In a July 28, 2025 statement, the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, called for a moratorium on capital punishment in Iran where at least 48 persons are currently on death row. According to information gathered by the UN Human Rights Office in Geneva, at least 612 persons were reportedly executed in the first half of 2025. Minorities continue to be disproportionately affected by executions.
Religious minorities in Iran include Sunni Muslims, Christians, Baha’is, Zoroastrians, Jews, and the Gonabali Sufi community. Religious and ethnic identities in Iran often overlap.
Türk added, “Information received by my Office also indicates that judicial proceedings in a number of cases, often held behind closed doors, have consistently failed to meet due process and fair trial guarantees…The death penalty is incompatible with the right to life and irreconcilable with human dignity. Instead of accelerating executions, I urge Iran join the worldwide movement abolishing capital punishment starting with a moratorium on all executions.”
The Association of World Citizens has repeatedly called upon governments for a moratorium on executions with a view of abolishing the death penalty – a penalty that extensive research has shown has little or no impact on the level of crime and too often opens doors to judicial errors and injustices.
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
Recent violence and growing tensions along religious, ethnic and social class lines in Syria have highlighted the need to create a framework for cooperation among civil society groups. The Peacebuilding Section of the United Nations (UN) Secretariat was created because of the difficulties of creating a peaceful and just society after a period of armed conflict. It has been noted that violence often starts up again if strong measures of reconciliation and cooperative action are not undertaken as soon as the armed conflict ends. A spirit of revenge is often present, especially among those who consider themselves as victims. Thus, there needs to an interweaving of economic improvement with social reconciliation and the creation of trust among factions.
The long, multi-layered conflict in Syria from 2011 to the departure of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024 had increased tensions among groups, but the tensions were already there, clashing over values and interests. “Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation” wrote Khalil Gibran in The Garden of the Prophet thinking about his home country Lebanon, but it can also be said of neighboring Syria.
External countries had quickly stepped into the armed conflict after 2011 projecting their rivalries onto Syria and jockeying for regional preeminence. Syrian civil society members had cooperated during the efforts of mediation during the early years of the conflict. The first mediator was Mr. Kofi Annan as the joint envoy of the UN and the League of Arab States in February 2012.
Kofi Annan (C) Magyar ENSZ Társaság
Kofi Annan, a former UN Secretary General, had spent his entire career in the UN system and was a seasoned mediator. From his discussions and observations, he proposed first steps based on a ceasefire with effective UN supervision, a release of arbitrarily detained persons, increased humanitarian aid, and freedom of association within Syria. The implementation of his proposals did not follow, and he resigned his mandate on August 2, 2012.
I knew somewhat Kofi Annan and knew better some members of his staff. I also knew fairly well the Secretary General of the League of Arab States Nabil al-Araby, a longtime Ambassador of Egypt to the UN in Geneva. Thus, on behalf of the Association of World Citizens (AWC), I became involved with the armed conflict in Syria.
I had discussions with Dr. Faysal Khabbaz Hamouri, the Ambassador of Syria to the UN in Geneva, to see what issues might be negotiable and if an agenda could be fixed. I also had discussions with Syrian Nongovernmental Organization (NGO) members who had come to Geneva because of the negotiations. NGO representatives, such as I for the AWC, have no standing as official mediators but can play some role through their contacts with diplomats and UN Secretariat members. From these discussions, I came to realize how deeply divided was the Syrian community involved in the political aspects of the armed conflict. There were no public negotiations in Geneva after 2015. In September 2015, Russian military troops started their heavy support of the al-Assad government.
Today, it is difficult to know what those of us who are not Syrians and who are outside of Syria can do to help build a society of social cohesion in Syria. The wider Middle East is filled with violence and tensions among Israelis and Palestinians, in Lebanon, Yemen and Iran. We have to keep our spirits open for new possibilities of positive action.
(C) Khaled Fozan
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
With the end of the long dictatorship of Bachar al-Assad and the naming of Ahmed al-Sharaa, leader of the militia Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), as President, there is a need for the Syrians to consider the structures of the state. Like its neighbor Lebanon, Syria is home to a number of religious and ethnic groups, sometimes mixed, especially in the major cities. In other places, one group is dominant and usually controls both the economic and political life of the area. Thus, there have been suggestions that Syria should be re-structured as a federal or confederal state.
On March 17, 2016, the “federal democratic system of Rojava” (a Kurdish term for northern Syria) was proclaimed officially. Some 150 representatives of Kurdish, Arab, and Assyrian (largely Christian) groups met in the city of Rmeilan in northeast Syria and voted in favor of the union of three ‘cantons’ largely populated by Kurds − the cantons of Afrin, Kobani, and Jezireh.
The government as well as a major opposition group stated their refusal of a federalist system which they saw as a first step to the breakup of Syria.
While the Kurdish issues in Turkey have attracted international attention, and the largely autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq is a major player in Iraqi politics, the Kurds in Syria have been less discussed.
The Kurds of Syria had not been as visible a factor as other ethnic or sectarian groups. As Michael Gunter, a specialist on the Kurdish world, writes,
On July 19, 2012, the previously almost unheard Syrian Kurds suddenly emerged as a potential game changer in the Syrian civil war and what its aftermath might hold for the future in the Middle East when in an attempt to consolidate their increasingly desperate position, government troops were abruptly pulled out of the major Kurdish areas. The Kurds in Syria had suddenly become autonomous, a situation that also gravely affected neighboring Turkey and the virtually independent Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq. Indeed, the precipitous rise of the Kurds in Syria bid to become a tipping point that might help change the artificial borders of the Middle East established after the First World War following the notorious Sykes-Picot Agreement. (1)
In a hope of keeping the Kurds out of the growing armed conflict, shortly after the March 15, 2011 start of the Syrian armed conflict, in April 2011, Bashar al-Assad had granted Syrian citizenship to some 220,000 Kurds that had been long waiting to be considered as citizens or who had been stripped of their citizenship in a 1962 census.
However, armed conflict spread, and the Islamic State started to control territory near Kurdish majority areas. Some observers saw the Kurds as “objective allies” of Bashar as they had many of the same enemies.
Working with the regime had largely saved the Kurdish areas from government bombardment and allowed Kurdish leadership to build alternative forms of government. Gunter discusses in some detail the influence among some Kurdish leaders in Turkey and Syria of the writings of Murray Bookchin (1921-2006) and his views of ecologically-sound autonomous governance – “democratic autonomy”.
In the first years of the French mandate of Syria after the First World War, the French had created a form of ‘federal’ administration.
It is very unlikely that the Kurdish propositions will be on the agenda for new governmental structures in Syria now in 2025. The current Syrian leadership is heavily influenced by the government of Turkey, strongly opposed to anything Kurdish. The future development of the Syrian state is an issue to watch closely.
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
Notes
(1) Michael M. Gunter, Out of Nowhere: The Kurds of Syria in Peace and War (London: Hurst and Co, 2014, p.1)
The January 20, 2025 inauguration of President Donald Trump has brought into sharp focus the turbulent and complex world society in which we live. As peacebuilders and citizens of the world, we face the same challenges as President Trump but with a different style and with far fewer resources at our command. We make plans but then are called to work for conflict resolution in unanticipated ways.
There are four policy challenges which face both President Trump and World Citizens: armed conflicts, currently ongoing and potential, persistent poverty in many areas, the erosion of international law and faith in multinational institutions, particularly the United Nations (UN), and the consequences of climate change.
The ongoing and potential armed conflicts are neither new nor unexpected. The Israeli-Palestinian tensions exist at least since 1936 and increased after the creation of the State of Israel. There may be some possibilities for negotiations in good faith. We must keep an eye open for possible actions.
Tensions with Iran are not new. The Soviet forces in part of Iran was the first conflict with which the UN had to deal in its early days. However, the rule by the Ayatollahs has made matters more complex.
The Russian-Ukrainian war grinds on with a large number of persons killed, wounded, and uprooted. Again, we must look to see if a ceasefire and negotiations are possible.
In Asia, the armed conflict in Myanmar between the military in power and the ethnic militias dates from the creation of the Burmese State at the end of the Second World War. A potential armed conflict between Mainland China and Taiwan dates from 1949 and the Nationalist government’s retreat to Taiwan. The potential armed conflict between the two Korean States dates from 1950 and the start of the Korean War.
The armed conflicts in Africa are no longer in the headlines, but they date from the early 1960s and the breakup of the European Empires: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, the States of the Sahel.
Thus, we all have a poor record of armed conflict prevention and mediation. Armed conflicts should remain at the top of both the governmental and nongovernmental agenda for action.
(C) U.S. Embassy France on Instagram
Persistent Poverty: Despite the UN Decades for Development, the Sustainable Development Goals, and Article 22 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that everyone is entitled to the economic, social, and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and free development of his personality, persistent poverty exists in many parts of the world. One consequence of persistent poverty is migration from poorer to richer areas, both within countries and from poorer to richer States. Migration is a hotly debated issue in many countries, as right-wing nationalist groups make anti-migration their battle cry. Migration is likely to become an even more heated topic of debate as President Trump tries to carry out his proposal for a mass deportation of immigrants from the USA.
Linked to persistent poverty are trade issues and the protectionist trends in many countries. President Trump has proposed higher tariffs for good coming into the USA. This policy may set off tariff wars. Obviously to counter persistent poverty, world development policies must be improved – easier said than done!
The Erosion of International Law and Faith in Multinational Institutions: Armed conflicts and persistent poverty are closely related to the third issue: the receding United States (U.S.) involvement with the UN, the World Bank, the IMF, the World Court and other multinational organizations. Some of the foreign policy authorities appointed by President Trump are overtly critical of the UN and the International Criminal Court. There has already been an Executive Order to halt U.S. funding of the World Health Organization. However, there is no unifying vision of what a new world society would involve. The battle cry of “Make America Great Again”, if repeated by each State for itself, “Make Panama Great Again”, could be a loud concert but not conducive to positive decision making.
The Consequences of Climate Change: The fourth major group of issues concerns the consequences of climate change and the ways to lessen its impact. During the campaign for the presidency, Trump threatened to pull the USA out of the Paris Climate Agreement, and he has now signed an Executive Order doing so. The issue of climate change has been brought to the world agenda by scientists on the one hand, and by Nongovernmental Organizations and popular, often youth-led efforts, on the other hand. It is likely that these vital efforts related to climate change will continue despite climate policy resistance by some in the Trump administration.
President Trump said during his inaugural ceremony that “The Golden Age of America begins now… We stand on the verge of the four greatest years in American history.” We will have to watch closely and judge in four years. What is sure for peacebuilders and citizens of the world is that we stand on the verge of four more years of serious challenges. Thus, there is a need for cooperative and courageous action.
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
August 30 each year is the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances. The Day highlights the United Nations (UN) General Assembly Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances of December 18, 1992.
In a good number of countries, there are State-sponsored “death squads” – persons affiliated to the police or to the intelligence agencies who kill “in the dark of the night”, unofficially. These deaths avoid a trial which might attract attention. A shot in the back of the head is faster. In many cases, the bodies of those killed are destroyed. Death is suspected but not proved. Family members hope for a return. In addition to governments, nongovernmental armed groups and criminal gangs have the same practices.
Disappearances was one of the first issues to be raised, largely by Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) such as the Association of World Citizens (AWC), when the UN Secretariat for Human Rights with a new director, Theo van Boven, moved from New York to Geneva in 1977.
In 1976, Argentina’s military seized power and set out to kill opposition figures. This situation was quickly raised in the UN human rights bodies in Geneva. In 1980 a UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances was created and has done important work.[i] However, continued action is needed by both the UN and national NGOs.
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
[i] See Iain Guest, Behind the Disappearances: Argentina’s Dirty War Against Human Rights and the United Nations (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990). Iain Guest was the Geneva UN correspondent for the International Herald Tribune. He had access to Argentine confidential documents once the military left power. He interviewed many diplomats and NGO representatives active in Geneva-based human rights work. This book is probably the most detailed look at how human rights efforts are carried out in the UN Geneva-based human rights bodies.
LA AWC LLAMA A LAS AUTORIDADES DE NICARAGUA A DEROGAR LA PROHIBICIÓN ANUNCIADA DE 1.500 ORGANIZACIONES NO GUBERNAMENTALES
La Association of World Citizens (Asociación de Ciudadanos del Mundo; AWC) expresa su alarma al aprender que las autoridades de la República de Nicaragua anunciaron el 19 de agosto la prohibición de 1.500 organizaciones no gubernamentales (ONG), la mayoría de ellas organizaciones de beneficencia católicas romanas, aunque, lamentablemente, la medida también ha afectado a la Cruz Roja Nicaragüense.
Desde abril de 2018, el Gobierno encabezado por el Presidente Daniel Ortega ha adoptado un cariz abiertamente autoritario, tras las protestas cuya violenta represión, según las Naciones Unidas (ONU), ha dejado más de 300 muertos. En este contexto, casi todos los opositores políticos han sido encarcelados o forzados al exilio.
En cuanto a los grupos de la sociedad civil, esta última medida eleva a 5.000 el número de ONG prohibidas por las autoridades en los últimos seis años. Todos los grupos prohibidos han visto sus bienes confiscados por el Gobierno. Aunque la razón oficial esgrimida es que estas ONG no han declarado sus ingresos, la semana pasada se aprobó una normativa que obliga a las ONG a establecer “alianzas de asociación” con las autoridades, con lo que prácticamente se acaba su carácter “no gubernamental”.
La Oficina del Alto Comisionado de las Naciones Unidas para los Derechos Humanos ha pedido “a las autoridades nicaragüenses que dejen de imponer restricciones severas a los espacios cívicos y democráticos del país y que garanticen el respeto de los derechos humanos, de conformidad con las obligaciones internacionales de Nicaragua en materia de derechos humanos”.
La AWC respalda sin reservas este llamamiento, instando al Gobierno de Nicaragua a rescindir de inmediato su prohibición anunciada y a restablecer a todas las ONG ilegalizadas desde 2018 su estatus jurídico y financiero inicial, garantizando además que sean libres de operar como consideren conveniente, un requisito básico para cualquier país que pretenda defender el Estado de derecho.
THE AWC CALLS ON THE AUTHORITIES OF NICARAGUA TO RESCIND THEIR ANNOUNCED BAN ON 1,500 NONGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS
The Association of World Citizens (AWC) is alarmed to hear that the authorities of the Republic of Nicaragua announced on August 19 that they were banning 1,500 Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs), most of them Roman Catholic charities – even though, regrettably, the Nicaraguan Red Cross has been struck by the measure too.
Since April 2018, the Government led by President Daniel Ortega has taken an openly authoritarian turn, after protests whose violent repression the United Nations (UN) claims left more than 300 people dead. In this context, nearly all political opponents have been jailed or forced into exile.
As for civil society groups, this latest move brings to 5,000 the number of NGOs banned by the authorities over the last six years. All groups thus banned have had their assets seized by the Government.
Even though the official reason put forward is that these NGOs have failed to declare their income, last week, a regulation was passed requiring NGOs to enter “partnership alliances” with the authorities, therefore practically ending their “nongovernmental” nature.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has called “on the Nicaraguan authorities to stop imposing severe restrictions on civic and democratic spaces in the country, and to ensure that human rights are respected, in line with Nicaragua’s international human rights obligations.”
The AWC unreservedly endorses this call, urging the Nicaraguan Government to rescind immediately its announced ban and restore all NGOs outlawed since 2018 to their initial legal and financial status, further ensuring that they are free to operate as they see fit, a basic requirement for any country which claims to be upholding the rule of law.
Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the microcredit banking system in Bangladesh, the Grameen Bank (which translates as “Village Bank”), was sworn in as the interim leader of the Bangladesh government on August 8, 2024. The former leader, Sheikh Hasina, resigned and then fled to India, driven out by the protests first of students and then by other sectors of the population during which some 400 persons were killed by the military and the police. Muhammed Yunus has called for calm and an end to uncontrolled violence often directed against the minority Hindu population.
Muhammad Yunus is an economist. Now 84 years old, he is retired from teaching, originally at the University of Chittagong, the port city of Bangladesh. As an economist, he was quickly aware of rural poverty in many parts of the country and the unrest of the tribal minorities in the Chittagong Hill Tracks. He developed the concept of the Grameen Bank, small loans, especially to women, in order to improve their trading efforts. Much of what is called “the informal sector” – marginal to the more developed economy – are the efforts of market women and women small producers. With small loans which must be repaid before a new loan is possible, women are able to have more security and can expand their business.
Prof. Muhammad Yunus at the University of Salford, UK, on May 18, 2013 (C) University of Salford Press Service
The Grameen Bank approach spread to nearly all areas of Bangladesh and then to other countries, especially in Africa. The success of the Grameen Bank approach has lifted many from the cycle of poverty and instability. In recognition of the impact of the Grameen Banks, Muhammad Yunus was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2006.
Muhammad Yunus has formed an interim government of 16 persons, mostly drawn from civil society organizations, including two, Nahid Islam and Asif Mahmud, both 26 years old, who were leaders of the student movements which overthrew Sheikh Hasina who had been in power for 15 years – whose government had become increasingly authoritarian. Muhammad Yunus has promised that elections will be held shortly but that calm must be restored first. He faces difficult tasks, but he is a fresh mind outside the narrow political milieu. We must wish him well in his vital efforts.
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
WORLD CITIZENS CALLON THE AUTHORITIES OF IRAQ TO WITHDRAW THEIR DRAFT LAW ALLOWING THE MARRIAGE OF 9-YEAR-OLD GIRLS
The AWC is alarmed to hear that a draft law under consideration in Iraq may make it legal for a man to marry a girl as young as nine.
We hear many individuals and civil society groups in the country have rightly spoken out about the said draft law.
We firmly believe the Iraqi authorities should by no means make it the law of the land.
For seventy years, Iraqi law has considered the “full age” for marriage, in the very words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to be eighteen. That is consistent with the Convention on the Rights of Child under whose Article 1 “a child means every human being below the age of eighteen years”.
Lowering the marriageable age for girls to nine would send a disastrous signal for girls in Iraq and, in a broader manner, throughout the entire Arab and Muslim world and, ultimately, throughout the entire world, beyond the borders of states, cultures, languages, religions, ethnic groups or of any other nature. It would mean the end of the very notion of child abuse.
Since the draft law would make it possible for a man to marry a young girl but not, conversely, for a woman to marry a young boy – and, even then, it would only be equally condemnable – the draft law also sends a discriminatory message toward women, signifying that a female life is of lesser value.
The AWC condemns in the strongest terms any legislative attempt, whether in Iraq or anywhere else for this purpose, to turn a child into a person’s property, let alone their sexual object of pleasure.
We hereby call on the Iraqi Government and Parliament to immediately withdraw the draft bill and ensure that Iraqi law remains steadily consistent with UN human rights standards.
Despite strong protests from Georgian Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) and street protests for three weeks in the capital Tbilisi, the Georgian Parliament adopted on May 14, 2024 the controversial law on “foreign influence”. The vote was 84 in favor and 30 opposed. The law is likely to be vetoed by the Georgian President, Salomé Zourabichvili, a former French diplomat, but there are probably enough favorable votes in the Parliament to override the veto.
The law is very close to a similar law of 2012 in the Russian Federation used to hinder NGOs often considered to be “enemy agents” voicing opposition to the government. The law obliges NGOs and media to publish all financing from foreign governments, foundations, and individuals if it amounts to 20 or more percent of the funds of the organization. The law has been strongly opposed by officials of the European Union and the United States. Georgia has a candidate status for joining the European Union.
(C) Euronews
The former Prime Minister and leader of the Georgian Dream Party in power for the last 12 years, Bidzina Ivanichvili, has attacked those opposed to the law as “people without a country” – a term used in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. He has been playing with a fear among some in power in Georgia that NGOs with foreign funding could create a “color revolution” to overthrow the government as was done elsewhere.
In the days prior to the vote, there was strong government pressure against journalists and NGO representatives, some being beaten and many threatened by telephone calls. As Citizens of the World concerned with the role of NGOs and freedom of the press, we need to watch developments in Georgia closely.
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
Association of World Citizens 