Author: Human Rights Watch

Laying flowers, speaking out, reporting the news – once ordinary acts in Hong Kong— can now lead to prison under the city’s sweeping national security laws. National Security Police said on October 1 that they had arrested eight people in September for alleged “sedition.” Police accused them of “spreading false information” and “inciting hatred” against the […]

(Beirut) – Egyptian security forces arrested six journalists working for the independent investigative journalism platform Matsda2sh on September 28 and 29, 2026, and appear to have forcibly disappeared them, Human Rights Watch said today. The journalists’ whereabouts are unknown and their families and lawyers have not been permitted contact with them. Security forces arrested the journalists in […]

The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on September 21 detained Mark Mabasa, the 40-year old son of slain Philippine journalist Percival “Percy Lapid” Mabasa, who was shot to death in Metro Manila in October 2022. Mark Mabasa had received death threats in the Philippines following the murder of his father and had sought asylum in the […]

(Washington, DC) – United States forces intercepted and destroyed eight Ecuadorian fishing vessels between August 28 and September 16, 2026, detaining over 140 of 160 crew members and abusing some, Human Rights Watch said today. The US and Ecuadorian governments should disclose the legal basis for these operations and promptly investigate the abuses. US military forces have alleged […]

(Washington, DC) – US immigration authorities have detained at least eight Nicaraguan exiles whom the Ortega-Murillo government has stripped of their nationality, including some with pending asylum claims, Human Rights Watch said today.  Seven of the people detained were among 222 political prisoners whom the Nicaraguan government expelled to the United States, declared “traitors,” and […]

North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Son-gyong, in his September 28 address to the United Nations General Assembly, asserted that the country’s status as a permanent nuclear state is “uncompromisingly and permanently fixed, both physically and legally.” This was an unmistakable reference to a March constitutional amendment that codified the centrality of North Korea’s nuclear doctrine. Meanwhile, […]

In November 2013, I went to Bangui and met Michel Djotodia, then the Central African Republic’s self-proclaimed interim president. He had taken over the country as the head of a rebel coalition called the Seleka. He received me in a run-down military camp on a hill overlooking the capital, in a darkened office watched over by security cameras […]

The National Human Rights Commission in Mauritius earlier this year urged the government to legally recognize same-sex marriages, stating that the refusal to recognize such unions is discriminatory and lacks justification under domestic law. The Commission’s recommendation comes after two same-sex couples filed complaints alleging that the country’s civil status office’s refusal to register their […]

An unusual trial will begin next week in London’s High Court: the families of two 23-year-old Tanzanian men who were fatally shot in 2019 at a Canadian-owned gold mine in northern Tanzania are bringing a case against the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), an industry body that oversees the London gold market. Another 30 Tanzanians […]

(Berlin, October 1, 2026) – Uzbek officials should immediately ensure the safety and well-being of an imprisoned Karakalpak blogger and lawyer, Dauletmurat Tazhimuratov, and secure his release, Human Rights Watch said today. Since his conviction and transfer to prison in 2023, prison officials and other prisoners have apparently beaten and subjected Tazhimuratov to other humiliations repeatedly […]