Following a call by Iran’s Supreme Court to uphold the death sentence for three anti-government protesters, Iran’s security forces have cracked down on dissidents gathered in Behbahan.

Iran’s Supreme Court has since stated that they may halt the executions and in effect reverse, the decision reached on Tuesday due to the international outcry. However, the security forces have been seen to use tear gas to disperse protesters on Thursday and have arrested activists in Behbahan.

The police further imposed a heavy presence in key cities such as Tehran and Isfahan. Iran’s security forces have also blocked internet usage in areas in Khuzestan, a southern western province which includes the city of Behbahan.

The Supreme Court’s decision

The three men, Amirhossein Moradi, Mohammad Rajabi and Saeed Tamjidi, were convicted on charges of “enmity against God” through acts of arson and vandalism during the November 2019 protests.

Amnesty International has decried the decision, describing their trials as “grossly unfair” and maintaining that "their allegations of torture and other ill-treatment were ignored. Their case has sparked widescale international outcry, with the BBC reporting that the Persian hashtag #do_not_execute was used five million times after it was announced on Tuesday that the Supreme Court had upheld their death sentences.

Anti-government fervor

Anti-government protests began in November 2019, and Iranian officials responded with a heavy hand, resulting in 1,000 deaths during the deadliest street violence since the country’s 1979 Islamic revolution.

The protests last year were driven by economic hardship and the increase in petrol prices. This led to demonstrators calling for top officials to step down. Iran’s economy continues to suffer under US sanctions which have restricted the country’s oil exports. The economy has also suffered due to the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Over 13,700 people have died to the coronavirus in Iran.

One Iranian told Reuters:

“People are angry. The economy is so bad that we cannot survive.”

Videos of the protest have been posted on twitter showing protesters chanting, “Fear not, fear not, we are in this together.”

Iran’s response

Iranian officials have released a statement defending the police’s actions in dispersing protesters, stating:

 “The Police force has an inherent and legal duty to deal decisively with these desperate moves.”

Iran’s police further urged people to “vigilantly refrain from any gathering that could provide a pretext for the counter-revolutionary movement”. They have further stated that they will deal "decisively" with any further dissent. 

Read more from the BBC, Reuters, Middle East Eye and Al Arabiya

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet’s, has called for accountability for deaths which could number over 25,000, caused by the Philippine government’s, “Double Barrel” campaign which ran from 1 July 2016 to the 31 January 2020.

The UN Human Rights office has also linked this campaign to the deaths of 73 children, one of which was as young as five months old.

Bachelet has raised concerns over anti-drug operations which have been carried out “without due regard for the rule of law, due process and the human rights of people who may be using or selling drugs. The report finds that the killings have been widespread and systematic – and they are ongoing”, she states.

Impunity

The UN High Commissioner has also raised concerns of “near-impunity” for illegal executions by police during these operations.

In the UN report, they highlight how the Philippines Police Internal Affairs Service (IAS) has launched over 4,580 investigations into deaths in these operations but the government has only cited one case in which three police officers were convicted of unlawful killing.

Bachelet stressed:

“The State has an obligation to conduct independent investigations into the grave violations we have documented. In the absence of clear and measurable outcomes from domestic mechanisms, the Council should consider options for international accountability measures.”

Philippines response

Philippines Justice Minister, Menardo Guevarra, has rejected the UN’s findings stating the report

“find no anchor in a system that provides every avenue to examine, establish and pursue a claim of wrongdoing by a State actor, if such claim is substantiated with facts”.

President Duterte has pledged to make the Philippines drug-free and claims “widespread support” across the country.

International Accountability

On 30 June 2020, she urged vigilance on the deteriorating human rights situation in the Philippines and called for a consideration of international accountability measurements. The UN Human Rights Council tweeted:

“I urge @UN_HRC to remain active & vigilant on the situation in the #Philippines – @mbachelet: In the absence of clear & measurable outcomes from domestic mechanisms, the Council should consider options for international accountability measures”.

In February 2018, the International Criminal Court stated that they would open a preliminary investigation into the situation in the Philippines and analyse crimes allegedly committed in the State, since at least 1 July 2016, during the Philippines’ “war on drugs”.

Anti-terror legislation dilutes human rights safeguards

During the UNHRC’s 44^th session, Bachelet raised concerns over President Rodrigo Duterte over new anti-terror legislation.

The UN human rights office has stated that the proposed 2020 Anti-Terrorism Act, “dilutes human rights safeguards, broadens the definition of terrorism and expands the period of detention without warrant from three to 14 days, extendable by another 10 days”,

Bachelet stated on the bill;

“The recent passage of the new Anti-Terrorism Act heightens our concerns about the blurring of important distinctions between criticism, criminality and terrorism”.

She further added:

“The law could have a further chilling effect on human rights and humanitarian work, hindering support to vulnerable and marginalized communities…So I would I urge the President to refrain from signing the law, and to initiate a broad-based consultation process to draft legislation that can effectively prevent and counter violent extremism, but which contains some safeguards to prevent its misuse against people engaged in peaceful criticism and advocacy.”

Read more from the UN News and read the full UN report here.

Writing for the Guardian, Serge Brammertz, chief prosecutor of the United Nations International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) commemorated the 25th anniversary of the Bosnian genocide in which over 7,000 Bosnian Muslims were slaughtered and more than 35,000 were forcibly displaced.

In his statement, he remarked upon his ten-year service as chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), where they made a clear judgement that genocide was committed.

Brammertz notes that this genocide “was planned at the highest political and military leadership level and implemented through coordinated action to eliminate the Bosnian Muslim population of Srebrenica”.

Whilst commending progress made towards reconciliation, he further states that “much more remains to be done to achieve justice and reconciliation in the region”. 3,000 cases remain to be processed with regards to the massacres in Srebrenica, and a “number of alleged genocidaires have fled to Serbia and found safe haven there, including political leaders and military commanders”.

With respect to these individuals he states:

“It is deeply distressing that so many alleged perpetrators of genocide have still not faced justice. I have witnessed the pain of the survivors who must face the reality that some of those alleged to have murdered their loved ones can still walk the streets freely”.

The facts behind this genocide were only revealed due to the bravery of survivors and the efforts of the victims’ families. Yet, Brammertz warns that these individuals have come under attack as there continues in the area “genocide denial and the glorification of war criminals”.

 notes that leaders in the region have engaged in genocidal denial describing “Srebrenica [as] a hoax and a lie”.

Genocide denial and glorification of convicted war criminals continue to be a failure to the victims of Srebrenica.

Brammertz calls upon us all to “speak out with one voice when genocide is denied and those responsible are glorified”.

He further maintains that the international community must live up to their international commitments. He states:                                                                              

“I firmly believe the international community has a moral responsibility to bring war criminals and genocidaires to justice – not only the victims of the Srebrenica genocide but for all victims of mass atrocities”.

Read  Serge Brammertz full statement on The Guardian.

The UK is set to resuming selling arms to Saudi Arabia, despite evidence that the country has committed war crimes in Yemen; the government has defended the decision stating that said crimes were “isolated incidents”.

Liz Truss, the government’s International trade secretary, has stated that they have completed a review of how arm export licences were granted and whilst there were some “credible incidents of concern" related to Saudi forces, these were “isolated incidents".

In a statement released, Liz Truss stated:

"The incidents which have been assessed to be possible violations of IHL [international humanitarian law] occurred at different times, in different circumstances and for different reasons […] The undertaking that my predecessor gave to the Court – that we would not grant any new licences for the export of arms or military equipment to Saudi Arabia for possible use in Yemen – falls away."

This statement follows, an announcement from the UK Foreign Secretary that the government would introduce a "sanctions regime that will target people who have committed the gravest human rights violations" and that "Global Britain will be an even stronger force for good in the world, in the years ahead".

Saudi’s war crimes

In 2015, Saudi Arabia led a coalition to intervene in Yemen against Houthi rebels. This coalition has been heavily criticised for its brutal campaign which has breached international humanitarian law and includes crimes such as bombing schools, hospitals, weddings, and food infrastructure.

UNICEF has described the situation as a crisis of “cataclysmic proportions” which has cost an estimated 100,000 lives and left 80 per cent of Yemenis in need of humanitarian assistance.

Since Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Yemen in 2015, Britain has issued export licences worth £5.3 billion, including £2.5 billion of licences relating to bombs, missiles, and other types of ordinance.

In June 2019, the UK Court of Appeal ruled that the government had acted illegally in selling arms to Yemen without adequately accessing incidents of war crimes.

"Disgraceful and morally bankrupt"

The decision to resume arms sales with Saudi Arabia has been widely panned by opposition political parties as well as rights-based organisations.

Andrew Smith, the media coordinator for Campaign Against Arms Trade, decried the decision, describing it as "disgraceful and morally bankrupt". He further stated that it exposed the "rank hypocrisy at the heart of UK foreign policy".

"The Saudi-led bombardment of Yemen has created the world's worst humanitarian crisis, and the government itself admits that UK-made has played a central role in the bombing. We will be considering this new decision with our lawyers and will be exploring all options available to challenge it," he added.

Danny Sriskandarajah, chief executive of Oxfam, has also condemned the decision as "nothing short of cruel". He further stated:

“It’s shocking that less than a week after signing up to a UN Security Council resolution for a global ceasefire, the UK government is announcing a resumption of weapons exports to Saudi Arabia. The UK should not licence arms to a country that has led a coalition in their bombardment of Yemen over more than five years," […] “Even before the coronavirus hit, Yemen was already facing the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis and had seen its hospitals and clinics decimated in the conflict. It’s nothing short of cruel that the government should take the decision to restart sales to Saudi Arabia at such a time.”

Read more from the Independent.

The UK is imposing sanctions against 49 individuals and organisations involved in notorious human rights abuses in recent years. 

UK Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, announced that the measures will target individuals and organisations, rather than nations and will include asset freezes and travel bans. 

Raab said that the first wave of sanctions would target the 25 Russian nationals involved in the mistreatment and death of Sergei Magnitsky, 20 Saudi nationals involved in the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, 2 high ranking Myanmar military generals involved in the systematic killings of the Rohingya people and 2 organisations involved in forced labour, torture and murder in North Korea. 

Raab added that the regulations will enable the UK to target a "wider network of perpertrators" who facilitate, incite, promote or support serious human rights violations. 

Further sanctions under the new regime are expected in the coming months. "A special unit will consider the use of future sanctions, with teams across the department monitoring human rights issues," the UK government reports. 

Read more here and here. 

^{Statue of King Leopold (Courtesy: Dennis Jarvis/Flickr)}

In a letter sent to President Félix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo on the 60^th anniversary of its independence, King Philippe of Belgium has expressed his “deepest regrets” for the “acts of violence and cruelty” committed under Belgian occupation, but stopped short of offering a full apology and reparations for colonial rule.

For several decades, King Philippe’s ancestor, King Leopold II, brutally exploited the DRC in his pursuit of rubber and ivory resources. According to historians, millions of Congolese people were killed, mutilated or died of famine and disease under his rule. These acts had a devastating human and financial toll on the country, with their effects still being felt today.

King Philippe’s acknowledgment comes after widespread social inequality spurring a global conversation about continuing issues of racism and discrimination, with the Black Lives Matter movement thrusting these issues into the spotlight. Belgium, in particular, has come under pressure to address its vicious colonial past.

In his letter, King Philippe referred to “painful episodes” between the countries and added that he “will continue to fight all forms of racism and encourages the reflection that has been initiated by parliament".

“During the time of the Congo Free State [1885-1908], acts of violence and brutality were committed that weigh still on our collective memory,” he said. “The colonial period that followed also caused suffering and humiliations. I would like to express my deepest regrets for the wounds of the past, the pain of today, which is rekindled by the discrimination all too present in our society.”

In response, President Tshisekedi says that he “considers it necessary that our common history with Belgium and its people be told to our children.”

Statues of King Leopold II erected in the streets have now been defaced and removed as the country grapples with its past.

While King Philippe’s acknowledgement was commended by some politicians,  Black Lives Matter activists in Antwerp said action is needed to match the crimes that were committed, and his letter of regret should not be “a distraction from accountability”.

Martin Fayulu, an opposition politician in the DRC, joined the call for reparations from Belgium. “If they recognise now what they did here, then that’s all to the good, but these can’t just be words because that’s what it’s fashionable to say at the moment,” he said. “It’s what they do now that matters.”

See more from the BBC here, the Guardian here and the New York Times here.

^{Photograph: Protests in 2019 (Studio Incendo)}

The United States has enacted a new set of Hong Kong-related sanctions on China and the United Kingdom has offered citizenship to the territory’s residents after Beijing passed a new highly criticised national security law.

The law, which includes 66 articles and harsh penalties, covers a wide range of alleged offences including on “secession” and “terrorism”. Other articles give Chinese mainland security operatives the right to investigate cases that are vaguely described as "complex", "serious" or “difficult”, as well as trials being held in secret, without a jury, and without guaranteeing bail.  

China’s mainland police force has also reportedly set up a police force establishing a dedicated national security division, and a ‘commission for safeguarding national security’ that will report directly to the central government. The Department of Justice will also set up a dedicated national security department specifically for prosecuting national security offences.

"The law is a brutal, sweeping crackdown against the people of Hong Kong, intended to destroy the freedoms they were promised," said US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as both the House and the Senate unanimously passed the Hong Kong Autonomy Act, which imposes sanctions on banks that do business with Chinese officials. 

Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the law was a "clear and serious breach" of the 1985 Sino-British joint declaration, as he announced a route for up to 3 million Hong Kong residents to apply for British citizenship. "It violates Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy and threatens the freedoms and rights protected by the joint declaration," said Johnson. “We made clear that if China continued down this path we would introduce a new route for those with British National (Overseas) status to enter the UK, granting them limited leave to remain with the ability to live and work in the UK and thereafter to apply for citizenship. And that is precisely what we will do now.”

But at the United Nations Human Rights Council this week, Cuba and 52 other countries welcomed the law. "Non-interference in internal affairs of sovereign states is an essential principle enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations,” Cuba told the Council. "We believe every country has the right to safeguard its national security through legislation and commend relevant steps taken for this purpose."

The new laws come at a time when the special administrative region has been rife with protests and rioting triggered by an extradition bill that was proposed in April 2019, which demonstrators alleged would have eroded away at the autonomous legal system and the democratic rights of its citizens. Of particular concern was the ability of the mainland to extradite and prosecute political dissidents and with the most recent laws being pushed forward. 

As the law came into effect this week, several leading pro-democracy activists have stepped down from their roles with one reported to have fled the territory. Chinese authorities also announced that one of ten people arrested during protests on Wednesday, has been the first person to be charged under the law.

^{File photograph: Hashim Thaçi (Courtesy Estonian Foreign Ministry)}

Kosovo’s president Hashim Thaçi announced he would resign from his presidency if war crimes charges are filed against him by prosecutors at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague.

His announcement comes after the Special Prosecutor’s Office with Kosovo Specialist Chambers publicly filed a 10-count indictment against Thaçi, accusing him of crimes against humanity, war crime including murder, enforced disappearance of persons, persecution, and torture.

The indictment, filed without confirmation from a pre-trial judge, was an unusual move by prosecutors. However they state the indictment was made public due to the “repeated efforts” to “undermine” the work of Kosovo Specialist Chambers by Kosovan president.

Thaçi, who was on his way to attend a summit at the White House when the news was made public, delivered an emotional rebuttal to the charges, stating that “political mistakes in peace I could have made, but war crimes, never.”

“If the accusation is confirmed, I will immediately resign as your president and face the accusations,” he added.

Elected in 2016 as president of Kosovo, Thaçi previously served as foreign minister and prime minister. He led the political wing of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during the armed struggle against Serbian forces in 1998-99. With an ethnic Albanian majority, Kosovo finally broke away from Serbia after 1999 a NATO bombing campaign, and gained independence in 2008.

Despite gaining independence, the state of Kosovo is still not recognised by Serbia and the two remain in dispute. The White House summit, organised by Trump’s Balkan envoy, Richard Grenell, was an attempt to normalise relations between the two countries.

The Kosovo specialist chambers were established in 2015, after an EU special investigation found “compelling” evidence of systemic war crimes carried out by the KLA. Earlier this year, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote to Thaçi stating that “the abolishment or undermining the work, structure or locations of Kosovo specialist chambers and specialist prosecutor’s office in any way would seriously infringe Kosovo’s credibility in the world.”

“Any such claim would leave a permanent spot on Kosovo, its commitment to the rule of law would be under question, justice for victims would be denied and Kosovo’s future would be blurred,” he added.

In an interview with the Guardian in 2018, Thaçi, who is still seen as a hero to many Kosovans, said, “We believe the special court was unnecessary and unfair, but because of our relationship with the EU and the US we decided to support it”.

Pre-trial judge has six months to decide if the court will issue charges –a decision that may heavily impact Kosovo future as a success story.

"Nobody can rewrite the history of Kosovo!" Thaçi wrote on Facebook last week. "I remain full of hope that the coming days will be the best for Kosovo and Albania."

See more from the Guardian here and here, and the BBC here.

^{Image: Jacky czj /Flickr}

China has forcibly used birth control and sterilisation in an attempt to restrict the Uighur population in Xinjiang, says a newly released report, which has sparked widespread condemnation of Beijing from around the globe.

China has previously been accused of detaining over a million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in internment camps without trial. The report by German researcher Adrian Zenz claims that detained women are involuntarily being given injections which have stopped their periods and/or caused unusual bleeding - common side effects of birth control drugs. Likewise, women are reportedly being coerced into sterilisation surgeries, despite having fewer children than the legal limit, and those who have exceeded the limit, have been threatened imprisonment if they refuse to abort their child.

Despite China’s foreign minister denying the claims in the report as “baseless”, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), a group consisting of European, Australian and North American members of Parliament, has issued a statement stating: “a body of mounting evidence now exists, alleging mass incarceration, indoctrination, extrajudicial detention, invasive surveillance, forced labour, and the destruction of Uyghur cultural sites including cemeteries, together with other forms of abuse”. They have called for a UN independent investigation into whether the crimes committed in Xinjiang amount to crimes against humanity or a demographic genocide.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the report’s findings "shocking" and "disturbing". "We call on the Chinese Communist Party to immediately end these horrific practices and ask all nations to join the United States in demanding an end to these dehumanizing abuses," he added.

Zenz’s study indicated that population growth in Xinjiang has fallen by 84% between 2015 and 2018, and even further in 2019, including in the two largest Uighur Muslim regions. A BBC investigation revealed that children were forcibly taken from their family and indoctrinated with Chinese communist ideology, in an attempt to erase their faith.

The report author also stated that his findings indicate that imposition of measures “intended to prevent births within the group” is within the definition of genocide, as per the UN Convention on Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

See more from the Guardian here, the BBC here and Al Jazeera here.

Zharo Baxtiar and his family had taken a day trip to Kuna Masi, a village in the Kurdish province of Sulaymaniyah, last Thursday, when their visit was abruptly cut short by a deafening Turkish missile strike into the water near the children.

Almost 100 people were at the riverbank that day, said Baxtiar. Sulaymaniyah is located in the Kurdistan’s autonomous region in northern parts of Iraq. Footage recorded by his sister-in-law show children paddling in the water with their parents joyfully encouraging them, speaking in the Kurdish dialect Sorani. Seconds later, a Turkish missile strike lands nearby.

“At the moment of impact, it was as if it was raining rocks and pieces of glass,” France 24 quotes Baxtiar. “We saw several injured people, including the woman who ran the shop that was hit directly by the missile. She was covered with blood. We later saw on the news that her husband and three children were also injured in the blast.”

Their video has since circulated on Twitter with over a million views.

The strikes were part of an ongoing Turkish offensive against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The offensive, named ‘Operation Eagle Claw’ has seen hundreds of strikes since June 15.

"In the name of the hunting down members of the Kurdistan Workers Party they [the Turkish government] targeted civilians in the Kuna Masi resort,” said Babakir Faqe, the spokesperson for the ministry of the armed forces of Iraqi Kurdistan (Peshmerga).

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) meanwhile demanded an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.

“A legal committee needs to be set up to register complaints against Turkey in international courts,” a statement said.

See more from the Morning Star here and France 24 here.

^{File photograph: The aftermath of an air strike in Sanaa, 2015. (Courtesy:  Ibrahem Qasim)}

Yemen is currently facing the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis, with 80% of the population in desperate need of humanitarian aid, and those figures set to worsen according to a UNICEF report which appealed for urgent humanitarian assistance.

The report, released last week, warned that the number of malnourished children in the country could reach 2.4 million - a 20 percent increase - by the end of the year. The report comes as the foreign ministers of Germany, Sweden and the UK wrote in the Financial Times that they have “a global responsibility to ease the suffering of the Yemeni people”.

“We are ready to help once an agreement is reached to end the conflict and to reverse the fragmentation of the country,” they wrote in a joint piece this week.

Meanwhile, protestors marched through the streets of London last week, with signs calling for the UK to be held accountable for its role in the conflict, which includes the sale of weapons to the Saudi-led coalition. A UN panel of experts report last year warned that Britain, the US and France may be complicit in war crimes by arming and providing support to the coalition. “They got money for wars but can’t feed the poor,” read one sign. “Save Yemen," read another.

After five years of armed conflict, at least 24 million people in Yemen are left living in devastating conditions. According to UNICEF, millions of families and children are in desperate need of food, water and medical supplies. The fighting has destroyed ports and infrastructure used for food imports, leaving 20 million people in food-insecurity and 3.3 million children or pregnant women severely malnourished. 

The collapse of the health system has left 30,000 healthcare professionals working without any salary in attempts to fight the outbreak of cholera, COVID-19 cases and famine. UNICEF warned this week that another 6,600 children under the age of five could also die from preventable causes, in the next six months alone, with 19.7 million people are still in need of basic healthcare.

Earlier this month UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that the crisis has left Yemenis “hanging on by a thread”.

In London, protest organiser Iesa Ali said, “I remember was how beautiful the country once was”. The 19-year-old is involved in running a charity called the Ana Al-Watan Foundation in partnership with coordinators in Sanaa and Aden. The non-profitable organisation is distributing food, resources and entertainment for the children of Yemen in the hopes to make a difference.

“It’s deeply upsetting thinking about the children and families who are suffering,” he added. 

“Their main goal for the day is to try to survive and find as much nutrition as possible when all they have around them is dirt and leaves… We need to use our voices to make a change”.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, has report that as many as 10,000 people fled their homes in the northern state of Rakhine, in Myanmar, after a military crackdown against insurgents in recent weeks.

Bachelet’s statement follows the announcement that three Myanmar military officers have been found guilty of atrocities by a court-martial investigation. Myanmar’s military stands accused by the UN’s top court of genocide against the Rohingya population for their military crackdown in 2017 which led to 750,000 mostly Muslim Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh. The military engaged in acts of widespread killing, rape, and arson.

The exact figure on the number displaced has been difficult to verify with the UN Refugee Agency and UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reporting that at least 2,800 people but the actually may be significantly higher. Myanmar has heavily restricted access for humanitarian workers to Rakhine and journalists have been barred.  

Myanmar’s government and military personal have not responded to Reuter’s questions on the number of displaced or fighting between the government’s army and the insurgent, Arakan Army.

Orders to evacuate

Reuters notes that local administrators have received a letter from the army which warned dozens of village leaders in the Rathedaung township that the army planned “clearance operations” against insurgents and urged them to go. Reuters notes that “clearance operations” was the term used by Myanmar authorities in 2017 to justify their military crackdown.

The notice of an evacuation order being sent to local administrators was also posted on Facebook, by a government official but shortly after removed. The spokesperson’ has not explained why the government had insisted on not using the term “clearance operation”.

Myanmar’s border affairs minister has acknowledged that an evacuation order was sent but maintained that it only affected a few villages.

Genocide

Myanmar’s military stands of genocide against the Rohingya people and in January, the International Court of Justice unanimously ordered Myanmar to protect the Rohingya population from genocide. Civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi has denied genocide but admitted that disproportionate force may have been applied.

Al Jazeera notes that whilst two military personal were sentenced to prison in 2018 for killing 10 Rohingya in Inn Din village, they were released after serving less than a year.

In contrast, two journalists who reported on the massacres were detailed for over 16 months before being pardoned due to international outcry.

Read more from Al Jazeera and Reuters.

Senior commander of Australia’s Special Air Service, Adam Findlay, admitted to soldiers committing war crimes and unlawfully executive captured fighters and civilians; he blames “poor moral leadership” and spoke out against attempts to cover up the crimes.

The first admission of war crimes from a serving officer  

Findlay’s statement is the first admission from a senior serving officer that acknowledges that the SAS engaged in illegal activities. The statement follows an inquiry headed by Major-General Paul Brereton, a New South Wales Court of Appeal judge and army officer who has been investigating unlawful killings by the SAS since 2016.  

Hundreds of SAS personnel have been interviewed under oath as part of the inquiry. The SAS stand accused of dozens of incidents of killings captured unarmed or injured civilians, including handcuffed prisoners. Australia’s the office of the military inspector-general revealed that they are investigating at least 55 incidents.

Finlay admitted that there “was a very strong evidential basis” to the accusations of war crimes and suggested that they resulted from a “common cause” of “poor leadership”, “poor moral leadership”.

Findlay claimed during a briefing at the SAS headquarters in Perth, that he believed it could take the SAS a decade to recover from the damage to its reputation. The SAS was initially formed in 1957 and was modelled on the British force.

The response from Australia’s Prime Minister

Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, has stated that he would not involve himself in the investigation. He claimed:

“There are very serious allegations that are part of that process and it will run its course and once that report is in the hands of defence, then that is the next stage at which these matters will be considered”.

The final report is expected to be handed to Australia’s Defence Minister next month.

SAS’s deployment to Afghanistan

The SAS was first deployed to the southern Afghanistan province of Uruzgan in 2005.

They were originally tasked with conduction combat patrols as well as reconnaissance and surveillance operations, but this soon expanded to other provinces.

In 2013, the majority of the SAS was withdrawn after suffering five casualties. Three years later a war crimes inquiry was launched and headed by Paul Bretton.

Read more from The Times here.

^{Photograph: A statue of Oñate in New Mexico (Courtesy: Advanced Source Productions)}

Protests in the United States have sparked debates around monuments of Spanish conquistadors, as they demanded the removal of statues glorifying the Spanish conquest of the Americas and what demonstrators have termed “a celebration of genocide”.

As demonstrations against monuments of Confederate officials and slave traders take place across the US, in the South and West of the country, protests have also demanded the removal of monuments to conquistadors such as Diego De Vargas and Juan De Oñate.

Last week, a statue of Oñate was removed in Rio Arriba county prior to a protest that was scheduled to demand its toppling whereas in Albuquerque, a protestor was shot as another statue of Oñate was attempted to be taken down. 

Oñate ruled as provincial governor in the region, leading centuries of Spanish rule, during which he ordered the massacre of 800 native Acoma people and ordered his men to cut off the right foot of at least 24 Acoma warriors.

“Who are we calling heroes?” asked Jennifer Marley, an indigenous activist. “It’s a celebration of genocide. An erasure of indigenous people.”

“It’s a win,” said Luis Pena an activist who started a petition calling for the statue to be removed. “Symbols are important, they shape the way we ingest the world … In reclaiming these symbols, we get a chance to tell a side of history that has been left out of the books.”

At least 10 monuments of Confederate officials have been removed in the last month alone, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

See more from the Guardian here, the New York Times here and the AP here.