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I WORLD NEWS
www.pi-media.co.uk
I July 2019
UN rights boss urges states to repatriate ISIL fighters’ families
Thousands of relatives of suspected ISIL fighters should be taken back by their countries of origin, the United Nations human rights chief has said. Speaking at the UN Human Rights Council as it opened its annual summer session in Geneva, Michelle Bachelet said that children, in particular, had suffered “grievous violations” of their rights. “Foreign family members should be repatriated, unless they are to be prosecuted for crimes in accordance with international standards,” she
said. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that there are 29,000 children of foreign fighters in Syria, of which 20,000 are from Iraq. In total, more than 55,000 suspected ISIL fighters and their families have been detained in Syria and Iraq following the armed group’s collapse. Most of them are citizens of these two countries, but overall the suspected ISIL fighters come from nearly 50 countries, Bachelet said.
More than 11,000 of their relatives are being held at the Al Hol camp in northeastern Syria alone, she added, noting that many there lived in “deeply sub-standard” conditions. Bachelet appealed to the relevant countries to uphold their responsibilities under international law - even with regard to members of an armed group infamous for beheadings and other grave violence. “Regarding the alleged fighters, well over 150 men and women have been sentenced to death in Iraq under the anti-terrorism law, following trials which have not afforded adequate due process guarantees,” Bachelet said. Putting European fighters on trial in their home countries is considered problematic, as little evidence that would survive judicial scrutiny directly links them to crimes in Syria and Iraq. The US has been urging European countries to bring back their nationals and put them on trial but most EU countries have refused. Russia and Kazakhstan have been most active at repatriating foreign fighters and their families.
ICC prosecutor requests probe into Rohingya deportation A prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) declared that she intended to submit a request to open an investigation in the deportation of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, according to an ICC statement. Following the notification, the court convened a pre-trial chamber that would decide whether or not to authorize prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to open an investigation into the issue, the statement said. It added that last September
the court decided it may exercise jurisdiction over the “alleged” deportation of the Rohingya people from Myanmar to Bangladesh. Later that month, Bensouda announced the opening of a preliminary examination into the issue. According to Amnesty International, more than 750,000 Rohingya refugees, mostly women and children, escaped Myanmar and crossed over into Bangladesh after Myanmar forces launched a crackdown on the minority Muslim
community in August 2017. Since Aug. 25, 2017, nearly 24,000 Rohingya Muslims have been killed by Myanmar’s state forces, according to a report by the Ontario International Development Agency (OIDA). Some 18,000 Rohingya women and girls were raped by Myanmar’s army and police and over 115,000 Rohingya homes were burned down and 113,000 others vandalized, it added. www.pi-media.co.uk
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