Calls for Canada to pressure Brazil on Indigenous rights The Brazilian government's push to escalate agricultural and mining developments in the Amazon at the expense of Indigenous rights actively brought about the ongoing wildfire crisis, Indigenous advocates say. There are currently over 75,000 wildfires burning in the rainforest throughout the country — an 80 per cent increase over last year, according to Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE). Rayanne Cristine Máximo França, a member of the Baré Indigneous people from the Amazonas state in Brazil's northwest, said the government of Jair Bolsonaro has unleashed an assault on Indigenous people and their lands by emboldening farmers, ranchers and miners to carve deeper into the Amazon rainforest. Environmentalists have also blamed deforestation for an increase in this year's fires. Máximo França, 27, said there has further been a rise in the displacement of Indigenous people from these lands — one that she said often comes with violent death. "We are facing a process of genocide with this government, also a process of ecocide," she said in a telephone interview from the capital of Brasilia. "They are killing us every day; they are killing us with the fire that is happening, they are killing us when they displace us from our territories, when they invade our territories." In a tweet Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron called the ongoing Amazon wildfires an "international crisis." Macron said he wanted to discuss the "emergency" during the G7 meeting he is hosting this weekend in Biarritz, France. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted in support of Macron's call. There is a direct link with the wildfires engulfing the Amazon and the increased deforestation, Máximo França said, referring to local news reports from earlier this month that said farmers and ranchers in the state of Pará reportedly announced a "Day of Fire" this month to clear out rainforest land for development. "They started making fires in the territories to send a message," she said. One newspaper also reported that the majority of wildfires were on rainforest lands that had been cleared by ranchers and farmers for agricultural use. Amnesty International calls for Indigenous rights protection Brazil's president has been vocal about his disdain for environmental protections and Indigenous territories in the Amazon, seeing them as an obstacle to economic development. "Where there is Indigenous land, there is wealth beneath it," said Bolsonaro in 2017, according to a report in the Brazilian newspaper O Estado. "We have to change that." While Indigenous territories are protected under Brazilian law and its constitution recognizes an Indigenous right to land, the Bolsonaro government has weakened protections and turned a blind eye to illegal logging. This has led to increased incursions by illegal loggers and increases in illegal land seizures in Indigenous territories. Amnesty International recently released a report that said the protection of Indigenous rights is "key to preventing further deforestation in the Amazon." The report also said the "risk of bloodshed" in the Amazon was rising, unless the Brazilian government reversed its current position and began protecting Indigenous lands. "Since early this year, there has been a surge in the invasion of Indigenous territories," said João Ghilherme Delgado Bieber, a consultant with Amnesty International, in a text conversation with CBC News. He was recently in Rondônia state, which is the site of wildfires. "The deforestation has increased inside these protected areas and Indigenous leaders are threatened for defending their territories," he said. "The fires, including inside Indigenous territories, further destroy the Amazon." Canada asked to pressure Brazil on Indigenous rights Gilberto Vieira dos Santos, a spokesperson for the Brasilia-based Indigenous Missionary Council, said the elements behind the increased invasion and attacks on Indigenous lands are also behind the burning of cleared-out rainforest being blamed for the rash of wildfires. "The situation of the fires in the Amazon is in the same context," he said in a telephone interview. Vieira dos Santos said countries like Canada, which tout the importance of Indigenous rights, have a duty to press Brazil to change its current trajectory. He also suggested such countries should impose a moratorium on importing Brazilian commodities that affect the Indigenous population in the country. "The position of the Canadian government is very important," he said. "Maybe it's the only real pressure that can have an impact on the situation in the country. "We believe the government of Canada, with its history and relationship with Indigenous peoples in its country, has position and influence with Brazil and other countries." Máximo França said she would also like to see pressure on Brazil from Canada to end the assault on Indigenous people in the Amazon, which she said has a direct impact on the environment. The very survival of her people is at stake, she said. "If we don't have land … we don't have life." © August 2019 CBC News. All Rights Reserved.

When things go wrong, those in power often promise to make it right. But do they? In this series, The Times investigates to see if those promises were kept. NGA KHU YA, Myanmar — Rusting behind barbed wire, rows of trailers at a repatriation center sit empty and uninviting, evocative of a prison awaiting its inmates. In a deserted arrivals trailer, uniformed officers loiter at their desks, expectant grins on their faces. Signs explain the steps involved in welcoming Rohingya Muslims back to Myanmar: Stand here for photographs, go there for identity cards. Men stand guard with security wands, as if this were an international airport rather than an inhospitable holding pen in a desolate frontier. What is so obviously missing at the Nga Khu Ya repatriation center are the Rohingya themselves. Ever since more than 730,000 Rohingya started fleeing to Bangladesh, two years ago this Sunday, to escape a vicious campaign of “ethnic cleansing” [Genocide Watch rejects the term “ethnic cleansing,” a euphemism for genocide and forced displacement] governments from both countries have repeatedly vowed that a return of the Muslim minority to Myanmar was imminent. But that promise has been broken, time and again. The Rohingya have not returned by the hundreds of thousands, or even by the thousands. In fact, they have hardly come back at all. After all the assurances that it was safe for them to return to Myanmar, only a few dozen have done so. Rohingya refugees in the Kutupalong Rohingya refugee camp in June. Credit...Adam Dean for The New York Times The first batch of about 1,200 returnees was supposed to be sent home in January 2018. That plan was delayed by the Bangladeshi government, after an international outcry over the idea of returning traumatized victims to the epicenter of one of the worst eruptions of ethnic cleansing in this century. After the two countries promised in April 2018 to proceed with safe, voluntary and dignified repatriations, several new deadlines were set. None were met. Most recently, the Myanmar government said the repatriation of 3,450 Rohingya would begin on Thursday. That target, too, passed with no movement across the border. Maintaining the fiction that repatriations are about to occur is politically useful for both sides. Myanmar, which United Nations officials say should be tried on genocide charges over the orchestrated killings that began on Aug. 25, 2017, is keen to prove it is not a human rights pariah. Bangladesh, struggling with overpopulation and poverty, wants to reassure its citizens that scarce funds are not being diverted to refugees. But the charade at Nga Khu Ya, with its corroded buildings devoid of any Rohingya presence, proves the lie in the repatriation commitment. The place is so quiet that a dog snoozes at the main entrance, undisturbed. Even the repatriation center’s watchtowers are empty of soldiers. There is no one to watch. The Rohingya who escaped to Bangladesh now live in squalid conditions in the world’s largest refugee camp. Credit...Adam Dean for The New York Times What We Found Promise Repatriation. Fail to Deliver. Repeat. The lack of returnees on Thursday followed the same tragicomic script as previous efforts to get the Rohingya home. First, Myanmar unilaterally announced a date for repatriation, but approved the return of only a tiny fraction of those eligible. Bangladesh, the Muslim-majority nation where most of the Rohingya have sought refuge, then said it supported the idea. “I’m very positive,” Foreign Affairs Minister A.K. Abdul Momen told reporters in early August. “I’m expecting that we can start this month.” But the Rohingya — hundreds of thousands of whom are squeezed into overflowing camps in Bangladesh — balked, having received scant consultation about their own futures. Not a single Rohingya boarded the five buses and two trucks that were prepared on Thursday to transfer them over the border to Myanmar. International human rights groups stepped in to urge caution about returning anyone, having interviewed Rohingya who were terrified, not joyful, to learn that they were on the repatriation list. On Thursday, Radhika Coomaraswamy, an expert with the United Nations fact-finding mission on the Myanmar violence, said conditions were not conducive for the return of Rohingya. “We have been shown satellite imagery which shows the situation in northern Rakhine, which is basically where all the villages have been bulldozed, not a tree standing,” she said at a news conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York. That left the Myanmar side with the perfect opportunity to declare itself surprised that the Rohingya weren’t coming back. “I have no idea why repatriation has not happened yet,” said U Win Myint, a spokesman for the government in Rakhine State, which Myanmar’s Rohingya once called home. “Everything is ready on our side.” This scenario has played out before, with similarly hollow outcomes. In November, Win Myat Aye, Myanmar’s minister of social welfare, relief and resettlement, told The New York Times that a round of repatriation would begin in a couple days’ time. Over a 15-day period, 2,165 people would be processed through Nga Khu Ya repatriation camp, he promised. Then, soon after, another 5,000, and so on. “They can apply for citizenship,” Mr. Win Myat Aye said. “They can live in the place where they’re originally from. If there is no housing there, they can live near where they’re from.” The government’s own facts indicate this is a fantasy. According to the Myanmar immigration authorities’ figures, from May 2018 to May 2019, only 185 Rohingya were repatriated from Bangladesh. Even that tiny number is inflated. Of those 185 people, 92 had been caught by the authorities in Myanmar while trying to escape the country by boat. Sixty-two others had just been released from jails in Myanmar. Only 31 Rohingya — of the nearly three-quarters of a million who left Myanmar — had returned “of their own volition,” according to the government. When pressed to account for such minuscule numbers, the Myanmar authorities accuse Rohingya militants and Muslim charities operating in the refugee camps in Bangladesh of dissuading people from going back. “Muslim terrorists in the camps say that it is not safe to return, so people don’t dare,” said U Soe Aung, the head of the General Administration Department in Maungdaw, a township in Rakhine that was once overwhelmingly Rohingya. “Even though it’s totally safe.” Rohingya refugees from Myanmar arriving at Dakhinpara, Bangladesh, in September 2017. Credit...Adam Dean for The New York Times What We Found Home Is Missed, but Deeply Feared Assurances that Myanmar has laid out the welcome mat have come from none other than Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto head of the civilian government and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. “The state counselor already decided to receive back the people who lived in Myanmar and left the country for some reason,” said her social welfare minister, Mr. Win Myat Aye, referring to Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi by her formal title. “There is no reason not to come back.” But the Rohingya’s dread about what might await them is understandable, considering what drove their flight in the first place — and what has happened, and not happened, in Myanmar since the exodus. After a band of Rohingya insurgents attacked police posts and an army encampment on Aug. 25, 2017, a burst of brutality against the Muslim minority followed within hours: mass executions, rape and the burning of hundreds of villages by security forces. Buddhist mobs participated in the bloodletting. Doctors Without Borders says that at least 6,700 Rohingya met violent deaths in the month after the killings began. While the Myanmar government defended its actions as “clearance operations” targeting only militants, the large buildup of troops in the weeks before the attack — and the military helicopters that rained down rockets on villagers in the days afterward — suggest a highly coordinated, long-planned campaign of ethnic cleansing that had been waiting for the right catalyzing event. The Rohingya who escaped to Bangladesh now live in a teeming, squalid settlement — the world’s largest refugee encampment. Human trafficking is rife, with girls destined for brothels and men for indentured servitude in Southeast Asia. When the monsoons descend on the camps, sewage and mud mix into a disease-breeding brew. Landslides are common, and Rohingya have even been killed by rampaging elephants. There is little, if any, incentive to stay. But despite these intolerable conditions, Myanmar looks worse to many refugees, who are bewildered at the idea that they should return to a country whose government has refused to admit that atrocities were committed. “How can we believe those who killed our nearest and dearest?” said Ramjan Ali, the sole survivor of a family that was massacred in the village of Tula Toli. Those Rohingya who stayed in northern Rakhine State after the killing began are marooned in communities cut off from jobs, education and basic services. Since June, the region’s mobile internet connection has been severed. Incarceration rates among Rohingya men are high, with many accused of terrorist activity. Those released from jail are sometimes paraded as repatriated Rohingya, even if they have never left Myanmar. “I miss my home a lot,” said Saiful Islam, a Rohingya leader in the camps in Bangladesh. “But I don’t want to go back to a place where my family could be killed.” A Rohingya Muslim reads from the Quran in one of the few undamaged mosques in northern Rakhine State, in Ngan Chaung Village, Maungdaw Township, in May.Credit...Adam Dean for The New York Times What We Found Building Military Bases on Villages’ Ashes Any Rohingya who did return to Myanmar would find a transformed landscape. Drive across the salty marsh of northern Rakhine, and the silence is overwhelming. About a million Rohingya once lived in this area. Now most are gone, the occasional carcass of a burned mosque or stand of charred palms the only evidence that they existed. The government has funneled money into infrastructure development in Rakhine: new power stations, government buildings and, most of all, military and border guard bases. But many of those new facilities have been built on land emptied by “ethnic cleansing.” [genocide and forced displacement] Analysis of satellite imagery by the International Cyber Policy Center at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute found that nearly 60 Rohingya settlements were razed last year, well after the violence peaked in 2017. Destruction of Rohingya villages continued into this year, the study found. Officials in Myanmar have never been clear about where, exactly, returnees would live — even as they showed off rows of prefabricated houses supposedly built for repatriated families. In a troubling precedent, about 120,000 Rohingya from central Rakhine State who were targeted in a 2012 conflict have been confined to internment camps for the past seven years. Their businesses have been taken over by members of Myanmar’s Buddhist majority, and most of their homes have been destroyed. As construction transforms Rakhine, bringing Buddhist pagodas to areas where the Islamic call to prayer once resounded, the beneficiaries of the building boom are companies run by cronies of the military, which still dominates the government. On Aug. 5, a United Nations fact-finding mission released a report recommending targeted sanctions against these military-linked firms, which it said had helped in “re-engineering the region in a way that erases evidence of Rohingya belonging to Myanmar.” Myanmar police officers shelter in the shade of a tree while Rakhine villagers farm in the razed Rohingya quarter of Inn Din village, Maungdaw Township, in May. Credit...Adam Dean for The New York Times What We Found See No Evil The United Nations says no refugees should have to return to a place where their safety and security is not assured. Doing so is called refoulement, and it’s against international law. But Myanmar has done little to reassure the Rohingya that the conditions that led to the mass killings have changed. The country has steadfastly refused to admit that its security forces, which engaged in widespread sexual violence and sprayed fleeing children with gunfire, according to Rohingya testimony and investigations by human rights groups, did anything wrong. “Not a single innocent Muslim was killed,” said Mr. Soe Aung, the Maungdaw Township official. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has declined to hold the military responsible for the violence, even as United Nations-appointed investigators recommended last year that commanders be investigated for crimes against humanity. Despite the fact that Myanmar clearly is their home, most Rohingya are officially considered illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. And before any are accepted for repatriation, they must often come up with evidence proving that they came from Myanmar. That’s a tall order for refugees who fled burning homes. More controversially, those who wish to return must accept identity cards that critics say will make their statelessness official. Myanmar’s government does not even accept the name “Rohingya.” Instead, those who return are issued documents that identify them as Bengali, implying they are foreign interlopers from Bangladesh, not an ethnic group from Rakhine. “We are Rohingya,” whispered Abdul Kadir, an imam from a northern Rakhine village who has been unable to flee, in broken English. “No say Rohingya in Myanmar. No say.” “‘Rohingya’ is not real,” said Kyaw Kyaw Khine, the deputy head of immigration at Nga Khu Ya repatriation camp. “Why do foreigners use this word?” A child in the Kutupalong Rohingya refugee camp in June. Credit...Adam Dean for The New York Times What We Found On the Other Side of the Border The official narrative in Myanmar goes like this: The Rohingya burned down their own homes to garner international sympathy, and to feast on plentiful aid rations in Bangladesh provided by Muslim nations. Myanmar officials also accuse Bangladeshi officials of dawdling, and wonder if they’re reluctant to let the Rohingya leave. “Maybe they want people to stay there,” said U Kyaw Sein, an administrator at the Nga Khu Ya camp. The truth couldn’t be more different. Bangladeshis have displayed tremendous hospitality to the Rohingya, who poured over the border in the fastest inflow of refugees in a generation. But the country’s patience has worn thin. The Bangladeshi authorities keep threatening to resettle the Rohingya to an island that is little more than a cyclone-prone sandbar in the middle of the Bay of Bengal. Bangladesh does not consider the vast majority of Rohingya to be refugees, lest that designation cement their right to live in exile forever. As a consequence, they have no legal right to study or work outside of the camps. Muslim extremists stalk camp mosques, promising salvation through militancy. Hopelessness is the only plentiful commodity. “Will my children live the rest of their lives here?” asked Mr. Islam, the Rohingya camp leader. “Is this the only life I can give them?” The Takeaway: No one wants the Rohingya, least of all their homeland. Saw Nang contributed reporting from Nga Khu Ya, Myanmar, and Michael Schwirtz from the United Nations. Copyright 2019 The New York Times Company

On Aug. 25, two years will have passed since that fateful August day when the Myanmar military came to drive the Rohingya people away. Their so-called clearing operations displaced close to 800,000 people. Conservative estimates suggest that at least 10,000 were killed. In the intervening two years, the U.S. government has drawn no official conclusions about what happened. Some might dismiss this as a matter of bureaucratic nuance. Yet, it is anything but. A genocide determination would properly recognize the scale and severity of atrocities committed against the Rohingya and has the potential to galvanize international aid and attention at a time when donor fatigue is setting in. Such a determination is not only the right thing to do, it is the strategic next step to take if there is to be any hope of justice for Rohingya. We owe this to the Rohingya woman who watched as her baby was snatched from her arms by the Myanmar military to be thrown into a fire to its death right before her eyes. We owe this to the men and boys who were lined up single file to be shot one by one while their wives, mothers and daughters were dragged off to be raped by the same soldiers. And we owe this to the refugees who remain displaced today in squalid conditions in Bangladesh. Would you ask them if it is necessary? The international legal definition, as defined in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, centers on the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” by killing members of the group or causing serious bodily or mental harm; by “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”; by “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group”; and by “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” And U.S. law defines genocide in 18 U.S.C. 1091 as “violent attacks with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.” In August 2018, a U.N. panel issued a report presenting credible evidence that genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes took place in Rakhine State. This finding is corroborated by other reputable institutions, including the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which does not make determinations on atrocity crimes lightly. The finding was also echoed by the organization originally commissioned by the State Department to conduct a report on atrocity crimes in Rakhine State. The Public International Law and Policy Group (PILPG) interviewed more than 1,000 Rohingya and conducted in-depth research. The team, which included lawyers with experience of other atrocity crimes investigations in places like Rwanda or the former Yugoslavia, found that there are reasonable grounds to believe that genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed against the Rohingya. While the State Department published the factual findings from PILPG’s investigation, it did not publish the legal findings. Instead, State published a report that did everything but issue a determination, using language that “the recent violence in northern Rakhine State was extreme, large-scale, widespread, and seemingly geared toward both terrorizing the population and driving out the Rohingya residents.” It also noted that the military’s actions were “well-planned and coordinated.” All of these signs point to genocide. And yet no determination was made. One common refrain is that the administration already uses the language of ethnic cleansing to describe what took place against the Rohingya, but ethnic cleansing is not an actual legal term. Another terrifying excuse: The atrocities already took place, so there is no need to label them. If the administration won’t issue a genocide determination, then Congress can force its hand, as it did to the Obama administration in March 2016. When Congress unanimously condemned Islamic State genocide with a vote of 393-0, it also put the Obama administration on notice, requiring a deadline of March 17, 2016, to issue a determination. While Congress couldn’t force the administration to say that what took place against Yazidis, Christians and Muslims was genocide, it gave the administration no choice in saying whether it did or did not take place. This was incredibly powerful. And it’s something that can and should be done again. Then-Secretary of State John Kerry issued a determination that genocide took place. Without the determination, it is unlikely that other actions would have followed. The Islamic State genocide determination demonstrates that genocide determinations transcend administrations. Under the Trump administration, the U.S. Agency for International Development acted on congressional legislation that mandates the executive branch to prioritize assistance toward the communities adversely affected by Islamic State genocide. This resulted in the creation of the Genocide Recovery and Persecution Response program, which has so far allocated $373 million in assistance to religious minorities and survivors of genocide. Issuing a genocide determination is a win for the administration. It would build upon efforts the Trump administration put into place as a follow-on to the Obama administration’s Islamic State genocide determination, as well as the current administration’s robust humanitarian efforts to alleviate suffering against the Rohingya. It also has the potential to diversify the donor base of countries giving to support Rohingya, especially as donations have slowed two years after the atrocities took place. The galvanizing effects of such a determination would be significant. © August 2019 The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

Originally issued July 17, 2018, updated January 17, 2019, renewed August 18, 2019 Genocide Watch has issued a Genocide Watch for Assam State, India, where millions of Bengali Muslims face losing citizenship status. A Genocide Watch is declared when early warning signs indicate that a genocidal process is underway. Over seven million people in Assam State, mostly Muslims of Bengali descent, may lose their Indian citizenship and risk imprisonment in special “foreigner detention centers.” A process is now underway to “verify” the citizenship of all 32 million inhabitants of Assam state, which requires each person to affirmatively prove that they are Indian and not an “illegal migrant.” Beginning in colonial times, millions of ethnically Bengali Muslims settled in Assam. The 2011 Indian census put their number at 10.6 million in Assam state. At the urging of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist central government, Assam is updating its master list of “citizens.” Those classified as Indian citizens will receive new Indian identity cards, symbolizing their classification. Anyone not on the final “citizen” list will be presumptively declared a “foreigner,” subject to statelessness and indefinite detention. Assam’s Muslims are especially likely to be excluded from the “citizen” list as part of a decades-long pattern of discrimination. The word “foreigners” is a common term of dehumanization used to exclude targeted groups from citizenship and the exercise of their fundamental civil and human rights. The Home Minister of India has repeatedly referred to the Bengali Muslims as “termites.” Anti-Muslim propaganda has polarized the Assam population. Assam’s Chief Minister, Sarbananda Sonowal, has requested additional Indian government troops and police to arrest “foreigners.” The Assam state is constructing ten new “foreigner” detention centers to add to the six prisons already in existence. These are the classification, symbolization, discrimination, dehumanization, organization, and polarization stages of the genocidal process. Like the Rohingya of Rakhine State in Myanmar, Bengali-speaking Muslims in Assam have faced constant discrimination. Assamese ethno-nationalist independence movements culminated in the Nellie massacre of between 1,800 and 3,000 ethnically Bengali Muslims in 1983. At least 4.8 million citizenship applicants, mostly poor Muslims, do not have documentation -- which in many cases is missing after several generations. Another 2.9 million Muslim women can only provide a marriage certificate from their local government, which the authorities often dismiss as inadequate. The proposed Citizenship Amendment Bill would offer relief to some “foreigners,” but not to Muslims, blatant evidence of discrimination, which should be struck down by the Indian Supreme Court. Anyone left off the “citizen” list will automatically be classified as an illegal “foreigner.” The Chief Minister of Assam has declared that “[t]he people who are declared foreigners will be barred from all constitutional rights, including fundamental and electoral.” Muslims classified as “illegal foreigners” can challenge their classification before Indian government administrators and, ultimately, special “foreigners’ tribunals” – but they will be denied due process and will have no right to legal counsel. Those adjudged to be “foreigners” will be imprisoned in special “foreigner” detention centers. This is a classic case of denial of citizenship in order to deprive a minority ethnic and religious group of its rights. It could become a prelude to another genocide like Myanmar’s genocide against its Rohingya Muslims. The parallels to the build-up to the Rohingya genocide are shocking. Genocide Watch is issuing this Genocide Watch as an Early Warning of potential genocide. In Genocide Watch’s Ten Stages of Genocide the situation of Bengali Muslims in India’s Assam State is now at Stage Seven: Preparation. When Bengali Muslims in Assam are imprisoned in “foreigner” detention centers, the situation will move to Stage Eight: Persecution, the stage immediately preceding full genocide. In July 2018, Genocide Watch petitioned the Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, who is overseeing the citizenship verification process, to order that lists of citizens and “non-citizens” be classified as State Secrets never to be released to the public. Despite this warning, the lists have been made public. Numerous suicides have ensued. Roundups of “foreigners” are likely to ignite genocidal massacres and a massive refugee crisis. If India imprisons Bengali Muslims in Assam, it will be violating its obligations under the UN Refugee Conventions. If it expels them from India, it will be perpetrating “forced displacement,” a crime against humanity. If genocidal massacres occur, India will violate its obligations to prevent genocide under the Genocide Convention. Genocide Watch calls upon the UN Secretary General, the UN Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and key UN member states to warn India not to strip citizenship from, imprison, and forcibly displace millions of Bengali Muslims, many of whom have lived their entire lives in Assam state, India. (c) 2019 Genocide Watch

Issued July 17, 2018, updated January 17, 2019, renewed August 18, 2019 Genocide Watch has issued a Genocide Watch for Assam State, India, where millions of Bengali Muslims face losing citizenship status. A Genocide Watch is declared when early warning signs indicate that a genocidal process is underway. Over seven million people in Assam State, mostly Muslims of Bengali descent, may lose their Indian citizenship and risk imprisonment in special “foreigner detention centers.” A process is now underway to “verify” the citizenship of all 32 million inhabitants of Assam state, which requires each person to affirmatively prove that they are Indian and not an “illegal migrant.” Beginning in colonial times, millions of ethnically Bengali Muslims settled in Assam. The 2011 Indian census put their number at 10.6 million in Assam state. At the urging of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist central government, Assam is updating its master list of “citizens.” Those classified as Indian citizens will receive new Indian identity cards, symbolizing their classification. Anyone not on the final “citizen” list will be presumptively declared a “foreigner,” subject to statelessness and indefinite detention. Assam’s Muslims are especially likely to be excluded from the “citizen” list as part of a decades-long pattern of discrimination. The word “foreigners” is a common term of dehumanization used to exclude targeted groups from citizenship and the exercise of their fundamental civil and human rights. The Home Minister of India has repeatedly referred to the Bengali Muslims as “termites.” Anti-Muslim propaganda has polarized the Assam population. Assam’s Chief Minister, Sarbananda Sonowal, has requested additional Indian government troops and police to arrest “foreigners.” The Assam state is constructing ten new “foreigner” detention centers to add to the six prisons already in existence. These are the classification, symbolization, discrimination, dehumanization, organization, and polarization stages of the genocidal process. Like the Rohingya of Rakhine State in Myanmar, Bengali-speaking Muslims in Assam have faced constant discrimination. Assamese ethno-nationalist independence movements culminated in the Nellie massacre of between 1,800 and 3,000 ethnically Bengali Muslims in 1983. At least 4.8 million citizenship applicants, mostly poor Muslims, do not have documentation -- which in many cases is missing after several generations. Another 2.9 million Muslim women can only provide a marriage certificate from their local government, which the authorities often dismiss as inadequate. The proposed Citizenship Amendment Bill would offer relief to some “foreigners,” but not to Muslims, blatant evidence of discrimination, which should be struck down by the Indian Supreme Court. Anyone left off the “citizen” list will automatically be classified as an illegal “foreigner.” The Chief Minister of Assam has declared that “[t]he people who are declared foreigners will be barred from all constitutional rights, including fundamental and electoral.” Muslims classified as “illegal foreigners” can challenge their classification before Indian government administrators and, ultimately, special “foreigners’ tribunals” – but they will be denied due process and will have no right to legal counsel. Those adjudged to be “foreigners” will be imprisoned in special “foreigner” detention centers. This is a classic case of denial of citizenship in order to deprive a minority ethnic and religious group of its rights. It could become a prelude to another genocide like Myanmar’s genocide against its Rohingya Muslims. The parallels to the build-up to the Rohingya genocide are shocking. Genocide Watch is issuing this Genocide Watch as an Early Warning of potential genocide. In Genocide Watch’s Ten Stages of Genocide the situation of Bengali Muslims in India’s Assam State is now at Stage Seven: Preparation. When Bengali Muslims in Assam are imprisoned in “foreigner” detention centers, the situation will move to Stage Eight: Persecution, the stage immediately preceding full genocide. In July 2018, Genocide Watch petitioned the Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, who is overseeing the citizenship verification process, to order that lists of citizens and “non-citizens” be classified as State Secrets never to be released to the public. Despite this warning, the lists have been made public. Numerous suicides have ensued. Roundups of “foreigners” are likely to ignite genocidal massacres and a massive refugee crisis. If India imprisons Bengali Muslims in Assam, it will be violating its obligations under the UN Refugee Conventions. If it expels them from India, it will be perpetrating “forced displacement,” a crime against humanity. If genocidal massacres occur, India will violate its obligations to prevent genocide under the Genocide Convention. Genocide Watch calls upon the UN Secretary General, the UN Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and key UN member states to warn India not to strip citizenship from, imprison, and forcibly displace millions of Bengali Muslims, many of whom have lived their entire lives in Assam state, India.

A government official in Kharupetia, in the Indian state of Assam, collected documents from people hoping to be included on an official list of Indian citizens. The citizenship of millions is at risk. Credit Saumya Khandelwal for The New York Times NEW DELHI — More than four million people in India, mostly Muslims, are at risk of being declared foreign migrants as the government pushes a hard-line Hindu nationalist agenda that has challenged the country’s pluralist traditions and aims to redefine what it means to be Indian. The hunt for migrants is unfolding in Assam, a poor, hilly state near the borders with Myanmar and Bangladesh. Many of the people whose citizenship is now being questioned were born in India and have enjoyed all the rights of citizens, such as voting in elections. State authorities are rapidly expanding foreigner tribunals and planning to build huge new detention camps. Hundreds of people have been arrested on suspicion of being a foreign migrant — including a Muslim veteran of the Indian Army. Local activists and lawyers say the pain of being left off a preliminary list of citizens and the prospect of being thrown into jail have driven dozens to suicide. But the governing party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not backing down. Instead, it is vowing to bring this campaign to force people to prove they are citizens to other parts of India, part of a far-reaching Hindu nationalist program fueled by Mr. Modi’s sweeping re-election victory in May and his stratospheric popularity. Members of India’s Muslim minority are growing more fearful by the day. Assam’s anxiously watched documentation of citizenship — a drive that began years ago and is scheduled to wrap up on Aug. 31 — coincides with another setback for Muslims, this one transpiring more than a thousand miles away. Less than two weeks ago, Mr. Modi unilaterally wiped out the statehood of India’s only Muslim-majority state, Jammu and Kashmir, removing its special autonomy and turning it into a federal territory without any consultation with local leaders — many of whom have since been arrested. Among Mr. Modi’s critics, events in Assam and Kashmir are Exhibits A and B in their conviction that the prime minister is using the early months of his second term to push the most forceful and divisive Hindu nationalist agenda ever attempted in India and to fundamentally reconfigure the concept of Indian identity to be synonymous with being Hindu. Many Indians, on both sides of the political divide, see Assam and Kashmir as harbingers of the direction Mr. Modi will take this nation of 1.3 billion people in the coming years. A protest this month in Kashmir over the Indian government’s unilateral lifting of the region’s autonomy. Credit Atul Loke for The New York Times The stated purpose of the citizenship dragnet in Assam is to find undocumented immigrants from Bangladesh — a predominantly Muslim country to its south. Amit Shah, India’s powerful home minister, has repeatedly referred to those immigrants as “termites.’’ All of the 33 million residents of Assam have had to prove, with documentary evidence, that they or their ancestors were Indian citizens before early 1971, when Bangladesh was established after breaking away from Pakistan. That is not easy. Many families are racing to get their hands on a decades-old property deed or fraying birth certificate with an ancestor’s name on it. Beyond this, Mr. Modi’s government has tried to pass a bill in Parliament that carves out exemptions for Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and people from other religions — but leaves out Muslims. Mr. Modi’s critics say he is playing a dangerous game and pulling apart the diverse, delicate social fabric that has existed in India for centuries. The prime minister’s political roots lie in a Hindu nationalist movement that emphasizes the religion’s supremacy. This worldview has a long history of sowing division between the country’s Hindu majority and Muslim minority, at times exploding in violence. Assam has been hit by its own troubles and ethnic bloodshed. But the violence being reported now is self-inflicted. Noor Begum, who lived in a small hamlet in a flood-soaked district, spiraled into depression after finding out that she and her mother had been excluded from the citizenship lists. Her father and seven siblings had made it. It didn’t make any sense to the family: Why, if they all lived together and were born in the same place, would some be considered Indian while others illegal foreigners? “Of course she was Indian,” said her father, Abdul Kalam, a retired laborer. “She used to sing Indian national songs at school. She felt very Indian.” On a bright morning in June, Noor hanged herself from a rafter. She was 14. Many Muslims in Kashmir are despondent as well. After Mr. Modi’s government erased Kashmir’s autonomy, thousands of outraged Kashmiris took to the streets, only to be locked down by a heavy deployment of security forces and a smothering communications blackout. Kashmir has long been a flash point. Both India and Pakistan control different parts of it and several times, the tensions have driven the two nuclear armed rivals to war or dangerously close to it. Though the Indian government has eased some of the communication restrictions in the past few days, hundreds of Kashmiri intellectuals are still under arrest and Pakistan is seething. The tension with Pakistan tends to lift Mr. Modi’s political fortunes. His forceful stand against India’s No. 1 enemy just adds to his image as an unswerving patriot and one of the most decisive and powerful prime ministers India has produced in decades. Many in India’s Hindu majority don’t object to Mr. Modi’s Hindu nationalist policies or even seem to think too much about them. They praise what they see as the strides he has made in fighting poverty and projecting a more muscular image of India on the world stage. But critics say his Hindu nationalist beliefs are central to who he is and intentionally divisive, engineered to win votes from the Hindu majority. India is about 80 percent Hindu and 14 percent Muslim. (Christians, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists make up most of the rest of the population.) A small but vocal minority of left-leaning intellectuals, Muslim leaders and opposition politicians has tried to turn public opinion against Mr. Modi’s policies without much success. What is happening in Assam and Kashmir “is an assault on the very imagination of India, of the freedom struggle, of the Constitution, of the idea of a country in which everyone belongs equally,” said Harsh Mander, a former civil servant turned human rights activist. “Muslims are the enemy,” he said. “It’s a war on the Indian Constitution.” Ashutosh Varshney, the head of Brown University’s South Asia program, said that India “in all probability and unless checked is headed toward a Hindu nationalist, majoritarian state.” With the political opposition in total disarray and all government agencies — especially the bureaucracy and the security apparatus — firmly in Mr. Modi’s hands, Mr. Varshney said the only hope for India’s secular democracy is in the courts. But, he cautioned, “The judiciary might well surrender.” Even a streak of alarming headlines in recent weeks, including big job losses in the auto sector, deadly flooding across the country and a new outbreak of violence by Hindu mobs against Muslims, hasn’t dented Mr. Modi’s popularity. Outsiders may wonder how any political movement in India could question Muslims’ contribution to society. India is a thoroughly multicultural place, and Muslims have contributed for centuries, even ruling the country at times. Muslim emperors built some of India’s brightest cultural treasures, including the Taj Mahal. Empty streets in Srinagar. Credit Atul Loke for The New York Times But since Mr. Modi took office in 2014, government bodies have rewritten history books, lopping out sections on Muslim rulers, and changed official place names to Hindu from Muslim. Hindu mobs have lynched dozens of Muslims; participants are rarely punished. Mr. Modi and allies in his Bharatiya Janata Party, known as the B.J.P., have denied any anti-Muslim bias and rejected criticism that the way they have handled the mass citizenship check in Assam has been harsh or discriminatory. State level officials in Assam said this was purely an administrative exercise to ferret out people who have no legal right to stay in India. Rupam Goswami, a spokesman for the state B.J.P. party, said the registry “is only a process of documentation.” Like much of India, Assam has reflected a tapestry of different ethnic groups and religions for as long as anyone can remember. Its beautiful tea estates have attracted flocks of migrant workers. But many indigenous Assamese, who are mostly Hindu, have resented immigrants from Bangladesh, saying that the ethnic Bengalis were coming into their state and taking away their jobs and their land. In 1983, this locals-versus-outsider enmity blew up. Assamese villagers slaughtered more than 1,000 ethnic Bengalis, many of them Muslim — scholars say that most ethnic Bengalis in Assam are Muslim. In 2012, another smaller wave of violence erupted. The next year, India’s Supreme Court set in motion a process for a large-scale registration of citizens to be updated in Assam. This would determine who was an Indian and who was not. The deadline for residents to provide documentary proof that they or their ancestors have a legacy as Indian citizens, going back to March 1971 or earlier, has been extended several times. Beros Moni Das holds a photograph of her son Bhaben Das, who she said killed himself at age 50 after he was left off a registry of confirmed Indian citizens. Credit Saumya Khandelwal for The New York Times Though this issue predates Mr. Modi’s taking India’s reins in 2014, the B.J.P. has aggressively backed the process, with Mr. Shah vowing to clear out all the “termites.’’ When a preliminary Assam citizenship list was published in 2018, leaving off four million people, scholars said the majority were Muslim but large numbers of Bengali-speaking Hindus were also excluded. The B.J.P. then had to regroup. Its response was to push a new citizenship bill that said migrants from neighboring countries who were Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsees or Jains would be eligible for Indian citizenship. One of South Asia’s biggest religious groups was conspicuously left off: Muslims. The government said it was trying to help religious minorities from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. To critics, it looked like another anti-Muslim campaign, plain and simple. The bill sailed through the lower house of Parliament but stalled after many Assamese politicians said they didn’t like the religious dimension the B.J.P. was injecting — or the possibility that the large number of Hindu Bengalis would be given an exception. Some B.J.P. politicians say they want to revive it. Many of the people whose names were left off the list were born in India, lived here all their lives and were considered citizens in every right. One of them was Mohammed Sanaullah, a retired army captain. In May, he was picked up on suspicion of being an illegal migrant and jailed for nearly two weeks. Mr. Sanaullah said he was totally demoralized. “I am an Indian, my father is an Indian, my grandfather was an Indian, my forefathers were Indian. They were all born in India. We will be Indian forever,” he said. Documents submitted by people in Assam to prove their citizenship were stacked in an office in Kharupetia. Credit Saumya Khandelwal for The New York Times The Assam state government sends suspected foreign migrants to foreigner tribunals, a growing network of more than 100 small courts where the onus is on the suspects to provide the proof that the government is demanding. Human rights observers have complained that the proceedings often discriminate against Muslims and are the equivalent of sham trials. The B.J.P. doesn’t want to stop at Assam. Mr. Shah and other party leaders have promised their supporters that they will bring mass citizenship reviews across the country. Human rights activists fear these could be used to discriminate against minorities and this will be made easier because, under Supreme Court rules, individuals are allowed to legally challenge another’s citizenship. More than 3.5 million people who have so far been left off the Assam citizenship list have filed challenges to their exclusion, and state-level officials are reviewing these claims. But Assam is not waiting. The state government, which is controlled by an arm of the B.J.P., is planning to build 10 new detention camps with the capacity to hold thousands of people. Bangladesh has not been eager to accept the ethnic Bengalis in Assam as citizens either. That could leave many languishing in a legal no-man’s land without many rights. Critics say what is happening in both Assam and Kashmir (the state has a population of about 14 million) is an attempt to change the demographics in favor of Hindus. Kashmiris fear the government’s real plan in wiping out their autonomy is to pave the way to resettle large numbers of Hindu Indians in Kashmir and end its status as the one Muslim-majority territory in India. Under the changes, Kashmiris will lose the special land rights they used to hold that made it difficult for non-Kashmiris to buy land in their state. Mr. Modi has argued that the new arrangement will bring outside investment, better governance and a “new dawn.” But other Indian states have similar protections for local residents and Mr. Modi’s party is not trying to change those. Critics say the difference is obvious: Those states are not Muslim. Suhasini Raj contributed reporting from New Delhi, and Shajid Khan from Rowmari Chapari, Assam. A version of this article appears in print on Aug. 18, 2019, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: A Dragnet to Find Who Is, and Who Isn’t, Indian. Copyright 2019 The New York Times Company

Genocide Watch is issuing a Genocide Alert for India Administered Kashmir. On August 5, 2019, the President of India revoked the Special Autonomous Status of India Administered Jammu and Kashmir under Articles 370 and 35A of the Constitution of India. India has over 600,000 troops in Kashmir. Movement of people and freedom of the press are restricted. India has cut off internet communications. At the time of Indian and Pakistani independence in 1947, Jammu and Kashmir was a princely state with a majority of Hindus in Jammu and a majority of Muslims in Kashmir. During Partition, its Hindu Maharaja chose to remain independent. When Pashtun militias invaded from Pakistan, the Maharaja acceded to the Union of India and India airlifted in troops. Fighting between Pakistani militias and Indian troops ensued. India took a dispute with Pakistan to the UN Security Council, which passed Resolution 47 of 1948. It called for withdrawal of Pakistani fighters and reduction of Indian troops in Jammu and Kashmir. It also called for a plebiscite to determine Jammu and Kashmir’s future. The plebiscite has never been held. India and Pakistan both assert sovereignty over Kashmir. They divide the territory along the “line of control.” They have fought three wars since independence. Both nations have nuclear weapons. In 1984, Kashmiri Muslim youth began demonstrations for Kashmiri indigenous self-determination that were crushed by Indian armed forces. Riots destroyed Hindu properties in 1986; armed Muslim insurgents targeted Hindus in 1989; and in 1990, over 100,000 Hindu pandits fled from Kashmir. Human Rights Watch reported that 50,000 people were killed in Kashmir from 1989 to 2006. The Kashmir State Human Rights Commission has evidence of 2,730 bodies buried in 40 mass graves. The Commission reported over 8000 disappearances. The Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society said that by 2016, there were over 70,000 killings, most by Indian forces. Amnesty International reports that disappearances, torture and rape by Indian Army units against Kashmiri Muslims are common. Applying Prof. Barbara Harff’s risk factors for genocide, the following are early warnings of massacres in Kashmir: 1. Prior genocidal massacres and continuing impunity for such killings; 2. Continued armed conflict between India and Pakistan over border areas in Kashmir; 3. An exclusionary ideology of “Hindutva” – India as Hindu nation – by Modi’s ruling BJP; 4. Authoritarian military rule without legal restraints imposed by civilian Indian officials; 5. Rule by a minority military force (Hindus and Sikhs) over majority Muslim citizens; 6. Cut-off of communications and outside access by internet, media, and trade; 7. Widespread violations of basic human rights – torture, rape, 2-year detentions without charge, arbitrary arrests and deportations of Muslim political and human rights leaders. Genocide Watch’s Ten Stages of the genocidal process are also far advanced: 1. Classification: Hindu and Sikh Indian Army “us” vs. Kashmiri Muslim civilian “them;” 2. Symbolization: Muslims have Muslim names (on ID cards), Kashmiri language, dress, mosques; 3. Discrimination: Hindu pandits were economically dominant until 1990; BJP reasserted Hindu power; 4. Dehumanization: Muslims are called “terrorists”, “separatists,” “criminals,” “insurgents;” 5. Organization: 600,000 heavily armed Indian Army troops and police dominate Kashmir; 6. Polarization: Modi and the BJP incite anti-Muslim hatred; social media spread falsehoods; 7. Preparation: The Indian Army occupies Kashmir; BJP leaders speak of the “Final Solution” for Kashmir; 8. Persecution: Kashmiri Muslims are locked down, subject to arrest, torture, rape, and murder; 9: Extermination: Genocidal massacres occurred during Partition; since 1990, there have been at least 25 massacres with death tolls over 25: 10 of Muslims by Indian troops; 15 of Hindus by Muslim militants; 10. Denial: Modi and BJP say their goals are to “bring prosperity” and “end terrorism”; they deny any massacres. No Indian Army troops or police are ever tried for torture, rape or murder. Modi’s takeover is popular in India. Genocide Watch calls upon the United Nations and its members to warn India not to commit genocide in Kashmir.

The next phase of the genocide against the Rohingya ethnic minority of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, is underway. Congress can help stop it by passing a National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that incorporates what the House passed a few weeks ago — sanctions on military-controlled business conglomerates that funded the genocide and are now underwriting its cover-up. The horrific mass atrocity crimes that the military of Burma committed against the Rohingya have been well documented by the State Department, a U.N. fact-finding mission, and independent human rights organizations. Untold numbers of Rohingya were murdered and maimed and more than 700,000 were forced to run for their lives over the border into Bangladesh. The human rights group Fortify Rights found that military officials made “extensive and systematic preparations” for these genocidal attacks, deploying upwards of 11,000 soldiers. Those responsible for these horrific crimes have yet to be held accountable. Instead, military-owned business conglomerates have been underwriting construction projects that are destroying evidence as they bulldoze what remain of Rohingya villages. The generals appear eager to make a profit by permanently eliminating the Rohingya from Burma. This week an independent factfinding mission of the U.N. urged that governments and businesses severe ties with these military owned and controlled companies: “The revenue the military earns from domestic and foreign business deals substantially enhances its ability to carry out gross violations of human rights with impunity.” The report also documents continued cooperation between Burma and North Korea. The Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation continues to export weapons to Burma despite UN Security Council sanctions. The report notes that these exports probably include rocket launchers, surface-to-air missiles and other weapons used to attack ethnic minorities including those in Kachin and Shan State. More than 100,000 ethnic minorities have been forcibly displaced as fighting between the Kachin and Shan and military forces of Burma continues. Meanwhile, the Rohingya who remain in Rakhine State continue to flee into refugee camps in Bangladesh. The government of Burma has blocked aid to those who remain and last month cut the internet to the more than 1 million people who live in the area. Human rights groups believe that this blackout is masking even more crimes against innocent civilians. U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo has criticized the internet blackout and a visa ban was recently imposed on four senior military generals — Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing, Deputy Commander-in-Chief Soe Win, Brigadier General Than Oo, and Brigadier General Aung Aung. They are among those reportedly responsible for the most egregious human rights violations. While a small step forward, this is woefully inadequate. It would be tragic if the only action taken by our government against those who commit and profit from genocide are words and a prohibition to enter the United States. It is imperative that further steps are taken and Congress has an excellent opportunity to do so. The NDAA that was recently passed by the U.S. House includes a bipartisan provision that imposes sanctions against military owned and controlled businesses. It also prohibits expansion of American military assistance until reforms take place and requires reporting on crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. The provision also supports investigations for the prosecution of war criminals and promotes reforms to limit the military’s stranglehold on Burma’s economy. These provisions should be made law. The House-Senate conference committee that will reconcile the two versions of the NDAA should include these important provisions in the bill that they send back to their congressional colleagues for final action. Failure to do so would risk U.S. complicity in a genocide and condemn even more innocent people in Burma to further attacks by signaling that the military of Burma can continue its carnage with impunity. It would also make clear that the U.S. could care less about the lives of the ethnic minorities of Burma who are under siege not because of anything that they have done, but because of who they are. There is no time to lose. Tom Andrews, a former Democratic U.S. Congressman from Maine who served on the House Armed Services Committee, is senior adviser to the human rights group, Fortify Rights. © August 2019 The Hill. All Rights Reserved.

(CNN)Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has likened India's revoking of Jammu and Kashmir state's autonomy to Nazi ideology, and warned the international community that inaction would be similar to appeasing Hitler. Indian-controlled Kashmir, one of the world's most sensitive regions, remains in lockdown amid a communications blackout, with landline connections, internet and mobile coverage all suspended. Tens of thousands of additional Indian troops have also been deployed into the already heavily militarized region to head off unrest after the government in New Delhi moved to scrap the region's special status. Politicians have reportedly been detained, journalists restricted in their reporting and human rights groups have warned of potential abuses due to the lack of international oversight enabled by the communications blackout. In a series of tweets Sunday, Khan said India's actions in Muslim-majority Kashmir were an attempt "to change (the) demography of Kashmir through ethnic cleansing" and asked whether the world would "watch and appease as they did Hitler at Munich?" The 1938 Munich Pact was an agreement between between Germany, Great Britain, France and Italy that allowed Nazi Germany to annex part of Czechoslovakia. Khan described the scrapping of Article 370 of India's constitution that ensures Kashmir's autonomy as an "impending genocide" and said the Hindu nationalist ideology of the Indian government -- ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -- was inspired by Nazi ideology. The "ideology of Hindu Supremacy, like the Nazi Aryan Supremacy, will not stop" in Indian-controlled Kashmir, "instead it will lead to suppression of Muslims in India and eventually lead to targeting of Pakistan." The tweets reiterated comments Khan made to parliament on Wednesday, where he said "the current government in India is acting like Hitler's Nazi party." Khan's office said the Prime Minister is reaching out to world leaders over the situation in Kashmir as he believes India's move to change the region's status is in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions. In a statement Saturday, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said he intends to take the issue to the UN Security Council. Indian foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for a comment. But Modi's government has repeatedly insisted that the special provisions in Jammu and Kashmir have restricted investment and economic growth. Revoking Kashmir's special status was one of the promises made by the Indian Prime Minister ahead of recent national elections. In a televised speech on Thursday, Modi said the decision to strip the state of its autonomy would free it of "terrorism" and claimed that Article 370 had caused "separatism, terrorism, dynastic politics and corruption." He also claimed the decision would bring stability to the restive territory. "As a nation, we have taken a historic decision," Modi said. "Due to the past system, the people of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh were deprived of many rights, which was a major obstacle in their development. That is now over." BJP National Secretary Ram Madhav responded to Khan's tweet, saying the "threat to democratic world is from Pakistan-sponsored Jihadi terror, not from India." Monday is the first day of Eid al-Adha in Pakistan which is one of the two major Islamic holidays of the year. Pakistan's foreign minister and major opposition leaders are scheduled to attend and offer Eid prayers in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controled Kashmir in solidarity with the Kashmiri people. Region in turmoil Kashmir is one of the world's most dangerous flashpoints. Claimed in its entirety by both India and Pakistan, it has been the epicenter for more than 70 years of an often violent territorial struggle between the nuclear-armed neighbors. On August 6, India's parliament voted to reclassify the state of Jammu and Kashmir as a union territory, giving the government in New Delhi greater authority over the contested Muslim-majority region. The day before, the Indian government announced it was revoking Article 370, a constitutional provision which granted the state broad autonomy in setting its own law, except in a limited set of policy areas such as defense and foreign affairs. Pakistan responded to New Delhi's decision by downgrading diplomatic relations and suspending bilateral trade. Last week, Khan's office repeated its claim that India's moves were illegal, and urged the Pakistani military, which has warned it will "go to any extent" to fight the changes, to remain vigilant. The scrapping of Article 370 of India's constitution will allow non-residents to purchase property in Jammu and Kashmir, and apply for jobs or scholarships that had previously been reserved for residents. Experts fear the move could lead to a demographic change in Hindu-dominated India's only Muslim-majority state. The remote mountainous region of Ladakh, currently part of Jammu and Kashmir, will also be separated and turned into a standalone union territory, the government said. © August 2019 CNN. All Rights Reserved.

SRINAGAR, Kashmir — Ever since Kashmir’s autonomy was suddenly revoked last week, Raja Mohi-ud-din, an editor at one of the few Kashmiri newspapers still operating, has been starting his days extremely early. At 2 a.m., he jumps on his motorcycle with a hard drive in his pocket and zooms down Srinagar’s back alleys, the roar of the bike’s engine echoing against the tight brick walls. He weaves around coils of barbed wire, past stones lying in the road from recent protests, past all the dark houses, eyes peeled for Indian soldiers. His workers cannot get to the printing press — they live deep in neighborhoods totally cut off. There is no way to electronically transmit data to the printer — the Indian government has shut down mobile, internet and landline connections. So Mr. Mohi-ud-din hand-carries the next day’s news to the presses and operates the hulking machines himself, something he has never had to do before. At 5 a.m. he emerges, sometimes with a make-do edition that is sometimes just one sheet of paper (two sides). But he says a crowd always awaits him, the bearer of practically the only journalism available. “People are desperate to see a newspaper,” he said. “The other day I sold 500 copies in five minutes.” Kashmir’s journalists are striving to rise to the occasion and simply hold on in the face of one of the most severe clampdowns this predominantly Muslim war-torn region has faced. On Monday, a week into the lockdown, Indian security forces sealed off main roads, deployed surveillance helicopters, cleared side streets and turned children away from parks. It was Eid al-Adha, one of the holiest days on the Muslim calendar, and most major mosques were ordered shut. Families that usually rejoice with friends found themselves alone and depressed inside their homes. Protests continued to erupt, and residents said packs of young men attacked security officers, hurling stones. At a news conference in New Delhi, Indian officials tried to paint a different picture, asserting that most of Kashmir was returning to normal. They continued to deny that any shots had been fired by security forces during last week’s protests even though a widely viewed BBC video shows thousands of demonstrators running through the streets of Srinagar on Friday as automatic gunfire erupts. When questioned about the video, a senior Indian official grew irritated. “What the government of India has said is what the government of India has said,” said the official, who spoke to members of the foreign news media under the condition of anonymity. “I’m not asking you whether your stories are true.” Human rights activists and many Indian intellectuals say the government is playing a dangerous game in Kashmir. For years, the disputed territory between India and Pakistan has been racked by rebellion and war. Last week India’s government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, cast Kashmir into more turmoil by abruptly canceling the limited autonomy it has held since the 1940s. That decision raised tensions with Pakistan instantly. It is perhaps the most politically seismic event in Kashmir in decades, downgrading a longstanding relationship Kashmir had with India as the only Muslim-majority, semiautonomous state within a vastly majority Hindu nation. The Indian government knew that in Kashmir this move would be explosively unpopular. Days before the announcement, the Indian military bused in thousands of extra troops. With hours to go, Indian security forces shut down the internet, mobile phone services and landlines, rendering the Kashmir Valley, home to about eight million people, incommunicado. Television news channels, which were allowed to broadcast news of the canceled autonomy, were later taken off the air. Now, out of the 50 or so well-known Kashmiri newspapers, only about half a dozen are still publishing. They put out thin paper editions, a maximum of eight pages, that are quickly bought and then passed hand to hand for the rest of the day. The reporters have no access to the news wires or social media. They cannot fact check anything online or make phone calls. They do their work the old-fashioned way, with notebooks and pens. Each morning, they move out in packs of six or eight on motorcycles into Srinagar’s neighborhoods to chase down the news face to face, whether a street protest, a gas shortage or the arrest of a politician. In the past week, hundreds of people have been detained. Many journalists end up sleeping on the newsroom floor. Often, because of checkpoints, it is impossible to get home. They are used to danger — over the years several Kashmiri journalists have been killed and many arrested. But the information blackout is new. “We don’t know what’s happening out there,” said Faisel Yaseen, a political editor at the Rising Kashmir newspaper, which puts out about 1,000 copies a day. “We are living in a dark room where access to accurate information comes from a hole, which is very small.” The Indian authorities have called the communications restrictions necessary to prevent civil disorder, but have also said that they plan no action against the few newspapers still printing. Still, the editor of the Kashmir Times, one of the oldest papers in Kashmir, has filed a challenge at India’s Supreme Court, asserting that the restrictions violate free speech and therefore are unconstitutional. It is unclear how long Kashmir’s journalists can hold on, since printing a newspaper requires paper and ink. Mr. Mohi-ud-din, the editor who rides to the printing press in the wee hours of the morning, said he was not so worried. “In Kashmir, we’re used to this,” he said. “I’ve stocked up for a month.” “But,” he allowed with a slight frown, “it’s never been this bad.” Anger is growing, residents say. Journalists are surrounded by violent clashes, even when not seeking them. On Friday afternoon, Sameer Bhat, a newspaper designer, was preparing to report to work. Be careful, his mother said: Stone throwers are fighting the police, just up the road. As Mr. Bhat stepped outside, he said, shotgun blasts rang out. Security officers in Kashmir use shotguns to control crowds; hundreds of young Kashmiris have been blinded by shotgun pellets. Mr. Bhat tried to cover his eyes. He was hit in the face and stumbled down. The next day, soon after he was discharged from the hospital, he showed up in the newsroom with two black eyes. “I had a newspaper to design,” he said. Kashmiris have been frightened, angered and confused by the turn of events. They feel sealed off. They want news. Every morning, Vivek Wazir, a hotel manager, eagerly awaits his copy of Greater Kashmir. “These two pages are my only window to the world,” he said. Many Kashmiris resent living under Indian rule, and since the 1990s insurgents have been fighting for independence. Mr. Modi said the new arrangement, which turns Kashmir into a federal territory and annuls special protections Kashmir once enjoyed, would increase outside investment, improve governance and bring peace. Many Indians have accepted this reasoning. They see Kashmir as an integral part of India, and in the past week, Mr. Modi’s popularity has soared. One famous actor just compared him and Amit Shah, India’s powerful home minister, to Lord Krishna and Arjun, two heroes in an ancient Hindu epic. But intellectuals and some opposition politicians have been speaking out. They see the move as a huge setback for democracy and a blow to the country’s commitment, outlined in the first lines of India’s Constitution, to be secular. Mani Shankar Aiyar, a former minister, wrote in a pointed columnon Monday that revoking Kashmir’s autonomy would bring “simmering communalism, rising political tensions, unending hit-and-run terrorism, asymmetric armed struggle, and guerrilla insurrection.” This is especially tragic, he said, because Kashmiris had proven to be patriots, resisting “the siren call of Pakistan.” For years Pakistan, a majority Muslim country, has tried to turn Kashmiris against India. But, Mr. Aiyar asked, “How betrayed must they be feeling now that ‘freedom’ is being thrust down their throat, like castor oil to a recalcitrant child, by the largest deployment ever of armed might inside an integral part of the country?” © August 2019 New York Times. All Rights Reserved.

The Kashmir conflict, referred to as a “territorial dispute,” has been central to tense relations in Asia for more than 70 years, particularly between the two nuclear powers of India and Pakistan. Tensions have escalated between the countries many times in the past and have sometimes resulted in military confrontation. Kashmiris are an Indigenous people living under colonial occupation who have been fighting for their right to practise sovereignty through self-determination and self-government. Multiple colonial borders run through the Kashmiri peoples’ territories (Indian, Pakistani and Chinese), separating families and friends. Kashmir is the most militarized region in the world, with more than half a million armed Indian troops deployed in the Indian-administered Kashmir over the past 30 years. They are occupying Kashmir through use of colonial war measures acts, including the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, the Public Safety Act and martial laws that have given Indian troops complete impunity. Gross human rights violations have occurred under their watch, according to a 2018 United Nations report. They include gang rapes by military and mass disappearances of approximately 8,000 to 10,000 people. As many as 100,000 Kashmiris have been killed and several thousand wounded, blinded and maimed, including through torture tactics in custody. As a result of the war, hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri (Muslims, as well as Sikhs and Pandits) have left Kashmir, and become internationally displaced and dispossessed following the 72-year Indian occupation. India’s latest invasion On Aug. 4, India ordered all tourists and outside students to leave Kashmir effective immediately. They simultaneously implemented emergency measures to protect tourists and Indian Hindu yathris doing an annual Hindu pilgrimage. It also airlifted almost 10,000 more soldiers into Kashmir within a matter of two days. Approximately 28,000 additional armed troops then invaded Kashmir Valley in trucks and tanks. On Aug. 5, the Indian Home Minister Amit Shah told parliament that the president had signed a decree abolishing Section 35a and Article 370 of the Indian constitution. Read more: India revokes Kashmir’s autonomy, risking yet another war with Pakistan The Indian government eliminated Kashmir’s special status in an effort to assimilate the Kashmiri people, extinguish their unique Indigenous title to land and claim their land as federal territory. This obliterated any last set of rights Kashmiris enjoyed as a semi-autonomous people in the Indian union of states. Jammu and Kashmir State has been bifurcated into an Indian federal union territory. [if gte vml 1]>

Turkey and the US reached a deal for northern Syria on Wednesday to establish joint operations centre. The Syrian government has called the agreement between Turkey and the United States regarding a safe zone in northern Syria a "blatant attack" on the country's sovereignty. On Wednesday, Turkey and the US reached a deal to establish a joint operations centre to coordinate and manage the setting up of a safe zone in northern Syria. A joint statement by the Turkish Ministry of Defence and the US embassy in Ankara said the two sides agreed to set up the Turkey-based operations centre "as soon as possible" and that the safe zone "would become a "peace corridor", without providing further details. "Syria expresses categorical rejection of the agreement announced by the US and Turkish occupations on establishing the so-called [safe zone] which constitutes a blatant aggression against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic and a flagrant violation of the principles of the international law and the UN Charter," a Syrian source at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told SANA press agency on Thursday. "This agreement has very clearly exposed the US-Turkish partnership in the aggression against Syria which serves the interest of the Israeli occupation entity and the Turkish expansionist ambitions and it unequivocally exposed the misleading and evasiveness which govern the policies of the Turkish regime," the statement continued. The US-Turkey statement did not specify how and when the zone would be created, but it appeared to avert a threatened Turkish operation into the region east of the Euphrates River in Syria. "Syria calls on the international community and the UN to condemn the US-Turkish flagrant aggression which constitutes a dangerous escalation and poses a threat to peace and security in the region and the world and hinders all positive efforts for finding a solution to the crisis in Syria," the government statement concluded. Northeastern Syria is currently under the control of the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), largely comprising of the People's Protection Units (YPG). Turkey deems the YPG to be an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which launched an armed campaign against the state 35 years ago. Turkey has for weeks been pressing to establish a 30-40km deep zone within Syria, seeking the removal of the YPG from the area and the destruction of their tunnels and fortifications. The US, on the other hand, has tried to limit the safe zone to 10km. On Tuesday, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned the country was running out of patience with regards to a Turkey-US deal. "Turkey has the right to eliminate all threats against its national security," he said in a televised speech. "God willing, we will carry the process started with [previous offensives into Syria] to the next stage very soon." Following that speech, the US defence secretary, Mark Esper, said that any unilateral action by Turkey would be "unacceptable". Turkey and the US are NATO allies but have grown increasingly estranged over a number of issues, including American support for the Kurds and Turkey's decision to buy a Russian S-400 missile defence system. Turkish media outlets have often shown images in recent weeks of military convoys heading for the border area, carrying equipment and fighting units. Turkey has twice carried out unilateral offensives into northern Syria against ISIL and YPG, in 2016 and 2018 respectively. © August 2019 Al Jazeera. All Rights Reserved.