In commenting on the sheer gravity of the crimes, the experts stated:

The deteriorating security situation in northern Nigeria and the Middle Belt has created an environment in which armed extremist groups, including Boko Haram, Islamic State West Africa Province [ISWAP], and radicalised individual herdsmen involved in the “farmer-herder” conflict continue to operate with devastating consequences for civilians, amid persistent reports of impunity, institutional failures, and inadequate protection by authorities.

Religious persecution in Nigeria against Christian and minority religious groups is a longstanding issue, with radical Islamic groups such as Boko Haram and various jihadist factions operating with the goal of eradicating the presence of these vulnerable groups and establishing strict Sharia law. Forced conversion is a commonly used tactic to exert control over these minority religious groups, with militants abducting schoolchildren from their educational institutions.

A high-profile example, which received international condemnation, was the 2014 Chibokschoolgirls kidnapping, in which 276 mostly Christian girls aged between 15 to 18 were kidnapped from a village in Borno state, forced to convert to Islam, subjected to sexual slavery, and forced to marry Boko Haram fighters. Although a large number of the girls managed to escape or have been released, the fate of a remaining 82 is uncertain. Tensions between settled Christian communities and Muslim semi-nomadic groups such as the Fulani have also exploded into violence; in December 2023, multiple villages were attacked in central Plateau state, resulting in at least 160 deaths.

June 2022 saw an armed attack on St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Ondo state during Sunday service that left over 50 people dead. In May 2022, Christian college student Deborah Yakubu was stoned to death by a mob in Sokoto state. Her murder came after her classmates accused her of making blasphemous sentiments in a WhatsApp group, an illustration of the deep ethnoreligious tensions in the West African region.

The widely reported executions of Christian students at Kaduna state’s Greenfield University in April 2021 resulted in rights groups criticizing the Nigerian government for its lack of accountability in protecting civilians. Religiously targeted sexual exploitation, with young women and girls sometimes coerced into performing sexual acts to access food, has also been seen in this culture of impunity.

From JURIST, June 8. Used with permission. Internal links added.

Presiding Judge Kimberly Prost, in ICC’s Trial Chamber X, delivered the Reparations Order in the presence of Al Hassan and his defense team. Prost stated that the estimated number of victims amounted to 65,202. The Chamber ruled that “collective community-based reparations” were “appropriate to address the…type of harm suffered by the victims.” Prost outlined that this mode of reparations would “reach large numbers of victims in a less resource-intensive manner.” Al Hassan will “bear financial liability” for the reparations.

The Chamber emphasized the impact of Al Hassan’s crimes on girls and women in particular. Prost stated: “Women and girls suffered particular moral and material harm… This should be reflected in the planning, design, and implementation of all socio-economic rehabilitation projects and initiatives.”

In outlining costs, the Chamber ordered an estimated total of €4 million towards socio-economic and educational support programs, €1.2 million towards collective community-based psychological rehabilitation measures, €1.5 million for a limited individualized component, and €550,000 towards symbolic and satisfaction measures. The total liability for the harm caused to victims amounted to €7,250,000.

Al Hassan was convicted in June 2024 for crimes against humanity, including “torture, persecution, and other inhumane acts,” and the war crimes of “torture, outrages upon personal dignity, mutilation, cruel treatment and passing sentences without previous judgement pronounced by a regularly constituted court.” The ICC sentenced Al Hassan to 10 years of imprisonment on November 2024.

Crimes against humanity are prohibited under Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and are considered by the ICC as “among the most serious of crimes of concern to the international community as a whole.” War crimes are prohibited under Article 8 of the Rome Statute.

From JURIST, April 30. Used with permission.

Note: Al Hassan is among 13 ICC convictions. Another militant, Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, pleaded guilty to cultural crimes in the destruction of Sufi shrines in Timbuktu.

Photo: WikiMedia Commons

The continuing violence against Druze communities has prompted the experts to call for independent investigations:

These reported violations expose an apparent systemic failure to protect minorities and address gender-based violence, with no thorough, independent and impartial investigations into extrajudicial killings, torture or abductions… Reports that the interim authorities’ forces aided attacks have entrenched impunity and fear, silencing victims’ families and obstructing efforts to locate the disappeared.

The UN humanitarian coordinator in Syria, Adam Abdelmoula, has emphasized the importance of local civil society organizations in assisting displaced populations in Syria and underlined that “their efforts deserve recognition and sustained resources to expand their reach and impact.”

The armed clashes between Druze and Bedouin groups in Suwayda were triggered by an attack on a Druze merchant by Bedouin tribesmen on July 13. In response to the continuing violence, protestors  have repeatedly gathered in Suwayda to demand the right of self-determination for the Druze people. On Aug. 10, the UN Security Council sounded the alarm in a presidential statement over the violence against civilians in Suwayda region, and called on all parties to adhere to ceasefire arrangements.

From JURIST, Aug. 23. Used with permission. Internal links added.

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general, said that the Syrian authorities must “act swiftly and transparently in locating missing women and girls, bringing perpetrators to justice, and providing affected families with timely, gender-sensitive and credible information and support.”

Amnesty reported that at least 36 Alawite women and girls, some underage, have been abducted in Latakia, Tartous, Homs and Hama governorates since March, when a wave of violence against the Alawite community began. In some of these cases, the women were abducted “in broad daylight.” Through interviews, Amnesty found that many women and girls from the Alawite community, as well as others in the affected governorates, now live in fear, causing them to be very cautious about leaving their homes for school, university or work.

Amnesty charged that the Syrian authorities have failed to adequately investigate these abductions.The fact-finding committee established by President Ahmed al-Sharaa to investigate the March violence turned in its findings July 22, stating that it had not received any reports of girls or women being abducted.

Some abducted women have reached out to their families to ask for divorces from their husbands. Amnesty said it is probable that “they were subjected to forced marriage or coerced to request a divorce.” Abducted women have also been held for ransom, and in some cases forcibly married off despite ransom payments.

Amnesty International stressed that forced marriage places “the woman or girl at risk of a range of further abuse, including additional forms of sexual violence…” The UN General Assembly has recognized that child, early or forced marriage is a human rights violation. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has also emphaszied that international law requires spouses to enter a marriage with full and free consent.

Furthermore, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has found that forced marriage can amount to a crime against humanity under Article 7(1)(k) of the Rome Statute. The Ongwen case concerned marriages forced upon girls and women by the Lord’s Resistance Army during the Ugandan civil war. The ICC found that forced marriage is a form of gender-based violence.

Callamard stated that the Syrian authorities are legally obliged to put a stop to gender-based violence, urging immediate and effective investigations into the kidnappings.

From JURIST, July 29. Used with permission.

See our podcast on the sectarian violence: “Syria: revolution on the razor’s edge”

Photo: Protest against the massacre of Syrian Alawites in Washington DC. Credit: VOA via Wikimedia Commons

The protests coincided with the reading in parliament of the latest budget—nearly one year after the passage of a controversial budget galvanized youth protests that forced President William Ruto to veto the legislation, fire his cabinet, and invite opposition into government.Fearful of a repeat, the Kenyan authorities are prosecuting a young woman, Rose Njeri, for creating a website to facilitate public commentary on the bill.

And last month, police in neighboring Tanzania arrested, and allegedly tortured and raped, visiting Kenyan and Ugandan activists Boniface Mwangi and Agather Atuhaire, with President Suluhu Hassan accusing them of meddling in Tanzanian affairs to cause chaos after they tried to attend the arraignment of opposition leader Tundu Lisu on charges of treason.

From The New Humanitarian, June 13. Lightly edited, internal links added.

Photo: Amnesty Kenya via PolicingInsight

Iran’s harsh anti-narcotics law was also disproportionately used against women, contributing to executions. Even though a 2017 reform reduced drug-related executions initially, drug-related death sentences surged to a record high over the last nine years. The report asserted that many women faced capital punishment even though they did not intend to commit the crime, either being coerced or unaware of their involvement.

The opacity of the Iranian judicial system also exacerbates gender inequalities. It is believed that only 26% of executions involving women are publicly disclosed, with this rate dropping to an average of 12% since 2021. In addition, the number of female prisoners on death row remains unknown. Among them are Kurdish activists Varisheh Moradi and Pakhshan Azizi, who may face execution in the coming months.

Iran’s widespread use of capital punishment is said to violate Article 6(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which provides that the death penalty may only be imposed for the most serious crimes. In August, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk urged Iranian authorities to impose a moratorium on the death penalty. Several UN experts also expressed concerns over severe violations of fair trial and due process rights, demanding an end to the practice in September. Additionally, Maryam Rajavi, an exiled Iranian dissident and leader of the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (MEK), has put forth a 10-point plan that positions the abolition of the death penalty as a central element of Iran’s future.

Following the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests of 2022 and the introduction of the “Noor Plan” to enforce “proper hijab” in April 2024, Iranian authorities have escalated their targeting of women through capital punishment.

From JURIST, Jan. 6. Used wit permission.

Note: Total executions in Iran last year surpassed 900, accoring to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, also marking a record. (Reuters)

See our last reports on the execution state in Iran, and the 2017 reform of the narcotics law.

See our last reports on the 2022-3 protests in Iran, and the politics of the hijab.

Photo of Melbourne protest in support of Iranian women: Matt Hrkac/Flickr

The experts, including Independent Experts and Special Rapporteurs, cited use of starvation as a weapon of war, the targeting of healthcare workers and facilities, attacks on humanitarian workers and journalists, collective punishment, and perfidy. Many of these charges were referenced in the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights report published in February.

“The siege conditions imposed on northern Gaza for the last three months are a clear example of Israel’s blatant disregard for its obligations as an Occupying Power,” said Paula Gaviria Betancur, special rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons. “The international community must take immediate action to lift the siege and ensure the protection of the civilian population.”

The experts noted that despite numerous warnings from international institutions, including the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, Israel continues to face no real consequences for its actions. They attributed this lack of accountability to the protection offered by Israel’s allies, who have sought to delegitimize international institutions and undermine UN Special Procedures on human rights.

“The lack of accountability for Israel’s actions sends a dangerous message that states can disregard international law with impunity,” said Irene Khan, special rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression. “The international community must take a strong stance against Israel’s actions and ensure that those responsible are held accountable.”

In light of the severity of Israel’s actions, the experts called on the international community to consider imposing consequences, such as economic sanctions, diplomatic isolation and international prosecution.

From JURIST, Dec. 31. Used with permission.

See our last report on genocide accusations against Israel. Two interim rulings have been issued in the ICJ case, while the ICC has issued a warrant for the arrest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Photo: Gloucester2Gaza via Wikimedia Commons

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 with respect to the crimes listed in the statute, including genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.

Amnesty International’s secretary general, Agnes Callamard, stressed the urgent need for the convention, stating:

The Crimes Against Humanity Convention could be a milestone treaty in more ways than one. It would impose obligations on states not only to criminalize and punish crimes against humanity, but also to prevent them, and to cooperate with other states, including through mutual legal assistance.

The organization highlighted gaps in international law concerning gender-related crimes, such as gender apartheid, forced marriage and forced abortion, which are not well-addressed by current treaties. A new convention can ensure accountability by providing universal jurisdictions to state parties to prosecute or extradite suspects in their territories. Universal jurisdiction allows states to prosecute offenders even if the crimes were committed in another country. While this can ensure accountability, it remains controversial, as it challenges the principle of national sovereignty.

Amnesty International has previously recommended inclusion of such a framework to the UN International Law Commission. Recommendations include expanding the definition of crimes against humanity, and rejecting the “flawed” definition of gender in the Rome Statute.

The sixth committee of UNGA, designated to deal with legal matters, began its 79th session on Oct, 2, which is planned to continue till November 22. Crimes against humanity have been on the committee’s agenda since its 75th session, and several related resolutions were passed in the 77th and 78th sessions.

From Jurist, Oct. 11. Used with permission.

See our feature “Ukraine’s Difficult Path to Justice,” October 2023

Photo: United Nations Photo via Flickr

Sheinbaum indeed has her own populist creds, having taken a leading role in the campaign against privatization of Mexico’s oil resources when the conservative National Action Party (PAN) was in power 15 years ago. And she pledges to continue with López Obrador’s basic policies.

Sheinbaum’s win represents two firsts in Mexico’s two-century history as an independent country. She will be the first woman president, and (although she has chosen not to emphasize this) the first president of Jewish heritage.

Despite the ongoing plague of femicides, recent years have seen significant advances for women in Mexico, at least in the sphere of formal politics. A 2019 constitutional reform mandates gender parity in government-appointed positions and requires that political parties present equal numbers of male and female candidates for all offices. The reform was approved by a unanimous vote of Mexico’s Congress. Some 50% of lawmakers in Mexico’s lower house of Congress, the Chamber of Deputies, are women, and women lead close to a third (10) of Mexico’s 32 states. In 2021, Mexico’s Supreme Court voted to decriminalize abortion.

Sheinbaum’s chief rival in the election was also a woman. This was Xóchitl Gálvez, candidate of an unlikely coalition of the PAN, center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and the country’s former entrenched machine, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Gálvez, of indigenous Otomí background, served as indigenous affairs adviser to President Vicente Fox of the PAN, but stepped down in protest of budget cuts to the office under the subsequent PAN president Felipe Calderón. Another candidate, Jorge Álvarez Máynez of the center-left Citizens’ Movement (Movimiento Ciudadano), placed a distant third. (NewsHour, Al Jazeera, PRI, FastCompany, CarbonBrief, ClimateChangeNews, NYT, AP, AFP, LatinoUSA)

Wave of assassinations
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. On May 31, just days before the polls opened, Jorge Huerta Cabrera, a municipal council candidate with the Mexican Green Ecological Party (PVEM, a MORENA coalition partner) in Izúcar de Matamoros, Puebla state, was gunned down in an attack near his home, in which his wife was wounded.

This marked the 37th assassination of a candidate or campaign worker over the course of this year’s political season. On May 29, Alfredo Cabrera Barrientos, PRI-PAN-PRD candidate for mayor in the municipality of Coyuca de Benítez, Guerrero state, was shot in the head as he took the stage at his final campaign event. The assailant was shot dead by the National Guard, which had been deployed to protect the candidate, who had survived previous attempts on his life.

Mexican consulting firm Integralia provided an updated political violence report in early May revealing that most candidates who were assassinated were running at the municipal level. Although candidates from all parties were targeted, the greatest number of victims were from MORENA. The most impacted states were Guerrero, Michoacán and Chiapas.

Chiapas continues to be plagued by paramilitary violence. On May 16, Lucero López Maza, a young woman running for mayor in the village of La Concordia with the local Popular Chiapaneco Party (PPCH), was killed along with five people accompanying her in a street attack by a group of armed assailants, who all got away.

And on March 14, the Tzotzil indigenous mayoral candidate with the PRI in the Chiapas village of San Juan Cancuc was killed in an attack near his home, in which his wife and son were wounded. (Jurist, BBC News, MexicoNewsDaily, Aristegui, Aristegui, Aristegui, Aristegui)

Finally, on the same day that Sheinbaum’s victory was announced, June 3, the PAN mayor of Cotija, Michoacán, Yolanda Sánchez Figueroa, was killed in a hail of bullets, struck 19 times, just outside the municipal palace. She had survived a three-day abduction last September, and was waging a campaign against attempts by local narco gangs to co-opt the police in her municipality, especially naming the notorious Jalisco New Generation Cartel. (AlDíaDallas, VozMedia, InfoBae)

These political assassinations come along with ongoing violence related to drug cartel turf wars throughout Mexico. Five people were killed and another wounded on May 23 in an armed attack in Acapulco, the once fashionable tourist resort city in Guerrero state. The deaths came when gunmen shot up a handicrafts market on a main tourism strip. This came just three days after 10 bodies were found in the streets of famous Pacific coastal city. (CBS)

Constitutional reform pending
Human rights activists and civil society voices have also been critical of President López Obrador, or AMLO as he is popuarly known by his initials. In February, AMLO sent a package of 20 legislative proposals to Mexico’s Congress, including 18 proposed constitutional reforms. These incude some seemingly progressive measures, such as increasing the autonomous powers of indigenous and Afro-Mexican communities. But the package also contains some worrisome measures.

One would define the National Guard, a new enforcement body created by AMLO, as a branch of the armed forces, attaching it to the Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA). This is AMLO’s second attempt to bring the National Guard under SEDENA, after Mexico’s Supreme Court struck down a similar legislative reform in 2023. Currently, Article 129 of the Constitution restricts SEDENA’s power to engage in internal law enforcement. AMLO’s proposed reform would now weaken this restriction. And AMLO created the National Guard in 2019 in the first place after the Supreme Court ruled against a proposed measure to formally bring SEDENA into drug enforcement.

The National Guard, currently under AMLO’s newly created Public Security & Citizen Protection Secretariat, has been heavily deployed to intercept undocumented migrants headed north, leading to accusations that it was serving as proxy force for Trump (and Biden). It was also seen by critics as ironic that AMLO, who took office in 2018 declaring the “war on drugs” to be over, appeared to be moving back toward the militarized drug enforcement policies of his predecessors. It was the PAN’s Felipe Calderón (AMLO’s bitter rival, who he accused of stealing the 2006 elections from him) who first unleashed the army on the cartels—a move which was constitutionally dubious and only escalated the endemic violence. AMLO’s sexenio, or six-year term, has seen a further militarization of previously civilian government functions.

The current proposed reform package follows AMLO’s “Plan B” reform of the electoral system—so called because it, in turn, followed congressional rejection of an earlier, more wide-ranging reform package in 2022. Plan B was rushed through Congress but struck down by Mexico’s Supreme Court before it could take effect in May 2023, due to irregularities in its passage.

But the new package calls for all judicial authorities, including Supreme Court justices, to be elected by popular vote. This is portrayed as a measure against corruption and unethical practices. However, as the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) independent rights group states: “There is no reason to believe that electing judges would achieve these ends. On the contrary, the reform would weaken the judiciary as a democratic counterweight and encourage penal populism.” (Reuters, WOLA)

This could begin to reverse the progress represented by the 2006 constitutional reform in which Mexico switched from its old “written inquisitorial” legal system to the new “oral adversarial” system.

WOLA expresses hope that Sheinbaum will reconsider provisions of the pending constitutional reform that would weaken the judiciary and accelerate the militarizaton of society.

Sheinbaum is to take office Oct. 1.

Map: PCL

Just as the law was being approved April 26, 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.” (Al Jazeera, NDTV)

There have been other such assassinations of social-media influencers in Baghdad in recent years. Noor Alsaffar AKA “Noor BM,” a young TikToker with hundreds of thousands of followers, was shot dead in September 2023. Tara Fares, a fashion model and Instagram star, was gunned down in September 2018. (Al Jazeera, BBC News, CNN)

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