(OPINION) On Nov. 30, a court in Frankfurt, Germany, delivered a life sentence to a former Islamic State group fighter for genocide against the Yazidi minority — the first genocide conviction of an Islamic State group fighter in the world.
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(OPINION) On Nov. 10, the Iran Atrocities Tribunal opened its doors to a series of public hearings to investigate allegations of mass killings of protesters by the Iranian government in 2019. Amnesty International published a report detailing the deaths of 304 people killed by Iran’s security forces during the November crackdown.
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(OPINION) Between 2006 and 2019, close to 1,200 journalists were killed for reporting the news — approximately 100 journalists per year. In nine out of ten cases, the killers do not face justice. This impunity begets further crimes, enabling not only crimes against journalists but also the continuation of crimes they were attempting to uncover.
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(OPINION) At the end of October, the International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute team secured the evacuation of 79 women judges, lawyers, journalists and other human rights defenders from Afghanistan to Greece. But states must also wake up to the message sent by the Taliban and consider other ways they can help.
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(OPINION) When faced with such crises as seen in Afghanistan over recent months, there is a need for a variety of actors to provide assistance, including businesses. Businesses can do good and as seen in the case of Airbnb.org their assistance can effectively fill the gaps in humanitarian responses.
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(OPINION) Oct. 11 is the International Day of the Girl Child, a day to empower empower young girls and promise them a better future. In August 2021, all these promises, plans, dreams and hopes came crashing down one by one until there was nothing left. Afghan girls have watched as every piece of the country was taken over by the Taliban.
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(ANALYSIS) As the Taliban and the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate are taking over the country, the International Criminal Court says it will investigate crimes as they happen for better monitoring and evidence collection. The move may also trigger quicker action and response from international actors after atrocities happen.
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(OPINION) Hundreds of people who wish to leave remained in Afghanistan and now fear for their lives. Among them are generations of human rights defenders including judges, lawyers, journalists and human rights activists — those who spent years working to make Afghanistan a country that affirms and protects the human rights of all.
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(OPINION) Aug. 22 marks the U.N.-designated International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief. While the day was established as a direct response to the atrocities perpetrated by Daesh (ISIS) against religious minorities in Syria and Iraq, similar acts of violence continue to this day globally.
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(OPINION) n April 28, 2021, the European Parliament adopted a joint motion for a resolution on the blasphemy laws in Pakistan calling for more comprehensive approaches to address the abuses of blasphemy laws in Pakistan in response to a Christian Pakistani couple convicted of blasphemy in 2013. Blasphemy laws have always been problematic since they rely on the notion of causing offense, which is subjective and vague and usually directed towards religious minorities.
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(OPINION) The seventh anniversary of the atrocities committed against the Yazidis in Sinjar, Iraq by the members of the terror organization Daesh (commonly referred to as Islamic State or ISIL) is quickly approaching. There are certain questions regarding the responses to the atrocities that continue to cause concerns. Among them is the question of justice: what is the progress with bringing Daesh to justice?
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(OPINION) As news releases about growing Christian prosecution cases in China by the Communist Party, Ochab questions its similarity to the Uyghur crisis. On January 13, 2021, Open Doors, an international NGO advocating on behalf of persecuted Christians, released their annual World Watch List which assesses 50 countries where Christians face the most severe types of persecution. China is in the top 20.
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(OPINION) On April 22, 2021, British Parliamentarians recognized the atrocities perpetrated against the Uyghurs as genocide. This debate was only the second time the U.K. House of Commons was asked to recognize ongoing atrocities as genocide, with the first being in the case of Daesh atrocities against Yazidis, Christians and others.
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(OPINION) On March 24, the U.N. marks the International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims. It is a day designated to honor the memory of victims of gross and systematic human rights violations and promote the importance of the right to truth and justice. We need to do more to ensure that there are comprehensive investigative mechanisms in place for the Uighurs.
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(OPINION) On March 9, 2021, Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy, a non-partisan think tank based in the U.S., published a new report co-authored by over 50 global experts in human rights, war crimes and international law, analyzing the situation of the Uyghur community in Xinjiang, China, against the legal definition of genocide and the duties to prevent and punish the crime of genocide.
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(OPINION) The upcoming International Women’s Day should be used to rethink the impact of our everyday choices on the situation of women. This includes the way we shop. Indeed, recent research suggests that it is very likely that my power suit means enslavement, forced labor and abuse of Uyghur women.
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(OPINION) Pope Francis’ Apostolic Visit to Iraq begins on March 5, 2021. This first-ever papal visit to Iraq aims to provide moral support to Christian minorities in Iraq and the region while facilitating the Vatican’s goal of building bridges with the Muslim world. The visit comes close to seven years after religious minorities in the region, including Christians and Yazidis, have been targeted for annihilation by Daesh.
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(OPINION) Farah Shaheen, a 12-year-old Christian girl, was kidnapped from Faisalabad in June 2020 and abused by three men who chained her to a cattle pen. They claimed that she married one of her abductors, a 29-year-old Muslim man, of her own will. However, her family tells a different story.
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(OPINION) A recent study released explained the sexual atrocities against Uyghur women in China. International bodies, such as the United Nations, have been greatly silent, with a few meaningless statements that do not follow with decisive actions to change the fate of the targeted communities.
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(OPINION) The Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., published a new report that identified Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo as the top countries at risk for new mass killings.
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