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Perhaps the most high-profile genocide of recent years is that of the Rohingya, who live in Rakhine state in northwestern Myanmar.

Unlike the majority of the Buddhist country, the Rohingya are Muslim, and have long suffered as second-class citizens in Myanmar because most people in the country believe they are illegal immigrants and "terrorists" from Bangladesh.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson officially declared the Rohingya crisis a case of ethnic cleansing on Wednesday. So far, up to 3,000 people have been killed in Myanmar, and at least 270,000 have been displaced.
5 Genocides That Are Still Going on Today (businessinsider.com)

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Perhaps the most high-profile genocide of recent years is that of the Rohingya, who live in Rakhine state in northwestern Myanmar.

Unlike the majority of the Buddhist country, the Rohingya are Muslim, and have long suffered as second-class citizens in Myanmar because most people in the country believe they are illegal immigrants and "terrorists" from Bangladesh.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson officially declared the Rohingya crisis a case of ethnic cleansing on Wednesday. So far, up to 3,000 people have been killed in Myanmar, and at least 270,000 have been displaced.

South Sudan became the world's newest country in 2011, but since 2013, the country has been mired in a brutal civil war.

Throughout the multifaceted conflict, South Sudan's President Salva Kiir, a member of the Dinka ethnic group, has been using his army to wage a campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Dinka's main rival ethnic group, the Nuer, as well as other smaller local groups. The Nuer have taken part in ethnic cleansing against the Dinka as well.

The UK has branded these targeted killings and rapes as genocide. Although the Dinka-Nuer conflict has taken center stage in South Sudan, many smaller ethnic groups have also been implicated in the dizzying array of ethnic violence in the country.

As the terrorist group ISIS carved its caliphate out of war-torn Syria and Iraq in 2014 and 2015, it extended its reach over various non-Muslim communities and ethnic groups, including Yazidis and Shiites Iraq, as well as Assyrian Christians living in both Syria and Iraq.

In brutal, genocidal campaigns in both countries, ISIS sought to systematically exterminate Yazidis, Shiites, and Christians and destroy their villages. They also carried out mass rapes in these communities. Although numbers remain hazy, thousands of people have been killed in these related genocides.

As of this week, ISIS has officially been defeated territorially, but the effects of their genocides continue to wreak havoc on people in the region. Khider Domle, Yazidi researcher based in Dohuk, Iraq, says the secondary effects of the genocide are still very present in Yazidi communities in Iraq.

"Our psychological, social and religious identity has been destroyed," Domle told Al Jazeera. "People are living all over the place, and they don't know what the future is. There have been no initiatives from the Iraqi government to help the displaced people return back to Sinjar; no national reconciliation process; no attempt to rebuild ruined infrastructure."

The Central African Republic, an African country wedged mainly between the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, and Chad, has been embroiled in a civil war ever since 2013 when the country's Christian President François Bozizé was overthrown by a coalition of Muslim groups.

While the war itself subsided in 2016, since then, ethnic tensions have rapidly mounted, and many observers fear a genocide may be taking place between the Christian militias called the "anti-Balaka" and the Muslim coalition.

Stephen O'Brien, the head of the UN's humanitarian office, said genocide and ethnic cleansing have recently been on the rise in the country.

"The escalation is very real," O'Brien said in a briefing, according to Newsweek. "We're looking at things which we haven't heard about for a long time. There's a very deep ethnic-cleansing approach."

In the mid-2000s, Darfur was recognized as the first genocide of the 21st century by international observers and US ambassadors at the time, and while it has vanished from the headlines since then, the atrocities being committed in this region in western Sudan have continued.

The ethnic killings began in 2003 when ethnically Arab militias supported by Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir began massacring non-Arab people and destroying their villages. The main victims of these campaigns have been the Fur people, but other small non-Arab groups were also affected.

In 2016 and 2017, violence has increased in Darfur, and many refugee camps for internally displaced Darfuris have been attacked by Arab forces in a continuation of the genocide of the 2000s. As the central government continues to crackdown, the same people who captured the world's attention in years past continue to suffer intense persecution.

Keep reading

More: Features Bosnia Genocide The Hague

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5 genocides that are still going on today

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Perhaps the most high-profile genocide of recent years is that of the Rohingya, who live in Rakhine state in northwestern Myanmar. Unlike the majority of the Buddhist country, the Rohingya are Muslim, and have long suffered as second-class citizens in Myanmar because most people in the country believe they are illegal immigrants and "terrorists" from Bangladesh.

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German Atrocities Committed Against Soviet Prisoners of War

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German Atrocities Committed Against Soviet Prisoners of War

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part of the General plan Ost and Hunger plan in 1941-1945. Estimated that around 3,500,000 people were murdered during WWII when Nazi Germany engaged in a policy of deliberate maltreatlemt of Soviet Prisoners of War. Many starved or worked to death. Nazi Germany saw "Slavs" as "sub-human"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides_by_death_toll

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This list of genocides by death toll includes estimates of all deaths which were directly or indirectly caused by genocide, as it is defined by the UN Convention on Genocide. It excludes other mass killings, which may be referred to as genocide by some scholars and are variously also called mass murder, crimes against humanity, politicide, classicide, or war crimes, such as the Thirty Years' War (7.5 million deaths), Japanese war crimes (3 to 14 million deaths), the Red Terror (100,000 to 1.3 million deaths), the Atrocities in the Congo Free State (1 to 15 million deaths), the Great Purge (0.6 to 1.75 million deaths), the Great Leap Forward and the famine which followed it (15 to 55 million deaths). A broader list of genocides, ethnic cleansing and related mass persecution is available. Genocides in history include cases where there is less consensus among scholars as to whether they constituted genocide.

Definition

The United Nations Genocide Convention defines genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group".

List of genocides

Listed in descending order of lowest estimate.

Event

Location

From

To

Lowest
estimate

Highest
estimate

Proportion of group killed

Holodomor

1932

1933

2,711,000

7,811,000

Data from after the opening of the Soviet archives records deaths at 2.4 to 7.5 million in famine, 300,000 during the purge, and 1,100 from the Law of Spikelets.[9][10][11]

Nazi genocide of ethnic Poles[12][13]

1939

1945

From 6% to 10% of the total Polish gentile population. In addition, 3 million Polish Jews were killed during the Holocaust in Poland.[14]

Russian-occupied Circassia (territories of present-day Russia)

1864[N 4]

1867

600,000
[38][39][40][41]

2,000,000
[42][39][43][41]

95%-97% of total Circassian population killed or deported by the Russian forces.[44][45] Only a small percentage who accepted to convert to Christianity, Russify and resettle within the Russian Empire were spared. The remaining Circassian populations who refused were thus forcefully dispersed, deported and most of the time, tortured and killed en masse.[46]

Ottoman Empire
(territories of present-day Turkey, Syria and Iraq)

1915

1922

1994

60-70% of Tutsis in Rwanda killed[55]
7% of Rwanda's total population killed[55]

Ottoman Empire
(territories of present-day Turkey)

1914

1922

At least 25% of Greeks in Anatolia (Turkey) killed[citation needed ]

East Pakistan (territories of present-day Bangladesh)

1971

2%[citation needed ] to 4% of the population of East Pakistan[72]

Assyrian genocide

Ottoman Empire

(territories of present-day Turkey, Syria and Iraq)

1915

1923

The Holocaust in Croatia including the Serbian genocide[N 10]

Independent State of Croatia (territories of present-day Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Syrmia)

1941

1945

1935[84]

1945

25% of Romani people in Europe killed

Genocide of Acholi and Lango people under Idi Amin[N 15]

1972

1978

2003

Present

1972

Occupied Yugoslavia (territories of present-day Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro)

1941

1945

Soviet Union ( Crimean ASSR)

1944

1948

The deportation and following exile reduced the Crimean Tatar population by between 18%[152] and 46%.[154] Unlike other deported peoples who were acknowledged to be distinct ethnic groups and given their national republics back under Khrushchev, the Crimean Tatars were not given the right of return for decades, and in addition were stripped of recognition as a distinct ethnic group as part of a wider campaign pushing for their assimilation in the Fergana valley.[155]

1846

1873

9,492-16,094
[168][169][172]

120,000
[169][173]

Amerindian population in California declined by 80% during the period

1840

1897

3.3% to over 50% of the aboriginal population was killed
(10,000[178] to 65,180[179] killed out of 125,600)[clarification needed ]

2017

Present

9,000-13,700
[186]

43,000
[187]

Before the 2015 Rohingya refugee crisis and the military crackdown in 2016 and 2017, the Rohingya population in Myanmar was around 1.0 to 1.3 million, chiefly in the northern Rakhine townships, which were 80-98% Rohingya. Since 2015, over 900,000 Rohingya refugees have fled to south-eastern Bangladesh alone, and more to other surrounding countries, and major Muslim nations. More than 100,000 Rohingyas in Myanmar are confined in camps for internally displaced persons.

1992

1995

Just over 8,000
[192]

31,107-39,199
[193][194]

More than 3% of the Bosniak population of Bosnia and Herzegovina perished during the Bosnian War.[195]

Parsley massacre

1937

1937

12,000

20,000[196]

Details of the casualties are still hard to gather.

Islamic State-controlled territory in northern Iraq and Syria

2014

2019

Black War
(Genocide of Aboriginal Tasmanians)[N 35]

Mid 1820s

1832

Political extermination campaigns

References

Bibliography

CEH, Historical Clarification Commission (1999). Guatemala: Memory of silence. Guatemala City: Historical Clarification Commission. pp. 17-23.

Clements, Nicholas (2013). Frontier Conflict in Van Diemen's Land (PhD thesis) (PDF) (Thesis). University of Tasmania.

Clements, Nicholas (2014). The Black War. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press. ISBN 978-0-70225-006-4.

Fisher, Alan W. (2014). Crimean Tatars. Stanford, California: Hoover Press. ISBN 9780817966638. LCCN 76041085. OCLC 946788279.

Geiger, Vladimir (2012). "Human losses of Croats in World War II and the immediate post-war period caused by the Chetniks (Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland) and the Partizans (People's Liberation Army and the partizan detachment of Yugoslavia/Yugoslav Army) and the Yugoslav Communist authoritities. Numerical indicators". Review of Croatian History. VIII (1): 77-121.

Girard, Philippe R. (2011). The Slaves Who Defeated Napoleon: Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian War of Independence 1801-1804. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press. ISBN 978-0-8173-1732-4.

Legters, Lyman H. (1992). "The American Genocide". In Lyden, Fremont J. (ed.). Native Americans and Public Policy. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 9780822976820. OCLC 555693841.

Lerner, Natan (1994). Dinstein, Yoram (ed.). Ethnic Cleansing. Israel Yearbook on Human Rights. Vol. 24. ISBN 978-90-411-0026-9. ISSN 0333-5925.

Li, Bo; Zheng, Yin (2001). 5000 years of Chinese history (in Chinese). Inner Mongolian People's publishing corp. p. 402. ISBN 7-204-04420-7.

Ørsted-Jensen, Robert (2011). Frontier History Revisited - Queensland and the 'History War'. Cooparoo, Brisbane, Qld: Lux Mundi Publishing. ISBN 9781466386822.

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List of genocides by death toll - Wikipedia

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This list of genocides by death toll includes estimates of all deaths which were directly or indirectly caused by genocide, as it is defined by the UN Convention on Genocide.

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https://www.liberationwarmuseumbd.org/bangladesh-genocide/

Bangladesh had experienced mass killings by the Pakistani army. There could be more attacks on civilians.

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Dr. Adam Jones
Professor, Political Science
University of British Columbia, Canada
My background is as a scholar in the field of comparative genocide studies - founded by the man who invented the word "genocide," Raphael Lemkin, whom we also consider as the father of the United Nations Genocide Convention. Genocide studies how encompasses scholars, students, and activists from an extraordinarily wide array of disciplines and backgrounds, including law, sociology, history, political science, psychology, philosophy, gender studies.

Within comparative genocide studies, sadly, the Bangladesh genocide remains strikingly little known - something that I and a few others have sought to redress in our modest ways. This reflects the peripheral position of East Pakistan/Bangladesh in the global order - something that also accounts for the lack of international interest and intervention at the time, to which I will return.

This is despite the fact that from a comparative perspective, the Bangladesh genocide of 1971 was one of the most extreme and destructive genocides of the twentieth century, with as many as 3 million people killed. Reading English language sources like Anthony Mascarenhas's short book, and even more Kalyan Chaudhuri's impressive work Genocide in Bangladesh, I was struck by the parallels between the Pakistani slaughter of Bengalis and some of the most savage atrocities in modern record, including the genocide of Christians in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, Japanese rampages in China and the Nazi genocides in Eastern Europe during World War Two. The scale and systematic character of the slaughter and material destruction was simply breathtaking.

So, too, are there obvious and disturbing parallels between the kind of racial, ethnic, and religious hatreds that fuelled these earlier genocides, and the Bangladeshi slaughter of 1971. When we look at the origins of the genocide, therefore, we must clearly recognize its ideological foundations: the conviction of the West Pakistani leadership that Bengalis were an inferior and almost subhuman race - "a low-lying land of low, lying people," as Pakistani General Niazi put it.

But ideological hatreds are rarely sufficient to explain genocidal outbreaks in themselves. What is frequently required is an atmosphere of crisis and existential threat among the perpetrators. We see this clearly in the Bangladeshi case. The movement for Bangladeshi autonomy and proto-independence was seen as a profound challenge and security dilemma for the Pakistani state, and for the dominance of West Pakistani elites within that federation.

In this sense, despite the common temptation to view genocide as an expression of irrational evil, the 1971 genocide was a rational act by West Pakistani elites and their allies in East Pakistan to preserve their stranglehold on power, and indeed to expand and deepen it by "cleansing" the east of its Bengali identity and much of its Bengali population. Bangladesh therefore offers an example of the intimate relationship between war, whether civil or international, and genocide - indeed, I have referred to these as the "Siamese Twins" of mass violence throughout history.

How much of the genocide was actually pre-planned is an open question. Clearly, there was a determination to crush Bengali resistance through a short and extremely sharp application of terror, mass murder, and forcible expulsion.

But I think comparative genocide studies has gradually moved away from a static model of preordained outcomes, towards a more dynamic and dialectical framing. In the Bangladeshi case, I think we need to recognize that mass terror and genocide spiralled and deepened as the failure of the initial slaughter to suppress Bengali nationalism became plain, and as resistance deepened in the form of the Mukti Bahini movement aided and abetted by Pakistan's historic enemy and rival, India. A parallel here would be the kind of genocides-by-counterinsurgency that we find in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Afghanistan during the 1980s, which occurred in the context of progracted guerrilla wars.

Rationality and realpolitik also explain much of the international dimension of the conflict. Thanks to Gary Bass's recent book The Blood Telegram, we have an intimate portrait of the kind of self-consciously "realist" decisionmaking that determined U.S. policymaking under Nixon and Kissinger during this period. Likewise, India's policy, though cloaked in a humanitarian mantle, was heavily shaped by realist considerations - the opportunity to dismember a key rival; the material and political challenge of millions of refugees on its soil, especially in volatile West Bengal; and the opportunity for the government of Indira Gandhi to mobilize and consolidate domestic political support.

However, we should not overlook the moral and humanitarian influences at work in these spheres. Actors like Archer Blood and Edward Kennedy in the USA were clearly motivated by moral outrage at the mass atrocities, and their words and actions had some influence on outcomes. Mass media reports reflected some of that same outrage, and were also influential, particularly in the wake of the then-recent genocide in the Biafra region of Nigeria. And even though we cannot consider India's intervention to be principally humanitarian, the domestic political and media uproar over the genocide was clearly significant, as Bass's book also makes clear.

Let me say a few words about several of the genocidal strategies employed in Bangladesh in 1971:

Eliticide - the targeting of intellectuals and academics, cultural figures, media workers, even sports figures - anyone seen to be at the vanguard of Bengali identity and culture

Politicide - the attempt to eliminate all actual and potential supporters of the Awami League and Mukti Bahini

Gendercide - the targeting of Bengali men and boys above all, noted by numerous commentators although it has rarely been foregrounded in analyses of the genocide. An exception is my own treatment of the subject in the case-study I wrote for the Gendercide Watch website, which you can find online.

What is notable and challenging about those strategies is that they overlap. By this, I mean that because men generally constitute the overwhelming majority of military fighters and political and cultural elites, in Bangladesh as elsewhere, it can be difficult to separate analytically the extent to which victims were targeted on the basis of their elite identity, their political beliefs, or their gender identity. But one of the things I have argued is that victims are always targeted on the basis of multiple and overlapping identities of this type - never are the variables found in strict isolation.
Let me conclude with some additional observations about the aftermath of the Bangladeshi genocide. I want to focus on two principal elements: the quest for justice, and the construction of memory.
I should note, before leaving this subject, the additional gender element of the genocidal strategy which has received considerable attention in the literature: the targeting of Bengali women for mass rape, often followed by murder as a further expression of gendered hatred and a desire to cover up the crime. This is again a very typical feature of modern genocides. Not only does rape and sexual assault target women physically, but it also attacks them at a profound level of identity, and it undermines the wider bonds of solidarity within the targeted ethnic and cultural group by alienating women from men, and humiliating men in a patriarchal context, who are shown as unable to protect "their" women from assault and violation. The issue of rape survivors and the further victimization and impoverishment of widows in the aftermath of genocide is another notable element of the post-genocide environment in Bangladesh, and this too is a distressingly common feature of genocidal aftermaths.

The Bangladeshi case is similar to many others in the twentieth-century context, in that genocide and crimes against humanity produced a concerted campaign for justice and restitution for the victims. However, the Bangladesh case is distinctive in several respects, or even unique.

Notably, the establishment of the International Crimes Tribunal in 1973 was one of the earliest systematic attempts to seek justice for genocide - the first major one since the Nuremberg Trials after World War Two, and the first in history in which the vocabulary of genocide was front-and-centre in the campaign. It precedes the ad-hoc tribunals established for Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Cambodia, and Sierra Leone, not just by years but by decades. Yet it is again very little known and studied by comparative genocide scholars, especially legal scholars.

Bangladesh is also notable for the long and winding road that the struggle for justice has been forced to follow since 1973. All of you in the audience know that much better, and feel the pain of it more deeply, than I ever can. Only in the last few years have cases actually come to trial and verdicts been passed.

Typically for such proceedings, we have witnessed intensive debates, both nationally and internationally, about the nature of the justice being sought and delivered. Some have alleged that this is a kind of "victor's justice" - the same allegations made against the architects of Nuremberg and the UN-sponsored tribunals of the 1990s and 2000s. I would only say here that my brief time and limited investigations here in Bangladesh have given me a much better sense of the depth of feeling that underpins the desire for justice in Bangladesh. I am more skeptical than I was toward the criticisms of the skeptics, and better informed about the ways that certain elements within Bangladesh have long stalled and impeded the essential quest for justice and recognition. Only now, decades after the atrocities, has it indeed been possible to launch the kind of process that the crimes so clearly required, even if one can retain strong reservations, for example about the institution of the death penalty for convicted perpetrators.

Justice-seeking is of course an important subset of the wider shaping of memory and memorialisation in the aftermath of genocide.

I think it is fair to say that in Bangladesh, as Arild Engelsun Ruud has argued in an important article on school textbooks in this country, the 1971 genocide has been defined as a critical and foundational moment in nation-formation and nation-building. The victims are defined as the nation's heroes and martyrs; their blood has fertilized the soil of Bengali identity. Related to this is an enshrining and politicizing of death tolls in genocide. We see this with the statistic of 3 million killed, and the hostility and suspicion sometimes directed against those who question the figure, as with the current controversy over Sarmila Bose's book, which I haven't yet read, and blog posts by the Bangladesh-based journalist David Bergman. This is a very sensitive subject, since genocide deniers often seek to politicize death tolls by minimizing them. I'll say only that I consider a death toll in the millions to be unproven, but conceivable, especially if we include the victims of starvation and disease among refugee populations, as I believe we should.

This incorporation of genocide into nation-building narratives is a frequent post-genocide phenomenon - think of the foundational place of the Holocaust in contemporary Jewish and Israeli identity, for example, or the way that Circassians have used the memory of the 19 th-century Russian genocide against their people, in the context of the Sochi Olympics, to bolster the cohesion and solidarity of their far-flung diaspora. All nations are collectively imagined communities, as the scholar Benedict Anderson has argued; and key upheavals like war

However, I think it also poses some dangers. In the Bangladeshi case, I think it may have led to the downplaying of a number of important elements, and I am again drawing on Arild Ruud's analysis here.

First, it tends to emphasize the guerrilla resistance and the violence directed against the martyrs, at the expense of the more general targeting of the civilian population.

Second, among that civilian population, it tends to skate over the highly specific and disproportionate targeting of Hindus among the Bengali population of East Pakistan. They constituted an overwhelming proportion of refugees. Their targeting was a key element in the mobilization of East Pakistani paramilitaries and death squads by West Pakistani forces. And memorialisation of the victims has tended to be submerged in the narrative of the emergent Muslim-majority and increasingly Muslim-identified state of Bangladesh.

Third, a narrative of heroic liberation tends to avoid the subject of the vengeful and in some ways parallel violence inflicted at the end of the genocide and in its immediate aftermath, against elements that were viewed as collaborating with West Pakistan. I am thinking especially of the so-called "Biharis," non-Bengali speakers, and also the population of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, a district in which I have been travelling in the last week or so.

It is ironic that even though the population of the Hill Tracts was absolutely devastated by the West Pakistani genocide, it was generally constructed as "collaborationist" in the wake of the genocide. And this combined with a portrait of the tribal population that that ironically mirrored the West Pakistani elites' construction of Bengalis: as primitive, inferior, subversive, and impeding national development.

Within only a couple of years of the 1971 genocide therefore, persecution and crimes against humanity possibly amounting to genocide were being perpetrated by leaders and agents of the new Bangladeshi government against the Adivasi people of the Hill Tracts. We have seen this pattern quite regularly in post-genocidal contexts, for example the targeting of ethnic Germans at the end of the Second World War, or Palestinians during the formation of the Israeli state, or Serbian civilians in Kosovo after the 1999 war there. Should the mass atrocities in the Hill Tracts also be part of the narrative of genocide in Bangladesh?

All of this serves as a reminder, I think, that in memorializing genocides and pursuing justice for their perpetration, we must work to retain a stance of self-monitoring and self-criticism, and avoid some common temptations and traps. We must avoid nationalist and patriotic hubris and an excessively "heroic" and "triumphal" narrative of genocide and its consequences. We must not use genocide as a justification for further mass crimes. We must be nuanced and inclusive in our understanding of the ways in which genocide occurred and the kinds of victims it targeted. In this way, I feel, we can more truly honour the victims and survivors of genocide, and work to guard against future outbreaks of genocide and related crimes, in our own societies and in others.

Thank you very much for your attention, and I welcome your comments and questions.

Speech given on 22nd March, 2014, 18th Anniversary of Liberation War Museum

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Dr. Adam Jones Professor, Political Science University of British Columbia, Canada My background is as a scholar in the field of comparative genocide studies - founded by the man who invented the word "genocide," Raphael Lemkin, whom we also consider as the father of the United Nations Genocide Convention.

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Starting in 2003, the Sudanese government initiated a genocide on the people of Darfur (a region of western Sudan). This genocide is ongoing today as a government -sponsored militia called the Janjaweed carries out the starvation, displacement, rape, and slaughter of the people of Darfur. It is estimated that the violence has displaced 2.5 million people and lead to 400,000 deaths thus far. Approximately 200,000 residents fled across the boarder to Chad, but live in squander with inadequate food, shelter, healthcare or sanitation.

https://genocideeducation.org/resources/modern-era-genocides/

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The Genocide in Darfur

Violence and destruction are raging in the Darfur region of western Sudan. Since February 2003, government-sponsored militias known as the Janjaweed have conducted a calculated campaign of slaughter, rape, starvation and displacement in Darfur.

It is estimated that 400,000 people have died due to violence, starvation and disease. More than 2.5 million people have been displaced from their homes and over 200,000 have fled across the border to Chad. Many now live in camps lacking adequate food, shelter, sanitation, and health care.

The United States Congress and President George W. Bush recognized the situation in Darfur as "genocide." Darfur, "near Hell on Earth," has been declared the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today.

Picture: The remains of the village of Jijira Adi Abbe in Darfur, western Sudan, after the government attack.

The Holocaust

It began with a simple boycott of Jewish shops and ended in the gas chambers of Auschwitz as Hitler and his Nazi followers attempted to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe. The Holocaust took the lives of close to six million Jews during the World War II era. Anti-semitism was the central component of Nazi ideology. While the Nazis also murdered many millions of Poles, Russians, Roma, Sinti, Serbs, Czechs, homosexuals, and political opponents, only the Jews were slated for total annihilation. The "final solution" was partially successful through the process of genocide. The Nazi Party who first targeted the Jews, then isolated them into ghettos, then deported their victims to concentration camps where most perished. Others became Nazi victims not because of who they were but because of what they did - Jehovah's Witnesses, the dissenting clergy, Communists, Socialists, and other political enemies.

Picture: Teresa Swiebocka Auschwitz: A History in Photographs (Indiana University Press, 1993)

Holodomor (Ukrainian Genocide)

In 1932-33, Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, imposed the system of land management known as collectivization. This resulted in the seizure of all privately owned farmland and livestock. By 1932, much of the wheat crop was dumped on the foreign market to generate cash to aid Stalin's Five-Year Plan. The law demanded that no grain could be given to feed the peasants until a quota was met. By the spring of 1933, an estimated 25,000 people died every day in Ukraine. Deprived of the food they had grown with their own hands, an estimated 7,000,000 persons perished due to the resulting genocide.

The Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide was carried out by the "Young Turk" government of the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1918. Starting in April 1915, Armenians in the Ottoman armies, serving separately in unarmed labor battalions, were removed and murdered. Of the remaining population, the adult and teenage males were separated from the deportation caravans and killed under the direction of Young Turk functionaries. Women and children were driven for months over mountains and desert, often raped, tortured, and mutilated. Deprived of food and water, they fell by the hundreds of thousands along the routes to the desert. Ultimately, more than half the Armenian population (1,500,000 people) was annihilated.

Picture: "Mother and Child" from the Wegner Collection (Armin T. Wegner), Deutches Literaturarchiv, Marbach & United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The Herero Genocide

The Herero Genocide occurred between 1904-1907 in current day Namibia. The Hereros were herdsmen who migrated to the region in the 17th and 18th centuries. After a German presence was established in the region in the 1800s, the Herero territory was annexed (in 1885) as a part of German South West Africa.

A series of uprisings against German colonialists, from 1904-1907, led to the extermination of approximately four-fifths of the Herero population. After Herero soldiers attacked German farmers, German troops implemented a policy to eliminate all Hereros from the region, including women and children.

Picture: Hereros captured by the German Military in 1904.

Genocide of the Native Americans

The genocide of peoples indigenous to the U.S. portion of North America proce-eded along different tracks, each defined by the policies of the colonial power pursuing it. The colonization began in 1607 when England's Jamestown colonists arrived in present-day Virginia with instructions to "settle" the already heavily populated coastal area. Beginning in 1830, the U.S. undertook a policy of "removing" all native people from the area east of the Mississippi River. In the series of interments and thousand-mile forced marches which followed, entire peoples were decimated. The Cherokees, for instance, suffered 50 percent fatalities during the "Trail of Tears"; the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles and Creeks, 25 to 35 percent apiece.

Picture: "The Trail of Tears" Painting by Robert Lindneux in the Woolaroc Museum, Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

The Transatlantic Slave Trade

Unlike most twentieth-century cases of premeditated mass killing, the African slave trade was not undertaken by a single political force or military entity during the course of a few months or years. The transatlantic slave trade lasted for 400 years, from the 1450s to the 1860s, as a series of exchanges of captives reaching from the interior of sub-Saharan Africa to final purchasers in the Americas. It has been estimated that in the Atlantic slave trade, up to 12 million Africans were loaded and transported across the ocean under dreadful conditions. About 2 million victims died on the Atlantic voyage (the dreaded "Middle Passage") and in the first year in the Americas.

Picture: The slave ship "Brookes" built for 421 slaves; packed with 700.

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Violence and destruction are raging in the Darfur region of western Sudan. Since February 2003, government-sponsored militias known as the Janjaweed have conducted a calculated campaign of slaughter, rape, starvation and displacement in Darfur. It is estimated that 400,000 people have died due to violence, starvation and disease.

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The Uyghur genocide in China has been active since 2014. It is a genocide against Muslims and involves acts such as internment, forced abortion, forced sterilization, torture and brainwashing. It has been estimated that Chinese authorities have detained up to 1.8 million individuals in secretive internment camps.

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The Armenian genocide happened between 1915 and 1917. The Turkish government tortured, expelled, and killed over 2 million Armenian people. They had done so because the Armenian people wanted to separate from Turkey and form their own country. Turkey has still not admitted that this was a genocide.

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In 1994, the Rwanda's majority population, the Hutu planned a genocide to kill off the entire Tutsi population. The genocide lasted for 100 days and almost 800,000 civilians, mostly Tutsi but some sympathizer Hutus were killed. Almost 2,000,000 Rwandans fled the country after the genocide. While this genocide was started by the Hutu who were tired of being under the shadow of the Tutsi, the initial fire had been lit by the French government when they declared the Tutsi people the more superior. This was continued on by the catholic church who had the power to stop this genocide from ever happening. More information about this can be found in the documentary, "Shake hands with the Devil". It is the story of General Romeo Dallaire and his frustrated efforts to stop the madness of the Rwandan Genocide, despite the complete indifference of his superiors.

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In 1994, members of the Hutu ethnic majority in Rwanda murdered over 800,000 members of the Tutsi minority. It was ethnically motivated violence and ended due to the successful efforts of the RPF, Rwandese Patriotic Front.

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Rwandan Genocide - Facts, Response & Trials

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The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, occured in 1994 when members of the Hutu ethnic majority in the east-central African nation of Rwanda murdered as many as 800,000 people, mostly of the Tutsi minority. Started by Hutu nationalists in the capital of Kigali, the genoc…

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- Ongoing genocide since 2014
- Incarcerated more than 1 million Turkic Muslims in interment camps
- Largest genocide since WW2
- Estimated around 16 thousand mosques have been damaged
- Hundreds of thousands of children have been separated from their parents and sent to boarding schools
- Forced labor, suppression of religious practices, political indoctrination, forced sterilization, forced contraception, forced aportion

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Uyghur genocide

Part of the Xinjiang conflict

Location

Xinjiang, China

Date

2014-present

Target

Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic Muslims

Internment, forced abortion, forced sterilization, forced birth control, forced labor, torture, brainwashing, alleged rape (including gang rape)

Victims

est. ≥1 million detained

Perpetrator

Government of the People's Republic of China

Motive

Counterterrorism (official)
Sinicization, Islamophobia,[1] and suppression of political dissent

The Chinese government has committed a series of ongoing human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang that is often characterized as genocide. Beginning in 2014, the Chinese government, under the administration of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping, incarcerated more than an estimated one million Turkic Muslims without any legal process in internment camps. Operations from 2016 to 2021 were led by Xinjiang CCP Secretary Chen Quanguo, who dramatically increased the scale and scope of the camps. It is the largest-scale detention of ethnic and religious minorities since World War II. Experts estimate that, since 2017, some sixteen thousand mosques have been razed or damaged, and hundreds of thousands of children have been forcibly separated from their parents and sent to boarding schools.

Government policies have included the arbitrary detention of Uyghurs in state-sponsored internment camps, forced labor, suppression of Uyghur religious practices, political indoctrination, severe ill-treatment, forced sterilization, forced contraception, and forced abortion. Chinese government statistics reported that from 2015 to 2018, birth rates in the mostly Uyghur regions of Hotan and Kashgar fell by more than 60%. In the same period, the birth rate of the whole country decreased by 9.69%. Chinese authorities acknowledged that birth rates dropped by almost a third in 2018 in Xinjiang, but denied reports of forced sterilization and genocide. Birth rates in Xinjiang fell a further 24% in 2019, compared to a nationwide decrease of 4.2%.

These actions have been described as the forced assimilation of Xinjiang, or as an ethnocide or cultural genocide, or as genocide. Those accusing China of genocide point to intentional acts committed by the Chinese government that they say run afoul of Article II of the Genocide Convention, which prohibits "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part," a "racial or religious group" including "causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group" and "measures intended to prevent births within the group".

The Chinese government denies having committed human rights abuses in Xinjiang. In an assessment by the UN Human Rights Office, the United Nations (UN) stated that China's policies and actions in the Xinjiang region may be crimes against humanity, although it did not use the term genocide. International reactions have varied. In 2020, 39 UN member states issued statements to the United Nations Human Rights Council criticizing China's policies, while 45 countries supported China's "deradicalization measures in Xinjiang" and opposed "the politicization of human rights issues and double standards". In December 2020, a case brought to the International Criminal Court was dismissed because the crimes alleged appeared to have been "committed solely by nationals of China within the territory of China, a State which is not a party to the Statute", meaning the ICC could not investigate them. The United States has declared the human rights abuses a genocide, announcing its finding on January 19, 2021, though the United States Department of State found that there is insufficient evidence to support that characterization. Legislatures in several countries have since passed non-binding motions describing China's actions as genocide, including the House of Commons of Canada, the Dutch parliament, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, the Seimas of Lithuania, and the French National Assembly. Other parliaments, such as those in New Zealand, Belgium, and the Czech Republic condemned the Chinese government's treatment of Uyghurs as "severe human rights abuses" or crimes against humanity.

Background

Uyghur identity

Uyghurs are a Turkic ethnic group native to Xinjiang. They are distinct from the Han Chinese, the predominant ethnic group in China. Uyghurs are the second-largest predominantly Muslim ethnicity in China and Islam is an important aspect of Uyghur identity. The Uyghur language has around 10 million speakers and is shared with other minority groups in the region.

Xinjiang conflict

Both Uyghurs and the predominantly Han government lay claim to Xinjiang. This prompted an ethnic conflict featuring resistance and sporadic violence as Uyghurs sought greater autonomy. Sinologists Anna Hayes and Michael Clarke have described Xinjiang as undergoing a process of transition as the Chinese government attempted to transform it from a frontier region to an "integral" province of a unitary Chinese state.

Imperial China

Historically, certain Chinese dynasties exerted control over parts of modern-day Xinjiang. The region came under Chinese rule as a result of the westward expansion of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty during the 1700s, which also saw the conquests of Tibet and Mongolia. Xinjiang was a peripheral part of the Qing empire and briefly regained independence during the Dungan Revolt (1862-1877). The Uyghur population participated in the Dzungar genocide, resulting in the Qianlong emperor granting them permission to resettle in the former territories of Dzungaria.

Republican Era (1912-1949)

The region was semi-autonomous during the Republic of China's Warlord Era (1916-1928), with parts controlled by the Kumul Khanate, the Ma Clique and later the warlord Jin Shuren.[page needed ] In 1933, the breakaway First East Turkestan Republic was established in the Kumul Rebellion, but was conquered the following year by warlord Sheng Shicai with the help of Soviet aid. In 1944, the Ili Rebellion led to the establishment of the Second East Turkestan Republic, which was dependent on the Soviet Union until it was absorbed into the People's Republic of China in 1949.

People's Republic of China (1949-present)

From the 1950s to the 1970s, the Chinese government sponsored a mass migration of Han Chinese to Xinjiang and introduced policies designed to suppress cultural identity and religion in the region. During this period, Uyghur independence organizations emerged with some support from the Soviet Union, with the East Turkestan People's Party being the largest in 1968. During the 1970s, the Soviets supported the United Revolutionary Front of East Turkestan (URFET) against the Han Chinese.

During the 1980s under Deng Xiaoping, the PRC pursued a new policy of cultural liberalization in Xinjiang and adopted a flexible language policy nationally. Despite a positive response among party officials and minority groups, the Chinese government viewed this policy as unsuccessful and from the mid-1980s its official pluralistic language policy became increasingly subordinate to a covert policy of minority assimilation motivated by geopolitical concerns. Consequently, and in Xinjiang particularly, multilingualism and cultural pluralism were restricted to favor a "monolingual, monocultural model", which in turn helped to embed and strengthen an oppositional Uyghur identity. Attempts by the Chinese state to encourage economic development in the region by exploiting natural resources led to ethnic tension and discontent within Xinjiang over the region's lack of autonomy. In April 1990, a violent uprising in Barin, near Kashgar, was suppressed by the People's Liberation Army (PLA), involving a large number of deaths. Writing in 1998, political scientist Barry Sautman considered policies designed to reduce inequality between Han Chinese and ethnic minorities in Xinjiang unsuccessful at eliminating conflicts because they were shaped by the "paternalistic and hierarchical approach to ethnic relations adopted by the Chinese government".

In February 1997, a police roundup and execution of 30 suspected "separatists" during Ramadan led to large demonstrations, which led to a PLA crackdown on protesters resulting in at least nine deaths in what became known as the Ghulja incident. The Ürümqi bus bombings later that month killed nine people and injured 68, with Uyghur exile groups claiming responsibility. In March 1997, a bus bomb killed two people, with responsibility claimed by Uyghur separatists and the Turkey-based "Organisation for East Turkistan Freedom".

The July 2009 Ürümqi riots broke out in response to the Shaoguan incident, a violent dispute between Uyghur and Han Chinese workers in a factory, which resulted in over one hundred deaths. Following the riots, Uyghur terrorists killed dozens of Han Chinese in coordinated attacks from 2009 to 2016. These included the September 2009 Xinjiang unrest, the 2011 Hotan attack, the 2014 Kunming attack, the April 2014 Ürümqi attack, and the May 2014 Ürümqi attack. The attacks were conducted by Uyghur separatists, with some orchestrated by the Turkistan Islamic Party (a UN-designated terrorist organization, formerly called the East Turkistan Islamic Movement).

Following the Ürümqi riots, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced the "savagery" being inflicted on the Uyghur community and called for an end of the Chinese government's attempts to forcibly assimilate the community. Later at the Group of Eight summit in Italy, Erdogan called upon Chinese authorities to intervene to protect the community and stated that "The incidents in China are, simply put, a genocide. There's no point in interpreting this otherwise." As a result of Erdogan's statements, China's relations with Turkey deteriorated temporarily.

Government policies

Initial "Strike Hard Campaign Against Violent Terrorism"

During the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Chinese state began to emphasize (stability maintenance) which led to an intensification of repression across the country. Some within the Party warned that increased action to combat instability which might not even exist could lead to a spiral of repression and unrest.

In April 2010, after the July 2009 Ürümqi riots, Zhang Chunxian replaced the former CCP secretary Wang Lequan, who had been behind religious policies in Xinjiang for 14 years. Following the unrest, party theorists began to call for implementing a more monocultural society with a single "state-race" which would allow China to become "a new type of superpower". Policies to further this goal were first implemented by Zhang Chunxian. Following an attack in Yunnan Province, Xi Jinping told the politburo "We should unite the people to build a copper and iron wall against terrorism", and "Make terrorists like rats scurrying across the street, with everybody shouting, 'Beat them!'" In April 2014, Xi traveled to Xinjiang and told police in Kashgar that "We must be as harsh as them, and show absolutely no mercy." A suicide bombing occurred in Ürümqi on the last day of his visit.

In 2014, a secret meeting of Communist Party leadership was held in Beijing to find a solution to the problem, which would become known as the Strike Hard Campaign Against Violent Terrorism. In May 2014, China publicly launched the campaign in Xinjiang in response to growing tensions between the Han Chinese and the Uyghur populations of Xinjiang. In announcing the campaign, CCP general secretary Xi Jinping stated that "practice has proved that our party's ruling strategy in Xinjiang is correct and must be maintained in the long run".

In 2016, there was a brief window of opportunity for Uyghurs with passports to leave China; many did so but had to leave relatives and children without passports behind. Many of these families have not been reunited.

Regulations since 2017

Following a meeting with Xi in Beijing, Chen Quanguo held a rally in Ürümqi with ten thousand troops, helicopters, and armored vehicles. As they paraded he announced a "smashing, obliterating offensive," and declared that they would "bury the corpses of terrorists and terror gangs in the vast sea of the People's War." He ordered them to "Round up everyone who should be rounded up," and by April 2017 mass arrests had begun.

New bans and regulations were implemented on April 1, 2017. Abnormally long beards and the wearing of veils in public were both banned. Not watching state-run television or listening to radio broadcasts, refusing to abide by family planning policies, or refusing to allow one's children to attend state-run schools were all prohibited.

In 2017, China's Ministry of Public Security began to procure race-based monitoring systems which could reportedly identify whether or not an individual was Uyghur. Despite its questionable accuracy, this allowed a "Uyghur alarm" to be added to surveillance systems. Enhanced border controls were also implemented with guilt being presumed in the absence of evidence, according to Zhu Hailun, who said, "If suspected terrorism cannot be ruled out, then a border control should be implemented to insure the person's arrest".

In 2017, 73% of foreign journalists in China reported being restricted or prohibited from reporting in Xinjiang, up from 42% in 2016.

Alleged "re-education" efforts began in 2014 and were expanded in 2017. Chen ordered that the camps "be managed like the military and defended like a prison". At this time, internment camps were built for the housing of students of the "re-education" programs, most of whom were Uyghurs. The Chinese government did not acknowledge their existence until 2018 and called them "vocational education and training centers". From 2019, the government began referring to them as "vocational training centers". The camps tripled in size from 2018 to 2019 despite the Chinese government stating that most of the detainees had been released.

Propaganda campaign

The Chinese government has engaged in a propaganda campaign to defend its actions in Xinjiang. China initially denied the existence of the Xinjiang internment camps and attempted to cover-up their existence. In 2018, after widespread reporting forced it to admit that the Xinjiang internment camps exist, the Chinese government initiated a campaign to portray the camps as humane and to deny that human rights abuses occurred in Xinjiang. In 2020 and 2021, the propaganda campaign expanded due to rising international backlash against government policies in Xinjiang, with the Chinese government worrying that it no longer had control of the narrative.

Chinese authorities have responded to allegations of abuse by Uyghur women by mounting attacks on their credibility and character. This included the disclosure of confidential medical data and personal information in an attempt to slander witnesses and undermine their testimony. The goal of these attacks appeared to be to silence further criticism, rather than to refute specific claims made by critics. Presentations given by Xinjiang's publicity department and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to dispel allegations of abuse are closed to foreign journalists and feature pre-recorded questions as well as pre-recorded monologues from people in Xinjiang, including relatives of witnesses.

Chinese government propaganda attacks have also targeted international journalists covering human rights abuses in Xinjiang. After providing coverage critical of Chinese government abuses in Xinjiang, BBC News reporter John Sudworth was subjected to a campaign of propaganda and harassment by Chinese state-affiliated and CCP-affiliated media. The public attacks resulted in Sudworth and his wife Yvonne Murray, who reports for Raidió Teilifís Éireann, fleeing China for Taiwan fearing for their safety.

The Chinese government has used social media as a part of its extensive propaganda campaign. China has spent heavily to purchase Facebook advertisements in order to spread propaganda designed to incite doubt on the existence and scope of human rights violations occurring within Xinjiang. Douyin, the mainland Chinese sister app to ByteDance-owned social media app TikTok, presents users with significant amounts of Chinese state propaganda pertaining to the human rights abuses in Xinjiang. Between July 2019 and early August 2019, CCP-owned tabloid the Global Times paid Twitter to promote tweets that denied that the Chinese government was committing human rights abuses in Xinjiang; Twitter later banned advertising from state-controlled media outlets on August 19 after removing large numbers of pro-Beijing bots from the social network.

In April 2021, the Chinese government released 5 propaganda videos titled, "Xinjiang is a Wonderful Land", and released a musical titled "The Wings of Songs" which portrayed Xinjiang as harmonious and peaceful. The Wings of Songs portrays "a rural idyll of ethnic cohesion devoid of repression, mass surveillance" and without Islam.

Counter-terrorism justification

China has used the global " war on terror" of the 2000s to frame "separatist" and ethnic unrest as acts of Islamist terrorism to legitimize its policies in Xinjiang. Scholars such as Sean Roberts and David Tobin have described Islamophobia and fear of terrorism as discourses that have been used within China to justify repressive policies targeting Uyghurs, arguing that violence against Uyghurs should be seen in the context of Chinese colonialism, rather than exclusively as a part of an anti-terrorism campaign.

Arienne Dwyer has written that the US war on terror gave China an opportunity to characterise and "conflate" Uyghur nationalism with terrorism, particularity through the use of state-run media. Dwyer argues that the influence of fundamentalist forms of Islam such as Salafism within Xinjiang is overstated by China as it is tempered by Uyghur Sufism.

In 2019, the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal, Sam Brownback, and Nathan Sales each said that the Chinese government consistently misused "counterterrorism" as a pretext for cultural suppression and human rights abuses.

In 2021, Shirzat Bawudun, the former head of the Xinjiang department of justice, and Sattar Sawut, the former head of the Xinjiang education department, were sentenced to death with two years reprieve on terrorism and extremism charges. Three other educators and two textbook editors were given lesser sentences.

Cultural effects

According to an analysis from The Guardian, over one-third of mosques and religious sites in China suffered "significant structural damage" between 2016 and 2018, with nearly one-sixth of all mosques and shrines completely razed. This included the tomb of Imam Asim, a mud tomb in the Taklamakan Desert, and the Ordam shrine at the of Ali Arslan Khan. According to The Guardian, Uyghur Muslims believe that repeated pilgrimages to these tombs fulfill a Muslim's obligation to complete the Hajj. In 2019, Bellingcat reported that "there is systematic repression and imprisonment of the Muslim Uighur minority in Xinjiang, and the destruction of cultural and religiously significant Islamic buildings in this province may be a further part of this ongoing repression." In the same year, Indonesian scholar Said Aqil Siradj disputed that Uyghurs faced persecution, saying there was an increasing number of mosques being built and repaired in Xinjiang.

Id Kah Mosque in Xinjiang is China's largest. Radio Free Asia, a United States government-funded broadcaster, reported that in 2018, a plaque containing Quranic scriptures, that had long hung outside the front entrance of the mosque, had been removed by the authorities. Turghunjan Alawudun, director of the World Uyghur Congress, said the plaque was removed as "one aspect of the Chinese regime's evil policies meant to eliminate the Islamic faith among Uyghurs... and Uyghurs themselves". Anna Fifield of The Independent wrote in 2020 that Kashgar no longer had any working mosques, while The Globe and Mail reported that the only services at the Id Kah mosque, which had been turned into a tourist attraction, were staged to give foreign visitors the impression that religion was being practiced freely and that mosque attendance numbered only in the dozens. Indonesian outlet Antara released a video in 2021 documenting that 800 worshipers were in the mosque, but also that there was no iftar ritual due to pandemic restrictions.

Uyghur students are increasingly attending residential schools far from their home communities where they cannot speak Uyghur. According to a 2020 report from Radio Free Asia (RFA), monolingual Chinese language education has been introduced in an influential high school in Kashgar that formerly provided bilingual education.

In 2021, the standard Uyghur language textbooks used in Xinjiang since the early 2000s were outlawed and their authors and editors sentenced to death or life imprisonment on separatism charges. The textbooks had been created and approved by relevant government officials; however, according to the AP in 2021, the Chinese government said that the "2003 and 2009 editions of the textbooks contained 84 passages preaching ethnic separatism, violence, terrorism and religious extremism and that several people were inspired by the books to participate in a bloody anti-government riot in the regional capital Urumqi in 2009".

Detained academics and religious figures

Uyghur economist Ilham Tohti was sentenced to life in prison in 2014. Amnesty International called his sentence unjustified and deplorable. Rahile Dawut, a prominent Uyghur anthropologist who studied and preserved Islamic shrines, traditional songs, and folklore, disappeared.

Cemeteries

In September 2019, Agence France-Presse (AFP) visited 13 destroyed cemeteries across four cities and witnessed exposed bones remaining in four of them. Through an examination of satellite images, the press agency determined that the grave destruction campaign had been ongoing for more than a decade. According to a previous AFP report, three cemeteries in Xayar County were among dozens of Uyghur cemeteries destroyed in Xinjiang between 2017 and 2019. The unearthed human bones from the cemeteries in Xayar County were discarded. In January 2020, a CNN report based on an analysis of Google Maps satellite imagery said that Chinese authorities had destroyed more than 100 graveyards in Xinjiang, primarily Uyghur ones. CNN linked the destruction of the cemeteries to the government's campaign to control the Uyghurs and Muslims more broadly. The Chinese government claimed that the cemetery and tomb destruction were relocations due to lack of maintenance and that the dead were re-interred in new standardized cemeteries.

This is all part of China's campaign to effectively eradicate any evidence of who we are, to effectively make us like the Han Chinese. ... That's why they're destroying all of these historical sites, these cemeteries, to disconnect us from our history, from our fathers and our ancestors.

-  Salih Hudayar, whose great-grandparents' graveyard was demolished

Among the destroyed cemeteries is Sultanim Cemetery (), the central Uyghur historical graveyard with generations of burials, and the most sacred shrine in Hotan city, which was demolished and converted into a parking lot between 2018 and 2019. China Global Television Network (CGTN), a Chinese state-owned international channel affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party, said that the graves were relocated.

Our advocacy of intermarriage is promoting positive energy ... Only by promoting the establishment of a social structure, and community environment in which all ethnic groups are embedded in each other ... can we boost the great unity, ethnic fusion, and development of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang, and finally realize our China dream of the great rejuvenation of our Chinese nation

They will let ethnic unity forever bloom in their hearts,
Let ethnic unity become one's own flesh and blood.

According to RFA reports, in March 2017 Salamet Memetimin, an ethnic Uyghur and the Communist Party Secretary for Chaka township's Bekchan village in Qira County, Hotan Prefecture, was relieved of her duties for taking her nikah marriage vows at her home. In interviews with RFA in 2020, residents and officials of Shufu County (Kona Sheher), Kashgar Prefecture (Kashi) stated that it was no longer possible to perform traditional Uyghur nikah marriage rites in the county.

Chinese authorities discourage the wearing of headscarves, veils, and other customary Islamic attire. On May 20, 2014, a protest broke out in Alakaga (Alaqagha, Alahage), Kuqa (Kuchar, Kuche), Aksu Prefecture when 25 women and schoolgirls were detained for wearing headscarves. According to a local official, two died and five were injured when police fired on protesters. Subsequently, a Washington Post team was detained in Alakaga and ultimately deported from the region.

Documents leaked from the Xinjiang internment camps have noted that some inmates have been detained for wearing traditional clothing.

Children's names

RFA reported that in 2015, a list of banned names for children called "Naming Rules for Ethnic Minorities", was promulgated in Hotan, banning potential names including "Islam", "Quran", "Mecca", "Jihad", "Imam", "Saddam", "Hajj", and "Medina". Use of the list was later extended throughout Xinjiang. Legislation in 2017 made it illegal to give children names that the Chinese government deemed to "exaggerate religious fervor". This prohibition included a ban on naming children " Muhammad".

Human rights abuses

Inside internment camps

Mass detention

Especially since 2016, internment camps have been a part of the Chinese government's strategy to govern Xinjiang through the detention of ethnic minorities en masse. According to Adrian Zenz, a researcher on the camps, the mass internments peaked in 2018 and have abated since then, with officials shifting focus towards forced labor programs.

Researchers and organizations have made various estimates of the number of Xinjiang internment camp detainees. In 2018, United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination vice chairperson Gay McDougall indicated that around 1 million Uyghurs were being held in internment camps. In September 2020, a Chinese government white paper revealed that an average of 1.29 million workers went through "vocational training" per year between 2014 and 2019, though it does not specify how many of the people received the training in camps or how many times they went through training. Adrian Zenz stated that this "gives us a possible scope of coercive labor" occurring in Xinjiang. There have been multiple reports that mass deaths have occurred inside the camps.

In March 2019, Adrian Zenz told the United Nations that 1.5 million Uyghurs had been detained in camps, saying that the number accounted for the increases in the size and scope of detention in the region and public reporting on the stories of Uyghur exiles with family in interment camps. In July 2019, Zenz wrote in a paper published by the Journal of Political Risk that 1.5 million Uyghurs had been extrajudicially detained, which he described as being "an equivalent to just under one in six adult members of a Turkic and predominantly Muslim minority group in Xinjiang." In November 2019, Zenz estimated that the number of internment camps in Xinjiang had surpassed 1,000. In July 2020, Zenz wrote in Foreign Policy that his estimate had increased since November 2019, estimating that a total of 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities had been extrajudicially detained in what he described as "the largest incarceration of an ethnoreligious minority since the Holocaust", arguing that the Chinese Government was engaging in policies in violation of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

According to 2020 study by Joanne Smith Finley, "political re-education involves coercive Sinicization, deaths in the camps through malnutrition, unsanitary conditions, withheld medical care, and violence (beatings); rape of male and female prisoners; and, since the end of 2018, transfers of the most recalcitrant prisoners - usually young, religious males - to high-security prisons in Xinjiang or inner China. Other camp 'graduates' have been sent into securitized forced labour. Those who remain outside the camps have been terrified into religious and cultural self-censorship through the threat of internment."

China has subjected Uyghurs living in Xinjiang to torture. A former Chinese police detective, exiled in Europe, revealed to CNN in 2021 details of the systematic torture of Uyghurs in detention camps in Xinjiang, acts in which he had participated, and the fear of his own arrest had he dissented while in China.[failed verification ]

Mihrigul Tursun, a young Uyghur mother, said that she was "tortured and subjected to other brutal conditions." In 2018, Tursun gave an interview during which she described her experience while at the camps; she was drugged, interrogated for days without sleep, subjected to intrusive medical examinations, and strapped in a chair and received electric shocks. It was her third time being sent to a camp since 2015. Tursun told reporters that she remembered interrogators tell her "Being a Uighur is a crime." A spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Hua Chunying, has stated that Tursun was taken into custody by police on "suspicion of inciting ethnic hatred and discrimination" for a period lasting 20 days, but denies that Tursun was ever detained in an internment camp.

Another past detainee, Kayrat Samarkand, said that "[t]hey made me wear what they called 'iron clothes,' a suit made of metal that weighed over 50 pounds [23 kg]... It forced my arms and legs into an outstretched position. I couldn't move at all, and my back was in terrible pain...They made people wear this thing to break their spirits. After 12 hours, I became so soft, quiet and lawful."

Compulsory sterilizations and contraception

In 2019, reports of forced sterilization in Xinjiang began to surface. Zumrat Dwut, a Uyghur woman, says that she was forcibly sterilized by tubal ligation during her time in a camp before her husband was able to get her out through requests to Pakistani diplomats. The Xinjiang regional government denies that she was forcibly sterilized.

Brainwashing

Former detainee Kayrat Samarkand described his camp routine in an article for NPR in 2018: "In addition to living in cramped quarters, he says inmates had to sing songs praising Chinese leader Xi Jinping before being allowed to eat. He says detainees were forced to memorize a list of what he calls '126 lies' about religion: 'Religion is opium, religion is bad, you must believe in no religion, you must believe in the Communist Party,' he remembers. 'Only [the] Communist Party could lead you to the bright future.'"

Documents which were leaked to The New York Times by an anonymous Chinese official advised that "Should students ask whether their missing parents had committed a crime, they are to be told no, it is just that their thinking has been infected by unhealthy thoughts. Freedom is only possible when this 'virus' in their thinking is eradicated and they are in good health."

In 2021, Gulbahar Haitiwaji reported being coerced into denouncing her family after her daughter had been photographed at a protest in Paris.

Forced labor

According to Quartz, the Xinjiang region is described by the Uyghur Human Rights Project as a "'cotton gulag' where prison labor is present in all steps of the cotton supply chain..."

BuzzFeed News reported in December 2020 that "[f]orced labor on a vast scale is almost certainly taking place" inside the Xinjiang internment camps, with 135 factory facilities identified within the camps covering over 21 million square feet (2.0 km ²) of land. The report noted that "[f]ourteen million square feet of new factories were built in 2018 alone" within the camps and that "former detainees said they were never given a choice about working, and that they earned a pittance or no pay at all".

A Chinese website hosted by Baidu has posted job listings for transferring Uyghur laborers in batches of 50 to 100 people. The 2019 Five Year Plan of the Xinjiang government has an official "labour transfer programme" "to provide more employment opportunities for the surplus rural labour force". These batches of Uyghurs are under "half-military" style management and direct supervision. A seafood processing plant owner said that the Uyghur workforce in his factory had left for Xinjiang due to the COVID-19 pandemic and were paid and housed properly. At least 83 companies were found to have profited from Uyghur labor. Company responses included pledges of ensuring that it does not happen again by checking supply lines, such as Marks & Spencer. Samsung said that it would ensure that previous controls ensured good work conditions under its code of conduct. Apple, Esprit, and Fila did not offers responses to related inquiries.

Medical experiments

Organized mass rape and sexual torture

BBC News and other sources reported accounts of organized mass rape and sexual torture carried out by Chinese authorities in the internment camps.

Multiple women who were formerly detained in the Xinjiang internment camps have publicly made accusations of systemic sexual abuse, including rape, gang rape, and sexual torture, such as forced vaginal and anal penetrations with electric batons, and rubbing chili pepper paste on genitals. Sayragul Sauytbay, a teacher who was forced to work in the camps, told the BBC that employees of the internment camp in which she was detained conducted rapes en masse, saying that camp guards "picked the girls and young women they wanted and took them away". She also told the BBC of an organized gang rape, in which a woman around age 21 was forced to make a confession in front of a crowd of 100 other women detained in the camps, before being raped by multiple policemen in front of the assembled crowd. In 2018, a Globe and Mail interview with Sauytbay indicated that she did not personally see violence at the camp, but did witness malnourishment and a complete lack of freedom. Tursunay Ziawudun, a woman who was detained in the internment camps for a period of nine months, told the BBC that women were removed from their cells every night to be raped by Chinese men in masks and that she was subjected to three separate instances of gang rape while detained. In an earlier interview, Ziawudun reported that while she "wasn't beaten or abused" while in the camps, she was instead subjected to long interrogations, forced to watch propaganda, had her hair cut, was under constant surveillance, and kept in cold conditions with poor food, leading to her developing anemia. Qelbinur Sedik, an Uzbek woman from Xinjiang, has stated that Chinese police sexually abused detainees during electric shock tortures, saying that "there were four kinds of electric shock... the chair, the glove, the helmet, and anal rape with a stick".

In February 2021, the BBC released an extensive report which alleged that systematic sexual abuse was taking place within the camps. The gang rapes and sexual torture were alleged to be part of a systemic rape culture which included both policemen and those from outside the camps who pay for time with the prettiest girls. CNN reported in February 2021 about a worker and several former female inmates which survived the camps; they provided details about murder, torture and rape in the camps, which they described as routinely occurring.

Outside internment camps

IUDs and birth control

Zenz reported that 80% of "new" Chinese IUD placements (defined in his study as total IUD placements minus IUD removals) in 2018 occurred in Xinjiang, despite the region constituting only 1.8% of the country's population. Assessing Zenz's analysis, Xinjiang University Professor Lin Fangfei argued that the appropriate measure is that 8.7% of IUD operations were performed in Xinjiang.

Zenz reported that birth rates in counties whose majority population consists of ethnic minorities began to fall in 2015, "the very year that the government began to single out the link between population growth and 'religious extremism'". Prior to the recent drops in birth rates, the Uyghur population had had a growth rate 2.6 times that of the Han between 2005 and 2015. According to Zenz's analysis of Chinese government documents, the Chinese government had planned to sterilize between 14% and 34% of childbearing-age married women in two predominantly Uyghur counties in 2019, while seeking to sterilize 80% of childbearing-age women in four rural prefectures in Xinjiang's south that are primarily inhabited by ethnic minorities.

According to a fax provided to CNN by the Xinjiang regional government, birth rates in the Xinjiang region fell by 32.68% from 2017 to 2018. In 2019, the birth rates fell by 24% year over year, a significantly greater drop than the 4.2% decline in births experienced across the entire People's Republic of China. According to Zenz, population growth rates in the two largest Uyghur prefectures in Xinjiang, Kashgar and Hotan, fell by 84% between 2015 and 2018.

According to Adrian Zenz, Chinese government documents mandate that birth control violations of Uyghurs are punishable by extrajudicial internment. Official records from Karakax County between 2017 and 2019 leaked to the Financial Times showed that the most common reason for detaining Uyghurs in camps was violation of family planning policies, with the second most common reason being for practising Islam. A 2018 Karakax government report said it had implemented "maximally strict family planning policies".

Also in 2019, The Heritage Foundation reported that officials forced Uyghur women to take unknown drugs and liquids that caused them to lose consciousness, and sometimes caused them to stop menstruating. In 2020, an Associated Press investigation reported that forced birth control in Xinjiang was "far more widespread and systematic than previously known", and that Chinese authorities had forced IUD insertions, sterilization and abortions upon "hundreds of thousands" of Uyghur and other minority women. Many women stated that they were forced to receive contraceptive implants. The full scale of forced sterilization in Xinjiang is unknown, partly because of the Chinese government's failure to collect or share data, as well as the reluctance of victims to come forward due to stigma. The measures have been compared to China's past one-child policy targeting its Han population. Zenz speculated that by 2040, ethnic minority population in southern Xinjiang could shrink from 9.5 million to 9 million, while the Han Chinese share could increase to 25%, up from 8.4% currently.

According to CNN, regional authorities do not dispute the decrease in birth rates but deny that genocide and forced sterilization is occurring; Xinjiang authorities maintain that the decrease in birth rates is due to "the comprehensive implementation of the family planning policy." The Chinese Embassy in the United States said the policy was positive and empowering for Uyghur women, writing that, "in the process of eradicating extremism, the minds of Uygur women were emancipated and gender equality and reproductive health were promoted, making them no longer baby-making machines. They are more confident and independent." Twitter removed the tweet for violating its policies.

Forced cohabitation, co-sleeping, rape, and abortion

The " Pair Up and Become Family" program assigned Han Chinese men to monitor the homes of Uyghurs and sleep in the same beds as Uyghur women.[better source needed ] According to Radio Free Asia, these Han Chinese government workers were trained to call themselves "relatives" and forcibly engaged in co-habitation of Uyghur homes for the purpose of promoting "ethnic unity". Radio Free Asia reports that these men "regularly sleep in the same beds as the wives of men detained in the region's internment camps." Chinese officials maintained that co-sleeping is acceptable, provided that a distance of one meter is maintained between the women and the "relative" assigned to the Uyghur home. Uyghur activists state that no such restraint takes place, citing pregnancy and forced marriage numbers, and name the program a campaign of "mass rape disguised as 'marriage'." Human Rights Watch has condemned the program as a "deeply invasive forced assimilation practice", while the World Uyghur Congress states that it represents the "total annihilation of the safety, security and well-being of family members."

A 37-year-old pregnant woman from the Xinjiang region said that she attempted to give up her Chinese citizenship to live in Kazakhstan but was told by the Chinese government that she needed to come back to China to complete the process. She alleges that officials seized the passports of her and her two children before coercing her into receiving an abortion to prevent her brother from being detained in an internment camp.

Organ harvesting

Ethan Gutmann states that organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience became prevalent when members of the Uyghur ethnic group were targeted in security crackdowns and "strike hard campaigns" during the 1990s. According to Gutmann, organ harvesting from Uyghur prisoners dropped off by 1999 with members of the Falun Gong religious group overtaking the Uyghurs as a source of organs.

In the 2010s, concerns about organ harvesting from Uyghurs resurfaced. According to a unanimous determination by the China Tribunal in May 2020, China has persecuted and medically tested Uyghurs. Its report expressed concerns that Uyghurs were vulnerable to being subject to organ harvesting but did not yet have evidence of its occurrence. In November 2020, Gutmann told RFA that a former hospital in Atsu, China, which had been converted into a Xinjiang internment camp, would allow local officials to streamline the organ harvesting process and provide a steady stream of harvested organs from Uyghurs. Later, in December 2020, human rights activists and independent researchers told that individuals detained in the Xinjiang internment camps "are being murdered and their organs harvested." At that time, Gutmann told Haaretz that he estimates that at least 25,000 Uyghurs are killed in Xinjiang for their organs each year and that crematoria have been recently built in the province in order to more easily dispose of victims' bodies. Gutmann said that "fast lanes" were created for the movement of human organs in local airports.

In 2020, a Chinese woman alleged that Uyghurs were killed to provide halal organs for primarily Saudi customers. She also alleged that in one such instance in 2006, 37 Saudi clients received organs from killed Uyghurs at the Department of Liver Transplantation of Tianjin Taida Hospital. Dr. Enver Tohti, a former oncology surgeon in Xinjiang, thought the allegation was credible.

Forced labor

In January 2020, videos began to surface on Douyin showing large numbers of Uyghurs being placed into airplanes, trains, and busses for transportation to forced factory labor programs. In March 2020, the Chinese government was found to be using the Uyghur minority as forced sweatshop labor. According to a report published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), no fewer than around 80,000 Uyghurs were forcibly removed from Xinjiang for purposes of forced labor in at least twenty-seven factories around China. According to the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, a UK-based charity, corporations such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Adidas, Amazon, Apple, BMW, Fila, Gap, H&M, Inditex, Marks & Spencer, Nike, North Face, Puma, PVH, Samsung, and Uniqlo sourced from these factories. Over 570,000 Uyghurs are forced to pick cotton by hand in Xinjiang. According to an archived report from Nankai University, the Chinese forced labor system is designed to reduce Uyghur population density.

Outside China

China's robust surveillance system extends overseas, with a special emphasis placed on monitoring the Uyghur diaspora. According to the MIT Technology Review "China's hacking of Uyghurs is so aggressive that it is effectively global, extending far beyond the country's own borders. It targets journalists, dissidents, and anyone who raises Beijing's suspicions of insufficient loyalty."

A joint report from the Uyghur Human Rights Project and the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs found 1,546 cases of Uyghurs being detained and deported at the behest of Chinese authorities in 28 countries from 1997 to March 2021.

Use of biometric and surveillance technology

In 2017, security-related construction tripled in Xinjiang. Charles Rollet stated, "projects include not only security cameras but also video analytics hubs, intelligent monitoring systems, big data centers, police checkpoints, and even drones.", Drone manufacturer DJI began providing surveillance drones to local police in 2017. According to ASPI, the Ministry of Public Security invested billions of dollars in two government plans: the Skynet project (天网工程) and the Sharp Eyes project (雪亮工程). These two projects attempted to use facial recognition to "resolutely achieve no blind spots, no gaps, no blank spots" by 2020. A report by ASPI highlighted Morgan Stanley's claim that, by 2020, 400 million surveillance cameras were to be operating. Chinese companies including SenseTime, CloudWalk, Yitu, Megvii, and Hikvision built algorithms to allow the Chinese government to track the Muslim minority group.

In July 2020, the United States Department of Commerce sanctioned 11 Chinese firms, including two subsidiaries of BGI Group, for violating the human rights of Uyghur Muslims, by exploiting their DNA. BGI Group along with Abu Dhabi-based AI and cloud computing firm Group 42 - accused of espionage in 2019 - were named by the US departments of Homeland Security and State in an October 2020 warning issued to Nevada against the use of the 200,000 COVID-19 test kits donated by UAE under the partnership of G42 and the BGI Group. US intelligence agencies warned foreign powers who were exploiting patients' medical samples to dig into their medical history, genetic traits, and illnesses.

Biometric data

While he was Xinjiang Party secretary, Chen Quanguo launched "Physicals for All", purportedly a medical care program. "Every Xinjiang resident between the ages of twelve and 65" was required to provide DNA samples. Also collected were data on "blood types, fingerprints, voice-prints, iris patterns". Officials in Tumxuk gathered hundreds of blood samples. Tumxuk was named a "major battlefield for Xinjiang's security work" by the state news media. In January 2018, a forensic DNA lab overseen by the Institute of Forensic Science of China was built there. Lab documents showed that it used software created by Thermo Fisher Scientific, a Massachusetts company. This software was used in correspondence to create genetic sequencers, helpful in analyzing DNA. In response, Thermo Fisher declared in February that it would cease sales to the Xinjiang region as a result of "fact-specific assessments".

GPS tracking of cars

Classification of abuses

Special purpose tribunals, scholars, commentators, journalists, governments, politicians, and diplomats from many countries have labeled China's actions variously as genocide, cultural genocide, ethnocide and/or crimes against humanity.

Ethnocide or cultural genocide

In 2008, Michael Clarke, an Australian terrorism scholar, noted that "there has emerged within the Uighur émigré community a tendency to portray the Uighurs as experiencing a form of 'cultural genocide'", citing as an example a 2004 speech by World Uyghur Congress president Erkin Alptekin. In a 2012 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Uyghur activist Rebiya Kadeer described the CCP following "policies of Uighur cultural genocide". In 2018, UCL human rights scholar Kate Cronin-Furman argued in 2018 that the Chinese state policies constituted cultural genocide.

In July 2019, German academic Adrian Zenz wrote in the Journal of Political Risk that the situation in Xinjiang constituted a cultural genocide; his research was later cited by BBC News and other news organizations. James Leibold, a professor at Australia's La Trobe University, called that same month the treatment of Uyghurs by the Chinese government a "cultural genocide", and stated that "in their own words, party officials are 'washing brains' and 'cleansing hearts' to 'cure' those bewitched by extremist thoughts." The term was used in editorials, such as in The Washington Post, at this point.

Since the release of the Xinjiang papers and the China Cables in November 2019, various journalists and researchers have called the Chinese government's treatment of Uyghurs an ethnocide or a cultural genocide. In November 2019, Zenz described the classified documents as confirming "that this is a form of cultural genocide". Foreign Policy published an article by Azeem Ibrahim in which he called the Chinese treatment of Uyghurs a "deliberate and calculated campaign of cultural genocide" after the release of the Xinjiang papers and China Cables.

Since June 2020, scholars, commentators, and lawyers have increasingly referred to the human rights situation in Xinjiang as a genocide, rather than a cultural genocide.

In April 2019, Cornell University anthropologist Magnus Fiskesjö wrote in Inside Higher Ed that mass arrests of ethnic minority academics and intellectuals in Xinjiang indicated that "the Chinese regime's current campaign against the native Uighur, Kazakh and other peoples is already a genocide." Later, in 2020, Fiskejö wrote in academic journal Monde Chinois that "[t]he evidence for genocide is thus already massive, and must, at the very least, be regarded as sufficient for prosecution under international law... the number of competent authorities around the world concurring that this is indeed genocide are increasing."

In July 2020, Zenz said an interview with National Public Radio (NPR) that he had previously argued that the actions of the Chinese government are a cultural genocide, not a "literal genocide", but that one of the five criteria from the Genocide Convention was satisfied by more recent developments concerning the suppression of birth rates so "we do need to probably call it a genocide". The same month, the last colonial governor of British Hong Kong, Chris Patten, said that the "birth control campaign" was "arguably something that comes within the terms of the UN views on sorts of genocide".

Although China is not a member of the International Criminal Court, on 6 July 2020 the self-proclaimed East Turkistan Government-in-Exile and the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement filed a complaint with the ICC calling for it to investigate PRC officials for crimes against Uyghurs including allegations of genocide. The ICC responded in December 2020 and "asked for more evidence before it will be willing to open an investigation into claims of genocide against Uighur people by China, but has said it will keep the file open for such further evidence to be submitted."

An August 2020 article reported that some scholars hesitate to label the human rights abuses in Xinjiang as a "full-blown genocide", preferring the term "cultural genocide", but that increasingly many experts were calling them "crimes against humanity" or "genocide". In August 2020 the spokesperson for Joe Biden's presidential campaign described China's actions as genocide.

In October 2020, the U.S. Senate introduced a bipartisan resolution designating the human rights abuses perpetrated by the Chinese government against the Uyghur people and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang as genocide. Around the same time, the House of Commons of Canada issued a statement that its Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development was persuaded that the Chinese Communist Party's actions in Xinjiang constitute genocide as laid out in the Genocide Convention. The 2020 annual report by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China referred to the Chinese government's treatment of Uyghurs as "crimes against humanity and possibly genocide."

On 19 January 2021, incoming U.S. president Joe Biden's secretary of state nominee Antony Blinken was asked during his confirmation hearings whether he agreed with Pompeo's conclusion that the CCP had committed genocide against the Uyghurs, he contended "That would be my judgment as well." During her confirmation hearings Joe Biden's nominee to be the US ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield stated that she believed what was currently happening in Xinjiang was a genocide, adding "I lived through and experienced and witnessed a genocide in Rwanda."

The US designation was followed by Canada's House of Commons and the Dutch parliament, each passing a non-binding motion in February 2021 to recognize China's actions as genocide.

In 13 February 2021, The Economist wrote that while China's treatment and persecution of Uyghurs is "horrific" and a crime against humanity, "genocide" is the wrong word for China's actions due to China not engaging in mass murder.

According to a March 2021 Newlines Institute report that was written by over 50 global China, genocide, and international law experts, the Chinese government breached every article in the Genocide Convention, writing, "China's long-established, publicly and repeatedly declared, specifically targeted, systematically implemented, and fully resourced policy and practice toward the Uyghur group is inseparable from 'the intent to destroy in whole or in part' the Uyghur group as such." The report cited credible reports of mass deaths under the mass internment drive, while Uighur leaders were selectively sentenced to death or sentenced to long-term imprisonment. "Uyghurs are suffering from systematic torture and cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment, including rape, sexual abuse, and public humiliation, both inside and outside the camps", the report stated. The report argued that these policies are directly orchestrated by the highest levels of state, including Xi and the top officials of the Chinese Communist Party in Xinjiang. It also reported that the Chinese government gave explicit orders to "eradicate tumours", "wipe them out completely", "destroy them root and branch", "round up everyone", and "show absolutely no mercy", in regards to Uyghurs, and that camp guards reportedly follow orders to uphold the system in place until "Kazakhs, Uyghurs, and other Muslim nationalities, would disappear...until all Muslim nationalities would be extinct". According to the report "Internment camps contain designated "interrogation rooms" where Uyghur detainees are subjected to consistent and brutal torture methods, including beatings with metal prods, electric shocks, and whips."

In June 2021, the Canadian Anthropology Society issued a statement on Xinjiang in which the organization stated, "expert testimony and witnessing, and irrefutable evidence from the Chinese Government's own satellite imagery, documents, and eyewitness reports, overwhelmingly confirms the scale of the genocide."

Crimes against humanity

In June 2019, the China Tribunal, an independent judicial investigation into forced organ transplantation in China concluded that crimes against humanity had been committed beyond reasonable doubt against China's Uyghur Muslim and Falun Gong populations.

The Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect at the University of Queensland concluded in November that evidence of atrocities in Xinjiang "likely meets the requirements of the following crimes against humanity: persecution, imprisonment, enforced disappearance, torture, forced sterilisation, and enslavement" and that "It is arguable that genocidal acts have occurred in Xinjiang, in particular acts of imposing measures to prevent births and forcible transfers." In December, lawyers David Matas and Sarah Teich wrote in Toronto Star that "One distressing present day example [of genocide] is the atrocities faced by the Uighur population in Xinjiang, China."

International responses

Reactions by supranational organizations

Reactions at the United Nations

In July 2019, 22 countries issued a joint letter to the 41st session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), condemning China's mass detention of Uyghurs and other minorities, calling upon China to "refrain from the arbitrary detention and restrictions on freedom of movement of Uyghurs, and other Muslim and minority communities in Xinjiang". In the same session, 50 countries issued a joint letter supporting China's Xinjiang policies, criticizing the practice of "politicizing human rights issues". The letter stated, "China has invited a number of diplomats, international organizations officials and journalist to Xinjiang" and that "what they saw and heard in Xinjiang completely contradicted what was reported in the media."

In October 2019, 23 countries issued a joint statement to the UN urging China to "uphold its national and international obligations and commitments to respect human rights". In response, 54 countries (including China itself) issued a joint statement supporting China's Xinjiang policies. The statement "spoke positively of the results of counter-terrorism and de-radicalization measures in Xinjiang and noted that these measures have effectively safeguarded the basic human rights of people of all ethnic groups."

In February 2020, the UN demanded unobstructed access in advance of a proposed fact-finding visit to the region.

In October 2020, more countries at the UN joined the condemnation of China over human rights abuses in Xinjiang with German Ambassador Christoph Heusgen speaking on behalf of the group. The total number of countries that condemned China increased to 39, while the total number of countries that defended China decreased to 45. Sixteen countries that defended China in 2019 did not do so in 2020.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (HCHR) began to discuss the possibility of a visit to Xinjiang with China in order to examine "the impact on human rights of its policies" in September 2020. Since then, the HCHR's office has since been negotiating terms of access to China, but the High Commissioner has not visited the country. In a February 2021 speech to the UNHRC, the Chinese Foreign Minister stated that Xinjiang is "always open" and the country "welcomes the High Commissioner for Human Rights (HCHR) to visit Xinjiang". At a March 2021 meeting of the UNHRC, the United States ambassador condemned China's human rights abuses in Xinjiang as "crimes against humanity and genocide".

China has turned down multiple requests from the UN HCHR to investigate the region. In January 2022, unidentified sources told the South China Morning Post that UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet had secured a visit to Xinjiang, not to be framed as an investigation, some time during the first half of the year, as long as her office doesn't agree to the U.S. request of publishing its Xinjiang report ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics. The visit occurred in May 2022. In a statement released by the UN, Bachelet said that she raised concerns in Xinjiang about the broad application of counter-terrorism and de-radicalisation measures (including their impacts on Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities) and encouraged the government to review such policies to ensure they fully comply with international human rights standards. Bachelet stated that while she was unable to investigate the full scale of the vocational educational and training centres (VETC), she raised with the Chinese government concerns about the lack of independent judicial oversight for the program, and said that the government provided assurances that the VETC system had been dismantled. U.S. rights advocates criticized Bachelet's visit as a propaganda victory for Beijing.

Reactions at the European Union

In 2019, the European Parliament awarded its Sakharov Prize for Freedom and Thought to Ilham Tohti, a Uyghur intellectual and activist who had been sentenced to life in prison on charges pertaining to Uyghur separatism. As of March 2021, China has prohibited European Union diplomats from visiting Tohti. The European Union has called upon China to release Tohti from his detention in prison.

In March 2021, European Union ambassadors agreed on sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against four Chinese officials and one Chinese entity for human rights abuses against Uyghurs. Among those sanctioned by the EU was Zhu Hailun who was described as the architect of the indoctrination program. In the same month, negotiations for a group of Ambassadors from European Union countries to visit Xinjiang stalled due to the Chinese government's denial of their request to visit Ilham Tohti, an imprisoned Uyghur scholar.

Reactions by country

Several African countries, including Algeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Nigeria, and Somalia, signed a July 2019 letter that publicly praised China's human rights record and dismissed reported abuses in Xinjiang. Other African countries, including Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Madagascar, Morocco, Mozambique and Sudan, signed an October 2019 letter that publicly expressed support for China's treatment of Uyghurs.

In July 2020, The Globe and Mail reported that human rights activists, including retired politician Irwin Cotler, were encouraging the Parliament of Canada to recognize the Chinese actions against Uyghurs as genocide and impose sanctions on the officials responsible.

On 21 October 2020, the Subcommittee on International Human Rights (SDIR) of the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development condemned the persecution of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang by the Government of China and concluded that the Chinese Communist Party's actions amount to the genocide of the Uyghurs per the Genocide Convention.

On 22 February 2021, the Canadian House of Commons voted 266-0 to approve a motion that formally recognizes China as committing genocide against its Muslim minorities. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet did not vote. China's Ambassador to Canada responded to the motion by calling the allegations of genocide and forced labor the "lie of the century." In June 2021, Canada's Senate voted 29-33 against a motion to recognize the treatment of Uyghurs as genocide and to call for the 2022 Winter Olympics to be moved out of China should such treatment continue.

United States

UN counter-terrorism chief Vladimir Voronkov visited Xinjiang in June 2019. The visit prompted anger from the U.S. State Department. The U.S. has called these visits "highly choreographed" and characterized them as having "propagated false narratives."

In 2020, the United States Congress passed the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act in reaction to the internment camps. Lawmakers also proposed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act requiring the assumption that all Xinjiang goods are made with forced labor and therefore banned. In September 2020, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security blocked imports of products from five entities in Xinjiang to combat the use of forced labor, while shelving broader proposed bans. A senior US diplomat called upon other countries to join the United States denunciations against the Chinese government's policies in Xinjiang. Senators Cornyn, Merkley, Cardin, and Rubio signed a letter to request Mike Pompeo, the United States Secretary of State, to issue a determination of genocide. The National Review reports that "U.S. government genocide determinations are an incredibly tricky thing. They require solid evidence to meet the criteria set out under the 1948 Genocide Convention." When determinations are issued there isn't much change or an effect that they will bring in the short run. Although, "there's a strong, well-documented case for a determination in this case." As of November 2020, US Senators Menendez and Cornyn are leading a bipartisan group to recognize the CCP's actions in Xinjiang as a genocide by way of a Senate resolution, which would make the United States Senate the first government to "officially recognize the situation as a genocide."

On 19 January 2021, Pompeo announced that the United States Department of State had determined that "genocide and crimes against humanity" had been perpetrated by China against the Uyghurs, with Pompeo stating: "the People's Republic of China, under the direction and control of the Chinese Communist Party, has committed genocide and crimes against humanity against the predominantly Muslim Uighurs and other ethnic and religious minority groups, including ethnic Kazakhs and Kyrgyz... [i]n the anguished cries from Xinjiang, the U.S. hears the echoes of Nazi Germany, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur." The announcement was made on the last full day of the Donald Trump presidency.

At the end of the Trump presidency, the incoming Biden administration had already declared as the Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign that such a determination should be made, and that America would continue to recognize the Xinjiang activity as a genocide. On 16 February 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden commented in a CNN town hall meeting in Wisconsin that Xi Jinping's rationale for justifying his policies, the idea that there "must be a united, tightly controlled China", derives from the fact that "Culturally, there are different norms that each country and their leaders are expected to follow." He also promised in the same meeting that "there will be repercussions for China" for its human rights violations. Some sources interpreted Biden's statements as excusing Chinese policy towards Uyghurs on cultural relativist grounds, whereas an opposite view deemed it a misrepresentation.

Middle East

Many countries in the Middle East signed a UN document defending China's human rights record. Iraq and Iran have also signed the document while Saudi Arabia and Egypt have been accused of deporting Uyghurs to China. Saudi Arabia supports China's approach in Xinjiang, and on a visit to China in 2019, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman stated, "China has the right to carry out anti-terrorism and de-extremization work for its national security." The United Arab Emirates has formally defended China's human rights records. These countries have appreciated China's respect for the principle of non-interference in other countries' affairs and have therefore placed significance on their economic and political relations.

Post-Soviet states

Russia, Belarus, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan have expressed support for China's policies in Xinjiang. Russia signed both statements at the UN (in July and October 2019) that supported China's Xinjiang policies. NPR reported that Kazakhstan and "its neighbors in the mostly Muslim region of Central Asia that have benefited from Chinese investment aren't speaking up for the Muslims inside internment camps in China".

Southeast Asia

Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and the Philippines have issued statements of support for China's policies. According to The Moscow Times, Thailand, Malaysia, and Cambodia have all deported Uyghur people at China's request. In 2020, Malaysia minister Mohd Redzuan Md Yusof said that Malaysia would not entertain requests from Beijing to extradite Uyghurs if they felt their safety was at risk.

In 2019, the Turkish Foreign Ministry issued a statement condemning what it described as China's "reintroduction of concentration camps in the 21st century" and "a great cause of shame for humanity". In response to a question regarding the reported death of Uyghur musician Abdurehim Heyit within the Xinjiang internment camps, a spokesperson for the Turkish Foreign Ministry stated that "more than one million Uyghur Turks incurring arbitrary arrests are subjected to torture and political brainwashing in internment camps and prisons".

In February 2021, authorities arrested Uyghur protesters in Ankara following a complaint by the embassy of China in Turkey. In March 2021, the Turkish parliament rejected a motion to call the Chinese government's treatment of Uyghurs a genocide.

On July 13, 2021, President Erdogan told Chinese President Xi Jinping in a bilateral telephone call that it was important to Turkey that Uyghur Muslims live in peace as "equal citizens of China" but that Turkey respected the territorial integrity and sovereignty of China.

In 2022, Turkey issued a joint statement with 49 UN member states condemning the Chinese government's persecution of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang.

In May 2021, testimony about the situation in Xinjiang to the foreign affairs committee of the Belgian chamber of representatives had to be postponed after a massive DDOS attack on the .be domain. In June 2021, the Belgian Parliament's foreign relations committee passed a motion condemning the abuses as crimes against humanity and stating that there was a "serious risk of genocide" in Xinjiang.

Czech Republic

In December 2020, France said that it would oppose the proposed Comprehensive Agreement on Investment between China and the European Union over the use of forced labour of Uyghurs.[citation needed ] In February 2021, the French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian denounced "institutionalised repression" of Uyghurs at the UNHRC. French parliament in January 2022 denounced a "genocide" by China against its Uyghur Muslim population in a resolution.

In May 2021, the Lithuanian Parliament passed a resolution recognizing that the Chinese government's human rights abuses against the Uyghurs constitute genocide.

Netherlands

Ukraine had originally signed onto a 22 June 2021 statement to the UNHRC which called for independent observers to be provided immediate access to Xinjiang, but withdrew its signature two days later. Ukrainian lawmakers later stated that China had forced the policy pivot by threatening to limit trade and block a scheduled shipment of at least 500,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses.

United Kingdom

In January 2021, The Guardian reported that the UK government "fended off an all-party effort to give the courts a chance to designate China guilty of genocide on the day that Blinken said China was intent on genocide in Xinjiang province."

In September 2019, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne stated, "I have previously raised Australia's concerns about reports of mass detentions of Uyghurs and other Muslim peoples in Xinjiang. We have consistently called for China to cease the arbitrary detention of Uyghurs and other Muslim groups. We have raised these concerns-and we will continue to raise them-both bilaterally and in relevant international meetings." In March 2021, the federal government blocked a motion by Rex Patrick to recognize China's treatment of the Uyghurs as a genocide.

New Zealand

In 2018, New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern raised the issue of Xinjiang while visiting Guangdong Party Secretary Leader Li Xi. Ardern also raised such concerns during China's periodic review at the UN in November 2018, to immediate pushback from China.

Ardern discussed Xinjiang privately with Xi Jinping during a 2019 visit to Beijing after the Christchurch mosque shootings. The New York Times accused New Zealand of tiptoeing around the issue for economic reasons as the country exports many products to China, including milk, meat, and wine.

Other reactions

Non-governmental organizations and research institutions

The Uyghur American Association previously expressed concern at the deportation of 20 Uyghur refugees from Cambodia to China in 2009, and has said that Beijing's military approach to terrorism in Xinjiang is state terrorism. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has issued statements describing the conditions in Xinjiang as crimes against humanity. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, "the Chinese government's campaign against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang is multi-faceted and systematic. It is characterized by mass detention, forced labor, and discriminatory laws, and supported through high-tech manners of surveillance."

In March 2021, the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy, a think tank at the Fairfax University of America, released a report stating that the "People's Republic of China bears State responsibility for committing genocide against the Uyghurs in breach of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide." According to the report, the determination of the "intent to destroy the Uyghurs as a group is derived from objective proof, consisting of comprehensive state policy and practice, which President Xi Jinping, the highest authority in China, set in motion." The legal analysis of the Newlines Institute concludes that the People's Republic of China is responsible for breaches of each provision of Article II of the Genocide Convention.

Human Rights Watch followed in April 2021 with a report outlining "that the Chinese government has committed-and continues to commit-crimes against humanity against the Turkic Muslim population." The report made in collaboration with the Stanford Human Rights & Conflict Resolution Clinic also sets out recommendations for concerned governments and the UN.

Uyghur Tribunal

The Uyghur Tribunal, a "people's tribunal" based in the United Kingdom, began to hold hearings in June 2021 to examine evidence in order to evaluate whether China's abuses against Uyghurs constitute genocide under the Genocide Convention. The tribunal was chaired by Geoffrey Nice, the lead prosecutor in the trial of Slobodan Milošević, who announced the creation of the tribunal in September 2020.

On 9 December 2021, the tribunal concluded that China has committed genocide against the Uyghurs via birth control and sterilization measures. The tribunal also found evidence of crimes against humanity, torture and sexual abuse. The tribunal's final determination does not legally bind any government to take action.

Multinational corporations

In reaction to the proposed Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in 2020 to impose sanctions on "any foreign person who 'knowingly engages'" and require firms to disclose their dealings with Xinjiang, the president of the American Apparel & Footwear Association said that blanket import bans on cotton or other products from Xinjiang from such legislation would "wreak havoc" on legitimate supply chains in the apparel industry because Xinjiang cotton exports are often intermingled with cotton from other countries and there is no available origin-tracing technology for cotton fibers. On September 22, 2020, the US Chamber of Commerce issued a letter stating that the act "would prove ineffective and may hinder efforts to prevent human rights abuses." Major companies with supply chain ties to Xinjiang, including Apple Inc., Nike, Inc. and The Coca-Cola Company, have lobbied Congress to weaken the legislation and amend its provisions.

In February 2021, a policy was established by 12 Japanese companies to cease business deals with some of the Chinese firms involved in or benefitting from forced labor of Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

Both Nike and Adidas have criticized human rights abuses in Xinjiang and pledged not to do business in the region; their sales in China subsequently declined. After a December 2022 report stated that nearly every global automaker had ties to Uyghur forced labor, United Auto Workers called for all automakers to cut off any supply chain links to Xinjiang.

Religious groups

In July 2020, Marie van der Zyl, the President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, pointed to similarities between the mass detention of Uyghur Muslims and concentration camps in the Holocaust. On International Holocaust Remembrance Day in January 2021, van der Zyl urged the Chinese government to step back from committing atrocities.

In December 2020, the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth Ephraim Mirvis published an op-ed in The Guardian on the occasion of Hanukkah in which he condemned the persecution of the Uyghurs and called for international action to address the "unfathomable mass atrocity" taking place in China. The Chief Rabbi generally refrains from making comments on non-Jewish political issues. Mirvis is part of a wider Jewish protest movement which has sprung up in opposition to the human rights abuses in Xinjiang, protesters are largely motivated by memories of the Holocaust and a desire to prevent a repeat of that horror. In addition to liberal British Jews who have long been involved in international human rights issue the plight of the Uyghur also draws significant interest and support from Britain's Orthodox community. According to Orthodox Rabbi Herschel Gluck "This is something that is felt very deeply by the community. They feel that if 'Never again' is a term that needs to be used, this is certainly one of the situations where it applies."

In March 2021, a group of sixteen Rabbis and a Cantor from across California's Jewish religious spectrum sent a letter to Representative Ted Lieu urging him to take action in support of the Uyghurs. The grassroots organization Jewish Movement for Uyghur Freedom works to bridge the gap between the Uyghur and Jewish communities as well as advocate on their behalf. In contrast to the earlier Save Darfur campaign major Jewish donors and organizations have tread softly due to a fear of reprisals against themselves and associated businesses by the Chinese government. Major Jewish groups which have spoken out on the Uyghur genocide or taken policy positions on it include the Union for Reform Judaism, the American Jewish Committee, the Rabbinical Assembly, the Anti-Defamation League, and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

In April 2021, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a U.S-based public policy group composed of organizations representing Reconstructionist, Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Jews, urged the Jewish community to "call upon the [Chinese Communist Party] to end the genocide and exploitation of the Uyghurs, as well as halt the oppression of other ethnic and religious minorities living within its borders."

The Chinese Consulate in Almaty, Kazakhstan has been the site of a daily protest demonstration, primarily made up of old women whose relatives are believed to be detained in China. In 2020 Uyghur protesters outside the Consulate General of China, Los Angeles were joined by activists representing Tibet, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

Regular protests from local Uyghurs have been held at Chinese diplomatic sites in Istanbul, Turkey, where several hundred Uyghur women protested on International Women's Day in March 2021. In London regular protests outside an outpost of the Chinese embassy have been organized by an Orthodox Jewish man from the local neighborhood. He has held protests at least twice a week since February 2019.

In March 2021, hundreds of Uyghurs living in Turkey protested the visit of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Istanbul by gathering both in Beyazit Square and near China's Consulate-General in Istanbul. Over two-dozen NGOs that focus on the rights of Uyghurs were involved in organizing the protests.

2022 Winter Olympics Boycott

In the aftermath of the 2019 leak of the Xinjiang papers which made public Chinese policies towards the Uyghurs, calls were made for a boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics. In a 30 July 2020 letter, the World Uyghur Congress urged the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to reconsider the decision to hold the Olympics in Beijing. In a non-binding motion in February 2021, the Canadian House of Commons called for the IOC to move the Olympics to a new location. The IOC met with activists in late 2020 about their request to move the Olympics. In March 2021, the President of the International Olympic Committee Thomas Bach opposed a boycott, which would also damage the IOC image and finances, and said that the IOC must stay out of politics. On 6 April 2021, a senior U.S. State Department official stated that the department's position "on the 2022 Olympics has not changed" and that it has not "discussed and [is] not discussing any joint boycott with allies and partners." Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, India, Kosovo, Lithuania, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States announced diplomatic boycotts of the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Legal cases

Publications

Nury Turkel published the book No Escape: The True Story of China's Genocide of the Uyghurs in 2022." The book documents the treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang and was long-listed for the 2022 Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing.

Denial of abuses

The abuses against the Uyghurs and related ethnic groups have been denied by the Chinese government. These denials have been both internal and external. The Chinese government has conducted propaganda campaigns on social media to further denial of the abuses. In 2021, the Chinese government posted thousands of videos to social media showing residents of Xinjiang denying claims of abuse made by Mike Pompeo; a joint investigation by ProPublica and The New York Times found the videos were part of an influence campaign coordinated by the government propaganda department. They have also used their existing disinformation networks, including social media trolls, to deny the Uyghur genocide.

In 2020, during an interview with Andrew Marr of the BBC, the Chinese ambassador to the UK Liu Xiaoming denied any abuse against Uyghurs despite being shown drone footage of what appeared to be shackled Uyghur, and other minority ethnic, prisoners being herded on to trains during a prison transfer. The ambassador also blamed reports of forced sterilisations on "some small group of anti-China elements". In January 2021, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Zhao Lijian responded to questions about the Uyghur genocide during a press briefing by stating, "China has no genocide; China has no genocide; China has no genocide, period." In February 2021, Wang Wenbin called the Uyghur genocide the "lie of the century".

The abuses, and the existence of the camp network, have also been denied by a small minority of American left-wing media outlets. These include a left-wing blog called LA Progressive which began publishing denial articles in April 2020, while The Grayzone has been the most influential outlet to publish articles denying "China's ongoing repression of the Uyghur people". The Grayzone has been featured by Chinese state media, including CGTN and the Global Times. In 2020, Chinese government spokesperson Hua Chunying retweeted a story published by The Grayzone which claimed to have debunked research into the internment camps in Xinjiang.

In February 2021, a Press Gazette investigation found that Facebook had accepted content from Chinese state media outlets such as China Daily and China Global Television Network that denied the mistreatment of Uyghurs.

According to anthropologist and China expert Gerald Roche, writing in , Xinjiang denialism only aids Chinese and American imperialism. He cited Donald Trump, who, according to former National Security Advisor John Bolton, believed that building internment camps was "exactly the right thing to do."

Explanatory notes

References

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Uyghur genocide Part of the Xinjiang conflict Location Xinjiang, China Date 2014-present Target Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic Muslims Internment, forced abortion, forced sterilization, forced birth control, forced labor, torture, brainwashing, alleged rape (including gang rape) Victims est.

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Operation Blue Star was an attack, ordered by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, on the Golden Temple in Amritsar. This temple is one of the most renowned locations/monuments in the Sikh Region. This resulted in 492 civilians being killed. This led the Prime Minister's two Sikh bodyguards to murder her which escalated to the death of over 3000 Sikhs within 3 days, with thousands more being violated, assaulted, and abused.

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36 years have passed since 'Operation Blue Star', when Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India, ordered an attack on the Sikh Golden Temple in June 1984. The aim was to silence demands for Sikh religious and political autonomy, and resulted in the deaths of 492 civilians. In retaliation, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her two Sikh bodyguards. The events that followed represent one of the darkest periods of modern Indian history.

THE 1984 SIKH GENOCIDE

The assassination of Indira Gandhi led to the retaliatory 1984 Sikh Genocide. Within a period of three days, almost 3000 Sikhs were murdered, and the human rights of thousands more were violated.

The 2005 Nanavti commission described the 'systematic' nature of the attacks, whereby men were beaten before being burnt alive. This therefore contradicts the common media portrayal of the 1984 events as "anti-Sikh riots", since a "riot" denotes actions that were sporadic and spontaneous. Instead, the atrocities committed are more accurately described as a genocide. Sikhs were deliberately targeted in a strategic and coordinated manner.

Congress leader Sajjan Kumar was sentenced to life imprisonment for the prominent role he played in the 1984 genocide, after being found guilty of murder and inciting violence. However, this only occurred in 2018, over three decades after the offences.

LITTLE ACCOUNTABILITY

To this day, few perpetrators of the attacks have been held accountable for their actions. The complicity of the police in the atrocities is an issue that has also not received adequate investigation. Retired police officers have admitted in interviews that they prevented victims from filing first information reports and that they aligned themselves with anti-Sikh rhetoric, facilitating the ensuing violence.

The Indian government has hindered investigations and failed to take steps to rectify the human rights abuses that took place. In 1987, the Kapoor-Mittal committee was established to investigate the role of the police in the 1984 genocide. The committee identified 72 negligent officers, and recommended that 30 of those officers be dismissed. However, no action by the government was taken to discipline or dismiss these individuals. In many instances the government closed cases due to a lack of evidence.

More recently, further concerns have arisen about the lack of police accountability and potential police brutality within India. Jagtar Singh Johal, a British citizen, was arrested by Punjab Police in November 2017 and has been detained ever since, despite no formal charges being brought against him. Other Sikh activists claim that Jagtar's arrest is due to him highlighting the events of 1984 and spreading awareness amongst younger generations through the website NeverForget84.com. Additionally, in handwritten accounts, Jagtar has described being beaten and having electric shocks administered by the police. Despite UN experts calling for India to independently investigate these allegations of torture, no independent investigation has been established.

LOOKING FORWARD

Legislative reform is vital to ensure that the police and others in positions of power can be held to account for being complicit in and facilitating such atrocities. Furthermore, legal proceedings must be taken in a transparent and objective manner to secure justice for the victims of the genocide, to ensure that nobody is exempt from the rule of law and to prevent further fundamental abuses of political power.

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The 1984 Sikh Genocide - 36 Years On - Human Rights Pulse

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36 years have passed since 'Operation Blue Star', when Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India, ordered an attack on the Sikh Golden Temple in June 1984. The aim was to silence demands for Sikh religious and political autonomy, and resulted in the deaths of 492 civilians.

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Starting in 1880s the Canadian Government systematically undermined Indigenous, First Nations, Métis and Inuit cultures across Canada and by severing the connections through which Indigenous culture is taught and sustained. This is a genocide because of the purposeful attempt from the government and church to eradicate all aspects of Indigenous cultures and lifeworlds. The last residential school was closed in the 1990s but the effects of the schools are still felt today.

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By Erin Hanson (2009), with updates and revisions by Daniel P. Gamez & Alexa Manuel (September 2020). The original version of this article has been archived, but may be accessed here. To cite this article, we have recommendations at the bottom of the page. Note on terminology: There is constant debate and reflection on the use of specific terms as umbrella categories to designate multiple Aboriginal, Indigenous, or Native peoples. For the most recent version of this article, we have decided to follow the terms Indigenous, First Nations, Métis and Inuit, or alternatively Indigenous Peoples, in the plural, following the guidelines of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the most widely accepted international instrument today. The term Indigenous Peoples can also be found in UBC's Indigenous Peoples Language Guidelines.
In this section:

What Were Residential Schools?

The term residential schools refers to an extensive school system set up by the Canadian government and administered by churches that had the nominal objective of educating Indigenous children but also the more damaging and equally explicit objectives of indoctrinating them into Euro-Canadian and Christian ways of living and assimilating them into mainstream white Canadian society. The residential school system officially operated from the 1880s into the closing decades of the 20th century. The system forcibly separated children from their families for extended periods of time and forbade them to acknowledge their Indigenous heritage and culture or to speak their own languages. Children were severely punished if these, among other, strict rules were broken. Former students of residential schools have spoken of horrendous abuse at the hands of residential school staff: physical, sexual, emotional, and psychological. Residential schools provided Indigenous students with inappropriate education, often only up to lower grades, that focused mainly on prayer and manual labour in agriculture, light industry such as woodworking, and domestic work such as laundry work and sewing.

Residential schools systematically undermined Indigenous, First Nations, Métis and Inuit cultures across Canada and disrupted families for generations, severing the ties through which Indigenous culture is taught and sustained, and contributing to a general loss of language and culture. Because they were removed from their families, many students grew up without experiencing a nurturing family life and without the knowledge and skills to raise their own families. The devastating effects of the residential schools are far-reaching and continue to have a significant impact on Indigenous communities. The residential school system is widely considered a form of genocide because of the purposeful attempt from the government and church to eradicate all aspects of Indigenous cultures and lifeworlds.

From the 1990s onward, the government and the churches involved-Anglican, Presbyterian, United, and Roman Catholic-began to acknowledge their responsibility for an education scheme that was specifically designed to "kill the Indian in the child." On June 11, 2008, the Canadian government issued a formal apology in Parliament for the damage done by the residential school system. In spite of this and other apologies, however, the effects remain.

What led to the residential schools?

The early origins of residential schools in Canada are found in the implementation of the mission system in the 1600s. The churches and European settlers brought with them the assumption that their own civilization was the pinnacle of human achievement. They interpreted the socio-cultural differences between themselves and Indigenous Peoples as "proof" that Canada's first inhabitants were ignorant, savage, and-like children-in need of guidance. They felt the need to "civilize" Indigenous Peoples. Education-a federal responsibility-became the primary means to this end.

Canadian Prime Minister John A. Macdonald commissioned journalist and politician Nicholas Flood Davin to study industrial schools for Indigenous children in the United States. Davin's recommendation to follow the U.S. example of "aggressive civilization" led to public funding for the residential school system. "If anything is to be done with the Indian, we must catch him very young. The children must be kept constantly within the circle of civilized conditions," Davin wrote in his 1879 Report on Industrial Schools for Indians and Half-Breeds (Davin's report can be read here.)

In the 1880s, in conjunction with other federal assimilation policies, the government began to establish residential schools across Canada. Authorities would frequently take children to schools far from their home communities, part of a strategy to alienate them from their families and familiar surroundings. In 1920, under the Indian Act, it became mandatory for every Indigenous child to attend a residential school and illegal for them to attend any other educational institution.

Living conditions at the residential schools

The purpose of the residential schools was to eliminate all aspects of Indigenous culture. Students had their hair cut short, they were dressed in uniforms, they were often given numbers, and their days were strictly regimented by timetables. Boys and girls were kept separate, and even siblings rarely interacted, further weakening family ties. Chief Bobby Joseph of the Indian Residential School Survivors Society recalls that he had no idea how to interact with girls and never even got to know his own sister "beyond a mere wave in the dining room." ¹ In addition, students were strictly forbidden to speak their languages-even though many children knew no other-or to practise Indigenous customs or traditions. Violations of these rules were severely punished.

Residential school students did not receive the same education as the general population in the public school system, and the schools were sorely underfunded. Teachings focused primarily on practical skills. Girls were primed for domestic service and taught to do laundry, sew, cook, and clean. Boys were taught carpentry, tinsmithing, and farming. Many students attended class part-time and worked for the school the rest of the time: girls did the housekeeping; boys, general maintenance and agriculture. This work, which was involuntary and unpaid, was presented as practical training for the students, but many of the residential schools could not run without it. With so little time spent in class, most students had only reached grade five by the time they were 18. At this point, students were sent away. Many were discouraged from pursuing further education.

Abuse at the schools was widespread: emotional and psychological abuse was constant, physical abuse was metred out as punishment, and sexual abuse was also common. Survivors recall being beaten and strapped; some students were shackled to their beds; some had needles shoved in their tongues for speaking their native languages. These abuses, along with overcrowding, poor sanitation, and severely inadequate food and health care, resulted in a shockingly high death toll. In 1907, government medical inspector P.H. Bryce reported that 24 percent of previously healthy Indigenous children across Canada were dying in residential schools. This figure does not include children who died at home, where they were frequently sent when critically ill. Bryce reported that anywhere from 47 percent (on the Peigan Reserve in Alberta) to 75 percent (from File Hills Boarding School in Saskatchewan) of students discharged from residential schools died shortly after returning home.

The extent to which the Department of Indian Affairs and church officials knew of these abuses has been debated by some. However, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) and John Milloy, among others, concluded that church and state officials were fully aware of the abuses and tragedies at the schools. Some inspectors and officials at the time expressed alarm at the horrifying death rates, yet those who spoke out and called for reform were generally met with silence and lack of support. The Department of Indian Affairs would promise to improve the schools, but the deplorable conditions persisted.

Some former students have positive memories of their time at residential schools, and certainly some might have been treated with kindness by the priests and nuns who ran the schools as best they could given the circumstances. But even these "good" experiences occurred within a system aimed at destroying Indigenous cultures and assimilating Indigenous students.

The Shift Away from Residential Schools

"Sister Marie Baptiste had a supply of sticks as long and thick as pool cues. When she heard me speak my language, she'd lift up her hands and bring the stick down on me. I've still got bumps and scars on my hands. I have to wear special gloves because the cold weather really hurts my hands. I tried very hard not to cry when I was being beaten and I can still just turn off my feelings.... And I'm lucky. Many of the men my age, they either didn't make it, committed suicide or died violent deaths, or alcohol got them. And it wasn't just my generation. My grandmother, who's in her late nineties, to this day it's too painful for her to talk about what happened to her at the school."

- Musqueam Nation former chief George Guerin,
Kuper Island school
Stolen from our Embrace, p 62

Church and state officials of the 19th century believed that Indigenous societies were disappearing and that the only hope for Indigenous people was to convert to Christianity, do away with their cultures, and become "civilized" British subjects-in short, assimilate them. By the 1950s, the same officials were doubting the viability of such project. The devastating effects of the residential schools and the needs and life experiences of Indigenous students were becoming more widely recognized. ² The government also acknowledged that removing children from their families was severely detrimental to the health of the individuals and the communities affected. In 1951, with the amendments to the Indian Act, the half-day work/school system was progressively abandoned, conceding power to the provinces to apprehend children, and transitioning from the school system to a 'child welfare system'. This time is referred to as the 'Sixties Scoop' because of the systematic removal of Indigenous children from their families without consent from their parents or authorities.

In the 1960s the drastic overrepresentation of Indigenous children in the welfare system consolidated, and authorities would constantly place Indigenous children with white middle-class families in an attempt to acculturate them. This practice, as well as the overrepresentation of Indigenous children in 'child welfare systems' continues today. In 1969, the Department of Indian Affairs took exclusive control of the system, marking an end to church involvement in residential schooling. Yet the schools remained underfunded and abuse continued, and many teachers and workers continued to lack proper credentials to carry out their responsibilities. ³

In the meantime, the government decided to phase out segregation and began incorporating Indigenous students into public schools. Although these changes saw students reaching higher levels of education, problems persisted. Many Indigenous students struggled in their adjustment to public school and to a Eurocentric system where Indigenous knowledges were excluded, fostering discrimination by their non-Indigenous peers. Post-secondary education was strongly discouraged for Indigenous students because those who wanted to attend university would have been enfranchised.

The process to phase out the residential school system and other assimilation tactics was slow and not without reversals. The residential school system in Canada lasted officially for almost 150 years, and its impacts continue on to this day. As mentioned above, the system's closure gave way to the 'Sixties Scoop,' during which thousands of Indigenous children were abducted by social services and removed from their families. The 'Scoop' spanned roughly the two decades it took to phase out the residential schools, but child apprehensions from Indigenous families continue to occur in disproportionate numbers today. In part, this is the legacy of compromised families and communities left by the residential schools.

Starting in 1969, residential schools in Canada began to decline in numbers. In 1970, the Department of Indian Affairs calculated fifty-six remaining schools, excluding the Northwest Territories. By 1980, the same institution reported sixteen, and one decade later, eleven. In 1996, Gordon Reserve Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan, the last of its kind, was closed and demolished. By 1999, the Department of Indian Affairs registered no remaining residential schools in operation. ⁴

Ongoing Impacts

"So why is it important to understand the history of genocide in Canada? Because it's not history. Today's racist government laws, policies and actions have proven to be just as deadly for Indigenous peoples as the genocidal acts of the past."

-Pamela Palmater, Mi'kmaq lawyer, professor, activist, and politician
(National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (Canada) et al. 2019, 53).

The residential school system is viewed by much of the Canadian public as part of a distant past, disassociated from today's events. In many ways, this is a misconception. The last residential school did not close its doors until 1996, and many of the leaders, teachers, parents, and grandparents of today's Indigenous communities are residential school Survivors. Although residential schools have closed, their effects remain ongoing for both Survivors and their descendants who now share in the intergenerational effects of transmitted personal trauma and loss of language, culture, traditional teachings, and mental/spiritual wellbeing.

According to the Report of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba, several generations of Indigenous Peoples were denied the development of parenting skills not only through their removal from communities and families but also from the severe lack of attention paid to the issue by school officials. ⁵ In addition, children were taught that their traditional ways were inferior, including their languages and cultures. The residential schools were operational through several generations of Indigenous Peoples so the process of healing from these damages will also take several generations -a process that has already begun, but has not been easy nor has it been simple.

The historic, intergenerational, and collective oppression of Indigenous Peoples continues to this day in the form of land disputes, over-incarceration, lack of housing, child apprehension, systemic poverty, marginalization and violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA peoples, and other critical issues which neither began nor ended with residential schools. Generations of oppressive government policies attempted to strip Indigenous Peoples of their identities not only through residential schools but also through other policies including but not limited to: the implementation and subsequent changes to the Indian Act; the mass removal of Indigenous children from their families into the child welfare system known as the Sixties Scoop; and legislations allowing forced sterilizations of Indigenous Peoples in certain provinces, a practice that has continued to be reported by Indigenous women in Canada as recently as 2018; and currently, through the modern child welfare systems which continue to disproportionately apprehend Indigenous children into foster care in what Raven Sinclair has called the Millennium Scoop. ⁶

In 2019, BC ended its practice of "birth alerts" in child welfare cases, which allowed child welfare agencies and hospitals to flag mothers deemed "high risk" without their consent -a practice which disproportionately targeted Indigenous mothers and was found to be "racist and discriminatory" and a "gross violation of the rights of the child, the mother, and the community". ⁷ One of the findings of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Report (MMIWG) asserts that the Canadian State "has used child welfare laws and agencies as a tool to oppress, displace, disrupt, and destroy Indigenous families, communities, and Nations. It is a tool in the genocide of Indigenous Peoples." ⁸ Child welfare laws and agencies, like the residential schools, effectively aided in the removal of Indigenous children from their families and continue to aid in the genocide of Indigenous Peoples.

Survivors Demand Justice
"...the Government of Canada now recognizes that it was wrong to forcibly remove children from their homes and we apologize for having done this. We now recognize that it was wrong to separate children from rich and vibrant cultures and traditions that it created a void in many lives and communities, and we apologize for having done this".

I have just one last thing to say. To all of the leaders of the Liberals, the Bloc and NDP, thank you, as well, for your words because now it is about our responsibilities today, the decisions that we make today and how they will affect seven generations from now.

My ancestors did the same seven generations ago and they tried hard to fight against you because they knew what was happening. They knew what was coming, but we have had so much impact from colonization and that is what we are dealing with today.

Women have taken the brunt of it all.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here at this moment in time to talk about those realities that we are dealing with today.

What is it that this government is going to do in the future to help our people? Because we are dealing with major human rights violations that have occurred to many generations: my language, my culture and my spirituality. I know that I want to transfer those to my children and my grandchildren, and their children, and so on.

What is going to be provided? That is my question. I know that is the question from all of us. That is what we would like to continue to work on, in partnership.

Nia:wen. Thank you.

-Beverley Jacobs, President, Native Women's Association of Canada, June 11, 2008

Read the full transcript and watch the video here.

The residential schools heavily contributed to educational, social, financial and health disparities between Indigenous Peoples and the rest of Canada, and these impacts have been intergenerational. ⁹ Despite the efforts of the residential school system and those who created and maintained it, Indigenous Peoples largely escaped complete assimilation and continue to work to regain what was lost, while also seeking justice for years of wrongdoing; including from the Canadian government, the churches, and the individuals responsible for specific cases of abuse.

It was not until the late 1980s that the Canadian legal system began to respond to allegations of abuse brought forward by Survivors, with fewer than fifty convictions coming out of more than 38,000 claims of sexual and physical abuse submitted to the independent adjudication process. ¹⁰ Notable cases include 1988's Mowatt v. Clarke, in which eight former students of St. George's Indian Residential School in Lytton, B.C., sued a priest, the government, and the Anglican Church of Canada; both the Anglican Church and the government admitted fault and agreed to a settlement. In 1995, twenty-seven Survivors from the Alberni Indian Residential School filed charges of sexual abuse against Arthur Plintwhile also holding Canada and the United Church vicariously liable. In addition to convicting Plint, the court held the federal government and the United Church responsible for the wrongs committed.
The Indian Residential School Survivors Society was formed in 1994 by the First Nations Summit in British Columbia and was officially incorporated in 2002 to provide support for survivors and communities in the province throughout the healing process and to educate the broader public. The Survivors Society provides crisis counselling, referrals, and healing initiatives, as well as acting as a resource for information, research, training, and workshops. It was clear that a similar organization was needed at the national level, and in 2005, the National Residential School Survivors Society was incorporated.
Meanwhile, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples had been interviewing individuals from Indigenous communities and nations across Canada about their experiences. The commission's report, published in 1996, brought unprecedented attention to the residential school system-many non-Indigenous Canadians did not know about this chapter in Canadian history. In 1998, based on the commission's recommendations and considering the court cases, the Canadian government publicly apologized to former students for the physical and sexual abuse they suffered in the residential schools. The Aboriginal Healing Foundation was established as a $350 million government plan to aid communities affected by the residential schools. However, some Indigenous people felt the government apology did not go far enough, since it addressed only the effects of physical and sexual abuse and not other damages caused by the residential school system.
Books & Articles Canada. Royal Commission on Indigenous Peoples. Report of the Royal Commission on Indigenous Peoples, Volume 1: Looking Forward, Looking Back. Chapter 10, "Residential Schools." Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada, 1996.
The St. George and Alberni lawsuits set a precedent for future cases, proving that the churches and the government of Canada could be sued as an entity. As the number of cases grew, a National Class Action was filed in 2002 for compensation for all former Indian Residential school Survivors and family members in Canada. In 2005, Canada and nearly 80,000 Survivors reached the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement in which Canada committed to individual compensation for Survivors, additional funding for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, and the creation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

In September 2007, while the Settlement Agreement was being put into action, the Canadian government made a motion to issue a formal apology. The motion passed unanimously. On June 11, 2008, the House of Commons gathered in a solemn ceremony to publicly apologize for the government's involvement in the residential school system and to acknowledge the widespread impact this system has had among Indigenous Peoples. You can read the official statement and responses to it by Indigenous organizations here (scroll down to " Choose a topic" and select " Apology to former students of Indian Residential Schools"). The apology was broadcast live across Canada (watch it here). Former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper issued a 'statement of apology to former students of Indian Residential Schools ', noting that

Echoing Stephen Harper, former Chief Justice of Ontario Warren Winkler also observed that the residential school system removed children

"from their families and communities to serve the purpose of carrying out a "concerted campaign to obliterate" the "habits and associations" of "Indigenous languages, traditions and beliefs," in order to accomplish "a radical re-socialization" aimed at instilling the children instead with the values of Euro-centric civilization"( Library and Archives Canada, RG10, volume 6113, le 351-10, part 1). ¹¹

The federal government's apology was met with a range of responses. Some felt that it marked a new era of positive federal government-Indigenous relations based on mutual respect, while many others felt that the apology was merely symbolic and doubted that it would change the government's relationship with Indigenous Peoples. Although apologies and acknowledgements made by governments and churches are important steps forward in reconciliation, Indigenous leaders have argued that such gestures are not enough without supportive action . Communities and residential school survivor societies are undertaking healing initiatives and providing opportunities for survivors to talk about their experiences and move forward to create a positive future for themselves, their families, and their communities.

Recommended resources

Erasmus, George. Notes on A History of the Indian Residential School System in Canada

Fournier, Suzanne and Ernie Crey. Stolen from our Embrace: The Abduction of First Nations Children and the Restoration of Indigenous Communities. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1997.

Haig-Brown, Celia. Resistance and Renewal: Surviving the Indian Residential School. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 1998. First published by Tillicum Library, 1988.

Manitoba. Public Inquiry into the Administration and Indigenous People. "Indigenous Women." Vol. 1, chap. 13, in Report of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba. Winnipeg: Public Inquiry into the Administration and Indigenous People, 1999.
Websites Apologies and Reconciliation
This chapter of the Indigenous Justice Inquiry of Manitoba's report on Indigenous people in the justice system examines how the residential school system has contributed to the abuse and discrimination that many Indigenous women face regularly.

Miller, J. R. Shingwauk's Vision. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996.

Widely regarded as one of the most comprehensive, key texts on the residential school system, in Shingwauk's Vision Miller has included the perspectives of government and church officials, school staff, and students to create a rich history of the residential school system from its original inception to its phasing out. Cree scholar Winona Wheeler calls Shingwauk's Vision "the most thorough and comprehensive study of Indian residential schools in Canada to date and most noted for its good use of a wide range of Indigenous life histories and personal reminisces" (Wheeler, "Social Relations of Indigenous Oral Histories," in Walking a Tightrope: Indigenous Peoples and their Representations, 2005. 193)

Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, Indian Residential Schools: The Nuu-Chah-Nulth Experience. Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, 1996.

Roberts, John. First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Peoples: Exploring their Past, Present, and Future. Toronto: Emond Montgomery, 2006.

Secwepemc Cultural Education Society, Behind Closed Doors: Stories from the Kamloops Indian Residential School. Penticton: Secwepemc Cultural Education Society & Theytus, 2000.

Endnotes

[1] Milloy, John S. A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the Residential School System, 1879 to 1986.University of Manitoba Press, 1999. 91-2; Fournier and Crey, Stolen from Our Embrace. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1997. 49.

[2] Royal Commission on Indigenous Peoples, Volume 1: Looking Forward, Looking Back. Chapter 10, "1.2 Changing Policies." Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada, 1996. 344-353.

[3] Milloy, John S. A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the Residential School System, 1879 to 1986. University of Manitoba Press, 1999. Xvii, 91-2.

[4] Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. 2015. Canada's Residential Schools: The History, Part 2 1939 to 2000. The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Vol. 1. 2 vols. Montreal; Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press. 103.

[5] Report of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba. 1999. The Justice System and Aboriginal People. Ch. 14 ( http://www.ajic.mb.ca/volumel/chapter14.html)

[6] National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (Canada), Marion Buller, Michèle Audette, Brian Eyolfson, and Qajaq Robinson. 2019. Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. 104; Longman, Nickita. 2018. "Examining the Sixties Scoop and Beyond." Discourse Magazine, 2018.

[7] National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (Canada), 355.

[8] National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (Canada), 355.

[9] Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. 2015. Canada's Residential Schools: The Legacy: The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Volume 5. Montréal: McGill-Queen's University Press. 3.

[10] Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. 2015. Canada's Residential Schools: The Legacy: The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Volume 5. Montréal: McGill-Queen's University Press. 7.

[11] Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. 2015. Canada's Residential Schools: The History, Part 2 1939 to 2000. The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Vol. 1. 2 vols. Montreal; Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press. 574.

To Cite This Article

MLA:
Hanson, Eric, et al."The Residential School System." Indigenous Foundations. First Nations and Indigenous Studies UBC, 2020. Website. [Date accessed].

Chicago:
Hanson, Eric, Daniel P. Games, and Alexa Manuel. "The Residential School System". Indigenous Foundations. https://indigenousfoundations.web.arts.ubc.ca/residential-school-system-2020/. (accessed Month, day, year).

APA:
Hanson, E., Gamez, D., & Manuel, A. (2020, September). The Residential School System. Indigenous Foundations. https://indigenousfoundations.web.arts.ubc.ca/residential-school-system-2020/

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By Erin Hanson (2009), with updates and revisions by Daniel P. Gamez & Alexa Manuel (September 2020). The original version of this article has been archived, but may be accessed here. To cite this article, we have recommendations at the bottom of the page.

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In the late 15th century, Christopher Columbus arrived in America on a boat. Upon his arrival, he enslaved a large portion of the indigenous people. They were beaten, raped, and tortured for the location of their gold. When the Natives naturally revolted, Columbus ordered a brutal suppression of the uprising in which many natives were killed, and then paraded their dismembered bodies through the streets in an attempt to discourage further rebellion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus#:~:text=Columbus%20executed%20Spanish%20colonists%20for,rather%20than%20face%20the%20oppression.

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Christopher Columbus (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was an Italian explorer and navigator who completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean, opening the way for the widespread European exploration and colonization of the Americas. His expeditions, sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, were the first known European contact with the Caribbean, Central America, and South America.

The name Christopher Columbus is the Anglicisation of the Latin Christophorus Columbus. Scholars generally agree that Columbus was born in the Republic of Genoa and spoke a dialect of Ligurian as his first language. He went to sea at a young age and travelled widely, as far north as the British Isles and as far south as what is now Ghana. He married Portuguese noblewoman Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, who bore his son Diego, and was based in Lisbon for several years. He later took a Castilian mistress, Beatriz Enríquez de Arana, who bore his son, Fernando (also given as Hernando).

Largely self-educated, Columbus was widely read in geography, astronomy, and history. He developed a plan to seek a western sea passage to the East Indies, hoping to profit from the lucrative spice trade. After the Granada War, and following Columbus's persistent lobbying in multiple kingdoms, the Catholic Monarchs Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand II agreed to sponsor a journey west. Columbus left Castile in August 1492 with three ships and made landfall in the Americas on 12 October, ending the period of human habitation in the Americas now referred to as the pre-Columbian era. His landing place was an island in the Bahamas, known by its native inhabitants as Guanahani. He subsequently visited the islands now known as Cuba and Hispaniola, establishing a colony in what is now Haiti. Columbus returned to Castile in early 1493, bringing a number of captured natives with him. Word of his voyage soon spread throughout Europe.

Columbus made three further voyages to the Americas, exploring the Lesser Antilles in 1493, Trinidad and the northern coast of South America in 1498, and the eastern coast of Central America in 1502. Many of the names he gave to geographical features, particularly islands, are still in use. He also gave the name indios ("Indians") to the indigenous peoples he encountered. The extent to which he was aware that the Americas were a wholly separate landmass is uncertain; he never clearly renounced his belief that he had reached the Far East. As a colonial governor, Columbus was accused by his contemporaries of significant brutality and was soon removed from the post. Columbus's strained relationship with the Crown of Castile and its appointed colonial administrators in America led to his arrest and removal from Hispaniola in 1500, and later to protracted litigation over the perquisites that he and his heirs claimed were owed to them by the crown.

Columbus's expeditions inaugurated a period of exploration, conquest, and colonization that lasted for centuries, helping create the modern Western world. The transfers between the Old World and New World that followed his first voyage are known as the Columbian exchange. Columbus was widely celebrated in the centuries after his death, but public perception has fractured in the 21st century as scholars have given greater attention to the harms committed under his governance, particularly the beginning of the depopulation of Hispaniola's indigenous Taínos caused by mistreatment and Old World diseases, as well as by that people's enslavement. Proponents of the Black Legend theory of historiography claim that Columbus has been unfairly maligned as part of a wider anti-Catholic sentiment. Many places in the Western Hemisphere bear his name, including the country of Colombia, the District of Columbia, and British Columbia.

Columbus's early life is obscure, but scholars believe he was born in the Republic of Genoa between 25 August and 31 October 1451. His father was Domenico Colombo, a wool weaver who worked in Genoa and Savona and who also owned a cheese stand at which young Christopher worked as a helper. His mother was Susanna Fontanarossa. He had three brothers- Bartolomeo, Giovanni Pellegrino, and Giacomo (also called Diego)-as well as a sister named Bianchinetta. His brother Bartolomeo ran a cartography workshop in Lisbon for at least part of his adulthood.

His native language is presumed to have been a Genoese dialect although Columbus probably never wrote in that language. His name in the 16th-century Genoese language was Cristoffa Corombo ( Ligurian pronunciation: [kriˈʃtɔffa kuˈɹuŋbu]). His name in Italian is Cristoforo Colombo, and in Spanish Cristóbal Colón.

In one of his writings, he says he went to sea at the age of fourteen. In 1470, the Colombo family moved to Savona, where Domenico took over a tavern. Some modern authors have argued that he was not from Genoa but, instead, from the Aragon region of Spain or from Portugal. These competing hypotheses generally have been discounted by mainstream scholars.

In 1473, Columbus began his apprenticeship as business agent for the wealthy Spinola, Centurione, and Di Negro families of Genoa. Later, he made a trip to Chios, an Aegean island then ruled by Genoa. In May 1476, he took part in an armed convoy sent by Genoa to carry valuable cargo to northern Europe. He probably visited Bristol, England, and Galway, Ireland, where he may have visited St. Nicholas Collegiate Church. It has been speculated that he had also gone to Iceland in 1477, although many scholars doubt it. It is known that in the autumn of 1477, he sailed on a Portuguese ship from Galway to Lisbon, where he found his brother Bartolomeo, and they continued trading for the Centurione family. Columbus based himself in Lisbon from 1477 to 1485. In 1478, the Centuriones sent Columbus on a sugar-buying trip to Madeira. He married Felipa Perestrello e Moniz, daughter of Bartolomeu Perestrello, a Portuguese nobleman of Lombard origin, who had been the donatary captain of Porto Santo.

In 1479 or 1480, Columbus's son Diego was born. Between 1482 and 1485, Columbus traded along the coasts of West Africa, reaching the Portuguese trading post of Elmina at the Guinea coast (in present-day Ghana). Before 1484, Columbus returned to Porto Santo to find that his wife had died. He returned to Portugal to settle her estate and take his son Diego with him. He left Portugal for Castile in 1485, where he found a mistress in 1487, a 20-year-old orphan named Beatriz Enríquez de Arana.

Being ambitious, Columbus eventually learned Latin, Portuguese, and Castilian. He read widely about astronomy, geography, and history, including the works of Claudius Ptolemy, Pierre Cardinal d'Ailly's Imago Mundi, the travels of Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville, Pliny's Natural History, and Pope Pius II's Historia Rerum Ubique Gestarum. According to historian Edmund Morgan,

Columbus was not a scholarly man. Yet he studied these books, made hundreds of marginal notations in them and came out with ideas about the world that were characteristically simple and strong and sometimes wrong ...

Quest for Asia

Background

Under the Mongol Empire's hegemony over Asia and the Pax Mongolica, Europeans had long enjoyed a safe land passage on the Silk Road to parts of East Asia (including China) and Maritime Southeast Asia, which were sources of valuable goods. With the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453, the Silk Road was closed to Christian traders.

In 1474, the Florentine astronomer Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli suggested to King Afonso V of Portugal that sailing west across the Atlantic would be a quicker way to reach the Maluku (Spice) Islands, China, and Japan than the route around Africa, but Afonso rejected his proposal. In the 1480s, Columbus and his brother proposed a plan to reach the East Indies by sailing west. Columbus supposedly wrote Toscanelli in 1481 and received encouragement, along with a copy of a map the astronomer had sent Afonso implying that a westward route to Asia was possible. Columbus's plans were complicated by the opening of the Cape Route to Asia around Africa in 1488.

Carol Delaney and other commentators have argued that Columbus was a Christian millennialist and apocalypticist and that these beliefs motivated his quest for Asia in a variety of ways. Columbus often wrote about seeking gold in the log books of his voyages and writes about acquiring the precious metal "in such quantity that the sovereigns... will undertake and prepare to go conquer the Holy Sepulcher" in a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. Columbus also often wrote about converting all races to Christianity. Abbas Hamandi argues that Columbus was motivated by the hope of "[delivering] Jerusalem from Muslim hands" by "using the resources of newly discovered lands".

Geographical considerations

Despite a popular misconception to the contrary, nearly all educated Westerners of Columbus's time knew that the Earth is spherical, a concept that had been understood since antiquity. The techniques of celestial navigation, which uses the position of the Sun and the stars in the sky, had long been in use by astronomers and were beginning to be implemented by mariners.

As far back as the 3rd century BC, Eratosthenes had correctly computed the circumference of the Earth by using simple geometry and studying the shadows cast by objects at two remote locations. In the 1st century BC, Posidonius confirmed Eratosthenes's results by comparing stellar observations at two separate locations. These measurements were widely known among scholars, but Ptolemy's use of the smaller, old-fashioned units of distance led Columbus to underestimate the size of the Earth by about a third.

From Pierre d'Ailly's Imago Mundi (1410), Columbus learned of Alfraganus's estimate that a degree of latitude (equal to approximately a degree of longitude along the equator) spanned 56.67 Arabic miles (equivalent to 66.2 nautical miles, 122.6 kilometers or 76.2 mi), but he did not realize that this was expressed in the Arabic mile (about 1,830 meters or 1.14 mi) rather than the shorter Roman mile (about 1,480 m) with which he was familiar. Columbus therefore estimated the size of the Earth to be about 75% of Eratosthenes's calculation, and the distance westward from the Canary Islands to the Indies as only 68 degrees, equivalent to 3,080 nmi (5,700 km; 3,540 mi) (a 58% margin of error).

Most scholars of the time accepted Ptolemy's estimate that Eurasia spanned 180° longitude, rather than the actual 130° (to the Chinese mainland) or 150° (to Japan at the latitude of Spain). Columbus believed an even higher estimate, leaving a smaller percentage for water. In d'Ailly's Imago Mundi, Columbus read Marinus of Tyre's estimate that the longitudinal span of Eurasia was 225° at the latitude of Rhodes. Some historians, such as Samuel Morison, have suggested that he followed the statement in the apocryphal book 2 Esdras ( 6:42) that "six parts [of the globe] are habitable and the seventh is covered with water." He was also aware of Marco Polo's claim that Japan (which he called "Cipangu") was some 2,414 km (1,500 mi) to the east of China ("Cathay"), and closer to the equator than it is. He was influenced by Toscanelli's idea that there were inhabited islands even farther to the east than Japan, including the mythical Antillia, which he thought might lie not much farther to the west than the Azores.

Based on his sources, Columbus estimated a distance of 2,400 nmi (4,400 km; 2,800 mi) from the Canary Islands west to Japan; the actual distance is 10,600 nmi (19,600 km; 12,200 mi). No ship in the 15th century could have carried enough food and fresh water for such a long voyage, and the dangers involved in navigating through the uncharted ocean would have been formidable. Most European navigators reasonably concluded that a westward voyage from Europe to Asia was unfeasible. The Catholic Monarchs, however, having completed the Reconquista, an expensive war in the Iberian Peninsula, were eager to obtain a competitive edge over other European countries in the quest for trade with the Indies. Columbus's project, though far-fetched, held the promise of such an advantage.

Nautical considerations

Though Columbus was wrong about the number of degrees of longitude that separated Europe from the Far East and about the distance that each degree represented, he did take advantage of the trade winds, which would prove to be the key to his successful navigation of the Atlantic Ocean. He planned to first sail to the Canary Islands before continuing west with the northeast trade wind. Part of the return to Spain would require traveling against the wind using an arduous sailing technique called beating, during which progress is made very slowly. To effectively make the return voyage, Columbus would need to follow the curving trade winds northeastward to the middle latitudes of the North Atlantic, where he would be able to catch the " westerlies" that blow eastward to the coast of Western Europe.

The navigational technique for travel in the Atlantic appears to have been exploited first by the Portuguese, who referred to it as the volta do mar ('turn of the sea'). Through his marriage to his first wife, Felipa Perestrello, Columbus had access to the nautical charts and logs that had belonged to her deceased father, Bartolomeu Perestrello, who had served as a captain in the Portuguese navy under Prince Henry the Navigator. In the mapmaking shop where he worked with his brother Bartolomeo, Columbus also had ample opportunity to hear the stories of old seamen about their voyages to the western seas, but his knowledge of the Atlantic wind patterns was still imperfect at the time of his first voyage. By sailing due west from the Canary Islands during hurricane season, skirting the so-called horse latitudes of the mid-Atlantic, he risked being becalmed and running into a tropical cyclone, both of which he avoided by chance.

Quest for financial support for a voyage

By about 1484, Columbus proposed his planned voyage to King John II of Portugal. The king submitted Columbus's proposal to his advisors, who rejected it, correctly, on the grounds that Columbus's estimate for a voyage of 2,400 nmi was only a quarter of what it should have been. In 1488, Columbus again appealed to the court of Portugal, and John II again granted him an audience. That meeting also proved unsuccessful, in part because not long afterwards Bartolomeu Dias returned to Portugal with news of his successful rounding of the southern tip of Africa (near the Cape of Good Hope).

Columbus sought an audience with the monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, who had united several kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula by marrying and were now ruling together. On 1 May 1486, permission having been granted, Columbus presented his plans to Queen Isabella, who, in turn, referred it to a committee. The learned men of Spain, like their counterparts in Portugal, replied that Columbus had grossly underestimated the distance to Asia. They pronounced the idea impractical and advised the Catholic Monarchs to pass on the proposed venture. To keep Columbus from taking his ideas elsewhere, and perhaps to keep their options open, the sovereigns gave him an allowance, totaling about 14,000 for the year, or about the annual salary of a sailor. In May 1489, the queen sent him another 10,000 maravedis, and the same year the monarchs furnished him with a letter ordering all cities and towns under their dominion to provide him food and lodging at no cost.

Columbus also dispatched his brother Bartolomeo to the court of Henry VII of England to inquire whether the English crown might sponsor his expedition, but he was captured by pirates en route, and only arrived in early 1491. By that time, Columbus had retreated to La Rábida Friary, where the Spanish crown sent him 20,000 maravedis to buy new clothes and instructions to return to the Spanish court for renewed discussions.

Agreement with the Spanish crown

Columbus waited at King Ferdinand's camp until Ferdinand and Isabella conquered Granada, the last Muslim stronghold on the Iberian Peninsula, in January 1492. A council led by Isabella's confessor, Hernando de Talavera, found Columbus's proposal to reach the Indies implausible. Columbus had left for France when Ferdinand intervened, first sending Talavera and Bishop Diego Deza to appeal to the queen. Isabella was finally convinced by the king's clerk Luis de Santángel, who argued that Columbus would take his ideas elsewhere, and offered to help arrange the funding. Isabella then sent a royal guard to fetch Columbus, who had traveled 2 leagues (over 10 km) toward Córdoba.

In the April 1492 " Capitulations of Santa Fe", King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella promised Columbus that if he succeeded he would be given the rank of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and appointed Viceroy and Governor of all the new lands he might claim for Spain. He had the right to nominate three persons, from whom the sovereigns would choose one, for any office in the new lands. He would be entitled to 10% () of all the revenues from the new lands in perpetuity. He also would have the option of buying one-eighth interest in any commercial venture in the new lands, and receive one-eighth ( ochavo) of the profits.

In 1500, during his third voyage to the Americas, Columbus was arrested and dismissed from his posts. He and his sons, Diego and Fernando, then conducted a lengthy series of court cases against the Castilian crown, known as the pleitos colombinos, alleging that the Crown had illegally reneged on its contractual obligations to Columbus and his heirs. The Columbus family had some success in their first litigation, as a judgment of 1511 confirmed Diego's position as viceroy but reduced his powers. Diego resumed litigation in 1512, which lasted until 1536, and further disputes initiated by heirs continued until 1790.

Between 1492 and 1504, Columbus completed four round-trip voyages between Spain and the Americas, each voyage being sponsored by the Crown of Castile. On his first voyage he reached the Americas, initiating the European exploration and colonization of the continent, as well as the Columbian exchange. His role in history is thus important to the Age of Discovery, Western history, and human history writ large.

In Columbus's letter on the first voyage, published following his first return to Spain, he claimed that he had reached Asia, as previously described by Marco Polo and other Europeans. Over his subsequent voyages, Columbus refused to acknowledge that the lands he visited and claimed for Spain were not part of Asia, in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary. This might explain, in part, why the American continent was named after the Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci-who received credit for recognizing it as a " New World"-and not after Columbus.

First voyage (1492-1493)

On the evening of 3 August 1492, Columbus departed from Palos de la Frontera with three ships. The largest was a carrack, the Santa María, owned and captained by Juan de la Cosa, and under Columbus's direct command. The other two were smaller caravels, the and the , piloted by the Pinzón brothers. Columbus first sailed to the Canary Islands. There he restocked provisions and made repairs then departed from San Sebastián de La Gomera on 6 September, for what turned out to be a five-week voyage across the ocean.

On 7 October, the crew spotted "[i]mmense flocks of birds". On 11 October, Columbus changed the fleet's course to due west, and sailed through the night, believing land was soon to be found. At around 02:00 the following morning, a lookout on the Pinta, Rodrigo de Triana, spotted land. The captain of the Pinta, Martín Alonso Pinzón, verified the sight of land and alerted Columbus. Columbus later maintained that he had already seen a light on the land a few hours earlier, thereby claiming for himself the lifetime pension promised by Ferdinand and Isabella to the first person to sight land. Columbus called this island (in what is now the Bahamas) San Salvador (meaning "Holy Savior"); the natives called it Guanahani. Christopher Columbus's journal entry of 12 October 1492 states:

I saw some who had marks of wounds on their bodies and I made signs to them asking what they were; and they showed me how people from other islands nearby came there and tried to take them, and how they defended themselves; and I believed and believe that they come here from tierra firme to take them captive. They should be good and intelligent servants, for I see that they say very quickly everything that is said to them; and I believe they would become Christians very easily, for it seemed to me that they had no religion. Our Lord pleasing, at the time of my departure I will take six of them from here to Your Highnesses in order that they may learn to speak.

Columbus called the inhabitants of the lands that he visited Los Indios (Spanish for "Indians"). He initially encountered the Lucayan, Taíno, and Arawak peoples. Noting their gold ear ornaments, Columbus took some of the Arawaks prisoner and insisted that they guide him to the source of the gold. Columbus observed that their primitive weapons and military tactics made the natives susceptible to easy conquest, writing, "the people here are simple in war-like matters ... I could conquer the whole of them with fifty men, and govern them as I pleased."

Columbus also explored the northeast coast of Cuba, where he landed on 28 October. On the night of 26 November, Martín Alonso Pinzón took the Pinta on an unauthorized expedition in search of an island called "Babeque" or "Baneque", which the natives had told him was rich in gold. Columbus, for his part, continued to the northern coast of Hispaniola, where he landed on 6 December. There, the Santa María ran aground on 25 December 1492 and had to be abandoned. The wreck was used as a target for cannon fire to impress the native peoples. Columbus was received by the native Guacanagari, who gave him permission to leave some of his men behind. Columbus left 39 men, including the interpreter Luis de Torres, and founded the settlement of La Navidad, in present-day Haiti. Columbus took more natives prisoner and continued his exploration. He kept sailing along the northern coast of Hispaniola with a single ship until he encountered Pinzón and the Pinta on 6 January.

On 13 January 1493, Columbus made his last stop of this voyage in the Americas, in the Bay of Rincón in northeast Hispaniola. There he encountered the Ciguayos, the only natives who offered violent resistance during this voyage. The Ciguayos refused to trade the amount of bows and arrows that Columbus desired; in the ensuing clash one Ciguayo was stabbed in the buttocks and another wounded with an arrow in his chest. Because of these events, Columbus called the inlet the Golfo de Las Flechas ( Bay of Arrows).

Columbus headed for Spain on the Niña, but a storm separated him from the Pinta, and forced the Niña to stop at the island of Santa Maria in the Azores. Half of his crew went ashore to say prayers of thanksgiving in a chapel for having survived the storm. But while praying, they were imprisoned by the governor of the island, ostensibly on suspicion of being pirates. After a two-day standoff, the prisoners were released, and Columbus again set sail for Spain.

Another storm forced Columbus into the port at Lisbon. From there he went to Vale do Paraíso north of Lisbon to meet King John II of Portugal, who told Columbus that he believed the voyage to be in violation of the 1479 Treaty of Alcáçovas. After spending more than a week in Portugal, Columbus set sail for Spain. Returning to Palos on 15 March 1493, he was given a hero's welcome and soon afterward received by Isabella and Ferdinand in Barcelona.

Columbus's letter on the first voyage, dispatched to the Spanish court, was instrumental in spreading the news throughout Europe about his voyage. Almost immediately after his arrival in Spain, printed versions began to appear, and word of his voyage spread rapidly. Most people initially believed that he had reached Asia. The Bulls of Donation, three papal bulls of Pope Alexander VI delivered in 1493, purported to grant overseas territories to Portugal and the Catholic Monarchs of Spain. They were replaced by the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494.

Second voyage (1493-1496)

On 24 September 1493, Columbus sailed from Cádiz with 17 ships, and supplies to establish permanent colonies in the Americas. He sailed with nearly 1,500 men, including sailors, soldiers, priests, carpenters, stonemasons, metalworkers, and farmers. Among the expedition members were Alvarez Chanca, a physician who wrote a detailed account of the second voyage; Juan Ponce de León, the first governor of Puerto Rico and Florida; the father of Bartolomé de las Casas; Juan de la Cosa, a cartographer who is credited with making the first world map depicting the New World; and Columbus's youngest brother Diego. The fleet stopped at the Canary Islands to take on more supplies, and set sail again on 7 October, deliberately taking a more southerly course than on the first voyage.

On 3 November, they arrived in the Windward Islands; the first island they encountered was named Dominica by Columbus, but not finding a good harbor there, they anchored off a nearby smaller island, which he named Mariagalante, now a part of Guadeloupe and called Marie-Galante. Other islands named by Columbus on this voyage were Montserrat, Antigua, Saint Martin, the Virgin Islands, as well as many others.

On 22 November, Columbus returned to Hispaniola to visit La Navidad, where 39 Spaniards had been left during the first voyage. Columbus found the fort in ruins, destroyed by the Taínos after some of the Spaniards reportedly antagonized their hosts with their unrestrained lust for gold and women. Columbus then established a poorly located and short-lived settlement to the east, La Isabela, in the present-day Dominican Republic.

From April to August 1494, Columbus explored Cuba and Jamaica, then returned to Hispaniola. By the end of 1494, disease and famine had killed two-thirds of the Spanish settlers. Columbus implemented encomienda, a Spanish labor system that rewarded conquerors with the labor of conquered non-Christian people. Columbus executed Spanish colonists for minor crimes, and used dismemberment as punishment. Columbus and the colonists enslaved the indigenous people, including children. Natives were beaten, raped, and tortured for the location of imagined gold. Thousands committed suicide rather than face the oppression.

In February 1495, Columbus rounded up about 1,500 Arawaks, some of whom had rebelled, in a great slave raid. About 500 of the strongest were shipped to Spain as slaves, with about two hundred of those dying en route.

In June 1495, the Spanish crown sent ships and supplies to Hispaniola. In October, Florentine merchant Gianotto Berardi, who had won the contract to provision the fleet of Columbus's second voyage and to supply the colony on Hispaniola, received almost 40,000 worth of enslaved Indians. He renewed his effort to get supplies to Columbus, and was working to organize a fleet when he suddenly died in December. On 10 March 1496, having been away about 30 months, the fleet departed La Isabela. On 8 June the crew sighted land somewhere between Lisbon and Cape St. Vincent, and disembarked in Cádiz on 11 June.

Third voyage (1498-1500)

On 30 May 1498, Columbus left with six ships from Sanlúcar, Spain. The fleet called at Madeira and the Canary Islands, where it divided in two, with three ships heading for Hispaniola and the other three vessels, commanded by Columbus, sailing south to the Cape Verde Islands and then westward across the Atlantic. It is probable that this expedition was intended at least partly to confirm rumors of a large continent south of the Caribbean Sea, that is, South America.

On 31 July they sighted Trinidad, the most southerly of the Caribbean islands. On 5 August, Columbus sent several small boats ashore on the southern side of the Paria Peninsula in what is now Venezuela, near the mouth of the Orinoco river. This was the first recorded landing of Europeans on the mainland of South America, which Columbus realized must be a continent. The fleet then sailed to the islands of Chacachacare and Margarita, reaching the latter on 14 August, and sighted Tobago and Grenada from afar, according to some scholars.

On 19 August, Columbus returned to Hispaniola. There he found settlers in rebellion against his rule, and his unfulfilled promises of riches. Columbus had some of the Europeans tried for their disobedience; at least one rebel leader was hanged.

In October 1499, Columbus sent two ships to Spain, asking the Court of Spain to appoint a royal commissioner to help him govern. By this time, accusations of tyranny and incompetence on the part of Columbus had also reached the Court. The sovereigns sent Francisco de Bobadilla, a relative of Marquesa Beatriz de Bobadilla, a patron of Columbus and a close friend of Queen Isabella, to investigate the accusations of brutality made against the Admiral. Arriving in Santo Domingo while Columbus was away, Bobadilla was immediately met with complaints about all three Columbus brothers. He moved into Columbus's house and seized his property, took depositions from the Admiral's enemies, and declared himself governor.

Bobadilla reported to Spain that Columbus once punished a man found guilty of stealing corn by having his ears and nose cut off and then selling him into slavery. He claimed that Columbus regularly used torture and mutilation to govern Hispaniola. Testimony recorded in the report stated that Columbus congratulated his brother Bartolomeo on "defending the family" when the latter ordered a woman paraded naked through the streets and then had her tongue cut because she had "spoken ill of the admiral and his brothers". The document also describes how Columbus put down native unrest and revolt: he first ordered a brutal suppression of the uprising in which many natives were killed, and then paraded their dismembered bodies through the streets in an attempt to discourage further rebellion. Columbus vehemently denied the charges. The neutrality and accuracy of the accusations and investigations of Bobadilla toward Columbus and his brothers have been disputed by historians, given the anti-Italian sentiment of the Spaniards and Bobadilla's desire to take over Columbus's position.

In early October 1500, Columbus and Diego presented themselves to Bobadilla, and were put in chains aboard La Gorda, the caravel on which Bobadilla had arrived at Santo Domingo. They were returned to Spain, and languished in jail for six weeks before King Ferdinand ordered their release. Not long after, the king and queen summoned the Columbus brothers to the Alhambra palace in Granada. The sovereigns expressed indignation at Bobadilla's actions, who was then recalled and ordered to make restitutions of the property he had confiscated from Columbus. The royal couple heard the brothers' pleas; restored their freedom and wealth; and, after much persuasion, agreed to fund Columbus's fourth voyage. However, Nicolás de Ovando was to replace Bobadilla and be the new governor of the West Indies.

New light was shed on the seizure of Columbus and his brother Bartolomeo, the Adelantado, with the discovery by archivist Isabel Aguirre of an incomplete copy of the testimonies against them gathered by Francisco de Bobadilla at Santo Domingo in 1500. She found a manuscript copy of this pesquisa (inquiry) ‌in the Archive of Simancas, Spain, uncatalogued until she and Consuelo Varela published their book, La caída de Cristóbal Colón: el juicio de Bobadilla ( The fall of Christopher Colón: the judgement of Bobadilla) in 2006.

Fourth voyage (1502-1504)

On 9 May 1502 Columbus, with his brother Bartolomeo as second in command and his son Fernando, left Cádiz with his flagship Santa María and three other vessels, crewed by 140 men (Some scholars, including Sauer, say the fleet sailed 11 May; Cook says 9 May). He sailed to Arzila on the Moroccan coast to rescue Portuguese soldiers said to be besieged by the Moors. The siege had been lifted by the time they arrived, so the Spaniards stayed only a day and continued on to the Canary Islands.

On 15 June, the fleet arrived at Martinique, where it lingered for several days. A hurricane was forming, so Columbus continued westward, hoping to find shelter on Hispaniola. He arrived at Santo Domingo on 29 June, but was denied port, and the new governor Francisco de Bobadilla refused to listen to his warning that a hurricane was approaching. Instead, while Columbus's ships sheltered at the mouth of the Rio Jaina, the first Spanish treasure fleet sailed into the hurricane. Columbus's ships survived with only minor damage, while 20 of the 30 ships in the governor's fleet were lost along with 500 lives (including that of Francisco de Bobadilla). Although a few surviving ships managed to straggle back to Santo Domingo, Aguja, the fragile ship carrying Columbus's personal belongings and his 4,000 pesos in gold was the sole vessel to reach Spain. The gold was his tenth ( décimo) of the profits from Hispaniola, equal to 240,000 maravedis, guaranteed by the Catholic Monarchs in 1492.

After a brief stop at Jamaica, Columbus sailed to Central America, arriving at the coast of Honduras on 30 July. Here Bartolomeo found native merchants and a large canoe. On 14 August, Columbus landed on the continental mainland at Punta Caxinas, now Puerto Castilla, Honduras. He spent two months exploring the coasts of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, seeking a strait in the western Caribbean through which he could sail to the Indian Ocean. Sailing south along the Nicaraguan coast, he found a channel that led into Almirante Bay in Panama on 5 October.

As soon as his ships anchored in Almirante Bay, Columbus encountered Ngäbe people in canoes who were wearing gold ornaments. In January 1503, he established a garrison at the mouth of the Belén River. Columbus left for Hispaniola on 16 April. On 10 May he sighted the Cayman Islands, naming them " Las Tortugas" after the numerous sea turtles there. His ships sustained damage in a storm off the coast of Cuba. Unable to travel farther, on 25 June 1503 they were beached in Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica.

For six months Columbus and 230 of his men remained stranded on Jamaica. Diego Méndez de Segura, who had shipped out as a personal secretary to Columbus, and a Spanish shipmate called Bartolomé Flisco, along with six natives, paddled a canoe to get help from Hispaniola. The governor, Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres, detested Columbus and obstructed all efforts to rescue him and his men. In the meantime Columbus, in a desperate effort to induce the natives to continue provisioning him and his hungry men, won their favor by predicting a lunar eclipse for 29 February 1504, using Abraham Zacuto's astronomical charts. Help finally arrived, no thanks to the governor, on 28 June 1504, and Columbus and his men arrived in Sanlúcar, Spain, on 7 November.

Later life, illness, and death

Columbus had always claimed that the conversion of non-believers was one reason for his explorations, and he grew increasingly religious in his later years. Probably with the assistance of his son Diego and his friend the Carthusian monk Gaspar Gorricio, Columbus produced two books during his later years: a Book of Privileges (1502), detailing and documenting the rewards from the Spanish Crown to which he believed he and his heirs were entitled, and a Book of Prophecies (1505), in which passages from the Bible were used to place his achievements as an explorer in the context of Christian eschatology.

In his later years, Columbus demanded that the Spanish Crown give him his tenth of all the riches and trade goods yielded by the new lands, as stipulated in the Capitulations of Santa Fe. Because he had been relieved of his duties as governor, the crown did not feel bound by that contract and his demands were rejected. After his death, his heirs sued the Crown for a part of the profits from trade with America, as well as other rewards. This led to a protracted series of legal disputes known as the pleitos colombinos ("Columbian lawsuits").

During a violent storm on his first return voyage, Columbus, then 41, had suffered an attack of what was believed at the time to be gout. In subsequent years, he was plagued with what was thought to be influenza and other fevers, bleeding from the eyes, temporary blindness and prolonged attacks of gout. The attacks increased in duration and severity, sometimes leaving Columbus bedridden for months at a time, and culminated in his death 14 years later.

Based on Columbus's lifestyle and the described symptoms, some modern commentators suspect that he suffered from reactive arthritis, rather than gout. Reactive arthritis is a joint inflammation caused by intestinal bacterial infections or after acquiring certain sexually transmitted diseases (primarily chlamydia or gonorrhea). In 2006, Frank C. Arnett, a medical doctor, and historian Charles Merrill, published their paper in The American Journal of the Medical Sciences proposing that Columbus had a form of reactive arthritis; Merrill made the case in that same paper that Columbus was the son of Catalans and his mother possibly a member of a prominent converso (converted Jew) family. "It seems likely that [Columbus] acquired reactive arthritis from food poisoning on one of his ocean voyages because of poor sanitation and improper food preparation," says Arnett, a rheumatologist and professor of internal medicine, pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston.

Some historians such as H. Micheal Tarver and Emily Slape, as well as medical doctors such as Arnett and Antonio Rodríguez Cuartero, believe that Columbus had such a form of reactive arthritis, but according to other authorities, this is "speculative", or "very speculative".

After his arrival to Sanlúcar from his fourth voyage (and Queen Isabella's death), an ill Columbus settled in Seville in April 1505. He stubbornly continued to make pleas to the crown to defend his own personal privileges and his family's. He moved to Segovia (where the court was at the time) on a mule by early 1506, and, on the occasion of the wedding of King Ferdinand with Germaine of Foix in Valladolid, Spain, in March 1506, Columbus moved to that city to persist with his demands. On 20 May 1506, aged 54, Columbus died in Valladolid.

Location of remains

Columbus's remains were first buried at a convent in Valladolid, then moved to the monastery of La Cartuja in Seville (southern Spain) by the will of his son Diego. They may have been exhumed in 1513 and interred at the Seville Cathedral. In about 1536, the remains of both Columbus and his son Diego were moved to a cathedral in Colonial Santo Domingo, in the present-day Dominican Republic; Columbus had requested to be buried on the island. By some accounts, in 1793, when France took over the entire island of Hispaniola, Columbus's remains were moved to Havana, Cuba. After Cuba became independent following the Spanish-American War in 1898, at least some of these remains were moved back to the Seville Cathedral, where they were placed on an elaborate catafalque. In June 2003, DNA samples were taken from these remains as well as those of Columbus's brother Diego and younger son Fernando. Initial observations suggested that the bones did not appear to match Columbus's physique or age at death. DNA extraction proved difficult; only short fragments of mitochondrial DNA could be isolated. These matched corresponding DNA from Columbus's brother, supporting that both individuals had shared the same mother. Such evidence, together with anthropologic and historic analyses, led the researchers to conclude that the remains belonged to Christopher Columbus.

In 1877, a priest discovered a lead box at Santo Domingo inscribed: "Discoverer of America, First Admiral". Inscriptions found the next year read "Last of the remains of the first admiral, Sire Christopher Columbus, discoverer." The box contained bones of an arm and a leg, as well as a bullet. These remains were considered legitimate by physician and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State John Eugene Osborne, who suggested in 1913 that they travel through the Panama Canal as a part of its opening ceremony. These remains were kept at the Basilica Cathedral of Santa María la Menor before being moved to the Columbus Lighthouse (inaugurated in 1992). The authorities in Santo Domingo have never allowed these remains to be DNA-tested, so it is unconfirmed whether they are from Columbus's body as well.

Commemoration

The figure of Columbus was not ignored in the British colonies during the colonial era: Columbus became a unifying symbol early in the history of the colonies that became the United States when Puritan preachers began to use his life story as a model for a "developing American spirit". In the spring of 1692, Puritan preacher Cotton Mather described Columbus's voyage as one of three shaping events of the modern age, connecting Columbus's voyage and the Puritans' migration to North America, seeing them together as the key to a grand design.

The use of Columbus as a founding figure of New World nations spread rapidly after the American Revolution. This was out of a desire to develop a national history and founding myth with fewer ties to Britain. His name was the basis for the female national personification of the United States, Columbia, in use since the 1730s with reference to the original Thirteen Colonies, and also a historical name applied to the Americas and to the New World. The federal capital ( District of Columbia) was named for her, as well as Columbia, South Carolina, and Columbia Rediviva, the ship for which the Columbia River was named.

Columbus's name was given to the newly born Republic of Colombia in the early 19th century, inspired by the political project of "Colombeia" developed by revolutionary Francisco de Miranda, which was put at the service of the emancipation of continental Hispanic America.

To commemorate the 400th anniversary of the landing of Columbus, the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago was named the World's Columbian Exposition. The U.S. Postal Service issued the first U.S. commemorative stamps, the Columbian Issue, depicting Columbus, Queen Isabella and others in various stages of his several voyages. The policies related to the celebration of the Spanish colonial empire as the vehicle of a nationalist project undertaken in Spain during the Restoration in the late 19th century took form with the commemoration of the 4th centenary on 12 October 1892 (in which the figure of Columbus was extolled by the Conservative government), eventually becoming the very same national day. Several monuments commemorating the "discovery" were erected in cities such as Palos, Barcelona, Granada, Madrid, Salamanca, Valladolid and Seville in the years around the 400th anniversary.

For the Columbus Quincentenary in 1992, a second Columbian issue was released jointly with Italy, Portugal, and Spain. Columbus was celebrated at Seville Expo '92, and Genoa Expo '92.

In many countries of the Americas, as well as Spain and Italy, Columbus Day celebrates the anniversary of Columbus's arrival in the Americas on 12 October 1492.

The voyages of Columbus are considered a turning point in human history, marking the beginning of globalization and accompanying demographic, commercial, economic, social, and political changes.

His explorations resulted in permanent contact between the two hemispheres, and the term " pre-Columbian" is used to refer to the cultures of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus and his European successors. The ensuing Columbian exchange saw the massive exchange of animals, plants, fungi, diseases, technologies, mineral wealth and ideas.

In the first century after his endeavors, Columbus's figure largely languished in the backwaters of history, and his reputation was beset by his failures as a colonial administrator. His legacy was somewhat rescued from oblivion when he began to appear as a character in Italian and Spanish plays and poems from the late 16th century onward.

Columbus was subsumed into the Western narrative of colonization and empire building, which invoked notions of translatio imperii and translatio studii to underline who was considered "civilized" and who was not.

The Americanization of the figure of Columbus began in the latter decades of the 18th century, after the revolutionary period of the United States, elevating the status of his reputation to a national myth, homo americanus. His landing became a powerful icon as an "image of American genesis". The American Columbus myth was reconfigured later in the century when he was enlisted as an ethnic hero by immigrants to the United States who were not of Anglo-Saxon stock, such as Jewish, Italian, and Irish people, who claimed Columbus as a sort of ethnic founding father. Catholics unsuccessfully tried to promote him for canonization in the 19th century.

From the 1990s onward, new depictions of Columbus as the environmental hatchet man or the scapegoat for genocide compete with the hitherto prevalent discourses of Columbus as the Christ-bearer, the scientist, or the father of America. More recently, however, the narrative has featured the negative effects of the conquest on native populations. Exposed to Old World diseases, the indigenous populations of the New World collapsed, and were largely replaced by Europeans and Africans, who brought with them new methods of farming, business, governance, and religious worship.

Originality of discovery of America

Though Christopher Columbus came to be considered the European discoverer of America in Western popular culture, his historical legacy is more nuanced. After settling Iceland, the Norse settled the uninhabited southern part of Greenland beginning in the 10th century. Norsemen are believed to have then set sail from Greenland and Iceland to become the first known Europeans to reach the North American mainland, nearly 500 years before Columbus reached the Caribbean. The 1960s discovery of a Norse settlement dating to c. 1000 AD at L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, partially corroborates accounts within the Icelandic sagas of Erik the Red's colonization of Greenland and his son Leif Erikson's subsequent exploration of a place he called Vinland.

In the 19th century, amid a revival of interest in Norse culture, Carl Christian Rafn and Benjamin Franklin DeCosta wrote works establishing that the Norse had preceded Columbus in colonizing the Americas. Following this, in 1874 Rasmus Bjørn Anderson argued that Columbus must have known of the North American continent before he started his voyage of discovery. Most modern scholars doubt Columbus had knowledge of the Norse settlements in America, with his arrival to the continent being most likely an independent discovery.

Europeans devised explanations for the origins of the Native Americans and their geographical distribution with narratives that often served to reinforce their own preconceptions built on ancient intellectual foundations. In modern Latin America, the non-Native populations of some countries often demonstrate an ambiguous attitude toward the perspectives of indigenous peoples regarding the so-called "discovery" by Columbus and the era of colonialism that followed. In his 1960 monograph, Mexican philosopher and historian Edmundo O'Gorman explicitly rejects the Columbus discovery myth, arguing that the idea that Columbus discovered America was a misleading legend fixed in the public mind through the works of American author Washington Irving during the 19th century. O'Gorman argues that to assert Columbus "discovered America" is to shape the facts concerning the events of 1492 to make them conform to an interpretation that arose many years later. For him, the Eurocentric view of the discovery of America sustains systems of domination in ways that favor Europeans. In a 1992 article forThe UNESCO Courier, Félix Fernández-Shaw argues that the word "discovery" prioritizes European explorers as the "heroes" of the contact between the Old and New World. He suggests that the word "encounter" is more appropriate, being a more universal term which includes Native Americans in the narrative.

America as a distinct land

Historians have traditionally argued that Columbus remained convinced until his death that his journeys had been along the east coast of Asia as he originally intended (excluding arguments such as Anderson's). On his third voyage he briefly referred to South America as a "hitherto unknown" continent, while also rationalizing that it was the "Earthly Paradise" located "at the end of the Orient". Columbus continued to claim in his later writings that he had reached Asia; in a 1502 letter to Pope Alexander VI, he asserts that Cuba is the east coast of Asia. On the other hand, in a document in the Book of Privileges (1502), Columbus refers to the New World as the Indias Occidentales ('West Indies'), which he says "were unknown to all the world".

Shape of the Earth

Washington Irving's 1828 biography of Columbus popularized the idea that Columbus had difficulty obtaining support for his plan because many Catholic theologians insisted that the Earth was flat, but this is a popular misconception which can be traced back to 17th-century Protestants campaigning against Catholicism. In fact, the spherical shape of the Earth had been known to scholars since antiquity, and was common knowledge among sailors, including Columbus. Coincidentally, the oldest surviving globe of the Earth, the Erdapfel, was made in 1492, just before Columbus's return to Europe from his first voyage. As such it contains no sign of the Americas and yet demonstrates the common belief in a spherical Earth.

Making observations with a quadrant on his third voyage, Columbus inaccurately measured the polar radius of the North Star's diurnal motion to be five degrees, double the value of another erroneous reading he had made from further north. This led him to describe the figure of the Earth as pear-shaped, with the "stalk" portion ascending towards Heaven. In fact, the Earth ever so slightly is pear-shaped, with its "stalk" pointing north.

Criticism and defense

Columbus is criticized both for his brutality and for initiating the depopulation of the indigenous Americans, whether by disease or intentional genocide. Some defend his actions or allege that the worst of them are not based in fact. Scholars of Native American history George Tinker and Mark Freedman write that Columbus was responsible for creating a cycle of "murder, violence, and slavery" to maximize exploitation of the Caribbean islands' resources, and that Native deaths on the scale at which they occurred would not have been caused by new diseases alone. Further, they describe the proposition that disease and not genocide caused these deaths as "American holocaust denial". Some commentators defend Columbus's actions or allege that the worst of them are not based in fact while others claim that "he has been blamed for events far beyond his own reach or knowledge".

Some historians have criticized Columbus for initiating the widespread colonization of the Americas and for abusing its native population. On St. Croix, Columbus's friend Michele da Cuneo-according to his own account-kept an indigenous woman he captured, whom Columbus "gave to [him]", then brutally raped her. The punishment for an indigenous person, aged 14 and older, failing to pay a hawk's bell, or cascabela, worth of gold dust every six months (based on Bartolomé de las Casas's account) was cutting off the hands of those without tokens, often leaving them to bleed to death. Columbus had an economic interest in the enslavement of the Hispaniola natives and for that reason was not eager to baptize them, which attracted criticism from some churchmen. Consuelo Varela, a Spanish historian who has seen Bobadilla's report, states that "Columbus's government was characterized by a form of tyranny. Even those who loved him had to admit the atrocities that had taken place."

Kris Lane disputes whether it is appropriate to use the term "genocide" when the atrocities were not Columbus's intent, but resulted from his decrees, family business goals, and negligence. Other historians have argued that some of the accounts of the brutality of Columbus and his brothers have been exaggerated as part of the Black Legend, a historical tendency towards anti-Spanish sentiment in historical sources dating as far back as the 16th century, which they speculate may continue to taint scholarship into the present day.

According to historian Emily Berquist Soule, the immense Portuguese profits from the maritime trade in African slaves along the West African coast served as an inspiration for Columbus to create a counterpart of this apparatus in the New World using indigenous American slaves. Historian William J. Connell has argued that while Columbus "brought the entrepreneurial form of slavery to the New World," this "was a phenomenon of the times," further arguing that "we have to be very careful about applying 20th-century understandings of morality to the morality of the 15th century." In a less popular defense of colonization, Spanish ambassador María Jesús Figa López-Palop has argued, "Normally we melded with the cultures in America, we stayed there, we spread our language and culture and religion."

British historian Basil Davidson has dubbed Columbus the "father of the slave trade", citing the fact that the first license to ship enslaved Africans to the Caribbean was issued by the Catholic Monarchs in 1501 to the first royal governor of Hispaniola, Nicolás de Ovando.

Depopulation

Around the turn of the 21st century, estimates for the pre-Columbian population of Hispaniola ranged between 250,000 and two million, but genetic analysis published in late 2020 suggests that smaller figures are more likely, perhaps as low as 10,000-50,000 for Hispaniola and Puerto Rico combined. Based on the previous figures of a few hundred thousand, some have estimated that a third or more of the natives in Haiti were dead within the first two years of Columbus's governorship. Contributors to depopulation included disease, warfare, and harsh enslavement. Indirect evidence suggests that some serious illness may have arrived with the 1,500 colonists who accompanied Columbus' second expedition in 1493. Charles C. Mann writes that "It was as if the suffering these diseases had caused in Eurasia over the past millennia were concentrated into the span of decades." A third of the natives forced to work in gold and silver mines died every six months. Within three to six decades, the surviving Arawak population numbered only in the hundreds. The indigenous population of the Americas overall is thought to have been reduced by about 90% in the century after Columbus's arrival. Among indigenous peoples, Columbus is often viewed as a key agent of genocide. Samuel Eliot Morison, a Harvard historian and author of a multivolume biography on Columbus, writes, "The cruel policy initiated by Columbus and pursued by his successors resulted in complete genocide."

According to Noble David Cook, "There were too few Spaniards to have killed the millions who were reported to have died in the first century after Old and New World contact." He instead estimates that the death toll was caused by smallpox, which may have caused a pandemic only after the arrival of Hernán Cortés in 1519. According to some estimates, smallpox had an 80-90% fatality rate in Native American populations. The natives had no acquired immunity to these new diseases and suffered high fatalities. There is also evidence that they had poor diets and were overworked. Historian Andrés Reséndez of University of California, Davis, says the available evidence suggests "slavery has emerged as major killer" of the indigenous populations of the Caribbean between 1492 and 1550 more so than diseases such as smallpox, influenza and malaria. He says that indigenous populations did not experience a rebound like European populations did following the Black Death because unlike the latter, a large portion of the former were subjected to deadly forced labor in the mines.

The diseases that devastated the Native Americans came in multiple waves at different times, sometimes as much as centuries apart, which would mean that survivors of one disease may have been killed by others, preventing the population from recovering. Historian David Stannard describes the depopulation of the indigenous Americans as "neither inadvertent nor inevitable," saying it was the result of both disease and intentional genocide.

Biographers and historians have a wide range of opinions about Columbus's expertise and experience navigating and captaining ships. One scholar lists some European works ranging from the 1890s to 1980s that support Columbus's experience and skill as among the best in Genoa, while listing some American works over a similar timeframe that portray the explorer as an untrained entrepreneur, having only minor crew or passenger experience prior to his noted journeys. According to Morison, Columbus's success in utilizing the trade winds might owe significantly to luck.

Physical appearance

Contemporary descriptions of Columbus, including those by his son Fernando and Bartolomé de las Casas, describe him as taller than average, with light skin (which was often sunburnt), blue or hazel eyes, high cheekbones and freckled face, an aquiline nose, and blond to reddish hair and beard (until about the age of 30, when it began to whiten). One Spanish commentator described his eyes using the word garzos, now usually translated as "light blue", but it seems to have indicated light grey-green or hazel eyes to Columbus's contemporaries. The word rubios can mean "blond", "fair", or "ruddy". Although an abundance of artwork depicts Christopher Columbus, no authentic contemporary portrait is known.

The most well-known image of Columbus is a portrait by Sebastiano del Piombo, which has been reproduced in many textbooks. It agrees with descriptions of Columbus in that it shows a large man with auburn hair, but the painting dates from 1519 and cannot, therefore, have been painted from life. Furthermore, the inscription identifying the subject as Columbus was probably added later, and the face shown differs from that of other images.

Sometime between 1531 and 1536, Alejo Fernández painted an altarpiece, The Virgin of the Navigators, that includes a depiction of Columbus. The painting was commissioned for a chapel in Seville's Casa de Contratación (House of Trade) in the Alcázar of Seville and remains there.

At the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, 71 alleged portraits of Columbus were displayed; most of them did not match contemporary descriptions.

References

Bergreen, Lawrence (2011). Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1493-1504. Penguin Group US. ISBN 978-1-101-54432-7.

Columbus, Christopher (1847). Major, Richard Henry (ed.). Select Letters of Christopher Columbus: With Other Original Documents, Relating to His Four Voyages to the New World. London: The Hakluyt Society.

Columbus, Ferdinand (1571). A History of the Life and Actions of Adm. Christopher Columbus. in Churchill, Awnsham (1732). A Collection of voyages and travels. Vol. 2. London : Printed by assignment from Messrs. Churchill for John Walthoe ..., Tho. Wotton ..., Samuel Birt ..., Daniel Browne ..., Thomas Osborn ..., John Shuckburgh ... and Henry Lintot ... pp. 501-624.

Crosby, A.W. (1987) The Columbian Voyages: the Columbian Exchange, and their Historians. Washington, DC: American Historical Association.

Fuson, Robert H. (1992) The Log of Christopher Columbus. International Marine Publishing

Horwitz, Tony (2008). A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World (1st ed.). New York: Henry Holt and Co. ISBN 978-0-8050-7603-5. OCLC 180989602.

Joseph, Edward Lanzar (1838). History of Trinidad. A.K. Newman & Co.

Morison, Samuel Eliot (1991) [1942]. Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 978-0-316-58478-4. OCLC 1154365097.

Zinn, Howard (2003) [1980]. A People's History of the United States. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-052837-9.

Further reading

The Life of the Admiral Christopher Columbus by His Son Ferdinand. Translated by Keen, Benjamin. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. 1978 [1959]. ISBN 978-0-313-20175-2.

Beazley, Charles Raymond (1911). "Columbus, Christopher" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 6 (11th ed.). pp. 741-746.

Smith, Walter George (1906). "Christopher Columbus: An Address Delivered Before the American Catholic Historical Society". Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia. 17 (4): 374-398. JSTOR 44208924.

Wey, Gómez Nicolás (2008). The tropics of empire: Why Columbus sailed south to the Indies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-23264-7

Wilford, John Noble (1991), The Mysterious History of Columbus: An Exploration of the Man, the Myth, the Legacy, New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Winsor, Justin (1891). Christopher Columbus and How He Received and Imparted the Spirit of Discovery. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

External links

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Christopher Columbus (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was an Italian explorer and navigator who completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean, opening the way for the widespread European exploration and colonization of the Americas.

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https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-africa/israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/report-israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/
During the armed conflict in may of 2021, Israel committed  war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.  242 Palestinians were killed, including 63 children, and 9,000 were injured. More than 74,000 Palestinians were displaced.

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Human rights in Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories

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Stay up to date on the state of human rights in Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories with the latest research, campaigns and education material from Amnesty International.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-26641152

This news article highlighted the ethnic cleansing between the Christians and the Muslims in central Africa. The Muslims made their way to a safe church that was guarded while the others would hunt them down and kill any Muslims in their way.

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The Central African Republic is ravaged by what some human rights groups are calling ethnic cleansing.

Mainly Muslim rebels seized power last year but after their leader was forced to stand down in January, Christian militias have been targeting Muslim civilians.

Newsnight's Tim Whewell has been in the Central African Republic and made the journey to Carnot in the west of the country.

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The Central African Republic is ravaged by what some human rights groups are calling ethnic cleansing. Mainly Muslim rebels seized power last year but after their leader was forced to stand down in January, Christian militias have been targeting Muslim civilians.

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Apr 7, 1994 – Jul 15, 1994

A group known as the "Hutu Nationalists" started the Rwandan genocide, also known as the 100 days of the slaughter of the Tutsis. Members of the Hutu nationalist group murdered much of the Tutsi population, resulting in the death of around 800,000 people, mostly of the Tutsi minority.

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Background

The major ethnic groups in Rwanda are the Hutu and the Tutsi, respectively accounting for more than four-fifths and about one-seventh of the total population. A third group, the Twa, constitutes less than 1 percent of the population. All three groups speak Rwanda (more properly, Kinyarwanda), suggesting that these groups have lived together for centuries.

The area that is now Rwanda is believed to have been initially settled by the Twa, who were closely followed by the Hutu, probably sometime between the 5th and 11th centuries, and then by the Tutsi, likely beginning in the 14th century. A long process of Tutsi migrations from the north culminated in the 16th century with the emergence of a small nuclear kingdom in the central region, ruled by the Tutsi minority, that persisted until the arrival of Europeans in the 19th century.

Social differences between the Hutu and the Tutsi traditionally were profound, as shown by the system of patron-client ties ( buhake, or "cattle contract") through which the Tutsi, with a strong pastoralist tradition, gained social, economic, and political ascendancy over the Hutu, who were primarily agriculturalists. Still, identification as either Tutsi or Hutu was fluid. While physical appearance could correspond somewhat to ethnic identification (the Tutsi were generally presumed to be light-skinned and tall, the Hutu dark-skinned and short), the difference between the two groups was not always immediately apparent, because of intermarriage and the use of a common language by both groups.

During the colonial era, Germany and later Belgium assumed that ethnicity could be clearly distinguished by physical characteristics and then used the ethnic differences found in their own countries as models to create a system whereby the categories of Hutu and Tutsi were no longer fluid. The German colonial government, begun in 1898 and continuing until 1916, pursued a policy of indirect rule that strengthened the hegemony of the Tutsi ruling class and the absolutism of its monarchy. That approach continued under Belgium, which took control of the colony after World War I and administered it indirectly, under the tutelage of the League of Nations.

Some Hutu began to demand equality and found sympathy from Roman Catholic clergy and some Belgian administrative personnel, which led to the Hutu revolution. The revolution began with an uprising on Nov. 1, 1959, when a rumour of the death of a Hutu leader at the hands of Tutsi perpetrators led groups of Hutu to launch attacks on the Tutsi. Months of violence followed, and many Tutsi were killed or fled the country. A Hutu coup on Jan. 28, 1961, which was carried out with the tacit approval of the Belgian colonial authorities, officially deposed the Tutsi king (he was already out of the country, having fled the violence in 1960) and abolished the Tutsi monarchy. Rwanda became a republic, and an all-Hutu provisional national government came into being. Independence was proclaimed the next year.

The transition from Tutsi to Hutu rule was not peaceful. From 1959 to 1961 some 20,000 Tutsi were killed, and many more fled the country. By early 1964 at least 150,000 Tutsi were in neighbouring countries. Additional rounds of ethnic tension and violence flared periodically and led to mass killings of Tutsi in Rwanda, such as in 1963, 1967, and 1973.

Tension between Hutu and Tutsi flared again in 1990, when Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) rebels invaded from Uganda. A cease-fire was negotiated in early 1991, and negotiations between the RPF and the government of longtime president Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu, began in 1992. An agreement between the RPF and the government, signed in August 1993 at Arusha, Tanz., called for the creation of a broad-based transition government that would include the RPF. Hutu extremists were strongly opposed to that plan. Dissemination of their anti-Tutsi agenda, which had already been widely propagated via newspapers and radio stations for a few years, increased and would later serve to fuel ethnic violence.

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Rwanda genocide of 1994 | Summary, Background, Deaths, & Facts

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Rwanda genocide of 1994, planned campaign of mass murder in Rwanda that occurred over the course of some 100 days in April-July 1994. The genocide was conceived by extremist elements of Rwanda's majority Hutu population who planned to kill the minority Tutsi population. More than 800,000 civilians were killed.

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This massacre was carried out against the remaining French population in Haiti at the end of the Haitian Revolution. Soldiers would move from house to house, torturing and killing entire families, 3000-5000 were killed. This massacre could have been due to threat of reinvasion or due to the oppression of the group.

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The Rwanda Genocide that initiated by the Hutu people with the goal of eradicating that of of the Tutsi people. The Hutu people Made up 85% of the population while the Tutsi made up the other 15%. The Hutu's wanted the Tutsi's out of their land and wanted a population of purely Hutu. The genocide lasted for many days and it is estimated that one million people (mostly Tutsi's) were killed.

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In 1994, Rwanda's population was composed of three ethnic groups: Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa. Approximately 85 percent of the country was Hutu, while 14 percent was Tutsi and one percent was Twa.

Rwanda was ruled by leaders of the Hutu majority from the time it gained independence in 1962 until the genocide in 1994. During this period, the country's Tutsi minority suffered systematic discrimination. They were also the targets of periodic outbreaks of mass violence. Hundreds of thousands of Tutsis fled the country in the 1960s and 1970s.

In 1990, a Tutsi rebel force invaded Rwanda from the north. Hard-line Hutu politicians accused Rwandan Tutsis of supporting the rebels. After the war reached a stalemate, Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana signed a peace agreement. The terms enabled Rwanda to transition to a government in which Hutus and Tutsis would share power. The agreement angered Hutu extremists. In response, they armed Hutu paramilitary forces and waged a vicious propaganda campaign against the Tutsis.

The One Hundred Day Genocide

On the evening of April 6, 1994, President Habyarimana was killed. A surface-to-air missile shot down his plane as it was landing in Kigali, the Rwandan capital. Who fired the missile remains in dispute. However, extremist leaders of Rwanda's Hutu majority seized the assassination as the opportunity to launch a carefully planned campaign to wipe out the country's Tutsis. They also targeted moderate Hutu leaders who might have opposed this program of genocide.

Political and other high profile leaders who might have been able to prevent the genocide were killed immediately. Violence spread through the capital and into the rest of the country. The genocide continued for roughly three months.

As the level of violence escalated, groups of Tutsis fled to places that in previous times of turmoil had provided safety: churches, schools, and government buildings. Many of these refuges became the sites of major massacres. The Rwandan military and Hutu paramilitary forces carried out the massacres using guns and explosives.

In addition to mass killings, thousands and thousands of Tutsis and people suspected of being Tutsis were killed in their homes and fields and on the road. Militias set up roadblocks across the country to prevent the victims from escaping. In cities, towns, and even the tiniest villages, Hutus answered the call of their local leaders to murder their Tutsi neighbors. Entire families were killed at a time, often hacked to death with machetes. Women were systematically and brutally raped.

Hundreds of thousands of Rwandan Hutus participated in the genocide. As many as one million people, mostly Tutsis, were slaughtered in 100 days.

The genocide ended when the Tutsi-dominated rebel movement, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), captured Kigali. The RPF overthrew the Hutu government and seized power. The new government announced a policy of "unity and reconciliation." It adopted a new constitution that guaranteed equal rights for all Rwandans regardless of their group.

More than one million Hutus, including many of the genocidaires, fled to neighboring countries. In Zaire, today the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the refugees' presence helped spark two international conflicts and ongoing insurgencies. More than five million people have died in the violence.

Seven months after the genocide began, the United Nations established the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). Its mission was to bring to justice those accused of high level crimes. The ICTR was held in neighboring Arusha, Tanzania.

On September 2, 1998, the ICTR delivered the first conviction for genocide by an international court. It ruled that Jean-Paul Akayesu was guilty of inciting and leading acts of violence against Tutsi civilians in the town where he served as mayor. This judgment was also the first by an international court to define rape as a crime in international law and to recognize rape as a means of committing genocide.

In another landmark case, the ICTR convicted a newspaper publisher and a radio station owner of the crime of incitement to genocide (a third defendant was found guilty as well, but was acquitted on appeal). It was the first time since the Nuremberg trial of the major German war criminals that an international court examined the responsibility of the media for mass atrocities.

In all, the ICTR indicted 93 persons and convicted 62 for crimes in connection with the genocide. Those prosecuted included high-level military and government officials, politicians and businessmen, and religious, media, and militia leaders.

Within Rwanda, the national courts tried more than 10,000 persons for planning the genocide or committing atrocities. In 2005, the government also implemented the traditional community court system known as (pronounced ga-CHA-cha). These courts heard the cases of the additional hundreds of thousands of Rwandans accused of participating in the genocide. In communities throughout the country, locally elected judges heard victims and witnesses testify. The judges also gave the defendants the opportunity to confess and ask for forgiveness. The gacaca courts tried more than 1.2 million cases before they closed in 2012.

Last Edited: Apr 5, 2021

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In 1994, Rwanda's population was composed of three ethnic groups: Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa. Approximately 85 percent of the country was Hutu, while 14 percent was Tutsi and one percent was Twa. Rwanda was ruled by leaders of the Hutu majority from the time it gained independence in 1962 until the genocide in 1994.

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Both the Syrian government and other groups (such as ISIS, or the Islamic State) are committing genocide and war crimes within the country of Syria. The current president, Bashar al-Assad, has killed thousands of Syrians who are deemed "subhuman" if they share the same ethnicity or religions pro-democracy protesters.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/11/whats-happening-syria-is-genocide/

- Ashley Larkin

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Rebel fighters walk amid rubble in the village of Nayrab, southeast of the city of Idlib in northwestern Syria, on March 7. (Omar Haj Kadour/AFP via Getty Images)

I am a Syrian American, and I have an urgent message. You do not have the full story on Syria. The truth will shake you to the bone.
Sign up for a weekly roundup of thought-provoking ideas and debates
The president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, is committing genocide.

Assad has deliberately erased at least 200,000 Syrian civilians from existence. Most of them died for the "crime" of sharing the same ethnicity, religion and neighborhood as pro-democracy protesters. It is true that the overwhelming majority of these victims come from a single ethno-religious group (Sunni Arabs), but this is not about religion. This is about a dictator who is willing to gas children to stay in power. They are disposable to Assad because, to him, they are subhuman.

Assad's troops are closing in on Idlib, and another massacre is in the offing. Idlib is the final city left for Assad to recapture since the Syrian revolution began in 2011. Another 3 million people, half of whom are internally displaced refugees, might be forced to leave for Turkey and Europe. Turkey brokered many cease-fires in Idlib, aiming to stop the overwhelming flow of refugees into its country. Assad violated them all and is likely to breach the newest one. He even bombed 33 Turkish soldiers last month. Turkey responded with force, but its options for further action are limited. A global problem demands a global solution.

Make no mistake: What's happening in Syria is a modern-day Holocaust. There is no worse scenario. There is no greater nightmare than the one that is happening right now. Assad has shown that he will do anything to stay in power. More than half a million Syrians have died in the conflict, and 13 million have been displaced. Will Assad continue his genocide and push the death toll to 1 million? No one has imposed any serious costs on his regime for what it has done so far.

An international NATO air force must designate part of Syria as a no-fly zone. A no-fly zone, which would not allow Assad's air force to fly within its boundaries, would protect Syrians from further slaughter. Genocide deniers strongly oppose such a zone. Assad's defenders falsely claim that any intervention equates to "Western imperialism." What they won't tell you is that Russian imperialism is keeping Assad in power. Syrian civilians, and the opposition forces fighting on their behalf, are utterly helpless against the combined airpower of Assad and Russia.

I have a few questions that I want readers to ponder: Do you acknowledge that the Syrian genocide is happening? Are you committed to upholding the post-Holocaust principle of "never again" by using humanitarian intervention to end genocide? Are you okay with a world where people are treated like subhumans?

Be deeply honest with yourself and ask: If more than 200,000 British or Spanish civilians were slaughtered like this, would you feel the same way? Confronting these questions is necessary for change to occur. Never forget that a significant majority of Americans were against humanitarian intervention to save the Jews during World War II. "It's complicated" is not a valid excuse.

The chilling truth is that you are a bystander to the Syrian genocide. Assad is bombing entire civilian neighborhoods. He has repeatedly gassed men, women and children even after chemical weapons were supposedly removed. He allowed the Islamic State into Syria, intending to confuse the world and divert attention from his massacres of civilians. Assad's troops tossed victims into mass unmarked graves while the Islamic State dominated the headlines. Conveniently for Assad, foreign Islamic State terrorists killed freedom-loving Syrians, too.

Thousands of Syrians are awaiting arbitrary execution in Assad's torture chambers. They are praying so that someone, anyone, may help them. The prayers of thousands of torture victims before them went unanswered. Their mutilated bodies were cataloged and branded like cattle so that the Syrian government can keep track of whom it executed. A photographer fled and provided those photos to Congress. Congress then took five years just to sanction Syrian regime officials, including Assad. Aside from that, it did nothing to end the slaughter.

Children's lives are at stake. Our entire moral and ethical framework is at stake. The world is being destabilized by agents of chaos, and Syria is ground zero. Will you help stop the Syrian genocide, or will you be a bystander?

I'll leave you with a quote from Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor: "I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. ... Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe."

The consequences of ignoring such a genocide are so large, so severe, that we cannot allow it to persist any longer. Syria must at this moment become the center of the universe.

Read more:
Josh Rogin: The catastrophe in Syria is getting worse. It's time to act. Asli Aydintasbas: Erdogan has made terrible mistakes, but it's time for the West to help Turkey in Syria The Post's View: Syria's carnage nears a horrific climax Josh Rogin: Soleimani's death offers a chance to fix U.S. policy on Syria Oula A. Alrifai: Assad is growing stronger under Trump's nonexistent Syria policy

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Opinion | What's happening in Syria is genocide

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Placeholder while article actions load I am a Syrian American, and I have an urgent message. You do not have the full story on Syria. The truth will shake you to the bone. Sign up for a weekly roundup of thought-provoking ideas and debates ArrowRight The president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, is committing genocide.

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The Rwandan genocide was started by the Hutu nationalists and then spread throughout the country. Citizens were incited by local officials and the Hutu power government to kill the Tutsi Minority. Members of the Hutu majority murdered many of the Tutsi population. This resulted in the death of around 800,000 people, mostly of the Tutsi minority.

Source: https://www.history.com/topics/africa/rwandan-genocide

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Rwandan Genocide - Facts, Response & Trials

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The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, occured in 1994 when members of the Hutu ethnic majority in the east-central African nation of Rwanda murdered as many as 800,000 people, mostly of the Tutsi minority. Started by Hutu nationalists in the capital of Kigali, the genoc…

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Since the Tigray War began in November 2020, regional and security forces from Ethiopia's Amhara region and new administrators in the Western Tigray zone are responsible for a campaign of ethnic cleansing. They have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity against Tigrayan communities throughout the zone.

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During World War 1, the Ottoman Empire conducted a campaign of deportation and mass killings of Armenian peoples. It was a deliberate attempt to destroy them. In January 1915 Enver Pasa suffered a tremendous loss in attempt to push back Russians, the blame was put on Armenian treachery. Non-Muslims and Armenian soldiers were demobilized and transferred. The Armenian soldiers were then systemically murdered by Ottoman troops. Soon after, mass killins happened at Armenian villages by the Russian border. By the end more than 90% of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were gone and their history had been erased.

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During the Bosnian War (1992-1995), as large numbers of Bosnian Muslims, also called Bosniaks, were subjected to ethnic cleansing by the Army of Republika Srpska and Serb paramilitaries. Starting in April of 1992, rape, murder, expulsion and imprisonment were used on a large scale to "ethnically cleanse" Muslims and Croats from territory the Bosnian Serbs wanted to claim. At one instance, in 1995 Serb forces moved their attention to Srebrenica, a small village that at the time was housing about 60,000 Muslim refugees. Within 10 days, tens of thousands of Muslims were forced to evacuate, with about 7,000 men of all ages missing - they had been executed in cold blood, in a mass murder whose scale had not been seen in Europe since World War II.

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The Cambodian genocide occured over the span of nearly 4 years between 1975 and 1979. This genocide was expressed through the systematic persecution and killing of Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge under the leadership of Communist Party of Kampuchea general secretary Pol Pot. Communist leader Pol Pot pushed Cambodia towards an entirely self-sufficient agrarian socialist society, which resulted in the deaths of 1.5 to 2 million people (which, at the time, was nearly a quarter of Cambodia's population).

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Between 1914 and 1923, two successive governments of the Ottoman Empire, known as the Young Turks and the Turkish Nationalist movement, attempted to systematically exterminate the native Greeks. During these attacks, actions such as death marches, boycotts, rape, forced conversion to Islam, arbitrary executions and destruction of Christian Orthodox cultural, forced deportations, and massacres occurred. The victim count was said to be between 1-1.5 million people.

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The It is likely that the victim toll of the Greek Genocide was somewhere in the vicinity of Greek Genocide (or Ottoman Greek Genocide) refers to the systematic extermination of the native Greek subjects of the Ottoman Empire be fore, during and after World War I (1914-1923). It was instigated by two successive governments of the Ottoman Empire; the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) party, and the Turkish Nationalist Movement of . It included massacres, forced deportations and death marches, summary expulsions, boycotts, rape, forced conversion to Islam, conscription into labor battalions, arbitrary executions, and destruction of Christian Orthodox cultural, historical and religious monuments. 1 - 1.5 million.
The New York Times: January 13, 1915.
The first phase of the Greek Genocide commenced in 1914 in Eastern Thrace where entire Greek communities were forcibly and often violently expelled or deported to the interior of Asia Minor. Other measures used to persecute Greeks in this region were the boycotting of Greek businesses, killings, heavy taxation, seizure of property and prevention from working on their lands. In the Spring and Summer 1914, the ethnic cleansing of Greeks along the western shoreline of Asia Minor was carried out. These operations, including those in Eastern Thrace, were planned and executed by the CUP using regular and irregular forces including members of the CUP's paramilitary unit, the Special Organization (Teşkilât-ı Mahsusa).

With the outbreak of the Great War, all Ottoman Greek males aged between 21-45 were forcibly conscripted into labor battalions (Amele Taburları). Most of them perished under appalling conditions being forced to work around the clock with little food or water. In 1915, under the advice of German military personnel, the CUP deported Greek communities from the Dardanelles and Gallipolli regions under the pretext of military necessity. These Greeks were not permitted to take anything with them. Goods in their shops were later sold by Ottoman authorities. They were deported to the interior and to Muslim villages where they were forced to choose between Islam or death. In most cases, before deportations took place Ottoman gendarmes (police) and çetes (armed irregulars) seized money and valuables from communities, committed massacres and burnt churches and schools. By 1917, it was reported that over 700,000 Greeks had fallen victim to a preconceived and well orchestrated plan of annihilation.
The Evening Independent, St.Petersburg, Florida: October 17, 1917, p.6.
According to figures compiled by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, by 1918, 774,235 Greeks had been deported from their homes, many of them to the interior of Turkey, never to be seen again. Following the Ottoman Empire's defeat in WW1, prominent leaders of the CUP were given death sentences in Ottoman Courts-Martial for their role in organizing the massacre of Greeks during the war. But the post-war formation of the Turkish Nationalist movement under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk interrupted proceedings to bring the perpetrators to justice. The Kemalist Nationalists continued the CUP policy of persecuting Greeks which culminated in the burning of the cosmopolitan city of Smyrna (today Izmir) to the ground and the expulsion of all remaining Greeks from Turkey. All able-bodied Greek males were refused exit from Turkey and instead were sent to the interior where most perished in slave labor camps or were massacred.

April 6 (Eastern Thrace region)
May 19 (Pontus region)
September 14 (Asia Minor as a whole).
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Last updated: 26 May 2019

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greek greeks genocide thrace smyrna izmir pontus ottoman empire turkey

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The It is likely that the victim toll of the Greek Genocide was somewhere in the vicinity of Greek Genocide (or Ottoman Greek Genocide) refers to the systematic extermination of the native Greek subjects of the Ottoman Empire be fore, during and after World War I (1914-1923).

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The Rohingya are Muslim living in a mostly Buddhist country. Most people in the country believe they are illegal immigrants and terrorists from Bangladesh. As many as 3,000 people have been killed and at least 27,000 displaced.

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Half of the population of Nanking, China's capital, were murdered by the Japanese Imperial Army in 1937. Making this tragedy notorious is the appalling violence against women. Over 20,000 Chinese women were raped and then murdered by Japanese troops.

- Tamia Duchesneau

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The Genocide in Darfur

Violence and destruction are raging in the Darfur region of western Sudan. Since February 2003, government-sponsored militias known as the Janjaweed have conducted a calculated campaign of slaughter, rape, starvation and displacement in Darfur.

It is estimated that 400,000 people have died due to violence, starvation and disease. More than 2.5 million people have been displaced from their homes and over 200,000 have fled across the border to Chad. Many now live in camps lacking adequate food, shelter, sanitation, and health care.

The United States Congress and President George W. Bush recognized the situation in Darfur as "genocide." Darfur, "near Hell on Earth," has been declared the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today.

Picture: The remains of the village of Jijira Adi Abbe in Darfur, western Sudan, after the government attack.

The Holocaust

It began with a simple boycott of Jewish shops and ended in the gas chambers of Auschwitz as Hitler and his Nazi followers attempted to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe. The Holocaust took the lives of close to six million Jews during the World War II era. Anti-semitism was the central component of Nazi ideology. While the Nazis also murdered many millions of Poles, Russians, Roma, Sinti, Serbs, Czechs, homosexuals, and political opponents, only the Jews were slated for total annihilation. The "final solution" was partially successful through the process of genocide. The Nazi Party who first targeted the Jews, then isolated them into ghettos, then deported their victims to concentration camps where most perished. Others became Nazi victims not because of who they were but because of what they did - Jehovah's Witnesses, the dissenting clergy, Communists, Socialists, and other political enemies.

Picture: Teresa Swiebocka Auschwitz: A History in Photographs (Indiana University Press, 1993)

Holodomor (Ukrainian Genocide)

In 1932-33, Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, imposed the system of land management known as collectivization. This resulted in the seizure of all privately owned farmland and livestock. By 1932, much of the wheat crop was dumped on the foreign market to generate cash to aid Stalin's Five-Year Plan. The law demanded that no grain could be given to feed the peasants until a quota was met. By the spring of 1933, an estimated 25,000 people died every day in Ukraine. Deprived of the food they had grown with their own hands, an estimated 7,000,000 persons perished due to the resulting genocide.

The Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide was carried out by the "Young Turk" government of the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1918. Starting in April 1915, Armenians in the Ottoman armies, serving separately in unarmed labor battalions, were removed and murdered. Of the remaining population, the adult and teenage males were separated from the deportation caravans and killed under the direction of Young Turk functionaries. Women and children were driven for months over mountains and desert, often raped, tortured, and mutilated. Deprived of food and water, they fell by the hundreds of thousands along the routes to the desert. Ultimately, more than half the Armenian population (1,500,000 people) was annihilated.

Picture: "Mother and Child" from the Wegner Collection (Armin T. Wegner), Deutches Literaturarchiv, Marbach & United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The Herero Genocide

The Herero Genocide occurred between 1904-1907 in current day Namibia. The Hereros were herdsmen who migrated to the region in the 17th and 18th centuries. After a German presence was established in the region in the 1800s, the Herero territory was annexed (in 1885) as a part of German South West Africa.

A series of uprisings against German colonialists, from 1904-1907, led to the extermination of approximately four-fifths of the Herero population. After Herero soldiers attacked German farmers, German troops implemented a policy to eliminate all Hereros from the region, including women and children.

Picture: Hereros captured by the German Military in 1904.

Genocide of the Native Americans

The genocide of peoples indigenous to the U.S. portion of North America proce-eded along different tracks, each defined by the policies of the colonial power pursuing it. The colonization began in 1607 when England's Jamestown colonists arrived in present-day Virginia with instructions to "settle" the already heavily populated coastal area. Beginning in 1830, the U.S. undertook a policy of "removing" all native people from the area east of the Mississippi River. In the series of interments and thousand-mile forced marches which followed, entire peoples were decimated. The Cherokees, for instance, suffered 50 percent fatalities during the "Trail of Tears"; the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles and Creeks, 25 to 35 percent apiece.

Picture: "The Trail of Tears" Painting by Robert Lindneux in the Woolaroc Museum, Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

The Transatlantic Slave Trade

Unlike most twentieth-century cases of premeditated mass killing, the African slave trade was not undertaken by a single political force or military entity during the course of a few months or years. The transatlantic slave trade lasted for 400 years, from the 1450s to the 1860s, as a series of exchanges of captives reaching from the interior of sub-Saharan Africa to final purchasers in the Americas. It has been estimated that in the Atlantic slave trade, up to 12 million Africans were loaded and transported across the ocean under dreadful conditions. About 2 million victims died on the Atlantic voyage (the dreaded "Middle Passage") and in the first year in the Americas.

Picture: The slave ship "Brookes" built for 421 slaves; packed with 700.

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Violence and destruction are raging in the Darfur region of western Sudan. Since February 2003, government-sponsored militias known as the Janjaweed have conducted a calculated campaign of slaughter, rape, starvation and displacement in Darfur. It is estimated that 400,000 people have died due to violence, starvation and disease.

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In 1994 the Hutu attempted to exterminate the Tutsi in Rwanda. They killed over 800 000 people. This is seen to be motivated from Belgium's involvement in the country's history where they favoured the Tutsi (an ethnic minority) over the Hutu (ethnic majority). They were reportedly given better treatment which resulted in the Hutu's rebellion in 1959 as they were tired of being oppressed. Tensions escalated until they attempted to kill all of the Tutsi people.

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Rwandan Genocide - Facts, Response & Trials

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The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, occured in 1994 when members of the Hutu ethnic majority in the east-central African nation of Rwanda murdered as many as 800,000 people, mostly of the Tutsi minority. Started by Hutu nationalists in the capital of Kigali, the genoc…

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For about 100 days in 1994, up to 800 000 people of the tutsi population was killed by Hutu police, militia, as well as members of their own communities.

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Chloe Sies
Antisemitism was the driving factor behind the Holocaust. It was the goal to eliminate Jewish people and eventually all people who did not fit the “Aryan race” which is what the Germans believed was superior. 6 million Jews were murdered as a result.

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Argentina’s dirty war.

During the 1800s, Colonial Spain forced indigenous Mapuche people off their land to make room for settlers, even after independence in 1816. To this day the government continues to deny access to their land and cultural rights.

In the late 19th century during the Tierra del Fuego Gold Rush, European settlers and Chilean and Argentine governments systematically exterminated the Ona, Yaghan, and Haush peoples, the destruction of these indigenous populations is known today as the Selk’nam Genocide.
Then, from the late 1960s to late 1980s, The United States CIA organised an operation to stop the spread of communism, Argentine military Junta detained, tortured, and murdered left-wing activists.
Argentina continues to deny these atrocities.

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Varrio Azusa 13 is a gang in Los Angeles. The Latino street gang leader and his son were sentenced to prison for their role in a long campaign of racist terror and ethnic cleansing targeting african americans around los angeles. Since the mid-1990's this gang has been targeting, beating and killing african americans to drive them out of the region.

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This is an ongoing genocide that begun in 2016, of the killings and persecutions by the Burmese military of the Muslim Rohingya people.

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The Rohingya genocide is a series of ongoing persecutions and killings of the Muslim Rohingya people by the Burmese military. The genocide has consisted of two phases to date: the first was a military crackdown that occurred from October 2016 to January 2017, and the second has been occurring since August 2017. The crisis forced over a million Rohingya to flee to other countries. Most fled to Bangladesh, resulting in the creation of the world's largest refugee camp, while others escaped to India, Thailand, Malaysia, and other parts of South and Southeast Asia, where they continue to face persecution. The United States, United Kingdom, and other countries refer to the events as " ethnic cleansing".

The persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar dates back to the 1970s. Since then, the Rohingya people have been persecuted on a regular basis by the government and Buddhist nationalists. In late 2016, Myanmar's armed forces and police launched a major crackdown against the people in Rakhine State which is located in the country's northwestern region. The Burmese military was accused of committing ethnic cleansing and genocide by various United Nations agencies, International Criminal Court officials, human rights groups, journalists, and governments. The UN found evidence of wide-scale human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings; summary executions; gang rapes; arson of Rohingya villages, businesses, and schools; and infanticides. The Burmese government dismissed these findings by stating they are "exaggerations". Using statistical extrapolations which were based on surveys which were conducted with a total of 3,321 Rohingya refugee households in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, a study which was conducted in January 2018 estimated that the military and the local Rakhine population killed at least 25,000 Rohingya people and perpetrated gang rapes and other forms of sexual violence against 18,000 Rohingya women and girls. They estimated that 116,000 Rohingya were beaten, and 36,000 were thrown into fires.

The military operations displaced a large number of people, triggering a refugee crisis. The largest wave of Rohingya refugees fled Myanmar in 2017, resulting in the largest human exodus in Asia since the Vietnam War. According to UN reports, over 700,000 people fled or were driven out of Rakhine State, and took shelter in neighbouring Bangladesh as refugees as of September 2018. In December 2017, two Reuters journalists who were covering the Inn Din massacre were arrested and imprisoned. Foreign Secretary Myint Thu told reporters Myanmar was prepared to accept 2,000 Rohingya refugees from camps in Bangladesh in November 2018. Subsequently, in November 2017, the governments of Bangladesh and Myanmar signed a deal to facilitate the return of Rohingya refugees to Rakhine State within two months, which drew mixed responses from international onlookers.

The 2016 military crackdown on the Rohingya people was condemned by the UN (which cited possible " crimes against humanity"), the human rights organization Amnesty International, the U.S. Department of State, the government of neighbouring Bangladesh, and the government of Malaysia. The Burmese leader and State Counsellor ( de facto head of government) and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was criticised for her inaction and silence over the issue and did little to prevent military abuses. Myanmar also drew criticism for the prosecutions of journalists under her leadership.

The August 2017 persecution was launched in response to Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army attacks on Myanmar border posts. It has been labeled ethnic cleansing and genocide by various UN agencies, ICC officials, human rights groups, and governments. The UN described the persecution as "a textbook example of ethnic cleansing". In late September 2017, a seven-member panel of the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal found the Burmese military and authority guilty of the crime of genocide against the Rohingya and the Kachin minority groups. Suu Kyi was again criticised for her silence over the issue and for supporting the military actions. In August 2018, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights declared that Burmese military generals should be tried for genocide. On 23 January 2020, the International Court of Justice ordered Myanmar to prevent genocidal violence against its Rohingya minority and to preserve evidence of past attacks.

The Rohingya people have been described as "amongst the world's least wanted" and "one of the world's most persecuted minorities" by the UN. The Rohingya are deprived of the rights to move freely and to receive higher education. They have officially been denied Burmese citizenship since 1982 when the Burmese nationality law was enacted. However, their persecution and marginalisation predate the passage of this law (which only formalised the legal discrimination against them) which included denying their right to receive all essential services and means of support. They are not allowed to travel without official permission. Previously, they were required to sign a commitment not to have more than two children; however, this law was not strictly enforced. They may be subjected to routine forced labour, during which a Rohingya man will typically have to give up one day a week to work on military or government projects and give up one night a week to perform sentry duty. The Rohingya have also lost much of their arable land to the military; land was later distributed to Buddhist settlers who have migrated there from other regions of Myanmar.

Myanmar, also known as Burma, is a country in Southeast Asia, bounded by the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh, and India to the west, and China, Laos, and Thailand to the east. Democracy has only existed in Myanmar since 2011 when the country's military made an arrangement with the opposition, under which a free election was permitted to be held on 8 November 2015. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was promoted to the presidency of Myanmar after having spent years under house arrest.

Myanmar's population is predominantly Buddhist (88-90%), with small minority groups whose members practice other faiths, including a small Muslim minority (4%).

The population of the western coastal province of Rakhine State is predominantly Buddhist Rakhine (4% of Myanmar's total population, about 2 million people) while the Rohingya (2% of Myanmar's total population, about 1 million people) are predominantly Muslim. Tensions between Buddhist and Muslim communities have frequently led to violence in Rakhine State, with nationalist Buddhists often targeting Rohingyas. The Rohingya are a distinct ethnicity with their own language and culture, but claim to have a long historical connection to Rakhine State.

The Rohingya claim to be the descendants of Arab traders, who settled in the region many generations ago. Some scholars stated that they have been present in the region since the 15th century while others argue that, although a few Rohingya trace their ancestry to Muslims who lived in Arakan during the 15th and 16th centuries, most arrived in the region when it was a British colony during the 19th and 20th centuries. Many[who? ] have argued that Rohingya existed from the four waves of Muslim migrations from the ancient times to medieval, to the British colonial period. Gutman (1976) and Ibrahim (2016) claim that the Muslim population dates to before the arrival of ethnic Rakhine in the 9th to 10th century; suggesting the Rohingya are descendants of a pre- Arakan population who existed for 3000 years, and waves of Muslim who intermingled with them, forming the modern Rohingya. The Rohingya have been denied citizenship by the government of Myanmar, who considers them illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

The persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar dates back to the 1970s. Since then, the Rohingya people have been persecuted on a regular basis by the government and nationalist Buddhists. The tensions between the various religious groups in the country were often exploited by past military rulers of Myanmar. Amnesty International notes that the Rohingya suffered human rights violations under past military dictatorships since 1978, and many of them have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh as a result. In 2005, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees assisted with the repatriation of Rohingyas from Bangladesh, but allegations of human rights abuses in the refugee camps threatened this effort. In 2015, 140,000 Rohingyas remained in IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camps after communal riots in 2012.

In 2015, the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School found "strong evidence that genocide is being committed against Rohingya." After eight months of analysing whether the persecution of the Rohingya in Rakhine State satisfied the criteria for genocide, the study found that the Burmese government, with the help of extremist Buddhist monks, was responsible for ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Rohingya.

Before the most recent violence, in its 17 March 2016 Atrocities Prevention Report, the U.S. Department of State summarised:

The situation in Rakhine State is grim, in part due to a mix of long-term historical tensions between the Rakhine and Rohingya communities, socio-political conflict, socio-economic underdevelopment, and a long-standing marginalisation of both Rakhine and Rohingya by the Government of Burma. The World Bank estimates Rakhine State has the highest poverty rate in Burma (78 per cent) and is the poorest state in the country. The lack of investment by the central government has resulted in poor infrastructure and inferior social services, while lack of rule of law has led to inadequate security conditions. Members of the Rohingya community in particular reportedly face abuses by the Government of Burma, including those involving torture, unlawful arrest and detention, restricted movement, restrictions on religious practice, and discrimination in employment and access to social services. In 2012, the intercommunal conflict led to the death of nearly 200 Rohingya and the displacement of 140,000 people. Throughout 2013-2015 isolated incidents of violence against Rohingya individuals continued to take place.

According to Myanmar state reports, on 9 October 2016, armed individuals attacked several border police posts in Rakhine State and left nine police personnel dead. Weapons and ammunition were also looted. The attack took place mainly in Maungdaw Township. A newly formed insurgent group, Harakah al-Yaqin, claimed responsibility a week later.

Following the border post incidents, the Burmese military began a major crackdown in the villages of northern Rakhine State. In the initial operation, dozens of people were killed and many were arrested. Casualties increased as the crackdown continued. Arbitrary arrest, extrajudicial killings, gang rapes, brutalities against civilians, and looting were carried out. Media reports stated hundreds of Rohingya people had been killed by December 2016, and many had fled Myanmar as refugees to take shelter in the nearby areas of Bangladesh.

In late November, Human Rights Watch released satellite images which showed about 1,250 Rohingya houses in five villages burned down by security forces. The media and human rights groups frequently reported intense human rights violations by the Burmese military. During one incident in November, the Myanmar military used helicopter gunships to shoot and kill villagers. As of November 2016, Myanmar has yet to allow the media and human rights groups to enter the persecuted areas. Consequently, the exact figures of civilian casualties remain unknown. Rakhine State was termed an "information black hole".

Those who fled Myanmar to escape persecution reported that women had been gang raped, men were killed, houses were torched, and young children were thrown into burning houses. Boats carrying Rohingya refugees on the Naf River were often gunned down by the Burmese military.

On 3 February 2017, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released a report based on interviews with more than 200 Rohingya refugees, which said that the abuses included gang-rape, mass killing, and killing children. Nearly half of the interviewees stated that family members of theirs had been killed. Half of the women interviewed stated that they had been raped or sexually assaulted: the report described the sexual violence as "massive and systematic". The army and police were alleged to have burned "homes, schools, markets, shops, and mosques" belonging to or used by the Rohingya people.

In March 2017, a police document obtained by Reuters listed 423 Rohingyas detained by the police since 9 October 2016, 13 of whom were children, the youngest being ten years old. Two police captains in Maungdaw verified the document and justified the arrests; one of them said, "We the police have to arrest those who collaborated with the attackers, children or not, but the court will decide if they are guilty; we are not the ones who decide." Burmese police also claimed that the children had confessed to their alleged crimes during interrogations and that they were not beaten or pressured during questioning. The average age of those detained is 34, the youngest is 10, and the oldest is 75.

On 24 October 2018, Marzuki Darusman, chairman of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, reported examples of atrocities committed by Myanmar Security forces against Rohingya Muslims. This Independent International Fact-Finding Mission was established in 2017 by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The Myanmar military's crackdown on the Rohingya people drew criticism from various parties. The human rights organization Amnesty International and organisations such as the United Nations have labelled the military's crackdown on the Rohingya minority a crime against humanity and they have also stated that the military has made the civilians the targets of "a systematic campaign of violence".

In particular, Aung San Suu Kyi has been criticized for her silence and her lack of action on the issue, and she has also been criticized for failing to prevent the military from committing human rights abuses. In response, she stated: "show me a country without human rights issues." The former head of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, after a week-long visit in the Rakhine state, expressed deep concern about reports of human rights violations in the area. He was leading a nine-member commission which was formed in August 2016 to look into and make recommendations on improving the situation in the state.

The U.S. Department of State expressed concern about the violence in Rakhine State and the displacement of Rohingyas. The government of Malaysia has condemned the crackdown in Rakhine State, with ongoing protests in the country. In a protest rally in early December, Malaysia's prime minister Najib Razak criticised the Myanmar authority for the military crackdown on Rohingya Muslims, and described the ongoing persecution as "genocide". Malaysia stated that the situation was of international concern and it also termed the violence against the Rohingya Muslim minority " ethnic cleansing". Malaysia also cancelled two football matches with Myanmar to protest the crackdown.

In November 2016, a senior United Nations official, John McKissick, accused Myanmar of conducting ethnic cleansing in the Rakhine state in order to free it from the Muslim minority. McKissick is the head of a UN refugee agency based in the Bangladeshi town Cox's Bazar. Later that month, Bangladesh summoned the Myanmar envoy in its country to express "tremendous concern" over the Rohingya persecution.

In December 2016, the United Nations strongly criticised the Myanmar government for its poor treatment of the Rohingya people, and it called its approach "callous". The United Nations also called on Aung San Suu Kyi to take steps to stop violence against the Rohingyas. In its report released in February 2017, the UN stated that the persecution of the Rohingya included serious human rights violations. The UN Human Rights Commissioner Zeid Raad Al Hussein stated "The cruelty to which these Rohingya children have been subjected to is unbearable - what kind of hatred could make a man stab a baby who was crying out for his mother's milk?" A spokesperson for the government stated that the allegations were very serious, and they would be investigated.

On 23 May 2017, a report which was released by the Myanmar military rejected the allegations which were made by the OHCHR in February, stating that "[o]ut of 18 accusations included in the OHCHR report, 12 were found to be incorrect, with the remaining six accusations found to be false and fabricated accusations based on lies and invented statements."

2017-present: Rohingya genocide

Spillover into the 2017-present genocide

In January 2017, at least four police officers were detained by government authorities after a video was posted online of security forces beating Rohingya Muslims in November 2016. In the video, Rohingya men and boys were forced to sit in rows with their hands behind their head while they were beaten with batons and kicked. This was the first incident in which the government punished its own security forces in the region since the beginning of the crackdown.

On 4 July 2017, a mob of at least a hundred Rakhine Buddhists in Sittwe attacked seven Rohingya men from the Dapaing camp for internally displaced persons with bricks, killing one and severely injuring another. The Rohingya men were being escorted by police to Sittwe's docks to purchase boats, but were attacked despite armed guards being present nearby. A spokesman for the Burmese Ministry of Home Affairs said that an unarmed junior policeman was with the Rohingya men at the time of the attack, but was unable to stop the attackers. On 26 July 2017 a man was arrested in relation to the attacks .

On 30 July 2017, packages of high energy biscuits gifted from the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) as aid were discovered in a terrorist hideout in the Mayu mountain range in Maungdaw Township. The Rakhine State Government and WFP investigated on the pretense of misuse of food assistance. On 31 July 2017, three decapitated bodies were found in Rathedaung Township. A government official asserted they were murdered by Rohingya insurgents. On 3 August 2017, six Mro farmers were found killed in Maungdaw Township, supposedly as the work of Muslim militants.

On 25 August 2017, the Myanmar government announced that 71 people (one soldier, one immigration officer, 10 policemen and 59 insurgents) had been killed overnight during coordinated attacks by up to 150 insurgents across 24 police posts and the 552nd Light Infantry Battalion army base in Rakhine State. The Myanmar Army stated that the attack began around 1:00 AM, when insurgents armed with bombs, small arms weapons, and machetes blew up a bridge. It went on to say that a majority of the attacks occurred around 3:00 AM to 4:00 AM. The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) claimed they were taking "defensive actions" in 25 different locations and accused government soldiers of raping and killing civilians. The group also claimed that Rathedaung had been under a blockade for more than two weeks, starving the Rohingya, and that the government forces were preparing to do the same in Maungdaw.

Yanghee Lee, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights for Myanmar reports at least 1,000 people had been killed in the violence since 25 August. She added that the figure is "very likely an underestimate". She also downplayed the chance that Myanmar generals will ever see the inside of the International Criminal Court due to ''powerful international defenders.''

As of October 2018, the persecutions are still continuing. Lee reported that Suu Kyi denies the allegations. Suu Kyi's government has denied "independent international investigations" and probes. Lee has described the situation as 'apartheid' with detained Rohingyas segregated from the 'Rakhine ethnic community' and without 'freedom of movement'.

In early April 2020, the government of Myanmar released two presidential directives: Directive No. 1/2020 and Directive No. 2/2020. They were followed by the January orders issued by ICJ for the government and military to stop genocide against the Rohingya Muslim ethnic group. Directive No. 1/2020 legislates that the answerable authorities are liable to ensure anyone under their control do not commit activities that lead up to a genocide. Directive No. 2/2020 restrains all Ministries and the government of Rakhine State from destroying The ICJ's January order and also mandated the preservation of evidence of any criminal activity that can possibly build up to a genocide.

After the attack on security forces, the Myanmar military responded with a "heavy counter-offensive" and started "clearance operations" against the Rohingya people with the help of the Buddhist militia. In the first week, at least 130 Rohingya people were killed. The Rohingya people started fleeing Myanmar in large numbers and tried to take shelter in Bangladesh. The Myanmar military often opened fire with mortar shells and machine-guns on the fleeing Rohingya, and dead bodies of many Rohingya people began to be washed ashore from the drowned boats as they attempted to cross the Naf River to enter Bangladesh. By the second week, at least 1000 Rohingya were killed. During the military operations, the Burmese military burnt down and destroyed hundreds of Rohingya villages, killed thousands of Rohingya civilians, raped and sexually abused Rohingya women, and committed other crimes against humanity.[citation needed ]

In August 2018, a study estimated that more than 24,000 Rohingya people were killed by the Burmese military and local Buddhists since the "clearance operations" which had started on 25 August 2017. The study also estimated that over 18,000 Rohingya Muslim women and girls were raped, 116,000 Rohingyans were beaten, and 36,000 Rohingyans were thrown into fires. It was also reported that at least 6,700 to 7,000 Rohingya people including 730 children were killed in the first month alone since the crackdown started. The majority of them died from gunshots while others were burned to death in their homes. The sources described their killings as "violent deaths". There were also reports of mass killings of Rohingyas by the military and Buddhist vigilantes in Chut Pyin village near Rathedaung. Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project stated that they had received reports of 130 being killed in the village. On 7 September 2017, The Guardian reported a mass killing of Rohingyas at the Tula Toli village and called it the Tula Toli Massacre. According to the Arakan Project, evidence of likely mass graves was uncovered, including time stamped mobile phone metadata indicating an 27 August date.

In February 2018, Reuters reported a massacre event which occurred in Rakhine state's Inn Din village on 2 September 2017. This event is known as the Inn Din massacre. Ten Rohingya men, all of whom were captured from the Rohingya village of Inn Din, were killed by members of the Burmese army and Buddhist villagers who formed an "informal militia" to attack Rohingya villages. The victims were taken from hundreds of Rohingya villagers who gathered near a beach to seek safety. Reuters identified all ten victims: five of the men were fishermen, two were shopkeepers, one was an Islamic teacher, and the last two were high school students.

In September 2018, the U.N. Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar released a report stating that at least 392 Rohingya villages in Rakhine State had been razed to the ground since 25 August 2017. Earlier, Human Rights Watch in December 2017 said it had found that 354 Rohingya villages in Rakhine state were burnt down and destroyed by the Myanmar military. These destructions included thousands of structures, mainly homes used by the Rohingya Muslims. Lewa blamed the security forces of the burning village after village in a systematic way while also blaming Rohingya arsonists of burning the Buddhist village of Pyu Ma. A video provided to ABC News by a human rights monitor purportedly shows the village burning and in another clip of freshly dug earth mound, allegedly graves of those killed.

Before the Inn Din massacre in early September 2017, members of Myanmar military and the Buddhist villagers of Inn Din looted the Rohingya hamlets in Inn Din and then burned down the Rohingya houses. Several Buddhist villagers later confessed to Reuters that they set fire to the Rohingya houses with kerosene and participated in the massacre on 2 September. The 33rd Light Infantry Division of Myanmar Army, the 8th Security Police Battalion, and the Buddhist villagers took part in the looting which included Rohingya property, goats, cows, cattle, and motorcycles. Thant Zin Oo, the commander of the 8th Battalion, later sold the cows and the cattle in exchange for money.

In November 2017, both the UN officials and the Human Rights Watch reported that the Armed Forces of Myanmar had committed widespread gang rapes and other forms of sexual violence against the Rohingya Muslim women and girls for the prior three months. Alongside the Armed Forces, the Myanmar Border Guard Police and Buddhist militias of Rakhine were also involved in these atrocities. HRW stated that the gang rapes and sexual violence were committed as part of the military's ethnic cleansing campaign while the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten said that the Rohingya women and girls were made the "systematic" target of rapes and sexual violence because of their ethnic identity and religion. Other forms of sexual violence included sexual slavery in military captivity, forced public nudity, and humiliation. Some women and girls were raped to death while others were found traumatised with raw wounds after they had arrived in refugee camps in Bangladesh. Human Rights Watch reported of a 15-year-old Rohingya girl who was ruthlessly dragged on the ground for over 50 feet and then was raped by 10 Burmese soldiers.

In February 2018, it was reported that the Burmese military bulldozed and flattened the burnt Rohingya villages and mass graves in order to destroy the evidence of atrocities committed. These villages were inhabited by the Rohingya people before they were burnt down by the Burmese military during the 2017 crackdown. Some intact villages that lost their Rohingya inhabitants because of the military crackdown were also bulldozed.

Since the 25 August incident, Myanmar blocked media access and the visits of international bodies to Rakhine State. Near Rangoon on 12 December 2017, two Reuters journalists who had been covering the refugee story were charged and imprisoned by the police for violating a 1923 colonial law related to secrecy. On 1 February 2018, a Myanmar court denied bail for the two Reuters journalists. The UN Secretary-General António Guterres expressed his concern and called for the release of the two journalists, who were released on 7 May 2019 along with over 6,000 other prisoners in a presidential pardon.

According to the Mission report of OHCHR (released on 11 October 2017 by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights), the Burmenese military began a "systematic" process of driving hundreds of thousands of Rohingya from Myanmar in early August 2017. The report noted that "prior to the incidents and crackdown of 25 August, a strategy was pursued to":

Arrest and arbitrarily detain male Rohingyas between the ages of 15-40 years;

Arrest and arbitrarily detain Rohingya opinion-makers, leaders and cultural and religious personalities;

Initiate acts to deprive Rohingya villagers of access to food, livelihoods and other means of conducting daily activities and life;

Commit repeated acts of humiliation and violence prior to, during and after 25 August, to drive out Rohingya villagers en masse through incitement to hatred, violence, and killings, including by declaring the Rohingyas as Bengalis and illegal settlers in Myanmar;

Instill deep and widespread fear and trauma - physical, emotional and psychological, in the Rohingya victims via acts of brutality, namely killings, disappearances, torture, and rape and other forms of sexual violence.

The Myanmar government instructed media sources to not include issues regarding the Rohingya in 2014. Specifically, the Editor in Chief of the Myanmar Times sent a memo to his editorial team stating:

... no material is to be run in any of our newspapers with regard to the Rohingya, Bengalis, Muslims and Buddhists and the ongoing issues in Rakhine without direct approval from my desk... Our coverage is unlikely to matter substantively in the scheme of things and there appears little sense in placing our heads on the block right at this time...[page needed ]

According to Aung Zaw, the founder and editor of Irrawaddy Magazine, Burmese reporters were told by their editors to use caution or ignore the Rohingya issue completely when reporting. Zaw attributes the self-censorship to potential international backlash the Myanmar government may face when reporting on the Rohingya. The Rakhine authorities have secluded the Rohingya as much has possible from Myanmar society and from international visitors. Rohingya that have been known to have spoken to UN Special Reporters or journalists have been arrested and/or beaten for giving their accounts.[page needed ]

Coverage on the Rohingya crisis in different countries is reported on in different ways. In his dissertation, Md Khadimul Islam qualitatively examined 50 news reports and quantitatively examined 258 news reports of Bangladesh, India and China. Islam found that news reports from India and Bangladesh focused on the "human interest and protest frame,"¹ while Chinese media focused on security and conflict of the Rohingya with Myanmar government officials being cited most in their reports.

According to Islam's study, the human interest frame was the most frequent frame as it had 28% of news reports. This indicates that the stories put a human face on the problem the most, and described the Myanmar army's brutal action prominently. The second most frequent frame is protest with 22.2%, focusing primarily on protest and criticism of the Myanmar government for its actions against Rohingyas. Focusing on different aspects of aid including calling for aid and providing shelter, roughly 21.5% news reports used the aid frame. "The frequency of use of security frame in articles is 11.6% and conflict is 7.5%. Only 2% news reports used other frame that did not fall the six categories of frames developed in this study."

In Bangladeshi reports, the most cited sources were aid agencies for the Rohingya with 19.6% of the sample of news media. Second, were national officials with 17.8% of the media sample, and Myanmar was cited the least at 5.9%.¹ Also found in Islam's study were Bangladeshi news reports that found, Rohingya appeared 10.4%, foreign officials appeared 16.3%, local admin appeared 14.1%, national elite appeared 14.8%, and other appeared 8.3%.[unreliable source? ]

From Md Khadimul Islam's study, Indian media cited national officials the most on the Rohingya issue at 34.7%. Next, aid agencies were cited at 20.8%, and Myanmar appeared 6.9%. Islam also notes that "Rohingya" appeared 8.3%, foreign officials appeared 8.3%, local admin appeared 1.4%, national elite appeared 11.1%, and other appeared 8.3%.

In 2017, the vast majority of Rohingya people were displaced and became refugees as a result of the genocide. At the peak of the crisis in 2017, over a million Rohingya were forced to flee to other countries. Most fled to Bangladesh while others escaped to India, Thailand, Malaysia, and other parts of South and Southeast Asia. According to the United Nations reports, as of January 2018, nearly 690,000 Rohingya people had fled or had been driven out of Rakhine State who sought refuge in Bangladesh. It was estimated that around 650,000 Rohingya Muslims had fled Myanmar as of November 2017. The refugee crisis in 2017 resulted in the largest human exodus in Asia since the Vietnam War.

In January 2017, an estimated 92,000 Rohingya people had been displaced because of the violence; around 65,000 had fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh between October 2016 and January 2017, while 23,000 others had been internally displaced.

In February 2017, the government of Bangladesh announced that it planned to relocate the new refugees and another 232,000 Rohingya refugees already in the country to Bhasan Char, a sedimentary island in the Bay of Bengal. The island first appeared around 2007, formed from washed down silt from the Meghna River. The nearest inhabited land, Hatiya Island, is around 30 km away. News agencies quoted a regional official describing the plan as "terrible". The move received substantial opposition from a number of parties. Human rights groups have described the plan as a forced relocation. Additionally, concerns were raised over the living conditions on the island, which is low-lying and prone to flooding. The island has been described as "only accessible during winter and a haven for pirates". It is nine hours away from the camps where the Rohingya refugees live.

In May 2017, Bangladesh detained 12 Rohingya people and 2 smugglers who attempted to leave the country by boat for Malaysia.

In September 2017, Nepal increased surveillance at its border with India to prevent more Rohingya refugees from entering the country. A small community of Rohingya refugees live in the capital, Kathmandu.

In November 2017, the government of Bangladesh signed a pact with Myanmar to return the Rohingya refugees to their homes in the Rakhine territory. The deal arose after a diplomatic meeting on the matter between Aung San Suu Kyi and Abul Hassan Mahmud Ali, the foreign minister of Bangladesh. The accord was viewed by international commentators as a conscious effort by Suu Kyi to address criticism over her lack of action in the conflict. This decision, coming after both the United Nations and Rex Tillerson, US Secretary of State, declared that the actions undertaken by the Burmese army against the Rohingya refugees constituted ethnic cleansing, was met with hesitation and criticism by aid groups.

The ongoing genocide against the Rohingya people garnered strong criticism internationally and it also generated serious concerns about the human rights issues. International communities and human rights organizations have all described the violence as ethnic cleansing and genocide. Soon after the security forces and Buddhist militia started "clearance operations", the world leaders warned the Myanmar authority to avoid civilian casualties. In late September, a seven-member panel of the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal accused Myanmar of conducting genocide against the Rohingya and the Kachin minority groups. The verdict came after a five-day trial, held at the law faculty of the University of Malaya, which examined various documentaries, expert views, and the testimony of victims. The tribunal made 17 recommendations including demilitarisation of Rakhine State and the end of discriminatory citizenship law. The United Nations' human rights chief Zeid bin Ra'ad described the persecution as "a textbook example of ethnic cleansing". On 5 December 2017, Ra'ad announced that the Rohingya persecution may constitute genocide under international human rights laws. In November, British prime minister Theresa May and United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson described the situation as "ethnic cleansing" while the French President Emmanuel Macron called it genocide.

After a two-year investigation into the situation of the Rohingya ethnic minority, the human rights organization Amnesty International released a report which stated that the restricted area which the Rohingya people live in is "an open-air prison" where they are living under a "vicious system of institutionalized discrimination and segregation" which is limiting their human rights, their freedom of movement, and their access to food, healthcare, and education. Amnesty International mentions that the Rohingya minority are confined to their villages, townships, and poorly-maintained camps which are cut off from the rest of Myanmar, and travel between their own villages is severely restricted. Travel between townships is subject to a complicated process of obtaining permission, and even then those permitted to travel are routinely harassed, physically tortured or arrested. All these "systematic" acts of discrimination and persecution amount to apartheid, the rights group said.

In 2016, Aung San Suu Kyi was criticised for her silence over the issue and supporting the military actions. She was relieved of her 1997 Freedom of Oxford award over "inaction" in handling the raging violence. Others argue that since the military retains significant autonomy and power in the government, she may be powerless to control them. Her inaction, on behalf of the Rohingya, brought a plea for action from fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai. Numerous people have called for Suu Kyi's Nobel Prize to be revoked. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu also criticised Suu Kyi's stand to defend the military actions. The Economist criticised Suu Kyi's stance, arguing: "the violence in Rakhine has reached such an unconscionable level that there can be no justifying continued passivity."

Direct sanctions against the Burmese military and the imposition of penalties on firms which do business with companies which are linked to it, like the penalties which were imposed by the United States and other countries in the past, have been suggested as the best response to the violence. According to The Economist, "The Burmese army is not easy to influence, but economic and diplomatic isolation seems to have played a part in persuading it to surrender its power in the first place."

On 12 September 2018, the OHCHR Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar published its report to the United Nations Human Rights Council. Following 875 interviews with victims and eyewitnesses since 2011, it concluded that "the [Burmese] military has consistently failed to respect international human rights law and the international humanitarian law principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution." Even before the most recent incident of mass Rohingya displacement began in 2011, the report found that the restrictions on travel, birth registration, and education resulting from Rohingya statelessness violated the Rohingya people's human rights. During the mass displacement of almost 725,000 Rohingya by August 2018 to neighbouring Bangladesh, as a result of persecution by the Tatmadaw, the report recorded "gross human rights violations and abuses" such as mass rape, murder, torture, and imprisonment. It also accused the Tatmadaw of crimes against humanity, genocide, and ethnic cleansing. The mission report recommend that six Burmese generals in the Tatmadaw stand trial in an international tribune for atrocities committed against the Rohingya.

All NGOs and humanitarian agencies, including UN agencies, are bound by the humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, and independence. As the 2018 Independent Fact-Finding Mission Report highlighted, UN agencies were aware of Rohingya persecution for almost three decades, with five consecutive Special Rapporteurs on the situation of human rights in Myanmar having been appointed since 1992. However, the Independent Fact-Finding Mission Report noted: "While Myanmar was repeatedly identified as a crisis situation requiring a human rights-driven response by the "whole of the United Nations", this approach was rarely, if ever, taken. Rather, many United Nations agencies have continued to prioritise development goals, humanitarian access, and quiet diplomacy. That approach has demonstrably failed, and the United Nations as a whole has failed adequately to address human rights concerns in Myanmar. Even now, the approach taken displays few signs of any lessons learned, with human rights missing from agreements recently signed with the Government."

The UN's continued attempts to cooperate with the Myanmar Government, despite the Government's unwillingness to acknowledge or address the Tatmadaw's persecution of the Rohingya, has allowed the humanitarian crisis to worsen. Although this approach complies with the common interpretation of other humanitarian principles, such as neutrality and impartiality, it neglects the core humanitarian principle of humanity. For example, a suppressed internal UN report heavily criticised the UN Country Team for ineffectively focusing on development and investment rather than on addressing the root causes of the persecution. Moreover, a September 2017 BBC investigation reported that, in an attempt to promote investment into Myanmar, UN officials prevented human rights activists travelling to Rohingya areas, tried to shut down public advocacy on the subject, and isolated staff that warned of ethnic cleansing. Despite these criticisms of the UN's approach, in June 2018 the UNDP and UNHCR entered an MoU with Myanmar Government providing for the reparation of Rohingya to Myanmar. On 13 November 2018, the plan to repatriate an initial 2,200 Rohingya was abandoned due to protests by Rohingya refugees.

In December 2017, a coalition of 69 human rights non-governmental organisations appointed an Independent Fact-Finding Mission team, including Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch, and called upon the UN Security Council to take "immediate action" in response to the humanitarian crisis by exploring "all avenues for justice and accountability, including through international courts". The coalition also called for arms embargoes and targeted sanctions.

The distinct OHCHR-appointed Independent Fact-Finding Mission 2018 Report similarly recommended that the UN Security Council issue a Chapter VII referral to the International Criminal Court, or, in the alternative, establishes an ad hoc international criminal tribunal. They also recommended: "enhanced monitoring, documentation, analysis and public reporting on the situation of human rights", the allocation of appropriate resources, repatriation "only when safe, voluntary and dignified with explicit human rights protections in place", termination of operational support for Tatmadaw until the genuine commitment to reform and cooperation is secured, and the establishment of a trust fund for victims.

However, leaders of ASEAN countries began to raise concerns on the issue. In a meeting with other ASEAN foreign ministers on 19 December 2016, Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman called for a collective effort to resolve the crisis. In addition, in the 30th ASEAN Summit, Indonesian President Joko Widodo discussed the issue of the Rohingya crisis with Suu Kyi. He stressed the importance of stability in Myanmar for the wider regional security.

The ASEAN states' hesitance to comment on the issue may be explained by a concern that the rise of China and its influence in Myanmar could risk ASEAN's interest in the country. Azeem Ibrahim, the author of The Rohingyas: Inside Myanmar's Hidden Genocide, noted "Myanmar's interactions with ASEAN are perhaps indicative of its wider approach to international relations." While ASEAN member states welcome economic opportunities with China's rise, they fear its growing influence. It has been suggested that ASEAN criticism of Myanmar's domestic crisis will lead to closer ties between China and Myanmar.

As of 7 June 2019, ASEAN released a report stating optimism that half a million Rohingyas (referred to as "Muslim") will return to Myanmar in two years. The report allegedly glossed over the atrocities committed by Suu Kyi's regime. The UN has not yet commented.

Matthew Smith of the NGO Fortify Rights said "[w]e can now say with a high level of confidence that state-led security forces and local armed residents have committed mass killings." Smith accused the Burmese military of trying to expel all Rohingyas from the country.

Muslim protests were held in various capital cities in Asian countries in late November 2016. Protests were held on 8 September 2017 across Asia in Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Pakistan in solidarity of the Rohingya people. Protests were also held by Rohingya people in Melbourne, Australia in early September 2017. Additional protests were held in the same month in Washington DC in the United States, Cape Town in South Africa, and Jammu and Kashmir in India. A protest was planned in Hong Kong.

On 11 November 2019, The Gambia, with the support of the 57 nations of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation, filed a lawsuit against Myanmar in the UN International Court of Justice on behalf of the Rohingya. The lawsuit alleged that Myanmar committed genocide against the Muslim minority group and was filed in the World Court as a dispute between nations. More than 740,000 Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh, but the government insisted that the crackdown in Rakhine since 2017 was necessary to target terrorism. Aung San Suu Kyi personally led a legal team at the International Court of Justice to defend Myanmar in the first public hearings for this case on 10-12 December 2019. The court made no ruling as to whether Myanmar was responsible for genocide. However it stated that Myanmar must take measures on an emergency basis to protect Rohingya Muslims and to retain evidence of possible genocide.

Separately, on 13 November 2019, in Argentina, the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK filed a federal case under " universal jurisdiction" - the legal basis that for certain grave crimes any state can prosecute regardless of where the crime was committed and who was involved - against Suu Kyi and other top military and civilian leaders. On 14 November 2019, the UN International Criminal Court authorised a full investigation into possible crimes against the Rohingya by senior military and civilian officials. This follows several UN fact-finding reports. Technically, the International Criminal Court does not have jurisdiction in Myanmar, as the country is not a signatory to the Rome Statute; however, the suit in the International Criminal Court has been allowed because Bangladesh, where many Rohingya have fled to, is a signatory to the treaty.

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The Rohingya genocide is a series of ongoing persecutions and killings of the Muslim Rohingya people by the Burmese military. The genocide has consisted of two phases to date: the first was a military crackdown that occurred from October 2016 to January 2017, and the second has been occurring since August 2017.

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On August 8, 1998 the Taliban began to kill people based on their ethnicity, especially Hazaras and Uzbeks. Men, women and children were hunted by Taliban forces as a result of the 1500-3000 Taliban fighters executed by the Uzbek Junbish-i Milli militia. This act of ethnic cleansing left an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 dead.

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The nation of Rwanda killer 800,000 people of the Tutsi minority. The genocide was started by the Hutu nationalists and the genocide spread through the country and citizen began were encouraged by the Hutu government to "take up arms" against their neighbours. Rwanda consists of 85% of its population being Hutu and the rest Tutsi. Members of the Hutu majority murdered many of the Tutsi population.

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In the 2011 Norway killings/bombing Anders Behring Breivik first set a car bomb by a government building and then dressed up as a police officer and travelled to an island where there was a camp going on with hundreds of adolescents. He then proceeded to shoot everyone there regardless of who they were. I believed that he comes under the Pseudocommando typology and under the victim-offender relationship he would be an instrumental killer because he was trying to get rid of the immigrants and he believed that he was doing the right thing by removing the "filth" from his country. He said to consider it as ethnic cleansing.

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During the Balkan Wars ethnic cleansing was carried out in Kosovo, Macedonia, Sanjak, and Thrace, at first, they were committed against the Muslim population, but later, they were also committed against Christians, and villages were burned and people were massacred.

The government forces expelled 862,979 ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, and several hundred thousand more were internally displaced, in addition to those displaced prior to March 1999. More than 80 percent of the entire population of Kosovo-90 percent of Kosovar Albanians-were displaced from their homes.

Tens of thousands of homes in at least 1,200 cities, towns, and villages have been damaged or destroyed. During the conflict, Serbian forces and paramilitaries implemented a systematic campaign to ethnically cleanse Kosovo--aspects of this campaign include the following:
1. Forcible Displacement of Kosovar Albanian Civilians
2. Looting of Homes and Businesses:
3. Widespread Burning of Homes
4. Use of Human Shields

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Executive Summary
Introduction
Overview
Documenting the Abuses
The Refugee Interview Process
Postscript: Albanian Retribution and Missing Persons
Atrocities and War Crimes by Location
Appendix: List of Annotated Web Site

PDF version:Part 1:
Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo (1.5MB)
Part 2:Atrocities and War Crimes by Locations (1 MB)
Part 3:Annotated Web Site (64 KB)

E thnic Cleansing in Kosovo: An Accounting is a new chapter in our effort to document the extent of human rights and humanitarian law violations in Kosovo, and to convey the size and scope of the Kosovo conflict. The information in this report is drawn from refugee accounts, NGO documentation, press accounts, and declassified information from government and international organization sources.

The atrocities against Kosovar Albanians documented in this report occurred primarily between March and late June, 1999. This document is a follow-up to the U.S. Department of State's previous human rights report, Erasing History: Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo, which was released on May 10, 1999.

A central question is the number of Kosovar Albanian victims of Serbian forces in Kosovo. Many bodies were found when KFOR and the ICTY entered Kosovo in June 1999. The evidence is also now clear that Serbian forces conducted a systematic campaign to burn or destroy bodies, or to bury the bodies, then rebury them to conceal evidence of Serbian crimes. On June 4, at the end of the conflict, the Department of State issued the last of a series of weekly ethnic cleansing reports, available at www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/rpt_990604_ksvo_ethnic.html concluding that at least 6,000 Kosovar Albanians were victims of mass murder, with an unknown number of victims of individual killings, and an unknown number of bodies burned or destroyed by Serbian forces throughout the conflict.

On November 10, 1999, ICTY Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte told the U.N. Security Council that her office had received reports of more than 11,000 killed in 529 reported mass grave and killing sites in Kosovo. The Prosecutor said her office had exhumed 2,108 bodies from 195 of the 529 known mass graves. This would imply about 6,000 bodies in mass graves in Kosovo if the 334 mass graves not examined thus far contain the same average number of victims. To this total must be added three important categories of victims: (1) those buried in mass graves whose locations are unknown, (2) what the ICTY reports is a significant number of sites where the precise number of bodies cannot be counted, and (3) victims whose bodies were burned or destroyed by Serbian forces. Press accounts and eyewitness accounts provide credible details of a program of destruction of evidence by Serbian forces throughout Kosovo and even in Serbia proper. The number of victims whose bodies have been burned or destroyed may never be known, but enough evidence has emerged to conclude that probably around 10,000 Kosovar Albanians were killed by Serbian forces.

Death represents only one facet of Serbian actions in Kosovo.Over 1.5 million Kosovar Albanians--at least 90 percent of the estimated 1998 Kosovar Albanian population of Kosovo--were forcibly expelled from their homes. Tens of thousands of homes in at least 1,200 cities, towns, and villages have been damaged or destroyed. During the conflict, Serbian forces and paramilitaries implemented a systematic campaign to ethnically cleanse Kosovo--aspects of this campaign include the following:

*Use of Human Shields: Refugees claim that Serbian forces used Kosovar Albanians to escort military convoys and shield facilities throughout the province. Other reporting indicates that Serbian forces intentionally positioned ethnic Albanians at sites they believed were targets for NATO airstrikes.

* Identity Cleansing: Kosovar Albanians were systematically stripped of identity and property documents including passports, land titles, automobile license plates, identity cards, and other forms of documentation. As much as 50 percent of the population may be without documentation. By systematically destroying schools, places of worship, and hospitals, Serbian forces sought to destroy social identity and the fabric of Kosovar Albanian society.

* Aftermath: Following the withdrawal of Serbian forces in June, Kosovo saw manifestations of a new set of human rights problems. These include acts of retribution against the Serb minority, including the killing of 200-400 Serb residents. In addition, as many as 23,000 conscientious objectors, draft evaders, and deserters in Serbia are threatened with legal action.

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Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo: An Accounting

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Executive Summary Introduction Overview Documenting the Abuses The Refugee Interview Process Postscript: Albanian Retribution and Missing Persons Atrocities and War Crimes by Location Appendix: List of Annotated Web Site PDF version:Part 1: Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo (1.5MB) Part 2:Atrocities and War Crimes by Locations (1 MB) Part 3:Annotated Web Site (64 KB) E thnic Cleansing in Kosovo: An Accounting is a new chapter in our effort to document the extent of human rights and humanitarian law violations in Kosovo, and to convey the size and scope of the Kosovo conflict.

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Christians and Yazidis in Iraq and Syria

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Christians and Yazidis in Iraq and Syria

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The terrorist groups ISIS committed and is still committing genocidal campaigns to exterminate Yazidis, Shiites, and Christians by destroying their villages and carrying out mass rapes in the communities. Thousands have been killed.

- Samme Toering

https://www.businessinsider.com/genocides-still-going-on-today-bosnia-2017-11#christians-and-yazidis-in-iraq-and-syria-3

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Perhaps the most high-profile genocide of recent years is that of the Rohingya, who live in Rakhine state in northwestern Myanmar.

Unlike the majority of the Buddhist country, the Rohingya are Muslim, and have long suffered as second-class citizens in Myanmar because most people in the country believe they are illegal immigrants and "terrorists" from Bangladesh.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson officially declared the Rohingya crisis a case of ethnic cleansing on Wednesday. So far, up to 3,000 people have been killed in Myanmar, and at least 270,000 have been displaced.

South Sudan became the world's newest country in 2011, but since 2013, the country has been mired in a brutal civil war.

Throughout the multifaceted conflict, South Sudan's President Salva Kiir, a member of the Dinka ethnic group, has been using his army to wage a campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Dinka's main rival ethnic group, the Nuer, as well as other smaller local groups. The Nuer have taken part in ethnic cleansing against the Dinka as well.

The UK has branded these targeted killings and rapes as genocide. Although the Dinka-Nuer conflict has taken center stage in South Sudan, many smaller ethnic groups have also been implicated in the dizzying array of ethnic violence in the country.

As the terrorist group ISIS carved its caliphate out of war-torn Syria and Iraq in 2014 and 2015, it extended its reach over various non-Muslim communities and ethnic groups, including Yazidis and Shiites Iraq, as well as Assyrian Christians living in both Syria and Iraq.

In brutal, genocidal campaigns in both countries, ISIS sought to systematically exterminate Yazidis, Shiites, and Christians and destroy their villages. They also carried out mass rapes in these communities. Although numbers remain hazy, thousands of people have been killed in these related genocides.

As of this week, ISIS has officially been defeated territorially, but the effects of their genocides continue to wreak havoc on people in the region. Khider Domle, Yazidi researcher based in Dohuk, Iraq, says the secondary effects of the genocide are still very present in Yazidi communities in Iraq.

"Our psychological, social and religious identity has been destroyed," Domle told Al Jazeera. "People are living all over the place, and they don't know what the future is. There have been no initiatives from the Iraqi government to help the displaced people return back to Sinjar; no national reconciliation process; no attempt to rebuild ruined infrastructure."

The Central African Republic, an African country wedged mainly between the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, and Chad, has been embroiled in a civil war ever since 2013 when the country's Christian President François Bozizé was overthrown by a coalition of Muslim groups.

While the war itself subsided in 2016, since then, ethnic tensions have rapidly mounted, and many observers fear a genocide may be taking place between the Christian militias called the "anti-Balaka" and the Muslim coalition.

Stephen O'Brien, the head of the UN's humanitarian office, said genocide and ethnic cleansing have recently been on the rise in the country.

"The escalation is very real," O'Brien said in a briefing, according to Newsweek. "We're looking at things which we haven't heard about for a long time. There's a very deep ethnic-cleansing approach."

In the mid-2000s, Darfur was recognized as the first genocide of the 21st century by international observers and US ambassadors at the time, and while it has vanished from the headlines since then, the atrocities being committed in this region in western Sudan have continued.

The ethnic killings began in 2003 when ethnically Arab militias supported by Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir began massacring non-Arab people and destroying their villages. The main victims of these campaigns have been the Fur people, but other small non-Arab groups were also affected.

In 2016 and 2017, violence has increased in Darfur, and many refugee camps for internally displaced Darfuris have been attacked by Arab forces in a continuation of the genocide of the 2000s. As the central government continues to crackdown, the same people who captured the world's attention in years past continue to suffer intense persecution.

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5 genocides that are still going on today

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Perhaps the most high-profile genocide of recent years is that of the Rohingya, who live in Rakhine state in northwestern Myanmar. Unlike the majority of the Buddhist country, the Rohingya are Muslim, and have long suffered as second-class citizens in Myanmar because most people in the country believe they are illegal immigrants and "terrorists" from Bangladesh.

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During the Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia, the axis formed the independent state of Croatia, and here the fascist regime carried out what is known as the genocide of Serbs. The executions were carried out in the same method as other Nazi German internment camps. Starvation, mass slaughter, brutal punishment, and war rape was the norm. An estimated 200,000 to 500,000 Serbians were killed from 1941-1945.

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Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia - Wikipedia

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The Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia (Serbo-Croatian: Genocid nad Srbima u Nezavisnoj Državi Hrvatskoj / Геноцид над Србима у Независној Држави Хрватској) was the systematic persecution of Serbs committed during World War II by the fascist Ustaše regime in the Nazi German puppet state known as the Independent State of Croatia (Serbo-Croatian: Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH) between 1941 and 1945. It was carried out through executions in death camps, as well as through mass murder, ethnic cleansing, deportations, forced conversions, and war rape. This genocide was simultaneously carried out with the Holocaust in the NDH as well as the genocide of Roma, by combining Nazi racial policies with the ultimate goal of creating an ethnically pure Greater Croatia.

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Israel was formed in 1948 through the displacement of nearly 800,000 Indigenous Palestinian's and the destruction of over 530 towns and villages. During this conflict, the area was divided into three distinct areas: The Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the State of Israel.

In May of 2021, strikes in Gaza by Israeli forces killed 242 Palestinians. Israel's targeted strikes included places such as medical facilities and personnel. Palestinian's were also subjected to unlawful displacement and eviction of their homes by Israeli authorities. The oppression Palestinian's face also comes in the form of institutional discrimination. In The West Bank and Gaza, Israeli authorities treat Palestinian's separately and unequally. In the occupied West Bank, Palestinian's often face segregation, largely prohibiting them from entering settlements.

For more information, you can also look up the BDS movement: https://bdsmovement.net/colonialism-and-apartheid/summary

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About 6.8 million Jewish Israelis and 6.8 million Palestinians live today between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River, an area encompassing Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), the latter made up of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. Throughout most of this area, Israel is the sole governing power; in the remainder, it exercises primary authority alongside limited Palestinian self-rule. Across these areas and in most aspects of life, Israeli authorities methodically privilege Jewish Israelis and discriminate against Palestinians. Laws, policies, and statements by leading Israeli officials make plain that the objective of maintaining Jewish Israeli control over demographics, political power, and land has long guided government policy. In pursuit of this goal, authorities have dispossessed, confined, forcibly separated, and subjugated Palestinians by virtue of their identity to varying degrees of intensity. In certain areas, as described in this report, these deprivations are so severe that they amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.

Several widely held assumptions, including that the occupation is temporary, that the "peace process" will soon bring an end to Israeli abuses, that Palestinians have meaningful control over their lives in the West Bank and Gaza, and that Israel is an egalitarian democracy inside its borders, have obscured the reality of Israel's entrenched discriminatory rule over Palestinians. Israel has maintained military rule over some portion of the Palestinian population for all but six months of its 73-year history. It did so over the vast majority of Palestinians inside Israel from 1948 and until 1966. From 1967 until the present, it has militarily ruled over Palestinians in the OPT, excluding East Jerusalem. By contrast, it has since its founding governed all Jewish Israelis, including settlers in the OPT since the beginning of the occupation in 1967, under its more rights-respecting civil law.

For the past 54 years, Israeli authorities have facilitated the transfer of Jewish Israelis to the OPT and granted them a superior status under the law as compared to Palestinians living in the same territory when it comes to civil rights, access to land, and freedom to move, build, and confer residency rights to close relatives. While Palestinians have a limited degree of self-rule in parts of the OPT, Israel retains primary control over borders, airspace, the movement of people and goods, security, and the registry of the entire population, which in turn dictates such matters as legal status and eligibility to receive identity cards.

A number of Israeli officials have stated clearly their intent to maintain this control in perpetuity and backed it up through their actions, including continued settlement expansion over the course of the decades-long "peace process." Unilateral annexation of additional parts of the West Bank, which the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to carry out, would formalize the reality of systematic Israeli domination and oppression that has long prevailed without changing the reality that the entire West Bank is occupied territory under the international law of occupation, including East Jerusalem, which Israel unilaterally annexed in 1967.

International criminal law has developed two crimes against humanity for situations of systematic discrimination and repression: apartheid and persecution. Crimes against humanity stand among the most odious crimes in international law.

The international community has over the years detached the term apartheid from its original South African context, developed a universal legal prohibition against its practice, and recognized it as a crime against humanity with definitions provided in the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid ("Apartheid Convention") and the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The crime against humanity of persecution, also set out in the Rome Statute, the intentional and severe deprivation of fundamental rights on racial, ethnic, and other grounds, grew out of the post-World War II trials and constitutes one of the most serious international crimes, of the same gravity as apartheid.

The State of Palestine is a state party to both the Rome Statute and the Apartheid Convention. In February 2021, the ICC ruled that it has jurisdiction over serious international crimes committed in the entirety of the OPT, including East Jerusalem, which would include the crimes against humanity of apartheid or persecution committed in that territory. In March 2021, the ICC Office of Prosecutor announced the opening of a formal investigation into the situation in Palestine.

In this report, Human Rights Watch examines the extent to which that threshold has already been crossed in certain of the areas where Israeli authorities exercise control.

Definitions of Apartheid and Persecution

The prohibition of institutionalized discrimination, especially on grounds of race or ethnicity, constitutes one of the fundamental elements of international law. Most states have agreed to treat the worst forms of such discrimination, that is, persecution and apartheid, as crimes against humanity, and have given the ICC the power to prosecute these crimes when national authorities are unable or unwilling to pursue them. Crimes against humanity consist of specific criminal acts committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack, or acts committed pursuant to a state or organizational policy, directed against a civilian population.

The Apartheid Convention defines the crime against humanity of apartheid as "inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them." The Rome Statute of the ICC adopts a similar definition: "inhumane acts... committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime." The Rome Statute does not further define what constitutes an "institutionalized regime."

The crime of apartheid under the Apartheid Convention and Rome Statute consists of three primary elements: an intent to maintain a system of domination by one racial group over another; systematic oppression by one racial group over another; and one or more inhumane acts, as defined, carried out on a widespread or systematic basis pursuant to those policies.

Among the inhumane acts identified in either the Convention or the Rome Statute are "forcible transfer," "expropriation of landed property," "creation of separate reserves and ghettos," and denial of the "the right to leave and to return to their country, [and] the right to a nationality."

The Rome Statute identifies the crime against humanity of persecution as "the intentional and severe deprivation of fundamental rights contrary to international law by reason of the identity of the group or collectivity," including on racial, national, or ethnic grounds. Customary international law identifies the crime of persecution as consisting of two primary elements: (1) severe abuses of fundamental rights committed on a widespread or systematic basis, and (2) with discriminatory intent.

Few courts have heard cases involving the crime of persecution and none the crime of apartheid, resulting in a lack of case law around the meanings of key terms in their definitions. As described in the report, international criminal courts have over the last two decades evaluated group identity based on the context and construction by local actors, as opposed to earlier approaches focused on hereditary physical traits. In international human rights law, including the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), race and racial discrimination have been broadly interpreted to include distinctions based on descent, and national or ethnic origin, among other categories.

Application to Israel's Policies towards Palestinians

Two primary groups live today in Israel and the OPT: Jewish Israelis and Palestinians. One primary sovereign, the Israeli government, rules over them.

Intent to Maintain Domination

A stated aim of the Israeli government is to ensure that Jewish Israelis maintain domination across Israel and the OPT. The Knesset in 2018 passed a law with constitutional status affirming Israel as the "nation-state of the Jewish people," declaring that within that territory, the right to self-determination "is unique to the Jewish people," and establishing "Jewish settlement" as a national value. To sustain Jewish Israeli control, Israeli authorities have adopted policies aimed at mitigating what they have openly described as a demographic "threat" that Palestinians pose. Those policies include limiting the population and political power of Palestinians, granting the right to vote only to Palestinians who live within the borders of Israel as they existed from 1948 to June 1967, and limiting the ability of Palestinians to move to Israel from the OPT and from anywhere else to Israel or the OPT. Other steps are taken to ensure Jewish domination, including a state policy of "separation" of Palestinians between the West Bank and Gaza, which prevents the movement of people and goods within the OPT, and "Judaization" of areas with significant Palestinian populations, including Jerusalem as well as the Galilee and the Negev in Israel. This policy, which aims to maximize Jewish Israeli control over land, concentrates the majority of Palestinians who live outside Israel's major, predominantly Jewish cities into dense, under-served enclaves and restricts their access to land and housing, while nurturing the growth of nearby Jewish communities.

Systematic Oppression and Institutional Discrimination

To implement the goal of domination, the Israeli government institutionally discriminates against Palestinians. The intensity of that discrimination varies according to different rules established by the Israeli government in Israel, on the one hand, and different parts of the OPT, on the other, where the most severe form takes place.

In the OPT, which Israel has recognized as a single territory encompassing the West Bank and Gaza, Israeli authorities treat Palestinians separately and unequally as compared to Jewish Israeli settlers. In the occupied West Bank, Israel subjects Palestinians to draconian military law and enforces segregation, largely prohibiting Palestinians from entering settlements. In the besieged Gaza Strip, Israel imposes a generalized closure, sharply restricting the movement of people and goods-policies that Gaza's other neighbor, Egypt, often does little to alleviate. In annexed East Jerusalem, which Israel considers part of its sovereign territory but remains occupied territory under international law, Israel provides the vast majority of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living there with a legal status that weakens their residency rights by conditioning them on the individual's connections to the city, among other factors. This level of discrimination amounts to systematic oppression.

In Israel, which the vast majority of nations consider being the area defined by its pre-1967 borders, the two tiered-citizenship structure and bifurcation of nationality and citizenship result in Palestinian citizens having a status inferior to Jewish citizens by law. While Palestinians in Israel, unlike those in the OPT, have the right to vote and stand for Israeli elections, these rights do not empower them to overcome the institutional discrimination they face from the same Israeli government, including widespread restrictions on accessing land confiscated from them, home demolitions, and effective prohibitions on family reunification.

The fragmentation of the Palestinian population, in part deliberately engineered through Israeli restrictions on movement and residency, furthers the goal of domination and helps obscure the reality of the same Israeli government repressing the same Palestinian population group, to varying degrees in different areas, for the benefit of the same Jewish Israeli dominant group.

Inhumane Acts and Other Abuses of Fundamental Rights

Pursuant to these policies, Israeli authorities have carried out a range of inhumane acts in the OPT. Those include sweeping restrictions on the movement of 4.7 million Palestinians there; the confiscation of much of their land; the imposition of harsh conditions, including categorical denial of building permits in large parts of the West Bank, which has led thousands of Palestinians to leave their homes under conditions that amount to forcible transfer; the denial of residency rights to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and their relatives, largely for being abroad when the occupation began in 1967, or for long periods during the first few decades of the occupation, or as a result of the effective freeze on family reunification over the last two decades; and the suspension of basic civil rights, such as freedom of assembly and association, depriving Palestinians of the opportunity to have a voice in a wide range of affairs that most affect their daily lives and futures. Many of these abuses, including categorical denials of building permits, mass residency revocations or restrictions, and large-scale land confiscations, have no legitimate security justifications; others, such as the extent of restrictions on movement and civil rights, fail any reasonable balancing test between security concerns and the severity of the underlying rights abuse.

Since the founding of the state of Israel, the government also has systematically discriminated against and violated the rights of Palestinians inside the state's pre-1967 borders, including by refusing to allow Palestinians access to the millions of dunams of land (1000 dunams equals 100 hectares, about 250 acres or 1 square kilometer) that were confiscated from them. In one region-the Negev-these policies make it virtually impossible for tens of thousands of Palestinians to live lawfully in the communities they have lived in for decades. In addition, Israeli authorities refuse to permit the more than 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled in 1948, and their descendants, to return to Israel or the OPT, and impose blanket restrictions on legal residency, which block many Palestinian spouses and families from living together in Israel.

Report Findings

This report examines Israeli policies and practices towards Palestinians in the OPT and Israel and compares them to the treatment of Jewish Israelis living in the same territories. It is not an exhaustive evaluation of all types of international human rights and humanitarian law violations. Rather, it surveys consequential Israeli government practices and policies that violate the basic rights of Palestinians and whose purpose is to ensure the domination of Jewish Israelis, and assesses them against the definitions of the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.

The report draws on years of research and documentation by Human Rights Watch and other rights organizations, including fieldwork conducted for this report. Human Rights Watch also reviewed Israeli laws, government planning documents, statements by officials, and land records. This evidentiary record was then analyzed under the legal standards for the crimes of apartheid and persecution. Human Rights Watch also wrote in July 2020 to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, soliciting the government's perspectives on the issues covered, but, as of publication, had not received a response.

The report does not set out to compare Israel with South Africa under apartheid or to determine whether Israel is an "apartheid state"-a concept that is not defined in international law. Rather, the report assesses whether specific acts and policies carried out by Israeli authorities today amount in particular areas to the crimes of apartheid and persecution as defined under international law.

Each of the report's three main substantive chapters explores Israel's rule over Palestinians: the dynamics of its rule and discrimination, looking in turn at Israel and the OPT, the particular rights abuses that it commits there, and some of the objectives that motivate these policies. It does so in terms of the primary elements of the crimes of apartheid and persecution, as outlined above. Human Rights Watch evaluates the dynamics of Israeli rule in each of these areas, keeping in mind the different legal frameworks that apply in the OPT and Israel, which are the two legally recognized territorial entities, each with a different status under international law. While noting significant factual differences among subregions in each of these two territories, the report does not make separate subregional determinations.

On the basis of its research, Human Rights Watch concludes that the Israeli government has demonstrated an intent to maintain the domination of Jewish Israelis over Palestinians across Israel and the OPT. In the OPT, including East Jerusalem, that intent has been coupled with systematic oppression of Palestinians and inhumane acts committed against them. When these three elements occur together, they amount to the crime of apartheid.

Israeli officials have also committed the crime against humanity of persecution. This finding is based on the discriminatory intent behind Israel's treatment of Palestinians and the grave abuses carried out in the OPT that include the widespread confiscation of privately owned land, the effective prohibition on building or living in many areas, the mass denial of residency rights, and sweeping, decades-long restrictions on the freedom of movement and basic civil rights. Such policies and practices intentionally and severely deprive millions of Palestinians of key fundamental rights, including to residency, private property, and access to land, services, and resources, on a widespread and systematic basis by virtue of their identity as Palestinians.

Seeking Maximal Land with Minimal Palestinians

Israeli policy has sought to engineer and maximize the number of Jews, as well as the land available to them, in Israel and the portions of the OPT coveted by the Israeli government for Jewish settlement. At the same time, by restricting the residency rights of Palestinians, Israeli policy seeks to minimize the number of Palestinians and the land available to them in those areas. The level of repression is most severe in the OPT, although often less severe aspects of similar policies can be found within Israel.

In the West Bank, authorities have confiscated more than 2 million dunams of land from Palestinians, making up more than one-third of the West Bank, including tens of thousands of dunams that they acknowledge are privately owned by Palestinians. One common tactic they have used is to declare territory, including privately-owned Palestinian land, as "state land." The Israeli group Peace Now estimates that the Israeli government has designated about 1.4 million dunams of land, or about a quarter of the West Bank, as state land. The group has also found that more than 30 percent of the land used for settlements is acknowledged by the Israeli government as having been privately owned by Palestinians. Of the more than 675,000 dunams of state land that Israeli authorities have allocated for use by third parties in the West Bank, they have earmarked more than 99 percent for use by Israeli civilians, according to government data. Land grabs for settlements and the infrastructure that primarily serves settlers effectively concentrate Palestinians in the West Bank, according to B'Tselem, into "165 non-contiguous 'territorial islands.'"

Israeli authorities have also made it virtually impossible in practice for Palestinians in Area C, the roughly 60 percent of the West Bank that the Oslo Accords placed under full Israeli control, as well as those in East Jerusalem, to obtain building permits. In Area C, for example, authorities approved less than 1.5 percent of applications by Palestinians to build between 2016 and 2018-21 in total-a figure 100 times smaller than the number of demolition orders it issued in the same period, according to official data. Israeli authorities have razed thousands of Palestinian properties in these areas for lacking a permit, leaving thousands of families displaced. By contrast, according to Peace Now, Israeli authorities began construction on more than 23,696 housing units between 2009 and 2020 in Israeli settlements in Area C. Transfer of an occupying power's civilian population to an occupied territory violates the Fourth Geneva Convention.

These policies grow out of longstanding Israeli government plans. For example, the 1980 Drobles Plan, which guided the government's settlement policy in the West Bank at the time and built on prior plans, called for authorities to "settle the land between the [Arab] minority population centers and their surroundings," noting that doing so would make it "hard for Palestinians to create territorial contiguity and political unity" and "remove any trace of doubt about our intention to control Judea and Samaria forever."

In Jerusalem, the government's plan for the municipality, including both the west and occupied east of the city, sets the goal of "maintaining a solid Jewish majority in the city" and a target demographic "ratio of 70% Jews and 30% Arabs"-later adjusted to a 60:40 ratio after authorities acknowledged that "this goal is not attainable" in light of "the demographic trend."

The Israeli government has also carried out discriminatory seizures of land inside Israel. Authorities have seized through different mechanisms at least 4.5 million dunams of land from Palestinians, according to historians, constituting 65 to 75 percent of all land owned by Palestinians before 1948 and 40 to 60 percent of the land that belonged to Palestinians who remained after 1948 and became citizens of Israel. Authorities in the early years of the state declared land belonging to displaced Palestinians as "absentee property" or "closed military zones," then took it over, converted it to state land, and built Jewish communities there. Authorities continue to block Palestinian citizen landowners from accessing land that was confiscated from them. A 2003 government-commissioned report found that "the expropriation activities were clearly and explicitly harnessed to the interests of the Jewish majority" and that state lands, which constitute 93 percent of all land in Israel, effectively serve the objective of "Jewish settlement." Since 1948, the government has authorized the creation of more than 900 "Jewish localities" in Israel, but it has allowed only a handful of government-planned townships and villages for Palestinians, created largely to concentrate previously displaced Bedouin communities living in the Negev.

Land confiscations and other discriminatory land policies in Israel hem in Palestinian municipalities inside Israel, denying them opportunities for natural expansion enjoyed by Jewish municipalities. The vast majority of Palestinian citizens, who make up around 19 percent of the Israeli population, live in these municipalities, which have an estimated jurisdiction over less than 3 percent of all land in Israel. While Palestinians in Israel can move freely, and some live in "mixed cities," such as Haifa, Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and Acre, Israeli law permits small towns to exclude prospective residents based on their asserted incompatibility with the town's "social-cultural fabric." According to a study by a professor at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, there are more than 900 small Jewish towns, including kibbutzim, across Israel that can restrict who lives there. None of them have any Palestinians living among them.

In the Negev in Israel, Israeli authorities have refused to legally recognize 35 Palestinian Bedouin communities, making it impossible for their 90,000 or so residents to live lawfully in the communities they have lived in for decades. Instead, authorities have sought to concentrate Bedouin communities in larger recognized townships in order, as expressed in governmental plans and statements by officials, to maximize the land available for Jewish communities. Israeli law considers all buildings in these unrecognized villages to be illegal, and authorities have refused to connect most to the national electricity or water grids or to provide even basic infrastructure such as paved roads or sewage systems. The communities do not appear on official maps, most have no educational facilities, and residents live under constant threat of having their homes demolished. Israeli authorities demolished more than 10,000 Bedouin homes in the Negev between 2013 and 2019, according to government data. They razed one unrecognized village that challenged the expropriation of its lands, al-Araqib, 185 times.

Authorities have implemented these policies pursuant to government plans since the early years of the state that called for restricting Bedouin communities in order to secure land suitable for settling Jews. Several months before becoming prime minister in December 2000, Ariel Sharon declared that Bedouins in the Negev "are gnawing at the country's land reserves," which he described as "a demographic phenomenon." As prime minister, Sharon went on to pursue a multi-billion-dollar plan that transparently sought to boost the Jewish population in the Negev and Galilee regions of Israel, areas that have significant Palestinian populations. His deputy prime minister, Shimon Peres, later described the plan as a "battle for the future for the Jewish people."

Sharon's push to Judaize the Negev, as well as the Galilee, developed against the backdrop of the government's decision to withdraw Jewish settlers from Gaza. After ending Jewish settlement there, Israel began to treat Gaza effectively as a territorial jurisdiction whose population it could consider as outside the demographic calculus of Jews and Palestinians who live in Israel and in the vast majority of the OPT-the West Bank including East Jerusalem-that Israel intends to retain. Israeli officials at the time acknowledged the demographic objectives behind the move. Amid the push to withdraw settlers from Gaza, Sharon said in an August 2005 address to Israelis, "Gaza cannot be held onto forever. Over one million Palestinians live there and they double their numbers with every generation." Peres said the same month, "We are disengaging from Gaza because of demography."

Despite withdrawing its settlers and ground troops, Israel has remained in critical ways the supreme power in Gaza, dominating through other means and hence maintaining its legal obligations as an occupying power, as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the United Nations (UN), among others, have determined. Most significantly, Israel bans Palestinians living there (with only narrow exceptions) from leaving through the Erez Passenger Crossing it controls and instituted a formal "policy of separation" between Gaza and the West Bank, despite Israel having recognized within the framework of the Oslo Accords these two parts of the OPT as collectively forming a "single territorial unit." The generalized travel ban, which has remained in place since 2007 and reduced travel out of Gaza to a fraction of what it was two decades ago, is not based on an individualized security assessment and fails any reasonable test of balancing security concerns against the right to freedom of movement for over two million people.

Authorities have also sharply restricted the entry and exit of goods to and from Gaza, which, alongside Egypt often shutting its border, effectively seals it off from the outside world. These restrictions have contributed to limiting access to basic services, devastating the economy, and making 80 percent of the population reliant on humanitarian aid. Families in Gaza in recent years have had to make do without centrally provided electricity for between 12 and 20 hours per day, depending on the period. Water is also critically scarce; the UN considers more than 96 percent of the water supply in Gaza "unfit for human consumption."

Within the West Bank as well, Israeli authorities prohibit Palestinian ID holders from entering areas such as East Jerusalem, lands beyond the separation barrier, and areas controlled by settlements and the army, unless they secure difficult-to-obtain permits. They have also erected nearly 600 permanent obstacles, many between Palestinian communities, that disrupt daily life for Palestinians. In sharp contrast, Israeli authorities allow Jewish settlers in the West Bank to move freely within the majority of the West Bank under its exclusive control, as well as to and from Israel, on roads built to facilitate their commutes and integrate them into every facet of Israeli life.

Demographic considerations factor centrally in Israel's separation policy between Gaza and the West Bank. In particular, in the rare cases when they allow movement between the two parts of the OPT, Israeli authorities permit it predominantly in the direction of Gaza, thereby facilitating population flow away from the area where Israel actively promotes Jewish settlement. The Israeli army's official policy states that while a West Bank resident can apply "for permanent resettlement in the Gaza Strip for any purpose that is considered humanitarian (usually family reunification)," Gaza residents can settle in the West Bank only "in the rarest cases," usually related to family reunification. In these cases, authorities are mandated to aim to resettle the couple in Gaza. Official data shows that Israel did not approve a single Gaza resident to resettle in the West Bank, outside of a handful who filed Supreme Court petitions between 2009 and March 2017, while permitting several dozen West Bank residents to relocate to Gaza on the condition that they sign a pledge not to return to the West Bank.

Beyond the closure policy, Israeli authorities have often used oppressive and indiscriminate means during hostilities and protests in Gaza. Since 2008, the Israeli army has launched three large-scale military offensives in Gaza in the context of hostilities with armed Palestinian groups. As described in the report, those offensives have included apparently deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure and killed well over 2,000 civilians. In addition, Israeli forces have regularly fired on Palestinian demonstrators and others who have approached fences separating Gaza and Israel in circumstances when they did not pose an imminent threat to life, killing 214 demonstrators in 2018 and 2019 alone and maiming thousands. These practices stem from a decades-long pattern of using excessive and vastly disproportionate force to quell protests and disturbances, at great cost to civilians. Despite the frequency of such incidents over the years, Israeli authorities have failed to develop law enforcement tactics that comport with international human rights norms.

Discriminatory Restrictions on Residency and Nationality

Palestinians face discriminatory restrictions on their rights to residency and nationality to varying degrees in the OPT and Israel. Israeli authorities have used their control over the population registry in the West Bank and Gaza-the list of Palestinians they consider lawful residents for purposes of issuing legal status and identity cards-to deny residency to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Israeli authorities refused to register at least 270,000 Palestinians who were outside the West Bank and Gaza when the occupation began in 1967 and revoked the residency of nearly 250,000, mostly for being abroad for too long between 1967 and 1994. Since 2000, Israeli authorities have largely refused to process family reunification applications or requests for address changes by Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. The freeze effectively bars Palestinians from acquiring legal status for spouses or relatives not already registered and makes illegal, according to the Israeli army, the presence in the West Bank of thousands of Gaza residents who arrived on temporary permits and now live there, since they effectively cannot change their address to one in the West Bank. These restrictions have the effect of limiting the Palestinian population in the West Bank.

Authorities regularly deny entry into the West Bank to non-registered Palestinians who had lived in the West Bank but left temporarily (to study, work, marry, or for other reasons) and to their non-registered spouses and other family members.

When Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1967, it applied its 1952 Law of Entry to Palestinians who lived there and designated them as "permanent residents," the same status afforded to a non-Jewish foreigner who moves to Israel. The Interior Ministry has revoked this status from at least 14,701 Palestinians since 1967, mostly for failing to prove a "center of life" in the city. A path to Israeli citizenship exists, but few apply and most who did in recent years were not granted citizenship. By contrast, Jewish Israelis in Jerusalem, including settlers in East Jerusalem, are citizens who do not have to prove connections to the city to maintain their status.

Inside Israel, Israel's Proclamation of Independence affirms the "complete equality" of all residents, but a two-track citizenship structure contradicts that vow and effectively regards Jews and Palestinians separately and unequally. Israel's 1952 Citizenship Law contains a separate track exclusively for Jews to obtain automatic citizenship. That law grows out of the 1950 Law of Return which guarantees Jewish citizens of other countries the right to settle in Israel. By contrast, the track for Palestinians conditions citizenship on proving residency before 1948 in the territory that became Israel, inclusion in the population registry as of 1952, and a continuous presence in Israel or legal entry in the period between 1948 and 1952. Authorities have used this language to deny residency rights to the more than 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled in 1948 and their descendants, who today number more than 5.7 million. This law creates a reality where a Jewish citizen of any other country who has never been to Israel can move there and automatically gain citizenship, while a Palestinian expelled from his home and languishing for more than 70 years in a refugee camp in a nearby country, cannot.

The 1952 Citizenship Law also authorizes granting citizenship based on naturalization. However, in 2003, the Knesset passed the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (Temporary Order), which bars granting Israeli citizenship or long-term legal status to Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza who marry Israeli citizens or residents. With few exceptions, this law, renewed every year since and upheld by the Israeli Supreme Court, denies both Jewish and Palestinian citizens and residents of Israel who choose to marry Palestinians the right to live with their partner in Israel. This restriction, based solely on the spouse's identity as a Palestinian from the West Bank or Gaza, notably does not apply when Israelis marry non-Jewish spouses of most other foreign nationalities. They can receive immediate status and, after several years, apply for citizenship.

Commenting on a 2005 renewal of the law, the prime minister at the time, Ariel Sharon, said: "There's no need to hide behind security arguments. There's a need for the existence of a Jewish state." Benjamin Netanyahu, who was then the finance minister, said during discussions at the time: "Instead of making it easier for Palestinians who want to get citizenship, we should make the process much more difficult, in order to guarantee Israel's security and a Jewish majority in Israel." In March 2019, this time as prime minister, Netanyahu declared, "Israel is not a state of all its citizens," but rather "the nation-state of the Jewish people and only them."

International human rights law gives broad latitude to governments in setting their immigration policies. There is nothing in international law to bar Israel from promoting Jewish immigration. Jewish Israelis, many of whom historically migrated to Mandatory Palestine or later to Israel to escape anti-Semitic persecution in different parts of the world, are entitled to protection of their safety and fundamental rights. However, that latitude does not give a state the prerogative to discriminate against people who already live in that country, including with respect to rights concerning family reunification, and against people who have a right to return to the country. Palestinians are also entitled to protection of their safety and fundamental rights.

Israeli Justifications of Policies and Practices

Israeli authorities justify many of the policies documented in this report as responses to Palestinian anti-Israeli violence. Many policies, though, like the denial of building permits in Area C, East Jerusalem, and the Negev in Israel, residency revocations for Jerusalemites, or expropriation of privately owned land and discriminatory allocation of state lands, have no legitimate security justification. Others, including the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law and freeze of the OPT population registry, use security as a pretext to advance demographic objectives.

Israeli authorities do face legitimate security challenges in Israel and the OPT. However, restrictions that do not seek to balance human rights such as freedom of movement against legitimate security concerns by, for example, conducting individualized security assessments rather than barring the entire population of Gaza from leaving with only rare exceptions, go far beyond what international law permits. Even where security forms part of the motivation behind a particular policy, that does not give Israel a carte blanche to violate human rights en masse. Legitimate security concerns can be present among policies that amount to apartheid, just as they can be present in a policy that sanctions the use of excessive force or torture.

Officials sometimes claim that measures taken in the OPT are temporary and would be rescinded in the context of a peace agreement. From former Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, of the Labor Party, declaring in July 1967 that "I see only a quasi-independent region [for Palestinians], because the security and land are in Israeli hands," to Netanyahu of the Likud in July 2019 stating that "Israeli military and security forces will continue to rule the entire territory, up to the Jordan [River]," a range of officials have made clear their intent to maintain overriding control over the West Bank in perpetuity, regardless of what arrangements are in place to govern Palestinians. Their actions and policies further dispel the notion that Israeli authorities consider the occupation temporary, including the continuing of land confiscation, the building of the separation barrier in a way that accommodated anticipated growth of settlements, the seamless integration of the settlements' sewage system, communication networks, electrical grids, water infrastructure and a matrix of roads with Israel proper, as well as a growing body of laws applicable to West Bank Israeli settlers but not Palestinians. The possibility that a future Israeli leader might forge a deal with Palestinians that dismantles the discriminatory system and ends systematic repression does not negate the intent of current officials to maintain the current system, nor the current reality of apartheid and persecution.

Recommendations

The Israeli government should dismantle all forms of systematic domination and oppression that privilege Jewish Israelis and systematically repress Palestinians, and end the persecution of Palestinians. In particular, authorities should end discriminatory policies and practices with regards to citizenship and residency rights, civil rights, freedom of movement, allocation of land and resources, access to water, electricity, and other services, and granting of building permits.

The findings that the crimes of apartheid and persecution are being committed do not deny the reality of Israeli occupation or erase Israel's obligations under the law of occupation, any more than would a finding that other crimes against humanity or war crimes have been carried out. As such, Israeli authorities should cease building settlements and dismantle existing ones and otherwise provide Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza with full respect of their human rights, using as a benchmark the rights that it grants Israeli citizens, as well as the protections that international humanitarian law grants them.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) should end forms of security coordination with the Israeli army that contribute to facilitating the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.

The finding of crimes against humanity should prompt the international community to reevaluate its approach to Israel and Palestine. The US, which for decades has largely failed to press the Israeli government to end its systematic repression of Palestinians, has in some instances in recent years signaled its support for serious abuses such as the building of settlements in the occupied West Bank. Many European and other states have built close ties with Israel, while supporting the "peace process," building the capacity of the PA, and distancing themselves from and sometimes criticizing specific abusive Israeli practices in the OPT. This approach, which overlooks the deeply entrenched nature of Israeli discrimination and repression of Palestinians there, minimizes serious human rights abuses by treating them as temporary symptoms of the occupation that the "peace process" will soon cure. It has enabled states to resist the sort of accountability that a situation of this gravity warrants, allowing apartheid to metastasize and consolidate. After 54 years, states should stop assessing the situation through the prism of what might happen should the languishing peace process one day be revived and focus instead on the longstanding reality on the ground that shows no signs of abating.

Crimes against humanity can serve as the basis for individual criminal liability in international fora, as well as in domestic courts outside of Israel and the OPT under the principle of universal jurisdiction.

In light of the decades-long failure by Israeli authorities to rein in serious abuses, the International Criminal Court's Office of the Prosecutor should investigate and prosecute individuals credibly implicated in the crimes against humanity of apartheid or persecution. The ICC has jurisdiction over, and the prosecutor has opened an investigation into, serious crimes committed in the OPT. In addition, all governments should investigate and prosecute those credibly implicated in these crimes, under the principle of universal jurisdiction and in accordance with national laws.

Beyond criminality, Human Rights Watch calls on states to establish through the UN an international commission of inquiry to investigate systematic discrimination and repression based on group identity in the OPT and Israel. The inquiry should be mandated to establish and analyze the facts; identify those responsible for serious crimes, including apartheid and persecution, with a view to ensuring that the perpetrators are held accountable; as well as collect and preserve evidence related to abuses for future use by credible judicial institutions.

States should also establish through the UN a position of UN global envoy for the crimes of persecution and apartheid with a mandate to mobilize international action to end persecution and apartheid worldwide.

States should issue statements expressing concern about Israel's practice of apartheid and persecution. They should vet agreements, cooperation schemes, and all forms of trade and dealing with Israel to screen for those directly contributing to the commission of the crimes of apartheid and persecution against Palestinians, mitigate the human rights impacts, and, where not possible, end the activities and funding found to facilitate these serious crimes.

The implications of the findings of this report for businesses are complex and beyond the scope of this report. At a minimum, businesses should cease activities that directly contribute to the commission of the crimes of apartheid and persecution. Companies should assess whether their goods or services contribute to the commission of the crimes of apartheid and persecution, such as equipment used in the unlawful demolition of Palestinian homes, and cease providing goods and services that will likely be used for such purposes, in accordance with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

States should impose individual sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against officials and individuals responsible for the continued commission of these serious crimes and condition arms sales and military and security assistance to Israel on Israeli authorities taking concrete and verifiable steps towards ending their commission of the crimes of apartheid and persecution.

The international community has for too long explained away and turned a blind eye to the increasingly transparent reality on the ground. Every day a person is born in Gaza into an open-air prison, in the West Bank without civil rights, in Israel with an inferior status by law, and in neighboring countries effectively condemned to lifelong refugee status, like their parents and grandparents before them, solely because they are Palestinian and not Jewish. A future rooted in the freedom, equality, and dignity of all people living in Israel and the OPT will remain elusive so long as Israel's abusive practices against Palestinians persist.

While the report evaluates whether specific Israeli policies and practices amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution, it does not delve into the potential criminal liability of particular Israeli officials.

This report is based primarily on years of documentation carried out by Human Rights Watch, as well as by Israeli, Palestinian, and international human rights groups. Human Rights Watch also reviewed Israeli laws, government planning documents, statements by officials, land records, and legal standards governing the crimes of apartheid and persecution. The report includes several case studies, based on 40 interviews with affected persons, current and former officials, lawyers, and NGO representatives, as well as on-site visits, all conducted by Human Rights Watch in 2019 and 2020. Some interviews took place at locations in the OPT and Israel, but, in part due to movement restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic, many were conducted by phone.

Human Rights Watch conducted most of the interviews that are included in this report individually, in Arabic or English. We conducted them with the consent of those being interviewed and told each of the interviewees how Human Rights Watch would use the information provided.

Human Rights Watch is withholding names of some interviewees for their security, giving them instead pseudonyms, which are noted at first mention between quotation marks.

Human Rights Watch also wrote to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on July 20, 2020, soliciting the government's perspectives generally on the issues covered. A copy of the letter is included in the appendix of this report. The Prime Minister's Office confirmed receipt by phone on August 6 and by email on August 12, but, as of publication, had not responded.

In June 1967, Israel seized control of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, which make up the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), as well as the Golan Heights from Syria, and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, following an armed conflict known as the Six-Day War.

Israel also unilaterally annexed the Golan Heights in 1981, though it also remains an occupied territory under international law. Israel ended its occupation of the Sinai Peninsula as a result of the 1978 Camp David Accords with Egypt.

Although the mechanics and intensity of the abuses differ between the OPT and Israel, the same power, the government of the state of Israel, has primary control across both. That authority governs all Jewish Israelis in Israel and the OPT under a single body of laws (Israeli civil law) and, to ensure their domination, structurally discriminates against Palestinians and represses them to varying degrees across different areas on issues such as security of legal status and access to land and resources, as the report documents. Across Israel and the OPT, Israel grants Jewish Israelis privileges denied to Palestinians and deprives Palestinians of fundamental rights on account of their being Palestinian.

Among the 11 distinct crimes against humanity are the crimes of apartheid and persecution. There is no hierarchy among crimes against humanity; they are of the same gravity and lead to the same consequences under the Rome Statute.

Apartheid

General Prohibition

International Criminal Law

The term "the crime of apartheid", which shall include similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practiced in southern Africa, shall apply to the following inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them...

The Apartheid Convention then identifies a number of "inhuman acts" that, when committed for the purpose of domination and systematic oppression, make up the crime of apartheid, including:

(b) Deliberate imposition on a racial group or groups of living conditions calculated to cause its or their physical destruction in whole or in part;

(c) Any legislative measures and other measures calculated to prevent a racial group or groups from participation in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the country and the deliberate creation of conditions preventing the full development of such a group or groups, in particular by denying to members of a racial group or groups basic human rights and freedoms, including the right to work, the right to form recognised trade unions, the right to education, the right to leave and to return to their country, the right to a nationality, the right to freedom of movement and residence, the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association;

(d) Any measures including legislative measures, designed to divide the population along racial lines by the creation of separate reserves and ghettos for the members of a racial group or groups, the prohibition of mixed marriages among members of various racial groups, the expropriation of landed property belonging to a racial group or groups or to members thereof.

The Rome Statute of 1998, which has 123 states parties, identifies apartheid as a crime against humanity, defining it as:

Inhumane acts of a character similar to those referred to in paragraph 1, committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.

Definition of Key Terms

No court has to date heard a case involving the crime of apartheid and therefore interpreted the meaning of the following terms as set out in the Apartheid Convention and Rome Statute definitions of the crime of apartheid:

Racial Group: Both the Apartheid Convention and Rome Statute use the term "racial group," but neither defines it. The development of the Apartheid Convention against the backdrop of events in southern Africa in the 1970s, as referenced in the text of the Convention, as well as the non-inclusion of other categories beyond race, and the rejection of proposals by some states to expand the treaty's scope, could lead to a narrower interpretation focused on divisions based on skin color. While discussion of the meaning of "racial group" during the drafting of the Rome Statute appears to have been minimal, its inclusion in the definition of apartheid, after the end of apartheid in South Africa and when international human rights law had clearly defined racial discrimination to include differences of ethnicity, descent, and national origin, indicates that "racial group" within the Rome Statute reflects, and would likely be interpreted by courts to reflect, a broader conception of race.

No international criminal case has ruled on the definition of "racial group" in the context of the crime against humanity of apartheid. But international criminal courts, in the context of more recent genocide cases, have addressed the meaning of "national, ethnical, racial or religious group" in the definition of that crime in part by evaluating group identity based on context and the construction of local actors, in particular the perpetrators, as opposed to earlier approaches that focused on hereditary physical traits. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) held that the assessment of whether a particular group may be considered as protected from the crime of genocide "will proceed on a case-by-case basis, taking into account both the evidence proffered and the political, social and cultural context." The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) also found that determinations should be "made on a case-by-case basis, consulting both objective and subjective criteria." The court, in particular, held that national, ethnic, racial or religious groups should be identified "by using as a criterion the stigmatisation of the group, notably by the perpetrators of the crime, on the basis of its perceived national, ethnical, racial or religious characteristics."The ICTY held in a 1999 case that "to attempt to define a national, ethnical or racial group today using objective and scientifically irreproachable criteria would be a perilous exercise."

Institutionalized Regime: This term, incorporated into the Rome Statute but not the Apartheid Convention, appears to have originated in a proposal from the US delegation during the drafting to limit the application of the crime of apartheid to states and exclude non-state groups. Alongside the term "systematic," which appears in both the Apartheid Convention and Rome Statute, the term "regime" underscores the existence of formal organization and structure, and more than isolated discriminatory policies or acts. The system can cover entire states or more limited geographic areas, depending on the allocation of power, unity of authority, or differing oppressive laws, policies, and institutions, among other factors.

Domination: This term, which lacks a clear definition in law, appears in context to refer to an intent by one group to maintain heightened control over another, which can involve control over key levers of political power, land, and resources. The reference is found in both the Rome Statute and Apartheid Convention.

Systematic Oppression: This term, also without a clear definition in law, appears to refer to the methods used to carry out an intent to maintain domination. The reference in the Apartheid Convention to "policies and practices of racial discrimination as practiced in southern Africa" indicates that oppression must reach a high degree of intensity to meet the requisite threshold for the crime.

Persecution

Neither the Rome Statute nor customary international law clearly set the threshold of what constitutes a violation that is sufficiently "severe" or "egregious." Human Rights Watch recognizes that many human rights violations cause serious harm. However, for the determination of whether the crime against humanity of persecution has been committed, Human Rights Watch requires the most serious forms of violations before the requirements of "severe" or "egregious" can be met.

Legal Consequences of Finding Crimes Against Humanity

The commission of crimes against humanity can serve as the basis for individual criminal liability not only in the domestic courts of the perpetrator country but also in international courts and tribunals, as well as in domestic courts outside the country in question under the principle of universal jurisdiction. Individual criminal liability extends beyond those who carry out the acts to those who order, assist, facilitate, aid, and abet the offense. Under the principle of command responsibility, military, and civilian officials up to the top of the chain of command can be held criminally responsible for crimes committed by their subordinates when they knew or should have known that such crimes were being committed but failed to take reasonable measures to prevent the crimes or punish those responsible.

In December 2019, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda concluded a nearly five-year preliminary inquiry into the Palestine situation and determined that "all the statutory criteria" to proceed with a formal investigation of alleged serious crimes by Israelis and Palestinians had been met. The prosecutor found a "reasonable basis" to believe that war crimes had been committed by Israeli and Palestinian authorities but did not reference any crimes against humanity. Although the prosecutor did not require formal judicial authorization to move forward with a formal investigation, she nonetheless sought a ruling from the court's judges on the ICC's territorial jurisdiction before proceeding.

In February 2021, the court ruled that it had jurisdiction over crimes committed in the OPT, including East Jerusalem, confirming Palestine's status as a state party to the Rome Statute able to confer that jurisdiction.[75] This jurisdiction would include the ability to prosecute the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution. In March 2021, the Office of the Prosecutor announced the opening of a formal investigation into the situation in Palestine.

The Apartheid Convention also calls on states parties to prosecute those who commit the crime and over whom they have jurisdiction, as well as to take other measures aimed at "prevention, suppression and punishment" of the crime of apartheid.

Israeli government policy has long sought to engineer and maintain a Jewish majority in Israel and maximize Jewish Israeli control over land in Israel and the OPT. Laws, planning documents, and statements by officials demonstrate that the pursuit of domination by Jewish Israelis over Palestinians, in particular over demographics and land, guides government policy, and actions to this day.

This chapter will show that this objective amounts to an intent to maintain domination by one group over another. When inhumane acts are carried out in the context of systematic oppression pursuant to that intent to maintain domination, the crime against humanity of apartheid is committed.

Discriminatory intent, when it gives rise to severe abuses of fundamental rights, also makes up the crime against humanity of persecution.

To analyze the motivations behind Israeli policies towards Palestinians today, which developed over many years with much of the architecture established in the early years of the state and the occupation, this chapter considers materials that in some cases date back decades. This does not implicate every official cited in seeking to dominate Palestinians. In fact, some Israeli officials and parties advocated positions that, if implemented, could have avoided such policies.

Israeli authorities justify some of these policies in the name of security, but, as this chapter shows, they often use security as a justification to advance demographic objectives. In other cases, officials advocate for policies to safeguard Israel's identity as a Jewish state. Israel can, like any other state, seek to promote a particular identity, but that does not include a license to violate fundamental rights. Not all policies designed to promote Judaization constitute rights abuses. Particular policies can, though, provide evidence of a discriminatory intent or purpose to maintain domination by Jewish Israelis.

Even policies designed to fulfill legitimate security objectives must comply with international law. As this chapter will show, Israeli authorities have pursued many policies in ways that manifest a discriminatory intent to systematically dominate Palestinians. The legitimate objective of ensuring security does not negate an illegitimate intent to dominate or discriminate that is inherent in these policies.

Demographics

Statements by Israeli officials at the time make clear the discriminatory intent behind this move. Reporting on 2003 and 2004 statistics that showed a drop in the Israeli birthrate, primarily driven by a decline among Palestinian citizens of Israel, Haaretz in January 2005 attributed to the Finance Ministry the view that "the drop of birthrate is a clear result of the cutbacks in child support allocations over the past two years." Haaretz quotes a senior Finance Ministry official, who asked to be unnamed, citing the "internal demographic threat" and expressing concern over "the high birthrate of the Arabs, and especially the Negev Bedouin." The official said that "we are reversing the graph, to defend the Jewish majority in the country," and warned, according to Haaretz, that reinstating the allowance would lead to the state having to support large families in places like the Negev, which would have the effect of undermining the Jewish majority.

Control Over Land

Alongside demographic control, Israeli authorities have sought to ensure Jewish control over the land and natural resources in Israel and the OPT. Israeli authorities have largely pursued the goals of demographic and land domination in parallel, seeking to maximize the land available for Jewish communities and largely confine Palestinians to dense population centers.

When you enter the city through Lifta and Romema, through Mahaneh Yehuda, King George Street and Me'ah She'arim -there are no Arabs. One hundred percent Jews... What happened in Jerusalem and in Haifa-can happen in large parts of the country. If we persist it is quite possible that in the next six or eight months there will be considerable changes in the country, very considerable and to our advantage. There will certainly be considerable changes in the demographic composition of the country.

The explicit mandate of the JNF is to develop and lease land for Jews and not any other segment of the population. Under the terms of its Memorandum and Articles of Association, the JNF acquires property "for the purpose of settling Jews on such lands and properties." In a 2004 court filing, the JNF made clear that it "is not a public body that works for the benefit of all citizens of the state. The loyalty of JNF is given to the Jewish people and only to them is the JNF obligated." The JNF long interpreted its mandate as allowing it to block Palestinians from purchasing, renting, or building on their lands. Following a lawsuit brought by rights groups though, Israeli authorities have allowed non-Jews to use JNF land on condition that, if sold to them, the ILA will compensate JNF with land of equal value elsewhere. Haaretz, though, has reported that Palestinians have faced "red tape" far exceeding what Jews face when purchasing JNF land, delaying registration by years or more.

The WZO's Settlement Division, operating under the direct control of the Israeli government, established most settlements and manages the allocation of land for settlements with the stated purpose to "establish and strengthen Jewish settlement in the country's periphery through strengthening the hold on state lands given to it by the government." The government provides the division with its entire budget, which amounted to 441.6 million Israeli New Shekel (NIS) (US$132.60 million) between 2009-18. Since the early 2000s, the WZO has played a more active role as well in the Negev and the Galilee; the Israeli newspaper Haaretz has described them as "the government's executive arm for construction in the West Bank, as well as in the Negev and the Galilee."

Israeli authorities have pursued an explicit policy of ensuring Jewish control over geographic areas with strategic importance where there are concentrations of Palestinians across Israel and the OPT. Judaization of these areas contributed to facilitating Israeli government control over Palestinian population centers, dividing communities, and blocking the establishment of larger, contiguous Palestinian municipal areas in locations that Israeli authorities covet or consider particularly strategic. This strategy also contributes to generally diluting the Palestinian population in some areas and pushing them into crowded population centers.

Israel (Galilee and Negev)

In Israel, authorities maintain a policy to Judaize the Galilee and Negev regions, one pursued in coordination with the JNF, the Jewish Agency, and the WZO. These areas account for nearly two-thirds of the land in Israel, and encompass much of the Palestinian population. The Israeli government has a ministry focused on the "development" of the Galilee and the Negev, has invested significantly in these areas, and has considered it a major government priority for much of the past two decades. In 2004, the Sharon government unveiled a cross-sectional plan estimated to cost 16.8 NIS billion ($5 billion) that aimed to "increase the number of residents in the Negev to 1.5 million and in the Galilee to 1.1 million by 2010." Haaretz described efforts to develop these areas as possibly the "largest settlement effort inside the Green Line in the last 25 years."

The government's historic policies towards these areas provide further context for determining the intent behind its current policies. The plan to Judaize the Galilee, a region largely slated to fall within the "Arab State" in the 1947 UN Partition Plan, dates back to the 1950s when it emerged as part of a strategy to consolidate Israeli control of the area. A senior Israeli official at the time wrote that the Palestinian presence in these areas threatened Israeli control, worrying that Palestinians would "invade all areas we neglect, strike footholds and establish new roots."Ben Gurion told the Knesset that Israel's imposition of military rule over most Palestinians in Israel at the time aimed "to protect the right to Jewish settlement in all parts of the state." The plan to Judaize the Galilee focused initially on creating and sustaining Jewish communities such as Nazareth Illit (Hebrew for 'Upper Nazareth') in 1957, while limiting the growth of nearby Palestinian communities.

The strategy of maximizing Jewish settlement alongside suppression of the Palestinian population continues. In the Negev, for example, Sharon in December 2000, just before becoming prime minister and pursuing the development of the Negev as a principal goal, wrote:

In the Negev, we face a serious problem: About 900,000 dunams of government land are not in our hands, but in the hands of the Bedouin population. I, as a resident of the Negev, see this problem every day. It is, essentially, a demographic phenomenon... Out of weakness, perhaps also lack of awareness about the issue, we, as a country, are doing nothing to confront this situation... The Bedouin are grabbing new territory. They are gnawing away at the country's land reserves, and no one is doing anything significant about it.

Jerusalem

The Israeli government's formal policy for Jerusalem, including both west and the occupied east, is to pursue "maintaining a solid Jewish majority in the city," as stated in the government's plan for the municipality ("Jerusalem Outline Plan 2000"), and limiting the number of Palestinian residents. Concern with demographics in Jerusalem dates back to the early days of the state but accelerated with Israel's unilateral annexation of occupied East Jerusalem and parts of surrounding villages in 1967. Annexation expanded the boundaries of the city that Israeli authorities consider the country's capital, but also brought more Palestinians into an area that authorities treat as part of its sovereign territory. To mitigate the demographic effect of this move, authorities granted Palestinians from East Jerusalem permanent residency rather than an easy path to citizenship and instituted other policies aimed to foster and maintain a Jewish demographic majority in the city.

For Jewish Jerusalem, I did something in the past twenty-five years. For East Jerusalem? Nothing! What did I do? Nothing. Sidewalks? Nothing. Cultural institutions? Not one. Yes, we installed a sewerage system for them and improved the water supply. Do you know why? Do you think it was for their good, for their welfare? Forget it! There were some cases of cholera there, and the Jews were afraid that they would catch it, so we installed sewerage and a water system against cholera.

West Bank

The current map of the West Bank reflects decades of shifting Israeli governmental plans for the territory. Israel's earliest plans for the West Bank, including an unofficial plan initially drafted in July 1967 by then-Labor Minister Yigal Allon, envisioned Israeli control over the Jordan Valley and other parts of the West Bank. In an essay he published in 1976 in Foreign Affairs explaining the plan, Allon insisted on the necessity of "absolute Israeli control over the strategic zone to the east of the dense Arab population, concentrated as it is on the crest of the hills and westward." The plan, retaining Israel's control over the Jordan Valley and of the corridor around Jerusalem, effectively divided Palestinians in the West Bank into three enclaves: one in the north from Jenin to Ramallah, one in the south including Hebron and Bethlehem, and one in the east around Jericho.

The "Master Plan for the Development of Settlements in Judea and Samaria 1979-1983," a 1980 plan formulated by the World Zionist Organization's Settlement Division, the body charged with establishing settlements and fully funded by the government and operating directly under its control, built on the prior schemes. The "Drobles Plan" as it was known, named after its author and head of the Settlement Division, Matityahu Drobles, called for Israeli authorities "to settle the land between the [Arab] minority population centers and their surroundings," noting that doing so would make it "hard for Palestinians to create territorial contiguity and political unity." The plan further noted that any autonomy granted to Palestinians, as set out in the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel of the late 1970s, did "not apply to the territories but rather to the Arab population alone" and that "there cannot be any shadow of a doubt about our intention to maintain perpetual control over the territory of Judea and Samaria." It adds that "the best and most effective way to remove any trace of doubt about our intention to control Judea and Samaria forever is through accelerated surge of settlements in these areas," in particular to "create the widest possible spread" of settlements and "establish additional settlements next to every existing settlement."

In 2014, Member of Knesset (MK) Yariv Levin, appointed the following year as Israel's minister of aliyah (Jewish Immigration) and integration, said, "The correct policy, from the point of view of Israeli interests regarding our political ability at the moment, is to combine the attempt to hold the maximum amount of territory and apply sovereignty over the maximum amount of territory while keeping the Arab population within it to a minimum. The situation already exists in Area C, which is under our control - there are little more than fifty thousand Arabs." In February 2021, Avi Naim, who served as director-general for Israel's Ministry for Settlement Affairs between July and October 2020, underscored the government's objective to "prevent Palestinian territorial continuity" and "keep control of land reserves in Judea and Samaria".

Authorities, in fact, explicitly said that they wanted to redirect the resources that went into the settler community in Gaza to strengthening Jewish Israeli control over parts of Israel and the West Bank. The early 2000s push, for example, to Judaize the Galilee and the Negev came as Israeli authorities were putting in motion their plans to withdraw from Gaza. Haaretz quoted an advisor to Prime Minister Sharon at the time as saying that Sharon "reached the conclusion that following the enormous investment in settling the territories, it is now necessary to settle the Galilee and the Negev."

Following Hamas's wresting control of the Gaza Strip from the PA in 2007, the Israeli government, which had a practice of security cooperation with the PA but hostile relations with Hamas, announced restrictions on the movement of people and goods into and out of Gaza. It declared Gaza "hostile territory" and took a range of measures aimed at, among other things, weakening the economy. As a central part of their policy, Israeli authorities have enforced what they call "a policy of separation" between Gaza and the West Bank, which they say serves "both security and political goals." In March 2019, the Jerusalem Post reported that Netanyahu justified allowing funding from Qatar to enter Gaza to support Hamas authorities in order to maintain the divide between Fatah and Hamas and thereby the separation between the West Bank and Gaza.

These policies pressure Palestinians to leave the part of the OPT that authorities covet for Jewish settlement-the West Bank-for the Gaza Strip, and join the more than 2 million Palestinians who are effectively off the demographic balance sheet in the lands where Jews reside. Without Gaza, the demographic ratio of Jews to Palestinians between the river and the sea shifts from about 50-50 to a 59-41 Jewish majority.

Fragmentation

Conclusion

The definition of the crime of apartheid under both the Apartheid Convention and Rome Statute requires, in addition to the intent to dominate, systematic oppression, along with the commission of inhumane acts.

As just outlined, the Israeli government pursues policies and practices in the OPT and Israel that demonstrate its intent to maintain domination of Jewish Israelis over Palestinians. However, the severity and means used vary according to location.

In the OPT, Israel methodically subjugates the more than 5 million Palestinians living there. This chapter will show that these abusive policies are of such intensity that they amount to "systematic oppression" for the purpose of the crime of apartheid.

Inside Israel's pre-1967 borders, Palestinians hold citizenship, the right to vote and free movement, and encounter less severe policies and practices, but still face institutional discrimination and other abuses.

By contrast to the differences in the treatment of Palestinians, Israeli authorities grant all Jewish Israelis the same rights and privileges regardless of which side of the Green Line they live on. The effect, to varying degrees, is to privilege them over Palestinians in most aspects of life, including with legal status, access to land and freedom to build, and allocation of resources and services.

Systematic Oppression in the OPT

West Bank

Legal Status

Israel ostensibly built the separation barrier for security purposes, starting in 2002 during the second Intifada. However, officials have acknowledged that it chose its path, 85 percent of which lies inside the West Bank and protrudes up to 22 kilometers beyond the Green Line, to accommodate the growth needs of settlements, and to maintain the fabric of life of Israeli settlers.

Israeli authorities also maintain parallel criminal justice systems for settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem. Israeli authorities try Palestinians charged with crimes in military courts, where they face a conviction rate of nearly 100 percent. By contrast, authorities have passed regulations that extend Israeli criminal law on a personal basis to settlers, and grant Israeli courts jurisdiction over them, while authorities have followed a longstanding policy not to prosecute Jewish settlers in military courts. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) found in a 2014 report that "since the 1980s, all Israeli citizens brought to trial before the military courts were Arab citizens and residents of Israel."

Land and Housing

Resources and Services

Israeli authorities retain primary control over resources and infrastructure and systematically privilege Jewish Israeli settlers over Palestinians in the provision of roads, water, electricity, health care, and other services. Even where Palestinians maintain a degree of autonomy within their enclaves, they rely on infrastructure projects, including roads, electricity towers, and water and sewage pipes that require Israeli-issued permits or that cross through Israeli-controlled Area C.

Israeli authorities, for example, built in the 1980s a significant segment of Road 443 in the West Bank, in part on expropriated Palestinian land, to offer an alternative route for Israelis to commute between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Some landowners challenged the confiscation, but the Supreme Court dismissed their petition, accepting the government's position that it built the road, which also historically connected Ramallah to villages to its west, partly to serve the local Palestinian population. In 2002, following attacks by Palestinians on Israeli vehicles during the second Intifada, Israeli authorities banned Palestinian vehicles from using the road for any purpose, with the then local Israeli army commander declaring, "I made Route 443 an Israelis-only road." In 2007 and 2008, they built "fabric of life" roads to make it easier for Palestinians to access Ramallah without using Road 443. After years of litigation by Israeli rights groups, the Israeli army in 2010 reopened the road to Palestinian traffic.

However, the army kept in place checkpoints at each of the junctions that provide access to Palestinian villages. They also maintained a checkpoint near Ofer prison, where soldiers turn back all Palestinians not holding permits heading eastbound, who are identifiable by West Bank license plates. This checkpoint prevents them from reaching an exit several hundred meters away that leads straight into Ramallah, a central hub for Palestinians in the West Bank. So while Palestinian drivers from the West Bank can formally use a large section of Road 443, the checkpoints, by blocking access to Ramallah, render the road useless for most Palestinians. Palestinians from the villages near Road 443 instead rely on the "fabric of life" roads on which it takes them much longer to reach Ramallah or any destination beyond the several other small villages located alongside the road.

These restrictions have made Palestinians dependent on purchasing water, in large part extracted from under their land, from Mekorot. A 2013 UN Fact-Finding report found that Mekorot supplies "almost half the water consumed by Palestinian communities" in the West Bank. Palestinians in many cases pay more for water than Israelis, at times deriving from mark-ups in the price of the water sold to them, and in particular more than settlers, for whom the WZO subsidizes purchases. In addition, many Palestinian communities in Area C are not connected to the water network, despite Mekorot pipes in some cases running nearby, and depend on water transported by tanker trucks, significantly increasing its price and leading some families to spend up to 40 percent of their income on water.

Case Study: Salfit Governorate
The following case study details how Israeli authorities use oppressive means for the purpose of establishing domination over the Palestinian governorate of Salfit in the West Bank, abusing the rights of its residents to benefit Jewish Israeli settlers living nearby.
Salfit is one of eleven Palestinian governorates in the West Bank. It has a population of 81,162 and encompasses a cluster of hilltops and valleys in the northwest West Bank. Salfit's fertile lands, location atop the West Bank basin with the greatest water reserves, high elevation, and proximity to Tel Aviv, a 30-minute drive away, has made the governorate a strategic target for settlement activity.Israeli authorities have seized significant parts of the land, building a cluster of settlements centered around the urban settlement of Ariel. The settlements form a 22-kilometer corridor that strikes a wedge in the center of the governorate, dividing Salfit's Palestinians into three disconnected pockets of villages, and separating the town of Salfit, the governorate's administrative and commercial center, from other villages to the north. Residents of these communities face regular land confiscations, restricted access to agricultural land, movement restrictions, settler violence, and sewage run-offs from the nearby settlements.

Northwest of the cluster of settlements around Ariel, the Palestinian village of Mas-ha has faced regular land confiscations since the 1970s. In 1978, the Israeli army seized land in Mas-ha for "military purposes." In subsequent years, they declared lands around Mas-ha "state land" and allocated it to establish the settlement of Elkana in large part on agricultural lands belonging to Mas-ha residents. In 2002, authorities expropriated more land to build the separation barrier, cutting residents from some of their land. In 2018, Human Rights Watch interviewed the Aamer family, Mas-ha residents who own about 400-500 dunams of land about two kilometers from their house, but now located beyond the barrier and inside Elkana. A family member said that authorities confiscated some of their land and that they now need permits to access the remainder of it. The permits only allow them to enter through a designated gate that only opens twice a day, for 15-30 minutes each time. Reaching their land via the gate involves a two hour and 20 kilometer detour.

Settlements wreak havoc on the daily life of residents in other ways. Two landowners from Bruqin, a village in an isolated pocket south of the cluster of settlements, told Human Rights Watch that soldiers have for the past 20 years blocked residents from accessing 100 dunams of land they own next to the settlement of Bruchin, southwest of Ariel.Settlers have also placed mobile caravans on the land. One of the landowners, 60-year-old farmer Jamal Salameh, said he has since 2017 regularly sought, in vain, the Civil Administration's assistance to access this plot of land, where he has a well and used to grow wheat and barley.

Across the governorate, raw sewage and untreated industrial chemical waste from settlements and industrial zones flows into residential areas and around water sources, two municipal officials and two residents told Human Rights Watch. In a 2009 report, B'Tselem documented how Ariel's wastewater had since the mid-1990s flowed south towards the city of Salfit where it merged with Salfit's sewage and flows westward into Bruqin and Kufr ad-Dik.The group documented how Ariel's wastewater plant ceased functioning altogether in 2008, after more than a decade of unheeded warnings by Israeli environmental authorities about the plant's condition. It has remained dysfunctional since; a 2016 Israeli government publication noted that its efficiency is "low" with "effluent channeled into irrigation and the Shilo river."Salfit has sought for more than two decades to build a wastewater treatment plant, even securing funding for the project, but Israeli authorities continually frustrated their efforts, once claiming the location would be too close to Ariel, and another time conditioning approval on agreeing to treat Ariel's wastewater, a condition Palestinians often refuse since it would imply effective recognition of settlements. In 2019, though, the Salfit municipality obtained approval to build a plant to treat its wastewater alone and began construction of the plant in November of that year.[358]

A report published by the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and the Palestinian Hydrology Group in 2011 said that the Barkan Industrial Area settlement, near Ariel, "is notorious for flushing its leftover chemical waste onto Salfit villages."[359] The report further states that "this chemical waste is thought to include petrochemicals, metals and plastic" and notes that "heavy toxic metals are linked to an endless list of conditions, from diarrhoea to diabetes, hyperkeratosis, organ failure and cancer." During the rainy season, according to B'Tselem, the sewage flows from Ariel downstream into springs and valleys, overflowing Salfit's central pumping station. A Bruqin municipality employee, Murad Samara, told Human Rights Watch that in al-Matwi valley, between Salfit and Bruqin, sewage from Ariel and Salfit flows through a valley where at least 50 families live. People in the community worried that exposure to sewage and chemical waste was making people sick. May Barakat, a mother of four who lives in the valley, told Human Rights Watch that "the smell in the valley is deadly" and that her three-year-old daughter was diagnosed with leukemia two years ago. She said that she stopped allowing her children to play outside after one of them fell into the sewage several years prior.

Another cluster of settlements runs through northern Salfit and juts deep into the neighboring governorate of Qalqilya. The separation barrier entirely encircles the city of Qalqilya, home to more than 55,000 people, with only one access road in and out of the city, in order to, according to B'Tselem "create contiguity between Israel" and the settlements there.They found that the barrier separates Qalqilya from half of its agricultural lands, about 2,500 dunams.

East Jerusalem

Legal Status

In contrast, Jewish Israelis from Jerusalem, including settlers in East Jerusalem, are Israeli citizens and do not have to prove that they maintain connections to the city in order to safeguard their legal status. Israeli authorities have not revoked the legal status of a single Jewish Israeli for failing to prove a "center of life" in Jerusalem. Jewish Israelis living in all parts of Jerusalem also vote in both municipal and national elections.

Land and Housing

The Ateret Cohanim settler organization, for example, has filed dozens of eviction lawsuits against around 100 Palestinian families living in the Batn al-Hawa area of Silwan in East Jerusalem, claiming that their homes belonged to a Jewish property trust that had housed Yemeni Jews in the late 19 century. Ateret Cohanim aims to create a Jewish neighborhood in the heart of Silwan, putting 700 Palestinians at risk of eviction. Jerusalem magistrate courts ruled in favor of Ateret Cohanim in several of these suits in 2020, ordering the eviction of families who had lived there for decades. In June 2020, a Jerusalem court ruled in favor of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in an eviction proceeding that the group filed against a family of 18 from a building in Silwan that the family has lived in since the 1950s. These decisions have been appealed, and the evictions have not yet been carried out, as of March 2021.

Resources and Services

Case Study: Kufr Aqab
The following case study details how Israeli authorities have discriminated against Palestinians living in Kufr Aqab on the outskirts of East Jerusalem mainly through building the separation barrier between it and the rest of the city in 2002 and then largely neglecting the needs of residents. The situation in Kufr Aqab differs from the more common policies and practices that institutionally discriminate against Palestinians of Jerusalem but represents a different method by which an oppressively discriminatory system results in rights abuses for Palestinians living in East Jerusalem.
Beyond physically separating Palestinians from one another, the building of the barrier coincided with the Israeli government's effective abandonment of governance and law enforcement over Kufr Aqab. Israeli authorities do not operate a police station in Kufr Aqab, and, as acknowledged in a 2008 State Comptroller report, maintain "no police operations to enforce or maintain order" there. Munir Zghayyar, chair of the Kufr Aqab Residents Committee, told Human Rights Watch that he is not aware of a single incident of Israeli police entering Kufr Aqab since 2001 and that, even when residents cross the checkpoint and go in-person to a police station, authorities often do not intervene.The army, charged since 2006 with responsibility for security in Kufr Aqab, at times enters Kufr Aqab to carry out security operations and arrests, even though it defines the area as falling within Israel's sovereign territory and thus not under military rule.

With the PA barred under the Oslo Accords from operating in Kufr Aqab, these policies create what OCHA has called "a security vacuum manifested in an increase in lawlessness, crime and drug trafficking,"and offer fertile ground for fugitives from the PA police. Three Kufr Aqab residents told Human Rights Watch that they regularly hear gunfire, so much so that one resident's family grew "afraid to go on the balcony."Another said, "I am always afraid-anything can happen and who am I supposed to turn to when it does?"In the absence of law enforcement, Zghayyar, the Residents Committee chair, said some of the larger families living there have taken it upon themselves to adjudicate disputes.

Israeli authorities have also since the building of the barrier effectively stopped regulating construction. Municipal authorities approved a plan for Kufr Aqab in 2005, but Ir Amim found that it was "no longer current" even then. Zghayyar and an official from the municipal council both told Human Rights Watch that authorities have not issued a building permit for the area since 2001. Moien Odeh, a lawyer who has brought cases on behalf of Kufr Aqab and a former resident, said that residents used to have to get a difficult-to-obtain permit to "build anything," but, following the outbreak of the second Intifada and the building of the barrier, authorities suggested off-hand to some contractors and residents that they did not need a permit and residents eventually stopped applying. Ir Amim quoted the director of the municipality's building inspection division in a June 2015 report as acknowledging that the municipality is not monitoring or enforcing construction there. Ir Amim also determined that the division had not entered Kufr Aqab in a decade.

Kufr Aqab has since the building of the barrier attracted Jerusalemites married to Palestinians from other parts of the West Bank, who under Israel's Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (Temporary Order)-2003 cannot obtain permanent status through marriage to a Jerusalem resident.Since Kufr Aqab falls within the Jerusalem municipality, Jerusalemites living there can claim that they live in the city and not lose their residency on that basis. Scores of Palestinians have since 1967 moved to other parts of the West Bank. At the same time, its location beyond the barrier and lack of law enforcement means that West Bank residents can live there without crossing an Israeli checkpoint.

Because of Israel's discriminatory system, Palestinian "mixed" couples from Jerusalem and the West Bank can with few exceptions live together legally on a long-term, secure basis only in neighborhoods like Kufr Aqab. By contrast, Jewish "mixed" couples, including Jerusalemites married to West Bank settlers, can freely live anywhere in Israel, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank settlements.

Poor infrastructure, in particular, a run-down water pipeline system, also causes residents to lose about one-fourth of the water supplied to it. While Mekorot, the national water company, supplies water to most neighborhoods in Jerusalem, including settlements, the Palestinian-run Jerusalem Water Undertaking, which operates in Ramallah and nearby areas, services Kufr Aqab, as it did before 1967, and struggles to meet the demands of residents.

Jerusalem's mayor, Moshe Lion, visited Kufr Aqab, reportedly for the first time, in February 2021 and said the municipality will "increase its activity and take confidence-building steps."

Gaza Strip

Given international consensus around and Israeli recognition of Gaza and the West Bank comprising a single territorial unit, the OPT, Human Rights Watch assesses dynamics in Gaza as part of the OPT, despite Israel's "separation policy." Viewed in that light, the severe repression of Palestinians in Gaza stands in marked contrast to the treatment of Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israeli authorities deny Palestinians in the OPT, including in Gaza, basic rights and services that they provide Israeli settlers living in the same legal territory, including freedom of movement, the right to live with or visit loved ones living in that territory, and access to 24-hour electricity and clean water.

Legal Status

The shifts that took place between 2005 and 2007 altered the mechanisms but not the fact of Israeli control of the Gaza Strip, nor the systematic oppression of its population. The withdrawal of settlers and regular ground forces from Gaza shifted Israel's practice from one focused on raids and arrests as in the West Bank to one built on the periodic use of overwhelming military force, often with devastating consequences for the civilian population.

Israeli forces stationed on the Israeli side of the fences separating Gaza and Israel responded with excessive lethal force to weekly demonstrations for Palestinian rights on the Gaza side that took place for much of 2018 and 2019. Snipers killed, according to OCHA, 214 Palestinian demonstrators, many of them more than one hundred meters away, and injured by live fire more than 8,000 more, including 156 whose limbs had to be amputated. As a UN Commission of Inquiry put it, Israeli forces shot at "unarmed protesters, children and disabled persons, and at health workers and journalists performing their duties, knowing who they are." The commissioners concluded that while demonstrations were "at times violent," protesters did not pose an imminent threat to life in the case of 187 of the 189 killings that took place in 2018, and Israel used "neither necessary nor proportional" force. Snipers followed orders from senior officials that sanctioned using live ammunition on Palestinians who approached or attempted to cross or damage fences between Gaza and Israel regardless of whether they posed an imminent threat to life. These practices stem from a decades-long pattern that has changed little since the outbreak of the first Palestinian Intifada in 1987 of using excessive force to quell protests and disturbances, at great cost to civilians. Despite the frequency of such incidents over the years, Israeli authorities have failed to develop law enforcement tactics that comport with international human rights norms, which prohibit the use of lethal force except in situations when it is necessary to prevent an imminent threat of death or serious injury. Israeli authorities have often justified these tactics in the name of protecting Israeli communities on the other side of the Gaza fence from the possibility of harm, but without justifying the force used under the imminent-threat test.

Land and Housing

Citing concerns about weapons smuggling, Israeli authorities also restrict how much of the sea, including Gaza's territorial waters, residents can access. For years, they generally permitted Palestinians to venture up to six nautical miles off the coast, though subject to frequent fluctuations; for a short period in 2019, they extended the limit to 15 nautical miles, though at other times barred access entirely. Israel has not justified these fluctuations in the fishing zone on security grounds, but rather as punitive measures in response to rocket fire or the launching of incendiary balloons by armed Palestinian groups, acts with which fishermen had no involvement. Between 2010 and 2017, the Palestinian rights group Al-Mezan documented 976 incidents of live fire at sea, resulting in five deaths and 250 incidents in which Israeli authorities seized boats or other equipment, allegedly for traveling beyond the permissible fishing zone. B'Tselem in 2017 found that the number of registered fishermen in Gaza dropped from about 10,000 in 2000 to around 4,000 in 2017, half of whom are out of work and 95 percent of whom live below the poverty line, concluding that Israeli policies, including "harassment of fishermen," are "destroying Gaza's fishing sector."

Resources and Services

Discriminatory restrictions and burdens imposed by Israeli authorities restrict the entry and exit of goods in and out of Gaza and limit the access of Gazans to basic services, such as electricity and water.

Israeli policies also sharply limit access to basic services, such as electricity and water. Between 1967 and 2002, Gaza depended on electricity it received from the Israeli Electric Corporation (IEC). Although Gaza's power plant became operational in 2002, it has operated at only partial capacity, in part as a result of several Israeli aerial attacks, and Gaza remains "almost completely dependent," as the Israeli Supreme Court put it in 2008, on Israel for its supply of electricity, either directly or indirectly. The IEC, though, sells only a set quantity of electricity to Gaza, which is insufficient to meet the demand of the population, even if the power plant operated at full capacity, and periodically reduces supply. In 2017, for example, it cut by 30 percent the amount it supplied Gaza, following a request from the PA, which sought to pressure Hamas authorities to relinquish their control over Gaza. Israeli forces have bombed Gaza's sole power plant on multiple occasions, significantly reducing its capacity. Israel's restriction on the entry of goods, including spare parts and equipment deemed dual-use, has hampered efforts to repair the plant. In addition, authorities periodically restrict, sometimes punitively and other times over disputes in payments, the amount of industrial fuel it allows to be purchased for the plant, which the plant needs to operate. Israel has also restricted the entry of solar panels and batteries, hampering efforts to develop alternative energy sources that would give Gaza a degree of energy autonomy. Gaza has at times purchased a small quantity of electricity from Egypt, but an amount insufficient to meet the needs of its residents. In 2017 and 2018, Gaza averaged 6.2 hours per day of electricity; that figure increased to 12 in 2019, largely due to Israel permitting Qatar to purchase fuel for use in Gaza through Israeli vendors. Meanwhile, Israeli settlers in the OPT enjoy uninterrupted electricity, mostly from the same IEC. Regular power outages affect many aspects of everyday life in Gaza, from heating and cooling and sewage treatment to health care and business.

Case Studies: Gaza
The following individual case studies illustrate how Israeli authorities, through violations of basic rights, systematically oppress Palestinians in Gaza, a part of the OPT.

This is Gaza - you're inside a big prison, wondering what the world outside has

"Yazan": Yazan, 26, felt his dream had come true; the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom offered him admission for undergraduate studies. Yazan missed the start of the semester in October 2018, as he awaited a reply to his application for an Israeli-issued permit and a letter allowing him to travel via Jordan to the UK. He received the permit in December and, on December 18, 2018, arrived at the Erez Checkpoint to begin his journey. Upon his arrival, though, an Israeli soldier escorted him to a room for questioning. He told Human Rights Watch that soldiers asked him about the situation in Gaza, one of his neighbors and a payment his father made. After waiting three hours, a soldier returned and said, "You'll be able to travel and everything will go well. How about providing us with some simple things in exchange for money and travel?" Yazan took this statement to be a request to provide intelligence about people in his community, and he refused. The soldier turned him away, warning that "you are ruining your future," and urged him "to think about it." Yazan said he considered leaving via Rafah, the crossing with Egypt, but the Hamas-administered waiting list was long, he could not afford to pay the several thousand dollars to advance his place on the waitlist, and the opportunity passed. Israel's separation policy effectively makes it impossible for Yazan to pursue educational or professional opportunities in the West Bank, even though his mother is from Nablus. He ended up studying in Gaza and now does temporary contract jobs, but "still has the same dream to study abroad" and continues to pursue scholarships. He told Human Rights Watch, "I flew away with this dream, but suddenly fell down and found myself in the real world. I feel like a bird inside a cage-I can fly in the cage, but always remain inside it. This is Gaza-you're inside a big prison, wondering what the world outside has."

"Leen": Leen, a 23-year-old actress, received a permit to leave Gaza for a visa interview in Jerusalem in July 2016, but decided not to return and went to live with her uncle in Jenin. She told Human Rights Watch that her prior travels abroad made her feel that she "wouldn't be able to achieve anything in Gaza" and could not come to terms with remaining there. She began studying at university and acting, moved to Ramallah, and applied to change her address so she could legally remain in the West Bank. But she never heard back about her application. Israeli authorities have effectively frozen the population registry since 2000, blocking even address changes. Her permit expired, Leen's presence in the West Bank became illegal, and she said she began to fear getting stopped and removed back to Gaza. She said, "I dream of getting a Palestinian ID that would allow me to move freely and travel, then go back home to Gaza to see my family." She now finds herself stuck, unable to visit her family, but unwilling to give up her dream of pursuing a better life in the West Bank. She added, "Gaza is a small prison. Ramallah is a big one.... If I had the chance to go back in time, I would have remained in Gaza and just learned to cope with life there."

"Samia": Samia, a 27-year-old English teacher, traveled to Jordan in 2016 for her studies. She told Human Rights Watch that she soon decided to return to Gaza, but that her relatives whom she visited in the West Bank convinced her to stay with them. She said she applied to change her address to the West Bank through the Palestinian Civil Affairs Office, which forwards applications to Israeli authorities, but she received no response. Samia began working as an English teacher in Ramallah and got engaged, but felt constantly restricted, unable to move freely with friends and family. On July 3, 2019, she set off in a taxi to visit her relatives in Nablus. On the way, Israeli soldiers stopped her at a checkpoint they had set-up. Upon seeing her address listed as Gaza, they accused her of "staying here illegally" and took her into custody at a military facility, where she spent the night. Early the next morning, she said, officers cuffed her around her feet and hands, put her in a vehicle without windows and drove her to the Erez Checkpoint, where they removed her back to Gaza without her belongings or even her ID card. "It was a nightmare," Samia said. She had planned to get married in 2020 and had already rented a place and began furnishing it, then "everything was gone within seconds." She could not believe, she said, that she "was deported from the second part of my country," a place just an hour away. She applied for a permit to return to the West Bank, but the Palestinian Civil Affairs office in Gaza told her that Israelis had placed a 6-month security bloc on her, barring her from travel. She said her fiancé twice applied for permits to visit Gaza, but Israeli authorities denied him both times; once due to Jewish holidays and the other without reason. She "lost hope" and even "told [her] fiancé to break up with me, if we are not able to get together." He refused, she said, and they continue to look for a way to live together.

"Hadil": In 2011, Hadil, a 37-year-old who works as a social media coordinator in Gaza, fell in love with a man from Nablus whom she met at a conference in Amman. She began applying for permits to visit him, but Israeli authorities routinely denied them, 11 times in total, she told Human Rights Watch. In 2012, the man managed to enter Gaza through Egypt for a visit and the two got engaged. Shortly thereafter, following a July 2013 military coup, Egyptian authorities largely sealed their border with Gaza. Hadil applied in 2014 for a family reunification request to live with her fiancé in the West Bank, but that was rejected without a reason given. In late 2015, she managed to get a permit to attend a conference abroad. On her way back, during transit via the West Bank from Jordan, she contemplated staying. But she worried about getting caught and being sent "for life imprisonment in Gaza," a reference to her fear that she would not be able to secure another travel permit, so she returned to Gaza, and the couple broke up in May 2015. In 2019, though, she managed to obtain permits through work to travel to the West Bank and met and got engaged to a man from Ramallah. She regularly worries, she said, about facing the same fate with this engagement. She has spoken to lawyers to file a request to change her address, she said, but they have told her that the odds are quite low that Israel will allow her to establish legal residence in the West Bank, and that the process will take significant time. Her fiancé's family has encouraged her to stay without status in the West Bank, but she is unwilling to take that risk. The couple does not consider Gaza an option, she said, because they have already purchased a home in the West Bank and did not want to separate her fiancé from his family. With the path to living together in the OPT effectively closed, they are now, she said, focused on finding a way to live together abroad.

"Kiran": 33-year-old Kiran and her husband decided in 2016 to move from Gaza to the West Bank in search of a better life. Kiran told Human Rights Watch that her husband obtained a permit to travel as a businessperson and decided to remain in the West Bank. Without meeting the stringent criteria for which Israel permits Gazan residents to travel, Kiran obtained a falsified medical referral indicating that her then 3-year-old son needed to travel for urgent medical care, she told Human Rights Watch. Authorities granted him a permit and her a permit to accompany him, and they traveled in 2017 alongside her 8-month-old second son. They have remained in the West Bank without status since. Her husband requested to change his address to one in the West Bank in 2016, but, as of writing, had not received a reply. Kiran said her family of five, including a third child they had in the West Bank, lives in "constant fear" of getting caught and being sent back to Gaza, and stays home whenever "there is any tension." They "feel like strangers inside [their own] home," as if they "are illegally residing in another country." She said she has missed many family occasions in Gaza, including weddings for both of her brothers, and that her husband hasn't seen his five children from a prior marriage since he left Gaza. She said she has considered returning to Gaza, but she worries about how life in Gaza would affect her three young boys. She told Human Rights Watch that "my boys get so happy when they see planes in the sky...I can't imagine their reaction when they see the planes they love firing missiles and bombs. I don't want them to experience war and death."

Institutional Discrimination in Israel

Legal Status

Israel maintains a two-track citizenship structure that treats Palestinians unequally as compared to Jews. While both Jews and Palestinians living in Israel are citizens, Israel's citizenship process privileges Jews and sharply restricts which Palestinians, beyond most existing residents and their descendants, can become citizens.

Haaretz reported in 2017 that Israeli authorities had revoked the citizenship of "hundreds if not thousands" of Palestinian Bedouins in the Negev region in recent years over alleged "erroneous registration" by them or their families between 1948 and 1952. In an August 2020 Knesset hearing, government officials acknowledged investigating the circumstances around the granting of citizenship to about 2,600 people and said that they had concluded that about 500 of them had been granted citizenship by mistake, although they claimed to have reestablished the citizenship of 362 of them via an expedited process.

While the third path, birth, covers both Jews and Palestinians, the fourth, naturalization, applies only to non-Jews. The Citizenship Law permits the Interior Ministry to grant citizenship to those who meet a number of conditions, including several years of residency in Israel, intention to settle, knowledge of Hebrew, renunciation of foreign citizenship, and oath of loyalty.

Land and Housing

Israeli law permits towns with up to 400 households in the Negev and the Galilee regions, areas that comprise two-thirds of the land in Israel,[608] to maintain admissions committees that can reject applicants from living there for being "not suitable for the social life of the community" or for incompatibility with the "social-cultural fabric." This authority effectively permits the exclusion of Palestinians from small Jewish towns, which Adalah, a human rights group based in Haifa, estimated in 2014 make up 43 percent of all towns in Israel, albeit a far smaller percentage of the country's population. In a 2015 study, Yosef Jabareen, a professor at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, found that there are more than 900 small Jewish towns, including kibbutzim, across Israel that can restrict who can live there and have no Palestinian citizens living in them.

Resources and Services

Localities which collect less revenue from local taxes rely more on funding from the central government. Here too, Israeli authorities allocate budgets in a discriminatory fashion. For example, of the 2.82 billion NIS ($804 million) of economic recovery funds handed out by the Israeli government to local authorities in April 2020 amid the Covid-19 pandemic, only 1.7 percent went to Palestinian municipalities, according to Adalah. In education, the Israeli government operates two separate school systems, one for Jewish children and one for Palestinian children in Israel. Discrimination colors every aspect of the two systems; often overcrowded and understaffed, poorly built or maintained, state schools for Palestinian children offer fewer facilities and educational opportunities than what are offered to Jewish Israeli children. The Haifa-based rights group Mossawa Center found based on government data that, in 2013, the annual expenditure per student in Palestinian localities was 734 NIS ($220), as compared to 3,344 NIS ($1,004) in poor Jewish localities and 5,934 NIS ($1,781) in wealthier Jewish ones. Citing government data for that same school year, Haaretz found that expenditures by the state for Jewish Israeli high school students were 35 to 68 percent higher than for Palestinian students at the same socioeconomic level.

While authorities in recent years have reduced budgeting inequities, significant gaps remain. In particular, a five-year, more than 10 billion NIS ($3 billion) "economic development plan for the Arab sector" approved in December 2015 has increased allocation to sectors like transportation. However, it did not address other areas of disparity, including welfare services and high school education. Palestinian localities have also received funding from "equalization grants" provided by the central government and from a governmental fund aimed at "closing the [economic] gaps" between differently situated localities, but, according to Sikkuy, not to levels proportional to the gaps that exist in comparison to Jewish localities.[627] The Mossawa Center found in a study of Israel's 2019 budget that funding allocated to Palestinian areas remains "meager," with significant needs in education and other areas still present, and that "systematic discrimination" remains endemic in government spending.

Case Study: Nazareth
The following case study details how Israeli authorities discriminate against the residents of the Palestinian city of Nazareth in Israel in ways that stifle the community's growth and undermine its well-being while promoting the development of a Jewish-majority city next to it.
Later in 1949, Abu Arab's family moved to a neighborhood in Nazareth that came to be known as Safafra because of the many displaced Safuriyya residents who ended up there. In January 2001, Haaretz estimated that internally displaced Palestinians and their descendants constitute about half of Nazareth's population. Most of Abu Arab's family who lived in Safuriyya, including several dozen aunts, uncles, and cousins, never returned to the country, and they and their descendants remain refugees today, largely barred from even visiting. Abu Arab said he sometimes visits Tzipori, which today restricts who can live or enter there, in part to take care of five cemeteries in the moshav where Safuriyya's ancestors, including two of his cousins, are buried. He said he used to be able to see the lands of Safuriyya from his home in Nazareth and longs to return.

Some of the factors that motivated Haddad to leave the city he loved with his young family bear some similarities to pressures that lead urban dwellers in other contexts to move out of cities, including high housing costs, congestion, and a shortage of green space. In the case of Nazareth, these pressures in part derive from discriminatory Israeli land and budgetary policies.

Conclusion

Grave abuses, or "inhuman[e] acts" as set out in the Apartheid Convention and Rome Statute, amount to the crime against humanity of apartheid when carried out in the context of systematic oppression with an intent to maintain a system of domination. Severe abuses of fundamental rights make up the crime against humanity of persecution when carried out with discriminatory intent.

To maintain the domination of Jewish Israelis over Palestinians, Israeli authorities have carried out over many years a range of serious abuses.

In the OPT, many of these abuses amount to inhumane acts, one of the three elements of the crime of apartheid, including:

sweeping restrictions on movement;

the confiscation of hundreds of thousands of dunams of land in the West Bank from Palestinians, depriving them of their property, means of livelihood and way of life, and consequent hemming in of the densely populated enclaves where most live;

the imposition of harsh conditions, including near-categorical denial of building permits, in large parts of the West Bank that coerce thousands to abandon their homes in conditions that amount to forcible transfer;

the denial of residency rights to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and their relatives for being abroad when the occupation began in 1967, or for long periods during the first few decades of the occupation, or as a result of the effective freeze on family reunification over the past two decades; and

the suspension of basic civil rights, such as freedom of assembly and association, depriving millions of the opportunity to have a voice in the wide range of affairs that most affect their daily lives and futures.

Separately from the inhumane acts carried out in the OPT, the Israeli government has carried out abuses against Palestinians within Israel, including:

refusing to allow Palestinians access to the millions of dunams of land that were confiscated from them;

implementing policies that make it virtually impossible for tens of thousands of Palestinians in the Negev region to live lawfully in the communities they have lived in for decades;

not permitting the more than 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled in 1948 and their descendants to return to Israel; and

restricting legal residency in ways that block many Palestinian spouses and families from living together in Israel.

Carried out pursuant to long-standing policies and practices of the Israeli government, these acts dispossess many Palestinians, bar some from entering their places of origin, block others from leaving it, forcibly separate families, and wreak havoc on the lives of many more.

Inhumane Acts in the OPT

Israeli authorities have carried out a range of inhumane acts in the OPT.

Movement Restrictions

For over two decades, Israeli authorities have imposed sweeping restrictions on the ability of the more than 2 million Palestinians living in Gaza to leave that territory and sharply restricted the movement of 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank, both within that territory and beyond.

Closure of Gaza

Permit Regime in the West Bank

Israeli authorities have also imposed onerous restrictions on freedom of movement in the West Bank that they justify based on "substantive security reasons" given that "Palestinian residents from the region carried out... hundreds of deadly terrorist attacks." Israeli policies, however, restrict the movement of all Palestinians, not just those whom authorities deem to present a security threat. The army requires Palestinian ID holders, with narrow exemptions, to apply to the Israeli army for time-limited permits to enter significant parts of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the "seam zone" between the separation barrier and the Green Line which covers more than 184,000 dunams, and areas controlled by settlements and the army, while allowing Israelis and foreigners to move freely among these areas, as well as to Israel, without permits. To obtain permits, Palestinians "face an arbitrary, entirely non-transparent bureaucratic system," with "no way of assessing the chances that their applications will be approved or how soon," according to the Israeli rights group B'Tselem. "Many applications are denied without explanation, with no real avenue for appeal," and "permits already granted are easily revoked, also without explanation," B'Tselem adds. Those denied permits include many who have never been detained or convicted on security grounds. The uncertainty discourages many Palestinians from applying for permits at all.

Land Expropriation and Creation of Separate Enclaves (West Bank, East Jerusalem)

Even if ownership can be proved, Israeli authorities interpret Ottoman land law in such a way as to take land without paying compensation to the owners when it can claim that at least 50 percent of the parcel has not been cultivated within the prior three years. This interpretation facilitated the takeover of "absentee" property belonging to Palestinians who fled during or following the 1967 War, as well as from Palestinians who remained in the West Bank but lost access to their land. Beginning in 1979, following an Israeli Supreme Court ruling that restricted the army's authority to transfer to settlements lands confiscated on purported security grounds that it recognized as privately owned by Palestinians, the Israeli military Custodian of Government Property conducted a hasty and error-riddled land survey that aimed to identify uncultivated lands that Israeli authorities could claim as state land. Based on the survey, Israeli authorities declared as state land parcels that had been cultivated but not intensely, that consisted of rocky terrain where much of the land is not arable, and where Palestinian residents had staked claims to the land through the informal mechanisms used to establish ownership in the West Bank, but had not registered it in the official land registry.

In addition, settlers have established settlements without any formal process or authorization from the Israeli military authorities, largely on the private property of Palestinians. Rather than demolish the buildings that settlers constructed on stolen land without permits, however, the authorities have, with a few notable exceptions, facilitated the land takeover by providing infrastructure, water, electricity, and other services. One hundred and fifty of such so-called outposts have been established across the West Bank since 1991, according to B'Tselem and Kerem Navot. Peace Now has documented 60 outposts established since 2012 alone. Israeli authorities retroactively granted legal status to 15 outposts between 2012 and early 2019, and Netanyahu has indicated that he intends to annex and incorporate outposts into Israel.

Forcible Transfer and the Right to Residence (Area C of the West Bank and East Jerusalem)

These policies create a coercive environment that pressures Palestinians to leave East Jerusalem and Area C. By making it exceedingly difficult to remain, Israeli policies induce Palestinians in these communities to abandon their homes and livelihoods and relocate, usually to towns or cities under the administrative and civil control of the PA. Peace Now estimates that, although Palestinians constitute 90 percent of the population of the Jordan Valley, Israel effectively restricts them from building on about 94 percent of the territory. According to OCHA, between January 1, 2009, and December 31, 2020, Israel demolished 2,601 Palestinian structures in the Jordan Valley for lacking a permit, displacing 3,716 people and affecting 23,464 others. More than 250,000 Palestinians lived in the Jordan Valley before 1967. Between 50,000 and 200,000 of them fled to Jordan during the 1967 War. Today, the population stands between 60,000 and 80,000.

Denial of Residency and Nationality

Israeli authorities have denied millions of Palestinians the right to residency and nationality through its control over population registries, the granting of legal status and residency rights, and entry and exit to Israel and the OPT.

West Bank and Gaza

Israel's policies that deny Palestinians in the OPT the ability to live in or travel to the areas they are from deny them "the right to freedom of movement and residency," one of the inhumane acts set out in the Apartheid Convention.

East Jerusalem

Mass Suspension of Civil Rights (West Bank, Gaza)

Other Abuses in Israel

Separately from the inhumane acts committed in the OPT, the Israeli government has carried out other abuses against Palestinians within its pre-1967 borders.

Land Expropriation and Restrictions

Beginning in 1948 and in subsequent decades, Israeli authorities seized several million dunams of land from Palestinians inside Israel. Many of the most serious abuses described in this subsection, involving the massive confiscation of land from Palestinian citizens of Israel, occurred between 1948 and 1966. While the plight of Palestinians in Israel has generally improved since the lifting in 1966 of the martial law that Israeli authorities imposed on them for the first 17 years of the country's history, these violations are continuing insofar as many of the victims remain unable to recover what authorities seized from them, return to live in the villages they came from, or obtain compensation for the losses they experienced.

Coercive Practices in the Negev Region

Denial of Residency and Nationality

Effective Ban on Granting Status to Palestinian Spouses from the OPT

Palestinian Refugees

Conclusion

Israeli authorities have deprived millions of people of their basic rights by virtue of their identity as Palestinians. These longstanding policies and systematic practices box in, dispossess, forcibly separate, marginalize, and otherwise inflict suffering on Palestinians.

Collectively, these policies and practices in the OPT severely deprive Palestinians of fundamental human rights, including to residency, private property, and access to land, services, and resources, on a widespread and systematic basis. When committed with discriminatory intent, on the basis of the victims' identity as part of a group or collectivity, they amount to the crime against humanity of persecution under the Rome Statute and customary international law.

Separately from the inhumane acts carried out in the OPT, the Israeli government violates the rights of Palestinians inside Israel on account of their identity, including measures that have made it virtually impossible for tens of thousands of Palestinian Bedouins living in the Negev to live lawfully in the communities; the denial to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians of the ability to access or use land confiscated from them historically; the effective bar on citizens and residents obtaining long-term legal status to and thereby living permanently together in Israel with spouses from the West Bank and Gaza,which deprives them of the ability to live together permanently in Israel; and the denial of residency rights to Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes in the events around the establishment of the state.

These abuses continue and there is no indication that authorities have investigated, much less held accountable, anyone involved in their commission.

These recommendations stem from Human Rights Watch's finding that Israeli authorities are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.

Human Rights Watch found that the Israeli government has pursued an intent to maintain the domination of Jewish Israelis over Palestinians throughout the territory it controls. In the OPT, including East Jerusalem, that intent has been coupled with systematic oppression of Palestinians and inhumane acts committed against them. When these three elements occur together, they amount to the crime of apartheid.

Israeli authorities are also committing the crime against humanity of persecution based on the discriminatory intent behind Israel's treatment of Palestinians and the grave abuses it has carried out in the OPT.

To the State of Israel

Dismantle all forms of systematic oppression and discrimination that privilege Jewish Israelis at the expense of Palestinians and otherwise systematically violate Palestinian rights in order to ensure the dominance of Jewish Israelis, and end the persecution of Palestinians, including by ending discriminatory policies and practices in such realms as citizenship and nationality processes, protection of civil rights, freedom of movement, allocation of land and resources, access to water, electricity, and other services, and granting of building permits.

Fully respect the human rights of Palestinians, including those in the OPT, as well as the protections owed to Palestinians in the OPT under international humanitarian law.

Cease construction and expansion of settlements, dismantle existing settlements, and bring Israeli citizens inhabiting settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, back within Israel's internationally-recognized borders.

End the generalized ban on travel to and from Gaza and permit the free movement of people to and from Gaza, and in particular between Gaza and the West Bank, and abroad, subject to, at most, individual screenings and physical searches for security purposes.

Permit Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza to move freely into East Jerusalem, subject to, at most, individual screenings and physical searches for security purposes.

End discrimination in the application of planning, permit, and building laws and regulations that subject Palestinians to discriminatory permit refusals and demolition orders.

Provide equitable access to land, housing, and essential services for Palestinians.

Dismantle the segments of the Separation Barrier not built along the Green Line but, rather, inside the OPT.

Repeal discriminatory laws and legal provisions in favor of legislation that is rooted in the principle of equality and conforms to international human rights standards, including:

The Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (Temporary Order)-2003, which allows Israeli citizens and residents to obtain legal status for their non-Israeli spouses, but not if the spouses are Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza, who are explicitly ineligible under this law with few exceptions;

Provisions in the 2011 Admission Commissions Law that effectively allow discrimination by residents of small towns inside Israel against prospective residents on the basis of their race, ethnicity, or national origin;

Provisions in the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People that discriminate between Jews and non-Jews with regard to the right to self-determination and to housing.

Remove arbitrary restrictions on residency rights for Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip and their families, including by stopping the practice of revoking the residency of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, ending the effective freeze on family reunification applications in the West Bank and Gaza since 2000, and allowing Palestinians to resettle in other parts of the OPT and register their new addresses.

Recognize and honor the right of Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes in 1948 and their descendants to enter Israel and reside in the areas where they or their families once lived, as Human Rights Watch has outlined in a separate policy, which also outlines the options of integration in place or in the OPT and resettlement elsewhere.

Cooperate with and heed the recommendations of UN bodies and human rights mechanisms.

Ratify the Rome Statute and incorporate crimes against humanity, including the crimes of persecution and apartheid, into national criminal law with a view to investigate and prosecute individuals credibly implicated in these crimes.

To the Palestinian Liberation Organization

Adopt an advocacy strategy centered on the immediate attainment of the full human rights of Palestinians, rather than one that puts off attainment of human rights in favor of a particular political outcome.

To the Palestinian Authority

Cease all security coordination with the Israeli army that contributes to facilitating the crimes of apartheid and persecution in the OPT.

Incorporate crimes against humanity, including the crimes of persecution and apartheid, into national criminal law.

To the International Criminal Court Office of the Prosecutor

Investigate and prosecute individuals credibly implicated in the crimes against humanity of apartheid or persecution.

To Members of the United Nations

Establish through the UN an international commission of inquiry to investigate systematic discrimination and repression based on group identity in the OPT and Israel. The inquiry should be mandated to establish and analyze the facts, and, where applicable, identify those responsible for serious crimes, including apartheid and persecution, with a view to ensure that the perpetrators of violations are held accountable, as well as collect and preserve evidence related to abuses for future use by credible judicial institutions. The inquiry's mandate should be sufficiently broad to cover the role of other actors, including companies and officials of other states.

Establish a UN Committee of representatives of member states to assess the findings of the international commission of inquiry, regularly review compliance with the commission of inquiry's recommendations, and recommend further action as needed.

Recommend, given the deadlock on this issue at the UN Security Council, that member states and blocs of states impose unilateral measures in the form of targeted sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against officials and entities credibly implicated in the crimes of apartheid and persecution; unilaterally condition arms sales and security assistance to Israel on Israeli authorities taking concrete and verifiable steps towards ending their commission of the crimes of apartheid and persecution of Palestinians; and subject agreements, cooperation schemes, and all forms of trade and dealing with Israel to enhanced due diligence to screen for those directly contributing to the commission of the crimes of apartheid and persecution of Palestinians, mitigate the human rights impacts and, where not possible, end those activities and funding found to contribute to facilitating these serious crimes.

Establish through the UN a position of UN global envoy for the crimes of persecution and apartheid with a mandate to advocate for their end and identify steps that states and judicial institutions should take to prosecute these crimes. Once established, request the UN Security Council to invite the envoy to participate in quarterly briefings on the situation in the Middle East.

To All States

Issue individual and collective public statements expressing concern about Israeli authorities' commission of the crimes of apartheid and persecution.

Subject agreements, cooperation schemes, and all forms of trade and dealing with Israel to enhanced due diligence to screen for those directly contributing to the commission of crimes of apartheid and persecution of Palestinians, mitigate the human rights harms and, where not possible, end the activities and funding found to directly contribute to facilitating these serious crimes.

Impose targeted sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against officials and entities responsible for the continued commission of grave international crimes, including apartheid and persecution.

Condition arms sales and military and security assistance to Israel on Israeli authorities taking concrete and verifiable steps towards ending their commission of the crimes of apartheid and persecution.

Incorporate the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution into national criminal law with a view to investigate and prosecute individuals credibly implicated in these crimes.

Investigate and prosecute those credibly implicated in the crimes of persecution and apartheid, under the principle of universal jurisdiction and in accordance with national laws.

Consider including calls for Israel to grant Palestinians in the occupied territory civil rights at least equal to those it grants its own citizens in publications, reports, and policy positions and to assess Israel's conduct on this basis, as Human Rights Watch has outlined in a separate publication.

To the President of the United States

Issue a public statement of concern regarding Israeli authorities' commission of the crimes of apartheid and persecution.

To the United States Department of State, Department of Defense and Department of Treasury

Condition military and security assistance to Israel on Israeli authorities taking concrete and verifiable steps towards ending their commission of the crimes of apartheid and persecution.

Conduct an assessment of and release a public report on the use of US-origin weapons and/or equipment, or Israeli weapons and/or equipment purchased with US funds, to contribute to the commission of the crimes of apartheid and persecution, or to facilitate violations of international human rights or humanitarian law. If and when further assistance is provided, ensure that no funding goes to units where there is credible information implicating them in the commission of gross violations of human rights, in compliance with 620M of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, 22 U.S.C. 2378d and Section 362 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code, otherwise known as the Leahy Laws.

Impose visa bans and asset freezes pursuant to the Global Magnitsky Accountability Act of 2016, Executive Order 13818, and Section 7031(c) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 2019, on all Israeli officials found to be responsible for or complicit in gross human rights violations, including the crimes of apartheid and persecution.

To the United States Congress

Issue public statements of concern regarding Israeli authorities' commission of the crimes of apartheid and persecution.

If the US executive branch fails to condition military and security assistance to Israel, Congress should legislate accordingly to condition military and security assistance to Israel on Israeli authorities taking concrete and verifiable steps towards ending their commission of the crimes of apartheid and persecution.

Request a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on how US support to Israel, including funds, weapons, and equipment, is used to contribute to the commission of the crimes of apartheid and persecution; request that the GAO include in its report an investigation into the degree to which the US Departments of State and Defense are able to conduct appropriate human rights vetting of Israeli military units.

Ensure that all offices tasked with ensuring compliance under the Leahy Laws at the Departments of State and Defense have adequate funding and staff.

To the European Union and its Member States

Issue public statements of concern regarding Israeli authorities' commission of the crimes of apartheid and persecution.

Conduct a holistic assessment of the implications for EU and member states relations with Israel arising from the findings of the crimes of apartheid and persecution, identifying in particular the legal consequences and obligations under EU and international law that apply to EU institutions, member states and EU-based private businesses, and the steps that should be taken accordingly, and make such assessment public.

Subject all EU and member states' bilateral agreements, cooperation schemes, and all forms of trade and dealing with Israel to enhanced due diligence to screen for those directly contributing to the commission of crimes of apartheid and persecution of Palestinians, mitigate the human rights harms and, where not possible, end the activities and funding found to directly contribute to facilitating these serious crimes.

Impose targeted sanctions against individuals and entities found to be responsible for the continued commission of grave international crimes, including apartheid and persecution.

Condition military and security assistance to Israel on Israeli authorities taking concrete and verifiable steps towards ending their commission of the crimes of apartheid and persecution.

Support the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry by the UN to investigate all forms of systematic discrimination or repression based on group identity in Israel or the OPT.

Support the establishment of a UN envoy on the crimes of apartheid and persecution.

To the European Parliament

Urge for the European Commission, the European External Action Service and EU member states to take the steps outlined above and request the EU High Representative and the Commission to keep the Parliament informed about next steps.

To businesses active in Israel and the OPT

Cease business activities that directly contribute to the crimes of apartheid and persecution.

Assess whether their goods and services contribute to the crimes of apartheid and persecution, such as equipment used in the unlawful demolition of Palestinian homes, and cease providing goods and services that will likely be used for such purposes, in accordance with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine Director at Human Rights Watch, was the lead researcher and author of this report. Other Human Rights Watch researchers contributed research and writing. Eric Goldstein, acting director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa division, was the report's primary editor.

Tom Porteous, deputy program director at Human Rights Watch, and Clive Baldwin, senior legal advisor at Human Rights Watch, provided program and legal review. Kenneth Roth, executive director at Human Rights Watch, also reviewed the report. Philippe Bolopion, deputy director of global advocacy, Akshaya Kumar, director of crisis advocacy, and Bruno Stagno, chief advocacy officer, led the development of the recommendations in the report.

Balkees Jarrah, associate director of the International Justice Program, Bill Van Esveld, associate director in Human Rights Watch's Children's Rights Division, Elisa Epstein, Washington advocacy officer at Human Rights Watch, Felix Horne, senior researcher with Human Rights Watch's Environment and Human Rights Division, and Joseph Amon, consultant for Human Rights Watch, among others, also edited parts of the report.

Emilie Max, consultant for Human Rights Watch, contributed legal research. Sari Bashi, a consultant for Human Rights Watch, supported outreach and communications efforts. Diakonia, a Swedish development organization, provided a legal memorandum addressing legal issues related to the report. Aaqib Mahmood, former intern at Human Rights Watch, and Diana Naoum, former Middle East and North Africa coordinator for Human Rights Watch, also contributed research.

Associates in Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa Division and Travis Carr, photo and publications coordinator at Human Rights Watch, helped prepare the report for publication. Shirly Eran translated the report into Hebrew.

Ahmed Benchemsi contributed to the development of the accompanying multimedia piece, among others. The graphics for the report were developed in partnership with Visualizing Impact, whose effort was led by Jessica Anderson and Yosra El Gazzar.

We would also like to thank Nathan Thrall, Hagai El-Ad, Tareq Baconi, Michael Sfard, Moien Odeh, Dror Etkes, Murad Samara, Kathleen Peratis, Naji Naji, Tania Hary, Ahmed Elqattawi, and Ruhan Nagra, among others, for their insights and time.

Most importantly, we wish to thank the Palestinian, Israeli, and other human rights defenders and activists who for years have documented and courageously spoken out against the serious abuses documented in this report and the men and women who shared their stories with us.

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The 213-page report, "A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution," examines Israel's treatment of Palestinians. It presents the present-day reality of a single authority, the Israeli government, ruling primarily over the area between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea, populated by two groups of roughly equal size, and methodologically privileging Jewish Israelis while repressing Palestinians, most severely in the occupied territory.