Author: Human Rights Watch

Play Video Read a text description of this video SOUNDBITES Toto Arara Every year, the invaders clear more land for cattle. Then they burn it.   SOUNDBITES Givanildo dos Santos Lima Today, the biggest driver of deforestation in the Amazon region is cattle ranching. DATE/PLACE February 2025 Cachoeira Seca Indigenous Territory, Brazil   Powdem Arara […]

A country’s gross domestic product (GDP), which measures total economic output, is central to how governments assess their economies. But this figure, when looked at in isolation, which is most often the case, incentivizes economic systems that value aggregate productivity, without reflecting environmental degradation, inequality or human rights. A new 14-member high-level expert group, appointed by […]

Today the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs voted to adopt its position amending the European Union’s landmark corporate accountability law that will seriously curtail efforts to mitigate the impact of businesses on human rights and the environment. The “Omnibus I” proposal severely undermines essential elements of the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), adopted […]

(Milan, October 13, 2025) – Italy should revoke its damaging migrant cooperation agreement with Libya, Human Rights Watch said today. The Italy-Libya Memorandum of Understanding on migration cooperation will renew automatically for three years on November 2, 2025, if neither party revokes it or makes any revisions by that date. The agreement, signed in 2017, […]

On Monday evening, Myanmar military paramotors, or motorized paragliders, dropped munitions on a candlelit Buddhist festival in Sagaing Region, killing at least 21 people, including three children as young as 2. Hundreds of villagers had gathered in a primary school compound to celebrate the Thadingyut holiday and demonstrate against military abuses in the embattled region. […]

Fifteen organizations including Human Rights Watch sent letters to European Union officials and lawmakers this week pressing the European Commission to follow through on its commitments to stop the export of pesticides that are banned in the EU. EU regulators have banned these pesticides within the EU after reviewing evidence that they pose unacceptable risks either to […]

Burkina Faso authorities on October 6 released Rasmané Zinaba and Bassirou Badjo, two members of the civil society group Balai Citoyen, who had been unlawfully conscripted into military service after criticizing the country’s military junta.  Their release is an encouraging if not unprecedented development in a country where the government has increasingly violated human rights since the 2022 military […]

On October 9, the Bangladesh authorities filed charges against 28 people  for enforced disappearances, secret detention, and torture. It was a long time coming. A “smear campaign,” the home minister had scoffed in 2017, after Human Rights Watch released a report on secret detentions and enforced disappearances in Bangladesh. When I had met with him, the minister, Asaduzzaman Khan, […]

(Beirut) – A Tunisian court sentenced a man to death last week for peaceful Facebook posts, Human Rights Watch said today. He received a presidential pardon days later, but this is an unprecedented sentence for nonviolent expression in Tunisia. Tunisian authorities should stop detaining and prosecuting people solely for exercising their right of expression. Saber […]

(New York) – The Chinese government should drop the baseless charges against the artist Gao Zhen (高兟) and allow him and his family to return to the United States, Human Rights Watch said today. Gao’s family said the 69-year-old artist, a permanent US resident, is in poor health and had fainted in September 2025. Chinese authorities […]