Habib Siddiqui

China is facing growing criticism over its persecution of some Muslim minority groups, huge numbers of whom are allegedly being held in internment camps. In August, a UN committee heard that up to one million Uighur Muslims and other Muslim groups could be being detained in the western Xinjiang region, where they're said to be undergoing "re-education" programmes. The claims were made by rights groups, but China denies the allegations. At the same time, there's growing evidence of oppressive surveillance against people living in Xinjiang. Human Rights Watch says Uighur people in particular are subject to intense surveillance and are made to give DNA and biometric samples. Those with relatives in 26 "sensitive" countries have reportedly been rounded up, and up to a million detained. Rights groups say people in camps are made to learn Mandarin Chinese and criticise or renounce their faith. Former prisoners told BBC of physical as well as psychological to...

A powerful earthquake has struck off the coast of Indonesia , triggering a tsunami warning. The huge 7.5 magnitude quake was recorded near the island of Sulawesi , east of Borneo , the US Geological Survey said. Authorities lifted an early tsunami warning within an hour, although officials warned those in the area to remain vigilant as a number of aftershocks hit. “We advise people to remain in safe area, stay away from damaged buildings,” Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, said in a televised interview. Watch more                Is it safe to travel to Indonesia after the earthquakes? “It is better not to be in a house or building because the potential for aftershocks can be dangerous. People are encouraged to gather in safe areas. Avoid the slopes of hills.” He added that the national agency in Jakarta was having diffi...

by Arshad Khan Very quietly, without fanfare, in a story that went by almost unnoticed, the U.S. State Department website posted a  report this week on the Rohingya massacres  and atrocities.  Based on a survey, for which it contracted a Washington-based law firm (PLPG — Public International Law and Policy Group) to conduct the interviews, the report relied on 15,000 pages of supporting evidence.  It documented a planned, organized effort to terrorize and drive out the Rohingya community.  The firm, too, has  posted data and legal findings  on its own website. PILPG’s investigators conducted 1024 interviews with Rohingya survivors in Eastern Bangladesh refugee camps and settlement areas.  They drafted an initial overview for the State Department followed by detailed documentation in the form of a database with more than “13,000 coded instances of grave human rights violations.”  A second report titled,  “Factual Findi...

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The International Court of Justice on Friday said it has received a complaint from the “State of Palestine” against the United States, arguing that the U.S. government’s placement of its Israeli embassy in Jerusalem violates an international treaty and it should be removed. The ICJ, known as the World Court, said in a statement Palestine argues the 1961 Vienna Convention of Diplomatic Relations requires a country to  locate its embassy on the territory of a host state. While Israel controls Jerusalem militarily, its ownership is disputed.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead seven Palestinians, including two boys, who were among thousands of people who thronged to the fortified Gaza Strip border on Friday as part of weekly protests launched half a year ago, Gaza health officials said. Israel’s military said its troops resorted to live fire, and an air strike, after explosive devices and rocks were thrown at them and to prevent breaches of the border fence from the Islamist Hamas-controlled enclave. Gaza health officials said 505 people had been wounded, 89 of them by gunshots. They identified the dead as males, two of them aged 12 and 14. The boys’ families could not immediately be reached for comment. At least 191 Palestinians have been killed since the Gaza protests began on March 30 to demand the right of return to lands that Palestinian families fled or were driven from on Israel’s founding  in 1948, and the easing of an Israeli-Egyptian economic blockade. Hamas said Friday’s protest also marked the ...

By Jason Ditz In a 21-8 vote, the UN Human Rights Council has agreed to extend the inquiry into human rights violations committed during the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Saudi Arabia and its allies in the United Arab Emirates both condemned the news. Such votes happen every year around the UN General Assembly meeting, with the Saudis trying to limit such votes and insisting that any investigations are only going to “deepen divisions” in Yemen. The council spent several days debating the matter, with those in favor of more investigations, led by the Netherlands and Canada, winning out handily, while many other nations chose to abstain. British officials say that they were comfortable letting the investigation continue, but that subsequent reports need to focus on condemning the Shi’ite Houthi movement instead of criticizing the Saudis for their massive civilian death toll from airstrikes.

The World Disorder – Part 1 By Habib Siddiqui The preamble of the United Nations states: “WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED ·         to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and ·         to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and ·         to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and ·         to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, AND FOR THESE ENDS ·         to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one ...

Assam under BJP rule is seeing a new wave of marginalizing its Bengali speaking citizens who are falsely depicted as foreigners from Bangladesh. See the report below from Said Khalid, written nearly 3 months ago. -------------- 'Harassed, discriminated': Story of Assam's Bengali origin people As Assam counts its citizens, the fate of nearly 250,000 people, whose cases are pending in Tribunals, remains in limbo.   By Said Khalid Assam, India - At around midnight of November 29, 2016, Morjina Bibi was woken up by repeated knocks on her door. "When I opened the door, I saw two female police officers. Within a minute, several other policemen entered my house and asked me go with them," the 27-year-old told Al Jazeera. Bibi was thrown into detention centre for being a "Doubtful" or "D" voter - a concept introduced by India's Election Commission in 1997. Those marked as "D" in electoral rolls are stripped of their ci...

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