Click to expand Image

A soldier checks vehicles at a checkpoint in downtown Narathiwat, Thailand, June 29, 2015.
© 2015 Thierry Falise/LightRocket via Getty Images

The Thai government returned to the negotiating table last week with the separatist group Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) to end the armed conflict in the southern border provinces. Since 2004 the conflict has claimed more than 7,000 lives, mostly civilians, in the provinces of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat, and Songkhla.

Both sides said the Malaysia-brokered meeting was a steppingstone for future talks to reduce violence, initiate public consultations, and determine a political solution. But it may take months or years for this dialogue to yield tangible results and meanwhile core issues are being left unaddressed.

The Thai authorities continue to ignore the root causes of grievances among ethnic Malay Muslims, specifically a lack of accountability for state security forces’ human rights and laws-of-war violations in the restive region. Over the past 18 years, reports about state-sponsored abuses – such as extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, and torture – are a daily reality in the southern provinces. To date, not a single member of the security forces has faced criminal prosecution for such crimes.

Meanwhile, BRN representatives remain silent about serious abuses and laws-of-war violations committed by insurgents causing numerous civilian deaths and injuries to both ethnic Thai Buddhists and Malay Muslims. Insurgents have made cruel and legally unjustifiable claims that attacks on civilians are permitted because they are part of the Thai state or because the BRN’s interpretation of Islam permits such attacks.

This lack of accountability on both sides is fertile soil for extremism and ethnic hostility to grow.

Many governments and international organizations have monitored the conflict and supported peace efforts in Thailand’s southern border provinces. They should urge the Thai government and BRN to recognize that a durable peace depends on an environment in which human rights are fully respected, justice is upheld, accountability assured, and everyone can live without fear.

People of all ethnicities in Thailand’s southern border provinces await human rights protections to which they are all entitled.

Click to expand Image

Zarema Mussaeva.
© 2021 Private

As all eyes are focused on growing tensions between the Kremlin and NATO, Chechen authorities seem emboldened to be unrestrained in their use of lawless tactics in their war with dissent.

Yesterday, Chechen police broke into the apartment of 59-year-old Zarema Mussaeva in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region. They pushed and kicked her family members and lawyer who were in the apartment, which she shares with her husband Saidi Yangulbaev, a federal judge. The lawyer said Mussaeva fainted and officers “dragged her down the stairway, in her thin dress and slippers.” She noted that Mussaeva is insulin-dependent, but “her medication, [and] identity documents were left behind.”

Nizhny Novgorod police refused to intervene and Mussaeva’s abductors apparently took her to Chechnya.  

The officers claimed Mussaeva was needed for questioning in a fraud investigation. But the real target of her abduction is her son, Ibraghim Yangulbaev, who lives abroad and whom Chechen authorities claim is a key person behind an anti-government Telegram channel, 1ADAT.

It’s not the first time Chechen authorities have targeted people allegedly affiliated with 1ADAT. In October 2021, the European Court of Human Rights found Russia responsible for the 2020 abduction and torture of 19-year-old Salman Tepsurkayev, who was a 1ADAT moderator. An appalling video, circulated on Russian social media, showed him stripped naked and forced to penetrate himself with a glass bottle. His fate and whereabouts remain unknown.

Last month, Chechen law enforcement searched the home of Mussaeva’s older son, Abubakar, and questioned him for several hours about Ibraghim, 1ADAT, and his own work as a lawyer at the Committee Against Torture (CAT), a leading Russian rights group that takes on cases of egregious human rights violations in the North Caucasus.

Around the same time, Chechen police arbitrarily detained dozens of relatives of other critics based abroad, held them for days, and subjected them to ill-treatment. Authorities designated Abubakar Yangulbaev as a witness in a vague “justification of terrorism” criminal case, prompting him to immediately resign from CAT because of the increasing risks for himself and the organization.

The Kremlin’s spokesperson, seeming to deny the Chechen police have taken Mussaeva, said the account of her abduction seemed “fictious.” For too long, Moscow has ignored abuses committed by law enforcement agencies under control of Chechnya’s leadership. Mussaeva’s life and health are in jeopardy. Moscow should immediately demand that Chechen authorities release her and ensure she can safely rejoin her family in Nizhny Novgorod region. Stopping these abusive, lawless tactics is Moscow’s responsibility.

Click to expand Image

A 200-meter pile of plastic waste originating from household waste fills the river at Kali Busa, near Jakarta, Indonesia, September 2, 2021.
© 2021 Kuncoro Widyo Rumpoko/Medialys Images/Sipa via AP Images

Chemical pollution has reached a dangerous level globally. According to a new study published in Environmental Science & Technology, substances introduced by human activities are interfering with the Earth’s natural systems and may have severe consequences for climate, biodiversity, and human life.

The study, led by researchers at the Stockholm Environment Institute, found that chemical production and pollution are outpacing the global capacity for monitoring and assessment and are beyond the limit for safe management. Since 1950, chemical production has increased fiftyfold, and it is projected to triple from 2010 to 2050. Of the 350,000 chemicals in use, only a small number have been fully assessed for safety.

Many chemicals used in everyday products, including cosmetics, pesticides, and plastic packaging, are harmful. Exposure to toxins in plastics, for example, increases long-term health risks, including cancer and respiratory problems, and negatively affects reproductive systems. Plastic can take centuries to break down, so plastic produced today threatens the health of future generations.

The study reaffirms what dozens of other studies have shown – that plastics are of major concern because they are widespread, toxic, and a driver of climate change. More than 99 percent of plastics are made of fossil fuels, making them a major contributor to climate change as they emit greenhouse gases throughout their lifecycle.

Yet, chemical production continues to rapidly increase, while governments are failing to meet their responsibility to ensure that human health and the environment are protected from chemical harm. Because of the global prevalence of chemical pollution, governments should work together to scale down production of plastics and chemicals that could have serious health impacts.

While existing multilateral systems work to protect the climate and biodiversity, there is no global framework in place to address the impacts of plastic throughout its lifecycle. Starting next month, countries will meet at the United Nations Environment Assembly to discuss the establishment of a committee to negotiate a legally binding treaty to tackle the plastic crisis. Member states should support the joint resolution proposed by Peru and Rwanda and commit to addressing the harmful impacts of plastic throughout its full lifecycle. Only if governments work together and enact tougher regulations to restrict the production of unsafe chemicals and plastics can the rights of people and communities to a safe environment be protected in the long term.