genocide – FoRB in Full

We must not let the Rohingya people slip to the bottom of the international agenda

Posted on 16/01/2023 by cswpress in Asia, Burma

On 2 December 2022 a group of approximately 180 Rohingya refugees boarded a boat in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh. Their intended destination was Malaysia, where many hoped to be reunited with family and loved ones, or to build a better life than the one available to them in the overcrowded, unsanitary and increasingly dangerous camps in Bangladesh.

They never made it.

In a statement issued on 25 December, the United Nations expressed concern that the boat had sank after it went missing in the Andaman Sea. Relatives of those onboard told the Guardian that they had little hope that their family members were still alive, and if confirmed it would bring the number of Rohingya refugees who have died on sea crossings to Malaysia in 2022 close to 400.

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365 days and counting: The international community still needs to end the suffering of Tigray

Posted on 04/11/202104/11/2021 by cswpress in Eritrea, Sub-Saharan Africa

On 4 November 2020 Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered a military offensive against the Tigray Peoples’ Liberation Front (TPLF) forces in response to an attack on a federal army base which the Tigrayan authorities described as pre-emptive. Troops from Eritrea and Somalia joined the ENDF in launching a pincer movement against the Tigrayans, and communications to the region were cut and remain disrupted to this day.

The attack marked the beginning of a conflict which is still ongoing, one in which over 52,000 people have died, and an estimated 1.7 million have been displaced internally. One year on and the crisis in Tigray is showing no signs of coming to an end, with Prime Minister Abiy pledging to “bury this enemy with our blood and bones and make the glory of Ethiopia high again” in a statement on 3 November – hardly the words expected from a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Along with the Eritrean leader, PM Abiy and his government are responsible for a horrific campaign of violence against the people of Tigray which a joint inve s tigation by the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) recently found may have involved war crimes and crimes against humanity, a finding they attribute to both sides of the conflict.

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“There is no excuse”: The international community must finish the work of holding North Korea to account

Posted on 29/07/202111/08/2021 by cswpress in Asia, North Korea

Content warning: This blog contains descriptions of rape, sexual violence and violence against infants

By Benedict Rogers

Almost exactly twenty years ago, CSW began to investigate the human rights situation in North Korea, and in particular the persecution of Christians.

It is fair to say that we were one of the very first human rights organisations to sound the alarm about the gravity and scale of human rights atrocities in the world’s most closed and most repressed nation.

The tragedy is that twenty years on, little has changed and the world continues to turn a blind eye.

Dislodging the bricks

In 2007 we published one of the first and most comprehensive studies of the atrocity crimes in North Korea, in a report titled North Korea: A Case to Answer, a Call to Act. In so doing, we became one of the first organisations to call for the establishment of a United Nations Commission of Inquiry to investigate crimes against humanity.

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Une tragédie en cours : Le déclin de la diversité religieuse au Moyen-Orient

Posted on 23/03/2021 by cswpress in Egypt FR, français, Iran FR, Middle East & North Africa FR, Syria FR, Turkey FR

Billet de Blog par Lord Alton of Liverpool

La région du Moyen-Orient et de l’Afrique du Nord (MOAN) connait un déclin significatif de la diversité religieuse depuis ces dernières années. Si les anciennes communautés chrétiennes ont régulièrement souffert par le passé, aucun groupe religieux n’est cependant épargné par la tragédie actuelle ; les ahmadis, les bahaïs, les juifs, les yazidis et les zoroastriens ont tous été touchés, ainsi que les musulmans chiites et sunnites. Pour de multiples raisons, dans plusieurs pays de la région, des communautés minoritaires ayant des racines profondes remontant à plusieurs générations sont contraintes de quitter leurs terres ancestrales.

Irak et Syrie: Un cycle de violences sans fin

Depuis 2003, le nombre de chrétiens et de yazidis en Irak a considérablement diminué. Des milliers d’entre eux ont été tués et des centaines de milliers ont émigré à cause du terrorisme et de la violence sectaire. Ils ne reviendront jamais.

En 2014, l’État islamique (EI) a conquis Mossoul et les plaines de Ninive. Des milliers d’hommes, de femmes et d’enfants non sunnites ont été tués ou réduits en esclavage. Une étude, réalisée par la Public Library of Science, estime que 3 100 yazidis ont été tués en quelques jours après l’attaque de 2014. Au cours des années suivantes, des dizaines de milliers de chrétiens irakiens ont émigré vers les pays voisins ; le nombre des chrétiens restant en Irak est aujourd’hui estimé à 250 000 contre 2,5 millions avant l’invasion de 2003.

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An unfolding tragedy: The decline of religious diversity in the Middle East

Posted on 08/02/202122/06/2021 by cswpress in Egypt, Iran, Middle East & North Africa, Syria, Turkey

By Lord Alton of Liverpool

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has seen a significant decline in religious diversity in recent years. While ancient Christian communities have often suffered, practically no religious group has been safe from this ongoing tragedy, with Ahmadis, Baha’is, Jews, Yazidis and Zoroastrians all affected, as well as both Shia and Sunni Muslims. For a host of reasons, in several countries in the region, minority communities who have deep roots going back several generations are being forced to leave their ancestral lands.

Iraq and Syria: Unending violence

Since 2003, the numbers of Christians and Yazidis in Iraq have both dropped significantly. Thousands have been killed and hundreds of thousands have emigrated because of terrorism and sectarian violence. They will never return.

In 2014, the Islamic State (IS) captured Mosul and the Nineveh Plains. Thousands of non-Sunni men, women and children were either killed or enslaved. One study, by the Public Library of Science, estimates that 3,100 Yazidis were killed in a matter of days following the 2014 attack. Tens of thousands of Iraqi Christians subsequently emigrated to neighbouring countries over the following years, with their number now estimated at 250,000, down from 2.5 million before the 2003 invasion.

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