Communities call for protection after string of killings linked to rush for land to grow coca, under cover of the pandemic Herlín Odicio, president of the Cacataibo native communities’ federation, Fenacoca, who is in hiding after death threats from drug-trafficking gangs. Photograph: Courtesy of Luis Miranda By Dan Collyns | The Guardian @yachay_dc Tue 6 Apr 2021 12.49 BST We’re looking for you, dead or alive,” is one of the daily threats that Herlín Odicio receives on his mobile phone. The leader of the indigenous Cacataibo people in Peru’s central Amazon has been forced into hiding for standing up to drug traffickers trying to steal his land. “We’ve reported coca plantations on our land so many times and nothing has been done,” Odicio said. He said the threats against his life spiralled after he turned down an offer of 500,000 Peruvian soles (£96,500) for every drug flight leaving from a secret airstrip on his territory. “They’re coming after me,” he said by phone from a secret location in Peru. “I can’t walk freely in my community. [The narcos] are looking for me.” Indigenous communities in Peru’s central Amazon are experiencing an increase in violence, threats and harassment as drug gangs target their land to grow coca, the plant used to make cocaine. Covid-19 restrictions have made the remote region even more vulnerable by slowing state efforts to protect land and eradicate illegal coca cultivation. This boom in coca-growing – Peru is the world’s second biggest producer of cocaine after Colombia, according to the UN – has come at the cost of indigenous lives. In February, two Cacataibo leaders, 30-year-old Yénser Ríos and 28-year-old Herasmo García, were found shot dead 12 days apart in the Padre Abad province of Ucayali, an area riddled with coca plantations and clandestine airstrips for transporting cocaine into Bolivia. The funeral of Herasmo García, a Cacataibo man who was shot dead in February, in his village in the region of Huánuco, in Peru’s central Amazon. Photograph: Courtesy of Fenacoca The head of police criminal investigations in Peru, General Vicente Tiburcio, said police were investigating if the men’s deaths were revenge killings by coca-growers. Tiburcio said Ríos had been responsible for patrolling his community’s territory and was known to have taken part in coca eradication. In April 2020, Arbildo Meléndez, a leader from the same Cacataibo indigenous group, was shot dead near the village of Unipacuyacu. He had reported the presence of drug gangs and secret airstrips to the authorities, and had asked the Inter-American commission on human rights to demand the Peruvian state protect him. These men are three of the seven Amazonians in Peru killed during the pandemic as land grabbers exploit the crisis to seize land to grow coca, as well as for logging and cash crops such as palm oil. For the state we don't exist. We are constantly harassed and threatened | Berlín Diques The most recent victim is Estela Casanto, 55, an indigenous Asháninka, who was found dead on 12 March. “Her family found bloodstains in her bed,” said Teddy Sinacay, president of Ceconsec, an organisation of 120 Asháninka communities in Peru’s central Amazon. “She had been beaten, dragged from her house. They took her about 40 metres and threw her in a gully. They then dragged her further, hitting her on the head with a stone.” Police are still investigating the circumstances, but her death provides yet more evidence of the precariousness of indigenous land claims, and the often deadly consequences of trying to assert them. Indigenous Amazonians say police and prosecutors are failing to follow up their warnings, and are allowing killers to operate with impunity. In total, nine environmental campaigners have been killed in Peru since the start of the pandemic, but there has been no murder conviction in any case. Meléndez’s alleged killer was arrested but released on bail on a manslaughter charge after judges and prosecutors accepted his plea that his gun had gone off by accident. “For the state, we don’t exist,” said Berlín Diques, a native leader in Ucayali. “We are constantly harassed and threatened,” he said. Berlín Diques, president of Orau, the branch of Peru’s umbrella federation of Amazon peoples in Ucayali.Photograph: Hugo Alejos “We’ve lost trust in the prosecutor’s office and the police,” said Odicio, who received police protection for a few days last year but now has none. Álvaro Másquez, a lawyer specialising in indigenous rights at Lima’s Legal Defence Institute, said the scales are tipped in favour of outsiders seeking to buy land in indigenous territories. For the ancestral inhabitants, however, acquiring a land title can take decades. “It’s common practice for drug traffickers, land traffickers and illegal loggers to end up bribing the officials who authorise forestry or agricultural concessions and land titles,” said Másquez. It's common practice for drug traffickers, land traffickers and illegal loggers to bribe officials | Álvaro Másquez At the same time, “structural racism in the judiciary and prosecutor’s office” means impunity is the norm for land grabbers, he said. The territorial insecurity of indigenous people has made them easy targets for drug traffickers who use “established organised crime networks” to exploit their weakness, said Vladimir Pinto from Amazon Watch, which works to protect the rainforest and indigenous people’s rights. As coronavirus restrictions ease in Peru, coca eradication – which dropped from an average of 25,000 hectares (61,000 acres) of coca a year pre-pandemic to about 6,000 hectares in 2020 – has just resumed in Cacataibo indigenous territory. This worries Diques, who expects there will be reprisals by drug gangs. “The cannon fodder will be us indigenous [people],” he said. “The authorities leave and we will be blamed. We don’t want to cry over more deaths.” See article here. © 2021 The Guardian

Boost Civilian Protection, Monitor Troops’ Conduct (Nairobi) – The Islamist armed group Boko Haram has stepped up attacks on civilians in towns and villages in the Far North region of Cameroon since December 2020, killing at least 80 civilians, Human Rights Watch said today. The group has also looted hundreds of homes in the region. The government should take concrete measures to both increase protection to vulnerable communities and ensure a rights-respecting security force response to the worsening violence. “Boko Haram is waging a war on the people of Cameroon at a shocking human cost,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “As Cameroon’s Far North region increasingly becomes the epicenter of Boko Haram’s violence, Cameroon should urgently adopt and carry out a new, rights-respecting strategy to protect civilians at risk in the Far North.” Human Rights Watch documented how a Boko Haram suicide bomber blew up fleeing civilians, dozens of local fishermen were killed with machetes and knives, and an elderly village chief was assassinated in front of his family. Research suggests that the actual number of casualties is much higher, given the difficulty of confirming details remotely and that attacks often go unreported. From January 25 to February 25, 2021, Human Rights Watch interviewed by telephone 20 victims and witnesses to 5 Boko Haram attacks since mid-December in the towns and villages of Blabline, Darak, Gouzoudou, and Mozogo in the Far North region, as well 4 family members of victims, 2 humanitarian workers, and 5 local activists. Human Rights Watch also interviewed 2 victims and a witness to human rights violations in the region by Cameroonian soldiers. Human Rights Watch reviewed reports from humanitarian and other nongovernmental organizations and local media reports on attacks in the region and consulted with academics, political analysts, and representatives of the African Union, the United Nations, and the European Union. Human Rights Watch shared the research by email with Cyrille Serge Atonfack Guemo, the Cameroonian army spokesperson, on February 1 and again on March 19, requesting information about the Boko Haram attacks, the ongoing military operations, and the specific allegations Human Rights Watch documented. The army spokesperson did not immediately reply to requests for comment. Cameroon’s territorial administration minister said on February 12 that the security situation in the Far North region is “under control” and that Boko Haram is “living its last days.” One of the deadliest recent attacks was in Mozogo on January 8, when Boko Haram fighters killed at least 14 civilians, including 8 children, and wounded 3 others, including 2 children. As fighters shot at residents and looted homes, a female suicide bomber infiltrated a group of fleeing civilians and then detonated her explosive vest, witnesses said. “As the shooting started, I ran away toward the forest,” a 41-year-old resident said. “I heard a powerful explosion and lay on the ground. I saw a 7-year-old child covered in blood running toward me. He took me to the place where the kamikaze detonated her explosive vest. It was a bloodbath.” The Boko Haram insurgency began in Nigeria in 2009 and then spread across the Lake Chad basin countries, including Cameroon. Boko Haram’s attacks are often indiscriminate, including suicide bombings in crowded areas that appear designed to maximize civilian deaths and injuries. Cameroon has had a sharp spike in attacks over the past year. According to a November 2020 report of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a United States Department of Defense think tank, the number of Boko Haram attacks against civilians in Cameroon in 2020 was higher than in Nigeria, Niger, and Chad combined. In 2015, the African Union established the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), made up of troops from Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria, to respond to Boko Haram attacks across the Lake Chad basin. Comprising over 8,000 troops, the MNJTF receives technical, financial, and strategic support from international partners, including the European Union, the United States, France, and the United Kingdom. The multinational force has conducted joint military operations across the Lake Chad basin. It is essential for Cameroon and the multinational force to improve the conduct of forces deployed to counter Boko Haram attacks and to ensure that allegations of human rights violations by its forces are investigated and prosecuted, Human Rights Watch said. Since 2014, rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, have documented widespread human rights violations and crimes under international humanitarian law by Cameroonian security forces deployed on operations in the Far North, including extrajudicial executions, arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, incommunicado detention, systematic torture, and forced return of refugees. On December 9, soldiers from the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR), an elite unit of the Cameroonian army, arrested four fishermen in Dabanga, in the Far North region, beat them, and took them to the Dabanga military base, where one of them died, said two of the fishermen and a family member. The fishermen said that the soldiers accused them of being Boko Haram members and that they saw one of the fishermen who was arrested with them taken from the cell soon after they arrived. A family member of the fisherman who died said that BIR soldiers brought his body to their home hours after he was arrested, claiming he had died of a heart attack. The two fishermen and the family member said they believe the security forces killed him. Cameroon’s international partners should push for accountability for human rights violations and work to strengthen the civilian component of the multinational force and its human rights compliance office, Human Rights Watch said. Human Rights Watch also urges the Cameroonian parliament to hold a hearing to explore the government’s response to the increasing attacks on civilians in the Far North, to provide recommendations on how to enhance civilian protection, and to seek input from international actors as needed. International humanitarian law, applicable to the armed conflict with Boko Haram, prohibits deliberate disproportionate or indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian objects. Those who order or commit such attacks with criminal intent are responsible for war crimes. “With Boko Haram attacks on the rise in Cameroon, more needs to be done to effectively protect civilians, including by boosting the military presence and patrols across the Far North region and ensuring that the soldiers respect people’s rights,” Allegrozzi said. “Cameroon’s regional and international partners, including those supporting the multinational force, should bolster these efforts and ensure that their assistance does not contribute to human rights violations.” For more details about the recent attacks and abuses in the Far North region, please see below. Humanitarian Crisis The Cameroonian military has deployed thousands of soldiers to the Far North region to prevent and repel attacks by Boko Haram, but residents and humanitarian workers said the soldiers’ presence is far too thin to effectively protect civilians. Cameroon’s overstretched army is also confronting a separatist insurgency in the country’s Anglophone regions and the threat of cross-border raids by rebels in neighboring Central African Republic. It has relied on over 14,000 so-called “vigilantes,” community self-defense groups, and in some cases forced untrained civilians to carry out security tasks without adequate training or protection, putting them at great risk. The Boko Haram violence in Cameroon has led to a major humanitarian crisis, forcing over 322,000 people from their homes since 2014, including 12,500 since December. Given the heightened insecurity, access to many areas is only possible with military escorts, making it difficult for humanitarian organizations to deliver aid while respecting their neutrality, depriving those in need of life-saving assistance. Aid workers and residents said that increasing the military presence and military patrols in violence-prone areas, including on market days, would both improve civilian protection and expand humanitarian access by enabling aid workers to safely travel without escorts. Mozogo Raid and Suicide Attack Witnesses said that about 100 fighters, whom they recognized as being Boko Haram members from the way they dressed and spoke, entered the town of Mozogo on foot at about 1:30 a.m. on January 8, breaking into homes, looting property, and shooting at residents, killing two men, one of whom was 80 years old. As they fled towards the nearby bush, witnesses reported hearing a loud explosion. A female suicide bomber had infiltrated a group of fleeing civilians and detonated her explosive vest, killing 11 people on the spot, including 8 children, and wounding 3 others, including 2 children. A 43-year-old man later died three days later at the Koza Adventist hospital from wounds caused by the explosion. Human Rights Watch spoke to five witnesses to the attack, including three family members of victims. Human Rights Watch also obtained lists of the 14 people killed from four sources and spoke to relatives and residents who carried out the burials. These details correspond with the information published by local media. A 43-year-old woman who lost two of her children, a 17-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl, in the suicide attack said: "Boko Haram [fighters] fired shots and screamed “Allahu Akbar” [God is Great]. We ran toward the forest. Minutes later, we heard a loud explosion. I found myself on the ground. When I stood up, I looked for my children. My girl was dead, while the boy was badly injured. They were both covered in blood with wounds all over their bodies. Residents helped me carry the boy to our home, where he died." A relative of the 80-year-old man said that four Boko Haram fighters armed with Kalashnikovs and machetes broke into their home and fired twice at the elderly man, who was too weak to run away: "Gunshots woke us up and suddenly they [Boko Haram fighters] were at our door. They destroyed the door and broke in. They shot twice at the husband of my grandmother, an 80-year-old man who could not walk very well because of his age. He was not quick enough to escape. I did. He was shot in the stomach and stabbed with a machete on his head. When the attack ended, I came back home and found him in a pool of blood. I took him to the hospital, where he died the same day." Response of the Security Forces and Displacement Witnesses said that soldiers from the 42nd Motorized Infantry Battalion (BIM) based in Mozogo intervened after the female fighter detonated her explosive vest. They fired in the air to chase away the Boko Haram fighters. In a January 8 statement, Cameroon’s communication minister said that local authorities and security forces had opened an investigation into the attack. On January 9, Midjiyawa Bakari, governor of Cameroon’s Far North region, said that military reinforcements had been deployed to Mozogo to secure the area, which was confirmed by witnesses, who said that up to five additional military vehicles patrolled the town for a few days. But residents said these military reinforcements appear to have left. Residents said they are worried about their security especially since the departure of the military reinforcements. “We live in fear,” a 50-year-old man said. “We are tired of this situation; we have been economically and psychologically drained.” Following the January 8 attack, hundreds of people fled Mozogo to nearby villages and towns, including Koza, Mokolo, and Touboro. At least 300 who remained in Mozogo did not spend the night at home, sleeping for over a month instead outside, in a secondary school compound near the gendarmerie brigade, or at the public stand used for national celebrations near the army base. A 38-year-old man who survived the suicide attack said on January 28 that he had not slept at home since January 8 and spent his nights, from about 5 p.m. to 5 a.m., in the veranda of a secondary technical school, along with his two wives and six children: “I sleep with all my family on one single mat on the veranda of the school, which is 20 meters from the gendarmerie brigade. There are about 100 people sleeping there, outside.” Night Guard Duty Human Rights Watch previously documented how soldiers in Mozogo forced civilians to perform local night guard duty to protect the town against attacks by Boko Haram, using beatings and threats against those who refused. While the beatings appear to have stopped, Human Rights Watch spoke to residents who continue to perform night duty out of fear of renewed beatings and threats. Some expressed concerns for their safety and said they feel they are being put in harm’s way, lacking the necessary experience and equipment to perform the dangerous security tasks demanded of them. “I usually do my night guard duty twice a week,” a 39-year-old mechanic said. “I only have a flashlight. I have no whistle, no weapon, no phone. This type of work is not remunerated and is dangerous. It is not the type of work civilians should do. It is up to the military to protect us from Boko Haram attacks. We are being unnecessarily exposed to great risks.” A 50-year-old man from Mozogo said he stopped performing the night guard duty following a Boko Haram raid in November during which civilians who were on duty were attacked and fired upon: “We were alone. There was no member of the vigilante committee or soldier with us that night. We were just 10 civilians at the security post called Municipal Stadium. Up to 30 Boko Haram fighters shot at us. It was a miracle none got injured.” Darak On December 24, Boko Haram fighters attacked Darak, an island on Lake Chad. Human Rights Watch spoke to two survivors, three people who carried out burials, and a relative of a survivor. Those who carried out burials said that Boko Haram killed up to 80 civilians, the majority of them fishermen. Human Rights Watch was not able to independently verify the number of civilian deaths. Local authorities told international and national media outlets that “scores” were killed in the attack. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that Boko Haram attacked four islands on the lake, on the border between Chad and Cameroon, on December 24, killing 27 people and kidnapping 12 others. According to information collected by Human Rights Watch, about 100 Boko Haram fighters on wooden pirogues stormed an area of Darak known as Tonganamie, where night fishermen cast their nets, at about midnight. They rounded up the fishermen and killed them, mostly using knives and machetes. “I heard people talking in Kanuri [a language commonly spoken in the Far North of Cameroon] and saying: ‘Come on! Come quickly! Go ahead.’ They were Boko Haram fighters and they were rounding up the fishermen to kill them,” a 24-year-old fisherman who witnessed the attack said. “I hid. Later, I went back to Darak town. I know eight among those who were killed that night; they were all fishermen from Darak.” A 32-year-old fisherman who was seriously injured said: "Over 100 Boko Haram fighters came with their wooden rowboats. Some remained in the boats; some got out and rounded us up. They gathered all the fishermen who were there and killed them with their knives and machetes as they tried to escape. I was caught and they hit me with a machete on the head. I was also hit in the right hand with a spear. I thought I was dead. I jumped into the water to save my life. I swam and reached the grass side [of a nearby marsh]. Some fishermen later found me. I was taken to the hospital, where I stayed for 15 days. My wounds are yet to heal." “I was among those who helped recovered the bodies from the water,” a 25-year-old Darak resident said. “It took us three days to collect them all. Bodies were floating in the water. The first day, after the attack, we collected over 40 bodies, including with the help of nets. The following two days, we collected 40 more, for a total of over 80 bodies. Most of them had visible stab wounds.” Witnesses said the overnight attack in Darak took the security forces based there, including soldiers from both the marine and land forces, by surprise. They said Boko Haram fighters arrived on pirogues without engines and only fired a few gunshots to limit any noise that could have prompted soldiers to intervene. In a previous Boko Haram attack on Darak in June 2019, insurgents killed 21 soldiers and 16 civilians. Gouzoudou On December 16, at about 1:45 a.m., a group of five Boko Haram fighters attacked the home of Gouzoudou’s traditional authority, known as the lawane, firing several gunshots and wounding two men. The lawane escaped and ran to the military camp in town to sound the alarm. The soldiers came shortly after, but the insurgents had already fled. Soldiers evacuated the wounded to the Maroua regional hospital. One of them, a 60-year-old man, is still receiving medical treatment, including amputating his right hand. Human Rights Watch spoke to the lawane, as well as seven witnesses to the attack. “I was outside with my 30-year-old brother when we heard some noise,” the lawane said. “My brother used his flashlight to light the surroundings. I saw five Boko Haram fighters armed with Kalashnikovs. They shot my brother in his heel as I jumped off a little wall to save my life. When I returned home, I found that my food shop and my motorbike had been looted.” Residents said Boko Haram has repeatedly targeted Gouzoudou, with at least eight raids recorded between December 14 and January 21. They said that until the end of 2020, there was a military camp in Gouzoudou, but that the camp has been dismantled. Blabline On December 2, at about 6 p.m., at least five Boko Haram fighters attacked a group of four civilians in the outskirts of Blabline village, killing one – a lawane from a neighboring village – and injuring three others, including a 16-year-old child. Human Rights Watch spoke to two witnesses of the attack and three Blabline residents who buried the body of the lawane and helped rescue the wounded. One of the witnesses said: "I was a few meters away from the scene. I saw the Boko Haram fighters and hid. I watched as they captured the lawane, two of his sons and another man. They forced them on the ground and stole their phones. They spoke Kanuri and Arabic. Then, they fired a series of gunshots at them. The lawane was hit in the head and died on the spot. The fighters stole his motorbike and ran away with it. I rushed to rescue the wounded, including a 28-year-old man who was shot in the right shoulder, a 16-year-old child who was shot in the heel, and a 45-year-old man who was shot in the ribs." Boko Haram fighters attacked Blabline again at about 11 p.m. on December 4. They fired at people as they fled, shooting a 38-year-old man in the stomach. They also broke into scores of homes, looting bicycles, motorbikes, food, telephones, clothes, and other items. Human Rights Watch spoke to five witnesses to the attack, including the village chief who said that the attackers had looted 80 of the village’s 142 households. Witnesses said soldiers intervened and chased the assailants away, but only after widespread looting. They also said that Boko Haram fighters attempted to attack the village four more times – on December 14, 27, and 31 – but that the military expelled them. In another attack on January 11, insurgents looted four homes. © Human Rights Watch 2021

The G7 group of leading economic powers has said it is "strongly concerned" by reports of human rights abuses in Ethiopia's conflict-hit Tigray region. The group, which includes the UK, US and the EU, called for the reported crimes to be investigated and those responsible to be held to account. They also urged Eritrea to withdraw troops that are fighting alongside Ethiopia against forces in Tigray. Both countries' troops have been accused of numerous rights abuses. These include mass killings of civilians, sexual violence, looting and the abuse of refugees. A BBC Africa Eye investigation has also uncovered evidence suggesting the Ethiopian military carried out a massacre in which at least 15 men were killed. Eritrea has dismissed the accusations, while Ethiopia's prime minister has previously denied that any civilians have been killed. The conflict began in November after the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) captured military bases in the northern Ethiopian region. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed then ordered an offensive to oust the group. The TPLF had been the ruling party in the area, but fell out with Mr Abiy over his efforts to increase the power of the central government. Hundreds of civilians have been killed and tens of thousands displaced since the fighting began. Tigrayan forces, meanwhile, have also faced accusations of human rights abuses. "We condemn the killing of civilians, sexual and gender based violence, indiscriminate shelling and the forced displacement of residents of Tigray and Eritrean refugees," the G7 group said in a statement on Friday. "It is essential that there is an independent, transparent and impartial investigation into the crimes reported and that those responsible for these human rights abuses are held to account," it added. The statement, which was made by the group's foreign ministers and the High Representative of the EU, also expressed concern over "worsening food insecurity" and called for "immediate, unhindered humanitarian access" to the region. But it welcomed a recent announcement from Mr Abiy that said Eritrea would withdraw its troops from Ethiopia. He did not specify a date, however, and Eritrea has not confirmed the withdrawal. There has long been animosity between Tigray and the government in Eritrea, which shares a border with the region. The presence of Eritrean troops in Ethiopia has proved especially controversial because the two countries fought a bitter border war, which was only officially ended after Mr Abiy became prime minister in 2018 - a move which earned him the Nobel Peace prize the following year. Thousands of people have fled Eritrea in recent years, largely because of forced conscription which can last for decades. Last week, UN aid workers reached two refugee camps housing some 22,000 Eritreans in Tigray. They said the Shimelba and Hitsats camps had been completely destroyed and all humanitarian facilities looted and vandalised. © BBC News, 2021

China's overhaul of Hong Kong's electoral system is being seen as a watershed moment by those who fear Beijing's encroaching influence on the city. Recent changes ensure that only "patriots" loyal to the mainland can end up in positions of power. To those hoping Hong Kong might move towards greater democracy, it feels like the final blow. The US, Australia and European countries condemned China's actions, but it has been harder to gauge the reactions in Hong Kong itself. Many people simply don't want to talk anymore. In fact, over the past few years it has become harder and harder to get ordinary people to speak their mind about the city's relationship with the mainland. 'That's how authoritarian regimes work' Sharing that observation with a friend in Hong Kong, the response was a cynical "Lol", with a sober afterthought: "That's how authoritarian regimes work." Lee Jonghyuk, an assistant professor at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, told the BBC that sensitive topics of conversation would "naturally perish" under these kinds of circumstances. "People will self-censor themselves, and this is intentional," he said. "Most likely, the Chinese Communist Party will destroy social trust among citizens by incentivizing more people on the street to report criticism to the government." So what is it like in patriotic Hong Kong, and what do people expect in the future? 'Turning Hong Kong back 20 years' Opposition politicians - those most directly affected by the change - are still speaking up, at least for the time being. The changes will put Hong Kong "20 odd years back," warned Lo Kin-hei, the chairman of the opposition Democratic Party. He told the BBC that any progress over the past two decades had essentially been erased by Beijing. "We know that the space for us to participate is much less than before, and we know that it is very difficult to get through the vetting system," he said, referring to the system which will in future decide who can run for office. Lo Kin-hei's party treasurer, Ramon Yuen Hoi-man, said that China's leadership was "trampling on democracy" and breaking with the vision of universal suffrage spelled out in the city's constitution, the Basic Law. Lo Kin-hei and other pro-democracy forces now face a difficult discussion over whether they will keep on participating in the election "or whether we will go another way". Professor Lee, from Nanyang Technological University, said there may simply be no avenues left for political or public influence. "I think that it is too late," he said. "China's leadership will never give in to the public. It will never revert their decisions even with the international pressure." Talking to people on the ground is more difficult, but not impossible. "We can hear a lot of people discussing leaving the city now," said Ken Liu, who works in the city's IT sector. He said he planned to stay - "And as long as I can find any legal way to spread my views, I will do it" - but he said he feared many would leave Hong Kong for good. The UK has already opened a pathway out by allowing people born before the handover to get onto a special visa scheme that can lead to British citizenship. Yet that's a costly option for many, warned Professor Lee. For most ordinary Kong Kong residents, it will simply be not possible to uproot and leave. And while many might be unhappy with the changes forced by Beijing, "political rights are not essential for living". "There is an argument of 'political bargains for economic benefits,'" he explains, pointing to mainland China where citizens have also made their peace to have political rights withheld as long as the leadership brings about economic prosperity. 'Hong Kong will prosper' Finding voices that support China's changes is already a lot easier than finding open dissent. Penny Sun is an online influencer with thousands of followers on social media. She told the BBC she fully backs the changes and that Hong Kong's political figures should be "patriots" and do the same. She said she enjoyed more freedom now than she did during the long months of the 2019 protests that she described as "riots". "During the riots I was afraid that I could be attacked for speaking my mind, I was scared something could happen to me," she said. She said during the time of the protests those who supported China avoided talking about politics in order not to run into trouble. "That was not Hong Kong as we knew it," she said. She said "patriotic" politicians would still be free to discuss the topics that matter and are much closer to people's lives, such as the city's pressing housing problem. "Hong Kong will prosper and our lives will be more stable." Others fear this will only be true for those whose views align with China's, and not for those who dissent. Beijing's fear of a chain reaction Many in Hong Kong, as well as observers from abroad, have been shocked by the speed with which the recent drastic changes have taken place. From the introduction last year of the much-criticised "national security law" - which criminalised secession, subversion and "collusion with foreign forces", and carries a life sentence - to the recent electoral changes. And yet Professor Lee said he had expected those changes to come even faster. The Chinese leadership was "quite afraid of a domestic chain reaction if it would give in to Hong Kong", he said. "Surprisingly, Beijing trusted Hong Kong's government's ability to deal with the protesters," he added. "However, when the second mass protests happened in 2019, the Communist leadership decided to engage directly in Hong Kong issues to eliminate the sources of collective actions, such as democratic representations, civil networks, and education systems." Two years later, speaking out against Beijing has been made illegal and opposition politicians can be easily kept out of parliament. "There will be no reversion," Professor Lee said. "This is quite certain. Universal suffrage is a mere obstacle to the stability of the Communist Party's regime." Additional reporting by Jeff Li and Cho Wai Lam. © Andreas Illmer for BBC News, 2021

Zimbabwe’s human rights situation continued to decline in 2020 under Emmerson Mnangagwa’s presidency. Unidentified assailants, suspected to be state security agents, abducted and tortured more than 70 critics of the government during 2020. Security forces also continued to commit arbitrary arrests, violent assaults, abductions, torture and other abuses against opposition politicians, dissidents and activists. In July 2020, police arrested prominent journalist Hopewell Chin’ono and Transform Zimbabwe Party leader Jacob Ngarivhume after they called for nationwide anti-corruption protests. The police violently dispersed protests in July, wherein 16 protesters were injured and a further 60 were arrested. Abuses, Ill-Treatment, and Torture During 2020, unresolved cases of abductions and abuses, including torture, of government critics escalated without the abductors being brought to justice. In the last year, over 70 government critics were abducted and later released by unidentified men suspected to be state security agents. On the eve of the July 30, anti-corruption protests, security forces raided the Bulawayo home of Mduduzi Mathuthu. Mathuthuisa prominent journalist and editor of the online newspaper Zimlive. Failing to find him, they arrested his family members, including his nephew, Tawanda Muchehiwa. The security agents allegedly tortured Muchehiwa. The torture resulted in serious injuries, including extensive bruises and an acute kidney injury. On September 18, Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) leader Takudzwa Ngadziore was attacked, assaulted, and abducted by unidentified men while addressing a press conference to protest the torture of Muchehiwa. He was later arrested by police on charges of inciting public violence. In May, three Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Alliance activists, Cecilia Chambery, Netsai Marova, and member of parliament Joanna Mamombe, were abducted from police custody by suspected state agents after taking part in a peaceful protest in Harare. The protest was over the government’s failure to support vulnerable communities under the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown. They were assaulted and sexually abused by their abductors. They were then dumped in Bindura, 80 kilometers from Harare. While receiving treatment for their injuries, the trio were arrested at the hospital and charged with making false reports about their abduction. At time of writing their trial was ongoing. Lack of Accountability During 2020, authorities still failed to do justice for cases of abductions and torture committed in 2019. Unresolved cases where there has been no accountability include the abduction by unidentified persons on September 14, 2019, of Dr. Peter Magombeyi. Dr. Magombeti was then-leader of the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association (ZADHR) who had organized a series of protests to demand better salaries for public health workers. Released after four days, he fled the country a week after his release. Other unresolved cases of abduction by masked and unidentified men in 2019 include those of Obert Masaraure, Samantha Kureya (known as “Gonyeti”), and Tatenda Mombeyarara. Masaraure, the national president of the Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe, was seized from his home in Harare on January 18, 2019, and beaten severely with leather whips. Kureya, a popular Zimbabwean comedian and government critic was abducted, severely beaten, and forced to drink raw sewage by six masked gunmen in August 2019. Finally, activist Mombeyarara was also abducted in August 2019 and beaten severely. He was left with a broken left leg and finger by men who accused him of organizing anti-government protests. The Mnangagwa administration has so far failed to implement recommendations of the Motlanthe Commission of Inquiry, established to investigate widespread violence in the aftermath of the August 2018 elections. The commission presented its report to President Mnangagwa in December 2018, and found that 6 people had died and 35 others were injured as a result of actions by state security forces. It recommended that perpetrators be held accountable and that compensation be paid to families of the deceased and those who lost property. Children’s Rights Among the Mnangagwa government’s few positive steps on human rights in 2020 was the amendment of the Education Act. The amendment prohibits corporal punishment and the exclusion of pregnant girls from school in accordance with the Zimbabwe Constitution, which guarantees the right to education. Prior to this amendment, a large number of students had suffered corporal punishment in Zimbabwe’s schools. In a significant step for disability rights, the law mandates every school to provide suitable infrastructure for students with disabilities and requires authorities to ensure that schools protect the rights of students with disabilities. Schools were closed at the end of March 2020, for at least six months as a public health measure during the pandemic. The closure affected about 4 million children across the country. Covid-19 During 2020, the Zimbabwe government failed to provide continuous and affordable access to sufficient safe water to people across the country. The provision of safe water is an important measure to combat Covid-19. Zimbabwe’s long-standing severe water and sanitation crisis was worsened by the coronavirus pandemic and the government’s imposition, on March 30, of a nationwide lockdown to slow the spread of the virus. Over 2 million people in the capital, Harare, and the greater metropolitan area incorporating Chitungwiza, Epworth, Ruwa and Norton have no access to safe drinking water or adequate waste and wastewater disposal services. Thousands of women and school-age children spend long hours at crowded boreholes or narrow water wells to get safe, clean water. The spread of Covid-19 in Zimbabwe posed major risks to the country’s prisons and detention centers. These facilities remained unsanitary, overcrowded, and with no running water in cells for detainees to comply with recommended hygiene practices to stem the virus’ spread. In March, the government acknowledged that Zimbabwe’s prisons, with a capacity of 17,000, had a population of 22,000. Between March and June, the government released 4,208 prisoners under a presidential amnesty order. Too many remained behind bars to allow for social distancing. Although masks are issued at prisons, many inmates and some wardens do not use them, partly due to insufficient understanding about protection against the virus. Key International Actors Following the police crackdown on anti-corruption protests in July, South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC) dispatched a high-level delegation led by the party’s Secretary-General Ace Magashule to Zimbabwe. The delegation was sent to help find a solution to the country’s escalating economic and political crisis. The team raised serious concerns over Zimbabwe’s deteriorating human rights situation. In August 2020, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed two special envoys to help resolve the Zimbabwe crisis by identifying ways in which South Africa could assist. On August 3, the chairperson of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, Solomon Dersso, responding to the arrests of protesters, warned in a Twitter post, “As we follow [the] situation in Zimbabwe, critical to reiterate the African Commission on Human Rights’ view that actions of states even in fighting Covid-19 should comply with principles of legality, necessity, and proportionality, thus no basis for arbitrary deprivation of liberty or life, inhumane treatment or torture.” Chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC) Moussa Faki Mahamat raised concerns about reports of disproportionate use of force by government security forces in enforcing Covid-19 emergency measures. Mahamat urged Zimbabwean authorities to exercise restraint in their response to peaceful protests. In May, the European Union, United Kingdom and United States called for a “swift, thorough and credible investigation” into the abduction and torture of opposition Member of Parliament Joana Mamombe, along with Cecilia Chimbiri and Netsai Marova, as well an investigation into allegations of the assault on Nokuthula and Ntombizodwa Mpofu in Bulawayo. In July, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern about allegations that Zimbabwean authorities may be using the Covid-19 pandemic as a pretext to clamp down on freedom of expression and peaceful assembly and association. In June, UN human rights experts called on Zimbabwe to immediately end a reported pattern of enforced disappearances and torture that appear aimed at suppressing protests and dissent. See article here. © 2021 Human Rights Watch

Shah Meer Baloch in Quetta Mon 5 Apr 2021 06.30 BST The 10 Hazara coalminers murdered by Isis were buried at Quetta’s Hazara Town cemetery. At least 1,000 Hazaras have been killed in sectarian violence in the past decade. Photograph: Mashal Baloch/The Guardian Decades of persecution has left the Shia minority with little space left in its graveyards but prime minister Imran Khan is in no hurry to listen. Ahmed Shah had always dreamed of bigger things. Though just 17, the high school pupil had taken a job in the coalmines of Balochistan, Pakistan’s south-western province, one of the harshest, most dangerous working environments in the world. Shah was determined to earn enough to educate himself, so he could escape the tough life of the Hazara Shia community, the most persecuted minority in Pakistan. But Shah never saw a brighter future. He was among 10 miners who were resting in their mud hut near the mines in the small Balochistan town of Mach when armed militants burst in. A gruesome video from the scene shows the young men blindfolded, with their hands tied behind their backs. A security official said their throats had been slit. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the massacre. The prime minister, Imran Khan, called it an “inhumane act of terrorism”, but for the Hazara, minority Shia Muslims who have been targeted for three decades in Pakistan by extremists among the majority Sunni Muslims who view them as heretics, this was not enough. Shah’s mother, Amina, was on her rounds as a healthcare worker in the nearby provincial capital of Quetta when she heard about the massacre. “I wanted to see my son one last time, but I was told that I would not be able to bear that,” says Amina. “The killers were not humans. They killed them so brutally.” The Hazara community, after decades of injustice and neglect by the state, were driven to act, and in a protest unlike anything seen before in Pakistan, the families of the 10 men brought the dead bodies out on to the streets, and sat beside them, in the freezing cold, to demand protection and justice. For a full week, they did not move, stating they would not bury the bodies until the prime minister listened to their demands. Amina holds a picture of her son, Ahmed Shah, murdered with other miners by Isis. Photograph: Mashal Baloch/The Guardian In response, Khan accused them of trying to “blackmail” him, and said he would not visit until the bodies were buried. Ahmed Shah was one of four from his family to die in the Mach massacre. So too did his cousin Sadiq, the sole breadwinner for his wife, children and six sisters. Sadiq, a father of two daughters, had had breakfast with his wife before dawn at his home in Quetta before leaving for Mach. One sister, Masooma Yaqoob Ali, saw the news of the Hazara miners on Facebook and stumbled upon the picture of her brother’s blindfolded body. “These monsters have not only killed 10 people, they have killed 10 families,” she says. “It has been two decades that we are being mercilessly killed but no one has been arrested yet.” Masooma Yaqoob Ali holds a picture of her late brother Sadiq and her 17-year-old cousin Ahmed Shah, who had their throats slit by militants in Mach. Photograph: Mashal Baloch/The Guardian The Hazara Shia have been targeted over many years by Sunni extremists, such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Sipah-e-Sahaba and now Isis. According to a 2019 report by Pakistan’s National Commission for Human Rights, an independent watchdog, at least 509 Hazara have been murdered for their faith since 2013. The non-profit Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says that from 2009 to 2014, nearly 1,000 Hazaras died in sectarian violence. Thousands have been injured. Our men and young can’t go outside. If they go, they will be killed. Our graveyards are full of young men | Masooma Yaqoob Ali To curb attacks on the 600,000 Hazaras living in the towns of Mariabad and Hazara Town in Quetta, authorities have built military checkpoints, roadblocks and walls around the areas. In 2014, the international organisation Human Rights Watch published a 62-page report on the persecution of Hazara Shia in Balochistan entitled We are the walking dead. “We are living in two prisons. Our men and young can’t go outside. If they go, they will be killed. Our graveyards are full of young men with barely any space left,” says Ali. “We are tired of carrying their coffins. Every year we dig mass graves. Yet prime minister Imran Khan says we are blackmailers. Khan is heartless. Behisht-e-Zainab cemetery at Mari Abad, in the Hazara area of the Balochi capital, Quetta. Photograph: Mashal Baloch/The Guardian The majority of Hazara in Quetta originally came from Afghanistan and Iran to seek work in Pakistan, with many ending up in the mines of Balochistan. For 15 years, Chaman Ali, another of the Mach victims, would travel from Afghanistan to Quetta every winter to work in the coalmines. “I would be worried for his life when he was here and when he went to Afghanistan. I would think ‘what if he gets into the hands of the Taliban?’ I thought he was safe here, but this is where he got killed,” his sister Zara says. Chaman Ali is survived by his wife and eight children, the youngest just three months old. Aziz and Nasim, from the Daykundi province of Afghanistan, came with Chaman Ali to work in the mines for the first time. They were also murdered. Nasim, 22, started work to fund his education and had arrived in Pakistan just a week before he was killed. “Afghanistan is in a very bad situation and we think that something is better than nothing, which is why we come to Pakistan just to make a living,” says Abdul Rahim, Nasim’s father. Along with other members of his family, he could not get to his son’s funeral from Afghanistan, when the security forces closed routes out of the villages across Pakistan’s porous border. Abdul Rahim, from Daykundi in Afghanistan, holds a picture of his 22-year-old son Nasim, another victim of the Mach massacre. Photograph: Mashal Baloch/The Guardian Victims of the Mach massacre were all eventually buried in a mass grave at Hazara Town, on the outskirts of Quetta. The Hazara community is running out of space to bury their dead. The graveyard is full of photographs of Hazara Shia men, women and children, many of them murdered. Having Mongolian ancestors, many Hazara are identifiable by their distinctive appearance, and it is along the single road that leads to Mari Abad and Hazara Town that thousands have been attacked by extremist groups. “Our generation has grown up in a cage. We make houses on the mountain and are afraid of going out to see other parts of Quetta,” says Arif Hussain Nasry, 21, founder of the Future is Young campaign. “We are even afraid to gather with Hazara from other nations and communities. We have to live to survive in these two ghettoes.” The Hazara cemetery in Quetta. The flags represent the graves of all those who have been killed in sectarian violence. Photograph: Mashal Baloch/The Guardian But for Naseem Javed, an author and political activist, the attacks on the Hazara are not just about sectarianism. “I don’t think Hazara are being targeted just because of their faith,” he says. “They also are being targeted to divert the attention from the Baloch separatist movement.” Balochistan, the most impoverished province of Pakistan and wedged between Iran and Afghanistan, has a separatist movement that has been active in the province for the past 20 years. “The region also has become a hub for international proxies, including the Taliban,” Javed adds. Javed shows the pistol he keeps close to him in his shop, where he sells prayer mats and prayer beads. “We live under shadows of weapons and fear. None of us has a normal life. We are being slaughtered. If the security establishment has no role in this genocide, why have they not arrested any attacker?” For many Hazara people the solution is simply to leave. Amjad Ali*, 21, has made three attempts to leave Balochistan for a new life in Europe. He was first deported from Turkey and handed over to Iran, from where he was sent back to Pakistan. The second time he was deported from Iran. During his third attempt to reach Europe, with 25 other Hazara Shia, Ali was caught a few miles from the border by Jaish ul-Adl, another Sunni militant group that operates mainly in south-eastern Iran. Pretending to be Iranian security forces, the jihadist group took Ali and others to a mountain camp in Pakistan, close to the Iranian border. “They were very well updated and informed. As soon as we reached their camp they shot four Hazaras with Kalashnikovs. Two of them used to work in the Pakistan army. Two, as Jaish ul-Adl claimed, were going to be part of the Zainebiyoun brigade, an Iranian-backed militant force [fighting in Syria],” Ali told the Guardian. The rest were held and their families sent random demands. Ali spent 55 days in the camp before his family members managed to raise thousands of dollars in ransom money for his release. Buses to take Shia pilgrims to shrines in Iran. Many Hazara try to reach Europe to escape their persecution in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Photograph: Mashal Baloch/The Guardian “If I get a chance now to go to Europe, I will try again,” says Ali. “There is no life for Hazara Shia in Pakistan and Afghanistan.” * Amjad Ali’s name has been changed to protect his identity. See article here. © 2021 The Guardian

Published by RFI on April 1, 2021. Permanent premises of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, 2018 (Marina Riera / Human Rights Watch) Judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday dismissed an appeal against Côte d’Ivoire’s former President Laurent Gbagbo, confirming his acquittal for crimes against humanity and paving the way for his return to the West African country after almost a decade.The decision was a blow for victims' families and provoked concern among observers who say the case highlights the need for serious reform within the court system. “This is a victory for a man, President Gbagbo, whose innocence is finally fully recognised,” said Gbagbo’s lawyer Emmanuel Altit. “President Gbagbo always said that he believed in justice. Today, justice has been done.” Gbagbo and his right-hand man Charles Blé Goudé were found not guilty of crimes against humanity in 2019 related to post-election violence in Côte d’Ivoire more than 10 years ago. Some 3,000 people were killed following disputed results in the 2010 polls. Gbagbo refused to cede power to incumbent President Alassane Ouattara, but with the help of a French military intervention he was removed from the presidency. He was sent to the world court the next year. ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda appealed the 15 January 2019 decision, arguing that the court “committed legal and procedural errors”, highlighting that judges did not make a proper written judgement until six months after an oral acquittal. Bensouda had said Gbagbo and Blé Goudé’s acquittal must be reversed and must be declared a mistrial, saying the judges did not apply a “clearly defined standard of proof” in reviewing the evidence. “I’m not surprised, the trial judgement had been quite clear and conclusive on the fact that the prosecutor had not presented enough evidence or evidence that was convincing enough,” said Mariana Pena, who has been following the trial for the Open Society Justice Initiative, a non-governmental organisation. More than 4,600 documents were examined and 96 witnesses appeared on the stand during the trial of the first former head of state to sit in the dock at The Hague court. Part of the prosecution’s appeal relied on an argument about a claimed procedural error when the original verdict was handed down in 2019, with the prosecutors office saying judges did not make a proper written judgement. “I think the reason the prosecution appealed on those procedural grounds is because that they’re seeking to establish jurisprudence for the way forward,” legal expert Pena told RFI, explaining that this was probably a move by Bensouda to try and establish a standard for how judgments are delivered. ICC reforms Another key tenet of the prosecutors appeal was how the judges set standards for the evidence against Gbagbo and youth wing leader Blé Goudé. The appeal verdict served to further underline the need for reforms to the ICC, a process that has already started since the original verdict, according to Pena, who has previously represented victims at the ICC. “The damage of the acquittal has been done,” she said, describing how the 2019 verdict, in part, encouraged many stakeholders to push for change, especially on questions about the prosecutor providing sufficient evidence. “Things need to change in terms of how investigations are conducted,” Pena added, outlining specific criticism about how in-country investigation teams operate, an aspect already identified in the review process. Some criticism has been levelled at ICC Prosecutor Bensouda herself, who will soon be replaced by incoming prosecutor Karim Khan, a British barrister. Nevertheless, Pena points to some successes achieved by the Gambian lawyer, such as the conviction of Congolese warlord Bosco Ntaganda, who’s conviction was confirmed earlier this week. “I think it’s not just about the person who leads,” said the Argentine lawyer, referring to a resistance to change within the ICC that also comes from other senior management and staff. Search for justice The need for change at the ICC will not be much comfort to the families of the victims, as the confirmation of Gbagbo and Blé Goudé’s acquittal means they are still seeking justice. “The court has held no one responsible for atrocity crimes committed during this period,” said Michele Eken, a researcher for Amnesty International, a human rights organisation. Eken referred to an amnesty granted by President Ouattara in 2018 to some 800 people preventing national tribunals from prosecuting crimes under international law. “Whether at the national or international level, victims of the 2010-2011 violence are yet to see justice and reparations for the harm they suffered,” Amnesty’s Eken said in a statement. The appeals verdict also removes one of the last obstacles preventing Gbagbo’s return to Côte d’Ivoire. The former president has been quite clear in expressing his desire to return home. But the 75-year-old remains a symbol of the polarised nature of Ivorian politics, split between two camps with divisions that were laid bare during the civil war that broke out in 2002 and later during the electoral crisis in October 2010 when Gbagbo refused to step down. Gbagbo’s return Incumbent Ouattara, who was recently re-elected for a third term, has been talking about national reconciliation over the past few years, according to Oumar Ba, a political expert at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, yet a number of issues are outstanding on the modalities surrounding Gbagbo’s homecoming. "It's unclear yet what the effect of this acquittal will mean for Côte d'Ivoire political scene and the national reconciliation project,” Ba told RFI. While Gbagbo was locked up in Scheveningen prison during the ICC case, Ivorian authorities in January 2018 found him guilty of raiding the national branch of the Central Bank of the States of West Africa and several commercial banks during the post-electoral crisis, with a 20 year prison sentence still hanging over his head. This conviction is likely to be at the centre of negotiations surrounding his homecoming, according to Ba, who has published a book on the politics of the ICC. "I don't think that Ouattara is right now in a position to put Gbagbo in prison if he returns, that would create a lot more problems for Ouattara's government," said Ba, talking about bargaining between the two camps. Political evolution Ivorian authorities have indeed signaled that they are open to the former president’s return, but the possibility of granting Gbagbo an amnesty is likely to centre on what Gbagbo intends to do next, according to Ba. "The terms of this return will be a matter of negotiation between the Ivorian authorities, the government and Gbagbo's side, what offer could they make for him to be able return safely and not face a prison sentence," he added. Does Gbagbo still have political ambitions or does he see himself in an elder statesman type role, questions Ba, who also works as an editor for Africa Is A Country. And how will his return factor into a changing dynamic within Ivorian politics. "At this point, what will matter the most for Côte d'Ivoire in the years to come, are not necessarily Ouattara, Gbagbo and [former President Henri Konan] Bedie, but it will more likely be the two younger ones, the new generation," said Ba. Côte d’Ivoire is likely to see reshuffling of alliances with Gbagbo ally Blé Goudé, as well as Guillaume Soro, previously a key ally of Ouattara, who set up his own opposition party and is now in exile, playing an increasingly important role. National reconciliation will “all depend on Gbagbo's ability to return back home", said Ba. © 2021 Copyright RFI - All rights reserved.

An appeal by former Congolese militia leader Bosco Ntaganda was dismissed by the International Criminal Court on Tuesday, upholding a conviction for war crimes and a 30-year sentence handed down in 2019. Published by RFI on March 30, 2021. Former Congolese warlord Bosco Ntaganda at the International Criminal Court in 2019. (POOL/AFP) ICC Judge Howard Morrison read the verdict at The Hague-based court, saying the appeals chamber confirmed the decision to convict and the judgement on sentencing. Rwandan-born Ntaganda was found guilty of 18 charges of war crimes carried out in the early 2000s and was dubbed by some as “The Terminator”, in reference to his relentless killing. His war crimes included murder, sexual slavery, rape and using child soldiers. The sentence was one of the longest in the world court’s history. Earlier in March, the ICC set reparations to Ntaganda’s victims at US$30 million for some 100,000 victims. Ntaganda was judged by the ICC to have been one of the key leaders of the Union of Congolese Patriots rebel group and its military wing, Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of Congo. Hundreds of civilians were killed by Ntaganda’s rebel group in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo between 2002 and 2003, as rival militias clashed over the region’s mineral wealth. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the area since 1999. The former army general later founded the M23 rebel group that also operated in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ntaganda insisted he was a soldier not a criminal during the trial and said the “The Terminator” nickname did not apply to him. © 2021 Copyright RFI - All rights reserved

MAR 31, 2021 1:32 PM PHT ROBBIN M. DAGLE | Rappler Various progressive youth organisations gather outside Senate to protests against red-tagging on Tuesday, November 24, 2020. Photo by KD Madrilejos/Rappler MANILA, PHILIPPINES Senator Franklin Drilon files Senate Bill 2121 to protect activists who may be unfairly targeted by the government for their links to activist or progressive groups. Several church groups have called for the passage of the anti-red tagging bill, even as the government intensified its crackdown on activists and people’s organizations, including faith-based personalities. In a Facebook post on March 31, Caritas Philippines, social arm of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, urged an end to “the deadly practice of red-tagging,” which had affected the work of “institutions that have been serving communities that are most vulnerable to both natural and human-induced hazards.” “As the country juggles multiple crises that do not seem to be ending any time soon--including what's to come as effects of climate change are expected to worsen in the coming years--the local humanitarian and development workers are faced with threats coming from escalating violence on the ground,” Caritas Philippines said. On March 24, Senator Franklin Drilon filed Senate Bill 2121 to protect activists who may be unfairly targeted by the government for their links to activist or progressive groups as part of their anti-communist insurgency campaign. The bill defined “red-tagging” and penalized any state actor – including law enforcement agents and military officers – “who labels, vilifies, brands, names, accuses, harasses, persecutes, stereotypes, or caricatures individuals, groups, or organizations as state enemies, left-leaning, subversives, communists, or terrorists as a part of a counter-insurgency or anti-terrorism program or strategy.” San Carlos Bishop Gerardo Alminaza, whose diocese in Northern Negros saw a recent spate of activist killings under the police and military’s Oplan Sauron, also welcomed the bill. “The bill would hopefully restore a healthy democracy that should allow space for dissenting voices and critics,” Alminaza was quoted by UCA News, an independent Catholic news agency. Protestants back bill The National Council of Churches in the Philippines, which had also been red-tagged by the military, expressed support for the proposed measure. “Initiatives like Senator Drilon’s bill should be encouraged and supported especially in a context where human rights are attacked, and fear and insecurity constantly loom. The dangerous practice of red-tagging has victimized various organizations and individuals. We hope our lawmakers treat this bill as a very urgent piece of legislation,” said Bishop Reuel Norman Marigza, NCCP general secretary, in a statement on March 26. The NCCP, which is composed of 10 mainline Protestant and non-Roman Catholic churches, noted that their member-churches have also not been exempt from the government’s red-tagging. “Red-tagging churches and church-people violate our right to the exercise of the freedom of religion and to the exercise of ministries in furtherance of our religious beliefs. Any such practices that red-tags and vilifies legitimate ministries subvert the majesty of democratic governance,” Marigza said. Just last Sunday, March 28, the state-run Philippine News Agency reported that the Anti-Money Laundering Council had frozen 3 bank accounts of Haran Center, a sanctuary for displaced Lumads operated by the United Church of Christ in the Philippines’ (UCCP) in Davao City, for “terrorism financing.” Bishop Hamuel Tequis, head of the UCCP’s Southern Mindanao jurisdiction where Haran Center is located, said he was “dismayed by the accusation” that they were supporting terrorist activities. The UCCP is a member-church of the NCCP. “Our Church has declared in 1990 that all places and properties are sanctuaries of peace. Having the Lumads is carrying out the mission of the Church to serve the marginalized,” Tequis told independent news outlet Davao Today. – Rappler.com See article here. © 2021 Rappler

Anwar Iqbal | Dawn Media According to this report, torture and cases of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment were common in both India and Pakistan. — Dawn/File WASHINGTON: The US State Department’s annual report on human rights on Tuesday identified unlawful, arbitrary and extrajudicial killings and disappearances as major issues in both India and Pakistan. The report — which covers incidents reported in 2020 — highlighted 32 extrajudicial killings in the first half of 2020 in the Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir. The statistics include the deaths of 63 civilians, 89 security force members, and 284 insurgents across India as a result of insurgency attacks. The official US report also referred to a study by the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), which reported 229 killings in 107 incidents in the first six months of the year. “JKCCS also reported 32 extrajudicial killings in the first half of the year in Jammu and Kashmir.” The US report noted that Indian authorities permitted limited access to prisoners, although some family members claimed authorities denied access to relatives, particularly in restive areas, including the occupied Jammu and Kashmir. The report pointed out that the National Human Rights Commission of India (NHRC) received and investigated prisoner complaints of human rights violations throughout the year. “But “civil society representatives believed few prisoners filed complaints due to fear of retribution from prison guards or officials,” it added. Following New Delhi’s August 2019 abrogation of a special constitutional provision that provided autonomous status for Jammu and Kashmir, Indian “authorities used a public safety law to detain local politicians without trial,” the report added. Those released were required to sign bonds agreeing not to engage in political activity. The US report noted that the Public Safety Act (PSA), which applies only in the occupied Jammu and Kashmir, “permits authorities to detain persons without charge or judicial review for up to two years without visitation from family members.” According to this report, torture and cases of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment were common in both India and Pakistan. So were arbitrary detention; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; political prisoners; politically motivated reprisal against individuals and arbitrary or unlawful government interference with privacy. The State Department reported serious restrictions on free expression, the press, and the internet, including violence against journalists, unjustified arrests and disappearances of journalists, censorship, and site blocking in both countries. Other issues include government interference with the rights of peaceful assembly and freedom of association, such as overly restrictive nongovernmental organisation laws. Both governments also placed severe restrictions on religious freedom and freedom of movement. Corruption within the bureaucracy, lack of investigation and accountability for violence against women were also common. Problems identified in India include trafficking in persons; crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting members of racial and ethnic minorities. The chapter on India also mentioned crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or intersex persons by nonstate actors. The chapter on Pakistan mentioned “threats of violence, or unjustified arrests or prosecutions against journalists, use of criminal libel laws to prosecute social media speech and censorship, and site blocking.” The report noted that in both countries, efforts to address the abuses were marred by “a lack of accountability as official misconduct persisted at all levels of government, contributing to widespread impunity.” In Pakistan, “investigations and prosecutions of individual cases took place, but lax enforcement, a shortage of trained police officers, and an overburdened and under-resourced court system contributed to a low number of convictions.” Published in Dawn, March 31st, 2021 See article here. © 2021 Dawn Media

Rape is being used as a weapon as fighting rages in remote parts of Tigray region. “Even if we had shouted,” one woman said, “there was no one to listen.” Mona Lisa lay on a hospital bed in Mekelle, the main city in war-torn northern Ethiopia, her body devastated but her defiance on display. Named for the iconic painting, the 18-year-old Ethiopian high school graduate had survived an attempted rape that left her with seven gunshot wounds and an amputated arm. She wanted it to be known that she had resisted. “This is ethnic cleansing,” she said. “Soldiers are targeting Tigrayan women to stop them giving birth to more Tigrayans.” Her account is one of hundreds detailing abuses in Tigray, the mountainous region in northern Ethiopia where a grinding civil war has been accompanied by a parallel wave of atrocities including widespread sexual assault targeting women. A senior United Nations official told the Security Council last week that more than 500 Ethiopian women had formally reported sexual violence in Tigray, although the actual toll is likely far higher, she added. In the city of Mekelle, health workers say new cases emerge every day. The assaults have become a focus of growing international outrage about a conflict where the fighting is largely happening out of sight, in the mountains and the countryside. But evidence of atrocities against civilians — mass shootings, looting, sexual assault — is everywhere. In early December, Ms. Mona said, an Ethiopian soldier burst into the house she shares with her grandfather in Abiy Addi, a town in central Tigray, and ordered them to have sex. “Please,” she recalled her grandfather, an Orthodox Christian, telling the soldier. “This is abnormal and against our religious beliefs.” When her grandfather refused, the soldier shot him in the leg and locked him into the kitchen. Then he pinned Ms. Mona to a sofa and tried to rape her. She fought back, kicking the man in the crotch and briefly grabbing his gun, she said. But he quickly overpowered her and, after shooting her in the hand and firing warning shots into the floor, issued another ultimatum. “He said he would count to three and if I did not take off my clothes he would kill me,” she said. The soldier fired a volley of bullets that cut through Ms. Mona’s right arm and right leg. By the time she got transportation to the Mekelle General Hospital a day later, doctors were forced to amputate the arm. She is still in the hospital, the bones in one leg still shattered. An uncle at her bedside corroborated her account of the assault on Dec. 4. Ms. Mona, who consented to be identified, called it a calculated act of war. “My case is not unique,” she said. “I fought the soldier off. But there are so many women all over this region who were actually raped.” After months of increasingly desperate pleas for international action on Ethiopia, led by senior United Nations and European Union officials, the pressure appears to be producing results. President Biden recently sent an envoy, Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, to Ethiopia for talks with Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, that lasted five hours. On Tuesday, addressing Ethiopia’s Parliament, Mr. Abiy publicly acknowledged that sexual assault had become an integral part of a war that he once promised would be swift and bloodless. Editors’ Picks “Anyone who raped our Tigrayan sisters, anybody who is involved in looting, will be held accountable in a court of law,” Mr. Abiy told lawmakers, appearing to implicate his own soldiers. “We sent them to destroy the junta, not our people.” The “junta” is a reference to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, known as the T.P.L.F., which governed Tigray and now fights under the banner of a new group, the Tigray Defense Forces. The majority of sexual violence accusations in Tigray have been leveled against Ethiopian and allied Eritrean soldiers. But Tigrayan forces may also be guilty of war crimes, the top U.N. human rights official, Michele Bachelet, said this month. The war started in November after Mr. Abiy accused the T.P.L.F. of attacking a major military base in a bid to overthrow his government. The T.P.L.F. ruled Ethiopia for nearly three decades until Mr. Abiy came to power in 2018, then retreated to its stronghold in Tigray, where it began to openly defy the new prime minister’s authority. In some ways, the bitter fight is driven by deeply rooted forces — longstanding land disputes, opposing visions over the future shape of Ethiopia, and a rivalry with Eritrea going back decades. But civilians, and particularly women, are bearing the brunt of the most disturbing violence. Rocks, nails and other objects have been forced inside the bodies of women — and some men — during sexual assaults, according to health workers. Men have been forced to rape their own family members under threat of violence, Pramila Patten, the top U.N. official on sexual violence in conflict, said in January. “Rape is being used as a weapon of war,” said Letay Tesfay of the Tigray Women’s Association, which runs a safe house for women in Mekelle. “What’s happening is unimaginable.” The epidemic of sexual assault is exacerbated by a collapsing health system. Many victims have contracted sexually transmitted diseases, including H.I.V., doctors say. Demand for abortions and emergency contraceptives has risen. But outside the main towns of Tigray, most health clinics are shut — some destroyed in fighting, others plundered by soldiers as part of what Doctors Without Borders recently called a concerted effortto destroy the region’s health care system. In his meeting with Mr. Abiy in March, Senator Coons said they discussed “directly and forcefully” the reports of widespread human rights violations including rape. Whether Mr. Abiy delivers on his promise of bringing the perpetrators to justice, he added, “is going to be critical to any successful resolution of this conflict.” The anguish of victims resonates quietly through the wards of the Ayder Referral Hospital in Mekelle, the region’s biggest medical facility. A doctor specialized in sexual assault said he had received at least three new patients every day since Ethiopian troops marched into Mekelle on Nov. 28. Some said they had been raped by soldiers in the camps for displaced people on the edge of the city; others were abducted from their homes in rural areas and held for days as soldiers repeatedly raped them. The doctor, who like several other medics spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from the authorities, produced a list of 18 registered sexual violence patients at the hospital. The youngest was 14. Most said their attackers were soldiers, he said. In one bed, a 29-year old woman who asked to be identified only by her first name, Helen, trembled as she recounted how Eritrean and Ethiopian troops had tied her to a tree near her home in Agula, 15 miles north of Mekelle, and assaulted her repeatedly over a 10-day period in late November. “I lost count,” she said. “They took photos of me, poured alcohol on me and laughed.” Some of her assailants also shot dead her 12-year-old son, she added. Selam Assefe, a police investigator working on rape cases at the Ayder Referral Hospital, corroborated Ms. Helen’s account. Most sexual assault cases in Tigray, however, may not be recorded anywhere. Health workers said that officials are reluctant to register such violence, fearing that the military could target them for documenting the crime. Patients often remain anonymous for the same reason. Filsan Abdullahi Ahmed, Ethiopia’s minister of women, children and youth, insisted that the federal government was taking seriously the reports of sexual violence in Tigray, and had sent a task force including social workers, police officers and prosecutors to investigate. While her own mandate was limited to providing victims with psychological support, Ms. Filsan said she had pressured Ethiopia’s attorney general to deliver justice. But it is a difficult process, she insisted. “I cannot 100 percent confirm whom this is being committed by,” Ms. Filsan said, referring to the perpetrators. The sexual attacks are so common that even some Ethiopian soldiers have spoken out. At a public meeting in Mekelle in January, a man in military uniform made an outburst that was broadcast on state television. “I was angry yesterday,” he said. “Why does a woman get raped in Mekelle city?” The soldier, who was not identified, questioned why the police weren’t stopping them. “It wouldn’t be shocking if it happened during fighting,” he said. “But women were raped yesterday and today when the local police and federal police are around.” Haben, a waitress in Mekelle, was raped with two other women at the cafe where they work in December, she said. Her body is still covered in bruises from the assault. “They told us not to resist,” she recalled. “‘Lie down. Don’t shout.’” But even if they had shouted, she added, “there was nobody to listen.” © Declan Walsh for the New York Times, 2021

The strongman is hunting for an ‘external enemy.’ WARSAW — Alexander Lukashenko has a lot of opponents at home, so now he’s making even more enemies abroad. The authoritarian leader of Belarus has unleashed law enforcement against leaders of the country’s small ethnic Polish minority — accounting for about 3 percent of the country’s population of 9.5 million. “Poland is being made into an external enemy and the minority is linked to Poland. The community thus becomes as a fifth column, an internal enemy that supports the West,” said Andrzej Pisalnik, a journalist and board member of the Association of Poles in Belarus. “Poles in Belarus have become hostages to this cannibal policy [against its own citizens] of the Belarusian authorities.” Last week, Belarus ordered the arrests of four prominent ethnic Polish activists, including local community leaders Andżelika Borys and Andrzej Poczobut. They have been charged with breaching rules on mass gatherings during an annual folk fair, as well as inciting national and religious hatred that could carry prison sentences of up to 12 years. Prosecutors cite “illegal mass undertakings” which purportedly honored “anti-Soviet gangs operating during and after the Great Patriotic War” who “plundered and murdered civilians and destroyed property” — in a likely reference to Polish partisans who resisted the introduction of communism after World War II. They said the community’s activities “aimed at rehabilitating Nazism and justifying the genocide of the Belarusian nation.” It’s part of a ploy by Lukashenko to buttress his support at home. Before 1939, the western half of Belarus belonged to Poland, and Lukashenko has been keen to stoke tensions with Warsaw. Lukashenko regularly warns his countrymen about the military threat posed by Poland and about Polish nationalist aspirations to recover its lost territories, although no such movement exists in Poland. “There is a continuous buildup of military presence close to our western and northern borders. Poland and the Baltic states have become a training ground for regular drills and exercises of NATO troops,” Lukashenko warned in December. The effort to target local Poles comes as the opposition promises to launch another wave of protests this spring to push Lukashenko from power — a program laid out by opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya in a recent interview with POLITICO. “As the protests that fizzled out in autumn return in the spring, there will be stronger domestic opposition, especially as the internal political and economic crisis worsens,” Poland’s Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz told POLITICO. “There is a need to create an external enemy, just as during Soviet times all domestic problems were blamed on the activities of foreign enemies … and Lukashenko is a mental Soviet,” said Przydacz, responsible for Poland’s eastern policy. In response to the arrests, Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki accused Lukashenko’s regime of taking “hostages” to intimidate the Polish minority. On Thursday Warsaw banned the Belarusian judge who authorized the 15-day arrest of Borys from entering Poland. The standoff has now been noticed by the top echelons of European diplomacy. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, called on Belarusian authorities “to immediately and unconditionally” release Borys and Poczobut. “Targeting Polish minority violates [Belarus’] international commitments for the protection of national minorities,” wrote Gitanas Nausėda, president of Lithuania, which hosts Tikhanovskaya. Old foes Lukashenko playing the Poland card is nothing new. The Association of Poles in Belarus was deregistered in 2005 — with more than 20,000 members it was the country’s largest social organization at the time. “A big moment was 2004 when as a result of Polish support for the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, Lukashenko realized that this minority could become an instrument in the [Belarusian] fight for freedom. After that a wave of repression swept through the community,” said Agnieszka Bieńczyk-Missala, a professor at Warsaw University. Pisalnik agreed. “We suffered in 2005 because we democratically elected the leaders of our organization, while the authorities wanted to install a puppet,” he said in a phone interview. It’s not that Lukashenko’s fears of outside interference in the country he has ruled since 1994 are entirely unfounded. Thousands of Belarusians have moved to Poland to study and for economic reasons, and are being followed by another wave of political refugees. After protests broke out last August, the Polish government invited Tikhanovskaya during her first official trip abroad to Warsaw and handed her the keys to a villa meant to serve as an “independent embassy of Belarus.” The country also plays host to Belarusian independent media, including the popular Nexta Live channel and the Belarusian-language Belsat station of Poland’s public television, as well as the headquarters of Karta’97 human rights foundation. According to Wojciech Konończuk, deputy director of the Center for Eastern Studies think tank in Warsaw, this could in part explain the timing of last week’s arrests. “They could be seen as Lukashenko’s private revenge for the film revealing his wealth that Nexta released [earlier this month]. Belarusian authorities see the channel and its 22-year-old head as an instrument of Polish and American secret services,” said Konończuk. “We actually thought the crackdown would happen sooner.” Poles in Belarus are increasingly nervous. “It is anyone’s guess how wide the group of people [up for arrest] is. For now, we know of five, but each of us is entertaining the possibility that we could be next,” said Pisalnik. © Maria Wilczek for Politico, 2021