Maj. Gen. Abdul Khaliq Talaat. (Photo: Kurdistan24). Kamaran Aziz ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) — Maj. Gen. Abdul Khaliq Talaat, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) representative to the Joint Forces Command, warned on Monday that ISIS activity is on the rise across central and northern Iraq, citing fresh intelligence and ongoing operations. Speaking to Kurdistan24 on June 30, 2025, Talaat stated, “ISIS activity has intensified over the past week, particularly in areas like Khurmatu, Daquq, and the surroundings of Kirkuk.” He further revealed that earlier the same day, several ISIS militants were arrested in Anbar province. “ISIS has not been eradicated; its movements have increased,” he added. Talaat emphasized that regional instability—especially the ongoing conflict between Iran and Israel—has enabled ISIS to regroup and reassert itself. “According to our data, ISIS movements are expanding. Right now, fighting has broken out between ISIS militants and the Iraqi army in Palkana,” he noted. In a joint security operation involving the Kurdistan Region Security Forces and Iraq’s Counter-Terrorism Service, three high-ranking ISIS commanders were neutralized. Among the dead were a sector commander and two unit leaders operating in the Palkana, Daquq, and Khurmatu areas. Talaat emphasized that these regions remain unstable and vulnerable to insurgent infiltration. “No weapon comes into those regions without a cost,” he said. Talaat also confirmed that over the past week, ISIS militants had been observed in Anbar, Salahaddin, Diyala, and the regions of Khurmatu and Daquq. “It’s now clear that central Iraq—often discussed in this context—remains an area of threat from ISIS, and they’re exploiting the region’s volatility,” he told Kurdistan24. A statement released by the Kurdistan Region Security Agency on Sunday, June 29, corroborated Talaat’s comments. It announced the success of a joint operation conducted with Iraq’s Counter-Terrorism Directorate in the Palkana–Tawirk area. In a direct confrontation, security forces killed three ISIS operatives: Ayman George Ahmad al-Obaidi, known by the alias "Adam," the commander of the Suleiman Beg sector; Hussein Ali Khalaf Habib al-Mafraji, also known as Abu Azraa; Yaqub, referred to as Abu Jaban. The operation represents a significant blow to ISIS's leadership structure in the region but also highlights the enduring presence of the militant group in Iraq's central and northern belts. Security officials continue to monitor the situation closely, amid concerns that the deteriorating regional security landscape may further embolden ISIS to expand its operations. © Kurdistan24 ©Copyright 2025

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a bilateral dinner held by U.S. President Donald Trump (not pictured), at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 7, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque Summary Trump defers to Netanyahu on question of two-state solution Netanyahu cites Hamas attack as evidence against statehood He insists security must remain under Israeli control Palestinians accuse Israel of undermining statehood prospects WASHINGTON, July 7 (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday he wanted peace with Palestinians but described any future independent state as a platform to destroy Israel and for that reason sovereign power of security must remain with Israel. Speaking at the White House, where he met U.S. President Donald Trump, Netanyahu described the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip, where Hamas was in control, as evidence of what Palestinians would do with a state. Trump said, "I don't know" when he was asked by reporters if a two-state solution was possible and referred the question to Netanyahu. Netanyahu said: "I think the Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves, but none of the powers to threaten us. That means a sovereign power, like overall security, will always remain in our hands." Later he added: “After October 7th, people said the Palestinians have a state, a Hamas state in Gaza and look what they did with it. They didn't build it up. They built down into bunkers, into terror tunnels after which they massacred our people, raped our women, beheaded our men, invaded our cities and our towns, our kibbutzim and did horrendous massacres, the kind of which we didn't see since World War Two and the Nazis, the Holocaust. So people aren't likely to say, 'Let's just give them another state.' It'll be a platform to destroy Israel. "We will work out a peace with our Palestinian neighbours, those who don't want to destroy us and we will work out a peace in which our security, the sovereign power of security, always remains in our hands," Netanyahu said. "Now people will say, 'It's not a complete state, it's not a state, it's not that.' We don't care. We vowed never again. Never again is now. It's not going to happen again.” Palestinians have long sought to create an independent state in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem through a U.S.-mediated peace process. Many accuse Israel of having destroyed Palestinian statehood prospects through increased settlement building in the West Bank and by levelling much of Gaza during the current war. Israel rejects this. Cabinet ministers in Netanyahu's Likud party called last week for Israel to annex the Israeli-occupied West Bank before the Knesset recesses at the end of July. Israel's pro-settler politicians have been emboldened by the return to the White House of Trump, who has proposed Palestinians leave Gaza, a suggestion widely condemned across the Middle East and beyond. The Gaza war erupted when Hamas attacked southern Israel in October 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Some 50 hostages remain in Gaza, with 20 believed to be alive. Israel's subsequent assault on the Palestinian enclave has killed over 57,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry. Most of Gaza's population has been displaced by the war. Trump hosted Netanyahu at a White House dinner on Monday, while Israeli officials held indirect negotiations with Hamas in Qatar aimed at securing a U.S.-brokered Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal. © 2025 Reuters. All rights reserved

Judges say Taliban officials have ‘severely deprived’ girls and women of rights, including education. Afghan women and children wait to be inoculated during a vaccination programme in Aab Bareek village in the Argo district of Badakhshan province [File: Wakil Kohsar/AFP] The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for two top Taliban leaders on charges of persecuting women and girls. ICC judges on Tuesday said there were “reasonable grounds” to suspect Taliban Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhunzada and chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani of committing gender-based persecution. “While the Taliban have imposed certain rules and prohibitions on the population as a whole, they have specifically targeted girls and women by reason of their gender, depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms,” the court said in a statement. The Taliban has “severely deprived” girls and women of the rights to education, privacy and family life and the freedoms of movement, expression, thought, conscience and religion, ICC judges said. “In addition, other persons were targeted because certain expressions of sexuality and/or gender identity were regarded as inconsistent with the Taliban’s policy on gender.” The court said the alleged crimes were committed from August 15, 2021, when the Taliban seized power for a second time, and continued until at least January 20 this year. The court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, sought the warrants in January, saying they recognised that “Afghan women and girls as well as the LGBTQI+ community are facing an unprecedented, unconscionable and ongoing persecution by the Taliban”. The rights group Amnesty International welcomed the move by the ICC, saying it was an “important step towards justice”. “The announcement is an important development that gives hope, inside and outside the country to Afghan women, girls, as well as those persecuted on the basis of gender identity or expression,” Amnesty International chief Agnes Callamard said in a statement. “This is a crucial step to hold accountable all those allegedly responsible for the gender-based deprivation of fundamental rights to education, to free movement and free expression, to private and family life, to free assembly, and to physical integrity and autonomy.” Human Rights Watch also welcomed the decision. “Senior Taliban leaders are now wanted men for their alleged persecution of women, girls, and gender non-conforming people. The international community should fully back the ICC in its critical work in Afghanistan and globally, including through concerted efforts to enforce the court’s warrants,” Liz Evenson, the group’s international justice director, said in a statement. The ICC, based in The Hague, was set up to rule on the world’s worst crimes, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity. It has no police force of its own and relies on member states to carry out its arrest warrants – with mixed results. In theory, this means anyone subject to an ICC arrest warrant cannot travel to a member state for fear of being detained, but leaders such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Russian President Vladimir Putin and former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir have travelled to allied countries that are ICC members and have not been arrested. Last year, the United Nations accused the Taliban government of barring at least 1.4 million girls of their right to an education during their time in power. Taking into account the number of girls not going to school before the group came to power, the UN said 80 percent of Afghan school-age girls – a total of 2.5 million – were being denied their right to an education. Authorities also imposed restrictions on women working for nongovernmental groups and other employment, and thousands of women lost their government jobs. Beauty salons have been closed and women blocked from visiting public parks and gyms as well as travelling long distances without a male chaperone. A “vice and virtue” law announced a year ago ordered women not to sing or recite poetry in public and for their voices and bodies to be “concealed” outside the home. © 2025 Al Jazeera Media Network

Indonesia: Government’s history rewrite project that omits 1998 mass rape should be canceled. Amnesty International July 7, 2025 Activists condemn Minister Zon’s denial of the mass rape tragedy in 1998 (© AI Indonesia) Responding to the government’s project to write an ‘official history’ led by Minister of Culture Fadli Zon, the executive director of Amnesty International Indonesia, Usman Hamid, said: “Authorities must cancel the project as it risks erasing uncomfortable truths, particularly concerning grave human rights violations such as those committed during Suharto’s New Order era. Alarmingly, Minister Zon himself suggested that the new history book would adopt a “more positive tone” toward each president, glorifying economic and infrastructure achievements while ignoring past abuses. Such selective rewriting serves the interests of those in power rather than truth and justice. “Even more troubling are Minister Zon’s statements denying the mass rapes of mostly Chinese-Indonesian women during the May 1998 riots. Despite findings from the government’s fact-finding team identifying dozens of victims, he dismissed these grave human rights violations as ‘rumours’ and discredited the evidence as ‘just numbers’. The minister framed his dismissal of this issue by saying that the atrocities are a mere narrative framed by “foreign powers” to divide up the country, a typical disinformation campaign that the government often uses in responding to criticism. “History must confront all aspects of the past, both achievements and tragedies, so that future generations can learn from previous wrongdoings. However, this government’s project represents a dangerous reductionism that threatens to stifle critical thinking and weaken human rights and rule of law principles as well as retraumatize survivors who are still waiting for justice. Rewriting history and labelling it ‘official’ is an authoritarian practice that the authorities must immediately rescind.” I am also concerned about several threatening calls to a female activist who criticized Minister Fadli Zon’s denial of the 1998 mass rape, and reports of alleged intimidation against students in Jakarta after opposing the government’s history rewriting project online. A person claiming to be from the Ministry of Culture allegedly asked the university to remove their content. These acts are unjustifiable and must be thoroughly investigated. B ackground In January 2025, the Indonesian government, through the Ministry of Culture, launched an initiative to revise the country’s official history. The project involves 113 historians and aims to produce ten volumes of historical texts, with completion targeted for the 80th anniversary of Indonesian independence on 17 August 2025. Speaking at a parliamentary hearing with Commission X on Wednesday (2 July), Culture Minister Fadli Zon stated that the project is ongoing despite criticism from historians and human rights activists. Critics warn that the rewrite could omit painful historical episodes, particularly serious human rights abuses such as the May 1998 riots, during which ethnic Chinese women were subjected to mass rape. Minister Zon explained that the revision intends to emphasize the positive contributions of past leaders as a means to promote national unity. Previously, in media interviews and official statements, Minister Zon has cast doubt on the reports of mass rape during the 1998 unrest, calling them mere rumours. He also questioned the reliability of the findings from the Joint Fact-Finding Team (TGPF), established by President BJ Habibie in 1998, arguing that its conclusions lacked solid evidence and only listed numbers. The TGPF report, released on 23 October 1998, documented 52 rape cases, 14 incidents of rape with additional violence, 10 cases of sexual assault or abuse, and nine instances of sexual harassment. Most of the victims—especially those who were raped—were ethnic Chinese women. To this day, the Indonesian government has not followed up with a full investigation into the sexual violence reported during the 1998 riots. The 1998 unrest, which took place alongside the fall of President Suharto, remains a deeply sensitive topic. Human rights groups continue to call on the government to formally recognize and investigate the sexual violence that occurred during the riots. Activists stress that the ongoing failure to pursue justice perpetuates silence, fear, and stigma among survivors. A female activist who was once known as a companion to victims of the mass rape in May 1998, Ita Fatia Nadia, received terror via telephone after criticizing Minister Zon’s statement. Ita was frequently intimidated by an unknown number on 15 June after becoming one of the speakers at a virtual press conference that responded to Minister Zon’s denial regarding the mass rape incident. There is also a report that some student activists of the State University of Jakarta were allegedly intimidated on 5 July after posting their opposition to the government’s history rewrite project on their social media account. This occurred after a person claimed to be from the Ministry of Culture urged the university to remove the students’ content. © 2025 Amnesty International Indonesia

Image by JamesDeMers  from Pixabay Alligator Alcatraz Isn’t Just a Prison. It’s a Mirror. And It’s Asking Us: Who Are We, Really? The most dangerous thing about Alligator Alcatraz isn’t the alligators. It’s the message... Thom Hartmann Jul 02, 2025 Share When Louise and I lived in Germany in 1986/87, we visited Dachau with our family. The crematoriums shocked our children, but even more so because this was simply a “detention facility” and not one of Hitler’s death camps. The ovens were for those who had been worked to death or killed by cholera. The death camps, it turns out, were all located outside of Germany so Dear Leader could deny responsibility for them. You know, like Gitmo. Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” (aka the “GOP Donor Fellatio Act”) contains a 13-fold increase in ICE’s budget, turning it into the largest single (secret, masked) police force in America, along with, in aggregate, close to $100 billion to build a new series of “detention facilities” all across America. If this passes, soon the country will pockmarked  by concentration camps. As Trump said yesterday: “Well, I think we'd like to see them in many states, really, many states. This one, I know Ron’s doing a second one, at least a second one, and probably a couple of more. And, you know, at some point, they might morph into a system where you’re going to keep it for a long time.” Let’s stop pretending. Let’s stop dancing around the language, around the morality, and around the history. What’s being built in the Florida Everglades, for example — what they’re calling “Alligator Alcatraz” — is not just another immigration facility. It’s a political prison engineered not merely to detain, but to humiliate, dehumanize, and broadcast terror. It’s America’s first open-air symbol that our democracy is not just dying: it is being dissected publicly, cruelly, and with calculation. Donald Trump is back in the White House. The Republican Party controls Congress. And with a permanent “immigration emergency” in place, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is running point on an experiment in authoritarian governance. Alligator Alcatraz is the proof-of-concept. Rising in a remote wildlife preserve in Big Cypress National Preserve — Indigenous land, no less — Alligator Alcatraz is expected to hold thousands of undocumented migrants. Some reports say 1,000 at launch; others say 5,000. Either way, it is the largest civilian detention project built on U.S. soil in a generation. It’s surrounded by dense marshland, home to pythons and alligators. “Let them try to escape,” Trump smirked at a recent rally. “They better know how to run from an alligator.” This isn’t just cruelty. It’s performance. It’s state-sponsored sadism, broadcast as patriotism. DeSantis and Trump are now competing in a bizarre effort to show who can be more cruel. But it’s not unprecedented. If you want to understand what’s happening in Florida, you have to travel back to 1933, to a small, remote town in Bavaria. When Adolf Hitler seized power in Germany, the first thing he built wasn’t a tank or a warship. It was a “detention facility.” The Dachau concentration camp, opened in March 1933 just three months after he became Chancellor, was described at the time as “the first concentration camp for political prisoners.” As the Dachau memorial site explains , “From the very beginning, the camp was a place of brutality. During the first years, most prisoners were political opponents of the Nazi regime.” They weren’t criminals. They weren’t traitors. They were “undesirable immigrants.” Trade unionists. Communists. Jews. Catholics. Writers. Teachers. Students. They were anyone the regime considered a threat or a convenient enemy. The Nazis didn’t hide Dachau. They advertised it. It was a warning. A message. Step out of line, and this is where you go. Sound familiar? Alligator Alcatraz is not Dachau. It’s not exterminating people. Yet. But Dachau didn’t begin as a death camp either. It began as a “protective custody” facility, built on the idea that “certain people” posed a threat to the national body simply by existing. That’s what Florida’s new facility represents. Not immigration enforcement. Not public safety. Protective custody for political purposes. Under Trump’s new national emergency framework, virtually anyone deemed “unlawfully present” can be detained indefinitely without trial. That means asylum seekers. Victims of trafficking. Children. And if you believe this won’t expand — if you believe this power will remain solely focused on brown-skinned migrants fleeing violence in Central America — then you haven’t read a history book lately. Stripping people of their citizenship is called denaturalization , and it was one of Hitler’s favorite tools against his enemies and Jews, who were referred to as “undesirable foreign elements” and denaturalized en masse  in 1935. Trump’s DOJ just updated their guidelines relating to the 25 million American citizens who first came to this country as immigrants and then obtained citizenship through the naturalization process. It used to be that you could only lose your citizenship if you committed a serious enough crime. And, yesterday, Trump said : “Many of them were born in our country. I think we ought to get them the hell out of here, too, if you want to know the truth. So maybe that'll be the next job that we'll work on together.” So now, the DOJ says , Trump can choose to denaturalize anybody and then immediately send them to Alligator Alcatraz:   “Any other cases referred to the Civil Division that the Division determines to be sufficiently important to pursue [may be stripped of citizenship]. These categories are intended to guide the Civil Division in prioritizing which cases to pursue; however, these categories do not limit the Civil Division from pursuing any particular case , nor are they listed in a particular order of importance. Further, the Civil Division retains the discretion to pursue cases outside of these categories as it determines appropriate . The assignment of denaturalization cases may be made across sections or units based on experience, subject-matter expertise, and the overall needs of the Civil Division .” (emphasis added) And as a special bonus, the memo notes that stripping American citizens of their citizenship is a civil, not criminal, process so you are not entitled to have a lawyer or any of the other normal aspects of legal procedure like a trial that we generally think of as our rights. Franz Kafka would be proud. Dachau didn’t just hold communists. Over time, it expanded to include denaturalized Jews, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roma, and anyone who opposed Nazi policy. It became a national crucible of cruelty. It normalized the idea that “certain people do not deserve legal protections.” That is the fire that Alligator Alcatraz is stoking today. How is this being done? Through a cunning abuse of emergency powers. Florida has been under a rolling immigration “state of emergency” since 2023, a legal status that allows the governor to bypass environmental protections, override public procurement processes, and redirect funds without oversight. Sound familiar? It should. The Nazis used the 1933 Reichstag Fire Decree to grant themselves emergency powers in perpetuity. One crisis, one convenient boogeyman, and suddenly all democratic guardrails are removed. Today, DeSantis is using FEMA funds intended for hurricane victims to build migrant cages. Tomorrow, it could be protesters. Journalists. Teachers. You. This isn’t alarmism. It’s precedent. Let’s talk about the location, because it matters. Big Cypress is a remote and largely inaccessible swamp, home to endangered species, sacred Indigenous land, and — now — a prison surrounded by natural predators. Human rights lawyers and journalists will find it hard to access. Escapes will be all but impossible. Oversight will be nonexistent. That’s by design. Dachau, too, was deliberately chosen for its isolation. As the memorial website explains : “The camp was constantly expanded and served as the prototype and model for all later concentration camps.” It became a template. A blueprint. And its very existence reshaped what the German public considered “normal.” Alligator Alcatraz is the same. A testing ground. If it succeeds — not as a legal institution, but as a political spectacle — there will be more. One in Texas. One in Arizona. One in Arkansas. Maybe even one in your backyard. The most dangerous thing about Alligator Alcatraz isn’t the alligators. It’s the message. The message that some people are less than human. That caging them is acceptable. That they deserve no rights, no hearing, no compassion. Just mud and barbed wire. That was the logic behind Dachau. And it’s becoming the logic behind Trump’s America. This facility is being built not to solve a problem, but to create one. To manufacture outrage. To train the public to see brown-skinned immigrants not as workers or families or survivors but as invaders. Intruders. Animals. And that’s when the door opens for something far worse. We cannot afford to wait. We cannot afford to be polite. The time for half-measures and technocratic rebuttals and “strongly worded letters” is over. America stands at a crossroads. Down one road lies the fragile promise of democracy: messy, imperfect, but built on the belief in human dignity and the rule of law. Down the other lies the swamp — literal and figurative — where cruelty is policy, and fear is law. Alligator Alcatraz isn’t just a prison. It’s a mirror. And it’s asking us: Who are we, really? The answer, as always, is up to us. We must engage: — Lawsuits : Civil liberties groups and Indigenous tribes must continue challenging this facility in court. Environmental statutes, tribal treaties, and international human rights laws can still be leveraged. — Documentation : Journalists must risk everything to document the construction, conditions, and policies of Alligator Alcatraz. We need eyes in the swamp, or darkness will reign. — Direct Action : Peaceful protest, civil disobedience, and national mobilization must become central. This is a fight for the moral compass of our country. — Language : Stop calling this a “detention center.” Call it what it is: a political prison. A migrant concentration camp. Words matter. — History : Teach your neighbors about Dachau. Show them how it started. Not with mass extermination, but with silence. With a single camp, surrounded by a fence, where people were put “for their own protection.” Democracy doesn’t fall all at once. It decays from the inside. It erodes at the margins. It disappears not with a bang, but with a shrug. The United States of America has reached a threshold. We can step back and reaffirm our commitment to human dignity, to due process, to liberty and justice for all. Or we can cross into the swamp. And never come back. Dachau was the beginning of something monstrous. Let Alligator Alcatraz be the end of something: the end of our innocence, the end of our complacency, and the start of a renewed resistance. Because if we wait too long, we may wake up one day and discover we are no longer the land of the free, but only the home of the caged. The Hartmann Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Copyright 2025 The Hartmann Report See also: https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/the-new-nazism

by MONIKA PRONCZUK and SAM MEDNICK In this image from video posted on a Wagner Group-affiliated Telegram channel in July 2024, a man in a Burkina Faso armed forces uniform uses a machete to cut up a dead body lying on the ground. (AP Photo) DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Editor’s Note: This story contains graphic images and descriptions of atrocities. The International Criminal Court has been asked to review a confidential legal brief arguing that the Russia-linked Wagner Group has committed war crimes by spreading images of apparent atrocities in West Africa on social media, including ones alluding to cannibalism. The brief was seen exclusively by The Associated Press. Violence in the Sahel, an arid belt of land south of the Sahara Desert, has reached record levels as military governments battle extremist groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group. Last year, it became the deadliest place on earth for extremism, with half of the world’s nearly 8,000 victims killed across the territory, according to yearly data compiled by the Institute for Economics and Peace. While the United States and other Western powers withdraw from the region, Russia has taken advantage, expanding military cooperation with several African nations via Wagner, the private security company closely linked to Russia’s intelligence and military. Observers say the new approach has led to the kind of atrocities and dehumanization not seen in the region for decades. Social media offers a window into the alleged horrors that often occur in remote areas with little or no oversight from governments or outside observers. Experts say the images, while difficult to verify, could serve as evidence of war crimes. The confidential brief to the ICC goes further, arguing that the act of circulating the images on social media could constitute a war crime, too. It is the first such argument made to the international court. Here are some takeaways from AP’s report on the issue. Videos that humiliate and dehumanize The brief, along with AP reporting, shows that a network of social media channels, likely administered by current or former Wagner members, has reposted content that the channels say is from Wagner fighters. They promote videos and photos appearing to show abuses by armed, uniformed men, often accompanied by mocking or dehumanizing language. In the videos, men in military uniform are shown butchering corpses of what appear to be civilians with machetes, hacking out organs and posing with severed limbs. One fighter says he is about to eat someone’s liver. Another says he is trying to remove their heart. While administrators of the channels are anonymous, open source analysts believe they are current or former Wagner fighters based on the content as well as graphics used, including in some cases Wagner’s logo. AP analysis of the videos confirms the body parts shown are genuine, as well as the military uniforms. The videos and photos, in a mix of French and local languages, aim to humiliate and threaten those considered the enemies of Wagner and its local military allies, along with civilian populations whose youth face pressure to join extremist groups. But experts say it often has the opposite effect, prompting reprisal attacks and recruitment into the ranks of jihadis. The governments of Mali and Burkina Faso earlier condemned the graphic videos and said they would look into them, but it is not clear whether anyone in them has been identified. Russia’s presence continues The U.S. State Department has described Wagner, a network of mercenaries and businesses, as “a transnational criminal organization.” Wagner did not respond to AP questions about the videos. Since Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash in 2023, Moscow has been developing a new organization, the Africa Corps, as a rival force under direct command of Russian authorities. Earlier this month, Wagner announced its withdrawal from Mali , declaring “mission accomplished” in a Telegram post. In a separate Telegram post, Africa Corps said it is staying. In Mali, about 2,000 Russian mercenaries are fighting alongside the country’s armed forces, according to U.S. officials. It is unclear how many have been with Wagner or are with the Africa Corps. Outrages on personal dignity Under the Rome Statute that created the ICC, the violation of personal dignity, mainly through humiliating and degrading treatment, constitutes a war crime. Legal experts from UC Berkeley, who submitted the brief to the ICC last year, argue that such treatment could include Wagner’s alleged weaponization of social media. The brief was submitted to the ICC before the U.S. sanctioned the court earlier this year. It asks the ICC to investigate individuals with Wagner and the governments of Mali and Russia for alleged abuses in northern and central Mali between December 2021 and July 2024, including extrajudicial killings, torture, mutilation and cannibalism. It also asks the court to investigate crimes “committed through the internet, which are inextricably linked to the physical crimes and add a new dimension of harm to an extended group of victims.” The ICC told the AP it could not comment on the brief but said it was aware of “various reports of alleged massive human rights violations in other parts of Mali,” adding that it “follows closely the situation.” Its Office of the Prosecutor said investigations have focused on alleged war crimes committed since January 2012, when insurgents seized communities in Mali’s northern regions of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu. Lack of accountability Human Rights Watch has documented atrocities committed in Mali by Wagner and other armed groups. It says accountability for alleged abuses has been minimal, with the military government reluctant to investigate its armed forces and Russian mercenaries. It has become difficult to obtain detailed information on alleged abuses because of the Malian government’s “relentless assault against the political opposition, civil society groups, the media and peaceful dissent,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, the group’s Sahel researcher. That has worsened after a U.N. peacekeeping mission withdrew from Mali in December 2023 at the government’s request. That void, she said, “has eased the way for further atrocities.” Copyright 2025 The Associated Press.

The New York Times July 6, 2025 By Farnaz Fassihi Parin Behrooz  and Leily Nikounazar The June 23 airstrikes on Evin prison, including the hospital ward, have turned it from a hated symbol of oppression into a new rallying cry against Israel, even among the Iranian regime’s domestic critics. Credit: Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times Ceilings, walls and wooden cabinets collapsed into heaps of jagged debris in the prison’s visitor center. Scorched papers and brightly colored case files lay scattered amid broken bricks and tangled wires in the administration building. Shattered glass covered patient beds and equipment in the infirmary. Evin prison in Tehran stands out in Iran as a singular symbol of oppression, its notorious reputation reaching far beyond the country’s borders. For five decades, Iran’s rulers, from the shah to the clerics, have used Evin as the place to punish dissent with detention, interrogation, torture and execution. When Israel struck the prison with missiles on June 23, the attack generated widespread condemnation and fury in Iran, even among opponents of the authoritarian government. The strikes were the deadliest of the 12-day Israel-Iran war. Iran has said 79 people were killed and dozens injured in the Evin attack, but casualty numbers are expected to rise. Among the dead and wounded were visiting family members of prisoners, social workers, a lawyer, physicians and nurses, a 5-year-old child, teenage soldiers guarding the doors as part of mandatory military service, administrative staff and residents of the area, according to Iranian media reports, activists and rights groups. Israel’s June 23 airstrikes on Iran’s Evin prison, where hundreds were held, killed 79 people and destroyed much of the prison including the visitor center, above, which also housed. the prosecutor’s office. Credit: Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times About 100 transgender inmates are missing after their section of the prison was flattened, and the authorities say they are presumed dead, said Reza Shafakhah, a prominent human rights lawyer, who added that the government often treats being transgender as a crime. The chief prosecutor of the prison, Ali Ghanaatkar, despised by government critics for his handling of political prisoners, and one of his deputies also were killed. The Israeli military declined to comment about the purpose of the attack on Evin or the casualties. Israeli officials have described the attack on Evin as “symbolic.” Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, in a social media post, suggested that it was both retaliation for Iranian missile strikes on civilian structures, and somehow an act of liberation. But in Iran, prisoners, families, activists and lawyers said that Israel’s action had shown total disregard for the lives and safety of the prisoners. They said the timing of the attack, at noon during a working day, also meant that the prison had been full of visitors, lawyers, medical and administrative staff. Narges Mohammadi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who is Iran’s most prominent human rights activist, said in a statement that Israel’s attack “carried out in broad daylight, in front of families and visitors, is clearly a war crime.” Ms. Mohammadi has spent decades in and out of Evin, and is currently out on furlough. Siamak Namazi, a 53-year-old Iranian American businessman who was detained in Evin for eight years on espionage charges that the United States and rights groups described as bogus, said that prisoners, like many ordinary Iranians, feel trampled by two ruthless powers. “What I hear from prisoners and my friends there is that they feel stuck between the two blades of a scissors, the evil regime that imprisons and tortures them and a foreign force dropping bombs on their heads in the name of freedom,” he said. Cars parked outside Evin prison were destroyed in Israel’s strikes. Credit: Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times Amnesty International has called on Iran to immediately release political prisoners, and said in its Persian social media account that Israel’s attack on Evin could constitute a war crime. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights spokesman Thameen Al-Kheetan called the attack “a grave breach of international humanitarian law.” This account of what transpired at Evin during and just after Israel’s attack is based on interviews with more than a dozen families of prisoners, lawyers representing them, former prisoners in contact with current ones, written testimonies from current prisoners, photos and videos by independent journalists and Iranian media reports. The Attack At around noon on a sweltering summer day, Leila Jaffarzadeh, 35, the mother of a year-old baby girl, arrived at Evin clutching a bag of documents. The authorities had agreed to furlough her husband, Milad Khedmati, jailed on financial charges. Ms. Jaffarzadeh was on the phone with her husband as she approached the visitor center when the first explosions rocked the prison. She screamed, telling him, “they are bombing, bomb, bomb, bomb,” then the line went dead. Shrapnel had pierced her brain, killing her, said her brother-in-law, Hossein Khedmati, a writer and poet, in an interview from Tehran. The exterior of Evin prison’s three-story visitor center and prosecutor’s office near the entrance to the prison as seen from the road. Evin prison sits in a leafy hilltop residential neighborhood in northern Tehran. Credit: Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times Reaching the scene within an hour, Hossein Khedmati said, he saw smoke, flames and carnage in every direction — broken and dead bodies, shredded clothes and loose shoes scattered in the debris. Emergency responders carried the injured on stretchers to ambulances. He found his sister-in-law in a body bag. “I can’t fathom that Leila is no longer with us and Nila will grow up without her mother,” he said. “Telling my brother his wife was dead was the hardest thing I have done in my life.” Zahra Ebadi, a social worker at the prison, could not find child care on thatday, so she took her 5-year-old son, Mehrad, to work. He was playing in the visitor area while his mother finished some paperwork in an office, according to her cousin, Tahereh Pajouhesh, who was interviewed by the Shargh Daily newspaper. After the first blast, Ms. Ebadi ran to find her son, but another explosion killed her, Ms. Pajouhesh said. A male colleague had grabbed Mehrad to shield him, but debris crushed and killed both of them. Four other female social workers also were killed, according to Iranian media reports. Mina, 53, said she had been talking by phone with her son who is serving a five-year sentence in Evin for political activism. The call cut off abruptly. She redialed, again and again. When he finally answered he told her the prison had been attacked, she said, and she headed for the prison. Mina asked that her last name and the name of her son not be published out of fear of retribution. “My legs went numb and my body started shaking. I don’t know how I got myself to Evin despite all the obstacles,” Mina said in a telephone interview. “Security guards wouldn’t let me get through. Other family members were there too. I eventually got myself to the strike site by yelling and screaming.” She said she counted at least 15 dead bodies on the ground. Iranian news media reported that at least two locations in the prison had been hit directly, the three-story visitor center near the main entrance, which also housed the prosecutor’s office, and the 47-bed hospital clinic inside the compound. Forensic Architecture, a research agency that specializes in visual investigations, said on Friday that its analysis of satellite images showed at least six strikes on Evin, four confirmed by photos taken at the scene, including hits on several of the prison’s dormitories. The library, the grocery shop, the warehouse storing food and the infamous 209 ward controlled by intelligence forces were also destroyed. Iran’s police force said it had detonated two unexploded missiles in the area of Evin, according to Iranian media reports. The blasts also extensively damaged surrounding residential and commercial buildings and vehicles, photographs and videos showed. A photographer who visited the prison on the Sunday after the June 23 attack described a pungent smell from burned and decaying flesh in the rubble. Iranian media reported that the morgue was using DNA tests to identify body parts and corpses burned beyond recognition. “The prisoners lived in constant fear, believing each moment could be their last,” said Nasrine Setoudeh, a prominent lawyer and former Evin prisoner whose husband and fellow political activist, Reza Khandan, was detained there. “It took an hour for Reza to call and confirm he was safe. That hour felt like an eternity.” The Aftermath The families of four political prisoners have released the inmates’ detailed accounts of the strikes and their aftermath, either in statements shared with The New York Times or on social media. They are Abolfazl Ghadyani and Mehdi Mahmoudian, two prominent political dissidents; Mostafa Tajzadeh, a former minister of the interior who is a vocal critic of the government, and Mr. Khandan, Ms. Setoudeh’s husband. In addition, 13 other prisoners made a joint statement, others have released more general accounts and four female prisoners told BBC Persian of events inside the women’s section. They all described sudden, all-encompassing chaos: Buildings rocked walls crumbled, windows shattered, doors blew off hinges, smoke and dust clouded the air, and people lay bloodied — shouting for help if they were conscious. A group of male prisoners ran into the courtyard and found the clinic in flames. The warehouse storing food and personal hygiene supplies was ravaged. Prisoners from the solitary confinement building and their guards wandered outside through blown out doors, dazed. The four women told the BBC that for more than three hours no outside help arrived and phone lines were cut. They tended to the wounded and cleaned up shards of glass and other debris. A crater caused by an Israeli missile strike on the administrative office inside Evin prison. The attack happened at noon during working hours and family visitation time. Credit: Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times Mr. Tajzadeh told his wife, Fakhri Mohtashamipour, that he had been pacing the hallway on his daily exercise when the first bombs detonated, and would have died if he had been inside his cell, which was flattened. She said in an interview that he managed a quick phone call to her that evening saying the prison had lost power, water and gas, and prisoners were forced to huddle in the dark, in a half-collapsed building. In the first few hours prisoners helped with recovery efforts. They recounted evacuating survivors from the clinic and digging through rubble with their hands, uncovering about 20 bodies. According to a statement by Mr. Mahmoudian and Mr. Ghadyani, among those severely injured was a female physician, whom they identified only as Dr. Makarem, an infectious disease specialist who lost an arm and leg and who had volunteered at the prison clinic once a week. In the afternoon, they said, security forces had swarmed the prison, and at gunpoint forced the men helping with rescue operations to go back inside. Late that night, male prisoners were shackled in pairs at the wrists and ankles, and marched out, again at gunpoint. Those who wrote detailed accounts said each was allowed a plastic bag with whatever remained of their belongings. Collapsed wall pieces and other debris inside Evin prison’s visitor center, where families had been waiting to see their loved ones. Credit: Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times They clambered in the dark through the ruins of the prison, over tangled wires, broken bricks and dead bodies. Some people collapsed. Some cried. It took more than an hour to reach the evacuation buses awaiting them through a back opening because the front gate was impassable, a distance that would normally take five minutes. “We marched in the tunnel of horror, our feet chained, our hands clutching plastic bags with some of our belongings, forming a lone line through the rubble,” said Mr. Ghadyani and Mr. Mahmoudian in their joint statement. “Here, caught between two threats, we are victims and hostages.” Mr. Khandan, a human-rights activist and graphic designer by trade, said the chains cut into his flesh with every step and he fell several times. He also abandoned the plastic bag containing his belongings, finding it impossible to carry it with chained hands. As the prisoners reached the buses around 3 a.m., he said, a new round of Israeli attacks erupted, along with the firing of Iranian air defenses. “Fear overcame us. It was impossible to move fast and take shelter because our hands and legs were tied to one another,” Mr. Khandan said. The convoy of buses, escorted by security vehicles, eventually departed, snaking its way amid airstrikes to Fashafouyeh prison, a facility on the outskirts of Tehran, known for unsanitary, overcrowded conditions. Mr. Khandan said they arrived at 8 a.m., about 20 hours after the attack, not having received food or water since the security forces arrived. Female prisoners also were evacuated by force, shackled in pairs, and transferred to Gharchak prison, a different overcrowded facility on Tehran’s outskirts the following morning. Fariba Kamalabadi, a Baha’i faith leader serving a 20-year sentence, told her family that conditions for the women had deteriorated so badly, “I wish we had died with the missiles,” her daughter told BBC Persian. The judiciary says Evin is now empty. Mr. Shafakhah, the lawyer representing some of the political prisoners, said, “We can assume Evin prison is closed forever, but oppression is not limited to a location, they will continue elsewhere.” © 2025 The New York Times Company

The Togolese authorities must put an end to unnecessary and excessive use of force against protesters, said Amnesty International, amid the latest violent crackdown on protests in the capital, Lomé, since 26 June. The organization spoke with 18 victims and witnesses. Thirteen described a pattern of unlawful use of force and mistreatment by police and security forces against protesters and passers-by. These cases must be independently and transparently investigated as a matter of urgency. Marceau Sivieude, Amnesty International’s interim Regional Director for West and Central Africa These protests, considered illegal by the authorities, are the latest in a series of demonstrations since the beginning of June against the repression of dissent, the high cost of living and changes to the constitution. Last month, Amnesty International documented allegations that protesters had been tortured or subjected to ill-treatment. “In recent days, we have interviewed people who have alleged that men identified as security forces carried out unlawful killings, arbitrary arrests and detentions, acts of torture and other ill-treatment, and several cases of abduction. These cases must be independently and transparently investigated as a matter of urgency,” said Marceau Sivieude, Amnesty International’s interim Regional Director for West and Central Africa. Reports of unlawful use of force by security forces Thirteen people interviewed by Amnesty International said that men in uniform, suspected to be members of security forces and people described as ‘militiamen’ used unnecessary and excessive force and violence. A man living in Avénou said: “On 30 June, everything was quiet in our neighbourhood. Suddenly three pick-ups and a car came speeding down our street. Everyone started running away. Men forced their way into our house. They made us get out and told us to kneel down. They were all in civilian clothes. They pointed their guns at us and then they beat us. They left, saying they were going to come back.” A 38-year-old man said: “On 26 June at around 3pm, I was taking part in a protest in Attiégou, when a group of soldiers attacked me. They hit me hard. I ended up losing consciousness and some young people took me for treatment.” A 17-year-old teenager said he was arrested on 26 June by gendarmes and held for five days, first at the Zorobar gendarmerie station, then at the former national gendarmerie headquarters and the Avepozo gendarmerie camp. “They put us on our knees with our arms raised. If we lowered our arms, they hit us with cords […]. All day long, we only drank one sachet of water”. The teenager says he is still suffering from back pain. According to him, more than 40 people were detained with him at the gendarmerie on 30 June, including other children. Two men and a woman have been missing since 27 June. They were allegedly abducted by unidentified men from a house in the Adidogomé neighbourhood. In a video broadcast live on Tik Tok on 27 June by one of the victims, people were seen bursting into the room, and then the video cut. In the preceding days, he had published several videos in support of the protests and denouncing arbitrary arrests. All light must be shed on these deaths and the whereabouts of those who have disappeared. Fabien Offner, researcher at Amnesty International’s regional office for West and Central Africa At least seven people found dead, including children The parents of a 16-year-old boy found dead in the Bè lagoon on 27 June told Amnesty International that members of the security forces in black uniforms had entered the neighbourhood the previous day and that tear gas shots had been heard. The boy’s body was found along with that of another child. In a statement shared on 29 June, Togolese civil society organizations reported the deaths of seven people, whose bodies were found in rivers in Lomé, and mentioned ‘beatings’ and ‘arbitrary arrests of passers-by, youth, and older people’, and ‘chases […] of young people, sometimes children, forced to take refuge in the lagoon’. The statement also mentioned ‘bullet holes in three bodies found in the Bè lagoon on 27 June […] and testimonies of local residents who reported gunshots’. “All light must be shed on these deaths and the whereabouts of those who have disappeared. Those detained for exercising their right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly must be released,” said Fabien Offner, researcher at Amnesty International’s regional office for West and Central Africa. The government announced on 29 June that the bodies found were those of people who had ‘drowned’, citing ‘the results of forensic analyses’. “We don’t know the exact number of people brought before the court and those still in custody”, lawyer Darius K. Atsoo said to Amnesty International. According to him, as of 30 June, 18 people arrested on 26, 27 and 28 June had been released and 31 were still being held in custody following hearings before the public prosecutor. On 2 July, at least six people had not been found by their families, according to testimonies. Background Since the adoption of a new constitution in April 2024, power has been concentrated in the hands of the President of the Council of Ministers, the leader of the majority party. Former president Faure Gnassingbé, who has been in power since the death of his father in 2005, assumed this post on 3 May 2025. In recent years, the Togolese authorities have regularly banned peaceful gatherings and meetings of political parties and civil society, and cracked down on freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, including by sentencing journalists to prison. © 2025 Amnesty International

Despite public protests, shipments carrying military equipment to Israel via Moroccan ports continue, facilitating attacks on Palestinians A woman holds Palestinian, Moroccan and Lebanese flags as protesters march towards the port of Tanger Med against the planned docking of a ship said to be carrying fighter jet parts to Israel, in Tangier, Morocco, on 20 April (Abdel Majid Bziouat/AFP) Passing by Morocco's ports, it is impossible not to notice Maersk dominating the shipping containers. The heavy presence of the Danish company in the North African country’s harbours might not be overly intriguing, if the international logistics giant was not known for shipping military equipment to Israel amid its war on Gaza . Morocco has become a crucial location on the arms route that facilitates shipments of military cargo to Israel, especially through Maersk. This includes components of F-35 jets, which have fuelled Israel’s attacks on Palestinians . A recent report by Declassified UK and the Irish investigative news outlet The Ditch delved into Morocco’s role in transferring the components of F-35 fighter jets via Maersk. The report specified a shipment in April, saying the jet equipment set sail from the port of Houston, in the United States . Two weeks later, the US-flagged Maersk Detroit arrived in Tangier, Morocco, where the cargo was transferred onto another container ship named Nexoe Maersk. The shipment travelled through the Mediterranean Sea before arriving at the Israeli port of Haifa. The military cargo was then transported to the Nevatim air base, a key launchpad for the Israeli air force to bomb Gaza. When the allegations were made in April, public outrage in Morocco spread. Protesters turned out in the thousands at the ports of Casablanca and Tanger Med, while at least eight dock workers resigned over the contested Maersk shipments. There are conflicting reports regarding when similar cargos started to dock in the kingdom, but Moroccan ports became an attractive option on the transfer route after two Maersk cargos were prevented from docking in Spain in November due to suspicions that they were carrying weapons to Israel. Instead, they docked at the Tanger Med port, which also triggered protests in Morocco. Alejandro Pozo, researcher on peace, armed conflicts and disarmament at Centre Delas , told MEE that arms transfers to Israel via the Spain-Morocco route are considered “regular traffic and have not stopped”, according to the databases that the Spanish independent research centre has accessed. Amid the recent controversy, Maersk released a statement in March saying it “upholds a strict policy of not shipping weapons or ammunition to active conflict zones, ensuring compliance with international regulations”. A Maersk representative also told Declassified UK that Maersk Detroit and Nexoe Maersk “are carrying containers with F-35 parts. However, these shipments are destined for other countries participating in the F-35 programme”. The F-35 jets programme “relies on a complex network of international partners and suppliers across multiple countries,” the Danish group added in June. ‘Hiding behind wording ’ The company acknowledged however its contracts with the US government through the participation of its US-flagged subsidiary, Maersk Line Limited (MLL), in the Maritime Security Programme (MSP). This programme, which Maersk joined in 1996, requires companies to make ships available to the US authorities for a large sum of money to transport equipment for wars. Subsequently, the shipping company becomes a facilitator of the arms transfer process. ‘Of course, a government can know what is inside a shipment container - if they want to know, that is’ - Alejandro Pozo, researcher at Centre Delas Through Maersk’s support of US policy, its contracts include shipping cargo to over 180 countries “under security cooperation programs, including also the transportation of civilian and military-related cargo to Israel,” the company statement from March reads. Maersk told Danish outlet Danwatch that the voyages of its ships to Israel were “not part of the MSP”, but of another military programme under US authorities. However, a report by Centre Delas highlighted (in annex four) that vessels on the route were part of the MSP. In the annex, Delas listed the MSP shipments to help identify the vessels that are likely to transport weapons to Israel. According to the centre, MSP shipments that commonly stop in Morocco and southern Spain indicate the onward journey to Israel. For Pozo, the protests occurred for certain shipments because the information became public, not because they were the only occasions. Morocco has stayed silent on its involvement in arms transfers to Israel. For many observers, this silence itself on the topic is suspicious. “Of course, a government can know what is inside a shipment container - if they want to know, that is,” Pozo told MEE. Those implicated in arms transfers “hide behind wording”, he added, for example saying “military equipment or components”. The wording the expert mentioned is similar to the terminology Maersk uses in its statements. Pozo also emphasised that although the Spanish government had stopped three shipments, due to public pressure, “Spain has not imposed any administrative measures, including sanctions against arms transfers to Israel”. MEE has contacted Maersk, the Moroccan Port Authority and the ministry of foreign affairs to find out their ethical stance on the matter considering the devastating impact that arms have in Gaza. MEE also wished to understand exactly the quantity of arms that Maersk is transporting via Morocco to Israel, why Morocco has become a key location on the route and for how long Maersk has been transferring arms to Israel via this specific route. No reply had been provided by the time of publication. Moroccan-Israeli Interdependence The Palestinian Youth Movement said in November 2024 that Maersk “shipped millions of pounds (lb) of military goods to the Israeli military from the US, across more than 2,000 shipments” over 12 months starting in September 2023. The majority of Israel’s arms capacity results from imports, especially from the US, according to Zain Hussain, a researcher in the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Arms Transfers Programme. ‘Israel is heavily reliant on arms imports for its war in Gaza and its military actions in other states in the region’ - Zain Hussain, researcher at SIPRI Since taking office, the Trump administration has approved nearly $12bn in major foreign military sales to Israel. “Israel is heavily reliant on arms imports for its war in Gaza and its military actions in other states in the region,” Hussain told MEE. “Having reliable and secure routes of transfer of arms and components is incredibly important for Israel, and the support of certain states is key in making that happen,” he added. Pozo hypothesised why Morocco is a stable location on the arms transfer route via the Strait of Gibraltar. “I can only assume one of the reasons is geographical location,” he said, adding Morocco’s proximity to the US allows for “efficiency in logistics and saving energy costs”. An alternative route would be to go around Africa and access via the Red Sea , a longer, more expensive, and dangerous itinerary, Centre Delas explained in its report. Another key factor, the researcher mentioned, is Morocco’s dependence on Israel for military equipment, as illustrated by the kingdom’s recent move to select Israel's Elbit Systems as one of its main weapons suppliers . Morocco normalised ties with Israel in December 2020 as the kingdom joined the Abraham Accords under President Donald Trump’s first term, in exchange for the US and Israel recognising Moroccan claim of sovereignty over the contested region of Western Sahara . Since then, cooperation between the two countries has flourished , including in the military field. Morocco has been accused of using arms to support its ongoing conflict with the Polisario Front, a Sahrawi independence movement that is backed by neighbouring Algeria . “Israel and the US know Morocco will cooperate, there is also the political aspect that the US recognised Western Sahara as part of Morocco, which adds another dimension to this cooperation,” Pozo said. 'Betrayal' Unlike Spain, Morocco did not stop some of its shipments when met with public protests. A Moroccan activist at the local branch of Amnesty International, who prefers to remain anonymous, told MEE how “painful” it was for her “to witness that [her] country is connected to the machinery of genocide in Palestine”. ‘The public wants Morocco to cut ties with Israel and to take a firm, unapologetic stance against occupation and apartheid’ - A Moroccan activist For the activist, resistance goes beyond politics, “it’s about our humanity and moral responsibility [...] Every bomb dropped, every child buried under rubble, should shake us to our core,” she said. “The public wants Morocco to cut ties with Israel and to take a firm, unapologetic stance against occupation and apartheid,” she added. “At Amnesty, we work to expose these violations and demand accountability. And I say this with love for my country but also with the courage to hold it accountable. We must demand transparency. We must speak up. Because silence in the face of genocide is not neutrality. It’s betrayal.” She mentioned how there is a “constant threat of repression” against pro-Palestinian activism in the kingdom, despite Morocco regularly releasing statements of support for the Palestinian cause. Twenty activists have been arrested and sentenced to jail since 2021, according to data by the Moroccan Front for the Support of Palestine and Against Normalisation - a coalition that brings together some 20 associations, unions and political parties - and the number of arrests has been accelerating since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023. One expert from Carnegie, who wishes to remain anonymous, told MEE that “despite the scale and visibility of protests, they have not yet led to a substantial shift in policy”. However, quoting a recent statement by the opposition Justice and Development Party (PJD) that reiterated “the party’s criticism of normalisation” and the necessity of a “re-alignment” of the kingdom with the overwhelming pro-Palestinian position of Moroccans, the expert outlined the possibility of a change to come. “Public sentiment can have a constraining or cumulative effect, especially when it intersects with issues of domestic legitimacy, or fuels opposition discourse and mobilisation,” they said. © 2025 Middle East Eye

In front of the former Hague Tribunal building, thousands of pieces of stones brought from Bosnia are going to be part of a provisional monument to commemorate the victims of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide. Marjolein Koster, July 3, 2025 Memorial stones on display in the City Hall in The Hague. Photo: NMSG’95 On July 11, the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide, the first step towards a Dutch national monument commemorating the Srebrenica genocide victims will be unveiled in the square in front of the building that once housed the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. The ‘commemorative place-marker’ for the national monument will consist of fragments of white limestone left over from the making of headstones for the Srebrenica Memorial Centre, where thousands of victims of the genocide are buried. The stone was brought specially from Bosnia and Herzegovina and a total of 8,372 pieces will symbolise each victim. The place marker is intended to be a place of remembrance and is needed now because the older generation of genocide survivors is passing away, said Sandra Pudja of the Foundation National Srebrenica Genocide Monument ’95. “It took quite a while to get political support for this. I wouldn’t call it obstruction – some politicians and officials have shown real engagement. But overall, we’ve seen a very passive attitude,” said Pudja. One exception is Jan van Zanen, the mayor of The Hague, who voiced his support in a video message after breaking a piece of stone for the installation himself. “The Hague, the international city of peace and justice, places great importance on establishing a monument to commemorate the Srebrenica genocide. A monument that keeps the memory of this tragedy alive- and reminds us that war criminals were held accountable before the Yugoslavia tribunal here in The Hague,” van Zanen said. Sabina Tanovic of Designing Memory, a studio specialising in memorial architecture, which advised on the installation, said that the process of breaking up the stones was important because it turned it into a collective creation. “All 8,372 broken fragments will be part of the place-marker,” said Tanovic. “Additionally, symbolic stones embedded in the ground will form a timeline, counting the years without a permanent monument. Each year that agreement on a permanent location remains elusive, a new stone will be added.” “This site marker is only the first step, because creating a definite national monument is a much more complex process,” Pudja said. Plans are also being developed for a Srebrenica knowledge institute and research centre in The Hague, which could also serve as a museum. The preferred location is the former Hague Tribunal building, due to its historical, emotional and symbolic significance. The Municipality of The Hague says it supports the realisation of a dignified monument to honour the victims of Srebrenica and provides support where necessary.  It has created a task force of city council members to monitor the progress of the national monument and ensure that the momentum continues. But, the city notes, the central government takes the lead, as the former ICTY building is owned by the national government’s real estate agency. A spokesperson for the Central Government Real Estate Agency, which falls under the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport and the Ministry of Spatial Planning, confirmed that various feasibility studies have been conducted. Plans are still being developed, and no final decisions have been made. “We manage buildings for government use, so the building must remain suitable for future tenants. We need to carefully assess whether a monument out front – or a museum inside – would be practically feasible. We fully understand the wish, but we also have to consider functionality,” the spokesperson said. The daughter of one survivor said recognition is very important. “It would be good if people at the governmental level also understood what survivors of Srebrenica, now living in the Netherlands, have been through,” she said. Though the Dutch state has been held legally accountable for the deaths of three men from Srebrenica because of Dutch UN peacekeepers’ failure to save them from death during the genocide in July 1995, and partially responsible for hundreds of others – with compensation paid – the sense among many families is that real recognition is still lacking. That feeling is only reinforced by how long it took to get approval for a place marker and the ongoing uncertainty about a permanent location. “I think it’s important to have this place marker, to remind us of what happened,” said Nedim Osmanovic, one of the representatives of Srebrenica survivors in the Netherlands. Copyright BIRN 2015

Sarajevo Times, July 6, 2025 Milorad Dodik. Photo courtesy of Sarajevo Times. Just two days after the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina lifted his detention and central arrest warrant, Milorad Dodik, the President of the RS, added another to his large opus of controversial statements. Again about secession. The unification of the Republika Srpska and Serbia must be the historical goal of the Serbian people, he said from Nevesinje at the celebration of the anniversary of the Herzegovinian Uprising. With the conclusion that Bosnia and Herzegovina is not a state of Serbs but only a temporary refuge. “Only the naive think that a new order is not being created today. To create that new order, our unity is needed. Undoubtedly, leadership and strong states. The Republika Srpska wants to build its platform together with Serbia. We think we are right. We do not want to build that platform with Bosniaks or Croats. We have been mistaken many times whenever we have made joint plans with them. We must remain in the construction of our state. Today, the Serbian people have their own two powerful states – Serbia and the Republika Srpska,” said Dodik. © 2012 Sarajevo Times

Authorities cancelled an arrest warrant for Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik after he agreed to be questioned by prosecutors investigating accusations of secessionist activities AFP via FOX 22, July 5, 2025 Milorad Dodik. Photo courtesy of Stringer. Bosnian authorities on Friday dropped an arrest warrant against Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik after he agreed to be questioned over accusations of making secessionist moves in the divided Balkan nation. After months of ignoring calls to speak with authorities, Dodik voluntarily reported to the public prosecutor's office, accompanied by his lawyer, "to be questioned as a suspect in the investigation", the prosecutor's office and Bosnian State Court said in a statement. The Republika Srpska (RS) president had been wanted since March 18 by authorities who issued an arrest warrant after he refused to show up for questioning -- setting of a crisis that many observers considered the worst since Bosnia's 1992-95 war. Despite the warrant, Dodik traveled abroad accompanied by Republika Srpska police, visiting neighboring Serbia, Russia and Hungary. Bosnia’s request to Interpol to issue international warrant was refused by the international police agency. Since the end of its war, Bosnia has been split into the Serb Republika Srpska and a Muslim-Croat Federation. Each has its own government and parliament, with only weak central institutions binding the country of 3.5 million people together. - Conditional release - "The suspect Milorad Dodik voluntarily presented himself on July 4 before the prosecutor's office of Bosnia-Herzegovina, accompanied by his lawyer, to be questioned as a suspect in the investigation,” said the joint statement. The court accepted the prosecutors' proposal to "terminate" the warrant, and Dodik was given conditional release, it said. According to the statement, the court ordered Dodik to regularly report to the authorities, and a new detention decision will be issued if he does not comply. "It's an important thing for me, but it's also important in relation to those who were ill-intentioned and wanted destabilization, an escalation of problems in Bosnia through this case," Dodik told a public TV channel.  "I don't feel triumphalist. I'm tired of it all," he added. The arrest warrant was issued after Dodik, 66, banned the central police and judiciary -- a move deemed secessionist by prosecutors. That came after he was sentenced in February to one year in prison and banned from holding political office for six years for failing to comply with decisions of the international high representative who oversees the 1995 peace accord that ended the Bosnian war. A decision on Dodik's appeal is expected soon. Dodik rejected the trial as "political" and urged the Republika Srpska parliament to ban the federal police and judiciary from operating in the Serb statelet. The State Prosecutor’s Office deemed the activities secessionist and opened an investigation that includes the entity's prime minister Radovan Viskovic and parliament president Nenad Stevandic. Bosnia’s Constitutional court in May annulled the secessionists laws adopted by Republika Srpska which plunged Bosnia into a crisis described by some observers as the worst since the war. © Copyright 2025 Bangor Communications