The disfigured bodies are the latest indication of atrocities as the conflict over the Tigray region spreads to other parts of Ethiopia and across international borders. The Sitit River, known as the Tekeze River in Ethiopia, near Sudan’s border with Ethiopia. Dozens of bloated bodies have washed onto these shores. El Tayeb Siddig/Reuters AL-FASHAGA, Sudan — The bodies floated over the border in ones and twos, bloated and bearing knife or gunshot wounds, carried on waters that flow from the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia. At least 40 bodies have washed up on a riverbank in eastern Sudan in the past week, in some cases just a few hundred yards from the border with Ethiopia, according to international aid workers and doctors who helped retrieve the corpses. The grisly finds at the river are apparent evidence of the latest atrocities in a brutal, nine-month civil war between Ethiopian federal forces and their allies, and fighters in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia — a conflict accompanied by reports of massacres, ethnic cleansing and widespread sexual assault. Few of the bodies have been identified, but several contained tattoos that suggested they were ethnic Tigrayans, and many bore signs of a violent death or had their hands bound behind their backs, witnesses said. “They were terribly injured, and some were riddled with bullets,” said Tewodros Tefera, a surgeon with the Sudanese Red Crescent Society, a humanitarian group, who works in a refugee camp beside the border. Dr. Tewodros, who himself fled Ethiopia for Sudan at the start of the war in November, said in a telephone interview that he personally had buried two bodies pulled from the Sitit River (known as the Tekeze River in Ethiopia) near the village of Hamdayet, on Sudan’s border with Ethiopia. The surgeon said the bodies had come from the direction of Humera, an Ethiopian town on the river six miles upstream, which has become a recent focus of the intensifying war between Tigrayan forces and those allied with Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed. The killings came to public attention on Monday after images of grotesquely bloated bodies floating in the river circulated on social media, recalling the horrors of the genocide in the East African nation of Rwanda in 1994, when the bodies of victims also flowed over an international border. Ethiopia’s government denounced the pictures appearing this week as fakes, orchestrated by its Tigrayan foes to discredit Mr. Abiy. Mr. Abiy, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, has faced a stream of reports of atrocities committed by Ethiopian troops and their allies in Tigray in recent months. His government has hit back with claims that the Tigrayans have also committed abuses, including recruiting child soldiers to their cause. In a text message, Mr. Abiy’s spokeswoman, Billene Seyoum, referred to a government statement from July 22 that appeared to anticipate the controversy, accusing Tigrayan forces of dumping in Humera the bodies of 300 people who had been killed in other parts of Tigray in an effort to generate “made-up propaganda of a massacre.” A senior official with an international aid organization, however, confirmed that 40 bodies had been pulled from the river near Hamdayet, and broadly supported the accounts given by Dr. Tewodros and two other refugees at the camp. The official requested anonymity to avoid imperiling his organization’s relationship with the Ethiopian authorities. The gruesome spectacle highlighted how the accelerating conflict in Tigray, where at least 400,000 people are living in famine-like conditions, is spreading to other parts of Ethiopia and even across the country’s international borders. In recent weeks fighting has raged in Ethiopia’s neighboring Afar region to the east of Tigray, displacing thousands of civilians, as Tigrayan fighters seek to pressure Mr. Abiy’s government by trying to cut off the country’s most important supply route. Emergency food distribution in the city of Mekelle in June. Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times Friction is also mounting between the Ethiopian government and international aid agencies trying to stave off a humanitarian crisis in Tigray. On Tuesday two major aid groups, the Dutch arm of Doctors Without Borders and the Norwegian Refugee Council, said Ethiopia had suspended their operations for three months. In the capital, Addis Ababa, the visiting United Nations humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said Ethiopian accusations, made last month by a cabinet minister, that international aid groups are aiding the Tigrayan rebels, were “dangerous.” In western Tigray, tensions have been rising as the pro-government forces that control the area — ethnic militia fighters from the neighboring Amhara region of Ethiopia and allied soldiers from the country of Eritrea, to the north — gird for an expected Tigrayan assault. The Tigrayans, known as the Tigray Defense Forces, have been threatening to attack western Tigray since they won a series of battles in late June, including the recapture of the provincial capital, Mekelle. In Humera, Amharan and Eritrean forces have dug trenches, amassed military equipment and detained local civilians they accuse of helping the Tigrayan forces, according to refugees and aid workers. A tank damaged during the fighting between Ethiopia’s military and Tigrayan rebels in Humera last month. Reuters Amhara militia fighters, known as the Fano, have ordered ethnic Tigrayan residents to leave, several refugees said. The number crossing the border into Sudan has increased fivefold to about 50 a day, the aid official said. “They are walking from house to house, intimidating people,” said one of those refugees, Filmon Desta, 23, in a video interview over WhatsApp. “It’s obvious that it’s ethnic cleansing.” At the same time, the bodies have been floating across the border. Nine corpses have been pulled from the water near Hamdayet, and another 29 from a village 45 miles downstream called Wad al-Helew, Dr. Tewodros said. Two victims were identified by Tigrayans who knew them, and two others had tattoos in the Tigrinya language. The bodies that floated over the border this week washed up on the northern edge of al-Fashaga, a triangle of land that has been the subject of a border dispute between Ethiopia and Sudan for over a century. After years of intermittent clashes, the dispute flared late last year after the Ethiopian troops that controlled much of al-Fashaga suddenly left to fight in Tigray. Weeks later, Sudanese troops went on the offensive and captured a large swath of the disputed territory. Sudanese officials said they launched the attack in response to months of violent incursions from inside Ethiopia, which killed dozens of Sudanese civilians. In a rare visit to al-Fashaga by a Western reporter earlier this summer, military officers, community leaders and local farmers told how a longstanding territorial dispute had erupted into a serious cross-border confrontation. The New York Times saw trucks of Sudanese soldiers laden with weaponry and food rations hurtling toward the front line. Hundreds of Sudanese soldiers were stationed in Barakat Nurein, a village that was occupied by Ethiopian farmers until Sudanese forces snatched it in January. At a line of recently dug graves, Omer Adam, a local farmer, said his 25-year-old daughter was among six people who had been shot dead by Ethiopian forces while working the fields. “We found her dead on the spot,” he said, standing over a mound marked with a pile of dried twigs. “A bullet entered her chest and came out through her back.” Omer Adam, center, at the grave of his 25-year-old daughter who he said was among six people shot dead by Ethiopian forces while working the fields. Simon Marks United Nations officials estimate that dozens of civilians have also been killed inside Ethiopia as part of the fight over al-Fashaga, but there are no official tallies. Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to questions about the dispute. The dispute, one of numerous challenges confronting Mr. Abiy, has the potential to be a “detonating point for the region,” said Jonas Horner, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, a conflict research body. Among the bodies that washed up in Sudan recently was that of a woman identified as Feven Berha, a resident of Humera. Awet Yiscer, a refugee, said Ms. Feven had gone missing from Humera in late July. Three days later, her body turned up in Sudan with both eyes missing. As word of her death spread, scores of Tigrayans fled over the border into Sudan. “I can’t even begin to express the situation,” said Mr. Awet, who fled his home recently after 40 years. “These are very dark days.” © 2021 The New York Times Company

Krystsina Tsimanouskaya has followed in the footsteps of thousands of others deserting Lukashenko’s totalitarian state By: The Guardian Editorial Team ‘Krystsina Tsimanouskaya will become part of an era-defining exodus from Mr Lukashenko’s Belarus that makes it hard to be optimistic about the future.’ Photograph: Reuters Alexander Lukashenko has largely squeezed the life out of the protest movement that threatened his despotic hold on power last summer. As he has done so, a vicious, totalitarian mood has come to dominate all corners of life in Belarus. Earlier this month, there was a sweeping crackdown on NGOs, many of which were previously judged non-political. Independent media organisations have been harassed and shut down. The essential illegitimacy of Mr Lukashenko’s regime was exposed in the aftermath of the stolen elections of 2020. Its survival is now ensured by the brutal crushing of dissent wherever it is found. Even at the Tokyo Olympics. The decision on Sunday by the Belarusian athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya to seek asylum in Poland followed what was ostensibly a sporting dispute. Ms Tsimanouskaya had publicly criticised the Belarus team’s coaches for failing to conduct the necessary doping tests ahead of the women’s 4x400m race. When she refused to be sent home in disgrace, a leaked tape revealed that a member of the Belarus delegation had told her: “Let this situation go. Otherwise the more that you struggle, it will be like a fly caught in a spider’s web: the more it spins, the more it gets entangled.” If the chilling menace contained in these words seems disproportionate, the tone probably comes from the top: the head of the Belarus National Olympic Committee is Mr Lukashenko’s son Viktor. Ms Tsimanouskaya is under police protection in Tokyo. Her husband, Arseniy Zdanevich, has fled the Belarusian capital, Minsk, for Kiev. When making what seems to have been a snap decision on Sunday night, the sprinter doubtless recalled the fate of the Belarusian athletes who have been detained for taking part in protests against Mr Lukashenko. Numerous others, deemed suspect, have been dropped from teams. Sport, like other aspects of Belarusian life, is now run in the paranoid style. The 24-year-old Ms Tsimanouskaya, who on Monday received a humanitarian visa from Poland, will clearly be a sporting loss for her country. She will also become part of an era-defining exodus from Mr Lukashenko’s Belarus that makes it hard to be optimistic about the future. As the regime has consolidated its grip over the past year through mass arrests, torture and a crackdown across civil society, huge numbers of younger Belarusians have sought refuge in neighbouring Lithuania, Ukraine and Poland. The formerly booming tech sector in Minsk – an organisational hub for the protests – has been particularly badly hit. As many as 15,000 IT workers may have fled the country. Giving up, for now, on the prospect of democratic reform, many other young professionals have taken the same decision. As European and US sanctions continue to be ineffective, and Vladimir Putin stands ready to offer assistance to the regime as required, who can blame them? Mr Lukashenko, of course, will not be sorry to wave goodbye as he recreates Belarusian society in the oppressive image of a Soviet satellite state. For the remaining remnants of the protest movement, Ms Tsimanouskaya’s decision to join those seeking asylum is yet another sign of how dark the times have become, following those days of hope last summer and autumn. © Guardian News & Media Limited

By Simon Marks and Declan Walsh The disfigured bodies are the latest indication of atrocities as the conflict over the Tigray region spreads to other parts of Ethiopia and across international borders. The Sitit River, known as the Tekeze River in Ethiopia, near Sudan’s border with Ethiopia. Dozens of bloated bodies have washed onto these shores. El Tayeb Siddig/Reuters AL-FASHAGA, Sudan — The bodies floated over the border in ones and twos, bloated and bearing knife or gunshot wounds, carried on waters that flow from the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia. At least 40 bodies have washed up on a riverbank in eastern Sudan in the past week, in some cases just a few hundred yards from the border with Ethiopia, according to international aid workers and doctors who helped retrieve the corpses. The grisly finds at the river are apparent evidence of the latest atrocities in a brutal, nine-month civil war between Ethiopian federal forces and their allies, and fighters in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia — a conflict accompanied by reports of massacres, ethnic cleansing and widespread sexual assault. Few of the bodies have been identified, but several contained tattoos that suggested they were ethnic Tigrayans, and many bore signs of a violent death or had their hands bound behind their backs, witnesses said. “They were terribly injured, and some were riddled with bullets,” said Tewodros Tefera, a surgeon with the Sudanese Red Crescent Society, a humanitarian group, who works in a refugee camp beside the border. Dr. Tewodros, who himself fled Ethiopia for Sudan at the start of the war in November, said in a telephone interview that he personally had buried two bodies pulled from the Sitit River (known as the Tekeze River in Ethiopia) near the village of Hamdayet, on Sudan’s border with Ethiopia. Tewodros Tefera, a surgeon who fled Ethiopia for Sudan at the start of the war in November, said that he personally had buried two of the bodies pulled from the river. Nariman El-Mofty/Associated Press The surgeon said the bodies had come from the direction of Humera, an Ethiopian town on the river six miles upstream, which has become a recent focus of the intensifying war between Tigrayan forces and those allied with Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed. The killings came to public attention on Monday after images of grotesquely bloated bodies floating in the river circulated on social media, recalling the horrors of the genocide in the East African nation of Rwanda in 1994, when the bodies of victims also flowed over an international border. Ethiopia’s government denounced the pictures appearing this week as fakes, orchestrated by its Tigrayan foes to discredit Mr. Abiy. Mr. Abiy, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, has faced a stream of reports of atrocities committed by Ethiopian troops and their allies in Tigray in recent months. His government has hit back with claims that the Tigrayans have also committed abuses, including recruiting child soldiers to their cause. In a text message, Mr. Abiy’s spokeswoman, Billene Seyoum, referred to a government statement from July 22 that appeared to anticipate the controversy, accusing Tigrayan forces of dumping in Humera the bodies of 300 people who had been killed in other parts of Tigray in an effort to generate “made-up propaganda of a massacre.” A senior official with an international aid organization, however, confirmed that 40 bodies had been pulled from the river near Hamdayet, and broadly supported the accounts given by Dr. Tewodros and two other refugees at the camp. The official requested anonymity to avoid imperiling his organization’s relationship with the Ethiopian authorities. The gruesome spectacle highlighted how the accelerating conflict in Tigray, where at least 400,000 people are living in famine-like conditions, is spreading to other parts of Ethiopia and even across the country’s international borders. In recent weeks fighting has raged in Ethiopia’s neighboring Afar region to the east of Tigray, displacing thousands of civilians, as Tigrayan fighters seek to pressure Mr. Abiy’s government by trying to cut off the country’s most important supply route. Emergency food distribution in the city of Mekelle in June. Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times © 2021 The New York Times Company Friction is also mounting between the Ethiopian government and international aid agencies trying to stave off a humanitarian crisis in Tigray. On Tuesday two major aid groups, the Dutch arm of Doctors Without Borders and the Norwegian Refugee Council, said Ethiopia had suspended their operations for three months. In the capital, Addis Ababa, the visiting United Nations humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said Ethiopian accusations, made last month by a cabinet minister, that international aid groups are aiding the Tigrayan rebels, were “dangerous.” In western Tigray, tensions have been rising as the pro-government forces that control the area — ethnic militia fighters from the neighboring Amhara region of Ethiopia and allied soldiers from the country of Eritrea, to the north — gird for an expected Tigrayan assault. The Tigrayans, known as the Tigray Defense Forces, have been threatening to attack western Tigray since they won a series of battles in late June, including the recapture of the provincial capital, Mekelle. In Humera, Amharan and Eritrean forces have dug trenches, amassed military equipment and detained local civilians they accuse of helping the Tigrayan forces, according to refugees and aid workers. Amhara militia fighters, known as the Fano, have ordered ethnic Tigrayan residents to leave, several refugees said. The number crossing the border into Sudan has increased fivefold to about 50 a day, the aid official said. “They are walking from house to house, intimidating people,” said one of those refugees, Filmon Desta, 23, in a video interview over WhatsApp. “It’s obvious that it’s ethnic cleansing.” At the same time, the bodies have been floating across the border. Nine corpses have been pulled from the water near Hamdayet, and another 29 from a village 45 miles downstream called Wad al-Helew, Dr. Tewodros said. Two victims were identified by Tigrayans who knew them, and two others had tattoos in the Tigrinya language. The bodies that floated over the border this week washed up on the northern edge of al-Fashaga, a triangle of land that has been the subject of a border dispute between Ethiopia and Sudan for over a century. After years of intermittent clashes, the dispute flared late last year after the Ethiopian troops that controlled much of al-Fashaga suddenly left to fight in Tigray. Weeks later, Sudanese troops went on the offensive and captured a large swath of the disputed territory. Sudanese officials said they launched the attack in response to months of violent incursions from inside Ethiopia, which killed dozens of Sudanese civilians. In a rare visit to al-Fashaga by a Western reporter earlier this summer, military officers, community leaders and local farmers told how a longstanding territorial dispute had erupted into a serious cross-border confrontation. The New York Times saw trucks of Sudanese soldiers laden with weaponry and food rations hurtling toward the front line. Hundreds of Sudanese soldiers were stationed in Barakat Nurein, a village that was occupied by Ethiopian farmers until Sudanese forces snatched it in January. At a line of recently dug graves, Omer Adam, a local farmer, said his 25-year-old daughter was among six people who had been shot dead by Ethiopian forces while working the fields. “We found her dead on the spot,” he said, standing over a mound marked with a pile of dried twigs. “A bullet entered her chest and came out through her back.” United Nations officials estimate that dozens of civilians have also been killed inside Ethiopia as part of the fight over al-Fashaga, but there are no official tallies. Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to questions about the dispute. The dispute, one of numerous challenges confronting Mr. Abiy, has the potential to be a “detonating point for the region,” said Jonas Horner, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, a conflict research body. Among the bodies that washed up in Sudan recently was that of a woman identified as Feven Berha, a resident of Humera. Awet Yiscer, a refugee, said Ms. Feven had gone missing from Humera in late July. Three days later, her body turned up in Sudan with both eyes missing. As word of her death spread, scores of Tigrayans fled over the border into Sudan. “I can’t even begin to express the situation,” said Mr. Awet, who fled his home recently after 40 years. “These are very dark days.” © 2021 The New York Times Company

Photo from @USAIDPower Twitter, 7/31/21. Caption: "Met w/ Sudanese women journalists, who described climate of fear they faced reporting under Bashir, & before 2020 transition to civilian governors. Govt officials retaliated when they wrote on issues like Covid deaths or unemployment. As one said, 'Now we can say what we want.'" CAIRO (AP) — The U.S. official who wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning book on genocide landed Saturday in Sudan, aiming to support the country’s fragile transition to democracy before travelling to Ethiopia to press the government there to allow humanitarian aid to the war-torn Tigray region. Samantha Power, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, is set to meet in Khartoum with top Sudanese officials including Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, head of the ruling sovereign council, and Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, the civilian face of Sudan’s transitional government. She travelled Saturday to the western region of Darfur where she said she investigated atrocities in the its civil war in the 2000s, according to Sudan’s state-run SUNA news agency. “I first visited Sudan in 2004—investigating a genocide in Darfur perpetrated by a regime whose grip on power seemed unshakeable. I couldn’t imagine Sudan would one day be an inspiring example to the world that no leader is ever permanently immune from the will of their people,” Power wrote on Twitter upon her arrival in Khartoum. Power’s visit to Khartoum is meant to “strengthen the U.S. Government’s partnership with Sudan’s transitional leaders and citizens, explore how to expand USAID’s support for Sudan’s transition to a civilian-led democracy,” USAID said. Sudan is now on a fragile path to democracy and is ruled by a military-civilian government after a popular uprising led to the military’s ouster of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir in 2019. The Khartoum government, which seeks better ties with the U.S. and the West after nearly three decades of international isolation, faces towering economic and security challenges that threaten to derail its transition into chaos. The U.S. official would also meet with Ethiopian refugees in Sudan who recently fled the conflict and atrocities in the Tigray region which borders Sudan. Since the Tigray war began in November, tens of thousands of Ethiopians have crossed into Sudan, adding to the country’s economic and security challenges. Power’s five-day trip will also take her to Ethiopia as part of international efforts to prevent a looming famine in Tigray, a region of some 6 million people that has been devastated by the months-long war. Power will meet with Ethiopian officials “to press for unimpeded humanitarian access to prevent famine in Tigray and meet urgent needs in other conflict-affected regions of the country,” USAID said. The world’s worst hunger crisis in a decade is unfolding in Tigray, where the U.S. says up to 900,000 people now face famine conditions and international food security experts say the crucial planting season “has largely been missed” because of the war. Ethiopia’s government has blamed the aid blockade on the resurgent Tigray forces who have retaken much of the region and crossed into the neighboring Amhara and Afar regions, but a senior official with the U.S. Agency for International Development this week told the AP that is “100% not the case.” © 2021 The Associated Press

6 Months After Takeover, Urgent Need for Targeted Sanctions, Arms Ban Women cry after seeing the body of their relative killed on March 14th by security forces during a peaceful protest in Yangon, Myanmar. © 2021 Aung Kyaw Htet / SOPA Images/Sipa USA (Bangkok) – Myanmar’s military junta has committed numerous abuses against the population that amount to crimes against humanity in the six months since the February 1, 2021 coup, Human Rights Watch said today. Since the military takeover, millions of people have taken to the streets across the country and peacefully protested for a return to a democratically elected civilian government. As part of a widespread and systematic attack on the population, security forces have repeatedly fired on and otherwise used excessive force to disperse and harm protesters. Police and soldiers have killed over 900 protesters and bystanders, including about 75 children, forcibly disappeared over 100 persons, and tortured and raped an unknown number in custody. Several thousand people have been arbitrarily arrested and detained. “Myanmar’s junta has responded to massive popular opposition to the coup with killings, torture, and arbitrary detention of people who merely want last year’s election results to be respected and a government that reflects the popular will,” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “These attacks on the population amount to crimes against humanity for which those responsible should be brought to account.” The concept of crimes against humanity dates to at least 1915 and was part of the 1945 Charter of the International Military Tribunal that created the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders. Under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), crimes against humanity are a series of offenses that are knowingly committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population. The offenses of Myanmar’s junta against those opposed to the military coup have been both a widespread and systematic attack against the population, Human Rights Watch said. The nature of the response, broad-based and frequently consistent, reflects government policy rather than the actions of individual security personnel. Apparent crimes against humanity committed since February 1 include murder, enforced disappearance, torture, rape and other sexual violence, severe deprivation of liberty, and other inhumane acts causing great suffering. Human Rights Watch previously found that Myanmar’s military had committed crimes against humanity against the ethnic Rohingya population in 2012-2013 and again in 2017 as part of campaigns of ethnic cleansing. The authorities are committing crimes against humanity of apartheid, persecution, and severe deprivation of liberty against Rohingya currently living in Rakhine State. The UN-backed Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) is “closely following” events and is collecting evidence of possible crimes committed following the coup. The IIMM is also mandated to build case files to support efforts to hold individuals responsible for such crimes in criminal proceedings. The United Nations, regional bodies, and governments, including the European Union, United States, and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), should respond to the continuing crimes against humanity in Myanmar by supplementing, strengthening, and coordinating international sanctions against the military and the State Administration Council (SAC) junta leadership under Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing. Actions should include targeted sanctions on individuals, a global arms embargo, and financial restrictions that would reduce the junta’s revenues from extractive industries. Governments should act to reduce the junta’s gas revenues, which are the military’s largest source of foreign currency income, adding up to about US$1 billion annually in duties, taxes, royalties, fees, tariffs, and other profits. The US, EU, UK, and others should block payments to the junta and state-owned enterprises from foreign-financed oil and gas projects, such as those operated by PTT, Total, and Chevron. Such measures can be designed to target the junta’s access to foreign accounts while allowing for the continued production of gas and electricity in the country. Since the coup, concerns about vetoes by China and Russia have deterred the United Nations Security Council from adopting resolutions to address the human rights crisis in Myanmar. The Security Council should urgently take measures against the junta, including by referring the situation in the country to the International Criminal Court (ICC), Human Rights Watch said. The court’s prosecutor is currently investigating the crimes against humanity of deportation and persecution following the 2017 ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya, as those crimes were completed in Bangladesh, an ICC member. The council should follow the June resolution of the UN General Assembly with its own resolution to impose a legally binding arms embargo and targeted sanctions on junta officials and key military leaders. The Security Council and UN member countries should end the pretense that ASEAN will place sufficient pressure on the junta to restore a democratically elected civilian government, release political prisoners, and hold those responsible for abuses to account, Human Rights Watch said. Since its summit meeting on April 24, ASEAN has failed to appoint a promised special envoy and has taken no meaningful steps to press the junta to address grave human rights concerns in Myanmar. “The international response to the Myanmar junta’s crimes against humanity has been stymied by fears of Security Council vetoes, ASEAN’s feckless leadership, and the EU’s hesitance to target foreign gas companies,” Adams said. “The Security Council and influential countries, notably the US, EU, Australia, Japan, India, and Thailand, should apply coordinated sanctions to pressure the junta to end its brutal repression.” Alleged Crimes Against Humanity Since the February 1 Coup The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines crimes against humanity as one of several offenses “committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack.” “Widespread” refers to the scale of the acts or number of victims. A “systematic” attack indicates a pattern or methodical plan. Crimes against humanity can be committed during peacetime as well as during armed conflict. The statute defines “attack” as a “course of action involving the multiple commission of acts … pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organizational policy.” The “attack” does not need to be a military attack as defined under international humanitarian law. Furthermore, “the term ‘population’ does not require that crimes against humanity be directed against the entire population of a geographical territory or area.” The ICC statute’s Explanatory Memorandum states that crimes against humanity “are particularly odious offenses in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings. They are not isolated or sporadic events but are part either of a government policy (although the perpetrators need not identify themselves with this policy) or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority.” Myanmar is not a party to the ICC, but the UN Security Council could refer the situation in the country to the ICC. The Myanmar military’s killing of numerous protesters, enforced disappearance of opposition supporters taken into custody, torture and rape of many of those detained, and mass political detentions throughout Myanmar since the coup indicate that these abuses are widespread. The authorities have made statements that suggest that the response to the protests has also been systematic. On February 21, the State Administration Council stated in the government’s Global New Light of Myanmar: “Protesters are now inciting the people, especially emotional teenagers and youth, to a confrontation path where they will suffer the loss of life.” On March 26, the state MRTV news channel announced that demonstrators “should learn from the tragedy of earlier ugly deaths that you can be in danger of getting shot to the head and back” and warned that “parents should also talk their children out of it [joining protests], let’s not waste lives for nothing.” This language was widely interpreted to signal that the security forces were planning to respond with force to planned protests the next day, Armed Forces Day. In a May 8 statement, the junta formally designated the opposition National Unity Government (NUG), its parliamentary committee, and their offshoot militias as “terrorist groups” for alleged acts of incitement against the junta, seemingly to justify a broad suppression campaign. The junta said that the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) – composed of members of the majority party from the 2020 elections of the national parliament – and the NUG “constantly incited Civil Disobedience Movement participants to commit violent acts.” The following alleged crimes against humanity should be independently and impartially investigated: Murder Since the February 1 coup, the State Administration Council junta has responded to massive protests with excessive and lethal force. The police and military have killed over 900 people, most of whom were protesters and bystanders in many cities and towns across Myanmar, including Yangon (Hlaing Thayar, North Okkapala, and other townships), Mandalay, Bago, Monywa, and other townships in Sagaing region, Mindat township in Chin state, and other locations. International human rights standards permit law enforcement officials to use lethal force only as a last resort when there is an imminent threat to life. But in numerous cases reported in the media, and by the UN, Human Rights Watch, and other human rights organizations, the security forces fired on demonstrators who were unarmed and posed no apparent threat. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet on April 13 denounced “yet another weekend of coordinated bloodshed in many parts of the country.” She said that “[t]he military seems intent on intensifying its pitiless policy of violence against the people of Myanmar, using military-grade and indiscriminate weaponry.” The UN Human Rights Committee, in its General Comment No. 37 on the right of peaceful assembly, has stated that “[f]irearms are not an appropriate tool for the policing of assemblies, and must never be used simply to disperse an assembly.… [A]ny use of firearms by law enforcement officials in the context of assemblies must be limited to targeted individuals in circumstances in which it is strictly necessary to confront an imminent threat of death or serious injury.” The crime against humanity of murder has been defined by ad hoc international tribunals as “the death of the victim which results from an act or omission by the accused, committed with the intent either to kill or to cause serious bodily harm with the reasonable knowledge that it would likely lead to death.” There have been a number of reports of large-scale shooting of protesters by the security forces. The UN reported that security forces killed 18 people on February 28. On March 3, security forces across the country fired live rounds at protesters, killing at least 38 and wounding more than 100, the UN reported. Killings were also reported in one day in Monywa, Sagaing region; Myingyan and Mandalay, Mandalay region; Salin, Magway region; and Mawlamyine, Mon state, according to media reports and local analysts. Human Rights Watch investigated incidents in which security personnel appeared to deliberately kill individuals. On March 3 in Yangon, at least 10 security force personnel were captured on video pushing a man ahead of a group of detainees and then fatally shooting him in the back at close range. Medical doctors told Human Rights Watch that security forces prevented them from reaching wounded protesters, some of whom died from blood loss. Doctors working in mobile clinics during protests said security forces used live rounds interspersed with rubber bullets and that many of the fatal injuries were from bullet wounds to the upper body. On March 13, the authorities killed at least nine protesters, including five in the Sein Pan area of Mandalay, when security forces reportedly shot into a crowd. On March 14 in Hlaing Thayar township, Yangon, security forces killed an estimated 58 people. On March 17, police pursuing protesters forced their way into Sandar Linn Shein’s family home in Bayintnaung, Mayangone township. She said they accused the family of sheltering protesters and began shooting indiscriminately, killing her older sister instantly and wounding her older brother in the chest and then arresting him. On March 27, Armed Forces Day, the day after the MRTV news channel announced that demonstrators “should learn from the tragedy of earlier ugly deaths that you can be in danger of getting shot to the head and back,” security forces carried out violent crackdowns on protesters in at least 40 towns and cities, killing dozens, Fortify Rights reported: “Eyewitness photographs and videos filmed [on March 27] show dead bodies, including children, and soldiers firing weapons street-level, dragging lifeless victims away, and brutally beating people.” In one case, security forces shot and wounded Aye Ko during a night raid in Mandalay. Local media reported that security forces dragged him away and then set him on fire. Residents said soldiers threatened to shoot anyone who tried to help him. In a another widely publicized incident on March 27, a video shows soldiers shooting and killing Kyaw Min Latt at close range as he drove by them on a motorcycle. On April 9, military personnel killed an estimated 82 people in Bago in a dawn assault on protesters’ barricades and encampments, according to media reports. On May 26, the Associated Press, in conjunction with the Human Rights Center Investigations Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, published an extensive and detailed report documenting killings. The AP and Human Rights Center alleged that the junta was using the killings, including by dragging bodies through the streets and returning mutilated corpses to families, to terrorize the population into ending the protests. They identified more than 130 instances in which “security forces appeared to be using corpses and the bodies of the wounded to create anxiety, uncertainty, and strike fear in the civilian population.” Enforced Disappearances Since the coup, Myanmar authorities have taken into custody and forcibly disappeared more than 100 politicians, election officials, journalists, activists, and protesters, and refused to confirm their location in violation of international law. Enforced disappearances are defined in the ICC statute as the arrest or detention of someone by the state or their agents followed by a refusal to acknowledge that deprivation of freedom or to give information on the fate or whereabouts of the person, with the intention of “removing them from the protection of the law for a prolonged period of time.” Family members and friends of arrested anti-junta protesters told Human Rights Watch that not knowing where the person was being held heightened concerns about their safety and well-being. In many cases, families only received information informally about the location of their family member, such as when newly released detainees notified others that they had seen another person who had been detained. Some families believe that because a prison accepts a package for their family member, it is most likely the place where their relative is being held. However, there is no factual basis for this conclusion, and it does not relieve the authorities of their obligation to provide information on a detainee’s whereabouts, produce a detainee in court within 48 hours as provided by Myanmar law, and promptly allow access to counsel and family members. Torture Many of those detained for taking part in pro-democracy demonstrations said after their release that that security personnel tortured and otherwise ill-treated them and others in custody. Methods of torture reported include beatings, mock executions with guns, burning with cigarettes, and rape and threatened rape. While torture by police in criminal cases has long been a problem in Myanmar, coup opponents taken into custody have been at risk of routine beatings, torture, and gender-based violence, indicating that the mistreatment has been part of junta efforts to suppress the political opposition. One 19-year-old man told the media that on April 9 he was taken to a military compound on the outskirts of Bago after a deadly day of protests. He said the security forces used cables, the butts of guns, and bottles to beat him on his hands. “The commander tied my hands from the back and used small scissors to cut my ears, the tip of my nose, my neck and my throat,” he said. “[He] hit my head with a glass bottle, beat me up, pointed at me with guns but the bullets did not come out.” Protesters in Myeik, Tanintharyi region, said after their release that on March 9, security force members beat about 70 protesters detained during demonstrations with belts, rifles butts, pipes, wooden sticks, and chains. On April 19, the junta created a public outcry when it aired on MRTV the images of six young detainees who bore marks of torture suffered while they were detained. A 17-year-old boy told Human Rights Watch that he had been beaten for days while blindfolded, then forced into a pit and buried up to his neck in a mock burial. He said he and others arrested with him were denied food and water for four days and drank toilet water to survive. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) said that since the coup, at least 22 people have been tortured to death during custody. Human Rights Watch investigated the case of Khin Maung Latt, 58, a ward chairman in Pabedan township in downtown Yangon. On the evening of March 6, witnesses saw soldiers and police forcibly enter Khin Maung Latt’s home, beat and kick him in front of his family, and then take him away at gunpoint. The next morning, after notification by the authorities, Khin Maung Latt’s family recovered his body from a hospital. The body had severe wounds to the hands and back and was covered in a bloody shroud, a witness said. Rape and Other Sexual Violence The UN special representative of the secretary-general on sexual violence, Pramila Patten, condemned alleged sexual violence by the Myanmar authorities. She called for an end to the abuses and for unimpeded access for an independent investigation. In a June 25 statement she said: "Night raids, arbitrary arrests, sieges of townships and neighborhoods, torture and deaths in detention, attacks on locations and sites where civilians are gathered or have fled, and reports of sexual violence in detention sites, particularly sexual assault, torture, physical and verbal abuse, and intimidation, have become an alarming feature of daily life." Mary Lawlor, the special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, noted in a July 19 statement on Myanmar that “[w]omen human rights defenders are particularly at risk in remote rural areas and are often beaten and kicked before being sent to prison where they can face torture and sexual violence with no medical care provided.” The opposition National Unity Government reported that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people have been particularly vulnerable to sexual violence in custody. One transgender woman recounted after her release that she was raped in custody with an object, tortured, and severely beaten. Human Rights Watch investigated the case of a woman whom the police arrested on April 17 and accused of involvement in a series of bomb attacks against security forces in Yangon. Local media reported that police in Yankin township severely beat the woman, including on her genitals, causing vaginal bleeding, during interrogation at the police station. They beat her again at an interrogation center in Shwe Pyi Thar township, making it difficult for her to eat or urinate. Her cellmate said she herself was molested, threatened with a gun, and slapped during interrogation at another police precinct in Sanchaung township. On March 3 in Yangon, the authorities arrested two journalists, Han Thar Nyein and Nathan Maung, during a raid of their Kamayut Media office. Nathan Maung, who has been released, said the police beat them for days at an interrogation center and that Han Thar Nyein, who is now in Insein prison, was also burned with cigarettes and threatened with rape. Imprisonment or Other Severe Deprivation of Liberty in Violation of International Law On February 1, the military arrested State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, President Win Myint, and several dozen other senior officials in early morning raids in the capital, Naypyidaw. They remain in detention. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) has reported that since the coup, security forces have arrested 6,990 people, of whom 5,442 remain detained. In some instances, security forces have arrested and detained family members and friends of activists, protesters, and opposition members as a form of collective punishment. The AAPP said that at least 119 people, including an infant, have been arrested during raids when security forces were unable to find the person they sought to arrest. At least 83 of them remain in detention and some family members have been sentenced to prison terms. The junta has particularly targeted members of the media for arrest. Since February 1, the authorities have arrested 98 journalists, 46 of whom are currently in detention, according to the AAPP. Six journalists have been convicted, including five for violating section 505A of the penal code, a new provision that makes it a criminal offense punishable by up to three years in prison to publish or circulate comments that “cause fear” or spread vaguely defined “false news.” Other Inhumane Acts Causing Great Suffering or Serious Injury The junta has harassed, arbitrarily arrested, and attacked medical professionals, sometimes as they treated injured protesters. Many healthcare workers were early leaders of the opposition Civil Disobedience Movement and refused to work in government hospitals as a form of protest. Since the coup at least 260 healthcare workers have been attacked while trying to administer medical aid, and 18 killed. The AAPP said 76 remain in detention and up to 600 medical professionals have outstanding arrest warrants against them. Many have been forced to work underground in makeshift mobile clinics or have gone into hiding to evade arrest. The UN Country Team in Myanmar has said that the attacks on medical workers have jeopardized the Covid-19 response. CCTV footage released online shows at least six police officers removing three workers from an ambulance of the Mon Myat Seik Htar (MMSH) volunteer rescue team, then beating the workers with their guns and batons and kicking them. The MMSH volunteers were subsequently arrested and released on March 24, Myanmar Now reported.

© 2021 RUDAW 27-06-2021 Khazan Jangiz Iraq Federal Supreme Court rejects Kurdish attempts to establish court for ISIS crimes © Image Credit: AFP in https://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/270620212 ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court has rejected calls to establish a criminal court in Erbil to try Islamic State (ISIS) suspects, the Kurdistan Region’s Ministry of Justice said on Sunday. “After the Kurdistan Region of Iraq called for the establishment of a special court for Daesh [ISIS] crimes, the request has been denied by the Iraqi federal court,” the ministry said in a statement. "It’s been two years the Kurdistan Region prepared and worked on several documents on the crimes of Daesh terrorists," the statement quoted the Minister of Justice of the Kurdistan Region, Firsat Ahmed, as saying. "We will review the decision of the Federal Court and we will have our own response with the relevant parties.” The statement added that the desired court was to specialize in ISIS crimes, but not act as a special court in itself. Ministry advisor Krmanj Osman told Rudaw on Sunday that Baghdad’s reasoning “has to do with the sovereignty of Iraq.” “The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) can’t employ non-Iraqi judges and public prosecutors,” he said. A June 13 statement from the Federal Supreme Court of Iraq, obtained by Rudaw, states the draft legislation from the KRG included “authority to appoint non-Iraqi judges and prosecutors and the authority to impose death penalty in addition to its jurisdiction over Iraqi citizens and foreigners.” According to Article 95 of the Iraqi constitution, the establishment of a “special or extraordinary court is prohibited.” In late April, Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani announced that his cabinet has approved draft legislation to establish a criminal court in Erbil to try ISIS suspects, calling on parliament to prioritize and pass it as soon as possible. Barzani called on UNITAD, the United Nations Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Daesh, and the international community to “increase judicial support and training in the preparation for the first public trial. In this legislation, members of the international community are also called upon to provide assistance and contribute towards a fund in support of the victims.” The aim was “to hold ISIS accountable for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide,” he added. Trials of ISIS suspects are conducted under Iraqi anti-terrorism law. In a January report on ISIS trials and the justice administration of Iraq, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said that “International crimes are not codified as such by Iraqi law. Iraqi courts thus do not have jurisdiction over the crime of genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity committed within its territory. Iraq is not signatory to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.” The report added that their prosecution under the anti-terrorism law “focused on ‘membership’ of a terrorist organization without sufficiently distinguishing between those who participated in serious crimes and those who joined ISIL out of perceived necessities of survival or under coercion.” Iraq has already come under fire for its prosecution of suspected ISIS members. International concern has been expressed about the trial and detention conditions of ISIS suspects in Iraq, including the use of the death penalty sentencing for both Iraqi and foreign nationals convicted of ISIS involvement, the use of violence and torture in prisons, and the overcrowding of Iraqi facilities holding ISIS suspects and their kin. The Iraqi High Criminal Court, which was established to prosecute Saddam Hussein and other Baathists, also provoked worldwide debate over its tribunal process in respect of human rights and a just trial, and was criticized for the lack of non-Iraqi lawyers at the tribunals. “The legislation the KRG has put forward is for international crimes. Those who have been convicted in Kurdistan [Region] in the past year were convicted on the basis of the anti-terrorism law. Terrorism is different from international crimes,” the KRG’s International Advocacy Coordinator Dindar Zebari told Rudaw English on Sunday. “For the future, if the legislation is passed, then those who will be brought to court will be brought on the basis of the international crimes, not terrorism crimes. There’s a big difference,” he added. ISIS prisoners in Iraq are being sentenced according to Article Four of the 2005 Counter-Terrorism Law, which says anyone found guilty of committing a terror offense is given the death sentence, with life imprisonment given to those who assist or hide those convicted of terrorism. Erbil and Baghdad have detained thousands of ISIS suspects, while hundreds have been executed. A large number of these suspects are foreigners. Iraqi and Kurdish officials have warned several times recently that the group still poses a threat. At least 41,049 people are imprisoned in Iraq, including 22,380 convicted on terror-related charges, according to a document obtained by Rudaw on January 17 from the Ministry of Justice's Iraqi Reform Department. Several terror convicts have been hanged in recent months. ISIS controlled swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014, displacing millions of people and subjecting many more to their brutal reign. They also killed and abducted thousands, especially members of the ethno-religious Yazidi community.. Zebari said in November that almost 450 ISIS prisoners are held in Kurdistan Region prisons, but that 48 suspects were released “owing to a lack of evidence.” Almost 400 were tried and sentenced. The number now stands at over 300 prisoners, he said on Sunday. Additional reporting by Hemin Baban Rahim © 2021 RUDAW

© 2021 Free Yezidi Foundation © Image Credit: Rodi Said/Reuters in https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/17/world/middleeast/isis-genocide-yazidi-un.html FYF Statement: Seven-Year Commemoration of the Yezidi Genocide 3 August 2021 Every year on August 3rd the Yezidi community mourns those we have lost, remembers those who are missing, and seeks solutions for a brighter future. The Free Yezidi Foundation highlights the following issues this year in consideration of community-wide recovery and growth. These topics should be addressed as Yezidi, Iraqi, and international stakeholders consider the well-being and the next steps for our vulnerable community. Cosmetic solutions will not resolve long-standing challenges facing our people. Serious action is required if Yezidi families are to live safely in Iraq. This year FYF is highlighting the following six subjects: - Bring back Our Women and Girls! - Just Implementation of the Sinjar Agreement - Equal Opportunity for Yezidis - The Yezidi Survivors' Law - Better Conditions for IDPs - Justice & Accountability You can access our full statement by clicking here. Finally, a reminder that you can still register to join FYF's 2-3 August virtual commemoration event. Registration is below and panel details are available on the FYF website. CLICK HERE TO REGISTER Thank you for your solidarity with the Yezidi community. Sincerely, Pari Ibrahim Executive Director Free Yezidi Foundation © 2021 Free Yezidi Foundation

© 2021 The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 28, 2021 USCIRF Praises Additional Humanitarian Assistance to Iraqis Displaced by ISIS Washington, DC – The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) applauded the United States Department of State’s announcement to provide an additional $155 million in humanitarian assistance for Iraq, contributing a total of over $200 million for fiscal year 2021. The aid will support Iraqis who were displaced by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), including several religious minority communities. “USCIRF is wholeheartedly pleased to see that the State Department will be providing this critical funding for the victims of ISIS in Iraq. It will play a crucial role in assisting those impacted by war and genocide at the hands of ISIS, especially religious and ethnic minority communities, to recover and rebuild.” said USCIRF Chair Nadine Maenza. Almost four years after ISIS was routed from its strongholds, religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq continue to face immense challenges to returning safely to their towns and homes from internally displaced persons (IDP) and refugee camps. Militia groups, such as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), patrol checkpoints and demand that IDPs and refugees, especially religious minorities, pay excessive amounts of money to cross or risk being sent back to the camps. “The State Department’s announcement is a positive development for many religious communities in Iraq,” USCIRF Commissioner Anurima Bhargava added. “We call on both the U.S. government and the Iraqi government to ensure that these funds are used properly to assist the communities in need through an effective and transparent disbursement mechanism.” In its 2021 Annual Report, USCIRF recommended that the U.S. government continue to provide financial and technical assistance to Iraqi religious and ethnic minorities to stabilize and rebuild their communities. Last year, USCIRF released a policy update on Protecting Religious Minorities in Northern Iraq. ### The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is an independent, bipartisan federal government entity established by the U.S. Congress to monitor, analyze, and report on religious freedom abroad. USCIRF makes foreign policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and Congress intended to deter religious persecution and promote freedom of religion and belief. To interview a Commissioner, please contact USCIRF at media@uscirf.gov. © 2021 The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom

Investigate Officials and Security Forces; End Killings, Other Abuses in Warrap State H.E. President Salva Kiir Mayardit and the newly appointed Governor of Warrap State Hon. Aleu Ayieny Aleu meet for a briefing on February 26, 2021 prior to Aleu's departure for Warrap State to assume his official duties as the Governor. © Presidential Press Unit (Nairobi) – South Sudanese security forces summarily executed at least eight suspected criminals, including two children, as part of their anti-crime campaign in Warrap state, Human Rights watch said today. The executions apparently were carried out on the orders of Governor Aleu Ayieny Aleu. South Sudanese authorities should immediately halt and ensure justice for the unlawful killings, which constitute serious violations of international law. Warrap state, in northern South Sudan, has perennially experienced violence linked to intercommunal conflict and cattle raiding since the country’s independence in 2011. During 2020, there was an escalation in violence against civilians, including killings, sexual violence, and abductions as political elites manipulated local rivalries. President Salva Kiir appointed Governor Aleu in January with a mandate, among other things, to curb violence and crime. “If Governor Aleu authorized summary killings instead of legal proceedings against suspected criminals, he is abusing his power and undermining the rule of law,” said Nyagoah Tut Pur, South Sudan researcher at Human Rights Watch. “President Kiir should ensure credible and transparent investigations into these serious violations of the right to life, bring those responsible to account and ensure compensation for the victims’ families.” Between June 4 and June 25, 2021, Human Rights Watch interviewed eight witnesses and relatives of victims of state security forces’ violations in Warrap state, as well as seven lawyers, activists, and journalists with knowledge of the killings. Interviews were conducted by telephone and secure messaging applications in English and, using an interpreter, in Thuuk Muonyjang (Dinka/Jieng dialect). Human Rights Watch also reviewed reports by the United Nations, community groups, and the local media as well as videos posted on social media platforms. Credible sources informed Human Rights Watch that, between April and June, on the governor’s orders, security forces executed at least 21 people accused of murder, theft, and other offenses, including in the towns of Kuajok, Romic, Alabek, Twic, Aliek, and Warrap. Human Rights Watch verified eight killings in Kuajok and Nyang Akoch. The UN Mission in South Sudan also documented executions of 29 males in the state, including boys and elderly men. Map of South Sudan © Human Rights Watch Government and media sources said that after becoming governor, Aleu toured Warrap state for months, meeting with community members, state and county authorities, and security forces, as part of his security, peace, and reconciliation strategy. He however encouraged violence in some instances. A YouTube video posted on March 10 shows Governor Aleu, in military fatigues, briefing a new army battalion known as the “Tuek Tuek” in Tonj North County briefing them on his security strategy and encouraging violence. “What will you do when there are thieves and criminals killing people and stealing their property?” he said, addressing the soldiers in Thuuk Muonyjang.“Just like tuek tuek[a woodpecker] cuts into trees, you can do the same to a human and know you will all be promoted...Are you going to fail in your mission?” Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that local authorities in Nyang Akoch village, in Tonj North, detained four people between April 6 and 11. Six witnesses said that the governor visited the village on April 11, along with security forces, arrested a fifth person, and ordered the execution of all five by firing squad. The victims were two boys, ages 14 and 17, andthree men. “The governor came in the morning with many soldiers, and we saw our children being thrown up in the car with soldiers chasing people away and making noise,” said a family member of one victim. Three witnesses to the executions told the victims’ relatives that their loved ones were shot in a place called Keet. In a move to silence criticism, the governor is pursuing criminal defamation charges against a lawyer originally from the region who spoke about the executions on Voice of America. On April 26, in Kuajok, the state capital, soldiers executed by firing squad three men accused of murdering a woman and injuring her child. Witnesses, as well as a local official who was not authorized to speak on the record, said that the three had confessed and that community members and traditional chiefs demanded the killings to calm tensions and prevent violence between the communities of the alleged killers and victims. Governor Aleu, who had opened a local peace conference that day, gave permission for the killings based on the community’s demands, a local official said. Human Rights Watch also reviewed Facebook posts showing that the governor opened the meeting on April 26and hosted a farewell gathering for chiefs there on April 28. Customary chiefs govern at local levels, including with customary courts, acting as intermediaries between the national government and communities. Chiefs have the authority to make arrests but must hand suspects over to the police “without unnecessary delay,” and national law enforcement generally carry out the chiefs’ and their courts’ decisions on petty criminal and civil matters. However, customary chiefs have no legal authority over murder cases and the proceedings and judgments from customary courts routinely contradict human rights principles. By allowing customary authorities to sanction killings, the state authorities are violating domestic criminal laws and international human rights law, ranging from the rights to a fair trial and due process, to their right to life. On July 19 Human Rights Watch shared a written summary of research findings with Governor Aleu and requested government response. The government did not respond. In July 2020 President Kiir warned newly appointed governors that he would fire them if they did not address violence in their states. Kiir has since dismissed the governor of Lakes state and the chief administrator for Ruweng administrative area. Human Rights Watch believes this pressure may have contributed to Warrap authorities’ heavy-handed methods. Government and UN sources said that the limited capacity of the state police and judiciary contributes to the Warrap governor’s hard line and abusive approach. The government sources noted that the local police are poorly resourced and frequently outgunned by armed civilians. Kiir should mandate that anti-crime campaigns respect human rights and publicly announce that human rights violators will be held accountable. South Sudanese authorities, with international assistance and cooperation as necessary, should develop the police and judiciary’s ability to deal effectively with intercommunal violence, other crimes, and their punishment. “These killings have occurred within a context of systemic abuses –committed with impunity –by security forces,” Pur said. “President Kiir needs to end these abuses and give South Sudanese reason to believe that, after 10 years of independence, they will finally live by the rule of law.” For further details about the executions, see: https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/07/29/south-sudan-summary-executions-north © 2021 Human Rights Watch

Among the dead are a teenage rape victim and two infants, the Institute of Chin Affairs said. People pray during the burial of a boy who was killed after accidentally handling an explosive device in Chin state, May 20, 2021. Troops loyal to Myanmar’s junta have killed more than 80 ethnic Chins in the country since the military took power in a Feb. 1 coup, including two infants and a 15-year-old rape victim, a Chin watchdog group said Tuesday. The military killed at least 51 ethnic Chin in Chin state, two in Kachin state, 23 in Sagaing region, one in Mandalay, one in Yangon, and three in Magwe region, according to a statement issued by the Institute of Chin Affairs (ICA)—an entity formed by several Chin civil society organizations together with activists from the pro-democracy 88 Generation Students group in Sweden. Among the 81 victims were five women and 10 children, ICA added, noting that its sample included data on deaths up to July 3. All the deaths occurred while troops responded violently to peaceful demonstrations against the junta takeover or conducted military operations as part of an offensive against People’s Defense Force (PDF) militias in rural villages, the group said. Some of the victims also died as the result of indiscriminate bombing and air attacks, it said. “The ICA is gravely concerned about the high numbers of ethnic Chin civilians being killed by [junta] forces, particularly noting the Chin people are relatively less in population as compared to other ethnic groups in Myanmar,” the statement said. “Therefore, the ICA urges the [junta] to immediately stop killing innocent people, particularly women and children, and to refrain from indiscriminate bombings and heavy explosive weapons against the civilian population.” The ICA also called for “increased unity among the resistance organizations” and “international action” to be taken against the military regime. According to the ICA, the death toll included a 15-year-old girl in Sagaing’s Kalay townhip named Mary Magdalene who was raped by a soldier on May 1, as well as six-day-old and one-month-old infants who died in May and June during fighting between the military and the PDF. Others included an 18-year-old named Do Swin Kim who was shot in the head while taking part in an anti-coup demonstration in Kalay on March 17, and two men from Chin state’s Hakha township named Cam Mwe and Tel Lein, who were tortured to death on May 9 after being accused of having ties with the Chin Defense Force (CDF) militia. A CDF representative recently told RFA’s Myanmar Service that three of the group’s fighters were killed in fighting in Chin state’s Mindat township on July 21, while the son of a health worker in the township was shot dead by troops the following day, bringing the total number of Chin dead since the coup to at least 85. Ethnic group targeted Myanmar’s military seized power on Feb. 1 in a coup d’état, arresting former State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and other top members of the deposed National League for Democracy (NLD) leadership for allegedly rigging the country’s November 2020 general election. The junta has provided no evidence to back up its claims of voter fraud and has violently responded to widespread protests, killing 934 people and arresting 5,382, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP). Amid nationwide turmoil, the military has stepped up offensives in remote parts of the country of 54 million that have led to fierce battles with several local militias. The CDF is a network of volunteers that formed in April to protect the people of Chin and has enjoyed relative success facing the military—the second largest in Southeast Asia—with slingshots and the same crude flintlock “Tumee” rifles their forefathers used to fight off British colonizers in the 1880s. The CDF said it had killed some 100 junta troops between March and May. Fighters of the CDF were engaged in daily battles from May 12 until May 15, when the junta occupied Mindat with 1,000 fully armed troops who used civilians as human shields and sprayed gunfire indiscriminately, the CHRO said recently. The CDF pulled out May 16 to protect civilians from further artillery attacks and fire from helicopter gunships, Chin fighters have said, but fighting resumed on June 3 and both sides have suffered casualties. The Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO) estimates that some 40,000 civilians have fled their homes throughout Chin state since May. Last month, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet warned that any escalation in violence in Myanmar must be halted to prevent even greater loss of life and a deepening humanitarian emergency, specifically referring to “areas with significant ethnic and religious minority groups.” Youths killed According to the ICA, most of the ethnic Chin killed by the junta since February were in their 20s and many were under the age of 18. A resident of Chin state’s Tedim township, where a 10-year-old boy documented by the ICA was killed by a roadside explosion on May 18, told RFA that the deaths of Chin youths are particularly difficult to endure. “They should be going to school at this age—some might have got college degrees, while others would have found good jobs,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal. “If the military hadn’t seized power, our country would have been able to live in peace. Our young people increasingly have the chance to access a good education. But now, many youths are dead as a result of the coup.” Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

By Timothy McLaughlin | The Atlantic July 27, 2021 The conviction of a pro-democracy activist is a watershed moment. Getty; The Atlantic Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Times. For 15 days this month, prosecutors and defense lawyers in a Hong Kong courtroom wrangled over the history and parsed words in this phrase. The back-and-forth included numerous forays into the obscure in an attempt to pinpoint the exact meaning of the slogan, created five years ago and popularized during 2019’s pro-democracy protests. There were diversions into ancient Chinese history and poetry; the former nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek made a cameo, as did the American civil-rights leader Malcolm X. The crux of the argument: Could these seven words transform a dangerous-driving incident more than a year ago into an act of terrorism and secession? Today, a panel of judges said emphatically that they could and they had. It found Tong Ying-kit, the first person to face trial under the national-security law imposed by Beijing last year, guilty of terrorism and inciting secession. The motorcycle that Tong, a 24-year-old former waiter, was driving crashed into riot police on July 1, 2020, during a demonstration against the national-security law. A black flag bearing the popular protest mantra flew off the back of his bike when the crash occurred. Tong’s actions caused “great harm to society,” Esther Toh, one of the judges hearing the case, told the court. The protest banner attached to his motorcycle was intended “to incite others to commit secession by separating” Hong Kong from mainland China, according to the judges’ ruling. Tong will be sentenced at a later date. He faces the possibility of life in prison. The ruling is one of the most significant in Hong Kong’s recent history, criminalizing one of the most popular slogans from the pro-democracy protests that swept across the city in 2019. It sets a precedent that the mere uttering of any phrase or singing of any song that irks the government can now be deemed as among the most grievous of crimes in Hong Kong—a precedent that can, and most likely will, be used against the dozens of government critics sitting in the city’s jails, awaiting their day in court for allegedly violating the security law. The verdict “simply marks the end of free speech in Hong Kong, as a pure expression of politically dissenting opinion can be punished for inciting secession,” Eric Yan-ho Lai, the Hong Kong law fellow at the Georgetown Center for Asian Law, told me shortly after the verdict was announced. “Undoubtedly, the verdict aligns with the government narratives on the slogan and thus criminalized anti-government speech.” Tong’s conviction is just the latest development, and one of the most serious, in an unrelenting campaign by Beijing and its loyalists in Hong Kong to stamp out the faintest inkling of dissent in the city. Even before the verdict was handed down, “Tong’s case set a dangerous precedent,” Lai said. He pointed to the fact that the case was heard not by a jury but by a panel of three judges handpicked by the city’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, and that Tong was held in pretrial detention for more than a year. Lam has made national security the primary focus of her government’s work, and she mentions it in nearly all of her remarks. At times, this obsessiveness bleeds into the absurd. Days before Tong was sentenced, five speech therapists were arrested on sedition charges. Their alleged crime: publishing children’s books featuring cartoon wolves and sheep to tell the story of the city’s 2019 protests. (Cute, anthropomorphic illustrations are, apparently, a persistent threat to Hong Kong’s stability. National-security police separately swarmed a store known for its products with cartoon animal prints that contain nods to the pro-democracy movement, but made no arrests after searching the premises.) The Hong Kong Police Force, largely allowed to act with impunity during the sometimes violent protests, has been granted seemingly unlimited and unchecked power. The former police commissioner who oversaw the crackdown on demonstrators in 2019 was promoted to secretary of home affairs last month. The home-affairs secretary, also a former police officer, rose to the rank of chief secretary, the second-highest-ranking official in Hong Kong’s government. Under sweeping electoral changes implemented earlier this year, the two will have a role in vetting candidates who wish to stand in future elections to ensure that they are patriotic enough, giving them unprecedented control over who can enter the political establishment. After these promotions were met with concern from some quarters, Alice Mak, a pro-Beijing lawmaker, wondered aloud why anyone was concerned. “If it’s a police state, why not?” she asked last month. “I don’t think there’s any problem with a police state.” Much of Tong’s trial focused on the phrase “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times,” which was used by the political activist Edward Leung during his 2016 campaign for a seat in the Hong Kong legislature. Leung, who was jailed in 2018, became a symbol for many young protesters during the 2019 demonstrations. He was hailed by his followers as having predicted Beijing’s crackdown and for advocating for more radical protest tactics. Prosecutors relied heavily on the expertise of Lau Chi-pang, a pro-Beijing history professor at Lingnan University, in Hong Kong, who drew on Chinese history to argue that the meaning of some words within the slogan had remained unchanged for more than 1,000 years and advocated for overthrowing the government. The defense called two professors; Francis Lee, of the journalism school at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, who carried out research during the protests, said that the slogan could have numerous meanings. The three judges, however, wrote that this argument did not rule out that secession could be one of the meanings. Baggio Leung, a former pro-democracy lawmaker who helped create the slogan, told me it was hatched late at night during a brainstorming session on the balcony of Edward Leung’s office in January 2016. Edward’s original idea was too wordy and complicated for a campaign, so four young activists set about coming up with something snappier and less erudite that would catch people’s attention. Fueled by cigarettes and Chardonnay, Baggio said, the four settled on “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times.” In 2019, as protests that began in opposition to a proposed extradition bill morphed into far larger calls for democracy and universal suffrage, the slogan became ubiquitous. It was chanted at demonstrations and printed on banners and stickers. Edward Leung’s image was stenciled onto streets and emblazoned on flags. Baggio Leung, who now lives in exile in the United States and is not related to Edward, told me he was amused by expert witnesses called by both the prosecution and defense, as well as lawyers attempting to dissect words thought up late at night by a group of friends. The slogan was meant to be eye-catching and had nothing to do with separating Hong Kong from China, he said. “They keep asking other people to interpret what it means, but to do this is meaningless,” Leung told me. “Everyone in their heart has their own understanding of it. Who are they to make a comment on how others think about this slogan?” Tong’s terrorism charge centered on the driving of his red-, orange-, and white-striped sportsbike. His lawyer argued that Tong’s dangerous driving did not amount to terrorism, but the judges were unconvinced. His actions, they wrote, were a “deliberate challenge mounted against the police, a symbol of Hong Kong’s law and order,” and he “carried out those acts with a view to intimidating the public in order to pursue [a] political agenda.” The verdict will no doubt be welcomed by Beijing and its Hong Kong loyalists, who have unquestioningly fallen in line with their new marching orders and repeat unwaveringly that the national-security law has greatly improved the city. At the same time, they have attempted to spin the law’s impact, saying that freedom of speech remains unharmed in Hong Kong and that there is room for an opposition camp, even though the majority of its most popular figures are in jail or exile. That the rule of law in the city remains solid is their popular refrain, but their critics say rule by law is now more apt. Lau Siu-kai, the vice president of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, a semiofficial advisory body set up by Beijing, struck a triumphant tone earlier this month in the state-backed China Daily newspaper. The national-security law “has devastated the political opposition in Hong Kong,” he wrote. “The space of operation of the opposition has shrunken drastically, putting their long-term survival at serious risk.” © 2021 The Atlantic

27 July 2021 | By Jeremy Herb and Phil Mattingly Tragic death of translator highlights plight of allies left behind in Afghanistan (see full video here: https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/26/politics/afghanistan-visas-white-house-funding/index.html ) (CNN) The Biden administration has informed lawmakers it will need roughly $1 billion in emergency funds as it moves to quickly evacuate Afghan translators and other personnel who worked with the US military and are trying to leave the country, according to multiple officials familiar with the matter. The administration has not submitted a formal request but did provide briefings in a series of conversations on Friday about securing the additional funds for the State and Defense department efforts to expand and streamline the Afghan special immigrant visa program. The White House outlined the need for $500 million for the State Department and up to $500 million for the Department of Defense, according to a committee aide. A senior administration official did not weigh in directly on the likely request but said the White House is "working closely with both sides of the aisle on how we can further support those brave Afghans who have supported our work in Afghanistan." The push for additional funds comes as lawmakers in both parties have ramped up the pressure on the White House to move quickly to address the thousands of Afghans and their families who face imminent danger amid Taliban advances as the US departs the country. The request has bipartisan support -- and could be included in a security supplemental funding package that is being negotiated on Capitol Hill, the sources said. In this June 25, 2021, photo, former Afghan interpreters hold placards during a demonstration against the US government, in front of the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. The Biden administration says it will evacuate about 2,500 Afghans who worked for the US government and their families to a military base in Virginia pending approval of their visas. There's been an acute rise in civilian casualties in Afghanistan since May, according to data from the UN's Assistance Mission to Afghanistan. The rise coincides with international military forces beginning their withdrawal from the country, following President Joe Biden's April announcement of US troops' drawdown. In some of its most forceful comments to date, the State Department on Friday condemned "recent reports of violence and atrocities against interpreters and other Afghans" by the Taliban and called on the militant group's leadership to both "condemn these atrocities and violations of basic rights" and "proactively prevent their forces from carrying out these actions on the ground." Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, told reporters that negotiators are "really close" on a deal for the overall funding package, which is primarily designed to direct funds to secure the US Capitol complex in the wake of the January 6 attack. The Biden administration last week announced that the first group of applicants would be relocated from Afghanistan to Fort Lee in Virginia, and US officials are in talks with additional countries to host Afghans in the pipeline. State Department spokesman Ned Price said the initial tranche is estimated to comprise 2,500 people -- 700 applicants and their immediate family members. The initial group that is being relocated is a small portion of the overall number of roughly 20,000 Afghans who are in the Special Immigrant Visa pipeline. About half of those 20,000 are in the very preliminary stages of the process and need to take action before the US government can begin processing their cases, a State Department spokesperson said this month. Other Afghan applicants who are further along in the process but have not been approved will go to US military bases overseas or to third countries. The administration has not publicly announced agreements with possible third countries at this point. © 2021 Cable News Network.A Warner Media Company. All Rights Reserved.CNN Sans ™ & © 2016 Cable News Network.