Hundreds of thousands of persecuted Christians, Yazidis and other minorities driven from battered northern Iraq are still in a perilous limbo, as humanitarian groups struggle to make sense of a new Trump Administration initiative rolled out after Vice President Mike Pence’s October 25 promise to “stop funding ineffective relief efforts at the United Nations” and “provide support directly to persecuted communities through USAID.” Humanitarian groups have called the Administration declaration a big step forward in helping the sorely-neglected minority groups recover from genocidal waves of murder, rape, displacement and plunder inflicted by now-defeated ISIS forces. But there is still much uncertainty about how the initiative will work, what money will be involved, and how the effort will be coordinated—and above all, when it will get going.. There is also a lot of perplexity among some humanitarian groups about what USAID has indicated it will support and what the efforts it will not cover. “Reconstruction” of destroyed dwellings, for example, was apparently deemed a a no-no; on the other hand, “renovation” might be OK. Meantime, the clock of desperation is still ticking loudly for the refugees, huddled in tents in Kurdistan or trying, as thousands of Christianas are doing, to move back into blasted dwellings in Iraq’s Ninevah province. Some of the returnees have had to flee again hurriedly as Kurdish minority forces and Iraqi government troops opened up new hostilities. In many cases, refugee numbers, especially among Ninevah’s minority Christian populations, are continuing to dwindle fast. Without the kind of resettlement help foreign governments can bring, and despite the efforts of private humanitarian groups, they face the devastating prospect of finally leaving a region of the Middle East they have inhabited for 2,000 years. “These people are disappearing,” said Steve Rasche, legal counsel and resettlement director for the Caldean Catholic Archdiocese of Erbil, in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. “ They are giving up, fleeing the country. That is why the U.S. taking a real action step makes such a difference.” Rasche has been an insistent critic of U.S. inaction, especially during the Obama Administration, in failing to aid the long-suffering Christian and other minorities in northern Iraq, even after former Secretary of State John Kerry declared in March 2016 that the devastation unleashed on them by ISIS constituted “genocide.” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has repeated that designation. Critics have accused the Obama Administration in particular, before and after the Kerry declaration, of doing little or nothing to help the oppressed religious and ethnic minority peoples, persisting in a “blind” aid approach that somehow never got assistance to those whose cultural and historical enclaves for millennia were being erased. The same “blind” aid policy, which claims to make no distinctions based on religion or ethnicity, was espoused by the U.N., where more than $1.4 billion in aid was channeled by the Obama White House for refugee protection and development assistance Iraq. Critics have charged that virtually none of the reconstruction aid got to the minority refugees, who shunned U.N. refugee camps due to fears of violent persecution by their largely Muslim inhabitants. (In response to Pence’s October 25 remarks, a spokesperson for U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres reiterated that U.N. “humanitarian assistance in Iraq, as in other contexts, is provided in an impartial manner on the basis of greatest need. The U.N. system maintains that humanitarian work will continue to provide assistance in Iraq on this basis.”) The criticism did not end with the arrival of Donald Trump, even though the tenor of sympathy in the new Administration was markedly different. At a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing on October 3, Rasche reported that “we have still yet to receive any form of meaningful aid from the U.S. Government,” and that while “political appointees [were] much more willing to help us since January…even after the better part of a year, they have been unable to move the bureaucracy to take meaningful action.” At the same hearing, former Congressman Frank Wolf, a longtime Republican representative from Virginia, reported after a trip to the battered area, that if “bold action is not taken by the end of the year, I believe a tipping point will be reached and we will see the end of Christianity in Iraq in a few short years and a loss of religious and ethnic diversity throughout the region.” Vice President Pence’s widely-reported Octobdr 25 speech before an array of Middle Eastern religious leaders and their supporters was intended as a game-changer for that prediction. Pence accused the U.N. of “too often” failing to help the most vulnerable, “especially religious minorities,” and promised that the U.S. “will work hand-in-hand from this day forward with faith-based groups and private organizations to help those who are persecuted for their faith.” He also vowed to visit the region in December—a signal that the new arrangements had better be put in place quickly. But will they? In fact, a Trump Administration initiative intended to put flesh on Pence’s declaration was unveiled on October 30—just five days after the Vice President speech, which in bureaucratic terms was warp speed. The framework of the initiative was given an initial airing that same day at a meeting of about 30 representatives of U.S. government agencies and civilian humanitarian and human rights groups that have focused on the disastrous minority plight. But then bureaucratic complications apparently took over once again. The new program announcement took the form of an opaque and wordy invitation from USAID to “organizations and companies” to “co-create, co-design, co-invest, and collaborate in the research, development, piloting, and testing of innovative, practical, cost-effective, and scalable interventions” to help displaced populations return to their homes, and help others remain there. The long string of exploratory stages hardly underscored the idea of emergency action. An accompanying USAID “Broad Agency Announcement” made explicit mention of “ethnic and religious groups from Christian, Yazidi, Assyrian, Turkmen, and mixed-minority towns” --and then bureaucratic process took over again. An 8-page attachment to the Announcement on USAID’s website explained that new rules of “co-creation” would allow humanitarian non-government organizations to partner with USAID to “write and/or revise” a “Concept Paper” for presentation to the agency’s Peer and Scientific Review Board. The deadline for initial responses to the Announcement is November 30. A USAID spokesperson told Fox News that the next stage of the process would be a “co-creativity workshop” on the assembled proposals, which would likely take place in January. According to the 8-page document, a designated USAID Contracting/Agreement Officer would designate the “Apparently Successful Partner” to work on management, control and design needs of a project before agreeing on its “shared resourcing,” which might include no U.S. government money at all. Nothing in the announcement indicated that any funding will be taken from the U.N., as Pence originally declared, either. The time line indicates that even with USAID’s bureaucracy in overdrive, getting actual projects out the door is unlikely before February at the earliest, and likely later—amid the dead of winter. A USAID spokesperson said the agency “could not speculate on when these would be implemented,” beyond assuring that the USAID intended to “move forward quickly.” Under those circumstances, Vice President Pence’s December trip might prove to be ill-timed to drive effective results, regardless of his intentions. The USAID spokesperson assured Fox News that the new process “is in addition to the ongoing stabilization work that is already being done on the Nineva plain in Iraq.” He continued that USAID experts are “working with humanitarian partners on the ground”—meaning the U.N. agencies that humanitarian NGOs have strongly complained about—to “prepare for winter and help ensure assistance reaches communities in need.” He also noted blandly that the U.S. “is deeply committed to helping the Government of Iraq rebuild; including helping Iraqis preserve their cultural and religious diversity.” At least some of the non-government attendees at the unveiling meeting found the big picture presentation bereft of other important details, including the effective distinction between forbidden “reconstruction” and allowable “renovation. “There was some head-scratching about resettling refugees in town that are in rubble, without engaging in the reconstruction of buildings,” Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Studies at the conservative Hudson Institute, told Fox News. Moreover, in a still unstable situation where new Kurdish-Iraqi rivalries could replace the fratricide of ISIS, “new hurdles are arising all the time,” she said. By the end of the meeting the question of overall Administration coordination of the initiative also seemed to be a puzzle. The person designated for that role is Garry Hall, senior director for international organizations and alliances at the National Security Council. Hall is also charged with coordinating all U.S. government agencies working on religious freedom, human rights and the support of fragile democracies world wide, which one attendee described as “a huge portfolio,“ which would “prevent him from bird-dogging the actual implementation of minority resettlement in Ninevah. “If it is serious,” the Hudson Institute’s Shea argues, “the Administration should appoint an inter-agency coordinator devoted to this over the next critical six months.” One legislator, Republican Chris Smith of New Jersey, has been pushing for a harder approach backed by legislation to force the issue. Coauthor with California Rep Anna Eshoo of California of the bipartisan Iraq and Syria Genocide Emergency Relief and Accountability Act of 2017, Smith wants to see the law explicitly support, among other things, the transfer of U.S. government funds to faith-based and other groups carrying out humanitarian relief and reconstruction work among the beleaguered minorities in both Iraq and Syria., as well as hold accountable those committing genocide. The bill has passed in the House, and gotten approval in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but has not been brought to a vote in the full Senate. “It’s disturbing that we have found reasons not to be helpful,” Smith told Fox News. What Vice President Pence has urged, he says, “needs to be undergirded with law to make it sustainable.” ________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Fox News

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns yesterday’s murder of a Kurdistan TV cameraman near Kirkuk and the previous day’s violence against media personnel by demonstrators in Erbil. The two separate incidents in the space of a few hours point to an alarming decline in the security of journalists in northern Iraq. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns yesterday’s murder of a Kurdistan TV cameraman near Kirkuk and the previous day’s violence against media personnel by demonstrators in Erbil. The two separate incidents in the space of a few hours point to an alarming decline in the security of journalists in northern Iraq. The cameraman, Arkan Shareef, was stabbed to death in his home in Daquq, 60 km south of Kirkuk, at around 3 a.m. yesterday by masked intruders while his family was shut in another room. The motives for the murder are not known. Aged 50 and the father of three children, Abdullah had worked since 2004 for Kurdistan TV, which is affiliated to Iraqi Kurdistan’s ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). He was also a primary school teacher in a nearby village. “We condemn this murder and called for a prompt and impartial investigation by the Iraqi authorities with the aim of identifying the perpetrators and their motives,” said Alexandra El Khazen, the head of RSF’s Middle East desk. “The current political differences in this part of the world must not blind us to an unacceptable reality, namely crimes of violence against civilians and, in this case, the cold-blooded murder of a journalist.” In a statement condemning Abdullah’s murder, Kurdistan TV said it was one of a spate of serious acts of violence against civilians, especially Kurds, and that it confirmed the lack of security in areas seized in recent days by the Iraqi army and Shia paramilitary forces (Hashd al-Shaabi). When reached by RSF, the head of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s foreign affairs department, Falah Mustafa, also spoke of the many human rights violations against civilians, especially journalists, since the Iraqi army and Shia paramilitaries pushed into the disputed territories. Harassment of Kurdish media Pro-KDP Kurdish media have been affected by the tension between the Kurdish authorities and the Iraqi federal government in Baghdad. On 23 October, the Iraqi Communications and Media Commission (CMC) ordered the suspension of two pro-KDP Kurdish TV channels, Rudaw TV and Kurdistan 24, claiming that they lacked licences and had been broadcasting reports that incited violence and hatred. Denying these accusations in a communiqué on 28 October, Rudaw TV said it had not been formally notified of the suspension and had received no prior warning or complaint. Tension in the region has also been exacerbated by KDP leader Masoud Barzani’s decision to stand down as president of the Kurdistan Regional Government in the wake of the independence referendum he organized, which triggered an unprecedented crisis with the government in Baghdad. Reporters were harassed and attacked by angry demonstrators while covering President Barzani’s resignation announcement to the Kurdish parliament in Erbil on the evening of 29 October. Rebwar Kakaye, a reporter for private TV channel NRT TV, was doing a live interview when he was beaten with sticks and his equipment was smashed by demonstrators who were trying to force their way into the parliament building. He had to be taken to hospital. KNN TV reporter Salih Harki and Roj News reporter Qarachux Anwer were also attacked, while the NRT TV offices in Erbil and Dohuk (another city in Iraqi Kurdistan) were ransacked the same evening. Iraq is ranked 158th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2017 World Press Freedom Index. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Reporters without Borders

A total of 26 employees of the opposition newspapers Cumhuriyet and Özgür Gündem are being prosecuted in two emblematic trials that resume today in Istanbul, while a news agency reporter is due to appear in court tomorrow at the other end of the country, in the far eastern city of Hakkari. Update: Özgür Gündem journalists İnan Kızılkaya and Kemal Sancılıwere released at the end of the hearing held on 31 October. Their trial is now scheduled to resume on 6 March. But no one was released during today’s hearing in the Cumhuriyet trial, which will resume on 25 December. All three trials are examples of how Turkey’s judicial system is being used to punish media that criticize the government. As these trials slowly advance, the periods that the defendants are spending in provisional detention get longer. Cumhuriyet editor Murat Sabuncu will complete his 366th day in detention as an Istanbul court today resumes trying him and 16 other members of the newspaper’s staff. Cumhuriyet investigative reporter Ahmet Şık, executive board president Akın Atalay and accountant Emre İper are also among those still detained. After long periods in detention, eight Cumhuriyet employees were gradually released in the course of previous hearings. The 17 defendants are facing the possibility of up to 43 years in prison for criticizing the authorities and for supposedly “defending” what are regarded in Turkey as three terrorist organizations: the Gülen Movement, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and a small far-left group, the DHKP/C. The very different ideologies of these three movements have always been criticized by Cumhuriyet, which was awarded RSF’s Press Freedom Prize in 2015. The evidence being used by the prosecution is nonetheless based above all on the newspaper’s articles, interviews and comments and what its employees posted on social networks. In the other trial resuming today in Istanbul, the defendants are nine employees of Özgür Gündem, a pro-Kurdish daily that was closed by decree in August 2016. They include the well-known novelist Aslı Erdoğan, the linguist Necmiye Alpay and publisher Zana Bilir Kaya. All three were released on 29 December 2016. They also included editor İnan Kızılkaya and reporter Kemal Sancılı, who are still in provisional detention. All are facing possible life imprisonment on charges of “membership of a terrorist organization” and “endangering the integrity of the state.” Reporter still held, despite lack of witnesses Nedim Türfent, the reporter whose trial resumes tomorrow in the eastern city of Hakkari, has been held since 12 May 2016 on charges of “membership of a terrorist organization” and “terrorist propaganda.” DİHA, the pro-Kurdish news agency he worked for, was shut down for allegedly acting as a PKK “press service.” When the first hearing in his trial was held in June, more than a year after his arrest, 12 of the 13 prosecution witnesses retracted their statements, saying they had been extracted under torture. Another witnesses said he did not recognize Türfent at the second hearing in August. The judges nonetheless maintained his provisional detention order. “The systematic recourse to provisional detention speaks to the political exploitation of Turkey’s judicial system to punish and gag critical journalists,” said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk. “Turkey, a member of the Council of Europe, must urgently end this arbitrary form of detention.” RSF at European Court The use of provisional detention is meant to be exceptional and justified by specific dangers, and its systematic abuse by the Turkish judicial system is tantamount to a form of political revenge. In the absence of any effective legal recourse, the lawyers of a growing number of detained journalists are referring their cases to the European Court of Human Rights, whose decisions are binding on the Turkish authorities. On 26 October, RSF and 12 other international human rights NGOs made a joint written submission to the European Court in support of ten of these petitions: those of Cumhuriyet’s administrators and those of Murat Aksoy, Şahin Alpay, Ahmet and Mehmet Altan, Ali Bulaç, Nazlı Ilıcak, Ahmet Şık, Deniz Yücel and Atilla Taş. Nils Muiznieks, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, also made written submission to the court in support of these cases at the start of October. The already worrying media situation in Turkey has become critical under the state of emergency that was proclaimed after a failed coup attempt in July 2016. Around 150 media outlets have been closed, mass trials are being held, and more than 100 journalists are currently in prison, a world record. Turkey is ranked 155th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2017 World Press Freedom Index. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Reporters without Borders

Crimes committed against civilians during war can be especially heinous, but when those crimes are committed with planned intent to destroy an ethnic or religious community, international law applies the unique label of “genocide.” It is not a charge used lightly by the international community, although in recent times it has been applied to crimes committed during the Bosnian War (1992-1995) and Rwandan Civil War (1994). Now, a white paper published by the Syracuse University College of Law-based Syrian Accountability Project (SAP) asserts that war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in 2014 against the Yazidi community by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) also should be considered genocide. The report documents crimes perpetrated against the Yazidi community and calls on the international community to take “proper care of the living proof” of the Yazidi genocide and to begin the “strategic preservation” of forensic evidence that could be used in an international court. As with past SAP special reports, the “Report on the Yazidi Genocide: Mapping Atrocity in Iraq and Syria” draws on the project’s six-year-long effort to document war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by all sides during the Syrian Civil War and associated conflicts. Working with open-source materials from available media and contacts within the region, SAP students are responsible for maintaining the project’s two main deliverables, the Conflict Narrative and the Crime Base Matrix. The former is a legally relevant historical narrative of the conflict, while the matrix’s intent is to provide case facts of representative crimes (as well as the relevant international or national legal standard for each crime) to guide a future prosecution team. In this way, SAP both advocates on behalf of victims and provides legal analysis to aid in the eventual administration of postconflict justice. The “Report on the Yazidi Genocide” has been sent to SAP’s international clients, including the International Criminal Court, the United Nations, the US Congress, and leading human rights organizations. The report also joins related documents requested of SAP by London-based law firm Doughty Street Chambers and barrister Amal Clooney, who acts as legal counsel to Yazidi victims of ISIS’ crimes and to Yazda, a non-governmental organization that supports the Yazidi community. “The Syrian Accountability Project has become a relied-upon legal investigatory tool for the delivery of justice for the people of Syria and the Levant,” says Syracuse University College of Law Professor of Practice David M. Crane, who supervises the project. “The capacity of a College of Law student with a focused, properly supervised plan is unlimited.” The Yazidis—an ethno-religious group of between 500,000 and 1.2 million people living primarily in Northern Iraq—are Kurdish-speaking and follow their own syncretic religion that combines aspects of Zoroastrianism, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. The “Report on the Yazidi Genocide” alleges that, beginning in summer 2014, the group was targeted by ISIS and its campaign to “purify” the region of non-Islamist influences. The report details what it calls “grim incidences” of “incomparable brutality” during this campaign. More than 2,800 Yazidis were killed in this short time; 4,600 community members were abducted; 1,950 children were victimized; and towns and villages were blockaded or emptied of their residents. Women were kidnapped, raped, forced to abort fetuses, and sold into sexual slavery, while in a particularly abhorrent episode in August 2014, many children died of exposure on Mount Sinjar, where up to 50,000 Yazidis were seeking refuge. “This has been a harder project to track than crimes committed in Syria during the civil war,” says SAP Executive Director and third-year law student Joseph Railey. “Narratives about sexual violence as a war crime are difficult to collect, and whole villages have disappeared, so those people cannot tell their stories. Nevertheless, this white paper helps clarify for our clients what kinds of information the Syrian Accountability Project has recorded beyond the case facts stemming specifically from the Syrian Civil War.” While the report cross-references individual representative crimes with the articles of the Geneva Conventions, Rome Statute, and/or Iraqi Penal Code that they violate, it is the systematic nature of the crimes, along with ISIS’ stated intent to convert Yazidis to Islam, that raises the atrocities collectively to genocide. “The stories underlying these crimes provide the evidentiary support necessary to demonstrate that ISIS executed a systemic plan to destroy, in whole or in part, the Yazidi people,” the report states. “ISIS soldiers regularly demonstrated a specific intent to destroy the Yazidi people through their ideology and unabashed assertions for eliminating the Yazidi community.” The report recognizes that many of the circumstantial evidence and news reports that SAP has collected are not legally sufficient to support a declaration of genocide, but it hopes that publishing these narratives will spur the international community to make an effort to preserve physical evidence of crimes. “Bringing ISIS to justice for genocide against the Yazidi community, at the domestic or the international level, will depend on the strategic preservation of forensic evidence,” the report concludes. “What we are asking is that more recording of actual criminal evidence be done by the international community,” asserts Railey. “We are essentially saying, what happened was horrific, yet few people are talking about it. So we want to help draw people’s attention to the Yazidi situation and start a dialogue about what can be done.” ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Syracuse University

Holocaust survivor Fritzie Fritzshall poses in front of her 3-D hologram at the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie, Ill. Fritzshall is one of 13 Holocaust survivors who tell their stories through holographic images.(Photo: Don Babwin / AP) Fritzie Fritzshall knows she is running out of time. She knows the day will come when she won’t be here to describe being herded onto a boxcar, hearing the cries that turned to whimpers that turned to the silence that signaled another death. And she won’t be able to tell of the doors opening to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, where an old prisoner, as he unloaded the dead, whispered to her in Yiddish to lie to the guards about her age. That lie kept her out of a line to the gas chambers. Preserving her story is why she’s on stage, or at least a three-dimensional likeness of her is on stage, at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Skokie, just outside Chicago. Fritzshall is one of 13 Holocaust survivors who tell their stories through holographic images that invite the audience to ask questions, creating what feels like a live conversation. The interactive display is the latest version of an exhibit that’s been shown at a handful of sites including New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. But those exhibits were two-dimensional, with survivors appearing as they would on a movie or television screen. The exhibit in Skokie marks the first time that the voice-recognition technology powering conversations with audiences has been married to 3-D holographic technology to tell survivors’ stories. “We are the first in the world to have this and show it like this,” said museum CEO Susan Abrams. “We will be working with the Shoah Foundation to license this globally so that it can be seen by as many people as possible.” The holographic theater is part of the Skokie museum’s new Take a Stand Center. It’s the result of a three-year, $5 million project using New Dimensions Testimony technology developed by the Shoah Foundation. The foundation, based at the University of Southern California, grew out of an effort by Hollywood director Steven Spielberg to preserve as many survivors’ stories as possible. For her part, Fritzshall spent a week in Los Angeles in a studio, one of three in the world like it, surrounded by a 3-D camera system. She answered some 2,000 questions about a life that was shattered one night in Czechoslovakia when German soldiers pounded on the door and told her family at gunpoint they had 15 minutes to pack and leave. On stage, Fritzshall’s holographic image nods, tilts her head and appears to listen as someone in the auditorium asks a question. Stumping her is next to impossible, thanks to technology that turned her responses to those 2,000 questions into 30,000 answers, Abrams said. Fritzshall provides horrific details about her two years in Auschwitz. But mostly, what audiences see is a woman going back in time. “When I am sitting in that chair I am back on the train, I am afraid,” Fritzshall said in an interview. “I see the women holding infants, dead infants … I’m watching the entire scene at Auschwitz. I’m watching my brothers leave me . . .” _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Detroit News

The University of Arizona's first Conference on Gender-Based Violence will focus on survivorship. The conference will address the complex issues surrounding the epidemic of gender-based violence and marginalized populations. Workshops, keynotes, performances and panel discussions will focus on how to build activism and programs aimed at providing the best possible care to survivors while uprooting the social and cultural attitudes that re-create cycles of violence. The conference, to be held from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Friday and from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturday in the Student Union Memorial Center on the UA campus, is free and open to the public. It is designed for UA faculty, staff and students; Tucson community leaders and activists; and health and legal advocates. "This is a vital topic that affects everyone," said Monica J. Casper, professor of gender and women's studies and associate dean for faculty affairs and inclusion in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. "Whether we are discussing campus sexual assault, domestic violence, unique vulnerabilities of girls, murders of trans women of color, rape as a weapon of war, federal rollbacks of Title IX protections, or any of the myriad issues connected to gender-based violence, the time is now to direct our significant institutional resources toward social change. The UA has been and will continue to be a leader in this area, and this conference is an important step." The Friday evening program will begin with a performance by the Tucson Girls Chorus Advanced Choir. Melissa Vito, senior vice president for UA Student Affairs, Enrollment Management and Strategic Initiatives, will deliver the welcome address. "Sadly, it's clear from recent headlines that gender-based violence and its many dimensions continue to be timely ones," Vito said. "With this conference and the launch of the UA's Consortium on Gender-Based Violence, we seek to create nothing less than a new national and international model for addressing and rooting out gender-based violence in all its forms." The keynote address will be given by Brooke Axtell, a writer, speaker, performing artist and activist. Axtell is the founder and director of She Is Rising, a healing community for women and girls overcoming rape, abuse and sex trafficking. She performed at the 2015 Grammy Awards and has spoken at the United Nations and the U.S. Institute for Peace. Saturday's discussion topics include institutional responses to gender-based violence; cycles of violence and harm; the politics of disclosure and intersectionality; and building grassroots movements. There also will be workshops on feminist social justice activism for young women and girls and on masculinity for young men and boys. Research experts include Kiera Ladner, currently a Fulbright fellow in the UA Department of American Indian Studies and an associate professor in the Department of Political Studies at the University of Manitoba. Ladner studies gender-based violence and genocide of indigenous women. She is collaborating with Casper to create a network of scholars from Canada, Mexico and the U.S. whose work focuses on gender-based violence. The conference includes guest speakers from YWCA Southern Arizona, Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation, Emerge! Center Against Domestic Abuse, Black Lives Matter, American Friends Service Committee, Sex Worker Outreach Project and Southern Arizona Gender Alliance. This conference marks the soft launch of the newly developed Consortium on Gender-Based Violence. As a hub of innovative research, education, outreach and service for the UA and the community, the consortium will be the first of its kind on any U.S. campus with the goal of leveraging campus strengths and expertise for social and institutional change. The conference is sponsored by the UA College of Social and Behavioral Sciences; UA Student Affairs and Enrollment Management and Academic Initiatives and Student Success; UA Dean of Students Office; College of Humanities; College of Education; and College of Fine Arts. A pre-conference workshop for survivors is co-sponsored also by the Department of Gender and Women's Studies. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 UA News

Last week, the International Religious Freedom Roundtable co-chairs Greg Mitchell and Chris Seiple presented the 2017 Thomas Jefferson International Religious Freedom Champion award to Rep. Chris Smith (R – NJ) and Ambassador Rabbi David Saperstein. This award is bestowed every year to a Republican and a Democrat who fight for religious freedom for persecuted people around the world. The IRF Roundtable is made up of individuals from non-governmental organizations who gather regularly to discuss IRF issues and propose joint advocacy actions to address issues and challenges. These champions often work collaboratively. For instance, Chris Smith shepherded H.R. 75 through Congress. The bill called for the State Department to designate ISIS crimes as genocide. Ambassador Saperstein worked within the State Department to demonstrate why this was, in fact, an accurate description of the crimes taking place in Iraq. Chris Smith has sponsored and co-sponsored more than 40 billsthat are now law, many related to justice issues such as IRF, human trafficking, international abduction, and support for torture victims. He was the author of the Frank R. Wolf act which elevated the importance of IRF issues within the State Department. Ambassador Saperstein, a Democrat from New York, pushed past a reluctance among some State Department civil servants to give this issue the spotlight it deserves. He sat in courts at trials for prisoners of conscience. A U.S. Ambassador showing up to witness such proceedings reminds the judges that the most powerful nation in the world is watching, and that it stands on the side of freedom. These two international religious freedom champions disagree with each other on many policies, but work together for the sake of the persecuted. Now we are hoping for another hero of human dignity to be installed as the next ambassador for International Religious Freedom. Gov. Sam Brownback is awaiting U.S. Senate confirmation. Both Rep. Smith and Ambassador Saperstein have said he is an excellent choice. “There is so much more to do. People of faith around the world face genocide, torture, imprisonment, and severe restrictions on the most fundamental decisions of faith and conscience.” -Rep. Chris Smith (R-New Jersey) Nathan Wineinger Director of Government Policy Take Action: 1. Call your Senators’ offices today and encourage them to support the confirmation of Gov. Sam Brownback as Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom. You can find their contact information here: https://www.senate.gov/senators/contact/senators_cfm.cfm 2. Watch this video about #RedWednesday to see how you can be another Wilberforce and stand for the oppressed and get resources to help here: www.bit.ly/RedWednesdayUSA 3. Read the book Amazing Grace or watch the movie by the same name about the life and work of William Wilberforce __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Wilberforce Initiative

Since the start of the ongoing large-scale “clearance” operation against the Rohingya population by Burmese security forces, the Burmese government’s Information Committee and state media have consistently reported that the operation is a response to over 30 coordinated “extremist terrorist” attacks against police stations and outposts in northern Rakhine State on August 25, 2017. The government version of these attacks, allegedly timed by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) to undermine the August 24 release of the final Kofi Annan Commission report, has been accepted unquestioningly by Burmese and international media. Foreign embassies have condemned the attacks and expressed sympathy with the Burmese government for losses sustained. Analysts have also been quick to conclude that the scale of the ARSA attacks, across the length of Maungdaw Township, as well as in Rathedaung and Buthidaung, is evidence of support from international Islamic terrorist groups. However, interviews by Kaladan Press with new refugee arrivals in Bangladesh throw into serious doubt the government’s version of events. Their testimony provides evidence that the military clearance operation was carefully pre-planned, and that many, if not all, of the ARSA attacks may simply have been fabricated as a pretext for the assault. Refugees described a state of extreme security lockdown in northern Rakhine prior to August 25, with thousands of Burmese troops deployed to reinforce Border Guard Police posts, each already guarded by up to a hundred armed, combat-ready police personnel. Naval vessels were also brought in along the coast, with troops patrolling the shore. The security forces’ immediate, coordinated response on August 25 in attacking and destroying Rohingya villages in a similar pattern throughout the length of northern Rakhine, suggests strongly that the operation was planned in advance and authorized at the highest levels. Even villages where no alleged ARSA attacks took place were invaded and razed by security forces early on August 25. All refugees testified there was absolutely no attempt to identify “terrorists” during the clearance operations. Heavy weapons were fired at villages, including from navy ships off the Rathedaung coast. Civilians were shot at indiscriminately, elderly and children slaughtered, women raped, and villages deliberately emptied and burned down. Kaladan Press interviewed refugees from fifteen locations allegedly attacked by ARSA, and none had seen any sign of ARSA militants carrying out attacks. Most said they had simply heard gunfire from the direction of police posts early in the morning of August 25, and then security forces began indiscriminately attacking their communities. Some had heard no sound at all from the police posts allegedly attacked. Refugees were incredulous that groups of militants could have approached any of the police posts supposedly attacked, given the level of military security, and the existing severe restrictions on Rohingya movements at the village level. Refugees from Ale Than Kyaw, Udaung and Myinlut, south of Maungdaw - where thousands of ARSA militants are alleged to have attacked police posts – said this was impossible, given the hundreds of troops on security alert around their villages, and the proximity of the large new Udaung military base at the foot of the Mayu mountain range, housing over 1,000 troops. The testimony of over 60 new refugee arrivals has been compiled in this analysis paper, laying out evidence that challenges the Burmese government’s version of the events of August 25 and their portrayal of ARSA as a dangerous terrorist threat. With the entire brutal clearance operation predicated upon the alleged ARSA attacks, it is time to start asking questions about what really happened on August 25. Large-scale Burmese military build-up in northern Rakhine prior to August 25 The reports that ARSA attacked 30 “police posts” on August 25 give the misleading impression that ARSA targeted poorly defended public security outposts. In fact, these were posts of the Border Guard Police (BGP), a military-trained force comprising thousands of armed, combatready personnel (who wear blue uniforms, usually camouflaged, distinct from the plain green uniforms of the Burma Army). The posts allegedly attacked included larger well-fortified BGP police stations, manned by up to 100 BGP members, as well as smaller, but also welldefended, BGP outposts. The BGP posts were not only guarded by their own armed personnel, but also by regular Burma Army troops, thousands of which had been deployed throughout the northern Rakhine border area shortly before August 25. Naval forces were also deployed along the Rathedaung coast. Refugees interviewed by Kaladan Press provided information about existing troop strength and increased troop deployment in and near areas allegedly attacked by ARSA in Buthidaung, Maungdaw and Rathedaung on August 25. Thousands of troops deployed to Buthidaung There are numerous permanent army bases around Buthidaung township, but the two bases closest to alleged ARSA attack sites on August 25, are Battalion 552 (about 2 miles east of the Taung Bazar BGP post allegedly attacked), and 564 (about a mile southeast of the Phaungtawpyin BGP post allegedly attacked). The 552 camp itself was also allegedly attacked by ARSA. In the weeks leading up to August 25, according to a Rohingya dock worker from the town of Buthidaung, thousands of Burma Army troops arrived by boat from the south along the Mayu River. They arrived at night, in boatloads of hundreds at a time. He thought they were coming from the Burma Army base in Nyaung Chaung (southern Buthidaung) as well as from Rathedaung, and other areas of Rakhine State via Sittwe. Some of them were likely mobile strike forces of Infantry Divisions 33 and 99 (based in Sagaing and Meiktila respectively, and notorious for rights violations in northern Burma), which according to media reports had been flown to Sittwe on August 10, and which were seen by Kaladan Press sources arriving by road – From Sittwe through Rathedaung crossing the ferry to Maungdaw - in Maungdaw in midAugust. Villagers from Taung Bazar said there were usually about 200 troops at the nearby 552 army camp (allegedly attacked by ARSA) and that five trucks of reinforcements had arrived from Buthidaung to the camp early in the morning of August 23. The same day, about 70 troops had walked from the 552 camp to the Taung Bazar middle school, and set up camp there. Some had also installed themselves in the local madrassa. This was in addition to the existing large BGP camp at Taung Bazar market, where about 100 BGP members were permanently stationed. A villager living near Phaungtawpyin said there were usually about 200 soldiers at the Battalion 564 camp. He said that after the October 2016 violence, a new BGP camp had been set up in the Phaungtawpyin high school, where about 15 BGP troops stayed. On August 24, about 15 Burma Army troops had come from Battalion 564 to reinforce this BGP camp, and the same evening, about 30 more Burma Army troops had come from Battalion 552 to join the camp, thereby increasing fourfold the usual troop strength guarding the Phaungtawpyin BGP camp. The two police posts in Buthidaung allegedly attacked by ARSA had thus been significantly reinforced from the nearby Burma Army camps just days before August 25. In the morning of August 25, about 100 troops walked from the direction of the large Tactical Operations Command (TOC), west of Buthidaung, and laid land mines near Sin Oo Pyin – one mile north of the Buthidaung town - and began shooting villagers, showing that troops in the TOC were already in place to launch operations. Troop and naval deployment on the Rathedaung coast Kaladan Press has interviewed several refugees from Basara village, near Cheinkali, on the western Rathedaung coast, about two miles south of the Koetankauk police post allegedly attacked by ARSA on August 25. The refugees said that there was a BGP post at Cheinkali, where Burma Army troops were stationed, and where more were deployed about five days before August 25, at the same time that about five large Navy boats were seen arriving from the south, off the shore close to their village. Villagers were forbidden from accessing the shore to fish, and naval and army personnel were seen patrolling on foot along the shore. The naval vessels remained until August 25 (when they were seen firing shells towards the shore). Troop deployment throughout Maungdaw There are two permanent military camps in Maungdaw: Waesali Natala village near the “3- Mile” post, east of Maungdaw on the road to Buthidaung, and one at Udaung, about 10 miles south of Maungdaw. Several thousand troops are based at these two camps. In the town of Maungdaw, a temporary army camp had been set up in 2016 in the Dhamma Yone monastery compound, housing over 100 troops and same number are stationed at State Middle School, near Clock tower of Maungdaw- LIBs 345. A refugee from Udaung reported being told by a local administration officer that the new army camp at Udaung, set up about four years ago but still under construction, housed 2,500 troops. He said he had seen about 1,000 troops there. He had once delivered food to workers inside the camp, and said it was heavily fortified, with a large concrete lined “cave” built into the Mayu mountainside. Although the Udaung military camp was not listed by the government as having been attacked by ARSA on August 25, a police post in Udaung “Natala” village (housing nonRohingya villagers) only half a mile away was listed, raising questions about why a target so close to a huge military installation should have been chosen. Refugees from northern and southern Maungdaw described how hundreds of troops had been deployed to reinforce BGP camps in their areas before August 25, many on August 24 itself. This included areas allegedly attacked by ARSA, as well as those where no attacks were alleged to have taken place. The new military camp at Udaung, south of Maungdaw The BGP Region 7 headquarter camp in Ale Than Kyaw, about 10 miles south of Maungdaw town, usually manned by about 25 police, had been reinforced with about 200 Burma Army troops by August 25. About 100 of these troops had arrived by truck and on foot from Maungdaw on August 24. Nearby at Myinlut, villagers said that over 100 troops from the Udaung Army camp had reinforced the BGP camp by August 25. Further south, at Inn Din, refugees described how on August 24 about 200 combat-ready Burmese troops had arrived on foot at the BGP post in their village, usually manned by about 50 BGP personnel. A further 60 troops were also seen arriving on foot from the hills in the east in the morning of August 25. In northern Maungdaw, refugees from Kyein Chaung said that the BGP post in their village, already housing about 100 Burma Army troops, was reinforced by another 100 troops in the evening of August 24, who arrived by truck from Maungdaw. About eight miles further north, the BGP post in Tamantha, usually staffed by about 10 police, was reinforced by about 100 Burma Army troops on August 24. Refugees from Kuntheepin, about two miles south of Taungpyo (on the Bangladesh border only two miles east of Kutupalong refugee camp), said that about 5 trucks of army troops came from Taungpyo came to their village early on August 25, and began shelling and shooting at them. This means that at least 100 troops were ready and waiting in Taungpyo (the location of the BGP Region 3 headquarters) by August 25. Existing security lockdown for Rohingya in northern Rakhine The movement and daily activity of Rohingya in northern Rakhine was already severely restricted even before the recent troop reinforcement. For years, restrictions had been in place, requiring Rohinyga to get written permission and pass multiple checkpoints to travel between village tracts (any Rohingya riding vehicles had to get down from the vehicles and walk past the checkpoints), and even to get permission to visit neighbours’ houses in their own villages in the evenings (in case they were reported by informers as plotting unrest). Rohingya men were also forbidden from going out into the sea in fishing boats to exercise their traditional fishing livelihoods. After the first brutal clearance operations by the Burmese security forces in October 2016, restrictions had worsened. Fences around house compounds were torn down, so that security forces could more easily monitor villagers’ activities and quickly access their houses. A village elder from Ngayanchaung in northern Maungdaw said that after October 2016, all long knives and long-handled farming tools (which could be used as weapons) had to be handed in to the local Border Guard Police, on penalty of fines. This had caused great difficulty for local farmers and woodcutters in carrying out their daily livelihoods. In recent months villagers had been subjected to increased searches and spot checks by security personnel. A refugee from Laungdon in northern Maungdaw, said her husband and thirteen other villagers had been arrested by soldiers during a spot check on the road in early August 2017. He had since disappeared. Pressure on Rohingya to apply for National Verification Cards (NVC), which designate them as foreigners, had also been increased shortly before the August 25 attacks. Villagers living outside Maungdaw and trying to travel into the town to go to market were told at the checkpoints that they could only pass if they had NVC cards. Burmese military and naval attacks launched early on August 25 against villages where there was no pretext of ARSA attacks The ARSA attacks early on August 25 were the supposed pretext for the subsequent Burmese military operation against the “terrorists.” However, Kaladan Press has interviewed refugees from eight villages who said Burmese security forces launched attacks against them in the morning of August 25, even though the government did not allege there were ARSA attacks in their villages. One such village was Inn Din, in southern Maungdaw, where 200 Burmese Army troops had arrived at the local BGP outpost on August 24. Refugees described hearing gunshots from the BGP post firing at their village at about 3 am on August 25. BGP and Burma Army troops then came into the village, together with local non-Rohingya villagers, shooting and burning houses, causing everyone to flee. Villagers were shot and killed as they fled. One refugee interviewed from Inn Din was a 25-year-old woman, who was 7 months pregnant and unable to run away in time. She was holding her 18-month-old baby when she ran into a BGP soldier, who pushed her over, pulled the baby from her arms, knifed it to death, and then stamped on her stomach. She crawled to the jungle and miscarried there. Another refugee, a truck driver, who was sleeping in his truck by the roadside in Inn Din on the night of August 24, said he woke up to hear a whistle being blown at the Inn Din BGP camp at about 3 am, after which shooting began. This suggests that the whistle was a pre-arranged signal to begin the attack on the village. Another village attacked in the morning of August 25 was Done Baik, in northern Maungdaw, where the nearby BGP post in Kyein Chaung had been reinforced by about 200 Burma Army troops. There was no ARSA attack alleged against this BGP post, but at about 10 am, security forces and local non-Rohingya villagers armed with knives surrounded Done Baik village and began setting fire to houses. As people began running away, they were shot or killed with knives. A group of about 300 villagers who had run into an empty field were cornered, and made to sit down with their hands behind their heads. About 20 young women were separated from the group and taken into empty houses by some of the troops. An hour later, these women were taken to one of the houses, locked in and then burned alive. Other villagers could hear their screams. Then they started burning the other houses, spraying the people in the field with gunfire. Out of those in the field, only about a quarter – mostly young men and boys - could run away. It is estimated that over 200 of the others, mainly women and children, died. A villager from Nga Yan Chaung, said that the BGP at the Let Ya BGP post near their village began shooting without provocation at people coming to market in the morning of August 25. He knew of seven young men who had been killed on that day. Other villages in northern Maungdaw where refugees described attacks by Burmese security forces early on August 25, even though the military had not alleged there were ARSA attacks in their villages, were Me Te, Thinguja Para, and Ludaing. In Buthidaung, a refugee from Sin Oo Pyin, a mile north of Buthidaung town (and four miles south of Phaungtawpyin, where an ARSA attack was alleged by the government to have taken place), said that a column of about 100 troops approached his village from the south, at 10 am on August 25. They were seen laying land mines along the road close to their village. They then surrounded the village, and arrested four farmers coming back from their fields. When the farmers’ relatives and other villagers came out to oppose this, saying “If you are going to arrest these men, then arrest all of us,” the soldiers opened fire. 16 people were killed, and 24 injured. On the Rathedaung sea coast, a woman from Basara (about one mile south of Koetankauk, alleged by the government to have been attacked by ARSA on August 25) described how guns and shells began being fired at her village at 5:15 am on August 25. She said she looked out to the sea and saw several big Navy boats firing shells (“like fireballs”) in the direction of her village. She said the shells exploded and burst into flame. A shell landed near her house and her 10-year-old son was injured by shrapnel in the leg. She thinks about 20 people were killed in her village. When they ran out to the mountains, army and BGP soldiers (from the nearby Cheinkali BGP post) shot at them, and non-Rohingya villagers attacked people with knives. No sign of ARSA members in villages where police posts were allegedly attacked In “Breaking News” releases no. 1 and 2, dated August 25, 2017, the government’s Information Committee listed details of 32 attacks on police posts and one army base, which had taken place early on August 25. (See Appendix for the full list). Kaladan Press has spoken to refugees from fifteen of the villages or town quarters where the alleged attacks took place and none had seen any sign of ARSA members carrying out attacks. Most said they had heard sounds of gunfire coming one-sidedly from police posts early in the morning of August 25, after which their villages were attacked by Burmese security forces. Some did not even hear any sound of gunfire at the police posts before their villages were attacked. For example, the alleged ARSA attack on the BGP’s police post at Tamantha, northern Maungdaw township, was described by the government’s Information Committee as follows: “At 4:30 am (on August 25, 2017), an unidentified number of extremist terrorists attacked Tamantha police outpost in Region-2.” According to a refugee who fled from Tamantha, there was no sign or sound of an ARSA attack early in the morning of August 25. He said that on August 24, about 100 Burmese Army troops had reinforced the BGP post, and in the morning of August 25, at 8.30 am, these troops, together with BGP forces and local militia, began breaking into and looting Rohingya shops in the market. In response, a group of about 100 local Rohingya men came out to defend their property, but they were not armed. The troops fired at them, killing at least one man, and wounding another. They then starting setting fire to Rohingya houses, and large numbers of villagers started fleeing to the mountains west of the village. At least four villagers were shot and killed as they fled. That day, over 50 houses near the market section of the village were burned down. On August 28, the remaining estimated 600 Rohingya houses in the other sections of the village were burned down (even though all the Rohingya residents had already fled). In Ale Than Kyaw, about ten miles south of Maungdaw town, the government claimed that “At 4:50 am, an unidentified number of extremist terrorists attacked Ale Than Kyaw police station in Region-8, leaving Deputy Township Immigration Officer Zar Moung dead. The policemen repulsed the terrorists who retreated from the scene.” According to a Burmese police lieutenant interviewed by BBC about the Ale Than Kyaw incident, “two groups of around 500 men each stormed up from the beach…but were easily driven off by police officers firing automatic weapons. Seventeen bodies were left behind.” However, refugees from Ale Than Kyaw said there was no sign of the alleged 1,000 attackers. They said the local BGP post had been reinforced by 200 Burma Army troops, and the whole village was in security lockdown. At 11 pm on the night of August 24, one BGP and one Army officer had visited the house of the village administrative officer and demanded that “bad people” sheltering in the village be handed over, but the administrative officer had replied, “Our village is next to your camp, how can those men be here?” Early in the morning, shots were heard from the BGP post, but according to one refugee, an elderly fishing broker, the only people coming from the beach were 12 fishermen who had gone out early to fish along the shore (as fishing by boat in the sea was banned). They were shot and killed on the road from the beach, near the BGP post. After this, the troops began firing directly at the village and burning houses. Refugees estimate that about 100 people were killed. About one and a half miles east of Ale Than Kyaw, another ARSA attack was alleged to have taken place on August 25 at Udaung (Natala) village. According to the government, “At 5:10 am, about 100 extremist terrorists attacked Udaung (Natala) outpost in Region-8, where they were met with a police repulse, prompting them to retreat at 6 am.” Refugees from Ale Than Kyaw were incredulous that a large group of ARSA could have got inside the Natala village (inhabited by Rakhine Buddhists and completely off-limits for Rohingya) and staged an attack right next to the large Udaung military base, where over a thousand troops were based. Precisely at the time when the ARSA attack was alleged to have taken place at Udaung (Natala) village, at 5 am on August 25, residents of the Rohingya section of Udaung said that they were attacked without warning. Gunfire and shells began raining on their houses. “People were hiding, trying to make their own bunkers. I saw people being hit by bullets around me,” said an 18-year-old villager from Udaung. He said he hid in the jungle nearby until September 4th, when his house was burned down. Another large ARSA attack allegedly took place at Myinlut, just four miles south of the Udaung military base, where the Information Committee reported that “At 4:45 am, about 1,000 extremist terrorists attacked Myinlut police station in Region-8, leaving Police Major Hein Htet Kaw and police constable Win Htike dead and one BA-94 and one .38 revolver taken.” However, refugees from Myinlut said they had seen no sign of the 1,000 ARSA attackers. Several villagers said they heard gunshots at about 3.30 am from the direction of the BGP camp (already reinforced by over 100 troops), then at about 7 am the army (refugees said they saw only green uniforms) began sweeping through the village, shooting at villagers. Those living near the BGP camp fled to other parts of the village, or to nearby fields and mountainside. They said most of the houses in the village were burned down over the course of the next four days. Similarly in Laungdon, northern Maungdaw, where the BGP post was allegedly attacked at 3.25 am by “extremist terrorists,” villagers said they heard some gunfire early in the morning of August 25 from the Laungdon post, but saw no sign of ARSA attackers. However, at midday on August 25, hundreds of troops arrived by truck and on foot, and together with the BGP and local non-Rohingya villagers began attacking their village. People fled for their lives, hiding in fields and jumping into the Purma river. One refugee estimated that 10 villagers had been shot and wounded when running away. Five ARSA attacks were alleged to have taken place in and around the town of Maungdaw early on August 25, three of which involved grenades or bombs. However town residents living nearby said they heard no explosions. They said they heard gunfire early in the morning of August 25 coming from the Dhamma Yone monastery (where 100 troops were stationed), and also from near the entrance to the town, but there was no sign of the “mob” of extremist terrorists that supposedly surrounded the police post in Ward 5. They said they saw the army and local non-Rohingya villagers burning houses in Maungdaw starting on August 26. In Buthidaung, refugees from the Taung Bazar and Phaungtawpyin areas, where two BGP posts and one army camp were allegedly attacked by ARSA on August 25, said they had seen no sign of any ARSA attackers. The Information Committee stated that “At 3:40 am, 10 extremist terrorists attacked Taung Bazar outpost in Region 10 where they were met with a police repulse, leaving five terrorists dead. The extremist terrorists retreated at 5:15 am.” This was the outpost already guarded by 100 BGP troops, and where reinforcements of 70 Burma Army soldiers had installed themselves in the local school and madrassa, raising questions about how 10 men could have got close enough to launch any attack. A madrassa student from Taung Bazar said he had heard gunshots and shelling in and near his village starting at about 4 am, before the morning prayer call. When it became light, at about 6 am, he joined other villagers trying to run for cover outside the village, but was shot in the back. Fortunately, he was helped by family members, and was able to flee towards the border. He said many people were shot and killed that day when they were running away, including his 17 year old cousin. He said Army, BGP and local non-Rohingya villagers were doing the shooting. He had heard that the madrassa he studied at in Taung Bazar, with 12 teachers and nearly 500 students, was burned down after he ran away. A madrassa teacher from Taung Bazar was shot while trying to help his paralyzed father and elderly mother escape at about 4.40 am on August 25. He was injured by bullets coming through the wall of his house, which killed his younger brother. He was forced to abandon his parents to save himself. He ran to the other side of the river, and saw his village being set on fire, including his own house, with his parents inside it. The other police outpost allegedly attacked by ARSA in Buthidaung on August 25, was at Phaungtawpyin, about four miles south of Taung Bazar. According to the Information Committee, “At 4:25 am, an unidentified number of extremist terrorists launched an attack on Phaungtawpyin police outpost in Region 10, leaving Police Sub-inspect Aung Myint Oo and police lance-corporal Soe Win dead. Two extremist terrorists died by the police repulse.” Similar to the Taung Bazar post, the BGP post in Phaungtawpyin had been significantly reinforced by the Army on August 24, raising questions about how such an attack could have taken place, and two police officers killed. A teacher from the nearby village of Maung Nu described how he heard gunshots from the direction of Phaungtawpyin early in the morning of August 25, which went on till about 8 am. That day, most of the Phaungtawpyin residents fled to Maung Nu. On August 26, about 50 Burma Army troops came from the direction of Phaungtawpyin and began attacking the local villagers. The massacre of dozens of local civilians in Maung Nu has been documented by Human Rights Watch Systematic targeting of civilians and destruction of entire Rohingya villages – no attempt to identify “terrorists” During the clearance operations beginning on August 25, refugees from numerous villages in Maungdaw described a similar pattern of attack by Burmese security forces. Troops first shelled or opened fire on villages, then entered them, indiscriminately shooting at civilians or deliberately executing them, and burned down houses. There was no attempt at all to identify and capture so-called terrorists. The target of the attacks was clearly the entire civilian population of the villages, with the intent to drive them from their homes. Almost all refugees interviewed by Kaladan Press recounted killings of civilians as they fled, but the levels of brutality appear worst in the villages of Done Paik (described above) and Tula Toli in northern Maungdaw, which are about three kilometers apart. The attack on Done Baik took place on August 25 and on Tula Toli took place on August 30. The similar pattern of atrocities, involving slaughter of hundreds of civilians, including women and children, and gang-rape and burning of rape victims alive, indicates that the same security forces were responsible. A 17-year-old boy from Tula Toli, with bullet wounds in the chest, back and arm, told Kaladan Press how he had lost his entire family – his brother, 3 sisters and mother - in the attack. He was shot while hiding at the bank of the Purma river. His siblings were shot and knifed to death, and his mother beaten to death. Another villager from Tula Toli, a 25-year-old man, described how his wife and three young daughters were shot and killed as they fled. His 20-year-old sister was raped, beaten, and set on fire. She miraculously survived and is receiving treatment for critical injuries in Kutupalong refugee camp Questions also needed about the October 2016 attacks The testimonies of the refugees not only throw into serious doubt the government’s narrative about what happened on August 25, 2017, they also beg questions about the first alleged “terrorist” attacks against BGP posts on October 9, 2016 - the pretext for the previous brutal clearance campaign that drove over 70,000 Rohinyga into Bangladesh last year. The government claimed that early on October 9, “around 400 attackers” attacked three BGP posts – including the main BGP headquarters at Kyikanpyin - and stole “51 weapons of various types and 101,300 rounds of assorted ammunition, 47 bayonets and 164 magazines.” In fact, the Kyikanpyin headquarters is a large, tightly-guarded installation – reinforced with artillery and housing hundreds of armed personnel. Yet no one questioned how the poorly armed attackers could have got past all the layers of security, broken into the armoury, and escaped with so many weapons. It is time to start asking these questions. The BGP HQ at Kyikanpyin allegedly attacked by ARSA on October 9, 2017 ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Kaladan Press Network

MSF International President Dr Joanne Liu recently returned from a visit to Bangladesh, where she saw the Rohingya crisis unfolding firsthand. On 23 October 2017, Dr Liu attended a Pledging Conference in Geneva, organised by OCHA, IOM and UNHCR and co-hosted by the European Union and Kuwait, to discuss the plight of refugees sheltering in informal settlements in Cox’s Bazar. Dr Liu made the following remarks at the conference: Every day, the massive exodus continues. More than 580,000 Rohingya have fled into Bangladesh over the past two months. They are the walking dead, haunted by atrocities committed against them. In the horror of the burning villages: babies were murdered in their mothers’ arms. Men were gathered en masse and slaughtered, lying face down. Sisters and brothers - mothers and fathers – separated and lost. Many of the women were raped. Many of the men have disappeared after days of flight. Struggling, wounded and exhausted, they are being welcomed – so many of them – at the Bangladesh border. While so much of the world is closing its doors to refugees, the generosity of Bangladesh is rich. But, the burden is heavy. This river of refugees runs deep – the flow is steady. The Bangladeshi border must stay open - they need support. As an entire people, the Rohingya are nameless. Homeless. Statusless. They’ve been labelled “possibly forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals”. But let’s make no mistake. They are refugees. Crammed into a massive muddy mega-camp. An endless landscape of hilltops. No roads, no landmarks. Where children get lost on their way to the well. Where a meal is usually nothing more than a bowl of rice. Adults are collapsing of dehydration. How can we let such basic essentials go unmet? How can we not prevent the preventable, after they have survived so much, and come so far? Medical facilities in the camp are stretched to the limit. There are now about one million refugees and a total of only 210 hospital beds. That is not enough! Many patients are sharing beds, and there are mattresses on the floor. We are treating diarrhoea and respiratory infections. Malnutrition is on the rise. Sanitation is shallow latrines and a big field. We need to dig deeper! Much deeper latrines, much deeper wells to avoid contamination. The camp is a time-bomb - ticking towards a full-blown health crisis. And in the mud and despair, it is hard to fathom that the people there are the lucky ones – the ones who escaped. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya are still trapped within Myanmar, the nightmare continues. And our access to them is blocked. The Myanmar government must end the violence and allow humanitarian workers meaningful access to those in need. Enough food and clean water. Shelter, sanitation and medical care. Safety. These are not complicated requests. These goals are within reach. This should be the easy part - after unthinkable hardship. There is no antidote to the horror – the scars of this atrocity will run generations deep. But if there are to be more generations for babies born in Cox’s Bazar today, we must act now, massively and immediately, but also long-term. So that they may not only live, but live a life with dignity and rights. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Médecins Sans Frontières

Criticism of the Nobel laureate in the west is angering – and mobilising – her supporters at home Supporters in Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw rally to the defence of Aung San Suu Kyi. Photograph: Aung Shine Oo/AP On the top floor of the Myanmar Traditional Artists and Artisans Association in Yangon, the organisation’s vice-president stands behind his latest creation. It is a towering portrait of Aung San Suu Kyi, robed in pink and white, a concerned expression on her face. “If Oxford University takes down one portrait of her, we want to create 2,000 more,” says the painter, who goes by the name K Kyaw. Days earlier he had joined dozens of others at the gallery to protest against the decision of St Hugh’s college to take down a painting of Myanmar’s leader by making their own. The college, where Aung San Suu Kyi studied politics, philosophy and economics in the 1960s, is among several British institutions to have stripped the Nobel laureate of honours as the world reacts in shock to the brutal violence meted out against stateless Rohingya Muslims in the country she leads. More than 600,000 Rohingya have fled the northern Rakhine state since August, trekking for days to overburdened refugee camps in Bangladesh, bringing with them stories of gang rape, indiscriminate killing and mass arson at the hands of soldiers and local Buddhists. The United Nations has said the campaign of violence is ethnic cleansing. Others call it genocide. Pressure is mounting on global leaders to act. ADVERTISEMENT In Myanmar, the condemnations are being met with both indignation and pleas for patience. It has been less than two years since Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy swept to power in a landslide election, ending half a century of junta rule. As longtime democracy activists fear a return to international isolation and military dominance, diplomats are torn between the need to stand on the right side of history and fear that stronger rebukes, such as sanctions, will further imperil the country’s fragile democratic transition. Advertisement “The Rohingya crisis has put Myanmar’s reform process on a knife edge,” says a former senior diplomat based in the country, who like others interviewed asked to remain anonymous. “The country and its business people are pulled in two directions: openness, and a desire for international standards, clean government and human rights – but with the attendant accountability and scrutiny – or nationalism… and a reliance on support from China. The lack of government capacity and the poorly educated population heightens the risk that the military, still the only truly functioning institution, will return, and even be welcomed in some quarters.” For decades, Aung San Suu Kyi has been the living embodiment of Myanmar’s democratic aspirations, both inside the country and overseas. The 72-year-old, who sacrificed her freedom and family in the struggle to bring democracy to Myanmar, enjoys unparalleled adoration and has not anointed a successor. Personal attacks by Oxford and others have led to rallies being held around the country, with crowds chanting her name. Aung San Suu Kyi at a ceremony to accept cash from private donors for development in Rakhine state. Photograph: Aung Shine Oo/AP At an interfaith gathering attended by thousands in Yangon, many clutched photographs of the painting removed by St Hugh’s. Myanmar’s Catholic cardinal, Charles Maung Bo, one of the few public figures who has been willing to speak out for the Rohingya but who has been less vocal in recent months, took to the stage to appeal on behalf of Aung San Suu Kyi. “In her fragile hands she holds the dreams of millions,” he said. The hope instilled in Aung San Suu Kyi – and fear of the alternative – has driven western policy towards Myanmar for years. It is why allies refused to condemn her when she did not speak out in 2012, when tens of thousands of Rohingya were driven from their homes and herded into displacement camps where they remain, five years on. They indulged her when she failed to field a single Muslim candidate in the 2015 election, which the NLD won by a landslide. “It’s easy for people overseas to ask why she’s not doing more,” one diplomat said earlier this year. “Then the military take over and they’re like, ‘Oh, we lost Burma again!’ The consequences for her could be more severe.” But now, with Rohingya continuing to flee daily, relations between the leader and her erstwhile allies have been at their lowest ebb. Views of the situation inside Myanmar – where the Rohingya are widely reviled as illegal immigrants and terrorists, as attacks by Rohingya militants preceded the crackdown – and outside the country are diametrically opposed. The state counsellor has been criticised for mulling over long-term solutions while neglecting to address the immediate crisis. Both publicly and privately, she is said to have echoed army rhetoric. According to observers, she does not like to admit the military is not under her control. The frustrations run both ways. Aung San Suu Kyi, widely characterised as intolerant of criticism, has been pushing her former allies away. UN human rights investigators have not been allowed access to Rakhine to produce a report on alleged atrocities. “There is a growing distancing,” said one diplomat in Yangon. “The UN is persona non grata.” For months, the UN and other humanitarian agencies have been barred from the conflict area. On Friday, in what could be a sign that pressure is working, the World Food Programme said the authorities would allow them to resume food distribution in parts of northern Rakhine where thousands of Rohingya have been stranded without aid. It will be too late for many. Severe malnourishment is rife among those who have fled. “Some children are close to death by the time they make it across the border,” Unicef said. As accounts of atrocities committed by Myanmar soldiers and local Buddhists continue to emerge from the mushrooming refugee camps in Bangladesh, there are calls for western governments to punish those responsible. Concrete action has so far been muted. The EU has suspended invitations to Europe and is reviewing “all practical defence cooperation”. The US has promised to stop inviting senior army officials to events, but is considering imposing targeted sanctions. The UN security council is working on a draft resolution on the violence that is reportedly facing strong opposition from China. Those documenting the stories of survivors say there is a moral imperative to censure Myanmar. Speaking at the UN headquarters in New York on Tuesday Dr Simon Adams, executive director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, said democracy “cannot be built on the bones of the Rohingya”. Inside the country, rumours have swirled about tussles between the civilian government and the military over the handling of the crisis. The relationship between Aung San Suu Kyi and the commander-in-chief, Min Aung Hlaing, was already poor, diplomats say. Days before the European Union was due to make decisions on Myanmar, an unnamed adviser claiming to speak with Aung San Suu Kyi’s authority briefed foreign reporters on the creation of a civilian-led body to distribute international aid to the Rohingya, saying that the state counsellor felt under threat of being overthrown by the army. Senior members of the NLD have long insisted that there are military hardliners trying to undermine the transition, and the army has made intermittent pronouncements reminding the public of the constitutional clause that allows it to take back power. The assassination in January of Ko Ni, a prominent Muslim lawyer who was advising Aung San Suu Kyi on amending that constitution, remains unsolved. Local media have reported on shadowy threats to her security. “Myanmar’s transition is much more fragile than people assume, and the government’s freedom to move much narrower than supposed as a consequence,” says Sean Turnell, an economic adviser to the state counsellor. And Myanmar has had democracy pulled out of its grasp before. In 1990 the generals annulled a massive election win by the NLD and kept Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest. Myat San, a former student democracy activist who spent 20 years behind bars, says the defeat persuaded her to avoid antagonising the military. “She believes only dialogue and practising peaceful efforts can solve the political crisis,” says Myat San, a confidant of the state counsellor whom he calls “the Lady”, like many in Myanmar. “In the current situation, what the international community are doing is not supporting this government, what they are doing is putting the country back into the hands of authoritarian rule,” he says. “They are pushing the Lady and the military closer and closer.” _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________(c) 2017 The Guardian

Today at 0600hrs Erbil time Iraqi forces and Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) began an unprovoked, four-pronged assault on Peshmerga positions in north-west Mosul; Bardiya and Hamad Agha towards Ain Ouais, Mosharaf towards Sufaya, and from Rabia towards Mahmoudiya. The following Iranian-backed PMF played a role in the attacks: Kataib Imam Ali, Harakat Al-Najba, Tofuf Brigade, Hussein Brigade, Badr Corp, Al-Abbas Brigade, Kataib Jund Al-Imam, and Raad Al-Saree Division, all under command of Hadi Ameri and Abu Mahdi Mohandes. Frontline reporting confirms Iraqi forces and Iranian-backed PMF continue to use U.S. weapons given to Iraq for the anti-ISIL campaign, including Humvees, Armored Personnel Carriers and Badger infantry vehicles. This is a blatant violation of the Iraqi Constitution which forbids the use of the army to settle political disputes. We condemn Iraq's military aggression in the strongest terms. As of 1200hrs Erbil time, the Peshmerga had heroically repelled the attacks, destroying three tanks, five Humvees and one Badger infantry vehicle. Having retreated from the areas, Iraqi forces have resorted to shelling Peshmerga positions. Peshmerga forces will defend their positions against Iraq's wanton aggression and will continue to protect the region and its peoples. These attacks must stop immediately; Iraq must withdraw all forces and return to negotiations to address political differences. The international community must denounce Iraq's reckless behavior in the last two weeks. It has destabilized some of the country's safest areas, displaced over 150,000 individuals and created dangerous security vacuums. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Kurdistan Regional Government

As the regime in Khartoum is brought ever further into the international fold, its savage assaults on people of Sudan’s marginalized regions must not be forgotten. In particular, I believe, we are obliged to recall that the deliberate bombing of civilians and humanitarians—including hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, foodstocks—extend back to the earliest days of National Islamic Front/National Congress Party rule. Many of the very same men who engineered the June 1989 military coup are still in power, including President Omar al-Bashir, indicted by the International Criminal Court on multiple counts of genocide and crimes against humanity. For more than twenty years the regime has used aerial attacks on civilians and humanitarians as a central weapon of war. The evidence is overwhelming, and is gathered here (see below) in systematic fashion, with as much comprehensiveness as records permit. A final data spreadsheet includes more than 2,000 confirmed incidents of deliberate attacks on civilians and humanitarians, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières, American Refugee Council, Norwegian People’s Aid, and many others. South Sudan, Darfur, South Kordofan, Blue, Nile, eastern Sudan, and extra-territorial bombings are all included, along with a lengthy framing essay and a bibliography of sources extending to many dozens of pages. The data spreadsheet includes dates, locations, sources, number of bombs (or other munitions) dropped, and casualties and damage. Many links to sources have gone “dead”; many of those who served as sources are now deceased or unavailable; some data/records have become unavailable for other reasons. This report, I believe, is likely to be the definitive account of the Khartoum regime’s serial war crimes of aerial assaults on civilians and humanitarians. "'They Bombed Everything that Moved': Aerial military attacks on civilians and humanitarians in Sudan, 1999 – 2011" (May 2011; updated October 2011, 2012, September 2013) http://wp.me/p45rOG-1lh The primary weapon in Khartoum's aerial war on civilians has been the Russian-built Antonov cargo plane, retrofitted to become a crude, inaccurate, but terrifying weapons of civilian terror and destruction. Shrapnel-loaded barrel bombs are simply rolled out the cargo bay from high altitudes without sighting mechanisms. The have no useful military accuracy. Shrapnel from the bombs dropped by Antonovs goes in all directions and can easily to cut a human body in half. Limbs and lives are constantly being lost to these bombing attacks; many wounds, if untreated, are fatal The attacks are indiscriminate in killing both young and old: above a woman from Malual Kon, Bahr el-Ghazal (South Sudan, 2002) and a girl from the Nuba Mountains (South Kordofan, 2012) Villages have frequently been destroyed by aerial attacks Khartoum has also used banned weapons in its aerial attacks, including cluster bombs (see above) and bombs containing chemical weapons (the infant in the photo above is dying from a chemical weapons attack in Jebel Marra, Central Darfur, 2016). The Jebel Marra campaign in Darfur (2016) was not the first time that chemical weapons use has been authoritatively established, as it was on this occasion by Amnesty International. A compelling report was issued by MSF/Switzerland (2000), chronicling the use of these horrifying weapons in Equatoria, South Sudan Given the lack of international pressure on Khartoum and the increasing European and U.S. rapprochement with the regime, the Antonovs may soon be flying again over South Kordofan and Blue Nile, areas not fully under Khartoum's military control Khartoum has also deployed advanced Russian-built military aircraft against civilians and humanitarians, including the MiG-29 and the Sukhoi-24/25. The latter aircraft was used to attack the MSF hospital in Frandala, South Kordofan (January 2015) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (c) 2017 SUDAN Research, Analysis, and Advocacy