Right wing Hindutva group were seen taking oaths in Chhattisgarh, pledging to not buy goods, sell or rent land to any Muslims in the country. In a 2 minute video shared online that has now gone viral, a group of right wing extremists can be seen gathered in huge numbers in Chhatisgarh's Surguja, taking oaths to not work with Muslims.

The crowd can be heard saying, "We Hindus will not buy goods from any Muslim shopkeepers. We Hindus will not sell or rent our land to any Muslim. We Hindu will not work with Muslims".

Recently, right wing religious leaders urged people 'to take up arms against Muslims and called for genocide' in purported hate speech in Haridwar.

The hate speech was reportedly made during an event in Haridwar held from December 17 to 20. Video clips of the event, circulated on social media, says that "Hindus should arm themselves like those seen in Myanmar, every Hindu must pick up weapons and conduct a Safayi Abhiyan."

The event was organised by Yati Narasimhanand, a controversial religious leader who has been accused in the past of inciting violence.

In another incident, several complaints were received by police stations in the country regarding the listing of Muslim women for "auction" on the 'Bulli Bai' mobile application with photographs sourced without permission and doctored. It has happened for the second time in less than a year. The app appeared to be a clone of 'Sulli Deals' which triggered a similar row last year.

Meanwhile, Staff members and students of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over growing intolerance in the country and requested him to speak up against hate speech and caste-based violence.

Over the fortnight, there have been several attacks on churches, disruption of Christmas celebrations, conversion rows, and incitement through hate speeches by right-wing activists./ freepressjournal

Bangladesh on Saturday reopened a Turkish field hospital at the Rohingya refugee camp that was damaged by a fire last year.

On a daily basis the hospital performs nearly 20 operations and examines around 2,000 people, Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said during his speech at the reopening ceremony in Bangladesh's southeastern city of Cox's Bazar.

After being destroyed in the fire, the hospital was reconstructed by the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) upon the request of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Noting that Turkey took "immediate" action to heal the wounds of the fire, Soylu said: "We couldn't leave these sad, oppressed people nor Bangladesh, which is home to these people, alone."

He added that 700,000 treatments have been carried out in the hospital so far.


The Turkish interior minister is also set to meet with his Bangladeshi counterpart Asaduzzaman Khan later in the day.

Bangladesh is home to more than 1.2 million Rohingya refugees, most of whom fled a brutal military crackdown in their home country of Myanmar in August 2017.

Since Aug. 25, 2017, nearly 24,000 Rohingya Muslims have been killed while more than 34,000 have been thrown into fires, over 114,000 beaten, and as many as 18,000 Rohingya women and girls raped, according to a report by the Ontario International Development Agency./DS

The military prison at Guantánamo Bay continues to facilitate grave violations of human rights by the U.S. Government. Ahead of the 20th anniversary of the military prison’s opening on January 11, 2002, Daphne Eviatar, Director of the Security with Human Rights Program at Amnesty International USA, said:

“This is an anniversary that should never have been reached. Since the Bush administration, there has been agreement among national security experts and across the political spectrum that the Guantánamo prison – a notorious site of torture and unjustifiable indefinite detention – should be closed.

“President Biden must uphold his commitment to close Guantánamo once and for all. The longer the prison remains in use, the longer it continues to undermine U.S. credibility globally on human rights.”

Background

Twenty years after its establishment at an offshore military base in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, Guantánamo continues to hold 39 Muslim men in blatant perpetuation of Islamophobia and racism. None of the men detained have received a fair trial and they continue to be detained indefinitely in violation of due process of law and other internationally recognized human rights.

The Guantánamo military commissions have failed to bring justice to the victims and survivors of the 9/11 attacks, while denying due process to the accused.

Amnesty International USA, is sponsoring a range of public events and actions designed to urge President Biden to close the Guantánamo prison this year./ amnestyusa

The first Muslim woman to sit in the British cabinet will warn in a speech Thursday that discrimination against Muslims in Britain has become socially acceptable and must be fought.

Sayeeda Warsi, a member of the unelected House of Lords, blames the media for fuelling misunderstanding with labels such as "moderate" or "extremist", according to extracts published in the Daily Telegraph.

Warsi, co-chairman of Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative party and a minister without portfolio, will warn that Islamophobia has "passed the dinner-table test" and is seen by many as uncontroversial.

She is due to set out her position in a speech to the University of Leicester on Thursday night.

Research published this month by the US-based Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found the Muslim population of Britain was now 2.9 million, or 4.6 percent of the population, up from 1.6 million in 2001.

Warsi will say that prejudice has grown with the numbers, and blame "the patronising, superficial way faith is discussed in certain quarters, including the media".

The notion that all followers of Islam can be described either as "moderate" or "extremist" can fuel misunderstanding and intolerance, she will say.

"It's not a big leap of imagination to predict where the talk of 'moderate' Muslims leads; in the factory, where they've just hired a Muslim worker, the boss says to his employees: 'Not to worry, he's only fairly Muslim'," she says.

"In the school, the kids say: 'The family next door are Muslim but they're not too bad'.

"And in the road, as a woman walks past wearing a burqa, the passers-by think: 'That woman's either oppressed or is making a political statement'."

Warsi will also address the issue of extremism, a key issue of concern for governments here since and the 2005 bombings in London by four British-born Muslims, which killed 52 people.

"Those who commit criminal acts of terrorism in our country need to be dealt with not just by the full force of the law," Warsi, who has worked as a lawyer, will say.

"They also should face social rejection and alienation across society and their acts must not be used as an opportunity to tar all Muslims."/AFP

The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) has found fault with a section of opposition parties for not raising their voice against the anti-Muslim ‘Dharam Sansad’ in Haridwar due to the upcoming Assembly elections.

The CPI-M in an editorial in party mouthpiece ‘People’s Democracy’ said, they are unable to grasp the enormity of the danger posed by “fascistic Hindutva forces.”

The CPI-M said that the men and women in saffron, who made the anti-Muslim speeches and call for violence to eliminate them, were “not some fringe elements” but represented the “mainstream of the Hindutva forces, which include the RSS and the BJP”.

It also said that they had the “state patronage” and it was evident from a picture that emerged of Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Dhami touching the feet of one of the “inciters at the Dharam Sansad, Swami Prabodhananda”.

The editorial said that the Haridwar event was part of the “speeches and rhetoric” of the leaders of the RSS outfits and the BJP that are “taking place with greater frequency” and cited Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath’s “constant Muslim baiting speeches” to BJP MP Tejashwi Surya’s recent call to use mutts and temples to reconvert Muslims and Christians to Hinduism.

These are “not just ‘hate speeches’ in the realm of rhetoric but it is being translated daily into acts of violence and intimidation” of Muslims and Christians on the ground, it said. However, the editorial said that it was “regrettable” that some of the secular opposition parties are “unable to grasp the enormity of the danger posed by the fascistic Hindutva forces”.

“Some issued statements of disapproval or condemnation while some others sought to avoid the issue given that elections are around the corner in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Not just condemnation in words but concerted united action is the need. When the BJP-ruled states are letting these forces run amok, it becomes the duty of the secular and democratic forces to unitedly rebuff and counter these forces,” it said. However, the CPI-M did not specify which opposition party or parties it was referring to.

The editorial said the speeches at the Dharam Sansad fall under the sedition as per the Indian Supreme Court interpretation that the provision was applicable only when there is a call or incitement to violence.

“The evidence is all there in the public domain. The event had been live-streamed and videos of the speeches widely circulated. They all show speaker after speaker, calling for arms to be taken up, the massacre of Muslims, cleansing the villages off them and one speaker even saying that he would have shot (former) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with a revolver if he had had the opportunity to do so,” it said.

“The speeches do not constitute just ‘hate speech’, but are an open incitement to violence and ethnic cleansing,” it added./ republicworld

People in the video can be heard saying, "From today, we Hindus pledge to not buy any item from a Muslim shopkeeper and not to sell them anything. We pledge to not sell or give our lands on lease to Muslims."

Authorities in Chhattisgarh have initiated a probe after a video, purportedly showing residents of a village in Surguja district taking a pledge to neither do commercial transactions with members of the Muslim community nor sell their land to them, went viral on social media, officials said on Friday.

The video was reportedly shot in Kundikala village located under Lundra police station limits of the district on January 5, and came to light on Thursday, after which senior police and administration officials visited the village and initiated an inquiry.

According to the officials, the video appears to be a fallout of a brawl between residents of two villages on January 1.

People in the video can be heard saying, “From today, we Hindus pledge to not buy any item from a Muslim shopkeeper and not to sell them anything. We pledge to not sell or give our lands on lease to Muslims. We Hindus pledge to buy from vendors coming to our villages only after ascertaining their religion. We also pledge to not work as labourers for them.”

Surguj collector Sanjeev Jha told PTI on Friday that after the video surfaced, the district’s additional superintendent of police (ASP) and sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) visited the village on Thursday and gathered details about the incident.

Further action is being taken into the matter, he added.

“On January 1, residents from Aara village, which falls in neighbouring Balrampur district, visited Kundikala to celebrate the New Year during which they entered into a brawl with some locals,” Surguja ASP Vivek Shukla said.

“The next day, a resident of Kundikala lodged a complaint alleging half-a-dozen villagers of Aara (belonging to a particular community) along with some others barged into his house and thrashed him and two family members, including his niece,” he said.

Based on the complaint, six persons were arrested, but all of them got bail from a local court the same day, Shukla said.

Prima facie it seems, taking advantage of that incident, some people provoked residents of Kundikala to hold a gathering and take such a pledge against the minority community, he said.

We are trying to identify those who administered the oath to the gathering, Shukla added.

The Wire

Thousands of Myanmar villagers are living under makeshift tents alongside a river that borders Thailand, fearful of returning to homes which they said had been bombarded by military air strikes but reluctant to seek refuge across the frontier.

Heavy fighting between the Myanmar military, which seized power in a coup last year, and resistance fighters has killed or displaced thousands of civilians in this region and elsewhere.

Many have fled to Thailand, but poor conditions in refugee camps there have prompted some to return to the Myanmar side of the border, and human rights groups have called for more help for the displaced.

Reuters reporters on the Thai side of the Moei river on Friday saw an estimated 2,000 men, women and children living under tarpaulin on the opposite bank in four separate locations.

One woman from the camp, Sabal Phyu, 42, had waded across the loosely patrolled border to collect donated food and bottled water, before returning to the Myanmar side of the river.

“Over there, we received good aid donations but it was very crowded and difficult to live. Here, we have more freedom,” Sabal Phyu told Reuters.

Sabal Phyu said she initially crossed into Thailand with her husband and four children but came back to the border area after being packed into an empty cattle barn with other refugees near the Thai town of Mae Sot.

About 8,000 Myanmar refugees are staying in temporary shelters in Thailand, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

A spokesperson for Myanmar’s military government did not answer calls from Reuters seeking comment.

Asked about the Thai camp conditions, Thailand government spokeswoman Ratchada Dhanadirek said the country was “taking care of the refugees” and carrying out its duties “according to international human rights standards.”

The United Nations Refugee Agency UNHCR said on Friday it had not been granted access by the Thai government to the sites in Mae Sot where refugees are being hosted and also cannot access the Myanmar side of the border.

UNHCR has supplied mosquito nets, sleeping mats, blankets and facemasks to support the humanitarian response being led by Thai authorities, spokesperson Kasita Rochanakorn said.

The deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch said Thailand needed to do more to support those displaced by fighting in Myanmar.

“Thailand must recognise that their humanitarian obligations to refugees involve more than just allowing some food and medicine packages across the border,” Phil Robertson said.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military ousted a civilian government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1, triggering protests and sporadic clashes in the countryside between anti-junta militia and the army.

More than 1,400 civilians and protesters have been killed by Myanmar security forces since the coup, according to the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners activist group.

The military has said those figures, widely cited by international organisations, are exaggerated./ millichronicle

By Parvej Siddique Bhuiyan*

For decades, democracy and human rights have been under siege in Myanmar due to military coups, iron-fisted military rule and persecution of minorities, especially Rohingya Muslims. The military’s wholesale impunity for the outrageous crimes against minorities and other Burmese civilians in the past has set the stage for war crimes committed against Rohingyas. The United Nations labelled the genocidal crackdown as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.

Since the crackdown and forced exodus of Rohingya, Myanmar has faced widespread international pressure–condemnations from the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for human rights violations, rulings from the International Court of Justice and targeted sanctions against the military junta from Western governments. Yet, Myanmar remains extremely reluctant to create a conducive environment for a voluntary, safe and dignified return of the displaced Rohingya despite signing an agreement in 2017.

Key regional powers like China, Russia and India are not interested to take any legal actions against Myanmar thanks to their narrowly defined geopolitical calculations.

Sri Lanka, South Asia’s one of the important stakeholders and longtime strategic, economic and humanitarian partner of Bangladesh, has been largely silent on the Rohingya issue. Bangladesh has provided financial assistance to Sri Lanka. Yet, Sri lanka has maintained silence on Rohingya and even abstained from voting on every UNGA and UNHRC resolution that sought to put pressure on Myanmar in order to find a solution to the Rohingya crisis.

Sri Lanka can negotiate with Myanmar diplomatically and bilaterally. It has good bilateral relations with Myanmar. Sri Lanka can engage with other regional states to solve the crisis. Sri Lanka’s Buddhist society can play an effective role in this regard. The relations of Theravada Buddhists between Myanmar and Sri Lanka are well established. They can show the path shown by the founder of Buddhism, Gautama Buddha. Buddhists will be recognized as the face of human rights if the Buddhist community plays a role in solving the Rohingya crisis. It will ensure regional peace to some extent and ensure communal harmony. Sri Lanka’s businessmen can engage to some extent because stability in the region is needed for investment.

Human Rights groups have criticized Japan’s stance. In 2019, Human Rights Watch published a report that criticized Japan’s cold-blooded Approach to the crisis.  

Japan needs to urgently realize what is at stake in Bangladesh without a sustainable solution to the Rohingya problem.

Since Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan in 1971, Japan has been a trusted development partner. Bangladesh, one of the fastest-growing economies in the Asia-Pacific region, is a significant market for Japan, with a population of 170 million. Japan is increasing its investments in Special Economic Zones (SEZs), energy, communication sector, and in the Bay of Bengal Industrial Growth Belt (BIG-B)

On the other hand, Bangladesh has backed Tokyo’s bid to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council, as well as its position on nuclear weapons. Bangladesh, as a fledgling democracy and peace-loving country, has always sought a peaceful and diplomatic solution to all regional and international disputes. Thus, despite some blowback, Bangladesh still aspires to maintain amicable relations with Myanmar with the spirit of its guiding foreign policy ‘Friendship to all, malice towards none’.

Here, Japan can be a “Gap Bridger” by addressing the ongoing Rohingya crisis to build mutual trust and foster co-operation in the field of Preferential Trade Agreement, blue economy, energy production, maritime trade and regional connectivity.

While Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Cambodia allowed China to use their ports of Kyaukphyu, Hambantota, Gwadar, and Ream Naval respectively, Bangladesh has shown a great deal of trust in Japan to build the Matarbari port. The port has the potential to become a major commercial and connectivity hub, as well as a key trade gateway to Asia and beyond. Such strategic investment will surely bolster Japan’s positive economic and political clout in the region.

Asia’s final frontier, Myanmar, on the other hand, is also important to the world’s leading powers both strategically and economically. However, the country’s persistent ethnic insurgency, international sanctions, restricted economic sector for Foreign Direct Investments (FDI), and most importantly its increasingly pro-Chinese stance have posed a significant risk to international investors.

Bangladesh, as a liberal Muslim country, is concerned about Al Qaeda’s statement to support Myanmar’s Rohingya in September 2017 and the Islamic State’s threat to relocate its base of operations to Southeast Asia. The Rohingya people, who are scattered over 16 countries, may become human resources for extremist networks. This ominous security implication poses a threat to peace and stability as well as to the huge Japanese investments in South East Asia, South Asia, and beyond.

Japan must keep in mind that since the Rohingya crisis erupted in the Indo-Pacific region’s heartland, it has all the possibilities to directly threaten the QUAD countries’ strategic and economic vision that values the rule of law, democracy, human rights, and freedom.

Thus, it is Japan’s vital responsibility to join and influence other key players in the region in order to play a visible and effective role to address major regional issues like the Rohingya crisis for peace and stability.

So far Japan’s silence on the Rohingya crisis has yielded no fruits and it won’t do any good for Asia. Rather this deafening silence will further complicate an already worse crisis.

Now, Japan must bring an end to its cold-blooded policy and take a strong stance for justice and human rights across all international platforms on issues like the Rohingya crisis in line with its own peace-centric constitution. It needs to keep in mind the great words of Martin Luther King Jr, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”/ eurasiareview

A Uyghur woman abducted from her home in China's far-western Xinjiang region in the middle of the night more than four years ago was sentenced to 14 years in prison for providing religious instruction to children in her neighborhood and hiding copies of the Quran, sources with knowledge of the situation and local police said.

Hasiyet Ehmet, now 57 and a resident of Manas (in Chinese, Manasi) county in Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang, has not been heard from since she was abducted by authorities in May 2017, said the source who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal by Chinese authorities.

Police from the county’s No. 3 police station broke into Hasiyet’s home and put a black hood over her head, refusing her request to put on other clothes and gather her medicine before they took her away, according to the person with knowledge of the situation.

A Manas county court official confirmed that Hasiyet Ehmet had been sentenced to 14 years.

“It was because of teaching kids the Quran and hiding two copies of Quran when authorities were confiscating them, and later getting caught,” the official said. “These were the reasons for her sentences.”

Nine years before her arrest, Hasiyet’s husband was convicted of “separatism” charges and sentenced to life in prison in 2009, the source said.

Hasiyet had stopped teaching children two years before her arrest because of health problems. She also refrained from attending public events, said the source.

Chinese authorities have targeted and arrested numerous Uyghur businessmen, intellectuals, and cultural and religious figures in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region for years as part of a campaign to monitor, control, and assimilate members of the minority group purportedly to prevent religious extremism and terrorist activities.

Many of them have been among the 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities believed to be held in a network of detention camps in Xinjiang since 2017. Beijing has said that the camps are vocational training centers and has denied widespread and documented allegations that it has mistreated Muslims living in Xinjiang.

Hasiyet was arrested along with some of her neighbors and held for 15 days after questioning, said the chairman of the local neighborhood committee, a grassroots-level organization in China that monitors residents. Authorities arrested her a second time that September and sentenced her.

Staff at the Manas county police department declined to answer questions about Hasiyet, only telling RFA that there were not many Uyghur police officers or Uyghur residents who lived in the county, which covers nearly 9,200 square kilometers (3,550 square miles).

Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture has a population of more than 1.6 million people, according to China’s latest census data on Xinjiang, issued in June 2021. The information did not break down the population at the county level.

A police officer in Manas did not deny that Hasiyet was in detention but said it was a “state secret” and provided no further details.

Another source with knowledge of the situation told RFA’s Uyghur Service after it first reported on Hasiyet’s case that authorities sentenced the woman to 14 years in prison — seven for teaching the Quran and giving religious lessons to local children and another seven for hiding two copies of the sacred text during a time when police began confiscating religious books from Manas county residents.

Authorities did not try Hasiyet on the charges in court, but instead sent a court verdict letter to her family, the person said. But because Hasiyet’s husband was serving a life sentence in prison, her parents were dead, and the whereabouts of her 13-year-old daughter were unknown, the letter may have been delivered to her husband’s family.

“The verdict statement briefly summarized the reasons for her abduction along with her prison term,” the source wrote to RFA./ rfa

 At the Haridwar event, Prabodhanand Giri had called for the ethnic cleansing of Muslims on the lines of the genocide in Myanmar.

Swami Prabodhanand Giri, who called for the ethnic cleansing of Muslims at the Haridwar hate conclave (Dharam Sansad), has once again made provocative remarks against Muslims, this time at an event in Ghaziabad.

“Jihadis are those who have understood the Quran,” said the chief of Hindu Raksha Sena in an attempt to justify the speeches calling for a genocide against Muslims at the Haridwar event. He had then called for the ethnic cleansing of Muslims on the lines of the genocide in Myanmar which resulted in the mass exodus and displacement of scores of Rohingya refugees.

“There are a few who read the Quran, the ones who understand it, become Jihadis,” he said at an event of his grand welcome in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, on January 2.

“We will stand up against every jihadi in India and clean the country of their presence. The Prime Minister has said Swachh Bharat, we will make it a clean and holy (pavitra) Bharat,” he said calling Hindus to pick their weapons against Muslims.

“If you keep weapons to fight irreligion as Ram did in Mahabharat, you will be blessed by Lord Ram and Krishna. Weapons are essential, to fight with Jihadis and there is no other way,” said the priest.

“It is an old tradition to keep weapons that we had forgotten. It is not a crime to keep arms with you, for self-protection, as a Hindu never strikes first,” he says while contradicting his own speech at the Haridwar event where he had incited Hindus to launch the first attack, whenever they feel threatened.

“Will a cat not attack and eat a pigeon if it closes its eyes? In such a situation (threat to life) why shouldn’t we first attack the cat and gauge its eye before it attacks us?” he asks the crowd.

When the Quint reached out to Ghaziabad police on January 4 to ask if this speech was prosecutable by law, they asked for the video and haven’t responded since then.

Prabodhanand also indicated the approval of the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath over the controversial hate speeches and acts.

“In 2017 when there was nobody to speak for the Hindus, in the entire country, after Yogi stepped into the government of UP, I made him a promise that the sword of Hindutva, that he has prepared, will remain and will be sharpened with his (Prabodhanand’s) guidance, and people will not be able to survive in front of it,” he said.

“FIRs have been filed, and journalists today question me if I still stand by my words. I will stand by them till the end of time. This “Mahatma” will not step back,” said the violence-inciting sage, explaining that he feared none.

“We will organise Dharma Sansad all over the country and in every state, including the ones that are going to be organised in the near future, in Aligarh (January 22, 23), Kurukshetra, Haryana (15 and 15 February), and Himachal Pradesh (12 February),” he announced, claiming that no one will be able to stop the “Dharma Sansads” that are scheduled to take place all over the country./ siasat