Women, members of the LGBTIQ community, and ethnic minorities continue to suffer human rights abuses in Kosovo, according to the 2021 report by Human Rights Watch released on Thursday.

The report analyses human rights, including access to justice, media freedom, the rule of law matters, and equality and freedom from discrimination in over 60 countries, including Kosovo, Turkey, Serbia, and Greece.

In terms of minorities such as Roma, Ashkali and Balkan Egyptians, “discrimination remains a problem”. It continued that the United Nations had also failed to pay compensation and apologise to 16 victims of lead poisoning in now-closed camps for displaced people, following a 2016 recommendation.

As for women, domestic violence was an issue, particularly for those seeking justice for the crimes committed against them. “Inadequate state response, few prosecutions, and continued failure by judges to issue restraining orders against abusive partners,” were among the issues raised.

The report also found that members of the LGBTIQ community were not having assault and threats against them adequately investigated. In particular, authorities did not take hate speech on social media seriously. An incident in Pristina where three people spat in the face of an LGBTIQ activist and threatened to kill them was under investigation at the time of the report’s publication.

The report concluded that as per the European Commission’s October progress report, more needs to be done to guarantee the right of minorities and to ensure gender equality in practice. Furthermore, it noted concerns that were also highlighted by HRW over media freedom, including threats, physical assaults, and smear campaigns.

A fire broke out in Kuwait’s largest petroleum refinery on Friday, killing at least two people and injuring several others.

In a statement, the Kuwait National Petroleum Company said that the fire erupted as maintenance work was being carried out at the gas liquefaction unit of the Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery.

The company said that five people with severe burns were transferred to a hospital in critical condition. Two Asian workers succumbed to the injuries, it added.

The fire has been extinguished, it said, adding that the incident did not affect operations at the refinery./aa

For more than a decade, increasing international attention has been focused on China’s treatment of Xinjiang’s Uighur population.

While Beijing is wary of all forms of separatism – Hong Kong and Tibet being its other major concerns in this regard – maintaining an iron grip on Xinjiang is of utmost importance. The Xinjiang region’s natural-resource deposits, strategic location in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which involves the creation of economic and trade corridors, and links to the physical defense of China are the most obvious reasons for Beijing to want to keep a stronghold in the region.

But the appeal of Islamic and Turkic nationalism in Xinjiang has also highlighted the difficulty China faces in managing internal stability without upsetting the wider Islamic and Turkic worlds.

Xinjiang’s largely flat terrain made it a primary part of the historical Silk Road route. The region’s geography and proximity to numerous Eurasian cultures and civilizations have also made it a contested land for centuries, with competing narratives over its history and cultural traits.

The name “Xinjiang,” for example, translates to “New Frontier” or “New Dominion” in Chinese, while Uighur nationalists refer to the region as East Turkestan.

Chinese scholars posit that Uighurs are descended from nomadic peoples from modern-day Mongolia and settled in Xinjiang in the 9th century (joining other groups, including the Han Chinese). Uighur historians, on the other hand, tend to stress their Central Asian Turkic origins, with East Turkestan their historical homeland.

Regardless of the historical debate over the lineage of Uighurs, a distinct Muslim and Turkic identity had emerged among portions of Xinjiang’s population in the 18th century when China’s Qing Dynasty reconquered the region.

According to historical records, the Chinese campaign split the Uighur population from the other Turkic groups of Central Asia, which later came under the control of the Russian Empire. Hostility toward Chinese rule in Xinjiang among Muslims from a variety of different cultural backgrounds culminated in the Dungan Revolt from 1862 to 1877, with rebels receiving support from both the Ottoman and British empires.

Despite the successful Chinese suppression and pacification of Xinjiang afterward, nationalist sentiment grew within the Muslim-Turkic population, and the term “Uighur” began to be used to describe much of the local Muslim-Turkic population around the Tarim Basin by the early 20th century.

The fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1912 gave way to China’s Warlord Era and ensuing civil war. Chinese nationalists, communists, Uighur groups, and Russian/Soviet expeditions all competed with one another for control of Xinjiang.

While the Communist Party of China (CPC) emerged victorious in 1949, the Kuomintang Islamic Insurgency (1950-58) across Xinjiang and nearby regions underlined the threat of political Islam to China’s fragile new leadership.

In addition, the Soviet Union encouraged Uighurs to revolt (as well as Kazakhs living in Xinjiang) to destabilize China after the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s.

In the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Uighurs’ resistance to Chinese rule of Xinjiang changed in nature. The Soviet collapse allowed independent Turkic states to emerge in Central Asia, inspiring similar nationalist sentiment among Uighurs. The rise of international terrorism also led Islamic and Turkic militant groups within Xinjiang and across the region to coordinate activities.

These developments caused considerable alarm in Beijing, and after public demonstrations by Uighurs against Chinese rule in the city of Yining in 1995 – after “the Chinese authorities [had already] tightened their control over Islam in Xinjiang” – the CPC issued a document called the Central Committee Document No 7 in 1996, which stated that “national separatism and illegal religious activity” should be categorized as “main threats to the stability” of the country in response to the situation in Xinjiang.

Thereafter, a “Strike Hard Campaign against Violent Terrorism” was adopted in the Xinjiang region in 2014, and further public demonstrations were violently suppressed, while numerous Uighur political figures were imprisoned or killed.

However, violent resistance against the policies of the CPC in Xinjiang continued to grow during the first two decades of the 21st century. Knife attacks and bombings increased, while riots in Urumqi in 2009 saw almost 200 people killed.

To quell the protests by the Uighurs, Chinese authorities responded with force and arrests and in 2017 introduced further new and oppressive measures, which included detaining “many hundreds of thousands of Uighurs, Kazakhs and other Muslims in internment camps,” according to The New York Times.

These camps have been referred to as re-education camps by the state. Mass surveillance, checkpoints, and an increased security presence in Uighur regions have placed greater pressure on the Uighur population.

International outcry

The suppression of Uighur cultural norms and creation of detention centers where more than a million Uighurs have been detained “against their will over the past few years” have drawn the greatest international scrutiny regarding China’s policies in the Xinjiang region, which have been defined as “crimes against humanity and possibly genocide” by several countries, including the US and human-rights groups.

China continues to restrict international access to the region in the lead-up to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, leading to some countries announcing diplomatic boycotts of the Games.

For several reasons, Beijing is willing to maintain its pressure on Xinjiang in the face of international outcry from the West and certain elements from across the Islamic and Turkic worlds.

Xinjiang contains 40% of China’s coal, roughly 20% of its oil reserves and the largest natural-gas reserves, and significant deposits of building materials such as marble and granite. As the Chinese economy continues to increase its energy requirements, maintaining access to Xinjiang’s coal, oil and gas reserves is vital to China’s current and future energy security.

Additionally, the region’s location makes it an essential part of the route for China’s BRI project to connect European and Asian economic markets.

The success of greater regional autonomy (or outright secession) in Xinjiang would also not bode well for Chinese attempts to dissuade similar attempts across the country. Hong Kong, Tibet, and even less notable secession movements would be incentivized to increase their own efforts should secessionists in Xinjiang succeed.

The loss of Xinjiang would also make China more susceptible to hypothetical future invasions. A more likely and immediate scenario would be challenges to Chinese authority across its border regions, including the violently disputed territory of Aksai Chin, which forms part of Xinjiang and Tibet, and which India claims is part of its Leh district in the country’s Ladakh union territory.

While China’s motives for its tight control on Xinjiang are clear, the consequences of its policies are also becoming more pronounced. Anti-Chinese sentiment in Central Asia has risen in recent years, despite attempts by Central Asian governments to curtail it and ensure continued Chinese economic investment.

Turkic unity

While many Turkic countries and communities continue to fight among themselves, they are often unified by their disdain toward China’s treatment of Uighurs in Xinjiang. For China to realize its BRI project, a positive perception of it among the Turkic populations in Central Asian states’ populations will be crucial.

China’s outreach to Central Asian states has been further complicated by Turkey. Because of its own Turkic heritage, the country has been a primary proponent of pan-Turkism, hosting the first Summit of the Heads of Turkic Speaking States in 1992.

Turkey has taken a particularly hard line with China on the issue of Uighurs, leading to several diplomatic disputes over the past decade. Organizing greater international objection to China’s treatment of the Uighurs could galvanize pan-Turkism into a viable ideology, with Turkey seeking to take a leadership role in the movement.

Muslim states

So far, China has managed to avoid widespread condemnation from the Muslim world. Beijing has been careful to emphasize its more favorable treatment of the Hui Muslim population who also inhabit Xinjiang and other Chinese regions.

China’s positive relations with major Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt and Indonesia show it has been somewhat successful in its efforts to avoid any backlash from these nations for its treatment of Uighurs. But these countries must themselves take care not to play down the issue, for fear of incentivizing extremist Islamic forces.

Radical Salafism has become increasingly popular among Uighur and other Chinese Muslim populations in Xinjiang, exemplified by the popular support for the Turkistan Islamic Party (formerly known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement). If Uighurs feel they have no international Muslim allies, the appeal of extremism will grow further.

While China’s domestic security situation is of paramount importance to the CPC, it remains sensitive to international perceptions of its policies in Xinjiang. In addition, its repressive policies may help instill a stronger and more resistant identity among the local Uighur population.

The CPC’s economic development of Xinjiang will not be enough to erode centuries-old beliefs and cultural loyalties significantly. The historical precedent has shown that foreign states will take advantage of unrest in the region to promote their own interests.

Globetrotter

Apart from looking after her toddler, Maram Khalifa's days consist mostly of trying to find ways to bring her husband home.

Hejaaz Hezbollah, a prominent Sri Lankan civil rights lawyer, has been in prison for about 20 months, under anti-terrorism charges. Prosecutors accuse him of hate speech and causing communal disharmony.

They allege that Mr Hezbollah gave a speech to young Muslim boys inciting them against the Christian community.

Mr Hezbollah, who is from the minority Muslim community, spent more than a year in prison before the charges were levelled in April 2021, and he has remained in prison since. His trial is due to begin later this month. His wife firmly rejects the charges.

"He was outspoken, very active in defending Muslim rights and minority rights in general," she told the BBC. The charges against her husband were "a message to anyone who wants to speak about against racism, against discrimination", she said.

Mr Hizbullah was first arrested in connection with the devastating 2019 Easter Sunday suicide bombings, carried out by local Islamists. More than 260 people were killed when high-end hotels and churches were targeted.

Initially, he was accused of having links with one of the bombers. His lawyers say the prosecution later dropped those allegations after they pointed out that he had only appeared in two civil cases involving property disputes for the father of the attacker, a well-known spice trader.

Amnesty International last year called Mr Hizbullah, a vocal critic of the government, a "prisoner of conscience".

Activists say that the arrest of Mr Hizbullah is part of ongoing harassment of the minority community in recent years. Ethnic fault lines run deep in Sri Lanka, where Muslims constitute less than 10% of the country's 22 million people, who are predominantly Sinhalese Buddhists.

Amnesty International has called Hejaaz Hizbullah a "prisoner of conscience"

Muslims were allies of the government during the nearly three-decade war against the Tamil Tiger rebels, who were fighting for a separate homeland for the other minority Tamil community.

But Muslim leaders say the attitude of a section of the majority Sinhalese towards them changed after the war ended with the defeat of the Tamil Tigers in May 2009.

Rights groups point out that there had been anti-Muslim riots, targeting houses and businesses, by the ethnic Sinhalese mob even before the Easter Sunday attacks took place.

The Easter Sunday bombings were a watershed moment. Weeks after the attacks, Muslim properties and mosques were vandalised by Sinhalese mobs and hate speech became virulent on social media. The Muslim community was demonized and there were calls by Sinhalese hardliners to boycott Muslim shops.

The current president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who as defence secretary led the war efforts against the Tamil rebels, came to power in November 2019 with a strong backing from Sinhala Buddhist nationalists. He campaigned on a platform of national security.

With his elder brother Mahinda Rajapaksa winning parliamentary elections a year later, the Rajapaksas firmly tightened their grip on power.

"For the government it is a trump card that they keep using to keep the vote base - saying that there is a threat to the country from Islamic extremists," Hilmy Ahamed, from the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka, told the BBC.

Sri Lankan Muslims light candles and offer prayers at the site of an Easter Sunday bombing in Colombo in 2019

During the pandemic, the government initially did not allow the bodies of Covid victims from the minority Muslim and Christian communities to be buried. Several bodies were forcibly cremated, despite experts saying that bodies could be buried with proper safety measures.

The cremation of bodies is forbidden in Islam. Officials at that time argued that the burials could contaminate ground water.

After an uproar from the minorities and rights groups, the government last year finally allotted a designated space in eastern Sri Lanka for Covid victims to be buried.

The government last year also came with a proposal to ban the wearing of burqas and all other forms of face coverings citing national security concerns. A minister said "it was a sign of religious extremism that came about recently".

And there was a plan announced to shut down more than 1,000 Islamic religious schools, which the government said were flouting national education policy.

"In the post-war period, Muslims have become the new enemy," said Bhavani Fonseka, a human rights lawyer.

"We have seen several incidents where the Muslim community has come under attack. I would say the community is under siege," she said.

Buddhist monk Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thero has been accused of fanning the flames of hatred against Muslims

But the government rejects the charges that they were treating the Muslim community unfairly.

Mohan Samaranayake, Director General of the Sri Lankan Government's Information Department, told the BBC: "There is no institutionalised, systematic policy of discrimination against any community. But I admit the fact that there may be problems faced by all communities, including the Sinhalese."

With regard to the proposal to shut down madrassas, he said: "The decision was taken after investigations into the Easter Sunday bombings found that certain educational institutions were used to radicalise Muslim youth."

The government has also triggered some controversy with its recent efforts to bring in a uniform law code for all communities. Critics say the "Task Force for One Country, One Law", appointed by President Rajapaksa last November to bring legal reforms, is aimed at minority communities.

The taskforce has been instructed to look at special laws surrounding marriage and inheritance for minorities and for some of the majority Sinhalese and make recommendations for a uniform set of rules. The appointment of Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thero to head the committee has also triggered outrage among minorities - he is a controversial Buddhist monk accused of spreading sectarian hatred and anti-Muslim rhetoric.

Speaking to the BBC, the monk said the legal reforms were long overdue. He also said he was only raising key issues facing the country.

"More than 500 Christian groups have been operating in this country with the aim of creating religious problems," he said. "There are Islamic groups promoting Wahabism, Salafism and they are misleading the youth of this country."

Sri Lanka is already facing an economic crisis because of its dwindling foreign exchange reserves. The import restrictions have increased prices of some essential commodities by up to 30% in the past year, making the government unpopular even among the Sinhalese Buddhists.

Among Muslim leaders, there is a feeling that the current financial crisis has shifted the focus away from their community for now. But they say further trouble can be prevented only when Buddhist nationalism is reined in./ bbc

The U.N. human rights office says at least 108 civilians have been killed and many more injured in several air strikes allegedly carried out by the Ethiopian air force in the country’s northern Tigray region since the start of the new year.

In the past two weeks, air strikes have hit Tigray’s state-owned Technical Vocational Education and Training Institute, a camp for displaced people, a flour mill, a private minibus, and numerous other civilian targets.

U.N. human rights office spokeswoman Liz Throssell says the number of dead and injured is based on information gathered from different sources by colleagues monitoring the situation in Ethiopia.

“The deadliest airstrike so far, which hit the Dedebit Internally Displaced Persons camp on the 7th of January, left at least 56 people dead and 30 others wounded. We have since established that three of those who were critically injured later died in hospital while receiving medical treatment, pushing the death toll from that single strike to at least 59,” she said.

Throssell says monitors continue to receive deeply disturbing reports of civilian casualties and destruction of civilian sites resulting from airstrikes in Tigray.

“We call on the Ethiopian authorities and their allies to ensure the protection of civilians and civilian objects, in line with their obligations under international law. Any attack, including airstrikes should fully respect the principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack…Failure to respect the principles of distinction and proportionality could amount to war crimes,” she expressed.

The Ethiopian government has not commented on allegations of responsibility for airstrikes in Tigray.

The United Nations reports tens of thousands of people have been killed and nearly two million displaced since the conflict between pro-Ethiopian government forces and Tigrayan forces erupted in November 2020. It says 5.2 million people are in need of life-saving assistance, with 400,000 living in famine-like conditions./agencies

A new bill being debated by lawmakers in the United Kingdom increases the risk of discrimination and “serious human rights violations” and breaches the country's obligations under international law, five independent UN human rights experts said on Friday.

If adopted, the Nationality and Borders Bill would “seriously undermine the protection of the human rights of trafficked persons, including children; increase risks of exploitation faced by all migrants and asylum seekers; and lead to serious human rights violations”, Siobhán Mullally, the UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons, said in a statement.

“The bill fails to acknowledge the Government’s obligation to ensure protection for migrant and asylum-seeking children, and greatly increases risks of Statelessness, in violation of international law”, she added.

Seeking and enjoying asylum is a fundamental human right, according to the UN experts.

However, the bill does not respect the UK’s obligations under international human rights and refugee law, but instead dismantles a core protection of democratic societies and pushes vulnerable people into dangerous situations.

If passed, it could penalize asylum-seekers and refugees, violating the principle of non-punishment in international law and discriminating between categories of asylum seekers, which is contrary to international law, the experts said.

They also highlighted the specific risks faced by migrant and refugee women.

Under this bill, women who have experienced gender-based violence can be turned away from the UK rather than be allowed to seek and find safety.

“The Government’s repeated public statements on combating trafficking and modern slavery, must be matched by concrete action to ensure equal protection of the law for all victims of trafficking and modern slavery, without discrimination”, underscored the experts.

The experts expressed alarm that the bill would increase the possibility of “arbitrary deprivation of citizenship”, which they reminded, has a troubled history rooted in racism and discrimination, and increases the risk of Statelessness.

“The bill instrumentalizes national security concerns, increasing risks of discrimination and of serious human rights violations, in particular against minorities, migrants and refugees”, they spelled out, urging the Government “to reverse these proposed measures”.

In November, the experts sent a letter to the UK Government, outlining a range of concerns about the bill.

In addition to Ms. Mullally, the other experts who signed the statement were Felipe González Morales, Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism and Tomoya Obokata, Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences.

Reem Alsalem, Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences also endorsed the statement.

Special Rapporteurs and independent experts are appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a specific human rights theme or a country situation. The positions are honorary and the experts are not paid for their work. — UN News

The first high-level detainee at the controversial US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been cleared for transfer with security guarantees, according to a recently published report.

The Periodic Review Board at Guantanamo Bay has recommended that Guled Duran, a Somali national who has been held without charge at the facility since he was taken there by the CIA in 2006, be released, the New York Times reported Monday. But it is unlikely that Duran will be leaving the facility any time soon.

Duran is one of 39 detainees who remain at Guantanamo Bay and now joins either 13 or 14 others who have been cleared for release, according to the Times.

US President Joe Biden has transferred one inmate at the prison in the one year he has been in office.

The Moroccan national was originally cleared for transfer under former President Barack Obama but the process stalled during the Trump administration before the man was released in July.

A location for Duran's transfer has yet to be established but a document dated Nov. 10, obtained by the Times, maintained "vigorous efforts will be undertaken to identify a suitable transfer location," which will be "outside the United States, subject to appropriate security and human treatment assurances.”

Duran's lawyer, Shayana Kadidal, told the newspaper that he was informed of the decision after his client was notified early Monday.

Duran lived in Sweden as a refugee during his teen years and reportedly has relatives in Canada.

Another detainee, Moath al-Alwi, has also been approved for transfer, according to a Facebook post from his sister. His lawyer declined to comment.

The Pentagon declined to comment on the statuses of Duran or al-Awli's./aa

The European Union recorded nearly 200,000 illegal crossings at its external borders last year -- the highest number since 2017, an agency reported Tuesday.

“The total number of illegal border-crossings in 2021 was just short of 200,000, the highest number since 2017,” the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (FRONTEX) said in a statement.

The number of illegal crossings was 57% higher compared to 2020. FRONTEX said the lifting of coronavirus restrictions that encouraged global mobility is one of the causes for the rise.

Another “factor defining 2021 was undoubtedly the situation at the borders to Belarus, making it another year in which migration was used in a hybrid operation targeting the EU external border,” it said.

Syrian nationals lead illegal crossings, followed by Tunisians, Moroccans, Algerians and Afghans.

Because of the Belarus crisis, 10 times more illegal crossings were recorded at the bloc’s Eastern land borders compared to the previous year.

According to FRONTEX estimates, as many as 8,000 people tried to enter the EU via Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.

With more than 65,000 illegal crossings and an 83% increase compared to 2020, the Central Mediterranean route between North Africa and Italy was the most often used last year.

The Western Balkan route also saw a significant rise, 125%, in illegal crossings with more than 60,500 people trying to enter the bloc via Romania, Hungary or Croatia.

The number of illegal crossings remained stable on the Eastern Mediterranean route in comparison with last year with around 20,300 people trying to enter Greece, Bulgaria and Cyprus.

“While detections continue to drop in Greece, Cyprus recorded a sig­nificant increase in the migratory flow compared to previous years,” said FRONTEX, explaining that the number of detections doubled to around 10,000 in 2021 due to a higher number of Africans./aa

Nearly 10,000 people have been detained by police in Kazakhstan in massive riots across the country, according to authorities.

At least 9,900 have been detained as of Jan. 11, said the Interior Ministry. Police seized weapons, including 25 Makarov pistols, bulletproof vests and other equipment, according to the police.

Local media reported the deaths of two security guards and an intelligence officer Tuesday.

The head of the Police Department of Jambyl Province, Gen. Janat Suleymanov, was found dead, the Kazinform agency reported.

The Interior Ministry confirmed Suleymanov’s death and an investigation was launched, it added.

The head of Almaty Provincial Police, Tanat Nazaov, died from a head injury, authorities confirmed.

And Col. Azamat Ibrayev was found dead in the courtyard of his house in the nation’s capital of Nur-Sultan, Kazak National Security Committee announced.

After liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) prices in Kazakhstan doubled Jan. 2, triggering protests, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev declared a state of emergency in Almaty and the oil-rich Mangystau region before expanding it nationwide.

At least 164 people, including a 4-year-old girl, were killed during weeklong protests.

The government resigned after Tokayev held them responsible for the protests.

He later asked the Russian-led military alliance, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) for help, which sent troops to quell the unrest.

The deadly protests have been described by Tokayev as “an attempted coup d’etat.”

He has accused “terrorists, including foreign fighters” of playing the most active part in riots that have led to the deaths of at least 18 security personnel and 26 protesters in the last week./aa