Armenia’s Security Council held an emergency meeting May 12 in response to a reported border incursion by Azerbaijan. Local authorities in southern Syunik province issued urgent reports that Azerbaijan’s forces had crossed the border and completely surrounded Lake Sev. The… Read moreArmenia-Azerbaijan border stand-off —over water
Human Rights Watch (HRW) stated that the armed group Islamic State in the Sahel Province (IS Sahel) is escalating attacks on civilians, reporting that since March the group has illegally executed 127 people in western Niger. HRW documented five armed attacks by the group in Tillabéri region during that time frame. The group killed 70 worshipers at a mosque in a mass execution in June. In May, IS Sahel attacked villages and burned at least a dozen homes, the report found. HRW stated that these attacks constituted war crimes. (Photo: Aharan Kotogo via Wikimedia Commons)
Human Rights Watch (HRW) stated that the armed group Islamic State in the Sahel Province (IS Sahel) is escalating attacks on civilians, reporting that since March the group has illegally executed 127 people in western Niger. HRW documented five armed attacks by the group in Tillabéri region during that time frame. The group killed 70 worshipers at a mosque in a mass execution in June. In May, IS Sahel attacked villages and burned at least a dozen homes, the report found. HRW stated that these attacks constituted war crimes. (Photo: Aharan Kotogo via Wikimedia Commons)
Human Rights Watch (HRW) stated that the armed group Islamic State in the Sahel Province (IS Sahel) is escalating attacks on civilians, reporting that since March the group has illegally executed 127 people in western Niger. HRW documented five armed attacks by the group in Tillabéri region during that time frame. The group killed 70 worshipers at a mosque in a mass execution in June. In May, IS Sahel attacked villages and burned at least a dozen homes, the report found. HRW stated that these attacks constituted war crimes. (Photo: Aharan Kotogo via Wikimedia Commons)
At least 16 have been killed on both sides in ongoing clashes that broke out along the border of Armenia and Azerbaijan July 12. An Azerbaijani general is among the dead in the heaviest fighting between the two nations in years…. Read moreArmenia-Azerbaijan border as regional flashpoint
International human and civil rights groups urged the UN Human Rights Council to maintain its oversight of the situation in Sri Lanka. The appeal comes ahead of the council's 60th session, where member states' compliance with international human rights treaties is to be reviewed. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Commission of Jurists and the Asian Forum for Human Rights & Development called for the renewal of the Sri Lanka Accountability Project, led by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). In their statement, the groups accused Sri Lanka's government of lacking the political will to establish an independent prosecutorial mechanism to ensure accountability for human rights violations and international crimes. The call comes as excavations continue at a mass grave site where hundreds of ethnic Tamils who disappeared during the country's civil war are believed to be buried. (Photo via JURIST)
The Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation upheld a decision to draw a border between the republics of Ingushetia and Chechnya. In September the two republics signed an agreement to define the border between them. This was the first time that the border has been defined since the split of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic after the collpase of the USSR. The agreement became law in each republic in October, but a group of Ingush deputies challenged the law. The Chechen-Ingush border dispute has sparked violence in recent years, and been exploited by Islamists who seek to create a "Caucasus Emirate" covering both republics, a resurrection of the insurgent state established by Muslim rebels in the 19th century. (Map: Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection)
A leading LGBT rights group projected messages for Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in giant letters on the wall of the Presidential Palace in Helsinki hours before the summit between the two leaders was set to open. "Trump and Putin: Stop the Crimes Against Humanity in Chechnya," read one message displayed by the Human Rights Campaign. Other projections read: "The whole world is watching" and "Silence is deadly." The group said in a tweet ahead of the action: "Last year, reports surfaced of Chechen authorities rounding up and detaining more than 100 men who were suspected of being gay or bisexual and 20 have been murdered. Today HRC confronted Trump and Putin in Helsinki over these crimes against humanity." The statement continued: "For more than 15 months, @realDonaldTrump has refused to publicly condemn the systematic torture, abuse and murder of LGBTQ people occurring in Chechnya as Vladimir Putin has licensed the violence to continue." (Photo: Human Rights Campaign via Twitter)
A massive protest encampment erected in front of Tbilisi's parliament building demanding the resignation of Georgia's government prompted President Georgi Margvelashvili to meet with demonstration leaders and remove his chief prosecutor. The latest round of mass protests began over accusations of a government cover-up in the slaying of two youths. But pressure was building for weeks. The first protests broke out in mid-May to demand drug legalization after a series of police raids on nightclubs. Gay rights advocates took to the streets to mark International Day Against Homophobia—to be confronted by gangs of neo-Nazis, who tried to intimidate them into dispersing, giving Hitler salutes and chanting "death to the enemy!" The protest wave indicates a new generation tired of rule by ex-Soviet elites coming of age—but starkly divided between more liberal and harshly reactionary currents. (Photo: OC Media)
Last year, horrific reports emerged from the southern Russian republic of Chechnya that authorities were rounding up gays in detainment camps and subjecting them to torture —the first time this kind of thing has happened in Europe since Nazi Germany. Now the reign of terror is being extended to drug users and small-time dealers, who are facing torture at the hands of Chechen security forces as part of the same ultra-puritanical campaign. Reports describe electric current being applied to suspects to induce them to "confess." No one has survived without confessing, victims are told. (Map: Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection)
Alarming reports are emerging that Chechyna has opened "the first concentration camp for homosexuals since Hitler," following a "gay purge" in the southern Russian republic.
The vote over the name change from South Ossetia to Alania reveals how the autonomist aspirations of the Ossetians (however legitimate) have been exploited in the Great Game.
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