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	War crimes committed in South Sudan conflict - African Union Commission of Inquiry by OHCHR, UN News, agencies   Mar. 2016   South Sudan: UN report contains “searing” account of killings, rapes and destruction   A new report on South Sudan published by the UN Human Rights Office describes “in searing detail” a multitude of horrendous human rights violations, including a Government-operated “scorched earth policy,” and deliberate targeting of civilians for killing, rape and pillage.   Although all parties to the conflict have committed patterns of serious and systematic violence against civilians since fighting broke out in December 2013, the report says state actors bore the greatest responsibility during 2015, given the weakening of opposition forces.   The scale of sexual violence is particularly shocking: in five months last year, from April to September 2015, the UN recorded more than 1,300 reports of rape in just one of South Sudan’s ten states, oil-rich Unity. Credible sources indicate groups allied to the Government are being allowed to rape women in lieu of wages but opposition groups and criminal gangs have also been preying on women and girls.   “The scale and types of sexual violence - primarily by Government SPLA forces and affiliated militia – are described in searing, devastating detail, as is the almost casual, yet calculated, attitude of those slaughtering civilians and destroying property and livelihoods,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra`ad Al Hussein.   “However, the quantity of rapes and gang-rapes described in the report must only be a snapshot of the real total. This is one of the most horrendous human rights situations in the world, with massive use of rape as an instrument of terror and weapon of war -- yet it has been more or less off the international radar.”   The new report is the work of an assessment team sent by the High Commissioner to South Sudan from October 2015 to January 2016, in accordance with a resolution by the Human Rights Council in July 2015. It focuses primarily on the worst affected Unity and Upper Nile States, as well as Western and Central Equatoria, where the conflict has spread. While building on earlier reports of the African Union Commission of Inquiry and the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), the new reports places special emphasis on violations that took place during 2015.   The human rights situation in South Sudan has deteriorated dramatically since the outbreak of the crisis in December 2013. More than two million South Sudanese have been displaced and tens of thousands killed, while the parties to the conflict have yet to establish the Transitional Government of National Unity they promised in the peace agreement last August. The world’s newest country has known conflict for nearly half its five-year existence and the suffering of its people has been immense.   Since 2013, all parties to the conflict have conducted, “attacks against civilians, rape and other crimes of sexual violence, arbitrary arrest and detention, abduction and deprivation of liberty, disappearance, including enforced disappearance, and attacks on UN personnel and peacekeeping facilities,” the report says. Given the breadth and depth of the allegations, their gravity, consistency and recurrence and the similarities in their modus operandi, it concludes there are reasonable grounds to believe the violations may amount to war crimes and/or crimes against humanity.   The overwhelming majority of civilian casualties appear not to be the result of actual combat operations but of deliberate attacks on civilians, the report says.   http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Countries/AfricaRegion/Pages/SouthSudanReport.aspx   Oct. 2015   Both the government and rebels in South Sudan have carried out war crimes against civilians and should face justice, an African Union human rights investigation found.   The AU''s Commission of Inquiry on South Sudan lists a string of abuses, including forced cannibalism and dismemberment, according to the report.   It also presents testimony that the ethnic violence, which began in the capital Juba in December 2013, may have been premeditated.   "There are reasonable grounds to believe that acts of murder, rape and sexual violence, torture and other inhumane acts ... have been committed by both sides to the conflict," the report said.   However, it added that there were "no reasonable grounds to believe that the crime of genocide has occurred".   "The commission believes that war crimes were committed in Juba, Bor, Bentiu and Malakal," the 342-page report read, referring to key towns in South Sudan.   The report called for an internationally backed, African-led court to try those responsible for the violence.   It said a "highly confidential list" of "possible alleged perpetrators" will be submitted to the AU''s Peace and Security Council.   Among the most shocking of many acts of "extreme cruelty" identified in the report were claims of "draining human blood from people who had just been killed and forcing others from one ethnic community to drink the blood or eat burnt human flesh".   The commission, led by former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, carried out its research in 2014.   But publication was delayed as African leaders and AU officials feared the report might undermine peace talks.   A peace deal was finally signed by president Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar in August this year, but a ceasefire has been repeatedly broken.   A recommendation — contained in a leaked earlier draft of the report — that Mr Kiir, Mr Machar and others be barred from political office was dropped from the final report, but remained in a published "Separate Opinion" submitted by commission member Mahmoud Mamdani, a Ugandan academic.   Much of the worst of the documented violence was carried out in Juba, where soldiers of Kiir''s Dinka tribe massacred ethnic Nuers, and in the town of Bor, where Nuers loyal to Mr Machar killed Dinkas.   "The atrocities were widespread and carried out systematically across the country in the key theatres of violence targeting specific groups of civilians based on their ethnicity," the report read.   "The manifestation of the conflict, and subsequent geographical spread, gives rise to an inference of an element of coordination that hardly seems possible without forethought," it added.   The report gave little credence to Mr Kiir''s claim that the civil war was triggered by Mr Machar planning a coup, and included testimony that the Dinka-on-Nuer violence in Juba had been prepared in advance.   "The commission found that most of the atrocities were carried out against civilian populations taking no active part in the hostilities. Places of religion and hospitals were attacked, humanitarian assistance was impeded, towns pillaged and destroyed," the report said.   The commission said the AU should establish an independent "hybrid" court, as well as a reparations fund and a truth commission. Visit the related web page
	Pakistan: Revise and enforce laws to end barbaric ''Honor'' Killings by Human Rights Watch   Pakistan’s government should urgently investigate and prosecute those responsible for the recent jump in reported “honor” killings in the country, Human Rights Watch said today. The government needs to send a message of zero tolerance.   In Pakistan, murders to protect family or community “honor” have received widespread attention in recent weeks. On June 8, 2016, Zeenat Rafiq, 18, was burned to death in Lahore by her mother for “bringing shame to the family” by marrying a man of her choice.   On May 31, family members tortured and burned to death a 19-year-old school teacher in Murree, Punjab province for refusing an arranged marriage proposal. On May 5, the body of Amber, 16, was found inside a vehicle that had been set on fire in Abbottabad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, after a jirga, or traditional assembly of elders, ordered her death for helping her friend marry of her own choice.   “So-called honor killings have been a long-festering problem in Pakistan, and the recent escalating trend makes it clear they won’t go away on their own,” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “The government needs to step up its prosecution of these horrific cases and send a message of zero tolerance.”   Pakistani law allows the family of a murder victim to pardon the perpetrator. This practice is often used in cases of “honor” killings, where the victim and perpetrator frequently belong to the same family, in order to evade prosecution. The 2004 Criminal Law (Amendment) Act made “honor” killings a criminal offense, but the law remains poorly enforced.   In February 2016, a documentary about “honor” killings by Pakistani filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, “A Girl in the River,” won an Academy Award. The film prompted Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to speak out publicly on “honor” killings, stating that he would look into the issue and seek reform, yet he has so far taken no action.   In March, Pakistan’s senate passed an anti-honor killing bill, which is now pending National Assembly approval. Prime Minister Sharif should support the bill, which seeks to eliminate the option of murder committed in the name of “honor” to be “forgiven.”   “Pakistani law literally allows killers to get away with murdering the women in their families,” Adams said. “The law should be protecting women from these vicious acts – not enshrining an escape clause for their killers.”   Legislative changes are only a part of the solution. The Pakistani government should ensure that police impartially investigate “honor” killings without bowing to political or other pressure from local and religious leaders. The government should also ensure that safe emergency shelter, protection, and support is available to any woman or girl who may be at risk from her family.   In most reported cases, the harshest punishments on grounds of “honor” come from the jirgas, village councils that have no female representation. There are no credible official figures on “honor” killings because they often go unreported or are passed off as suicide or natural deaths by family members. According to the nongovernmental Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), 1096 women were killed on the pretext of “honor” in 2015. Visit the related web page
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