News Report: UNHCR - Risk of Terrorism 'Very, Very High' if Rohingya Crisis Persists

Lisa Schlein

GENEVA — The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, warned Wednesday of a high risk of terrorism in Myanmar and the region if the Rohingya crisis remains unresolved.

Grandi recently visited Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh, which is home to some 800,000 Rohingya refugees. Among those, 450,000 refugees recently fled violence and persecution in Myanmar, while more than 300,000 others arrived in neighboring Bangladesh before the current crisis.

Most of the refugees are women and children, and many are deeply traumatized. Grandi says he spoke to women who had been raped and children who had seen their families and friends killed.

"The combination of limited health facilities, poor sanitary and hygienic conditions, and overcrowded sites, you can well imagine, is a recipe for disaster in terms of possible epidemics," Grandi said, stressing how little the refugees had and how vulnerable they were to multiple risks.

News Report: Six Points in Myanmar Leader's Rohingya Speech That Need Fact-Checking

Aung San Suu Kyi

On Tuesday, Myanmar's state counselor and de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, broke silence on the ongoing Rohingya crisis in a televised address. But the speech required reasonable fact-checking and was even described as a "a mix of untruths and victim blaming" by Amnesty International.

Suu Kyi called on the international community to assist the country's authorities in resolving the ongoing Rohingya Muslim minority crisis. She added that the government intends to carefully examine the situation and listen to all incoming arguments and counterarguments. Nevertheless, there were some dubious claims by the country’s leader that need to be scrutinized. 

1. Suu Kyi stressed that the Myanmar government needs time to find out the real causes of the ongoing crisis. 

This claim directly contradicts the Final Report of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, chaired by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. The document was submitted to national authorities on August 23 and puts forward recommendations to end the crisis in Rakhine. In particular, the report details the reasons behind the ongoing Rohingya crisis, including the lack of citizenship for Rohingya Muslims and military and police actions in the region. 

"Unless concerted action – led by the government and aided by all sectors of the government and society – is taken soon, we risk the return of another cycle of violence and radicalization, which will further deepen the chronic poverty that afflicts Rakhine State," Annan said in a statement. 

News Report: Bangladesh Government to Build Camp for 400,000 Rohingya Muslim Refugees

The Bangladesh government plans to construct a large camp to house some 400,000 Rohingya Muslims who have poured in from neighboring Myanmar over the past three weeks, officials said.

Authorities said 14,000 shelters, each able to accommodate six families, will be built over the next 10 days on an eight square kilometer site near the Bangladesh-Myanmar border.

The government said the movement of the settlement's refugees would be restricted.

"The Royingya refugees won't be allowed to go outside the camp," Bangladeshi Minister of Home Affairs Asaduzzaman Khan said on September 10. They will also be prohibited from traveling by vehicle in Bangladesh.

The camp, which will be built with the help of the Bangladesh military and international aid groups, is in response to an unprecedented exodus that was sparked by attacks on August 25 carried out by Rohingya militants on a Myanmar army base and police posts.

News Report: Aung San Suu Kyi to Skip Upcoming UN General Assembly

Aung San Suu Kyi

Margaret Besheer, Lisa Schlein

Myanmar's de-facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi has cancelled plans to attend this month's United Nations General Assembly amid rising international criticism of her handling of the violence in western Myanmar that has forced as many as 370,000 ethnic Rohingya Muslims to flee across the border to Bangladesh.

Government spokesman Zaw Htay said Wednesday that the Nobel Peace laureate will remain in Myanmar to deal with the ongoing security situation.

Aung San Suu Kyi has been held up as an icon of democracy due to her decades-long detention under Myanmar's former military rulers. But her apparent indifference to the plight of the Rohingyas in Rakhine state -- she has dismissed many reports of the situation as “fake information” designed to promote the interests of “terrorists" -- has brought scorn from governments and human rights activists, including a number of her fellow Nobel Peace laureates.

The U.N. Security Council is scheduled to hold an urgent meeting Wednesday on the violence and subsequent humanitarian crisis in Rakhine state. The meeting was requested by Britain and Sweden on Monday after U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein referred to the treatment of the Rohingya as "a textbook example of ethnic cleansing."

News Report: UN Rights Chief - Rohingya Seemingly Face 'Ethnic Cleansing'

The United Nations's human rights chief has joined the growing chorus of international voices condemning Myanmar for the wave of violence that has forced scores of minority Rohingya Muslims to flee across the border to Bangladesh.

Speaking Monday in Geneva before the U.N. Human Rights Council, Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said his office has received numerous reports and satellite imagery of Myanmar security forces and local militias carrying out extrajudicial killings and burning entire Rohingya villages. Zeid also cited reports of Myanmar troops planting landmines along the shared border.

"Because Myanmar has refused access to human rights investigators, the current situation cannot yet be fully assessed," he told the council, "but the situation seems a textbook example of ethnic cleansing."

Amnesty International on Sunday charged Myanmar with deliberately targeting Rohingya by placing landmines along the routes that Rohingya refugees use to cross into Bangladesh. The rights organization reported two landmine explosions Sunday, including one that blew off a young man's leg while he was herding cattle near the border.

Zeid issued his report a day after Rohingya insurgents called for a month-long cease-fire to allow humanitarian aid to reach those affected by the conflict. The group encouraged aid groups to “resume their humanitarian assistance to all victims of the humanitarian crisis, irrespective of ethnic or religious background during the cease-fire period."

Fighters from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, as they call themselves, launched an attack on dozens of police posts and an army base late last month, leading to the displacement of more than 300,000 people.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley reminded Myanmar in a statement issued last Friday that while Washington supports the fight against violence in northwestern Rakhine state, humanitarian aid must reach those in need.

News Story: HRW slams Duterte remarks on shooting rights advocates

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte

By Audrey Morallo

MANILA, Philippines — New York-based Human Rights Watch on Thursday slammed President Rodrigo Duterte for threatening to have human rights activists shot if they get in the way of police operations, saying these remarks could pave the way for prosecution for crimes against humanity.

The chief executive should immediately withdraw his statement or face the specter of an investigation into for possibly instigating the harming of human rights workers, the human rights watchdog said.

“President Duterte’s threats against human rights activists is like painting a target on the backs of courageous people working to protect the rights and upholding the dignity of all Filipinos,” the deputy Asia director of the rights body, Phelim Kine, said.

Kine added: “Duterte should retract his reprehensible remarks immediately before there is more blood on his hands.”

The official said that Duterte’s threats, issued a day after one of the bloodiest days in the president’s brutal and ruthless campaign against illegal narcotics, could serve as a basis for indictment for crimes against humanity.

During a speech before members of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption, Duterte vented anew his anger at human rights activists over their investigations into possible rights abuses surrounding his drug war, his flagship security program.

“One of these days, kayong human rights, kayong imbestigahan ko. Conspiracy. If they are obstructing justice, you shoot them,” the hot-tempered Duterte said.

("One of these days, you have human rights, I'll investigate you. Conspiracy. If they are obstructing justice, you shoot them" [Translation: Google Translate]) the hot-tempered Duterte said.

Read the full story at PhilStar

News Story: Amnesty International - Duterte government going to new depths of barbarity

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte

By Audrey Morallo

MANILA, Philippines — A slew of condemnations greeted the rounds of drug-related deaths that occurred on the streets of Manila and Bulacan in the past two days, with an international human rights watchdog saying that the government’s bloody war on drugs was “plumbing new depths of barbarity.”

Vice President Leni Robredo also criticized the deaths on Thursday, expressing outrage over the deaths that President Rodrigo Duterte praised a day before.

James Gomez, Amnesty International’s director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, said that the deaths proved that the “lawless ‘war on drugs’” had not stopped as police were “routinely gunning down suspects,” in violation of the right to life and due process.

“No one is bearing the brunt of this brutality more than the poorest communities in areas such as Bulacan province, a hotspot for extrajudicial executions since the president took power, and the scene of 21 of yesterday's 32 killings,” Gomez said.

AI also warned that the bloody campaign seemed to have no end in sight as the president recently admitted that he would not be able to solve the Philippines’ drug-related problems during his six-year term, which ends in 2022.

The president, during last year’s campaign, promised that he would end the problem in three to six months, but he had an about face on this and extended the deadline at least twice.

AI reiterated its call for a United Nations-led investigation into the deaths.

Read the full story at PhilStar

News Story: US Congress to hold hearing on Philippines' drug war

By Patricia Lourdes Viray

MANILA, Philippines — The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, under the US Congress, will hold an inquiry into the Philippines' war on drugs on Thursday.

The US Congress commission has invited witnesses that will analyze the implementation of the so-called war on drugs and its consequence for the human rights situation in the Philippines.

Among the panelists for the upcoming hearing are iDEFEND Philippines spokesperson Ellecer Carlos, Amnesty International Senior Crisis Advisor Matthew Wells and Human Rights Watch Asia Division Deputy Director Phelim Kine.

"They will also provide policy recommendations for ensuring accountability for human rights violations and for addressing the problems of drug abuse and trafficking in ways consistent with promoting public health and strengthening rule of law," the US Congress commission said.

The US had been supporting the Philippine National Police in its counterterrorism and counternarcotics campaign.

PNP data showed that 7,025 drug-related killings have been carried out from July 1, 2016 and January 21, 2017 — an average of 34 per day.

Read the full story at PhilStar

News Report: Afghans Angered by Lack of Security Clash With Police; 4 Dead

At least four Afghans were killed when protesters demanding better security clashed with riot police in Kabul Friday.

Witnesses say police fired live rounds into the air to disperse hundreds of stone-throwing demonstrators.

Public anger has been mounting since a devastating truck bomb explosion Wednesday at the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. One of the worst attacks since 2001 killed 90 people and wounded more than 450 others.

More than a thousand demonstrators, many carrying pictures of bomb victims, gathered Friday near the site of the blast and marched toward the presidential palace, demanding the resignation of the Afghan government. Some protesters burned effigies of President Ashraf Ghani.

Think Tank: Sea, air, land and space updates (30-May-2017)

Zoe Glasson, Sophie Qin, Madeleine Nyst and Patrick Kennedy

Sea State

The Pentagon is looking at equipping the US Coast Guard’s planned three new medium icebreakers with heavy weapons. Speaking to a House subcommittee on Homeland Security, Admiral Paul Zukunft said it was necessary to ‘look differently at what an icebreaker does’ and that ‘US presence in the Arctic is… a matter of national security.’ The USCG currently has only two active icebreakers, which are split between the Arctic and the Antarctic. America’s arctic capabilities are far out-stripped by that of Russia, which has a fleet including a (huge!) ‘research’ submarine and around 40 icebreakers. And, in the last few years, Russia has activated 14 new operational airfields and 16 deep water ports as part of an arctic military build-up that one US commander has likened to China’s actions in the South China Sea.

Surprising evidence has emerged that the first ever Australian ship to reach Japan was in fact sailed by convict pirates from Tasmania. The Cyprus was hijacked by convicts in 1829, and, according to fresh translations of samurai accounts, anchored off the town of Mugi on Shikoku island on 16 January 1830—at the height of Japan’s feudal isolation.

News Story: Criminal case vs Duterte filed before International Criminal Court

By Patricia Lourdes Viray

MANILA, Philippines (Second update 5:32 p.m.) — The lawyer of self-confessed hitman Edgar Matobato on Monday filed a complaint against President Rodrigo Duterte and 11 other government officials before the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Lawyer Jude Sabio accused Duterte of being a "mass murderer" and asked the international court to prosecute him over his involvement in the so-called Davao Death Squad.

"Your favourable action on this matter would not only serve the noble ends of international criminal justice but would also be the beginning of the end of this dark, obscene, murderous and evil era in the Philippines," Sabio told the court in his cover letter.

Read the full story at PhilStar

News Story: Will Daesh 3.0 Rise From Mosul’s Ashes?

Map of Ethnic Groups of Iraq (Click Image to Enlarge)

By JAMES KITFIELD

They’re surrounded, targeted by constant bombardments and slowly strangled of supplies and reinforcements for months so fighters for Daesh (aka ISIS) might reasonably have abandoned Mosul and tried to slink off into the night.

That’s what happened last June in the battle to recapture Fallujah, when Daesh fighters were relatively quickly routed, and hundreds were killed by U.S. aircraft when their fleeing convoy was spotted in the dark with infrared targeting systems. Everyone in the anti-Daesh coalition hoped for a similar retreat by demoralized terrorists that would separate them from the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians still cowering in Mosul’s byzantine old city, on the west bank of the Tigris River.

But Daesh’s fighters are not abandoning Mosul, which with the Syrian town of Raqqa, forms the twin-capitals of the self-proclaimed Islamist “caliphate.” They are falling back on defensive positions prepared for two years in the densely congested side streets and alleyways of the old city, gathering Iraqi civilians close as they can as “human shields” and apparently preparing for a last, desperate stand.

The result? “The toughest and most brutal phase of this war, and probably the toughest and most brutal close quarters combat that I have experienced or even read about in my 34-year career,” Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, commander of Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve says. A veteran of six combat tours, Townsend calls the fighting in Mosul “the most significant urban combat since World War II.” The tragic byproduct has been an alarming spike in civilian casualties, including a U.S. strike against a reported ISIS truck bomb on March 17 that may have collapsed a nearby building and killed as many as 200 civilians gathered there by Daesh. The U.S. military is still investigating the incident, which drew criticism from the United Nations and Amnesty International.

On a recent trip near the frontlines of the Battle of Mosul, Townsend found a possible explanation for Daesh’s determination to stage an apocalyptic fight to the death in the old city. “Every movement has a well-spring or some home turf where it finds support, and in recently talking to Iraqi and coalition commanders and listening to their intelligence assessments, I heard about neighborhoods supporting ISIS that I remembered from being a brigade commander in Mosul 10 years ago, when those same neighborhoods were sources of support for Al Qaeda in Iraq,” said Townsend, speaking recently to defense reporters by phone from Baghdad. If the Shiite-led Iraqi government fails to reach out to those and other neighborhoods and towns of disenfranchised Sunnis after the fighting stops, he noted, then Daesh’s expulsion from Mosul will likely prove a fleeting victory. “What’s important after ISIS is defeated is that the government of Iraq has to reach out to these groups of people and make sure they feel like they have a future in the Iraqi state,” said Townsend.

Read the full story at Breaking Defense

News Report: Pakistan Executes 2 'Hardcore Terrorists'

Ayaz Gul

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan executed two militants Tuesday who officials said were convicted of terrorism-related offenses by military courts.

The deaths by hanging took place on a day when Amnesty International in a worldwide report noted Pakistan reduced the number of executions by 73 percent in 2016 compared to the year before.

The men were active members of the anti-state Pakistani Taliban and were found guilty of staging deadly attacks on security forces, aid workers and polio vaccination teams, according to an army statement.

The militants were executed at the “high security prison” in the central city of Sahiwal, it added.

Even though the country carried out fewer executions last year, the number of recorded death sentences alarmingly rose to over 360 compared to 121 death sentences in 2015, noted the Amnesty report.

News Story: Antibase Okinawa activist released after 5 months detention

NAHA (Kyodo) -- A prominent leader of antibase activity in Okinawa was released on bail Saturday after five months in detention in connection with his opposition to U.S. military bases there.

The Naha branch of the Fukuoka High Court ordered Hiroji Yamashiro, 64, who heads the Okinawa Peace Action Center, released on bail, upholding the Naha District Court's decision on Friday to grant bail. Prosecutors had appealed the district court ruling.

Yamashiro was arrested in October for allegedly cutting barbed wire at a U.S. military training area in Higashi, Okinawa, the southern island prefecture where the bulk of U.S. military facilities in Japan are located.

Yamashiro has led groups opposing a plan to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma within the prefecture.

Read the full story at The Mainichi

News Story: Leader of anti-U.S.-base movement in Okinawa denies some charges in first trial hearing

U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma

NAHA -- In the first hearing of the trial of anti-U.S. military base activists here on March 17, a leader of the movement acknowledged that he cut barbed wire that had been installed onto the fence of a U.S. military base, but denied the other charges brought against him -- forcible obstruction of business, as well as obstruction of government officials' duties and causing bodily injury.

The hearing for Hiroji Yamashiro, the 64-year-old leader of Okinawa Heiwa Undo Center (Okinawa peace movement center), and two other men was held at the Naha District Court and was presided over by judge Jiro Shiomi.

Yamashiro is accused of stacking concrete blocks in front of the gate of U.S. Marine Corps' Camp Schwab in the Henoko district of the northern Okinawa Prefecture city of Nago, to prevent construction vehicles from entering the base. Camp Schwab stands along the site where the Japanese government is set to build a replacement base for U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, which is currently in the southern prefectural city of Ginowan. Yamashiro argued that his actions were a valid form of protest and expression, and denied the charge of forcible obstruction of business.

As for the charge that he injured an official from the Defense Ministry's Okinawa Defense Bureau, thereby obstructing government officials' duties and causing bodily harm, Yamashiro stated, "The official's actions were lacking the nature of valid official duty, and I was merely trying to stop them. I did not do anything to cause bodily injury."

Read the full story at The Mainichi

News Story: Matobato lawyer to file criminal case vs Duterte in international court

By Patricia Lourdes Viray

MANILA, Philippines — The lawyer of self-confessed hitman Edgar Matobato confirmed that he is set to file a criminal case against President Rodrigo Duterte before the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his alleged involvement in the so-called Davao Death Squad.

Lawyer Jude Sabio said that the testimonies of Matobato and former SPO3 Arthur Lascañas in previous Senate hearings would be enough to pin down the president for crimes against humanity.

"Their testimonies, which corroborate each other to prove that in Davao City when Duterte was still mayor, it was his policy or strategy to kill suspected criminals in order to control crime," Sabio said in a telephone interview with Philstar.com

Sabio is scheduled to fly to The Hague, Netherlands by the end of March or the first week of April to file the case before the international court

The lawyer noted that the testimonies of Matobato and Lascañas would prove a pattern that what happened in Davao City during Duterte's term is happening in the country today.

Read the full story at PhilStar

News Story: US drone kills two on motorbike in Pakistan - officials

A US drone on Thursday killed two men riding a motorbike in Pakistan's northwest tribal region, officials said, the first such attack in the country under the administration of new American President Donald Trump.

Drone strikes are extremely unpopular among many Pakistanis because they are seen as a violation of the country's sovereignty, although leaked documents have shown that Islamabad and Washington have secretly colluded over some cases in the past.

The attack occurred in the Sara Khwa area of Kurram, one of seven so-called tribal districts that lie along the border with Afghanistan, where Pakistan has been battling a homegrown Islamist insurgency for more than a decade and a half.

Requesting anonymity, a local government official described the two men who were killed as "militants" but said their identity could not immediately be confirmed as bodies were beyond recognition.

A second official confirmed the strike and the casualties.

Read the full story at SpaceWar

News Story: Int'l drugs board denounces Duterte's drug war

By Audrey Morallo

MANILA, Philippines — A top drug policy monitoring body joined the wave of international condemnation of the Philippines' war on illegal drugs, which it says goes against international drug conventions.

In its in its 2016 annual report, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) also called the government’s attention on its plan to use death penalty as a tool in its fight against illegal narcotics.

A United Nations-affiliated agency, the INCB said that all efforts of governments should be undertaken within the due process of law.

“The Board wishes to bring once again to the attention of all Governments that extrajudicial action, purportedly taken in pursuit of drug control objectives, is fundamentally contrary to the provisions and objectives of the three international drug control conventions, under which all actions must be undertaken within the due process of law,” the report said.

The INCB said that it had issued a statement calling on the Philippine government to issue an immediate and unequivocal condemnation and denunciation of the killings of individuals suspected of involvement in the illegal drug trade.

In the same statement, the body said that it also called on the government to put an immediate stop to such actions and bring the perpetrators of such acts to justice.

Read the full story at PhilStar

News Story: Amnesty blames Trump, Duterte in global rollback of rights & Amnesty - Duterte used drug war to justify repression

Amnesty blames Trump, Duterte in global rollback of rights

By John Leicester

PARIS — Amnesty International says "toxic" fear-mongering by anti-establishment politicians, among them President Donald Trump and the leaders of Turkey, Hungary and the Philippines, is contributing to a global pushback against human rights.

Releasing its 408-page annual report on rights abuses around the world Wednesday, the watchdog group described 2016 as "the year when the cynical use of 'us vs. them' narratives of blame, hate and fear took on a global prominence to a level not seen since the 1930s," when Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany.

Amnesty named Trump, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte among leaders it said are "wielding a toxic agenda that hounds, scapegoats and dehumanizes entire groups of people."

"Poisonous" rhetoric employed by Trump in his election campaign exemplified "the global trend of angrier and more divisive politics," Amnesty said.

"The limits of what is acceptable have shifted. Politicians are shamelessly and actively legitimizing all sorts of hateful rhetoric and policies based on people's identity: misogyny, racism and homophobia. The first target has been refugees and, if this continues in 2017, others will be in the crosshairs."

Read the full story at PhilStar

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Amnesty: Duterte used drug war to justify repression

By Patricia Lourdes Viray

MANILA, Philippines — An international human rights watchdog has cited President Rodrigo Duterte as an example of an official blaming social problems in order to justify repressive government actions.

London-based Amnesty International noted that the erosion of human rights values was most harmful when leaders blame a specific "other" for real or perceived social problems in justifying repression.

"By casting collective responsibility for social and economic ills onto particular groups, often ethnic or religious minorities, those in power gave free rein to discrimination and hate crimes, particularly in Europe and the USA," AI said in its annual report on the state of human rights.

Such hateful, divisive and dehumanizing rhetoric brought out the "darkest instincts of human nature."

"One variant of this was demonstrated by the escalation, with enormous loss of life, of President Rodrigo Duterte’s 'war on drugs' in the Philippines," the report read.

AI noted that more than 6,000 alleged drug offenders have been killed by authorities and vigilantes following the endorsement of Duterte.

Read the full story at PhilStar

News Story: Government hits back at lese majeste law critics

The Foreign Ministry has defended Thailand's lese majeste law, saying the law has the objective of maintaining public order, not getting rid of freedom of expression.

The move came after a pair of high-profile attacks from two international bodies -- the UN's Special Rapporteur and Amnesty International (AI) -- which claimed that the military regime is using the law to suppress and intimidate civil society and peaceful critics. The ministry said the Thai monarchy has always been a pillar of stability in Thailand. The Thai sense of identity is closely linked to the monarchy, an institution that dates back over 700 years.

It added that the lese majeste law is part of the Criminal Code, which gives protection to the rights and reputation of His Majesty the King as well as members of the royal family in a similar manner that libel laws do for commoners in upholding national security and public order. It is not aimed at curbing people's rights to freedom of expression.

The ministry said that while Thailand supports and values freedom of expression, these rights are not absolute and shall be exercised within the boundary of the law.

Read the full story at BangkokPost