Daily Brief Audio Series

This week marks 500 days of conflict in Sudan, and with each new report of events on the ground, the horror of the overall situation becomes ever clearer.

New research documents yet again how Sudan’s warring parties have shown what my expert colleague, Mohamed Osman, calls, “a shocking disregard for human life and dignity.”

So much of Sudan’s collapse into widespread conflict and atrocities since April last year has been happening outside the international spotlight. Other crises elsewhere may have absorbed both media and diplomatic attention, but we will keep reporting on it, drawing attention to it, and ringing alarm bells about it, as this Daily Brief has done again and again, since the beginning.

The situation in Sudan is dire, and it demands greater international action.

The latest HRW research details how the two key warring parties, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), and affiliated fighters have tortured and summarily executed people in their custody. It also shows how the SAF mutilated dead bodies.

Evidence comes from expert analysis of videos and photographs. In some instances, SAF and RSF personnel filmed themselves executing and torturing detainees. 

In one incident, the SAF pushed three detainees – who appear to be children – blindfolded and shirtless, into a pit before shooting them, repeatedly, to death. In another, the RSF taunted two SAF soldiers, with one commander initially saying don’t kill them, before executing them.

In other cases, they show themselves whipping and beating detainees and forcing detainees to walk on their knees on gravel roads. 

These incidents have occurred in multiple locations in Sudan including in the capital Khartoum, in Gezira, and in North and West Kordofan states.

There are so many despicable acts described in the new research – and in previous work by HRW, by other NGOs, and by other monitoring groups – but focus for a moment on just this one point right now: the perpetrators of war crimes like torture are so sure they are going to get away with their crimes, they film themselves doing it. 

They are committing atrocities without fear of any consequences. 

Surely, this must change.

Governments and international bodies – this would include the African Union, the European Union, and others – need to work together to hold those responsible for these abuses accountable. They should impose targeted sanctions on individuals. 

The UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan needs to be allowed to continue doing its work. It is the only independent investigative body with the mandate to probe conflict-related violations across Sudan. That mandate comes up for renewal at the UN Human Rights Council in September.

Countries leading ceasefire and humanitarian access talks should also address the warring parties’ abuses. They should ensure that any peace deal or ceasefire arrangement comes with provisions for robust monitoring of violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law – aka, the laws of war. 

The only thing worse than the lack of international attention on Sudan’s atrocities right now is the lack of justice for them. But the two things are deeply interconnected. 

Brutal. Outrageous. Sadistic. Dystopian.

We start to run out of adjectives when we talk about the Taliban’s all-out assault on women’s rights in Afghanistan. The Taliban thugocracy doesn’t just deny half the population its fundamental human rights; it rejects the very idea women are fundamentally human.

With every new announcement from the Taliban, it just gets worse.

Last week, the Taliban published new laws that require women to completely cover their bodies, including their faces, in public at all times. They have also declared women should not be heard speaking or singing in public.

This comes on top of other extreme restrictions on women in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. They have banned girls and women from education beyond sixth grade, blocked them many forms of employment, and restricted their movement in public. A woman cannot leave her house without a male family member chaperoning her.

As my expert colleague, Sahar Fetrat, writes, the Taliban have “reduced women and girls to the status of non-humans.”

The Taliban try to twist Islamic law to justify their repressive measures like the ban on women’s voices, but look around: no other Muslim-majority country has such extreme restrictions on women. No other government tries to eliminate women’s very presence in public life in this obscene way. The Taliban are just making stuff up.

This may seem a strong claim, but I bet at most of Afghanistan’s people, almost all of them Muslims, would agree if you asked them. Oh, that’s right, you can’t, because the Taliban arrests and tortures people who criticize them.

It’s encouraging – inspirational, even – that Afghan women are continuing to bravely resist the Taliban’s attempt to erase them from public life. After the ban on women’s voices was announced, women inside Afghanistan posted videos of themselves singing.

But what can the outside world do to help?

“There are no easy answers,” my colleagues Sahar and Heather Barr explain in a recent article, “but there are answers.”

First, governments should insist Afghan women be full participants in all international meetings on Afghanistan. Holding high-level meetings with the Taliban – with not a woman in sight – as the UN did last month only boosts the Taliban’s status and their whole only-men-are-human ideology.

Second, the international focus should be on holding the Taliban to account for their crimes. Governments should support the International Criminal Court prosecution of Taliban leaders for committing the crime against humanity of gender persecution. They should also seriously consider including gender apartheid as a crime in the proposed crimes against humanity treaty.

Third, governments at the UN Human Rights Council should renew the mandate of the UN human rights expert on Afghanistan and create a new mechanism for collecting and preserving evidence of crimes committed in Afghanistan, including against women and girls.

The world has run out of adjectives to describe the Taliban’s brutality. Now, we need action.

Imagine this. You just got out of prison. By the way, you didn’t do anything wrong to get there – you merely peacefully protested against the authorities – but they locked you up anyway. Now, you’re walking out the prison gates, finally free.

It’s time to get your life back in order. One of the first things you need to do is get some cash, so you hit an ATM. Your card doesn’t work. When you go into the bank to find out what the trouble is, they tell you your account’s been blocked. That’s how you learn you’re on the government’s “Financing Terrorism List.”

You thought you were finally free, but it turns out you’re not. Not really.

You can be in public, but you can’t interact with much of it. You are financially ostracized, cut out of the modern economy. You are forbidden from using credit cards and debit cards.

You are theoretically allowed to have a job, but what employer is going to want to hire someone on a government blacklist – especially since they would have to make special arrangements to pay you?

When you were sentenced – again, for the non-crime of peacefully protesting – there was nothing in the verdict about these restrictions. And when you try to find out more, you get the runaround. Sometimes, officials say they don’t even know what the list is about.

This is a Kafkaesque side to Kazakhstan: repression without rationality. The state bureaucracy punishes peaceful opposition activists, government critics, and others with unjustified, unclear, and unannounced restrictions. The politically targeted become economically isolated.

A core issue is that the law does not distinguish between violent and nonviolent extremism. So, authorities in Kazakhstan can misuse extremism and terrorism legislation to target peaceful dissenters and others. This is in violation of international human rights law.

Even people who have not participated in, instigated, or financed violence are automatically subject to the financial restrictions described here. This interferes with peoples’ economic and social rights.

The government needs to narrow its focus. It should change the law so that legislation related to extremism and terrorism is not misused, including against peaceful critics. It also needs to remove people convicted of nonviolent crimes from the list.

A few questions from Kazakhstan’s international partners could help here, too. The government of Kazakhstan cares about its global reputation, and Kafkaesque nightmares are not a good look.

“Every minute we were beaten. I mean all over the body, on sensitive areas between the legs, the chest, the back. We were kicked all over the body and the face. They used the front of their boots which had a metal tip, then their weapons. They had lighters: one soldier tried to burn me but burned the person next to me. I told them I’m a doctor, but they didn’t care.”

These harrowing words from Eyad Abed, a 50-year-old surgeon who was detained by the Israeli military while working at a hospital in Gaza, is just one of the testimonies in a new report documenting Israel’s abuses against healthcare workers in Gaza since October.

They all follow a pattern.

First – as the released doctors, nurses and paramedics describe – they were swept up in mass detentions, most often at work following Israeli sieges of hospitals or during hospital evacuations that they said had been coordinated with the Israeli military.

Once in Israeli custody, mistreatment began immediately. Healthcare workers reported being forced to strip publicly at once and remain kneeling for long periods, outside and exposed to the elements.

Second, they were removed from Gaza to detention facilities in Israel and the occupied West Bank. There, they recount, they were beaten, blindfolded, and handcuffed for weeks on end. Israeli interrogators tried to force them to confess to being members of Hamas, using various threats, like endless detention, rape, and the killing their families back in Gaza.

Former detainees describe how their mistreatment in Israeli custody also included being held in appalling conditions, deprived of adequate food and water, and denied medical care.

And again, these were all healthcare workers, none of whom was ever informed of the reason for their detention or charged with an offense.

The accounts of released detainees in the new HRW report are consistent with other independent reports, too, including by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, other rights groups, and the Israeli news media.

Israeli authorities have not allowed independent humanitarian agencies, like the Red Cross, access to Palestinian detainees since the start of hostilities. Israel’s allies need to press the Israeli government to urgently allow independent monitoring of detention facilities.

Mounting reports of serious abuses need to be investigated and the perpetrators brought to justice. Over the years, however, Israeli authorities have repeatedly failed to provide credible accountability for torture and other abuses against Palestinian detainees.

Justice will have to come from elsewhere.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is currently considering applications for arrest warrants against senior Israeli officials for grave international crimes. The ICC should ensure its investigation includes abuses against Palestinian detainees.

Climate change is causing all sorts of problems for people around the world, not least health problems. A new report from HRW and Nurturely, looks specifically at maternal health in the US state of Oregon, where wildfires are on the increase.

The chain of causes is straightforward enough. Our fossil fuel use drives climate change. Climate change creates hotter, drier conditions in many places. Those conditions make wildfires – and “megafires” – more likely. More fires mean more hazardous smoke.

There’s a particular problem with wildfire smoke, too – literally a particular problem. Health experts are most concerned about the “particulate matter” or “fine particles” that make up around 90% of total particle mass of wildfire smoke. Fine particles are also known as PM2.5, because they are generally 2.5 microns in diameter or smaller.

That’s really, really tiny. A grain of sand is maybe about 90 microns wide, a human hair is 50 to 70 microns, and piece of pollen might be around 10 microns. These wildfire smoke particles are 2.5 microns. These things are so tiny, we can breathe them in deep into our lungs, and from there, they get into our bloodstream, causing damage and inflammation all over our bodies.

It’s hardly surprising, then, that studies show PM2.5 is associated with worse maternal and newborn health.

On days with hazardous air pollution, authorities often advise people to stay inside or reduce outside activity, especially strenuous activity. They tell folks to wear an N95 mask. They say to use air purifiers at home.

There are a number of technical issues with such advice. Yes, masks can help if used correctly, as can purifiers, but they don’t catch everything.

But more importantly, this kind of advice simply isn’t very realistic for a lot of people. If you work outdoors, for example, you can’t simply “stay inside.” If you rent, you might not be able to make the necessary improvements to your home to help reduce levels of wildfire pollutants indoors. If you can’t afford an air purifier, what then?

The new report offers a number of recommendations for authorities across the US to better address this issue. For example, if you’re pregnant, Medicaid (a joint federal and state program in the US that helps cover medical costs for some people on limited income) should pay for things like air filters.

But big-picture, of course, the solution needs to get back to the ultimate source of the problem: humanity’s addiction to burning fossil fuels, the largest driver of climate change.

The US, as the world’s biggest oil and gas producer, has a key role to play in the global transition away from fossil fuels. The very health of people in the US depends on it.