Rights activists and relatives of victims of alleged human rights violations by members of Bangladesh’s notorious Rapid Action Battalion, an elite security force, are urging the United States to continue sanctions against the nation’s law enforcement agencies.

The calls come after a visit by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu, who said January 15 the U.S. had not implemented new sanctions on the RAB because the force had made good progress in the area of human rights, by reducing extrajudicial killings in the country.

The activists, who have long campaigned against the country’s law enforcement agencies — alleging they had been involved in thousands of cases of enforced disappearance and extrajudicial killing — and the families of the victims of alleged rights violation said that they were disappointed the United States has not implemented new sanctions on other Bangladeshi security agencies and more former and present RAB officers.

Washington imposed human rights-related sanctions on the RAB and six former and then-serving officers in December 2021, accusing them of responsibility for thousands of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances in the country.

Lu, after meeting January 15 with Bangladesh Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen, told a local TV channel, “One of the things I said to the partners [in Bangladesh] today is, normally on the anniversary of the sanction like the sanction on RAB, we would have designated more individuals from the RAB to face individual sanctions. …We didn’t do that because we recognize the progress being made by the [Bangladeshi] government and by the RAB itself to reform.”

Lu did not say whether or when RAB sanctions would be lifted, but a day after meeting with Lu, Momen told reporters he was hopeful the sanctions imposed on the RAB and its officers would be removed.

“They hinted that Bangladesh is working in the right direction and it would perhaps take some time but the sanctions would be removed,” Momen said, apparently referring to Lu or U.S. officials.

Meenakshi Ganguly, the South Asia director of Human Rights Watch said that while it was true that gross violations by the RAB dropped briefly immediately after the sanctions were announced, that only goes to show that when there is accountability, the security forces can be reined in.

“The fact that security forces abuses started again is because of denials and excuses by the political leaders who failed to deliver a robust effort to end impunity. The U.S. and other governments should be concerned by reports of intimidation of activists and victim families after the sanctions were announced, and not hesitate to act if abuses persist,” Ganguly told VOA.

Many have expressed frustration after Lu explained why the U.S. had not designated new sanctions on Bangladesh and the Bangladeshi ministers said that they believed that the existing US sanctions would be revoked.

“RAB has forcibly disappeared hundreds of BNP activists, including two former MPs and dozens of leaders, of whom more than 50 have yet to return. The members of this organization have extrajudicially killed thousands of people in the country, including BNP leaders, activists and supporters; the officials responsible for these murders have not yet been tried,” Gayeshwar Chandra Roy, a senior leader of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, told VOA.

“Instead, we have seen the Bangladeshi government hand out gallantry awards and prize postings to those whom the United States has sanctioned for their crimes against humanity.

“In this situation, if the sanctions are lifted, people of different opinions in Bangladesh will be victims of extrajudicial killing and enforced disappearance by RAB again.”

A woman who refused to be identified, fearing reprisals from security agents and said her husband has not returned home since he was abducted by a branch of police before the 2014 national elections, told VOA, “We all believed that the American authorities knew it well that, different wings of the police and other agencies were involved in a serious level of rights violation in Bangladesh, too. After the sanctions were imposed on the RAB, we were hopeful that more sanctions would follow through targeting other agencies.”

“It appears now that no new sanctions will come from the U.S. We will not get justice…This is very disappointing.”

Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman, liaison officer of the Hong Kong-based Asian Legal Resource Center said, the Sheikh Hasina government continually uses all the agencies of the state including the judiciary to curb rights in Bangladesh, even after the RAB sanctions.

“The systematic denial of access to justice has turned into a norm in Bangladesh. The human rights situation in the country cannot improve until an effectively functional mechanism of accountability is brought in place,” Ashrafuzzaman told VOA.

“To protect the defenseless victims and the human rights defenders, who have no resort to go within the country’s boundary, there should be more sanctions on the perpetrating entities.”

Amanda Strayer, supervising staff attorney for accountability at the U.S.-based rights group Human Rights First, noted the RAB and several of its officers were sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Act, which authorizes sanctions against human rights violators for widespread and longstanding patterns of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and torture under the Global Magnitsky program.

“The U.S. government should make very clear that there can be no discussion about lifting sanctions until Bangladesh implements serious reforms to prevent these kinds of horrific violence, to hold the sanctioned officers and all other abusers accountable, and to cease the ongoing threats and harassment against civil society and victims’ families,” Strayer told VOA.

The U.S. government risks undermining the impact of its own Global Magnitsky sanctions when it touts a temporary decline in violence early last year as ‘tremendous progress,’ absent real reform and accountability, she said.

“If repressive governments sense they can easily hoodwink the U.S. into backing down from Global Magnitsky sanctions without meaningful change, then human rights sanctions will lose all their bite,” she said.
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The U.S. State Department said Wednesday that two of the people who died in a Sunday plane crash in Nepal were U.S. citizens, while two others were permanent U.S. residents. 

The Yeti Airlines flight crashed as it approached the Pokhara International Airport in the foothills of the Himalayas, killing all 72 people on board. 

“Our thoughts are with the families of those on board,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters at a briefing. “The United States stands ready to support Nepal in any way we can at this difficult hour.” 

An investigation into what caused the crash is ongoing, with teams from the plane’s manufacturer, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency and the French air accidents investigations agency all taking part. 

Searchers found the cockpit voice and flight data recorders a day after the crash. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 
…

Hundreds of refugees are fleeing to safety in India as the Myanmar military intensifies airstrikes in Chin state in Myanmar’s northwest, a refugee aid group told VOA on Wednesday.

At least 200 Chin refugees crossed the border last week following airstrikes by the Myanmar military on a key rebel camp on the India-Myanmar border, according to the Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO).

“Within the first half of this month, the Myanmar junta carried out four airstrikes in Chin state,” Salai Mang Hre Lian, a CHRO program manager, told VOA by phone.

The organization, which has reported “a total of at least 14 airstrikes after the military coup in February 2021,” is working to protect and promote the rights of Chin people and other oppressed and marginalized communities in Myanmar.

The latest airstrikes were reportedly conducted by the Myanmar junta air force on January 10 and 11 and targeted Camp Victoria, headquarters of the Chin National Front (CNF), an ethnic resistance organization in Chin state.

“The bombing killed five CNF soldiers, including two women, and injured more than dozens of civilians around the area of Camp Victoria,” Salai Mang Hre Lian told VOA, adding that “the bombing also destroyed civilian housing and the medical facilities of Camp Victoria.”

He said hundreds of refugees from at least five villages fled across the border. “They also have grave concerns about their safety, as there is a possibility of future airstrikes and military operations from the Myanmar junta in their surrounding areas,” he said.

According to CHRO’s report, during the junta’s airstrikes last week, two bombs landed on the Indian side of the border in Mizoram state, where thousands of Chin refugees have pursued protection.

“Our main concern is the safety of Chin internally displaced persons in the Indo-Burma border areas as well as the Chin refugees in Mizoram state of India,” Zo Tum Hmung, executive director of the Chin Association of Maryland (CAM), told VOA.

CAM said in a statement to VOA that “at least one bomb landed on Indian soil and damaged the truck of a villager from Farkawn Village in Mizoram State, India.” The organization identified “five Myanmar military fighter jets, three Yak-130s and two MIG 29s.”

“India should condemn the Myanmar military fighters [for] dropping a bomb on India soil,” Zo Tum Hmung said.

Global watchdog Fortify Rights also called on India to prevent Myanmar junta fighter jets from accessing its airspace.

“New Delhi shouldn’t tolerate the junta’s incursions on its airspace, and Indian authorities should do everything in their power to ensure the security of civilians and border areas,” Matthew Smith, CEO of Fortify Rights, said last week.

So far, there have been no responses from New Delhi or Mizoram regarding the airstrikes.

CHRO said more than 52,000 Chin civilians have fled to India since the military coup last year. Around 44,000 live in Mizoram, and about 8,000 are in New Delhi.

 
…

Grieving relatives of plane crash victims in Nepal were growing impatient as they waited for authorities to conduct autopsies and return the bodies for cremation.

The Yeti Airlines flight with 72 aboard plummeted into a gorge Sunday while on approach to the newly opened Pokhara International Airport in the foothills of the Himalayas. There were no survivors.

“It has been four days, but no one is listening to us,” a heartbroken Madan Kumar Jaiswal said on Wednesday as he waited outside the Tribhuvan University Institute of Medicine.

He said he wanted the postmortem to be done quickly so that the families can receive the bodies of their loved ones.

“They are saying that they will do a DNA test. My daughter is dead,” said Ashok Rayamagi, father of another victim.

Authorities did not comment on the autopsies Wednesday but several of the bodies were reported to be badly burned.

Some aviation experts said footage from the ground of the plane’s last moments indicated the aircraft went into a stall, although it’s unclear why.

The search for the only remaining missing person resumed on Wednesday with the help of divers and drones, police said.

Workers had shut down a dam on the Seti River to help them look for the body in the 300-meter-deep ravine.

A team of experts from the French manufacturer of the ATR aircraft visited the crash site in Pokhara, the gateway to popular hiking tracks in the Himalayas.

The Cologne-based European Union Aviation Safety Agency also said it was taking part in the investigation alongside the French air accident investigations agency BEA, EASA spokeswoman Janet Northcote said.

Searchers retrieved cockpit voice and flight data recorders on Monday. The voice recorder would be analyzed locally, but the flight data recorder would be sent to France.
…

A top U.N. diplomat held talks with the foreign minister of the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan to convey international concern about restrictions they have placed on women’s access to work, education and public life.

Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, the highest-ranking woman in the world body, arrived overnight in the capital, Kabul, at the head of a high-level U.N. delegation.

Her visit comes nearly a month after the Islamist Taliban tightened their already sweeping crackdown on Afghan women, ordering most female NGO staff to stop work until further notice and barring girls from attending universities. The latest curbs sparked global outrage and calls for immediately reversing them.

Mohammed told Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in the meeting Wednesday that the purpose of her visit was aimed at “witnessing the situation up close” and delivering the international community’s message about women’s access to education and work, according to Taliban officials.

Muttaqi in turn complained about a lack of cooperation from the international community to address concerns such as granting recognition to his government and removing sanctions on the banking sector and Taliban leaders, saying they were causing problems for ordinary Afghans.  

“Traders are faced with extreme difficulties and they are unable to transfer funds to even import food items,” he said in his remarks at the meeting, captured on camera and released by the Taliban.

“If 1 million [girl] students are without education here, but what about those 9 million students, including boys and girls, who are going to schools?” Muttaqi asked. “They are also humans and need assistance to overcome issues facing them.”

The Taliban have banned teenage girls from attending school beyond grade six.

“Women are engaged in educational and health sectors in significant numbers, whereas those who used to work in government offices are paid salaries at home; the number of female inmates has reduced considerably,” Taliban foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi said in a statement that quoted Muttaqi as telling the U.N. delegation.

The foreign minister recounted that his government had established peace in Afghanistan on its own returning to power and “narcotics cultivation has dropped to zero,” noting the country used to be the biggest drug producer in the world before the Taliban takeover in August 2021.

“Ms. Mohammed … pledged to convey the realities as witnessed to the international community, taking firm steps for continued assistance to Afghanistan,” Balkhi said.

A U.N. report published in November acknowledged that the Taliban had imposed a strict ban on opium production in April 2022 but said the ban had been ineffective and that the world body estimated that opium production increased by 32% last year.

Muttaqi was also quoted as telling the U.N. team that the number of drug addicts in Afghanistan had risen to around four million before the Taliban takeover. “They are now being treated in 83 therapy centers” across the country, but these efforts have not been acknowledged by the world nor has there been any assistance in return for these efforts, the foreign minister said.

Mohammed also met with U.N. staff, aid groups and Afghan women “to take stock of the situation, convey solidarity, and discuss ways to promote and protect women’s and girls’ rights,” deputy U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq said in New York.

In those talks, Mohammed “stressed the need to uphold human rights, especially for women and girls,” and was “encouraged by exemptions” to the ban on female aid workers, Haq said. The exemptions have allowed some work to restart in areas such as health care. 

Mohammed was in Kabul as part of a series of meetings that had included stops in Turkey, Qatar and Pakistan to discuss the situation in Afghanistan with diplomats, Afghan diaspora and the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

The Taliban have defended the ban on NGOs, claiming female workers were not adhering to Islamic dress codes and other Shariah principles in violation of official directives. The ban has prompted major foreign aid groups to suspend operations in Afghanistan, though some said this week they had resumed health and other programs where the Taliban have allowed women to work.

The Taliban seized power 17 months ago when U.S.-led foreign troops withdrew from the country after 20 years of war with the then-insurgent Taliban.
…

The impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine is being felt as far away as Indian-administered Kashmir, where ornithologists see the conflict as contributing to a shortage of migratory birds which make their way each winter from Europe to the wetlands of the Kashmir Valley.

Every February, the wildlife protection department conducts a census of migratory birds in Kashmir. The department says that more than 1.1 million birds of 39 species visited the region in 2021. The census estimated 810,000 birds in 2020 and 950,000 in 2019.

The department has not yet begun this year’s count but the wildlife warden of wetlands, Ifshan Dewan, told VOA, “I am getting reports from various wetlands on low arrival of migratory birds compared to the last year.”

Experts believe that the nearly year-old war between Russia and Ukraine could be one reason for the reduced size of this year’s migratory flocks, both in Kashmir and elsewhere in the region.

Irfan Jeelani, founder of the birding club Birds of Kashmir, told VOA that birds from China, Siberia, central Asia and Europe visit Kashmir every winter. “Birds from Europe could be affected due to the war and have altered their flyway to reach here; however, weak ones couldn’t reach their destinations,” Jeelani suggested.

A similar pattern has been noted in the neighboring Jammu region, where Parmil Kumar, the head of the department of statistics at the University of Jammu, said the war in Ukraine could have been responsible for some species arriving almost two weeks later than usual.

“There is also a reduction of about 15% in the number of birds visiting this winter to Jammu region,” said Kumar, who is a birder himself.

Bird migration expert Andrew Farnsworth agreed that the Ukraine-Russia war could be a factor affecting the number of migratory birds visiting the Kashmir region this winter but noted that birds come to the valley from many regions besides Europe.

“Maybe slightly, but there are so many other factors and so many more birds arriving from more easterly locations to Kashmir, in addition to ongoing military and industrial activities in and around Kashmir for years,” said Farnsworth, a senior research associate at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

“War can and certainly does affect the movements of birds, whether by habitat destruction, increased hunting pressure during long conflicts, or destruction by military actions.”

Wildlife experts are looking to see if this year’s census bears out observations seeming to show significantly reduced populations of bird species that make the trip from Europe, such as the black stork, great white pelican and purple heron.

Wildlife experts in Ukraine say there is no doubt that the war is endangering a wide variety of creatures there.

The conflict has “threatened not only Ukraine’s population but also biodiversity, including a significant number of rare and globally vulnerable bird species,” said a recent article by Oleg Dudkin, CEO of the Ukrainian Society for the Protection of Birds and Martin Harper, regional director at BirdLife Europe & Central Asia.

Asad R. Rahmani, a member of the governing body of Wetlands International South Asia, said another likely explanation for the declining migratory bird population in Kashmir is the destruction of wetlands that provide a winter home for the birds.

“Most birds that come to India belong to the Central Asian Flyway and Ukraine does not fall in this flyway,” he told VOA. “There is always a movement from Europe of some birds. Still, the bulk of the migratory birds come from central Russia, Mongolia, northern China, Tibet, and some countries of central Asia.”

If adequately protected, Kashmir’s wetlands could become a major tourist attraction, he added.

Rashid Naqash, the regional wildlife warden for the Kashmir region, said in an interview that his department is trying its best to protect the region’s wetlands. His department manages eight main wetlands where migratory birds congregate in huge droves during winter.

Regarding the war in Ukraine, Naqash said the migratory birds instinctively avoid places with a lot of activity and instead take safer routes to get to their wintering grounds. But he said, “It is hard, dangerous, and stressful for migratory birds to find other ways to get to where they spend the winter.”
…

Threatened for her reporting inside Afghanistan, Mina Akbari fled to Pakistan. But the journalist says adapting to life in a new country is a struggle. For VOA, Muska Safi has more from Islamabad in this report narrated by Roshan Noorzai. Contributors: Roshan Noorzai, Shaista Lameh Sadat.
…

An elite Bangladesh police unit is engaged in the rampant extortion, harassment and wrongful arrests of the Rohingya refugees it has been tasked with protecting, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.

The Armed Police Battalion (APBn) operates in camps housing nearly one million members of the stateless minority, most of whom fled neighboring Myanmar after a military crackdown that is now the subject of a U.N. genocide investigation.

But refugees and humanitarian workers told the New York-based watchdog that safety had deteriorated after the unit took charge of camp security in 2020, with some Rohingya telling AFP abuses had become “a regular occurrence.”

“Abuses by police in the Cox’s Bazar camps have left Rohingya refugees suffering at the hands of the very forces who are supposed to protect them,” said HRW Asia researcher Shayna Bauchner.

The rights group said it had spoken to dozens of Rohingya refugees living in the sprawling and overcrowded camp network in the country’s southeast, documenting at least 16 cases of serious abuse by APBn officers.

Police demanded hefty bribes of refugees under threat of arrest, HRW’s report said, adding that families were often forced to sell gold jewelry or borrow money to free unjustly detained relatives.

Bauchner called on authorities to investigate the claims and hold responsible officers to account.

Battalion commander Syed Harunor Rashid said the report was “questionable.”

“Criminals are telling them false facts, and [Human Rights Watch] are reporting them. This is like giving comfort to criminals,” he told AFP, adding that the unit would investigate if it “receives specific complaints.”

Police acknowledge that violence has spiked in the camps, which are home to armed groups and are used as staging posts for regional drug trafficking networks.

At least 20 refugees, including top community leaders, were murdered by armed groups last year as part of a turf war in the settlement.

‘They threatened to take action’

Several Rohingya refugees told AFP that police abuses were “rampant”.

“A few days ago I was returning to the camp with my brother’s medical report from a hospital. APBn officers stopped me at the checkpoint, interrogated me and slapped me,” said Ali Jaker, 20.

Jaker said they stole the equivalent of $50 from him.

“Then they took my mobile phone. They threatened to take action against me if I shared the story with anyone,” he added.

Sitara Bibi, 45, said police extortion was “a regular occurrence.”

“I had to pay 3,000 taka [$30] to them during my son’s marriage. If we didn’t pay them, the police would file a drug smuggling case against my son,” she added.

One Rohingya civic leader, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that refugees were forced to pay police to travel between camps or to gain entrance to camps late at night.

“If anyone protests these abuses, he is arrested,” they added.
…

China on Tuesday defended its decision to allow the United Nations to designate an anti-India militant leader as a global terrorist, saying the designation would enhance international cooperation against terrorism.

Abdul Rehman Makki, 68, who is currently serving an unspecified jail term in Pakistan on terror charges, was added to the U.N. Security Council’s sanctions list on Monday.

India and the United States jointly proposed the listing last June, but China, a close ally of Pakistan, placed a so-called “technical hold” on the proposal, which it removed on Monday.

“Terrorism is a common scourge for humanity,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a regular news conference in Beijing when asked about China’s reversal.

“The individual you mentioned has been convicted and sentenced by Pakistan, and this designation is a sign of recognition of Pakistan’s staunch fight against terrorism,” Wang noted. He described the U.N. listing mechanism as “conducive” to strengthening international cooperation against terrorist threats.

Responding Tuesday to Makki’s placement on the sanctions list, Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said her country was “a victim of terrorism and supports” international counterterrorism efforts, including those of the U.N.

“The listing of Mr. Abdur Rehman Makki is a technical issue undertaken under relevant procedures of the United Nations Security Council. In any case, he has been convicted by a Pakistani court already,” Baloch noted.

She reiterated Islamabad’s call for “strict compliance” with the Security Council’s listing rules and procedures to “maintain the integrity of the U.N. counterterrorism regime.” She did not elaborate.

Arindam Bagchi, spokesman for India’s Ministry of External Affairs, welcomed the U.N. listing of Makki, calling the procedure an “effective tool” to curb threats from regional terrorist organizations.

“India remains committed to pursuing a zero-tolerance approach to terrorism,” he said.

Organizations and individuals added to the Security Council’s ISIL (Da’esh) and Al-Qaida Sanctions list are subject to assets freezes, travel bans, and arms embargoes.

The U.N. statement on Monday identified Makki as the deputy chief of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant group, also known as Jamat-ud Dawa, blamed for the 2008 attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai.

New Delhi accuses the Pakistani militant leader of playing roles in several terrorist attacks in India, including the Mumbai carnage, which killed 166 people. Foreigners were also among the victims.

Makki is the brother-in-law of LeT founder Hafiz Saeed, who is also serving a prison term in Pakistan on charges of financing anti-India militants.

Saeed denies India’s allegations that he masterminded the Mumbai bloodshed.

Pakistani authorities arrested Makki in 2019, and a court sentenced him to six months in prison in 2020 on charges of financing terrorist activities. He remains in jail for reasons not immediately known.

Makki is also wanted by the U.S. in connection with the Mumbai attack, and Washington has issued a $2 million bounty for his arrest.

New Delhi has long accused Islamabad of harboring and funding militant groups blamed for terror attacks on Indian soil and Muslim-majority parts of India-administered Kashmir.

Pakistan, which also administers part of Kashmir, denies the allegations as an attempt to divert attention from India’s alleged human rights violations and atrocities against Kashmiris.

The nuclear-armed rival nations have fought several wars and limited conflicts, mainly over Kashmir, since gaining independence from Britain in 1947. The dispute remains at the center of bilateral tensions.
…

The Afghan Taliban’s ban on women attending universities has been devastating for foreign students who had been studying medicine in Afghanistan.

Last week, 105 female students at Afghan universities — all of whom are from Pakistan’s western Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan — staged a protest in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, appealing for international help.

The demonstrators Tuesday pleaded with the United Nations for help and asked the Pakistani government to provide special scholarships for students in public sector medical colleges.

“We went to the United Nations organization in Islamabad, we appealed to them to arrange scholarships for us. We are 105 students; we are requesting them to provide us with the opportunity to continue our education,” said Sana Gul, a third-year medicine student from a private university in the eastern Afghan city Nangarhar.

Kali Akbar, a female student who was preparing for her last exam when the ban was announced, says the Taliban’s restriction has been crushing on a personal level.

“More than 20 female students that I know are dealing with depression and anxiety. They are currently under medical treatment,” she said. “For a student, it is a very tough situation to deal with.”

Spogmai Gul, another student from a private university in Nangarhar province, recalled waking up to the news that female students had been banned from private and public universities in Afghanistan. She said finishing school and getting her medical degree were her only dreams.

“For the last three years we were studying medical in Afghanistan. We went through a lot of struggles; we paid private university fees. Everything will be wasted if we are not given a chance. We are calling on Pakistani government and the world to help us and provide us special scholarships,” Gul said.

The Taliban have defended the restrictions on women and other hardline policies as based on Islamic jurisprudence. Many majority Muslim countries and Islamic scholars have rejected that reasoning.

There are signs that the Taliban’s radical ideology and hardline policies are having a broader cultural impact in the region. Syed Irfan Ashraf, assistant professor in the department of journalism at the University of Peshawar in Pakistan, said the Taliban’s ban on women’s education and increased restrictions on how women dress have affected attitudes in Pakistan.

“The Taliban brought an extremist ideology in Afghanistan with their power, which has affected all the border areas from Baluchistan to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” he said.

“This is bringing change in youth’s behavior in Pakistan because Taliban claim they have defeated United States in the region and say they are ready to defeat other non-believers. So, this has created an ideological encouragement for people in Pakistan.”

The Taliban have imposed wide-ranging restrictions on women since returning to power in August 2021. The Islamist group has closed girls’ secondary schools and universities, banned women from public parks, gyms, and baths, imposed mandatory face coverings for women, restricted work and imposed executions and harsh public punishments such as flogging.

No government has recognized the Taliban’s administration, mainly over human rights concerns and the treatment of Afghan women.

This story originated in VOA’s Deewa service.
…

The U.N. refugee agency, the UNHCR, has recorded an alarming rise in the death toll of Rohingya refugees while attempting dangerous sea journeys in the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal in 2022.

At least 348 people died or disappeared while fleeing Myanmar or Bangladesh by sea last year, making it one of the deadliest years since 2014. That was when more than 700 people reportedly lost their lives or disappeared in a desperate bid for protection from persecution.

The U.N. refugee agency says more than 3,500 Rohingya attempted perilous sea crossings in 2022. Some 700 people made similar journeys the year before.

UNHCR spokeswoman Shabia Mantoo said the dramatic increase in the number of people willing to risk their lives smacks of despair among a population that sees no way out of its misery. 

“We are hearing reports, as we mentioned, from Rohingya about this growing sense of desperation and this anxiety about the future. And really no hope for security, for protection,” Mantoo said. “Some of them are willing to reunite with family members. Others, their vulnerabilities are being exploited by traffickers or smugglers luring them with both promises and false hope.”

Mantoo said most of the 39 boats that made the dangerous sea journey last year departed from Myanmar and Bangladesh, highlighting the sense of desperation among Rohingya in those two countries. 

In the last two months of 2022, she said four boats carrying more than 450 Rohingya disembarked in Aceh, Indonesia, and another boat carrying 100 people disembarked in Sri Lanka. She said one boat, carrying 180 Rohingya Muslims, is feared to have sunk in early December. 

“Calls by UNHCR to maritime authorities in the region to rescue and disembark people in distress have been ignored or have gone unheeded with many boats adrift for weeks … UNHCR repeats its call for prompt search and rescue and timely disembarkation in a place of safety, and for support to countries where Rohingya refugees are disembarked,” Mantoo said.

In August 2017, more than 750,000 Rohingya Muslims subject to violence and persecution in Myanmar fled to Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh. They are living in overcrowded camps along with hundreds of thousands of other refugees who previously had fled from Myanmar. 

The UNHCR says conditions in Myanmar have not improved and it is not safe for them to return to a country that views them as illegal immigrants and denies them citizenship. 

 
…

Nepalese authorities on Tuesday began returning to families the bodies of plane crash victims and were sending the aircraft’s data recorder to France for analysis as they try to determine what caused the country’s deadliest air disaster in 30 years.

The flight plummeted into a gorge on Sunday while on approach to the newly opened Pokhara International Airport in the foothills of the Himalayas, killing all 72 aboard. Searchers found cockpit voice and flight data recorders on Monday, and on Tuesday shut off a dam to ease efforts to retrieve the last remaining body from the 300-meter-deep (984-foot-deep) ravine. Two more bodies were found earlier Tuesday.

The voice recorder would be analyzed locally, but the flight data recorder would be sent to France, said Jagannath Niraula, spokesperson for Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority. The aircraft’s manufacturer, ATR, is headquartered in Toulouse.

The French air accident investigations agency confirmed it is taking part in the investigation, and its representatives were already on site.

The twin-engine ATR 72-500t, operated by Nepal’s Yeti Airlines, was completing the 27-minute flight from the capital, Kathmandu, to the resort city of Pokhara, 200 kilometers (125 miles) west.

It’s still not clear what caused the crash, less than a minute’s flight from the airport in light wind and clear skies.

Aviation experts say it appears that the turboprop went into a stall at low altitude on approach to the airport, but it is not clear why.

From a smartphone video shot from the ground seconds before the aircraft crashed, one can see the ATR 72 “nose high, high angle of attack, with wings at a very high bank angle, close to the ground,” said Bob Mann, an aviation analyst and consultant.

“Whether that was due to loss of power, or misjudging aircraft’s energy, direction or the approach profile, and attempting to modify energy or approach, that aircraft attitude would likely have resulted in an aerodynamic stall and rapid loss of altitude, when already close to the ground,” he said in an email.

The aircraft was carrying 68 passengers, including 15 foreign nationals and four crew members. The foreigners included five Indians, four Russians, two South Koreans, and one each from Ireland, Australia, Argentina and France. Pokhara is the gateway to the Annapurna Circuit, a popular hiking trail in the Himalayas.

On Tuesday afternoon, over 150 people gathered at Tulsi Ghat, a cremation ground on the banks of the Seti River in Pokhara, to mourn Tribhuwan Paudel, a 37-year-old journalist and editor at a local newspaper, who died in the crash. As a priest lit the funeral pyre, close friends of Paudel came together to reminisce.

Rishikanta Paudel said Paudel always celebrated his successes. “He would cry with happiness whenever I did something good … I still feel like he might call me any time now and ask how I am.”

Bimala Bhandari, the chairperson for the Federation of Nepali Journalists in Kaski district, described Paudel as driven and passionate about the development of Pokhara.

“He was dearest to all journalists here because of his nature,” said Badri Binod Pratik, a friend and journalist who taught Paudel. “The accident has taken him away from us … I am crumbling since the day of the crash.”

Funerals for other victims, many of whom were from the area, are expected in the coming days. They include a pharmaceutical marketing agent who was traveling to be with his sister as she gave birth, and a minister of a South Korean religious group who was going to visit the school he founded.

On Monday evening, hundreds of relatives and friends were still gathered outside a local hospital. Many consoled each other, while some shouted at officials to speed up the post mortems so they could take the bodies of their loved ones home for funerals.

Aviation expert Patrick Smith, who flies Boeing 757 and 767 aircraft and writes a column called “Ask the Pilot,” cautioned that a lot of details are still not known about the crash, but said that the plane “appears to have succumbed to a loss of control at low altitude.”

“One possibility is a botched response to an engine failure,” he told The Associated Press in an e-mail.

The man who shot the smartphone footage of the plane’s descent said it looked like a normal landing until the plane suddenly veered to the left.

“I saw that and I was shocked … I thought that today everything will be finished here after it crashes, I will also be dead,” said Diwas Bohora.

The type of plane involved, the ATR 72, has been used by airlines around the world for short regional flights since the late 1980s. Introduced by a French and Italian partnership, the aircraft model has been involved in several deadly accidents over the years. In Taiwan, two accidents involving ATR 72-500 and ATR 72-600 aircrafts in 2014 and 2015 led to the planes being grounded for a period.

Nepal, home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains including Mount Everest, has a history of air crashes. Sunday’s crash is Nepal’s deadliest since 1992, when all 167 people aboard a Pakistan International Airlines plane were killed when it plowed into a hill as it tried to land in Kathmandu.

According to the Flight Safety Foundation’s Aviation Safety database, there have been 42 fatal plane crashes in Nepal since 1946.

The European Union has banned airlines from Nepal from flying into the 27-nation bloc since 2013, citing weak safety standards. In 2017, the International Civil Aviation Organization cited improvements in Nepal’s aviation sector, but the EU continues to demand administrative reforms.
…

A group of experts at the United Nations “expressed alarm” Monday at the reported rise in forced conversions and marriages of young girls from religious minorities in Muslim-majority Pakistan, calling for immediate steps to curtail the practice.

In a statement issued by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, the experts urged the Pakistani government to “objectively” investigate these acts in line with domestic legislation and international human rights commitments to hold perpetrators accountable.

The group of around 12 independent U.N rights experts includes the special rapporteurs on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, on violence against women and on minority issues, and on contemporary forms of slavery.

“We are deeply troubled to hear that girls as young as 13 are being kidnapped from their families, trafficked to locations far from their homes, made to marry men sometimes twice their age, and coerced to convert to Islam, all in violation of international human rights law,” the statement said.

These acts are allegedly being committed under threat of violence to girls and women or their families. The experts said the so-called marriages and conversions take place with the involvement of Pakistani religious authorities and the complicity of security forces as well as the justice system.

“Family members say that victims’ complaints are rarely taken seriously by the police, either refusing to register these reports or arguing that no crime has been committed by labeling these abductions as ‘love marriages,'” the statement said.

“Pakistani authorities must adopt and enforce legislation prohibiting forced conversions, forced and child marriages, kidnapping, and trafficking … and uphold the rights of women and children.”

There was no immediate reaction from the Pakistani government to the U.N. statement.

Local and foreign human rights groups say forced conversion and marriage of young women from minority religions, including Hindus and Christians, is a growing problem in Pakistan.

Campaigners say perpetrators escape legal action because forced conversions are often portrayed as a religious issue in courts, with their lawyers arguing the girls have voluntarily converted to Islam.

Hundreds of such cases are reported in Pakistan every year. Victims are mainly from poor families and low castes.

Forced conversions of kidnapped Hindu girls and subsequent marriages to Muslim men — in most cases to abductors — are routine in southern Sindh province, hosting about 90 percent of the minority community.

Hindus make up 2 percent and Christians less than 1.5 percent of Pakistan’s estimated population of 220 million.

Successive Pakistani governments have failed to outlaw forced conversions to protect religious minorities against such practices, mainly due to pressure from Islamic groups.

In October 2021, a parliamentary committee scrapped a proposed bill that would have criminalized forced conversions by proposing up to 10 years of imprisonment.

“Noting Pakistan’s previous attempts to pass legislation that will prohibit forced conversions and protect religious minorities, the experts deplored the ongoing lack of access to justice for victims and their families,” the U.N. statement said Monday.
…

Pakistan Monday launched its first nationwide anti-polio campaign of the year to immunize children under the age of five against the crippling disease. The move follows a surge in new infections in 2022.

While no new case has been reported in Pakistan so far this year, the highly infectious wild poliovirus paralyzed 20 children last year. That compares to just one infection reported in 2021.

National eradication program officials said that more than 360,000 health workers would deliver polio drops to at least 44.2 million children across 156 districts during the five-day campaign. They noted that children would also be administered an additional vitamin A supplement to boost their immunity against infectious diseases.

The 20 polio cases in Pakistan in 2022 were reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, mostly in its violence-hit North Waziristan district on the Afghan border.

An official statement quoted Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif as saying on Sunday the resurgence of cases has raised concerns among Pakistan’s global partners, including the World Health Organization and other stakeholders.

The previous nationwide polio campaign in Pakistan was organized last August but was disrupted by catastrophic floods triggered by erratic summer monsoon rains. Authorities later carried out special polio drives in flood-affected districts and vaccinated children against the virus there.

Pakistan has repeatedly come close to eradicating polio but long-running propaganda in conservative rural areas that the vaccines cause sterility in children, coupled with deadly militant attacks on vaccinators, have set back the mission.

The latest militant attack on a polio team took place earlier this month in Dera Ismail Khan district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, wounding four policemen escorting health workers.

Officials also blame the 2011 killing of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden by the United States military in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad for dealing a serious blow to national polio eradication efforts.

A Pakistani doctor organized a fake vaccination campaign to help the U.S. troops locate the hideout of the fugitive terror leader and kill him. Pakistani authorities later arrested the doctor and a court subsequently sentenced him to 23 years in prison.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries where polio continues to cripple children. Afghan officials detected two cases in 2022 and have reported no new ones this year.

The global polio eradication program has identified Pakistan, Afghanistan, parts of Somalia and Yemen as areas where outbreaks are very difficult to control, according to Hamid Jafari, the director of polio eradication for WHO’s eastern Mediterranean region.

“These are countries, and in fact some national areas, that are prone to be affected by repeated polio outbreaks., and these are usually complex countries, countries that have fragile health systems, conflicts, other complex challenges,” Jafari explained in a video statement tweeted Monday.

“Moreover, these countries export polio virus. So, when there is an outbreak in these countries, the neighboring countries are affected because of international spread but also distant international spread,” he added.
…

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, Donald Lu — who is visiting Bangladesh — said in Dhaka Sunday that the Rapid Action Battalion, commonly known by its acronym the RAB, has made “tremendous progress in the area of reducing extrajudicial killings” in the south Asian nation, citing a report by rights advocacy groups. 

After his meeting with Lu, Bangladesh Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen told reporters that his government would certainly do its best to address the human rights-related allegations against RAB. 

“During our meeting, both sides expressed commitments to democracy and human rights. We will certainly reform RAB, as needed,” Momen said. 

In December 2021, the U.S. imposed human rights-related sanctions on the RAB, an elite force of the Bangladesh security apparatus, along with six of its former and then-serving officers, accusing them of being responsible for thousands of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances in the country.

While senior Bangladeshi government officials had insisted all along that there were no cases of enforced disappearances or extrajudicial killings in the country, on January 14, hours before Lu landed in Dhaka, Momen told reporters that his government would request the U.S. to revoke the sanctions imposed on RAB, considering the forces’ “positive role in the country.”

Lu met the foreign minister and other senior foreign ministry officials Sunday and discussed several issues, including the human rights situation in the country.

Soon after his meeting with the foreign minister, Lu told reporters Sunday that he had “quite good discussions” with Momen about the RAB.

“We had very honest and open discussions with the foreign minister and foreign secretary today. The United States has made a commitment on democracy and human rights. We will speak when we see problems, when we can offer suggestions,” Lu said. 

Noting that the U.S. would “stand up for freedom of speech, freedom of expression,” he said, “if you have seen the statement this week by Human Rights Watch, they recognize, and we recognize tremendous progress in the area of reducing extrajudicial killings by the RAB.”  

Last week, Human Rights Watch, the New York-based advocacy group, said in a report that following U.S. sanctions on RAB, “extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances momentarily dropped” in Bangladesh. The report, however, added that “instead of taking steps toward reform, the government dismissed the allegations that led to sanctions, and the authorities began a campaign of threats and intimidation against human rights defenders and families of victims of enforced disappearances.”

Lu praised progress he said was made by the government and the force and calling it “amazing work.” He said he recognizes the reform efforts saying that the elite forces are “able to carry out its [the country’s] important counterterrorism and law enforcement functions while respecting human rights.”

Bangladesh’s foreign minister characterized the meeting with Lu as “very constructive” and that during the discussion, he was able to explain “how RAB has helped put an end to terrorism in Bangladesh.” Momen added that Lu is “very happy with the current performance of RAB.”

Although Lu did not say when or if sanctions on the RAB would be lifted, families of enforced disappearance victims said they are disappointed with how he praised the elite force. 

“The U.S. imposed sanctions on RAB and its senior officers 13 months ago. The government in Bangladesh has not investigated the cases (of serious human rights violations) in which RAB officers were involved,” said the wife of a man who said her husband became a victim of enforced disappearance. “The government has not taken any action against them for the crimes they had committed,” she said blaming the RAB and declined to be identified fearing retaliation from security agents. 

“When the U.S. sanctions were imposed on RAB, we began to hope that we would get justice and the guilty officials would be punished. Now we are sure we will not get justice. We cannot understand why the U.S. government is praising the RAB and Bangladesh government,” she added.

Meenakshi Ganguly, the south Asia director of Human Rights Watch said the U.S. government had provided training to RAB, and yet the abuses by the force persisted.

“The Bangladesh authorities failed to hold members of RAB and other security forces accountable for such egregious abuses as torture, extrajudicial killings and disappearances. After repeatedly urging the Bangladesh government to conduct independent investigations and properly prosecute those responsible, the U.S. chose to issue sanctions,” Ganguly told VOA. “Until there is an end to impunity, there is every chance that foreign governments will issue sanctions and call on the U.N. to review peacekeeping deployment of the Bangladesh military.” 

Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman, liaison officer of the Hong Kong-based Asian Legal Resource Centre said that abuses by the RAB continue.

“In Bangladesh, extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances continue. Torture under arbitrary incommunicado detention continues. Coercion of statements from the victims with constant surveillance and intimidation continues. Families of victims are still denied access to justice. Even, the government continues rewarding the perpetrators of gross human rights violations with blanket impunity,” Ashrafuzzaman told VOA.
…

Nepal is observing a day of mourning Monday, the day after a Yeti Airlines flight crashed carrying 72 passengers and crew from Katmandu to the tourist town of Pokhara.  

The black box and the cockpit voice recorder of the twin-engine ATR 72 aircraft have been recovered, Kathmandu Airport officials said.  

Authorities said the cause of the deadliest Himalayan crash in three decades was not immediately clear.  

The Associated Press reported Monday that rescue workers have rappelled down a 300-meter gorge in their search for bodies. Officials say at least 68 bodies have been recovered.  

One local resident told AP, “The flames were so hot that we couldn’t go near the wreckage. I heard a man crying for help, but because of the flames and smoke we couldn’t help him.” 
…

A plane making a 27-minute flight to a Nepal tourist town crashed into a gorge Sunday while attempting to land at a newly opened airport, killing at least 68 of the 72 people aboard. At least one witness reported hearing cries for help from within the fiery wreck, the country’s deadliest airplane accident in three decades. 

Hours after dark, scores of onlookers crowded around the crash site near the airport in the resort town of Pokhara as rescue workers combed the wreckage on the edge of the cliff and in the ravine below. Officials suspended the search for the four missing people overnight and planned to resume looking Monday. 

Local resident Bishnu Tiwari, who rushed to the crash site near the Seti River to help search for bodies, said the rescue efforts were hampered by thick smoke and a raging fire. 

“The flames were so hot that we couldn’t go near the wreckage. I heard a man crying for help, but because of the flames and smoke we couldn’t help him,” Tiwari said. 

It was not immediately clear what caused the accident, Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority said. 

A witness said he saw the aircraft spinning violently in the air after it began descending to land, watching from the terrace of his house. Finally, Gaurav Gurung said, the plane fell nose-first towards its left and crashed into the gorge. 

The aviation authority said the aircraft last made contact with the airport from near Seti Gorge at 10:50 a.m. before crashing. 

The twin-engine ATR 72 aircraft, operated by Nepal’s Yeti Airlines, was flying from the capital, Kathmandu, to Pokhara, located 200 kilometers (125 miles) west. It was carrying 68 passengers including 15 foreign nationals, as well as four crew members, Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement. The foreigners included five Indians, four Russians, two South Koreans, and one each from Ireland, Australia, Argentina and France. 

Images and videos shared on Twitter showed plumes of smoke billowing from the crash site, about 1.6 kilometers (nearly a mile) away from Pokhara International Airport. The aircraft’s fuselage was split into multiple parts that were scattered down the gorge. 

Firefighters carried bodies, some burned beyond recognition, to hospitals where grief-stricken relatives had assembled. At Kathmandu airport, family members appeared distraught as they were escorted in and at times exchanged heated words with officials as they waited for information. 

Tek Bahadur K. C., a senior administrative officer in the Kaski district, said he expected rescue workers to find more bodies at the bottom of the gorge. 

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who rushed to Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu after the crash, set up a panel to investigate the accident. 

”The incident was tragic. The full force of the Nepali army, police has been deployed for rescue,” he said. 

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it’s still trying to confirm the fate of two South Korean passengers and has sent staff to the scene. The Russian Ambassador to Nepal, Alexei Novikov, confirmed the death of four Russian citizens who were on board the plane. 

Omar Gutiérrez, governor of Argentina’s Neuquen province, reported on his official Twitter account that an Argentine passenger on the flight was Jannet Palavecino from his province. 

The Facebook page of Palavecino says she was manager of the Hotel Suizo in Neuquen city. 

On the page, she described herself as a lover of travel, and of adventure tourism. “I am passionate about the mountains! Riding my bike in cycling. I love my garden and the countryside. I like to paint!” she wrote. 

Her account has many photos of her in the mountains. 

Pokhara is the gateway to the Annapurna Circuit, a popular hiking trail in the Himalayas. The city’s new international airport began operations only two weeks ago. 

The type of plane involved, the ATR 72, has been used by airlines around the world for short regional flights. Introduced in the late 1980s by a French and Italian partnership, the aircraft model has been involved in several deadly accidents over the years. 

In Taiwan two earlier accidents involving ATR 72-500 and ATR 72-600 aircrafts happened just months apart. 

In July 2014, a TransAsia ATR 72-500 flight crashed while trying to land on the scenic Penghu archipelago between Taiwan and China, killing 48 people onboard. An ATR 72-600 operated by the same Taiwanese airline crashed shortly after takeoff in Taipei in February 2015 after one of its engines failed and the second was shut down, apparently by mistake. 

The 2015 crash, captured in dramatic footage that showed the plane striking a taxi as it hurtled out of control, killed 43, and prompted authorities to ground all Taiwanese-registered ATR 72s for some time. TransAsia ceased all flights in 2016 and later went out of business. 

ATR identified the plane involved in Sunday’s crash as an ATR 72-500 in a tweet. According to plane tracking data from flightradar24.com, the aircraft was 15 years old and “equipped with an old transponder with unreliable data.” It was previously flown by India’s Kingfisher Airlines and Thailand’s Nok Air before Yeti took it over in 2019, according to records on Airfleets.net. 

Yeti Airlines has a fleet of six ATR72-500 planes, company spokesperson Sudarshan Bartaula said. 

Nepal, home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, including Mount Everest, has a history of air crashes. According to the Flight Safety Foundation’s Aviation Safety database, there have been 42 fatal plane crashes in Nepal since 1946. 

Sunday’s crash is Nepal’s deadliest since 1992, when all 167 people aboard a Pakistan International Airlines plane were killed when it plowed into a hill as it tried to land in Kathmandu. 

The European Union has banned airlines from Nepal from flying into the 27-nation bloc since 2013, citing weak safety standards. In 2017, the International Civil Aviation Organization cited improvements in Nepal’s aviation sector, but the EU continues to demand administrative reforms. 
…

Taliban authorities in Afghanistan said Sunday unknown assailants shot dead a female former lawmaker alongside her bodyguard in her home in the capital, Kabul.

Mursal Nabizada, 32, had been elected as a member of the national parliament before the Islamist Taliban seized power from the internationally backed Afghan government in August 2021 as all U.S.-led NATO troops withdrew.

A Kabul police spokesman, Khalid Zadran, said that a brother of the slain parliamentarian was also injured in the attack, which took place early Sunday.

Zadran said a “serious” investigation into the incident was under way to apprehend and bring the killers to justice.

Nabizada’s relatives called on the Taliban administration to arrest the killers, saying she had no enemies.

“I heard the gunfire and when we went down, they (attackers) had left and my daughter was lying on the ground with blood on the bed alongside my son. The guard was also killed,” local TOLO TV channel quoted Nabizada’s mother as saying.

Nabizada’s assassination marks the first time a politician from the ousted government has been killed since the Taliban takeover in August 2021. She was among the few female politicians and civil society activists who decided against fleeing Afghanistan after the hardline group regained control of the country.

No group immediately claimed responsibility.

“A true trailblazer – a strong, outspoken woman who stood for what she believed in, even in the face of danger,” Mariam Solaimankhil, a former Afghan lawmaker, said on Twitter in response to the killing of her colleague.

“Despite being offered the chance to leave Afghanistan, she chose to stay and fight for her people. We have lost a diamond, but her legacy will live on. Rest in peace,” she wrote.

The Taliban have announced a general amnesty for all Afghans who were associated with the former U.S.-backed government. They reject as baseless allegations that their security forces have carried out targeted killings of some former Afghan officials who remained in the country.

The Taliban maintain that a special commission is working to encourage individuals who fled the country to return home to live peacefully under Taliban protection.

On Sunday, local media quoted a commission spokesman as saying that more than 470 political and former government figures have returned to Afghanistan from abroad since May 2022.

Western female parliamentarians took to Twitter to denounce Nabizada’s killing, accusing the Taliban rulers of being behind her death.

“I am sad and angry and want the world to know! She was killed in darkness, but the Taleban build their system of Gender Apartheid in full daylight,” tweeted Hannah Neumann, a member of the European Parliament.

Petra Bayr, a member of the Austrian parliament, called for punitive political action against the Taliban authorities.

“If a strong woman is killed by a misogynistic regime like the Taliban it is even more painful if you had the chance to get to know this woman, at least virtually,” Petra Bayr wrote on Twitter.

Nabizada was also a member of the parliamentary defense commission and worked for a private non-governmental group.

Afghan women made significant gains across the country’s male-dominated conservative society in the two decades since the United States and its Western allies invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 and ousted the then-Taliban government for harboring the al-Qaida terrorist network.

In the years that followed the U.S.-led military intervention, women became judges, lawmakers, and journalists. Most of them fled Afghanistan after the return of the Taliban to power in 2021.

The men-only Taliban government has excluded women from nearly all aspects of public life. Women are required to cover their faces or wear the Islamic hijab. They have been banned from secondary and higher education, public sector work, nongovernmental organizations, and even from visiting public parks and baths.
…

Pakistan launched its first anti-polio campaign of the year Sunday, targeting 44.2 million children under the age of five.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where polio continues to threaten the health and well-being of children. Polio affects the nervous system of children and ultimately leads to paralysis.

Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif kicked off the nationwide drive by administering polio drops to children in the capital, Islamabad, saying Pakistan was unfortunately among the few countries that still suffered from the disease.

Twenty cases were reported in the tribal North Waziristan area last year, though the disease was contained among other children through immunization, Sharif said.

Around 44 million children in 156 districts will be immunized.

This includes 22.54 million children in Punjab, 10.1 million in Sindh and 7.4 million in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces.

Sharif said his government along with other stakeholders, including U.S. billionaire Bill Gates and the World Health Organization, were effectively contributing to polio eradication in Pakistan.

He gave out appreciation certificates at the launch to front-line polio workers and praised their “invaluable sacrifices.”

Pakistan has witnessed frequent attacks on polio teams and police officers deployed to protect them. Militants falsely claim that vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children. 
…

At least 44 people were killed on Sunday when a domestic flight crashed in Pokhara in Nepal, an aviation authority official said, in the small Himalayan country’s worst crash in nearly five years.

Hundreds of rescue workers were scouring the hillside where the Yeti Airlines flight, carrying 72 people from the capital Kathmandu, went down. The weather was clear, said Jagannath Niroula, spokesman for Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority.

“Thirty bodies have been recovered and sent to hospital, Niroula told Reuters. “Another 14 bodies are still lying at the crash site and authorities are bringing in a crane to move them.”

Local TV showed rescue workers scrambling around broken sections of the aircraft. Some of the ground near the crash site was scorched, with licks of flames visible.

“The plane is burning,” said police official Ajay K.C., adding that rescue workers were having difficulty reaching the site in a gorge between two hills near the tourist town’s airport.

The craft made contact with the airport from Seti Gorge at 10:50 a.m. (0505 GMT), the aviation authority said in a statement. “Then it crashed.”

“Half of the plane is on the hillside,” said Arun Tamu, a local resident, who told Reuters he reached the site minutes after the plane went down. “The other half has fallen into the gorge of the Seti river.”

Khum Bahadur Chhetri said he watched from the roof of his house as the flight approached.

“I saw the plane trembling, moving left and right, and then suddenly its nosedived and it went into the gorge,” Chhetri told Reuters, adding that local residents took two passengers to a hospital.

The government has set up a panel to investigate the cause of the crash and it is expected to report within 45 days, the finance minister, Bishnu Paudel, told reporters.

Series of crashes

The crash is Nepal’s deadliest since March 2018, when a US-Bangla Dash 8 turboprop flight from Dhaka crashed on landing in Kathmandu, killing 51 of the 71 people on board, according to Aviation Safety Network.

At least 309 people have died since 2000 in plane or helicopter crashes in Nepal — home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, including Everest — where sudden weather changes can make for hazardous conditions.

The European Union has banned Nepali airlines from its airspace since 2013, citing safety concerns.

Those on the twin-engine ATR 72 aircraft included two infants and four crew members, said airline spokesman Sudarshan Bartaula.

Passengers included five Indians, four Russians and one Irish, two South Korean, one Australian, one French and one Argentine national.

The ATR72 of European planemaker ATR is a widely used twin engine turboprop plane manufactured by a joint venture of Airbus and Italy’s Leonardo. Yeti Airlines has a fleet of six ATR72-500 planes, according to its website.

“ATR specialists are fully engaged to support both the investigation and the customer,” the company said on Twitter, adding that its first thoughts were for those affected, after having been informed of the accident.

Airbus and Leonardo did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Flight tracking website FlightRadar24 said on Twitter the Yeti Airlines aircraft was 15 years old and equipped with an old transponder with unreliable data.

“We are downloading high-resolution data and verifying the data quality,” it said.

On its website, Yeti describes itself as a leading domestic carrier. Its fleet consists of six ATR 72-500s, including the one that crashed. It also owns Tara Air, and the two together offer the “widest network” in Nepal, the company says.
…

Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers on Saturday rebuffed a renewed call by the United Nations to reverse rules blocking women’s access to work and education, insisting they are regulating “all matters” in line with Islamic law or Shariah.

“Considering the responsibility it has towards the people and religion, the Islamic Emirate cannot allow acts against Shariah in the country,” chief Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said.

His statement came in response to Friday’s private meeting by the 15-nation U.N. Security Council where participants discussed and expressed “grave concern” regarding the restrictions the Taliban have imposed on women since seizing power in Afghanistan in August 2021.

Mujahid noted in his response that the Taliban administration “understands” the concern expressed by the Security Council.

“Countries and international organizations should understand the religious demands of our nation and not link humanitarian issues/aid to politics. Based on our religious principles and values, we are ready to cooperate in any field,” he said.

The Islamist Taliban have excluded women from almost all areas of public life, banning them from secondary and university education, visiting parks, gyms and bath facilities, and ordering most female government employees to stay at home.

Last, month the hardline rulers forbade Afghan women from working for NGOs, saying they were not wearing the Islamic headscarf or respecting other Shariah directives. The move drew a strong backlash from the world and warnings that it could worsen an already bad humanitarian crisis in the crisis-hit country.

Before Friday’s closed-door meeting, nearly a dozen Security Council members, including the United States, Britain, France Japan, Malta, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates, issued a joint statement underscoring the need to include women across all aspects of Afghan society.

“We urge the Taliban to immediately reverse all oppressive measures against women and girls,” Japanese Ambassador Kimihiro Ishikane, the current president of the Security Council, delivered the statement on behalf of the 11 council members.

“Without their participation in aid delivery in Afghanistan and their essential expertise, NGOs will be unable to reach those most in need, in particular women and girls, to provide lifesaving materials and services,” he said.

The statement called on the Taliban to “respect the rights of women and girls, and their full, equal and meaningful participation and inclusion across all aspects of society in Afghanistan, from political and economic, to education and public space.”

The ban on female aid workers has forced many NGOs to suspend their lifesaving programs in Afghanistan, but the U.N. said its agencies would continue their operations in a country where 97% of Afghans live in poverty, two-thirds of the population need aid to survive, and 20 million people face acute hunger.

U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told reporters Friday after the council’s private discussions that the Taliban’s “grave violations of fundamental rights” had also contradicted assurances given to the global community following their takeover of Afghanistan about the role women would play in the country under their fundamentalist rule. 
…

Militants shot and killed three police officers on the outskirts of the Pakistani city of Peshawar, authorities said, the latest violence in the restive northwestern region bordering Afghanistan.

Senior superintendent of operations Kashif Aftab Abbasi said the three officers died as they chased militants who had earlier attacked a police station with hand grenades, sniper guns and automatic weapons in Sarband, near Peshawar.

The outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan group — also known as TTP — Saturday claimed responsibility for the police station attack a day earlier and for killing the officers.

The TTP has waged an insurgency in Pakistan over the past 15 years, fighting for stricter enforcement of Islamic laws in the country, the release of their members who are in government custody, and a reduction of Pakistani military presence in the country’s former tribal regions.

They also claimed responsibility for an attack Friday at a police checkpoint in Punjab’s Taunsa district that killed two officers.

Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan said the central government was deeply concerned about deteriorating law and order in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where Peshawar is located.

He criticized local authorities for failing to learn from previous assaults, including a militant takeover and hostage situation at a counter-terror department in the Bannu district.

“Terrorists are attacking police stations, policemen and officers are being targeted,” said Khan. “It seems that the provincial government has not learned any lesson even from Bannu CTD headquarters,” he said, referring to the counter-terror department seized by militants.

He said the local chief minister’s priority was politics not peace and, with even local police not safe from attacks, he asked what would happen to the safety of ordinary people.

The TTP has stepped up attacks on security forces after unilaterally ending a cease-fire with the Pakistani government in November.

The group is separate but allied with the Afghan Taliban.
…

A military-backed court in Myanmar has reportedly sentenced 112 Rohingya Muslim refugees to jail terms after they were caught traveling outside refugee camps, as the entire group was on its way to Malaysia.

The state-run Global New Light of Myanmar reported on January 10 that the Bogale township court sentenced the group of “Bengalis”— a pejorative the authorities in the country use to identify Rohingyas — to two to five years imprisonment on January 6 for traveling “without legal documents.”

The court gave jail terms of two years to five children who were under 13. Seven children older than 13 were sentenced to three years. The rest — 53 men and 47 women — were sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, according to the report.

The group of 112 was arrested from around the shores of Bogale township in the southern Ayeyarwady region of Myanmar by the Ayeyarwady Region Police Force on December 20, after they had landed from motorboats, the state media reported.

Fleeing persecution

Upwards of 1 million Rohingya Muslims live in congested shanty colonies of Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, after fleeing persecution and violence in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

In Cox’s Bazar, the Rohingyas live in prison-like conditions, with little opportunity for education or livelihood. Refugees from Bangladesh have for years sought to go to work and live in Malaysia. Using boats operated by human traffickers from Bangladesh, Rohingyas have traveled to Malaysia for many years along illegal sea routes.

Activist groups tracking the movement of Rohingyas report that in recent years many refugees from Bangladesh cross over to Myanmar during the first leg of their illegal journey to Malaysia. With the help of the traffickers, some among them traverse the entire stretch of the journey to Malaysia by land. Some others choose a mixed land-and-sea route to sneak into Malaysia.

However, it is not clear if all members of the group of 112 — who were arrested in Bogale township and jailed — came from Cox’s Bazar or if some in the group were from Rohingya villages or camps inside Myanmar.

According to Cox’s Bazar-based Rohingya activist Mohammad Hossain, at least 5,000 Rohingya from Bangladesh entered Myanmar in the past two years, aiming to finally make it to Malaysia.

“More than half of them were somehow arrested in Myanmar, and now all of them are in custody there. After being intercepted by police in Myanmar, sometimes traffickers pay bribes and manage to get the Rohingyas freed. But in situations where bribes do not come into play for several reasons, Malaysia-bound Rohingyas are ending up in jails in Myanmar,” Hossain told VOA.

“In Myanmar, the members of the community have not been regarded as citizens for decades. They have no way to get travel documents like passports or visas. So, they resort to illegal routes to enter Malaysia. By sending stateless Rohingyas to jail for not possessing official travel documents, Myanmar is giving them extremely unjustified punishments.”

‘The latest victims’

Daniel Sullivan, senior advocate for Human Rights at Refugees International, said the Rohingya who are being sent to jail for traveling without proper documents are “just the latest victims of the genocidal policies of the military junta in Myanmar.”

“It is the conditions placed on the Rohingya by the junta in Myanmar, including the denial of their citizenship, that has forced them into this predicament. The million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, while out of the direct line of fire of the military junta, are also facing dire conditions incentivizing them to risk dangerous journeys by sea,” Sullivan told VOA.

“Concerted global pressure in the form of targeted sanctions [including on oil and gas and aviation fuel], an arms embargo, and support for accountability measures is urgently needed to get at the root of the crisis affecting the Rohingya and so many other people of Myanmar.”

The Myanmar authorities’ action to imprison Rohingya for not having identity documents is “appalling and outrageous,” Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, told VOA.

“It is precisely the Myanmar government systematically denying the Rohingya access to official recognition and citizenship in the first place for which they are not in possession of identity documents. Furthermore, jailing children for simply accompanying their family on a voyage is so heartless and cruel that it really defies description,” Robertson said.

“What’s clear is the Myanmar junta doesn’t view the Rohingya as being truly human, which is something incoming ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] chair Indonesia should be considering as it considers how to approach Myanmar to compel the restoration of democracy and respect for human rights,” he said.
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A Kyrgyz blogger known for his critical reports of authorities has been detained after the Bishkek City Court canceled his three-year parole-like probation.

Adilet Ali Myktybek, known on social media as Alibek Baltabai, was sentenced to five years in prison in November on a charge of calling for social unrest via the internet, allegations he has called politically motivated.

The court ruled at the time that Myktybek would not have to serve his prison sentence immediately, but instead would be under a three-year parole-like probation period. If he served that period without any violations, the court said his five-year prison term would be canceled.

The blogger’s lawyer, Taken Moldokulov, told RFE/RL that the Bishkek City Court’s decision January 12 to send his client to a penal colony was made at the request of prosecutors who considered Myktybek’s sentence too lenient.

Moldokulov added that the court annulled the probation part of the sentence leaving the five-year prison term without changes.

“The Penitentiary Service is expected to inform us where exactly Adilet Baltabai will be serving his term,” Moldokulov said, adding that the court decision will be appealed.

Myktybek was detained in late June last year after he was questioned by Bishkek police for a third time since May about his coverage of rallies by civil rights activists.

Following his release in November, Myktybek continued his blogging activities and took part in a rally January 10 to express support for 26 jailed Kyrgyzstan politicians and activists arrested in October for protesting a border deal with Uzbekistan.

Myktybek has been known for actively covering anti-government rallies and pickets in the Central Asian nation.

He is also a freelance correspondent for the Next television channel, whose director, Taalaibek Duishembiev, was handed a suspended three-year prison sentence in September after a court found him guilty of inciting interethnic hatred by airing a controversial report related to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
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