Day: September 15, 2023

(NewsNation) — NewsNation’s Brian Entin spoke with several students on the University of Idaho campus about their frustrations regarding the delayed trial of suspected killer Bryan Kohberger.

“I definitely think closure is something people need,” one student said.

Another student said, “Whatever happens with the trial needs to stay away from Moscow. We need to keep moving on as a school and keep getting better. And healing.”

Kohberger has waived his right to a speedy trial, and as a result, the trial is no longer expected to begin on its previously set October start date.

He is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of four University of Idaho students: Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20. They were stabbed to death in November 2022.

The judge in Kohberger’s case still hasn’t ruled on whether cameras will be allowed in the courtroom.

The judge denied cameras for Friday’s hearing on the issue, which was to be expected because the hearing was closed to the public due to secret grand jury information.

Both the defense and prosecution are pushing to keep cameras out. However, family members of at least two of the students killed want cameras at the trial.

The families of Kaylee Goncalves and Xana Kernodle say they want a fair trial. But in order for that to happen, they said, cameras need to be present.

NewsNation’s Katie Smith contributed to this report.

The sentencing of two prominent human rights activists to prison terms in Bangladesh has triggered shock and outrage among global rights campaigners who called their court trial “politically motivated” and said that the two activists were paying the price for exposing serious human rights violations by government forces.

A court in Dhaka on Thursday sentenced Adilur Rahman Khan, 63, and Nasiruddin Elan, 57 — secretary and director of Bangladesh’s leading human rights organization Odhikar — to two years each in prison in a criminal case related to a fact-finding report they prepared on the extrajudicial killing of Islamic group protesters in Dhaka in 2013.

Reacting to Thursday’s ruling, Angelita Baeyens, vice president of international advocacy and litigation at Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, said that it was a “sad day for the people of Bangladesh, whose rights Adil and Elan have fought so hard and so courageously to protect.”

“They are two of the most widely respected human rights advocates worldwide. They are being punished for speaking truth to power,” Baeyens told VOA.

The Odhikar fact-finding report documented that security forces killed at least 61 people, including children, during an action to disperse a protest on May 6, 2013. The government put the death toll at 13.

Charging that Odhikar compiled a “distorted” fact-finding report on the 2013 incident, the prosecution filed a criminal case against Khan and Elan the same year.

After the publication of the report, Khan and Elan were arrested in August 2013, before being released on bail some weeks later. Both were out on bail for 10 years until being sent to prison Thursday, following the verdict in the case.

After the pronouncement of Thursday’s verdict, public prosecutor Nazrul Islam Shamim said that the Odhikar report carried “false information.”

“We are not satisfied with the judgment. We will move the High Court seeking an increase in the jail terms,” Shamim said.

When the two activists were being taken from the court to Dhaka Central Jail, Khan told reporters that they had been denied justice.

“We will appeal the verdict in the higher court,” said Khan, who is himself a Supreme Court lawyer.

‘Prosecution failed to prove the charges’

The lawyer for the two activists, Ruhul Amin Bhuiyan, told VOA that if the trial had been conducted through a fair process, Khan and Elan would have been acquitted.

“The prosecution completely failed to prove the charges against the two accused. The accused did not commit any crime at all,” Bhuiyan said. “I believe that they will be acquitted after we move to the higher court.”

Odhikar, one of Bangladesh’s top human rights organizations, is globally known for its work in Bangladesh and cooperates closely with United Nations bodies and other international rights groups. Its reports are often cited in the U.S. State Department country reports.

Odhikar has reported on thousands of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, cases of torture in custody and other human rights violations committed by the security forces while Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been in office.

Last year, the government accused Odhikar of spreading “propaganda against the state by publishing misleading information” on its website and canceled the group’s operating license.

Thursday’s verdict comes at a crucial time, ahead of the country’s general election in January. The opposition political parties and dissidents are reportedly facing a crackdown in Bangladesh now, and several Western nations, including the U.S., have expressed concerns over the political tensions in the country.

Ruling triggers global condemnations

The ruling against Khan and Elan has triggered a wave of condemnation from rights activists around the world.

In a joint statement, 39 international rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and Amnesty International, urged the Bangladesh authorities to “quash their convictions, and end all reprisals” and immediately release Khan and Elan.

“We stand with Khan and Elan and urge the authorities to release them immediately and unconditionally, as they have been detained solely for their human rights work. The authorities should reverse their convictions,” the statement said.

In a Thursday statement, the International Federation for Human Rights said that the conviction of Khan and Elan was “based on politically motivated charges” and aimed “to intimidate human rights activists in the country.”

Human rights campaigner Saad Hammadi, a Global Governance Fellow at the Canada-based Balsillie School of International Affairs, said that the imprisonment of Khan and Elan “not only sends a chilling message to others about the harsh consequences they could face for speaking out, but also shows a lack of the government’s appetite to protect the rights of critical voices.”

“Successive governments in Bangladesh have adopted repressive measures to protect themselves and their political interests. The Bangladeshi authorities can and should change this course for the benefit of human rights in the country,” Hammadi told VOA.

Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman, former liaison officer of Hong Kong-based rights group Asian Legal Resource Centre, said that “legally speaking, there are many things extremely wrong with the trumped-up case” against Khan and Elan.

“The Sheikh Hasina regime has been using the criminal justice system as a political tool to imprison dissidents and prominent HRDs [human rights defenders] for giving voice to the voiceless people of the country,” Ashrafuzzaman told VOA.

“The judges and prosecutors who have been engaged in serving the regime’s agenda of imprisoning the HRDs in a politically motivated case must be ashamed of their actions.”

RFK Human Rights’ Baeyens said that the very open targeting of the “brave rights defenders” by the highest levels of the government, is a “big blow for everyone who believes in justice, democracy, and fundamental freedoms.”

“The world cannot keep silent as Hasina’s regime silences critical voices and erodes the little that remains of democracy in Bangladesh,” Baeyens said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal prosecutors are seeking an order that would prevent Donald Trump from making “inflammatory” and “intimidating” comments about witnesses, lawyers and other people involved in the criminal case charging the former president with scheming to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Special counsel Jack Smith’s team said in a motion filed Friday that such a “narrow, well-defined” order was necessary to preserve the integrity of the case and to avoid prejudicing potential jurors.

Prosecutors had foreshadowed for weeks their concerns about Trump’s verbal attacks, but Friday’s request marks the first time they have proposed formal action to rein in speech that they say risks tainting the case and causing court workers and witnesses to live in fear of being targeted. The motion lays out what prosecutors say is a pattern of “false and inflammatory” statements about the case as well as comments meant to intimidate or harass people he believes are potential witnesses against him.

“Since the grand jury returned an indictment in this case, the defendant has repeatedly and widely disseminated public statements attacking the citizens of the District of Columbia, the Court, prosecutors, and prospective witnesses,” prosecutors wrote. “Through his statements, the defendant threatens to undermine the integrity of these proceedings and prejudice the jury pool.”

They said Trump’s rhetoric has already had an impact, noting how jurors in the trial of a man convicted of participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol recently sent a note conveying concern that he might have information about their identity.

If the order is granted, Trump would be forced to dramatically limit the type of comments he makes about the case even as he seeks to turn his criminal woes — the Washington prosecution is one of four that he currently faces — to his political advantage while running to reclaim the White House in 2024. Still, it was not immediately clear what sanctions Trump could face if he fails to curb his speech or how the judge, Tanya Chutkan, might enforce even a limited gag order.

Trump showed no signs of toning down his words, complaining about the motion on Truth Social shortly after it was filed and repeating his claim that the FBI and Justice Department had been “weaponized.” He repeated his familiar refrains that President Joe Biden was “crooked” and that Smith was “deranged.”

“They Leak, Lie, & Sue, & they won’t allow me to SPEAK,” Trump wrote.

Speaking to the Family Research Council in Washington later Friday night, Trump said Smith “wants to take away my First Amendment rights.”

“They want to see if they can silence me. So the media, the fake news, will ask me a question. ‘I’m sorry, I won’t be able to answer that.’ How do you think we do in that election? So we’re gonna have a little bit of fun with that, I think,” Trump said.

Trump’s lawyers also oppose the request, prosecutors wrote in their motion, and a Trump spokesperson said in a statement: “This is nothing more than blatant election interference because President Trump is by far the leading candidate in this race. The American people — the voters — see right through this un-Constitutional charade and will send President Trump back to the White House.”

Beyond the narrow gag order, prosecutors also asked for an order that would prevent the Trump team from contacting District of Columbia residents to conduct polling, jury studies and focus groups without the judge’s permission.

The efforts to weaken faith in the court system, the prosecutors wrote, mirror his attacks on the 2020 election, which he falsely claimed that he had won.

“The defendant is now attempting to do the same thing in this criminal case — to undermine confidence in the criminal justice system and prejudice the jury pool through disparaging and inflammatory attacks on the citizens of this District, the Court, prosecutors, and prospective witnesses,” they wrote.

Among the statements cited by prosecutors in their motion is a post on his Truth Social platform days after the indictment in which Trump wrote, in all capital letters, “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!” He has also repeatedly alleged on social media that the case against him is “rigged” and that he cannot receive a fair trial.

And he has attacked in personal terms the prosecutors bringing the case — calling Smith “deranged” and his team “thugs” — as well as Chutkan, the judge presiding over the case.

The issue surfaced last week with the disclosure by the Justice Department that it sought to file a motion related to “daily” public statements by Trump that it said it feared would taint the jury pool. Chutkan on Friday granted permission to prosecutors to file a redacted motion publicly, with names and identifying information of individuals who say they’ve been harassed as a result of Trump’s attacks blacked out.

Also Friday, Smith’s team pushed back against the Trump team request to have Chutkan recuse herself from the case. Defense lawyers had cited prior comments from Chutkan that they say cast doubt on her ability to be fair, but prosecutors responded that there was no valid basis for her to step aside.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico extradited Ovidio Guzmán López, a son of former Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, to the United States on Friday to face drug trafficking, money laundering and other charges, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

“This action is the most recent step in the Justice Department’s effort to attack every aspect of the cartel’s operations,” Garland said.

The Mexican government did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Mexican security forces captured Guzmán López, alias “the Mouse,” in January in Culiacan, capital of Sinaloa state, the cartel’s namesake.

Three years earlier, the government had tried to capture him, but aborted the operation after his cartel allies set off a wave of violence in Culiacan.

January’s arrest set off similar violence that killed 30 people in Culiacan, including 10 military personnel. The army used Black Hawk helicopter gunships against the cartel’s truck-mounted .50-caliber machine guns. Cartel gunmen hit two military aircraft forcing them to land and sent gunmen to the city’s airport where military and civilian aircraft were hit by gunfire.

The capture came just days before U.S. President Joe Biden visited Mexico for bilateral talks followed by the North American Leaders’ Summit.

On Friday, Garland recognized the law enforcement and military members who had given their lives in the U.S. and Mexico. “The Justice Department will continue to hold accountable those responsible for fueling the opioid epidemic that has devastated too many communities across the country.”

Mike Vigil, former head of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, said he believed the Mexican government facilitated the extradition, because for someone of Guzmán López’s high profile it usually takes at least two years to win extradition as attorneys make numerous filings as a delaying tactic.

“This happened quicker than normal,” Vigil said, noting that some conservative members of the U.S. Congress had raised the idea of U.S. military intervention if Mexico did not do more to stop the flow of drugs. Vigil dismissed that idea as “political theater,” but suggested it added pressure on Mexico to act.

Homeland Security Adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall said in statement that the extradition “is testament to the significance of the ongoing cooperation between the American and Mexican governments on countering narcotics and other vital challenges, and we thank our Mexican counterparts for their partnership in working to safeguard our peoples from violent criminals.”

Sherwood-Randall made multiple visits to Mexico this year to meet with President Andrés Manuel López-Obrador, most recently last month.

In April, U.S. prosecutors unsealed sprawling indictments against Guzmán and his brothers, known collectively as the “Chapitos.” They laid out in detail how following their father’s extradition and eventual life sentence in the U.S., the brothers steered the cartel increasingly into synthetic drugs like methamphetamine and the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl.

The indictment unsealed in Manhattan said their goal was to produce huge quantities of fentanyl and sell it at the lowest price. Fentanyl is so cheap to make that the cartel reaps immense profits even wholesaling the drug at 50 cents per pill, prosecutors said. The brothers denied the allegations in a letter.

The Chapitos became known for grotesque violence that appeared to surpass any notions of restraint shown by earlier generations of cartel leaders.

Vigil described Guzmán López as a mid-level leader in the cartel and not even the leader of the brothers.

“It’s a symbolic victory but it’s not going to have any impact whatsoever on the Sinaloa cartel,” he said. “It will continue to function, it will continue to send drugs into the United States, especially being the largest producers of fentanyl.”

Fentanyl has become a top priority in the bilateral security relationship. But López Obrador has described his country as a transit point for precursors coming from China and bound for the U.S., despite assertions by the U.S. government and his own military about fentanyl production in Mexico.

López Obrador blames a deterioration of family values in the U.S. for the high levels of drug addiction in that country.

An estimated 109,680 overdose deaths occurred last year in the United States, according to numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 75,000 of those were linked to fentanyl and other synthetic opioids.

Inexpensive fentanyl is increasingly cut into other drugs, often without the buyers’ knowledge.

Mexico’s fentanyl seizures typically come when the drug has already been pressed into pills and is headed for the U.S. border.

U.S. prosecutors allege much of the production occurs in and around Culiacan, where the Sinaloa cartel exerts near complete control.

WAILUKU, Hawaii (AP) — Authorities in Hawaii have adjusted the number of deaths from the deadly Maui wildfire down to at least 97 people.

Officials previously said they believed at least 115 people had died in the fire, but further testing showed they had multiple DNA samples from some of the victims. The number of those who are missing also fell from 41 to 31, Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said.

John Byrd, laboratory director with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, said during a news conference Friday afternoon that the current number of dead should be considered a minimum, because it’s possible that toll could rise.

Determining the death toll from the Aug. 8 wildfire in Lahaina has been especially complicated because of the damage caused by the fire and the chaos as people tried to escape, officials said. In some cases, animal remains were inadvertently collected along with human remains.

So far, 74 of the deceased have been positively identified, Pelletier said.

The Lahaina fire is the deadliest in the U.S. in more than a century. Caught in a hellscape, some residents died in their cars, while others jumped into the ocean or tried to run for safety. The blaze reduced much of the historic town to ash.

“When the fire broke out, people ran together, they huddled together,” said Dr. Jeremy Stuelpnagel, Maui County physician’s coroner. “They’re holding each other in those moments. Some of them were even holding pets.” Because of this, some remains arrived commingled.

Byrd said the initial death tally was too high for several reasons, adding that the lower tally now was the “normal and natural” progression of the long-term forensics investigation.

“We look at body bags that come in and we do an initial inventory and we assess how many people are represented there,” he said. “When you do the first tally of all those that have come in, the number tends to be too high because as you begin to do more analysis and examination you realize that actually you’ve got two bags that were the same person or you have two bags that were the same two people but you didn’t realize that.”

“The numbers start a little too high on the morgue side and eventually settles until at some point it’s going to be a final accurate number. I would say we’re not quite there yet,” Byrd said.

Only people who have had a missing person report filed for them with the Maui Police Department are on the verified missing list, Pelletier said. If a missing person report hasn’t been filed for someone more than five weeks after the fire, then that person probably isn’t actually missing, the chief said.

Stuelpnagel wasn’t supposed to start in his new role until October. But he sped up his start date and arrived on Maui from New York City soon after the fire. Until he arrived, Maui’s medical examiner duties were shared with other counties.

“When this happened it was time to drop everything and come here,” he said.

Stuelpnagel said people working on the identification process are trying to “reunify people to have them as whole as they’re able to be,” before the remains are returned to their loved ones.

The work to reunite fire victims with families involves more than just DNA tests, officials said. Anthropologists are assisting, and officials are gathering clues from dental work and medical devices like pacemakers when possible.

Authorities expressed relief at having a better grasp on the number of dead and those still unaccounted for in the wildfire.

“For the very first time … we legitimately have a chance to identify every single person we lost and to reunite them with their family,” Pelletier said. “And so in the midst of all this tragedy, there’s a little ray of hope right there and so that really is incredible.”

Donald Trump, who lost two elections by a combined ten million votes and then got indicted on 91 felony charges, is now claiming he’s “taught Republicans how to win.” If this is what Republicans now think winning is, they’re welcome to keep on “winning” like this for awhile.

The cold hard reality is that Trump never really had any idea what he was doing in politics. He was up against a historically weak 2016 Republican primary field (every single candidate from that Republican field is now looked back upon as having always been a hapless punchline), and won by default.

Then Trump ran such an inept general election campaign that even with the entire media hyping a phony “Hillary’s emails” story, and the Kremlin running interference on his behalf, Trump still lost the general election by three million votes.

Then in 2020, Trump abused the power of the presidency to try to rig the election in his favor, and he still lost it by seven million votes. Then he got himself indicted for his failed attempts, and now he’s headed to prison for the rest of his life.

This is what the Republican Party now thinks winning looks like? His scant “successes” in politics have been for reasons that had nothing to do with him, and his many failures in politics have been on a historic, catastrophic level. If the Republicans truly think they can win by following the Trump model, they might never win anything again.

The post Donald Trump is taking the GOP down with him appeared first on Palmer Report.

Hundreds of Ethiopian migrants are stranded in conflict-torn Yemen, unable to work for better wages and without the means to get back to their home.

Tens of thousands of Ethiopians head to Arabian Peninsula countries each year, seeking better work opportunities. Often, they undertake a perilous journey, and end up being trafficked and stranded along the way.

Roman, who first went to Saudi Arabia at 18, said that despite getting gainful employment, working conditions were extremely challenging.

“There were two of us working together and then my co-worker left,” said Roman. “When she left, I was overwhelmed with a lot of work.”

Roman said there was no rest, and she was not able to eat.

“I couldn’t even wash my clothes, my feet,” she said. After that, she said, “I escaped from the house.”

IOM halts returns

The International Organization for Migration (IOM), which oversees voluntary humanitarian returns from Yemen, recently paused the return of migrants from Ethiopia’s Tigray and Amhara regions due to insecurity in the two regions.

The IOM cannot stop the migrants from returning to Ethiopia but is currently not facilitating their return to Tigray and Amhara regions.

Ethiopian migrants protested that decision in front of an IOM facility in the Yemeni city of Aden last week, which led to fighting and the deaths of an unconfirmed number of people.

Tewodrose Tirfe, chairman of the Amhara Association of America, an Amhara rights advocacy group, said the decision is unilaterally the Ethiopian government’s and is a discriminatory policy, which has singled out migrants who have Amhara and Tigrayan ethnic roots.

“These Ethiopians can be repatriated back to their country and be … provided services, housing and other services that they need in Addis Ababa and other parts of the country,” said Teodrose. “Just because they are Amharas they do not have to return, they do not have to go to the Amhara region and Amharas live all across all of Ethiopia.”

The two-year war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region came to an end in November of last year, after a peace deal was signed between Tigrayan forces and the federal government.

This year, another conflict started in the country’s second most-populous region, the Amhara region, home to a regional militia known as Fano.

In early August, the Ethiopian government declared a state of emergency in the Amhara region, following open fighting.

Poor economy drives migrants

Messay Mulugeta, an associate professor at Addis Ababa University, said that there needs to be an economic solution to dissuade migrants from taking unsafe journeys.

“Even though there are other reasons people leave, most of it comes from economic issues,” he said. “If there were job opportunities, and if there was a larger economy that could accommodate everyone, then migration might still continue, but it would be possible to be done in a professionally safe way.”

A recent report from Human Rights Watch said Saudi border guards killed hundreds of Ethiopian migrants and asylum-seekers who tried to cross the Yemen-Saudi border between March 2022 and June of this year.

The rights group said the shootings could amount to crimes against humanity.

The Ethiopian government has announced an investigation into the alleged killings. The Saudi government has denied the accusations.

Federal prosecutors in the case charging Donald Trump with scheming to overturn the 2020 presidential election are seeking an order that would restrict the former president from “inflammatory” and “intimidating” comments about witnesses, lawyers and the judge. 

Special counsel Jack Smith’s team said in a motion filed Friday that such a “narrow, well-defined” order was necessary to preserve the integrity of the case and to avoid prejudicing potential jurors. 

“Since the grand jury returned an indictment in this case, the defendant has repeatedly and widely disseminated public statements attacking the citizens of the District of Columbia, the court, prosecutors and prospective witnesses,” prosecutors wrote. “Through his statements, the defendant threatens to undermine the integrity of these proceedings and prejudice the jury pool.” 

They said Trump’s efforts to weaken faith in the court system and the administration of justice mirror his attacks on the 2020 election, which he falsely claimed he had won. 

“The defendant is now attempting to do the same thing in this criminal case — to undermine confidence in the criminal justice system and prejudice the jury pool through disparaging and inflammatory attacks on the citizens of this district, the court, prosecutors and prospective witnesses,” they wrote. 

Among the statements prosecutors cited in their motion is a post on his Truth Social platform days after the indictment in which Trump wrote, in all capital letters, “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!” He has also repeatedly alleged on social media that the case against him is “rigged” and that he cannot receive a fair trial. And he has attacked in personal terms the prosecutors bringing the case — calling Smith “deranged” and his team “thugs” — as well as the judge presiding over the case, Tanya Chutkan. 

A Trump spokesperson said in a statement that prosecutors were “corruptly and cynically continuing to attempt to deprive President Trump of his First Amendment rights.” 

“This is nothing more than blatant election interference because President Trump is by far the leading candidate in this [Republican presidential nomination] race,” the spokesperson said.

The issue surfaced last week with the disclosure by the Justice Department that it sought to file a motion related to “daily” public statements by Trump that it said it feared would taint the jury pool. Chutkan on Friday granted permission to prosecutors to file a redacted motion publicly, with names and identifying information of individuals who say they’ve been harassed as a result of Trump’s attacks blacked out. 

Also Friday, Smith’s team pushed back against the Trump team request to have Chutkan recuse herself from the case. Defense lawyers had cited prior comments from Chutkan that they say cast doubt on her ability to be fair, but prosecutors responded that there was no valid basis for her to step aside.

U.S. lawmakers from both major parties have voiced their resolve to rally international pressure for an end to the suffering of the people of Myanmar at the hands of the military junta that cut off democratic rule in the country in February 2021.

“We are rededicating ourselves to human rights and peace for the people of Burma,” said Representative Chris Smith, a Republican and the co-chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, following a hearing on human rights in Myanmar this week.

“We need to do much more for the people who are suffering so horrifically at the hands of a barbaric regime,” Smith told VOA. He called for renewed efforts “to stop the weapons from flowing,” whether it be from India, China or Russia, and said there needs to be “a more aggressive embargo, particularly on oil, which is a source of great revenue for the junta.”

Representative Ilhan Omar, a Democrat, said members of the committee “want to make sure that the genocide that was experienced by the Rohingya and everything that has gone on in Myanmar will not be forgotten — that we keep it in the forefront here in Congress.”

Omar told VOA the hearing had served to make sure that the world is working together to “care about the people of Myanmar, try to provide humanitarian aid, make sure that there is a civilian government, but also not forget the displaced, and the internally displaced people and refugees, as we try to think about humanitarian aid.”

Democratic Representative James P. McGovern, a long-standing advocate for human rights, is co-chair of the Lantos commission, which according to its website “is charged with promoting, defending and advocating for international human rights as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other relevant human rights instruments.”

McGovern said in his opening remarks that the primary question for the commission is whether Congress, the Biden administration and the international community “are doing all that we can to be wind at the backs of those fighting for human rights and to restore democracy in Burma.”

He said the hearing was also an opportunity to review the effectiveness of the Burma Unified through Rigorous Military Accountability (BURMA) Act, which was signed into law in December 2022. It contains a number of economic and diplomatic measures to bring pressure for a restoration of democracy in Myanmar.

“Its implementation is underway,” McGovern said, “so today’s discussion is an opportunity to take stock of what has been done and ask: What has been achieved, how do we know if we’re making progress and what more can we do?”

Testimony

U.S. State Department officials who testified at the hearing detailed the government’s efforts to exert economic and political pressure on the junta while highlighting support for humanitarian assistance, including for Rohingya refugees in neighboring Bangladesh.

U.N. Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews, a witness at the hearing and a former U.S. congressman, called for the United States to intensify sanctions against the military rulers, targeting their primary revenue source: oil and gas sales.

“We need to have more sanctions imposed,” Andrews said. “I urge the U.S. to join the European Union and immediately impose sanctions on the junta’s single largest source of revenue, the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise.”

The company, also known as MOGE, is estimated to generate $1.5 billion in annual revenue, about half of the country’s foreign currency earnings.

“If you can stop the money, you can cut their ability to continue these atrocities,” he said, referring to civilian deaths at the hands of the military.

In a post-hearing interview with VOA, Andrews said he was encouraged by the hearing. “The fact that the United States Congress is asking these questions of the administration is a very positive sign,” he said.

Malaki Karen, a prominent Rohingya human rights activist, also testified at the hearing, bringing attention to the plight of the Rohingya community and the need for a sustained commitment by the U.S. and the international community.

“We want more participation from the U.S., the United Nations, Bangladesh and influential countries which care about human rights,” Karen said.