Habib Siddiqui

(YANGON and WASHINGTON D.C., August 27, 2018)— The United Nations Security Council should urgently refer the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate and prosecute perpetrators of mass atrocities against ethnic Kachin, Rohingya, and Shan civilians, said Fortify Rights today. The U.N. Fact-Finding-Mission today released its final report concluding that Myanmar’s top military generals should be prosecuted for genocide against Rohingya in Rakhine State as well as for crimes against humanity and war crimes in Kachin, Rakhine, and Shan states. “These findings are devastating and highly significant,” said Matthew Smith, Chief Executive Officer at Fortify Rights. “This will necessarily shift the thinking of U.N. member states— business as usual is no longer an option. The next logical step is for member states to ensure those responsible are held accountable.” The Fact-Finding-Mission found evidence of genocidal intent and compiled a “non-exhaustiv...

Mother-of-four Miss Blanchett, 49, said the World had “failed the Rohingya before” during an impassioned speech before the UN Security Council in New York earlier this week. A shocking UN report stated Myanmar’s military had carried out mass killings, gang rapes and burnt down whole villages since the attacks begun last August. And the actress, who is also a UN goodwill ambassador declared on the first anniversary of the outbreak of violence: “Please, let us not fail them again.” She recalled “gut-wrenching accounts” of torture, rape, people seeing loved ones killed in front of them and children being thrown onto fires. “I am a mother, and I saw my children in the eyes of every single refugee child I met,” she said. “I saw myself in every parent. How can any mother endure seeing her child thrown into a fire? “Their experiences will never leave me.” The UN report recommended the country’s commander in chief and five generals be prosecuted for orchestrating genocide. Mil...

That Johnson and Johnson could get away without paying compensation after implanting faulty hip replacement devices points to a regulatory deficit, and lack of medical ethics. ======= An important expose (IE, August 25) has revealed that the Indian arm of Johnson and Johnson (J&J), a leading global pharma major, “suppressed” key facts on the harmful aftermath of surgeries conducted on hundreds of patients in the country using “faulty” hip replacement systems imported by the company. The report also revealed that J&J did not provide compensation to all the affected patients. An expert committee of the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) had recommended that the pharma giant provide compensation to the patients who had undergone a surgery to implant the faulty device. In fact, J&J did not even provide a list of all the 4,700 patients who had undergone the surgery to the concerned committee. This is a breach of medical ethics and moral principles and J...

               === The latest arrests represent a new and extremely dangerous phase in the steady erosion of civil liberties, fundamental rights and indeed democracy in India. Written by Prashant Bhushan | New Delhi | Updated: August 30, 2018 9:49:33 am   X <img class="size-full wp-image-5331583" src="https://images.indianexpress.com/2018/08/activists-arrest-bhima-koregaon.jpg" alt="" /> Pune police arrested (Clockwise) Sudha Bharadwaj in Faridabad, Varavara Rao in Hyderabad, Gautam Navlakha in New Delhi, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira in Mumbai. On Tuesday, the Maharashtra Police arrested some of India’s finest human rights activists from five cities across the country on completely fabricated charges under various provisi...

Kathmandu. PTI Photo view more       Bangladeshi Buddhist monk Bhante Sangh Priya, accused of sexually abusing a minor girl, being produced in a court in Gaya.

Outlook Web Bureau Shahrukh Khan and three of his friends were allegedly trying to steal a buffalo and they were caught by the villagers who allegedly started beating him. A 22-year-old Muslim man was lynched to death by a mob of over 50 villagers after he and his friends were allegedly caught trying to steal a buffalo in the early hours of Wednesday. "We reached the spot and took him to the hospital where he died. Investigations are underway," NTDV quoted the city Superintendent of Police Abhinandan Singh as saying. According to the reports, the incident occurred at Bholapur Hindoliya village in Bareilly district when Shahrukh Khan and three of his friends were allegedly trying to steal a buffalo and they were caught by the villagers who allegedly started beating him. The victim, however, succumbed to his injuries later in the evening. ALSO READ:   Tales From The 4G Rumour Mill Khan, who had come from Dubai a month back used t...

By Ramzy Baroud Hanan al-Khoudari resorted to Facebook in a cry for help when Israeli authorities rejected her request to accompany her three-year-old son, Louay, to his chemotherapy treatment in East Jerusalem. The boy is suffering from an ‘aggressive soft tissue sarcoma’. Israeli authorities then justified their decision based on a vague claim that one of Hannan’s relatives is a ‘Hamas operative.” The rights group, Gisha reported that the state remains unwilling to define precisely what it means to be a ‘Hamas operative.’ Even if an explanation is offered, denying gravely ill Palestinians from receiving life-saving treatment remains an immoral and illegal act. “The state is sentencing the petitioners to death or a lifetime of suffering,” said Muna Haddad, an advocate with Gisha. By ‘petitioners’, she was referring to seven Gaza women who were denied access to urgent medical treatment by Israel, which required them to leave the besieged Gaza Strip. The suffering of Gaza women r...

By Robert Fisk In the week that  Uri Avnery , the scourge of colonialism, died in  Tel Aviv , the Israeli government announced a further enlargement of its massive colonial project in the occupied  West Bank . Plans were now advanced, it said on Wednesday, for a further 1,000 “homes” in Jewish “settlements” – still the word we must use for such acts of land theft – and final approval had been given for another 382. Today, 600,000 Jewish Israelis live in about 140 colonies constructed on land belonging to another people, the Palestinians, either in the West Bank or east Jerusalem. There is a state of normalcy about all this, the world’s last colonial conflict; a weariness with the figures, a lacklustre response to the huge construction enterprise on Palestinian territory. Charting the spread of red roofs across the hilltops of the West Bank, the swimming pools and the lawns and smart roadways, the supermarkets and orchards – all encircled by acres of barbed wir...

Elor Azara claims only reason he did time for killing an incapacitated Palestinian assailant was miscarriage of justice, implies lies by the Israeli army top brass. Elor Azaria, the Israeli soldier convicted of killing an incapacitated Palestinian assailant in Hebron in 2016, said he has no remorse and would do it again. Speaking to Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom on Wednesday, the former army medic said "I have no doubt. Bring me back to those same seconds of the incident in Hebron – I would have done exactly the same thing. Because that is what needed to be done." Azaria, who finished his nine-month incarceration in May , added that "I have no remorse. I am completely at peace with myself. I acted as needed. I went with my own [inner] truth. I acted in the most proper way possible and what happened afterwards [his trial and conviction] should not have happened....

ARNO welcomes the Report of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar The Arakan Rohingya National Organization (ARNO) welcomes the Report of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar . The report acknowledges the continued and “systematic oppression” of the Rohingya people, the complicity of Myanmar Security forces and other actors in the continued violence that precipitated and directly caused the events of August 2017, in addition recognizes genocidal intent exists to warrant an investigation and prosecution of military officials within Myanmar. The ARNO welcomes the recommendations made by the Mission which emphasizes the need for pursuing justice for genocide and crimes against humanity in addition calling upon state parties to engage Myanmar to change these practices which are a direct violation of international law. The ARNO participated in the Fact Finding mission with a general communication to the panel emphasizing the need for ...

Myanmar: Tatmadaw leaders must be investigated for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes – UN report GENEVA (27 August 2018) – Myanmar’s top military generals, including Commander-in-Chief Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing, must be investigated and prosecuted for genocide in the north of Rakhine State, as well as for crimes against humanity and war crimes in Rakhine, Kachin and Shan States, a report by the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar* today urged. The Mission, established by the UN Human Rights Council in March 2017, found patterns of gross human rights violations and abuses committed in Kachin, Rakhine and Shan States that “undoubtedly amount to the gravest crimes under international law”, principally by Myanmar’s military, the Tatmadaw, but also by other security forces. “Military necessity would never justify killing indiscriminately, gang raping women, assaulting children, and burning entire villages. The Tatmadaw’s tactics are consistently ...

"Throughout history, during times of armed conflict and occupation, military forces have repeatedly used acts of collective punishment on groups of persons without regard to whether or not they bore personal responsibility for the very acts, it was claimed, that required a response. The use of collective punishments and infliction of cruel punitive measures upon civil populations is not new. For many years, belligerent reprisals have been little more than illegal means of repression or intimidation often imposed under the guise of legitimate law enforcement. Unable to locate insurgents responsible for so-called hostile acts, invading armies and occupation powers have long used collective punishment in the hopes of suppressing resistance and ensuring willful obedience. Ultimately, the goal of deterrence is little more than a pretext for tyranny," writes Stanley Cohen. He also writes, "In April of 1919, peaceful protestors defied a government ban and demonstrated agains...

  L isten US Muslim woman subjected to humiliating screening at airport by TSA officials A Muslim woman is fighting back the long-standing custom of unforeseen screenings at the airport of all those sharing her faith. As per reports, Zainab Merchant after continual screenings at the airport since the past two years broke her silence after things got out of hand with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) going in for a wider search, forced her to show her sanitary napkin which was in use. According to the Harvard graduate, she was taken in for a screening by an officer who, amidst the search, had called for a deeper probe after his focus landed on her groin area. In spite of her explaining that she was on her menstrual cycle, Zainab was summoned in for an additional private search where she was forced to strip the lower half of her body, to prove the explanation she had been giving all along. Following the private search, Za...