By Nat Hill Ukrainian service members attend a military drill with weapons supplied by Britain at the firing ground of the International Center for Peacekeeping and Security, near the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, on Jan. 28. (AFP/Getty Images) Genocide Watch is issuing a warning for the potential Russian invasion of Ukraine. While the likelihood of genocide is low, a Russian invasion will increase the likelihood of war crimes, extrajudicial killings, forced displacement, torture, sexual assault, and other crimes against humanity. In 2014, Russian-backed separatists seized and still control large swaths of Ukrainian territory in the Donbas and Luhansk regions bordering Russia. The resulting war has lasted for seven years, has killed 14 thousand people, including 3,000 civilians, and has displaced 1.5 million people. Russia invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014. An estimated 100,000 Russian soldiers are now deployed along the Russian-Ukrainian and Ukrainian-Belarusian borders. NATO, the European Union, and the United States have sent anti-tank missiles and other weapons for Ukraine’s self-defense, but not enough to drive back Russian tanks and air power. Both US President Biden and the Secretary-General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, prematurely announced that no US and NATO troops will be deployed to Ukraine to counter a Russian invasion. Biden has even predicted that a Russian invasion is likely. The US and UK have threatened crippling economic sanctions against Russia if it invades. But there is little likelihood that such sanctions will deter Russia’s Vladimir Putin from invading Ukrainian territory, which he considers to be a part of Russia. The current US and NATO policy of appeasement towards Putin's Russia has increased the likelihood of a bloody Russian invasion and thousands of deaths. For a comprehensive synopsis of the political, economic, social, and historical aspects of the conflict in Ukraine please see the Council on Foreign Relations Backgrounder. See also Prof. Timothy Snyder’s “Putin’s Case for Invading Ukraine Rests on Phony Grievances and Ancient Myths” (Washington Post, January 26, 2022). Genocide Watch is increasingly concerned about the integration of Ukrainian right-wing extremists and neo-Nazi militias into the Ukrainian military in Donbas. Groups such as Right Sector, Azov Battalion, and Svoboda openly promote fascism, antisemitism, homophobia, and xenophobia. They have been given tacit support by the Ukrainian government to organize and fight in Donbas. They pose a threat to Ukraine’s developing democracy and the protection of Ukraine's minority populations. Ukraine has a long history of genocide. The Soviet Union, under Joseph Stalin, starved millions of Ukrainians in the 1932-1933 Holodomor. Stalin also deported the entire population of Crimean Tatars to Central Asia in 1944, costing many thousands of lives. Crimean Tatars continue to be discriminated against in their own homeland. The Jewish population of Ukraine was nearly annihilated by centuries of pogroms and anti-Semitism, climaxing in the Nazi Holocaust, which killed two million Jews in Ukraine. Ukrainian militias assisted the Nazis in their genocide, and some Ukrainian neo-Nazi groups still celebrate those collaborators as heroes. Due to Putin’s massive deployment of Russian troops on the borders of Ukraine, Genocide Watch considers Ukraine to be at Stage 5: Organization, Stage 6: Polarization, and Stage 7: Preparation. Genocide Watch Recommends: · The UN Security Council should vote on a Chapter 7 resolution calling on Russia to withdraw its troops from the border with Ukraine. When the UNSC Resolution is vetoed by Russia, the Uniting for Peace Resolution should be invoked, and the situation should be referred to the UN General Assembly. · The United States, NATO, and the European Union should begin to impose economic sanctions against Russia and Belarus and fully impose them if any Russian unit invades Ukraine. · NATO should provide massive military aid to Ukraine, Georgia, and the Baltic States so that any Russian invasion will be met by effective self-defense. · The Ukrainian army should remove neo-Nazi militias that fight under its command.

Cambodian prisoners, including Rong Chhun, president of the Cambodian Confederation of Unions, arrive by prison truck at the Municipal Court in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, August 18, 2021. © 2021 AP Photo/Heng Sinith (New York) – The Cambodian government passed new rights-abusing laws expanding internet surveillance and censorship in 2021, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2022. Prime Minister Hun Sen’s authoritarian government continued its crackdown on activists, human rights defenders, the political opposition, and independent media. “Prime Minister Hun Sen, like many autocrats, used the Covid-19 pandemic to tighten his oppressive rule,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Yet, despite the arbitrary arrests and mass trials of rights defenders and political activists, foreign governments and the UN country team were noticeably silent, failing to hold Hun Sen and other abusive officials responsible.” In the 752-page World Report 2022, its 32nd edition, Human Rights Watch reviews human rights practices in nearly 100 countries. Executive Director Kenneth Roth challenges the conventional wisdom that autocracy is ascendent. In country after country, large numbers of people have recently taken to the streets, even at the risk of being arrested or shot, showing that the appeal of democracy remains strong. Meanwhile, autocrats are finding it more difficult to manipulate elections in their favor. Still, he says, democratic leaders must do a better job of meeting national and global challenges and of making sure that democracy delivers on its promised dividends. Covid-19 outbreaks hit Cambodia’s prisons hard because of the government’s failure to take adequate steps in response to early warnings. Lockdowns in February caused a food emergency and medical crisis in Covid-19-affected areas, which disproportionately affected low-income populations. In March the government passed a rights-abusing Covid-19 law, under which alleged violations of Covid-19 measures could be punished by up to 20 years in prison and other disproportionate penalties. Ahead of the elections scheduled for 2022 and 2023, the Cambodian People’s Party government subjected former members of the dissolved opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) to harassment and arbitrary arrests, forcing many to flee into exile. The politically motivated treason case against the party head Kem Sokha remains pending, while the exiled party leader Sam Rainsy and eight senior officials face prison sentences of up to 25 years on bogus charges. In 2021 the government stepped up attacks against environmental and youth activists as well as human rights defenders. Currently, Cambodia holds at least 60 political prisoners in notoriously overcrowded prisons. In February the parliament passed a law for a National Internet Gateway, which will provide the government with legal authority to monitor all internet activities and block and disconnect internet connections. Critical commentary on social media and independent reporting was further suppressed in 2021, using so-called “fake news labels,” effective bans on independent reporting, and legal threats and action against coverage of police and government actions. “The Cambodian government should stop using repressive measures to silence people speaking out about social, political, and environmental issues,” Robertson said. © Human Rights Watch 2022

El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele speaks during a deployment ceremony for the Territorial Control plan and army officers' graduation at the Captain Gerardo Barrios Military Academy in Antiguo Cuscatlan, El Salvador December 15, 2021. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas SAN SALVADOR, Jan 31, 2022 (Reuters) - International human rights groups called on Monday for authorities in El Salvador to open an investigation into allegations that journalists and activists had their phones hacked and implanted with the sophisticated spyware Pegasus. In mid-January, The Citizen Lab, which studies spyware at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs, released a report saying that the cell phones of nearly three dozen journalists and activists, several of whom were investigating alleged state corruption, have been hacked since mid-2020 with the Israeli-designed spyware. In response, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), its Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression (RELE), and the Regional Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights for Central America and the Dominican Republic and the Caribbean (OHCHR) released a joint statement on Monday calling for a probe into the findings. "(We) urge the State to investigate the reported facts effectively and impartially, and ensure the protection of the integrity of the victims," the statement said. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele's government did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Last week, Attorney General Rodolfo Delgado said he would investigate the allegations, without elaborating. The Bukele government has said that El Salvador was not a client of NSO Group Technologies, the Israeli company that developed Pegasus. NSO, which has long kept its client list confidential, has declined to comment on whether El Salvador was a Pegasus customer. The company has said that it sells its products only to "vetted and legitimate" intelligence and law enforcement agencies. The logo of Israeli cyber firm NSO Group is seen at one of its branches in the Arava Desert, southern Israel July 22, 2021. REUTERS/Amir Cohen Reporting by Nelson Renteria; Writing by Laura Gottesdiener; Editing by Sandra Maler © Reuters 2022

Extrajudicial killings allegedly carried out despite Taliban assurances of safety for those linked to previous leadership or foreign forces Taliban fighters patrol a Kabul street. The UN says allegations the Taliban killed scores affiliated with Afghanistan’s ex-government came as attacks on human rights defenders and media workers there continue. Photograph: Mohd Rasfan/AFP/Getty Images The United Nations says it has received “credible allegations” that more than 100 members of the ousted Afghan government, its security forces and those who worked with international troops have been killed since the Taliban took over on 15 August. Secretary general Antonio Guterres said in a report that “more than two thirds” of the deaths were alleged to have resulted from extrajudicial killings by the Taliban or its affiliates, despite the Taliban’s announcement of “general amnesties” for those affiliated with the former government and US-led coalition forces. The UN political mission in Afghanistan also received “credible allegations of extrajudicial killings of at least 50 individuals suspected of affiliation with Isil-KP”, the Islamic State extremist group operating in Afghanistan, Guterres said in the report to the UN security council. In the report, obtained by the Associated Press on Sunday, he added that despite Taliban assurances, the UN political mission had also received credible allegations “of enforced disappearances and other violations impacting the right to life and physical integrity” of former government and coalition members. Guterres said human rights defenders and media workers also continue “to come under attack, intimidation, harassment, arbitrary arrest, ill-treatment and killings”. Eight civil society activists were killed, including three by the Taliban and three by Islamic State extremists, and 10 were subjected to temporary arrests, beatings and threats by the Taliban, he said. Two journalists were killed – one by IS – and two were injured by unknown armed men. Antonio Guterres: ‘The situation in Afghanistan remains precarious.’ Photograph: Robert Bumsted/AP The secretary general said the UN missions documented 44 cases of temporary arrests, beatings and threats of intimidation, 42 of them by the Taliban. The Taliban overran most of Afghanistan as US and Nato forces were in the final stages of their chaotic withdrawal from the country after 20 years. They entered Kabul on 15 August without any resistance from the Afghan army or the country’s president, Ashraf Ghani, who fled. The Taliban initially promised a general amnesty for those linked to the former government and international forces, and tolerance and inclusiveness towards women and ethnic minorities. However, the Taliban have renewed restrictions on women and appointed an all-male government, which have met with dismay by the international community. Afghanistan’s aid-dependent economy was already stumbling when the Taliban seized power, and the international community froze Afghanistan’s assets abroad and halted economic support, recalling the Taliban’s reputation for brutality during its 1996-2001 rule and refusal to educate girls and allow women to work. Guterres said: “The situation in Afghanistan remains precarious and uncertain six months after the Taliban takeover as the multiple political, socio-economic and humanitarian shocks reverberate across the country.” He said Afghanistan today faces multiple crises: a growing humanitarian emergency, a massive economic contraction, the crippling of its banking and financial systems, the worst drought in 27 years and the Taliban’s failure to form an inclusive government and restore the rights of girls to education and women to work. “An estimated 22.8 million people are projected to be in ‘crisis’ and ‘emergency’ levels of food insecurity until March 2022,” the UN chief said. “Almost 9 million of these will be at ‘emergency’ levels of food insecurity – the highest number in the world. Half of all children under five are facing acute malnutrition.” Afghans queue to receive food rations organised by the World Food Program in Pul-e-Alam in Logar province, eastern Afghanistan. Photograph: Zubair Abassi/AP On a positive note, Guterres reported “a significant decline” in the overall number of conflict-related security incidents as well as civilian casualties since the Taliban takeover. The UN recorded 985 security-related incidents between 19 August and 31 December, a 91% decrease compared with the same period in 2020, he said. The eastern, central, southern and western regions accounted for 75% of all recorded incidents, he said, with Nangarhar, Kabul, Kunar and Kandahar ranking as the most conflict-affected provinces. Despite the reduction in violence, Guterres said the Taliban faced several challenges, including rising attacks against their members. “Some are attributed to the National Resistance Front comprising some Afghan opposition figures, and those associated with the former government,” he said. “These groups have been primarily operating in Panjshir province and Baghlan’s Andarab district but have not made significant territorial inroads”, although “armed clashes are regularly documented, along with forced displacement and communication outages”. Guterres said intra-Taliban tensions along ethnic lines and competition over jobs had also resulted in violence, pointing to armed clashes on 4 November between between Taliban forces in Bamyan city. In the report, the secretary general proposed priorities for the UN political mission in the current environment, urged international support to prevent widespread hunger and the country’s economic collapse, and urged the Taliban to guarantee women’s rights and human rights. © The Guardian 2022

A fighter with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) stands guard on a hilltop overlooking the village of Baghouz. Credits: DELIL SOULEIMAN / AFP Could Daesh be resurfacing in the Arab World. More to the point, could they be mushrooming in the region with greater vengeance and are they setting their eyes for another power grab? They did this when they declared Syria's Raqqa as the self-declared capital of the Islamic Caliphate in 2014 and lost it in 2018. The two attacks that happened recently in north-east Syria and east Iraq may point to a disturbing trend about the extreme terror movement dubbed as the Islamic State for Iraq and the Levant. This is especially so because it looks as if the attacks have been in almost total coordination, happening a day or two of one another and reported within hours. The first was an armed onslaught at the Al Ghweran prison in Al Hasakah in north-east Syria. After armed clashes at the gates of the prison between ISIS militants and the guards were a reported car bomb exploded, many Daesh members - up to the hundreds were set free and/or managed to break out from jail. But here also begins the conflicting reports. The Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which control the Al Ghweran prison later said they stopped the prison break and apparently there was no escapees. But escapees there were, maybe in their hundreds. Many of these were later captured. But some reports provided by Syrian Observatory for Human Rights states that over 150 prisoners are still at large and maybe more. This in itself is a worrying because it shows ISIS is back and active despite the American-led war on terror and which has been in existence since 2014. And the Kurdish SDF is part of the coalition fighting the ISIS terror organization. After 2018 when they war were forced out of Raqqa and dispersed in the region - travelling even to as far as Afghanistan, in addition to the fact that many were imprisoned and some, especially women and children - up to 60,0000 - hauled up in Syrian camps, many talked about the fact many of the ISIS militants went underground in sleeper-cells mode occasionally, carrying terror activities. This became especially the case in Iraq where, at times, deadly bomb explosions reached as far as Baghdad and its markets. The prison operation in Al Hasakah was especially worrying because it was immediately followed the next day by another deadly operation in the Diyala province. A total of 11 Iraqi soldiers, including a high-ranking officer was killed on the onslaught at a military base-turned barracks in Hawi Al Azim area in the province where the bloody attack took place in the early hours of the morning. It was a horrific attack by ISIS, and despite the fact that their presence is being played down, the two attacks in less than 24 hours shows the sleeper cells are awake and active. This is disturbing as well because in both attacks in Syria and Iraq what the strikes show is there is boldness in the terror operations and even a "dare" element, the plans were carefully thought out and Daesh militants believe they could truly regain the upperhand in spite of the replenishment of the Iraqi army which was criticised for allowing the attack to happen; Vigilance is also needed by the US-lead anti-terror coalition and their SDF partners. The last attacks show also that ISIS may now be on a more active and on a "war path" in light of the fact the UN estimates there is 10,000 of their militants that are still at large in Syria and Iraq. Plus the fact that the Hasakah attack and its ramifications doesn't seem to be ending. Three days after the prison onslaught clashes continue between ISIS members and SDF forces. They are reported to have besieged Ghweran neighborhood in Hasakah in searching of the militants, an action that is making the people of that area irritable and frustrated for they are now demanding that embargo on them be lifted. But will it? The priority is now to go after the ISIS. © 2000 - 2022 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)

Ethnic Uyghur men take part in a protest against China, in front of the Caglayan Courthouse, in Istanbul, Turkey, on Jan. 4, 2022. (Dilara Senkaya/Reuters) On December 4, President Xi Jinping gave his first public speech on religion in five years, blandly reemphasizing his “ Sinicization” policy of “actively guiding religions to adapt to the socialist society.” In practice, Xi’s policies toward religious groups are far more wrathful. Documents leaked to the New York Times include Xi’s private speeches in which he called for Chinese Communist Party cadres to “balance” the demographics in Xinjiang and show “no mercy” toward its minority communities of Uyghur and other ethnic Muslims -- a directive realized in the ongoing Uyghur genocide that features brutal birth prevention measures, mass internment, forced labor and cultural destruction. With the other “legal” religions of Catholics, Protestants and Buddhists, Sinicization is enforced through a strangling web of administrative restrictions aimed to quietly turn their institutions into mere instruments of CCP indoctrination, surveillance, and control. Beijing goes to great lengths to hide this religious repression from the rest of the world. It enforces strict censorship and bars independent human rights investigators. It deceptively explains Xinjiang’s vast network of concentration camps, documented by Western satellites, as “vocational training centers” to end poverty and terror. To reports of Uyghur women being forced to undergo abortions and sterilizations, Xi’s ambassador in Washington retorted in a tweet that China promotes “reproductive health,” to liberate women from being “baby making machines.” The CCP is also intensifying its infamous policy of punishing domestic human rights reporters, critics, and defense lawyers. These dissidents perhaps constitute China’s largest group of prisoners of conscience, after religious believers and practitioners, themselves. Ahead of the Olympic Games, Beijing even preemptively rounded up two well- known Chinese rights activists. Religious freedom defense lawyer Xie Yang and free speech advocate Yang Maodong were detained separately, both on “inciting subversion” charges. Astonishingly, Chinese nationals who dissent and report on abuses from ostensibly safe havens overseas are increasingly being hunted out by the CCP for intimidation and punishment. According to a new report by the Spanish NGO, Safeguard Defenders, Beijing has forcibly repatriated some 10,000 Chinese nationals by extra-judicial means, since 2014, many, if not most, being regime critics. Under government operations Fox Hunt and Sky Net, the CCP uses kidnapping and intimidation to force dissidents back to China, the report finds. Last summer, the Associated Press interviewed Wu Huan, who reports that she was kidnapped and held in a CCP secret or “black” jail in Dubai. Now seeking asylum in the Netherlands, she was forced to denounce her Chinese fiancé who had criticized Beijing’s policies. In the jail, she met two Chinese Uyghur Muslims. The Uyghur Human Rights Project documented 1,327 Uyghurs detained or deported to China from 20 countries, since 2014. Beijing also issues red notices, international arrest alerts through Interpol, to extradite Uyghurs and others abroad. Uyghur rights advocate Idris Hasan, for example, is awaiting deportation from Morocco, having lost his extradition case in December, despite a plea for him from the UN Committee Against Torture. China is currently working to place its own security officer on Interpol’s policy committee to gain greater control over the international police. Expat Uyghurs, such as Gulbahar Haitwaji, report being lured back to China for punishment. Living with her family in France, she was persuaded to visit China by a man who telephoned, saying he was with her former employer, an oil company in Xinjiang. Upon her arrival in Xinjiang, she was shown a photo of her daughter at a Paris protest against Xinjiang repression. Gulbahar was then given the identity of “Prisoner Number 9” and incarcerated in a concentration camp for three years, where she was prevented from praying, indoctrinated for 11 hours a day, slapped and forcibly sterilized. Chinese dissidents overseas are commonly reported to be spied on, threatened, bullied, and beaten in an attempt to silence them by CCP agents and supporters. In November, former Hong Kong Legislative Council Member and pro-democracy leader Nathan Law, now in refuge in the UK, accused the CCP of organizing clandestine “United Front” operations in London. He called for a probe into a pro-Beijing rally, after rally participants beat up pro-democracy counter-protesters from Hong Kong and rewards were offered on social media for doxxing Law by revealing his home address. In December, Purdue University president Mitch Daniels warned the university community of an “atmosphere of intimidation” aimed at Purdue’s Chinese students critical of Beijing and banned attempts to deny students’ rights or to “collude with foreign governments in repressing them.” A Purdue grad student who supported the 1989 Tiananmen protests online had been harassed by other Chinese students and reported to China’s State Security, which paid a visit to his family in China. Confucius institutes have also been linked to Beijing and cited for unwanted influence in American schools and campuses, by the US Secretaries of State and Education, in 2020. While the harshest treatment is reserved for its Chinese national critics, Beijing will take reprisals against non-Chinese who oppose its religious repression, as seen with recent financial sanctions against the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, the State Department’s religious freedom ambassador and several Congressmen. American chipmaker Intel was pressured to remove a posting of its letter to suppliers, prompted by Uyghur forced labor concerns, that it would not use Xinjiang-sourced goods. Athletes should be wary using the China-required Olympic app, which Canadian Citizens’ Lab proved is not secure and is coded to flag for hackers the words “Xinjiang” and “Hong Kong”. The CCP cover up is making it harder to know the full extent of its religious and other repression. But the sheer scale of abuse and the undaunted courage of Chinese dissidents ensure that its tyranny will continue being exposed worldwide. Copyright 2022 Nina Shea, The Hudson Institute

Gregory Stanton, President of Genocide Watch Interviewed by Karan Thapar for The Wire, India. To view the interview, click on the image above. One week after briefing the US Congress, where he warned Congress that “genocide could very well happen in India”, the Founding President of Genocide Watch has said he’s asking “the US Congress to pass a resolution that warns that genocide should not be allowed to occur in India”. Dr. Gregory Stanton also said: “(President) Biden should tell (Prime Minister) Modi that if genocide occurs in India, it will require the US to reassess all our relations with India.” In a 28-minute interview with Karan Thapar for The Wire, Dr. Stanton said that although his organization, Genocide Watch, does not rank countries, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum believes that, after Pakistan, India is the second most likely country for a genocide to happen in the coming year. In the interview with The Wire, Dr. Stanton said, “the early warning signs of (genocide) are present in India.” Referring to Genocide Watch’s ’10 stages of genocide’, he said several of the stages have been fulfilled in India. The ones he identified are classification (distinguishing between people as 'us vs. them' and 'othering' them), symbolization (identifying people by the clothes they wear or calling them abba jaan), discrimination (the Citizenship Amendment Act), dehumanization (calling them termites and foreigners who should go to back to Bangladesh) and polarization (accusing them of 'love jihad' and discriminatory laws against conversion and inter-marriage). On top of all this, he said that at Hardiwar on December 17, there were actually calls for genocide, which he added, were crimes of incitement to genocide under the Genocide Convention, to which India is a signatory. Dr. Stanton said, “Just because a country is a democracy it’s not impossible for a genocide to happen.” He cited America’s own example where, he said, genocide was carried out against Native Americans and against African Americans during the slave trade. Dr. Stanton said whilst it’s not his view that genocide is happening in India at the moment, his fear is that the stages that lead to genocide, what he calls the early warning signs, have occurred. “Genocide is not an event. It’s a process. It develops,” he said. Dr. Stanton said if genocide happens, “it won’t be committed by the state, but by mobs organized by RSS and BJP militants who will lead it.” Speaking specifically about Prime Minister Modi, Dr. Stanton said he has told the US Congress that he believes the Prime Minister encouraged the 2002 Gujurat massacres of over 1000 Muslims. Modi has also used anti-muslim rhetoric to build his political base. “He has a record, (and) he has to answer”, he said. “He needs to be accountable.” Speaking about the Prime Minister’s silence – a month has passed since the Dharam Sansad and the Prime Minister has not spoken a word – Dr. Stanton said: “He is the Prime Minister of India. He is the leader of the country. He has a moral obligation to denounce hate speech.” He added, “leaders have a responsibility to not remain silent.” Asked by The Wire how he interprets Mr. Modi’s silence, Dr. Stanton quoted Martin Luther King, Jr., who said, “We will know who is against us not by what they say, but by their silence.” Asked by The Wire if he was saying Mr. Modi’s silence damns him, Dr. Stanton replied: “It sure does”. In 1989, five years before genocide happened in Rwanda, Dr. Stanton forewarned the president of the country that maintaining ethnicity on identity cards would become a tool for genocide. He told President Habyarimana that if he didn't prevent it, Rwanda would have genocide within five years. Five years later that is precisely what happened.

Experts warn Myanmar junta will use genocide case hearing at top UN court 'opportunistically' to seek legitimacy after coup Riyaz ul Khaliq FILE PHOTO ISTANBUL If the International Court of Justice (ICJ) allows Myanmar’s military regime to become part of the Rohingya genocide case, then it must clarify that this “does not provide a basis for legitimizing the junta,” legal experts said. The ICJ, the top judicial body under the UN, has been hearing a case brought by the Gambia in November 2019, accusing Myanmar of violating the Genocide Convention in its brutal crackdown on the Rohingya community. Tens of thousands of Rohingya were killed and thousands of women and girls were raped when Myanmar forces launched a crackdown on the minority Muslim community in Rakhine State in August 2017. More than 1.2 million Rohingya, described by the UN as the world's most persecuted people, were forced to flee Myanmar and continue to live in refugee camps in Bangladesh. Progress on the case filed by the Gambia against Myanmar for violating the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide has been slow. Last January, the New York-based Global Justice Center said the ICJ’s final ruling would be delayed by at least a year as the court would hear arguments and preliminary objections filed by Myanmar. The ICJ recently announced that it will resume hearings from Feb. 21-28. Myanmar was previously being represented in the case by former State Councilor Aung San Suu Kyi, who was overthrown in a military coup last February and has been jailed by the junta on various charges. The junta will now participate in the ICJ hearings starting next month, raising questions of legitimacy. “The ICJ has no jurisdiction to decide who lawfully represents Myanmar,” Erin Farrell Rosenberg, a legal expert, said during a discussion on the issue on Thursday hosted by Forces of Renewal for Southeast Asia (FORSEA), a representative body of rights campaigners and activists in the region. The only thing that the ICJ has the power to decide is “whether Myanmar has breached the Genocide Convention,” according to Rosenberg, a legal policy advisor at the Mukwege Foundation in the Hague. “However, the concern is whether the decision by the ICJ (to allow the junta to take part in the hearings) will be used opportunistically by the junta as a reason to be recognized as the legitimate representative of Myanmar,” she said. She stressed that the ICJ’s decision to proceed with the hearing “should not be understood as having broader implications and does not provide a basis for legitimizing the junta.” To ensure this, she urged the top UN court to “be transparent.” “Potentially, at the hearing itself, make explicit that its decision to permit junta to participate in the ICJ proceedings on behalf of Myanmar in no way confers legitimacy on the junta in any other context,” Rosenberg said. “If the court itself does not say this, I would encourage the Gambia to put this on record, not to challenge the junta’s role, just simply to state it.” Precedence could be fatal to Gambia’s case On the possible outcome of the case, Gregory Stanton, a professor and expert in genocide studies, warned that the ICJ has set precedence in previous cases that could go against the Gambia. In two genocide cases related to Croatia and Bosnia, the ICJ “laid down rules of law that could be fatal to the Gambia’s case against Myanmar,” he said. “The ICJ in these two cases held that genocide has to be the only intent of a state for it to be found in violation of the Genocide Convention,” he said, terming it “an absurd rule of law.” In the Rohingya case, he explained, “if the ICJ finds the intent was forcible displacement which is ethnic cleansing, then they (Myanmar) can’t be found to be in violation of the Genocide Convention.” “This could be fatal for the Gambian case,” warned Stanton, who is the founding chair of the US-based Genocide Watch. He said the ICJ can give a verdict in any scenario and is not obligated to allow the Myanmar junta to participate in the hearings. Need for consistency in ICJ conduct John Packer, professor of international conflict resolution at the University of Ottawa, said the issue at the ICJ is “of the effectiveness of a (junta) government and its capacity to be held responsible.” “The ICJ statute does not define the exact procedural mechanism for deciding such a (representational) dispute, but it does not confer competency on the court to decide on its own such a decision,” he said. “The ICJ is duty-bound to follow ‘in accordance with the law,’ i.e. international law, which is the UN Charter,” he explained. He said such concerns and questions regarding representation “were not new,” citing examples of Germany and China, who were recognized as “single states” many years after World War II. Packer said the case was not one about a dispute between two neighboring states, as the “the sole position of the Gambia is in the public interest of the international community and it has no other interest.” “It is not imperative the case is decided in a month or a year,” he said. Instead, he called for consistency from the ICJ “in its conduct as a body serving under the UN charter.” “It should surely not be prejudicial of other organs of the UN, such as the UN General Assembly, nor should it be prejudicial to rights and interests of other states,” he asserted. Anadolu Agency © 2021

‘Trads,’ or traditionalists, are highly radicalized members of the Hindutva hate machine who are openly calling for the genocide of Muslims. By Kavita Chowdhury Yati Narasinghanand (center), organizer of the Haridwar conclave and head priest of Dasna temple in Ghaziabad, near Delhi, September 29, 2021. Credit: Facebook/Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati Baba I Weeks after Hindu right-wing groups made an open call for genocide against Muslims at a dharma sansad (religious conclave) in Haridwar in north India, Gregory Stanton, the founding president of Genocide Watch, warned of similarities between the current situation in India and that which existed in the run-up to the Rwandan genocide. Speaking at a U.S. Congressional briefing Stanton urged Congress “to pass a resolution that warns genocide should not be allowed to occur in India.” In a subsequent interview with the news portal The Wire, Stanton said that India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi “has a moral obligation to denounce the hate speech (at Haridwar).” Drawing attention to increasing polarization, discrimination, stigmatization, propaganda, and dehumanization of Muslims in the country, he said that India was dangerously close to the stage of extermination, i.e. genocide. At the religious conclave at Haridwar between December 17 and 20 last year, several saffron-clad Hindutva leaders addressed the gathering and exhorted “real Hindus” to take to up arms and kill minorities, specifically Muslims. Videos of the gathering, which went viral on social media, sparked outrage, with some calling for the arrest of the meeting’s organizers. Both the federal government and the state government of Uttarakhand (of which Haridwar is the capital) were conspicuously silent. Both governments are run by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). It is no coincidence that right wing Hindutva groups have stepped up their stoking of communal hatred and open incitement of violence against Muslims at a time when five states are going to elections next month. The BJP has repeatedly used the communal card to appeal to voters and has been unambiguously championing its Hindutva agenda. It could benefit electorally from such communal polarization. As the pressure mounted, the Uttarakhand government arrested Jitendra Narayan Tyagi (formerly Waseem Rizvi) and then the organizer of the conclave, Yati Narasinghanand, the controversial head priest of Dasna temple in Ghaziabad, near Delhi. Confident that no action would be taken against him, Narasinghanand threatened the police, warning them of dire consequences. Even a month after the Haridwar conclave, it continues to make ripples at home and abroad. Members of 28 global Indian diaspora organizations including those from the United Kingdom, the U.S., and South Africa, have demanded the arrest of those responsible for the “genocidal hate speech” at the conclave. Under fire from several quarters, a Special Investigative Team has been constituted by the Uttarakhand state government. India’s Supreme Court is also seized of the matter, after several petitions were filed pressing for a thorough investigation into the conclave. As reported previously by The Diplomat, hate speech has become a daily occurrence under the BJP regime. Yet, the Haridwar enclave was especially shocking. Many were taken aback by the brazen manner in which leaders called for genocide repeatedly over three days. As disturbing was the complete silence of the authorities. The Haridwar conclave has also brought out into the open the layers within the right wing’s hate machine. There are the “Trads,” or traditionalists, who openly call for genocide against minorities. These are hardcore “protectors” of the Hindu faith (Sanatan Dharma) and are highly radicalized. Then there are the “Raitas,” who are less extremist in their views; they are hardline supporters of Prime Minister Modi and the BJP. They emulate the BJP leadership and indulge in hate speech. Interestingly, the Trads accuse the Raitas of being “too liberal” and of being “soft” on Muslims. Trads do not hesitate to criticize Modi and what they perceive, at times, as his policies of “appeasement.” Earlier this month, Muslim women were shocked to find their profiles on an online app “Bulli Bai” created to “auction” Muslim women. The Bulli Bai app was the handiwork of Trad motivated youngsters advocating extremist views. Last year, another online app “Sulli Deals” hosted on the Github platform similarly sought to “auction” Muslim women. Victims lodged police complaints but no action was taken, even to launch a probe. This time, however, with widespread outrage both online and offline, and with several opposition leaders also calling out the inaction of authorities, the police were forced to act. The Mumbai Police and subsequently the Delhi Police made arrests across the country. Both the apps targeted Muslim women, who were vocal and outspoken on social media. The victims comprised successful Muslim women professionals, including a pilot, prominent journalists, activists and even the 52-year-old mother of a missing university student, Najeeb Jung. “Bulli” and “Sulli” are sexist expletives used to dehumanize Muslim women. According to the Police, the alleged perpetrators of the “Bulli Bai” and “Sulli Deals” apps – Niraj Bishnoi (Bulli Bai’s creator), Aumkareshwar Thakur (Sulli Deals’ mastermind), Shweta Singh, Vishal Kumar Jha and Mayank Rawat – are Trads. Significantly, all of them are students of engineering and technology between 18 and 21 years of age. They were radicalized by Islamophobic content on social media and the YouTube channels of people like Narsinghanand. In this hate-charged climate, these youths and innumerable others who are radicalized like them and educated in elite colleges are using technology and the digital landscape to wage war against Muslims, whom they perceive as obstacles to their goal of creating a Hindu Rashtra (Hindu nation). In fact, after intensive interrogation of Bishnoi, police said he believed that he had “done the right thing” and showed no remorse for his actions. That educated youth from middle class homes can espouse such hatred for minorities, lower caste Dalits and even women has shocked many. Shiv Sena parliamentarian Priyanka Chaturvedi, who was among those who complained to the Mumbai Police about the Bulli Bai app, tweeted: “That it had to be a woman (Shweta Singh) who’s part of this larger network behind the online harassment is saddening. For a woman to harass and demean fellow women is beyond me, but yes this is what all-consuming hate can do.” Drawing attention to the “ongoing climate of harassment, oral and digital” in the country, eminent sociologist Shiv Visvanathan told the Indian news daily The Telegraph that “none of it is being prosecuted in a way that would deter others from doing it.” “The danger of a majoritarian system,” he said, “is that what is majoritarian in votes becomes majoritarian in law and order. When you make that transition, you move to authoritarianism.” Tennis legend Martina Navratilova, who has been outspoken in her opposition to the BJP’s hate politics, tweeted in response to the viral video of the Haridwar religious conclave. “What is going on?” she tweeted. Responding to a comment, Navaratilova did not mince her words, saying “This can be fixed, but it has to come from the top. And unfortunately I don’t see that happening under Modi. I hope I am wrong but…” © The Diplomat 2022

The Jerusalem Post January 24, 2022 By Israel W. Charny The Berlin Holocaust Memorial, officially named the Monument to the Murdered Jews in Europe. (credit: VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS) It is amazing that there is so much recognition of the Holocaust on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27. All genocides are infinitely tragic and maddening. All genocides deserve remembrance and memorial. The late Israeli cabinet minister Yossi Sarid wrote with great wisdom that every “genocide” constitutes a “holocaust (shoah)” and that every “holocaust (shoah)” is a case of “genocide.” But, frighteningly and tragically, there are so many instances all through human history, including ongoing today, and who of us can bear the emotional demands of so much memorial? Moreover, it is entirely natural that although many of us intellectually care quite a lot about every case of genocide, there are many instances in which our emotional responses are reserved or even not present – just like the news of deaths of relatives, friends, and acquaintances in our individual lives touch us with varying degrees of emotion. Yet the Holocaust has definitely broken through to take on a fundamental and archetypal meaning for humanity. Why? Clearly, our humanity is ready and desperately in need of awareness of this overwhelmingly destructive aspect of our species. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists places the time on the clock portending the destruction of life on earth at 100 seconds before midnight! I believe that the Holocaust has “succeeded” resoundingly in finally showing us humans who and what we really are. For all that we are born “b’tzelem Elohim” or in the image of God, and indeed we are beautiful, brilliant, creative, loving and forever developing. We also are: cruel, heartless, sadistic, and indifferent to others, born killers, meaning there is a basic instinctive potential for eliminating others’ lives. A huge number of people participated in the Holocaust as leaders, executioners, accomplices, bystanders and innovative profiteers – whether of homes and lands or gaining chairs of university and medical school departments, and more. “Ordinary people,” as historian Christopher Browning brilliantly showed in a study of a German police unit that was devoted to killing Jews, who were not really motivated to the task but were devoted to doing what they were told to do, available to be led blindly, passively, stupidly by instructions from leaders and societal institutions. They were mindless robots hypnotized and “intoxicated” by orgiastic group processes where they would join in the wild dances around the “golden calf” of murder. In one way or another, many of these elements are also clearly in play in others of the endless events of genocide by humanity – and that is true to the very moment, where so many different peoples such as Uighurs, Rohingya, Tutsi, Sudanese and Christians are being exterminated. But there was something dramatically special in the intensity of the configuration that sparked Man Genocider in the Holocaust, including the striking identities of the victims and their genocidal perpetrators. Victims: the Jews were the earliest hero people of our civilization, known as carriers of the blessing of the Almighty God, who among other things charged them explicitly with the life-changing instruction, “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” and who as a people lived lives unlike most others without weapons or violence, absorbed in prayer and endless learning. Perpetrators: the Germans were pillars of modernity, advanced in science, industry, and a cultural richness of philosophy, music and the arts, and now it became clear that even these wonderful expressions of the fineness of humanity could not stem the tide of the evil aspects of human nature that generate massive destruction of life. So international recognition of the Holocaust is not only a specific honor extended to the Jewish victims, but a summary statement of man’s most true encounter with his own self to date. The challenge is to reshape the evolution of the human animal toward a clear-cut dominance of the creative lifesaving aspect of human nature. However, there is also another very neglected question that arises: do the victims emerge from their hell not only with a command, Remember, and quite certainly with a command, Be Strong, but also with an explicit moral directive to care about and help other peoples who suffer genocidal fates? We Jews, the “merciful people” in our image of ourselves, have not done so. We come through in earthquakes, tsunamis and floods, and we contribute in many ways to medical advances and services for ill people, but basically we do not give a damn for the other victims of genocides in our world. We have excuses. We need such and such for our own security. For example we need to be in a good relationship with Turkey, a strong Muslim neighbor, and we fear that recognizing its genocide of the Armenians will cost us its possible friendship; and we need and want to be in positive relations with China, with which we enjoy increasing lucrative trade, let alone our awareness that it is a menacingly growing world power, and we won’t take a chance on enraging it about its genocidal campaign against the Muslim Uighurs. Ethnic Uighur men take part in a protest against China, in Istanbul earlier this month. (photo credit: DILARA SENKAYA/REUTERS) It sounds practical and maybe makes sense for self-protection, although many of us believe very differently that a firm ethical approach to foreign policy will pay off in far greater national strength and even greater international security. But then what can be said when the Knesset votes down a proposal by a thoughtful Knesset member to recognize the genocide of the Yazidis by ISIS? What about us Jews taking clear stands on behalf of Christian minorities who are being attacked and killed in a variety of countries. “We Jews, Israelis, don’t do genocides.” There is still another very ugly side to the story, and that is that we profit from arms sales even to ongoing genociders! See the failed efforts of attorney Itay Mack and genocide scholar Yair Auron to get the courts to release government information on the sales. Recently a grassroots movement called Yanshuf has begun to emerge from the religious-Zionist community to campaign for ethical reviews of all arms sales. For those who sincerely worry about our security and believe that our very legitimate needs to be safe justify our accommodation and subservience to the devil of mass murder of other people, the question should be put whether we understand how other peoples in this world did not respond or take chances on fighting back for us against the Nazi murderers. Our Jewish/Israeli people need new Moses-leadership that is courageously devoted to decency and the protection of human life in continuation of the finest values of Jewish religion and our basic cultural tradition. Dr. Israel Charny is director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem and recently published a book, "Israel’s Failed Response to the Armenian Genocide." He is co-founder and past president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. He serves on the Board of Advisors of Genocide Watch. Copyright 2022 The Jerusalem Post

Lebanon faces a severe economic crisis that threatens to tear apart the delicate social fabric maintained since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war. The economic implosion has resulted from the August 2020 Beirut port blast, which killed 200 people, destroyed the Beirut port and electrical infrastructure, and plunged Beirut into darkness. Eighty percent of the population has fallen into poverty, struggling to procure food, water, and medicine. Lebanon has suffered from years of political mismanagement. Protests calling for an end to government corruption accelerated following the port explosion. The protests have been met with an increase in violence as security forces arbitrarily detain and torture protestors. Lebanon’s economic crisis threatens to revive sectarian divisions. In August, a dispute over gasoline led to a sectarian standoff between Christian and Shiite villagers, wounding six people. In October, the Shiite political party and militant group Hezbollah organised protests against the investigators of the Beirut blast, accusing them of unfairly targeting Shia officials. The protests turned violent as shootings killed six people and injured a dozen more. All the victims were Shia Muslims. Hezbollah accused the Christian Lebanese Forces Party of ordering the shootings to rekindle civil war. The Lebanese Forces Party denied these accusations. The violence revealed the same sectarian fault lines between Christians and Shia Muslims that divided Lebanon during its civil war. The fifteen-year Lebanese civil war resulted in the deaths of at least 150,000 people and the “disappearances” of 17,000 more. The government has failed to hold perpetrators of mass atrocities during the war accountable due to its enactment of a blanket General Amnesty Law in 1991, pardoning all crimes committed. Many of the militias and their leaders during the war have transformed themselves into the political parties and politicians of today. This culture of impunity and sectarianism has bred corruption and political instability. Lebanon houses sizeable populations of Syrian and Palestinian refugees. During the 1982 Sabra and Shatila Massacre, the Lebanese Forces militia, also known as Phalangist militia, raped and murdered over 800 Palestinian refugees in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Some estimates put that number at over 3,000 killed. Only 15 percent of Syrian refugees have legal residency in Lebanon, blocking refugees’ access to housing and childrens’ enrollment in schools. Nearly two million Palestinians live in camps across the country. Palestinians are not allowed to register births, marriages and deaths unless they can present official Lebanese identity documents, which most cannot obtain. They are excluded from public education, health services and ownership of property. The Lebanese economic collapse has made it difficult for refugees to work and support their families. Discrimination against Syrian and Palestinian refugees places Lebanon at Stage 3: Discrimination. Due to its failure to try perpetrators of atrocities committed during the civil war, Lebanon is at Stage 10: Denial. With the threat of deepening sectarian violence, Lebanon is at Stage 5: Organization and Stage 6: Polarization. Genocide Watch recommends: • The Lebanese government should dismantle sectarian militias and create a united Lebanese national army. • The Lebanese Forces Party and Hezbollah militias should negotiate an end to their sectarian warfare. • Lebanon should repeal the General Amnesty Law of 1991 and enact laws to prevent perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity from holding public office. • The EU, U.S., and Islamic nations should donate massive aid for Lebanese recovery and refugee support. © 2022 Genocide Watch

One Year After Coup, Global Arms Embargo Urgently Needed By Louis Charbonneau Anti-coup protesters run from teargas deployed by the police during a demonstration in Yangon, Myanmar, March 1, 2021. © 2021 Sipa USA via AP Images United Nations Security Council member countries should abandon their timid approach to the Myanmar military’s mounting atrocities and replace mealymouthed statements with tough action. A year ago, on February 1, 2021, Myanmar’s military ousted the democratically elected civilian government, jailed many politicians, and unleashed a wave of violence against protesters opposing the coup, killing nearly 1,500. Renewed attacks on ethnic minority areas have resulted in numerous war crimes. Three-and-a-half years earlier, the same military launched a campaign of atrocities against Rohingya Muslims including murder, rape, torture, and the widespread burning of villages. A UN-backed investigation said the attacks against the Rohingya may amount to genocide. Between the 2017 campaign against the Rohingya and the 2021 coup, the Security Council did little more than issue a handful of statements on Myanmar, failing to put forth a single resolution. This approach surely gave Myanmar’s military confidence that any new wave of repression would largely be met with silence. Calls for the Security Council to hold a public meeting to discuss the violence since last year’s coup have gone unheeded, as has a campaign by dozens of organizations urging the council to impose a global arms embargo on Myanmar and targeted sanctions on the junta leaders and military companies. The United States, Britain, and the European Union have issued unilateral sanctions on Myanmar. But none has presented a draft resolution for the Security Council to negotiate. Why? Fears of a Chinese and Russian veto. But a veto threat hasn’t stopped them before. Russia, usually backed by China, has vetoed 16 resolutions regarding Syria’s armed conflict since 2011. US and EU persistence has sent a strong message that the international community is determined to hold parties to the conflict accountable for serious abuses. In June, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution calling on all governments to suspend arms transfers to Myanmar. A Security Council resolution imposing a legally binding UN arms embargo is urgently needed. If Russia and China want to side with Myanmar’s murderous military against the country’s people, nothing can stop them. But Security Council action is long overdue. © 2022 Human Rights Watch