Wednesday, April 14, 2021 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM ET Virtual Event Register Here Following the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s (USCIRF) hearing on global efforts to combat antisemitism, the need grew for a comprehensive study of how Jewish and non-Jewish citizens understand and respond to antisemitism within member states of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Please join us for a virtual event describing findings from USCIRF’s new report on antisemitism in the OSCE region and ideas for how the U.S. government can further encourage member states to fulfill their obligations to the Jewish community. USCIRF Chair Gayle Manchin and Commissioner Gary Bauer will be joined by the authors of the report, Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) Director of European Affairs Andrew Srulevitch and Washington Director for International Affairs David Weinberg for this discussion. This event will be moderated by USCIRF Director of Outreach and Policy Dwight Bashir and will include a Q&A for attendees. Panelists Gayle Manchin, Chair, USCIRF Gary Bauer, Commissioner, USCIRF Andrew Srulevitch, Director of European Affairs, ADL David Weinberg, Washington Director for International Affairs, ADL Moderator Dwight Bashir, Director of Outreach and Policy, USCIRF This virtual event is open to the public and media. The video recording will be posted on the Commission website. For any additional questions, please contact media@uscirf.gov. Register Here United States Commission on International Religious Freedom © 2021

Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images Genocide Watch condemns hateful attacks on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. Former President Trump repeatedly characterized the COVID-19 pandemic as the “Chinese Virus” and “Kung Flu” and encouraged his supporters to use these racially offensive terms. Following former President Donald Trump's anti-Chinese rhetoric, the Asian American community has experienced a 150% increase in racially motivated attacks, with over 3,700 reported hate incidents since January 2020. Equating diseases with national, ethnic, religious or racial groups is a tactic of dehumanization. Viruses have no nationality. They have no ethnicity. Viruses are the common enemies of the whole human race. Underlying harassment and hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders is the toxic fetishization and hypersexualization of Asian women. Fetishization is the act of imagining things, persons, or groups as sexualized objects based on stereotypes or fantasies. It is often masked as flattery. Asian American and Pacific Islander women are sometimes fetishized as “submissive” and “servile”. They are therefore attractive to men who feel a compulsion to dominate women. Six of the eight victims killed in the recent Atlanta shootings were women of Asian descent. The attacks resulted from the intersection of racism and sexism often experienced by Asian women. This racialized form of misogyny makes Asian women particularly vulnerable to violence. Genocide Watch considers harassment of and discrimination against Asian American and Pacific Islander communities to be indicators of Stage 3: Discrimination and Stage 4: Dehumanization. Former President Trump’s continued use of racial slurs in referring to Covid-19 and the resulting hate crimes perpetrated by racist individuals against Asian Americans are evidence of Stage 6: Polarization in America. In order to prevent hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, Genocide Watch recommends the following: States should strengthen their hate crimes statutes and prosecute those who violate them. State justice departments should use disaggregated data to monitor hate crimes against minorities. U.S., state, local, and church leaders should denounce hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. The racism motivating hate crimes must be made culturally unacceptable. Local, state, and federal law enforcement departments should improve police training against racially motivated crimes. Police officers need to become self-conscious about their own biases when dealing with crimes against women and minorities. Racial profiling of minorities must stop. U.S., state, local, and church leaders should create public campaigns to encourage reporting of racial harassment and hate crimes. The public should be taught safe tactics for bystander intervention to prevent hate crimes. States should develop rehabilitation programs for perpetrators of sexual violence and abuse.

GENEVA (Reuters) -Almost one million people are facing severe hunger in northern Mozambique where hundreds of thousands have fled worsening Islamist violence, the U.N. food agency said on Tuesday. Islamic State-linked insurgents last month attacked Palma, a town in the northernmost province of Cabo Delgado next to major gas projects under development by companies including Total and Exxon. The World Food Programme (WFP) said in a briefing in Geneva that 950,000 people are now hungry in Mozambique. It is appealing to donors for $82 million to confront the crisis. “Families and individuals have had to abandon their belongings and livelihoods and flee for safety... adding to an already desperate situation in Northern Mozambique,” said Tomson Phiri, a WFP spokesman. The U.N. Children Fund’s director of emergencies, Manuel Fontaine, told the same briefing: “We are facing a likely long-lasting humanitarian crisis.” Around 690,000 people were already displaced across the country by February. Another 16,500 have since been registered in other areas of Cabo Delgado after fleeing the attack in Palma, according to the International Organization for Migration. Tens of thousands more are still displaced within Palma district or are on the move, the U.N.’s humanitarian coordination agency, OCHA, said on Monday. Many fled to a nearby village called Quitunda, built by French energy giant Total to house those displaced by its $20 billion gas project. People there have little access to food, no protection and gather in their hundreds at Total’s site every day desperate for evacuation, a witness told Reuters. Total pulled its staff from the site due to nearby insurgent activity on April 2, while the WFP also halted evacuation flights it had been operating. Total has also suspended related operations in the provincial capital of Pemba, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. Total did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Mozambique’s National Institute for Disaster Risk Management and Reduction said on Monday it also needs 7 billion meticais ($126 million) to help those fleeing violence in Cabo Delgado, according to Portugal’s state news agency Lusa. Authorities are still working to identify 12 beheaded bodies found in Palma after the attack, which both police and army officials said were believed to be foreigners. ($1 = 55.5000 meticais) Reporting by Emma Thomasson in Geneva and Emma Rumney in Johannesburg; Additional reporting by Manuel Mucari in Maputo, Catarina Demony in Lison and Geert De Clercq in Paris; Editing by Stephanie Nebehay, Joe Bavier and Nick Macfie © Reuters 2021

"I wasn't investigating this, and if it wasn't my grandfather, I wouldn't have looked into it," Silvia Foti said. VILNIUS, Lithuania — As her mother lay dying, Silvia Foti made a promise. She vowed to continue her plans to write a book about her mother's father, Foti's grandfather, a Lithuanian hero known as "General Storm." He was among the young soldiers who fought the Soviet Union in its brief but brutal first occupation of Lithuania in 1940, and he was later shot in a KGB prison. He, like many of his comrades, is considered a national hero. But Foti, a high school English teacher from Chicago, said that after years of researching the man, whose name was Jonas Noreika, she discovered that her grandfather collaborated with the Nazis by facilitating the extermination of thousands of Lithuanian Jews. "He agreed with the Nazis on the elimination of the Jews," she said. Foti's revelations ignited a firestorm in Lithuania when they emerged two years ago. Laid out in painstaking detail in a book published last month, they have contributed to an increasingly toxic public debate over Noreika's legacy and what role Lithuanians played alongside Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. An estimated 95 percent of Lithuania's Jews, more than 200,000 people, were massacred as the Third Reich took hold — one of the highest proportions of any country affected by the Holocaust. Yet the dominant narrative in Lithuania has long been one of resistance to both the Soviets and the Nazis, a hallmark of national identity that state officials have worked to reinforce. In January, a lawmaker and longstanding defender of Noreika's legacy sparked outrage by suggesting that local Jewish leaders may even have borne some responsibility for the Holocaust. And on Thursday, the Lithuanian Parliament voted to dismiss the head of the country's genocide research center amid growing controversy surrounding the center's work. It's a bitter dispute that, more than 75 years after the end of World War II, highlights the degree to which Lithuania is still struggling to come to terms with its own history. Foti maintained that the official story has been a "cover-up." Contested Hıstory Numerous streets in Lithuania are named after Noreika. So is a school in his hometown. A memorial plaque commemorating his life and work is on display in Vilnius, the capital, on the building where he worked. Many Lithuanians are familiar with what Foti called the "fairy-tale" story: Noreika fought fleeing Soviet forces during the so-called June uprising in 1941 and was an organizer in the Lithuanian Activist Front, an underground militia group. He later fought against the Nazis before he was sent to a concentration camp. After he was released at the end of the war, he worked as a legal expert at the Academy of Science and tried to unite scattered groups of fighters to resist the Soviets before he was shot dead in a KGB prison in 1947, age 36. Foti's family read aloud his last letter from prison, a treasured heirloom, every Christmas Eve. The first Soviet occupation lasted little more than a year, but it looms large in Lithuania's history — thousands of people were killed or sent to gulags. The same power would rule the Baltics with an iron fist from 1945 until 1991, killing thousands more and cementing the reputation of already idolized freedom fighters who opposed the Soviets in 1941. The period of Nazi rule over Lithuania, from 1941 until the end of the war in 1945, also casts a long shadow. Jews had lived in what is now Lithuania since the 14th century, helping to make it a thriving, diverse commercial and religious center, alive with Jewish culture. But during the war, Lithuania's Jewish population was all but wiped out. Records indicate that Lithuanian leaders were at least somewhat involved in the massacre. For example, a report dated Oct. 15, 1941, from the local division of the Einsatzgruppen, the Nazi paramilitary death squads, says that on June 25 and 26, local Lithuanian fighters "eliminated more than 1,500 Jews, set fire to several synagogues or destroyed them by other means, and burned down an area consisting of about 60 houses inhabited by Jews." The next night, "2,300 Jews were eliminated in the same way," the report states. But the degree to which Lithuanians were complicit in atrocities has been fiercely contested. Noreika's defenders say it was in the Nazis' interests to exaggerate Lithuanian involvement. Many also argue that Noreika's reputation was tarnished later on by KGB propaganda. The state-run Genocide and Resistance Research Center of Lithuania, which is viewed as the official guardian of the country's collective memory, has been one of Noreika's primary defenders. In 2015, it issued a report that found that Noreika had no involvement in the mass murder of Jews. And in 2019, citing newly available documents, the center said Noreika was responsible for saving Jews through a rescue network. Professor Adas Jakubauskas, who spoke in an interview before Parliament dismissed him as leader of the center on Thursday, said the center has "reliable data" showing that "Noreika actively organized anti-Nazi resistance and the rescue of Jews." He said the anti-Nazi activity was why Noreika was sent to the Stutthof concentration camp in what is now Poland, where he spent two years until it was liberated. "At the time, neither the Lithuanian administration nor Noreika could take any decisions pertaining to German or Jewish questions," he said. Jakubauskas became embroiled in controversy after 17 historians who work with the center wrote to the speaker of the Parliament, known as the Seimas, complaining that the institution's leadership was making irresponsible statements and instigating the so-called memory wars, and that its political control was "destroying the quality of research." One of the historians, Mingailė Jurkutė, who separately criticized the center's "ideologized narrative" in an online article, was fired by the center. Questions about Noreika's legacy, in particular, have multiplied in recent years. In 2018, Grant Gochin, an American Jew of Lithuanian descent, sued the Genocide and Resistance Research Center, claiming that his ancestors were among the Jews who were killed during Noreika's governorship of Šiauliai County. The court in Vilnius ruled that there was no evidence to suggest that Noreika was involved in the killing of Jews. Tensions have continued to run high, however. In 2019, the plaque in Vilnius commemorating Noreika was smashed with a hammer. The plaque was reinstated, but it was then taken down again weeks later by the mayor of Vilnius, who was sympathetic to claims that the state had whitewashed the darker side of Noreika's story. In response, a nationalist group installed yet another, bigger plaque in its place, with supporters singing patriotic songs. Now, Foti's book has added a new wrinkle to the debate. Nobody Talked About ıt It is safe to say that Foti's book is not what her mother, or many other Lithuanians, would have expected. "The Nazi's Granddaughter" details how Foti traveled to Lithuania and searched through piles of documents to discover evidence that she said proves Noreika ordered the killing of thousands of Jews while he was governor of Šiauliai County during the German occupation. Nationalists like Noreika greeted the Germans as liberators in 1941 and hoped they would assist in forming a free Lithuanian state, as Germany had done in 1918. But Foti said Noreika was not simply a bystander to the Holocaust; he was a Nazi collaborator who was sympathetic to their cause. She pointed to a nationalist pamphlet Noreika wrote in 1933, when he was 22, "Hold Your Head High, Lithuanian!!!" which called for an economic boycott of Jews in the coastal city of Klaipėda. "In the land of Klaipėda, the Lithuanians are being overthrown by the Germans, and in Greater Lithuania, the Jews are buying up all the farms on auction," he wrote. "Once and for all: We won't buy any products from Jews!" Foti said her grandfather "must have approved the killing of 2,000 Jews in Plungė in July 1941 as the leader of the uprising in the Northwestern portion of the country." The episode is contested not just by Noreika defenders, but also by leading Lithuanian historians, who say Foti's account of what happened in Plungė is based on unreliable sources. Foti has assembled additional evidence, however. In her book, she quotes a huge report by Karl Jäger, a Nazi commander who led many of the mass killings during the Holocaust in Lithuania, which meticulously lists more than 130,000 Jewish deaths and where they occurred. The report says Jäger's unit, SD Einsatzkommando 3, took over control of the area on Aug. 9, 1941 — by which point 4,000 people had already been killed. They were "Jews liquidated by pogroms and executions (including partisans)," the report said. "Partisans" refers to local nationalist fighters. Foti argues that, as a leader of Lithuania's partisans at the time, her grandfather undoubtedly played a key role in carrying out the atrocities. Her research also shows that later, as governor of Šiauliai County, Noreika signed about 100 documents related to the Holocaust — among them orders that led to the establishment of a Jewish ghetto and the expropriation of Jewish property. Noreika's defenders argue that he may have sent Jews to ghettos but did not know what the result would be. But Foti said it is time for Lithuania to fully recognize its contribution to genocide. She is among those calling for Noreika's posthumous military honors to be revoked and for any schools bearing his name to be renamed. "I didn't even know about the Holocaust in Lithuania growing up here in Chicago. Nobody talked about it," she said. "It's going to take a lot of education. Lithuania will have to follow in the footsteps of Germany," she said, referring to Germany's own historical reckoning. 'A bloody, bloody past' Today, Lithuania's Jewish community is small, numbering just over 3,000 people, according to the 2011 census. Given the limited visibility, it's not surprising that Lithuanians would be shocked to learn about their country's involvement in the Holocaust, said Faina Kukliansky, head of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, which is affiliated with the World Jewish Congress. "How should local people learn about what happened in Lithuania during World War II?" she asked. "The memory of the Holocaust is kept by this small surviving Jewish community, as there is still a lack of large-scale government initiatives to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust — we have neither a national memorial to the victims of the Holocaust nor a monument to the rescuers." She noted that there is no museum dedicated to the history of Jews in Lithuania and that the artifacts that do pertain to Jewish history are scattered among various museums and other institutions. Kukliansky serves on a working group at the Justice Ministry that is evaluating a law banning the denial of mass crimes. Section 170 of Lithuania's penal code says anyone who "publicly condones the crimes of genocide or other crimes against humanity," including the actions of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, could face a substantial fine or a two-year jail sentence if convicted. The law exists, but it doesn't work well, Kukliansky said, because people still don't fully understand what happened. In some countries, denial of what really happened is becoming the "dominant position," she said. And while the law makes it illegal to condone "the aggression perpetrated by the USSR or Nazi Germany against the Republic of Lithuania," it makes no mention of crimes alleged to have been carried out by Lithuanians against Jews and other minorities. That ambivalent position was reinforced on Jan. 27, Holocaust Memorial Day, when a right-wing lawmaker, Valdas Rakutis, declared in a statement published on the public broadcaster's website that there was "no shortage of Holocaust perpetrators among the Jews themselves." The remarks were condemned at home and abroad. The U.S. ambassador to Lithuania, Robert Gilchrist, said it was shocking that a lawmaker "should espouse distortions regarding Holocaust collaborators in Lithuania and shamefully seek to accuse Jews of being the perpetrators." Rakutis, a history professor and former adviser to the country's armed forces who was elected to Parliament last year, resigned as chairman of the parliamentary commission on the state's historical memory and apologized to "all the people who felt offended." But Rakutis is also affiliated with the Genocide and Resistance Research Center, and his views are closer to the mainstream than many in Lithuania might like to admit. In the wake of his comments, however, the calls for Lithuania to take a fresh look at its history have continued to grow. "It's a bloody, bloody past. I know Lithuanians suffered. I get it. I totally do," Foti said. "I wasn't investigating this, and if it wasn't my grandfather, I wouldn't have looked into it." Gil Skorwid reported from Vilnius; Patrick Smith reported from London. CORRECTION (April 7, 2021, 10:18 a.m. ET): A previous version of this article misstated the location of the Stutthof concentration camp during World War II. While the area is now part of Poland, it didn't become so until 1945. Access the full article here. NBC News © 2021

Coca-Cola chairman James Quincey recently slammed the state of Georgia for its new election law. “We all have a duty to protect everyone’s right to vote, and we will continue to stand up for what is right in Georgia and across the U.S.,” he said. Across the U.S. — and no further? As Western businesses prepare to salute China at the Beijing Winter Olympics next February, the chairman of the China-Britain Business Council offered an all-purpose explanation of why it’s okay to do business with the Communists who are committing genocide 1,600 miles west of the ski slopes and skating rinks. If companies are going to trade beyond Scandinavia and a few other countries — “possibly New Zealand and Australia and Canada,” Sherard Cowper-Coles jocularly told the Wall Street Journal last week — then they will have to operate where human rights conditions are “less than ideal.” Let’s not be naive, in other words. The world’s a nasty place. Who are we to insist on perfection? As it happens, the U.S. State Department last week published its annual report on human rights around the world. In China, it found, significant human rights issues included: “Arbitrary or unlawful killings by the government; forced disappearances by the government; torture by the government; harsh and life-threatening prison and detention conditions . . . political prisoners; politically motivated reprisal against individuals outside the country . . . arbitrary interference with privacy; pervasive and intrusive technical surveillance and monitoring; serious restrictions on free expression, the press, and the internet, including physical attacks on and criminal prosecution of journalists, lawyers, writers, bloggers, dissidents, petitioners, and others as well as their family members, and censorship and site blocking; . . . severe restrictions and suppression of religious freedom; substantial restrictions on freedom of movement; . . . forced labor and trafficking in persons; severe restrictions on labor rights, including a ban on workers organizing or joining unions of their own choosing; and child labor.” Throughout China, in other words, repression has worsened dramatically since the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Then there’s the genocide of Muslim Uyghurs and other ethnic groups in China’s western territory. Ongoing crimes against humanity there include “the arbitrary imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty of more than one million civilians; forced sterilization, coerced abortions . . . rape; torture of a large number of those arbitrarily detained; forced labor; and the imposition of draconian restrictions on freedom of religion or belief, freedom of expression, and freedom of movement.” Less than ideal, yes. Can Olympic sponsors such as Coca-Cola, Visa, General Electric, and a dozen other multinational corporations really celebrate the Games next February as if none of that is going on? At the website the Olympics maintains for these top sponsors, you can find their executives and Olympic officials congratulating each other for promoting gender equality and “Olympic values” and, yes, human rights. On March 24, for example, the site posted an interview with Marc Pritchard, chief brand officer at P&G, “who has helped the Worldwide Olympic Partner use the power of advertising to fight gender bias.” “So, there should be equality in everything that we do,” Pritchard explained. “And that should then extend to all aspects of intersectionality, which includes race, ethnicity, gender orientation, sexual identity, ability, religion, even age. Equality fuels positive things; equality improves society; equality drives growth.” If P&G believes in equality of religion, can its executives really cheer the Opening Ceremonies as mosques and Muslim cemeteries are razed; imams are imprisoned and tortured; children are removed from Muslim homes? As more than 1 million Muslims are sent to reeducation camps, and ethnic Han Chinese men are sent into many of the homes they are taken from? “There were media reports that male officials would sleep in the same bed as the wives of men who were detained in internment camps, as part of the ‘Pair Up and Become Family’ program,” the State Department report notes, “and also bring alcohol and pork for consumption during the home stay.” Can these companies really expect us to take seriously their self-congratulations on gender equity while Uyghur women are raped, sterilized and forced into ­prostitution? More than 10 months remain before the Winter Olympics are scheduled to open. The companies could say to the Chinese government: Liberate the camps. Let the Uyghurs live in peace. Allow outside observers to come see that you have done so. Then let the Games begin. Otherwise, Coca-Cola and P&G, Samsung and Intel, Dow and Toyota, all 15 sponsors the IOC says are “crucial to the staging of the Games,” will have to ask themselves: Is it really consistent with our values to sponsor the Genocide ­Olympics? Access the full article here. Washington Post © 2021

Repudiating the need to set priorities for international human-rights policy, he does a grave disservice to millions who are persecuted for their faith. Secretary of State Antony Blinken aims to make his mark on international human-rights policy by downplaying the importance of religious freedom. He is bowing to trends in domestic partisan political fashions, not responding to realities in a world where the need to oppose religious persecution has become ever more urgent. Tragically, a shift away from religious freedom would come at the expense of massive numbers of brutalized Asian, African, and Middle Eastern religious believers. On March 30, the secretary, speaking with the press, made a telling statement on the release of the State Department’s annual human-rights reports. Early on in it, he made a special point to “repudiate” the prior administration’s emphasis on religious freedom. Declaring that “there is no hierarchy that makes some rights more important than others,” he took a line from the Clinton administration, which used it to argue against the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) in 1998. Blinken unfairly denounced a disbanded commission of the prior administration for its “unbalanced statements that suggest such a hierarchy.” The secretary was referring to the Commission on Inalienable Rights, chaired by Mary Ann Glendon, a professor at Harvard Law. Then–secretary of state Mike Pompeo established it to advise him at the level of principle, on re-grounding U.S. human-rights policy in American Founding principles. In fact, the commission’s report does not suggest creating a “hierarchy” of rights. In its historical discussion, the report states: “Prominent among the unalienable rights that government is established to secure, from the founders’ point of view, are property rights and religious liberty” (emphasis added). Commentators who reported that this was the view of the commission were simply wrong. The commission report emphasizes the importance of abiding by all human-rights commitments assumed under international law and stated that even “tensions among rights can never be an excuse for failing” to do so. The commission report does assert, however, that giving priority to specific rights at specific times in foreign policy is a pragmatic and legal necessity. It concludes that “U.S. foreign policy can and should, consistent with the UDHR [Universal Declaration of Human Rights], determine which rights most accord with national principles, priorities, and interests at any given time.” It points for an example to Congress’s having mandated special protections for religious freedom and for freedom from human trafficking, a form of slavery. In conflating the concept of establishing a hierarchy with the need to set priorities in human-rights policy, Blinken put himself at odds with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. That seminal human-rights document explicitly elevates religious freedom to the rank of those few rights that, in times of emergency, are “non-derogable,” that is, cannot be suspended. As the commission observed, international law accepts that some human rights are “absolute or nearly so, admitting of few or no exceptions, . . . while others are subject to many reasonable limitations or are contingent on available resources and on regulatory arrangements.” Internationally, millions of persons suffer religious persecution, which has far-ranging effects on stability and development. Policy-makers ignore the problem at their peril. Blinken demonstrated as much in citing China’s atrocities against the Uyghur Muslims, making it the first example of violations in his March 30 statement. This is also the first example in his preface to the 2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. There, he stresses the religious character of China’s persecution and genocide against both Uyghur Muslims and “members of other religious and ethnic minority groups.” Since the Holocaust, genocide has become a priority for American foreign policy, a concern so firmly established that even partisan politics hasn't been able to dislodge it. The Uyghur Muslim genocide was officially recognized by Pompeo in January and was soon endorsed by the Biden administration, despite media commentators who dismissed the designation as an unserious, political parting shot at China by the Trump administration and not warranted anyhow. The U.S. government has recognized six situations of genocide in all, and half of them hinge on the religious (and ethnic) identity of the targeted victim group. The ISIS genocide in 2016, for example, targeted Middle Eastern religious communities of Yazidis and Christians. Momentum is now building for the recognition of three additional cases as genocide, all involving groups targeted for eradication in significant part because of their religion: the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar; Christians in parts of Nigeria; and Armenian, Greek, and Syriac Orthodox Christians in Turkey. Moreover, religious freedom has a place of primacy in American history, law, political tradition, and culture. The First Amendment laid the foundation for the world’s first national experiment in which all religions in a pluralistic society are equal under law. The principle has become one of America’s signature contributions to international human-rights law, as the commission noted. Many Americans, from the Pilgrims to the present, have found here a haven here from religious persecution abroad. Blinken’s own family was among them. As he movingly stated at the outset of his confirmation hearing, various members of his Jewish family found refuge in the United States, after fleeing Russian pogroms, Soviet Communism, and the Holocaust. Blinken announced his intent to correct the human-rights “unbalance” of the Trump administration, which expressly prioritized international religious freedom, and made clear that, in foreign policy, he would treat as “co-equal” the liberal causes of LGBTQI+ and abortion rights, along with select fundamental rights articulated in the UDHR. This demotion of religious freedom will be inevitably interpreted by his department to mean that religious freedom is to receive little attention in its agenda. Stating that the advisory report was not a “guiding document” for him and emphatically declaring that he was “repudiating” it “decisively today” reinforced this signal, or dog whistle (since Blinken never explicitly named religious freedom as his target for deprioritizing). This disregard for the religious-freedom issue is misguided. The effects of Blinken’s repudiation are already apparent in USAID programming, which his department finances. While its $25 billion annual budget still supports other, innumerable policy goals, USAID canceled or froze a raft of projects approved by the prior administration for Uyghurs and for persecution victims in Nigeria and the Middle East. In mid March, Blinken leveled Global Magnitsky Act sanctions against Chinese officials linked to the genocide. That action followed recommendations in the Executive Order for Advancing International Religious Freedom of June 2, 2020, which sought to “prioritize” religious freedom in foreign policy and foreign-assistance programs. Is that also one of the documents the secretary shredded on March 30? The human-rights reports barely mention religious freedom, which is covered in its own separate annual report by the International Religious Freedom (IRF) office. IRF’s reports aid the secretary’s determination of the world’s worst persecutors, “countries of particular concern,” and of corresponding sanctions, as mandated by the IRF Act. With that law, Congress strengthened foreign policy on behalf of persecuted individuals precisely because religious freedom had been given short shrift by diplomats and policy-makers. Hopefully, Blinken will come around to recognize the pivotal importance of religious freedom. He should do so quickly, before more desperately needed policies and programs are left to languish and persecutors feel further emboldened. Access the full article here. National Review © 2021

APR 7, 2021 6:15 PM PHT JODESZ GAVILAN | Rappler JUSTICE. Human rights groups call for justice for Bloody Sunday victims. File photo by Jire Carreon/Rappler MANILA, PHILIPPINES Amnesty International in its latest report says 'measures taken by the [Duterte] government to curb the spread of COVID-19 led to numerous abuses of human rights' There is no letup in human rights abuses under President Rodrigo Duterte even as the Philippines faces a massive health crisis, Amnesty International said in its latest report released on Wednesday, April 7. Former United Nations (UN) special rapporteur and now Amnesty secretary-general Agnes Callamard said Duterte consistently orchestrated widespread abuses across the country under his watch. "Almost five years into his presidency, President Duterte continues to incite a wave of human rights violations and fuel a climate of impunity for the perpetrators, turning the Philippines into a country where police and state forces are free to kill as they please," she said. In its 2020/2021 State of the World's Human Rights annual report, Amnesty noted that "measures taken by the [Duterte] government to curb the spread of COVID-19 led to numerous abuses of human rights." The report noted the strict policies that resulted in massive arrests of alleged quarantine violators and the violent dispersal of protests, including those calling for assistance from the government. Between March and November 2020, at least 134,298 were arrested for allegedly violating community quarantine guidelines. Further violations Amnesty International also emphasized the violent and deadly rhetoric of Duterte himself, who once ordered state forces to shoot those who violated strict community quarantine. Duterte's violent war on drugs still continued despite the pandemic, with government data showing that at least 6,069 killed in police operations as of February 28, 2021. This number does not include victims of vigilante-style killings. In February, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said that the "continued high number of killings by police remain a serious concern." The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) also found indications of excessive use of force on the part of the Philippine National Police in the conduct of anti-illegal drug operations. Aside from the drug war killings, Amnesty expressed concern over the repression of dissent which has led to the red-tagging of human rights defenders and activists. In many cases, these have led to deaths. As of March 7, CHR data showed that 130 activists have been killed under Duterte. The Amnesty report also indicated the continued attacks on press freedom in the Philippines under the Duterte administration, citing the killings of activists, the shutdown of broadcasting giant ABS-CBN, and the cyber libel conviction of Rappler chief executive officer Maria Ressa and former researcher Reynaldo Santos Jr. 'No longer stand idly' In February, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra announced before the UN Human Rights Council that an inter-agency drug war panel found that police did not follow protocols in more than half of the operations it reviewed. Callamard, however, said that the assurances of the government to the international community cannot be taken seriously, given the dire human rights situation in the Philippines. "The world can no longer stand idly by while the deadly campaign against people using or selling drugs continues," she said. "Amnesty International demands justice and accountability for the victims and countless families left behind," Callamard added. The International Criminal Court is expected to decide by the first half of 2021 whether or not to open a formal investigation into the Philippine killings. The constitutionality of Duterte's drug war is also being questioned before the Supreme Court. A Rappler investigation found that the case has been stalled by the Duterte government's submission of "rubbish" files. – Rappler.com Jodesz Gavilan is a writer and researcher for Rappler and its investigative arm, Newsbreak. She covers human rights and also hosts the weekly podcast Newsbreak: Beyond the Stories. She joined Rappler in 2014 after obtaining her journalism degree from the University of the Philippines. See article here. © 2021 Rappler

Protais Mpiranya is top of a list of remaining fugitives indicted by an international tribunal Jason Burke Africa correspondent | The Guardian Thu 8 Apr 2021 12.39 BST Protais Mpiranya, a former commander of the presidential guard of the Rwandan army, has been on the run for 27 years. Photograph: IRMCT/AFP/Getty Images United Nations investigators tracking one of the most notorious killers in the Rwandan genocide believe he is hiding in Zimbabwe and are launching a new effort to convince authorities in Harare to allow the 60-year-old fugitive to face trial. Protais Mpiranya, the former commander of the presidential guard of the Rwandan army, has been on the run for 27 years charged with war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. The ex-soldier is top of a list of remaining fugitives indicted by an international tribunal into the 1994 killings, which left 800,000 people dead in Rwanda, mostly from the Tutsi ethnic minority but also some Hutus. Mpiranya had been second on the wanted list before the arrest of Félicien Kabuga, a former businessman alleged to have helped finance the genocide, on the outskirts of Paris in May. The US war crimes reward programme has offered a $5m (£3.6m) reward for information leading to Mpiranya’s arrest. Serge Brammertz, the prosecutor of the body charged with tracking down the fugitive alleged criminals, which is known as the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT), said he was hoping to capitalise on the detention of Kabuga to corner Mpiranya. Kabuga now faces charges of playing a key role in the genocide, and if convicted he is likely to spend the rest of his life in prison. “We hope that the arrest of Kabuga would generate momentum and we are hoping to use this to get Mpiranya,” Brammertz said. Investigators have long suspected Mpiranya of hiding in Zimbabwe and have made repeated attempts to convince local authorities to hand over the suspect. Officials from the IRMCT travelled to Zimbabwe months after President Robert Mugabe was forced from power in November 2017 in the hope that the new government would prove more helpful than the former regime. There has been no progress, however, and a new request for assistance is to be made this month. Brammertz said hopes had been boosted by an agreement on legal cooperation on criminal matters signed last month by Zimbabwe and Rwanda. “Because of his military background it is very possible that [Mpiranya] still enjoys protection from senior military officers,” Brammertz told the Guardian. “We think he … is still quite active, still doing business and until recently has been moving around in east and central Africa, possibly between Zimbabwe, the DRC and South Africa.” Relations between governments of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda have improved recently, and this could limit options for the fugitive if Zimbabwe becomes unsafe. DRC may now offer a less secure haven for the fugitive, investigators said. “As commander of the presidential guard we consider [Mpiranya] as being one of the main perpetrators of the genocide,” Brammertz said. The genocide began after Rwanda’s Hutu president, Juvénal Habyarimana, was killed when his plane was shot down over Kigali on 6 April 1994. On Wednesday France marked the 27th anniversary of the start of the slaughter by declassifying and making accessible to the public all documents mentioned in a report released in March that documented the country’s role in the events of 1994. The report concluded that France had been blinded by its colonial attitude towards Africa in the runup to the slaughter and must bear the burden of “heavy and damning responsibilities”, but cleared it of complicity in the genocide. Names of genocide victims on a wall outside a church in Ntarama, Rwanda. Photograph: Ben Curtis/AP According to the indictment filed by the international tribunal, Mpiranya was among those who ordered the murder on 7 April 1994 of the prime minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, 10 Belgian soldiers protecting her, and several other leading politicians and their families. The killing of Uwilingiyimana, a moderate Hutu and Rwanda’s first female prime minister, was an essential step to extremists taking power and instigating the mass killing of Tutsis. When the military victory of rebel forces led by present-day Rwandan president, Robert Kagame, ended the genocide, Mpiranya fled to neighbouring DRC, where he is thought to have fought alongside Congolese forces against Rwandan troops in the bloody war that broke out across the vast central African state. Investigators believe Mpiranya was later sent to Zimbabwe as a representative of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a militia partly composed of former Hutus implicated in the genocide, and accused of exploiting the mineral wealth of eastern DRC. Mpiranya is believed to have become close to senior officers in the powerful Zimbabwean military when Mugabe deployed his army to DRC, setting up joint venture companies that allowed hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of precious natural resources including diamonds to be mined in DRC and then sold to the benefit of senior soldiers. The fugitive soldier is also thought to have been involved in lucrative arms procurement and trafficking involving the rebels and Zimbabwean forces. As early as December 2010, UN investigators reported to the UN security council that Mpiranya had connections with Zimbabwe and lived there for long periods. In 2012, under pressure from Kigali, Zimbabwean authorities admitted that the fugitive could be on their territory and pledged to find him “dead or alive”. His alleged presence in Zimbabwe was discussed in parliament, and local media listed possible aliases and addresses associated with him. However, last year Brammertz informed the UN security council that despite “credible evidence” of the whereabouts of key fugitives, the lack of cooperation from governments remained a challenge, particularly in east and southern Africa. One problem faced by investigators is that fugitives often use genuine travel documents issued in false names. A team from the tribunal has worked to establish the motives of those who provided the more than 20 different passports used by Kabuga during his years on the run. These may have been obtained through bribery or given on the orders of powerful individuals who wanted the accused man to stay hidden and silent. See article here. © 2021 The Guardian

Published by France 24 on April 9, 2021. People in the opposition stronghold of Toui protesting against against President Patrice Talon [Yanick Folly/AFP] The small West African nation of Benin has for the past three decades stood out as a model democracy in a region beset by coups and insurgencies. As he seeks a second term in a presidential election on Sunday, its tycoon leader Patrice Talon faces accusations he has tarnished the country’s reputation as a vibrant multiparty democracy. Talon, a multi-millionaire known as the “King of Cotton”, looks all but certain to win re-election in a contest critics say is heavily tilted in his favour. He faces two little-known rivals, Alassane Soumanou and Corentin Kohoue, with most opposition leaders either living in exile or disqualified from running. The lack of a contest signals a stark reversal after three decades of competitive elections in the coastal nation of 11.5 million, a former French colony hemmed in between tiny Togo and Africa’s powerhouse, Nigeria. It follows the introduction of controversial reforms that analysts have described as “a master class in entrenching autocracy”. The result has been an unusually tense run-up to the vote, with troops deployed in several opposition strongholds this week to disperse violent protests. On Friday, officials said two people were killed in the central city of Save as troops fired tear gas and live rounds in the air to disperse protesters. “Patrice Talon was meant to finish his term on April 5. But he failed to organise elections in time, as required by the constitution,” said Kamar Ouassagari, a senior member of the opposition party Les Démocrates, in an interview with FRANCE 24. “So the people of Benin have risen up to tell him his time is up,” Ouassagari added. Opponents kept off the ballot A poor country that is heavily reliant on cotton exports and informal trade with neighbouring Nigeria, Benin has a proud record as a beacon of democracy. Following the introduction of a multi-party system in 1991, its longtime leader Mathieu Kérékou became the first West African president to accept defeat at the polls. Talon’s predecessor, two-term president Thomas Boni Yayi, agreed to step down in 2016 even as neighbouring rulers changed their constitutions to extend their rule. Talon himself appeared willing to go a step further, pledging as a candidate that year to forgo a second term in order to avoid "complacency". But critics say his deeds once in office have largely undermined the country’s democratic progress. Opponents are especially critical of a reform of the country’s electoral laws requiring presidential candidates to secure the signatures of at least 16 elected officials in order to run. The rule was ostensibly designed to prevent the proliferation of mini-parties and fanciful candidacies. But in a country where all 83 members of parliament and 71 out of 77 mayors belong to Talon’s camp, securing those precious endorsements has proved largely impossible. The incumbent’s stranglehold on power results from disputed parliamentary elections held in 2019, in which the principal opposition parties were barred from running. Those polls led to a dismal 27 percent turnout – an unprecedented low in a country that had seen turnout near 75 percent in the 1990s. The disputed parliamentary elections triggered angry protests and several people were killed when the army opened fire on demonstrators. Many fear a similar outbreak of violence following Sunday’s presidential vote. “Benin will be at high risk in the coming days,” warns Francis Kpatindé, a French-Beninese journalist and researcher at Sciences-Po Paris, stressing that “such political violence is a novelty” in a once stable country that had grown accustomed to peaceful transfers of power. “Benin used to score well in global rankings published by the likes of Amnesty International and Reporters Without Border,” he says. “But over the past five years we’ve seen it slide down the tables when it comes to human rights and respecting democratic institutions.” ‘Politicised’ court Amnesty International has registered at least 12 cases of political opponents being either arrested, sentenced or summoned by the authorities since the start of the year. “Most of these arrests are based on laws that appear designed to curtail freedom of expression and the ability to voice criticism [of the authorities],” says regional expert Fabien Offner, who works for Amnesty’s Dakar bureau, in Senegal. He points to a digital law, passed in 2019, “which has been used to detain people based on messages posted on WhatsApp”. Offner adds: “The result is that Benin is heading into an election with most opposition leaders either in exile or in detention based on legal cases that are often very vague.” In recent years, the president’s main opponents have been sidelined one by one. Sébastien Ajavon, a business leader who backed Talon in the 2016 run-off after coming third in the election, has fled to France before his sentencing on drug-trafficking charges, which he denies. Ganiou Soglo, another prominent opponent, survived an attempted assassination earlier this year, shortly after declaring his candidacy. As for Lionel Zinsou, the runner-up five years ago, he is serving a five-year ban from elected office for exceeding spending limits in the 2016 campaign. Last month, the authorities jailed another would-be candidate, former justice minister Reckya Madougou, this time on charges of supporting terrorism. According to a judge who fled Benin earlier this month, the charges against Madougou were politically motivated. “There was nothing in the case that would have justified her arrest,” judge Essowé told FRANCE 24’s sister radio RFI on Monday, speaking from an undisclosed location. “It’s not the first time,” he added. “There have been several such cases where we received instructions from above.” The government has dismissed the accusations as “political manipulation”, accusing exiled opponents of trying to have the election annulled. Benin is fast resembling “the prototype of an authoritarian regime that tolerates no contradiction,” says Kpatindé. “Talon wants to develop the country’s economy and overhaul its infrastructure. He believes he’s invested with an almost Messianic mission at the country’s helm – and he accepts no checks on his power.” Jihadist threat Five years ago, Benin’s “King of Cotton” banked on his business credentials and his image as a moderniser to secure a convincing win at the polls. He has played up his economic successes during this campaign, with improved road, water and energy supplies. Economic growth notched up one point to a solid 5.5 percent in the first years of his term. According to the African Development Bank, Benin’s economy continued to grow last year despite the global recession, making it one of the few countries in the world not to post negative figures amid the coronavirus pandemic. However, analysts say the resilient growth has done little to improve the lot of a population still largely reliant on the informal economy. Some observers have drawn parallels between Talon’s Benin and Rwanda under President Paul Kagame, who has been credited with implementing sweeping structural reforms while also stifling dissent. Talon’s critics also denounce his grip on the nation’s economy. The 62-year-old magnate is the richest man in a country where cotton accounts for a staggering 80 percent of exports. The concentration of power in the hands of Benin’s incumbent president is cause for alarm, says Kpatindé, warning that Talon’s clean sweep of parliament could allow him to “prolong his rule indefinitely, without needing a referendum” to bypass constitutional term limits. The health of Beninese democracy is of particular concern at a time when jihadist insurgencies threaten to spill over into coastal countries south of the restive Sahel region, Kpatindé warns. “If you don’t have national unity, and a stable and peaceful democratic framework, then the door is open to all sorts of enterprises,” he says. In May 2019, gunmen kidnapped two French tourists and killed their guide in the Pendjari national park, near the country’s northwestern border with Burkina Faso. Though rare, the incident served as an ominous reminder that Benin is not immune from the jihadist menace wreaking havoc across large swathes of West Africa. This article was adapted from the original, in French. © 2021 Copyright France 24

Le chef de l’Etat sortant est assuré de remporter le scrutin qui doit se tenir le 11 avril, mais son clan est fissuré par les divisions internes. Par Cyril Bensimon Publié par Le Monde le 10 avril 2021 Le président tchadien, Idriss Déby (au centre), salue ses partisans lors d’un meeting à N'Djamena, le 13 mars 2021. RENAUD MASBEYE BOYBEYE / AFP A quoi sert encore une élection présidentielle au Tchad ? Sans rival, sans compétition ouverte, doté de tous les moyens de l’Etat, y compris la force, qui demeure pour lui une éternelle option, Idriss Déby avance sans risque vers sa réélection. Un sixième mandat qu’il devrait s’offrir par les urnes, trente ans après avoir conquis le pouvoir par les armes. Vidé de toute substance démocratique, le scrutin prévu dimanche 11 avril est une formalité. Le moindre rassemblement de protestataires est aussitôt maté. Aucun des six candidats qui se présentent contre le chef de l’Etat sortant n’apparaît en mesure de provoquer ne serait-ce qu’un second tour. L’idée n’est même jamais évoquée par les acteurs politiques tchadiens ou par la société civile. Dans ce contexte, la campagne est, pour le pouvoir en place, une occasion de mesurer et de renforcer les allégeances locales, de réactiver les réseaux de patronage et de promettre de nouveaux projets de développement aux populations. « Le président est indispensable. Personne d’autre que lui ne peut assurer notre sécurité et nous emmener vers un développement certain. S’il voulait se retirer, nous-mêmes, au sein du parti, nous le refuserions car il doit achever l’œuvre qu’il a commencée », proclame sans retenue Jean-Bernard Padaré, le porte-parole du Mouvement patriotique du salut (MPS), le parti au pouvoir. « Tout est calculé » Face à la vague jaune et bleu qui s’annonce, les couleurs du MPS, l’opposition est une nouvelle fois restée divisée, tant sur des questions d’individus que sur la nécessité de participer ou non au vote. Après quatre candidatures infructueuses, Saleh Kebzaboh, arrivé en deuxième position en 2016, reconnaît l’impasse actuelle. « Cette élection n’a aucun enjeu. Tout est calculé. Nous avons face à nous un chef rebelle qui n’a aucune culture démocratique. Déby va obtenir ce qu’il veut et, faute de pouvoir connaître la participation réelle à cette mascarade, nous n’aurons aucun chiffre à opposer aux résultats préparés en amont », concède-t-il, de retour de Bongor, dans le sud-ouest du pays, où il est allé expliquer à ses partisans de boycotter le scrutin bien que son visage soit imprimé sur des bulletins de vote. Saleh Kebzaboh et deux autres personnalités de l’opposition ont retiré leur candidature début mars après la violente tentative d’arrestation d’un autre opposant, Yaya Dillo Djerou, mais la Cour suprême a maintenu leurs effigies au motif que leurs demandes étaient trop tardives. Qu’elle ait été la raison objective ou un prétexte pour ces abandons, l’arrestation manquée de cet ancien rebelle devenu ministre et conseiller à la présidence avant de rompre une nouvelle fois avec le pouvoir a été un révélateur des fissures internes du régime. Yaya Dillo Djerou est issu de la même communauté zaghawa que le chef de l’Etat. Ses « parents » sont au moins aussi nombreux dans l’armée que ceux du président, sacré maréchal en août 2020 à l’occasion des célébrations des soixante ans de l’indépendance. « Quand, le 28 février, la direction des actions réservées a forcé la porte de ma concession pour m’arrêter et a tué ma mère de 80 ans, mon fils de 11 ans et blessé sept membres de ma famille, il y a eu des tractations pour permettre ma sortie. Parmi les officiers, certains ont suggéré de m’écarter un peu pour éviter une escalade suicidaire », explique-t-il, depuis un lieu d’exil tenu secret. Le jeune opposant ne pèse peut-être pas lourd sur l’échiquier politique, mais, comme en convient une source officielle française, « cette affaire touche aux soubassements profonds du pouvoir et met en exergue ses fragilités ». Les autorités de N’Djamena ont eu beau affirmer que trois agents des forces de l’ordre avaient été blessés dans l’opération ou que la mère de l’opposant avait été tuée par un tir venant de l’intérieur de la maison, l’intervention au domicile de M. Dillo Djerou a suscité, selon plusieurs sources, de vives tensions dans l’appareil militaire. Des officiers à la loyauté suspecte ont été écartés. Bienveillance internationale « Idriss Déby sait que son principal défi est la contestation au sein de son propre clan. Yaya Dillo Djerou est un cousin de Déby et des frères Erdimi [des parents du président qui, en 2008, faisaient partie des chefs rebelles ayant menacé de le renverser]. Ils ont les mêmes réseaux dans la communauté zaghawa et donc dans l’armée, rappelle le chercheur Jérôme Tubiana. Après l’échec des offensives rebelles, ils ont compris la nécessité de s’allier politiquement avec d’autres communautés du pays, de jouer sur les mécontentements dans l’armée et d’appeler au soulèvement populaire. » Pour ce faire, les détracteurs du régime semblent avoir trouvé la cible idéale en la personne d’Hinda Déby. L’emprise de la première dame, également secrétaire particulière du président, et de ses proches sur les affaires de l’Etat est devenue un objet de polémiques constantes au Tchad. Yaya Dillo Djerou a échappé à une arrestation alors qu’il est poursuivi pour « diffamation » et « injures publiques » pour avoir dénoncé dans une vidéo un « conflit d’intérêts » après la signature d’une convention entre la Fondation Grand Cœur, de Mme Déby, et le gouvernement dans la gestion de la pandémie de Covid-19. « Cette fondation est une société-écran qui lui permet de racler tous les fonds de l’Etat », accuse l’opposant, avec l’évidente volonté d’attiser la colère au sein du clan zaghawa, dont elle ne fait pas partie, qui voit une partie de ses prébendes rognées. Jamais à l’abri d’une révolution de palais, Idriss Déby sait cependant qu’il peut compter sur une bienveillance internationale, en particulier de la France. En lançant, en 2013, ses soldats dans la guerre contre les djihadistes au Mali, le président tchadien a réalisé un formidable coup géopolitique. Sa diplomatie militaire au Sahel est devenue sa meilleure protection, comme en a attesté le bombardement, en février 2019, d’une colonne rebelle par l’aviation française. Et si certains soldats tchadiens sont accusés ces derniers jours de viols au Niger, y compris sur des mineures, leur chef ne se privera pas de rétorquer que quatre autres de ses soldats sont tombés vendredi 2 avril au Mali sous les couleurs des Nations unies. Pour son premier meeting de campagne à N’Djamena, Idriss Déby a finalement résumé en deux mots son message à tous ceux qui travaillent à sa chute ou lui demandent des comptes : « Damboula hanakou ! » Une insulte dont la version la plus édulcorée serait : « Qu’ils aillent se faire voir ! » © Le Monde. Tous droits réservés.

End Ill-treatment, Beatings; Respect Right of Assembly; Investigate Abuses Published by HRW on April 8, 2021. Idriss Deby is one of the longest serving leaders in Africa [File: Reuters] Chad’s security forces have ruthlessly cracked down on protesters and the political opposition in the lead-up to the country’s April 11, 2021 presidential election, harming Chadians’ right to freely choose their elected representatives, Human Rights Watch said today. Incumbent President Idriss Déby Itno, who has ruled Chad since December 1990 when he removed the autocratic leader Hissène Habré, is running for a sixth term. Since February, a coalition of nongovernmental groups, labor unions, and opposition political parties have organized peaceful demonstrations in the capital, N’Djamena, and other cities across the country, despite a government ban on public gatherings. Witnesses described how security force members beat protesters with whips, sticks, and batons; pulled a wounded person out of a car and beat other passengers; arbitrarily arrested scores of people, and, in the attack on the home of an opposition leader, killed his mother. One protester said he was subjected to electric shocks while in detention. “As many Chadians are bravely taking to the streets to peacefully call for change and respect of their basic rights, Chad’s authorities have responded by crushing dissent and hope of a fair or credible election,” said Ida Sawyer, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities should respect freedom of speech and assembly, ensure that police exercise restraint during opposition protests, and urgently investigate the deadly assault on the family of an opposition leader and other allegations of abuse.” Human Rights Watch conducted interviews by telephone between March 22 and 30 with 24 human rights activists, protesters, opposition party leaders and members, lawyers, and journalists. Human Rights Watch also analyzed videos and photographs and reviewed reporting by media outlets and national and international rights groups. Human Rights Watch spoke with Chad’s justice minister Djimet Arabi on April 7. He said that security forces acted with “professionalism” while policing protests and that they had a responsibility to put an end to demonstrations that had been banned and that “sometimes led to violence and public disorder, with protesters burning tires on different roads.” Human Rights Watch found that security forces used teargas to disperse peaceful protesters in N’Djamena on February 6, February 15, March 20, and March 27, injuring dozens of protesters and bystanders. They also arbitrarily arrested at least 112 opposition party members and supporters and civil society activists, subjecting some to severe beatings and other ill-treatment. In a brazen attack on the home of a political opposition leader and presidential candidate Yaya Dillo on February 28, security forces killed his 80-year-old mother and wounded five other family members. Communications Minister Chérif Mahamat Zene said in a February 28 statement that the purpose of the raid was to arrest Dillo, who had failed to comply with two judicial warrants. He said that Dillo “put up an armed resistance” and that two people were killed and five others injured in the fight, including three members of the security forces. The witnesses with whom Human Rights Watch spoke reject this account and maintain that there was no armed response from Dillo’s home. Protesters told Human Rights Watch that they demonstrated to call for political change, and for an end to social and economic injustices. They cited the appalling rates of poverty, despite the country’s vast oil resources. Chad was placed last in the World Bank’s 2020 Human Capital Index, while the United Nations Development Programme ranked Chad 187 out of 189 countries in its 2020 human development index. “We are an oil-rich nation, but the population remains desperately poor because resources have been misused,” Mahamat Nour Ibedou, a prominent human rights defender, told Human Rights Watch. “There’s an extremely wealthy elite made up of a few people close to the government, and then there’s a whole population struggling to survive and living in dire conditions, eating once a day.” Seventeen candidates submitted their applications to contest the presidential election. On March 3, Chad’s Supreme Court stated that only 10 had been approved, rejecting the remaining candidates on grounds that their parties were not “legally constituted.” Following the deadly raid on Dillo’s home, some of the remaining candidates withdrew, including Saleh Kebzabo, president of the opposition party National Union for Democracy and Revival (Union nationale pour la démocratie et le renouveau, UNDR), who denounced a “climate of insecurity and militarization of the political scene” and called for a boycott of the elections. Dillo, whose candidacy was not accepted, went into hiding after his home was attacked. Opposition parties have accused the government of using Covid-19 regulations to block their campaigns and ban political gatherings, including a strict lockdown that was imposed in N’Djamena from January 1 to March 10. “The authorities have used the pandemic as an excuse to quash the political opposition,” Mahamat Ahmat Lazina, president of opposition party Mouvement National pour le Changement au Tchad (MNCT), told Human Rights Watch. “They imposed a lockdown not because they cared about the health of people, but because they wanted to stop opposition parties from mobilizing support. We watched President Déby travel to all of Chad’s provinces and organize meetings with hundreds of people, while we were forced to stay home.” The security forces’ use of excessive force against protesters violates not only their rights to free speech, assembly, and liberty but also the absolute prohibition on inflicting inhuman and degrading treatment and torture. The Chadian government should instruct the police and gendarmes to abide by the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights Guidelines on Policing Assemblies in Africa. Under these principles, law enforcement officers may use force only when strictly necessary and to the extent required to achieve a legitimate policing objective. Anyone found not to act in compliance with them should be held to account and appropriately punished. “Human rights violations and denial of fundamental freedoms have undermined the credibility of Chad’s upcoming elections,” Sawyer said. “Chad’s international partners should not turn a blind eye to the abuses but instead press the government to respect freedom of assembly, rein in the security forces, and ensure accountability for abuses.” For more information on the recent repression in Chad, please see below. Context Chad has received significant international support for its role in the fight against armed Islamist groups in the Sahel and Lake Chad basin. Chad has committed 1,000 troops to the G5 Sahel Joint Force – a military force created to counter Islamist armed groups in the Sahel region, with support from the European Union, Saudi Arabia, and the United States, among others. It has also contributed 3,000 soldiers to the Multinational Joint Task Force, a joint military force mandated by the African Union to respond to Boko Haram attacks across the Lake Chad basin, with support from the European Union, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. N’Djamena, Chad’s capital, hosts the headquarters of Barkhane, the French counterterrorism force operating in Mali. But Déby’s government has a long track record of cracking down on fundamental freedoms and banning or repressing peaceful demonstrations. Lawyers told Human Rights Watch that while Article 28 of the revised 2018 Constitution guarantees freedom of assembly, the law regulating the conditions under which assemblies can be restricted has never been adopted, leading the authorities to use outdated decrees from 1962 to ban peaceful protests. Repression of Demonstrations on February 6 and 15 Media outlets and Amnesty International reported that security forces fired teargas to disperse peaceful demonstrations in N’Djamena on February 6 and arrested dozens of people, including Ibedou, secretary general of the Chadian Human Rights Convention. Success Masra, head of the opposition party Les Transformateurs, who participated in the demonstration, sought refuge at the US embassy in N’Djamena. On February 11, the embassy issued a statement saying that it “received assurances” from the Chadian government that Masra “would not be arrested if he departed the embassy” and asked Masra to leave. He has not been arrested since leaving the embassy. On February 15, police in N’Djamena fired teargas to disperse a peaceful march organized by the MNCT opposition party, other political parties, and civil society organizations. Several protesters and their lawyers told Human Rights Watch that the police arrested over 30 demonstrators and beat many of them. Two were held for nine days without charge, while the others were released the day of arrest, also without being charged. Lazina, the MNCT president, was among those arrested, and he later told Human Rights Watch: “They took me to N’Djamena’s third district police station and from there to a building of the police intelligence service within the same compound. Then they beat me. Six policemen and intelligence officers in plain clothes hit me with sticks and kicked me repeatedly on my back.” Lazina was released later that day. Human Rights Watch reviewed Lazina’s medical records issued by a doctor at the Sultan Cherif Kasser hospital in N’Djamena on February 16, acknowledging that Lazina was temporarily incapacitated due to spinal, pelvic, and thoracic pain following a traumatic injury suffered on February 15. A 46-year-old member of the MNCT, who was also among those arrested, said that he was tortured at the headquarters of the police intelligence service by men in plain clothes: “They beat me and gave me electric shocks with cables, three times, on the day of my arrest. They wanted me to confess, to tell them who organized the march and who was behind the demonstrations. They also hit me with a whip multiple times before throwing me in a cell where I slept for eight days on the floor.” The Attack at Yaya Dillo’s House on February 28 Dillo, Chad’s former representative to the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC), told Human Rights Watch that members of the presidential guard, soldiers, and policemen attacked his home at about 5 a.m. on February 28. Human Rights Watch spoke with four other witnesses to the attack and reviewed photographs of the body of Dillo’s mother and of injured people, and video footage showing his house and property that was damaged in the attack. Dillo and four other witnesses said that security forces killed Dillo’s mother and son and injured at least five other family members. Chad’s justice minister told Human Rights Watch that Dillo’s son was not killed in the attack. Video footage shows at least one member of the security forces who was injured. Witnesses said that other security force members shot him when he refused an order to mount an assault on Dillo’s home. Chad’s justice minister said that two security force members were killed and that three or four other security force members were injured. He added that a judicial investigation has been opened to determine who was responsible for the death of Dillo’s mother and the deaths of two security force members. “They came with military vehicles to destroy me and my house,” Dillo said. “They fired indiscriminately at all civilians who were in the house. They killed one of my sons, a little child of 11 years old, and my 80-year-old mother.” A witness to the attack said that soldiers surrounded Dillo’s home and forced their way into his compound with tracked and wheeled armored vehicles: “They crushed the gate of the compound with an armored vehicle and smashed at least four vehicles parked in the courtyard. We, the people who had gathered at Dillo’s house, resisted by throwing stones and other objects at the soldiers.” Another witness, and a relative of Dillo’s, said he was shot and wounded in his right tibia when the soldiers started firing inside Dillo’s home: “The military sprayed us with gunfire. They fired several rounds of bullets and one hit me in the leg. I fell down and was later taken to the hospital for treatment.” While Chad’s justice minister told Human Rights Watch that there were armed men with Dillo who responded to the security forces with gunfire, all the witnesses who spoke with Human Rights Watch denied that there was any armed security at Dillo’s home who fired at security forces or provoked any use of weapons or lethal force. Dillo had refused, on his lawyer’s advice, to respond to an earlier arrest warrant, which they say was not lawfully executed. Netblocks, a nonprofit organization monitoring internet censorship, reported that internet access in Chad was severely disrupted on February 28 following the deadly raid at Dillo’s house. Several other people interviewed confirmed it. A N’Djamena-based reporter said: The government was extremely nervous because scenes of the attack [on Dillo’s home] were filmed by witnesses and were being circulated on social media. I did not have access to the internet for several days and had to buy a Cameroonian sim card in order to communicate with the outside. The internet block hindered people from communicating with each other and prevented journalists from reporting on unfolding events. The United Nations Human Rights Council has condemned measures by governments to prevent or disrupt online access to information. The spokesperson of the United Nations secretary-general said on March 1 that he “regrets the use of violence and the resulting loss of life” at Dillo’s residence and urged authorities “to conduct a prompt and rigorous investigation into the incident and to hold perpetrators accountable.” France’s foreign minister also said that the Chadian government should open an independent investigation into the incident and ensure freedom of assembly ahead of the elections. Repression of Demonstrations on March 20 and 27 Ten witnesses said that the police violently dispersed peaceful demonstrations organized by a coalition of nongovernmental groups, unions and opposition parties in N’Djamena on March 20 and 27. Witnesses said that anti-riot police fired teargas canisters directly at protesters, turning them into dangerous projectiles that led to serious injuries. Human Rights Watch reviewed five videos from the March 20 protest, where peaceful demonstrators can be seen singing the national anthem, calling for Déby to step down, and calling for jobs for the youth and access to basic services for the population. Eight witnesses, three lawyers, and media reports said that the anti-riot police dispersed the demonstration by firing teargas and beating protesters, injuring at least 10 people. They then rounded up and arrested at least 40 people. “I was hit and burned in my left thigh by a teargas cartridge fired by anti-riot police just some 10 meters away,” said a civil society activist who participated in the demonstration. “The police seemed to fire these cartridges indiscriminately. While I was being taken to the hospital in a car, a police vehicle rear-ended ours. The police took us out of the car and fired teargas again. I couldn’t breathe. One of the people in the car with me collapsed. The police beat him with a truncheon on his back and shoulders before taking us all to the police station.” A member of an opposition party who also participated in the demonstration said: “We were waiting to start the march in front of the premises of the Chadian Workers’ Union when the police came and started firing teargas. They fired from close range. I was hit by a cartridge fired at me from about two meters away. I was injured on my right shoulder.” A member of an opposition party who was among the March 27 protestors said: “Our policemen are not professional. When they fired teargas, they did not aim at the ground, but at our heads! I saw how they were throwing the cartridges irresponsibly. They also fired huge quantities of teargas, making the air unbreathable and causing protestors to feel dizzy or collapse." Media outlets, as well as protestors and lawyers interviewed, said that the police arbitrarily arrested at least 40 protesters and bystanders during the March 20 demonstrations, and at least 28 during the March 27 demonstrations. The police also beat some of the protesters either upon arrest or at the police stations. All protesters have been released. Police arrested and beat François Djékombé, president of the opposition party Union sacrée pour la République (USPR) on March 27. “I was thrown into the police vehicle and beaten up by four police officers,” he said. “I fell on my neck, which is still hurting. A policeman slapped me twice, while another forced me to lie down in the vehicle and shoved his boots into my neck.” The well-known Chadian rap singer, Alfred Ngueita Allashasko (known as “N2A”), said that he was arrested both on March 20 and March 27. “The policemen were brutal. On both occasions, they beat me up,” he said. “They put me in their vehicle with other protesters and kicked me with their boots. On March 20, I also witnessed a police officer beating a pregnant woman with a stick.” A lawyer said that a police officer beat one of his clients, a pregnant woman who participated in the protest, at N’Djamena’s 6th district police and that she was taken to a health center for treatment. © 2021 Human Rights Watch

The United States is looking into reports of human rights abuses and atrocities in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, the U.S. State Department said on Monday. Department spokesman Ned Price told a news briefing that the United States is “gravely concerned” about accounts last week by CNN and the BBC of a massacre in the region by Ethiopian forces. “We are, of course, looking into these reports. We have taken close note of them and we’ll continue to pay close attention,” Price said. “We strongly condemn the killings, the forced removals, the sexual assaults, the other human rights abuses that multiple organizations have reported,” Price added, declining to say who the United States believed was responsible. Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry has said a joint investigation with external experts into alleged human rights violations would start soon. Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country, is struggling to control several flashpoints where ethnic rivalries over land, power and resources have ignited ahead of national elections scheduled for June. Price also welcomed an Ethiopian foreign ministry pledge that Eritrean troops would withdraw from Tigray, calling such a withdrawal an important step forward in de-escalation in the region. Eritrea and Ethiopia denied the presence of Eritrean troops in Tigray for months, despite dozens of eyewitness accounts. G7 countries including the United States called on Friday for a swift, unconditional and verifiable withdrawal of the Eritrean soldiers, followed by a political process acceptable to all Ethiopians. “The immediate and complete withdrawal of Eritrean troops from Tigray will be an important step forward in de-escalating the conflict and restoring peace and regional stability,” Price told reporters. © Reuters Staff, 2021