Go to the Following Link To Register: https://form.jotformeu.com/hrwfadmin/registration-north-korea-22-mar _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Human Rights Without Frontiers International

UN humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien said that more than 20 million people faced the threat of starvation and famine in Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan and Nigeria. Unicef has already warned 1.4m children could starve to death this year. Mr O'Brien said $4.4bn (£3.6bn) was needed by July to avert disaster. "We stand at a critical point in history," Mr O'Brien told the Security Council on Friday. "Already at the beginning of the year we are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the United Nations." "Now, more than 20 million people across four countries face starvation and famine. Without collective and coordinated global efforts, people will simply starve to death. Many more will suffer and die from disease. "Children stunted and out of school. Livelihoods, futures and hope will be lost. Communities' resilience rapidly wilting away. Development gains reversed. Many will be displaced and will continue to move in search for survival, creating ever more instability across entire regions." Mr O'Brien's comments follow on from a similar appeal made by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres last month. At that time, he revealed the UN had only received $90m (£74m) so far in 2017, despite generous pledges. Like Mr O'Brien, he urged more financial support for the four countries. But why are they in such dire need? Yemen Image captionFive-year-old Mohannad Ali sits in hospital in Yemen in December. His younger cousin - aged just two - died of hunger The pictures were among the most shocking of last year: emaciated children, clinging on to life with what little strength they had left. Four-year-olds not bigger than infants. And mothers unable to do anything to stop their children dying. It is thought a child dies every 10 minutes in Yemen from a preventable disease, while half-a-million children under five are suffering from severe acute malnutrition. The UN estimates some 19 million people - or two thirds of Yemen's population - is in need of some sort of humanitarian help following two years of war between Houthi insurgents and the government, which is backed by a Saudi-led coalition. What's hampering aid? Continuing fighting, lack of rule of law, poor governance, under-development. A naval embargo imposed by the Saudi-led coalition, fighting around the government-controlled port of Aden and air strikes on the rebel-held port of Hudaydah, have severely reduced imports since 2015. A lack of fuel, coupled with insecurity and damage to markets and roads, have also prevented supplies from being distributed. Read more: How bad is Yemen's humanitarian crisis? South Sudan UN agencies say 100,000 people are facing starvation in South Sudan, while a further million are classified as being on the brink of famine. It is the most acute of the present food emergencies, and the most widespread nationally. Overall, says the UN, 4.9 million people - or 40% of South Sudan's population - are "in need of urgent food, agriculture and nutrition assistance". What's hampering aid? Continuing fighting in the country that now has been at war since 2013, lack of rule of law, under-development. Some UN officials have suggested President Salva Kiir's government has been blocking food aid to certain areas - a claim denied by the authorities. There have also been reports of humanitarian convoys and warehouses coming under attack or being looted, either by government or rebel forces. Nigeria The UN has described the unfolding disaster in north-eastern Nigeria as the "greatest crisis on the continent" - the full extent of which has only been revealed as extremist militant group Boko Haram is pushed back. It was already known the Islamist group had killed 15,000 and pushed more than two million from their homes. But as they retreated, it became clear there were thousands more people living in famine-like conditions in urgent need of help. The UN estimated in December there were 75,000 children at risk of starving to death. Another 7.1 million people in Nigeria and the neighbouring Lake Chad area are considered "severely food insecure". What's hampering aid? Boko Haram attacks, lack of rule of law, under-development. There are still areas under the control of Boko Haram, which aid agencies cannot reach. Thee have also been allegations of widespread aid theft, which are being investigated by Nigeria's senate. Read more: 'We survived militants but face starvation' Somalia The last time a famine was declared in Somalia - just six years ago - nearly 260,000 people died. At the beginning of March, there were reports of 110 people dying in just one region in a 48-hour period. Humanitarian groups fear this could be just the beginning: a lack of water - blamed partially on the El Nino weather phenomenon - has killed off livestock and crops, leaving 6.2 million people in urgent need of help. What's hampering aid? Continuing attacks by Islamist militant group al-Shabab, lack of rule of law, under-development. Piracy off Somalia's coast impeded shipments in the past - however attacks have reduced significantly in recent years. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 BBC News

YANGON, Myanmar (AFP) - A Myanmar monk infamous for his bilious anti-Muslim tirades has been banned from giving sermons for a year by the country's top Buddhist body, an unprecedented slapdown to man whose hate speech has galvanised religious tensions. Wirathu, a monk once dubbed the "face of Buddhist terror", has led calls for restrictions on Myanmar's Muslim population, penning hyperbolic speeches warning of an Islamic takeover of the overwhelmingly Buddhist country. Myanmar is gripped by deepening religious tensions that have repeatedly spilled into violence. The unrest has been partially attributed to anti-Muslim rhetoric spread by Wirathu's radical wing Buddhist monks. Aung San Suu Kyi's government is under strong international pressure to explain a bloody crackdown on the Muslim Rohingya minority in Rakhine State over recent months. The February assassination of Ko Ni, a respected and high-profile Muslim lawyer and long-time Suu Kyi ally, also heightened tensions. Wirathu, who draws large crowds to his stock-in-trade Islamophobic speeches or social media posts, had already been barred from speaking at an event shortly after Ko Ni's murder. But a special meeting of the country's most senior monks - the State Sangha Maha Nayaka - on Friday decided to ban all of his sermons. "As he has repeatedly delivered hate speech against religions to cause communal strife and hinder efforts to uphold the rule of law" the monk "was banned from delivering sermons across Myanmar for one year from March 10, 2017 to March 9, 2018," the council said in a statement that emerged on Saturday. He will face "action under the rule of law" for any breach of the order, the Sangha added, without specifying the punishment. Aung San Win, the director of the Ministry of Religion, confirmed the order to AFP, but did not elaborate on the actions that may be taken against him or say whether the order covered his vigorous social media profile. Muslims make up about five percent of Myanmar's population. Religious riots have roiled the country in recent years, killing scores of people - the majority of them Muslims. The worst violence has been in Rakhine where tens of thousands of Rohingya fled a military crackdown after deadly raids on police border posts. (c) The Straits Times 2017

They have been described as the world's most persecuted people. Rejected by the country they call home and unwanted by its neighbours, the Rohingya are impoverished, virtually stateless and have been fleeing Myanmar in droves and for decades. In recent months, tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh amid a military crackdown on insurgents in Myanmar's western Rakhine state. They have told horrifying stories of rapes, killings and house burnings, which the government of Myanmar - formerly Burma - has claimed are "false" and "distorted". Activists have condemned the lack of a firm international response. Some have described the situation as South East Asia's Srebrenica, referring to the July 1995 massacre of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims who were meant to be under UN protection - a dark stain on Europe's human rights record. What's happening? Tun Khin, from the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK, says Rohingyas are suffering "mass atrocities" perpetrated by security forces in the northern part of Rakhine state. A counter-insurgency campaign was launched after nine border policemen near Maungdaw were killed in a militant attack in early October, but the Rohingya say they are being targeted indiscriminately. Media caption'They set our houses and mosque on fire' The BBC cannot visit the locked-down area to verify the claims and the Myanmar government has vociferously denied alleged abuses. But UN officials have told the BBC that the Rohingya are being collectively punished for militant attacks, with the ultimate goal being ethnic cleansing. What led to the current situation? The Rohingya are one of Myanmar's many ethnic minorities and say they are descendants of Arab traders and other groups who have been in the region for generations. But Myanmar's government denies them citizenship and sees them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh - a common attitude among many Burmese. The predominantly Buddhist country has a long history of communal mistrust, which was allowed to simmer, and was at times exploited, under decades of military rule. Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES Image captionThousands of Rohingya have been forced to live in camps About one million Muslim Rohingya are estimated to live in western Rakhine state, where they are a sizable minority. An outbreak of communal violence there in 2012 saw more than 100,000 people displaced, and tens of thousands of Rohingya remain in decrepit camps where travel is restricted. Hundreds of thousands of undocumented Rohingya already live in Bangladesh, having fled there over many decades. UN: Myanmar wants ethnic cleansing

SITIAWAN, Malaysia (BERNAMA) - "I know my daughter is living in fear although she told me that she and her family are safe there," said Maznah Adnan, who is the mother of one of the Malaysians now stranded in North Korea. Iza Karmila Ramli, 33, and her husband Malaysian embassy counsellor Mohd Nor Azrin Md Zain, are still in Pyongyang after North Korea banned Malaysians from leaving the country on March 7. Maznah, 63, said she last spoke to Iza Karmila on Tuesday afternoon via phone. "She told me to be patient and not to worry as nothing serious will happen. But as a mother, I know she is scared. It's just that she doesn't want me to worry," she said at her home here on Thursday (March 9). The couple's children are Annur Zulaikha, Aynur Zhafirah and Ayscha Zinnirah. Since her daughter, the third of six siblings, was stopped from leaving North Korea, Maznah, a housewife, said she has been feeling anxious and could not she sleep well. "We know how it's like in that country - it's very sensitive. I am so worried thinking about this," she said, adding that it was difficult to contact her daughter. Iza Kamila is a diplomatic and administrative (PTD) officer, but took leave to accompany her husband in Pyongyang two years ago. The last time she came back to Malaysia was during Hari Raya last year. Maznah said her daughter had never complained of any problem in North Korea except for her difficulties in finding halal food. "Since they were barred from leaving, their movements are restricted. The family is afraid to leave the embassy compound, including to send their children to school," she said, adding that she could only hope and pray for the safety of her daughter and her family. (c) The Straits Times/Asia News Network 2017

Erin (not her real name) has had her head bashed against the wall, beaten and even stripped naked by her husband in front of their children. "He treated me like garbage," said the 37-year-old. She endured the abuse for months. Yet, each time she ran away to stay with her friends, her husband would beg for forgiveness and she would return to him, only to have the cycle of violence start again. "Even my friends were fed up of me," Erin said. Read also: Man strangles wife, 6-month-old daughter Erin's case is similar to nearly half of the 192 domestic violence survivors sheltered by Women's Aid Organisation (WAO) in 2015 and 2016. "As many as 44 per cent of them attributed their return to the abusive situation to their husbands indicating their willingness to change," said WAO in its report The Perspectives of Domestic Violence, launched during an International Women's Day event here yesterday. It pointed out that 114 or 59 per cent of the victims tried to leave their abusive situations at least once. Read also: Cops arrest man who whipped wife for serving cold food For Erin, who is an Indonesian married to a Malaysian, she had no one to turn to, especially when her husband turned abusive after her fourth child. She said when the abuse started in 2014, he stopped renewing her social visit visa. He did not even register the birth of their child. "He would scold me often, hit and pull my hair. "Sometimes, he bashed my head against the wall, strangled me, tied my hands and left me naked in front of the children," said Erin in between sobs, adding that she had been burned with cigarette butts and beaten with a vacuum cleaner and wood. Read also: Breaking the silence on family violence Once, she claimed he threatened her with a machete by placing it on her head. Unable to stand the abuse anymore, Erin lodged a police report and the authorities sent her to the hospital where she was warded for a day. "I asked for protection and the hospital referred me to WAO and gave me some money to go there," she said, adding that she now hoped to find a job and a place in Malaysia to stay with her four children. Drawing from 21 case studies, the WAO report presents 14 "Highlights" and 18 "Recommendations" to, among others, the Parliament, the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry, the Home Ministry, the Education Ministry, the police and the Legal Aid Bureau. http://news.asiaone.com/news/malaysia/wives-return-and-are-abused-again#sthash.bTqS7a81.dpuf (c) The Star/Asia News 2017

The Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT) Via Della Dogana Vecchia, 5— 00186 ROMA ITALIA Tel: 06/68 80 14 68. Fax: 06/68 77 774 Ref: Charges against the Myanmar State for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity against the Kachin People of Northern Burma Dear Sir, The Myanmar State and its armed forces are guilty of carrying out War Crimes and CrimesAgainst Humanity against the Kachin people of Northern Myanmar or Burma. These criminal acts include grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions such as the deliberatetargeting of civilians by military forces, rape and other forms of sexual violence as a weapon ofwar, extrajudicial executions, arbitrary detention, torture, enslaving, destroying churches andrestrictions on the provision of humanitarian assistance to more than 120,000 internallydisplaced civilians. Such heinous violations have been the systematic and deliberate policy ofsuccessive Myanmar Governments and amount to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. Therefore, we, the Kachin National Organisation here officially submit charges against theMyanmar State and its armed forces for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. Sincerely, Hkanhpa Sadan General Secretary Kachin National Council Kachin National Organisation ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 The Peoples Tribunal On Myanmar

The now disbanded Gafatar hit the headlines after dozens of people, who had been reported missing by relatives, were believed to have joined. Last year, hundreds of members had to be evacuated from their West Kalimantan base after being attacked by residents who opposed their beliefs. Gafatar was labeled by Indonesia’s Ulema Council a deviant sect and authorities had described its teachings as “dangerous”. People associated with the group say it is a social organization, not religious. A panel of judges at the East Jakarta court on Tuesday jailed Mahful Muis Tumanurung and Ahmad Mussadeq for five years and Andry Cahya for three years for blasphemy. The men were cleared of treason charges. A lawyer for the men, Yudhistira, described it as a “malicious prosecution” that had tainted Indonesia’s justice system and said would consider whether to appeal. Indonesia’s blasphemy laws have come under greater scrutiny since Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, Jakarta’s Christian governor, was put on trial for allegedly insulting the Koran. He has denied wrongdoing but his trial has inflamed religious tensions. Almost all blasphemy cases in recent years have ended in conviction. Indonesia has the world’s largest population of Muslims, the majority of whom adhere to moderate Sunni beliefs, and it recognizes six religions including Hinduism, Catholicism and Buddhism, but minorities, even within Islam, have faced rising intolerance in recent years. Human rights organizations criticized the verdicts. “The sentences show how Indonesia’s vague, coercive and discriminatory blasphemy laws are being used to punish people for peacefully exercising minority beliefs,” said Josef Benedict, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific. They were approved after a heated discussion that turned into shouting matches between ruling coalition members and Arab lawmakers, some of whom tore copies of the legislation and were ejected from the chamber. The bills passed 55-48 and 55-47 in the Knesset, or parliament. While the bills in theory would apply to any religious place of worship, Muslims say it is clearly meant to silence the traditional call to prayer at mosques. The measure has become commonly known as the "muezzin law" after the Muslim official charged with calling the faithful to prayer, often through powerful speakers mounted on minarets. The notion of Israeli legislation silencing mosques has sparked outrage around the Arab and wider Muslim world. Supporters of the move say it is needed to prevent daily disturbance to the lives of hundreds of thousands of non-Muslim Israelis. Last month, government ministers endorsed the softer version of the bill prohibiting loudspeakers overnight, which limits its scope to the first of the five daily Muslim calls to prayer just before dawn. That version would apply to mosques in annexed east Jerusalem as well as Israel, but not to the highly sensitive Al-Aqsa mosque compound, Islam's third holiest site, according to an Israeli official. 'A racist act' An earlier draft limiting volumes throughout the day had been rejected because it might have silenced the siren sounded in Jewish areas at sunset on Friday to mark the start of the Sabbath. However, the stricter measure was revived by members of the hardline Yisrael Beitenu party, part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition, leading to Wednesday's two votes. It was not immediately clear if that version would apply to Al-Aqsa, located in mainly Palestinian east Jerusalem. One of the sponsors of the less rigid bill, Motti Yogev of the far-right Jewish Home, said the proposal was "a social law that aims to enable people to sleep". "Loudspeakers have not been here forever, and in recent decades there are alarm clocks for whoever wants to wake up for the mosque," he said. Ahmad Tibi of the predominantly Arab Joint List alliance of lawmakers called the measure "a racist act". "This is an important Muslim religious ceremony, and (the Knesset) has never intervened in a Jewish religious event," he said. Opposition has not only come from Arabs and Muslims. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin has spoken out against the move, saying existing noise pollution regulations provide a solution. Government watchdog groups have called the measure an unnecessary provocation that threatens freedom of religion. At Wednesday's debate, Environmental Protection Minister Zeev Elkin said the new law was necessary since the existing rules set a low fine that causes police to disregard noise violations. The new proposed law sets a fine of 10,000 shekels ($2,714, 2,573 euros) to transgressors. In Jordan, the official custodian of Muslim holy sites in annexed east Jerusalem, Information Minister Mohamed Momani condemned the bills as "discriminatory". They were contrary to "Israeli commitments under the peace accord" that the Jewish state signed with Jordan in 1994, he said, quoted by the official news agency Petra. The small Siberian town of Birobidzhan is set in a mosquito-infested swampland on the far eastern end of the Trans-Siberian railway. It was to places such as this that the Soviets exiled various undesirables. In April 1951 more than 9,000 Jehovah's Witnesses were rounded up and sent to Siberia on Stalin's instruction. They were allowed to take 150kg of their possessions with them. Everything else was confiscated by the state. You may walk past embarrassed as Jehovah's Witnesses try and hand you cringeworthy religious literature on the high street. But these were some of the most persecuted Christians of the 20th century. And their persecution continues. A couple of months ago, the Russian police raided the Birobidzhan branch of the Jehovah's Witnesses and "discovered" extremist literature. The Jehovah's Witnesses describe the incident thus: "Masked special police disrupted a religious meeting and planted literature under a chair in the presence of the attendees." The police ordered the place to be permanently closed. A few weeks later, the Russian ministry of justice demanded that the Jehovah's Witnesses HQ hand over all information on their 2,277 Russian congregations. After a brief examination of what the police allegedly found, it concluded that the Jehovah's Witnesses were showing signs of "extremist activity". Congregations in Belgorod, Stary Oskol and Elista have all been shut down. Bibles have been impounded at customs, their literature banned. Many expect that the Russians are gearing up for an outright ban. "Unfortunately, in today's Russia, the will to confine Russians to restricted and state-determined religious beliefs has proved increasingly strong," is how Andrew Wood, former British ambassador to Russia, described what has been going on. "Fabrication is always both repellent and a sign of desperation at the absence of credible proof of extremism." So what is it about Jehovah's Witnesses that the Russians find so objectionable? This week, I decided not to avoid the eye of the couple who hand out literature at my tube station. So many times I've ignored them, and their Olympic smiling endurance, brushing past grumpily. Reading about their history, I now feel guilty about my lack of respect. On open display was What Does the Bible Really Teach?, the book that the Russian authorities often plant in kingdom halls as an excuse to shut them down. I flicked through. It's really not my thing. And the graphics are criminally cheesy. But it's pretty bog-standard Christian fundamentalism, with an emphasis on the end of the world. "What makes the Jehovah's Witnesses different?" I asked the smiling man. "We take the Bible literally," he replied. "But so do others. What makes you distinctive?" "Take 'thou shalt not kill,'" he replied. "We don't participate in war." Jehovah's Witnesses were taken to Nazi death camps for that very reason. They refused to swear loyalty to a worldly government and refused to serve in the military. They wouldn't say Heil Hitler either. So within months of the Nazis coming to power, their meetings were ransacked and a Gestapo unit was set up to register all known Jehovah's Witnesses. Their children were taken off them to receive a proper patriotic German education. And they were given their own purple triangle to wear as identification. In 1942, Wolfgang Kusserow was beheaded in Brandenburg prison by the Nazis for refusing to fight. "You must not kill," he said at his trial. "Did our creator have all this written down for the trees?" Jehovah's Witnesses are right to fear what is happening to them again, right now, in Russia. They have seen it all before. It should be a warning to all of us that the idea under which they are now being persecuted is that of "extremism". It's a word that draws its persuasive force from those who would use their religion to plant bombs and sever heads. So anti-terror legislation is now also being used to target those whose faith is only "extreme" in terms of its commitment to non-violence. The Russians are using the fear of Islamism as an excuse to crack down on all religious activity that refuses to bow the knee to Mother Russia. "My parents were exiled to Siberia," said Yaroslav Sivulskiy, a spokesman for the Russian Jehovah's Witnesses. "They worshipped even while they were in those camps. We will continue too." Respect, I say. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Human Rights Without Frontiers International

March 2nd marked the 6-year anniversary of the assassination of Shahbaz Bhatti. In November 2008 Bhatti was appointed as the Federal Minister for Minorities Affairs in Pakistan. In that role, he relentlessly advocated for the repeal of blasphemy laws and equal rights for religious minorities. Bhatti was leaving his home in Islamabad when his car was sprayed with bullets. The attackers left fliers calling Bhatti an infidel. Despite the confession of an individual affiliated with the Taliban, no one has been brought to justice for the assassination. The Pakistani government has yet to have another member as strong of an advocate for religious minorities as Bhatti. Pakistani Christians remain grateful for his work and celebrate his life every year on the anniversary of his assassination. As you may be aware, on February 20th in recognition of World Day of Social Justice, Jubilee Campaign sent a petition to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson asking him to designate Pakistan a Country of Particular Concern. Religious minorities continue to be treated unequally under the law, face discrimination in society, and are often the target of attacks by Islamic radicals. Many Pakistani Christians have made the decision to travel to Bangkok, Thailand to apply for refugee protection with the UNHCR, including the only witness to the assassination of Shahbaz Bhatti. Many members of religious minority groups including Christians, Ahmadis, and Hindus feel that the Pakistani government is unwilling and unable to provide adequate protection. Jubilee Campaign supports an organization in Bangkok that provides housing, food and financial assistance to refugees. Please consider donating so that we may continue helping these vulnerable people. Please continue to pray for Christians in Pakistan, and for the hearts of the government officials to soften. We pray for more adequate protection and for a strong leader within the government, such was Bhatti, to demand equality for religious minorities. Shahbaz Bhatti's legacy six years on March 2 marks the sixth year since Shahbaz Bhatti, the slain minister of minorities affairs, was shot dead in front of his mother’s house in Islamabad. The organisation he founded, the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA) held memorial services across the country, the largest of which was held in his ancestral village Khushpur, Chak 451-GB. Bishop John Arshad of the Faisalabad diocese led the prayers attended by almost a thousand people and zonal coordinators of APMA paid tribute to their slain leader, Shaheed Quaid Shahbaz Bhatti. Born on Sept 9, 1968, in the tiny village of Khushpur, Chak 451-GB of Faisalabad, Bhatti had attended St Thomas High School and later the Government College Faisalabad where he began the Christian Liberation Front in 1985. The situation for Christians in small towns surrounding the village was marked by abject poverty and naked discrimination. “We couldn’t even eat from the same utensils as Muslims and were denied jobs because of our faith,” Mr Gill explains. On a mission to end this discrimination, Bhatti had taken it on himself to fight for equal rights of minorities in Pakistan and had travelled across the country to rally members of his community to fight for the cause. Pastor Sadiq from Multan lent Bhatti the premises of St Saviours High School in 1993 where he held a corner meeting to raise the issue of three illiterate Christians from Gujranwala accused of writing defamatory remarks against Islam on a wall. He recalls Bhatti as a tireless campaigner. “Since the Zia-era, Bhatti was almost always in trouble with the administrations and those in power because he was a fearless leader who would not shy away from criticising the army and the government in power... he truly inspired people with his speeches and words and urged them to take charge of their destiny,” Mr Sadiq says. From organising annual workers’ conventions in Lahore and minorities’ conventions in the Convention Centre Islamabad, to leading demonstrations against oppression in front of press clubs even when he was in government, Bhatti had worked hard to mainstream minority groups into the country’s political scene. He formed the APMA in 2002 to broaden the scope of his work to all religious minorities in Pakistan. That election year, slain PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto authorised him to award three party tickets to people of his choice and instead of appointing himself, he nominated three other APMA members, who later became MNAs on the PPP ticket on the reserved seats for the minorities. Bhatti had always tried to promote others instead of himself, says Mrs Najmi Saleem, who was appointed an MPA through APMA in 2008. “He inspired a generation of minority activists to fight for equal rights...and together we achieved a lot.” In his tenure as minister for minorities affairs, Bhatti had helped secure five per cent quota for religious minorities in government jobs, four seats in the Senate and a national day to commemorate minorities in the country. In 2009, while he was minister, eight Christians were killed in riots over accusations of desecration of the Quran in Gojra. Bhatti led the protests against the government for not doing enough to protect minorities and condemned the inaction of the police which had led to a loss of lives. Gill laments that Bhatti’s death had left a vacuum in the leadership that would take on the cause with the same urgency and ferocity as Bhatti had. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Jubilee Campaign

It's been 14 years since the beginning of the genocide in Darfur and 8 years since the ICC's first arrest warrant was issued (March 4, 2009). Throughout the Obama presidency, genocide and mass atrocity crimes continued in Darfur and expanded to include South Kordofan and Blue Nile, while human rights abuses by the government occurred throughout Sudan, particularly in the marginalized regions. With the Trump presidency just getting under, the Sudan policy for the new Administration will get established in the next few months. So, it is particularly important to raise our voices now. Ask the new Secretary of State to make Sudan a priority and appoint a Special Envoy tasked with finally ending the genocide and human rights abuses in Sudan. 1. Call the State Department, leave a message for Secretary Tillerson on the Department of State comment line. Dial 202-647-6575 and press 8 to record your comment, any time. Suggested message: This is [your name] calling from [city, state] with a message for Secretary Tillerson: Please make Sudan a priority and appoint a Special Envoy tasked with finally ending the genocide and human rights abuses in Sudan. 2. Leave a message for the State Department online, in addition to leaving the phone message, at https://register.state.gov/contactus/ Suggested message: Please make Sudan a priority and appoint a Special Envoy tasked with finally ending the genocide and human rights abuses in Sudan. 3. Leave a message for the White House online at https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact Suggested message: Please make Sudan a priority and appoint a Special Envoy tasked with finally ending the genocide and human rights abuses in Sudan. 4. Tweet .@POTUS @StateDept make #Sudan a priority, appoint Special Envoy tasked to end the genocide and human rights abuses at last @actforsudan TWEET 5. Post to Facebook (be sure to like the Facebook pages so you can tag them in your message): President @Donald J. Trump and @Rex Tillerson - Secretary of State: Please @Act for Sudan. Make #Sudan a priority and appoint a Special Envoy tasked to end the genocide and human rights abuses at last. Thank you for standing with the people of Sudan, Act for Sudan __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Act For Sudan

New evidence this week collected and corroborated by Amnesty International indicates that the Saudi-led coalition has continued the use of banned cluster munitions in Yemen. In the most recent strike using the inherently indiscriminate weapons systems, the Saudi-led coalition is believed to have fired multiple bomblet-laden rockets into residential areas in the city of Sa’da, injuring two civilians and causing material damage. The attack was the third such attack using Brazilian made ASTROS II surface-to-surface cluster munitions documented by Amnesty International in the country. Cluster munitions are weapons that scatter multiple smaller explosive sub-munitions over an expansive area with indiscriminate effects. Cluster munitions are additionally problematic as sub-munitions frequently fail to detonate upon landing, but remain live, effectively creating de facto minefields. The inherently indiscriminate nature of cluster munitions makes them a dangerous threat to civilians and most of all children. Civilians accounted for 92% of cluster munitions casualties between 2010 and 2014, half of whom were children. Due to their nature as weapons inherently harmful to civilian populations, cluster munitions were banned by the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), which has been ratified by 100 states. Neither Brazil, Saudi Arabia, nor Yemen are party to the CCM treaty however that does not free any of the parties from their lawful obligations to protect civilians from harm and refrain from the use of indiscriminate weapons or attacks under customary international humanitarian laws of war. As such, the Saudi-led coalition’s use of cluster munitions in crowded cities and populated areas could conceivably constitute war crimes. Cluster munitions from other countries of origin have also been used by the Saudi-led coalition in attacks that have caused civilian casualties. Last year it was uncovered that some of the bombs being utilized by the Saudi-led coalition were British-produced BL-755 cluster munitions sold and exported prior to the UK’s self-imposed unilateral ban on the weapons and before its ratification of the CCM. The United States, which remains opposed to the CCM and has refused to sign the treaty, has also provided Saudi Arabia with cluster munitions and other arms in multi-billion-dollar arms trade deals. US manufactured bombs were used in several strikes causing civilian casualties last year, including a strike on a mosque that reportedly killed a 15-year old boy and a reported strike on a fishing village. In 2016, ICRtoP member Human Rights Watch (HRW) documented at least 16 attacks on populated areas using ground or air launched cluster munitions in Yemen, killing and wounding dozens. The attacks were part of the broader campaign of the Saudi-led coalition that has killed nearly 800 civilians in 58 unlawful airstrikes, according to HRW. In January the UN announced that the total civilian death toll from the conflict in Yemen broke 10,000. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 RtoP Weekly

Last month, the United Nations issued a disturbing report outlining a campaign of human rights abuses in northern parts of the western state of Rakhine, close to the Bangladeshi border. Babies and children have reportedly been slaughtered with knives amid “area clearance operations” the UN report said, with hundreds of people having been killed since October. Last month, the United Nations issued a disturbing report outlining a campaign of human rights abuses in northern parts of the western state of Rakhine, close to the Bangladeshi border. Babies and children have reportedly been slaughtered with knives amid “area clearance operations” the UN report said, with hundreds of people having been killed since October. The Burmese government has repeatedly denied persecuting the minority Rohingya Muslim group, dismissing evidence of killings as “propaganda”. Burmese leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who was swept to power after a landslide 2015 election has not responded directly to the UN claims, but the BBC attempted to question her for a Newsnight report into the situation. A spokesman for her party told the BBC reports of crimes against humanity were “exaggerated”, and added that the issue was “an internal affair”. “Sometimes the United Nations is wrong”, the spokesperson added. “As a new government we're just trying to achieve to a modern country. We have thousands of problems. “We don't believe it's crimes against humanity. It's an internal affair - it's not an international affair.” The UN’s report, which based its claims on over 200 interviews with refugees who had fled over the border to Bangladesh after attacks on a border post in October 2016, found that the counter military operations by security forces subjected the Rohingya population to brutal beatings, disappearances, mass gang-rape, killings and other human rights violations. \ “The devastating cruelty to which these Rohingya children have been subjected is unbearable – what kind of hatred could make a man stab a baby crying out for his mother's milk. And for the mother to witness this murder while she is being gang-raped by the very security forces who should be protecting her,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein. Ms Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, with the Nobel committee citing her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights. After boycotting Burma’s 2010 general election following decades of being frequently subjected to house arrests, she led the National League for Democracy party (NLD) to win the country’s first openly contested election in 25 years. However, the 71-year-old iconic leader has since been accused of “legitimising genocide” in Burma, after failing to act to protect the Rohingya Muslim population. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (c) 2017 Independant