Ethnic Uyghur demonstrators take part in a protest against China, near the Chinese consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. (Image: Reuters File)
Uyghur children in China’s Xinjiang province are being forcibly removed from their parents and sent to re-education camps styled as boarding schools where they are being raised as ‘orphans’, Uyghur activists speaking to CNN-News18 said.
“Their parents are taken away to concentration camps and treated like prisoners. These kids are losing their identity and no one is talking to China except issuing statements,” a Uyghur activist said.
The Uyghur activist also noted that the United Nation expressed concern over the allegations of Xinjiang’s state-run boarding school system where children are taught in Mandarin language and are being forced to adopt Han cultural practices.
“The UN statement is welcome but the UN is not clearly talking about concentration camps.
“We are deeply concerned that boarding schools in Xinjiang are teaching almost exclusively in the official language with little or no use of Uyghur as medium of instruction and that the separation of mainly Uyghur and other minority children from their families could lead to their forced assimilation into the majority Mandarin language and the adoption of Han cultural practices,” the UN experts said this week.
They flagged that forced separations and language policies for Uyghur children carry risk of forced assimilation. They pointed out that the discriminatory nature of the policy and the violation of minorities’ right to education without discrimination, family life and cultural rights will adversely impact the growth of these children.
UN experts found out this week about large-scale removal of children, mainly Uyghur, from their families this week. Among those children, some of them were very young. The parents of these younger children are in exile or “interned”/detained.
These children are placed in full-time boarding schools, pre-schools, or orphanages where the medium of instruction is almost exclusively Mandarin.
“Uyghur and other minority children in highly regulated and controlled boarding institutions may have little interaction with their parents, extended family or communities for much of their youth,” the experts said
Vinhomes Central Park and Landmark 81, Vietnam’s tallest building are seen from the Saigon river in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam June 6, 2019. REUTERS/Yen Duong Acquire Licensing Rights
A Vietnamese court has sentenced an environmental activist to three years in prison on charges of tax fraud, just days after the government discussed protecting human rights with U.S. President Joe Biden during a state visit.
Hoang Thi Minh Hong, director of an environmental advocacy group that she started in 2013 and ran until 2022, was convicted of tax evasion after trial in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday that lasted half a day, according to her lawyer Nguyen Van Tu.
“Hong pleaded guilty, and therefore the trial ended quickly,” Tu told Reuters by telephone.
The U.S. State Department said it was “deeply concerned” by the sentencing and reiterated calls on Vietnam to “release all those unjustly detained and to respect the right to freedoms of expression and association.”
The State Department praised the track record of Hong and said leaders like her played “a vital role in tackling global challenges.”
Hong was accused of dodging tax payments worth 6.7 billion dong ($274,488) during the 2012-2022 period, Thanh Nien newspaper cited the indictment as saying.
She was also made to pay a cash fine of 100 million dong, her lawyer said, adding that she has 15 days to decide whether to appeal the verdict.
“This conviction is a total fraud, nobody should be fooled by it,” said Ben Swanton, co-director of The 88 Project charity.
“This is yet another example of the law being weaponised to persecute climate activists who are fighting to save the planet,” he said.
Biden left Vietnam on Sept. 11 after having upgraded diplomatic relations and sealed multiple deals with Hanoi’s leaders, drawing criticism from human rights organisations that accused him of sidelining issues of human rights.
Hong in 1997 became the first Vietnamese to visit Antarctica, was hailed by former U.S. President Barack Obama in 2018 for mobilising “a youth-led movement to create a greener world”, and was awarded a grant from the first Obama Foundation Scholars Program at Columbia University that year.
The Thanh Nien report said Hong expressed her remorse and asked for leniency at the trial so that she could “return and continue to contribute to the society and the country.”
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Wednesday called on the Vietnam government to drop all charges against Hong and unconditionally release her.
“The Vietnamese authorities are using the vaguely worded tax code as a weapon to punish environmental leaders whom the ruling Communist Party deems a threat to their power,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at HRW.
As of early this month, Vietnam was holding at least 159 political prisoners and was detaining 22 others pending trial, HRW said.
A vocal critic of the Pakistani military and Inter-Services Intelligence, Karima Baloch was granted asylum in Canada after being slapped with terrorism charges in Pakistan. (News18)
Canada’s support to Khalistani sympathiser Hardeep Singh Nijjar and the subsequent row with India over his killing has not only irked the latter but also the Baloch Human Rights Council of Canada (BHRC) which questioned the “lack of action” in the kidnapping and alleged murder of exiled Baloch human rights activist Karima Baloch in 2020.
Accusing Trudeau of playing politics and ignoring the death of Baloch, the BHRC, in a letter to the Canadian PM, noted that there had been “perceived inconsistencies” in his government’s response to the “mysterious death of Balochistan rights activist and protected individual, Karima Baloch, in December 2020, in Toronto”.
Claiming that there was a “stark contrast” with the Canadian government’s actions on the pro-Khalistan leader, the letter said that Trudeau’s “conspicuous silence regarding the high-profile, unexplained death of Karima Baloch stands in stark contrast to his impassioned speeches in the House of Commons and extensive media coverage concerning the shooting death of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada”.
WHO WAS KARIMA BALOCH?
A Balochistan rights activist, Karima Baloch was fighting for the rights of the Balochistan people with the Pakistan government.
She was the first chair of the Baloch Students Organization (BSO-Azad), a political students’ body, and was known for raising the cause of forced disappearances among Baloch activists.
A vocal critic of the Pakistani military and Inter-Services Intelligence, Baloch was granted asylum in Canada after being slapped with terrorism charges in Pakistan.
In 2020, after going missing, Baloch was found dead in a river in Sweden, becoming the second Baloch activist to have died in exile that year.
WHAT HER FAMILY SAID
As cops ruled out foul play, Baloch’s husband Hammal Haider, also a Pakistani activist living in exile, had said: “I can’t believe that it’s an act of suicide. She was a strong lady and she left home in a good mood.”
He had added: “We can’t rule out foul play as she has been under threats. She left Pakistan as her home was raided more than twice. Her uncle was killed. She was threatened to leave activism and political activities but she did not and fled to Canada.”
CANADA’S RESPONSE
Unlike Nijjar’s case, where Trudeau did not shy away from escalating diplomatic tensions, Baloch’s death was brushed under the carpet and Canadian police ruled the death as “non-criminal” despite allegations of foul play.
“The circumstances have been investigated and officers have determined this to be a non-criminal death and no foul play is suspected,” said Toronto’s police department in a short statement.
THE NIJJAR ROW
Tensions flared between India and Canada following Trudeau’s explosive allegations of a “potential” involvement of Indian agents in the killing of Nijjar on his country’s soil on June 18 in British Columbia. India had designated Nijjar as a terrorist in 2020.
India angrily rejected the allegations as “absurd” and “motivated” and expelled a senior Canadian diplomat in a tit-for-tat move to Ottawa’s expulsion of an Indian official over the case. “Of course, there are credible allegations that we need to take extremely seriously as Canadians and indeed as a world,” Trudeau asserted when asked if the evidence suggested by him was extensive in the matter.
A prominent Uyghur academic has been reportedly jailed for life by China for “endangering state security”.
Rahile Dawut’s sentence was confirmed after she appealed against a 2018, according to the US-based Dui Hua Foundation rights group.
The 57-year-old professor lost her appeal this month.
China has been accused of crimes against humanity against the Uyghur population and other mostly-Muslim ethnic groups in Xinjiang.
Human rights groups believe China has detained more than one million Uyghurs against their will over the past few years in a large network of what the state calls “re-education camps”.
It has sentenced hundreds of thousands to prison terms.
“The sentencing of Professor Rahile Dawut is a cruel tragedy, a great loss for the Uyghur people, and for all who treasure academic freedom,” said John Kamm, executive director of the Dui Hua Foundation.
He called for her immediate release and safe return to her family.
Her daughter, Akeda Pulati, said that she worried about her mother every day.
“The thought of my innocent mother having to spend her life in prison brings unbearable pain. China, show your mercy and release my innocent mother,” she said in a statement released by Dui Hua.
Ms Dawut’s secret trial in December 2018 in a Xinjiang court followed her arrest the previous year for “splittism”, a crime of endangering state security.
A source in the Chinese government confirmed the sentence of life imprisonment to Dui Hua, the group said.
Ms Dawut is an expert on Uyghur folklore and traditions and had been teaching at Xinjiang University College of Humanities before her arrest.
She founded the Ethnic Minorities Research Centre at the university in 2007 and conducted field work throughout Xinjiang. She had lectured in universities in the US and UK, including Harvard and Cambridge.
Dui Hua said Ms Dawut was among “the long and growing list of Uyghur intellectuals” who have been detained, arrested, and imprisoned since 2016.
The US is among several countries to have accused China of genocide in Xinjiang. The leading human rights groups Amnesty and Human Rights Watch accuse China of crimes against humanity.
The new legislation comes just days after the anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman whose death at the hands of Iran’s morality police sparked significant protests.
Protesters hold signs with Mahsa Amini’s picture on the anniversary of her death during a protest outside the White House
Iran has passed a law to impose more severe punishments on women who refuse to wear the mandatory Islamic headscarf in public.
The new legislation comes just days after the anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who had been detained by the morality police for violating the country’s dress code.
Her death in custody sparked months of protests in which demonstrators called for the overthrow of Iran’s theocracy.
The bill extends punishments to business owners who serve women not wearing the hijab and activists who organise against it.
Anyone who violates the legislation could face up to 10 years in prison if the offence occurs in an organised way.
The bill, which was approved by 152 members of Iran’s 290-seat parliament, requires ratification by the Guardian Council, a clerical body that serves as a constitutional watchdog.
It would take effect for a preliminary period of three years.
The protests sparked by Ms Amini’s death on 16 September 2022 died down early this year following a heavy crackdown on dissent in which more than 500 protesters were killed and more than 22,000 detained.
But many women continued to flaunt the rules on wearing the hijab, prompting a new campaign to enforce them in recent months.
Iranian emigres marched in Brussels on Friday, the eve of the first anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman whose death in the custody of Iran’s morality police sparked months of anti-government protests.
Thousands of demonstrators, holding up pictures of Amini and many others killed in the protests, called for the overthrow of Iran’s theocracy and the establishment of a democratic republic.
Organisers said they had also demanded a unified European Union policy to hold Iran’s Shi’ite clerical rulers accountable for abuses.
People hold a placard with pictures of, as Iranian call them, martyrs, during a rally of Iranian diaspora in Europe, on the eve of the first anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini, which prompted protests across their country, in Brussels, Belgium September 15, 2023. REUTERS/Yves Herman
The protests that followed the death of Amini, arrested for allegedly flouting the Islamic Republic’s mandatory dress code, spiralled into the biggest show of opposition to the Iranian authorities in years.
Over 500 people including 71 minors were killed, hundreds injured and thousands arrested, rights groups say, in unrest that was eventually crushed by security forces.
The UN rights chief decried Wednesday an online “trolling campaign” against a leading anti-defamation group, urging online platforms like X, formerly Twitter, to do more to battle hate speech.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk demanded that social media platforms “do far more to stop the circulation of hate speech and disinformation”.
“Those that do not take action need to be held to account,” he said, insisting “there is no excuse for purveying the voice of hatred”.
Speaking at an event on anti-Semitism on the sidelines of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Turk deplored in particular “the current trolling campaign of one online platform against the anti-Defamation League, after it called for action to limit its volume of hate speech”.
Turk did not mention names, but appeared to be referring to a barrage of abuse recently launched by X owner Elon Musk’s against the US-based Jewish organisation.
Musk has accused the ADL of making unfounded accusations of anti-Semitism that have scared away advertisers and hurt his company’s revenue, and has threatened to sue for billions of dollars.
Musk, who bought Twitter last year and rebranded it as X, has come under fire for liking posts on the platform with the hashtag “BanTheADL”.
The hateful campaign started after the ADL participated in a civil rights march marking the 60th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, according to the group.
The ADL has for years accused the social media site of amplifying anti-Semitic hate speech, and has charged that problematic and racist speech has risen sharply on X after Musk completed his $44 billion takeover in October.
The organisation recently met with X top executives to discuss the problem.
Turk decried Wednesday that “new technologies and online media mean that racist caricatures and conspiracy theories can circulate now at a much greater speed and without regard to distance, making them a grave threat to our social fabric.
“Social media platforms have played a terrible role in metastasising of hatred from limited backwaters into multi-current mainstream trends,” he said.
The Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations underscored that the situation in Manipur was peaceful and stable and the Indian government was committed to taking requisite steps to maintain peace and stability.
A candle march to pay tribute to those killed in Manipur violence. Credit: PTI File Photo
India has strongly rejected comments by UN experts on Manipur, terming them “unwarranted, presumptive and misleading” and asserting that situation in the Northeast state is peaceful.
In the note verbale issued on Monday to the Special Procedures Branch of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Indian mission underscored that the situation in Manipur was peaceful and stable and the Indian government was committed to taking requisite steps to maintain peace and stability.
“The Government is also committed to protecting the human rights of the people of India, including the people of Manipur,” it said.
“The Permanent Mission of India completely rejects the news release as it is not only unwarranted, presumptive and misleading but also betrays a complete lack of understanding on the situation in Manipur and the steps taken by Government of India to address it,” said the Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations Office and other International Organizations in Geneva.
According to police, the woman’s husband accused her of adultery and, along with his two brothers, tied her to a tree and stoned her to death. They also brutally tortured her before killing her.
Picture of a stressed woman
A woman was stoned to death in Pakistan’s Punjab province on Friday, allegedly for committing adultery. The incident took place in Rajanpur district, some 500 kilometers from Lahore. According to police, the woman’s husband accused her of adultery and, along with his two brothers, tied her to a tree and stoned her to death. They also brutally tortured her before killing her.
The brothers fled the scene and are believed to be hiding in the border region between Punjab and Balochistan. The woman belonged to the Alkani tribe of Rajanpur.
This is not the first time that a woman has been killed in Pakistan in the name of honor. According to human rights activists, around 1,000 women are killed in Pakistan every year in such killings. The victims are often perceived to have brought shame and dishonor to their families by marrying against their will or having an affair. Most often, the family members are behind such killings.
A few days ago, a young lady doctor was shot dead in the name of honor in Punjab’s Mianwali district. The 25-year-old doctor wanted to marry her colleague, but her father disapproved of it. The doctor’s father came to her clinic and argued with her over the matter. During the argument, he pulled out a gun and shot her, leaving her critically injured. She was rushed to a nearby hospital, where she succumbed to her wounds.
These killings are a horrific reminder of the plight of women in Pakistan. They are often treated as second-class citizens and are denied basic rights. The government must take urgent steps to stop these killings and ensure the safety of women in Pakistan.
A 42-year-old lawyer who was stolen at birth during the rule of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and raised in the United States has traveled thousands of miles to South America to meet his biological mother for the first time.
“She didn’t know about me because they took me at birth and told her I was dead,” Jimmy Lippert Thyden said in a TikTok video while on the plane to meet his mother for the first time. “When she asked for my body, they told her they had disposed of it.”
“So we’ve never held each other, we’ve never hugged.”
Walking down a street in mother’s hometown of Valdivia some 740km (460 miles) south of the Chilean capital, with a bouquet of flowers in hand, Lippert Thyden tearfully hugged Maria Angelica Gonzalez, his biological mother, and told her he loved her.
Jimmy Lippert Thyden, who was stolen at birth during the rule of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and raised in the United States and Maria Angelica Gonzalez, his biological mother, meet in Valdivia, Chile, in this undated handout photo obtained by Reuters on August 29, 2023. Constanza del Rio/ NGO Nos Buscamos/Handout via REUTERS
He traveled to Chile with his wife and two daughters, who met their grandmother for the first time.
Lippert Thyden reconnected with his family thanks to a DNA tracing via MyHeritage.com and Nos Buscamos, a Chilean non-governmental organization which helps reconnect people separated during the 17-year dictatorship. Thousands of people were disappeared and tens of thousands tortured during Pinochet’s rule, which ended in 1990.
Nos Buscamos founder Constanza del Rio created the organization after failing to find information about her own biological family. The NGO says it has managed to help some 400 people reconnect to their family.
The 1963 march brought more than 250,000 people to the nation’s capital to push for an end to discrimination on the basis of race, colour, religion, sex or national origin.
Critics warn new laws throughout the US are targeting voting rights and the LGBTQ community, threatening to erase recent gains [File: AP]Thousands of Americans converged on the US capital to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington, a pivotal event in the 1960s civil rights movement at which Martin Luther King Jr gave his galvanising “I have a dream” speech.
The 1963 march brought more than 250,000 people to the nation’s capital to push for an end to discrimination on the basis of race, colour, religion, sex or national origin. Many credit the show of strength with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Organised by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other civil rights groups, this year’s march takes place at the Lincoln Memorial, the backdrop to King’s impassioned call for equality.
Margaret Huang, the president and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center nonprofit civil rights advocacy group, told the crowd on Saturday the march 60 years ago opened doors and spurred new tools to fight racial discrimination.
But new laws throughout the country that “claw away at the right to vote” and target the LGBTQ community threaten to erase some of those gains, Huang said.
“These campaigns against our ballots, our bodies, our school books, they are all connected. When our right to vote falls all other civil and human rights can fall too, but we’re here today to say ‘not on our watch.’”
Kimberle Crenshaw, executive director of the African American Policy Forum, said the anniversary occurred at a troubling moment.
“The very history that the march is commemorating is being not only challenged but distorted,” Crenshaw said, referring to bans in several states on books and classroom instruction based on so-called “critical race theory”, which views a legacy of racism as shaping American history.
Students are seen in a classroom at the Lhasa Nagqu Second Senior High School in the Tibetan regional capital Lhasa during a government-organized media tour in June 2021 (File Photo: AFP/Hector Retamal)
The United States said on Tuesday (Aug 22) it was imposing visa sanctions on Chinese officials pursuing “forced assimilation” of children in Tibet, where UN experts say one million children have been separated from their families.
In the latest of a series of US moves on Beijing despite a resumption of high-level dialogue, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States would restrict visas to Chinese officials behind the policy of state boarding schools.
“These coercive policies seek to eliminate Tibet’s distinct linguistic, cultural and religious traditions among younger generations of Tibetans,” Blinken said in a statement.
“We urge PRC authorities to end the coercion of Tibetan children into government-run boarding schools and to cease repressive assimilation policies, both in Tibet and throughout other parts of the PRC,” he said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.
The United States since 2021 has accused China of waging genocide in another region, Xinjiang, through what US officials, rights groups and witnesses say is a vast network of forced labour camps. China denies the charge.
A State Department spokesperson said the new restrictions would apply to current and former officials involved in education policy in Tibet but did not give further details, citing US confidentiality laws on visa records.
The United States separately imposed sanctions in December on two top-ranking Chinese officials, Wu Yingjie and Zhang Hongbo, over what Washington said were widespread human rights violations in Tibet.
Human rights lawyer Imaan Mazari, daughter of former Pakistan minister Shireen Mazari, was arrested on Sunday morning.
Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir was arrested on Sunday. (Image: Twitter/ @MahrangBaloch_)
Former Pakistan minister Shireen Mazari’s daughter and human rights lawyer Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir was arrested on Sunday by the Islamabad Capital Police “for investigation”.
The arrest occurred just hours after Imaan Mazari took to social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to report an alleged break-in at her home, sparking outrage and concerns among activists and human rights groups.
Imaan Mazari had tweeted, “Unknown persons breaking down my home cameras banging gate jumped over (sic).” The message was posted at 3:50 am on Sunday, August 20.
The Islamabad Capital Police confirmed the arrests in a statement posted on X, saying, “Islamabad Capital Police has arrested Ali Wazir and Imaan Mazari. Both suspects were wanted by the Islamabad Police for investigation. All action will be taken in accordance with the law.”
The police did not specify the details of the case under investigation.
However, a Tarnol Police Station personnel said the young lawyer and activist was booked for interference in state affairs, staging a sit-in, and resistance, as per a report by news agency PTI.
FAMILY CALLS IT ABDUCTION
An hour after Imaan had posted the distressing message on X, her mother, former PTI leader Shireen Mazari, posted another alarming message, claiming that “policewomen, plainclothes people and r ager (sic) types took my daughter away after breaking down our front door.”
Shireen Mazari said that they also took away their security cameras and her daughter’s laptop and cell phone.
“We asked who they had come for and they just dragged Imaan out. They marched all over the house. My daughter was in her night clothes and said let me change, but they just dragged her away. There was no warrants or any legal procedures. This is state fascism. Remember we are only two women living in the house. This is an abduction,” Shireen Mazari said.
Later, Shireen Mazari told the local media that 20 people had entered their home, with more officials standing outside. “There were six female officers that I saw but there was no male wearing the blue uniform of Islamabad Police,” she was quoted as saying by Dawn.
This arrest follows Imaan’s recent participation in a rally for the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), a group of Pushtu-speaking activists known for their criticism of the military establishment. At the rally, she openly criticised the powerful military, which had previously led to a criminal case against her for using abusive language towards former Army chief Gen (retd.) Qamar Javed Bajwa.
Imaan’s mother, Shireen Mazari, had quit the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party following the May 9 attack on the country’s military installations and government buildings.
Justice Chandrachud responded to Bansuri Swaraj, who said, ‘I am seeking pan-India relief for women. They are all daughters of India’
CJI Chandrachud. File Photo
The Supreme Court on Monday said the atrocities on women in the Manipur violence cannot be excused merely because similar incidents had been reported from other states like Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.
“We will deal with it later. But here, we are dealing with something which is
unprecedented violence relating to communal and sectarian strife,” Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud said.
The Chief Justice was responding to Bansuri Swaraj, advocate and daughter of the late BJP leader and Union minister Sushma Swaraj.
Bansuri’s clients wanted the top court to expand the scope of the present suo motu hearing on the Manipur violence to include similar crimes committed against women in Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.
Bansuri said: “I am seeking pan-India relief for women. They are all daughters of India.”
Chief Justice Chandrachud responded: “Are you for a moment saying that do something for all the daughters of India or don’t do anything for anybody at all?”
Bansuri said: “No, my plea is ‘protect all the daughters of India’.”
The bench then asked her to give suggestions on the Manipur incident alone and mention the issues related to other states later.
The Chief Justice added: “You cannot excuse what is taking place in Manipur now on the ground that such crimes are happening to several other women as well in other parts of the country.”
The Supreme Court bench, which included Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, made no mention of it but the Narendra Modi government has been accused by the Opposition of indulging in “whataboutery” after a video showing the savagery on two women who were paraded naked in Manipur emerged.
A day after the video emerged, ending his months-long silence on the Manipur violence, Prime Minister Modi had said: “…My heart is full of pain, full of anger. The incident that has come to the fore in Manipur is a shameful one for any civilised society…. Be it Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Manipur or any part of the country, maintaining law and order and respecting women should be put above any political debate.
On Monday, Bansuri was appearing in the court for two interveners — the SS Human Rights Foundation, Purba Bardhaman, West Bengal, through Sangita Chakraborty, and the Delhi-based Sangini Saheli through Priyal Bhardwaj.
The bench said: “Undoubtedly, there are crimes taking place against women all over the country. But then that is part of our social reality. However, in Manipur, we are dealing with something which is of an unprecedented magnitude, mainly crime and the unabated violence in a situation relating to communal and sectarian strife.”
Referring to the allegations associated with Bengal, Bansuri said: “These are all bone-chilling incidents. Your Lordships must protect all daughters of India and not limit the mechanism only to the state of Manipur,” the counsel said.
China is pressuring Uyghurs living abroad to spy on human rights campaigners by threatening families back home, researchers say. Refugees and activists tell the BBC intimidating tactics are tearing communities apart.
“My dearest son,” said Alim’s mother as she flickered into view. “I didn’t think I’d see you before I died.”
Alim – not his real name – says he was overcome by the moment. The reunion over a video call was their first contact in six years, since he fled as a refugee to the UK.
But it was bittersweet: someone else was in control of the call. Like all Uyghurs – a mostly Muslim minority from north-western China – Alim’s mother lives under intense surveillance and control. They could never call each other directly.
Instead, a middleman phoned Alim and his mother from two separate mobiles. He held the phone screens to face each other, so the pair could see wobbly images of each other – and hear muffled sound from the speakers.
Alim says they barely spoke, and spent most of the call in tears.
He doesn’t know if the plain white wall he could see behind his mother was in her house in Xinjiang or an internment camp, where the Chinese government is alleged to have detained more than a million Uyghurs. China has long denied those charges.
But Alim says he knew this contact with his mother would come at a cost – because the man brokering the call was a Chinese police officer.
The planned overhaul, which would give the government control over naming judges to the Supreme Court and let parliament override many rulings, was paused after opponents organised some of the biggest street protests ever seen in Israel, now in their 18th consecutive week.
An aerial view shows protesters holding a sign with the silhouette of the face of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as they take part in a demonstration against Israel’s nationalist coalition government’s judicial overhaul, in Tel Aviv, Israel May 6, 2023. (Photo: Reuters)
Tens of thousands of Israelis joined protests across the country on Saturday against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bitterly disputed plans to tighten controls on the Supreme Court.
The planned overhaul, which would give the government control over naming judges to the Supreme Court and let parliament override many rulings, was paused after opponents organised some of the biggest street protests ever seen in Israel, now in their 18th consecutive week.
The government accuses activist judges of increasingly usurping the role of parliament, and says the overhaul is needed to restore balance between the judiciary and elected politicians.
Critics say it will remove vital checks and balances underpinning a democratic state and hand unchecked power to the government.
Five months into the far-right coalition’s term, 74% of Israelis think the government is functioning poorly, according to a poll released by the Israeli public broadcaster on Friday.
Crowds gathered in central Tel Aviv on Saturday in a show of defiance against plans which they see as an existential threat to Israeli democracy.
Israel’s Channel 12 estimated 110,000 people demonstrated in Tel Aviv alone, with other demonstrations held in cities across the country.
Novelist and politician has been sanctioned by European nations for his ardent support of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Zakhar Prilepin poses for a picture in his flat in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, December 6, 2008 [File: Mikhail Beznosov/ Reuters]Zakhar Prilepin, who was wounded in a car blast in Russia that killed his driver, is the third prominent prowar figure to be targeted by a bomb since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The 47-year-old novelist was hospitalised with wounds to both of his legs on Saturday, but was conscious and doing “alright”, the TASS state news agency reported, citing officials.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry accused Ukraine and Western states backing it, particularly the United States, of the attack on the writer. A senior official in Kyiv, however, has accused Moscow of staging the incident.
Prilepin, the author of several novels inspired by his experiences of war and of living in Russia’s provinces, was once praised by literary critics in the West before he put his pen and his gun to the service of the Kremlin in Ukraine.
Born in 1975 in the Ryazan region, Prilepin was sent to fight in Russia’s wars against Chechen separatists in the 1990s.
After his return to civilian life, he recounted the horrors of the war in his debut novel “Pathologies”, which describes the actions of a special forces unit, including hard drinking and killings.
He went on to write five more novels and has also authored numerous poems, essays and articles. His works have been translated in Western Europe, and he is the recipient of various state awards.
A damaged white Audi Q car lies overturned on a track next to the woods after Russian nationalist writer Zakhar Prilepin was wounded in a bomb attack in a village in the Nizhny Novgorod region, Russia, May 6, 2023 [Anastasia Makarycheva/ Reuters]As Prilepin tried to build a name for himself in the literary world in Europe in the 2000s, he became an opposition activist, criticising Russian President Vladimir Putin and campaigning for Russia’s poor against corrupt oligarchs.
Everything changed with Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
Prilepin has since embraced Putin’s policies and went on to fight alongside pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, revealing in 2017 that he had created his own battalion.
“I think a writer has a right to any position,” Prilepin said at a Moscow news conference following the revelation.
“He can stand with a flag saying peace to the world or he can take up arms.”
In a 2019 YouTube interview, he boasted that his unit had “killed people in big numbers”.
Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year, Prilepin, who has approximately 300,000 subscribers each to his Telegram and YouTube channels, went on to become an ardent proponent of the military campaign.
“I have no guilt about what is happening. It has happened, now we have to see it through,” he said in November.
Prilepin has also been politically active as the cochair of the “A Just Russia — For Truth” party.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday linked the production of lithium in China to “slave labor” as he discussed his own country’s efforts to ramp up production of the metal used in electric vehicle and other batteries.
Canada has significant sources of lithium, Trudeau said, but China has made strategic choices over the decades that have made it by far the world’s largest producer.
“If we’re honest … the lithium produced in Canada is going to be more expensive. Because we don’t use slave labor,” Trudeau said in remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
“Because we put forward environmental responsibility as something we actually expect to be abided by. Because we count on working with, in partnership, with Indigenous peoples, paying their living wages, expecting security and safety standards.”
A representative for the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa did not respond to a request for comment.
Canada last year announced a tougher policy on critical mineral investment – particularly from China – as it worked to shore up its domestic supply after the global pandemic exposed supply chain problems.
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada April 26, 2023. REUTERS/Blair Gable/File Photo
“If the pandemic taught us anything, if the pandemic taught us anything, it’s resilience, redundancy and reliability in our supply chains,” Trudeau said.
The United States has alleged use of forced labor by China in sectors including mining and construction. Last year, a U.S. law took effect banning imports from China’s Xinjiang region over concerns about forced labor.
In December, the United Auto Workers union called on automakers to shift their entire supply chain out of Xinjiang after a report by Britain’s Sheffield Hallam University suggested that nearly every major automaker has significant exposure to products made with forced labor.
China denies abuses in Xinjiang, a major cotton producer that also supplies much of the world’s materials for solar panels.
Chinese firms also own, operate or finance most of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s cobalt mines, the U.S. Labor Department said in a recent report. “Our research shows that lithium-ion batteries are produced with an input – cobalt – made by child labor,” it said.
Yang Chih-yuan, a Taiwanese political activist, has been formally arrested in China on secession charges.
A Taiwan political activist has been formally arrested on suspicion of “secession” in China, more than eight months after he was detained amid heightened tensions across the Taiwan Strait.
Yang Chih-yuan, a democracy campaigner and pro-independence politician, was detained by Chinese state security in Wenzhou in Zhejiang province last August, hours after then United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrapped up her high-stakes visit to Taipei.
The visit infuriated Beijing, which retaliated by holding days of large-scale military drills and firing missiles over the self-governing island, pushing tensions to their highest in decades.
Yang’s fate remained unknown for months.
But on Tuesday, China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate announced on social media that prosecutors in Wenzhou had approved the arrest of Yang on secession charges, after the city’s state security bureau concluded its investigation and handed the case to the prosecutors for “review and prosecution.”
The statement did not mention when Yang will appear in court.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council said they had repeatedly reached out to mainland authorities about Yang’s detention but had not received a direct response.
“The government reiterates that Yang is innocent and calls on the Chinese Communist Party to release Yang and allow him to return to Taiwan as soon as possible,” the council said in a statement to CNN Tuesday.
Yang, 33, has been active in Taiwan’s social movements for more than a decade and once contested for a seat in Taiwan’s legislature, which he did not win.
In 2019, he became the vice chairman of the Taiwan National Party, a fringe political party advocating Taiwan independence. The party is now defunct, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of the Interior.
China’s state broadcaster CCTV reported on August 3 last year that Yang was taken into custody by the state security bureau in Wenzhou for engaging in “separatist activities” supporting Taiwan independence and endangering national security.
China’s ruling Communist Party claims Taiwan as its own territory, despite having never controlled it, and has refused to rule out the use of force to “unify” the island with mainland China.
Under leader Xi Jinping, China has stepped up crackdown against perceived threats from both within and outside the country, arresting Chinese and foreign nationals for endangering “national security” – a broadly and vaguely defined concept under Chinese law.
Non-mainland Chinese citizens have also been imprisoned for national security crimes. Taiwanese human rights activist Lee Ming-che, for example, was sentenced in 2017 to five years in prison for “subverting state power.” Lee was released last year after serving his full sentence.
Handcuffed and escorted
CCTV said Yang had long advocated the idea of “Taiwan independence” and founded the Taiwan National Party to push for Taiwan to become an independent, sovereign country and a member state of the United Nations.
The broadcaster aired footage showing a handcuffed man purported to be Yang being held by two officers, as the police went through his phone, wallet and other personal belongings.
In a subsequent report, CCTV said Yang had been placed under “residential surveillance at a designated location” from August 4 – a form of secrete detention frequently applied to national security cases in China that United Nations human rights experts say tantamount to enforced disappearance.
Authorities in Beijing and Taipei have not given any explanation as to why Yang had traveled to the mainland.
However, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council reminded Taiwan citizens to evaluate the risks before traveling to mainland China, citing the “repeated occurrence of similar cases recently,” without elaborating on the incidents.
“When the epidemic on both sides of the strait is gradually slowing down and people on both sides are hoping to resume normal exchanges, the mainland arbitrarily arrested Taiwanese people, seriously harming the rights and interests of our people and creating fear,” it said in a statement to CNN. “This is bound to be detrimental to the exchanges and interactions across the strait.”
News of Yang’s formal arrest comes as concerns are mounting for a Taiwan-based book publisher, who reportedly has been detained in China since March, according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA).
The Supreme Court has started hearing arguments on the validity of same-sex marriage in India.
The Supreme Court of India on Tuesday heard pleas seeking legal validation for same-sex marriages. The five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud made it clear that they would not go into personal laws governing marriages while deciding the case. Instead, they asked lawyers to present arguments on the Special Marriage Act, a law that provides a legal framework for the marriage of people belonging to different religions or castes.
What did the court say?
The bench deemed the issue “complex” and said that the notion of a man and a woman is not “an absolute based on genitals.” Therefore, the Special Marriage Act, which refers to “man and woman,” is not restricted to genitals. The bench stated that personal laws would be kept out of the equation, and all lawyers would address the Special Marriage Act.
“It is not the question of what your genitals are. It is far more complex, that’s the point. So, even when the Special Marriage Act says man and woman, the very notion of a man and a woman is not an absolute based on genitals,” said the bench, which also comprised justices Justices S K Kaul, S R Bhat, Hima Kohli and P S Narasimha.
Noting the difficulties and ramifications for the Hindu Marriage Act and personal laws of various religious groups if same-sex marriages are considered valid, the bench said, “Then we can keep the personal laws out of the equation and all of you (lawyers) can address us on the Special Marriage Act (a religion-neutral marriage law).”
Tushar Mehta vs Supreme Court argument:
Not getting into personal law: The Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the Centre, referred to laws on transgenders and said that there are several rights such as the right to choose partners, privacy, right to choose sexual orientation, and any discrimination is criminally prosecutable. “However, the conferment of socio-legal status of marriage cannot be done through judicial decisions. It cannot even be done by the legislature. The acceptance has to come from within the society,” the top government law officer said.
He said the problem will arise when a person, who is a Hindu, wants to avail the right to marry within the same sex while remaining a Hindu.
“Hindus and Muslims and other communities will be affected and that is why the states should be heard,” the law officer said.
Responding to Mehta’s argument, the bench said, “We are not going into the personal laws and now you want us to get into it. Why? How can you ask us to decide it? We cannot be compelled to hear everything.”
Then this will amount to “short circuiting” the issue and the Centre’s stand is not to hear it all, Mehta said, to which the CJI responded: “We are taking a middle course. We don’t have to decide everything to decide something.”
‘Man and woman is not restricted to the genitals’: On being pointed out that even the religion-neutral Special Marriage Act has the term ‘man and a woman’, the bench said it is not the question of “genitals” and the very notion of the special law having “man and woman” is not restricted to the genitals.
Mehta cited it is restricted to the genitals and added there were several laws which the court will be making redundant inadvertently if it chose to give legal backing to same-sex marriages. He cited the Code of Criminal Procedure’s provision that women cannot be examined after a certain time and suggested that a man could claim not to be a man despite having male genitals.
Just over a month ago, the Supreme Court had on March 13 referred the petitions to the Constitution bench stating the matter raised questions of “seminal importance”.
Senior Advocate Menaka Guruswamy, who also appeared for the petitioners, said, “The legislative intent of the Hindu Marriage Act requires that same sex marriage be recognised, because Section 5 of the Act speaks of marriage between two Hindus.”
CJI Chandrachud-led five-judge bench to hear same sex marriage case on April 18 Just over a month ago, the Supreme Court had on March 13 referred the petitions to the Constitution bench stating the matter raised questions of “seminal importance”.
The Supreme Court has set up a five-judge Constitution bench to hear petitions seeking legal recognition of same sex marriages. The bench set up by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud comprises Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Ravindra Bhat, Hima Kohli and PS Narasimha, besides the CJI.
Just over a month ago, the Supreme Court had on March 13 referred the petitions to the Constitution bench stating the matter raised questions of “seminal importance”. In its reference order, a three-judge bench headed by the CJI had said the submissions on the issue involve the interplay between constitutional rights on the one hand, and specific legislative enactments, including the Special Marriage Act, besides the rights of transgender couples, on the other.
The three-judge bench has listed the matter for hearing on April 18.
The Central government, which has opposed the petitions, has urged the SC to leave the issue to be decided by Parliament. It told the top court that a “legislative understanding of marriage in the Indian statutory and personal law regime” refers only to marriage between biological men and women and that any interference “would cause complete havoc”.
A Delhi woman who had suffered a miscarriage after her neighbour opened fire at her for objecting to loud music last week has succumbed to her injuries.
Following her death, the police have added Section 302 (murder) to the FIR. (Image for representation: Reuters)
The 30-year-old Delhi woman who suffered a miscarriage after being shot by her neighbour in northwest Delhi’s Siraspur last week succumbed to her injuries on Saturday, police told news agency PTI on Sunday.
The woman was shot as she had protested against the loud music being played by a DJ during a party at the neighbour’s house. The victim, identified as Ranju, was shot by her neighbor Harish on April 3.
According to a senior police officer, “The woman’s condition was stated to be critical. She was undergoing treatment at a city hospital. We received information from the hospital on Saturday that she had succumbed to her injuries”.
Following her death, the police have added Section 302 (murder) to the FIR, the police officer said.
A PCR call was received around 12:15 am on April 3 about a shooting incident in Siraspur. Upon arriving at the location, it was discovered that Ranju, a resident of Siraspur, had been admitted to Max Hospital in Shalimar Bagh.
Doctors at the hospital stated that she had suffered a gunshot wound to her neck and was not in a condition to give a statement, as reported by Deputy Commissioner of Police (outer north) Ravi Kumar Singh.
The nation’s top health official said Sunday that a court ruling threatening the availability of a main drug used in medication abortion was “not America” and he did not rule out defying the judge’s order if necessary.
“We want the courts to overturn this reckless decision,” Xavier Becerra, President Joe Biden’s health secretary, told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We want, yes, that women continue to have access to a drug that’s proven itself safe. Millions of women have used this drug around the world.”
He stressed that for now, women do have access to the abortion medication mifepristone after a federal judge in Texas, Donald Trump-appointee Matthew Kacsmaryk, put his ruling from Friday on hold for a week so federal officials could file a challenge. The drug was approved in 2000 by the Food and Drug Administration, which is overseen by the Health and Human Services Department headed by Becerra.
“For America’s sake and for women’s sake, we have to prevail in this,” he said.
Biden has said his administration would fight the Texas ruling. Kacsmaryk’s 67-page order gave the government seven days to appeal.
“We intend to do everything to make sure it’s available to them not just in a week, but moving forward, period, because mifepristone is one of the safest and most effective medicines that we have seen over the last 20 years to help women with their health care, especially abortion care,” Becerra said.
Asked whether he might recommend that the FDA ignore a ban, Becerra said, “Everything is on the table.”
There is uncertainty about access to the most commonly used method of abortion in the United States following two separate and conflicting court rulings in Texas and Washington over the legality of mifepristone.
Kacsmaryk’s decision ordering a hold on federal approval of mifepristone overruled decades of scientific approval. But a ruling at nearly the same time in Washington state from that U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice, a Barack Obama appointee, directed U.S. authorities not to make any changes that would restrict access to the drug in at least 17 states where Democrats sued in an effort to protect availability.
Becerra said Kacsmaryk’s order could have dire ramifications for the legality of any FDA-approved drug, such as vaccines, insulin or new Alzheimer’s drugs coming onto the market because it seeks to “turn upside down” the entire FDA approval process.
Support service Alarm Phone tweeted its concerns, saying it had received a call from the boat, which departed from Tobruk in Libya. While German NGO Sea-Water International said those on board were in “imminent danger of death”.
The boat said to be carrying people in distress. Pic: Sea-Watch International
A boat carrying about 400 people “in distress” has been spotted adrift between Greece and Malta and is taking on water, support services have said.
German NGO Sea-Watch International tweeted that those on board were in “imminent danger of death” and called on the EU to act.
Alarm Phone also tweeted its concerns, saying it had received a call from the boat, which departed from Tobruk in Libya.
People on board are panicking and several need medical attention, Alarm Phone said, including a child, a pregnant woman and someone with a physical disability
The vessel is said to be out of fuel and its lower deck is full of water.
The captain has left and there is “nobody who can steer the boat”, Alarm Phone said.
It added that it had alerted the authorities.
The boat is now in the Maltese Search and Rescue area, Alarm Phone added.
The man known as David tells Sky News how his father disappeared without a trace and his mother was tortured in a labour camp – as he provides a rare insight into life in North Korea since the COVID pandemic.
For David, the streets of Seoul are a much longed for safe haven.
To the casual observer, there is nothing out of the ordinary about him.
He is a slight man, softly spoken, dressed in baggy jeans and wide glasses that are fashionable in South Korea.
But his story and what he has been through to get here are utterly remarkable.
He is a North Korean defector, one of the very few to have escaped the DPRK (Democratic Republic of Korea) within the last few years.
“My mother bribed the soldier beforehand,” he tells me as he gestures on a map to where he crossed the border north into China.
“The river was frozen solid. I remember walking maybe 15 minutes to 20 minutes across the ice.
“I remember shivering after crossing the river and climbing over the fence that the Chinese guards had set up.”
For the safety of his relatives that remain in North Korea, we can’t tell you exactly when or exactly how he left. Any specific identifying detail could result in harsh punishments for his loved ones.
But his stories from inside are astonishing and offer a rare glimpse into what life has been like there since the pandemic struck.
Father disappeared without a trace
His childhood, it seems, was a relatively normal one in DPRK terms – helping from a young age to tend the fields and attending school when he could.
But everything changed shortly after his father suddenly disappeared without a trace.
“It wasn’t until about a year later when he got in touch with us that I realised he had fled to the south,” he explains.
“He contacted my mother via telephone. What we didn’t realise was that the North Korean state political security department had been tapping our landline. As a result, our mother was sent away to the labour camp.”
Initially, he was allowed to visit his mother every three months in detention, and he describes what he saw there as shocking.
“The amount of food provided in these detention centres is pitifully little,” he says.
“Prisoners receive around 20 to 30 kernels of corn each meal, which is obviously not enough for a person to survive on, so I packed a lunch when I went to visit her.
The pandemic has made North Korea all but impenetrable
“My mother’s body had shrunk to half her original size in the three months she had been in detention. My eyes filled with tears the moment I saw her; she was so dishevelled and gaunt that I didn’t recognise her initially.
“They also beat the women in prison. Mother’s eyes were swollen to bits and there were bruises everywhere. I wept when I saw her wounds.”
Mother tortured
David was just a child at this time but he was left to fend for himself and his siblings. He says he left school and tried to make ends meet, working in the fields and logging in the winter, but also stole food to survive.
He took what little he could to his mother.
“My mother said that if the inmates’ families didn’t visit them in prison, they would starve to death from malnutrition,” he explains.
“She said tens of people died every day from malnutrition. She even said that people would die in the middle of meals.
“To dispose of the corpses, she said they folded them at the waist and put them in sacks.
“Afterwards, the corpses were buried near the fences of the prison. Also, because the graves weren’t very deep, the stench of the corpses would come up from the ground in the spring when it became warmer.”
His mother described to him the torture she faced, being made to sit for up to 17 hours and beaten if they moved as much as a finger.
A military parade in Pyongyang in February
She also described how inmates whose families did not have the means to bring extra food or bribe the guards would have a life expectancy of just three to four years.
David’s stories matter because recent testimony from inside North Korea is very rare indeed.
The pandemic has made this already secretive state all but impenetrable.
Policy to shoot anyone trying to cross border
In the 2010s, around 1,000 people a year successfully defected from North Korea – the vast majority crossing the northern border with China before seeking asylum in a third country.
But a combination of the strict closed-border policy implemented by both China and the DPRK, plus a new policy to shoot anyone trying to cross, means that in 2022 that number had plummeted to just 67.
Flags of China and Russia are displayed in this illustration picture taken March 24, 2022. REUTERS/Florence Lo/Illustration/File Photo
The United States is adding 37 entities to its trade blacklist for activities including contributing to Russia’s army, supporting China’s military and facilitating or engaging in human rights abuses in Myanmar and China, the Commerce Department said on Thursday.
“When we identify entities that pose a national security or foreign policy concern for the United States, we add them to the Entity List to ensure we can scrutinize their transactions,” Assistant Secretary Thea Kendler said in a statement.
