Videogame maker Activision Blizzard has agreed to pay nearly $55 million to settle a California civil-rights lawsuit brought over complaints of sexual harassment, discrimination and pay disparities by women employees that helped trigger the company’s acquisition by Microsoft.
The agreement, subject to court approval, will see Activision pay nearly $46 million into a settlement fund dedicated to compensating women employees and contract workers at the company, plus more than $9 million in attorneys’ fees and costs. Additionally, Activision will take steps “to help ensure fair pay and promotion practices at the company,” including retaining an independent consultant to evaluate its compensation and promotion policies.
Yet the settlement also sees CRD withdraw its initial claims alleging a culture of widespread, systemic workplace sexual harassment at Activision, according to a copy of the agreement provided to MarketWatch. The document notes that the department is filing an amended complaint that removes the sexual-harassment allegations against the company and focuses on the gender-based pay and promotion claims.
CRD made no note of its prior sexual-harassment claims against Activision in its announcement Friday. A spokesperson for the department said the statement “largely speaks for itself with respect to the historic nature of this more than $50 million settlement agreement, which will bring direct relief and compensation to women who were harmed by the company’s discriminatory practices.
Representatives for Activision declined to comment.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the news of the settlement Friday.
The California agency’s complaint was one of several high-profile investigations by both state and federal regulators in recent years into alleged workplace misconduct at Activision and failures by its leadership to respond appropriately.
The settlement would be the second-largest ever for the California Civil Rights Department, according to the Journal, after its $100 million agreement with another Los Angeles-area videogame developer, Riot Games, to resolve gender-discrimination allegations in 2021. The agency had initially sought a much-larger settlement with Activision, the publication reported, citing how the state had estimated the company’s liability at nearly $1 billion to some 2,500 employees with potential claims.
BEIJING — China on Friday defended controversial bounties offered for the capture of Hong Kong dissidents who have fled abroad that have been heavily criticized by foreign governments and human rights groups.
Rewards of 1 million Hong Kong dollars ($128,000) have been offered for information leading to the capture of 13 opposition figures accused of violating the semi-autonomous Chinese city’s sweeping National Security Law.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said China rejected the outside criticism, saying the arrest orders were “necessary and justified and … in line with international law and practice.”
Without directly mentioning the bounties, Mao said other countries also have extraterritorial aspects to their laws on national security, adding that foreign governments’ support for those on the list was merely cover for their aim of destabilizing Hong Kong, an Asian financial center that was roiled by 2019 anti-government protests.
“We strongly oppose and deplore the individual countries slandering Hong Kong’s national security law and interfering in the judicial system of (Hong Kong),” Mao told reporters at a daily briefing.
A day earlier, Hong Kong police accused another five overseas-based activists of violating the National Security Law imposed by Beijing, and offered rewards for their arrests.
Mao said the five “endangered national security by destabilizing Hong Kong under the guise of democracy and human rights. ”
One of the five, Joey Siu, is a U.S. citizen who was born in North Carolina and moved to Hong Kong as a child.
“This morning I, a U.S. citizen, woke up to the news that an arrest warrant & a HKD $1 million bounty have been placed on my head by the Hong Kong govt. for exercising my freedoms in my own country,” Siu posted on the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter.
“More to say later but for now: I will never be silenced, I will never back down,” Siu wrote. The police notice listed her alleged crimes as “colluding with a foreign nation or overseas forces to endanger national security.”
The bounties further intensify the Hong Kong government’s crackdown on dissidents following the 2019 demonstration that grew increasingly violent and were harshly suppressed by police.
Many leading pro-democracy activists were arrested, silenced or forced into self-exile after the introduction of the security law in 2020, in a drastic erosion of the freedoms promised to the former British colony when it returned to China in 1997. Later legal changes effectively demolished any political opposition, with all seats on representative bodies either appointed by the government or reserved for those vetted and certified as “patriots.”
The latest arrest warrants were issued for Johnny Fok and Tony Choi, who host a YouTube channel focusing on current affairs, and pro-democracy activists Simon Cheng, Hui Wing-ting and Joey Siu. Those on the wanted list are believed to be living in self-exile mainly in Britain, the U.S. and Australia.
In July, Hong Kong warned eight other activists who now live abroad that they would be pursued for life with bounties put on them. It was the first such use of bounties under the security law, and the authorities’ announcement drew criticism from Western governments.
Police have arrested people on suspicion of providing funds for some of those who have fled abroad.
Both the U.S. and British governments have denounced the arrest warrants and bounties as flying in the face of human rights and democratic norms.
Mao responded Friday, saying, “The U.S. and U.K.’s support to these anti-China elements exposed their sinister intention of messing up Hong Kong.”
“China’s determination to safeguard its national sovereignty, security and development interests is unwavering. The countries concerned should respect China’s sovereignty and the rule of law in Hong Kong and stop interfering in China’s internal affairs,” Mao said.
Amnesty International described the bounties as “absurd” and “designed to sow fear worldwide.”
“This is further confirmation that the Hong Kong authorities’ systematic dismantling of human rights has officially gone global. The brazen tactic of placing ‘Wild West’-style bounties on activists’ heads seems to be emerging as a method of choice to silence dissent,” Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for Greater China, Sarah Brooks, said Thursday in an emailed statement.
Meanwhile, pro-democracy activist Agnes Chow left Hong Kong for Canada earlier this month and doesn’t plan to return to fulfill her bail conditions.
Chow is one of Hong Kong’s most prominent young activists and was arrested in 2020 under the National Security Law. While she has not been charged and was released on bail, police confiscated her passport before returning it to her this year under certain conditions, including a visit to mainland China with authorities.
TALLINN, Estonia — A court in Russia on Thursday overturned a fine handed to a veteran human rights advocate for speaking out against the war in Ukraine and sent Oleg Orlov’s case back to prosecutors, who have sought to imprison him for three years instead.
Orlov, co-chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights group Memorial, was convicted of publicly “discrediting” the Russian military after he posted on Facebook an article he wrote that denounced the invasion of Ukraine. He has rejected the charge as politically motivated.
The Moscow City Court’s voiding of the fine did not represent a decision in his favor bur rather another step in a years-long, unrelenting crackdown on dissent in Russia that the Kremlin ratcheted up after sending troops into Ukraine in February 2022.
In October, a lower court fined Orlov 150,000 rubles (about $1,500 at the time), which is a significantly milder punishment compared to lengthy prison terms some other Russians have gotten for voicing their criticism of the war.
Orlov and his defense team appealed the sentence about two weeks later and discovered that the prosecution had appealed it, too, demanding to sentence the 71-year-old activist to three years in prison.
At the court hearing Thursday, the prosecutor, however, asked the judge to void the fine and send the case back to the prosecutors, saying that investigators failed to take into account Orlov’s motive.
The Moscow City Court sided with the prosecution Thursday and sent the case back to them for revision, overturning the earlier verdict and canceling the fine.
Orlov denounced the state’s appeal and said he was being prosecuted “for public criticism of the actions of the authorities.”
“In my view, the authorities are afraid. So afraid of the free will of the people that they destroyed the institution of elections, that they prohibited holding any kind of demonstrations for various bogus reasons, so much so that they imprison people over words,” independent Russian news site Mediazona quoted him as saying in the courtroom.
According to the outlet, Orlov brought a bag of personal belongings with him to court in case he was jailed immediately. He told reporters after the hearing that he doesn’t plan on unpacking it as the authorities appear intent on putting him behind bars.
Also on Thursday, the trial of a hard-line nationalist who also publicly criticized the Kremlin and its conduct in Ukraine opened in another Moscow court. Unlike Orlov, who opposed the war, Igor Strelkov accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of weakness and indecision in Ukraine.
Strelkov is a retired security officer who led Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and was convicted of murder in the Netherlands for his role in the downing of a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet that year.
He has called Putin a “nonentity” and a person of “cowardly mediocrity.” He was arrested in July on extremism charges and remained in custody since then. Strelkov faces up to five years in prison, if convicted.
Strelkov’s lawyer, Gadzhi Aliyev, told Russian state news agency Tass that his client “categorically disagreed with” the charges against him and refused to plead guilty Thursday. The trial is taking place behind closed doors, a usual practice when it comes to extremism charges.
From behind bars, Strelkov earlier this year announced through his allies that he has ambitions to run for president in next year. The 2024 election, which is scheduled for March 17. is widely expected to give Putin his fifth term in office. Strelkov is unlikely to get on the ballot, given the charges against him.
In the meantime, allies of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny have asked the U.N. Human Rights Committee to help them locate the politician, who hasn’t been seen or heard from in nine days.
Navalny, 47, is serving a 19-year prison term on extremism charges. His allies reported Monday that the penal colony east of Moscow where he was imprisoned no longer had him on its inmate roster and did not provide any information about where the politician may have been transferred.
Navalny was due to be transferred to a “special security” penal colony, a facility with the highest security level in the Russian penitentiary system. Russian prison transfers are notorious for taking a long time, sometimes weeks, during which there’s no access to prisoners and information about their whereabouts is limited or unavailable. Navalny could be transferred to one of a number of such penal colonies across Russia.
Navalny’s ally Maria Pevchikh on Thursday announced the request to the U.N. Human Rights Council.
“What is happening with Alexei is, in fact, an enforced disappearance and a flagrant violation of his fundamental rights. Answers must be given,” she said.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine.
ASTANA, Kazakhstan, Dec 14 (IPS) – The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is addressing the issue of youth entrepreneurship and employment in Central Asia by launching a seven-year €200 million (US$ 218 million) Youth in Business (YiB) programme.
The programme is designed to provide better access to finance and relevant training to young entrepreneurs in the region, where up to one third of the population is aged between 18 and 34 years.
The Youth in Business programme in Central Asia (YiB CA) will target micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) led or owned by young individuals under the age of 35.
It will consist of up to €200 million for on-lending to up to 20 partner financial institutions in Central Asia and Mongolia; targeted non-financial services for eligible small businesses will be provided by the Bank’s Advice for Small Businesses programme to help develop their entrepreneurial skills through training, advisory services and networking opportunities.
The EBRD’s investment will be complemented by a package of up to €30 million consisting of grants and concessional co-financing to stimulate inclusive lending and youth entrepreneurship.
It is expected that the first loan agreements under the YiB CA will include: a loan of up to US$ 10 million to Uzbekistan’s largest private bank Hamkorbank, a loan of up to US$ 8 million to Shinhan Bank Kazakhstan, a loan of up to US$ 4 million to Mongolia’s leading micro lender Transcapital, and a loan of up to US$ 2 million to Kazakhstan-based microfinancial organisation Arnur Credit.
A market assessment conducted by the EBRD in the region reveals that while many young people across Central Asia have a strong entrepreneurial mindset, very few have access to equal economic opportunities. Only around 10 per cent of them have access to necessary training and professional expertise.
This is very important for Central Asia, where MSMEs account for almost half of total employment and contribute to almost 40 per cent of regional GDP.
Grant support and concessional finance to the programme is provided by the government of Kazakhstan, the Small Business Impact Fund and the European Union.
The EBRD is a leading institutional investor in Central Asia. It has to date provided close to €19 billion through more than 1,000 projects.
Anton Usov is EBRD Chief Spokesman for Central Asia and Mongolia
BRUSSELS — Western leaders are grappling with how to handle two era-defining wars in the Middle East and in Ukraine. But there’s another issue, one far closer to home, that’s derailing governments in Europe and America: migration.
In recent days, U.S. President Joe Biden, his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak all hit trouble amid intense domestic pressure to tackle immigration; all three emerged weakened as a result. The stakes are high as American, British and European voters head to the polls in 2024.
“There is a temptation to hunt for quick fixes,” said Rashmin Sagoo, director of the international law program at the Chatham House think tank in London. “But irregular migration is a hugely challenging issue. And solving it requires long-term policy thinking beyond national boundaries.”
With election campaigning already under way, long-term plans may be hard to find. Far-right, anti-migrant populists promising sharp answers are gaining support in many Western democracies, leaving mainstream parties to count the costs. Less than a month ago in the Netherlands, pragmatic Dutch centrists lost to an anti-migrant radical.
Who will be next?
Rishi Sunak, United Kingdom
In Britain, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is under pressure from members of his own ruling Conservative party who fear voters will punish them over the government’s failure to get a grip on migration.
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks during a press conference in Dover on June 5, 2023 in Dover, England | Pool photo by Yui Mok/WPA via Getty Images
Seven years ago, voters backed Brexit because euroskeptic campaigners promised to “Take Back Control” of the U.K.’s borders. Instead, the picture is now more chaotic than ever. The U.K. chalked up record net migration figures last month, and the government has failed so far to stop small boats packed with asylum seekers crossing the English Channel.
Sunak is now in the firing line. He made a pledge to “Stop the Boats” central to his premiership. In the process, he ignited a war in his already divided party about just how far Britain should go.
Under Sunak’s deal with Rwanda, the central African nation agreed to resettle asylum seekers who arrived on British shores in small boats. The PM says the policy will deter migrants from making sea crossings to the U.K. in the first place. But the plan was struck down by the Supreme Court in London, and Sunak’s Tories now can’t agree on what to do next.
Having survived what threatened to be a catastrophic rebellion in parliament on Tuesday, the British premier still faces a brutal battle in the legislature over his proposed Rwanda law early next year.
Time is running out for Sunak to find a fix. An election is expected next fall.
Emmanuel Macron, France
The French president suffered an unexpected body blow when the lower house of parliament rejected his flagship immigration bill this week.
French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris, on June 21, 2023 | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
After losing parliamentary elections last year, getting legislation through the National Assembly has been a fraught process for Macron. He has been forced to rely on votes from the right-wing Les Républicains party on more than one occasion.
Macron’s draft law on immigration was meant to please both the conservatives and the center-left with a carefully designed mix of repressive and liberal measures. But in a dramatic upset, the National Assembly, which is split between centrists, the left and the far right, voted against the legislation on day one of debates.
Now Macron is searching for a compromise. The government has tasked a joint committee of senators and MPs with seeking a deal. But it’s likely their text will be harsher than the initial draft, given that the Senate is dominated by the centre right — and this will be a problem for Macron’s left-leaning lawmakers.
If a compromise is not found, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally will be able to capitalize on Macron’s failure ahead of the European Parliament elections next June.
But even if the French president does manage to muddle through, the episode is likely to mark the end of his “neither left nor right” political offer. It also raises serious doubts about his ability to legislate on controversial topics.
Joe Biden, United States
The immigration crisis is one of the most vexing and longest-running domestic challenges for President Joe Biden. He came into office vowing to reverse the policies of his predecessor, Donald Trump, and build a “fair and humane” system, only to see Congress sit on his plan for comprehensive immigration reform.
U.S. President Joe Biden pauses as he gives a speech in Des Moines, Iowa on July 15, 2019 | Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
The White House has seen a deluge of migrants at the nation’s southern border, strained by a decades-old system unable to handle modern migration patterns.
Ahead of next year’s presidential election, Republicans have seized on the issue. GOP state leaders have filed lawsuits against the administration and sent busloads of migrants to Democrat-led cities, while in Washington, Republicans in Congress have tied foreign aid to sweeping changes to border policy, putting the White House in a tight spot as Biden officials now consider a slate of policies they once forcefully rejected.
The political pressure has spilled into the other aisle. States and cities, particularly ones led by Democrats, are pressuring Washington leaders to do more in terms of providing additional federal aid and revamping southern border policies to limit the flow of asylum seekers into the United States.
New York City has had more than 150,000 new arrivals over the past year and a half — forcing cuts to new police recruits, cutting library hours and limiting sanitation duties. Similar problems are playing out in cities like Chicago, which had migrants sleeping in buses or police stations.
The pressure from Democrats is straining their relationship with the White House. New York City Mayor Eric Adams runs the largest city in the nation, but hasn’t spoken with Biden in nearly a year. “We just need help, and we’re not getting that help,” Adams told reporters Tuesday.
Olaf Scholz, Germany
Migration has been at the top of the political agenda in Germany for months, with asylum applications rising to their highest levels since the 2015 refugee crisis triggered by Syria’s civil war.
The latest influx has posed a daunting challenge to national and local governments alike, which have struggled to find housing and other services for the migrants, not to mention the necessary funds.
The inability to limit the number of refugees has put German Chancellor Olaf Scholz under immense pressure | Michele Tantussi/Getty Images
The inability — in a country that ranks among the most coveted destinations for asylum seekers — to limit the number of refugees has put German Chancellor Olaf Scholz under immense pressure. In the hope of stemming the flow, Germany recently reinstated border checks with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland, hoping to turn back the refugees before they hit German soil.
Even with border controls, refugee numbers remain high, which has been a boon to the far right. Germany’s anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party has reached record support in national polls.
Since overtaking Scholz’s Social Democrats in June, the AfD has widened its lead further, recording 22 percent in recent polls, second only to the center-right Christian Democrats.
The AfD is expected to sweep three state elections next September in eastern Germany, where support for the party and its reactionary anti-foreigner policies is particularly strong.
The center-right, meanwhile, is hardening its position on migration and turning its back on the open-border policies championed by former Chancellor Angela Merkel. Among the new priorities is a plan to follow the U.K.’s Rwanda model for processing refugees in third countries.
Karl Nehammer, Austria
Like Scholz, the Austrian leader’s approval ratings have taken a nosedive thanks to concerns over migration. Austria has taken steps to tighten controls at its southern and eastern borders.
Though the tactic has led to a drop in arrivals by asylum seekers, it also means Austria has effectively suspended the EU’s borderless travel regime, which has been a boon to the regional economy for decades.
Austria has effectively suspended the EU’s borderless travel regime, which has been a boon to the regional economy for decades | Thomas Kronsteiner/Getty Images
The far-right Freedom Party has had a commanding lead for more than a year, topping the ruling center-right in polls by 10 points. That puts the party in a position to win national elections scheduled for next fall, which would mark an unprecedented rightward tilt in a country whose politics have been dominated by the center since World War II.
Giorgia Meloni, Italy
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni made her name in opposition, campaigning on a radical far-right agenda. Since winning power in last year’s election, she has shifted to more moderate positions on Ukraine and Europe.
Meloni now needs to appease her base on migration, a topic that has dominated Italian debate for years. Instead, however, she has been forced to grant visas to hundreds of thousands of legal migrants to cover labor shortages. Complicating matters, boat landings in Italy are up by about 50 per cent year-on-year despite some headline-grabbling policies and deals to stop arrivals.
While Meloni has ordered the construction of detention centers where migrants will be held pending repatriation, in reality local conditions in African countries and a lack of repatriation agreements present serious impediments.
Italy’s Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni at a press conference on March 9, 2023 | Tiziana Fabi/AFP via Getty Images
Although she won the support of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for her cause, a potential EU naval mission to block departures from Africa would risk breaching international law.
Meloni has tried other options, including a deal with Tunisia to help stop migrant smuggling, but the plan fell apart before it began. A deal with Albania to offshore some migrant detention centers also ran into trouble.
Now Meloni is in a bind. The migration issue has brought her into conflict with France and Germany as she attempts to create a reputation as a moderate conservative.
If she fails to get to grips with the issue, she is likely to lose political ground. Her coalition partner Matteo Salvini is known as a hardliner on migration, and while they’re officially allies for now, they will be rivals again later.
Geert Wilders, the Netherlands
The government of long-serving Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was toppled over migration talks in July, after which he announced his exit from politics. In subsequent elections, in which different parties vied to fill Rutte’s void, far-right firebrand Geert Wilders secured a shock win. On election night he promised to curb the “asylum tsunami.”
Wilders is now seeking to prop up a center-right coalition with three other parties that have urged getting migration under control. One of them is Rutte’s old group, now led by Dilan Yeşilgöz.
Geert Wilders attends a meeting in the Dutch parliament with party leaders to discuss the formation of a coalition government, on November 24, 2023 | Carl Court/Getty Images
A former refugee, Yeşilgöz turned migration into one of the main topics of her campaign. She was criticized after the elections for paving the way for Wilders to win — not only by focusing on migration, but also by opening the door to potentially governing with Wilders.
Now, though, coalition talks are stuck, and it could take months to form a new cabinet. If Wilders, who clearly has a mandate from voters, can stitch a coalition together, the political trajectory of the Netherlands — generally known as a pragmatic nation — will shift significantly to the right. A crackdown on migration is as certain as anything can be.
Leo Varadkar, Ireland
Even in Ireland, an economically open country long used to exporting its own people worldwide, an immigration-friendly and pro-business government has been forced by rising anti-foreigner sentiment to introduce new migration deterrence measures that would have been unthinkable even a year ago.
Ireland’s hardening policies reflect both a chronic housing crisis and the growing reluctance of some property owners to keep providing state-funded emergency shelter in the wake of November riots in Dublin triggered by a North African immigrant’s stabbing of young schoolchildren.
A nation already housing more than 100,000 newcomers, mostly from Ukraine, Ireland has stopped guaranteeing housing to new asylum seekers if they are single men, chiefly from Nigeria, Algeria, Afghanistan, Georgia and Somalia, according to the most recent Department of Integration statistics.
Ireland has stopped guaranteeing housing to new asylum seekers if they are single men, chiefly from Nigeria, Algeria, Afghanistan, Georgia and Somalia | Jorge Guerrero/AFP via Getty Images
Even newly arrived families face an increasing risk of being kept in military-style tents despite winter temperatures.
Ukrainians, who since Russia’s 2022 invasion of their country have received much stronger welfare support than other refugees, will see that welcome mat partially retracted in draft legislation approved this week by the three-party coalition government of Prime Minister Leo Varadkar.
Once enacted by parliament next month, the law will limit new Ukrainian arrivals to three months of state-paid housing, while welfare payments – currently among the most generous in Europe for people fleeing Russia’s war – will be slashed for all those in state-paid housing.
Justin Trudeau, Canada
A pessimistic public mood dragged down by cost-of-living woes has made immigration a multidimensional challenge for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
A housing crunch felt across the country has cooled support for immigration, with people looking for scapegoats for affordability pains. The situation has fueled antipathy for Trudeau and his re-election campaign.
Trudeau has treated immigration as a multipurpose solution for Canada’s aging population and slowing economy. And while today’s record-high population growth reflects well on Canada’s reputation as a desirable place to relocate, political challenges linked to migration have arisen in unpredictable ways for Trudeau’s Liberals.
Political challenges linked to migration have arisen in unpredictable ways for Trudeau’s Liberals | Andrej Ivanov/AFP
Since Trudeau came to power eight years ago, at least 1.3 million people have immigrated to Canada, mostly from India, the Philippines, China and Syria. Handling diaspora politics — and foreign interference — has become more consequential, as seen by Trudeau’s clash with India and Canada’s recent break with Israel.
Canada will double its 40 million population in 25 years if the current growth rate holds, enlarging the political challenges of leading what Trudeau calls the world’s “first postnational state”.
Pedro Sánchez, Spain
Spain’s autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, in Northern Africa, are favored by migrants seeking to enter Europe from the south: Once they make it across the land border, the Continent can easily be accessed by ferry.
Transit via the land border that separates the European territory from Morocco is normally kept in check with security measures like high, razor-topped fences, with border control officers from both countries working together to keep undocumented migrants out.
Spain’s autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, in Northern Africa, are favored by migrants seeking to enter Europe | Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP
But in recent years authorities in Morocco have expressed displeasure with their Spanish counterparts by standing down their officers and allowing hundreds of migrants to pass, overwhelming border stations and forcing Spanish officers to repel the migrants, with scores dying in the process.
The headaches caused by these incidents are believed to be a major factor in Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s decision to change the Spanish government’s position on the disputed Western Sahara territory and express support for Rabat’s plan to formalize its nearly 50-year occupation of the area.
The pivot angered Sánchez’s leftist allies and worsened Spain’s relationship with Algeria, a long-standing champion of Western Saharan independence. But the measures have stopped the flow of migrants — for now.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greece
Greece has been at the forefront of Europe’s migration crisis since 2015, when hundreds of thousands of people entered Europe via the Aegean islands. Migration and border security have been key issues in the country’s political debate.
Human rights organizations, as well as the European Parliament and the European Commission, have accused the Greek conservative government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis of illegal “pushbacks” of migrants who have made it to Greek territory — and of deporting migrants without due process. Greece’s government denies those accusations, arguing that independent investigations haven’t found any proof.
Mitsotakis insists that Greece follows a “tough but fair” policy, but the numerous in-depth investigations belie the moderate profile the conservative leader wants to maintain.
In June, a migrant boat sank in what some called “the worst tragedy ever” in the Mediterranean Sea. Hundreds lost their lives, refocusing Europe’s attention on the issue. Official investigations have yet to discover whether failures by Greek authorities contributed to the shipwreck, according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
In the meantime, Greece is in desperate need of thousands of workers to buttress the country’s understaffed agriculture, tourism and construction sectors. Despite pledges by the migration and agriculture ministers of imminent legislation bringing migrants to tackle the labor shortage, the government was forced to retreat amid pressure from within its own ranks.
Nikos Christodoulides, Cyprus
Cyprus is braced for an increase in migrant arrivals on its shores amid renewed conflict in the Middle East. Earlier in December, Greece sent humanitarian aid to the island to deal with an anticipated increase in flows.
Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides has called for extra EU funding for migration management, and is contending with a surge in violence against migrants in Cyprus. Analysts blame xenophobia, which has become mainstream in Cypriot politics and media, as well as state mismanagement of migration flows. Last year the country recorded the EU’s highest proportion of first-time asylum seekers relative to its population.
Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides has called for extra EU funding for migration management | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
Legal and staffing challenges have delayed efforts to create a deputy ministry for migration, deemed an important step in helping Cyprus to deal with the surge in arrivals.
The island’s geography — it’s close to both Lebanon and Turkey — makes it a prime target for migrants wanting to enter EU territory from the Middle East. Its complex history as a divided country also makes it harder to regulate migrant inflows.
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Tim Ross, Annabelle Dickson, Clea Caulcutt, Myah Ward, Matthew Karnitschnig, Hannah Roberts, Pieter Haeck, Shawn Pogatchnik, Zi-Ann Lum, Aitor Hernández-Morales and Nektaria Stamouli
EUROPOL HEADQUARTERS, THE HAGUE — “Please knock. Do not enter,” said the sign on the door of Europe’s heavily-secured law enforcement headquarters in the Netherlands.
Inside, detectives were staring at their computers, examining a video of a newborn girl being molested.
A group of international detectives was trying to identify details — a toy, a clothing label, a sound — that would allow them to rescue the girl and arrest those who sexually abused her, recorded it and then shared it on the internet.
Even a tiny hint could help track down the country where the baby girl was assaulted, allowing the case to be transferred to the right police authority for further investigation. Such details matter when police are trying to tackle crimes carried out behind closed doors but disseminated online across the world.
Finding and stopping child sex offenders is gruesome and frustrating most of the time — yet hugely rewarding sometimes — police officers part of the international task force at the EU agency Europol told POLITICO.
Offenders are getting better at covering their digital tracks and law enforcement officials say they don’t have the tools they need to keep up. The increasing use of encrypted communication online makes investigators’ work harder, especially as a pandemic that kept people at home and online ramped up a flood of abuse images and videos.
In 2022, social media giant Meta Platforms found and reported 26 million images on Facebook and Instagram. Teenagers’ favorite apps Snapchat and TikTok respectively filed over 550,000 and nearly 290,000 reports to the U.S. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, an organization acting as a clearing house under U.S. law for child sexual abuse material (CSAM) content that technology firms detect and spot.
The European Commission in December also ordered Meta to explain what it was doing to fight the spread of illegal sexual images taken by minors themselves and shared through Instagram, under the EU’s new content-moderation rulebook, the Digital Services Act (DSA).
Politicians across the world are keen to act. In the European Union and the United Kingdom, legislators have drafted laws to dig up more illegal content and extend law enforcement’s powers to crack down on child sexual abuse material.
But those efforts have ignited a fierce public debate on what takes precedence: granting police new abilities to go after offenders or preserving privacy and protections against states’ and digital platforms’ mass online surveillance.
The scale of the problem
The Europol task force has met twice a year since 2014 to accelerate investigations to identify victims, most recently in November. It has almost tripled in size to 33 investigators representing 26 countries including Germany, Australia and the United States.
“You might recognize things that are in the images or you might recognize the sounds in the background or the voices. If you do that together with multiple nationalities in one room, it can be really effective,” said Marijn Schuurbiers, head of operations at Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3).
Still, too often detectives feel like they’re swimming against the tide, as the amount of child sexual abuse material circulating online surges.
Europol created a database in 2016 and this system now holds 85 million unique photos and videos of children, many found on pedophile forums on the “dark web” — the part of the internet that isn’t publicly searchable and requires special software to browse.
“We can work hours and hours on end and we’re still scratching the surface. It’s terrifying,” said Mary, a national police officer from a non-EU country with 17 years of experience. She requested not to use her last name to protect her identity while doing investigative work.
The task force in November went through 432 files, each containing tens of thousands of images, and found the most likely country for 285 of the children abused in the images. Police believe it likely identified 74 of the victims, three of whom were rescued by the time of publication. Two offenders were arrested.
“We have some successes. But all I can see is those we can’t help,” Mary said.
Many Western agencies outside of the U.S. are restricted by privacy provisions in the software they use like facial recognition tools. They often have to make do with a mix of manual analysis and freely accessible tools they can get from the internet.
“If you have like thousands or hundreds of thousands or even millions of pictures, it’s basically impossible to go manually through them, one by one,” said Schuurbiers.
Since 2017, the agency has regularly been asking for public help to identify objects in images like plastic bags and a logo on a school uniform. Europol said it has gotten 27,000 tips from internet sleuths including investigative outlet Bellingcat, some of which led to 23 kids being identified and five offenders being prosecuted.
Groups on the “dark web” remain the principal place where offenders share illegal content, according to Europol.
But police and child protection hotlines are seeing a growing number of images cropping up on popular and accessible platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Instagram. The pandemic made this worse as more children and teenagers also joined social media and gaming websites where offenders got better at grooming victims and blackmailing them into making sexual content.
Law enforcement agencies around the world have also sounded the alarm that offenders are also connecting with minors and exchanging illegal content on encrypted messaging apps like WhatsApp, Signal and iMessage, making it extremely challenging to find the content. WhatsApp, for instance, scans the photos and descriptions users but is unable to monitor their highly secure messages.
Finding more child sexual abuse material
The crisis of child sexual abuse material proliferating online has got governments pushing through sweeping new legislation to make it possible for law enforcement to investigate more online material and use artificial intelligence tools to help them.
The European Commission has proposed a law that could force tech companies like Meta, Apple and Google to scan messages and content stored in the cloud for images of abuse — and even for conversations of offenders seeking to manipulate minors upon a judge’s order. The companies would have to report the content, so it could end up with Europol or other national investigators, and then remove it.
The United Kingdom recently passed the Online Safety Act, which some legal experts say would allow the country’s platform regulator Ofcom to force companies to break encryption to find sexual abuse. Government and Ofcom officials have said companies would not currently be forced to monitor content because tools to bypass encryption and also preserve privacy do not exist at the moment.
Both plans have sparked widespread backlash among digital rights activists, tech experts and some lawyers. They fear the laws effectively force tech firms to ditch encryption, and that indiscriminate scanning will lead to mass surveillance.
Negotiations on the EU draft law remain on thin ice, with politicians and member countries clashing over how far to go in hunting down potential illegal child abuse. And Brussels also finalized in December a new law, the Artificial Intelligence Act, governing how law enforcement will be able to use AI tools like facial recognition software to go through footage and images.
Still, EU lawmakers have already significantly expanded Europol’s powers to build new artificial intelligence tools and handle more data. Under the Digital Services Act, Europol and national police will also be able to swiftly compel tech companies to remove publicly accessible illegal content and hand over information about users posting such images.
Anne, a Europol investigator, said she doesn’t keep count of the number of kids she’s identified in her 12 years working in the field — but she remembers them. She requested not to use her last name to protect her investigative work.
“The thing that I will always remember from my cases is the images,” she said. “They stay in my head.”
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – In the smart offices of a law firm located among the skyscrapers of the Malaysian capital, 85-year-old Lim Kok’s thoughts turn back to a crime perpetrated by British forces three-quarters of a century ago.
The decades in between have not faded Lim’s memories of the period when then-Malaya was a colony in the waning days of the British Empire.
Attempting to slow the sun setting on its colony in Southeast Asia, London sent thousands of British and Commonwealth troops to suppress a local movement fighting for independence in the aftermath of World War II.
Lim was just nine years old when his father, a hardworking ethnic Chinese supervisor at a rubber plantation, was gunned down in a hail of bullets along with 23 other innocent workers in what is still known to this day as the Batang Kali massacre.
He lost more than his father that day, Lim said.
He lost a family.
With her husband and the family’s breadwinner dead, Lim’s mother was left alone to raise six children – an impossible task for a poor rural household in the late 1940s.
Lim’s mother was forced to give her youngest child, a newly-born baby girl, up for adoption. Lim was later sent to live with a granduncle in Kuala Lumpur.
Not only was Lim’s family torn apart, but the British troops who carried out the massacre tried to cover up the atrocity by accusing their victims of being involved with the Communists fighting for independence.
The truth would surface years later as journalists, researchers and court hearings attested to the innocence of those killed by British soldiers in Batang Kali.
To this day, however, there has been no redress or official apology from British authorities, who have resisted calls to open an enquiry into the massacre that took place 75 years ago this week.
An ethnic Chinese protester leaving a white flower at the main entrance of the British High Commission building in Kuala Lumpur during a commemoration in 2008 for those massacred by British soldiers in Batang Kali in 1948. Britain has refused requests to hold an inquiry into the massacre by 14 members of the Scots Guards [File: Saeed Khan/AFP]
“I knew my dad was a genuine rubber tapper,” Lim told Al Jazeera, when asked about the colonial state’s attempt to frame the victims of the massacre as rebels.
The false accusations never made him “feel bad” as he was growing up, he said.
“The only thing bad is that they were massacred by the British soldiers.”
Though he is in his mid-80s, Lim is spry and energetic and has not given up the fight to hold the British government to account for “the suffering which we and the other relatives of the murdered persons experienced”.
“Being the offspring, we suffered a lot. Even my brothers and sisters… They have to go out in search of work at a very early age just to earn a living,” he said in an interview earlier this year. “They suffered a lot.”
The most recent fight to hold British authorities to account began in 2008 when the father of Kuala Lumpur-based lawyer Quek Ngee Meng launched a campaign for justice after researching the incident in his retirement.
When his father passed away in 2010, Quek took up the torch for the victims of Batang Kali.
The campaign for an official inquiry has taken advocates from London’s High Court to the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court, and onto the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Quek said the massacre has had a multigenerational impact on the families of the slain men, who were consigned to economic hardship and poverty on top of suffering the trauma of the violent deaths of their loved ones.
Many families of the victims could not afford to educate their children well. Some gave up children for adoption. Others married young or agreed to arranged marriages just to keep their families afloat following the loss of their breadwinner.
“The families were actually broken down,” Quek told Al Jazeera, explaining that it took generations for the families of victims to improve their economic and social circumstances.
“It actually wasn’t just the 24 or whoever who were killed. Many, many people are victims of this,” he said.
Quek recalls that legal action was not their first choice. An apology and a settlement would have sufficed for relatives, but a letter sent to British authorities seeking to negotiate was ignored.
“There was no middle ground that we can reach…. No offer for any talks. We just have to go on this legal journey and, yes, we lost on technical grounds,” he said.
Quek Ngee Meng, centre, presents a memorandum condemning the massacre of 24 civilians at Batang Kali to British High Commissioner to Malaysia Boyd McCleary outside the British High Commission building in Kuala Lumpur on December 12, 2008 [File: Saeed Khan/AFP]
“I felt sorry for Lim Kok and all those I couldn’t get compensation for,” said Quek, who has worked for years on the campaign on a pro bono basis.
“But, what I can get is this: All judges all agree that an atrocity at that time was committed by the British soldiers. And, the fact, the true fact, is these villagers, they were not guilty of any crime.”
“They were not Communists. There is no proof that they were sympathisers,” he said.
The details of the Batang Kali massacre are chilling.
According to court documents, in the early evening of December 11, 1948, a patrol of Scots Guards numbering 14 soldiers entered the remote settlement in Batang Kali, located among heavily jungled hills some 60km (around 40 miles) north of Kuala Lumpur. The settlement was inhabited by around 50 adults and some children who worked on the surrounding rubber plantation, which was owned by a Scottish man.
The British soldiers separated the men from the women and children and confined them overnight in a wooden long hut where they were interrogated. The soldiers carried out mock executions to terrify the unarmed male villagers in the hope of obtaining information about rebels that might have been nearby.
Troops of ‘G’ Company, Second Battalion The Scots Guards, wade through a swamp during an operation in Pahang, Malaya, in 1950 [File: AP Photo]
That night, the first victim was shot.
The following morning, the women and children, and one traumatised man, were put on a truck and driven away from the plantation. The hut in which the 23 men had been detained was opened and, in the next few minutes, all were shot dead.
With bodies strewn all around, the soldiers torched the workers’ huts and the patrol moved on, returning to their base later.
The first newspaper report in the days following the massacre described the slain men as “bandits” who were shot while trying to escape and claimed that a quantity of ammunition had been uncovered.
Shortly after, Britain’s War Office officially declared the killings as a “very successful action”.
As the truth began to emerge of what actually took place, a rudimentary enquiry headed by British legal officials in the colony was conducted and concluded within a matter of days.
Based on statements from the soldiers, and not the villagers, the conclusion was that nothing had occurred in Batang Kali that “justified criminal proceeding”.
A protester representing a British soldier portrays the Batang Kali massacre scene during a protest in front of the British High Commission building in Kuala Lumpur in December 2008. British troops during the ‘Malayan Emergency’ said they severed the heads of suspected rebels for identification purposes [Saeed Khan/AFP]
NEW YORK, Dec 10 (IPS) – Human Rights Day Statement by Education Cannot Wait Executive Director Yasmine SherifToday we mark a milestone in history: the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As people around the world commemorate Human Rights Day, we must also deeply reflect on the meaning of this historic document and what it takes to achieve peace in the world.
The inspiring preamble of the Universal Declaration is not the work of an indifferent or greedy mindset. It was crafted by those able to delve into their hearts and souls to authentically express the imperatives for peaceful co-existence in the world.
Inspired by the East and West, North and South, Eleanor Roosevelt, together with the French jurist, Rene Cassin, were the driving force behind the Universal Declaration for Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. With the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and successive legal human rights conventions, one can safely say that these rights were not proclaimed to find consensus around the lowest common denominator. Rather, the Declaration was created to inspire and mold consensus around the highest of human values: the goal was to achieve peace.
The preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads: ‘Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.’ Yet, almost a century later, these universal rights are largely not respected, nor equally applied. As the essence of these values and laws are eroded and ignored, is it any wonder that there are more wars, conflicts and widespread injustices, resulting in more refugees, internal displacement and immense human suffering?
This unspeakable, yet preventable, human suffering comes about because we have departed from our highest of human values through many small and big decisions. These are decisions leading to actions severely undermining the foundation for peaceful co-existence in the world. Haven’t freedom, equality and justice for all members of the human family been compromised or disregarded enough?
The path to peace is not complicated. The answer lies in the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and all the rights enshrined in the Declaration.
The right to an inclusive, sustainable quality education is a foundational right. A continued quality education empowers every child and adolescent to claim all other rights. The chance of success is even greater provided that these children and adolescents live in an environment conducive to all other human rights – also for their families, communities and countries.
This is not complicated. It only demands that we take courageous decisions in every role we find ourselves – and deploy meaningful action – to begin materializing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for all members of the human family.
It would be such a purposeful way of moving forward. It would be a profound legacy to leave behind for the young generation and for generations to come. All we need to do is to act as our conscience dictates. Or, as the co-author of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Eleanor Roosevelt, rhetorically asked: “When will our conscience grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it.”
Elon Musk has restored the X account of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, pointing to a poll on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that came out in favor of the Infowars host who repeatedly called the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting a hoax.
It poses new uncertainty for advertisers, who have fled X over concerns about hate speech appearing alongside their ads, and is the latest divisive public personality to get back their banned account.
Musk posted a poll on Saturday asking if Jones should be reinstated, with the results showing 70% of those who responded in favor. Early Sunday, Musk tweeted, “The people have spoken and so it shall be.”
A few hours later, Jones’ posts were visible again and he retweeted a post about his video game. He and his Infowars show had been permanently banned in 2018 for abusive behavior.
Musk, who has described himself as a free speech absolutist, said the move was about protecting those rights. In response to a user who posted that “permanent account bans are antithetical to free speech,” Musk wrote, “I find it hard to disagree with this point.”
The billionaire Tesla CEO also tweeted it’s likely that Community Notes — X’s crowd-sourced fact-checking service — “will respond rapidly to any AJ post that needs correction.”
It is a major turnaround for Musk, who previously said he wouldn’t let Jones back on the platform despite repeated calls to do so. Last year, Musk pointed to the death of his first-born child and tweeted, “I have no mercy for anyone who would use the deaths of children for gain, politics or fame.”
Jones repeatedly has said on his show that the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, that killed 20 children and six educators never happened and was staged in an effort to tighten gun laws.
Relatives of many of the victims sued Jones in Connecticut and Texas, winning nearly $1.5 billion in judgments against him. In October, a judge ruled that Jones could not use bankruptcy protection to avoid paying more than $1.1 billon of that debt.
Relatives of the school shooting victims testified at the trials about being harassed and threatened by Jones’ believers, who sent threats and even confronted the grieving families in person, accusing them of being “crisis actors” whose children never existed.
Jones is appealing the judgments, saying he didn’t get fair trials and his speech was protected by the First Amendment.
Restoring Jones’ account comes as Musk has seen a slew of big brands, including Disney and IBM, stop advertising on X after a report by liberal advocacy group Media Matters said ads were appearing alongside pro-Nazi content and white nationalist posts.
They also were scared away after Musk himself endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory in response to a post on X. The Tesla CEO later apologized and visited Israel, where he toured a kibbutz attacked by Hamas militants and held talks with top Israeli leaders.
But he also has said advertisers are engaging in “blackmail” and, using a profanity, essentially told them to go away.
“Don’t advertise,” Musk said in an on-stage interview late last month at The New York Times DealBook Summit.
After buying Twitter last year, Musk said he was granting “amnesty” for suspended accounts and has since reinstated former President Donald Trump; Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, following two suspensions over antisemitic posts last year; and far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was kicked off the platform for violating its COVID-19 misinformation policies.
Trump, who was banned for encouraging the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, has his own social media site, Truth Social, and has only tweeted once since being allowed back on X.
Elon Musk has restored the X account of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, pointing to a poll on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that came out in favor of the Infowars host who repeatedly called the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting a hoax.
It poses new uncertainty for advertisers, who have fled X over concerns about hate speech appearing alongside their ads, and is the latest divisive public personality to get back their banned account.
Musk posted a poll on Saturday asking if Jones should be reinstated, with the results showing 70% of those who responded in favor. Early Sunday, Musk tweeted, “The people have spoken and so it shall be.”
A few hours later, Jones’ posts were visible again and he retweeted a post about his video game. He and his Infowars show had been permanently banned in 2018 for abusive behavior.
Musk, who has described himself as a free speech absolutist, said the move was about protecting those rights. In response to a user who posted that “permanent account bans are antithetical to free speech,” Musk wrote, “I find it hard to disagree with this point.”
The billionaire Tesla CEO also tweeted it’s likely that Community Notes — X’s crowd-sourced fact-checking service — “will respond rapidly to any AJ post that needs correction.”
It is a major turnaround for Musk, who previously said he wouldn’t let Jones back on the platform despite repeated calls to do so. Last year, Musk pointed to the death of his first-born child and tweeted, “I have no mercy for anyone who would use the deaths of children for gain, politics or fame.”
Jones repeatedly has said on his show that the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, that killed 20 children and six educators never happened and was staged in an effort to tighten gun laws.
Relatives of many of the victims sued Jones in Connecticut and Texas, winning nearly $1.5 billion in judgments against him. In October, a judge ruled that Jones could not use bankruptcy protection to avoid paying more than $1.1 billon of that debt.
Relatives of the school shooting victims testified at the trials about being harassed and threatened by Jones’ believers, who sent threats and even confronted the grieving families in person, accusing them of being “crisis actors” whose children never existed.
Jones is appealing the judgments, saying he didn’t get fair trials and his speech was protected by the First Amendment.
Restoring Jones’ account comes as Musk has seen a slew of big brands, including Disney and IBM, stop advertising on X after a report by liberal advocacy group Media Matters said ads were appearing alongside pro-Nazi content and white nationalist posts.
They also were scared away after Musk himself endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory in response to a post on X. The Tesla CEO later apologized and visited Israel, where he toured a kibbutz attacked by Hamas militants and held talks with top Israeli leaders.
But he also has said advertisers are engaging in “blackmail” and, using a profanity, essentially told them to go away.
“Don’t advertise,” Musk said in an on-stage interview late last month at The New York Times DealBook Summit.
After buying Twitter last year, Musk said he was granting “amnesty” for suspended accounts and has since reinstated former President Donald Trump; Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, following two suspensions over antisemitic posts last year; and far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was kicked off the platform for violating its COVID-19 misinformation policies.
Trump, who was banned for encouraging the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, has his own social media site, Truth Social, and has only tweeted once since being allowed back on X.
Elon Musk has restored the X account of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, pointing to a poll on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that came out in favor of the Infowars host who repeatedly called the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting a hoax.
It poses new uncertainty for advertisers, who have fled X over concerns about hate speech appearing alongside their ads, and is the latest divisive public personality to get back their banned account.
Musk posted a poll on Saturday asking if Jones should be reinstated, with the results showing 70% of those who responded in favor. Early Sunday, Musk tweeted, “The people have spoken and so it shall be.”
A few hours later, Jones’ posts were visible again and he retweeted a post about his video game. He and his Infowars show had been permanently banned in 2018 for abusive behavior.
Musk, who has described himself as a free speech absolutist, said the move was about protecting those rights. In response to a user who posted that “permanent account bans are antithetical to free speech,” Musk wrote, “I find it hard to disagree with this point.”
The billionaire Tesla CEO also tweeted it’s likely that Community Notes — X’s crowd-sourced fact-checking service — “will respond rapidly to any AJ post that needs correction.”
It is a major turnaround for Musk, who previously said he wouldn’t let Jones back on the platform despite repeated calls to do so. Last year, Musk pointed to the death of his first-born child and tweeted, “I have no mercy for anyone who would use the deaths of children for gain, politics or fame.”
Jones repeatedly has said on his show that the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, that killed 20 children and six educators never happened and was staged in an effort to tighten gun laws.
Relatives of many of the victims sued Jones in Connecticut and Texas, winning nearly $1.5 billion in judgments against him. In October, a judge ruled that Jones could not use bankruptcy protection to avoid paying more than $1.1 billon of that debt.
Relatives of the school shooting victims testified at the trials about being harassed and threatened by Jones’ believers, who sent threats and even confronted the grieving families in person, accusing them of being “crisis actors” whose children never existed.
Jones is appealing the judgments, saying he didn’t get fair trials and his speech was protected by the First Amendment.
Restoring Jones’ account comes as Musk has seen a slew of big brands, including Disney and IBM, stop advertising on X after a report by liberal advocacy group Media Matters said ads were appearing alongside pro-Nazi content and white nationalist posts.
They also were scared away after Musk himself endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory in response to a post on X. The Tesla CEO later apologized and visited Israel, where he toured a kibbutz attacked by Hamas militants and held talks with top Israeli leaders.
But he also has said advertisers are engaging in “blackmail” and, using a profanity, essentially told them to go away.
“Don’t advertise,” Musk said in an on-stage interview late last month at The New York Times DealBook Summit.
After buying Twitter last year, Musk said he was granting “amnesty” for suspended accounts and has since reinstated former President Donald Trump; Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, following two suspensions over antisemitic posts last year; and far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was kicked off the platform for violating its COVID-19 misinformation policies.
Trump, who was banned for encouraging the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, has his own social media site, Truth Social, and has only tweeted once since being allowed back on X.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iranian authorities banned members of the late Mahsa Amini’s family from traveling to receive the European Union’s top human rights prize on her behalf, a civil rights monitor reported. Amini’s death while in police custody in 2022 sparked nationwide protests that rocked the Islamic Republic.
The U.S.-based HRANA said late Saturday that authorities have refused to allow Amini’s father, Amjad, and two of her brothers to fly out to Strasbourg, France, to receive the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.
Reports said only the family’s lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, would be able to travel to receive the award on their behalf.
The EU award, named for Soviet dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov, was created in 1988 to honor individuals or groups who defend human rights and fundamental freedoms. It is “the highest tribute paid by the European Union to human rights work,” as per the EU Parliament website.
Earlier in September, Mahsa Amini was granted the prize. The 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranin woman died after Iran’s morality police arrested her for allegedly violating the country’s strict headscarf law that forced women to cover their hair and entire body. Her death led to massive protests that quickly escalated into calls to overthrow Iran’s clerical rulers.
Iranian women, furious over Amini’s death, played a pivotal role in the protests, with some opting to go without their mandatory headscarves.
Authorities immediately launched a heavy crackdown, in which over 500 people were killed and nearly 20,000 arrested, according to human rights activists in Iran. Authorities have said many of those detained were released or given reduced sentences. The protests largely died down earlier this year.
A total of eight people were executed in Iran in connection with the protests, after being charged with attacking security forces. Human rights activists have accused authorities of convicting them in secret proceedings after they were denied the right to defend themselves. Iran has denied the charges.
In 2012, Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh and dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi jointly won the same prize.
NEW YORK — In a case of politics making strange bedfellows, the National Rifle Association will be represented by frequent nemesis the American Civil Liberties Union in an appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The New York-based civil liberties group confirmed Saturday that it would provide legal representation for the gun-rights group in its First Amendment case against New York’s Department of Financial Services even as it “vigorously” opposes nearly everything it stands for.
“We don’t support the NRA’s mission or its viewpoints on gun rights, and we don’t agree with their goals, strategies, or tactics,” the ACLU in a statement posted on X, formerly Twitter. “But we both know that government officials can’t punish organizations because they disapprove of their views.”
The NRA, which reshared the ACLU’s statement on its social media account, wrote in a follow-up post that it was “proud” to stand with the ACLU and others who recognize that “regulatory authority cannot be used to silence political speech.”
The nation’s highest court is set to hear arguments early next year in a case centered on comments former New York State Department of Financial Services superintendent Maria Vullo made in the wake of the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
After 17 people were killed at the Parkland, Florida, school, Vullo called on banks and insurance companies operating in New York to discontinue their association with gun-promoting groups.
In letters to companies and news releases, she urged operators to consider “reputational risks” from doing business with the NRA and other gun groups.
The NRA sued Vullo after multiple entities cut ties or decided not to do business with the Fairfax, Virginia-based organization. The federal appeals court in New York rejected the NRA’s claims, saying Vullo acted in good faith and within the bounds of her job.
Spokespersons for New York’s financial services department didn’t respond to an email seeking comment Saturday.
But the ACLU, in additional comments posted on X, argued that if the Supreme Court doesn’t intervene, it could create a “dangerous playbook” for regulatory agencies across the country to blacklist or punish “viewpoint-based organizations” including abortion rights groups, environmental groups and even the ACLU itself.
“The questions at the core of this case are about the First Amendment and the principled defense of civil liberties for all, including those with whom we disagree on the Second Amendment,” the ACLU wrote. “We won’t let the rights of organizations to engage in political advocacy be trampled.”
The announcement, which comes as the NRA and the gun-rights movement broadly has proven resilient amid the nation’s ceaseless mass shootings and gun violence, was criticized by at least one prominent ACLU affiliate.
The New York Civil Liberties Union, in a statement, said it “strongly disagrees” with the decision and would not participate in the case, even though it originated in New York.
“The important First Amendment issue in the case is well-established, the NRA is one of the most powerful organizations in the country and has sophisticated counsel, and representing the NRA directly risks enormous harm to the clients and communities the ACLU and NYCLU work with and serve,” Executive Director Donna Lieberman said in an emailed statement.
Massachusetts’ attorney general has filed a lawsuit accusing a white nationalist group of civil rights violations, saying it repeatedly subjected LGBTQ+ events and facilities sheltering migrant families to intimidation and harassment
ByMICHAEL CASEY Associated Press
December 8, 2023, 1:14 PM
FILE – Andrea Campbell, Attorney General of Massachusetts, answers a question during an interview at the State Attorneys General Association meetings, Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2023, in Boston. Campbell has filed a lawsuit on Thursday, Dec. 7, accusing a white nationalist group of civil rights violations, saying it repeatedly subjected LGBTQ+ events and facilities sheltering migrant families to intimidation and harassment. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)
The Associated Press
BOSTON — Massachusetts’ attorney general has filed a lawsuit accusing a white nationalist group of civil rights violations, saying it repeatedly subjected LGBTQ+ events and facilities sheltering migrant families to intimidation and harassment.
The complaint filed Thursday against NSC-131 and two of its leaders, Christopher Hood of Newburyport and Liam McNeil of Waltham, accuses the group of engaging “in violent, threatening, and intimidating conduct that violated state civil rights laws and unlawfully interfered with public safety.”
“NSC-131 has engaged in a concerted campaign to target and terrorize people across Massachusetts and interfere with their rights. Our complaint is the first step in holding this neo-Nazi group and its leaders accountable for their unlawful actions against members of our community,” Attorney General Andrea Campbell said in a statement.
According to the complaint, the group repeatedly targeted drag story hours around the state between July 2022 and January 2023, attempting to shut down the events and attacking members of the public. The group also targeted migrant shelters from October 2022 and October 2023, prosecutors allege.
The Associated Press wasn’t able to reach Hood or McNeil for comment about the lawsuit or determine if either has an attorney. A number listed for Hood had been disconnected and a number could not be found for McNeil. The group didn’t immediately respond to messages sent through Gab and Telegram.
The Anti-Defamation League describes NSC-131 as a New England-based neo-Nazi group founded in 2019 that “espouses racism, antisemitism and intolerance” and whose “membership is a collection of neo-Nazis and racist skinheads, many of whom have previous membership in other white supremacist groups.”
Earlier this year, a New Hampshire judge dismissed trespassing complaints against the group. Prosecutors there said the group displayed “Keep New England White” banners from an overpass without a permit in July.
In March 2022, about a dozen masked members of NSC-131 attended South Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day parade as spectators and held up a banner that said “Keep Boston Irish.” The parade’s organizers and Mayor Michelle Wu denounced the group’s appearance.
BEIJING — From trade to human rights, the leaders of China and the European Union differed on a wide range of issues at a summit this week in the Chinese capital.
China, which sees Europe as an important export market, raised concerns about trade protectionism and “de-risking,” the EU initiative to reduce its reliance on any one country — such as China — for vital raw materials and products.
The EU, which sees imports from China as a potential threat to companies and jobs, pressured China on its large trade surplus with Europe and its de facto support for Russia in the war in Ukraine.
Separate post-summit news conferences on Thursday evening highlighted the divergent positions. Wang Lutong, the director general for European affairs, spoke to journalists at China’s Foreign Ministry.
Then EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and EU Council President Charles Michel held a joint news conference at the European Union office in Beijing.
VON DER LEYEN: “If you just look at the last two years, the trade deficit has doubled. This is a matter of great concern for a lot of Europeans. Such imbalances are just unsustainable. The root causes are well known, and we discussed them. They range from a lack of market access for European companies to the Chinese market to preferential treatment of domestic Chinese companies and overcapacities in the Chinese production.”
WANG: “Sometimes the EU relates the imbalance of trade between us to overcapacity and subsidies. But we don’t think there is overcapacity in such areas like green energy and clean energy. … China could be very useful to the green transition not only of the EU but also the whole world. So if you want us to support the EU in green transition, do not be protectionist. You make the choice between being protectionist and encouraging China to participate in your goal in order to achieve that green transition.”
WANG: “The Chinese side has expressed concerns to the EU side on its ‘de-risking’ and restrictive economic and trade policies, including the anti-subsidy investigation against Chinese electric vehicles as well as its 5G policies. The Chinese side has urged the EU to ensure openness of its trade and investment market, provide an equitable and non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese enterprises and be prudent in using trade remedies.”
VON DER LEYEN: “Politically, European leaders will not be able to tolerate that our industrial base is undermined by unfair competition. We like competition. It makes us better; it lowers prices; it is good for the consumers. But competition needs to be fair. … Europe does not want to decouple from China. … What we want is de-risking. De-risking is about managing the risks we see, addressing excessive dependencies through diversification of our supply chains … and thus increasing our resilience. And this is not exclusive to China.”
VON DER LEYEN: “Russia’s war of aggression is a blatant violation of international law and the U.N. Charter, and it is a serious threat to European security. And this is why we recalled the need for China to use all its influence on Russia to stop this war of aggression and to engage in Ukraine’s peace formula. We also reiterated (to China) to refrain from supplying lethal equipment to Russia and to prevent any attempts by Russia to undermine the impact of sanctions.”
WANG: “Sometimes European politicians said to us that China needs to speak to Russia, you need to speak to President Putin about withdrawing their soldiers. This is a very independent sovereign nation. President Putin is making his decision based on his own national interest and security. So that’s why we are also urging Europeans to speak to Russians about it. We think … it’s important that Europeans and Russians talk about the possible security architecture in Europe and it’s also important that Russians and Americans talk about the possible strategic stability.”
MICHEL: “For the European Union, human rights and fundamental freedoms are universal. We will never turn a blind eye to human rights cases. Today we welcome China’s resumption of the human rights dialogue, as we agreed during my visit (in December 2022 ). It’s a step in the right direction and today we continued this conversation at the highest level. We also highlighted cases of specific concern, such as the human rights violations in Xinjiang or Tibet.”
WANG: “Earlier this year, China and the EU resumed our dialogue on human rights. It was very productive, and we will do it again. … We also raised our concerns to Brussels, our concerns about human rights violations in European countries. And that dialogue should be designed to promote understanding and cooperation. (The) human rights issue should not be used as a stick to beat China, and I think the progress we have made in human rights was very much appreciated and acknowledged.”
WANG: “The Chinese side has elaborated its principled position on the Taiwan issue … and emphasized that the EU needs to show its commitment to the ‘one-China’ principle and the principle of non-interference in other countries’ domestic affairs, a basic form of governing international relations, with real actions. This is to uphold the political foundation of China-EU relations.”
MICHEL: “We are concerned about the growing tensions in the Taiwan Strait and in the South China Sea. We are opposed to any unilateral attempt to change the status quo by force or coercion, and the EU maintains its ‘one-China’ policy. I trust that China is fully aware of the serious consequences of any escalation in this region.”
Opinion by Mary Assunta, Irene Reyes (bangkok, thailand)
Inter Press Service
BANGKOK, Thailand, Dec 08 (IPS) – As the world commemorates the 75th anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, ( on Human Rights Day December 10), we turn the spotlight on a glaring contradiction the world is experiencing from a harmful industry. Despite causing 8 million annual deaths and a myriad of diseases, the tobacco industry has enjoyed six decades of the legal right to manufacture and sell its harmful products.
This travesty to human rights remains unaddressed with no admission of liability, compensation for victims, or withdrawal of the product.
Instead, the tobacco industry has thwarted and undermined government efforts to protect public health, intimidated governments with legal challenges, used exaggerated data to persuade policy makers that tobacco is a good investment, and funded charity during crisis to polish its tarnished image.
The tobacco business and human rights are diametrically opposed. To protect public health, the UN global treaty, the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) has set standards to regulate the industry and reduce tobacco use globally.
Article 5.3 of the WHO FCTC empowers governments to shield their tobacco control policies from being derailed and undermined by the tobacco industry and its representatives. Governments can address conflicts of interest issues and keep the industry at arm’s length.
In 2017, the UN Global Compact removed the tobacco companies from its list in recognition of the harm caused by tobacco and hence deserving distinct treatment.
Despite the strong action from the UN system, the tobacco industry has remained defiant. To spruce up its image, it is even mischievously associating itself with human rights. Reports from Philip Morris International and Japan Tobacco claim to “respect” human rights, and BAT released a report on human rights and modern slavery.
Unfortunately, many governments have not utilised Article 5.3 of the WHO FCTC which provides clear guidance to avoid conflicts of interest and unnecessary interactions with the tobacco industry.
The 2023 Global Tobacco Industry Interference Index, a survey of 90 countries, has reported widespread unnecessary interactions between the government and the tobacco industry, opening the door for conflicts of interest through potential partnerships and collaborations. These interactions occurred even in countries that prohibit such engagements.
The Global Index is a civil society report on how well governments are protecting their health policies from tobacco industry interference according to the recommendations in Article 5.3 Guidelines and ranks countries accordingly (Figure 1).
Some governments have taken action, but still face meddling from the industry. For example when they limit interactions with the tobacco industry, they often face challenges from industry-funded front groups, as seen in Uganda and Brazil. Usually, governments are unaware of their industry links because they have not implemented transparency measures.
The Global Index found that transparency and accountability are lacking globally, with most countries failing to implement rules for disclosure of industry ties. Most countries do not have rules for disclosure of meetings with the tobacco industry, a register of lobbyists from the tobacco industry, or policies to require the tobacco industry to disclose information on its marketing and lobbying.
In Asia, none of the 19 countries surveyed have a registry disclosing affiliations, or individuals linked to or operating on the tobacco industry’s behalf.
Since the harms of smoking are well established, the tobacco industry is now rebranding itself as a “responsible and caring industry” by marketing supposedly less harmful products, while simultaneously undermining government efforts to combat the tobacco epidemic and protect future generations.
Vaping (use of e-cigarettes) was even presented as ‘a human rights issue’ at an industry-sponsored event claiming it should be made affordable for smokers in poor countries. In Argentina, Malaysia, Philippines and Pakistan, industry front groups participated in discussions on the regulation of e-cigarettes and HTPs to convince governments to embrace these products.
The Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance warns of the alarming increase in vaping, particularly among the youths. Countries that allow sales of e-cigarettes such as Canada, Indonesia, New Zealand, Philippines and the UK, have all seen rapid and high uptake by youths because enforcement is a challenge, as traders continue to market to minors, offering products in appealing designs and thousands of flavors and making them easily accessible online.
In 2022, the Philippines passed legislation on e-cigarettes that lowered the purchase age, allowed flavors and online advertising, contributing to the alarming rise of vaping among Filipino adolescents. The ease of access through online shopping platforms, lacking age verification, exacerbates the problem.
Malaysia recently passed a new omnibus tobacco control law, seen as weaker than originally proposed, and some policy makers have pointed a finger at Big Tobacco’s influence particularly in removing a forward-thinking generational endgame clause.
By yielding to industry influence, Malaysia has missed an opportunity to prevent future generations from becoming victims of the tobacco epidemic.
Malaysia ranked 78 out of 90 countries in the Global Index and their scores have been deteriorating over the years by allowing the tobacco industry in policy development and engaging in unnecessary interactions with the industry.
Governments alone hold the power to determine the health standards for their citizens and decide how to protect the current and future generations. Every instance of a government yielding to tobacco industry lobbying, represent a step backward in ensuring health and fundamental human rights of their people.
Mary Assunta is the Head of Global Research and Advocacy at Global Center for Good Governance in Tobacco Control; Irene Reyes is the Tobacco Industry Denormalization Manager at Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance
Indigenous Peoples from Alianza Ceibo fight to counter environmental degradation and protect more than 2 million hectares of primary rainforest in four provinces and 70 communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Credit: Alianza Ceibo
Opinion by Marcos Athias Neto (new york)
Inter Press Service
NEW YORK, Dec 07 (IPS) – The triple planetary crisis of climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and pollution is a threat to the well-being and survival of millions of people around the world. Corruption, in its many forms, worsens these multiple crises.
From illegal logging and wildlife trafficking to bribery in environmental permits, to lax enforcement of regulations, corruption inflicts severe damage on our already affected fragile ecosystems.
In the forestry sector alone, close to 420 million hectares of forest have been lost between 1990 and 2020 as a result of deforestation enabled by corruption.
Climate change interventions are currently worth US$546 billion and, although difficult to measure accurately, Transparency International estimates suggest anywhere between 1.4 and 35 per cent of climate action funds have been lost to corruption, and only in 2021, over 350 land and environmental defenders were murdered.
UNDP has been recognizing and championing Indigenous Forest Defenders like Nemonte Nenquimo, the Indigenous Waorani activist from Ecuador, co-founder of the Alianza Ceibo— UNDP Equator Prize winner of 2014, named among the 100 most influential people of 2020 by the Time Magazine. There are 275 Equator Prize winners many of whom are defending land rights.
Anti-corruption is a development financing issue.
Corruption siphons off funds from urgently needed climate financing and the green energy transition. Effective, transparent, and inclusive governance mechanisms and institutions are prerequisites for combating corruption and will help not only ensure that financing achieves its maximum impact, but also contributes to the trust required for the releasing of additional funds.
If we can tackle corruption, we can improve our efforts to successfully protect our environment. However, we must act now, and we must work together. Anti-corruption tools, including those powered by digital advancements, have the potential to help countries reach their climate goals.
Resources lost in illicit financial flows and to corruption each year can be used in targeted investments in governance, social protection, green economy, and digitalization. This is the ‘SDG Push’ scenario which would prevent as many as 169 million people from being driven into extreme poverty by 2030.
Governance mechanisms must be in place
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is working to promote the investment of over $1 trillion of public expenditure and private capital in the SDGs. A portion of these investments are likely to be directed towards climate finance.
In Sri Lanka and Uganda, UNDP is using data and digital monitoring tools to tackle illegal environmental practices and promote integrity and transparency in environmental resource management.
UNDP has also recently launched its Energy Governance Framework for a Just Energy Transition to contribute to achieving more inclusive and accountable energy transitions. In Eswatini, UNDP is supporting inclusive national dialogues to identify mini-grid delivery models and clarify priority interventions for an inclusive and integrated approach to off-grid electrification.
A mini-grid delivery model, determined by the national government with active multi-stakeholder engagement, is the cornerstone of a country’s over-arching mini-grid regulatory framework. It defines who finances, builds, owns and who operates and maintains the mini-grids.
Technology must be promoted
To ensure that crucial financial resources are used for their intended purposes and are not manipulated by corruption, we must ensure that transparency mechanisms exist. With appropriate safeguards in place, technology can be a game-changer for addressing corruption. Big data analytics, mobile applications and e-governance systems are valuable tools in the prevention, detection and investigation of corruption.
In Ukraine, a new e-platform supported by UNDP is increasing transparency in procurement. UNDP in partnership with the EU and the National Agency on Corruption Prevention has also developed a new basic online course to train anti-corruption officers.
Partnerships against corruption must galvanize global efforts
UNDP and the Oversight and Anti-Corruption Authority of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Nazaha) are jointly launching a new global initiative for measuring corruption at the 10th Session of the Conference of the States Parties to UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC), hosted by the United States in Atlanta from 11 – 15 December 2023.
The objective of this new partnership is to strengthen international cooperation to fight corruption and enable countries to track and monitor progress on tackling corruption. This new initiative will develop evidenced-based indicators to evaluate progress and efforts of countries to end multiple forms of corruption.
It will identify policy recommendations and reforms to enable countries to achieve national anti-corruption objectives, as well as address the SDG16 targets for reducing corruption and illicit financial flows.
UNDP remains committed to being united against corruption and to advance the spirit and letter of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption by driving new efforts to measure corruption, with our partners from the UN and beyond.
The Anti-corruption Day is commemorated on 9 December, along with the 20th Anniversary of UNCAC.
Marcos Athias Neto is UN Assistant Secretary General and Director of UNDP’s Bureau for Policy and Programme Support.
LIMA, Peru — Peru’s former President Alberto Fujimori was released from prison Wednesday on humanitarian grounds, despite a request from a regional human rights court to delay his release.
Fujimori, 85, was serving a 25-year sentence in connection with the slayings of 25 Peruvians by death squads in the 1990s. Peru’s constitutional court ordered his immediate release on Tuesday, but the Inter-American Court of Human Rights asked for a delay to study the ruling.
Fujimori, who governed Peru from 1990 to 2000, was sentenced in 2009 on charges of human rights abuses. He was accused of being the mastermind behind the slayings of the 25 Peruvians while the government fought the Shining Path communist rebels.
Fujimori, wearing a face mask and getting supplemental oxygen, walked out of the prison door and got in a sport utility vehicle driven by his daughter-in-law. He sat in the backseat with son and daughter, right-wing career politician Keiko Fujimori.
Dozens of supporters awaited him outside the prison and swarmed the vehicle as it attempted to move. It moved slowly through the streets of the prison’s neighborhood as people chanted and banged on the windows.
Fujimori was expected to live at this daughter’s house.
Peru’s Constitutional Court on Tuesday ruled in favor of a humanitarian pardon granted to Fujimori on Christmas Eve in 2017 by then-President Pablo Kuczynski. The country’s Supreme Court overturned the pardon under pressure from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 2018 and ordered the former strongman returned to prison to serve out his sentence.
In Tuesday’s ruling, the magistrates explained that while “the seriousness of the crimes for which (Fujimori) was sentenced is evident,” they cannot “ignore… the humanitarian pardon” granted to the former president in 2017 and upheld by their court in 2022.
“… If, according to the ruling of this Court in March 2022, the judicial resolutions that left the 2017 humanitarian pardon without legal effect were declared null, then (Fujimori) has been pardoned for almost six years without his freedom having been made effective to this day, which constitutes an obvious violation of this fundamental right,” according to the ruling that also considered Fujimori’s advanced age and poor health.
After the Constitutional Court issued its latest ruling, the president of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Ricardo Pérez Manrique, in a resolution asked for the delay of Fujimori’s release in order to “guarantee the right of access to justice” of the 25 people who were murdered in two massacres.
“We live in an orphanhood because we do not have institutions of any kind capable of defending us,” Gisela Ortiz, sister of one of the victims for whom Fujimori was convicted, told The Associated Press. “Peru gives the image of a country where the rights of victims are not guaranteed and where human rights issues have no importance.”
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, on Wednesday said the Constitutional Court’s order to release Fujimori “is a worrying setback,” adding that “any humanitarian release of those responsible for serious human rights violations must be in accordance with international law.”
Fujimori remains a polarizing figure in Peru. His policies improved the country’s economy and pulled it out of a cycle of hyperinflation. But he also used the military to dissolve Congress and rewrite the constitution as well as to crack down on guerrilla violence.
The first of the two massacres he is accused of plotting occurred in 1991 in a poverty-stricken Lima neighborhood. Hooded soldiers fatally shot 15 residents, including an 8-year-old child, who had gathered at a party.
Then, in 1992, the clandestine military squad kidnapped and killed nine students and a professor from the Enrique Guzmán y Valle University. Forensic experts reported the victims were tortured and shot in the back of the head. Their bodies were burned and hidden in common graves.
The squad operated under the façade of an architecture firm and was financed by Fujimori’s government.
The accusations against Fujimori have led to years of legal wrangling. He resigned just as he was starting a third term and fled the country in disgrace after leaked videotapes showed his spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, bribing lawmakers. Fujimori went to Japan, his parents’ homeland, and sent in his resignation by fax.
Five years later, he stunned supporters and enemies alike when he flew to neighboring Chile, where he was arrested and extradited to Peru. Fujimori’s goal was to run for Peru’s presidency again in 2006, but instead, he was put on trial.
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Garcia Cano reported from Caracas, Venezuela.
____ Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urges the military and rival paramilitary RSF to ‘stop this conflict now’.
The United States has determined that warring factions in Sudan have committed war crimes, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said, as Washington increases pressure on the army (SAF) and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to end fighting that has caused a humanitarian crisis.
The US also found that the RSF and their allied militias committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing, Blinken said in a statement on Wednesday.
“The expansion of the needless conflict between RSF and the SAF has caused grievous human suffering,” Blinken said.
He urged both sides to “stop this conflict now, comply with their obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law, and hold accountable those responsible for atrocities.”
The RSF has been accused of orchestrating an ethnic massacre in West Darfur, 20 years after the region was the site of a genocidal campaign.
A Chadian cart owner transports belongings of Sudanese people who fled the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region [File: Zohra Bensemra/Reuters]
In the capital, Khartoum, residents have accused the paramilitary of rape, looting and imprisoning civilians.
Meanwhile, the army’s air and artillery attacks on residential neighbourhoods where the RSF has strongholds could be considered violations of international law, according to experts.
Residents, experts and aid groups have told Al Jazeera of growing fears that the next major battle in Sudan’s civil war could spiral into an all-out ethnic war.
While the US’s conclusion comes after a lengthy legal process and analysis, it does not carry any punitive measures. The US has imposed several rounds of sanctions since the war broke out in mid-April, however.
The war, which has killed more than 10,000 people and displaced another 6.5 million, broke out over disagreements about plans for a political transition and the integration of the RSF into the army, four years after former ruler Omar al-Bashir was deposed in an uprising.
Countless rounds of US-and-Saudi brokered peace talks have failed over the last few months.
LONDON — The U.K. government triggered criticism from opponents and division inside the governing Conservatives on Wednesday with a bill that will let it ignore a part of the country’s human rights law in order to send asylum-seekers on a one-way trip to Rwanda.
The legislation is part of government plans to overcome a block by the U.K. Supreme Court on its Rwanda policy. The court ruled last month that the plan was illegal because Rwanda isn’t a safe country for refugees.
Britain and Rwanda have since signed a treaty pledging to strengthen protection for migrants. The U.K. government says that will allow it to pass a law declaring Rwanda a safe destination.
Home Secretary James Cleverly said the Safety of Rwanda Bill “will make absolutely clear in U.K. law that Rwanda is a safe country.” He urged lawmakers in Parliament to pass the legislation, even though it may violate international human rights rules.
The government says the law will allow it to “disapply” sections of U.K. human rights law when it comes to Rwanda-related asylum claims.
On the first page of the bill, Cleverly states that he can’t guarantee that it’s compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights — but that lawmakers should approve it anyway.
The bill now faces a battle in Parliament. It doesn’t go far enough for some lawmakers on the governing Conservative Party’s authoritarian wing, who want the U.K. to go further and leave the European rights convention completely. That would put Britain among a very few European nonmembers including Belarus and Russia, which was expelled after Moscow launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick, who has advocated for tough measures, quit on Wednesday after the bill was published.
The bill also will likely face resistance from centrist Conservative lawmakers who oppose Britain breaching its human rights obligations.
And Rwandan Foreign Minister Vincent Biruta said that his country would scrap the deal unless Britain stuck to international law.
“It has always been important to both Rwanda and the U.K. that our rule of law partnership meets the highest standards of international law, and it places obligations on both the U.K. and Rwanda to act lawfully,” he said in a statement.
The troubled Rwanda plan is central to the U.K. government’s self-imposed goal of stopping unauthorized asylum-seekers arriving on small boats across the English Channel.
Britain and Rwanda struck a deal in April 2022 for some migrants who cross the Channel to be sent to Rwanda, where their asylum claims would be processed and, if successful, they would stay. The U.K. government argues that the deportations will discourage others from making the risky sea crossing and break the business model of people-smuggling gangs.
Critics say that it’s both unethical and unworkable to send migrants to a country 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles) away, with no chance of ever settling in the U.K.
No one has yet been sent to Rwanda under the plan, which has faced multiple legal challenges. The new law, if passed, would make it harder to challenge the deportation orders in the courts.
The immigration spokeswoman of the opposition Labour Party, Yvette Cooper, said that Jenrick’s resignation showed “total chaos in the government and in the Conservative Party.”
“This is the desperate dying days of a party ripping itself apart, clearly totally out of ideas, lost any sense of leadership or direction,” she said.
