UNITED NATIONS: Britain has blocked the UN webcast of an informal Security Council meeting on Wednesday after Russia signaled its commissioner for children’s rights — who the International Criminal Court wants to arrest on war crimes charges — would speak, diplomats said.
Russia has told council members in a note, seen by Reuters on Tuesday, that the discussion about Ukraine will focus on “evacuating children from conflict zone” and signaled that the commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, will address the meeting.
Such meetings are held at UN headquarters, but not in the Security Council chamber, and briefings can be done virtually. All 15 council members have to agree to allow it to be webcast by the United Nations.
Britain blocked the webcast because Russia would not confirm who would brief, diplomats said on Tuesday. Russia’s Deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy confirmed Britain’s move on Twitter.
“Russia will from now on block UN webcasts of all similar meetings citing ‘UK censorship clause’,” Polyanskiy wrote.
Russia has not yet confirmed who will speak at the briefing.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) last month issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Lvova-Belova, accusing them of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine and the unlawful transfer of people to Russia from Ukraine since Moscow invaded on Feb. 24, 2022.
Moscow has not concealed a program under which it has brought thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia but presents it as a humanitarian campaign to protect orphans and children abandoned in the war zone.
Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told reporters last month that the informal meeting of Security Council members to be held on Wednesday had been planned long before the ICC announcement and it was not intended to be a rebuttal of the charges against Putin and Lvova-Belova.
Diplomats have said it is rare for a UN webcast to be blocked. However, last month China blocked the UN webcast of a US-convened informal Security Council meeting on human rights abuses in North Korea.
Britain blocks UN webcast of Russian meeting on Ukraine
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Britain blocks UN webcast of Russian meeting on Ukraine
- Russia has told council members in a note that the discussion about Ukraine will focus on "evacuating children from conflict zone"
- Britain blocked the webcast because Russia would not confirm who would brief, diplomats said on Tuesday
South Sudan officers face court martial over civilian massacre
- The increasingly unstable country is seeing a surge of fighting between government and opposition forces
JUBA: South Sudanese soldiers, including two officers, will face a court martial over a civilian massacre last month, the army spokesman said Wednesday.
The increasingly unstable country is seeing a surge of fighting between government and opposition forces, much of it in eastern Jonglei state where at least 280,000 people have been displaced since December according to the UN.
At least 25 civilians, including women and children, were killed in Ayod County in Jonglei state on February 21, according to the opposition.
Army spokesman Lul Ruai Koang said that two officers, including a major, and several non-commissioned officers, had been arrested and would face charges in the capital Juba, “before they are arraigned before a competent military court martial.”
He said the deaths were attributed to “some elements” under Gen. Johnson Olony, who was filmed in January ordering troops to “spare no lives” in Jonglei.
Koang said the soldiers had “moved out without the knowledge or authorization of the division commander.”
He also said they had been part of a militia group allied to opposition forces, parts of which had not yet been fully integrated into the army.
Military integration was among the core principles of a peace agreement that ended South Sudan’s five-year civil war in 2018 between President Salva Kiir and his long-time rival, Riek Machar, but it was never implemented.
Koang said the army regretted the loss of lives, adding: “We would like to once again remind our forces that their mandate is to protect civilians and their property, not to do the opposite.”
It followed an impassioned plea from the Sudan and South Sudan Catholic Bishops’ Conference on recent civilian killings — in Ayod, and also in Abiemnom County near the Sudan border where at least 169 people were killed on Sunday.
“We implore you to deploy resources to protect vulnerable populations and foster a climate of dialogue and reconciliation instead of violence and revenge, consoling the bereaved and supporting the afflicted,” it said in a statement.
