© GETTY IMAGES / LEAMUS “I grew up with a deep respect for nature. I learned from a young age to value natural resources and biodiversity,” said Marcos Uzquiano Howard, a Bolivian park ranger and defender of the Amazon rainforest. Raised among ancestral knowledge and the forest of northern Bolivia, Uzquiano turned that legacy into a way of life: protecting the land, biodiversity, and the people who inhabit it. “My mother and grandmother taught me about respect, telling us that if we were going to use something from nature, we had to ask for permission, because trees are living beings,” Uzquiano said. However, his calling made him a target of institutional harassment, arbitrary dismissal, and threats. “Amazonian biodiversity is very rich, but it is also under threat due to illegal mining and other dangers,” he said. The defender had reported threats to Amazonian biodiversity in his region, such as illegal mining, forest fires, and deforestation. This, he said, brought him into conflict with external actors, as well as persecution within the institution he works for, Bolivia’s National Service of Protected Areas (SERNAP), which, in Uzquiano’s view, should have been his main support. Although Uzquiano secured a favourable ruling that ordered his reinstatement, he is still waiting for the necessary protection measures to be implemented so he can continue his work. On 23 April 2025, Bolivia held its first public environmental hearing under the Escazú Agreement. Convened by the Agro-Environmental Tribunal, the hearing addressed the protection of the jaguar and its habitat and included protective measures for environmental defenders such as Uzquiano. The hearing marked a historic precedent for environmental justice and in the effective implementation of the Escazú Agreement in the country. Making a difference Through its work in Bolivia, the UN Human Rights Office for South America continuously monitors the situation of human rights defenders, particularly those working on environmental issues and in Indigenous territories. Within this framework, the Office has maintained contact with Uzquiano, whose case was brought to light in greater detail thanks to allied civil society organisations such as the Centre for Documentation and Information Bolivia and the National Coordinator for the Defence of Indigenous, Peasant Territories and Protected Areas of Bolivia. UN Human Rights, through its presence in Latin America, works on the implementation of the Escazú Agreement , a unique instrument in that it is a regional agreement that not only addresses environmental protection but also the protection of those who defend the environment. “The Escazú Agreement is the first environmental treaty in Latin America and the Caribbean that guarantees three fundamental rights: access to environmental information, participation in decisions that affect the environment, and access to justice in environmental matters,” said Sara Nuero, coordinator of UN Human Rights’ project on regional human rights strategies for Latin America and the Caribbean, funded by Sweden and based in the Office for Central America . Article 9 of the Escazú Agreement is particularly relevant as it sets out guidelines for the protection of environmental defenders and allows them to receive protection at an international level. “In Mr Uzquiano’s case, both State institutions and civil society are using the Escazú Agreement and its interpretation to strengthen resistance processes, advocacy, and to achieve important decisions at the constitutional level, with the potential to generate jurisprudence,” said Jan Jarab, Representative of the UN Human Rights Regional Office for South America . The Office provides technical assistance to States to implement the Escazú Agreement with a human rights-based approach. “The Office has also promoted the active participation of environmental defenders in national and regional implementation processes,” Nuero said. “Among the key partnerships is the collaboration with civil society organisations, regional mechanisms, and development agencies to build capacity and create spaces for dialogue and protection.” One of those civil society representatives is César Artiga, an activist since the age of 18, a promoter of a culture of peace, and currently an elected Public Representative under the Escazú Agreement. For Artiga, the Escazú Agreement is a milestone in environmental issues. “Latin America and the Caribbean is the most dangerous region in the world to work as an environmental defender,” Artiga said. “The Escazú Agreement not only protects people on the front line, but it also includes journalists, researchers, and all those who defend the environment in any capacity.” Artiga recently took part in the Third Forum on Human Rights and Environmental Defenders in Latin America and the Caribbean , held in Saint Kitts and Nevis, organised by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and UN Human Rights. From his regional perspective, Artiga sees a growing threat, a troubling time of setbacks and institutional weakening — but also, he said, a lot of grassroots organising and struggle from people in the territories. These experiences were widely shared during the Forum. “There is community resilience because there is no other choice: it’s survival,” Artiga said. Remaining challenges So far, 18 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have ratified the Agreement, and although the progress is significant, challenges remain. That is why effective implementation of the Escazú Agreement is urgent. According to UN Human Rights, one of the greatest challenges is ensuring that the commitments made are translated into concrete actions that respond to local contexts and needs. “One of the main challenges in implementing the Escazú Agreement is translating regional commitments into concrete national actions that genuinely strengthen the protection of environmental defenders.” Nuero said.“Supporting this process requires political will, resources, and active participation from civil society”. For Jarab, developing regional indicators is vital for proper implementation of the Agreement. “It is necessary to gather information from each country that has ratified the Agreement in order to contribute to the implementation of their respective national plans,” Jarab said. For Uzquiano, international attention has been essential to his defence. “The intervention of UN Human Rights has given me a sense of hope, that we are not alone,” Uzquiano said. “Their support and that of the Bolivian Ombudsman gave me the confidence to continue with my work, despite the threats and the persecution.” © OHCHR 1996-2025

Governor Mutfwang reaches to comfort traumatized survivors of terror attack near Jos. Photo Courtesy Plateau State Government's Official Facebook Page. Nigerian Diaspora Leader in U.S. Condemns Terror Spike in Plateau By Masara Kim On a damp Wednesday afternoon, July 16, Governor Caleb Mutfwang extended his hands to comfort survivors of a brutal attack the previous night that claimed 27 lives near Jos. Amid grieving elderly women and children holding placards with messages like “soldiers are killing us” and “we have the right to live,” Gov. Mutfwang made a resolute declaration: “This is terrorism; this is genocide, plain and simple.” This stance challenges the prevailing narrative from both the media and some politicians, including President Bola Tinubu who claim the attacks in Plateau State are clashes between sedentary farmers and semi-nomadic cattle herders. Yet, Mr. Mutfwang remains unyielding. “This is not a case of farmer-herder conflict,” the Governor asserted. For more than two decades, thousands have been killed in terror attacks concentrated in Nigeria’s rural farming communities. The attacks have often been attributed to militants identifying as members of the Fulani ethnicity. The Fulani, a predominantly Muslim ethnic group, number more than 20 million in West Africa, with approximately 10 million in Nigeria. Whereas Fulani members are involved in diverse professions, including politics, education, and traditional cattle herding, they are historically recognized for staging early jihad wars in West Africa. In recent years, militants identifying as Fulani have been accused of killing six times more Christians than Boko Haram, according to the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa (ORFA). The report indicates that between October 2019 and September 2023, Fulani militants and their allies killed far more civilians than Boko Haran and ISWAP combined. So-called Fulani bandits reportedly murdered 12,039 civilians, and Fulani herdsmen killed 11,948 people. In contrast, Boko Haram and ISWAP caused 3,079 civilian deaths during the same period. According to Intersociety, an international nonprofit monitoring genocide, Fulani militants have killed 15,640 Nigerian Christians in the past two years of President Bola Tinubu’s administration alone. This translates to an average of 7,820 Christian deaths annually, 650 monthly, and 22 daily. The highest casualties have been recorded in Benue and Plateau States, considered the largest Christian states in northern Nigeria. During the recent July 15 attack in Plateau State, a local pastor, who lost nine family members, recounted hearing the Fulani-speaking terrorists celebrate with shouts of ‘Allahu Akbar,’ declaring in the Hausa dialect, “We have conquered the infidels.” After burning nine of his family members, the terrorists destroyed dozens of Bibles, hymn books, chairs, and musical instruments in his library and church, all while he braced behind the door of a detached room within his compound where he kept his livestock. TruthNigeria has reported how an estimated 100-150 Fulani-speaking terrorists swarmed the Christian village of Bindi, 25 miles southwest of Jos, the capital of Plateau State, at minutes after 3:00 a.m. on July 15. Within minutes, at least 27 lives were lost. Governor Caleb Mutfwang Caleb Mutfwang questions military officials after deadly attack near Jos. Photo Courtesy Plateau State Government’s Official Facebook Page. Among the dead were at least five young children, aged three months, three, five, and seven years old, with the majority burned alive in their beds. During the two-hour raid, civilian defenders attempted to confront the invaders on the village’s outskirts. This occurred despite the presence of Operation Safe Haven soldiers, a joint military task force, located just two miles away. According to locals interviewed by TruthNigeria, the military refused to respond to distress calls. However, the home guard volunteers using homemade single-shot pipe guns were no match for the terrorists’ armed with assault rifles, according to their leader, Mr. Dung Gyang. “They attacked from four different fronts, and we had no choice but to withdraw,” Gyang told TruthNigeria. This latest incident illustrates a pattern of attacks where Fulani terrorists specifically target Christians and churches, subsequently transforming captured communities into Muslim “no-go zones” and staging grounds for further assaults. Yet, the media and politicians, including those in the United States, consistently frame these events as “clashes between sedentary farmers and semi-nomadic cattle herdsmen.” This mischaracterization deeply frustrates Governor Mutfwang and thousands of desperate citizens scrambling to defend themselves without access to their own media platforms. “I assure you; we will escalate this matter to the highest levels,” Governor Mutfwang declared. “We will deploy every resource at our disposal to end this genocide,” he added, questioning the military’s role. “How can people come and attack people and kill them in their homes, and we say they are not known?” Mutfwang queried. “We cannot continue like this. These attackers are not spirits. Real people carried out these atrocities and vanished without a trace,” he said, speaking directly to the task force commander in Riyom. “You were here, you saw them, your people engaged them, but none of them was injured, none of them was arrested, does that speak well of the operation?” “Sadly, we got intelligence for this attack, yet the attack still happened,” Mutfwang said. “You are not here on a peacekeeping mission, said Mutfwang, a former human rights attorney, to the task force officials. “You are deployed to protect the lives and property of Nigerians. Anyone threatening these lives is an enemy of the state and must be treated accordingly,” the governor went on to say. Mutfwang also commended local civilian defense efforts. “I thank our young people across these areas for their courage in defending their communities. We see you, we appreciate you, and we will continue to support you morally and otherwise to ensure that no one drives you from your ancestral lands,” he promised. The situation in Plateau State is part of a broader pattern of violence across Nigeria’s Middle Belt region, where citizens often feel abandoned by local authorities. The deterioration in Plateau State law enforcement was denounced by a former resident of Plateau who built a successful medical career in the United States. Dr. Nash Pwol, head of the Middle Belt Association in the United States, told TruthNigeria he witnessed a different reality before relocating more than 40 years ago. “The law enforcements were not so many, but the slightest thing that happened, the response was swift,” Nash told TruthNigeria. “But in this instance where human life is lost, and the law enforcement is called to it, and nothing is done, are we allowing our society to go into mayhem or total chaos?” Nash asked in a text to TruthNigeria. “This is the type of situation that makes people take the law into their hands,” he said in a phone call, drawing a parallel with the government protection afforded to animals in his community in the United States. “It is really difficult to understand it, especially when you live in a society where even animals are given such respect. It baffles me that in a society you grew up that used to do nearly the same thing, especially respect human lives, that has been totally lost,” he said, concluding, “The purpose of government is to give peace, structure and progress to the people.” © Newspaper WordPress Theme by TagDiv

By Ghaith Alsayed and Abby Sewell, July 16, 2025. Smoke rise from clashes between Syrian government forces and Druze militias in Sweida city, southern Syria, Tuesday, July 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki) Syria ‘s defense minister announced a ceasefire shortly after government forces entered a key city in southern Sweida province on Tuesday, a day after sectarian clashes killed dozens there. Neighboring Israel again launched strikes on Syrian military forces, saying it was protecting the Druze minority. The latest escalation under Syria’s new leaders began with tit-for-tat kidnappings and attacks between local Sunni Bedouin tribes and Druze armed factions in the southern province, a center of the Druze community. Syrian government forces, sent to restore order on Monday, also clashed with Druze armed groups. A ceasefire announcement On Tuesday, Syrian Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra said an agreement was struck with the city’s “notables and dignitaries” and that government forces would “respond only to the sources of fire and deal with any targeting by outlaw groups.” However, scattered clashes continued after his announcement — as did allegations that security forces had committed violations against civilians. Syria’s Interior Ministry said Monday that more than 30 people had been killed, but has not updated the figures since. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based war monitor, said Tuesday that 166 people had been killed since Sunday, including five women and two children. Among them were 21 people killed in “field executions” by government forces, including 12 men in a rest house in the city of Sweida, it said. It did not say how many of the dead were civilians and also cited reports of members of the security forces looting and setting homes on fire. Syrian interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa said in a statement that he had tasked authorities with “taking immediate legal action against anyone proven to have committed a transgression or abuse, regardless of their rank or position.” Associated Press journalists in Sweida province saw forces at a government checkpoint searching cars and confiscating suspected stolen goods from both civilians and soldiers. Israel’s involvement draws pushback Israeli airstrikes targeted government forces’ convoys heading into the provincial capital of Sweida and in other areas of southern Syria. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said the strikes sought to “prevent the Syrian regime from harming” the Druze religious minority “and to ensure disarmament in the area adjacent to our borders with Syria.” In Israel, the Druze are seen as a loyal minority and often serve in the armed forces. Meanwhile, Israeli Cabinet member and Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli called on X for al-Sharaa to be “eliminated without delay.” A soldier’s story Manhal Yasser Al-Gor, of the Interior Ministry forces, was being treated for shrapnel wounds at a local hospital after an Israeli strike hit his convoy. ‘We were entering Sweida to secure the civilians and prevent looting. I was on an armored personnel carrier when the Israeli drone hit us,” he said, adding that there were “many casualties.”The Syrian Foreign Ministry said Israeli strikes had killed “several innocent civilians” as well as soldiers, and called them “a reprehensible example of ongoing aggression and external interference” in Syria’s internal matters. It said the Syrian state is committed to protecting the Druze, “who form an integral part of the national identity and united Syrian social fabric.” Suspicion over Syria’s new government Israel has taken an aggressive stance toward Syria’s new leaders since al-Sharaa’s Sunni Islamist insurgents ousted former President Bashar Assad in December, saying it doesn’t want militants near its borders. Israeli forces have seized a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone on Syrian territory along the border with the Golan Heights and launched hundreds of airstrikes on military sites in Syria. Earlier Tuesday, religious leaders of the Druze community in Syria called for armed factions that have been clashing with government forces to surrender their weapons and cooperate with authorities. One of the main Druze spiritual leaders later released a video statement retracting the call. Sheikh Hikmat Al-Hijri, who has been opposed to the government in Damascus, said in the video that the initial Druze leaders’ statement had been issued after an agreement with the authorities in Damascus but that “they broke the promise and continued the indiscriminate shelling of unarmed civilians.” “We are being subjected to a total war of annihilation,” he claimed, without offering evidence. Some videos on social media showed armed fighters with Druze captives, beating them and, in some cases, forcibly shaving men’s moustaches. Sectarian and revenge attacks The Druze religious sect began as a 10th-century offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam. More than half the roughly 1 million Druze worldwide live in Syria. Most of the other Druze live in Lebanon and Israel, including in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast War and annexed in 1981. Since Assad’s fall, clashes have broken out several times between forces loyal to the new Syrian government and Druze fighters. The latest fighting has raised fears of more sectarian violence. In March, an ambush on government forces by Assad loyalists in another part of Syria triggered days of sectarian and revenge attacks. Hundreds of civilians were killed, most of them members of Assad’s minority Alawite sect. A commission was formed to investigate the attacks but no findings have been made public. The videos and reports of soldiers’ violations spurred outrage and protests by Druze communities in neighboring Lebanon, northern Israel and in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights, where the Israeli military said dozens of protesters had crossed the border into Syrian territory. The violence drew international concern. The U.S. envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, called the violence “worrisome on all sides” in a post on. “We are attempting to come to a peaceful, inclusive outcome for Druze, Bedouin tribes, the Syrian government and Israeli forces,” he said. ___ Sewell reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut and Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report. Copyright 2025 The Associated Press.

A group of 12 countries from across the world has committed to barring arms transfers to Israel, among other steps. Colombia's acting Foreign Affairs Minister Rosa Yolanda Villavicencio, Colombian President Gustavo Petro and Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, attend the closing ceremony a conference in Bogota, Colombia, on July 16 [Luisa Gonzalez/Reuters] A coalition of countries has announced at a meeting in the Colombian capital of Bogota that they will pursue accountability for Israeli abuses in Gaza, including by preventing the transfer of weapons to Israel. The two-day meeting concluded on Wednesday with two dozen countries agreeing to six measures to “restrain Israel’s assault on the Occupied Palestinian Territories”. They include Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Indonesia, Iraq, Libya, Malaysia, Namibia, Nicaragua, Oman, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and South Africa. “We believe in protagonism, not supplication,” said Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla, the executive secretary of The Hague Group, which organised the summit. “Today marks an end to the era of the impunity and the beginning of collective state action by governments of conscience.” Founded in January, the Hague Group seeks to bring together countries from the “Global South” — a loosely defined region of developing economies — to pressure Israel to end its war on Gaza and the occupation of the Palestinian territories. Among the steps announced by the group are the denial of arms to Israel, a ban on ships transporting such arms and a review of public contracts for possible links to companies that benefit from the Israeli occupation. The six measures also included support for “universal jurisdiction mandates”, which would allow states or international bodies to prosecute serious international crimes, regardless of where they took place. “The delegates here that have been discussing these measures for two days are calling it the most ambitious, multilateral plan since the beginning of Israel’s war in Gaza 21 months ago,” Al Jazeera correspondent Alessandro Rampietti reported from Bogota. The 12 countries that agreed to the measures, however, represent fewer than half of the 30 countries in attendance at the Bogota summit. And critics question how effective smaller economies can be in dissuading Israel from its military campaign, especially given the multibillion-dollar support it receives from the United States. Israel has given little indication that international outrage has slowed down its attacks on Gaza, even after experts at the United Nations (UN) and major humanitarian organisations compared its tactics to genocide. Israeli forces continue to displace Palestinians and restrict their access to food, fuel and water. At least 58,573 Palestinians have been killed since the war began in October 2023. While the majority of the countries at this week’s Bogota conference did not immediately sign on to Wednesday’s measures, the Hague Group expressed optimism that more could join in. In a statement, the group set a deadline of September 20 for others to participate — a date chosen to coincide with the start of the UN General Assembly. “Consultations with capitals across the world are now ongoing,” the statement said. Officials attending the summit also hailed the six measures as part of a larger effort to chip away at Israeli impunity. “Ministers, the truth is that Palestine has already triggered a revolution, and you are part of it,” said Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories. “Palestine has changed global consciousness, drawing a clear line between those who oppose genocide and those who accept it or are part of it.” Albanese was recently sanctioned by the US for her outspoken criticism of Israel’s actions. The summit has become a symbol of the growing calls from non-Western nations for world leaders to enforce international law in Gaza, where critics say Israel has consistently flouted human rights law. Developing nations such as South Africa and Colombia, which cohosted the conference, have been at the forefront of such accountability efforts. South Africa, for instance, filed a case in December 2023 at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) alleging that Israel perpetrated genocide in Gaza. And Colombia announced it would cut ties with Israel in May 2024 over its military campaign. “We came to Bogota to make history,” Colombian President Gustavo Petro said in a statement. “And we did.” © 2025 Al Jazeera Media Network

The group accused Ethiopia’s government of failing to properly investigate the deaths, which took place in the Tigray region. The wreckage of a car that had carried three aid workers who were killed in the Tigray region of Ethiopia in 2021. Giulia Paravicini/Reuters By Eve Sampson and Declan Walsh July 15, 2025 Doctors Without Borders has accused Ethiopia’s government of failing to properly investigate the slayings of three of the group’s aid workers, releasing a new report on Tuesday that implicates Ethiopian soldiers and demands that the country’s government bring the perpetrators to justice. The report was the latest turn in a four-year effort to seek accountability for a notorious episode of violence against international humanitarian workers. The aid workers’ bullet-riddled bodies were found on a remote roadside in the northern Tigray region of Ethiopia in June 2021, at the height of a brutal civil war. “Our team was executed,” Raquel Ayora, a senior official with Doctors Without Borders, told reporters in Nairobi on Tuesday. “There is no way the perpetrators could not know that they were killing civilians.” Although the report by Doctors Without Borders stopped short of explicitly naming perpetrators, it appeared to suggest that Ethiopian soldiers were responsible. That finding was broadly similar to a 2022 investigation by The New York Times that identified an Ethiopian military officer who gave orders to “finish off” the aid workers shortly before they were killed. Doctors Without Borders, which is widely known by its French name, Médecins Sans Frontières, noted that the Ethiopian government and its forces had shown increased hostility toward international aid groups in the weeks leading up to the shootings. It also said that retreating Ethiopian troops were present on the road where the team was killed. But the group said that despite repeated assurances from the Ethiopian government that an investigation was underway, the victims’ families still have not received “credible answers” about what happened. “It is both unconscionable and unacceptable that the Ethiopian authorities have consistently failed to conclude a credible investigation and share its findings,” said Paula Gil, the head of M.S.F. Spain, which employed the slain aid workers. She said that the organization “can only assume that there is insufficient political will to share the findings of a completed investigation.” The office of Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, did not respond to a request for comment. Fighters from a rebel group survey the burning wreckage of an Ethiopian Air Force plane downed in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region in 2021. Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times The war in Tigray began in November 2020 when tensions between Mr. Abiy and the Tigrayan regional government exploded into a conflict characterized by starvation, sieges and ethnic massacres — largely perpetrated by the Ethiopian military and allied forces. The aid workers — María Hernández, 35, Yohannes Halefom, 32, and Tedros Gebremariam, 31 — vanished in June 2021 while driving through the Tigray region looking for casualties from the conflict. Their bodies were later found sprawled on the roadside not far from their burned-out vehicle. The report released on Tuesday contained the findings of an internal review that the aid organization began in response to their deaths. In it, Doctors Without Borders detailed a yearslong quest for information from the Ethiopian government, including phone calls, emails and over 20 meetings with various government officials. “The review confirmed that the attack was intentional and targeted killing of three clearly identified aid workers,” Doctors Without Borders said in a statement. According to the report, Ethiopia’s government early on blamed the killings on the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, its foe in the two-year war — but the government declined to share its own findings, citing an ongoing investigation. The Ethiopian officials also claimed their forces had already withdrawn from that part of Tigray when the aid workers were killed, according to Doctors Without Borders. However, Doctors Without Borders said its review found that Ethiopian troops, retreating after a stinging defeat, were still active in the area — which corresponded with the Times investigation. “What remains to be clarified is the extent and nature of their involvement in the attack,” the report said, adding that Doctors Without Borders had received “concerning witness accounts” that “directly implicated” Ethiopian soldiers in the attack. By some estimates, over 500,000 people died as a result of the war in Tigray, and at least five million were forced from their homes in 2021 alone. The conflict ended in November 2022 with a peace deal that was brokered by the African Union with support from the United States. That fragile agreement has largely held, despite growing regional tensions and the devastating toll of the war. © 2025 The New York Times Company

One person killed and 18 injured, say Syrian officials, as Israel intervenes in clashes between government forces and Druze fighters Al Jazeera via X The Israeli military struck the Syrian defence ministry in Damascus twice on Wednesday as it intervened in the clashes between the Syrian army and Druze fighters in southern Syria in the country’s deadliest violence in months. The strikes collapsed four floors of the ministry and ruined its facade. The strikes killed one person and injured 18, Syrian officials said. It was the first time Israel had targeted Damascus since May and the third day in a row it had conducted airstrikes against the Syrian military. A spokesperson for the Israeli military said the strike on the defence ministry had been a message to the Syrian president, Ahmed al-Sharaa “regarding the events in Sweida”. The Israeli military struck Syrian tanks on Monday and has continued to conduct dozens of drone strikes on troops, killing some soldiers. Israel has said it will not allow the Syrian army to deploy in the south of the country, and that it would protect the Druze community from the Damascus government. Many in the Druze community have rebuffed Israel’s claim of patronage for fear of being viewed as a foreign proxy. The Israeli bombing added another complication to an already escalating conflict between Syrian government forces, Bedouin Arab tribes and Druze fighters. More than 250 people have been killed in four days of clashes, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). On Wednesday, the Syrian government and one of the three spiritual leaders of the Syrian Druze community announced a ceasefire. It was unclear if the truce would hold, however, as another spiritual leader, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, vowed to keep fighting, calling the government a collection of “armed gangs”. A ceasefire announced on Tuesday broke down in similar circumstances. On Wednesday night, Reuters reported that the UN security council would meet on Thursday to discuss the situation. The clashes pitting mostly Sunni government forces against Druze fighters have prompted fears of a wider sectarian conflict. An attack in March by remnants of the ousted regime of Bashar al-Assad on security forces led to violence in which more than 1,500 people were killed, most of them from the minority Alawite community. The violence is the most serious challenge to Damascus’s rule since the coastal massacres and has threatened to further push away everyday Druze from the state. The Druze, a religious minority in Syria and the wider Middle East, make up the majority of the population of Sweida province in the south of the country. They have been negotiating with the Islamist-led authorities in Damascus since the fall of Assad, in an attempt to achieve some form of autonomy. They have yet to reach an agreement that defines their relationship with the new Syrian state. The Syrian army entered Sweida on Sunday in an attempt to restore calm between Druze fighters and Arab Bedouin tribes. Fighting broke out after Bedouin tribe members robbed a Druze man on the main road south of Damascus, kicking off a cycle of retaliatory violence between the two groups. Intermittent violence between members of the Druze and Bedouin communities has been common in the area in recent years. Some Druze militias have vowed to prevent Syrian government forces entering Sweida and have attacked them, leading to escalating clashes. As government forces entered Sweida, accounts of human rights abuses began to emerge. On Tuesday around noon, armed gunmen entered a reception hall belonging to the Radwan family in Sweida and killed 15 unarmed men and one woman, three members of the family told the Guardian. The SOHR also reported the killings, though put the number of dead at 12. “I just lost nine close friends and relatives. It just makes me feel so sad. There are no weapons allowed in the [hall], it’s not like it’s a military base,” said Maan Radwan, a 46-year-old London resident whose relatives were killed in the shooting. Video of the aftermath of the shooting showed unarmed men strewn across a room lying in pools of blood. Family members said men in army fatigues prevented ambulances from reaching the reception hall, which they thought was meant to ensure the wounded died from blood loss. “We don’t know who is with general security, who are jihadists, who are Bedouin tribespeople. It’s impossible to tell who is killing us,” a 52-year old teacher and relative of the Radwan family in Sweida told the Guardian by phone. A surgeon at the Sweida national hospital said that the bodies of those killed in the Radwan house bore close-range gunshot wounds, adding that they knew many of those who were killed in the shootings personally. Sharaa issued a statement on Wednesday condemning the human rights violations. “These criminal and illegal actions cannot be accepted under any circumstances and completely contradict the principles that the Syrian state is built on,” the statement said, adding that perpetrators would be held accountable. The US special envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, posted on X saying: “Actions must follow to end violence, ensure accountability and protect all Syrians.” It was unclear who was committing the abuses against civilians, and witnesses said they could not distinguish between state security forces and militia fighters. On their private social media, two members of the government forces posted sectarian hate speech against Druze. One member of the government forces posted a video of him and two other soldiers driving through Sweida laughing as he said: “We are on our way to distribute aid,” while brandishing a machete to the camera. He filmed himself inside a house in Sweida ripping a picture of Druze spiritual leaders off a wall and trampling it with his boots. “If God grants you victory, none can defeat you. We are coming for you with sectarianism,” he continued. The Syrian defence ministry said it was “adhering to rules of engagement to protect residents”. Several civilians in Sweida city described being locked inside their home as fighting continued outside, while electricity and other basic supplies have been cut off. One 52-year-old English teacher said they had watched as their neighbour was shot dead by a hidden sniper, and that no one could collect the body for fear of being shot. A 31-year-old resident of Sweida said he watched as armed men burned the shop below his house, calling the Druze “swine” as they ransacked the neighbouring building. The Syrian interior ministry said the continued fighting could only be solved by integrating the Druze-majority province into the state and said it came “in the absence of relevant official institutions”. The killings in Sweida provoked anger among the wider Druze community in the Middle East. Some Israeli Druze in the occupied Golan Heights managed to cross the fence into Syria before being retrieved by the Israeli army. The Israeli military also said that it had reinforced its presence along the Syria-Israel border. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, issued a statement urging people not to try to cross the border into Syria. “Do not cross the border. You are risking your lives; you could be murdered, you could be taken hostage, and you are impeding the efforts of the IDF,” he said. Relations between Israel and Syria had begun to thaw before this week, with Israeli and Syrian officials engaging in security discussions and military coordination. Syria’s leadership has hinted it could eventually normalise relations with its southern neighbour. After the fall of Assad, the Israeli military launched hundreds of airstrikes against military assets in Syria and invaded the country’s south, where it continues to occupy large swathes of territory. © 2025 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. (dcr)

ICC lawyer linked to Netanyahu advisor warned Khan to drop war crimes probe or be 'destroyed' ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan was sanctioned by the Trump Administration in February and went on leave in May pending a UN investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against him. (AFP) British-Israeli lawyer, who met chief prosecutor in May, says he made suggestions about Palestine case but 'there was absolutely no threat' The British chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court was warned in May that if arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant were not withdrawn, he and the ICC would be "destroyed". The warning was delivered to Karim Khan by Nicholas Kaufman, a British-Israeli defence lawyer at the court who told Khan he had spoken to Netanyahu’s legal advisor and, according to a note of the meeting lodged on file at the ICC and seen by Middle East Eye, was "authorised" to make him a proposal that would allow Khan to "climb down the tree". He told Khan to apply to the court to reclassify the warrants and underlying information as "confidential". This, it was suggested, would allow Israel to access the details of the allegations, which it could not do at the time, and challenge them in private - without the outcome being made public. But Kaufman warned that if it emerged the chief prosecutor was applying for more arrest warrants, for far-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich over their promotion of illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, then "all options would be off the table". Kaufman told Khan: "They will destroy you and they will destroy the court." Khan and his wife, who also attended the meeting, both understood this to be a threat, according to the note of the meeting seen by MEE. Kaufman told MEE: "I do not deny that I told Mr Khan that he should be looking for a way to extricate himself from his errors. I am not authorised to make any proposals on behalf of the Israeli government nor did I." Kaufman said he had told Khan he feared that bringing more arrest warrants would encourage further US sanctions that would risk destroying the court, and that adopting a policy like "Samson" and bringing the whole court down on him and its employees would not serve the purpose for which the court was conceived. Netanyahu's office did not respond to requests for comment. At the time of the meeting, Khan was facing investigation over sexual misconduct claims. Two weeks later Khan stepped down on indefinite leave following the publication by the Wall Street Journal of new and more serious sexual assault allegations. This followed a failed attempt to have him suspended, with a United Nations probe into the allegations ongoing – and just as he was reportedly preparing to seek arrest warrants for more members of the Israeli government. Khan has strenuously denied all the allegations against him. Middle East Eye can exclusively reveal details of the prosecutor's meeting with Kaufman on 1 May this year at a hotel in The Hague, the Dutch capital which hosts the ICC. Kaufman is an ICC defence lawyer whose current work includes representing Rodrigo Duterte, the former president of the Philippines currently in ICC custody and facing trial on a charge of crimes against humanity over the deaths of thousands of people during Duterte's so-called "war on drugs." The meeting came as Khan faced mounting pressure over his investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories, which had led to the court issuing warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant in November 2024. 'Snakes in the grass' According to the note seen by MEE, Kaufman texted Khan at 10.48pm on 26 April, to offer to meet up with him to share "an insight into the Israeli mentality regarding the current state of litigation". Kaufman told Khan he had been contacted by a reporter at the Wall Street Journal. He said he had refused to cooperate but he did talk to the reporter extensively about Palestine because the reporter had heard that Kaufman had been "informally/indirectly advising Gallant". Kaufman said that he was not interested in discussing the "scandalous allegations people raise" and said it was sad that he had "to deal with the snakes in the grass in your own office". 'I felt myself at liberty to tell him my personal views on the Palestine situation and the case against the Israeli officials which I felt had brought the court into serious disrepute' - Nicholas Kaufman He asked to meet the following week and Khan agreed. Kaufman told MEE he is not advising Gallant. He said he had spoken to the Wall Street Journal journalist but had told him that he knew nothing about allegations that Khan had sexually harassed a woman in his office. He said he had told Khan he was not interested in discussing the allegations. He said by "snakes in the grass", he was referring to people at the court who were joking about the allegations and whose conduct he considered to be scandalous. He told MEE he had offered Khan a meeting "because as an Israeli ICC lawyer, who had experienced the shock of 7.10.23, I was well placed to understand the matter", and because he knew that Khan was "under fire" over the Palestine investigation. He said: "As friends, we had known each other for years, so I felt myself at liberty to tell him my personal views on the Palestine situation and the case against the Israeli officials which I felt had brought the court into serious disrepute." On the evening of Tuesday 29 April, Kaufman told Khan he had spoken that afternoon to Roy Schondorf, Netanyahu's legal advisor. According to the note, Khan agreed to meet him for a coffee while he was out with his family. They met, joined by Khan's wife, Shyamala Alagendra, at 6.30pm on Thursday at the Hotel Des Indes. According to the note, Kaufman told Khan he considered him a friend and said he had his differences with Netanyahu. However, he continued, that in his view Khan should have "gone for lower level suspects" because, he said, by indicting Netanyahu and Gallant he had "basically indicted Israel". Kaufman also mentioned he was in contact with Netanyahu's adviser, Schondorf, and knew Khan had also met him. Khan told Kaufman that he would neither confirm nor deny "any meetings I may have". "Well I know you have," Kaufman replied. Kaufman confirmed to MEE that he had spoken to Schondorf. He said: "Roy Schondorf, like me, is an Israeli lawyer and extremely knowledgeable of ICC affairs. In fact, he is one of a handful of Israeli lawyers who knows how the court works. We gossip frequently about the ICC and I told him that I would be meeting Karim Khan." Schondorf did not respond to a request for comment. According to the note, Kaufman then made a proposal that "he said he was authorised to make" - a way, as he put it, for Khan to "climb down the tree". He told Khan to apply to the court to reclassify the warrants and underlying information as "confidential". This, it was suggested, would allow Israel to access the details of the allegations, which it could not do at the time, and challenge them in private - without the outcome being made public. Kaufman asked Khan if a recent report that he was preparing warrant applications for Israeli suspects related to the West Bank was true. The conversation took place before it was reported that Khan’s office was preparing further arrest warrants for far-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich over their promotion of illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. Khan did not respond to Kaufman's question but asked why Israel did not "proceed with complementarity", which would entail investigating the alleged war crimes in the domestic courts. He said the Israeli attorney general "can easily look into this". Kaufman said this was impossible, but told him there could be a "non-criminal, non-investigative process" and Khan could give the evidence he had to that "Israeli process". But he warned that these options would be "off the table" if it emerged that Khan had applied for more warrants. According to the note, Kaufman also told Khan that if the existing warrants were not withdrawn, or if he applied for more warrants, "they will destroy you and they will destroy the court". The note records that after the meeting, Khan's wife, who is also a lawyer, said to him, "That was a clear threat." Khan agreed. Kaufman told MEE: "There was absolutely no threat." He said that he had no authority to make any proposals to Khan on behalf of Netanyahu's office. "I have no authority to make any offers such that I can take them off the table. Clearly Mr Khan thinks that I am more powerful than I am." Kaufman confirmed to MEE that he had suggested to Khan that he should reclassify the warrants as confidential so that Israel could challenge the substance of the case. He said he believed Khan was "clearly afraid to do so. He would have agreed if he was sufficiently confident of his evidence." Kaufman told MEE he had not suggested to Khan that he could give evidence to a "non-criminal, non-investigative process" in Israel and said this did not make legal sense. He said: "What I did say was that Karim Khan should trust Israel's civil society to fight for accountability in the local courts." The meeting took place less than two weeks before the Wall Street Journal published allegations that Khan was accused of sexual assault. Until then reported allegations against Khan had been of harassment - including Khan "sexually touching" the complainant, putting his hand in the complainant's pocket and demanding to be let into her hotel room in the middle of the night. Khan has denied all allegations. There is no suggestion of any connection between the Kaufman-Khan meeting and the publication of the Wall Street Journal allegations. Sanctions and threats The revelations about the warning delivered to Khan by Kaufman come with the prosecutor and the court facing unprecedented pressure from the US over the ICC's investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes. Khan was sanctioned by the US in February, and four ICC judges were sanctioned in June over their role in issuing the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant. In comments to Israel's Kan public broadcaster last month, Kaufman described the sanctioning of the judges as a "further warning shot across the bows" of the ICC which he said was "meant to be designed to encourage the dropping of the arrest warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and former defence minister Gallant". Numerous reports in the US and British media have claimed that Khan sought arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant on 20 May 2024 to win support in the context of sexual misconduct allegations against him. The Wall Street Journal claimed in an editorial on 16 May this year that Khan had used the arrest warrants to "distract from his own behaviour". It described the ICC’s case against Netanyahu as "tainted". But in fact, as previously reported by MEE, the prosecutor's decision to apply for warrants was made six weeks before allegations were made against him in late April. MEE has been told by multiple sources that on 16 March 2024, Khan's extensive team of lawyers and researchers had decided they would be in a position to apply for warrants by the end of April. On 25 March, Khan informed the US administration of his decision and forewarned them the warrants would be applied for by the end of April. Over the following two months, pressure on Khan mounted. On 23 April David Cameron, then the British foreign secretary, threatened in a phone call with Khan that the UK would defund and withdraw from the ICC if the court issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders. Last month MEE revealed details of the call, in which Cameron told Khan applying for the warrants would be like "dropping a hydrogen bomb". The British Foreign Office and Khan both declined to comment in response to the report, while Cameron did not respond to multiple requests by MEE for comment. Khan faced more pressure from other sources. In a virtual meeting with ICC officials in May, US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham threatened sanctions against them if Khan applied for the warrants, according to British barrister Andrew Cayley, who oversaw the ICC's Palestine investigation. These threats would not dissuade Khan from applying for the warrants. It was on 29 April 2024, over a month after the decision to apply for warrants was made, that one of Khan’s staff made harassment allegations against him. The allegations were referred to the court’s Internal Oversight Mechanism (IOM), its investigative body, on 3 May. But an investigation was closed days later after the woman said she did not want to cooperate with it. This means that when Khan announced he was applying for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant on 20 May, there was no investigation against him. Months later, in October, as speculation began to increase that ICC judges would soon issue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, an anonymous account on social media platform X began circulating details of the sexual misconduct allegations against Khan. According to the Wall Street Journal, an anonymous source also sent information about the allegations to journalists in an email that contained the phone numbers of the complainant and an advisor to Khan, Thomas Lynch, next to the Hebrew word for telephones. The IOM then opened another investigation, which was closed in early November. Two investigations into the allegations had been opened and closed when the UN's Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) opened its own external investigation, which is ongoing. Since being subjected to sanctions by the US in February, Khan has had his American visa revoked and his wife and children have been banned from travelling to the country. His bank accounts have also been frozen in the UK. Khan declined to comment on the matters raised in this article. He has repeatedly denied all allegations of wrongdoing. The ICC also finds itself in a precarious position.  In a further threat to the court last week, the US State Department's legal advisor Reed Rubinstein warned that "all options remain on the table" unless all arrest warrants and the investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes are dropped. The US also last week imposed sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, who it said had "directly engaged" with the ICC. If the US sanctions the court as an institution, as some experts believe it might, it would prevent many banks and software companies from dealing with it - potentially crippling the ICC's ability to function. Copyright © 2014 - 2025 .  Middle East Eye. All rights reserved. Only England and Wales jurisdiction apply in all legal matters.

India’s recent deportation drive targeting its Muslim minority was marked by home demolitions, arbitrary detentions, allegations of torture and a lack of due process. By Pranshu Verma , Tanbirul Miraj Ripon and Sahal Qureshi July 11, 2025 Gujarat police start combing through Muslim homes for remaining people ahead of demolitions on May 20 in Chandola Lake in Ahmedabad. (Zishaan Latif/For The Washington Post) SATKHIRA, Bangladesh — Indian police dragged Hasan Shah from his bed in western India one morning in late April. Later, he said, officers bound his hands with rope, placed a blindfold over his eyes and put him on a boat bound for Bangladesh. After three days at sea, Shah said, they stood him on the edge of the vessel with a life vest, untied his hands, uncovered his eyes and gave him a final order at gunpoint: “Jump into the water,” Shah remembered the officers saying. “If you look back, we’ll shoot you.” Shah said he swam to dry land, where he was picked up by the Bangladeshi coast guard and taken to the city of Satkhira, in the country’s southwest, an account corroborated by the coast guard. The documents proving his Indian citizenship were snatched by police when they detained him in his hometown of Surat in India, Shah said. He is stranded now in a foreign country, effectively stateless, separated from his wife and four children who rely on his meager income as a waste picker. “This isn’t my home,” he said near the steps of a courthouse in Satkhira. “I need to go back to India. I need to get back to my kids.” Hasan Shah, an Indian citizen born in Gujarat, India, says police took his citizenship documents and deported him to Bangladesh. (K M Asad/For The Washington Post) He is one of thousands of people, most of them Muslims, who have had their lives upended by the Indian government after an April attack by militants killed 26 people in the Himalayan vacation town of Pahalgam, in Indian-administered Kashmir. As sectarian tensions swelled across India, Gujarat’s home minister, Harsh Sanghavi, pledged to root out “each and every infiltrator.” Officials ordered raids in slums populated by Muslim laborers, branding most of those detained as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh who posed a threat to national security. While some of those targeted lacked legal status, many appeared to be Indian citizens; others were legal residents after living in the country for decades, family members said. Shah said he was born in Gujarat, and his family hails not from Bangladesh but from the Indian state of West Bengal. Shah’s mother provided copies of two of her son’s Indian national identity cards, a voter registration document and a marriage certificate. The Washington Post verified that he is registered to vote in Indian elections. His mobile phone, which is required for the two-step authentication process to verify his identity cards, is held by police, Shah said. The deportation drive targeting India’s Muslim minority was marked by mass home demolitions, arbitrary detentions, allegations of beatings and a lack of due process, according to interviews with Bangladeshi officials and more than 50 people swept up in the dragnet, as well as a Post review of government data, court documents and video footage. The crackdown — led by police, cheered by local leaders and blessed by the courts — was most severe in the northeastern Assam state and the western state of Gujarat. Both are governed by politicians from the Bharatiya Janata Party, the right-wing Hindu nationalist party led by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Between May 7 and July 3, 1,880 people were deported from India to Bangladesh, according to private Bangladeshi government data obtained by The Post. Between May 7 and June 17, 110 people were logged by border officials in Bangladesh as Indians who were wrongly deported and sent back, a separate document showed. It is unclear how many claimed Indian citizenship or residency but lacked the documentation to prove it. Bulldozers inch closer to a mosque on May 21 as they demolish a large Muslim shantytown near Chandola Lake. (Zishaan Latif/For The Washington Post) Muslim residents question police about the lack of time given to vacate their homes before they were destroyed. (Zishaan Latif/For The Washington Post) Eleven people interviewed by The Post said they were detained by Indian police without being given a chance to provide proof of their legal status. Several said that their original identity documents were taken during deportation raids and that copies they subsequently provided were written off by officials as forgeries. Video footage obtained by The Post, corroborated by witness accounts, provides a window into the treatment of deportees by Indian security forces. One shows an elderly woman left at a northern Bangladeshi border outpost begging to remain in India. She was accepted back into the country but has gone missing, according to family members. Bangladesh has sent a series of diplomatic communications to India about its recent deportations and discussions on the matter remain ongoing, according to the Bangladesh High Commission in India. India’s Ministry of External Affairs and Border Security Force did not respond to requests for comment. The deportation drive “does not just violate civil rights,” said Mohsin Alam Bhat, a human rights expert and lecturer in law at Queen Mary University of London. “It clearly violates international law,” he said. ‘Keeping Muslims in line’ Since India achieved independence in 1947, the country’s Muslims have faced persecution, prejudice and discrimination, according to human rights groups . Now making up an estimated 15 percent of the population, Muslims have routinely been demonized by right-wing Hindu politicians during moments of domestic turmoil, labeled infiltrators , and subjected to mass arrests , property destruction and police brutality . In Gujarat — a cradle of far-right Hindu nationalism where Modi began his political rise — Sanghavi, the home minister, said after the attack in Kashmir that police had been tasked with ensuring that “no illegal immigrants from any country reside in our state,” citing directions from national security meetings chaired by the prime minister. In one late April raid in the largely Muslim shantytown of Chandola Lake in Ahmedabad, 890 people were detained, including 219 women and 214 children, according to the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), an Indian human rights organization. Many were made to march for hours to the police station in the sweltering heat while news crews filmed, according to videos and interviews. Most detainees were ultimately released; it’s unclear how many were deported. Sanghavi praised the police for conducting a “historic operation.” Chaos ensues as residents hurry to salvage their metal doors and accessories to reuse or sell before everything is destroyed. (Zishaan Latif/For The Washington Post) Parveen Ismail Rangrez, 28, witnesses her home in Chandola Lake being bulldozed in front of her. She said everything is wiped out now. (Zishaan Latif/For The Washington Post) Over the next roughly two weeks, Ahmedabad city workers bulldozed some 12,500 homes in Chandola Lake, according to municipal officials, leaving thousands of families homeless. Gujarat officials argued before the state’s high court that it was necessary to regulate areas “encroached upon by illegal immigrants” in the interest of “protecting national security,” according to a sealed court filing obtained by The Post. The high court allowed the demolitions to proceed, citing Supreme Court precedent. Yunus Khan Pathan, a Muslim day laborer, was detained by police during the April raid and made to march until the soles of his feet burned, he said. He was eventually released from custody, but his house in Chandola Lake was bulldozed. Pathan said he was born and raised in Ahmedabad. The Post verified a copy of his national identity card. “Prove that I’m a terrorist,” he said. “All I have is a Muslim name.” It remains unclear how many people rounded up were in the country illegally, with activists putting the number at about 50. But few spoke out against the raid for fear of being branded “anti-nationalist,” said Mujahid Nafees, general secretary of the PUCL’s Gujarat chapter. “The public opinion is: ‘They are keeping Muslims in line,’” he said. Ahmedabad’s city police and Gujarat state police did not respond to requests for comment. ‘They beat me brutally’ Abdur Rahman, 20, said he was snatched from his bed in Chandola Lake at about 4 a.m. on April 26. Police showed no warrant and gave no reason, he said. During his 15 days in prison, Rahman said police whipped him repeatedly with a leather belt and forced him to say he was from Bangladesh. At first he refused, he said, but he ultimately gave in when the pain became too much. Rahman said he was blindfolded and put on an airplane — to where he doesn’t know — and then loaded onto a ship that smelled of dirty water. For three days, he said, security forces assaulted him with steel pipes and wires. His torso, which he showed to a Post reporter, still carries dark purple marks from the journey. “They beat me brutally,” he said. “I felt like we all were going to die.” Abdur Rahman, an Indian citizen, said police whipped him with a leather belt after he was arrested in Gujarat. (K M Asad/For The Washington Post) Rahman, like Shah, said he was given a life vest and pushed off the boat. Both recounted swimming for roughly 10 minutes before reaching a stretch of beach in the Sundarbans mangrove forests — an area that straddles eastern India and southern Bangladesh. The men described walking toward the blinking red lights of a cellphone tower. Along the way, both came across locals who called Bangladeshi officials, and soon after, the coast guard took them to Satkhira. Now they face the daunting challenge of proving they belong in India, even though their original identity documents were destroyed by police, they said. Rahman’s father provided a copy of his son’s national identity card and a school certificate that denoted his birthplace as Ahmedabad. The Post verified that Rahman’s identity card and school certificate were authentic. Regardless of whether or not the deportees are citizens, the methods used by India to ship them off — without an official treaty of deportation with Bangladesh or time for due process — are a violation of international law, said Rudabeh Shahid, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and an expert on South Asian immigration issues. The coordinated nature of the campaign, she added, beginning with home demolitions and arrests and culminating in beatings and forced expulsions, makes one thing clear. “You want a whole group to disappear,” Shahid said. “I have no other ways to describe this.” ‘I have only one life’ Not all deportees are taken by sea. When India wants to push people across its land border with northern Bangladesh, authorities turn the floodlights off at night, said Lt. Col. Mehedee Imam, a battalion commander with Bangladesh’s border guard in the city of Lalmonirhat. Under the cover of darkness, Imam said, Indian forces tell detainees to walk across the 150 yards of verdant no-man’s-land between the countries’ respective border fences. India’s border guards outnumber their Bangladeshi counterparts by a ratio of 3 to 1, Imam added, which makes it difficult to catch them in the act. It is unlawful, Imam said, to just “abandon them in the forest,” noting that there is an established process in place for Indian and Bangladeshi forces to verify a person’s nationality. Lt. Col. Mehedee Imam is a battalion commander with Bangladesh’s border guard in Lalmonirhat. (K M Asad/For The Washington Post) A view of the no-man's-land between Bangladesh and the Indian border at Lalmonirhat. (K M Asad/For The Washington Post) Misma Khatun, 72, was dropped off near Imam’s border post on May 28, Imam said. A video obtained by The Post shows her pleading with Indian forces not to leave her in Bangladesh. “I have only one life,” she said, dropping to the ground in her blue sari. Khatun told the Indian guards she was from Assam, that she had lived there her entire life and that her identity cards were back at home. Ultimately, Imam said, India allowed her to reenter the country the same day. But her family has heard nothing from her since. Her son, Abdul Suban, said he calls police and Indian border security every day; he has been told her whereabouts are unknown. “I don’t even know if she is alive,” Suban said. “How does this happen?” Qureshi reported from Ahmedabad. Supriya Kumar in New Delhi contributed to this report. © 2025 The Washington Post.

A Genocide watch REPORT series FILE- A woman holds a placard during a protest against the killing of a Muslim man in Belagavi district of the southern Indian state of Karnataka, in Bengaluru, India. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi, File) Introduction Genocide is not a sudden event. Genocide Watch views genocide as a non-linear process that develops in ten often overlapping stages that are predictable but not inevitable. In India, all the early warning signs of genocide against Muslims are present. The of threat of genocide must be addressed quickly and proactively. Genocide Watch’s ten stages framework for recognizing the warning signs of genocide prescribes preventive measures to be taken at each stage. This blog series underscores the fact that genocide in India is not inevitable. Genocide can and must be prevented. Genocide Watch calls for immediate preventive action by the Indian federal and state governments, international organizations, Indian civil society organizations, and India’s allies. In a ten-part report series , we will explain the ten unfolding stages of genocide observable in India. We will provide actionable recommendations to prevent genocide in India. Part 1 of this series will provide the historical context for genocidal violence against Muslims in India. It analyzes how the first stage of Genocide, Classification , is unfolding in India. Historical Context Religious, ethnic, and caste violence in India today must be situated in the historical context of Moghul conquest, British colonial rule, and Hindu religious nationalism. Hindu-Muslim relations in India are still fractured by the schisms that led to genocidal massacres during partition in 1947. From independence to 1992, Hindutva (Hindu supremacist) organizations like the R.S.S. were on the periphery of Indian politics. Hindutva is a fusion of Hindu fascism, fundamentalism, and nationalism. In 1992, the demolition of the Babri Masjid , a mosque in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, began the Hindutva movement’s rise in the Bharatiya Janata Party and its takeover of Indian politics. Hindu nationalists claimed that the mosque was built on the site of a destroyed Hindu temple. They claimed the site was the birthplace of the god, Ram. They have now built a huge new Hindu temple dedicated to Ram on the site of the destroyed mosque. The demolition of the medieval-era Babri Mosque by Hindu mobs in the north Indian town of Ayodhya in 1992 triggered some of the deadliest religious riots [File: Getty Images] The destruction of the mosque was an extraordinary victory for Hindu nationalism. The demolition set off Hindutva riots against Muslims. The violence it sparked across India polarized society and politics along religious lines. Taking up the ideological commitments of Hindutva, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which had only received two seats in the Lok Sabha (Parliament of India) in the general election of 1984, went on to win majorities and lead coalition governments in 1998, 1999, 2014, and 2019. No single person was more influential in the rise of Hindu militancy in India than Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883-1966), the ideological founder of Hindutva. Vinayak Damodar Savarkar rose to fame for his campaign to "Hinduise Politics and Militarise Hindudom.” Savarkar yearned for restoration of an imaginary Hindu “Rashtra” (Nation.) He asserted that Muslims and Christians can never been true Indians since their holy lands are outside of India. Savarkar imagined a once vibrant Hindu India that Muslims and Christians had destroyed. Such fantasies of a lost ideal past are often central to genocidal ideologies. Savarkar's mythic Hindu India and his notion of who might or might not be a “true Indian” became the ideology of M.S. Golwalkar, founder of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh , the extreme Hindu nationalist organization on which the BJP was built. Savarkar's Hindutva ideology underlies the beliefs of the leadership of today's BJP . Prime Minister Narendra Modi hails Savarkar as a "true son of Mother India and an inspiration for many people." Since 1992, India has had numerous massacres of Muslims by Hindu mobs. A euphemism is used to deny their genocidal nature. They are officially misnamed "communal riots." The euphemism is used to portray them as two-sided conflicts between religious groups. In fact, they have been one-sided genocidal massacres by Hindus against Muslims. The most notable of these were the 1992-1993 Mumbai (Bombay) massacres (900 dead), the 2002 massacres in Gujarat (over 2000 dead, most of those killed were Muslims), and the 2020 Delhi massacres (53 dead). Today, India is riven by 'us' versus 'them' hate speech. The pluralism enshrined in the Indian constitution is being systematically undermined and dismantled. The idea of unity in diversity is giving way to an authoritarian ideology of uniformity and Hindu domination. India's pluralistic foundations, hundreds of ethnicities, religions, and languages, make uniformity contrary to Indian history and the Indian Constitution. The only way India could attain uniformity would be through dictatorship and totalitarian intolerance. Hindutva's history of violent, extra-constitutional action has made Hindu nationalism a grave threat to the secularism and protection of diversity in India's constitutional order. Stage 1 : Classification Classification is a fundamental process in genocide. Groups of people are designated as belonging to “us” versus “them” categories. The “Others” are represented as threats to the goals, ideals, and wellbeing of those belonging to the “us” category. When one social group uses classification to exclude members of another group from the universe of its moral obligation, it becomes possible not only to classify its members, but to see its members as a threat to those who are included in "our" group. Classification is the process that reifies and expresses ethnocentrism, racism, religious bigotry, ideological intolerance, and exclusionary nationalism. In the nation-state system, a primary way in which classification is operationalized is by excluding certain groups of people from citizenship. The salience of this process as an early warning sign for genocide can be seen in the historical context of the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 in Nazi Germany. They stripped Jewish people of their German citizenship. They were a prologue to the Holocaust. A recent example is how Rohingyas in Myanmar were stripped of their citizenship using Burma's 1982 citizenship law. This denial of citizenship stripped Rohingya of their civil and political rights. As “foreigners” they could be massacred and deported from Myanmar from 2012 to 2017, when hundreds of thousands of Rohingya were forcibly deported from Myanmar to Bangladesh through genocidal terror. In India we are witnessing a similar process. With the passing of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) of 2019, migrants who entered India from bordering countries on or before 31 December 2014 are afforded a pathway to Indian citizenship. However, only migrants who are Hindu, Sikh, Parsi, Jain, Buddhist, or Christian are permitted to use this path to acquire citizenship. Muslims are excluded. Migrants belonging to most South Asian faiths, except Islam, are eligible for Indian citizenship. Protesters demonstrate against India’s Citizenship Amendment Bill in New Delhi on December 21, 2019. Sanjeev Verma/Hindustan Times/Getty Images The CAA’s invidious practice of classification excludes Muslims from the Indian national identity. The Citizenship Amendment Act is based on the Hindutva notion that Muslims are inherently non-Indian. Immigrant Muslims are therefore unworthy to become Indian citizens. The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was especially written to exclude Bengali Muslims who had migrated to Assam to escape from the 1971 genocide in Bangladesh. The Citizenship Amendment Act was coupled with the National Register of Citizens (NRC). The NRC requires the Indian government to create a register of all "Indian” Citizens. It requires everyone who claims citizenship to present documents to prove that they were Indians before 1971. Due to the CAA's differential treatment of Muslims and Hindus, when the NRC is applied, Hindus who do not have documents to prove their citizenship can obtain fast-track citizenship. Muslims cannot. The NRC is intended to exclude refugees who fled the war in Bangladesh in 1971, most of whom are Muslim. Under the CAA and NRC, refugees who entered India after 1971 are classified as "foreigners.” They are subject to detention and deportation. Fourteen new detention prisons have already been constructed in Assam to hold Bengali refugees before they are deported to Bangladesh. In 2024, the NRC has only been implemented in Assam. But nearly two million Muslims from Bangladesh have been classified as deportable “foreigners.” So far, few have been expelled from India. But they could be deported. Their Indian citizenship has been stripped from them. India has over two hundred million Muslims. Muslims constitute fourteen percent of the Indian population. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in its 2019 manifesto, promised a phased nation-wide implementation of the National Register of Citizens. Due to the differential treatment of Muslims and Hindus under the CAA and NRC, millions of Muslims could be deported. Millions more will be stripped of their citizenship and their constitutional rights. Under the NRC, India will be divided by a nationwide system of classification by religion. India could even be turned into an apartheid state. Hindus would have full rights. Muslims, Christians, and others would only have second class status. Classification is pervasive in India. Government police respond to Muslim protesters with violence and divisive language . Muslim children in school are labeled “Pakistani terrorists” by their classmates. The widespread Hindutva sentiment promoted by the BJP government is that Non-Hindus, specifically Muslims, are not truly Indian. They are instead the harmful “Other”. In claiming that India is a monolithically Hindu Rashtra (Nation), Hindutva perpetuates the politics of "othering". In 1998, before the violent 2002 Gujarat riots, widely circulated leaflets and pamphlets propagated hatred for both Christians and Muslims. One leaflet said, “We all are Hindus. Let us unite and stop the bloody tendencies of the Christians.” Similar leaflets targeting Muslims were widely distributed. This propaganda was intended to promote violence against the “other.” It demonstrates the intrinsically classificatory nature of Hindutva, the dominant ideology of the BJP. Exclusionary nationalism has taken control of India since Modi's election as Prime Minister in 2014. Genocide Watch considers laws in India that target Muslims, exclude immigrants, repress dissidents, and promote the ideology of Hindutva as Classification, an early warning stage of Genocide. Genocide Watch recommends : The Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens Act must be repealed. Hindutva leaders who incite hate crimes and genocide must be arrested and prosecuted. The U.S should impose sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act on Indian leaders who violate religious freedom and human rights or who incite their followers to commit genocide. Financial support should be provided to Indian organizations that work with Hindu and Muslim NGO leaders to overcome hatred, religious bigotry, and exclusion of immigrants. In the next part of this report, Genocide Watch will examine how the second stage of Genocide, Symbolization, is occurring in India. Read Part Two of the series here : The Ten Stages of Genocide in India - Part Two Read Part Three of the series here :  The Ten Stages of Genocide in India - Part Three Read Part Four of the series here : The Ten Stages of Genocide in India - Part Four Read Part Five of the series here : The Ten Stages of Genocide in India - Part Five

Fulani ethnic militia meeting at an unknown location in a Northwestern state of Nigreria. Wikicommons. 2,316 square miles of Choice Land Now Occupied by Terrorists: Lawmaker By Douglas Burton and TruthNigeria Investigative Team (Washington) Christian lawmakers and land holders in the embattled Nigerian state of Kaduna are accusing Gov. Uba Sani of making an underhanded deal with criminals to evict indigenous landowners from their lands, TruthNigeria has learned. Some of the leaders of the region’s native Christian populations are accusing the Kaduna State Government of colluding with Fulani ethnic militias to dispossess them of ancestral lands under the guise of “peacebuilding.” According to a former President of the Southern Kaduna Peoples Union (SOKAPU)Hon. Jonathan Asake,more than 2,316 square miles of fertile land have been forcibly taken and illegally occupied by Fulani ethnic militias—referred to by the government as “bandits”—since 2016. The affected Christian communities now live as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), surviving on aid and temporary shelter. Controversial Amnesty Sparks Outrage In November 2024, Governor Uba Sani initiated a controversial “peace deal”; with Fulani militia, also called “unknown gunmen” by police during the Buhari Administration, or “bandits,” by Tinubu Administration or “radicalized Fulani terrorists” by TruthNigeria. These criminals stand accused of mass killings, church burnings, sexual violence, and kidnappings in Southern Kaduna and throughout Nigeria’s Middle Belt. Despite their heinous crimes, the governor’s still unpublished amnesty granted the terrorists state pardons and promised rehabilitation and reintegration into society. The agreement made no provisions for reparations to the displaced Kaduna Christians, according to informed sources who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal. However, subsequent investigations by TruthNigeria have revealed that as part of the reintegration efforts, the state government is allegedly expropriating lands in Kajuru and Chikun counties—largely Christian-owned lands occupied by the Adara and Gbagyi ethnic groups—for the settlement of these so-called repentant bandit-terrorists. Secret Meetings and Land Allocation Plans Pic. Of Hon Danlami Usman Stingo, Member, Kaduna State House of Assembly, representing Kajuru County (credit: Hon. Usman Danlami Stingo). Hon. Danlami Usman Stingo, representing Kajuru in the Kaduna State House of Assembly, told TruthNigeria he received credible information about high-level meetings involving bandit leaders, government officials, and a Muslim traditional ruler held in March 2025 in Maro town. “When I sought to know the reason for the meeting, I was told that the Emir of Kajuru, Alhaji Alhasan Adamu and county officials are proposing a large swath of our lands to resettle Fulani repentant bandits,” said Stingo to TruthNigeria. “Our people were not consulted beforehand,” he added. “We cannot give our lands to terrorists who have shown us hell.” Bandit Kingpin Linked to Settlement Negotiations According to local sources, who were granted anonymity, meetings between top Fulani terrorist commanders and government officials were held on March 19 and April 20, 2025. Among those reportedly present was the notorious bandit leader known as “Yellow One Million,” reportedly killed recently by police in Zamfara State. At these discussions, militants laid out conditions for ceasing hostilities: (1) Allocation of large farmlands for settlement and livestock grazing. (2) Full immunity from prosecution for past crimes and terrorist activities. (3) Government-provided startup capital to begin new lives. One Muslim village chief allegedly proposed ceding the Kujeni and Agbala communities—straddling Kajuru and Kachia Counties—to Fulani militants and their families. Christian elders reportedly declined to participate in these meetings. “We’re talking about entire Christian communities—thousands of hectares belonging to Adara, Gbagyi, and Atyap people,” said one elder who requested anonymity. “Thousands could be displaced to make way for Fulani migrants from Niger Republic, Mali, and Mauritania.” Chikun County Lands Ceded to Criminal Gangs In neighboring Chikun County, there are already signs that the state has handed over abandoned Christian farmlands to Fulani settlers. “They handed our land to the same men who murdered my brother and torched our village,” said Markus Barde, a 50-year-old farmer from Angwan Ayaba, now living in a displacement camp near Kajuru. “The government calls this peace. To us, it feels like forced surrender.” Barde claims that his ancestral Gbagyi village—Angwan Ayaba—was taken over after all 5,000 residents fled due to terrorist attacks between 2017 and 2020. “This year, I returned with my cousins to see if we could cultivate our land, only to find Fulani settlers erecting homes and grazing freely,” he said. “It’s a large piece of land—easily the size of 200 football fields.” Jonah Gona, another displaced resident of Angwan Ayaba now living in the Sabo area of Kaduna city, confirmed Barde’s account. He recently visited the community and said he saw armed Fulani settlers on the farmland. “I was shocked. When I asked around, people told me the state government brought them in,” he said. “Some carried AK-pattern rifles and claimed the government permitted them to bear arms for protection.” Gona also reported that many of the settlers were non-Nigerian. “Our people are Christian farmers. Why is the government bringing in armed Fulani Muslim extremists who’ve slaughtered thousands? This isn’t reintegration. It’s land grabbing disguised as peace,” he said. The Case of Angwan Ayaba Angwan Ayaba is a small Gbagyi farming community in Kakau Precinct, near Juji, within Chikun County near the Kaduna–Abuja highway. It forms part of the Sabon Tasha suburban belt and lies near the villages of Kakau Daji, Babban Saura, and Angwan Gimbiya. The community has been under regular recurring attacks since 2020. A daytime raid in August 2021 resulted in the death of a resident and the injury of another. Survivors fled to Juji and now live in abandoned homes or makeshift shelters. Women and youth survive through petty trading and food vending. ‘Land for Peace’ or Ethnic Cleansing? There’s no guarantee these militants will lay down their arms,” said a local youth leader in Juji. "They will keep expanding until they take over all of Southern Kaduna and move farther south.” Indigenous Christian leaders across Kajuru and Chikun interviewed by TruthNigeria believe the so-called “peace deal” is a covert ethnic displacement plan—one that removes Christian residents and replaces them with migrants from the Sahel who are 100 percent Fulani and 100 percent Islamist. This opinion is parallel to the testimony of Legal Scholar Nina Shea, who testified to the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa the following: A 2023 study by Nigerian scholars on the herder-farmer conflict in Plateau state found that the great majority of indigenous people from non-Fulani ethnic groups believe that the motives for violence by Fulani herders are land grabbing, jihad and Fulanization. © Newspaper WordPress Theme by TagDiv

Emergency Lawyers says paramilitary force set fire to villages, killing dozens, including children and pregnant women. Soldiers of the Rapid Support Forces in the East Nile province, Sudan, on June 22, 2019 [File: Hussein Malla/ AP] A group of human rights lawyers in Sudan have accused the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of raiding and setting fire to villages in the state of North Kordofan and killing nearly 300 people, including children and pregnant women. The statement by Emergency Lawyers late on Monday came as fighting rages between the RSF and the Sudanese army in the western areas of the country. The two sides have been locked in a civil war since 2023, and the army has taken firm control of the centre and east of the country, while the RSF is trying to consolidate its control of the western regions, including North Kordofan and Darfur. Emergency Lawyers said the RSF had attacked several villages on Saturday around the city of Bara, which the paramilitary force controls. In one village, Shag Alnom, more than 200 people were killed in a “terrible massacre”, the group said. The victims were either “burned inside their homes” or shot. In the neighbouring villages, 38 other civilians were also killed and dozens more have been forcibly disappeared. The next day, the RSF carried out “another massacre” in the village of Hilat Hamid, killing at least 46 people, including pregnant women and children, the group added. “It has been proven that these targeted villages were completely empty of any military objectives, which makes clear the criminal nature of these crimes carried out in complete disregard of international humanitarian law,” Emergency Lawyers said, placing the responsibility with the RSF leadership. The United Nations’ International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Sunday that intensified fighting in the region forced more than 3,000 people to flee the villages of Shag Alnom and al-Kordi. Many have sought refuge in the surrounding parts of Bara, according to the UN agency. The United States and human rights groups have accused the RSF of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Its soldiers have carried out a series of violent looting raids in territory it has taken control of across the country. The RSF leadership says it will bring those found responsible for such acts to justice. Sudan’s civil war has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, driving more than half the population into hunger and spreading disease, including cholera, across the country. At least 40,000 people have been killed, while 13 million have been displaced. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has launched a new probe into war crimes in the western Darfur region, and on Thursday, senior prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan told the UN Security Council that her office has “reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity” are being committed there. Khan said her office has focused its probe on crimes committed in West Darfur, and interviewed victims who have fled to neighbouring Chad. She said the depth of suffering and the humanitarian crisis in Darfur  “has reached an intolerable state”, with famine escalating and hospitals, humanitarian convoys and other civilian infrastructure being targeted. “People are being deprived of water and food. Rape and sexual violence are being weaponised,” Khan said, adding that abductions for ransom had become “common practice”. © 2025 Al Jazeera Media Network

Toys, flowers, and candles are laid to honour people killed during an airstrike on Kyiv. (file) © UNOCHA/Viktoriia Andriievska 15 July 2025 I Peace and Security Relentless missile and drone strikes by Russian forces have killed and injured hundreds of civilians in Ukraine this month, continuing a devastating pattern of attacks far from the frontlines. According to the UN human rights office,  OHCHR , at least 139 civilians have been killed and 791 injured so far in July alone. “The devastating physical and psychological impact on civilians of repeated attacks in this and other conflicts cannot be captured by numbers alone,” said OHCHR  spokesperson Liz Throssell on Tuesday. Escalating attacks On the night of 12 July, Russian forces reportedly launched nearly 600 Shahed-type unmanned attack and decoy drones, along with 26 missiles, killing two civilians and injuring 41. Damage was reported across multiple regions, including Chernivtsi, Lviv, Cherkasy, Volyn and Kirovohrad – all far from active combat zones. Earlier that same week, Russian forces reportedly launched a record-breaking 728 long-range drones in a single 24-hour period. June marked the deadliest month for civilians in over three years . “People are having to spend hours sheltering (…) in basements, corridors and available refuges such as metro stations,” said Ms. Throssell. “ In some cases, they’re unable to get to shelter at all .” Health under pressure The UN World Health Organization  (WHO)  meanwhile has verified 2,504 attacks on health facilities and personnel in Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion by the Russian Federation on 24 February 2022. These strikes have hit hospitals, ambulances and first responders, including in so-called “double tap” attacks where secondary strikes follow the initial impact. “This means more than two attacks every day…Healthcare is not a safe place for patients and healthcare workers,” said Dr. Jarno Habicht, WHO  Representative in Ukraine. Access to healthcare remains especially limited in frontline areas, where personnel and supplies are scarce. Only 69 per cent of residents in those areas have seen a primary care doctor, compared to 74 per cent nationally. WHO mobile teams operating in 82 locations have conducted more than 7,500 consultations in 2025 so far . The psychological toll is also wearing people down. A recent assessment found that seven out of 10 people reported anxiety, depression or severe stress over the last 12 months, while one in two said they had experienced significant stress in just the past two months. To address this, WHO and national partners have trained more than 125,000 health workers and expanded mental health services through more than 220 community resilience centres. Despite continued deliveries of trauma kits and medical supplies by UN and humanitarian partners, the response remains critically underfunded. As of mid-July, only 35.5 per cent of the required $129 million for 2025 has been secured, leaving more than two million people without adequate medical support . Call for accountability In Geneva, Ms. Throssell highlighted the UN human rights chief ’s calls for an immediate end to hostilities and for efforts toward a just and lasting peace. “The Russian Federation’s full-scale armed attack on Ukraine must urgently be halted and work on a lasting peace in line with international law must intensify,” Volker Türk said in a statement. The High Commissioner emphasized that any sustainable solution must include accountability for serious human rights violations, the return of deported children, protection for civilians in occupied areas, humane treatment of prisoners of war, and restoration of humanitarian corridors. © 2025 United Nations