Author: Human Rights Watch

(Nairobi) – Ugandan authorities should immediately restore internet access and refrain from imposing blanket shutdowns that undermine fundamental rights and threaten election integrity, Human Rights Watch said today. “Uganda’s constitution and international human rights obligations guarantee access to information and freedom of expression, rights that are especially critical to protect during election periods,” said Tomiwa Ilori, senior […]

On February 12, Bangladesh is scheduled to hold its first general elections since the country’s August 2024 Monsoon revolution. But ahead of the elections, attacks on women, girls, and religious minorities are on the rise, exposing the interim government’s failure to protect fundamental human rights.   Police data shows that gender-based violence increased between January and […]

Last month, Azerbaijani police raided a venue in the capital Baku, known as a safe space for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, and detained over 100 people. According to witnesses and independent media, those detained were abused by police who made it seem like the operation was to target sexual and gender minorities […]

Col. Claude Pivi, Guinea’s former minister for presidential security and one of the men convicted in a landmark trial for rapes and killings committed in Guinea in 2009, reportedly died in custody in a hospital on January 6, 2026, of natural causes. On July 31, 2024, a Guinean court issued a verdict for the September 28, 2009 massacre, in which […]

The Hungarian government is failing to ensure older people’s rights to social security and an adequate standard of living, including access to sufficient food, medicine, and energy. The rise in poverty among older people, which became evident during sharp inflation in 2022 and 2023, highlights longstanding structural problems with the Hungarian pension and social security […]

New reporting that US forces used an aircraft painted to appear civilian for a lethal strike on a boat in the Caribbean Sea on September 2, 2025—killing 11 people—raises new questions about the erosion of internal safeguards on US military operations. According to The New York Times, officials briefed on the strike said the aircraft had […]

UK lawmakers are set to vote on January 14 on a proposed amendment to the Public Order Act 2023 (POA) that would classify “life sciences” facilities as “key national infrastructure.” If adopted, the change, which is drafted in vague and broad language, would expose people who organize or participate in protests near a wide range […]

(Beirut) – Saudi authorities executed at least 356 people in 2025, setting a new record in the country for the highest number of executions in one year since monitoring began, Human Rights Watch said today. This is the second year in a row that Saudi authorities have set a new execution record, with 345 registered in […]

Murder, rape, torture, slavery: children are targeted for these and other crimes against humanity that occur in widespread or systematic attacks on civilian populations. Crimes against humanity may damage children’s physical and psychosocial development even more severely than adults’ and cause harm throughout their lives. Unlike for war crimes and genocide, there is no dedicated […]

(Beirut) – Lebanon’s government should hold to account officials responsible for the January 2025 unlawful extradition of the Egyptian-Turkish poet Abdulrahman Youssef al-Qaradawi to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Human Rights Watch and MENA Rights Group said today. Al-Qaradawi remains arbitrarily detained there in near-incommunicado conditions.  Lebanese authorities arrested al-Qaradawi on December 28, 2024, upon his return […]