Speakers decry Chinese treatment of Uighurs

PETER SMITH

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

petersmith@post-gazette.com

“Sorry, I get a little nervous because it's not easy to tell everybody what happened,” she said. Even though she has shared her story widely, each time she does, she said, she has to “remember this time” of imprisonment and torture yet again.

But she was determined to continue.

The ethnic Uighur woman gave a gripping account of being caught up amid a vast campaign of China's repression of its Uighur Muslim population. She spoke at an online presentation Tuesday sponsored by the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Governance and Markets, Congregation Beth Shalom and the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh.

Ms. Tursun spoke of growing up in China’s western Xinjiang region and later studying and marrying in Egypt, where she had triplets. After she returned to Xinjiang in 2015, she said, she found herself repeatedly imprisoned, interrogated, beaten, given electric shocks and force-fed medication. One of her children died while she was detained. 

“I ask of the police why I am in the prison, what happened, what I do wrong?” she said. “They didn’t give me answer.” 

Only after a long ordeal was she allowed to leave China for Egypt with her two surviving children. She now lives in the United States.

According to the U.S. State Department, 800,000 to 2 million Uighurs and other members of predominately Muslim ethnic groups in China have been held against their will in settings such as massive camps in Xinjiang.

China has denied such claims and said the actions it has taken have been to counteract extremism, terrorism and separatism.

Other speakers at yesterday’s event said people in power need to listen to Ms. Tursun’s account.

“You are the face of the what is happening to the Uighur people,” said Nury Turkel, co-founder and chair of the Washington-based Uyghur Human Rights Project and a member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. “Those people who can make a difference should listen to Mihrigul’s story.”

The event was jointly sponsored by local religious congregations in an effort to raise the public consciousness about this large-scale human rights issue.

“Mihrigul, thank you for your story, your bravery and your faith,” said Rabbi Jeremy Markiz of Congregation Beth Shalom. “I'm heartbroken and horrified for you.”

He asked what ordinary citizens could do to help others facing what she did.

Speakers called for continued pressure on China by the U.S. government, corporations and scholars to protest what they described as a range of human rights abuses.

“If ‘never again’ means more than just a slogan, [the] international community must do something to stop these atrocities,” Mr. Turkel said. He contended that China’s actions meet some of the criteria for genocide, including forced sterilizations and the removal of children from their parents and placing them in the care of non-Uighurs.

Imam Chris Caras of the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh said one positive example was the action of Gambia’s justice minister in bringing a charge of genocide against Myanmar for its mass expulsions and other repression of its own Muslim minority. The court directed Myanmar to “take all measures within its power” to prevent genocidal acts against the Rohingya minority.

That action was important, said one of the speakers, Sean Roberts of the Elliot School of International Affairs at George Washington University. “I think to a certain extent, China was looking at Myanmar and saying, ‘Nobody’s really stopping this country, and we're much more powerful.’ ”

He said U.S. pressure on China has been effective but also has prompted China to claim that reports of atrocities against the Uighurs are part of an American conspiracy driven by a rivalry between the countries. 

“This is really a global humanitarian issue,” he said. “It shouldn't turn into a geopolitical issue. So, I think it's really important to see more grassroots activism.”

Peter Smith: petersmith@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1416; Twitter @PG_PeterSmith.

Joint statement of Canada and the Kingdom of the Netherlands regarding intention to intervene in The Gambia v. Myanmar case at the International Court of Justice

The Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada, and Stef Blok, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, today issued the following statement:

“Canada and the Kingdom of the Netherlands would like to express their joint intention to intervene in the matter of The Gambia v. Myanmar, a contentious case brought by The Gambia against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice [ICJ] alleging violations of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide [Genocide Convention].

“The Gambia’s application shows the discrimination and persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar, which created the conditions for Myanmar’s security forces to perpetrate targeted and systemic atrocities against the Rohingya. It states that Myanmar’s violations include the commission of genocide against the Rohingya, mostly by way of the systematic and widespread perpetration of mass murder, sexual violence, torture, forced displacement, and denial of access to food and shelter. These conditions have caused over 850,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh since 2016.

“The Genocide Convention embodies the solemn pledge to prevent the crime of genocide and hold those responsible to account. In bringing this application to the ICJ, The Gambia took a laudable step towards ending impunity for those committing atrocities in Myanmar and upholding this pledge. Canada and the Netherlands consider it our obligation to support these efforts which are of concern to all of humanity. As part of this intervention, Canada and the Kingdom of the Netherlands will assist with the complex legal issues that are expected to arise and will pay special attention to crimes related to sexual and gender-based violence, including rape.

“States parties to the Genocide Convention must resolve to prevent genocide but also, critically, to hold perpetrators to account. Canada and the Kingdom of the Netherlands reiterate their call to all states parties to the Genocide Convention to support The Gambia in its efforts to address these violations.”

Facebook’s policy for hate speech triggers a debate on its bias against Muslims

With the breaking news of Facebook’s alleged spreading anti-Muslim sentiments in India and assisting the ruling party, Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), to create a hateful sentiment, the debate has once again started over the credibility and power structure of the social media platform.

Different news portals have conducted several assessments and found that Facebook is allowing anti-Islam posts that align with its bias. The biggest trick here is that Facebook is not increasing the reach of hate posts, rather decreasing the reach of or permanently suspending the accounts of human rights activists. Most of these activists are from Muslim-majority areas like Palestine and Kashmir, which are highly exploited right now.

‘Community standards’ not for all

Facebook’s user policies and community guidelines talk of unity, harmony, and condemning hate speech with constant monitoring. But the recent investigation by the Wall Street Journal reveals that Facebook prefers to keep politics over social and moral responsibility when it comes to the issues regarding Muslim minorities.

A 2019 report by +972 Magazine also noticed a trend of shutting down WhatsApp (which is now owned by Facebook) and Facebook accounts of about 100 journalists and activists, banning them from sharing updates of when Israeli warplanes attacked Gaza in November 2019. A similar bias is seen in the case of Kashmir, a Muslim majority disputed region between India and Pakistan. This selective approach and favoritism mostly rule out against Muslims, triggering a worldwide debate.

Supporting a chain of hate-mongering

WSJ supports its argument with evidence of right-wing political leaders like Kapil Mishra actively inciting violence in India and leading to the Delhi Riots 2020, without getting flagged on the social media platform. Another BJP leader T. Raja Singh openly called for Rohingya Muslims’ slaughter and threatened to demolish mosques. While Facebook’s online security staff initiated a ban on his account, Ankhi Das, the Public Policy Director of Facebook India, stepped in to stop the ban.

Facebook employees, according to the Wall Street Journal, say that she was motivated not to prevent hate speech because “punishing violations by politicians from Mr. Modi’s party would damage the company’s business prospects in the country.” These incidents belong to a sequential agenda of pushing forth the Hindu nationalist ideals in India, aligning with the country’s ruling party, which is a huge market of Facebook, with 290 million users.

Aligning with the powerful

As the statement of Ankhi Das also suggests, Facebook is currently capitalizing over hatred against a community, regardless of the human sentiments involved. Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, also accepted that the platform covertly spread propaganda linked to the Myanmar military, further related to the Rohingya Muslim genocide. While Facebook is not directly involved in these vile acts, it sure gives a platform for hatred to grow and spread on a broader rate than it was ever possible in history.

What the Policy Times is saying?

• The operations of Facebook are so covert that you can be highly educated and aware, still believe in its propaganda. Responsible surfing of the internet and social media is a requisite now.
• Facebook is minting money over our data, so we must choose to regulate it. Let us not engage with hate speech of any kind, be it against a race, religion, or ideology.

US punishes International Criminal Court for investigating potential war crimes in Afghanistan

The Trump administration has sought to weaken or abandon various international agencies since 2016. Now it’s taking aim at the International Criminal Court, a global tribunal that investigates and prosecutes war crimes, torture and genocide.

laiming the ICC’s investigation into alleged war crimes by U.S. forces in Afghanistan poses a national security threat, Trump issued an executive order on June 11 effectively criminalizing anyone who works at the ICC. Its lawyers, judges, human rights researchers and staff could now have their U.S. bank accounts frozen, U.S. visas revoked and travel to the U.S. denied.

The new sanctions, which have yet to be implemented, do not target U.S. citizens. But Americans can be sanctioned if they “materially support” the ICC by, say, filing an amicus brief to support a case. Such language usually applies to the enablers of foreign terrorist organizations – not human rights lawyers.

The retired Gen. Wesley Clark called Trump’s order a “tragic mistake” in foreign policy. He says the U.S. “has nothing to fear from the ICC,” which exists to deter and punish the kinds of atrocities committed by Germany and Japan during World War II.

I am an international human rights lawyer who has defended and advocated for victims of gross human rights violations in American courts and at the United Nations. For these people, the ICC is the only real means to hold their persecutors accountable, even if few of them will ever set foot in the court.

Brief history of the ICC

The ICC is the only criminal court with near global jurisdiction.

Since its founding in 2002 in The Hague, it has successfully prosecuted over 40 high-ranking politicians, warlords and heads of state for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Those imprisoned include Thomas Lubanga, a warlord who recruited child soldiers and forced them to fight in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Bosco Ntaganda, convicted of rape, murder and sexual slavery in the same conflict.

The ICC also issues warrants for the arrests of leaders who’ve fled the court’s justice, such as Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir, who stands charged with genocide for the rape, killing and torture of civilians in Darfur. Fugitive suspects are prosecuted by the ICC if and when they are extradited to The Hague.

Occasionally, special war tribunals are established outside the ICC to prosecute specific cases in specific countries. Recently, a special international tribunal convicted a Hezbollah member for the 2005 assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Together, the ICC and these complementary special tribunals enforce international human rights law. The ICC is a court of last resort. It acts only when national governments cannot or will not investigate and prosecute war crimes. Its jurisdiction is intentionally narrow. It means countries with a strong rule of law need not fear international investigation.

US fearful of international justice

In the early 1990s, the U.S. was deeply involved in United Nations negotiations in the Rome Statute, the treaty that created the ICC. But in 1998 President Bill Clinton decided not to ask Congress to ratify the Rome Statute, claiming there was no protection against “politicized prosecutions.”

Despite not being one of the court’s 123 member countries, the U.S. has often facilitated the ICC’s work. Successive U.S. administrations have imposed a series of sanctions against people under ICC investigation, including members of the Assad regime suspected of committing war crimes in Syria.

The U.S. has also championed the ICC’s ongoing examination of crimes committed by the Taliban in Afghanistan and its investigation of Myanmar for possible genocide against the Rohingya Muslims. The U.S. also got involved in the hunt for the infamous Ugandan guerrilla leader Joseph Kony, who was indicted by the ICC in 2005 for using children as sex slaves and insurgents.

But some of the ICC’s newest cases hit close to home.One is a pending investigation of American military actions in Afghanistan between 2003 and 2004. Dozens of people claim to have been tortured during interrogation by the CIA in “black sites” created by the Bush administration. Two current Guantanamo detainees, Sharqawi Al Hajj and Guled Duran, who are represented by legal counsel, have provided detailed testimonies to the ICC.

Another is the ICC’s investigation into possible crimes by Israel related to Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel, like its ally the U.S., is not a member of the ICC.

In May, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned the ICC to end its “illegitimate” probes into the U.S. and Israel or else face “consequences.”

Limited jurisdiction

The ICC persisted, saying the U.S. could fend off the ICC by investigating the alleged war crimes itself.

“The I.C.C. is not intent on ‘hauling’ Americans up to trial before it,” wrote ICC president Eboe-Osujiin in a June 18 New York Times op-ed responding to Trump’s Executive Order. It is simply committed to seeing credible claims against U.S. security personnel in Afghanistan investigated, Eboe-Osuji said.

But the U.S., like Israel, has refused to acknowledge that war crimes may have been committed. Such standoffs trigger ICC involvement as the court of last resort.

Historically, the International Criminal Court has almost exclusively prosecuted individuals from weaker nations, primarily in Africa. Some critics have dubbed it the “African criminal court.” Yet most African countries, like other ICC members, remain supportive of the court’s work.

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The ICC is also a slow, cumbersome and expensive form of justice. It has spent over US$1.2 billion over the past 12 years to successfully punish only three individuals of the dozens it has prosecuted.

But the court’s importance goes beyond its verdicts. Without its watchful eye and long arm, war criminals would roam free.

In undermining its work, the Trump administration claims to protect American security. But if the U.S. won’t cooperate with the ICC in international criminal investigations of its own citizens, other countries are less likely to help when the U.S. wants terrorists and war criminals brought to justice.

So far, the administration’s executive order has proven so controversial – and complicated to enforce – that new sanctions have not yet been used.

This is the bogus anti-Semitism report that sank Jeremy Corbyn

by: Asa Winstanley
The Electronic Intifada

The road to Jeremy Corbyn's political downfall began at Oxford University Labour Club in February 2016.

A rogue inquiry by a Labour staffer with close ties to the Israeli embassy included fabricated allegations of anti-Semitism.

It destroyed the lives of several pro-Corbyn students sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.

It also triggered Labour's "anti-Semitism crisis" in earnest. The manufactured crisis continues today, even with Corbyn now marginalized.

After an internal Labour disciplinary investigation, some of the accused were cleared of anti-Semitism the following year.

But by that time the damage had been done.

After a four-year investigation, The Electronic Intifada has obtained the full Rubin report, which has never been published.

Michael Rubin, who wrote it, was chair of the right-wing group Labour Students. But the "inquiry" was his own initiative and had not been mandated by either Labour's leader or its ruling National Executive Committee.

Rubin was also collaborating with Shai Masot, an Israeli "diplomat" who would be kicked out of the UK the following year.

Soon after writing the report, Rubin was hired by Labour Friends of Israel, a group which secretly coordinates with the Israeli embassy in London.

Masot was caught in undercover footage recruiting to the Israeli front group.