Supreme Court confirms 25-year prison sentence against former Santa Fe provincial policeman Mario Alfredo 'Cura' Marcote, one of the torturers of current Buenos Aires Province Health Minister Daniel Gollán during the military dictatorship. BUENOS AIRES PROVINCE HEALTH MINISTER DANIEL GOLLÁN. | NA The Supreme Court on Monday confirmed a 25-year prison sentence against former Santa Fe provincial policeman Mario Alfredo Marcote, one of the torturers of current Buenos Aires Province Health Minister Daniel Gollán during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship. Marcote, nicknamed “el cura” (“the priest”) due to the massive crucifix he wore around his neck at all times, worked at a clandestine detention centre operating out of Santa Fe provincial police headquarters between 1976 and 1979. He has already been convicted in various trials for multiple crimes against humanity, including the rape of women who subsequently went missing. According to witness testimony, Marcote was quoted as telling the hundreds of political prisoners held in the detention centre that “he was going to kill them all.” Justices Carlos Rosenkrantz, Elena Highton de Nolasco, Juan Carlos Maqueda, Ricardo Lorenzetti and Horacio Rosatti unanimously knocked back Marcote’s extraordinary challenge as “inadmisible,” upholding his 25-year prison sentence for “illegal arrests … violent threats and tortures applied against those persecuted for political reasons.” A medical student in Rosario, Gollán was a Peronist University Youth militant when he was abducted together with his brother, Juan José, in the small hours of July 27, 1976, being snatched from their beds and taken to the Information Service police department headed by Marcote where they were “savagely tortured.” According to Gollán’s trial testimony, at the time of his arrest “one of them stuck a pistol in my mouth and asked: ‘Is this the one?’, hearing them reply: ‘He’s not the one but messes around in the same things.’ My elder brother and I were taken in the boot of a car to a building which I guessed to be police headquarters. We were taken down a staircase to a place where we were blindfolded, whereupon our interrogation began via tortures of every kind.” The minister described these singularly cruel tortures as being tossed up in the air and allowed to fall to the ground and beaten up together with picana cattle prods and sub-marine immersion, along with other acts of torture. Gollán, who served a nine-month term as national health minister in 2015, was held incommunicado for two months at the police headquarters before being transferred on September 30 to Coronda prison (also in the province of Santa Fe) where he remained until May 21, 1979. He was then sent to Caseros prison in the national capital prior to his release on August 12, 1980, when he was forced into exile. © 2006-2021 Perfil.com

Assad and his regime may never be prosecuted for the acts of terror he perpetrated against his own people during Syria's civil war. Scott Pelley reports on the effort to gather and maintain the evidence against Assad. If you have children watching 60 Minutes tonight, that's usually a good thing, but this story is not for them. The images you are about to see are the honest evidence of the greatest war crimes of the 21st century. As we reported last winter, President Biden and his national security team face a horror that erupted when many of them were in the Obama administration. Last March brought the 10th anniversary of the popular uprising that began Syria's civil war. The Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad, has gassed the innocent, bombed hospitals and schools, and made thousands disappear. The evidence is hard to watch but it should be seen. Many risked their lives to tell this story so that, even if Assad is never arrested, he will be, forever, handcuffed to the truth. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad did this. These are civilians of a Damascus suburb called Ghouta. In 2013, ghouta was held by rebels so the Syrian army shelled the neighborhood with internationally banned nerve gas. 1,400 men, women and children were exterminated. Assad had chosen to meet the popular uprising against him not with diplomacy, not with war among soldiers, but with terrorism without restraint. Stephen Rapp: We have murder, we have extermination, we have torture, we have rape. Stephen Rapp is helping to build cases against Assad and his regime. Rapp prosecuted war crimes in Rwanda and Sierra Leone and served as U.S. ambassador for war crimes issues for six years, until 2015. Scott Pelley: Will there be justice for what's happened in Syria? Stephen Rapp: I'm an optimistic American. I've seen other situations that we thought were pretty hopeless, where nobody thought there'd ever be justice where we succeeded. The possibilities are there and one of the ways that we build toward that is get the solid evidence now. Much of what he calls solid evidence was abandoned in the warzone. More than 900,000 government documents have been smuggled out and archived by the Independent Commission for International Justice and Accountability. The commission is funded, in part, by the U.S. and European Union. Stephen Rapp is the commission's chair. Scott Pelley: Do the documents that have been collected so far lead all the way to President Assad? Stephen Rapp: There's no question they lead all the way to President Assad. I mean, this is a top down, organized effort. There are documents with his name on it. Clearly he organizes this strategy. Then we see orders down through the system to pick people up. We see reports back. We see reports back about well, we've got a real problem here, there are too many corpses stacking up. Among the corpses is Ahmad al-Musalmani, a 14-year-old who was last seen on a bus headed to his mother's funeral. His family told Human Rights Watch that Assad's military stopped the bus and found a protest song on Ahmad's phone. His family next saw his face, two years later, when an image of his tortured body was smuggled out by the man concealed in the blue windbreaker. Caesar: Our job became solely to take photographs of the bodies of dead human beings that had been tortured to death or killed in the different intelligence branches. The photographer's alias is "Caesar." Scott Pelley: He was in the military? We spoke to him with the translation help of Mouaz Moustafa, of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, which works to protect civilians. Caesar had been a military photographer for 13 years. In 2011, he was ordered to make a record at morgues that received the dead from Assad's secret prisons. We added a masking effect because his images are too horrific for television. The reality of what he saw, broke Caesar's allegiance to the regime. To protect Caesar's identity, these are his words in Moustafa's voice. Caesar: It was very clear that they were tortured, not tortured for a day or two, tortured for many, many long months. They were emaciated bodies, purely skeletons. There were people, most of them had their eyes gouged out. There was electrocution, you could tell by the dark spots on their body that was used there. There was utilization of knives and also big cables and belts that was used to beat them. And so, we could see every type of torture on the bodies of these individuals. 'Every type of torture,' but the depravity of the gouged eyes leaves to the imagination how maiming was calculated to coerce information. By 2013, the bodies overflowed the morgues and spilled across a parking garage at a military hospital. Caesar: When I would take photographs, I would think, how can this government be capable of doing this to its own people? I would also have feelings of sadness and anger at what I've seen. And, at the same time, a feeling of fear, that at any single moment, there's no reason that I wouldn't face the very same torture and be photographed later. Scott Pelley: How did you get the photographs out? Caesar: Every single day, I would get on the computer, I would use a flash drive to get all of the photographs that were taken that day, load them onto the flash drive and then in a secret and risky way go out from work and reach a close friend of mine, Sami, who would then take the flash drive and upload the flash drive on a daily basis onto his personal computer. This is Caesar's friend, Sami, also an alias. For more than two years he uploaded the daily flash drive smuggled by Caesar. We interviewed Sami, again, with the help of Mouaz Moustafa. Sami: It was a responsibility upon us, upon Caesar and I, a responsibility to the Syrian people to be able to show them-- prove to them, let them know what has been the fate of their loved ones. I remember I had a neighbor and her son was a friend of mine. I was looking at his photograph in one of the flash drives that Caesar had brought to me that day. And I remember every single day that mother would go back to the intelligence branch asking about her son, asking any information about him. And I couldn't even tell her the truth 'cause we didn't wanna be exposed as we were doing this documentation. Scott Pelley: This is victim 9,700…. Sami: That's right. Sami pointed out the irony of police-state bureaucracy. Arabic numerals which one day may be a treasure for prosecutors. We blurred the numbers to protect the families of the dead. Sami: With each body, there's usually three numbers associated with it written on different parts of their bodies. The first being the number of the detainee, the second is the number of the intelligence branch that tortured that individual to death. And the third number was given by the doctor which was a sequential number signifying which number of dead body he or she was. Scott Pelley: You would think that the regime would wanna hide all of these things. Stephen Rapp: People are basically covering their backside, following the procedures. And people will follow those procedures at peril of getting in trouble. But in the process of doing it, they're creating some of the strongest evidence that any of us who've prosecuted crimes here or elsewhere have ever seen. Scott Pelley: How do we know that Caesar's photographs are authentic, and actually do show what they purport to show? Stephen Rapp: Our own FBI verified the metadata and determined that everything was rock solid, that the whole group of photos represented, real people and real events. The FBI analyzed Caesar's images. In the 242 pictures it sampled, the FBI says the "image files exhibit no artifacts or inconsistencies." One prisoner Caesar did not photograph is this man who goes by the alias, Ali. He was imprisoned because of the place of his birth. Scott Pelley: Where were you born? Ali: In Columbus, Ohio. Scott Pelley: But you moved to Syria as a child? Ali: Correct. Syrian President Bashar Assad In 2012, on a trip from the U.S., Ali flew to Damascus. It was the second year of the war. He never made it out of the airport. His U.S. passport was a ticket to an underground prison. Ali: One of the high-ranked intelligence officers told me, we don't care if you are American. We can kill you. We can keep you detained forever. Three weeks of interrogation seemed like forever. He told us his feet were beaten with plastic pipe until he couldn't stand. Others, he said, were suspended on a wall by handcuffs and doused with boiling water. But the worst for him was a prisoner he never saw. Ali overheard an interrogation—a boy, judging from the screams. Ali: I heard a child between 12 and 13 years old screaming, "Mama. Please help me out from the hell." When he screamed, just after pour water and then I can hear the whipping and hitting by like plastic pipe or like something like that. As capriciously as he was taken, Ali was released to his family who hadn't known for 23 days why he never showed up at baggage claim. Torture is one of many war crimes committed by Bashar al-Assad's regime. In 2017, we visited a bombed hospital. Thousands of medical facilities, schools and neighborhoods have been levelled by Assad and his ally, Russia. Assad has used banned chemical weapons more than 300 times according to an investigation by the Global Public Policy Institute. In all, about a quarter million civilians are dead. 12 million have been forced from their homes. Assad's opposition has committed atrocities too, but the scale cannot be compared. Caesar: I did all of this. I risked my life and the lives of my family, in order to show and to expose to the entire world the true face of this dictatorship of the Assad regime. Stephen Rapp: We've got better evidence-- against Assad and his clique-- than we had against Milosevic in Yugoslavia, or we had in any of the war crimes tribunals in which I've involved in, some extent, even better than we had against the Nazis at Nuremberg, because the Nazis didn't actually take individual pictures of each of their victims with identifying information on them. Scott Pelley: You'd love to go to court-- Stephen Rapp: Oh I'd love that, yeah. This would be a great trial against Assad himself. Trouble is, Assad has nearly won the war. The U.S. and others have imposed sanctions, but most criminals will be safe in Syria. The U.N. tried to refer Syria to the international criminal court but that was vetoed by Russia and China. Scott Pelley: If Assad gets away with impunity, what has the world lost? Stephen Rapp: If the word is that you can commit those crimes, and that you can get away with it, and this is the way that you suppress a popular uprising, then others will do the same thing. The future will be much more dangerous than the past, and a lot of what we built will be destroyed. Already destroyed is what Syrians built over thousands of years. Assad is condemned to be the monarch of all he surveys. His trial may be distant but the witnesses are patient. Blind witnesses, who challenge the world to see, young witnesses for whom time no longer matters. They will wait because a crime buried without justice is never laid to rest. © 2021 CBS Interactive Inc.

By: Alexander Winning and Wendell Roelf Summary: Jailing of ex-president Zuma triggered initial protests Violence has broadened into protest over social injustice More than 40 killed so far in unrest Troops move in to flashpoints to help outnumbered police Shops, warehouses and some COVID-19 vaccine sites shut Members of the military patrol past looted shops as the country deploys army to quell unrest linked to jailing of former President Jacob Zuma, in Soweto, South Africa, July 13, 2021. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko JOHANNESBURG, July 13 (Reuters) - Crowds clashed with police and ransacked or set ablaze shopping malls in cities across South Africa on Tuesday, with dozens of people reported killed, as grievances unleashed by the jailing of ex-president Jacob Zuma boiled over into the worst violence in years. Protests that followed Zuma's arrest last week have widened into looting and an outpouring of general anger over the hardship and inequality that persist 27 years after the end of apartheid. Poverty has been exacerbated by severe social and economic restrictions aimed at blocking the spread of COVID-19. Security officials said the government was working to halt the spread of the violence and looting, which has spread from Zuma's home in KwaZulu-Natal province to the country's biggest city Johannesburg and surrounding Gauteng province, and to the Indian Ocean port city of Durban. Soldiers have been sent onto the streets to try to contain the unrest. Zuma, 79, was sentenced last month for defying a constitutional court order to give evidence at an inquiry investigating high-level corruption during his nine years in office until 2018. He also faces trial in a separate case on charges including corruption, fraud, racketeering and money laundering. He pleaded not guilty in court in May. Zuma's foundation said there would be no peace in South Africa until the former president was released from jail. "Peace and stability in South Africa is directly linked to the release of President Zuma with immediate effect," it said in a Tweet. "The violence could have been avoided. It started with the decision of the constitutional court to detain president Zuma ... This is what gave anger to the people," a spokesman for the foundation told Reuters separately. Troops moved into flashpoints on Tuesday as outnumbered police seemed helpless to stop the unrest, with columns of armoured personnel carriers rolling down highways. The bodies of 10 people were found on Monday evening after a stampede at a Soweto shopping mall, Gauteng premier David Makhura said. Hundreds of looters raided warehouses and supermarkets in Durban, one of the busiest shipping terminals on the African continent and an import-export hub. Outside a Durban warehouse of retailer Game, looters stuffed cars with electronic goods and clothes, a Reuters witness said. Inside, the floor was a mess of discarded packaging as the crowd emptied the shelves. The rand, which had been one of the best performing emerging market currencies during the pandemic, dropped to a three-month low on Tuesday, and local and hard currency bonds suffered. UNFULFILLED PROMISE At least 45 people have so far been killed during the unrest, 19 in Gauteng and 26 in KwaZulu-Natal, according to state and provincial authorities. Police Minister Bheki Cele put the official death toll at 10. Shops and petrol stations have been forced to close while on the streets protesters have hurled stones and police responded with rubber bullets, Reuters journalists said. Aerial footage from local channel eNCA showed black smoke rising from several Durban warehouses, while debris lay strewn. A clothing factory providing 600 jobs in Isithebe, north of Durban, would be forced to close as all its machinery and materials had been looted, a textiles union said. Cele told a news conference that 757 people had been arrested so far and said that no one would be allowed to "make a mockery of our democratic state". "No amount of unhappiness or personal circumstances from our people gives the right to anyone to loot," he said, echoing sentiments expressed by President Cyril Ramaphosa overnight. However, Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, speaking at the same news conference, said she did not think a state of emergency should be imposed yet. POST-APARTHEID STRAINS The legal proceedings against Zuma have been seen as a test of post-apartheid South Africa's ability to enforce the rule of law. But any confrontation with soldiers risks fuelling charges by Zuma and his supporters that they are victims of a politically motivated crackdown by his successor, Ramaphosa. The violence worsened as Zuma challenged his 15-month jail term in South Africa's top court on Monday. Judgment was reserved until an unspecified date. The deteriorating situation pointed to wider problems and unfulfilled expectations that followed the end of white minority rule in 1994 and the election of Nelson Mandela in South Africa's first free and democratic vote. The economy is struggling to emerge from the damage wrought by Africa's worst COVID-19 epidemic, with authorities repeatedly imposing restrictions on businesses. Growing joblessness has left people ever more desperate. Unemployment stood at a new record high of 32.6% in the first three months of 2021. The health department meanwhile said it had been forced to temporarily close some vaccination sites affected by the unrest, which had disrupted the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines. Essential healthcare services like the collection of chronic medication by tuberculosis, HIV and diabetes patients were also affected by the violence. An official, who declined to be named, said a government target to vaccinate 200,000 people on Monday fell short by 54,000 shots, mostly owing to disruption from the violence. © 2021 Reuters

FILE - A man holds a National League for Democracy (NLD) flag during a protest against the military coup, in Yangon, Myanmar March 27, 2021. The United States called out genocide and atrocities happening in six countries —Myanmar (also known as Burma,) China, Ethiopia, Iraq, Syria and South Sudan — as part of a report highlighting how the U.S. government is using financial, diplomatic and other measures to try to stop them. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday released an annual report on genocide and atrocities prevention. "This year, for the first time, the report provides direct detailed accounts of atrocities taking place in specific countries, including Burma, Ethiopia, China and Syria. These places represent some of the toughest foreign policy challenges on our agenda," Blinken said. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks about the release of the 2021 Congressional Report Pursuant to the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act at the State Department in Washington, July 12, 2021. "We'll use all of the tools that are at our disposal, including diplomacy, foreign assistance, investigations in fact-finding missions, financial tools and engagements, and reports like this one, which raise awareness and allow us to generate coordinated international pressure and response," Blinken added. In January, Blinken affirmed that China was committing genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region. The State Department continues to restrict visas for Chinese officials believed to be responsible for detaining or abusing Muslim minorities. The U.S., European Union, Britain and Canada had sanctioned two Chinese officials for their involvement in the human rights abuses. Dozens of Chinese companies have also been added to the U.S. Entity List for their roles in human rights abuses in Xinjiang. The prevention of a genocide is not only a moral responsibility but also an obligation under international law, said some experts, while noting some limitations. FILE - A perimeter fence is constructed around what is officially known as a vocational skills education center in Dabancheng in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China, Sept. 4, 2018. "Acts of genocide are crimes of universal jurisdiction in U.S. federal courts. No matter where the crimes of genocide were committed, the perpetrators can be tried in U.S. federal courts," Gregory Stanton, the founding president of Genocide Watch, told VOA. But those perpetrators "must be physically present in the U.S. because U.S. courts do not try anyone in absentia," Stanton added. "The 1948 Genocide Convention, which the United States ratified in 1988, requires states to prevent and to punish genocide," Tom Dannenbaum, an assistant professor of international law at Tufts University's Fletcher School, told VOA. "But the duty to prevent does not include an authority to use military force abroad to that end," Dannenbaum said. Although China is party to the Genocide Convention, along with the U.S. and 150 other states, Dannenbaum said, the Beijing government has issued a reservation to one of the articles under the Convention, blocking the viability of legal cases against China at the International Court of Justice. On Myanmar, the U.S. has sanctioned its military leadership and suspended military engagement following the February 2021 coup. Coup leaders include many of those responsible for atrocities against Rohingya in Rakhine state in 2016 and 2017, which the U.S. determined to be acts of ethnic cleansing. The U.S. has also extended temporary protected status for people from Myanmar in the U.S. for 18 months following the military coup while calling on the country's regime to return power to the democratically elected government and stop killing and attacking protesters. FILE - A woman leans on the wall of a damaged house that was shelled as federal-aligned forces entered the city, in Wukro, north of Mekele, capital of Tigray, March 1, 2021. In March, Blinken called atrocities committed in Ethiopia's Tigray region acts of ethnic cleansing. The U.S. is restricting certain nonhumanitarian assistance to Ethiopia, as well as placing new defense trade controls on that country. "Both reviews are ongoing. We're bringing together the facts, the legal assessments, and both are being very actively considered," said the top U.S. diplomat on Monday when asked about the U.S. government's decision on whether to call atrocities committed in Tigray and in Burma (against Rohingya) crimes against humanity or genocide. But Genocide Watch's Stanton criticized the State Department, saying its lawyers have blocked declarations that genocide had been committed in many other countries. "For three months during the Rwandan genocide, they refused to call it genocide. They are still blocking recognition that genocide was committed against the Rohingya in Burma. They are blocking recognition that genocide is being committed against Christians in Nigeria," Stanton told VOA in an email on Monday. The Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018 was signed into U.S. law on January 14, 2019. The law requires updates on the U.S. government's efforts to prevent and respond to atrocities based on a global assessment of ongoing atrocities and countries at risk of atrocities. © VOANews

Mr Abd–Al-Rahman during the opening of the confirmation of charges hearing at the seat of the Court in The Hague (The Netherlands) on 24 May 2021. ©ICC-CPI Today, 9 July 2021, Pre-Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Court ("ICC" or "Court") unanimously, issued a decision confirming all the charges brought by the Prosecutor against Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman ("Ali Kushayb") and committed him to trial before a Trial Chamber. Pre-Trial Chamber II, composed of Judge Rosario Salvatore Aitala (Presiding judge), Judge Antoine Kesia-Mbe Mindua and Judge Tomoko Akane, found that there are substantial grounds to believe that Mr Abd-Al-Rahman is responsible for 31 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed between August 2003 and at least April 2004 in Kodoom, Bindisi, Mukjar, Deleig and their surrounding areas in Darfur, Sudan. The charges include intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such, as a war crime; murder as a crime against humanity and as a war crime; pillaging as a war crime; destruction of the property of an adversary as a war crime; other inhumane acts as a crime against humanity; outrages upon personal dignity as a war crime; rape as a crime against humanity and a war crime; forcible transfer as a crime against humanity; persecution as a crime against humanity; torture as a crime against humanity and a war crime; cruel treatment as a war crime; attempted murder as a crime against humanity and a war crime. The decision confirming the charges can be appealed only with the authorisation of Pre-Trial Chamber II. Decision on the confirmation of charges against Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman ('Ali Kushayb') Background: Mr Abd-Al-Rahman was transferred to the ICC's custody on 9 June 2020, after surrendering himself voluntarily in the Central African Republic. His initial appearance before the ICC took place on 15 June 2020. The confirmation of charges hearing was held before Pre-Trial Chamber II from 24 to 26 May 2021. For further information on this case, check here. © International Criminal Court

By Lisa Schlein GENEVA - A human rights lawyer appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council reported to the body Friday that the war-torn Central African Republic’s civilian population is being battered by both armed groups and security forces meant to protect them. FILE - Residents watch as a U.N. Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) armored personnel carrier patrols after attacks in Begoua, a northern district of Bangui, C.A.R., Jan. 13, 2021. @VOANews The Central African Republic has been in turmoil since rebels overthrew the government in 2013, displacing 1.2 million people. Togolese human rights lawyer Yao Agbetse was appointed by the U.N. council in 2019 to monitor and report on the human rights situation in the C.A.R. He says the Coalition of Patriots for Change, a collection of major rebel groups, has intensified its attacks against the civilian population since March. He accuses the CPC of recruiting child soldiers, committing sexual violence and murders, illegal taxation, destruction and looting of property, and occupation of schools. He says action is being taken to hold them to account. He speaks through an interpreter. "Most of the leaders and members of the CPC are on the list of sanctions from the Security Council concerning the CAR," Agbetse said. "The Security Council and the international community as a whole is taking the appropriate steps to ensure that these individuals can be held accountable to violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.” Agbetse says C.A.R. security forces and foreign allies have managed to drive the armed groups out of many areas they have occupied. However, he says many human rights violations allegedly were committed during those operations by members of the military and security personnel, including Russian instructors. He speaks through an interpreter. "The Central African authorities must pursue proper investigations regardless of the grade or the military rank of the perpetrators," Agbetse said. "And attention should be particularly given to victims of these violations. Military justice needs to be triggered in order to provide military justice in the Central African Republic.” The U.N. expert adds investigations into alleged sexual abuse by U.N. peacekeepers also must be investigated and sanctioned. C.A.R. Minister of Human Rights and Justice Arnaud Djoubaye Abazene, speaking in response to the report, says he agrees the persistence of human rights violations committed by armed groups remains worrying. He says it is crucial for human rights violators to be brought to justice. That, he says, justifies the need for his government to pursue efforts to tackle impunity and to get the country’s system of transitional justice up and running. @VOANews

People unfurl a rainbow flag during an LGBT rights demonstration in front of the Hungarian Parliament building in Budapest, Hungary on June. 14, 2021. (Szilard Koszticsak/MTI via AP) Genocide Watch is issuing a Genocide Watch for Hungary. Viktor Orban, the Prime Minister, and his party, Fidesz, have implemented laws and policies that limit civil rights and discriminate against Roma, Jewish, Muslim, and LGBTQI+ Hungarians. The COVID-19 pandemic lock-down has expanded government power and eroded the rights of free assembly and freedom of public protest. Hungary has a long history of discrimination against Roma. Roma people face systemic racism, popular prejudice, open harassment, and violent assault by ethnic Hungarians. 61% of Hungarians have unfavorable views of Roma. Many think that criminality is in Roma blood. The Hungarian government has been stoking ethnic tensions, further stigmatizing the Roma minority. Roma families disproportionately live-in poverty. Despite their acute need, the government has not made any special provisions to aid Roma communities. School segregation remains a problem for Roma children, who often receive sub-par education and are 23% more likely to drop out of school than their non-Roma peers. The Hungarian government has been resistant to efforts that would increase parity between Roma and ethnic Hungarians. Prime Minister Orban criticized a recent court decision that granted damages to Roma children who had been unlawfully segregated into an inferior school system. Hungarian Jews are targets of antisemitism. A survey of attitudes towards Jews found that 71% of Hungarians believe it is true that “Jews have too much power in the business world.” Another 59% believe that Jews dwell too much on the Holocaust. Orban and his party frequently allude to the antisemitic and white supremacist Great Replacement Theory. Orban accuses Jewish philanthropist George Soros and his Open Society Foundations of undermining Hungarian society. Jewish Hungarians report antisemitic harassment and feeling unsafe practicing Judaism in Hungary. Fidesz, which holds a majority in the parliament, promotes Islamophobia. The party's xenophobic rhetoric includes describing Muslim immigration as an “invasion.” Among Hungarians, 47% hold unfavorable opinions of Muslims. Hungarian Muslims report frequent verbal harassment and assault. Orban’s government has enacted laws limiting the rights of LGBTQI+ Hungarians. A 2020 constitutional amendment bans same-sex couples from adopting children. It also prohibits transgender and intersex citizens from changing the gender listed on their identification documents. Many LGBTQI+ Hungarians describe feeling unsafe about expressing their gender identity for fear of harassment, discrimination, or assault. The Hungarian government recently passed a law prohibiting LGBTQI+ content in schools, further criminalizing and stigmatizing the country’s LGBTQI+ population. Genocide Watch considers Hungary to be at Stage 3: Discrimination. The Orban government threatens the civil rights of marginalized groups, such as the Roma, Jewish, Muslim, and LGBTQI+ populations, curtails press freedom to prevent scrutiny of the government, and fosters a climate of hatred. Genocide Watch recommends: · Hungary should broaden its National Social Inclusion Strategy to combat the poverty and systemic discrimination faced by Roma communities. · Hungary should respect its own Fundamental Law protections for freedom of religion. · Hungary should repeal the constitutional amendment forbidding legal recognition of LGBTQI+ rights, which violates Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). · The EU should start proceedings against Hungary in the European Court of Human Rights for Hungary's many violations of the ECHR.

A new government action plan in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has the potential to reverse the urgent and tragic deterioration in the east of the country, where thousands of human rights abuses are being committed against civilians by armed militants, the senior UN official in the country told the Security Council on Wednesday. Female peacekeepers from South Africa on patrol in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. MONUSCO/Michael Ali Bintou Keita, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative and head of the UN Stabilization Mission in the DRC, said fresh strides towards peace and stability are prerequisites for the mission, known as MONUSCO, to responsibly withdraw, in line with its planned drawdown. Crisis in the east The security and humanitarian situations in the eastern Congolese provinces of Ituri, North and South Kivu, continue to be a source of grave concern to the international community. Amid ongoing violence by armed groups, including the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), the eruption of Mount Nyiragongo on 22 May led to large-scale population movements, exacerbating existing challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and resurgent cases of Ebola. Recent bomb explosions were also recorded in the town of Beni, and intercommunal tensions are flaring in Ituri and South Kivu. “Civilians remain under serious threat from attacks by armed groups and in the broader security context”, Ms. Keita warned. New Government Describing recent political developments, Ms. Keita said a new coalition Government, the Union Sacrée de la Nation, recently took power, with Prime Minister Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde Kyenge inaugurated on 26 April. Fifteen women are serving in ministerial posts, representing an increase of almost 30 per cent over the last Government. Also noting the recent declaration of a “state of siege” in Ituri and North Kivu Provinces – where violence by armed groups has been among the worst in the country – she welcomed commitments by the new Government to improve civilian protection, combat those perpetrating crimes against them, and hold national and local elections in 2023. In particular, Ms. Keita drew the Council’s attention to an action plan recently released by the new Government, which aims to neutralize violent armed groups. It also includes a new programme for the disarmament, demobilization, community reintegration and stabilization of former combatants. MONUSCO drawdown As previously requested by the Council, Ms. Keita announced the establishment of a joint working group through which MONUSCO and the Congolese Government will serve together, to push forward the promising new action plan. Launched on 5 July, its first task will be to develop a plan for MONUSCO’s transition and gradual drawdown, including concrete milestones and indicators, to be submitted to the Council in September. Discussions about MONUSCO’s drawdown have been under way since 2018, when a long-sought peaceful handover brought President Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo to power. A joint strategy for the Mission’s drawdown, laid out in 2020, is progressively consolidating the UN’s footprint in North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri. MONUSCO’s operations in the Kasaïs ended in June, and according to the joint strategy, the Mission will also withdraw from Tanganyika province by mid-2022, should conditions allow. Copyright © United Nations

© 2021 International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust Watch #Auschwitz International Conference 7-8 July (today and tomorrow). "If this is a man .... Exclusions in the Modern World", based on #LGBTQ #Rohingya #BosnianGenocide #Africa #Islamophobia etc. The title of this year's biannual international education conference was from the late Dr Primo Levi, the Italian Jewish doctor who survived Auschwitz and did the first medical assessment of the camps and fellow survivors when it was liberated by the Soviet Red Army in Jan 1945. Auschwitz Museum Conference organizers are acutely aware of the fact that Never again! remains a hollow promise which the UN-led world order has failed to render a reality, again and again and again, in the post-Holocaust world. Professor Greg Stanton of Genocide Watch will deliver the inauguration lecture after the opening at 1 pm (London). The viewing is open to public. To watch it please click on the Zoom platform here. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83075750230?pwd=RW5uTDlNL0Jlb1ZlMkQ2S3pKeDNqQT09#success The programme and the bios of the participating speakers can be accessed here: http://auschwitz.org/en/museum/news/if-this-is-a-man-exclusions-in-the-modern-world-international-educational-conference-registration-for-participants-,1479.html?fbclid=IwAR3ud_RYlIx7ieaPgUPXTmPYIdlNrRwndLfJjwuupzQnsYMH_GTZZcq81FA Euro-Burma Foundation, Free Rohingya Coalition and FORSEA.co co-produced with the award-winning documentary film-maker Shahida Tulaganova Auschwitz: Lessons Never Learned, during the lock-down last year. It was based on archival materials and the group study tour I organized with the cooperation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum. The picture above is from the study tour. 4 of the participants are in hiding or joined the anti-Fascist dictatorship resistance in Burma since the Feb coup. I am extremely honoured to be asked to speak on exclusions as a pathway to genocide, the role of "bystanders" - states and peoples - in genocides and what to do prevent genocides. The concluding panel where I will speak is scheduled at 7 pm London tomorrow. During the pandemic lock-down, I initiated the Genocide Podcast Series, which can be accessed here. © 2021 International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust

Read Dr. Gregory Stanton's full inauguration lecture for "If This is a Man - Exclusions in the Modern World" International Educational Conference hosted by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust

© 2021 Jubilee Campaign Stop The Genocide Games - Protest The Beijing 2022 Olympics Since 2017, the world has been provided ample proof of the Chinese Communist Party's vicious campaign to surveil, arbitrarily arrest, and imprison upwards of two million Uyghur and Turkic minorities in concentration camps across the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The outright violations of human rights are undeniable. Reports by renowned experts and organizations - the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Amnesty International, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, The Jamestown Foundation, and more have documented the countless atrocities taking place against Uyghurs, including 24/7 monitoring, arbitrary detention, coercive indoctrination, physical and mental torture, sexual violence and rape, sterilization, etc. Throughout 2020 and 2021, already seven nations around the world have classified the persecution as genocide or crimes against humanity, including the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Belgium. It is expected that many more nations will follow suit in the coming months. Therefore, it is unacceptable that the world should stand by and watch China host the 2022 Olympics, a respected international athletic celebration. There are a plethora of reasons why. Firstly, allowing China to host the Olympics - and permitting the visit to China of diplomats from across the globe - legitimizes the Chinese Communist Party and its oppression of Uyghur, Tibetan Buddhist, Falun Gong, Christian, and Muslim minorities. Secondly, it signals that freedom-loving countries will not take effective measures to condemn human rights violations that occur outside their own national borders or spheres of influence, thus emboldening China to expand its agenda of persecution. Thirdly, it provides China with a platform for propaganda that allows them to bolster the dialogue around the Games themselves and sweep exposés on the plight of the Uyghurs under the rug. And finally, it places athletes in a state of insecurity; they will be unable to discuss their opinions on China's actions while in the nation for the Games, lest they be subjected to China's own oppressive laws and program of arbitrary detention. Not to mention, that a nation whose government so poorly mismanaged the outbreak of a deadly pandemic, took no preemptive measures to curb the spread of the disease, and then continues to deny its own complicity and responsibility should be awarded with holding perhaps the most prestigious international athletic competition is reprehensible. We hope that you all can join us in calling for the 2022 Winter Olympics to be moved from China to a nation that exemplifies the Olympic Charter, which "place[s] sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity." The CCP has proved time and time again that it disregards both human dignity and human rights; therefore, the Olympic Committee must ensure that it meets its own code of conduct, lest the integrity of the Games be damaged should the Beijing 2022 Games commence. You may click the buttons below to sign the petition, view the open letter, and access the media advocacy toolkit, which we encourage you to use when engaging on Twitter and Facebook. Take a stand with us! Sign the Petition Read the Open Letter Access the Toolkit For more information on Jubilee Campaign's projects, advocacy, and initiatives, please visit our website by clicking the button below: jubileecampaign.org If you would like to donate to Jubilee Campaign, you may do so by clicking the button below. We thank you in advance for your generous contribution. Donate here © 2021 Jubilee Campaign

1 July 2021 | By Pamela Constable A mural in Kabul memorializes the scores of girls killed in a school bombing. Some could be identified only by their shoes. (Pamela Constable/The Washington Post) KABUL — The pair of bloodstained girls' sneakers, painted on a wall in downtown Kabul, serves as a grim reminder of the terror wrought here. Late one afternoon in May, a triple bombing outside a large city high school in West Kabul killed 85 people and wounded over 140. Many were teenage girls who had just finished their afternoon classes. The first blast was so fierce that some bodies were burned or maimed beyond recognition. All that remained of one girl was a single sneakered foot. Seven weeks later, the impact of the blast near Syed al-Shahda High School is still being felt across the working-class community that is home to several hundred thousand ethnic Hazaras and Shiite Muslims. Afghanistan is about 90 percent Sunni Muslim and 10 percent Shiite; almost all the Shiites are Hazara. It wasn’t only the deadly toll of the attack that reverberated so strongly, or even the fact that so many of the victims were schoolgirls. It was the cumulative burden of fear, of a message being sent repeatedly by shadowy forces who residents and community leaders say want to violently crush their aspirations to prosper. Now, as Taliban forces press hard for a military victory and U.S. forces withdraw, Hazara leaders fear their lightly policed communities will be especially vulnerable to extremist vengeance. “They don’t want us to become educated or successful,” said Mohammed Alizada, a Hazara member of parliament who lives in Kabul. He said the group’s support for democracy and thirst for knowledge have clashed with the strict religious mores that Taliban, al-Qaeda and Islamic State extremists seek to impose. “They want to keep their supporters ignorant, and they don’t want us to challenge them,” he said. After the fall of Taliban rule in 2001, thousands of Hazaras, returning from exile in Iran or from havens in the north, flocked to West Kabul. They established a tightknit urban microcosm, rebuilt war-scarred mosques and shrines, opened discount stores and workshops. Over time, their religious festivals grew more grandiose and their demands for rights bolder. But these advances were met with dozens of terrorist attacks on Shiite sites and gatherings, including bombings during the holy days known as Ashura and, in 2016, a blast during a peaceful protest that killed 80 people and wounded more than 200. Most of the attacks were blamed on the Islamic State, a fanatical anti-Shiite group, and denied by the Taliban. Some have never been claimed. Flowers are placed outside Syed al-Shahda High School after the horrific attack in May. (Mariam Zuhaib/AP) Despite these violent threats, the community’s hopes have remained centered on educating its children and arming them for professional success in the modern world. Syed al-Shahda High School, built in 2013 as a free public institution with funds donated by Japan, was a pillar of that effort. By last year, it had 14,000 pupils, studying in three shifts a day. One of them was Zahra Hussain, 18. “My daughter was very bright. She wanted to study English and go to a top university, but we couldn’t afford to send her to private classes,” said Mohammed Hussain, a day laborer who earns about $25 a week. He enrolled Zahra in the seventh grade at al-Shahda, where she blossomed. “She was always at the top of her class, and this was her last year,” he said last week, weeping into his scarf. On May 8, Zahra and her best friend started to walk home together. They never arrived. The bombing of al-Shahda was the latest in a series of attacks on educational and cultural institutions in West Kabul that have shaken the community and its faith in the transformative power of education. In the past two years, three private college-prep centers have been bombed, killing scores of students whose families hoped they would win entrance to a top university or a foreign scholarship. But al-Shahda was a larger and more prominent target, and the bombing was especially shocking. Now, many parents say they fear sending their children to school at all. Last week, when the families of five victims gathered at Hussain’s house to talk about the attack, a sense of despondency filled the room. The women, draped in black, stared at the carpet. The men, fathers and brothers of dead girls, frowned or fiddled with cellphones. Asked to describe what had happened that day, they forced themselves to relive terrible moments seared into memory: the echoing booms, the panic and confusion, the frantic searches of hospital wards and morgues, the horrors some confronted alone but could not bear to tell others about. “We looked everywhere, but we couldn’t find her,” said Shahrbano Alizada, a gaunt, downcast woman whose daughter Fereshta, 15, died in the blasts. “Finally, the mosque loudspeaker announced they had an unclaimed girl’s body. My husband went, and he recognized the red plastic watch on her wrist, but he hoped it was a mistake. Then we all went. Her face was totally burned, and her legs were full of holes. But when I saw her shoe, I knew.” Shahrbano Alizada, whose daughter Fereshta was killed in the school bombing, and her son Ali sit with the girl’s portrait. (Pamela Constable/The Washington Post) Outside the school compound last week, a single police truck guarded the parking lot. The main building was empty but sparkling like new, with classrooms freshly painted, stacks of donated books and piles of new desks in the yard. The principal, Aqaila Tawakoli, said it would reopen after the country’s covid-19 surge dies down, but she also said she was not sure how many students would return. “Since the incident, a lot of donations have come from abroad, but I am scared to come here every day,” she said. “The teachers are scared, too, and the parents say their children have been affected mentally.” There is a proposal to build a high wall with barbed wire around the school, she said, “but that’s not enough. We are still vulnerable.” There has also been talk about the community taking up arms to defend itself, an uneasy topic that clashes with its efforts to advance through peaceful means. Previous agreements with Kabul police have allowed armed local men to guard Shiite religious sites and festivals, but no plan has been put in place to protect schools, and police are stretched thin among crowded markets and narrow alleys. As Taliban attacks continue to spread across rural provinces this week, thousands of Afghans have joined militias and vigilante groups to support government forces. In some of those areas, Hazaras have also begun to form armed groups. But in West Kabul, where tough militiamen fought the Taliban in the 1990s, members of a new, more educated generation are torn between keeping their heads down and preparing to defend themselves. “Picking up a gun is the last option,” said Abdul Latif, 22, a university student whose younger sister Shafiqa, 18, was killed in the al-Shahda blasts. “We want to get an education, to vote in elections, to abide by the laws. But these terrorists want to carry out genocide against our sect, against our success. If the government can’t protect us and our families, it may be our only option.” © 1996-2021 The Washington Post