Tag: femicide

Planet Watch
UN

Call for UN convention on crimes against humanity

Amnesty International called on the United Nations General Assembly to commence negotiations on a global treaty to prevent and punish crimes against humanity. Although specific crimes such as genocide are covered under international law, there is no general convention regarding crimes against humanity, despite their illegality under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Unlike global treaties such the Genocide Convention, which obligate state parties to prevent and punish specific crimes within their territory, the Rome Statute only empowers the International Criminal Court to investigate and prosecute the crimes listed in the statute, including genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. Amnesty International secretary general Agnes Callamard stressed the urgent need for the convention, stating that it “would impose obligations on states not only to criminalize and punish crimes against humanity, but also to prevent them.” (Photo: United Nations Photo via Flickr)

Mexico
Mexico

Mexican elections see record number of assassinations

The results are in from Mexico’s presidential election and Claudia Sheinbaum of the ruling left-populist National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) has won by some 60%, handily defeating a rival backed by an alliance of the country’s more traditional political parties. But the ongoing human rights crisis in Mexico that will obviously pose a grave challenge for Sheinbaum was dramatically exemplified by the record number of political assassinations that marred the elections. (Map: PCL)

Iraq
omfaad

Iraq: harsh backlash hits sexual, cultural dissidents

Iraq’s parliament has passed a law criminalizing same-sex relations, with a punishment of 10 to 15 years in prison. An earlier draft of the law had proposed the death penalty. The new law also includes prison terms for those who “promote homosexuality” or “intentionally” act “effeminate.” Just as the law was being passed, Iraqi TikTok star Om Fahad was shot dead outside her home in Baghdad. Om Fahad, whose real name was Ghufran Sawadi, won nearly half a million followers for sharing videos of herself dancing to pop music. In February 2023, she had been sentenced to six months in prison after a court found that her videos contained “indecent speech that undermines modesty and public morality.” (Image via Instagram)

Central America
roe

El Salvador: warning for post-Roe US

The US Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade comes six weeks after a court in El Salvador sentenced a woman to 30 years in prison after she suffered an obstetric emergency that resulted in termination of her pregnancy, according to a local advocacy group that was assisting in her defense. The Citizen Group for the Decriminalization of Abortion (ACDATEE) denounced the sentence and said it would appeal the conviction. The woman, identified only as “Esme,” was held in pre-trial detention for two years following her arrest when she sought medical care at a hospital. She already had a seven-year-old daughter. (Photo: Debra Sweet/WikiMedia via Jurist)

Mexico
madres

Mothers of the disappeared march in Mexico

On Mexico’s Day of the Mother, thousands of mothers and other family members of the disappeared held a March for National Dignity in the capital, calling for action on their missing loved ones. The march, which filled the main avenues of Mexico City, was organized by a coalition of 60 regional collectives of survivors of the disappeared from around the country. In the days before the march, a group camped out at the National Palace, demanding a dialogue with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. (Photo via Twitter)

Mexico
narco-fosa

Mexico approaches 100,000 ‘disappeared’

A year-end report by Mexico’s government registered a figure of 95,000 missing persons nationwide, with an estimated 52,000 unidentified bodies buried in mass graves. The report by the Comisión Nacional de Búsqueda de Personas (National Missing Persons Search Commission) found that the great majority of the disappearances have taken place since 2007, when Mexico began a military crackdown on the drug cartels. Alejandro Encinas, the assistant interior secretary for human rights, said that there are 9,400 unidentified bodies in cold-storage rooms in the country, and pledged to form a National Center for Human Identification tasked with forensic work on these remains. He admitted to a “forensic crisis that has lead to a situation where we don’t have the ability to guarantee the identification of people and return [of remains] to their families.” (Photo via openDemocracy)

Iraq
Yazidi genocide

‘Clear and convincing’ evidence of Yazidi genocide

The head of a UN team investigating the atrocities by the Islamic State in Iraq & the Levant (ISIL), Special Advisor Karim Khan, reported to the UN Security Council that the team has established “clear and convincing” evidence of genocide against the Yazidi religious minority. The UN Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh/ISIL (UNITAD) has finalized preliminary case briefs on two key priorities: the attacks against the Yazidi community in the Sinjar region of Iraq starting in June 2014, and the mass killing that month of predominantly Shia unarmed cadets and military personnel at Iraq’s Tikrit Air Academy. (Photo via Ezidikhan Public Information Bureau)

Greater Middle East
Istanbul Convention

Turkey drops treaty on violence against women

Turkey withdrew from the Council of Europe’s convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, popularly known as the Istanbul Convention, by presidential decree. The Istanbul Convention is the first legally binding instrument in Europe to combat violence against women. Turkey was the first country to sign the convention the day it was launched in the city of Istanbul in 2011. The withdrawal comes as femicides and domestic violence cases are on the rise in Turkey. Thousands immediately took to the streets in protest of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s decision. (Photo via Twitter)

Africa
South Sudan

South Sudan: ‘localized’ violence despite ceasefire

In a new report, the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan found that over two years after the signing of a peace agreement officially ending a seven-year civil war, the country is still experiencing extreme levels of violence. South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 after decades of armed struggle. But civil war erupted in the new nation in 2013 following President Salva Kiir’s dismissal of then-Vice President Riek Machar—respectively belonging to the largest rival ethnic groups, the Dinka and Nuer. The war ended in 2020, after claiming over 400,000 lives. But commission chair Yasmin Sooka said that violence is currently at its highest level at any time since the start of the war—if now at hands of “localized” militias. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Central Asia
Kyrgyzstan women's march

Women’s Day march attacked in Mexico, Kyrgyzstan

Police in Kyrgyzstan detained dozens of women’s rights activists—shortly after the International Women’s Day march was attacked by masked men. That same day, the women’s march in Mexico City was set upon by anti-abortion protesters, overwhelmingly men, some of whom gave the Nazi salute. There were scuffles between the two groups, and some marchers hurled Molotov cocktails over police lines toward the presidential palace. The following day, tens of thousands of women across Mexico walked off their jobs in protest of the government’s lack of action regarding the ongoing wave of femicide. (Photo via Twitter)

Africa
Mozambique displaced

ISIS behind Mozambique insurgency?

The UN refugee agency is boosting its response in Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province, where a recent escalation of violence has forced thousands to flee for their lives. At least 100,000 people are now displaced throughout the province. There has been a dramatic increase of brutal attacks by armed groups, with recent weeks being the most volatile period since the outbreak began in October 2017. Bands of gunmen have been targeting local villages and terrorizing the populace. Those fleeing report random killings, maiming and torture, torched homes and shops, and crops burned in the fields. There have been reports of beheadings, kidnappings and disappearances of women and children. Several of the attacks have been claimed in the name of the Islamic State. (Photo: UNHCR)

Africa
minusma

Insurgency mounts on Mali-Burkina borderlands

At least 25 Malian soldiers are dead and more than 60 others missing after two assaults on bases in central Mali, near the border with Burkina Faso. Jihadist forces simultaneously targeted a Malian army base and a G5 Sahel force camp. The G5 Sahel group includes Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad and Mauritania, and receives logistical support from the UN Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA). Malian officials say the insurgents used “heavy weapons” in the assaults, and that at least 15 militants were killed. Local reports indicate the militants were able to briefly hold the bases and capture large amounts of weapons and equipment. Mali has now launched a joint operation with Burkina Faso and French forces in the region to hunt down the militants. (Photo:  UN News)