India blocks Santosh release over ‘negative portrayal of police’
Santosh, Britain’s official Oscars submission in the international feature film category, has been denied release in India over concerns about its “negative portrayal of police.”
Set in rural north India, the Hindi-language film stars Shahana Goswami as a 28-year-old widow who gets her deceased husband’s police job on compassionate grounds and has to investigate the rape and murder of a young Dalit girl.
The film by British-Indian filmmaker Sandhya Suri provides a stark peek into deep-rooted problems within Indian police, depicting its institutional misogyny, caste-based discrimination and the routine use of violence and torture. Santosh also looks at the prevalence of sexual violence, particularly against Dalit women, and examines the growing tide of anti-Muslim sentiment in India.
Dalits, formerly known as untouchables, are placed on the lowest rung of India’s rigid caste hierarchy and are often targeted for discrimination by upper castes as well as institutions of state even though untouchability was formally abolished in 1955.
Santosh was reportedly shot entirely in India over 44 days in and around Lucknow, the capital of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, with an entirely Indian cast.
After premiering at the 77th Cannes Film Festival last May, Santosh went on to earn a BAFTA nomination for outstanding debut feature and received acclaim from critics and audiences alike. It was named one of the top five international films by the National Board of Review and brought Suri and Goswami best director and best actor honours at the recent Asian Film Awards.
In December, media reports said Santosh had been acquired by PVR Inox Pictures for distribution and was set to release in India on 10 January.
Earlier this month, it was revealed that the release had been suspended after the Central Board of Film Certification, the country’s film certification body commonly known as the censor board, raised objections even though the producers had previously secured script approval in India.
A film cannot be released in Indian theatres without being certified by the board. In 2021, the board abolished the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal, which allowed filmmakers to appeal its decisions. Now, the only way for filmmakers to contest a ruling is to go to court, an expensive, long-drawn process that guarantees nothing.
“We’re sort of stuck in censorship. To be honest, the Indian censor has requested certain changes that I don’t think the filmmaker is comfortable with, nor us, to be honest,” producer Mike Goodridge told Variety at the time.
The Guardian reported on Wednesday that the censor board refused to certify Santosh because it believed the film showed the Indian police in a harsh and negative light.
Suri called the decision disappointing and heartbreaking”. “It was surprising for all of us because I didn’t feel that these issues were particularly new to Indian cinema or hadn’t been raised before by other films,” she told The Guardian.
Suri confirmed that the cuts demanded by the censor board were so “lengthy and wide-ranging” that they were “impossible” to implement.
While she could not share the exact cuts demanded due to legal restrictions, she said the list went on “for several pages” and “included concerns about themes relating to police conduct and wider societal problems which are deeply baked into the film”.
“It was very important to me that the film is released in India so I did try to figure out if there was a way to make it work. But in the end, it was just too difficult to make those cuts and have a film that still made sense, let alone stayed true to its vision,” she said.
“I don’t feel my film glorifies violence in a way that many other films focusing on the police have done. There’s nothing sensationalist about it.”
Goswami shared her disappointment as well, telling India Today: “The censor has given a list of changes they require for the film to release and we as a team are not in agreement with the cuts as they would change the film too much, and so it is in a deadlock where it probably won’t release theatrically in India.
“It’s just sad that something that has gone through censor approval at the script level should require so many cuts and changes for it to be considered okay to release in India.”
The Independent has reached out to the film certification board for comment.
In an interview with Scroll, Suri explained her motivation for making Santosh and who had inspired the characters. “During a protest against Nirbhaya, I saw a photograph of female protesters facing a female cop,” she said, referring to the 2012 gang rape and murder of a physiotherapy intern in Delhi. “That cop had such an interesting expression on her face. She was one of them and she wasn’t one of them. She was the way in.
“Santosh is sort of a blank sheet when she comes into the police force…she’s in a world where everything is hierarchical. She’s accessing not just the bad power of the uniform but also the ability to help someone. The idea was also to see how she becomes politicised very casually, how she is drip-fed casual Islamophobia.”
There is ample documentation and reportage of police violence and sexual violence against Dalit women in India.
In 2021, the gangrape and murder of a 19-year-old Dalit girl in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras brought national and international condemnation for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Four men were arrested later but police were heavily criticised for their initial handling of the attack, their swift cremation of the victim’s body, their heavy-handed approach with protesters, and their attempts to block opposition politicians from meeting with the victim’s family.
In 2019, India saw massive protests sparked by Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government’s decision to introduce the Citizenship Amendment Act, which many saw as discriminatory against Muslims.
The protests saw police attack student protestors inside the campus of Jamia Millia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University as well as attacks in predominantly Muslim-dominated neighbourhoods where families claim police opened fire without provocation.
In June 2020, Human Rights Watch said “police failed to respond adequately” during the riots and were at times “complicit” in attacks against Muslims. It said authorities “failed to conduct impartial and transparent investigations”.
Suri questioned if her style of filmmaking was uncomfortable to the censor board as police brutality was not a new subject even in Indian cinema.
“Maybe there’s something about this film which is troubling in that everybody is morally compromised and there is no single hero. I think that’s what might set it apart from other stories in Indian cinema which often show a maverick cop in a rotten system.”
However, Suri remained hopeful.
“All my work has been about India; one film was deeply nostalgic, another was super beautiful and sensual,” she said. “Yes this one shows another face of the country. But there’s humanity in everybody in this film.”
China-bound AirAsia flight returns to Kuala Lumpur after engine fire
A China-bound AirAsia flight was forced to make an emergency landing in Kuala Lumpur due to an engine fire shortly after takeoff, Malaysian authorities said.
Flight AK128 to Shenzhen returned to the Kuala Lumpur international airport after a fire started in the right engine of the Airbus A320 shortly after its 9.59pm local time departure on Wednesday.
The cause of the fire was identified as a “pneumatic ducting burst”, Selangor state’s fire and rescue department said.
Pneumatic ducting routes pressurised air throughout the plane for engine functions as well as cabin pressurisation.
The fire was completely extinguished by the aircraft’s in-built safety system before it landed shortly after midnight, the fire department said, adding that all 171 passengers and crew were unharmed.
The department deployed nine personnel and a fire engine to runway 3 after receiving a distress call at 10.37pm local time, assistant director of operations Ahmad Mukhlis Mukhtar said.
The firefighters ensured passengers and crew exited the aircraft safely and made checks to ensure no further fires erupted. “All 171 passengers and crew safely disembarked,” Mr Mukhtar told reporters on Thursday morning.
Malaysian transport minister Anthony Loke said he had received a preliminary report from the Civil Aviation Authority. “AirAsia will issue a statement on what happened shortly to address the issue. At this point, I do not want to preempt anything,” Mr Loke said.
“Let the authorities investigate as normal procedure as any emergency landing will be investigated thoroughly.”
Earlier this month, 12 passengers were taken to hospital in Colorado, US, after an American Airlines flight caught fire while taxiing on the tarmac.
Photos and videos posted on social media showed passengers standing on the Boeing 737-800 plane’s wings as the flames engulfed its underside. The passengers were eventually brought to safety via slides.
One passenger told CBS Colorado that shortly after landing, passengers started catching a “weird burning plastic smell”.
“Then everybody started screaming and saying there was a fire,” Gabrielle Hibbitts, travelling with her mother and sister, recalled.
Who is Zalmay Khalilzad, would-be broker between Taliban and Trump?
Zalmay Khalilzad, the key negotiator in one of the largest US diplomatic debacles in recent memory, could nonetheless be on track to return as Donald Trump’s mediator with the Taliban, experts say.
Last week Khalilzad, an Afghan-born diplomat who was responsible for mediating talks that led to America’s chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan, was pictured accompanying an American hostage released from Taliban custody.
Khalilzad appeared alongside George Glezmann, an airline mechanic from Atlanta who was captured by the Taliban in December 2022 during a tourist visit to Afghanistan. Officially, Glezmann was released in a deal with the Trump administration brokered by Qatari negotiators.
But it was Khalilzad who travelled to Kabul, met with the Taliban’s foreign ministry officials and then accompanied the American back to the US. He then took to Twitter to confirm Glezmann’s release, calling it a “good day”.
Experts monitoring Afghanistan say the Trump administration could once again be turning to Khalilzad to deal with the Taliban, including around reported early-stage discussions to reopen the US embassy in Kabul. That would be a major boost in terms of international recognition for the militant regime that has been globally condemned for its assault on women’s rights.
Khalilzad was the “architect” of the Trump administration’s mistaken belief that the Taliban had changed as an organisation since its misogynistic regime of the late ‘90s and early 2000s, before it was ousted from power in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, argues David Loyn, author of The Long War.
“There are talks that Trump might want to send him to Kabul as a full-time envoy. He had an incredibly difficult hand to play in 2019 because Trump wanted an end to the war. It was just like what Americans are doing with Putin now. They are cutting out the main players – Afghan nationals in this case,” Loyn tells The Independent.
“Donald Trump is mainly excited and attracted by how Khalilzad was their negotiator and developed the sense that he could talk to the Taliban on behalf of the Americans as a Washington operator,” says Loyn.
But if they are still listening to his advice now, the Trump administration, in his opinion, are “making a mistake”, he says. “Khalilzad has been wrong and naive about Taliban 2.0 before and there is no reason why his analysis should be any better this time.”
Khalilzad has served as a negotiator with rulers of Afghanistan for more than four decades, including with the Soviets in 1989 when the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan.
He stepped down in October 2021 after serving as the US special envoy for Afghanistan for more than three years under both the Trump and Biden administrations.
Khalilzad was brought onboard by Washington in September 2018 by then secretary of state Mike Pompeo to lead negotiations with the Taliban and the Afghan republic government led by Ashraf Ghani.
A fluent Pashto and Dari speaker, Khalilzad failed to broker a power-sharing deal between the Taliban and Afghanistan’s democratically-elected leaders. Where he did succeed was in negotiating an agreement with the Taliban to end America’s longest-running war, which saw US troops leave Afghanistan after 20 years. The agreement was signed in the Qatari capital Doha and paved the way towards a full withdrawal of foreign soldiers from Afghanistan, as America’s Nato allies had little choice but to follow suit.
A number of officials from the Biden administration blamed the deal negotiated by Khalilzad for forcing their hands when it came to the speed of the pullout, and allowing the Taliban to swiftly take over the country unopposed. The biggest victims of the Taliban’s takeover have been Afghan women, whose fundamental rights on matters such as education and employment have been stripped away.
An active commentator via his X social media account, Khalilzad is regularly met with disapproving remarks from Afghans under his posts. Last week, he advocated for a longer transition period of power in Afghanistan. “You shut up. There is no need (for) your advice,” one user angrily replied.
Khalilzad has admitted that the Nato withdrawal from Afghanistan had not gone as planned, saying this was because the Taliban did not enter serious peace talks with the Afghan government as had been agreed.
But he has repeatedly defended his role in the Doha talks, saying his negotiating position was undermined by public statements and briefings from the White House that America was on the brink of withdrawing from Afghanistan. He told the congressional Committee on Foreign Affairs in November 2023 that “military force” was the biggest source of leverage the US had over the Taliban.
“I would say to our leaders here sometimes that, if we keep saying we’re getting out regardless, that doesn’t give me a lot of leverage. [They would say] ‘Okay. Understood, Zal.’ But then it would only last a week or two days.”
The Independent has reached out to Khalilzad for comment.
Kabir Taneja, deputy director of strategic studies and a fellow on the Middle East at India’s Observer Research Foundation, says Trump has talked himself into a corner by committing publicly to restoring some form of American influence in Afghanistan. “In the past few months, Trump has made loose remarks about not allowing China and Russia to run amok in the Afghanistan and central Asia region without any American presence, and American weapons left back in Afghanistan,” says Taneja.
“So the only one he can tap into right now is Khalilzad – someone he is familiar with. It is more about familiarity and Trump’s inner circle more than anything else and he is in Trump’s inner circle, clearly.”
China sentences Taiwan-based editor for ‘inciting separatism’
A court in China has sentenced the editor-in-chief of a Taiwanese publishing house to three years in prison for “inciting separatism”, the Chinese government has revealed.
Li Yanhe, a Chinese citizen who was reportedly living in Taiwan, went missing after returning home to visit relatives in Shanghai in March 2023.
The Communist government later announced that Li was allegedly being investigated by anti-espionage authorities. According to rights groups, no news about his well-being or status was made publicly available until March 2025.
Taiwanese media reported last week that he had been tried and sentenced by a court in Shanghai but gave no details. Li was sentenced to three years in prison after the Shanghai First Intermediate People’s Court found him guilty of “inciting to split the country”, said Chen Binhua, a spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office.
He added on Wednesday that the editor was fined 50,000 yuan (£5,342) in addition to the sentence. Li pleaded guilty and did not appeal, he told reporters, however, the authorities did not reveal what the editor did to be charged with inciting separatism.
Gusa Publishing, where Li worked, has published books on topics that are usually censored in China. The company’s website includes books on corruption and authoritarian rule in China and on the military’s bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protests that were centred on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
Taiwanese authorities said last week that Li’s detention was in order to “suppress Taiwan’s publishing, academic and cultural industries and attempt to create a chilling effect”, according to Taiwan’s government-owned Central News Agency.
Gusa Publishing on Facebook said Li’s colleagues were “angry and upset” and failed to understand why “just a publisher” would be charged with inciting separatism.
Li’s sentencing comes at a time when Beijing has been aggressively pushing for a reunification with the self-governed island of Taiwan. The Chinese government claims Taiwan as its territory and says the island must come under its control, by force if necessary, at some point in the future.
“Li was arbitrarily detained, denied fair trial rights, and sentenced on dubious charges,” said Sophie Richardson, co-executive director of Chinese Human Rights Defenders.
“Publishing books is not a crime, but Beijing sees open debate as a threat. The charges against Li should be dropped immediately and he should be released.”
Yu Miao, the owner of a Chinese bookstore in Washington, DC, said it would have a negative impact on deciding which books to publish in the future.
“It shows it is not safe to publish books about China in Taiwan or anywhere else,” said Mr Yu, who opened the Washington bookstore after his earlier bookstore in Shanghai was forced out in 2018.
In 2015, five Hong Kong-based booksellers were taken away by Chinese authorities, including a Swedish and a British national.
Why Asian airlines are tightening rules on carrying power banks
A Hong Kong Airlines flight from Hangzhou in China on 20 March was forced to make an emergency landing in Fujian after a fire erupted in an overhead compartment.
It was just the latest fire on an aircraft suspected to have been caused by a portable charging device, also known as a power bank. A spate of such incidents of late has caused significant safety concerns in the aviation industry and led airlines as well as regulators to implement stricter regulations.
Airlines across South Korea and carriers in Taiwan, Thailand and Singapore, have implemented new regulations to enhance safety.
The 20 March incident prompted the Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department to ban passengers from using power banks on flights starting 7 April.
Passengers would still be allowed to take power banks in carry-on luggage, the department added, but they must keep the devices under seats or in seat pockets and not in overhead compartments. “Passengers are advised to check with relevant airlines on the latest regulations before their flight.”
“We recognise the importance of continuous improvement in aviation safety and support measures to reduce risks associated with the use of lithium battery-powered devices,” Cathay Pacific said. “Cathay will fully comply with the regulations.”
Starting 1 March, South Korea implemented stricter rules on carrying portable batteries on flights following a fire on an Air Busan plane on 28 January. The incident had occurred as the flight was preparing to depart the Gimhae airport in southern South Korea for Hong Kong.
The revised rules state that a passenger can carry a maximum of five portable batteries, each with a capacity of up to 100 watt hours. Batteries exceeding 160 watt hours in capacity are strictly prohibited.
Security checks now involve verifying the number and type of batteries passengers want to bring onboard while charging power banks on flights is no longer allowed, according to the transport ministry.
In line with a similar policy adopted by Air Busan, the new rules also ban storing of power banks or e-cigarettes in overhead cabin bins.
The ministry says the rules are aimed at mitigating risks from portable battery fires, though the exact cause of the Air Busan fire is yet to be determined. According to the airline, a flight attendant first noticed the fire in an overhead luggage bin at the rear of the plane.
Earlier this month, a Batik Air flight filled with smoke from a burning power bank shortly before landing in Bangkok, causing panic among passengers. Footage posted on social media showed smoke spreading from an overhead luggage compartment and flight attendants working to locate the source and extinguish the fire.
Global aviation standards prohibit placing batteries in checked-in luggage as they can ignite severe fires if they short-circuit due to damage or manufacturing defects.
South Korean airlines such as Korean Air and Asiana Airlines now prohibit passengers from checking in lithium-ion batteries. According to updated rules from the transport ministry, such batteries must be covered with tape or placed in plastic bags to prevent contact with metal.
Taiwan’s EVA Airways similarly bans the use and charging of power banks and spare lithium batteries on flights. Passengers, though, can carry them in their hand luggage if they are “properly stored to prevent compression or damage”.
The same rules apply on China Airlines flights departing from the Incheon airport in South Korea. “The ports of power banks should be covered with insulating tape or protective covers or placed in transparent zip-lock bags or protective pouches and carried on person or placed in the seat pocket in front,” the airline said in an updated travel advisory on 27 February.
Thai Airways and Air Asia are implementing similar regulations since 15 March. Singapore Airlines banned the use of portable batteries on flights from 1 April.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand says that power banks remain prohibited in checked-in luggage. Similar to the Hong Kong ban, however, these devices are still allowed in the cabin but cannot be used during the flight.
Sonya Brown, senior lecturer in aerospace design at the University of New South Wales, Australia, said lithium-ion batteries used in power banks contained materials that were highly reactive and flammable.
“Lithium batteries could act as an ignition source themselves, or as a source of fuel for a fire initiated elsewhere,” she told CNN.
“The potential risk as an ignition source is increased when lithium batteries are damaged, swollen, include manufacturing defects, are overcharged or overheated.”
Lo Kok Keung, a veteran mechanical engineer and former lecturer at Polytechnic University, supported the new measures and told the South China Morning Post that even stricter steps should be considered.
“It would be best if there could be a blanket ban on bringing any portable power banks on a flight. They are like a time bomb, but no one knows when it will explode,” Mr Lo said. “A power bank is not an essential accessory. You do not need to charge your phone during the flight if you had charged it fully before boarding. Even when you are travelling overseas, you can charge up your phone or devices in the hotel. There is no need for you to bring a portable power bank with you to travel.”
To stay safe, experts suggest that passengers check their airline’s specific policies on power banks to ensure compliance and keep them in carry-on baggage – preferably on their person rather than in overhead compartments – and avoid using them to charge devices during flights unless explicitly permitted by the airline.
UK influencer in critical condition in hospital in South Korea
A British influencer named Ashley Surcombe is reportedly in a critical condition in a South Korean hospital after being found unconscious in her apartment with a black eye and severe dehydration.
The 29-year-old from Gloucestershire was reportedly discovered by police on Monday after her worried parents contacted authorities through a friend when she stopped responding to their messages and calls.
Ms Surcombe, according to The Times, has been living in South Korean capital Seoul for the last five years, posting about her time in the country for her 465,000 followers on Instagram.
According to reports, she is currently in the intensive care unit (ICU) after suffering multiple organ failure. Her sister, Kat Surcombe, 33, an aerospace engineer, described the ordeal as “surreal”.
Speaking to The Times, she said: “I keep alternating between breaking down and trying to help my parents. It’s heartbreaking because she’s my little sister, and I just want her back home.”
The family said they last spoke with Ms Surcombe on Saturday, when she told her parents she “wasn’t feeling very well” and seemed “dehydrated and very confused”.
“Initially we were very concerned because she’d recently slipped in her bathroom and hit her head, which is why she got quite a nasty bruise on her eye, but that was a few weeks ago. The way she was behaving, my parents were understandably concerned,” said her sister.
When Ms Surcombe failed to respond to a previously scheduled call on Sunday evening, parents Karen and Nigel, both 64, reached out to friends in Seoul, who in turn contacted the police.
According to her sister and local news reports, the police managed to gain entry into her flat, where they found her unconscious and unresponsive on the bathroom floor.
“She was found unresponsive and unconscious on the floor; she didn’t have any broken bones, but she was severely dehydrated and has major organ failure,” Kat Surcombe told Mail Online.
Paramedics rushed her to the ICU on Monday, where she has reportedly gained consciousness, but remains under observation and undergoing tests after reporting pain in her head, back, and hands.
“[The doctors] said that she was severely dehydrated and she’s got organ damage but we don’t know the extent of the organ damage yet,” she said, adding that their father was already on his way to Seoul.
The family has launched a GoFundMe to help grapple with the escalating medical costs.
Kat Surcombe revealed that Ms Surcombe’s health insurance had recently lapsed, forcing their parents to pay a £3,000 deposit for her treatment upfront.
“They’ve had to put it on a credit card, they don’t have £3,000 pounds just lying around. The potential financial burden is just on another level. My parents are recently retired. If she spends the week in the ICU that’s about £10,000, they don’t have that type of money lying around.”
“My dad has already said they may have to sell their house, obviously the priority is Ashley, but they just don’t know how to cover the medical bills.”
Based on the information provided on the GoFundMe page, ICU care could cost up to £1,500 per day, with additional tests and general hospital stays pushing expenses even higher.
“My parents have recently retired, and as a family, we don’t have an abundance of money to cover these unexpected and overwhelming costs,” Kat Surcombe wrote on the GoFundMe page.
The family is aiming to raise £50,000 for Ms Surcombe’s treatment, and at the time of writing, had raised £6,840.
South Korea accused of ‘mass exporting’ children for adoption
A South Korean commission has accused successive governments of committing widespread human rights violations by enabling mass overseas adoption of at least 170,000 children, often through fraudulent and coercive means.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its findings on Wednesday after nearly three years of investigating complaints from 367 of the about 140,000 South Korean children sent to six European countries, including Denmark, which urged Seoul to probe the adoptions in 2022, as well as the US and Australia.
It found that local adoption agencies collaborated with foreign groups to mass export South Korean children, driven by monthly quotas set by overseas demand.
Many adoptions occurred through dubious or outright unethical means.
The commission determined “the state violated the human rights of adoptees protected under the constitution and international agreements by neglecting its duty to ensure basic human rights, including inadequate legislation, poor management and oversight, and failures in implementing proper administrative procedures while sending large numbers of children abroad”.
The report released on Wednesday covered the first 100 of the 367 complaints submitted by adoptees taken abroad between 1964 and 1999.
The adoptees, from 11 countries, had long suspected their adoptions were tainted by corruption and malpractice, concerns widely shared within the Korean adoptee community.
The commission concluded that 56 of the 100 adoptees were “victims” of state negligence, which constituted a violation of their rights under the South Korean constitution as well as international conventions.
It noted that South Korean agencies were given sweeping authority over children, including full guardianship and power to approve foreign adoptions. Such lack of oversight led to large-scale inter-country adoptions, with many children losing their true identities and family histories due to falsified or fabricated records.
South Korea has sent nearly 200,000 children abroad for adoption since 1953, making it the largest source of inter-country adoptees in the world. In the Asian country’s impoverished postwar years, the government prioritised overseas adoptions over developing a domestic welfare system, relying on private agencies to send children abroad in exchange for fees from adoptive families.
“Numerous legal and policy shortcomings emerged,” commission head Park Sun Young said. “These violations should never have occurred.”
Peter Moller, a South Korean adoptee from Denmark who led an international campaign for an investigation, told The New York Times that the truth commission’s report acknowledged “that the deceit, fraud, and issues within the Korean adoption process cannot remain hidden”.
The commission found that many children were sent abroad for adoption with “falsified or fabricated” identities and family histories, often without legal consent.
Adoption agencies, such as the Korea Social Service, misrepresented children’s backgrounds to their adoptive families and profited from the process.
They charged high fees and used the funds to acquire ever more children, the commission pointed out, making adoption “a profit-driven industry” in which children were treated like cargo.
South Korea’s government has never directly acknowledged responsibility for such adoption practices.
As of Thursday morning, Associated Press reported, the health and welfare ministry said it had not yet formally received the commission’s report but would “actively review” its recommendations.
It added that “efforts to improve the adoption system will continue”, citing its preparations to enforce a new law taking effect in July designed to strengthen the state’s responsibility over adoptions.
The commission said the government had “actively utilised” foreign adoptions, which “required no budget allocation”, instead of investing in a social safety net for vulnerable children.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Yooree Kim, sent to France by an adoption agency at the age of 11 without the consent of her biological parents, urged the commission to strengthen its recommendations.
She called on the government to promote broader DNA testing for biological families to improve the chances of reunions with their children and to officially declare an end to foreign adoptions.
She said that adoptees affected by illicit practices should receive “compensation from the Korean government and adoption agencies, without going through lawsuits”.
In keeping with its findings, the commission recommended the government issue a formal apology, provide remedies for the affected, and ratify The Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption.
“It’s been a long wait for everybody,” Han Boon Young, one of the 100 adoptees whose cases were heard by the commission, told CNN. “And so now we do get a victory. It is a victory.”
Ms Han, who grew up in Denmark, said that she was not officially recognised as a “victim” due to a lack of documentation.
“If they say, we recognise this is state violence, then how can they not recognise those who don’t have much information? Because that’s really at the core of our issues, that we don’t have information,” she told CNN. “It’s been falsified, it’s been altered.”
The Rohingya were driven from Myanmar. Now they’re fighting back
It was still dark, early on a January morning in 2024, when Mohammad Ayas slipped out of the world’s largest refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, and trekked deep into the forest, returning to the place he had fled in 2017. This time, however, he was not escaping the “raining bullets” that had killed his father – he was going back to train and fight against those responsible for his people’s bloody exodus from Myanmar.
Ayas, a 25-year-old Rohingya refugee who teaches Burmese to children in the camps, tells The Independent that he and thousands like him are now united in their struggle against the Myanmar military and others who stand in their way of “reclaiming their motherland”.
“We are ready. I am ready to die for my people. I don’t care what happens to me in this fight to reclaim our motherland, our rights and our freedom in Myanmar,” Ayas says.
Hundreds of Rohingya refugees like Ayas are volunteering to join armed groups, having spent years in the Kutupalong refugee camps, where more than a million members of the persecuted Muslim minority are living after fleeing Myanmar, according to refugee accounts and aid agency reports.
The Independent spoke to Rohingya refugees, as well as a man described as their commander in the Cox’s Bazar camps, who said they are sneaking out for weeks or months at a time to train with weapons in Myanmar, preparing to return and fight both the military junta and any rebel groups who stand in their way.
Rohingya groups say they have been targeted in massacres and forced conscriptions by both sides amid the civil war that began following the 2021 coup ousting democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her party. One Rohingya recruit told The Independent they hoped the situation might change if Suu Kyi were to return to power – but they were no longer willing to wait around for it to happen.
Watch The Independent’s documentary Cancelled: The Rise and Fall of Aung San Suu Kyi
Ayas, the father of a four-year-old girl, says he trained in the jungle for six months, with him and other volunteers moving their tents to different locations every few days to avoid detection. He describes his training routine deep in the jungles of Myanmar, that provide cover for insurgent activities as well as temporary respite for those escaping the brutal civil war.
It starts at the crack of dawn and recruits are woken up by the sound of a whistle, says Ayas, who spent the six months in a training programme.
They begin with basic fitness training before being divided into groups, with some receiving training with arms, ammunition and martial arts, while others go for technical training like handling social media, counter-surveillance, or tracking enemy movements and gathering strategic information.
In the heat of the afternoon, they bathe, eat and relax, before the commander leads a second round of drills.
With no end in sight to Myanmar’s conflict, and as conditions in the camps worsen, more Rohingya refugees may find themselves willing – or forced – to take up arms.
“Our main goal is peace. We want to live peacefully with rights and opportunities in Burma, where both the government and the rebels have taken over our land. We want our motherland back, and we will fight for it,” he says, referring to Myanmar’s colonial-era name, which was changed in 1989.
Ayas, who refused to disclose the name of the group he is training with in Myanmar, claims: “More than 1,000 people have now joined and are training. The recruitment is happening everywhere, in all camps.”
Wearing a cap and tracksuit – unlike the majority of Rohingya men who prefer a simple T-shirt and a longyi or plaid cloth wrapped around the waist – Ayas speaks some English, sometimes forming broken sentences.
Ayas fled Myanmar in 2017 when its military, along with Buddhist militias, began what he describes as the coordinated massacre of entire Rohingya villages, killing men, women, and children alike. The UN has described the violence as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing” with reports of women being raped and entire villages being burned down.
A deepening civil war between Myanmar’s military and armed militia groups has meant that Muslim minorities living in Rakhine State have been attacked by both sides, forcing them to seek safety in Bangladesh, Malaysia, Singapore, India, and Sri Lanka.
Also accused of the systematic persecution of the Rohingya Muslim community is the Arakan Army (AA), a Buddhist militia group formed in 2009 that has gained a foothold in Myanmar and now controls almost all of Rakhine State. The AA claims its objective is to achieve greater autonomy and self-determination for the Arakan people.
Ayas’ family was among the estimated 1 million people who fled the 2017 military campaign. But he had to leave behind his dying father, who was struck by multiple bullets as soldiers “began firing randomly at people”.
“Bullets rained like a monsoon downpour as the military opened fire on people trying to escape. The soldiers were butchering our people,” he recalls, his eyes welling with tears.
Since then, life in the refugee camps has been one of constant struggle, with no future, opportunities, or even basic human rights, he says.
“I am always thinking about going back home. This is not our land, and we do not want to live here anymore,” he adds.
Another recruit, Abu Niyamat Ulla*, 42, works as a religious teacher and is affiliated with Islamic Mahaz, a Rohingya Islamist insurgent group allied with the larger Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO).
“Our first enemy is the military, which is committing genocide on our people, and then the Arakan Army,” he tells The Independent.
Ulla says recruitment efforts have been ongoing in the camps, with men traveling to Myanmar for training and returning to lead seemingly normal lives in the refugee settlements.
“The commander has directed us to target men as young as 18 or 20 who are physically and morally strong for recruitment,” he explains.
“We do not force anyone but ask them if they wish to go back [to Myanmar]. If they are willing, we guide them. The process has already started. People go there for training, return, and then others follow,” he says.
Ulla, who remarried after losing his first wife and has three children, says his people have suffered injustice all their lives while the international community remains focused on wars in Gaza and Ukraine, ignoring the plight of the Rohingya.
He speaks warmly of Suu Kyi’s father Aung San, the independence leader and founding father of Myanmar, who “worked with the Rohingya”. “I hope that if Aung San Suu Kyi is released, she might stand up for us, though I’m not certain she will,” he says.
Instead, he says, the Rohingya need to stand up for themselves. “The time has come for us to defend our lands, our rights, and reclaim our dignity as human beings,” he asserts.
A maze of narrow lanes and alleys in one of the 33 camps leads to the safehouse of a man described by recruits as a senior commander spearheading the recruitment drive and training efforts. His men blend seamlessly into the crowded refugee camp, indistinguishable from the thousands of displaced families around them, forming a loose perimeter as they led The Independent to meet him.
No words were exchanged until the commander, a young man in his mid-30s who gave his name as Raynaing Soe*, sat cross-legged in an armchair and began speaking of his “revolution” to unite the Rohingya community against both the military and the Arakan Army. Soe is a nom de guerre, and he spoke to The Independent on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of his recruitment activities.
“We would seek peaceful reconciliation first, but if that does not happen and our people continue to die, then we are ready and united to fight for our land,” says Soe, wearing a hat and a T-shirt emblazoned with the word “Strong”.
“The whole Rohingya community has decided to unite. We are working to bring all people onto one platform to fight in Rakhine State, to take back our land and our rights.”
Soe says their attempts to cooperate with the AA against the military have collapsed multiple times since 2021. He refused to disclose his own group’s affiliation.
“They [the AA] do not want to work with the Muslim community. They only want to work for Buddhists. Now, whoever comes in our way – military or AA – we will destroy them to take back our lands.”
While Rohingya recruits in the camp that The Independent spoke to denied allegations of forced conscription, the rights groups and aid agencies that work to provide inhabitants with their basic humanitarian needs have raised concerns over the increase in such drives since the 2021 coup.
There are nearly a dozen armed militia groups active within the camps, according to a report by the Bangladesh ministry of defence. These groups have been blamed for rampant drug dealing, extortion, killings and human trafficking within the camps as well as internal clashes.
The well-known groups include the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO), the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), the Arakan Rohingya Army (ARA), and Islamic Mahaz.
The RSO has been accused of colluding with the military in Myanmar and carrying out forced recruitment of people from the camps to fight against the AA. After gaining a bad reputation for their alleged alignment with the junta, the RSO’s members sometimes go by the alternative name “Maungdaw Militia” to recruit people.
Fortify Rights director John Quinley says they have been investigating Rohingya armed groups for years, collecting testimonies, videos, and audio evidence that recruitment – both voluntary and forced – has been ongoing in the camps.
Quinley says they have testimony from Rohingya refugees as young as 17 years old who were abducted from the camp and taken into Myanmar.
“There’s dwindling humanitarian support in the camps right now. Under both the [Muhammad] Yunus interim government [of Bangladesh] and the former oppressive government of [Sheikh] Hasina, the situation in the camps has been restrictive. Refugees have no freedom of movement and cannot access formal education in any meaningful way.
“Every aspect of Rohingya people’s lives remains restricted. Given these conditions, many Rohingya have taken matters into their own hands, seeking to liberate their community through armed resistance.”
An internal memo by a humanitarian coordination group operating in Bangladesh revealed that nearly 2,000 people were recruited from the refugee camps between March and May last year alone, according to a Fortify Rights report.
It said that the drives used techniques such as “ideological, nationalist and financial inducements, coupled with false promises, threats, and coercion” to recruit people.
The Independent contacted Bangladesh’s Office of the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner (RRRC), which runs the camps, and the ministry of defence for comment, but has not received a response.
Threatening to add further vulnerability and instability into the mix is US president Donald Trump’s blanket executive order halting the work of USAID. That decision is expected to have a devastating impact on the sprawling refugee camp entirely dependent on outside funding – USAID contributed 55 per cent of all foreign aid for the Rohingya last year, according to some estimates.
Quinley says the result will be more people turning to armed resistance, unless the host government in Bangladesh allows them to access livelihoods or grants them freedom of movement.
“The people I talked to in the refugee camps have a palpable sense of hopelessness. For many Rohingya, one of the few ways to reclaim agency is to say, ‘If I fight, at least I have some control over my fate.’”
“Unless we see real support for Rohingya refugees, there is likely to be an uptick in people joining these militant groups – some willingly, but many out of sheer desperation.”
* Names changed to protect identity