Tens of thousands more civilians could be displaced due to attacks by Houthi rebels in Marib province Pro-Houthi soldiers on patrol in Sana’a, Yemen, on Wednesday. Photograph: Yahya Arhab/EPA The conflict in Yemen has taken a “sharp escalatory turn” and the country is speeding towards the worst famine the world has seen in decades, UN officials have warned, as the US under Joe Biden takes a renewed interest in finding a diplomatic solution to the war. In one of his more downbeat monthly assessments, the UN special envoy Martin Griffiths told the security council attacks by the Houthi rebels in Marib province were threatening to displace tens of thousands of civilians, many of whom had fled to the region to escape fighting elsewhere in Yemen. One million people are thought to have fled to the province’s relative safety since 2015, raising the city’s population from a previous 400,000. Marib is controlled by the Saudi-backed Yemeni government of President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi and is strategically important due to its gas and oil reserves. Until now it had been seen as a relative preserve of stability and prosperity. Its capture would be a significant victory for the Houthis, and as long as the fate of Marib city is in play it is unlikely that the Houthis will return to talks. Griffiths said the military situation was the most tense in the country since he became envoy and that “the centre of gravity now lay in the battle for Marib that was already robbing young people of their lives”. Four missiles have landed in Marib city in the last 10 days, killing three civilians. “The attack on Marib must stop now,” Griffiths said. “It is putting millions at risk with the fighting threatening to reach the camps of internally displaced persons. The search for territorial gain by force threatens the entire peace process.” He also called on the Yemen government to permit the entry of fuel ships into the ports of Hodeidah to prevent fuel shortages starting to exacerbate the threat of famine in the north. He said the renewed US interest in Yemen opened a space for a UN-overseen Yemeni-led negotiated solution, and that solution should be marked by accountable government and economic justice, ending with national elections. That required a nationwide ceasefire, humanitarian measures allowing the unhindered flow of oil, the payment of civil service salaries and the opening up to international traffic of the airport of Sana’a airport. But Griffiths said he had been discussing these issues for a year, and what was needed was simply the political will to “end the relentless cycle of violence”. “No one can force the warring parties to peace unless they choose dialogue and put weapons aside. The responsibility to end the war is the responsibility of the parties, and it is the responsibility that I hope they bear now.” Griffiths made no mention of his recent visit to Tehran, suggesting his hopes of persuading Iran to use its influence on the Houthis did not bear fruit. The only light appears to be the resumption of prisoner swap negotiations in January. Mark Lowcock, the UN’s coordinator for humanitarian affairs, said: “We are running out of time. Malnutrition rates are at record highs, and 400,000 children are severely malnourished, and as a result are in their last weeks and months. Across Yemen 16 million people are going hungry, including 5 million who are just one step away from famine.” He said unacceptable issues of humanitarian access continue with Houthi forces regularly delaying aid convoys and routinely harassing aid staff. The size of Yemen’s economy had shrunk by half and the value of the Yemeni riyal against the dollar had fallen to a quarter of its value five years ago. A months-long dispute about the distribution of oil revenues between the Houthis and Hadi government had meant 13 oil ships were still waiting for permission to dock outside Hodeidah port, with each ship waiting on average every 75 days before being allowed into port. © 2021 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies.

The pair, a former legislator and a former African soccer official, collectively face 53 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for their alleged role in the conflict in the Central African Republic. Published by The New York Times on February 16, 2021. Permanent premises of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the Netherlands, 2018. (Marina Riera/Human Rights Watch) One was a former member of Parliament sometimes known as “Rambo.” The other was a former top African soccer executive. Both appeared before the International Criminal Court on Tuesday charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity, the first alleged perpetrators the court has ever tried from the long-running and ongoing conflict in the Central African Republic. The two accused men, Patrice-Edouard Ngaïssona, the former soccer official, and Alfred Yékatom, the former legislator, were leaders of the mostly Christian militias known as the anti-balaka that have attacked Muslim civilians during the brutal civil war that has wracked the Central African Republic since 2013. The charges they face include murder, torture, persecution, cruel treatment, mutilation, and recruiting child soldiers. Mr. Ngaïssona is also charged with rape and extermination. “The events are shocking to the conscience and so arresting in scale that they transgress the very nature of our humanity,” the prosecutor, Kweku Vanderpuye, told the court. “The victims of the Central African Republic deserve to be seen. They deserve to be heard. And they deserve their day in court. Justice must prevail.” Anti-balaka sometimes translates as anti-machete, and the groups that took the name were mostly Christian and animist fighters who battled mostly Muslim rebels known as the Seleka. Both groups stand accused of committing atrocities against civilians over the course of the conflict. Although the events that the trial will examine took place eight years ago, the same civil war is still upending the lives of Central Africans, despite the presence of Russian military advisers, Rwandan troops, and United Nations peacekeepers. In recent months, the conflict has taken a strange twist. In the lead up to a December presidential election, Muslim and Christian rebels from either side, previously sworn enemies, teamed up to disrupt the polls. They launched attacks, cut off access to the capital, Bangui, and occupied major towns. More than 200,000 people have fled their homes, on top of the 1.3 million already displaced. Mr. Yékatom, known by many nicknames including “Rambo,” was an Army officer before the conflict. In 2013, he became a senior anti-balaka leader, allegedly commanding 3,000 people. In 2016, he was elected as a member of the country’s Parliament. Mr. Ngaïssona has said himself that he was a political coordinator of anti-balaka militias. Later, in 2018, he became a senior official at the Confederation of African Football. Mr. Ngaïssona was part of the inner circle of François Bozizé, a president who took power in a coup, and ruled for over a decade before he was overthrown by Seleka rebels in 2013. The anti-balaka carried out attacks throughout the western provinces of a country that was 15 percent Muslim before the conflict, the prosecutor said. Sexual slavery and rape by anti-balaka forces has been documented by Human Rights Watch. The trial focuses on attacks that took place from September 2013 through December 2014, part of a strategy, Mr. Vanderpuye said, to oust the Seleka and reinstall Mr. Bozizé as president. “The objective of their strategy was to reclaim power. The means, the consequences — unfortunately that’s why we’re here,” he said, adding that Mr. Ngaïssona was “fully aware that the group, he was helping to structure, arm, finance, instruct, and organize would inevitably target the Muslim civilian population in western C.A.R. He knew the vengeance within them.” Both men pleaded not guilty. “I don’t recognize myself in the charges brought against me,” Mr. Ngaïssona said. “I have understood everything, and I categorically say that these charges are not correct,” Mr. Yékatom said. Their trial is expected to last for around two years. Perpetrators among the Seleka are being investigated and will also face justice before the Netherlands-based court, the prosecutor said. A Seleka leader, Mahamat Said, was handed over to the I.C.C. in January. “There’s tragedy enough to go all around,” Mr. Vanderpuye said. The fact that Seleka and anti-balaka rebels had teamed up to disrupt December’s election showed that the conflict was not a religious one at a community level, said Anthony Fabrice Kettemalet, a human-rights activist and schoolteacher who founded Bird of Peace, an organization that promotes nonviolence in the Central African Republic. Rather, he said, politicians had used religious divides as a tool to manipulate people and gain political power. “We’ve lived for 50 years without justice,” Mr. Kettemalet said. “We hope that it’s just the first step in a long journey.” Efforts to try perpetrators at home are underway, too. The Central African Republic set up a Special Criminal Court in 2015, and though it has not yet held a trial, it is carrying out investigations. It is reliant on the United Nations, and does not have enough funding, however. There has been more success in the country’s ordinary courts. A year ago, the Bangui Court of Appeal sentenced 28 militiamen for crimes including the murder of civilians and U.N. peacekeepers. Tuesday’s proceedings were broadcast live on Central African radio and television, and via videolink in a courtroom in Bangui. “Impunity cannot be an option,” Mr. Vanderpuye said, as around 100 victims listened in 3,400 miles away, at the administrative tribunal in Bangui. “Only the systematic conviction of these crimes and abuses will help protect the civilian population.” © 2021 The New York Times Company.

[Unsplash/Kyle Petzer] A pagoda at dawn in downtown Yangon, the commercial hub of Myanmar. The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar has warned of the potential for a sharp uptick in violence on Wednesday, as protests continue against the 1 February military takeover of the government. Following reports that a “secretive trial” of State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint began on Tuesday, Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews said in a statement that he is “terrified” that violence could break out, as additional soldiers have been deployed in towns and cities, including the commercial hub Yangon, where demonstrations are planned. “In the past, such troop movements preceded killings, disappearances, and detentions on a mass scale,” he said. “I am terrified that given the confluence of these two developments – planned mass protests and troops converging – we could be on the precipice of the military committing even greater crimes against the people of Myanmar”, he added. Mr. Andrews issued an “urgent call” on all governments, individuals and entities that may have influence on Myanmar military authorities to use that influence “to convince the junta that rallies planned for Wednesday must be allowed to proceed without detentions or violence.” ‘Repression must end immediately’ “Continued repression of the people of Myanmar's basic liberties and human rights must end immediately”, he stressed. In the statement, Mr. Andrews also reiterated that those in the chain of command, regardless of rank, can be held liable for any atrocities committed against the people of Myanmar, and that they “must disobey orders to attack”. Of course, we cannot rely on the Myanmar military to avoid bloodshed out of a moral or legal obligation alone, he added, underscoring : “that is why it is so imperative that all those with influence demand that the junta restrain itself from further violence and arbitrary arrests”. International business community urged to act The Special Rapporteur also called on the international business community to take “immediate action”. He urged them to call their interlocutors in State Administrative Council – the body set up to govern Myanmar following the military takeover – and to “stress to them that you [the businesses] will be forced to suspend or cease business in Myanmar if they continue down this violent path". “Specifically stress to them that under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, businesses and investors should suspend or terminate activities with the Myanmar junta when the risk of involvement in serious human rights abuses can no longer be reasonably managed”, the rights expert said. “I, and many others, would argue we have long passed that threshold. Please implore them to use restraint. Implore them to return power to the people of Myanmar”, Mr. Andrews added. [UN News] Tom Andrews, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar. Special Rapporteurs are part of the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Independent of any government or organization, they work on a voluntary basis. They are not UN staff members and do not receive a salary. The mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar was established by the then Commission on Human Rights in 1992. It was broadened in 2014 and 2016. COPYRIGHT © UNITED NATIONS

German guards and Ukrainian militia shooting a Jewish family in Miropol, Ukraine, in 1941. In “The Ravine,” Wendy Lower investigates the figures in this photo, hoping to discover who, exactly, the Jewish victims were and to expose their killers.Credit...Security Services Archive THE RAVINE A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed By Wendy Lower “What does one do upon discovering a photograph that documents a murder?” Wendy Lower asks in her new book, “The Ravine.” Lower, a historian of the Holocaust who has worked with Nazi hunters, ponders a photograph, taken in October 1941, in the once thriving, now desolate Ukrainian town of Miropol. It shows several men — Ukrainians and Germans — shooting a woman who, bent over, holds the hand of a small, barefoot boy just before they tumble into a death pit. (The boy would be buried alive, not shot, since Nazi protocol forbade wasting bullets on Jewish children.) Smoke from the gun blasts obscures the face of the woman, who wears a polka-dot housedress; later, on closer inspection, Lower will discover another child nestled in the woman’s lap. The photograph reveals the “Holocaust by bullets” in Ukraine, where more than one million Jews were murdered not in terrifying death camps but in prosaic “fields, swamps and ravines.” The Jews’ tormentors were, very often, their lifelong Ukrainian neighbors. The scene was not unusual; neither was the photograph. During the war, German soldiers took troves of photographs — perhaps hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions — some of which memorialized, indeed celebrated, their cruelties, tortures and crimes. Nazi authorities forbade these unofficial images, but to little avail; they circulated widely to friends and families back home. These celebrations of sadism — which shake our ideas about an innate human capacity for either shame or guilt — are sometimes referred to as “trophy photos,” though I think “atrocity selfies” is a better term. (Lower claims that, in showing the actual moment of death, the Miropol photograph is rare, though there is no way that she — or anyone else — could know this: For obvious reasons, many of these amateur photographs have never surfaced.) By tracing the identities of the figures in a photograph documenting the murder of Jews in Ukraine, Wendy Lower hopes to reveal the networks of complicity that made the Holocaust possible.Credit...Jonathan Petropoulos Lower wants to do several things with this image. She hopes to discover who, exactly, the Jewish victims were: to say their names. Though she is an admirably dogged researcher — she uses, among other sources, live and videotaped witness testimonies, legal documents and grave excavations — in this she fails; their names are lost to history. She also hopes to recreate the details of that day in Miropol and thus reveal the networks of complicity that made the Holocaust possible. Here, she succeeds with a vengeance: Her chapter “The Aktion” is devastating. Finally, she wants to expose the killers. Knowing how an event occurred removes it from the realm of abstraction — and genocide has, unfortunately, become an almost abstract term. Photographs are particularly good at piercing haziness, since they often capture individuals taking action, not so-called cogs in a machine. As the historian Jan Tomasz Gross wrote in “Golden Harvest” (2012), his own book about a Holocaust image, photographs “remind us most directly of human agency in what otherwise we would know only as a numerical phenomenon.” Lower shows that it takes a lot of people to kill a lot of people. There are the Ukrainian teenage girls forced to dig the mass graves; the Nazi customs guards (including volunteers) and Ukrainian policemen who rounded up the Jews and forced them to the death site; the Ukrainian neighbors who plundered their homes and “assaulted them — throwing stones and bottles.” Then there are the Ukrainian militia who, “armed with clubs, tools and Russian rifles, chased Jews, bludgeoning some to death. … They chased young Jewish women, ripped off their clothes and raped them.” The town rang out — who could miss this? — with gunshots, “yelling, screaming and howling.” This was not the bureaucratic killing many associate with the Holocaust. This was mass murder at its most intimate: The Ukrainians “taunted the victims by name. … The victims were known to them from the dentist’s office, the cobbler’s shop, the soda fountain and the collective farm. They grabbed small children and babies by the legs and smashed their heads against the trees.” There is a vociferous debate among historians and photography critics about whether “perpetrator photographs,” especially from the Nazi era, should be viewed. Some argue that they revictimize the victims. Lower, rightly, disputes this, though in a sparse and not especially illuminating way. Yet her book is a refutation of those who urge us not to look. Indeed, the big surprise of “The Ravine” is the identity of the Miropol image’s photographer: a Slovakian soldier named Lubomir Skrovina. He took the photograph with the full knowledge of his German superiors, but he did not take it in service to their aims. In fact, Skrovina was, or at least became, a member of the Resistance. He smuggled atrocity images to his wife back home as possible material for anti-Nazi forces; wrangled out of further military duty; hid Jews in his home and helped some escape; and joined the antifascist Slovakian uprising of 1944. Lower describes Skrovina’s photograph as “an expression of defiance.” Though the Jews in the photograph remained anonymous, the names of their killers were known. West German authorities opened an inquiry in 1969, then quickly dropped it. But a Soviet K.G.B. major named Mikola Makareyvych was more determined. In 1986, his investigation yielded convictions for three of the Ukrainians in the photograph. Two were executed, one sentenced to prison. I oppose the death penalty. But I read this chapter of Lower’s book — entitled “Justice” — with deep and unshakable satisfaction. Susie Linfield is the author of “The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence” and “The Lions’ Den: Zionism and the Left From Hannah Arendt to Noam Chomsky.” THE RAVINE A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed By Wendy Lower Illustrated. 258 pp. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. $28. © 2021 The New York Times Company

Rohingya refugees walk at the Balukhali refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on Feb. 2. Rohingya refugees from Myanmar living in camps in Bangladesh are condemning the military coup in their homeland and saying it makes them more fearful to return. A brutal "clearance operation" by Myanmar's military in 2017 drove more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to neighboring Bangladesh. Shafiqur Rahman/AP This month's military coup in Myanmar has made an already dire situation for Rohingya refugees even worse, say human rights activists. Now, prospects are even more unlikely for hundreds of thousands to return to Myanmar from sprawling camps in neighboring Bangladesh. "The coup is obviously good for no one," says Matthew Smith, cofounder of the human rights advocacy group Fortify Rights. "But for the Rohingya, the risk is heightened. This is the military regime responsible for the atrocities over many, many years." Most recently, in 2017, more than 700,000 Rohingya fled across the border into Bangladesh as the result of a brutal "clearance operation" launched by the Myanmar military, known as the Tatmadaw. It later faced allegations of genocide in a case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Following the Feb. 1 military coup, the fate of the approximately 600,000 Rohingya who still live in Myanmar and any possible plans for repatriating those outside the country lie in the military's hands, activists say. "They have the plan to destroy us," Ro Khin Maung, executive director of the Rohingya Youth Association in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, told reporters on Monday. "Now they are leading our country." The military's actions, Maung said, have led to past Rohingya exoduses. And a 1982 law it enacted denies the Rohingya, a mostly Muslim minority, the right to hold citizenship in Buddhist-majority Myanmar — even if their families have lived there for generations. "They will torture us even more" The repatriation process has started and stopped many times over the years, but in the days following the coup, Commander-in-Chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, now Myanmar's leader, vowed that it will move forward and promised to "protect" the Rohingya. Bangladeshi officials — who recently began shifting some Rohingya to a remote island described by human rights activists as "the Rohingya Alcatraz" — expressed hope that repatriation processes would "continue in right earnest." But it is difficult to see a way for the Rohingya to return to Myanmar safely, says Smith. "If there was even a shred of hope for a safe, voluntary and dignified return, it's completely gone now. Though there was not much to work with to begin with," he says. While few Rohingya refugees were keen to go back to Myanmar before the coup, many are even more fearful of doing so now. "Even if they try to repatriate us, we will not agree to go back under the current situation," Nurual Amin, a Rohingya refugee in Bangladesh, told the Associated Press. "If they take us back to that regime, they will torture us even more." Laurel Miller, director of the International Crisis Group's Asia program, tells NPR via email: "Even if the military leadership suggested it would move forward on repatriation as a way of burnishing its image, it's unlikely that Rohingya would be willing to return in a context in which the repression by the military overall is going up, not down." The coup puts the Rohingya in a difficult position, says Wai Wai Nu, a human rights activist and former political prisoner who is Rohingya. While the Rohingya would rather see a democratically elected leader in place, no government has adequately addressed their needs, she explains. "I do not think military dictatorship is the solution," she says. But "the Aung San Suu Kyi government was not easy to work with [and] did not do anything to protect the Rohingya." "We had a lot of hopes" Civilian rule under Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy proved disappointing to the Rohingya, says Yasmin Ullah, a Rohingya social justice activist based in Canada. "Initially, we had a lot of hopes when the NLD won their first term" in 2015, she says. "But as the time goes by, we realized that the civilian government was never going to work with us." "We'll freeze U.S. assets that benefit the Burmese government, while maintaining support for health care, civil society groups and other areas that benefit the people of Burma directly," Biden said. The president also called for Suu Kyi's release. Although the U.S. has made clear that humanitarian assistance to the Rohingya will continue, Biden did not mention the Rohingya in his remarks — something Yasmin Ullah says was "truly a missed opportunity to help emphasize the importance of acknowledging Rohingya as part of Myanmar." © 2021 NPR

photo credit: AARP Genocide Watch Rejects Henna Maria's Misuse of the "Ten Stages of Genocide" Dr. Gregory Stanton and Genocide Watch reject the misuse of Dr. Stanton’s “10 Stages of Genocide” by Henna Maria of the so-called "Dawn of Peace." In a video published online, Henna Maria applies the "10 Stages of Genocide" to her preposterous conspiracy theory. She says that the Covid-19 pandemic is a hoax and vaccination is really a genocidal plot against people who believe in “medical freedom” and “self-healing.” The intended victims of this "genocide" include people who deny that Covid-19 is real and people who refuse to wear masks. Dr. Stanton developed the “10 Stages” model to make processes that result in genocide recognizable. His hope is that early recognition will help prevent or halt genocide. In order for a genocide to develop there must a real conspiracy to commit acts of genocide. Henna Maria's "conspiracy" is entirely imaginary. It is a product of her anti-Vaxxer ideology. To misuse the Ten Stages of Genocide model and claim it supports the false, unscientific ideology of the anti-Vaxxers is morally reprehensible. Pretending to be concerned about a non-existent genocide and its non-existent victims demonstrates complete disregard for the real victims of past and present genocides. At Genocide Watch, it is part of our job to distinguish between facts and fallacies. We are students of the human gullibility for conspiracy theories, especially Big Lies promoted by demagogues and genocidists. (See: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/familiarity-strangest-vaccine-conspiracy-theories/617572/; https://www.theguardian.com/science/audio/2020/dec/24/covid-19-vaccines-anti-vaxxers-conspiracy-theories-podcast; https://humanetech.com/). Desperate people will believe desperate ideologies. People who see themselves as victims of history search for groups they believe conspired to cause their suffering. Sometimes the conspiracies have been real. For example, colonial powers in Europe and America did really conspire to enslave millions of Africans. The same racist regimes conspired to commit genocide and seize the land of indigenous people in the USA, Africa, Australia, and the Americas. It is no wonder that the survivors of these genocides are reluctant to be vaccinated with vaccines developed by Europeans and Americans. It is a tragic choice because the vaccines favor no ethnicity. Smallpox was eradicated by vaccines that were finally accepted world-wide. A fact we are sure of is that the Covid-19 pandemic is real. To date, over 107 million cases of Covid-19 have been counted worldwide. Covid-19 has taken over 2.3 million human lives. Seehttps://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html). The graveyards filled with Covid-19's victims are not imaginary. We also are sure that vaccines are the key to ending the Covid-19 pandemic. Individual decisions (e.g., to wear or not to wear a mask) have real impacts on other individuals. No one has the right to inflict his infection on any other person. No person should refuse to be vaccinated without medical reasons. By preventing herd immunity, their individual decisions will prevent the total defeat of this plague. Genocide Watch condemns Henna Maria's anti-Vaxxer falsehoods about vaccines. Genocide Watch condemns Henna Maria's illegitimate use of the "Ten Stages of Genocide." We demand that Henna Maria remove her video from all websites where it appears. We demand that she cease and desist from mis-using the Ten Stages of Genocide model in the future.

Hundreds of thousands of indigenous women in Peru were the victims of forced sterilizations in the 1990s. Victims, their families and activists have been fighting for redress ever since. Now there seems to be progress. Women's associations in Lima have demonstrated to have victims of forced sterilization compensated According to estimates, more than 300,000 women and around 22,000 men received forced sterilizations in Peru between 1996 and 2000. In most cases, the operation was done without anesthesia or post-operative care. The massive initiative, carried out over a period of four years by the government of then-President Alberto Fujimori, was known as the National Program for Reproductive Health and Family Planning and had poverty reduction as its alleged goal. The International Criminal Court has condemned the measures, calling them crimes against humanity, but Peru's justice system continues to drag its feet on investigating the matter and prosecuting those responsible. Late recognition It's taken 20 years for the Peruvian government to accept that fact that the victims have a right to be compensated. There are now plans for reparations that are part of a broader deal aimed at addressing the severe and massive human rights violations that took place in Peru during the country's internal armed conflict between 1980 and 2000, which pitted government troops against rebel forces belonging to the Shining Path and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. The forced sterilization program focused on women of childbearing age, most of whom were either from poor rural villages in the Andean highlands or members of underprivileged indigenous populations. Some of them had never had children before. Mamerita Mestanza Chavez, a 33-year-old woman, was one such case. From 1996 to 1998, she faced intimidatory pressure to have an operation . She received no medical help either before or after the operation, suffered serious injuries and later died as a result. Several human rights groups filed a petition over her case with Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 1999. Long impunity However, Peruvian state prosecutors stopped investigations several times, leading to protests by human rights organizations and the Peruvian people. Her case has now at last been taken up again, but so far no one has been charged with wrongdoing. The fight against such impunity conducted by various womens' and human rights organizations has been going on for more than a decade. Survivors of the systematic forced sterilizations and victims' loved ones continue to call for justice and reparations. The new rules set out by the Peruvian state recognize sexual violence in all of its forms, including forced sterilizations without a person's consent, said Maria Ysabel Cedano, a Peruvian lawyer and director of the DEMUS women's rights organization. She called the move by the government an important step forward in recognizing the rights of victims but has been critical of what she sees as "climb-downs and setbacks." Important trial Rocio Silva Santisteban, a member of Congress representing the left-leaning Frente Amplio (Broad Front), criticized the fact that the party of ex-President Alberto Fujimori, which had the majority in Congress for the last 15 years, fails to this day to recognize that there was ever an internal conflict in Peru. The former president, who served between 1990 and 2000, is currently serving a long-term prison term for corruption and human rights violations. He is now also to be brought up on charges surrounding his role in the country's forced sterilizations program. A hearing on the matter is scheduled to begin March 1 in which prosecutors will make cases against Fujimori and former top officials in the health care sector. "This is a giant case and the first of its kind in Peru," Silva Santisteban said, "Almost 1,700 people have sued the Peruvian government." It will be a major trial that is meant to finally bring justice for Mamerita Mestanza and many others. Ex-President Alberto Fujimori will face a court over the forced sterilizations in the 1990s Hoping for justice As far as Maria Ysabel Cedano is concerned, reparations for the victims would mean that the state is finally taking responsibility for what it did. She said it had ruled over women's bodies using the cynical argument that it was fighting poverty. "Everything was organized so that medical facilities had to fulfill certain their sterilization quotas," she said. Those who didn't weren't paid. "And that's why they searched for women who fitted the bill." She related that some young women were even given sleeping pills while visiting their gynecologists and sterilized while they were asleep without their knowledge or consent. The legal scrutiny of this brutal procedure is opening a new chapter in the fight against impunity. But whether and when reparations will actually be paid to the victims and their families is anyone's guess. This article was translated from German. See article here. © 2021 Deutsche Welle

KAYA, Burkina Faso (AP) — A 20-year-old woman could no longer live in her village amid the rising violence caused by Islamic extremists. But she needed to return and retrieve the family’s cows in hopes of selling them. If her husband went, jihadists would almost certainly kill him. She went instead, and was dragged into the bush, beaten and raped at knifepoint. “I screamed, but I couldn’t overtake him, so I cried,” she recalled in a phone interview from Barsalogho town in the Center North region where she now lives. The Associated Press does not identify victims of sexual violence. The extremist violence in Burkina Faso linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group is fueling an increase in sexual assaults against women, especially those displaced by attacks. Many are preyed upon as they attempt to collect belongings they left behind. The violence killed more than 2,000 people last year, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. It also displaced more than 1 million people. In Burkina Faso’s Center North region, sexual assault cases increased from two to 10 during a three-month period last year, according to a report by humanitarian groups including the United Nations. Some 85% of survivors were internally displaced people mainly living in makeshift camps in Barsalogho and Kaya towns, it said. Women in Kaya told AP they feared being attacked while going to fetch firewood for cooking. “I won’t go more than 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) outside of Kaya to farm because I’m afraid for my safety,” said Kotim Sawadogo. The 37-year-old fled Dablo in August and struggles to afford food for her four children. In September 2019, her niece was raped by jihadists while farming outside the village, she said. “They won’t be killed but they’ll be raped, which is like being killed inside anyway,” said Fatimata Sawadogo, who was displaced last year from Dablo to Kaya and knows women who have been raped by jihadists while farming. Women often assume the rapists are jihadists because they carry guns and wear masks. Sometimes after assaulting the women, the jihadists burn their food, and yet some women are so desperate that they return the next day to salvage it, she said. Aid groups say jihadists are not the only perpetrators and that there has been an increase in domestic violence and exploitation of displaced women by host communities. “This reality is made worse by the lack of economic opportunities for women, the shortage of food and shelter for women and the lack of access to quality health care,” said Jennifer Overton, West Africa regional director for Catholic Relief Services. Earlier this month, a woman in Kaya said she had sex with a community leader twice, in June and November, because he promised he could add her name to a list to receive food. “I regret it, but I thought I’d get food and I never did,” she said, who spoke on condition of anonymity for her safety. Before the violence, Burkina Faso didn’t have specialized services focused on sexual assault. Now humanitarians are struggling to cope, said Awa Nebie, a gender-based violence specialist with the United Nations Population Fund. This year the humanitarian response plan for Burkina Faso estimates that more than 660,000 people will need protection against gender-based violence, Nebie said. Since August, the organization has created six safe spaces in the Center North to help women and girls speak freely about their experiences, but it’s inadequate, she said. And some areas of the country like the Sahel and East regions are hard to access due to insecurity. Local government officials say the daily influx of displaced people is straining resources and putting women at risk by forcing them to venture farther into the bush to collect wood for cooking. “In the past, women could find resources two or three kilometers (one to two miles) away, but with the increasing number, they go farther and farther and it is very worrying,” said Saidou Wily, head of social welfare services in Barsalogho. The government increased security around the town and is advising women not to go into the bush alone. Yet mothers trying to feed their children say they have little choice. Last year, a 40-year-old mother of seven was gang-raped at gunpoint by two masked men who dragged her into an abandoned farmhouse while she was trying to return to her town in the Sahel region to get food, she said. Now living in Kaya, she’s too afraid to leave again, but she has no money to support her family. “I think about it a lot and I don’t even know what I’m thinking about, I just cry,” she said. “It’s misery.” © The Associated Press 2021

The Farmers' Protests Are a Turning Point for India's Democracy—and the World Can No Longer Ignore That Farmers shout slogans as they participate in a protest at the Delhi Singhu border in Delhi, India on Dec. 18, 2020. Anindito Mukherjee—Getty Images BY SIMRAN JEET SINGH FEBRUARY 11, 2021 9:00 PM EST Jeet Singh is a scholar and historian of South Asia. He is an Equality Fellow for the Open Society Foundations, a Council on Foreign Relations term member, and a Truman National Security Project fellow. For decades, the world has turned a blind eye to India’s abysmal human rights record. This approach draws from a broad perception of India as a strategic ally. For one, the United States, like much of the global community, sees India as an important counterweight to China. They are the two most populous nations and the fastest growing trillion-dollar economies in the world. Global powers tend to prefer India because of its standing as the world’s largest democracy. At the same time, India’s adversarial relationship with neighboring Pakistan, as well as its increasingly anti-Muslim policies, position it as a bulwark against “Islamic terrorism.” These two bogeymen—Chinese imperialism and Islamic terrorism—are the specters that have given India a free pass. Over the past few years, however, the rise of right-wing authoritarianism has brought India’s democratic standing into question. India has plummeted in democracy metrics across the board, including the Press Freedom Index, where it now ranks 142 of 180 countries, four spots behind South Sudan and three behind Myanmar. The Human Freedom Index ranks India at 111 of 162 countries, just four ahead of Russia. This past September human rights group Amnesty International ceased operations in India following sustained assaults from the Indian government. Farmers take part in a rally as they continue to protest against the central government's recent agricultural reforms, in New Delhi on Jan. 26, 2021.Sajjad Hussain— AFP/Getty Images The full force and authoritarian tactics of the Indian government have been showcased as they respond to the largest protest in their history. Since September, tens of thousands of Indian have gathered in New Delhi to protest three new agricultural laws that aim to deregulate India’s agricultural industry and open it up to free-market forces. While the need for reforms is urgent, farmers are concerned that the new legislation privileges corporations and harms the everyday farmer. Finally, on Feb. 2, after months of protests, the world’s eyes started to focus on the Indian government’s undemocratic measures, including press censorship, journalist detention, internet shutdowns, and violent crackdowns against the non-violent protestors. Hindu nationalists have used the occasion to call for genocidal violence against protestors. Twitter removed a tweet from Indian actress Kangana Ranaut that advocated ethnic cleansing of the protestors. Twitter also suspended 500 accounts that called for a repeat of the 1984 pogroms, a dark moment in India’s history. These calls refer to a period of Indian history reminiscent of what’s happening today. In the 1970s and 1980s, Punjabi Sikhs led similar agitations that called for better government support of agriculture. Their sustained protests along with a self-determination movement drew the ire of the Indian government, which painted the efforts as anti-national. Following a disinformation campaign, the government launched a series of attacks that resulted in mass atrocities and egregious human rights abuses: the military assault on Darbar Sahib (Golden Temple) of Amritsar in June of 1984, the state-sponsored pogroms in November of 1984 following the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by two of her Sikh bodyguards, and, in the decade that followed, a campaign of extra-judicial killings that resulted in tens of thousands of civilian deaths. The government of India has never acknowledged or apologized for this spree of violence, and it remains a visceral memory for many Indians, especially Punjabi Sikhs today. Understanding the state violence in Punjab during the 1980s helps us see the grievances that Punjabi farmers have with the central government. It also shows how the Indian state deploys and enacts violence against its own citizens, and, perhaps most crucially, anticipates what might happen in India today if the Indian government is not held accountable for its current undemocratic actions. Senior army officers at the site of a military operation ordered by Then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, to remove Sikh separatists in the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India, in 1984. The India Today Group/Getty Images Those who have been paying attention to Indian politics in recent decades will not be surprised at all. The Prime Minister of India—Mr. Narendra Modi—is also the figurehead of right-wing Hindu nationalism. Notoriously, in 2002, Mr. Modi presided over the anti-Muslim pogroms in Gujarat as the state’s Chief Minister. For his role in the genocidal violence foreign nations banned “The Butcher of Gujarat” from entering their countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom. The U.S. ban was in effect for over a decade and only rescinded when it was painfully clear that Modi would be India’s next prime minister. Since becoming India’s Prime Minister in 2014, Modi’s government has faced a barrage of criticism from human rights groups, foreign nations, Indian civil society, and opposition political parties for its treatment of minority communities. Most recently, India revoked Kashmir’s constitutional autonomy in 2019—a takeover of disputed territory in contravention to United Nations’ agreement—and oversaw extreme human rights abuses in Muslim-majority areas of Kashmir, including illegal detention, abuse, and torture. Add to these internet shutdowns, limitations on freedom of speech and movement, as well as access to information, education, and healthcare. As with Punjab in the 1970s and 1980s, the government painted any and all dissenters as anti-national—and then persecuted them accordingly. The government took a similar approach of combining disinformation and violence in late 2019 and early 2020 when tens of thousands of Indians took to the streets to protest the Citizenship Amendment Act that critics says discriminates against Muslims who seek Indian citizenship. Again today, Modi’s right-wing government has responded to the farmers’ protests by lying about and defaming its own citizens. Senior leaders have called the protestors “anti-nationals” and “goons.” International commentators, too, have not been spared. When global icons Rihanna and Greta Thunberg called for greater international scrutiny on Indian authoritarian tactics being used against the protestors, the Ministry of External Affairs described their tweets as “neither accurate nor responsible” and closed its statement press statement with the hashtag #IndiaAgainstPropaganda. The Delhi Police even filed a First Information Report (FIR) and launched an investigation into the toolkit linked to Thunberg’s tweet. India is coupling government propaganda with the chilling of free speech. Recently they jailed nine journalists who reported that police officers shot and killed a protestor. Their actions, which violated international human rights conventions, prompted the Committee to Protect Journalists to issue a statement. In the words of Ken Roth, Executive Director for Human Rights Watch, “The Indian authorities’ response to protests by farmers has focused on discrediting peaceful protestors, harassing critics of the government, and now prosecuting journalists who are reporting on the protests and recent Delhi violence.” Farmers gather next to their tractors as police stand guard at a roadblock, to stop them from marching to New Delhi to protest against the central government's agricultural reforms, in Ghazipur, India, on Dec. 1, 2020. Sajjad Hussain— AFP/Getty Images This time, however, Indian masses and global observers are not falling for Modi’s lies. They see that this movement is not about ethno-nationalism; rather it arises in opposition to it. It is a movement rooted in Punjabi Sikh experiences and now supported by people all across India who are tired of seeing their country and their communities ravaged by economic despair and social division. It is a movement that cuts across lines of identity—caste, class, region, political affiliation, and religion. And it is a movement led by a community with a history of being traumatized—first in 1947 during Partition and again in 1984—that knows what might be around the corner if the Indian state is not held accountable. For those who right-wing extremists have continually disenfranchised and persecuted in India—including farmers, Christians, Dalits, Muslims, Sikhs, Kashmiris, and many others—the fears about where the current roads may lead are not based on conjecture or hypothesis. They are drawing from their lived experience—and they know that this is a fight for survival. But this is not just India’s fight. In a world grappling with rising authoritarianism, propaganda, human rights abuses, and anti-democratic practices, quashing right-wing nationalism is in everyone’s best interest. Letting it go unchecked, especially in the world’s largest democracy, puts us all at risk. It seems like India as our strategic ally is changing before our eyes. We’re at risk of losing our ally because an authoritarian nation cannot be an ally in the same way as an open democratic society. With more than 1.3 billion people in India, we’re talking about a country that is muzzling and restricting basic freedoms for a full one-sixth of the global population. See article here. © TIME 2021

Aide to republic’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov claims men confessed to helping illegal armed group Published by The Guardian on Feb 8, 2021. Chechnya's authoritarian leader Ramzan Kadyrov (Yelena AfoninaTASS via Getty Images) Chechnya has opened a terrorism investigation into two gay men who fled the region last year but were arrested near Moscow last week and forcibly returned. The rights group that helped the men escape Chechnya, an autonomous Russian republic where the torture, detentions and killings of gay men have been reported since 2017, said they weren’t certain why exactly the men were being persecuted but that one of them had earlier been interrogated for sharing LGBTQ emojis in an online group. Salekh Magamadov and Ismail Isayev, aged 20 and 17, were in the city of Nizhny Novgorod, east of Moscow, when they were abducted last Thursday, according to the Russian LGBT Network. One of the men rang the network’s emergency hotline in the afternoon, and a worker for the organisation heard screaming in the background of the call. A rights lawyer who visited the flat where they were staying said he saw signs of a struggle shortly after. The two men later re-emerged in detention in Chechnya. Tim Bestsvet, a spokesperson for the LGBT Network, said lawyers were being denied access to the men and did not know where they were being held. Bestsvet said he was concerned for the pair’s safety, pointing to other cases when men had been brought back to the republic only to disappear or die. The network learned only through Chechen media that they were being detained on suspicion of “aiding terrorism”. Akhmed Dudyaev, an aide to Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov, said the men had confessed to helping an illegal armed group. The crime carries a sentence of up to 15 years’ imprisonment. Dudyaev insisted the detention was legal and that any attempt to influence the case would be “senseless and futile”. Magamadov and Isayev fled Chechnya in June 2020 after being arrested and reportedly tortured for running an opposition channel on the Telegram messaging app. Videos later appeared online of the pair apologising for running the channel. In one clip, a visibly distressed Magamadov said: “I am not a man, I am an empty space.” In another, Isayev asks for forgiveness for behaving in an “unmanly” way. The Russian LGBT Network has helped 200 people flee Chechnya, either abroad or to other areas of the country, since the outbreak of “gay purges” in the republic four years ago in response to what Chechen authorities saw as the increased visibility of the Russian gay rights movement. Officials have dismissed reports of such purges, despite several men going public to tell of abductions and police brutality. Kadyrov, who is accused of other human rights abuses, has claimed there are no gay men in Chechnya. Moscow has been criticised both for its failure to properly investigate the reports and for its own stance on LGBTQ rights. A so-called “gay propaganda” law from 2013 that bans the “promotion of non-traditional sexual relations to minors” has been used to pressure activists. © 2021 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

The UN human rights office, OHCHR, has warned against potential crimes against humanity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) following a spike in attacks by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) armed group, in two provinces in the east of the country. Published by UN News on February 2, 2021. A UN peacekeeper on patrol in the Beni region of the DRC. (MONUSCO/Sylvain Liechti) At least 849 civilians were killed in ADF attacks last year in Irumu and Mambasa territory, located in Ituri province, and in Beni territory in North Kivu province, according to a report published on Tuesday. The group is also accused of injuring 62 civilians and sexually abusing four women in the second part of the year. Violations by Congolese forces Congolese security and defence forces were also found to have committed violations in operations against the ADF in 2020, according to the report by the UN Joint Human Rights Office in the country (UNJHRO), which is in French. Overall, some 47 civilians were killed, and 27 women and 22 children were sexually abused, while 126 people were arbitrarily arrested. The ADF also carried out several reprisal attacks against civilians in areas previously under its control during the second half of the year, resulting in massive displacement. The report further documents an increase in the number of civilians abducted into forced labour, with 534 people kidnapped, 457 of whom are still missing. Armed attacks continue The violence has continued into the new year. Unknown men attacked the Twa community in Walese Vonkutu, located in Irumu territory, on 13 January, killing at least 14 people, including two pregnant women. “Given the widespread and systematic nature of the attack directed against the civilian population, some of the documented human rights abuses may amount to crimes against humanity,” said Marta Hurtado, an OHCHR spokesperson in Geneva. “The violence takes place in a context of impunity, where few human rights abuses and violations and violations of international humanitarian law are duly investigated and prosecuted. An ADF attack on Beni prison in October 2020 – that led to the escape of 1,300 inmates escaped – was a blow to accountability in the country.” Recommendations for justice The report contains several recommendations for the DRC authorities, including to ensure security forces act according to international human rights law and international humanitarian law. Protection mechanisms for civilians, especially during military operations, must also be enhanced. The authorities also should work with neighbouring countries, particularly Uganda, to ensure perpetrators affiliated with the ADF who seek refuge in their territories are found and brought to justice. COPYRIGHT © UNITED NATIONS

Upsurge in Attacks on Activists, Community Leaders, Rights Defenders Detainees sleep in an open basketball court inside the Quezon City Jail in Quezon City, Philippines on July 24, 2020. © 2020 Lisa Marie David/NurPhoto via Getty Images (Manila, January 13, 2021) – The Philippine government’s “drug war” killings intensified during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, as did unnecessary arrests during lockdowns, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2021. Attacks by the police, military, and unidentified gunmen on leftist activists, community and Indigenous leaders, human rights defenders, and journalists also increased during the year. “The Duterte administration appeared to take advantage of Covid-19 curfews in 2020 to expand its gruesome and bloody ‘war on drugs,’” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “At the same time, government ‘red-baiting’ of leftist activists, rights defenders, and others have put them at greater risk of deadly attack.” In the 761-page World Report 2021, its 31st edition, Human Rights Watch reviews human rights practices in more than 100 countries. In his introductory essay, Executive Director Kenneth Roth argues that the incoming United States administration should embed respect for human rights in its domestic and foreign policy, in a way that is more likely to survive future US administrations that might be less committed to human rights. Roth emphasizes that even as the Trump administration mostly abandoned the protection of human rights, other governments stepped forward to champion rights. The Biden administration should seek to join, not supplant, this new collective effort. The rights situation in the Philippines worsened during the pandemic, as the government imposed strict lockdown measures that resulted in the arrest and incarceration of tens of thousands of Filipinos, in conditions that greatly increased their health risk. In the early days of the lockdown, police subjected curfew violators – including children – to abusive treatment. “Drug war” killings in the Philippines in 2020 increased by more than 50 percent during the early months of the pandemic. The police reported in November that since Rodrigo Duterte became president, nearly 8,000 alleged drug suspects had been killed during police operations. In June, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights validated many of these killings. Domestic human rights groups and the governmental Commission on Human Rights believe the actual toll is triple that figure. Philippine rights monitors reported in 2020 that more than 160 political activists had been killed since Duterte became president in 2016. A number of the victims had earlier been “red-tagged” or red-baited by the Philippine military, the police, and local anti-communist groups. Among those targeted for “red-tagging” were celebrities who expressed support for groups that the government accused of having communist links. The media also came under renewed attack. In June, a court convicted Maria Ressa, prominent head of the news website Rappler, on politically motivated charges of cyber libel stemming from Rappler’s persistent reporting on the “drug war.” In July, the Duterte-controlled Philippine Congress voted not to extend the franchise of ABS-CBN, the country’s largest television network, which had often criticized the government’s “drug war,” forcing the network’s closure. “As respect for human rights in the Philippines spirals downwards, concerned governments, and UN agencies will need to press the Duterte government harder to halt its atrocities and hold those responsible to account,” Robertson said. See article here. © Human Rights Watch 2021