Author: Human Rights Watch

The Burkina Faso junta’s suspension of the country’s largest student union is the latest in a series of government crackdowns on freedoms of association and expression. On May 26, the minister of territorial administration signed a decree suspending the activities of the General Union for Burkina Students (L’union générale des étudiants burkinabè, UGEB) for a renewable period […]

(Berlin, May 28, 2026) – Kazakhstan authorities on May 25, 2026, forcibly transferred a defrocked Russian Orthodox priest, Yakov Vorontsov, to a psychiatric facility outside Almaty, Human Rights Watch said today. A Kazakhstan court on May 18 had ordered his transfer there from pretrial detention, where he had been held since February on dubious drug-related […]

(Berlin, May 28, 2026) – Russian authorities have banned nine groups that provide support to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people as “extremist,” Human Rights Watch said today. The apparent aim is to further suppress, stigmatize, and criminalize those who document abuses, share information, and provide legal, medical, and other assistance to Russia’s LGBT […]

(New York) – Ten years after United Nations Security Council Resolution 2286 was adopted to protect health care in armed conflict, attacks on hospitals and healthcare workers continue, Human Rights Watch said today. Resolution 2286, unanimously adopted on May 3, 2016, obligates countries to “prevent and address” attacks on health. A decade later, a new report […]

The National Human Rights Commission of Korea has been reviewing a discrimination petition filed last October by a man in a same-sex relationship who was denied marriage leave by his employer. The employer’s policy offered marriage leave without defining marriage or providing criteria for employees to satisfy to claim the benefit. When the employee provided a […]

Armenia will hold parliamentary elections on June 7 that will determine the country’s next government. Whichever party or parties prevail, what happens after the vote may prove whether Armenia has built foundations strong enough since independence to protect human rights and the rule of law in a contested political moment. The stakes on June 7 […]

On May 20, a court in California temporarily suspended a Trump administration policy that stripped key protections from immigrant survivors of domestic violence. The 2025 directive at issue had made many immigrant survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking much more vulnerable to arrest, detention or deportation by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). Congress […]

Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity), the Catholic Church’s authoritative pastoral letter released on May 25, emphasized the need for “safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence,” including the use of AI in warfare and the threat posed by killer robots. Building on the church’s long-held position, Pope Leo wrote that “the […]

Russian occupation authorities are seizing civilian property in occupied areas of Ukraine, despite international law prohibiting occupying powers from such conduct. Authorities have introduced a sham process to declare properties “ownerless” and transfer them to municipal ownership, while also imposing administrative and travel barriers making it nearly impossible for displaced Ukrainians to assert their rights. […]

(Nairobi) – The 2016 conviction in Senegal of former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré was a pivotal moment in the pursuit of justice for atrocity crimes, Human Rights Watch and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) said today. The verdict, which followed a 25-year legal campaign by Habré’s victims, was the first time the domestic courts […]