hong Kong. Some publishers say they have been banned for political reasons Photograph: Isaac Lawrence/AFP/Getty Images Hong Kong publishers have decried a “new form of censorship” after vendors selling books deemed politically sensitive were allegedly excluded from the industry’s traditional annual trade fair. With hundreds of exhibitors spread over the city’s major exhibition facility, the seven-day event which began this week once drew more than 1 million visitors and was a staple business opportunity for the sector. But this year publishers that showcased books last year about the protests that swept the city in 2019 have been banned from the book fair, without explanation. One was Hillway Culture, while at least two other publishers, Humming Publishing and Kind Of Culture, also had applications turned down. The city’s trade development council, which organises the fair, refused to comment on the rejections, only saying that not every application would be successful. It also said the books displayed were not vetted in advance but vendors were legally responsible for what they sold. Raymond Yeung of Hillway Culture said opinions and books that were not favoured by the government were being kept away from official platforms such as the book fair. Yeung, who is also a writer, became a public figure after he was injured during a 2019 protest and suffered a partial loss of sight in his right eye. “Publishers like ourselves, who put out political and so-called ‘sensitive’ books, are starting to be censored,” Yeung said, adding that some local printers have also refused to print their publications after the introduction of the national security law in June 2020. Inside the halls of the Hong Kong exhibition centre on Thursday, some eager readers were seen dragging suitcases and trolleys behind them, hunting for bargains at the fair. Few of the books on offer were about the huge protests that erupted in the city in 2019 in response to a contentious extradition bill, and which became the most significant unrest the city had experienced since its return to Chinese rule in 1997. Of those available, the booksellers refused to be interviewed. Volumes about China’s Cultural Revolution in the 60s and others about the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown could still be found, as well as publications on Hong Kong’s colonial past. In 2021, members of a pro-Beijing group had filed police reports on publishers who carried books about the protests, alleging that they violated the new security laws. With their path to the official book fair blocked, Hillway Culture tried to organise its own “Hongkongers’ Book Fair” with more than a dozen other independent publishers and bookstores. Days before the event, however, the venue’s landlord terminated the lease with Hillway Culture, claiming the organiser had violated venue rules by sharing the space with other vendors. Yeung said similar events had been held at the venue in the past, suggesting it was political pressure that changed the landlord’s mind. “This is not a matter of the law … there are hidden forces stopping these events and books from seeing the light of day,” he said. “This form of censorship is scarier, because there are no rules we can follow.” Professor Fu King-wah of the University of Hong Kong’s journalism and media studies centre, said it would be hard to judge whether publishers and their books were censored by the official book fair’s organiser, since any such process would happen behind closed doors. But he warned that the introduction of the national security law could have led to self-censorship among writers and publishers, adding that it does not always come in the form of outright bans. “Over the past year, we saw some news outlets not being able to continue their operations, and technically the government did not ban them,” Fu said, referring to the closure of news media such as Apple Daily and Stand News. Both companies ceased operations after executives were arrested under the national security legislation and had their funds frozen, but the display and circulation of relevant archival material had not been outlawed. With the government’s plan to enact more laws targeting speech, such as the proposed fake news law, Fu said the space for free speech in Hong Kong “would only continue to shrink” in the near future. © 2022 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

By Mark Trevelyan An Uzbek service member guards a road during a government-organised press visit in Nukus, capital of the northwestern Karakalpakstan region, Uzbekistan July 6, 2022. REUTERS/Mukhammadsharif Mamatkulov/File Photo Uzbekistan's President Shavkat Mirziyoyev on Wednesday signed a decree to lift a state of emergency in the autonomous republic of Karakalpakstan, where at least 18 people were killed when security forces broke up protests earlier this month. Mirziyoyev said on his website that the emergency measures, which included a curfew, were being lifted from 5 a.m on Thursday (midnight GMT on Wednesday) because order had been restored. He had declared a month-long state of emergency on July 2 after protests erupted over a proposal to strip the republic of its autonomous status. The authorities said 14 protesters and four law enforcement officers were killed in the violence, which it blamed on unspecified "foreign forces". It was the deadliest unrest since 2005 in Uzbekistan, a former Soviet Central Asian state with a record of clamping down hard on dissent. Human rights activists and opposition politicians have denied the violence was directed from abroad and rejected statements by the authorities that demonstrators were high on drugs and alcohol. Pulat Ahunov, an Uzbek opposition politician based in Sweden, said he welcomed the lifting of the emergency but urged the authorities to go further. "They also need to release all the demonstrators who were detained, and an ombudsman's commission needs to investigate the use of disproportionate force against demonstrators," he told Reuters. Rights activists are demanding information from the authorities about people they say are still missing or in detention, but say their efforts have been hampered by the state of emergency and by an internet shutdown since the unrest broke out. It was not clear if web access would now be restored. By lifting the emergency nearly two weeks before its scheduled expiry, Mirziyoyev signalled his confidence that he has weathered the biggest crisis of his six-year rule. It prompted him to quickly drop the proposal to take away the autonomy of Karakalpakstan - a status that, at least on paper, gave it the right to secede on the basis of a referendum. He has also twice extended a consultation period for further constitutional reforms that would see presidential terms extended from five to seven years and allow him to run for two more terms. With an area larger than Tunisia, Karakalpakstan has a population of just 1.8 million people but makes up over a third of Uzbek territory. The republic is blighted by health and environmental problems resulting from intensive Soviet-era farming methods and the drying-up of the Aral Sea. Reporting by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Cynthia Osterman © 2022 Reuters. All rights reserved

Reporting by Feisal Omar and Addis Ababa Newsroom; Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by James Macharia Chege and Mark Porter Al Shabaab soldiers sit outside a building during patrol along the streets of Dayniile district in Southern Mogadishu, March 5, 2012. REUTERS/Feisal Omar MOGADISHU, July 21 (Reuters) - Militants from Somali Islamist group al Shabaab attacked two villages near the border with Ethiopia, killing 17 people including three civilians and Ethiopian police officers inside Somali territory while 63 of its fighters were killed, an Ethiopian security commander at the scene said. The rare border-area attack occurred on Wednesday when fighters of the al Qaeda-linked group raided Yeed and Aato villages in Somalia's Bakool region after the killing days earlier of one of their commanders on the Ethiopian side of the border, the Ethiopian commander said. Attacks by al Shabaab in areas near Ethiopia's border are rare because of a robust Ethiopian security presence in the region and inside Somalia, where they are also part of an African peacekeeping force. An al Shabaab commander had crossed the border to create a unit in Ethiopia, said the Ethiopian commander, who asked not to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media. The Ethiopian commander had initially put the death toll at 17 Ethiopian police officers killed but later clarified that civilians were among the dead. He said the regional Ethiopian police seized heavy machine guns and vehicles from al Shabaab fighters. He said he had seen the dozens of al Shabaab dead. Al Shabaab’s military operation spokesperson, Abdiasis Abu Musab, said the group's fighters had captured the two villages and killed dozens of Ethiopian police officers there. He also said the group seized weapons from the Ethiopian police. Musab declined to comment on al Shabaab's death toll. Casualty figures given by al Shabaab and the authorities in Somalia or elsewhere are often significantly different. Reuters is generally unable to independently verify the numbers. Somalia Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre's office said he had spoken about the attack with the president of Somalia's southwest region, where Bakool is located. The president of Ethiopia's Somali region had no comment on the attack. Barre's office said he had ordered security and relief agencies to respond to the situation in Bakool. Al Shabaab frequently carries out bombings in Somalia to topple the government and rule based on its strict interpretation of Islam's sharia law. © 2022 Reuters. All rights reserved

By Sangar Khaleel and Cora Engelbrecht The attack came in a region that Turkey targets because Kurdish militants take refuge there, in a new flaring of regional tensions. Medics transporting the body of a victim on Wednesday after Turkish airstrikes in the city of Zakho in northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region.Credit: Ismael Adnan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images ZAKHO, Iraq — Turkish warplanes struck a vacation resort in northern Iraq on Wednesday, killing at least eight people and injuring more than 23, according to government and hospital officials. The attack, by at least four missiles, took place in Parakh, a village in Dohuk Province, in the semiautonomous Kurdish region near the Turkish border. Turkey’s armed forces regularly launch strikes into northern Iraq to target Kurdish militants who take refuge there. Ordinarily, those attacks are directed at training camps operated by the Kurdish Workers Party, the P.K.K., which has been engaged in a long-running guerrilla war in southeastern Turkey. “One again, the Turkish Forces committed an explicit and blatant violation of the sovereignty of Iraq and the lives and security of Iraq citizens,” Iraq’s prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, said in a statement posted to Twitter hours after the attack. “This brutal attack underscored the fact that Turkey ignored Iraq’s continuous demands to refrain from military violation against Iraqi territory and the lives of its people,” he said. Mr. al-Kadhimi said Iraq reserved its “full right to respond” and would hold the “aggressors” accountable. Turkey’s foreign ministry suggested that the attack had been carried out by the P.K.K. “It is considered that such attacks, which aim at innocent civilians and are assessed to be organized by the terrorist organization, target our country’s just and determined stance in the fight against terrorism,” the ministry said in a statement. “Turkey is ready to take all steps to reveal the truth.” The mountainous resort caters to Iraqis, many from the southern part of the country, seeking to escape the intense heat in the summer months. The dead and wounded were evacuated to Bedar General Hospital in the city of Zakho. Witnesses to the attack who were taken to the hospital roamed its halls frantically, many barefoot, searching for family and friends. They described traumatic scenes at the bombing site. “It was chaos ­— tourists’ hands and legs were detached from their bodies,” said Ahmad Tahseen Ali, 30, from Babil Province, who said he was standing about 20 meters from one of the strikes, which wounded his brother and sister, Ban al-Humnrani, 42, who is a U.S. citizen and was visiting from Sacramento, Calif. “We are used to hearing sounds of war, but I have never seen a horrific scene like this,” said Ms. al-Humnrani, who suffered a leg wound. The P.K.K. has been waging a separatist campaign against the Turkish government in Ankara since the 1970s. The conflict has killed more than 40,000 people, most of them in Turkey. The P.K.K. is regarded as a terrorist group by the United States and Europe. A U.S. State Department spokesman, Ned Price, emphasized in a briefing that “military action in Iraq should respect Iraqi sovereignty and territorial integrity.” The State Department, he said, would “continue to monitor the situation closely as additional information emerges.” Many P.K.K. fighters and much of the group’s leadership take refuge in the mountains where the borders of Iraq, Iran and Turkey meet. While the fighting inside Turkey has diminished in ferocity, the Turkish military has continued to cross into Iraq to strike P.K.K. targets. Iraqi leaders do not formally give sanctuary to P.K.K. fighters, but only rarely take action against them. In April, Turkey began an offensive, named Operation Claw Lock, in northern Iraq. Turkish officials typically invoke Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which recognizes a state’s “inherent right of individual or collective self-defense” against attack, without seeking approval from the Iraqi government first. “The Turkish side is carrying out continuous violations that are not based on any legal basis or agreement between the two countries,” Ahmed al-Sahaf, Iraq’s foreign minister, told the Iraqi News Agency in April. The Turkish airstrikes came as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey responded to criticism of his decision to launch a new military offensive against Kurdish fighters in Syria. In that case, Mr. Erdogan said the operation was part of an effort to keep Turkey’s border with Syria secure from Kurdish militants and to create a safe zone for some of the millions of Syrian refugees who have fled the civil war in their own country in recent years. © 2022 The New York Times Company Link to Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/20/world/middleeast/turkey-iraq-tourists-killed.html

The killings came amid protests over an Indonesian government plan to create new provinces in the eastern region. By Sebastian Strangio Credit: Flickr/AK Rockefeller This last weekend brought the news of another deadly attack in the Papua region of eastern Indonesia, amid rising tensions ahead of the Indonesian government’s planned subdivision of the region. According to police in Papua, nine people were shot dead in a suspected attack by armed separatists in Nduga Regency, deep in the thickly forested Papuan highlands. “It is true that there were attacks on civilians, causing 10 of them to suffer gunshot wounds and led to nine of them losing their lives,” Faizal Rahmadani, director of criminal investigation at the Papua regional police, told the Indonesia state news agency Antara. The headline of the article attributed the attack to a “terror group.” The June 16 attack comes amid a campaign of protests against an Indonesian government plan to split the provinces of Papua and West Papua into five new provinces, by creating a South Papua Province, Central Papua Province, and Papua Central Highlands Province. According to a July 16 article by the Asia Pacific Report, protesters last week “braved brutal police blockades, forced dispersals, and assaults while staging simultaneous mass actions across Papua.” Their aim was to voice their opposition to the provincial subdivision plan and the recent extension and revision of the Special Autonomy Law that governs Papua and West Papua, and to air perennial calls for an independence referendum. According to one Papua-focused rights advocate, the state deployed 2,000 soldiers in the Papuan capital Jayapura ahead of the protests. The Indonesian parliament first announced the plans for the creation of new provinces in Papua and West Papua in April, though similar schemes have been considered at various times since the days of President Suharto’s New Order regime. The laws enabling the creation of the new administration divisions were passed by the House of Representatives on June 30. The government’s rationale for the subdivision is that it will produce more manageable administrative units and help promote good governance and economic development in Papua and West Papua. This, Jakarta seems to believe, will address the root of the separatist rebellion that has simmered since the region’s absorption by Indonesia after a dubious referendum in 1969. “We hope that this will not only reduce conflicts but also bring equitable development to the whole of Papua,” Ahmad Doli Kurnia, chair of the House commission overseeing home affairs, said after the passage of the laws, the Jakarta Post reported. But the past five years have offered ample evidence of the disconnect between the Indonesian government’s own perception of what it is doing in Papua and West Papua and those of many of its indigenous inhabitants. Particularly telling are the frequent attacks on infrastructure projects, such as the 4,300-kilometer Trans-Papua Highway, which was the subject of a 2018 attack from the West Papua National Liberation Army that killed 16 laborers working on the road. While Jakarta views infrastructure as in the interests of Papuan population, the separatist movement views such development as something that is only likely to erode the local culture and facilitate the extraction of the region’s rich natural resources, while facilitating transmigration from other parts of the Indonesia and the deployment of security forces across the region. Over the past five years, particularly since the attack on the Trans-Papua Highway, Papua province in particular has become increasingly militarized as the government has strengthened the security presence in the region in response to separatist attacks. In November 2020, the regional U.N. Human Rights Office expressed its concern about the “escalating violence” and “the increased risk of renewed tension and violence.” As a result, many observers claim that the plan to create new provinces is likely to complicate efforts for a peaceful solution to the Papua conflict. As Aprila Wayar and Johnny Blades wrote in a feature for The Diplomat last month, the ongoing conflict stems not from a lack of development per se, but from core grievances over how Indonesia took control of Papua in the 1960s and the decades of human rights violations that accompanied its incorporation into the Indonesian state. In the plan for new Papuan provinces, they wrote, “many people sense a kind of ‘end game’ strategy by Indonesia’s government that is expected to worsen the long-running conflict in Papua.” This week’s attack demonstrates that the truth of this assessment. © 2022 DIPLOMAT MEDIA INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

© UNICEF/Sobekwa | Surviving through COVID-19 has been particularly difficult for vulnerable refugees and migrants living in South Africa. A group of independent UN human rights experts have condemned reports of escalating violence targeting foreign nationals in South Africa, and called for accountability against rising xenophobia, racism and hate speech aimed at migrants, refugees, asylum seekers - and even citizens perceived as outsiders - throughout the country. In a statement released on Friday, the rights experts cited “Operation Dudula” as an example of hate speech. Originally a social media campaign, Operation Dudula has become an umbrella for the mobilization of violent protests, vigilante violence, arson targeting migrant-owned homes and businesses, and even the murder of foreign nationals. The experts, known as Special Rapporteurs, warned that the ongoing xenophobic mobilization is broader and deeper, and has become the central campaign strategy for some political parties in the country. “Anti-migrant discourse from senior government officials has fanned the flames of violence, and government actors have failed to prevent further violence or hold perpetrators accountable,” they said. ‘Too black to be South African’ “Without urgent action from the government of South Africa to curb the scapegoating of migrants and refugees, and the widespread violence and intimidation against these groups, we are deeply concerned that the country is on the precipice of explosive violence,” the group continued. The experts noted that xenophobia, especially against low-income, African and Southeast Asian migrants and refugees, had been a feature of South African politics for many years. In 2008, for example, xenophobic violence resulted in the death of over 60 people and contributed to the displacement of at least 100,000. Xenophobia is often explicitly racialised, targeting low-income Black migrants and refugees and, in some cases, South African citizens accused of being “too Black to be South African.” In one highly publicised incident in April 2022, a 43-year-old Zimbabwean national and father of four was killed in Diepsloot by a group going door-to-door demanding to see visas. The attackers drove the victim out of a place where he was seeking refuge, beat him and set him on fire. The violence has continued unabated. It is alleged that the burning of the Yeoville Market in Johannesburg on 20 June this year, was carried out by persons targeting migrant shopkeepers. © UNICEF/Sobekwa A family look out over Durban in South Africa from their apartment building. They fled their home in the Democratic Republic of the Congo due to conflict more than fifteen years ago. (Dec 2021) ‘Institutionalized discrimination’ The UN experts observed that discrimination against foreign nationals in South Africa has been institutionalized both in government policy and broader South African society. This had led to violations of the right to life and physical integrity, and rights to an adequate standard of living and to the highest attainable standard of health, as well as elevated risks of arbitrary detention, torture and refoulement, they said. The experts also expressed concern over reports that widespread corruption in the South African asylum and migration systems compound these dangerous problems. “The cost in human dignity and lives, particularly in light of the past 30 years of xenophobic violence, remains widespread and deeply troubling,” the experts said. “We are gravely concerned that South Africa is not meeting its positive obligations to protect and promote human rights while preventing racial and xenophobic discrimination,” they said. “At the same time, perpetrators enjoy widespread impunity for xenophobic rhetoric and violence, leading to a lack of accountability for serious human rights violations and the flourishing of racist and xenophobic political platforms.” The experts urged private and public actors to honour their commitments to human rights and racial justice, and take a firm stand against the racist and xenophobic violence which continues in South Africa. The UN experts have been in official communication with the South African Government to address these allegations and clarify its obligations under international law. Copyright © United Nations Link to source : https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/07/1122612

By Mahamat Ramadane President of Chad Mahamat Idriss Deby gestures as he arrives for a meeting over security in the Sahel region at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, November 12, 2021. © The REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes. N'DJAMENA, July 14 (Reuters) - Chad's government said on Thursday it will hold a national dialogue starting Aug. 20, a precursor to elections promised by interim president Mahamat Idriss Deby when he seized power following his father's death last year. Deby declared himself head of a Transitional Military Council in April 2021 after his father, Chad's longtime ruler Idriss Deby, was killed while visiting troops fighting an insurgency in the north. Initially the council had said it would oversee an 18-month transition to democratic rule, but it has shown little sign of organizing elections as that deadline nears. Deby has presented the national dialogue as the first step toward planning a vote. It would in theory include armed groups but the conditions for their participation have not yet been agreed on. Pressure has started to grow from opposition groups within Chad and bilateral partners to advance the transition process. Chad is an ally of France and other Western countries in the fight against Islamist militants in Africa's Sahel region. "It is the responsibility of the Transitional Military Council (TMC) to fulfil its commitments to the citizens of Chad, including that members of the TMC will not stand for future elections and that the TMC will adhere to a period of rapid transition, with democratic elections a mark of the TMC's success," said Ellen Thorburn, charge d'affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Chad, last week. © 2022 Reuters

"Since 2015, the Turkish Armed Forces have killed up to 129 civilians and wounded up to 180 civilians in northern Iraq," monitoring group Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) Iraqi Kurdistan reported last month. Hundreds of Iraqi and Kurdish civilians have been killed by Turkish airstrikes across northern Iraq. [Getty] Five people, including a woman, were killed in a civilian car when hit by a Turkish drone missile west of Mosul on Sunday afternoon, according to Iraqi and Kurdish officials. "A Turkish drone bombed a civilian vehicle west of Mosul at 2:20 p.m on Sunday, killing four men and a woman. The identity of the driver is known, but the identities of the woman and three other men are yet unknown," Najm al-Jubouri, governor of Nineveh, said in a statement. "We strongly condemn this assault which destabilises the security of this province after it has been improving from the effects of the Islamic State gangs. This attack dangerously jeopardises Nineveh's citizens, and we ask the Iraqi government to protest against such acts by the Turkish government," the statement added. The Kurdistan Counter-Terrorism unit affiliated with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) claimed in a statement that a Turkish drone attacked a civilian car, consequently killing five fighters, four men and a woman, from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Outlets close to the PKK insist the victims were civilians. Photographs posted online on social media platforms show the car with a plate of Erbil, the capital city of the Iraqi Kurdistan region. Iraqi Twitter users have posted a photo of the vehicle's driver, identified his name as Ahmed al-Jubouri and claimed that he was a student from Mosul University. Al-Ahd satellite channel close to the Iraqi Shia faction in the country posted a video of the wreckage of the car entirely burnt. The New Arab contacted the PKK press office and Mazin al-Ahmadi, spokesperson for Nineveh's police force, for comments on the attack, but neither were available to comment at the time of publication. Hundreds of Iraqi and Kurdish civilians have been killed by Turkish airstrikes across northern Iraq, while the Turkish army claims to be targeting PKK militants. "Since 2015, the Turkish Armed Forces have killed up to 129 civilians and wounded up to 180 civilians in northern Iraq," the international human rights organisation and monitoring group Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) Iraqi Kurdistan reported last month. A 12-year child was killed by a Turkish drone strike on a marketplace in the Snune sub-district of Sinjar in the Iraqi Kurdistan region on 16 June. Two days later, four people, including Hussein Shibli, co-chairman of the executive council of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), were killed in a Turkish drone strike in the district of Kalar, Sulaimaniyah province. The PKK, a Kurdish guerrilla force struggling for autonomy in Turkey, was formed in the late 1970s by Ocalan. The PKK, described by Turkey, the United States and the EU as a "terrorist" organisation, launched an armed struggle against the Turkish army in 1984, a conflict that killed at least 40,000 people, many of whom were civilians. © 2022 The New Arab Link to Article: https://english.alaraby.co.uk/news/turkish-drone-attack-kills-five-iraqs-nineveh-province

Washington, DC (July 16, 2022) – Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) today vehemently condemned the unjustified detention of prominent Indian-American civil rights attorney Asim Ghafoor by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) authorities and called for his immediate release. Ghafoor serves on the board of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) and served as a lawyer for slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi as well as his fiance Hatice Cengiz. DAWN has called Ghafoor’s detention a “politically motivated revenge for his association with Khashoggi and DAWN.” On July 14, Ghafoor, a U.S. citizen, was on his way to Istanbul to attend a family wedding when the security agents at the Dubai International Airport detained him from the transit area and drove him to Abu Dhabi. He remains in the Criminal Investigative Division detention facility, based on an “in absentia” conviction on ludicrous charges of “money laundering.” Ghafoor runs a law firm in Virginia and has served as an attorney in several high-profile national security and terrorism cases. “We are extremely concerned about the health and well-being of Mr. Asim Ghafoor and believe this detention is a witch-hunt against Ghafoor for his efforts as an activist for democracy. We call on the UAE authorities to immediately release Ghafoor from detention and send him home to reunite with his family,” said Rasheed Ahmed, Executive Director of IAMC. IAMC urges the US Department of State to take the matter to the top levels of the UAE government to ensure Ghafoor’s expedited release. We also urge President Joe Biden to raise this issue directly with UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. (c) Indian American Muslim Council, 2022.

JULY 13 2022 - Amanda Macias Russian servicemen stand guard at the destroyed part of the Ilyich Iron and Steel Works in Ukraine’s port city of Mariupol on May 18, 2022. Olga Maltseva | AFP | Getty Images WASHINGTON — The Biden administration called on Russia to immediately release civilians that it says were forcibly deported from Ukraine, an accusation that would classify as a war crime. “The unlawful transfer and deportation of protected persons is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians and is a war crime,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote in a statement referencing a United Nations agreement to which Russia is a signatory. The 1949 Geneva Conventions define international legal standards and protections for humanitarian treatment during wartime and explicitly prohibit mass forced transfers of civilians. Blinken said the U.S. suspects that between 900,000 and 1.6 million Ukrainian citizens, including 260,000 children, have been detained and deported from their homes to Russia. “Russian authorities must release those detained and allow Ukrainian citizens forcibly removed or coerced into leaving their country the ability to promptly and safely return home,” Blinken wrote. Surrendered servicemen of Ukraine’s national battalion “Azov”, which is an all-volunteer infantry military unit, are being transferred to Yelenovka in Mariupol, Ukraine on May 17, 2022. Leon Klein | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images The nation’s top diplomat also called on Moscow to allow third-party observers into so-called Russian “filtration camps.” The filtration camps, which have been previously described as large makeshift tents, are initial reception areas where deported Ukrainians are photographed, fingerprinted, stripped, forced to turn over their mobile phones, passwords as well as identification, and then interrogated and sometimes tortured by Russian authorities. Blinken accused Moscow of ordering the “disappearance” of thousands of Ukrainian civilians who do not pass the dehumanizing “filtration” process of the deportation procedure. “Those detained or filtered out include Ukrainians deemed threatening because of their potential affiliation with the Ukrainian army, territorial defense forces, media, government, and civil society groups,” Blinken wrote. He also said that the Kremlin’s filtration program appears to have been premeditated and mirrors similar operations carried out by Russian forces during other conflicts, including in Chechnya. Blinken also outlined “mounting” evidence of Russian forces deliberately separating Ukrainian children from their parents, abducting children from orphanages, confiscating Ukrainian passports and issuing Russian passports for what is an “apparent effort to change the demographic makeup of parts of Ukraine.” Residents of the city of Lysychansk cook food outside their houses, as the city is without electricity and water, in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas, on May 26, 2022, amid Russia’s military invasion launched on Ukraine.Aris Messinis | AFP | Getty Images U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet warned last week that her office has gathered a staggering amount of evidence that indicates Russian forces have carried out unlawful killings and summary executions of Ukrainians. Bachelet said that U.N. investigators have recovered more than 1,200 civilian bodies from Kyiv and that her office is working to corroborate more than 300 allegations of killings by Russian forces in situations that were not linked to active fighting. Earlier this year, the U.N. voted to strip Russia of its membership in the Human Rights Council following accusations that Russian troops tortured and killed Ukrainian civilians in Bucha, a suburb near Kyiv. The bodies were discovered after Moscow withdrew its troops from Bucha. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the aftermath as a “genocide” when he visited Bucha on April 4 and accused Russia of war crimes. Similar reports of what unfolded in the Kyiv suburb have since emerged in cities throughout Ukraine. The Kremlin has previously described its military actions in Ukraine as a “special operation” and has denied all claims that its forces target and kill civilians. © 2022 CNBC LLC. All Rights Reserved.