By Mahmut Bozarslan and Ezel Sahinkaya DIYARBAKIR, TURKEY — Turkish police have detained 20 Kurdish journalists in an ongoing operation in the Kurdish-majority southeastern province of Diyarbakir. At dawn Wednesday, Turkish police raided the homes and offices of several journalists working for the pro-Kurdish Mezopotamya News Agency, the all-female Jin News website, a production company called Pel, and the Dicle Firat Journalists Association. During the raids, Turkish police confiscated computers, phones, hard drives and other personal belongings. Detained journalists were taken to Diyarbakir Police Station for further questioning. Their lawyers were not provided with information about the investigation as the operation was ongoing. Terror accusations Speaking on background, a Diyarbakir Police official told VOA that the operation was organized against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (PKK's) “press committee structure.” The official said that some Diyarbakir-based production companies create content for Belgium-based Sterk TV, which is affiliated with the PKK, and the U.K.-based Medya Haber TV. Sterk did not immediately respond to VOA’s email requests for commentary. “Diyarbakir Police examined the 82-hour long content of 102 programs from Sterk TV and Medya Haber TV channels,” said the police official, who accused Sterk and Medya Haber broadcasters of “making separatist terrorist organization propaganda, programs in favor of the convicted ringleader of the terrorist organization, and efforts to legitimize the terrorist organization.” Sterk and Medya Haber are banned in Turkey because the Turkish authorities deem their editorial stance as pro-PKK. Responding to the detentions, Medya Haber denied the allegations, stating that the channel’s work meets universal journalistic standards of objectivity and fairness. Turkey, the United States and European Union consider the PKK a terrorist organization. Lack of transparency Some press freedom advocates are calling for transparency in the investigation and criticize Turkish authorities for broadly using the term “terrorist propaganda” to crack down on journalists. "As the RSF, we are astonished at the extensity of an investigation based on 'terrorist propaganda' targeting of so many media workers. Evidence must be disclosed as soon as possible by the law,” said Erol Onderoglu, the Turkey representative for Paris-based Reporters Without Borders. “We are worried that people will be victimized for days and months without concrete evidence before the elections,” Onderoglu told VOA. The next parliamentary and presidential elections are scheduled for June 2023, but the opposition parties are calling for snap elections, which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has rejected. The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) is facing a court case that threatens to close the party over alleged links with the PKK. The HDP, as the third biggest party, has 56 members in the 600-seat Turkish parliament. Possible military operations Sedat Yilmaz, an editor for Mezopotamya News Agency, says the detentions should be viewed in light of the Turkish army’s ongoing cross-border operations in northern Iraq and a possible operation in northern Syria. “In the Kurdistan region, [the ruling Justice and Development Party] AKP has pinned all its hopes on this war, but it cannot achieve the desired success here. It does not have a psychological advantage,” Yilmaz told VOA. “The AKP cannot get a psychological advantage in the Turkish public opinion, and it cannot create fear, defeat, and hopelessness among the Kurds," he added. "So, someone must pay the price for this, and it is now the Kurdish journalists.” Officials at the Turkish embassy in Washington, DC, did not respond to VOA’s requests for commentary in time for publication. Turkey has carried out military operations in northern Iraq, named Operation Claw Lock, since April. President Erdogan has recently talked about a possible military operation against the People's Protection Units, or YPG, in northern Syria, targeting Tal Rifaat and Manbij. Turkey considers the YPG a terrorist organization linked to the PKK. However, the YPG is part of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in the fight against the Islamic State. Tayip Temel, the HDP’s deputy in Van, thinks that the detentions are meant to silence Kurdish media before the military operations. "The Kurdish media outlets are largely considered alternative media for the [majority-Kurdish] audience [in southern Turkey] to inform themselves about the cross-border operations and those living beyond the borders," Temel told VOA. "So, silencing them is part of this [police] operation.” Beritan Canozer, a journalist for Jin News, believes the Turkish government is tacitly supporting the police operation as part of efforts to distract from a growing economic crisis in the country ahead of upcoming elections and the expected military operation in Syria. “We think that this operation was carried out to prevent these issues and crises from being on the agenda and to prevent journalists from reporting them,” Canozer told VOA. Among the detainees rounded up in Wednesday’s raids are Jin News manager Safiye Alagas and editor Gulsen Kocuk; Mezopotamya News Agency editors Aziz Oruc and Mehmet Ali Ertas; former Mezopotamya editor Omer Celik; freelance journalists Lezgin Akdeniz, Kadir Bayram, and Serdar Altan; and Mehmet Sahin, a columnist with the Kurdish-language weekly Xwebûn. Turkey has a poor record for media rights, ranking 149 out of 180 countries on RSF's World Press Freedom Index, where No. 1 is the freest. In the report, RSF describes Turkey as a country in which “all possible means are used to undermine critics." Ozlem Yasak of VOA’s Kurdish Service contributed reporting. This story originated in VOA's Turkish Service. ©VOA2022 Link to Article: https://www.voanews.com/a/police-detain-20-kurdish-journalists-in-turkey-over-alleged-terror-links-/6613073.html

The high unemployment rate in South Africa has led to locals often blaming foreigners for taking jobs ‘meant’ for them. By Thabi Myeni South African transport minister Fikile Mbalula addresses a media conference in Cape Town, March 17, 2016 during his time as sports minister [File: Mike Hutchings/Reuters] Fikile Mbalula, South Africa’s transport minister, has suggested that “Pakistanis and illegal foreigners” are a contributing factor to high unemployment in the country. Mbalula was responding to questions at a South African Youth Economic Council (SAYEC) conference on Wednesday when one speaker confronted him about the country’s lack of job opportunities for the youth. “He sold his shop to the Pakistanis because he couldn’t compete with them,” Mbalula told the crowd, explaining that his uncle had to sell his shop because Pakistani nationals were selling goods and products at a cheaper price. He said there was a need to interrogate where Pakistani nationals were getting their supply to be able to sell cheaply. According to Stats South Africa, the overall unemployment rate in South Africa is 35 percent, with youth constituting more than half of that figure. This has frequently led to conflict between immigrants and groups of South Africans who blame foreign nationals for taking jobs and businesses supposedly meant for the locals. For years, intergenerational protests have erupted throughout the country, with frustrations about unemployment, crime, and poor service delivery frequently spilling over onto foreign nationals. Mbalula, a former police minister, went on to accuse Pakistani nationals of being “the biggest loan sharks around. “They’ve got an open book and they loan you and your whole pension is going to the Pakistanis. You can even loan up to R500. Your whole pension is going to the Pakistanis every month,” he said. The SAYEC event took place on the eve of nationwide commemorations of the Soweto Uprising. This year marks the 46th anniversary of the Soweto Uprising, an anti-apartheid uprising led by black students in Johannesburg’s Soweto township on June 16, 1976. The protests turned deadly when apartheid police opened fire on the students, killing an estimated 174 people and injuring hundreds. They soon spread across South Africa, becoming one of the biggest acts of defiance against the apartheid system. ‘Reckless’ and ‘xenophobic’ Sharon Ekambaram, head of refugee and migrant rights programme at Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) had called Mbalula’s comments reckless and a result of political impunity enjoyed by leaders of the ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC). “The South African Human Rights Commission issued findings from their investigations of xenophobia and made very clear recommendations to hold officials accountable. The fact that a minister can make these reckless statements in 2022 demonstrates that the commission failed to implement its recommendations,” she said. “The minister has the ability to make rash public statements that fuel the rhetoric of organisations like Operation Dudula and vigilantism.” Words like Mbalula’s, according to Sindiswe Ndaba, a student at the University of the Witwatersrand who attended the conference, are leading to more young people are joining vigilante groups like Operation Dudula. “For 28 years, the ANC has been deflecting. Our socioeconomic issues are always the fault of other people and there is never any accountability from them,” she said. “You are the minister, you have the power to do something if you believe foreign nationals are taking opportunities from us, and yet you choose to go on a tirade and leave us without any concrete solutions for unemployment,” the economics student continued. When contacted for further clarification, Mbalula said he stood by his words and denied that there was any xenophobic intent. Mbalula claimed his statements were not xenophobic, “It is a problem in terms of local economy,” he said. “The business of spaza shops that used to belong to our people have been taken over by Pakistanis. They can no longer survive and have no option but to surrender.” According to a 2015 report from a committee on migration and communal integration setup by the KwaZulu Natal provincial government, inflammatory public statement statements by political leaders and dissemination of misinformation on social media can be enough to encourage armed mobs against immigrants. The challenging rhetoric and lack of proactive communications contributed to tensions simmering amongst local communities,” the report said. In April, an anti-immigrant vigilante group killed a 44-year-old undocumented Zimbabwean national, Elvis Nyathi. Nyathi’s death, according to Ekambaram, could have been a direct result of reckless statements. “In a country where collective violence is rampant and people feel empowered to take the law into their own hands, if the minister discovers that someone is breaking the law, regardless of nationality, the law must take its place,” she said. “These messages have a dangerous resonance with young people who are desperate for opportunities and feel deprived. When the truth is that the government is simply failing to implement policies that are intended to benefit Africans and youth.” According to Ekambaram, her organisation will lodge a complaint with the South African Human Rights Commission. The ANC Youth League did not respond to requests for comments. © 2022 Al Jazeera Media Network

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) in its latest report expressed concern over what it called "arbitrary detentions" of Afghan journalists by the Islamic Emirate. “The Taliban must immediately halt their increasing attacks and arbitrary detentions of journalists and media workers in Afghanistan,” IFJ said in a report. According to an IFJ report, facing possible threats, almost 1,000 journalists have departed Afghanistan in the last year. “An estimated 1,000 journalists have fled the country since last August, with threats, harsh restrictions and economic collapse leading to mass closures of media outlets,” the report reads. Meanwhile, the Afghanistan Federation of Journalists and Media states that to improve the existing situation, the law for access to information and the law for mass media should be implemented. "Commissions that previously functioned in the field of media protection and violation should be formed or reactivated, according to the Media and Information Access Law,” said Gul Mohammad Gran, a member of the leadership of the Afghanistan Federation of Journalists and Media. A number of reporters in Kabul say they face restrictions in reporting. "The media is now subject to more restrictions. This isn't an issue that should be overlooked," said Abdullah Azizi, another reporter. "A reporter is threatened by the Taliban when he makes a report, and the lack of a media misconduct commission is another issue that has caused problems,” said Shah Aqa Sadat, a reporter. But the Islamic Emirate considers the findings of this report unfounded. "Journalists go beyond their professional tasks and become involved in crimes and the Islamic Emirate makes arrests to advise them," stated Bilal Karimi, the Islamic Emirate's Deputy Spokesman. According to the Afghanistan Federation of Journalists and Media, 507 media outlets have been shut down in Afghanistan in the last nine months. 38 television stations, 91 radio stations, 16 online media outlets, 10 news agencies, 11 media outlets and media content providers, and 18 newspapers (private and public) are among them. Link to the source: https://tolonews.com/node/178446 ©2022 TOLOnews - All Rights Reserved

By Lyubov Pronina European Union (EU) lawmakers pushed to bolster sanctions against Chinese officials involved in alleged human rights violations in the western region of Xinjiang. The European Parliament adopted a non-binding resolution on Thursday condemning systematic repression of the Uyghur community in China, including through mass deportation, family separation, religious restrictions, and the extensive use of surveillance. It called for a ban on importing goods made with forced labour. “The European Parliament is signalling that it no longer wants the EU to be complicit with the Chinese totalitarian regime, which has been perpetuating a crime against humanity in the Xinjiang province for five years,” Heidi Hautala, a vice president of the parliament, said in a statement. The resolution urges the EU’s executive and member states to adopt additional sanctions targeting high-ranking Chinese officials as well as others identified in hacked Xinjiang police files. It also calls for the European Commission to propose an import ban on all goods produced by forced labour and by all Chinese companies listed as exploiting forced labour. Beijing denies the allegations, saying they’re part of a campaign to halt China’s economic rise. On Friday, You Wenze, spokesman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress, said the legislature of the Asian nation condemned the passing of the resolution. The Xinjiang issue is not about human rights but counterterrorism, You said. The vote follows the release of hacked Xinjiang police files last month which gave fresh evidence of alleged atrocities against mostly Muslim ethnic minority Uyghurs in mass detention camps in a region which makes up nearly a sixth of China’s land area, while only accounting for less than 2% of its population. Reports of human rights abuses have sparked an international outcry with the US preparing to ban all goods from the region later this month. “The leaked speeches, images, documents and spreadsheets shed new light on the brutal methods used by the Chinese government, seriously eroding the cultural and religious identity of the Uyghur people, justifying massive-scale and indiscriminate actions under the disguise of the fight against terrorism,” European Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis told lawmakers on Wednesday. Link to the source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-09/china-deserves-new-sanctions-over-xinjiang-eu-parliament-says ©2022 Bloomberg L.P. All Rights Reserved

(New York) – Taliban security forces in northern Afghanistan’s Panjshir province have unlawfully detained and tortured residents accused of association with an opposition armed group, Human Rights Watch said today. Since mid-May 2022, fighting has escalated in the province as National Resistance Front (NRF) forces have attacked Taliban units and checkpoints. The Taliban have responded by deploying to the province thousands of fighters, who have carried out search operations targeting communities they allege are supporting the NRF. During search operations in other provinces, Taliban forces have committed summary executions and enforced disappearances of captured fighters and other detainees, which are war crimes. “Taliban forces in Panjshir province have quickly resorted to beating civilians in their response to fighting against the opposition National Resistance Front,” said Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The Taliban’s longstanding failure to punish those responsible for serious abuses in their ranks puts more civilians at risk.” A human rights advocate who has interviewed several former detainees and a source with direct information about Taliban detentions spoke to Human Rights Watch about the Panjshir situation. Former detainees in early June reported that Taliban security forces detained about 80 residents in Panjshir’s Khenj district and beat them to compel them to provide information about the NRF. After several days, the Taliban released 70, but have continued to hold 10 people whose relatives they accuse of being members of the group, a form of collective punishment. Former detainees said the district jail held nearly 100 others who have alleged links to the NRF. None had access to their families or lawyers. Others have been held in informal detention facilities. International humanitarian law, or the laws of war, which is applicable in Afghanistan’s armed conflicts, obligates all warring parties to treat everyone in their custody humanely. People taken into custody must be promptly charged with a criminal offense or released. The protections of international human rights law also apply. Denying detainees access to lawyers and family members is prohibited and increases the risk of torture and enforced disappearance. Collective punishment – the punishment of individuals for alleged actions of others – is a violation of the laws of war and a war crime. Human rights groups and local and international media have reported that the whereabouts of some men taken into Taliban custody in Panjshir province have not been revealed, and that some with suspected links to the NRF have been killed. In some places the bodies of those killed have been displayed as an apparent warning to others. The NRF, headed by Ahmad Massoud, is the principal armed opposition group in Panjshir and neighboring provinces. It includes some fighters who had served in the former Afghan National Security Forces. Taliban troops in Panjshir are under the command of the Taliban’s defense minister, Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, who stated on May 21 that the authorities would not allow anyone to “disrupt security” in the province. The Defense Ministry and the General Directorate of Intelligence have overseen operations in Panjshir. After the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021, their forces, including military and intelligence officers, have carried out many summary killings and enforced disappearances. There is no indication that they have held forces responsible for abuses accountable. “Taliban forces in Panjshir have imposed collective punishment and disregarded protections to which detainees are entitled,” Gossman said. “This is just the latest example of Taliban abuses during fighting in the region 10 months after the Taliban took power.” Link: https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/06/10/afghanistan-taliban-torture-civilians-panjshir © 2022 Human Rights Watch

Four Baloch students have gone missing from Karachi in the last three days, it emerged on Thursday. According to reliable sources, including the aggrieved families, Kaleem Ullah Noor, a student of the Karachi University, was reportedly “whisked away” from his room on June 7. “Two other students – Doda Ellahi and Ghamshad Baloch – of the same university were detained during a separate raid in the Muskan Chowrangi area,” sources added. It was not clear who conducted the raid. On Thursday, another Baloch student, Shahdad Baloch of the Karachi’s Federal University, reportedly went missing from the city. The Baloch Yekjehti Committee Karachi confirmed the news, saying that enforced disappearances of Baloch students are alarming. Student bodies, including the Baloch Students Action Committee (BSAC), the Baloch Students Council Bahawalpur and the Baloch Students Council Lahore, condemned what they called enforced disappearances of Baloch students. They alleged that Baloch students are not secure anywhere in the country. “From Karachi to Rawalpindi, Baloch students are facing the same fate,” they added. Earlier, it was reported that an MPhil student, Hafeez Baloch, of the Quaid-i-Azam University, Beebagr Imdad of NUML, Fassieh Baloch of the University of Balochistan and Feroz Baloch of Rawalpindi had gone missing. The Baloch students from across the country are running social media campaigns, asking the authorities concerned to ensure a safe and early recovery of the students. In a statement, senior politician and former senator Afrasiab Khattak said, “Those involved in enforced disappearances should realize that the constitution will prevail one day and they will he held accountable by courts.” Link to the article: https://minutemirror.com.pk/four-baloch-students-go-missing-from-karachi-in-last-three-days-47094/ © Minutemirror | minutemirror.com.pk is a registered trademark. All rights reserved

By Oleksandr Stashevskyi | AP A member of an extraction crew works during an exhumation at a mass grave near Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, June 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko) BUCHA, Ukraine — The lush green beauty of a pine forest with singing birds contrasted with the violent deaths of newly discovered victims of Russia's war in Ukraine, as workers exhumed bodies from another mass grave near the town of Bucha on Kyiv’s outskirts. The hands of several victims were tied behind their backs. The gruesome work of digging up the remains coincided with the Ukrainian police chief’s report that authorities have opened criminal investigations into the killings of more than 12,000 people since Russia’ invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Workers wearing white hazmat suits and masks used shovels to exhume bodies from the soil of the forest, marking each section with small yellow numbered signs on the ground. The bodies, covered in cloth and dirt, attracted flies. “Shots to the knees tell us that people were tortured,” Andriy Nebytov, head of the Kyiv regional police, said at the scene. “The hands tied behind the back with tape say that people had been held (hostage) for a long time and (enemy forces) tried to get any information from them.” Since the withdrawal of Russian troops from the region at the end of March, the authorities say they have uncovered the bodies of 1,316 people, many in mass graves in the forest and elsewhere. The horrors of Bucha shocked the world after Russian troops left. The mass grave that reporters saw Monday was just behind a trench dug out for a military vehicle. The bodies of seven civilians were retrieved. Two of the bodies were found with their hands tied and gunshot wounds to the knees and the head, Nebytov said. National police chief Igor Klimenko told the Interfax-Ukraine news agency on Monday that criminal investigations into the deaths of more than 12,000 Ukrainians included some found in mass graves. He said the mass killings of people also took place from snipers firing from tanks and armored personnel carriers. Bodies were found lying on streets and in their homes, as well as in mass graves. He didn’t specify how many of the more than 12,000 were civilians and how many were military. Complete information about the number of bodies in mass graves or elsewhere isn’t known, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the American Jewish Committee on Sunday. He cited the killings of two children who died with their parents in the basement of an apartment building in Mariupol in a Russian bombing. Zelenskyy, who is Jewish and lost relatives in the Holocaust, asked: “Why is this happening in 2022? This is not the 1940s. How could mass killings, torture, burned cities, and filtration camps set up by the Russian military in the occupied territories resembling Nazi concentration camps come true?” All contents © copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

By Helen Davidson Thousands of protesters carrying the British flag march in Hong Kong in July 2019. Photograph: Kin Cheung/AP New Hong Kong textbooks will teach students that the city was never a British colony, after an overhaul of a school subject that authorities have blamed for driving the pro-democracy protests. According to local reports, the new texts will teach students that the Chinese government didn’t recognize the treaties that ceded the city to Britain after the opium wars. They ended in 1997 when Britain returned Hong Kong to Chinese control, and therefore the texts claim Hong Kong was never a British colony. The new books also adopt Beijing’s narrative that the 2019 protest movement was driven by “external forces”, South China Morning Post reported. The four sets of textbooks for Hong Kong’s liberal studies subject were released online last week, for schools to choose materials for the new academic year in September. They are set to be used by fourth form students in “citizenship and social development” classes, which replaced the liberal studies course designed in 2009 to teach students critical thinking. In 2020 the liberal studies course was attacked by pro-Beijing authorities who blamed it for driving youth towards protests and pledged rectification. The chief executive, Carrie Lam, said students needed protection from being “poisoned” and fed “false and biased information”. A subsequent overhaul of the education system included an increased focus on national security and patriotism, with teachers encouraged to report students who breached the national security law. “It is necessary for schools to teach students to think positively and to love their nation,” the head of Hong Kong’s education department said on Monday. Several of the textbooks discuss the 2020 national security law – widely criticized as infringing on basic freedoms by outlawing acts of dissent as terrorism, secessionism, foreign collusion or sedition. One reportedly says the law was introduced in response to “violent terrorist activities” and illegal acts in 2019 which endangered national sovereignty and security. Another mentioned “national security” 400 times across 121 pages, the report said. China’s state-backed tabloid, the Global Times, said the changes would ensure “some teachers will no longer be able to convey their wrong and poisonous political views to students when teaching this course”. Tang Fei, an editor and reviewer of two of the textbooks, and also a Hong Kong legislator, told the outlet the texts had passed internal review and were now awaiting final approval. With the new texts “there will be no need for school teachers to bring in too much other content”, Tang said. The proposed new textbooks come just weeks before Hong Kong marks 25 years since the British handover. The territory was promised 50 years of semi-autonomy, but activists argue the post-2019 crackdown, national security law, electoral changes, and growing central government interventions in civil society and the media have in effect ended that autonomy already. This year’s anniversary on 1 July will also mark the first day in office for the city’s new Beijing-anointed leader John Lee. Lee, the former security chief, will take over from Lam. China’s senior leaders have traditionally attended the swearing-in ceremony. Xi Jinping’s attendance has not been confirmed but speculation increased after at least one Hong Kong primary school announced it was looking for pupils to spend a week in hotel quarantine, suggesting preparations for a strict “closed-loop” system will allow Xi to visit. Additional reporting by Chi Hui Lin and Xiaoqian Zhu © 2022 The Guardian Link to article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/15/new-hong-kong-textbooks-will-claim-city-never-was-a-british-colony

New York Times June 14, 2022 Theary Seng, a Cambodian American lawyer, and dozens of other critics of Prime Minister Hun Sen were convicted of conspiracy to commit treason. Theary Seng, dressed as Lady Liberty, was taken away by the police after her conviction in Cambodia. She has worn a series of extravagant costumes as a form of nonverbal protest. Credit...Samuel/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images By Seth Mydans BANGKOK — Theary Seng, a Cambodian American lawyer and a human rights activist, was sentenced to six years in prison on Tuesday as part of Cambodia’s wide-ranging crackdown on opponents of the nation’s prime minister, Hun Sen. Ms. Theary Seng — a refugee who escaped Cambodia’s killing fields and who had returned from the United States to help build democracy — was convicted of conspiracy to commit treason, along with dozens of other critics and opposition politicians. Choung Chou Ngy, her lawyer, said he planned to appeal her conviction. He said that those who had received five-year terms had their sentences suspended but that the other defendants with five to eight years would face prison time. All of them were victims of a concerted campaign by Mr. Hun Sen to eliminate the last traces of resistance to what has in effect become his one-man rule. The main opposition party, to which many of the defendants belonged, was dissolved by court order in 2017, prompting many of its members to flee abroad. Since then, top leaders of the party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party, have been harried with court cases, with some convicted in absentia more than once on separate charges. In March, 19 members of the party, including a half-dozen leaders in exile, were convicted on charges of “incitement” and “conspiracy,” and many were sentenced in absentia to prison terms. At that time, Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, called the trials “a witch hunt” and said, “Cambodia’s politicized courts have facilitated Prime Minister Hun Sen’s effort to destroy the last remnants of democratic freedoms and civil and political rights in the country.” Mr. Hun Sen’s party, the Cambodian People’s Party, now holds all of the seats in the National Assembly. The prime minister, 69, recently announced that he would eventually hand over leadership of the country to his son Hun Manet, a lieutenant general. Mr. Hun Sen was the prime minister in a Vietnam-installed Communist government after the Vietnamese ousted the Khmer Rouge, which had caused the deaths of around two million people in the late 1970s. After their ouster, the Khmer Rouge waged a jungle insurgency. The United Nations later intervened to replace the government with a Western-style democracy with political freedoms and human rights guarantees. Mr. Hun Sen remained in power, sharing it for a time with a co-prime minister, Norodom Ranariddh, after a U.N.-sponsored election. It was in this context that Ms. Theary Seng — who had survived the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge, fled to America and earned a law degree — returned to Cambodia in 2004 as part of a struggling human rights movement. In an interview last year, she said she had returned to help “stem Cambodia’s complete plunge into autocracy.” Looking back, she said, “There was such high hope when I entered civil society.” But Mr. Hun Sen was already moving step by step to gather power and eliminate opposition through imprisonment, exile, payoffs, electoral manipulation, assassination and coup. As human rights defenders fled or were arrested, Ms. Theary Seng remained one of the most insistent opponents of the government. Ms. Theary Seng retained her United States citizenship but said she was determined not to flee, though she could have. The State Department criticized the charges against her and the other defendants as “baseless,” and the United States Embassy said it was monitoring the trial. Since being indicted along with dozens of others in November 2020, and with the government-controlled news media and other avenues of expression closed to her, she has resorted to flamboyant displays to attract attention. On the day of her sentencing, she was wearing the latest in a series of extravagant costumes, this time dressed as Lady Liberty with her face painted green and with a spiked crown and green gown, which she was still wearing when police officers bundled her into a van. Cambodia’s Crackdown Cambodia Convicts 19 Opposition Politicians on ‘Incitement’ Charges March 17, 2022 Charged With Treason, a Genocide Survivor Opts to Fight, Not Flee Aug. 6, 2021 Cambodia’s Internet May Soon Be Like China’s: State-Controlled Jan. 15, 2022 Seth Mydans reported as a foreign and national correspondent for The New York Times and its sister publication, The International Herald Tribune, from 1983 to 2012. He continues to contribute to The Times. A version of this article appears in print on June 15, 2022, Section A, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: U.S. Activist Among Critics Sent to Prison In Cambodia Copyright 2022 The New York Times Company

Reporting by Addis Ababa Newsroom; Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Gareth Jones and Deepa Babington Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in Jimma, Ethiopia, June 16, 2021. REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri/File Photo ADDIS ABABA, June 14 (Reuters) - Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said on Tuesday the federal government had formed a committee to negotiate with forces from the rebellious northern region of Tigray, in the first public confirmation of a key step towards peace negotations. The nearly two-year conflict in Ethiopia, Africa's second-most populous nation, has displaced more than 9 million people, plunged parts of Tigray into famine conditions and killed thousands of civilians. "Regarding the peace ... a committee has been established and it will study how we will conduct talks," Abiy told parliament, the first time he has publicly referred to the body. The committee, headed by Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen, has 10 to 15 days to hammer out details of negotiations. Getachew Reda, spokesperson for the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), said his group was prepared to participate in a "credible, impartial and principled" peace process. The TPLF - a former rebel army turned political party - dominated national politics for nearly three decades until Abiy's appointment in 2018 reduced their rule to Tigray. "We are not prepared to make secret deals or bargain away our principles for material inducements," Reda said in a statement. The TPLF accused Abiy of wanting to centralise power at the expense of the regions, while he said they were seeking to regain national power. CONFLICT Fighting erupted in Tigray in November 2020 and spilled over into the neighbouring regions of Afar and Amhara last year.' Troops from neighbouring Eritrea also entered the conflict in support of Abiy's force. Eritrean and Ethiopian forces withdrew from most of Tigray in mid-2021 and the Abiy government declared a unilateral ceasefire in March. read more Legislator Desalegn Chane said on Tuesday that negotiations should not exclude Amhara and Eritrean forces. Both fought on the side of the Ethiopian military, but faced mounting accusations of abuses, which they denied. Last month, regional state media reported 4,000 people had been arrested in Amhara - including a prominent general, militia members and journalists. Analysts said it appeared that the central government was trying to reassert its authority over some Amhara factions; the government said the arrests were related to "illegal activities" and possible killings. The war between the national government forces and its allies and the Tigrayan forces has upset Abiy's plans to modernise Ethiopia's sclerotic state-run economy. Widespread reports of mass killings of civilians and sexual violence and allegations of ethnic cleansing also triggered Ethiopia's suspension from a major trade agreement that gave Ethiopia preferential access to U.S. markets - a move the government said could cost the nation 1 million jobs. The government has said the reports of rights abuses are exaggerated. A U.N. investigation found all sides had committed abuses, but although the national rights body has released reports on abuses in Amhara and Afar, the full extent of killings and rapes in Tigray has yet to be documented © 2022 Reuters Link to Article: https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/ethiopias-abiy-says-committee-formed-negotiate-with-tigray-forces-2022-06-14/ .

Search crews found clothes and other belongings of the two men who went missing in the Amazon last week. Authorities are also testing blood from a suspect’s boat and human remains found elsewhere. Police officers and rescue team members during the search operation for the British journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, in Atalaia do Norte, Amazonas state, Brazil, on Sunday.Credit: Bruno Kelly/Reuters By Jack Nicas and André Spigariol SÃO PAULO, Brazil — A British journalist and a Brazilian expert on Indigenous peoples have now been missing deep in the Amazon rainforest for more than a week, and increasing signs suggest that the two men may not be found alive. Brazilian authorities said late last week that they found human remains in the area where the men were last seen as well as blood on a suspect’s boat, and that the samples were being tested. Then, over the weekend, the authorities found belongings of the two men, including clothes, a sandal, a bag and a health card. “I pray to God that they find them alive, but the evidence suggests otherwise at the moment,” President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil told a local media outlet on Monday. Dom Phillips, a freelance writer for the British news organization The Guardian, and Bruno Araújo Pereira, an expert on Indigenous groups who has done extensive work in the Amazon, were last seen on June 5, while traveling in a boat on the Itaquaí River in the northern Brazilian state of Amazonas, near the border with Peru. Mr. Pereira had faced threats in the region for his work creating teams of local Indigenous people to patrol the rivers and forest for illegal fishing, hunting and mining. Officials at Univaja, a local Indigenous association that helps organize the patrols, said illegal activity had gotten worse in the area over the past several years, as budget cuts and policy changes from the Bolsonaro administration reduced the presence of government authorities there. Mr. Phillips had traveled to the Javari Valley Indigenous reserve with Mr. Pereira to report on the Indigenous patrols for a book. On June 4, while the two men were on a boat with a patrol, another boat passed carrying three men known to be illegal fishermen, Univaja said. The men showed the patrol boat their guns, Univaja said. The following morning, Mr. Phillips, 57, and Mr. Pereira, 41, started their journey home, traveling down the Itaquaí River on a new boat with sufficient fuel for the trip. They have not been seen since. State police officials have since arrested Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, a fisherman known locally as “Pelado,” or “naked” in Portuguese, for having illegal ammunition. The officials said that he is the main suspect in the disappearance of Mr. Phillips and Mr. Pereira and that he was seen following the two men in his boat just before they went missing. Univaja said that Mr. de Oliveira was also one of the fisherman who showed their guns to the patrol boat the previous day. The human remains are being tested at the national forensic lab in Brasília, the nation’s capital. Officials said that they collected genetic samples of Mr. Phillips and Mr. Pereira at their homes to see if there was a match. © 2022 The New York Times Company

The Indian American Muslim Council, an advocacy organization dedicated to maintaining India’s constitutional values of pluralism and democracy, today commended the US State Department on its 2021 International Religious Freedom Report, which represents a detailed account of massive violations of religious freedom and persecution of 280 million religious minorities in India. “The report documents how religious freedom and rights of religious minorities are under threat around the world. In India, the world’s largest democracy and home to great diversity of faiths, we have seen a rise in attacks on people and places of worship,” Secretary Blinken said while delivering the remarks. In addition to covering the issues of harsh anti-conversion laws, cow vigilantism and mob lynchings, anti-Muslim attacks in Tripura state, detention of non-Hindus for imagined offenses, and mosque vandalisms, the report also mentioned several Hindu extremist leaders by name. These include hate speaker Yati Narasinghanand, Hindu Mahasabha general secretary Sadhvi Annapurna, World Hindu Congress leader Swami Paramatmananda, and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, a close ally of Narendra Modi. IAMC also welcomed the statement by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken for naming India alongside China, Myanmar, Nigeria, Eritrea, Afghanistan, and others for threatening the rights of religious minorities during the release of the report. IAMC further commended Rashad Hussain, the Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom for calling out the Indian government officials, who he said are “ignoring or even supporting rising attacks on people and places of worship.” “We welcome the US State Department’s thorough coverage of the dangerous consequences of Hindu extremism in the 2021 Report on International Religious Freedom,” said Syed Ali, President of IAMC. “It is important that the Biden administration now formally recognize Hindutva as a major threat to Indian democracy.” “We applaud Secretary Blinken and Ambassador Hussain for breaking the silence and publicly expressing concern regarding India’s ongoing persecution of religious minorities,” said Rasheed Ahmed, Executive Director of IAMC. “This is a major step in the right direction, and allows us to begin the long-overdue conversation about what the United States must now do to ensure the protection of India’s 280 million minorities.” IAMC reiterates and calls on the US Department of State and Secretary Blinken to designate India a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) and apply sanctions for violations of religious freedom and state-sponsored persecution of Muslim and Christian minorities. (c) 2022, Indian American Muslim Council