Crime of apartheid

According to the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination,

the term "racial discrimination" shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.[14]

This definition does not make any difference between discrimination based on ethnicity and race, in part because the distinction between the two remains debatable among anthropologists.[15] Similarly, in British law the phrase racial group means "any group of people who are defined by reference to their race, colour, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origin".[16]

The privileging of the Han people in ethnic minority areas outside of China proper, such as the Uyghur-majority Xinjiang and the central government's policy of settlement in Tibet, and the alleged erosion of indigenous religion, language and culture through repressive measures (such as the Han Bingtuan militia in Xinjiang) and sinicization have been likened to "cultural genocide" and apartheid by some activists.[18][19] With regards to Chinese settlements in Tibet, in 1991 the Dalai Lama declared:

The new Chinese settlers have created an alternate society: a Chinese apartheid which, denying Tibetans equal social and economic status in our own land, threatens to finally overwhelm and absorb us.[20][21]

Additionally, the traditional residential system of hukou has been likened to apartheid due to its classification of 'rural' and 'urban' residency status,[22][23] and is sometimes likened to a form of caste system.[24][25][26] In recent years, the system has undergone reform, with an expansion of urban residency permits in order to accommodate more migrant workers.[27][28]

Critics have accused Israel of committing the crime of apartheid; In a 2007 report, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Palestine John Dugard stated that "elements of the [state of Israel's] occupation constitute forms of colonialism and of apartheid, which are contrary to international law." and suggested that the "legal consequences of a prolonged occupation with features of colonialism and apartheid" be put to the International Court of Justice.[29]

In 2009, Virginia Tilley edited a book-length report that was published by the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa, which stated that Israeli policies in the occupied Palestinian territories were consistent with apartheid.[30] In 2010, Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine said that this "general structure of apartheid that exists in the Occupied Palestinian Territories ... makes the allegation increasingly credible despite the differences between the specific characteristics of South African apartheid and that of the Occupied Palestinian Territories regime".[31] In 2017, Tilley and Falk authored a report that was initially released by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, then chaired by Dr. Rima Khalaf. According to Khalaf, the report was prepared at the request of member states, ESCWA consisting of 18 Arab states in Western Asia. The report stated Israel established an apartheid regime, and urged governments to support BDS (Boycott, Divest, and Sanction) policies. US Ambassador Nikki Haley issued a statement saying the secretariat must "withdraw the report altogether". The Israeli foreign ministry compared the report to the Nazi propaganda paper Der Stürmer. A UN spokesman stated that "the report as it stands does not reflect the views of the secretary-general", and that it only reflects the opinion of its authors.[32] The report was withdrawn from the ESCWA website on the instructions of Secretary-General António Guterres, and Rima Khalaf resigned from her position at the UN.[33][34]

South African Judge Richard Goldstone, head of the Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, also known as the Goldstone Report, writing in The New York Times in October 2011, said that "in Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute." Goldstone noted that Arab citizens of Israel are allowed to vote, have political parties, and hold seats in the Knesset and other positions, including one on the Israeli Supreme Court. Goldstone wrote that the situation in the West Bank was more complex, but that there is no attempt to maintain "an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group", and claimed that the seemingly oppressive measures taken by Israel were taken to protect its own citizens from attacks by Palestinian militants.[35] However the Goldstone Report does not contain any reference to charges of apartheid, whether supported or not.[36] With regard to associated issue of positive findings of Israeli war crimes in the report, Goldstone has argued for a redaction. However the other three authors of the Goldstone Report have publicly rejected this arguing Goldstone has "misrepresented facts in an attempt to delegitimise the [Goldstone Report's] findings and to cast doubts on its credibility".[37]

Since Myanmar's transition to relative democratic rule beginning in 2010, the government's response to the Rohingya genocide has been widely condemned, and has been described as an ethnic cleansing by the United Nations, ICC officials, and other governments.[38][39][40][41][42][43][44]

Myanmar's current policies towards the Rohingya population include ethnic segregation, limited access to resources (comparable to the bantustan system), a lack of civil rights, ID card and special permit systems without any guarantee of citizenship (akin to the pass laws), restrictions on movement, and even institutionalized racial definitions, with the Rohingya being officially labelled as "Bengali races".[45] Additionally, the UN has explicitly condemned Myanmar over creating an apartheid state, threatening to withdraw aid from the country.[46]

Pro-unification propaganda on the Korean Demilitarized Zone.

Some commentators have compared modern-day North Korea to apartheid South Africa. In an anonymous News24 opinion piece, the African National Congress Youth League was criticized for its praise of former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il after his death (the North Koreans provided support to the African National Congress and other anti-apartheid movements). Parallels were made between North Korea and apartheid South Africa, including institutionalized ideas of racial purity, the heavy restrictions on letting foreign citizens live in the country, and the living conditions in North Korea outside of Pyongyang being compared to South Africa's bantustan system.[47] Other points of comparison have included the songbun system being equivalent to the Population Registration Act, both states having developed nuclear weapons for self-defense purposes, international isolation, and the proliferation of race myths in national history.[48]

Road sign on a highway into Mecca, stating that one direction is "Muslims only" while another direction is "obligatory for non-Muslims". Religious police are stationed beyond the turnoff on the main road to prevent non-Muslims from proceeding into Mecca and Medina.[49]

Saudi Arabia's treatment of religious minorities has been described by both Saudis and non-Saudis as "apartheid" and "religious apartheid".[50]

Alan Dershowitz wrote in 2002, "in Saudi Arabia apartheid is practiced against non-Muslims, with signs indicating that Muslims must go to certain areas and non-Muslims to others."[51]

In 2003, Amir Taheri quoted a Shi'ite businessman from Dhahran as saying "It is not normal that there are no Shi'ite army officers, ministers, governors, mayors and ambassadors in this kingdom. This form of religious apartheid is as intolerable as was apartheid based on race."[52]

Testifying before the U.S. Congressional Human Rights Caucus on June 4, 2002, in a briefing entitled "Human Rights in Saudi Arabia: The Role of Women", Ali Al-Ahmed, Director of the Saudi Institute, stated:

Saudi Arabia is a glaring example of religious apartheid. The religious institutions from government clerics to judges, to religious curricula, and all religious instructions in media are restricted to the Wahhabi understanding of Islam, adhered to by less than 40% of the population. The Saudi government communized Islam, through its monopoly of both religious thoughts and practice. Wahhabi Islam is imposed and enforced on all Saudis regardless of their religious orientations. The Wahhabi sect does not tolerate other religious or ideological beliefs, Muslim or not. Religious symbols by Muslims, Christians, Jews and other believers are all banned. The Saudi embassy in Washington is a living example of religious apartheid. In its 50 years, there has not been a single non-Sunni Muslim diplomat in the embassy. The branch of Imam Mohamed Bin Saud University in Fairfax, Virginia instructs its students that Shia Islam is a Jewish conspiracy.[53]

On December 14, 2005, Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Democratic Representative Shelley Berkley introduced a bill in Congress urging American divestiture from Saudi Arabia, and giving as its rationale (among other things) "Saudi Arabia is a country that practices religious apartheid and continuously subjugates its citizenry, both Muslim and non-Muslim, to a specific interpretation of Islam."[54] Freedom House showed on its website, on a page tiled "Religious apartheid in Saudi Arabia", a picture of a sign showing Muslim-only and non-Muslim roads.[55]

Nelson Mandela successfully fought against apartheid in South Africa.

The name of the crime comes from a system of racial segregation in South Africa enforced through legislation by the National Party (NP), the governing party from 1948 to 1994. Under apartheid, the rights, associations, and movements of the majority black inhabitants and other ethnic groups were curtailed, and white minority rule was maintained.

In early 1991, non-Arabs of the Zaghawa tribe of Sudan attested that they were victims of an intensifying Arab apartheid campaign, segregating Arabs and non-Arabs.[56] Sudanese Arabs, who controlled the government, were widely referred to as practicing apartheid against Sudan's non-Arab citizens. The government was accused of "deftly manipulat(ing) Arab solidarity" to carry out policies of apartheid and ethnic cleansing.[57]

American University economist George Ayittey accused the Arab government of Sudan of practicing acts of racism against black citizens.[58] According to Ayittey, "In Sudan... the Arabs monopolized power and excluded blacks – Arab apartheid."[59] Many African commentators joined Ayittey in accusing Sudan of practising Arab apartheid.[60]

Alan Dershowitz labeled Sudan an example of a government that "actually deserve(s)" the appellation "apartheid".[61] Former Canadian Minister of Justice Irwin Cotler echoed the accusation.[62]