Author: Human Rights Watch

(London) – Bangladesh’s recently elected prime minister, Tarique Rahman, and his Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government face many urgent challenges but can use this opportunity to bring lasting protections of human rights, nine rights groups wrote in a letter to Rahman published today. Prime Minister Rahman came to office following a landslide election victory in […]

(Washington) – El Salvador is forcibly disappearing and arbitrarily detaining Salvadorans deported from the United States, Human Rights Watch said today, one year after some of the men were sent to El Salvador. The detained people are among more than 9,000 Salvadorans deported by the United States since the start of 2025. Some of them were […]

Over two-and-a-half years after Niger’s military coup, the country’s ousted president, Mohamed Bazoum, and his wife remain detained without legal basis. On March 11, the European Parliament unanimously adopted an urgent resolution condemning their arbitrary detention, as well as that of “other individuals detained in the coup,” and calling for their immediate release. Niger’s Foreign Affairs Ministry reacted sharply, […]

A new report prepared under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) documents a significant deterioration in human rights and democratic standards in Georgia and calls for urgent reforms to protect fundamental freedoms. Published on March 12, the report was prepared by an OSCE fact-finding mission after 23 participating states invoked […]

A ruling this week by Ukraine’s Supreme Court recognizing a same-sex couple as a de facto family marks a significant victory for equality. The case involves Zorian Kis, a Ukrainian diplomat, and his partner Tymur Levchuk. After years of legal struggle, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision recognizing that the couple constitutes a family under […]

While many Israelis are taking shelter from missile and drone attacks, armed settlers in the West Bank are taking advantage of the fog of war to seize land and advance Israel’s ongoing dispossession and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. On a daily basis, settlers are invading Palestinian communities, firing live ammunition, setting homes and cars on fire, and attacking families […]

(Paris) – Formula One (F1) and its governing federation, the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), should address the risk of governments using upcoming 2026 Grand Prix events to whitewash human rights abuses, Human Rights Watch said today. The Formula 1 Grand Prix season in 2026 includes races in 24 countries, including in Bahrain, China, Saudi Arabia, […]

The Australian government’s decision to grant asylum to five members of the Iranian women’s national football team and one official shows the importance of protecting courageous athletes who stand up for what they believe. The six Iranians sought protection in Australia after their final match of the Asian Women’s Cup on March 8. In their opening […]

Earlier this week the Special Criminal Court in the Central African Republic (CAR) announced that Maturin Kombo, who was in the court’s custody charged with crimes committed in 2014, died in hospital in Bangui. Twelve years ago, as CAR was in the throes of a civil war, I arrived in the village of Guen, in the southwest of […]

(Washington, DC, March 12, 2026) – Ecuador’s Constitutional Court’s ruling, made public on March 10, 2026, that people under 18 cannot automatically be refused a request to modify their gender on identity documents is an important victory for the rights of transgender youth, Human Rights Watch said today. The ruling affirms that constitutional protection cannot […]