Inquiry opened into claims of torture and extrajudicial killings under Maduro’s rule, a first for a Latin American country Opposition activists protest against Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro’s new government in 2017. Photograph: Federico Parra/AFP/Getty Images The international criminal court (ICC) is opening a formal investigation into allegations of torture and extrajudicial killings committed by Venezuelan security forces under President Nicolás Maduro’s rule, the first time a country in Latin America is facing scrutiny for possible crimes against humanity from the court. The opening of the probe was announced Wednesday by ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan at the end of a three-day trip to Caracas. Standing alongside Maduro, Khan said he was aware of the political “fault lines” and “geopolitical divisions” that exist in Venezuela. But he said his job was to uphold the principles of legality and the rule of law, not settle scores. “I ask everybody now, as we move forward to this new stage, to give my office the space to do its work,” he said. “I will take a dim view of any efforts to politicise the independent work of my office.” While Khan didn’t outline the scope of the ICC’s investigation, it follows a lengthy preliminary probe started in February 2018 — later backed by Canada and five Latin American governments opposed to Maduro — that focused on allegations of excessive force, arbitrary detention and torture by security forces during a crackdown on antigovernment protests in 2017. Human rights groups and the US-backed opposition immediately celebrated the decision. Since its creation two decades ago, the ICC has mostly focused on atrocities committed in Africa. “This is a turning point,” said Jose Miguel Vivanco, the Americas director for Human Rights Watch. “Not only does it provide hope to the many victims of Maduro’s government but it also is a reality check that Maduro himself could be held accountable for crimes committed by his security forces and others with total impunity in the name of the Bolivarian revolution.” It could be years before any criminal charges are presented as part of the ICC’s investigation. Maduro said he disagreed with Khan’s criteria in choosing to open the probe. But he expressed optimism that a three-page “letter of understanding” he signed with the prosecutor that would allow Venezuelan authorities to carry out their own proceedings in search of justice, something allowed under the Rome statute that created the ICC. “I guarantee that in this new phase we will leave the noise to the side and get down to work so that, together, the truth can be found,” said Maduro. Maduro’s government last year also asked the ICC to investigate the US — which is not among the ICC’s 123 member states — for its policy of economic sanctions focused on removing Maduro. Venezuela considers the US sanctions tantamount to “unlawful coercive measures” that have spelled poverty for millions of Venezuelans. Khan’s predecessor, Fatou Bensouda, had indicated there was a reasonable basis to conclude that crimes against humanity had been committed in Venezuela, echoing the findings of the UN’s own human rights council last year. But she left the decision to open any probe to her successor Khan, a British lawyer who took the reins of the ICC earlier this year. © Copyright 2021 The Guardian

A high representative says threat by Serb separatists to create their own army risks return of conflict. The international community’s chief representative in Bosnia has warned that the country is in imminent danger of breaking apart, and there is a “very real” prospect of a return to conflict. In a report to the UN seen by the Guardian, Christian Schmidt, the high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, said that if Serb separatists carry out their threat to recreate their own army, splitting the national armed forces in two, more international peacekeepers would have to be sent back in to stop the slide towards a new war. International peacekeeping duties in Bosnia are currently the task of a residual EU force (Eufor) that is 700 strong. Nato retains a formal toehold with a headquarters in Sarajevo. The year-long mandate for both is up for renewal this week at the UN security council, but Russia has threatened to block a resolution unless all references to the high representative are removed, potentially undermining Schmidt’s authority as the overseer of the 1995 Dayton peace deal. In his first report since taking up the post in August, Schmidt, a former German government minister, warned that Bosnia was facing “the greatest existential threat of the postwar period”. The Bosnian Serb leader, Milorad Dodik, is threatening to pull out of state-level institutions, including the national army built up with international assistance over the past quarter-century, and reconstitute a Serb force. On 14 October, Dodik said he would force the Bosnian army to withdraw from the Republika Srpska (the Serb half of Bosnia) by surrounding its barracks and that if the west tried to intervene militarily, he had “friends” who had promised to support the Serb cause, a presumed reference to Serbia and Russia. Bosnian Serb police carried out “counter-terrorist” exercises last month on Mount Jahorina, from where Serb forces bombarded Sarajevo throughout a 1992-95 siege. “This is tantamount to secession without proclaiming it,” Schmidt wrote in a report delivered to the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, on Friday. He said Dodik’s actions “endanger not only the peace and stability of the country and the region but – if unanswered by the international community – could lead to the undoing of the [Dayton peace] agreement itself.” The high representative said it was possible there would be clashes between Bosnian national law enforcement agencies and Bosnian Serb police. “Should the armed force of BiH [Bosnia and Herzegovina] splinter into two or more armies, the level of international military presence would require reassessment,” Schmidt warned. “A lack of response to the current situation would endanger the [Dayton agreement], while instability in BiH would have wider regional implications,” he said. “The prospects for further division and conflict are very real.” Schmidt’s warnings were delivered as the UN security council was preparing its annual resolution renewing the peacekeeping mandate for Eufor and the Nato headquarters, with a vote as early as Wednesday. Moscow is threatening to block the resolution unless all references to the high representative are removed. The Kremlin opposed Schmidt’s appointment by a Peace Implementation Council, an ad hoc multinational body set up to implement the Dayton peace agreement, and refuses to recognize his authority. “I suspect what Russia really wants is to chip away at the authority of the high representative’s office by stopping him briefing the council,” said a diplomat close to the discussions. Kurt Bassuener, the co-founder and senior associate of the Democratization Policy Council, a Berlin-based thinktank, said: “It sounds like the Americans, the Brits and the French have effectively agreed to really strip back the references to the high representative that was boilerplate, standard-issue language in all the previous resolutions.” He added: “And while legally that doesn’t undercut the high representative, politically it sure as hell does.” Even if Eufor’s mandate is renewed, there is little appetite in the EU to beef up the small force left in Bosnia. Some member states, particularly Hungary, are supportive of Dodik. “I think he’s willing to gamble on the possibility that, as improbable as it is, he can get away with it by essentially creating new facts on the ground rapidly and counting on the idea that confusion and delay would grip both Sarajevo and the international community and there would ultimately be no meaningful international consequences,” Jasmin Mujanović, a Bosnian political scientist, said. US deputy assistant secretary of state Gabriel Escobar told Congress last week that the US is working with the EU to “make sure there are consequences for any illegal or any destabilizing actions” in Bosnia. But it is unclear whether the Biden administration would support a return to Nato peacekeeping. Alida Vračić, the head of a Bosnia-based thinktank, Populari, said the perpetual and worsening sense of crisis allows the country’s leaders to disguise their failure to govern. “Dodik has gone ballistic, but collectively politicians hope to win points on this crisis and citizens are the only losers as expected,” Vračić said. “This discussion comes in handy, as it derails all meaningful discussions like the fact that Sarajevo is choking in smog, that [the regional governments] embezzled money in the Covid-19 crisis, that the death toll in Sarajevo is worse than during the war, the fact that half of the country is living in poverty, that we have completed exactly zero reforms, that no laws have been discussed in the parliament for months.” (c) The Guardian, 2021

Members of the Papuan Students Alliance hold a banner during a protest in support of the Papuan independence movement in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, on Aug. 15, 2013. ULET IFANSASTI/GETTY IMAGES Genocide Watch is issuing a Genocide Warning for Indonesia. Ethnic West Papuans and practitioners of minority religions in Indonesia face targeted attacks, arrests, and displacement. In 1963, Indonesia invaded West Papua, the western half of the island of New Guinea. Six years later, the rigged Act of Free Choice (hereinafter “Act”) referendum formalized Indonesian rule. The Act is highly contested in West Papua, and there is strong support for the “Free Papua Movement”. Indonesian law criminalizes support for West Papuan independence as treason. In 2019, Indonesian nationalists in Surabaya attacked West Papuan student dorms, shooting teargas into the buildings and calling West Papuan students “pigs” and “monkeys.” This incident led to a series of protests and riots that left at least 33 dead and 8,000 Papuans displaced. Since then, there has been increasing violence in West Papua between Indonesian security forces and the West Papua National Liberation Army—an armed branch of the Free Papua Movement. The increase in violence in West Papua has displaced over 50,000 Papuans. Indonesian security forces have committed numerous rights abuses against ethnic Papuans, including extrajudicial killings, torture, and rape. Indonesia severely limits the ability of international journalists and human rights workers to enter and report on the situation in West Papua. The Indonesian government discriminates against other minority religious groups as well. Muslim extremist groups commit violent attacks against these same minority groups. The 1965 Blasphemy Law made it illegal to “express feelings or commit an act: which principally has the character of being of hostility, hatred, or contempt against a religion adhered to in Indonesia.” Since its implementation, this law has been used to imprison practitioners of minority religions. This discrimination is facilitated by the inclusion of religion on Indonesian ID cards, a classic example of the Symbolization stage in the genocidal process. The government approves only certain religions on national ID cards. While it is possible to leave the religion section blank, those who do are accused of being “godless” and are prohibited from marrying legally. Yet if a practitioner of a minority religion lists a recognized non-Muslim religion on their ID card, they risk being imprisoned under the 1965 Blasphemy Law. Further discrimination comes in the form of laws limiting the construction of houses of worship in both 1969 and 2006, the 2008 Anti-Ahmadiyah Decree, and the Religious Harmony Bill. Due to the dehumanizing language, extrajudicial killings, and rights abuses taking place in West Papua, Genocide Watch considers Indonesia to be at Stage 4: Dehumanization and Stage 8: Persecution. Due to the limitations placed on religious minorities, Genocide Watch considers Indonesia to be at Stage 1: Classification, Stage 2: Symbolization, Stage 3: Discrimination, and Stage 6: Polarization. Genocide Watch Recommends: · Indonesia must permit unrestricted access for journalists and human rights workers to West Papua. · The Indonesian government should provide resettlement aid to displaced West Papuans. · Designation of religion should be removed from Indonesian national ID cards. · Indonesia should repeal the 1965 Blasphemy Law and the 2006 Decree on Houses of Worship.

By: Barbara Labbate October 2021 Photo Credit: Erik Marciscano, La Estrella Panama's indigenous communities, which make up around 12% of its population, belong to seven main groups: Gunadule, Emberá, Wounaan, Ngäbe, Buglé, Naso Tjer Di, and Bri Bri. Panama has recognized 25 indigenous zones, known as comarcas, yet, only three can implement policy proposals without government oversight. Panama’s lack of investment and financial support for these communities has caused many people to move from their comarcas to urban areas for greater educational and financial opportunities. Indigenous people in Panama suffer disproportionately from poverty and its effects. 95 percent indigenous people live in extreme poverty and infant mortality in indigenous communities is 3x higher than the national average. 50% of indigenous children suffer from malnutrition. Comarcas suffer from a lack of proper healthcare facilities and a language barrier for non-spanish speakers Indigenous communities, cultures, and land have been under attack numerous times throughout Panama’s history. For example, the Spanish displaced the Guna from their original homelands in modern-day Colombia to the San Blas islands in Panama in the 15th century. After Panama gained independence in 1903 it took control of the San Blas islands. The government subsequently began efforts to Christianize and assimilate the Guna, including by banning their traditional clothing and jewelry. This led to the 1925 Guna Revolution (San Blas Rebellion), in which the Guna people mounted armed resistance against assimilation efforts. The conflict ended when the United States intervened and brokered a peace agreement. Today, all of San Blas is recognized Guna territory; only indigenous Guna people can legally purchase or use land. Violations of indigenous land rights continue under the current Panamanian government. The Naso people originally inhabited the lands of Bocas del Toro, but the Spanish drove them further north to the Costa Rican border. Recently, the Naso have had their land rights violated by the construction of the Bonyic Hydro Dam and continuing deforestation of their designated lands. Panama also violated the land rights of the Ngäbe Buglé people with the construction of the Barro Blanco Dam in 2017 which would have cut off the river that some 5000 people relied on for agricultural needs, fishing, and potable water. Several homes were also flooded with no plan for resettlement of those displaced. The dam began operation in 2017. Other communities face pressure to assimilate through continued development and modernization, most notably with the possible completion of the Inter-American Highway. The Emberá-Wounaan community is fairly isolated and politically autonomous; the completion of the highway could threaten their cultural preservation as well as their land rights. Genocide Watch considers repeated violations of indigenous land rights and neglect of cultural heritage to be Stage 3: Discrimination. Genocide Watch also recognizes efforts to assimilate and eradicate indigenous culture by the Spanish Empire and Panamanian government as Stage 10: Denial. Genocide Watch recommends: The Panamanian government should enforce agreements and court rulings that recognize indigenous rights to the line and autonomy within their comarcas. Indigenous communities have the final say on all development projects within their lands. Panama should halt illegal logging and deforestation within indigenous territories. The Panamanian government should partner with indigenous organizations such as COONAPIP to work with indigenous leadership on their complaints and grievances. Panama must formally apologize to indigenous communities for its assimilation efforts.

Poland Genocide Watch October 2021 Genocide Watch is issuing a Genocide Watch for Poland. Since 2015, the Polish government has consistently sponsored discriminatory legislation against gender minorities. The governing Law and Justice Party espouses a nationalist, xenophobic, homophobic political ideology. Thegovernment also perpetuates distortion and denial of Polish collaboration with the Holocaust. The dominant party, Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice or PiS), has a thin majority in the Polish Parliament, but it has lost control of the Senate. It is the party of Poland’s current president Andrzej Duda. The party is opposed to LGBTQ+ rights. It has imposed strict anti-abortion laws. It packed the Constitutional Court to remove legal obstacles to its domination. Freedom House characterizes the PiS government as illiberal and authoritarian. It has been increasingly likely to commit civil rights abuses. Gender minorities have experienced numerous legal attacks from the Polish government. About one-third of Polish towns and regions have passed anti-LGBTQ+ legislation or declared themselves free of ‘LGBT ideology’. In 2020, President Andrzej Duda referred to LGBTQ+ rights as an ideology "more harmful than communism." He proposed a constitutional ban prohibiting LGBTQ+ couples from adopting children. Since 2015, the Polish government has severely restricted the right to an abortion. In January 2021, a Polish court ruled that abortions in cases of severe fetal abnormalities are unconstitutional. Abortion is only legal in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the mother’s health. Poland’s abortion laws are among the most restrictive in the EU. These laws have prompted dozens of protests from women and pro-choice activists. There has been a significant rise in anti-Semitism and neo-Nazi ideology in Poland. In 2018, Poland passed a Holocaust censorship law, which criminalizes any mention of the Polish government during Nazi occupation as complicit in Nazi crimes. Polish historians, academics, and universities face prosecution and criminal penalties for teaching or writing about Poland’s role in the Holocaust or the long Polish history of anti-Semitism. Antisemitic vandalism at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp is an alarming warning of increased anti-Semitism and genocidal ideology in Poland. Due to increased Holocaust distortion and anti-Semitic violence, state-sponsored discrimination against Polish gender minorities, and the authoritarianism of the ruling Law and Justice Party, Genocide Watch considers Poland to be at Stage 3: Discrimination, Stage 4: Dehumanization, Stage 6: Polarization, and Stage 10: Denial. Genocide Watch Recommends: Polish political parties, especially the opposition Civic Platform party, should call on the ruling Law and Justice Party to reinstate constitutional checks and balances. The EU and the Polish government should defund ‘LGBT-free’ townships and regions in Poland until they overturn their anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. The European Court of Human Rights should rule that Poland's Holocaust censorship law violates the European Convention on Human Rights. Polish citizens should continue to peacefully protest Poland's anti-LGBTQ+ laws. Download alert.

Max Bearak | The Washington Post Monday, October 25, 2021, 3:50 a.m. EDT Sudan’s military detains prime minister and dissolves government in coup. Protesters march on 60th Street in Sudan's capital, Khartoum, on Oct. 25 to denounce the military's detentions of members of the government. (AFP/Getty Images) NAIROBI — Sudan’s military on Monday detained the prime minister, dissolved the government and declared a state of emergency, in what could be the end of a democratic transition propelled by the millions of Sudanese who marched in the streets for the overthrow of longtime dictator Omar Hassan al-Bashir more than two years ago. The Biden administration will suspend $700 million in bilateral assistance to Sudan in response to the military’s takeover, the State Department said Monday. Speaking to reporters in Washington, State Department spokesman Ned Price called for the military to release civilian leaders, restore civilian control, and refrain from using violence, including live ammunition, against protesters. “We are watching very closely to see how the military responds, to do everything we can to see to it that the military respects the right of peaceful assembly and ultimately to see to it that the military respects the aspirations of the Sudanese people to restore the country’s path to democracy,” Price said. “Our entire relationship with this entity in Sudan will be evaluated in light of what has transpired unless Sudan is returned to the transitional path.” he coup comes just days after the U.S. envoy to the region met with Sudan’s military leaders and warned them that American support — which aims to prop up an economic renewal after decades of sanctions — was conditional on sticking to an agreement that would see power put squarely in civilian hands this year. Sudan’s top military commander and head of state, Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, appeared on state television about noon local time to announce the new measures, but he did not specifically address the arrests of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and other members of the government. He also did not mention a target date for a transition to full civilian control of the government. He said the military was still committed to democratic elections by mid-2023. As news of the military’s action spread around Khartoum, crowds gathered in the streets in protest — just days after the capital witnessed the biggest pro-democracy demonstrations since 2019, when Bashir was toppled by a wave of popular discontent. Locals described security forces out in droves using batons and live ammunition to scatter protesters, who uploaded videos of the chaos despite Internet services being disrupted. “Everyone is on the streets. People are feeling like this is a major determining moment for our future,” said Asma Ismail, 35, a pro-democracy activist who spoke by phone from Khartoum. “Two and a half years of progress could disappear. It could all have been in vain.” Local news channels reported the closing of roads and bridges connecting Khartoum with the rest of Sudan by large contingents of security forces, as well as the suspension of flights at the airport. A prominent doctors association said in a statement posted to Twitter that two people had died of gunshot wounds and more than 80 were injured. Since Bashir’s ousting, the country has been governed by a civilian-military transitional council, and tensions over power-sharing have repeatedly threatened to boil over into outright confrontation. Divisions within the military have also contributed to the instability. Last month, pro-Bashir elements in the army attempted a coup but were thwarted. The civilian side of the government, led by former economist Hamdok, had recently set a Nov. 17 deadline for a full transition to civilian power. In a statement posted on the Facebook page of Sudan’s civilian-run Information Ministry, Hamdok was quoted as calling on the Sudanese people to peacefully “occupy the streets to defend their revolution.” A separate post said Hamdok had been arrested and transferred to an unknown location. His whereabouts remained unclear Monday afternoon. The United States, European Union and United Nations all issued statements calling for the immediate release of civilian leaders and their restoration in the government, and the African Union suspended Sudan’s membership. Saudi Arabia, a close ally, expressed concern in a statement but did not call Monday’s events a coup or military takeover. “The kingdom calls for the importance of self-control, calm and de-escalation, and preserving all that was achieved from political and economic gains,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry’s statement read. Washington’s special envoy to the Horn of Africa region, Jeffrey Feltman, met on Saturday with Hamdok and Sudan’s two most powerful military figures, Burhan, and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, a former warlord who now commands a powerful paramilitary unit called the Rapid Support Forces. Feltman had used the meeting to warn that U.S. support for Sudan was tied to its transition toward elections and civilian rule, which military leaders have agreed to while pushing for a longer transition period. On Monday, Feltman’s office said in a tweet: “The US is deeply alarmed at reports of a military take-over of the transitional government. This would contravene the Constitutional Declaration and the democratic aspirations of the Sudanese people and is utterly unacceptable. As we have said repeatedly, any changes to the transitional government by force puts at risk U.S. assistance.” Price, the State Department spokesman, on Monday suggested that while U.S. economic aid was paused, U.S. humanitarian aid to Sudan would continue. “Our humanitarian commitment to the people of Sudan will not change,” he said, without providing details. Price said the United States had not been in touch with Hamdok and did not get advance notice from military officials about their takeover. The Sudanese Congress Party, which is part of Hamdok’s coalition of civilian stakeholders in the transitional government, posted numerous videos to its social media accounts of protesters gathering Monday in symbolically important places in Khartoum, including in front of the military headquarters, the focus of the vast protests in 2019 in the months before and after Bashir’s eventual unseating by his military commanders. The protesters reprised a central slogan of the 2019 revolution as they marched up Africa Avenue past the airport and toward the center of the city: “Freedom, peace and justice, the revolution belongs to the people.” The prime minister’s political coalition, largely made up of groups that supported Bashir’s overthrow, had made progress with Western governments in normalizing Sudan’s diplomatic and economic relations with the rest of the world after decades of sanctions. Sudan was taken off the United States’ state sponsors of terrorism list last year and had begun engaging with Western lending institutions to clear enormous debt arrears and secure loans to stabilize the country’s inflation-rocked economy. The military’s role in Sudan’s transitional government was presented to civilian leaders in 2019 as a largely honorary one, but Burhan and others have figured prominently in the country’s domestic and foreign policy since then, and they accused Hamdok of trying to monopolize control. Over the past half-century, Sudan has been rocked by coups and wars, creating an intricate and shifting web of alliances and rivalries. In 2011, following a decades-long civil war, the country was split in two after largely non-Muslim southerners voted to secede and create the new country of South Sudan. A particularly brutal conflict in the western region of Darfur, along the border with Chad, still simmers and has displaced hundreds of thousands of people this year alone, according to the United Nations. Militia leaders from Darfur who once fought Burhan and Hemedti have now sided with them in an alliance that has made supporters of the civilian government, especially among displaced communities in Darfur, deeply uncomfortable. Pro-democracy demonstrators have also alleged that Sudanese military leaders still maintain close ties with Bashir’s inner circle despite claiming to be vanguards of the movement that ousted him. A particularly sore point has emerged over Bashir’s outstanding warrant from the International Criminal Court in The Hague on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, relating to atrocities in Darfur carried out by state security forces between 2003 and 2008. The civilian government has approved measures to hand Bashir over to the court from a Sudanese jail, but the military has blocked the move. Burhan, Hemedti and other prominent military and paramilitary figures served in Darfur under Bashir, but there are no outstanding cases against them. Missy Ryan in Washington contributed to this report. © 1996-2021 The Washington Post

It did little to stop the spread, documents show. By Eliza Mackintosh Mekelle, the regional capital of Tigray, in northern Ethiopia, seen through a broken window in the Ayder Referral Hospital in May. Facebook employees repeatedly sounded the alarm on the company's failure to curb the spread of posts inciting violence in "at risk" countries like Ethiopia, where a civil war has raged for the past year, internal documents seen by CNN show. The social media giant ranks Ethiopia in its highest priority tier for countries at risk of conflict, but the documents reveal that Facebook's moderation efforts were no match for the flood of inflammatory content on its platform. The documents are among dozens of disclosures made to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and provided to Congress in redacted form by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen's legal counsel. A consortium of 17 US news organizations, including CNN, has reviewed the redacted versions received by Congress. They show employees warning managers about how Facebook was being used by "problematic actors," including states and foreign organizations, to spread hate speech and content inciting violence in Ethiopia and other developing countries, where its user base is large and growing. Facebook estimates it has 1.84 billion daily active users -- 72% of which are outside North America and Europe, according to its annual SEC filing for 2020. The documents also indicate that the company has, in many cases, failed to adequately scale up staff or add local language resources to protect people in these places. Facebook used by militias 'to seed calls for violence' The reports CNN has obtained provide further insights into the scale of the problem in Ethiopia, elements of which were reported by The Wall Street Journal last month. CNN's publication of these warnings from within Facebook comes seven months after a Facebook team initially shared an internal report entitled "Coordinated Social Harm." The report, distributed in March, said that armed groups in Ethiopia were using the platform to incite violence against ethnic minorities in the "context of civil war." At that time, a conflict in the country's northern Tigray region between its former ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), and the Ethiopian government had been rumbling on for five months. Intermittent internet blackouts and media restrictions had obscured much of the fighting. A destroyed tank on a roadside in western Tigray in May. Ethiopia is an ethnically and religiously diverse nation of about 110 million people who speak scores of languages. Its two largest ethnic groups, the Oromo and Amhara, make up more than 60% of the population. The Tigrayans, the third largest, are around 7%. One of the groups flagged in the March report was the "Fano," an ethnic Amhara militia group with a reputation for brutality that has been drawn into the war in Tigray, sometimes fighting alongside Ethiopian government forces. Facebook said it had observed a cluster of accounts affiliated with the militia group, including some based in Sudan, using its platform to "seed calls for violence," promote armed conflict, recruit and fundraise. Since the war started last November, the Fano militia have been linked by displaced Tigrayans to human rights abuses, including the killings of civilians, looting and rape, according to the United Nations rights office, Amnesty International and other human rights groups. Though the Facebook team said it had recommended the Fano-affiliated network be taken down, it suggested that other bad actors promoting violence on its platform were simultaneously slipping through the cracks. In a headline in bold, the team warned: "Current mitigation strategies are not enough." The Facebook documents also detail the platform's removal of a cluster of accounts linked to the Oromo diaspora, mostly based in Egypt, which was targeting Ethiopian audiences with highly inflammatory content, including "explicit calls to violence against government officials and other ethnic groups." One inciteful post highlighted in a report shared a photo of what appears to be a Molotov cocktail being lit and the statement: "Burn the whole country down." The whistleblower, Haugen, said one of her core motivations for gathering the internal documents was bringing to light "how badly Facebook is handling places like Ethiopia," where she suggested engagement-based ranking was fanning ethnic violence. "I genuinely fear that a huge number of people are going to die in the next five to ten years, or twenty years, because of choices and underfunding" by Facebook, Haugen said. In comments made to the consortium, Haugen emphasized the vast difference between the integrity and security systems rolled out by Facebook in the United States versus the rest of the world, adding that the company was not adequately policing its platform in most non-English languages. "The raw version [of Facebook] roaming wild in most of the world doesn't have any of the things that make it kind of palatable in the United States, and I genuinely think there's a lot of lives on the line -- that Myanmar and Ethiopia are like the opening chapter," she said. A Facebook spokesperson told CNN that the company has been "actively focused on Ethiopia." "Over the past two years we have actively invested to add more staff with local expertise, operational resources and additional review capacity to expand the number of local languages we support to include Amharic, Oromo, Somali and Tigrinya. We have worked to improve our proactive detection so that we can remove more harmful content at scale. We have also partnered extensively with international and local experts to better understand and mitigate the biggest risks on the platform," the spokesperson said. Current mitigation strategies are not enough None of the revelations from the Facebook documents are news to activists and human rights groups, who have warned for years that the social media giant has made insufficient efforts to protect human rights in Ethiopia, Africa's second most populous country. A busy street in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa last December. Some politicians and civil society groups said that if no action was taken, the platform risked repeating the same mistakes it made in Myanmar -- now a case study in the deadly impact that hate speech shared on Facebook can have. In 2018, the UN slammed Facebook's role in the Myanmar crisis, which the global body said, "bore the hallmarks of genocide." By promoting violence and hatred against the minority Rohingya population, the UN said Facebook had "turned into a beast." The social media company later acknowledged that it didn't do enough to prevent its platform being used to fuel bloodshed, and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg wrote an open letter apologizing to activists and promising to increase its moderation efforts. Much like in Myanmar, Facebook's rise in popularity in Ethiopia came at a moment of rapid political and societal change, which helped to boost the platform's growth. In 2018, Abiy Ahmed was appointed Prime Minister and launched a series of reforms, including freeing thousands of political prisoners and lifting restrictions on the press. But as Ethiopians began to use Facebook to engage in public debate, observers saw that the platform was being abused by a variety of actors, including politicians, to incite discrimination and violence. Former UN special rapporteur for freedom of expression David Kaye told CNN that this problem came up repeatedly in conversations with civil society groups during his trip to Ethiopia in December 2019: "It was on everybody's radar that there could be real spill over from the platform to offline harm." "Given the experience in Myanmar, it was really incumbent on Facebook to do a human rights impact assessment and evaluate what they needed to do so that Facebook in Ethiopia didn't become a place for incitement to violence," Kaye said, adding that he didn't know what that assessment looked like or if it was done. In June 2020, a Facebook employee posted a report to an internal group with about 1,500 members called "At Risk Countries FYI" recapping an ongoing audit into how well its Artificial Intelligence and other signals, like third party fact checkers, worked in the most at-risk countries where the platform operates. "We found significant gaps in our coverage (especially in Myanmar & Ethiopia), showcasing that our current signals may be inadequate," the employee wrote, sharing a spreadsheet with a list of at-risk countries and the languages supported by the platform in each. The spreadsheet showed that Facebook had failed to build automated systems, called classifiers, to detect misinformation or hate speech in Oromo or Amharic -- two of the most widely spoken languages spoken in Ethiopia. A Tigrayan man looks for cellular service on a mountain overlooking Um Rakuba refugee camp in eastern Sudan in January. Even as the conflict in Tigray escalated, Haugen said she had only found evidence that Facebook had allocated "even slight language support" in two of the country's many native languages. Facebook says it does not believe it should be the "arbiters of truth," so the firm relies on third-party fact-checking organizations to identify, review and rate potential misinformation on its platforms. Facebook has partnered with two such organizations in Ethiopia: AFP Fact Check and PesaCheck, an East Africa-based non-profit initiative run by Code for Africa. PesaCheck has five full-time Ethiopian fact-checkers working in four languages -- Oromo, Amharic, Tigrinya and English -- but says it recently had to relocate one staff member from Ethiopia due to intimidation. AFP Fact Check employs one fact-checker in Ethiopia, Amanuel Neguede, who reviews content in Amharic and English. Each day, Neguede told CNN that he reviews thousands of posts on an internal Facebook tool, which surfaces content flagged as false or misleading through a combination of AI and human moderators. Originally, Neguede said that AFP only had access to English-language content in Ethiopia through the tool, which would surface only limited content each day. The tool began serving AFP Amharic-language content in May, and now the number of claims he says he sees on a daily basis has drastically risen. The tool does not always accurately identify mis- and dis-information, but Neguede says it helps with his work. "I've seen a lot of a lot of hate speech, that definitely does fuel ethnic violence in Ethiopia," Neguede said. "Whenever there's a major offensive, for example that's happening in the north, we can see a lot of images of conflict that's happened in different countries used in a misleading context. I would say that most of the time we'll see posts surface -- especially posts that are widely shared -- after real news events." But researchers like Berhan Taye say Facebook in Ethiopia is in desperate need of more content moderators, pointing to how the platform was used to stoke a wave of deadly violence after the murder of Oromo musician Hachalu Hundessa last year. Taye, then a policy manager at digital rights group Access Now, recalls watching livestreams of lynchings and posts calling for the targeted extermination of certain ethnic groups, following Hundessa's death. She penned an open letter calling on Facebook to take action to protect Ethiopians. She says little has changed since. Buldings burned by a mob in Ethiopia's Oromo region during a wave of violence following Hachalu Hundessa's murder last July. For that reason, Taye, now an independent Nairobi-based analyst, works with grassroots volunteers to collate misinformation and hate speech they spot on the platform into Excel spreadsheets, which they then send on to Facebook for removal. But she says that much of what they flag -- including posts calling for the extermination of certain ethnic groups -- does not get taken down and, occasionally, the company has responded to activists asking for them to translate posts. Facebook says it has improved its reporting tools for people in Ethiopia to make it faster and easier for them to report content they believe violates its community standards, which are now available in Amharic and recently launched in Oromo. It says it has also established reporting channels for international and local human rights groups and civil society organizations to flag potentially harmful content in Ethiopia. Content moderation is extremely dangerous work in Ethiopia, Taye says, adding that she has personally been accused of siding with a person or group because a post was removed. The task is also mentally exhausting; volunteers spend hours reviewing graphic content, often doing it alongside full-time jobs and raising their kids. Taye said it was unacceptable that poor people have effectively been left to the "dirty work" of one of the world's richest companies. Facebook will not reveal exactly how many local language speakers are evaluating content in Ethiopia that has been flagged as possibly violating its standards, or how much it has invested in resources to better police its platform in the country. A Facebook spokesperson said the company had invested "$13 billion and have 40,000 people working on the safety and security on our platform, including 15,000 people who review content in more than 70 languages working in more than 20 locations all across the world to support our community. Our third party fact-checking program includes over 80 partners who review content in over 60 languages, and 70 of those fact checkers are outside of the US." "Our track record shows that we crack down on abuse outside the US with the same intensity that we apply in the US," the spokesperson added. A war on social media Since war broke out in Tigray, supporters of both the government and TPLF have waged a parallel fight on social media, creating a virtual battleground of toxic ethnic and religious hatred. But it's difficult to determine when atrocities unfolding on the ground are the direct result of hateful content shared online. The head of the US Agency for International Development Samantha Power expressed concern in August about the "inflamed" and "dehumanizing rhetoric" that she said Ethiopia's leaders were invoking amid the conflict in Tigray, whose forces were described by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed as "weeds" and "cancer" in a post shared on Facebook. Power emphasized that "increasingly virulent speech" used by the prime minister and other officials, also shared on social media, "often accompanies ethnically-motivated atrocities." Abiy's language was also condemned by the UN special adviser on the prevention of genocide Alice Wairimu Nderitu, who warned that "hate speech, together with its propagation through social media is part of a worrisome trend that contributes to further fuel ethnic tensions in the country." Activists say that divisive language has been echoed by Abiy's supporters online. CNN has reached out to the Ethiopian prime minister's office for comment. In June, days before Ethiopia's national elections, which Abiy won in a landslide, Facebook said it removed a network of fake accounts targeting domestic users primarily in Amharic. Facebook linked the accounts to individuals associated with Ethiopia's Information Network Security Agency (INSA), the cybersecurity agency that Abiy established and ran before becoming Prime Minister. People watch Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's swearing-in ceremony at an Addis Ababa coffee shop in October. A Facebook page with an INSA-affiliated administrator was also flagged in internal Facebook documents in March, but was not recommended for removal. As the conflict escalates online and off, the Ethiopian government has accused Facebook of blocking user and removing posts "disseminating the true reality about Ethiopia." And in the latest sign of its efforts to consolidate control over Ethiopia's information landscape, the government announced in August it had begun developing its own social media platform to rival and replace Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter. This article is part of a CNN series published on "The Facebook Papers," a trove of over ten thousand pages of leaked internal Facebook documents that give deep insight into the company's internal culture, its approach to misinformation and hate speech moderation, internal research on its newsfeed algorithm, communication related to Jan. 6, and more. You can read the entire series here. © 2021 Cable News Network.

October 22, 2021 PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The leader of the 400 Mawozo gang that police say is holding 17 members of a kidnapped missionary group is seen in a video released Thursday saying he will kill them if he doesn't get what he's demanding. The video posted on social media shows Wilson Joseph dressed in a blue suit, carrying a blue hat and wearing a large cross around his neck. "I swear by thunder that if I don't get what I'm asking for, I will put a bullet in the heads of these Americans," he said in the video. He also threatened Prime Minister Ariel Henry and Haiti's national police chief as he spoke in front of the open coffins that apparently held several members of his gang who were recently killed. "You guys make me cry. I cry water. But I'm going to make you guys cry blood," he said. On Thursday afternoon, Henry's office announced that Léon Charles had resigned as head of the National Police and was replaced by Frantz Elbé. The newspaper Le Nouvelliste said Elbé was director of the police departments of the South East and Nippes and previously served as general security coordinator of the National Palace when Jocelerme Privert was provisional president. "We would like for public peace to be restored, that we return to normal life and that we regain our way to democracy," Henry said. There was no immediate comment from Charles or Elbé. Sixteen Americans and one Canadian were abducted by the gang Earlier this week, authorities said that the gang was demanding $1 million per person, although it wasn't immediately clear that included the five children in the group, among them an 8-month-old. Sixteen Americans and one Canadian were abducted, along with their Haitian driver. The missionaries are with Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries, which held a news conference before someone posted the video of the gang leader. Weston Showalter, spokesman for the religious group, said that the families of those who'd been kidnapped are from Amish, Mennonite and other conservative Anabaptist communities in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Ontario, Canada. He read a letter from the families, who weren't identified by name, in which they said, "God has given our loved ones the unique opportunity to live out our Lord's command to love your enemies." The group invited people to join them in prayer for the kidnappers as well as those kidnapped and expressed gratitude for help from "people that are knowledgeable and experienced in dealing with" such situations. "Pray for these families," Showalter said. "They are in a difficult spot." The organization later issued a statement saying it would not comment on the video "until those directly involved in obtaining the release of the hostages have determined that comments will not jeopardize the safety and well-being of our staff and family members." The gang leader's death threat added to the already intense concern in and around Holmes County, Ohio, where Christian Aid Ministries is based and has one of the nation's largest concentrations of Amish, conservative Mennonite and related groups. Many members of those groups have supported the organization through donations or by volunteering at its warehouse. "These kinds of things erase some of the boundaries that exist within our circles," added Marcus Yoder, executive director of the Amish & Mennonite Heritage Center in Millersburg. "Many people in the community feel helpless, but they also realize the power of prayer and the power of our historic theology," he said, including the Anabaptist belief in nonresistance to violence. There has been an uptick in kidnappings this year, UNICEF says The same day that the missionaries were kidnapped, a gang also abducted a Haiti university professor, according to a statement that Haiti's ombudsman-like Office of Citizen Protection issued on Tuesday. It also noted that a Haitian pastor abducted earlier this month has not been released despite a ransom being paid. "The criminals ... operate with complete impunity, attacking all members of society," the organization said. UNICEF said Thursday that the number of women and children kidnapped in the first eight months of this year has surpassed the total for all of last year. "Nowhere is safe for children in Haiti anymore," Jean Gough, UNICEF regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, said in a statement. "Whether on their way to school, at home or even at church, girls and boys are at risk of being kidnapped anywhere, at any time of the day or night." UNICEF said 71 women and 30 children were kidnapped this year, up from 59 women and 37 children last year. "They represent one third of the 455 kidnappings reported this year," the agency said. Haitians are protesting what they see as a dire living situation Meanwhile, hundreds of demonstrators blocked roads and burned tires in Haiti's capital to decry a severe fuel shortage and a spike in insecurity and to demand that the prime minister step down. The scattered protest took place across the Delmas neighborhood of Port-au-Prince. In addition to kidnappings, the gangs also are blamed for blocking gas distribution terminals and hijacking supply trucks, which officials say has led to a shortage of fuel. Many gas stations now remain closed for days at a time, and the lack of fuel is so dire that the CEO of Digicel Haiti announced on Tuesday that 150 of its 1,500 branches countrywide are out of diesel. "Nothing works!" complained Davidson Meiuce, who joined Thursday's protest. "We are suffering a lot." Some protestors held up signs including one that read, "Down with the high cost of living." Demonstrators clashed with police in some areas, with officers firing tear gas that mixed with the heavy black smoke rising from burning tires that served as barricades. Alexandre Simon, a 34-year-old English and French teacher, said he and others are protesting because Haitians are facing such dire situations. "There are a lot of people who cannot eat," he said. "There is no work ... There are a lot of things we don't have." © 2021 NPR

Ted Goldberg | KQED September 25, 2021 SF Human Rights Group pushes Liberia to prosecute former military commander for 1990 massacre. Center for Justice and Accountability attorney Nushin Sarkarati with John T. Stewart, formerly of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia (center), and the CJA's Hassan Bility, at the Lutheran Church Palava Hut in Monrovia, Liberia. (Courtesy of the Center for Justice and Accountability) On the heels of what's being described as a historic legal decision, a San Francisco-based human rights organization is calling on the Liberian government to hold accountable a former military commander, who led one of the deadliest massacres in that country's first civil war. Last week, the Center for Justice and Accountability, or CJA, won a federal lawsuit against Moses W. Thomas, who is believed to have led an attack on a church in Monrovia in July 1990, that killed approximately 600 unarmed adults and children. Thomas, at the time, commanded a Liberian government military unit under then-President Samuel Doe. More than three years after the center filed the suit on behalf of four survivors of the church massacre, a federal judge in Philadelphia ruled that Thomas is liable under U.S. law for participating in war crimes, crimes against humanity, extrajudicial killings and torture. Word of the verdict brought some relief to the four plaintiffs, according to one of their lawyers, Nushin Sarkarati, a senior staff attorney at the CJA. But, she said, they are not giving up their decades-long battle to get justice. "The victims aren't forgetting," Sarkarati said. "They lost their mothers, their children, their loved ones. It's very important for them that these perpetrators are held accountable for what they did to Liberia." The four plaintiffs, who live in Liberia, remain anonymous due to fear of retaliation. The ruling has reverberated among some members of the Bay Area's small Liberian community. "The decision to hold Moses Thomas liable for crimes against humanity restores our hopes that justice delayed is not denied," said Lovetta Tugbeh, director of the Pleasant Hill-based Coalition for Justice in Liberia. Some of the group's members are survivors of the church massacre, she added. "We are calling upon the government of Liberia to muster the courage to ensure justice will be served for war crimes," Tugbeh said The church massacre took place during Liberia's first civil war, a seven-year conflict that started in 1989 and is believed to have led to the deaths of some 200,000 people by the time the fighting ended in 1997. Just two years later, in 1999, the country erupted into a second civil war that lasted until 2003. Some of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Thomas say they witnessed their relatives killed during the church massacre and were forced to hide under dead bodies to survive. One was shot in the leg. Another was stabbed in the arm. The case marks the first U.S. lawsuit aimed at holding a Liberian government forces commander responsible for serious violations of international law during the country's first civil war, according to the CJA. When the lawsuit was originally filed in 2018, Thomas was living in suburban Philadelphia. A year later, he fled the U.S. and is believed to be back in Liberia. Now that he's back home, some 30 years later, it's long past time for Liberia to bring justice to the survivors, Sarkarati said. "They have a duty under international law to provide accountability," she said. The CJA is pushing for Liberia to set up a special tribunal to adjudicate the church massacre incident and other civil war-era atrocities. But the fact that Thomas returned home shows he believes he will be safe there, Sarkarati said. Officials at the Liberian embassy in Washington, D.C., did not respond to a request for comment about the judge's decision and whether the country planned to further investigate or prosecute the case. A hearing will be held in the coming months to determine how much Thomas owes the survivors, with the possibility he could be ordered to pay them millions of dollars in compensatory and punitive damages. "It is hard to put a number behind these types of atrocities," Sarkarati said. "The victims are not pursuing these cases for the award amount. It's really about the recognition of liability and identifying who's responsible for these harms." Thomas has 30 days to appeal the ruling. His lawyer, Nixon Teah Kannah, who is based in Philadelphia, did not respond to phone and email requests for comment. Kannah told The Associated Press that he and his client "accept the decision but we don't agree with it." Thomas could not be reached for comment either, but in an interview with KQED in 2018, he said he "disputes the allegations 1,000 percent." He called the claims "nonsense" and said while he was in Liberia at the time of the massacre and was a member of the Liberian military, he was not at the church and knows no details about the attack. His legal defense also argued that the suit was filed too long after the church assault. The court disagreed. U.S. District Judge Petrese Tucker sided with the CJA's argument that Thomas commanded the unit that slaughtered hundreds of innocent civilians at the church. The attack took place during a rebellion led by Charles Taylor, who went on to become Liberia's president in 1997 and was later convicted of war crimes in neighboring Sierra Leone and sentenced to 50 years in prison. As violence intensified during Liberia's first civil war, civilians flooded humanitarian aid centers. The Red Cross and a network of churches set up shelters in the country to house thousands of displaced people. Many of them were members of the Mano and Gio Tribes, perceived to be loyal to Taylor and against President Doe, who was a member of the majority Krahn Tribe. The judge agreed with the CJA's argument that Thomas knew the church was a shelter for civilians and told his soldiers to kill them. The suit also alleges that some women were raped before they were murdered, and that soldiers first opened fire on the group before using machetes to attack many of those who were injured or hiding. Correction: This story originally stated that the four plaintiffs live in the U.S. They live in Liberia. © 2021 KQED Inc.

Four children – three boys and a girl - were killed on Monday morning while traveling to school in northwest Syria, along with a teacher, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Wednesday. © UNICEF/Giovanni Diffidenti: Destruction in Idlib governorate 20 October 2021 UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Ted Chaiban, said in a statement that they were victims of an attack on a market in Ariha, south of Idlib. The governorate is the last rebel held enclave in the country. According to news reports, a total of ten people were killed in the attack on Ariha, while another 20 were wounded during the shelling. Artillery shelling was reported in Idlib on Tuesday also, the UN Spokeperson, Stéphane Dujarric, told correspondents at the regular noon briefing. One civilian was killed, and four others injured. Artillery shelling was also reported in other parts of Idlib and in Western Aleppo. Combined with Wednesday's attack in Ariha, the Spokesperson described the recent escalation as "the most significant increase in hostilities in northwest Syria since the ceasefire agreement of March 2020." "The UN condemns all violence in Syria", he added. "We remind all parties to the conflict to respect international humanitarian law, including the prohibition of indiscriminate attacks and the obligation to take all feasible precautions to avoid and minimize harm to civilians and civilian infrastructure." Damascus attack The numbers of children injured and killed continue to increase, said Mr. Chabain, noting that earlier on Wednesday, a military bus had come under attack in the capital Damascus. According to media reports, two explosive devices attached to the bus, detonated as it passed under a bridge in the centre of the city during rush hour. At least 14 were reportedly killed, which the Sana State News Agency described as the deadliest attack in the Syrian capital in four years. “Today’s violence is yet another reminder that the war in Syria has not come to an end”, said the UNICEF official. Protect the children “Civilians, among them many children, keep bearing the brunt of a brutal decade-long conflict”, added Mr. Chabain. “Attacks on civilians including children are a violation of international humanitarian law. Children should be able to reach their schools safely”, he underscored. “We repeat our calls to those fighting, that children are not a target. They should be protected at all times especially in times of conflict.” © United Nations

Activists say issuing further charges to freed prisoners was ‘mental torture’ for families By Maung Moe and Rebecca Ratcliffe A released prisoner reunited with his family outside Insein prison in Yangon, Myanmar, earlier this week. Photograph: Myat Thu Kyaw/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock More than 100 political prisoners freed following a supposed amnesty in Myanmar were re-arrested shortly after their release according to a rights group, in what activists have likened to “mental torture” for the detainees and their families. Some relatives, who had waited outside prisons expecting to be reunited with their loved ones, managed to catch a glimpse of them at the gates, before they were handcuffed and taken away. Others spent hours together, only to be separated again. The Myanmar junta, which has been repeatedly condemned for detaining thousands of its critics, including children, promised a major release of political prisoners on Monday. It stated it would pardon 1,316 people and drop charges against 4,320 people who had “participated in protests”. The military, however, gave no details of who would be freed, or what the terms of release would be. Human Rights Watch has since described the releases, which have taken place over the past week, as “limited in scope”. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners Burma (AAPP), an advocacy group, has confirmed that 324 people have been freed. More than 7,031 political prisoners are still being held in detention, according to AAPP Burma. This includes anyone suspected of criticising or questioning the February military coup – from medics, to journalists, politicians and activists. AAPP said it was aware of 110 cases where people were issued with further charges and re-arrested after their supposed release. Ma Zin Mar, who lives in central Myanmar and spoke under a fake name, was told by a lawyer that her sister would be among those released this week. She waited outside the prison and saw her sister walk free. Then, she watched as her sister was handcuffed and placed in a car by plainclothes officers. “When this car drove outside of the prison compound, I ran after the car and asked them what happened. They said that they were bringing her to the police station. We followed to the police station and asked to meet my sister, but we were not allowed. We were so worried about her health,” she said. Ma Zin Mar had spent that day cheering up her mother, telling her that her sister would soon be free. She had been so happy to see her walk out of prison. “We are so depressed now. It is now even hard to breath.” Her mother, she added, was depressed and lying in bed. Thinzar Shunlei Yi, a prominent democracy activist, described the re-arrests as “complete mental torture of the family members and for the political prisoners.” There have been widespread reports of torture inside Myanmar prisons, and some of those who have been released this week have described harrowing treatment at the hands of security forces. A young democracy activist, who also spoke anonymously, said that during interrogations, which took place before he was transported to prison, detainees had no choice but to use toilet water to drink or wash their faces. He was arrested for possessing banners and posters opposing the military coup. “They [the military] even put guns in our mouths. And they threatened us a lot. They asked us to dig graves for ourselves. Also, I have seen other people get tortured and they were even vomiting because of the severity of the torture. Some people lost their teeth,” he said, speaking anonymously for fear of arrest. Prison, he said, had felt like paradise in comparison. He added that he cannot feel happy, even though he has been released. He lives in fear of being arrested again. He also worries for the many others left behind in prison. “Some of them got arrested for sharing a Facebook post, or they beat pots and pans [a protest act], or they got arrested as their phones were searched by the soldiers on the road. They did no crimes,” he said. The junta appeared to be releasing prisoners who had been charged under section 505a, a sweeping law that is used by the junta to punish anyone who criticises the coup or the military. However, many face multiple charges, and so remain in prison. The announcement of the prisoner release came just days after Min Aung Hlaing, the junta chief, was excluded from a regional summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) over his failure to commit to de-escalating the country’s crisis. Shunlei Yi said that she believed the announcement had been in response to the pressure from neighbouring countries. “They see these leaders as their like minded people,” she said, referring to Asean, which has a tradition of non-interference and rarely condemns its members over human rights issues. David Mathieson, an independent analyst formerly based in Myanmar, said that regardless of whether the release had been planned for some time or driven by the Asean decision, the snub by neighbouring countries would have stung. “They’re status-obsessed people, the leaders of the SAC [State Administrative Council junta],” he said. However, he added that the prisoner releases, which appear far more limited than promised, were unlikely to impress anyone in the international community. “A lot of diplomats [should say]: ‘you said that you were going to release all these people – where are the lists and where is this happening? … You’re promising something like this and completely reneging on it. We can’t trust anything that you say from now on, which really limits the ability to construct mediation with you.’” © 2021 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies.

Ismael Lopez and Anthony Esposito | Reuters October 21, 2021, 6:22 PM EDT As Nicaragua government crackdown continues, police arrest business executives. Nicaragua's Michael Healy, President of Superior Council of Private Companies (COSEP), speaks to the media after leaving the prosecutors office in Managua, Nicaragua October 21, 2021. Healy was arrested on October 21, 2021 according to local media, ahead of the country's presidential elections. REUTERS/Maynor Valenzuela MANAGUA, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Nicaraguan police detained the two top executives of the nation's largest business association on Thursday, amid a wave of arrests ahead of Nov. 7 elections in which President Daniel Ortega will seek a fourth consecutive term, according to the association and authorities. The Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP) president, Michael Healy, was detained after leaving an interview at the attorney general's office, and its vice president, Alvaro Vargas, was arrested at home. Both men are members of the Civic Alliance, an opposition group that has suffered the arrest of two presidential candidates. The executives are accused of "laundering money, property and assets to the detriment of the Nicaraguan state and society," as well as calling for foreign intervention and sanctions against Nicaragua, local police said in a statement. Ortega's government has become increasingly isolated and criticized internationally for its crackdowns against the president's opponents and critical media in the Central American country he has dominated since returning to power 15 years ago. Since June police have detained some 38 opposition leaders, including presidential hopefuls. COSEP in a statement demanded the immediate release of its members and described the detentions as "illegal" and "arbitrary." "These repressive actions by the government are a direct attack on COSEP and its main leaders, which does not contribute to the peace and security that all citizens yearn for," said the association. "Nicaragua needs respect for human rights and democracy." Nicaraguans will head to the polls on Nov. 7 to elect the nation's president, vice president, and renew Congress. Ortega, who first governed as president between 1985 and 1990, was again elected president in 2007 and has served since then. The Organization of American States (OAS) on Wednesday expressed "alarm" over Nicaraguan government actions it says will undermine the elections. The OAS permanent council adopted a resolution to urge fair elections and the release of presidential candidates and political prisoners. Reporting by Ismael Lopez Writing by Anthony Esposito Editing by Matthew Lewis © 2021 Reuters. All rights reserved