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Tag: Genocide

  • Putin’s Atrocities In Ukraine – Crimes With A Name

    Putin’s Atrocities In Ukraine – Crimes With A Name

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    On November 14, 2022, the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the U.S. Helsinki Commission, will host a briefing on the issue of Russia’s genocide in Ukraine. The briefing comes months after Rep. Steve Cohen introduced House Resolution 1205 on recognizing Russian actions in Ukraine as a genocide and a similar resolution was tabled before Senate by Sen. James E. Risch, Senate Resolution 713. Several months later, the resolutions have not been agreed yet.

    Do Putin’s atrocities amount to genocide?

    Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention) defines genocide as any of the prohibited acts such as “(a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.

    In May 2022, Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy published a legal analysis of Putin’s atrocities against the definition in Article II of the Genocide Convention. The report, which is supported by 35 international experts on genocide and atrocity crimes, makes two important findings of the direct and public incitement to commit genocide and of the existence of a serious risk of genocide in Ukraine.

    Among others, the analysis examines the issue of Russia’s State-orchestrated incitement to genocide, including evidence of the denial of the existence of a Ukrainian identity, accusation in a mirror (namely, Russia accusing Ukraine of planning, or having committed atrocities), dehumanization, construction of Ukrainians as an existential threat.

    The analysis further engages with evidence of genocidal intent and genocidal pattern of destruction targeting Ukrainians including mass killings, deliberate attacks on shelters, evacuation routes, and humanitarian corridors, indiscriminate bombardment of residential areas, deliberate and systematic infliction of life-threatening conditions (destruction of vital infrastructure, attacks on health care, destruction and seizure of necessities, humanitarian aid, and grain), rape and sexual violence, and forcible transfer of Ukrainians. The report cites a litany of open source data in relation to both findings, including evidence of mass killings, torture, the use of rape and sexual violence, and deportations of children to Russia, among others.

    As more and more evidence of the atrocities comes to light, there is more engagement from Parliaments and governments on the issue of Putin’s genocide in Ukraine.

    Most recently, in October 2022, Lord Alton of Liverpool, Peer at the U.K. House of Commons, said that the atrocities perpetrated by Putin in Ukraine can be classified as genocide: “2022 has shown us that atrocity crimes, and possibly even genocide, may well be happening on European soil in Ukraine. (…) Since Putin’s illegal war on Ukraine began on February 24, evidence of atrocity crimes, be it war crimes, crimes against humanity and even possible genocide, has accumulated.”

    While the House and Senate resolutions are yet to be agreed, as early as April 2022, President Biden suggested that Putin’s atrocities amount to genocide. As Biden said, “I called it genocide because it has become clearer and clearer that Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of being able to be Ukrainian and the evidence is mounting.” However, a formal determination by the U.S. State Department did not follow. In the last few years, the U.S. State Department has made such determinations in the cases of the Daesh atrocities in Iraq, the Burmese military’s atrocities in Myanmar, the Chinese Communist Party’s atrocities in Xinjiang. Such a determination is not unlikely to follow. Indeed, the situation in Ukraine is already featuring in the 2022 Report to Congress Pursuant to Section 5 of the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018.

    The atrocities in Ukraine must be recognized for what they are. However, the determination is not to be an end in itself but a trigger to more action, including in accordance to Article I of the Genocide Convention: to prevent and to punish the crime of genocide. Furthermore, and more importantly, the duty to prevent genocide is not to be triggered when we are sure that the atrocities amount to genocide. No. As explained by the International Court of Justice, the duty to prevent is to be triggered “at the instant that the State learns of, or should normally have learned of, the existence of a serious risk that genocide will be committed.” As such, at minimum, States must conduct an analysis of the serious risk of genocide and this to inform their responses, including, in accordance with the Genocide Convention.

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    Dr. Ewelina U. Ochab, Contributor

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  • There Can Be No Peace In Ethiopia Without Justice And Accountability

    There Can Be No Peace In Ethiopia Without Justice And Accountability

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    On November 2, 2022, the Ethiopian Government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) signed a peace deal towards ending the brutal two year war in Ethiopia. On November 12, 2022, they further signed an agreement laying out the roadmap for implementation of the peace deal. The roadmap includes steps to facilitate unhindered humanitarian access, provide security to aid workers, and ensure the protection of civilians, among others. It does not include any provisions to ensure justice and accountability.

    The two years of war have seen atrocity crimes perpetrated by all actors to the conflict and humanitarian crisis reaching new levels, among others around 5.2 million in need of humanitarian assistance in Tigray, including 3.8 million who need healthcare. Understandably, the agreement does not change the fact that atrocity crimes have been perpetrated. They must be investigated and those responsible brought to justice. Among these crimes is conflict related sexual violence (CRSV).

    In early November 2022, the Dr. Denis Mukwege Foundation published their new report “Understanding Conflict Related Sexual Violence in Ethiopia”, produced in cooperation with the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and the Institute for Public Health at Washington University. The report found that “data suggest that Ethiopian and allied forces committed CRSV on a widespread and systemic basis in order to eliminate and/or forcibly displace the ethnic Tigrayan population.”

    The report cites numerous testimonies of survivors of CRSV in the region.

    Among them, 27-year-old woman who was raped in front of her children by a half-dozen Fano militiamen carrying out neighborhood searches targeting Tigrayans testified: “Two of them raped me and then I lost consciousness and don’t know how many more raped me, if all six [did], or not. They said: ‘You Tigrayans should disappear from the land west of Tekeze! You are evil and we are purifying your blood.’”

    30-year-old survivor testified that “four men raped me. […] They insulted me and they urinated on my head. They said: ‘You and your race are a foul, toilet-smelling race and should not be in our land.’”

    28-year-old mother of two, was apprehended by ten Amhara militia members and raped, as she was trying to flee to Sudan, testified that “they said: ‘If you were male we would kill you, but girls can make Amhara babies.’”

    The report further cited a testimony of a survivor who recalled that “Eritrean soldiers saying while raping her that they were ordered ‘to come after the women’, while another woman recall[ed] Eritrean soldiers saying that their actions were revenge against Tigray.”

    The report further identified that the use of CRSV in Ethiopia is widespread and perpetrated by all actors to the conflict, and affect many ethnic groups. The report indicates that “multiple sources suggesting that the [Eritrean Defense Forces] EDF perpetrated CRSV because they were ordered to and as a means of ethnically motivated revenge. (…) CRSV by the TPLF appears to have been ethnically motivated revenge in response to atrocities committed by federal forces and their allies in Tigray.”

    Furthermore, the report indicated that Eritrean refugees have been targeted by multiple actors to the conflict, including by the EDF, by Amhara forces and by Tigrayan forces.

    The response to the atrocities in Ethiopia, and specially to CRSV, is yet to follow. This also applies to healthcare services for survivors of CRSV which are still lacking.

    As we watch some progress with the peace agreement, the issue of justice and accountability cannot be delayed or left unaddressed. Lasting peace cannot be achieved if the atrocities in Ethiopia enjoy impunity and survivors are left without a voice.

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    Dr. Ewelina U. Ochab, Contributor

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  • Ahead of Xi meeting, Biden calls out China

    Ahead of Xi meeting, Biden calls out China

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    PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — U.S. President Joe Biden offered a full-throated American commitment to the nations of Southeast Asia on Saturday, pledging at a Cambodia summit to help stand against China’s growing dominance in the region — without mentioning the other superpower by name.

    Chinese President Xi Jinping wasn’t in the room at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, summit in Phnom Penh. But Xi hovered over the proceedings just two days before he and Biden are set to have their highly anticipated first face-to-face meeting at the G20 summit in Indonesia.

    The Biden White House has declared Xi’s nation its greatest economic and military rival of the next century and while the president never called out China directly, his message was squarely aimed at Beijing.

    “Together we will tackle the biggest issues of our time, from climate to health security to defend against significant threats to rules-based order and to threats against the rule of law,” Biden said. “We’ll build an Indo-Pacific that is free and open, stable and prosperous, resilient and secure.”

    The U.S. has long derided China’s violation of the international rules-based order — from trade to shipping to intellectual property — and Biden tried to emphasize his administration’s solidarity with a region American has too often overlooked.

    His work in Phnom Penh was meant to set a framework for his meeting with Xi — his first face-to-face with the Chinese leader since taking office — which is to be held Monday at the G20 summit of the world’s richest economies, this year being held in Indonesia on the island of Bali.

    Much of Biden’s agenda at ASEAN was to demonstrate resistance to Beijing.

    He was to push for better freedom of navigation on the South China Sea, where the U.S. believes the nations can fly and sail wherever international law allows. The U.S. had declared that China’s resistance to that freedom challenges the world’s rules-based order.

    Moreover, in an effort to crack down on unregulated fishing by China, the U.S. began an effort to use radio frequencies from commercial satellites to better track so-called dark shipping and illegal fishing. Biden also pledged to help the area’s infrastructure initiative — meant as a counter to China’s Belt and Road program — as well as to lead a regional response to the ongoing violence in Myanmar.

    But it is the Xi meeting that will be the main event for Biden’s week abroad, which comes right after his party showed surprising strength in the U.S. midterm elections, emboldening the president as he headed overseas. Biden will circumnavigate the globe, having made his first stop at a major climate conference in Egypt before arriving in Cambodia for a pair of weekend summits before going on to Indonesia.

    There has been skepticism among Asian states as to American commitment to the region over the last two decades. Former President Barack Obama took office with the much-ballyhooed declaration that the U.S. would “pivot to Asia,” but his administration was sidetracked by growing involvements in Middle Eastern wars.

    Donald Trump conducted a more inward-looking foreign policy and spent much of his time in office trying to broker a better trade deal with China, all the while praising Xi’s authoritarian instincts. Declaring China the United States’ biggest rival, Biden again tried to focus on Beijing but has had to devote an extraordinary amount of resources to helping Ukraine fend off Russia’s invasion.

    But this week is meant to refocus America on Asia — just as China, taking advantage of the vacuum left by America’s inattention, has continued to wield its power over the region.

    Biden declared that the ten nations that make up ASEAN are “the heart of my administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy” and that his time in office — which included hosting the leaders in Washington earlier this year — begins “a new era in our cooperation.” He did, though, mistakenly identify the host country as “Colombia” while offering thanks at the beginning of his speech.

    “We will build a better future, a better future we all say we want to see,” Biden said.

    Biden was only the second U.S. president to set foot in Cambodia, after Obama visited in 2012. And like Obama did then, the president on Saturday made no public remarks about Cambodia’s dark history or the United States’ role in the nation’s tortured past.

    In the 1970s, President Richard Nixon authorized a secret carpet-bombing campaign in Cambodia to cut off North Vietnam’s move toward South Vietnam. The U.S. also backed a coup that led, in part, to the rise of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, a bloodthirsty guerrilla group that went on to orchestrate a genocide that resulted in the deaths of more than 1.5 million people between 1975 and 1979.

    One of the regime’s infamous Killing Fields, where nearly 20,000 Cambodians were executed and thrown in mass graves, lies just a few miles outside the center of Phnom Penh. There, a memorial featuring thousands of skulls sits as a vivid reminder of the atrocities committed just a few generations ago. White House aides said that Biden had no scheduled plans to visit.

    As is customary, Biden met with the host country’s leader at the start of the summit. Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge commander, has ruled Cambodia for decades with next to no tolerance for dissent. Opposition leaders have been jailed and killed, and his administration has been accused of widespread corruption, according to human rights groups.

    Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, said Biden would “engage across the board in service of America’s interests and to advance America’s strategic position and our values.” He said Biden was meeting with Hun Sen because he was the leader of the host country. 

    U.S. officials said Biden urged the Cambodian leader to make a greater commitment to democracy and “reopen civic and political space” ahead of the country’s next elections.

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    Jonathan Lemire

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  • Ukraine frets about US midterms

    Ukraine frets about US midterms

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    There is mounting anxiety about what Tuesday’s American midterm elections may mean for Ukraine and U.S. support for the country, amid fears that a Republican surge could weaken American backing for Kyiv.

    Ukrainian officials and lawmakers are scrutinizing the opinion polls and parsing the comments of their counterparts.

    “We hope that for our sake that we don’t become a victim to the partisan debate that’s unfolding right now in the U.S.,” Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, a former Ukrainian deputy prime minister and now opposition lawmaker, told POLITICO. “That’s the fear, because we are very much seriously dependent on not only American support, but also on the U.S. leadership in terms of keeping up the common effort of other nations.”  

    House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the potential next speaker if the Republicans prevail, said last month that there would be no “blank check” for Ukraine if the House comes back under Republican control. The Biden administration has tried to assuage concerns about the government’s commitment to supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion, but populist Republican sentiment in Congress is urging less support for Kyiv and more attention on U.S. domestic problems.  

    “I’m worried about the Trump wing of the GOP,” said Mia Willard, a Ukrainian-American living and working in Kyiv. “I have recently read about Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s promise that ‘not another penny will go to Ukraine’ if Republicans retake control of Congress.”

    According to the latest poll data, the Republicans are favored to take over the House and possibly the Senate in Tuesday’s voting.

    “I do hope that regardless of the election results,” said Willard, “there will be a continued bipartisan consensus on supporting Ukraine amid Russia’s genocide of the Ukrainian people, which I cannot call anything but a genocide after firsthand witnessing Russia’s war crimes in the now de-occupied territories,” said Willard, who is a researcher at the International Centre for Policy Studies in the Ukrainian capital.

    Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin is confident that U.S. military and financial support for his country will continue after the midterms. “I don’t see a critical number of people among the Republicans calling for cuts in aid,” he told POLITICO. At the same time, Klimkin acknowledged that the procedure for congressional consideration of Ukraine aid may become more complex.

    Klimkin said he believes that the U.S. stance toward Ukraine is “critical” for Washington beyond the Ukrainian conflict — “not only with respect to Russia, but also to how the U.S. will be perceived by China.”

    Voters line up outside the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections center in Cleveland, Ohio | Dustin Franz/AFP via Getty Images

    For Ukraine, Klimkin said the “real risk” is the debate taking place in Washington on both sides of the aisle about the fact that “the United States is giving much more than all of Europe” to Kyiv’s war effort.

    According to the Kiel Institute of the World Economy, the U.S. has brought its total commitments in military, financial and humanitarian aid to over €52 billion, while EU countries and institutions have collectively reached just over €29 billion. 

    “The U.S. is now committing nearly twice as much as all EU countries and institutions combined. This is a meager showing for the bigger European countries, especially since many of their pledges are arriving in Ukraine with long delays,” said Christoph Trebesch, head of the team compiling the Kiel Institute’s Ukraine support tracker.

    Europe’s stance

    If the Republicans prevail in Tuesday’s vote, the anxiety is also that without U.S. leadership, Ukraine would slip down the policy agenda of Europe, too, depriving Ukraine of the backing the country needs for “victory over the Russian monster,” Klympush-Tsintsadze said.

    If the worst happened and U.S. support weakens following the midterms, Klympush-Tsintsadze said she has some hopes that Europe would still stand firm. She has detected in Europe “much more sobriety in the assessment of what Russia is and what it can do, and I hope there would be enough voices there in Europe, too, to ensure there’s no weakening of support,” she said.

    Others are less sanguine about how stout and reliable the Europeans would be without Washington goading and galvanizing. Several officials and lawmakers pointed to the Balkan wars of the 1990s and how the Clinton administration stood back, arguing the Europeans should take the lead only to have to intervene diplomatically and militarily later.

    “We in Ukraine have been watching closely the developments in the USA and what configuration the Congress will have after the midterm elections,” said Iuliia Osmolovska, chair of the Transatlantic Dialogue Center and a senior fellow at GLOBSEC, a global think-tank headquartered in Bratislava. 

    A local resident rides a bicycle on a street in Izyum, eastern Ukraine on September 14, 2022 | Juan Barreto/AFP via Getty Images)

    “This might impact the existing determination of the U.S. political establishment to continue supporting Ukraine, foremost militarily. Especially given voices from some Republicans that call for freezing the support to Ukraine,” she said.

    But Osmolovska remains hopeful, noting that “Ukraine has been enjoying bipartisan support in the war with Russia since the very first days of the invasion in February this year.” She also believes President Joe Biden would have wiggle room to act more independently when it comes to military assistance to Ukraine without seeking approval from Congress thanks to legislation already on the books. 

    But she doesn’t exclude “the risk of some exhaustion” from allies, arguing that Ukraine needs to redouble diplomacy efforts to prevent that from happening. What needs to be stressed, she said, is that “our Western partners only benefit from enabling Ukraine to defeat Russia as soon as possible” — as a protracted conflict is in no one’s interest.

    “There’s a feeling in the air that we’re winning in the war, although it is far from over,” said Glib Dovgych, a software engineer in Kyiv.

    “If the flow of money and equipment goes down, it won’t mean our defeat, but it will mean a much longer war with much higher human losses. And since many other allies are looking at the U.S. in their decisions to provide support to us, if the U.S. decreases the scale of their help, other countries like Germany, France and Italy would probably follow suit,” Dovgych said.

    Yaroslav Azhnyuk, president and co-founder of Petcube, a technology company that develops smart devices for pets, says “it’s obvious that opinions on how to end Russia’s war on Ukraine are being used for internal political competition within the U.S.”

    He worries about the influence on American political opinion also of U.S.-based entrepreneurs and investors, mentioning David Sacks, Elon Musk and Chamath Palihapitiya, among others. “They have publicly shared concerning views, saying that Ukraine should cede Crimea to Russia, or that the U.S. should stop supporting Ukraine to avoid a global nuclear war.”

    Azhnyuk added: “I get it, nukes are scary. But what happens in the next 5-10 years after Ukraine cedes any piece of its territory or the conflict is frozen. Such a scenario would signal to the whole world that nuclear terrorism works.”

    Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said that regardless of the results of the U.S. midterms, Kyiv is “confident” that bipartisan support for Ukraine will remain in both chambers of the Congress. Both the Republicans and Democrats have voiced their solidarity with Ukraine, and this stance would remain “a reflection of the will of the American people,” he said.

    The Ukrainian side counts on America’s leadership in important issues of defense assistance, in particular in expanding the capacity of the Ukrainian air defense system, financial support, strengthening sanctions against Moscow, and recognizing Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, Podolyak told POLITICO.

    And this isn’t just about Ukraine, said Klympush-Tsintsadze, the former deputy premier.

    “Too many things in the world depend on this war,” she said. “It’s not only about restoring our territorial integrity. It’s not only about our freedom and our chance for the future, our survival as a nation and our survival as a country — it will have drastic consequences for the geopolitics of the world,” Klympush-Tsintsadze said.

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    Jamie Dettmer and Sergei Kuznetsov

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  • Saturday, November 5. Russia’s War On Ukraine: Daily News And Information From Ukraine

    Saturday, November 5. Russia’s War On Ukraine: Daily News And Information From Ukraine

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    Dispatches from Ukraine. Day 255.

    As Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues and the war rages on, reliable sources of information are critical. Forbes gathers information and provides updates on the situation.

    By Polina Rasskazova

    Recently, American businessman Howard Buffett— son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett— met with the head of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration, Oleh Synyehubov. Howard Buffett discussed the financing of funds participating in the de-mining of the region, the restoration of critical infrastructure, and crisis assistance in case of emergency situations during the winter period.

    Synyehubov noted that the main task is to speed up the de-mining process, because the Kharkiv region was heavily mined by Russian troops, and local residents of the de-occupied territories suffer from detonations almost every day. “The United States of America and the Buffett Foundation are reliable partners of Ukraine and the Kharkiv region in particular. Howard believes in our victory and constantly supports projects to restore our country. Appreciate this help,” said Synyehubov.

    Iran’s foreign minister acknowledged that his country has supplied Russia with drones before Moscow’s war on Ukraine, the Associated Press reports. “We gave a limited number of drones to Russia months before the Ukraine war,” Iranian Foreign Minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, told reporters after a meeting in Tehran on Saturday. As he acknowledged the shipment, Amirabdollahian claimed that Iran was oblivious to the use of its drones in Ukraine. He added that the Iranian side agreed with the Ukrainian foreign minister that Ukraine would provide any evidence about Russia’s use of Iranian drones in Ukraine. There has been direct evidence in recent weeks of Iranian drone technology being used by Russian forces against Ukrainian military and civilian targets.

    Russia has already lost twice as many planes in Ukraine than in it did during its 10-year war in Afghanistan. “During the full-scale aggression, defenders of Ukraine destroyed twice as many Russian aircraft as the Soviet Union lost during the 10-year war in Afghanistan — 278 russian aircraft in Ukraine against 118 Soviet aircraft in Afghanistan,” reported the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi. “This war is the same shame for the Russian Federation and will cause its destruction!” he added.

    Residents of the temporarily occupied city of Mariupol, in eastern Ukraine, put up posters to draw attention to the fact that they are freezing in their homes. “The children are frozen! Where are the windows?” “We are frozen. Help!”

    Such banners and signs appear in occupied Mariupol. Mariupol City Council reports that people are driven to despair and forced to cry for help. Mariupol’s occupied authorities have not started the heating season despite the fact that at night the temperature outside is below freezing. People are waiting for action from the authorities with dying batteries and broken windows, although the Russian media talk about the distribution of new apartments and the beginning of the heating season in Mariupol.

    Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Andriy Yermak, held a briefing with the US President’s National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan. At the briefing, they discussed the issue of providing Ukraine with air defense equipment as soon as possible and about the exchange of prisoners and the involvement of international organizations in this process.

    Ukraine received confirmation of unwavering support from the United States until it gains victory over the aggressor. “The United States is a very important partner of ours, which provides tremendous support. And today, once again, we received confirmation of unwavering support for Ukraine. Our friends and partners are with us until our victory,” said Yermak.

    On The Culture Front.

    Evgeniy Maloletka, a Ukrainian photographer, and his colleague, Mstyslav Chernov, will show photos and videos from Mariupol, Ukraine—the southern city destroyed by Russian forces, currently occupied by Russia — from November 9th through the 20th, at Howl! Arts!, 250 Bowery Street, New York. Maloletka and Chernov were the two journalists in Mariupol whose photos were on news pages all over the world and they received numerous awards. One of the most noticeable photos is the image of a women in labor during Russian bombing in a maternity ward in March, 2022.

    New York’s Ukrainian Institute of America celebrates Solomea Krushelnytska, one of the greatest opera singers from Ukraine, who sang lead roles for early 20th century operas (such as Puccini’s Madame Butterfly) and toured in the most famous venues all over the world. Krushelnytska suffered directly from the Nazi and Soviet regimes which greatly affected her life in Ukraine. A music concert, including songs from Krushelnytska’s repertoire, and an art show will be held on November 18th.

    Star Wars actor Mark Hamill, known for his role as Luke Skywalker, sent 500 drones to Ukraine to combat Russian aggression earlier this fall. He serves as an ambassador for Ukraine’s “Army of Drones” project.

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    Katya Soldak, Forbes Staff

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  • Thursday, October 27. Russia’s War On Ukraine: News And Information From Ukraine

    Thursday, October 27. Russia’s War On Ukraine: News And Information From Ukraine

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    Dispatches from Ukraine. Day 246.

    As Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues and the war rages on, reliable sources of information are critical. Forbes gathers information and provides updates on the situation.

    By Polina Rasskazova

    Ukraine’s energy infrastructure is under Russian attack. At night, Russian forces damaged energy infrastructure facilities in the central regions, disabling a number of essential facilities. The attacks were carried out by so-called kamikaze drones. According to information from the head of the Kyiv Regional Military Administration, Oleksiy Kuleba, there were no deaths or injuries. The office of the President of Ukraine warned that in order to overcome the consequences of the night attacks on Kyiv city, Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Chernihiv and the Cherkasy regions, from today onwards, “energy companies are forced to introduce tighter restrictions” on their supplies of electricity.

    Kharkiv region.

    Last night, the Russian army shelled areas of the Ukrainian regions located on the border with the Russian Federation with mortars, barrel and rocket artillery. According to the head of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration, Oleg Synehubov, there were no injuries as a result of the attacks. However, Sineрubov reported a high number of mines in the region. “Yesterday, in the Izium district, an anti-tank mine blew up a car of pyrotechnicians of the State Emergency Service. 1 person died, 6 were injured,” he said. A 62-year-old man was also injured by a mine today.

    Russian invaders conduct military censorship in the temporarily occupied territories. According to the mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, as of today, Russian forces may check the mobile phones of any resident in any occupied town of the Zaporizhzhia region. “They will check who a person communicates with, what they watch on the Internet. And if they find a subscription to Ukrainian Telegram channels there, the person will be fined or even thrown into a basement,” he said.

    Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine has conducted 28 exchanges and freed 978 people from Russian captivity, including 99 civilians, announced the Deputy Minister of Defense, Hanna Malyar, at a briefing. “The past few weeks have been a landmark in the issue of prisoner of war exchanges. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, 28 exchanges have already been carried out and 978 people have been released, including 99 civilians,” the deputy minister said. “Negotiations regarding the release and exchange of our prisoners of war are ongoing.”

    The National Police of Ukraine documented the mass burial of citizens in the Kharkiv region. The grave was found in the Boriv district and, according to preliminary police data, at least 17 people—civilians and soldiers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces—were buried there.

    Residents of the village of Kopanky told the police that the Russians collected the bodies of the dead throughout the district. “On April 13, they brought in two trucks, dug a hole up to 3 meters deep with an excavator, and dumped all the bodies there. Then the burial place was leveled with tanks,” said eyewitnesses. It is reported that the Russians didn’t mark the grave and did not allow the villagers to do so.

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    Katya Soldak, Forbes Staff

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  • ‘Genocide denial’: Anger as debate on Xinjiang rejected

    ‘Genocide denial’: Anger as debate on Xinjiang rejected

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    The UN Human Rights Council has voted not to debate the treatment of the Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang even after the UN’s human rights office concluded the scale of the alleged abuses there may amount to “crimes against humanity“.

    The motion for a debate on the issue was defeated by 19 votes to 17, with 11 countries abstaining in a decision China welcomed and others condemned as “shameful”.

    Many of those who voted “no” were Muslim-majority countries such as Indonesia, Somalia, Pakistan, UAE and Qatar. Among the 11 countries that abstained were India, Malaysia and Ukraine.

    “This is a victory for developing countries and a victory truth and justice,” Hua Chunying, China’s foreign affairs spokesperson tweeted. “Human rights must not be used as a pretext to make up lies and interfere in other countries’ internal affairs, or to contain, coerce & humiliate others.”

    The UN first revealed the existence of a network of detention centres in Xinjiang in 2018, saying at least one million Uighurs and other ethnic minorities were being held in the system. China later admitted there were camps in the region, but said they were vocational skills training centres necessary to tackle “extremism”.

    Amid leaks of official government documents, investigations by human rights groups and academics, and testimony from Uighurs themselves, China has lobbied hard to prevent any further probe into the situation in Xinjiang.

    Former UN Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet, who first called for “unfettered” access to the region in 2018, was only allowed to visit in May, in what appeared to be a tightly-choreographed visit.

    Her report (PDF) on the situation was also pushed back and was only released on August 31, minutes before her term was due to end.

    While it did not mention the word “genocide”, it found that “serious human rights violations” had been committed, and said “the extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim groups … may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.”

    The Uighurs are a mostly Muslim Turkic people who differ in religion, language and culture from China’s majority Han ethnic group.

    ‘Genocide denial’

    The United States, which called for the debate, condemned the latest vote.

    “The inaction shamefully suggests some countries are free from scrutiny and allowed to violate human rights with impunity,” Michele Taylor, the US representative to the Human Rights Council, said in a statement. “No country represented here today has a perfect human rights record. No country, no matter how powerful should be excluded from Council discussions — this includes my country, the United States, and it includes the People’s Republic of China.”

    In the wake of the UN report, Uighur groups had urged the UN Human Rights Council to establish a commission of inquiry to independently examine the treatment of Uighurs and other minorities in China and called on the UN Office on Genocide Prevention to immediately conduct an assessment of the risks of atrocities, including genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang.

    They expressed disappointment at Thursday’s outcome, with the Campaign for Uyghurs noting that Beijing had been “actively trying to suppress” the report “at every level”.

    “Some member states have adopted China’s genocide denial,” the group’s Executive Director Rushan Abbas said in a statement. “They should consider the consequences of allowing one powerful country to effectively have impunity for committing genocide.”

    Alim Osman, president of the Uighur Association of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, told Al Jazeera he was disappointed and angry at the decision.

    “That even a debate on the human rights situation is not allowed by few a countries which have economic ties with the Chinese regime clearly shows on the international stage that their moral obligation to defend human rights is for sale, therefore corrupting the UN itself,” he said. “The UN needs urgent reform.”

    Beijing has been lobbying hard against the findings of a long-delayed UN report into the situation in Xinjiang, which warned of possible ‘crimes against humanity’ [File: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP]

    Human rights groups also condemned the vote.

    In a strongly-worded statement, Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnes Callamard said the decision protected the perpetrators rather than the victims of abuses.

    “For Council member states to vote against even discussing a situation where the UN itself says crimes against humanity may have occurred makes a mockery of everything the Human Rights Council is supposed to stand for.” Callamard said in a statement.

    “Member states’ silence — or worse, blocking of debate — in the face of the atrocities committed by the Chinese government further sullies the reputation of the Human Rights Council.

    “The UN Human Rights Council has today failed the test to uphold its core mission, which is to protect the victims of human rights violations everywhere, including in places such as Xinjiang.”

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  • Until Everyone Is Free: My Jewish, Anti-Zionist and Antiracist Journey Toward Collective Liberation

    Until Everyone Is Free: My Jewish, Anti-Zionist and Antiracist Journey Toward Collective Liberation

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    I grew up half Jewish and half Italian-Catholic. I made jokes about how these different identities left me mostly confused. Had Jesus risen again or not? I thought I had to choose one side rather than celebrating all the parts within myself, so I almost erased my Jewish half. I learned how to make risotto, but not matzah ball soup. 

    Christianity is the dominant culture in the United States and obscures the other religions. People would always say Merry Christmas to me, assuming everyone celebrated it, assuming it was the only holiday. I unconsciously accepted that and embraced my Catholic heritage more. I learned gospel hymns, but never learned the Hebrew blessings sung on Shabbat. 

    In addition to being stifled by Christianity’s dominant force, I also grew up internalizing sexism, striving to be like the men I deemed superior, by playing jazz and chess, composing music, reading philosophy, being stoic, and working hard.

    Weighed down by sexism from without and within, I was unaware of the ways I was also part of oppressive systems. In undergraduate jazz school I was so anxious about playing equally to men that I didn’t wake up to systemic racism. I took a jazz history class, where I learned about the racism Black musicians endured, but that felt like history, miles away. I couldn’t see my white privilege because I only noticed how inferior I felt to my male classmates.

    It wasn’t until I was 30 that I realized I had spent most of my life trying to prove I was as good as men, and this had distracted me from other issues. It wasn’t until I was 32, when I made a joke about Jewish people, that my Jewish friend let me know what I said was antisemitic.

    “But I’m Jewish!” I said, stunned. 

    It turns out antisemitism is everywhere. 

    Even inside me. 

    In my thirties, when I finally uncovered the side of me that was Jewish and uprooted my internalized antisemitism, I found the joy of being Jewish: dressing up for glittery Purim events in Brooklyn; going to a feminist, antiracist synagogue; and connecting to a community of inspiring Jewish activists. The more I learned about Jewish traditions, the more I realized there was so much of Judaism already flowing through me without me even knowing: my connection to the moon, my eco-spirituality, my humor, my animated hand gestures. 

    As I became in touch with the Jewish part of me that was lost and erased, I also learned about the Israeli government’s erasure and deliberate killing of a large amount of Palestinian people. US media and Zionist culture declare that Israel and Palestine are in conflict, it’s complicated, and there are two sides. But 5,590 Palestinians were killed from 2008-2020 compared to 251 Israelis killed. Human Rights Watch has declared Israel to be guilty of apartheid and human rights crimes. Israel has the largest army in the Middle East, funded by the US government’s aid of 3.8 billion dollars a year. Hamas, meanwhile, has rocks and rockets that are easily intercepted by Israel’s military system. Israel is the one with the power, and their government uses it to oppress and kill the Palestinian people.

    My Grandma had always talked about her love of Israel, and I absorbed that without any questions for too long. The truth of Israel’s aggression was hidden in plain sight. 

    Just as I first had to embrace Judaism within myself, and then awoke more to the antisemitism around me, so I learned about Zionism and Israel’s mass killings of Palestinians. The uncovering never ends, just like my battle with sexism delayed my awakening to racism. Different oppressions conceal other oppressions. Until they don’t anymore. Until we wake up from our individual struggles and realize how the system wants to keep people separated. 

    The veil that kept me isolated in my own struggle of sexism and antisemitism also became the path toward connection. Once we know there is a veil, we can then see through it, leading us to pursue solidarity with other causes. We can see how all the struggles overlap — that the Black Lives Matter movement is part of Palestinian liberation, part of queer and trans liberation, part of reproductive rights and feminism — that the intersection of all these injustices is where our community power lies. 

    When white supremacists stormed the capital on January 6th, some wore shirts that said “6MWE.” My stomach churned when I saw on Facebook what that meant: “6 Million Wasn’t Enough.” 

    I texted a friend: They’re talking about the Holocaust. They’re talking about me. 

    Some people hate me, which is sickening, and I am not going to hate or oppress anyone else. I know that it is, in the words of Jewish organization If Not Now, a “false choice between Palestinian freedom and Jewish safety.” The intergenerational trauma from the Holocaust has created an extreme militant Israeli government unable to see they are now harming others. Israel’s government is stuck in a pattern they feel is defensive but is actually violently aggressive. This round of Israeli bombing in May killed at least 256 Palestinians in Gaza, including 67 children, displaced tens of thousands, destroyed hospitals, schools, sewage systems, clean drinking water supplies, and the only COVID testing site. In contrast, thirteen Israelis were killed. That’s not Israel acting in defense — that is aggressive and violent, a series of human rights violations. When you bombard an area densely populated with civilians who are unable to escape, that’s a deliberate and horrific mass killing. That’s a war crime.

    The more I dig into the rich and beautiful culture of Judaism, I learn that there is a long history of anti-Zionism within Judaism. The Judaism that I know and love wants basic human rights for all people. If Not Now states, “Palestinian liberation and dismantling antisemitism are intertwined … We will not be pitted against each other … We won’t be distracted from our fight for freedom and safety for all people.” No one is free until everyone is free, and that includes Palestinians oppressed under apartheid; Black, brown, and Indigenous people brutalized and killed by the police in the US; transgender people who are horrifically murdered; Jews experiencing hate crimes; and people in other countries fighting totalitarian and fascist governments. Our liberation is bound up in each other’s.

    Still, some people try to link any opposition to Israel’s government as being antisemitic. As Palestinian-American writer and policy analyst Yousef Munayyer writes, “When people turn humanizing Palestinians into antisemitism, they not only enable the continued dehumanization of Palestinians but they also cheapen antisemitism by cynically weaponizing it.” 

    I, an American Jew, stand with Jews all around the world in protest of Israel’s government, because I know injustice, war crimes, human rights violations, and apartheid when I see them. I will fight for the rights of marginalized people until everyone is free.

    [Feature image: Close-up of barbed wire with the golden Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem visible in the distance under a blue sky. Source: @RJA1988 for Pixabay.]

    Mare Berger is a singer-songwriter, pianist, teacher, writer, improviser, gardener, and activist living in Brooklyn, NY. In April 2020 Mare released an album “The Moon is Always Full” featuring their original lyrics, songs and orchestration. You can buy Mare’s album here. Follow Mare @maremoonsong. Listen to music and read more of their writings at marielberger.com.

    TBINAA is an independent, queer, Black woman run digital media and education organization promoting radical self love as the foundation for a more just, equitable and compassionate world. If you believe in our mission, please contribute to this necessary work at PRESSPATRON.com/TBINAA 

    We can’t do this work without you!

    As a thank you gift, supporters who contribute $10+ (monthly) will receive a copy of our ebook, Shed Every Lie: Black and Brown Femmes on Healing As Liberation. Supporters contributing $20+ (monthly) will receive a copy of founder Sonya Renee Taylor’s book, The Body is Not An Apology: The Power of Radical Self Love delivered to your home. 

    Need some help growing into your own self love? Sign up for our 10 Tools for Radical Self Love Intensive!

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