Human rights groups raised the alarm on Wednesday after the Polish parliament moved a step closer to withdrawing the country from the Istanbul Convention. The 2011 treaty, signed by 45 countries and the European Union, requires governments to adopt legislation prosecuting domestic violence and other forms of abuse against women. The Polish parliament voted on Tuesday to send a bill called "Yes to Family, No to Gender" to parliamentary committees for examination. The text calls on the eastern European country to withdraw from the Istanbul Treaty. It comes after Turkey withdrew from the treaty earlier this month, sparking international condemnation and nationwide protests. The right-wing Polish government had announced its intention to withdraw from the treaty last summer, claiming it did not respect religion and promoted controversial ideologies about gender. "Parliament can and should still reject the dangerous bill, ensure protection from violence for all women and girl," said Hillary Margolis, a women's rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. Irene Donadio, Senior Lead, Strategy and Partnership at International Planned Parenthood Federation-European Network (IPPF-EN), told Euronews the move was "very worrying". "We are extremely, extremely concerned about the developments in Poland. We think that is a serious threat, that the protection from domestic violence and violence against women will be dismantled," Donadio said. "We also watch with apprehension the attempt to replace the Istanbul Convention with another convention on family rights." According to government documents leaked to the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), authorities will seek to replace the convention with a new treaty that would ban same-sex marriage and abortions. "So altogether, I can only say that we are outraged at the latest steps taken by the Polish parliament and we fear for the destiny of women in Poland," Donadio said. Euronews reached out to the Polish Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Polish Parliament for comment but did not receive an answer at the time of publication. Escalating death threats The vote in Parliament comes as IPPF-EN, Human Rights Watch and CIVICUS released a new report warning of escalating death threats against women's rights defenders in Poland. "Bomb and death threats targeting at least seven groups in Poland for supporting women’s rights and the right to abortion are disturbing reminders of escalating risks to women’s human rights defenders," the NGOs said in a statement. "Police should thoroughly investigate threats of violence against women’s rights and other human rights defenders and punish those responsible," the NGOs said. Activists say that not only do Polish authorities fail to systematically investigate the threats, but they also contribute to their sense of insecurity by discrediting their work. "Instead of stoking anger against those trying to uphold basic rights, Polish officials should focus on doing everything in their power to protect women and women’s rights," said Aarti Narsee, civic space researcher at CIVICUS. "Several women’s rights defenders have been detained or face what they claim are politically motivated criminal charges," the rights groups noted, including for causing an "epidemiological threat” for protests held during the pandemic. The protests erupted in October last year when the constitutional court ruled to ban abortions in the case of fetal defects. They became the largest anti-government mass movement in Poland since the fall of communism three decades ago. The abortion ban ruling entered into force in late January. 'EU must react' "It will set a dramatic precedent in the European Union if we watch and we do nothing," Donadio told Euronews. "The EU must press ahead with accession to the Istanbul Convention and protect women with ways that are legally binding across the EU," MEP Guy Verhofstadt tweeted after the vote in the Polish parliament. Tensions between Warsaw and Brussels have escalated in recent years over moves seen as undermining the independence of the judiciary, media freedom and the rights of LGBTQ people. On Wednesday, the European Commission announced it was referring Poland to the EU's top court over long-standing concerns about respect for the rule of law and the independence of the country's Supreme Court judges. The bloc's executive commission said it will ask the European Court of Justice to order interim measures until a final judgment is given in the case “to prevent the aggravation of serious and irreparable harm inflicted to judicial independence and the EU legal order.” The EU also adopted at the end of last year a new rule of law mechanism that ties respect for the EU's core democratic values with EU funding. But for Donadio, the bloc should go even further and consider using article 7 against Poland over its failure to uphold women's rights. Article 7 is a procedure to suspend certain rights from an EU member state when there is "a clear risk" of breaching the bloc's fundamental values. © Sandrine Amiel for Euronews, 2021

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty The United Nations Human Rights Council has approved a resolution to create a team to investigate Belarus's violent crackdown on demonstrators protesting against presidential elections last year that authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka claims to have won. Members of the body in Geneva voted 20 to 7 on March 24 to create the investigative team, with 20 abstentions. Russia, a staunch ally of Belarus, was one of the countries to vote against the measure. "We must show our support to the people of Belarus and hold perpetrators of grave human rights violations accountable to end the vicious cycle of impunity," Portugal's ambassador, Rui Macieira, speaking for the EU, told the Human Rights Council. Portugal currently holds the bloc's rotating presidency and the resolution was put forward by the 27-member group. Lukashenka was declared president for a sixth straight term after the August 9 election despite the opposition's belief that its candidate, Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, was the rightful winner. The brutal crackdown on anti-government demonstrations has included tens of thousands of detentions and thousands of criminal cases. About 1,000 cases of torture have been documented by human rights NGOs, 290 people are currently being held as political prisoners, and at least eight protesters have been killed, according to Tsikhanouskaya. The text of the UN resolution approved on March 24 "condemns the ongoing grave violations of human rights in Belarus in connection with the 2020 presidential election, including the systematic denial of human rights and fundamental freedoms". The Belarusian ambassador to the council characterized the resolution as a "destructive signal" and "another example of the manipulation of the UN by Western states in their own political interests." Lukashenka, who is not recognized by many Western governments, has refused to meet with opposition leaders to discuss their demands for his exit and a fresh election. The opposition has said it is looking to reinvigorate the pro-democracy protests on March 25, the anniversary of the Belarusian People's Republic, which existed for less than a year in 1918. © Reuters and AP, 2021

Don’t Try Civilians in Military Courts; Drop Unsubstantiated Terrorism Charges Security forces force anti-government protesters away from al-Nour square in the center Tripoli, Lebanon, on January 31, 2021 amidst clashes.© 2021 FATHI AL-MASRI/AFP via Getty Images (Beirut) – Lebanese Military Intelligence forcibly disappeared and allegedly tortured detainees who were participating in protests against the Covid-19 lockdown and deteriorating economic conditions in Tripoli, Human Rights Watch said today. These individuals face apparently unsubstantiated terrorism charges before the country’s military courts, which are inherently unfair, and under international law should not have jurisdiction over civilians. On February 22, 2021, Lebanon’s military prosecutor charged at least 35 people, including at least 2 children, with terrorism, forming criminal associations, and stealing public property during protests in the northern city of Tripoli during the last week of January 2021. The defendants also face other charges, including using force against and trying to kill members of the security forces, arson, vandalism, and protesting without permission. “Lebanese authorities should address the legitimate grievances of people in Tripoli but instead they’ve escalated repression against a population fighting for a dignified life,” said Aya Majzoub, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The government needs to answer for disappearing and any torture of detainees and drop all unsubstantiated terrorism charges against them.” Human Rights Watch spoke with five detainees, the families of five protesters, two lawyers involved in the case, a judicial source, and Police Commander Major General Imad Othman. The army did not respond to a Human Rights Watch request for comment. Those interviewed said that there were some incidents of violence during the protests, and some participants threw Molotov cocktails at security forces and set government buildings on fire. But the people interviewed said the defendants in the terrorism case had not been engaged in such serious violence and were not shown any evidence to the contrary. One family member said that her son, then 15, was tortured into confessing to crimes he did not commit. Four of the 35 people charged in the case remain in detention and 19, including the children, were released. The authorities have refused to identify the other 12 defendants, citing the “secrecy” of the investigations, lawyers working on the case told Human Rights Watch. Ayman Raad, who represents six of those charged, said that the military investigative judge told him that “the defendants will know they are charged when they are called in for interrogation.” The lawyers said that 19 people were arrested at their homes, workplaces, or on the street, and four were summoned to the Defense Ministry. Most of those arrested were forcibly disappeared for periods of one to five days in Military Intelligence facilities, lawyers said. The lawyers said that families and lawyers sought information about them at intelligence and police stations in the Bekaa and Tripoli where they were last seen, but that security agencies denied having any information about them. “I didn’t leave a person or a place that I didn’t ask,” said the mother of Tarek Badawiyyeh, 28, one of the detainees. “But no one knew … I thought maybe someone beat him or killed him, you know the situation in the country. For three days, I was living in hell. I thought my child was gone.” Enforced disappearances, when state authorities detain a person but then refuse to reveal their whereabouts or fate, are serious crimes under international law and prohibited at all times. The prohibition includes a duty to investigate allegations of enforced disappearance and prosecute those responsible. All the detainees, except the four summoned to the Defense Ministry, were interrogated without a lawyer present, the lawyers and their families said, violating Article 47 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Thirteen of the detainees were interrogated by Military Intelligence, the lawyers said, and two were interrogated by the Internal Security Forces (ISF) Information Branch officers, Major General Imad Othman said. Human Rights Watch and other rights groups have routinely documented the violations of Article 47, especially during Military Intelligence interrogations. Ali Hashem, 34, said that officers from the Military Intelligence branch in Chtoura beat, slapped, and kicked him while he was blindfolded and handcuffed, hurling insults at him: “They told me, ‘You want freedom? Fuck your freedom.’” Hashem said he described his torture to the military investigative judge. Another detainee said that Military Intelligence officers beat him at one of their branches and at the Defense Ministry. At the Defense Ministry, “they threatened me and started beating me and telling me that we want to torture you so that you implicate [another protester]. They said we will hang you in the balance,” a reference to hanging a torture victim by their wrists tied behind the back. The detainee said that he told the military investigative judge that he falsely implicated another protester due to the torture. A 15-year-old protester who was arrested at a gas station while filling a container with gasoline was taken to Military Intelligence in Qobbeh, where he was beaten, subjected to falaka (beating on the soles of the feet), and threatened with electric shocks, his mother said. She said her son just started saying “yes” to whatever was asked of him, even things he knows nothing about. Later at the Defense Ministry, she said, an officer kicked him and punched him in the stomach. He spent his sixteenth birthday in detention, she said. Lebanon passed an anti-torture law in 2017. But Human Rights Watch has routinely documented credible reports of torture in Lebanon since then. The authorities have failed to properly investigate the allegations, and justice for torture in detention remains elusive. Lawyers and the judicial source said that the military prosecutor charged all the suspects with the same crimes, including terrorism and theft, without specifying the evidence against each individual. They said their clients were not shown any video or other evidence implicating them in the crimes, and that the allegations were based only on “information” and “informants or other confessions.” Under Lebanese law and international human rights law, defendants have the right to know the criminal charges against them and the evidence on which charges are based, including exculpatory evidence. “If the Lebanese authorities think there is any substance to these charges, they should refer the case to the civilian courts, ensure that the accused receive a fair trial, and investigate the serious allegations of enforced disappearance, torture, and denial of due process,” Majzoub said. “States that provide support to Lebanon’s security agencies should ensure that they are not funding serious abuses.” Due Process Violations Defendants, lawyers, and family members said that only the four detainees who turned themselves in to the Defense Ministry had a lawyer present during their preliminary interrogations. The other 19 detainees were denied this right, with security agencies falsely claiming that the defendants said that they did not want a lawyer. The sister of one detainee interrogated by Military Intelligence officers said that the first thing he told his family when he called and informed them of his whereabouts, more than 24 hours after his arrest, was that he wanted a lawyer. Another detainee said that Military Intelligence officers at the Defense Ministry made him sign a statement that he did not want a lawyer. Two of the defendants who turned themselves in to the Defense Ministry said that the four of them had an “unofficial interrogation” without their lawyers. “In the middle of the night, they called us,” said Ibrahim Bosot, 25. “It was an interrogation, but not the formal kind where you sign … We couldn’t see anything inside, they blindfolded and handcuffed us. They gave us advice that we should leave the streets and that we were arrested this time and the treatment was good, but next time it could be different … The next day, they took us to [the Military Police headquarters in] Reyhaniyye to do the formal investigation in the presence of a lawyer, but in reality, the interrogation was done.” Lawyers said that nothing that the defendants said during this “unofficial interrogation” can be used against them in court. Parliament amended Article 47 on September 30, 2020, guaranteeing defendants the right to have a lawyer present during preliminary interrogations at security agencies. Article 47 also guarantees defendants the right to remain silent, to contact a person of their choosing, such as a family member, a lawyer, or an employer, and to be examined by a forensic doctor. Arresting officers must inform all detained suspects of these rights promptly upon arrest. Under Lebanese law, officers breaching the guarantees of Article 47 are liable for prosecution for unlawful detention. Security agents searched through the contents of defendants’ phones and used the information they found to add charges, including those outside the jurisdiction of the military court, lawyers and protesters said. “This is illegal,” Raad said. “The law stipulates that security agencies can only look for evidence directly related to the crimes they are investigating.” In one phone, Raad said, security agencies found a WhatsApp message that they claimed was insulting to the president, and added the crime of “insulting the president” against all the accused. On February 4, the Tripoli Bar Association submitted a complaint to the Cassation Public Prosecution regarding the crimes of enforced disappearance, arbitrary deprivation of liberty, and violations of the Code of Criminal Procedure and Articles 47 and 32 during the protesters’ arrests. Detention Conditions Five of the defendants who were detained in Military Police headquarters in Reyhaniyye said that the prison was very cold, dirty, and not well ventilated. They said they were not given adequate material to clean themselves or their cells and bathrooms, creating conditions conducive to the spread of Covid-19. They were only allowed to shower once or twice a week. They said the food was inedible and insufficient; their food trays were moldy, and their water had a strange color. Prison guards humiliated them and often referred to them as “animals,” they said. Omar Bekai, who was subsequently moved to the Fakhreddine Military Police facility, remarked that he “felt like a human again.” He said the prison was very clean, the food was sufficient, and the officers were respectful. International norms regarding prison conditions, the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the “Mandela Rules”) require that “[a]ll accommodation provided for the use of prisoners and in particular all sleeping accommodation shall meet all requirements of health, due regard being paid to climatic conditions and particularly to cubic content of air, minimum floor space, lighting, heating and ventilation.” The Mandela Rules state that “sanitary installations shall be adequate to enable every prisoner to comply with the needs of nature when necessary and in a clean and decent manner” and that “[a]dequate bathing and shower installations shall be provided.” The Terrorism Charges The case is the first since the October 17, 2019, nationwide uprising in which Lebanese authorities charged protesters with terrorism. The October 2019 anti-government demonstrations were prompted by the government’s announcement of new taxes but quickly devolved into expressions of anger against the entire political establishment, whom protesters blamed for the country’s dire economic situation. These terrorism charges, applied summarily to all 35 defendants, could have a chilling effect on free speech and assembly, Human Rights Watch said. Lawyers and the judicial source said that the military prosecutor charged the defendants under Article 335 of the criminal code, on criminal associations, and Articles 5 and 6 of the draconian Law of 1958, which was enacted as an emergency measure during the 1958 political crisis but never repealed. Article 5 of the law carries punishments of hard labor for life for crimes such as using explosives to carry out an armed uprising, and Article 6 carries hard labor for life or the death penalty for acts of terrorism. Lebanon has an unofficial moratorium on the death penalty and has not executed anyone since 2004, but courts continue to hand down death sentences. Article 314 of the criminal code defines terrorism as “all acts designed to foment terror” through means including the use of explosives or inflammable materials that are “liable to create a public emergency.” The definition is overly broad as it does not require, among other elements, an intent to cause death or serious bodily harm to members of the public or an ideological or political motive. That leaves the authorities latitude to characterize as “terrorist” acts that may be serious crimes but are more appropriately classified as vandalism, damage to or destruction of property, riots, or arson. Human Rights Watch opposes capital punishment in all countries and under all circumstances. Capital punishment is unique in its cruelty and finality, and is plagued with arbitrariness, prejudice, and error. Most countries have abolished the practice, while dozens have adopted a de facto moratorium. Trials of Civilians in Military Courts The Lebanese government and security agencies are using the overbroad jurisdiction of the military courts to intimidate and retaliate against political speech and activism. Human Rights Watch has documented the cases of two demonstrators who were taken before the military courts since the October 17, 2019, uprising on charges related to their involvement in the protest movement. A 2017 Human Rights Watch investigation revealed the many due process and international law violations inherent in trying civilians before military courts in Lebanon. Lebanon’s military court system is an exceptional judicial system under the Defense Ministry. Civilians can end up in military courts for any interaction with security services or their employees. Children accused of these crimes have been tried before the military courts. Military court composition and the system for appointing judges undermine the courts’ competence, independence, and impartiality, Human Rights Watch said. The defense minister appoints military judges, who are not required to have a law degree or legal training. Military personnel serving as judges remain subordinate to the defense minister. Access to military court proceedings is restricted, so that human rights organizations and journalists cannot freely monitor the trials. People tried before the military courts and lawyers described a range of fair trial violations that they or their clients suffered, including interrogations without the presence of a lawyer, ill-treatment and torture, incommunicado detention, the admissibility of confessions extracted under torture, lengthy pretrial detention, decisions issued without explanation, seemingly arbitrary sentences, and a limited right to appeal. The Tripoli Protests Protests swept Tripoli during the last week of January over the rapidly deteriorating economic conditions, exacerbated by Covid-19 lockdown measures. Tripoli is one of Lebanon’s most impoverished cities, yet aid that the government promised has not materialized, pushing the majority of the city’s residents into abject poverty. Most protesters and families interviewed cited unbearable economic conditions as the reason for participating in demonstrations. The mother of Tarek Badawiyyeh, a 28-year-old taxi driver who was detained, said: “You should have seen how my son looked when he was arrested. He was wearing ripped shoes … He can barely eat, drink, and clothe himself … my heart is burning. They denied us everything … they didn’t leave us anything to be able to live … But if you go ask for your rights, they make you out to be a terrorist.” Rabie Chemali, a 22-year-old electrician, “has been without work for almost two years,” his mother said. “He and I live alone in the house. Who will feed us? … This is the reality of the country, they [rulers] have no conscience. There is no more corruption than this.” Around noon on January 25, protesters angered by the strict Covid-19 lockdown measures began to gather around Al-Nour Square and to block roads with burning tires. By nightfall, clashes had erupted between security forces and protesters, who threw stones at the Tripoli Serail (administrative building). Internal Security Forces (ISF) Riot Police violently beat protesters, including a reporter for Sawt Beirut International, and fired teargas and rubber projectiles at protesters in Al-Nour Square. By around 10 p.m., army units were heavily deployed and protesters dispersed. Several people were reportedly detained, including a child. The Lebanese Red Cross treated 29 people on site and transported 12 to nearby hospitals. On January 26, protesters gathered in front of the Serail, demanding the release of those detained the night before. Local media reported that protesters threw stones at the Serail, tried to remove the barbed wire fence outside the building, and set a car on fire. Security forces fired teargas and rubber projectiles to disperse protesters. The Lebanese Red Cross treated 17 people on the scene and transported 6 to nearby hospitals. Protests became increasingly violent on the third night. Media reported that people set fire to dumpsters in Al-Nour square, again threw stones at the Serail, and torched the guard room at the Serail’s entrance. Some protesters reportedly breached the parking lot of the Justice Palace, behind the Serail, and Major General Imad Othman told Human Rights Watch that some people among the protesters were firing live ammunition. In a statement issued the next morning, the ISF said that some people in the protests lobbed firecrackers, stones, and Molotov cocktails at security forces inside the Serail, who responded with teargas and water cannons. The ISF also alleged that three grenades were thrown toward the Serail’s entrance, two of which exploded. Major General Othman later said that between January 25 and January 30, 17 grenades were thrown toward the security forces, all but three of which exploded. Major General Othman provided Human Rights Watch with photographs showing the damage allegedly caused by the grenades. Security forces pushed people from the Serail’s entrance to Al-Nour Square. Othman said that ISF members fired live ammunition into the air in “self defense.” He said that one ISF member who was being attacked by protesters fired into the ground. Live footage from Al-Jadeed captured at around 9:50 p.m. on January 27 shows people pelting the Riot Police with rocks as the police retreat toward the Serail. An officer fires warning shots over their heads with his handgun, and many protesters appear to run away. Some protesters continue to throw rocks, and the officer shoots at the ground a few meters from the people and then aims into the crowd. As most of them flee, another officer fires directly at them with an AK-47-pattern assault rifle. The video shows two people lying on the ground, one of whom has a visible injury to his left hip. A protester grabs a handful of bullet cartridges from the pavement and holds them up in front of the camera. The Omega Research Foundation, a UK-based independent organization that analyses security technology, told the Beirut-based media outlet The Public Source that the cartridge cases held by the protester resemble those of an AK-47-pattern rifle. Based on footage and interviews analyzed by The Public Source, it appears that Omar Tayba, who died from his wounds the next morning, was one of the two protesters who fell to the ground after the ISF fired directly at protesters. The National News Agency reported that 226 people were injured, including 41 ISF officers. Major General Othman told Human Rights Watch that the ISF’s Northern Command investigated this incident under the supervision of the military public prosecution, which showed that Omar Tayba was injured by an “unidentified bullet” in his back. On January 30, the military prosecutor, Judge Fadi Akiki, conducted a field visit to Tripoli and personally oversaw the investigation. Based on the instruction of Judge Akiki, on February 8, the ISF’s investigation was closed and transferred to the military prosecution to continue the investigation and the case’s legal course, the ISF said. In April 2020, Human Rights Watch found that the Lebanese Armed Forces unjustifiably used excessive, including lethal, force against protesters in Tripoli, killing one and injuring scores more. The military public prosecution has not taken any serious measures to investigate the killing of Fawwaz Samman in that incident. Abuses against protesters, including killings, have gone largely unpunished in Lebanon. Protests in Tripoli resumed for a fourth day on January 28, and also quickly turned violent. Some people threw firecrackers and Molotov cocktails at the Serail, sparking a fire in the Sharia court within the building at around 9:20 p.m. Just before 11 p.m., protesters torched the Tripoli municipality building. Security forces fired teargas to disperse protesters. The Lebanese Red Cross treated 106 injured people at the scene and transported 6 to nearby hospitals. The ISF said that between January 25 and January 30, 70 ISF members were injured. One detainee arrested on January 28 and forcibly disappeared for four days, then released from the Defense Ministry, was severely tortured. Human Rights Watch viewed a medical report that detailed injuries to his head, shoulders, and neck, and noted signs of severe beating on his body. He is not one of the protesters charged with terrorism. In one case, the ISF put out a missing person report, but it later surfaced that the protester, a child, had been detained at the Military Intelligence branch in the Qibbeh neighborhood of Tripoli. That child has since been released, the lawyers said. The Lebanese authorities’ documented corruption and failure to address the country’s massive political and economic crises have resulted in the most drastic deterioration of rights in decades, Human Rights Watch said. On March 8, the army commander, Joseph Aoun, in a rebuke of the political class, warned that “members of the military are suffering and getting hungry like the rest of the people.” The caretaker interior minister, Mohamed Fehmi, announced on March 11 that Lebanon’s security forces are drained and unable to perform 90 percent of their duties. Recommendations Security forces and prosecutors should respect due process guarantees enshrined in Lebanese law, including Article 47 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, as well as Lebanon’s anti-torture law. Security agencies and the judiciary should investigate the conduct of officials found to be violating these laws and hold them accountable. To combat impunity and avoid inflaming tensions, the authorities should conduct prompt, fair, and independent investigations into killings of protesters, make the results public, and prosecute anyone found to have broken the law. Lebanon should urgently reform the military court system by removing civilians and children from their jurisdiction and ensuring that judges deem inadmissible all confessions and evidence obtained under torture. The Defense Ministry should refer all torture allegations to the public prosecutor and put in place a policy of zero tolerance for all forms of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment. It should ensure that all serving judges are fully independent and impartial, including ensuring that no judge is within the military chain of command. Lebanese courts should refrain from handing down death sentences, and parliament should abolish the death penalty. International donors to Lebanese security forces, including the United States and the United Kingdom, should investigate whether their support is going to abusive units, and if so, halt it immediately. © 2021 Human Rights Watch

Protestors wearing face paint stand near barricade during an anti-coup demonstration in Yangon, Myanmar on Tuesday, March 30. (CNN) Children were among those killed and injured in airstrikes by Myanmar's military on an ethnic rebel-controlled area in the country's southeast, a humanitarian aid group said Tuesday, as junta forces stepped up their offensive in the region. Myanmar's military, which seized power in a February 1 coup, has been conducting airstrikes in southeastern Karen state since Saturday night, forcing thousands of residents to flee into the jungles. Many of the villages targeted are controlled by the Karen National Union (KNU), an ethnic armed group that holds large swathes of territory in the borderlands. A 5-year-old boy died in a bombing on Sunday, and a 12-year-old girl was hit in the face by bomb shrapnel, according to relief organization Free Burma Rangers (FBR). The girl had come to Day Bu Noh village to attend school, the group said. A high school in Dwe Lo Township was destroyed in an airstrike on Monday, but no casualties were reported as the students were in hiding, FBR said. Then on Tuesday, six people were killed and 11 injured by airstrikes near Hsaw Hti township. In a statement Tuesday, the KNU condemned the Myanmar military's bombing campaign. "Villagers, including underage children, have been killed by airstrikes," the KNU statement said. "Many are injured." CNN has not been able to independently verify these reports. Myanmar has been thrown into turmoil since Gen. Min Aung Hlaing ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and installed a military junta two months ago. Protesters have taken to the streets nearly every day, and workers in various sectors including health care and transport have gone on strike, disrupting the economy. The military has responded by embarking on a systematic and bloody crackdown, shooting unarmed civilians in the street, while carrying out beatings, arbitrary detentions and nighttime raids on the homes of suspected opposition members. This weekend saw the bloodiest crackdown yet, with at least 114 people killed on Saturday. Residents fleeing the violence have fled to several neighboring countries, including Thailand and India. Myanmar security forces have killed at least 521 people since the coup, with more than 2,600 detained, according to advocacy group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP). Rebel groups in ethnic states More than two dozen ethnic armed groups have been fighting against the Myanmar military -- known as the Tatmadaw -- and each other, for greater rights and autonomy on and off for 70 years. Fighting in some of these regions has increased since the coup. Many ethnic armed groups, including the KNU, have come out in support of the protests and condemned the military takeover. The KNU said it attacked a military outpost near the border with Thailand on Saturday morning. In its statement Tuesday, the KNU said it tookover the outpost "to stop the terrorizing of villagers and allow people to return safely to their communities." The rebels said Myanmar military troops were now moving into KNU-held areas, despite a ceasefire in place since 2015. "Thousands of Burma military ground troops are advancing into our territories from all fronts," the KNU statement said. "We have no other options left but to confront these serious threats posed by the illegitimate military junta's army in order to defend our territory." In a report in the military-controlled Global New Light of Myanmar Tuesday, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing accused the KNU of "dancing to the tune of countries and organizations" which oppose the junta. This weekend's crackdown is the first time in 20 years airstrikes have been carried out in KNU-controlled territory, said David Eubank, founder of Free Burma Rangers. The group urged the international community to provide humanitarian help to its people fleeing the military's "onslaught," and to pressure the ruling junta to stop using weapons against civilians. "We are very concerned about the safety and security of our civilians," said the statement. Fleeing across borders Thousands of people have fled from Myanmar to its neighboring countries, raising concern and alarm in the region about a potential influx of refugees. Since the air strikes, 3,000 people have attempted to cross the Salween River into Thailand and 2,000 were pushed back, according to the KNU. Activist group the Karen Women's Organization (KWO), which operates within Karen state and refugee camps in Thailand, confirmed the air strikes had forced 10,000 people in the state from their homes, and 3,000 had crossed into Thailand. The Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that on Tuesday, the country provided medical treatment and other assistance to seven people who were injured while fleeing Myanmar. Six ambulances were deployed to take them to hospital, said the ministry in a statement. Assistance was also given to vulnerable groups like children and the elderly. "These people were unable to return across the border yesterday, despite their wish to return home they had also expressed their fear from air raids," said the statement. "Authorities concerned have ensured that this particular group of people were well taken care of, and that they were prepared for their return back home when the situation is deemed safe." Thailand's Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said on Tuesday his government did not force back those who entered the country. "There are many people who have entered into certain villages (on Thai side), and when we found them, we talked to them. After we asked questions what are their problems in your country they said, there's no problem," Prayut said during a news conference. "We didn't force them (to return) with guns," Prayut added. "There is no way we will push them back if the fighting is still ongoing. But if there is no fighting now, can they return to their home?" He had previously said that though his government did not want refugees to cross the border, they were preparing for a potential influx. Thailand has hosted tens of thousands of refugees in nine main camps along its border with Myanmar for three decades, following armed conflicts, human rights abuses and persecution of ethnic minorities by the Myanmar military. Most of those who crossed the border over the weekend are from Mu Traw district, where the bombing has been concentrated. Many of those are people who have already fled their homes and are living in the Ei Tu Hta displacement camp. Hundreds have also trekked across western Myanmar to cross into the neighboring Indian state of Mizoram. A network of locals and activists have helped facilitate their crossing, and are providing shelter to many of those without family in India. The chief minister of the state has staunchly opposed deporting them back to Myanmar, telling CNN earlier this month, "They are not criminals." However, the federal government has not publicly announced what it will do with the new arrivals. Meanwhile in China, an outbreak of Covid-19 has been blamed on those fleeing Myanmar. Yunnan province, which borders Myanmar to the south, detected nine Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, four of which are Burmese nationals. The Yunnan Health Commission launched a testing program across the city of Ruili, and locked down the city with suspended inbound and outbound travel. In a statement, the commission added that local authorities will crack down on illegal border crossings from Myanmar. Chinese officials also blamed smugglers from Myanmar for a surge in cases in September, with the Ruili police deputy director telling reporters that there were "Burmese asymptomatic cases illegally crossing into the Chinese border." China, along with Russia, recently blocked the United Nations' move to condemn the Myanmar military. © 2021 Cable News Network.

The French Army says it killed terrorists in Mali, with no collateral damage. A new United Nations report says almost all of the dead were civilians. DAKAR, Senegal — They had gathered for a wedding in a village in central Mali. The ceremony took place the day before, but about 100 men and teenagers were still celebrating the next afternoon. They prayed together, then dispersed into different groups under some trees. An hour later, 22 members of the wedding party were dead, killed by French warplanes. Nineteen of them were civilians, according to a report released Tuesday by the United Nations. The Jan. 3 airstrike set off outrage in the West African country, and has intensified calls for France, which has more than 5,000 troops stationed in the region, to leave. Soon after the airstrike on the village of Bounti reports began to emerge that a wedding had been hit. France immediately dismissed any suggestion that its planes had attacked a wedding party, or that there had been any collateral damage. But an investigation carried out by the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali found that it was, indeed, a wedding, a report released Tuesday said. French officials again rejected the accusation and called the findings unsubstantiated. In its report, the U.N. mission found that five gun-carrying members of an armed Islamist group were among the guests at the wedding. They were presumed to be members of the jihadist group Katiba Serma, which is thought to be loosely affiliated with Al Qaeda. Two of the militants left before the strike, the investigators found, while three were killed. But the rest of the dead were civilians, the report said, suggesting that the French had acted rashly. “The fact that a certain number of adult men come together in an area where an armed group is active, or the absence of women and children, although useful for context, is far from enough to determine who is a member of an armed group, or that there weren’t any civilians present,” the report said. The French Army did not deny that the attack had taken place, claiming shortly afterward that it had “neutralized about 30 GAT” — using the French acronym for armed terrorist group. On Tuesday, following the publication of the U.N. report, the French military launched an attack of another sort: on the report and its methodology, including its use of unnamed sources. “The only concrete sources on which this report is based come from local testimonies,” the French Defense Ministry said in a statement. It asserted that the report did not “provide any evidence contradicting the facts as described by the French armed forces.” The French reaction did little to ease the outrage. Ousmane Diallo, an Amnesty International researcher in Francophone West Africa, described France’s reaction as shocking. “Talking about disinformation, as people mourn their dead,” he wrote on Twitter. At the very least, critics said, the French Army should try harder to establish what happened. “It’s more than enough to spur the French government to revisit their original assertion and to open up an investigation,” said Corinne Dufka, the West Africa director of Human Rights Watch. Asked for his reaction to the French criticism of the report, Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, told reporters that “we stand by the report and the work of our colleagues in Mali.” The findings, Mr. Dujarric said, raise “very significant concerns” about what steps countries take to verify that targets are legitimate military objectives. France’s war on Islamists in the Sahel — a vast arid region south of the Sahara — has dragged on for years with no end in sight. Just last week, French troops were accused of killing more civilians, this time in northern Mali. France said they were terrorists; a local mayor said they were teenagers hunting birds. The report called for France and Mali to carry out their own investigations into what happened at the wedding and pay compensation to the victims. Constant Méhuet contributed reporting from Paris. © The New York Times 2021

Anna Killen | March 2021 Peruvian women demand justice for the thousands of victims of forced sterilisation. (Credit InterPares) Peru is home to one of South America’s largest indigenous populations who have lived in the Andean and Amazonian regions for centuries. From 1996 to 2000, under President Alberto Fujimori, the Peruvian state performed coercive sterilizations on 272,000 women and 22,000 men. State officials targeted rural, poor and Indigenous people for sterilization procedures through bribes, threats and deception and performed tubal ligations and vasectomies without informed consent. The state used demographic manipulation to limit the future births of Indigenous people, hence destroying a large proportion of an ethnic minority. According to Article II of the 1948 Genocide Convention, ratified by Peru in 1960, the Programa de Salud Reproductiva y Planificación Familiar (PSRPF) constitutes a genocide that remains unrecognized. PSRFP is also referred to as the Programa Nacional de Población. The Fujimori administration claimed PSRPF would reduce maternal and infant mortality and empower women to make more informed choices. In reality, Neo-Malthusian population notions inspired the racist campaign which perceived Indigenous people as ‘the cause of poverty’, seeking to tackle economic downturn by reducing their numbers. The state purposefully misinformed candidates of the practice and its effects, even kidnapping and forcibly sterilizing some victims. Severe malpractice and dehumanization is evident in the use of quotas and financial incentives which encouraged coercive practices and abuses of power. Health practitioners did not speak Indigenous languages or provide translators, heightening the misleading nature of the procedures. Additionally, a total lack of postoperative care or adequate use of anesthetics often led to health complications and to the deaths of 18 women. Survivors report serious mental and physical trauma, with victims struggling to bear the social stigma of infertility or return to their daily duties after invasive surgeries. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up in 2000 to investigate the 69,000 deaths and disappearances caused by Peru’s internal armed conflict (1980-2000). However, the final report made no connection between the sterilizations and genocide, likely because the genocide did not arise from the fighting between the state and armed left-wing opposition groups. The sterilizations are considered crimes of sexual violence or human rights abuses at most. Slow, tumultuous and limited court proceedings impede justice efforts. Fujimori received a 25-year prison sentence in 2007 for murder and kidnapping relating to his control of the Grupo Colina death squad. However, in 2017 Fujimori received a Presidential pardon. The Peruvian Supreme Court later revoked this pardon and ordered his return to prison. Charges were successfully reissued against Fujimori in April 2018 for his role in the sterilization campaign, although not for genocide. Today, the government’s continued apathy towards Indigenous Peruvians is cause for alarm. In April 2020, eight Peruvian Indigenous representatives wrote to the United Nations and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights warning that they are at risk of 'ethnocide by inaction' from the threat of COVID-19. When Spanish conquistadors arrived in Peru in 1533, they brought with them violent subjugation and diseases novel to the region, devastating the Indigenous Inca population, weakened by a pre-colonial civil war and smallpox epidemic. Indigenous rights NGO 'Survival International' reports nearly half of the Nahua people died following Shell’s incursions onto their land in the 1980’s. Logging, gas and oil corporations continue to threaten Indigenous lives as resource demands increase the number of land invasions and murders. Violence against women, abuses by security forces, threats to freedom of expression, corruption, political turmoil and violence also remain major concerns in Peru. Genocide Watch considers Peru to be at Stage 3: Discrimination and Stage 10: Denial due to the maintenance of socioeconomic inequalities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Peruvians and the state’s failure to denounce PSRPF as genocidal or prosecute its architects for crimes of genocide. Genocide Watch recommends the following: The Peruvian government must guarantee the rights to truth, justice and reparations for victims of forced sterilizations and acknowledge the crimes as acts of genocide publicly. Fund organizations like Survival International and the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest (AIDESEP) which represent and protect Indigenous interests. The systematic abandonment of Indigenous Peruvians must be rectified by improving state protections in rural areas and directly consulting villagers about their needs to ensure their voices are heard. Download Report GENOCIDE WATCH is the founder and coordinator of the Alliance Against Genocide E-mail: president@genocidewatch.org Website: www.genocidewatch.com Tax exempt EIN: 26-1672589

The images from the streets of Myanmar cities tell a brutal story. Ordinary citizens are taking to the streets to protest the military coup of Feb. 1, and the armed forces, again and again, are opening fire. By now more than 300 people — virtually all of them unarmed — have been killed around the country. This rampant brutality has led to widespread revulsion among the populace, in ways that are likely to reverberate for years to come. There are, of course, many elements in Myanmar society — especially among members of the ethnic minorities such as the Rohingya, Shan, Karen, Kachin along the country’s periphery — who have never harbored illusions about the nature of the armed forces. The long years of military dictatorship, and the corruption and crimes against humanity, war crimes, and even genocide, all with total impunity, that went with it, saw to that. Yet the situation was somewhat different among the majority Bama, the overwhelmingly Buddhist ethnic group that also dominates the armed forces and the officer corps. For generations, many Bama has tended to view the military as the nation’s guardian of territorial integrity, the glue holding together a state they see as fragmented by deep divides of ethnicity, language, and religion. The military has worked hard to maintain the same myth, using its own propaganda apparatus to drum home the theme that only the men in uniform can hold the country together. Yet now, thanks to the proliferating images of a war being waged against the citizenry, even the military’s former defenders are awakening to a rude reality: The once-vaunted patriotic soldiers are acting like an alien occupying force — even toward other members of their own ethnic group. The bond between the country’s dominant group and the armed forces they once identified with is vanishing. The sense of rage is palpable. Hundreds of thousands of social media comments and public speeches, group posts, communal discussions, and personal conversations attest to the deepening popular anger at the armed forces. It has become customary to refer to the troops as “terrorists” or even as “dogs of war,” an especially harsh term in Myanmar-language discourse. A nationally acclaimed poet and educator, whose writings have been read by millions of children and adolescents in school, recently posted a widely shared text on Facebook in which he described the military as a cross between a murderous mafia and a fascist-like occupier. On March 4, United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet issued a blunt statement calling for an immediate end to murder, enforced disappearances, and other crimes against humanity being committed against unarmed and peaceful protesters. She specifically condemned “documented attacks against emergency medical staff and ambulances attempting to provide care to those who have been injured.” Several defectors from the security forces have told English and Myanmar-language media outlets how their superiors ordered them to shoot to kill — including targeting family members who oppose the coup. Commanders describe neighborhoods and communities as “front lines” and refer to unarmed civilian protesters as “dangerous enemies” allegedly sitting on concealed caches of weapons in civilian homes, just waiting to attack. This erosion of the military’s public image potentially has far-reaching consequences. Before the Feb. 1 coup, Aung San Suu Kyi — de facto leader of the civilian government and once lionized leader of the pro-democracy movement — had pursued a policy of grudging accommodation with the military. That included continuing recognition of the 2008 constitution, drawn up by the generals to enshrine a dominant political role for the military as they sought to step back from the outright rule. As part of her pragmatic policy of reconciliation with the armed forces, Aung San Suu Kyi even referred to the generals as “my father’s sons,” an allusion to her father Aung San, the military leader of the country’s anti-colonial independence movement during and after World War II. Since the Feb. 1 coup, ironically, she has been in the custody of that very same military, which has said that it will soon try her for alleged crimes during her time in office. Since the coup, a group consisting primarily of deposed lawmakers from Aung San Suu Kyi’s own National League for Democracy has played a leading role in the protest movement. Sources close to this group told me they initially stayed within the framework laid down by their leader. They were to operate within Aung San Suu Kyi’s framework of reconciliation without justice, maintain distance from the armed organizations of the rebellious ethnic groups, work for gradual constitutional change, and to ignore the ethnic identity of the Rohingya minority and the genocide committed against them by the military. Yet in recent weeks, reflecting the growing popular indignation over the role of the military, the group has issued a series of statements that amount to a complete break with Aung San Suu Kyi’s policy of accommodation. It is now clear that Myanmar society is burying for good the decades-old myth of the armed forces as the selfless defenders of national unity. If nothing changes, it looks as though Aung San Suu Kyi’s ruinous policy of accommodation with the generals is likely to meet a similar fate. Access the full article here. Maung Zarni is an exiled Myanmar scholar and activist with the Forces of Renewal Southeast Asia (FORSEA). The Washington Post © 2021

Eritrea has agreed to withdraw troops from Ethiopian territory along their common border, Ethiopia's prime minister said on Friday, days after acknowledging that Eritrean forces had entered Ethiopia's Tigray region during an almost five-month war. "Eritrea has agreed to withdraw its forces out of the Ethiopian border," Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said in a statement on Twitter the day after arriving in Eritrea's capital, Asmara, to meet President Isaias Afwerki. The Ethiopian National Defence Force will take over guarding the border area effective immediately, Abiy said. Eritrea's information minister, Yemane Gebremeskel, did not return calls and text messages seeking comment. Thousands of people have been killed in fighting between Ethiopian government troops and the Tigray region’s former ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), that began in November. Eritrean national security officials said that they feared attacks from the TPLF, FRANCE 24 correspondent Maria Gerth-Niculescu said. Hundreds of thousands more people were forced to flee their homes in the region of about five million. The government declared victory in late November but fighting has continued in some areas. Medical aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said on Thursday its staff saw Ethiopian soldiers shoot dead four civilians in Tigray this week. Abiy confirmed for the first time on Tuesday that troops from Eritrea had entered Tigray during the conflict, the first such acknowledgement after months of denials. Eritrean troops have gone further into Tigray than just along the joint border. Reuters journalists on a trip to Tigray this month saw hundreds of soldiers in Eritrean uniforms travelling in vehicles with Eritrean plates in large towns and along the main road between the regional capital, Mekelle, and the city of Shire. There are widespread reports of killings, torture and gang rapes of civilians by the Eritreans. This month, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he wanted to see Eritrean forces and those from the Amhara region replaced in Tigray by security forces that would respect human rights. Blinken described acts carried out in the region as “ethnic cleansing”, accusations that Ethiopia has denied. © France 24 and Reuters

4 Years After Hissène Habré’s Conviction, African Union Fails to Put in Place Victims’ Fund Published by HRW on January 26, 2021 Supporters of Habre's victims, Dakar, 2015. (Reed Brody/HRW) The African Union has yet to set up a Trust Fund to compensate victims of the former Chadian president Hissène Habré, four years after his historic conviction in Senegal, a coalition of international and regional human rights organizations said today. On May 30, 2016, Habré was convicted of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and torture, including sexual violence and rape, by an African Union-backed Senegalese court and sentenced to life in prison. When an appellate court confirmed Habré’s conviction in April 2017, and awarded 82 billion CFA francs (approximately US$150 million) to 7,396 named victims, it mandated an African Union Trust Fund to raise the money by searching for Habré’s assets and soliciting contributions. Although the African Union adopted the Trust Fund’s statute in 2017 and has allocated $5 million to the Fund, it has yet to become operational. “Habré’s victims fought relentlessly for 25 years to bring him and his henchmen to justice, and were awarded millions of dollars, but they haven’t seen one cent in reparations,” said Jacqueline Moudeina, lead counsel for Habré’s victims. “Many of the victims who scored these historic victories are in dire straits and in desperate need.” In February 2020, AU Commission chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat promised “in the near future, to convene a Resource Mobilisation Conference to maintain this Fund.” There has been no progress since then, however, said the advocates. The Habré trial is exceptional in the sense that the courts of one country tried the former ruler of another for alleged human rights crimes. It was widely considered a milestone for justice in Africa. In a separate trial in Chad, a court on March 25, 2015, convicted 20 Habré-era security agents on murder and torture charges and awarded 75 billion CFA francs (approximately $139 million) in reparations to 7,000 victims, ordering the government to pay half and the convicted agents the other half. The government of Chad has also failed to make those reparations, the advocates said. Habré, who is accused by a Chadian truth commission of looting tens of millions of dollars from the Chadian treasury, has paid no damages himself. “The African Union and the Chadian government need to implement these court decisions so that the victims, at long last, can receive reparations for what we suffered,” said Clément Abaifouta, president of the Association of Victims of the Crimes of Hissène Habré (AVCRHH), who as a prisoner under Habré was forced to dig graves for many of his fellow inmates. “We fought for decades for those decisions and now the African Union and our government have made us fight again to get the decisions enforced.” Habré’s one-party rule, from 1982-1990, was marked by widespread atrocities, including targeting certain ethnic groups. Political police files recovered by Human Rights Watch in 2001 reveal the names of 1,208 people who were killed or died in detention, and 12,321 victims of human rights violations. The current president, Idriss Déby Itno, deposed Habré, who fled to Senegal. Habré is serving his life sentence in a Senegalese prison. The groups making the call to the African Union also include the African Assembly for the Defense of Human Rights (RADDHO), the Afrikajom Center, Amnesty International, the Chadian Association for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, Redress, and the Senegalese League for Human Rights. © 2021 Human Rights Watch

Africa has long been a dream destination for intrepid globe trotters. Generations of adventurous souls have embarked on safaris, explored vast savannas, and photographed exotic wildlife. Colorful cultural traditions and ethnic foods have added to the continent's allure. Nowadays, however, international reports are casting worrisome shadows across Africa, especially for those of us who focus on international religious freedom. Last November, shocking news stories reported that ISIS was attacking civilians in Mozambique, abducting women and children, and torching homes. Al Jazeera described innocent people—many of them Catholics—as being "herded" to their death on a soccer field, where they were systematically decapitated and dismembered. On March 10, the Associated Press announced, "The Biden administration on Wednesday designated two Islamic State affiliates in Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo as 'foreign terrorist organizations,' imposing wide-ranging sanctions on the groups." In September, a private email reported that a Christian family had been jailed in Somalia. The captives' crime? They had converted to Christianity and were accused of evangelizing. Several similar arrests have followed. Likewise, Burkina Faso has been the scene of immense carnage and the displacement of more than a million Christians. The Washington Post described an evening when "gunmen stormed a village in northern Burkina Faso and ordered people who had been chatting outside to lie down. Then the armed strangers checked everyone's necks, searching for jewelry. They found four men wearing crucifixes—Christians. They executed them." All across Africa's vast expanse, one nation after another has suffered extreme violence, from killings and mutilations to kidnappings and disappearances. As far as religious freedom is concerned, Christian communities are at the highest risk because of the marauding jihadis' religious ideology. The Guardian reported in January that more than 340 million Christians—one in eight across the world—face high levels of persecution and discrimination. The number of Christians killed for their faith increased by 60 percent over the previous year. More than 90 percent of those deaths were in Africa. In late February 2021, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) published a startling article titled, "Africa Is a Jihadist Playground for the Resurgent Islamic State and al-Qaeda." The report explained that although the jihadi presence in Africa is nothing new, failure to remove it and neutralize its influence has "encouraged the extremists to penetrate shaky and unstable regimes hit by internal strife, poverty, and ethnic confrontations." As JCPA explains, Most of those jihadist groups are the offspring of either the Islamic State or of the al-Qaida organizations and have been active in the Sahel areas for many years...creating a vast web, interconnecting with other jihadist organizations, and extending their presence and destructive activities to Burkina Faso, Benin, the Central African Republic, the Ivory Coast, and Senegal. They have now reached the eastern parts of Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Mozambique), thus creating a jihadist belt that begins in the Atlantic Ocean shores and reaches the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. Clearly, Africa is in trouble. It is well documented that Christian communities, churches, clergy, and leadership suffer exceptional levels of death and destruction when jihadis attack. No country better exemplifies this tragic reality than Nigeria. The most populous and commercially significant country in Africa, Nigeria is the site of what has been described as a slow-motion genocide. Tens of thousands of Christians have been massacred there in recent years. In February 2021, a Family Research Council report on Nigeria documented horrifying statistics of mass murders there, primarily at the hands of three Islamist terrorist groups: Boko Haram, Islamic State of West Africa Province, and Fulani jihadis. Some local observers assert that these groups cooperate with each other, and may even have discreet support from the current Nigerian government. Hardly a day passes without accounts of mass kidnappings of Nigerian schoolchildren, Christian clergy and aid workers gunned down, villages torched and churchgoers massacred. In recent days, while hundreds of terrified girls were being kidnapped from their school and held for ransom, extremists released a video of a Christian pastor, Bulus Yikura, pleading for his life. Calling on President Muhammadu Buhari and other politicians, Yikura exclaimed: "If you want me alive, I beg you in your capacity as president, the governor, and our local government chairman to save me from this suffering." Thankfully, within a week's time, Pastor Bulus's ransom was paid and he was released by his captors—the ISIS-affiliated Boko Haram terror group. In a recent conversation, one of America's most highly respected experts on international religious freedom, former U.S. congressman Frank Wolf, expressed his deep concern about Africa. He explained that Nigeria's deteriorating security and rapidly escalating violence serve as a warning to the rest of the continent, and indeed, to the whole world. He explained, Boko Haram is committing genocide against Christians, having killed over 30,000. Boko Haram has killed more civilians in Nigeria than ISIS slaughtered in Iraq and Syria combined. Meanwhile, Fulani militants are committing crimes against humanity and genocidal massacres against Christians... Nigeria may very well implode. And with continuing economic, political, and security deterioration, refugees will soon flee that troubled continent by the millions. Slowly—too slowly—the United States and other global leaders are beginning to wake up to the horrifying levels of violence suffocating Nigeria and other countries in Africa. Let's hope that effective, responsive actions will finally be taken. And let's pray that those actions won't be too few, or come too late. Lela Gilbert is Senior Fellow for Religious Freedom at Family Research Council, and a Fellow at Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom. Access the full article here. Newsweek © 2021

DHAKA (Reuters) - At least 15 people have been killed in a massive fire that ripped through a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh, while at least 400 remain missing, the U.N. refugee agency said on Tuesday. A general view of a Rohingya refugee camp after a fire burned down all the shelters in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, March 23, 2021. REUTERS/Ro Yassin Abdumonab “It is massive, it is devastating,” said UNHCR’s Johannes Van der Klaauw, who joined a Geneva briefing virtually from Dhaka, Bangladesh. “We still have 400 people unaccounted for, maybe somewhere in the rubble.” He said the UNHCR had reports of more than 550 people injured and about 45,000 displaced. Bangladeshi officials are investigating the cause of the blaze even as emergency and aid workers and families sift through the debris looking for further victims. The fire ripped through the Balukhali camp near the southeastern town of Cox’s Bazar late on Monday, burning through thousands of shanties as people scrambled to save their meagre possessions. “Everything has gone. Thousands are without homes,” Aman Ullah, a Rohingya refugee from the Balukhali camp, told Reuters. “The fire was brought under control after six hours but some parts of the camp could be seen smoking all night long.” Authorities in Bangladesh have so far confirmed 11 deaths. Some 40,000 huts in the camp were burned down, said Mohammad Mohsin, secretary of the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief, after visiting the camp. Two major hospitals of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and Turkish government were also destroyed, he told reporters in Cox’s Bazar. “A seven-member committee has been formed to investigate the matter,” he said. Sanjeev Kafley, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’s delegation head in Bangladesh, said more than 17,000 shelters had been destroyed and tens of thousands of people displaced. More than a thousand Red Cross staff and volunteers worked with fire services to extinguish the blaze, spread over four sections of the camp containing roughly 124,000 people, he said. That represents around one-tenth of an estimated 1 million Rohingya refugees in the area, Kafley said. “I have been in Cox’s Bazar for three-and-a-half years and have never seen such a fire,” he told Reuters. “These people have been displaced two times. For many, there is nothing left.” BARBED WIRE Some witnesses said that barbed wire fencing around the camp trapped many people, hurting some and leading international humanitarian agencies to call for its removal. Humanitarian organization Refugees International, which estimated 50,000 people had been displaced, said the extent of the damage may not be known for some time. “Many children are missing, and some were unable to flee because of barbed wire set up in the camps,” it said in a statement. John Quinley of Fortify Rights, a rights organization working with Rohingya, said he had heard similar reports, adding the fences had hampered the distribution of humanitarian aid and vital services at the camps in the past. “The government must remove the fences and protect refugees,” Quinley said. “There have now been a number of large fires in the camps including a large fire in January this year... The authorities must do a proper investigation into the cause of the fires.” The vast majority of the people in the camps fled Myanmar in 2017 amid a military-led crackdown on the Rohingya that U.N. investigators said was executed with “genocidal intent”, charges Myanmar denies. © 2021 Reuters

Publié par RFI le 17 mars 2021 Members of the Kamuina Nsapu gathered around their leader in their stronghold in Nganza. [Emeric Fohlen/Al Jazeera] Ce chef coutumier était le commandant d’une milice liée à l’insurrection armée de Kamuina Nsapu, une insurrection qui s'est battue contre les forces gouvernementales entre 2016 et 2019. Il lui est reproché, avec sa milice, d’avoir commis des exactions contre les populations civiles dans la province du Kasaï Central début 2017. Il a été condamné cet après-midi par le tribunal militaire de Kananga. Laurent Nsubu Katende a été reconnu coupable de crimes de guerres pour meurtres, tortures, mutilations, viols, incendies et pillages lors d’attaques sur des villages du territoire de Kazumba début 2017 Plus de 230 personnes se sont constituées parties civiles. Une cinquantaine d’entre elles a pu témoigner lors des audiences. Pour Maitre Dominique Kambala, avocat des parties civiles, ce verdict est un soulagement, d’autant plus que les victimes ont obtenu des réparations financières. « J'ai senti un ouf de soulagement des populations qui disaient "voilà, il se prenait pour un seigneur de guerre, il est réduit, il n'y a plus le règne de l'impunité. Voilà que quiconque n'osera plus lever son petit doigt pour lever la machette ou le couteau". Donc il y a ce sentiment de justice. » Il s’agit du premier jugement dans ce conflit qui a opposé milices aux forces gouvernementales et qui selon l’ONG Trial International a fait plus de 3000 victimes. Pour son coordonnateur Guy Mushiata, ce verdict est également un message fort contre l’impunité dans cette province. « On a un message : tous ceux qui sont des présumés auteurs des crimes qui courent encore, à un moment ou un autre ils pourront être rattrapés, et ces crimes graves de violations des droits de l'homme sont imprescriptibles. À tout moment, la justice congolais pourra les rattraper et les juger. » L’ONG espère que ce procès va créer un précédent : juger les auteurs des crimes commis par les milices, mais également juger les massacres commis par l’armée congolaise et autres forces de sécurité lors de ce conflit. À noter que c’est dans cette même province du Kasaï que deux experts des Nations unies, l’Américain Michael Sharp et la Suédoise Zaida Catalan, ainsi que quatre Congolais qui les accompagnaient, ont été enlevés et tués en mars 2017. Le procès de leurs assassins présumés est toujours en cours. © 2021 Copyright RFI - Tous droits réservés.