#war-crimes

#war-crimes

Human Rights Watch found that Burkina Faso's military is committing atrocities, including the ethnic cleansing of Fulani civilians, which amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Deliberately attacking civilians or civilian objects amounts to a war crime. International humanitarian law demands distinction between military targets and civilians and civilian objects and insists on feasible precautions being taken to protect civilians. In addition, international law provides for specific protections for healthcare workers as well as people at heightened risk, such as the elderly, women and displaced people.

The Pentagon's law of war manual states unequivocally that such statements are war crimes. It's one of the reasons that the United States ensured Germany's senior military officials were prosecuted for the crime after World War II. The best thing Secretary Hegseth can do for the country and for the US military is to say he misspoke and to retract the statement.

Salem Al-Salem, 58, has appeared in a UK court facing charges of crimes against humanity, including murder and torture. Al-Salem, who attended proceedings with a breathing tube, is accused in a landmark prosecution by British authorities. The charges stem from his alleged activities in Damascus in 2011. He faces three counts of murder, three counts of torture, and one charge of conduct ancillary to murder, marking the first prosecution of its kind in the UK.

More than 270 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched a genocidal war against Palestinians in the territory on October 7, 2023, in response to Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel. This represents one of the bloodiest periods for journalists in modern history, reflecting the scale of the deliberate targeting of Palestinian journalism in an attempt to silence the voice of truth and prevent the documentation of the crimes and violations committed against the Palestinian people.

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

Russia has intensified attacks on Ukraine's power grid, generating facilities, and heating infrastructure, in efforts to disrupt electricity, heat, and water services - especially in winter. Clearly, Russia is targeting Ukraine's civilian population. The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, recently told that Kyiv, with a population of 3.6 million people, has only about half the electricity that it needs as

The academic and political activist discusses what he sees as a moral collapse in the US and a leadership crisis in the Democratic Party. In this episode of Talk to Al Jazeera, American philosopher and activist Cornel West delivers a searing critique of the United States, describing what he sees as moral collapse, democratic decay and spiritual bankruptcy. Drawing on the Black freedom struggle and his own run in the 2024 presidential election,

Writing on New Year's Day 2026, I feel the need to try to make some sense of the worst year of my 73-year life. I don't mean worse personally. My close family and I live in the relative safety and affluence of London, England, and we are all healthy and have fulfilling jobs. I mean, worst in the global sense.

Both were born in a free Ukraine, but have lived for more than a decade in territory occupied by the Russian army. Last week, Ukrainian lawyer and international law expert Katerina Rashevska showed their photos before the United States Senate. She denounced that the organization she works for in Kyiv, the Regional Center for Human Rights (RCHR), has documented 165 camps where Ukrainian children are subjected to a process of Russification.

For more than a month, the court has heard about rape used as a weapon of war, sexual slavery, forced labour, torture, mutilation, summary executions, systematic looting, extortion, and the plundering of resources, including diamonds. The alleged atrocities were committed in 2002-2003 during Operation "Erase the Slate", conducted in the northeast of the country by the Rally of Congolese Democrats and Nationalists (RCD-N) -- Lumbala's rebel group.

Witnesses, aid workers, rebel groups and the United Nations have said the victims were civilians at the hospital. In a statement published by the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper on Saturday, the military's information office said armed groups, including the ethnic Arakan Army and the People's Defence Force, used the hospital as their base. It said the military carried out necessary security measures and launched a counterterrorism operation against the general hospital in Mrauk-U township on Wednesday.

Dozens have been killed in a military strike on a hospital in Myanmar's western Rakhine state, according to an aid worker, a rebel group, a witness and local media reports, as the junta wages a withering offensive ahead of elections beginning this month. The situation is very terrible, said on-site aid worker Wai Hun Aung. As for now, we can confirm there are 31 deaths and we think there will be more deaths. Also there are 68 wounded and will be more and more.

This all started in September, when Secretary Hegseth ordered the military to strike a boat to strike a boat that he said was carrying drugs to the United States. Ever since, he's been ordering more and more and more strikes, proudly announcing at least 20 strikes that have killed more than 80 people at sea. We could stop there and have plenty to talk about, but the picture has gotten a lot worse.

The paper reported that US forces hit the targeted boat once, then hit it again the second strike killing two survivors clinging to the wreckage. According to the Post, the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, had issued a verbal command to kill them all. Now that incident is under congressional scrutiny, with even some Republicans uneasy about what appears to be a clearcut case of a war crime.