Author: Human Rights Watch

Today the UN Human Rights Council firmly rejected Eritrea’s attempt to end scrutiny of its human rights situation. Council members decisively voted down the Eritrean government’s resolution to end the mandate of the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea and instead renewed the mandate for another year.

This vote – with 25 states voting against the resolution and only 4 in favor – sends an important message that the international community is not fooled by Eritrea’s efforts to distract from, and discredit, independent human rights reporting on the country’s dire rights record.

The resolution Eritrea presented claimed that “gaps in the promotion and protection of human rights in Eritrea are not systemic,” and “like other developing countries,” Eritrea simply faces “capacity constraints” when it comes to human rights protection.

The special rapporteur’s reporting, which shines a much-needed spotlight on a devastating reality, begs to differ.

Presenting his latest report to the Council in June, the special rapporteur highlighted the lack of progress on accountability ten years after the publication of the landmark report of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Eritrea, which concluded that “systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations […] committed in Eritrea under the authority of the Government […] may constitute crimes against humanity.”

The special rapporteur’s report noted that arbitrary detentions and enforced disappearances remained widespread and systematic, and that freedom of religion remains severely restricted, among other serious abuses. It also voiced grave concerns over the continued abusive policy of indefinite national service, including compulsory military conscription, which means that most Eritreans spend their lives in government service.

During negotiations, Eritrea argued that the mandate should end because it had no impact, and because the special rapporteur had never set foot in the country: a circular argument suggesting their refusal to cooperate should be grounds to end international scrutiny.

Following the defeat of their initiative, Eritrea once again attacked the mandate and vowed to “never engage” with the special rapporteur, underscoring again that this lack of cooperation is the very reason such scrutiny remains essential.

The Council’s firm rejection of Eritrea’s initiative comes as a relief to Eritrean rights groups who had been campaigning for the renewal since May.

Their message is clear: only once Eritrea ends its abusive practice of indefinite conscription, releases all those being held unlawfully, and Eritreans are free to speak, meet, and pray freely, should the Council even consider changing tack. 

On June 20, the Court of Grave Crimes in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku handed down severe prison sentences to a team of independent journalists from Abzas Media, an outlet known for its hard-hitting investigative journalism. Days later, the same court convicted Bahruz Samadov, an outspoken government critic and peace activist. These verdicts fit a pattern of politically motivated arrests and prosecutions pursued by authorities intent on snuffing out independent activism.

In the Abzas Media case, three of the organization’s staff members – its director, Ulvi Hasanli, editor-in-chief, Sevinc Vagifgizi, and investigative reporter, Hafiz Babali – were sentenced to nine years in prison, as was an independent economist, Farid Mehralızadeh, who gave interviews to the outlet. The court sentenced journalists Nargiz Absalamova and Elnara Gasimova to eight years, while the outlet’s deputy director, Mahammad Kekalov, received a seven-and-a-half-year sentence.

All seven were convicted on spurious smuggling and other charges, levied against them in retaliation for their work investigating corruption. The charges stem from Azerbaijan’s prohibitive rules on grants, which marginalize civil society and force many groups to suspend work, move abroad, or even shut down.

In another mockery of justice, the court sentenced Bahruz Samadov in a closed-door hearing to 15 years in prison on bogus high treason charges. A researcher and student at Charles University in Prague, Samadov was detained in August 2024 while visiting his ailing grandmother. He vehemently denies the charges, claiming they are retaliation for his academic work and speeches criticizing the Azerbaijani government’s human rights violations and its military campaign to regain control over Nagorno Karabakh.

These convictions are part of the Azerbaijani authorities’ broader campaign to silence dissent, which intensified around the COP29 climate summit.

Human Rights Watch has documented the government’s repeated use of dubious criminal charges, including currency smuggling and treason, to target journalists, civil society activists, and academics. Staff from other independent media outlets, such as Toplum TV and Meydan TV, have also been arrested and are awaiting trial.

Azerbaijani authorities should immediately release all those unjustly imprisoned and end its relentless crackdown on critics. The European Union and Azerbaijan’s other international partners should condemn the escalating crackdown, call on the authorities to free journalists and other activists jailed for nothing more than exercising their fundamental rights, and impose targeted sanctions on those responsible for orchestrating and carrying out these gross injustices.

(Washington, DC) – The budget reconciliation bill passed by the United States Senate today would extend tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the country’s wealthiest families while reducing spending on health and other public programs essential for human rights, Human Rights Watch said today. If signed into law, it would strip millions of people of health insurance coverage and harm rights in numerous other ways. 

“It’s appalling that President Trump ran on a campaign to fix the economy but is delivering a budget that makes ordinary people pay with their health for tax breaks for millionaires,” said Matt McConnell, economic justice and rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The United States deserves a health care system that fulfills everyone’s human right to health, and a budget that makes this possible.” 

The nearly 1,000-page bill, officially labeled the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, aims to reshape how the US government raises and spends money. It would extend and deepen expensive tax cuts that the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan government research agency, found overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy, and radically reduce federal support for public services and programs, including those essential for the right to health. 

The US should align its tax and budget policies with human rights. That means prioritizing the protection and fulfilment of all rights, including the right to health, and designing tax systems that are compatible with those imperatives. This bill would do the opposite, Human Rights Watch said. 

The Budget Office officials estimated that the version of the bill that passed the House of Representatives would reduce the financial resources available to the lowest-earning 10 percent of households by $1,600 per year, effectively cutting their incomes by an average of about 4 percent. The Budget Office also found that changes to federal tax provisions included in the bill, especially the extension of provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a law enacted through budget reconciliation during the previous Trump administration, would increase financial resources for the richest 10 percent of households by about $12,000 per year, increasing their incomes by an average of about 2.3 percent.

This dramatically increased financial burden on the poorest households in the US is largely the result of nontax measures also included in the budget, including deep spending cuts to health care, food assistance, and other critical public programs. These cuts would make health care less available, more expensive, and of poorer quality for millions of people.

Medicaid, the public program that provides health insurance to more than 71 million low-income people, would bear the brunt of this austerity. Coverage under other public and publicly organized health insurance, including the Children’s Health Insurance Program, would also be significantly restricted, especially for immigrants. Through radically reduced federal funding and myriad changes to laws and policies, including expanding costly and unwarranted work requirements, the bill would radically reduce the number of people with health insurance coverage in the US. 

A Budget Office report found that the version of the bill that was passed by the Senate today contains provisions that would cause an estimated 11.8 million people to lose health insurance coverage and become uninsured by 2034. This would increase the number of uninsured people in the US by nearly 50 percent, exposing millions to high drug and hospital costs, forcing many to forgo or ration health care. 

The changes to Medicaid may also radically reduce the funding that many health care providers receive, particularly rural and so-called “safety net” hospitals that provide care to largely low-income communities, threatening to worsen the availability of health care in many places. Low-income and Black and Hispanic households would be disproportionately harmed.

The bill also contains other measures that would have profound negative impacts on health. It would radically restrict federal funding for services essential for the right to health of women, young people, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities, including by blocking Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood, a major provider of sexual and reproductive health care and gender-affirming care, and ending federal financial support for gender-affirming care for many adults and youth. It would also eliminate funding for programs aimed at reducing air pollution, a major driver of poor health outcomes that contributes to deepening racial health inequalities. 

The proposed bill would also squeeze savings from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the nation’s largest anti-hunger program, potentially causing more than 3 million people to lose food assistance, according to Budget Office estimates.

Taken together, these cuts and changes would threaten the health of millions of people in the US, and the lives of many. In June, researchers from Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania estimated that these changes could cause an additional 51,000 deaths each year. 

The budget bill also contains other provisions harmful to rights. It seeks to use tens of billions of dollars in public money – and perhaps much more – to expand immigration detention, including for families. Violations already reported during immigration enforcement would only get worse, including through arbitrary detention, denial of due process, and inhumane detention conditions. 

The Senate must now confer with the US House of Representatives to reconcile differences between the two versions of act passed through the two chambers. House members should take advantage of that second opportunity to reject the bill, Human Rights Watch said. 

“This bill with its draconian cuts and massive transfer of wealth from public goods to private pockets is not a solution to economic inequality or for managing immigration and asylum procedures,” McConnell said. “It is a blueprint for cruelty.”

• Russian courts have issued over 100 convictions for “extremism” for participating in the “International LGBT Movement” or displaying its alleged symbols.
• Russian authorities weaponize and misuse the justice system as a tool in their draconian crusade to enforce “traditional values” and marginalize and censor LGBT people.
• Russia’s international interlocutors should call on the Kremlin to end its persecution of LGBT people and their supporters; governments should provide safe haven and meaningful protection to those fleeing Russia for fear of prosecution.

(Berlin, June 30, 2025) – Russian courts have issued 101 “extremism”-related convictions for allegedly participating in the “International LGBT Movement” or displaying its alleged symbols, Human Rights Watch said today. The prosecutions, approximately 98 of them for administrative, or minor misdemeanor, offenses and three for criminal liability, demonstrate Russian authorities’ determination to penalize, persecute, and silence lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people and their supporters.

In 2023, Russia’s Supreme Court designated the “International Public LGBT Movement” an “extremist” organization: a legal and factual mischaracterization of a diverse, decentralized global human rights cause. The ruling entered into force in January 2024, opening the floodgates for arbitrary prosecutions of individuals who are LGBT or perceived to be, along with anyone who defends their rights or expresses solidarity with them. 

“Russian authorities weaponize and misuse the justice system as a tool in their draconian crusade to enforce ‘traditional values’ and marginalize and censor LGBT people,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “They are flagrantly violating Russians’ rights to free expression, association, and nondiscrimination.”

Human Rights Watch identified the 101 cases through court websites and other official channels. Russia’s 2013 “gay propaganda” law made any positive or neutral depiction or discussion of nonheterosexual relations an administrative offense. The 2023 Supreme Court designation enabled authorities to pursue a broader range of arbitrary charges including, for the first time, criminal prosecutions against LGBT people and their supporters.

Human Rights Watch found that between January 2024 and June 2025 at least 20 people faced criminal charges due to their alleged participation in the “International Public LGBT Movement.” One of the accused died by suicide in pretrial detention. Courts sentenced two to prison. Seventeen cases are pending, or their outcomes are unknown. 

On May 15, 2025, investigators charged three staff from two publishing houses with allegedly “running an extremist organization” (article 282.2 of the Russian Criminal Code) by selling fiction exploring LGBT themes and thereby “recruiting” readers into the “International Public LGBT movement” organization. They face up to 12 years in prison.

Human Rights Watch also identified 81 people in 98 court cases, who since January 2024, had been found guilty of administrative offenses for displaying the symbols of the LGBT movement, such as the rainbow flag, most on social media. Human Rights Watch identified the victims by examining courts’ information and rulings in cases under article 20.3 of the Russian Code of Administrative Offenses for displaying banned symbols, news releases by courts and law enforcement, and reports by media and human rights organizations. 

Some people had multiple administrative convictions. The repeated display of any banned symbol is punishable under the criminal code with up to four years in prison. One person was convicted of criminal charges and sentenced to six months of compulsory labor after posting the rainbow flag on a social media page. 

Many people convicted for administrative offenses deleted their social media accounts, apparently for fear of criminal prosecution.

In 2023, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk condemned the Supreme Court’s “LGBT-extremism” ruling. Independent UN experts warned that the designation enables arbitrary and abusive application of the law and jeopardizes a wide range of activities protected under international human rights law. 

The prosecutions for both criminal and administrative offenses that Human Rights Watch examined blatantly violate the right to receive and impart information and ideas guaranteed by article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Russia is party, and its prohibition on discrimination. They also violate the rights to association, liberty and security of the person, and to privacy, among others.

In May 2025, two leading Russian LGBT rights organizations, Coming Out and Sphere, documented that after the Supreme Court decision, LGBT support groups “experienced a substantial rise in requests for assistance with departure, processing humanitarian visas, seeking asylum and emergency evacuation under circumstances of persecution.” They also emphasized that the ruling “severely constrained the operational capabilities of support organizations, leading to the closure of queer spaces and events, forcing them into clandestine modes of operation.” 

“Russia’s international partners should call on the government to end its persecution of LGBT people and their supporters,” Williamson said. “Other governments should also provide safe haven and meaningful protection to those fleeing Russia for fear of prosecution based on their sexual orientation or gender identity and their public expressions of support for LGBT rights.”

For additional details, please see below.

Methodology

Human Rights Watch collected data from official courts’ websites related to cases of displaying banned symbols, focusing on cases dating from November 2023. The researcher then reviewed social media pages mentioned in or identifiable from the court judgments and their archived versions, if available.

To supplement this data, the researcher archived and reviewed Telegram messages from 213 official channels for various branches of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, courts, and Russia’s chief investigative agency. The researcher also archived and reviewed messages from channels run by rights groups and independent media, which mentioned “LGBT,” extremism, banned symbols, and relevant articles of criminal and administrative law. We also reviewed published research findings and databases by prominent civil society groups, such as Sova Center, OVD-Info, and Political Prisoners Support. Memorial.

To avoid creating additional security risks for the people targeted, Human Rights Watch did not link to the court cases cited unless they were previously covered in the media or the defendants’ social media pages.

Convictions for Administrative Offenses

Human Rights Watch identified 97 convictions on charges under article 20.3 of the Russian Code of Administrative Offenses for alleged displays of LGBT symbols, and one conviction under article 20.29 of the same code for distributing content justifying extremism.

The first conviction under article 20.3, for publishing the rainbow flag on social media, appeared to be on January 25, 2024. Since then, the number of such cases has increased quickly. Thirty-eight of the cases were brought in Moscow, the most for any region in Russia.

Human Rights Watch found one initial acquittal by a court of first instance. In January 2024, a Krasnodar court held that the defendant had not committed an offense because they had published an “LGBT flag” on their social media page before the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision. However, the police appealed the ruling and the regional court ruled in their favor finding that the defendant had not deleted the flag after it had been outlawed and committed the offense by omission.

In many court decisions, the illicit symbol is only described in general terms, such as “the symbol of the ‘International Public LGBT movement.’” In most cases, it appears to be the six-color rainbow flag identified in the Supreme Court decision as one of the organization’s symbols. In at least two instances, people appear to have been prosecuted for displaying a regular seven-colored rainbow. In at least one case, the case related to a blue-pink-white flag, a symbol associated with transgender people’s rights.

Seven people were convicted for offline activities. In January 2024, a court in Nizhny Novgorod sentenced Anastasia Ershova to five days in detention for wearing frog-shaped rainbow-colored earrings, following an apparent politically motivated assault against her and her friend, which was recorded by the assailant and published online. 

Another person in the city of Perm was fined for placing the rainbow flag in their window. Two others were charged for taking a picture with the rainbow flag outdoors in the middle of the night in the Moscow region.

In November 2024, a court in Nizhny Novgorod fined a teacher for placing the rainbow flag in the school’s space designed to promote tolerance. Also in November, a court in Yakutsk imposed an additional sentence on a prisoner for allegedly showing the rainbow flag to other prisoners. In May 2025, the same court convicted another prisoner who allegedly drew a picture in a notebook, using the rainbow colors.

Ninety convictions have been for online activities; most for posts, images or user profile information published on social media, with 61 on VKontakte, Russia’s largest social media platform. Thirteen were based on information law enforcement identified on Telegram. The remaining cases were based on activities on other platforms: Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, TikTok, Odnoklassniki (another Russian social media site), a dating website, a stock photo website, and the official state services portal.

The police also pursued charges for using the rainbow flag in memes sent in public and closed group chats or for displaying it on profile pictures or using the rainbow flag emoji in a post or profile status. In one case, the head of a regional campaign office for an opposition candidate in the 2024 presidential election was detained for six days for reposting a picture with the rainbow flag in a closed friends’ chat of 11 people. OVD-Info, a leading Russian rights organization, said that the police received access to the group after one of the participants’ accounts was hacked.

Not everyone targeted had used the rainbow flag in support of LGBT people or a neutral context. In April 2024, a court in Volgograd fined an administrator of a xenophobic and homophobic Telegram channel for publishing a video showing the Swedish military at the 2023 Pride parade.

In another context, a court in Moscow fined Aleksandra Marova for including contact information for the psychological support helpline of the Russian LGBT Network, a prominent support group, in a post she published following a devastating March 2024 armed attack on a concert hall. Her conviction was under article 20.29 of the Code of Administrative Offenses, which punishes distributing materials on the Ministry of Justice’s list of extremist materials or “other” materials “justifying” extremist activities.

In 17 cases, courts sanctioned defendants with detention. The average punishment was 8 days of a maximum of 15 days by law. In 81 cases, courts imposed fines of up to the maximum 2,000 rubles (US$25).

Repeat Offenses

Under the 2022 amendments to Russia’s Criminal Code, repeat displays of banned symbols—after the person has served the first administrative sentence—are punishable by up to four years in prison, even if a different symbol unrelated to LGBT rights is displayed in subsequent cases. 

One person wrote on social media: “The issue is of course not a thousand rubles but the [criminal] liability for subsequent violations of the law, which, as it turns out, can stem from harmless old posts, if so desired [by the authorities].”

The threat of criminal prosecution is far from illusory. According to Supreme Court Judicial Department data, courts imposed 131 convictions in 2024 for repeated displays of banned symbols under article 282.4 of the criminal code. Human Rights Watch identified one criminal case under that provision in 2025, in which the person was convicted following a conviction for an administrative offense for an old social media post displaying the rainbow flag. 

The convicted person said in online videos that they were not contesting the charges. The court sentenced them to six months of compulsory labor and banned them from publishing content on social media or participating in group chats. After the judgment entered into force, the victim deleted their social media accounts.

In recent years, Russian authorities have outlawed a variety of organizations as “extremist” or “terrorist,” and banned their symbols.

Prosecutions for displays of banned symbols spiked in 2020, when the Supreme Court designated as “extremist” a popular subculture related to prison culture. A court in Krasnoyarsk sentenced an artist under the “extremist symbols” article in September 2024 for making a roly-poly toy with prison tattoos.

In 2024, human rights defender Alexey Sokolov spent six months in pretrial detention on charges of repeatedly displaying the Facebook logo on a website (in 2022, Russian authorities designated Meta an “extremist organization”). He was released in January 2025 pending trial.

In recent years, the list of banned organizations has ballooned with Ukrainian military units, volunteer units fighting alongside Ukraine, anticolonial and Indigenous groups, local and countrywide protest movements and opposition organizations, Instagram and Facebook, and owners of Ukrainian food and beverage conglomerates. 

Law enforcement and judicial practice with regard to banned symbols is also constantly expanding. Human Rights Watch has recorded that after the June 2021 designation of organizations led by the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny as “extremist,” courts issued 194 convictions for administrative offenses. Courts arbitrarily named as “extremist” symbols, the names, and logos of the organizations themselves, those of related opposition initiatives, pictures of Navalny or his name, and slogans in support of political prisoners or against President Vladimir Putin.

“Erasure”

The broad and ambiguous nature of Russian anti-extremism legislation turned it into a powerful censorship tool that also forces many to self-censor. In a 2024 survey of LGBT people in Russia conducted by Sphere and Coming Out, 82 percent said they saw personal risks after the movement’s “extremist” designation, and 88 percent said they had been “affected by the government’s LGBT+ censorship.”

In 11 administrative cases reviewed by Human Rights Watch, the convicted individuals deleted their posts or photographs that had triggered the charges. One person deleted many of their posts, including information about sexual health, discussions of history, and links to or mentions of health videos on Instagram.

In 32 cases with convictions, the content had arguably been published before the Supreme Court’s 2023 extremism decision entered into force, some as far back as 10 years ago. One person, who received three administrative fines, argued in court that they posted the publications that had triggered the cases in 2014–2015. Three others were convicted for posts dating back to 2016. Russian courts consider “unlawful” online publications a “continuing” offense, indefinitely extending the legal risks. 

Current Russian legislation stipulates that once authorities identify offending content under article 20.3, they have three months to prosecute, or the case must be discontinued. In at least one case examined, the authorities apparently disregarded that requirement. The defendant, Sergei Sosov, who was prosecuted on charges of insulting the memory of veterans, is recognized as a political prisoner by Memorial, a leading Russian rights group.

People with an active online presence would find it extremely difficult to ensure that nothing they had ever posted could be considered “extremist” at some later time. In 28 cases reviewed, following prosecutions for posting LGBT symbols, people deleted not just the posts that triggered prosecution, but their social media pages entirely, or closed them to the public.

A journalist and LGBT activist told Sphere and Coming Out, “The key words for 2024 for me are ‘isolation,’ ‘loneliness,’ ‘fear,’ and ‘the erasure of queer culture,’ unfortunately.”

The prohibition on retroactive application of criminal law is a core principle of due process, and enshrined in international human rights law. The ban covers prosecutions under the Code of Administrative Offenses, because although the offenses are labeled “administrative,” they are equivalent to misdemeanor crimes, qualify as substantively criminal in nature, and attract criminal penalties including potential custodial sentences.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled against Russia in 2024 and 2025 in cases involving convictions under the Code of Administrative Offenses for actions that in part had taken place long before they were punishable under the code. The court, finding multiple violations of the European Convention on Human Rights, ruled that “imposing a responsibility … to foresee future designations constitutes an impossible and unreasonable burden” and that such retrospective application of the law results in a “chilling effect” and violates the right to expression.

Criminal Charges

The first known criminal conviction based on a repeated display of the rainbow flag as an “extremist” symbol was handed down in May 2025.

Separately, authorities opened multiple cases against people accused of “participating in” or “running” the “LGBT movement.” In February, the state news agency RIA Novosti reported that, according to the Federal Security Service, a person already serving a prison sentence in Kemerovo region received an additional six-year prison sentence for participating in the “LGBT movement” and “involving” other prisoners in its activities.

In March, a doctor in Ulyanovsk region who faced a maximum punishment of one year in prison for alleged sexual coercion, was also prosecuted for “involving” the other man in the “LGBT movement,” and received a three-year sentence.

In December 2024, Andrei Kotov died by suicide in a pretrial detention center where he was held on charges of running an “extremist organization.” The authorities claimed Kotov’s company Men Travel, which sought to market tourist travel to gay men, was a “branch” of the LGBT movement.

The review of media, human rights groups and law enforcement reports from November 2023 to the present found that 17 other people have faced criminal LGBT-related extremism charges, including for running bars popular among LGBT people, dating people of the same sex, and advocating for LGBT rights. 

On May 15, 2025, investigators pressed charges against three staff of two publishing houses. They were accused of participating in the “extremist” organization “LGBT movement” and recruiting people into it by selling fiction books that included references to LGBT people and same-sex relationships. At the time of writing, they remain under house arrest and each faces up to 12 years in prison.

Many more LGBT people and their allies are at risk of arbitrary and discriminatory prosecutions. Since the November 2023 designation, police have conducted dozens of raids on establishments popular among LGBT people, recorded the clients’ personal data, and examined the contents of their devices.

In March 2025, a Moscow court rejected a lawsuit by an activist, Yaroslav Rasputin, against his designation as a “foreign agent”; a smearing label that imposes absurd restrictions and penalties, incompatible with international law. The court claimed he was “secretary” of “International Public LGBT Movement.” In April, a court rejected a similar challenge by Vadim Vaganov to his designation as a “foreign agent,” saying that he is an “activist” of the LGBT movement. 

Other LGBT-Related “Offenses”

Prosecutions for displaying “extremist” LGBT symbols are often accompanied by other administrative charges, with “gay propaganda” one of the most common. 

The authorities sharply intensified their use of “gay propaganda” charges following December 2022 amendments to the “gay propaganda” law. The 2013 law banned spreading among children any information that depicted same-sex relations in a neutral or approving manner (article 6.21). The 2022 amendments extended the ban to adults and added a ban on displays and description of “non-traditional” relations and preferences (article 6.21.2). 

In 2023 and 2024, courts imposed 257 “gay propaganda” penalties, compared with 22 in 2021–2022. Fines levied in the past two years totaled over 63 million rubles (US$780,000). Non-citizens can also be detained if convicted on these administrative charges, followed by mandatory deportation. Eight people received short-term detention sentences, and in 14 cases, courts ordered deportation of alleged offenders who were foreign nationals.

Although the “gay propaganda” law does not allow for criminal prosecution of repeat offenders, the fines under its article 6.21 are much steeper than those under the “extremist symbol” law. The maximum administrative fine for publishing the rainbow flag under the “extremist” symbols law is 2,000 rubles ($25), while individuals can be fined as much as 400,000 rubles ($4,970) if the authorities press charges of engaging in “gay propaganda” among children. 

One person received three fines under the “gay propaganda” law and ten fines for displaying the “extremist” rainbow flag in different pictures posted on social media, 320,000 rubles in total ($4,050). Another person was fined 300,000 rubles ($3,800) for three counts of “gay propaganda,” in addition to 10 days in detention for displaying “extremist” symbols. The descriptions and the dates of these supposed offenses are sometimes identical. 

In addition to pressing “gay propaganda” charges against individuals, TV channels, and streaming services, police have also charged bookstores and online marketplaces that featured books discussing sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as theme bars popular among LGBT people.

In May 2025, a judge in St. Petersburg fined a local bookstore 800,000 rubles ($10,200) for featuring books by Susan Sontag and Olivia Lang, internationally revered writers and cultural critics. Also in May, the authorities brought criminal charges against publishers for publishing fiction books that explore LGBT themes. These developments apparently triggered a massive purge on Russian book markets. 

In the following weeks, publishers asked bookstores to return or destroy dozens of books. On May 29, a prominent Russian book distributor sent a letter to bookstores requiring them to immediately remove 37 books, because they “do not comply with Russian laws.” They included international bestsellers and award-winning titles and touched on a range of topics and views out of sync with the Kremlin’s “traditional values” crusade, including LGBT themes. 

(Beirut) – The recent convictions of 24 defendants in the United Arab Emirates to life imprisonment were based on a fundamentally unfair mass trial, Human Rights Watch said today. On June 26, the Criminal Chamber of the UAE’s Federal Supreme Court overturned a prior judgment to dismiss the cases against 24 defendants, instead reconvicting and sentencing the defendants to life in prison. The UAE originally announced terrorism-related charges against these individuals in 2023 under the country’s deeply flawed counterterrorism law.

The June 26 ruling brings the total number of convictions in the mass trial case to 83, up from 53. Of those convicted, 67 defendants have received life sentences. Eighty-four defendants were originally referred to trial in December 2023. One person appears to have been acquitted, but Human Rights Watch was not able to confirm their identity. 

On July 10, 2024, the Abu Dhabi Federal Appeals Court convicted 53 defendants and meted out sentences ranging from 10 years to life in prison following an unfair mass trial—the UAE’s second-largest—marred by due process and fair trial violations. The court dismissed the criminal cases against 24 others, but the UAE’s attorney general subsequently appealed the 24 dismissals. Yesterday’s ruling is the outcome of that appeal. 

“The UAE’s second-largest mass trial case has been justified under the guise of countering terrorism, but it’s just part of the Emirati government’s relentless efforts to prevent the re-emergence of any independent civil society in the country,” said Joey Shea, United Arab Emirates researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Life in prison for nonviolent activism shows Abu Dhabi’s utter contempt for both peaceful criticism and the rule of law.”

In December 2023, while hosting the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28), Emirati authorities brought charges against at least 84 defendants in retaliation for forming an independent advocacy group in 2010. Many of them were already serving prison sentences for the same or similar offenses. The unfair mass trial was marred by serious due process and fair trial violations, including restricted access to case material and information, limited legal assistance, judges directing witness testimony, violations of the principle of double jeopardy, credible allegations of serious abuse and ill-treatment, and hearings shrouded in secrecy.

In a statement released in January 2024, Emirati authorities accused the 84 defendants of establishing and managing a clandestine terrorist organization in the UAE known as the Justice and Dignity Committee. The charges appear to come from the UAE’s abusive 2014 counterterrorism law, which sets punishments of up to life in prison and even death for anyone who sets up, organizes, or runs such an organization.

Prominent activists such as Ahmed Mansoor, who is on Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa advisory board, and an academic, Nasser bin Ghaith, were on trial in the July 2024 mass trial case; both were sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment.

Given that the charges are based solely on defendants’ peaceful practice of their human rights and that the convictions were based on a fundamentally unfair trial, Emirati authorities should immediately overturn the convictions and release all defendants, Human Rights Watch said. 

In March 2025, an Emirati court rejected all appeals by the 53 human rights defenders and political dissidents convicted in July 2024, upholding their unfair convictions and abusive sentences. On March 1, the Emirates News Agency (WAM), the UAE’s official state news agency, announced that the State Security Chamber of the Federal Supreme Court would issue the appeals verdict on March 4. The March 4 session was the first and only hearing for the appeal. None of the detainees were present, and only one of the defendants’ lawyers was able to attend the session, according to the Emirates Detainees Advocacy Center (EDAC), a human rights organization supporting imprisoned human rights defenders in the UAE.

Little is known about the 53 convicted defendants’ conditions because most are denied visits and calls from family members, EDAC said. “From what we have heard, they have been moved out of solitary, but everything is unconfirmed because there is no real source of information,” one relative said. “There is no real way to get information. We think this is just a sham trial.” 

At least 60 of the defendants had already been convicted in 2013 for their involvement with the Justice and Dignity Committee, EDAC said. In 2013, the grossly unfair “UAE94” trial resulted in convictions of 69 critics of the government, including 8 in absentia, on charges that violated their rights to free expression, association, and assembly. These 69 defendants were among 94 people detained beginning in March 2012 in a wave of arbitrary arrests amid an unprecedented crackdown on dissent.

“Emirati authorities should overturn these convictions and release the defendants immediately and unconditionally,” Shea said.

(İstanbul, June 26, 2025) – An Istanbul court’s decision on June 19, 2025, to allow the detention of a leading defense lawyer for the jailed Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu appears to be in reprisal for his legal representation of his client, Human Rights Watch and the Turkey Human Rights Litigation Support Project said today.

Turkish authorities should immediately release the lawyer, Mehmet Pehlivan, whose detention is based on vague witness statements pending an investigation into his alleged “membership of a criminal organization,” an offense carrying a possible sentence of two to four years in prison. Leading a criminal organization is one of the charges İmamoğlu was also detained on. The authorities have targeted at least three other lawyers defending İmamoğlu or his colleagues, initiating investigations against them for speaking to the media or allegedly attempting to interfere with a fair trial.

“It is alarming to see that the Erdoğan government is not only unlawfully attacking its main opposition presidential candidate, but also his defense lawyers,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Detaining Mehmet Pehlivan looks to be a retaliatory abuse of power, and he should be released immediately.”

Failure to release Pehlivan would not only constitute a violation of his right to liberty and security, but his right to discharge his professional duties as a lawyer and his client’s right to a fair trial, the organizations said.

Investigations targeting Pehlivan began days after İmamoğlu’s detention on March 23. Pehlivan had previously said at a February 25 news conference and elsewhere that the authorities’ move to revoke İmamoğlu’s university diploma to prevent him from being eligible as a presidential candidate had been arbitrary and unlawful. Police had previously arrested Pehlivan on March 28 allegedly on suspicion of money laundering. A court released him subject to an international travel ban.

The Istanbul prosecutor called Pehlivan again to testify on June 19. Pehlivan refused on the grounds that the justice minister had not granted permission to investigate him, a necessary prerequisite to opening investigations into lawyers. A court then accepted the prosecutor’s request to detain Pehlivan in the scope of the ongoing criminal investigation targeting İmamoğlu and over 200 officials and businesspeople working with the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality.

Prosecutors are relying on witness statements by two suspects in the investigation under the “effective repentance” law, which potentially allows reduced sentences for helping with the investigation. The Istanbul Court ordered Pehlivan’s detention solely on the basis of these statements.

The witnesses alleged in vague and unsubstantiated terms that Pehlivan operated within what the prosecutor argues was a criminal network’s organizational hierarchy to orchestrate the appointment of particular lawyers to represent and meet with suspects, to attempt to access confidential investigation files and witness statements, and to pressure witnesses

Pehlivan faces another possible criminal investigation after members of Türkiye’s Higher Education Board filed a criminal complaint accusing him of defamation and insult on the basis of his public remarks about the board regarding the revocation of İmamoğlu’s university diploma. Progress in this investigation also depends on Justice Ministry authorization.

The prosecutors opened the investigations against the three other lawyers, alleging that they violated the confidentiality of the investigation by commenting on it in the media or that they allegedly attempted to influence a fair trial by briefing those who were under investigation.

Media reports indicate that the prosecutor’s office planned to investigate a fourth lawyer, but so far he has not been summoned to testify. One of the three lawyers under investigation also acted on behalf of Pehlivan. The three have been conditionally released under court orders that also imposed an international travel ban.

“The judicial harassment of lawyers like Mehmet Pehlivan, who represent clients facing politically motivated charges, is part of a broader pattern of shrinking democratic space and disregard of the rule of law in Turkey,” said Ayşe Bingöl Demir of the Turkey Litigation Support Project. “Lawyers are essential to upholding fundamental rights, and their strong public stance challenges government-led efforts to control the narrative. This crackdown signals that effective legal defense is seen as a threat, and unless firmly addressed by the international community, it risks losing more ground to the growing authoritarianism.”

(Seoul) – South Korea’s new government should adopt measures to address human rights problems in the country and abroad, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to President Lee Jae-myung. It is critically important for the government to bolster democratic institutions, end entrenched discrimination, protect digital rights, and promote North Koreans’ human rights.

President Lee took office on June 4, 2025, after winning the presidential elections following the impeachment of former President Yoon Suk-yeol for imposing martial law in December 2024.

“South Korea’s election cycle followed mass protests in support of accountable government,” said Lina Yoon, senior Korea researcher at Human Rights Watch. “President Lee Jae-myung should engage constructively on the range of human rights issues facing the country, including protecting freedoms of expression, assembly, and the media, strengthening digital rights and social protections, and addressing systemic discrimination against women and marginalized groups.”

The South Korean government should act to safeguard civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights, Human Rights Watch said. These include ensuring the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and the press. The government should also pass a comprehensive anti-discrimination law protecting women and girls, older people, people with low socio-economic status, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, people with disabilities, migrants, and North Korean escapees.

Other priorities include closing the gender pay gap and combating digital sex crimes; ensuring that artificial intelligence regulations protect privacy and children’s rights; and strengthening pensions and social protections. The government should also prevent the misuse of emergency, security, and defamation laws to silence dissent. It should advance climate justice; reduce fossil fuel dependency, notably new liquified natural gas projects, and increase opportunities to generate renewable energy.

The government should also propose legislation to require companies to prevent, mitigate, and remediate actual and potential adverse human rights, labor, environmental, and climate impacts, and promote North Korean human rights through full implementation of the 2016 North Korean Human Rights Act.

“President Lee Jae-myung should recognize that taking office presents both opportunities to advance the rights of the South Korean people and possible pitfalls should existing rights concerns fail to be addressed,” Yoon said. “The new government’s actions will not only affect the rights of people in South Korea, but also those of North Koreans and many others around the world.”

The United Kingdom government has just published draft legislation seeking to “reform” key disability-related aspects of its complex social security system. While the government claims its moves “will protect the most vulnerable,” in reality its plans to cut £4.5 billion in disability-linked benefits by 2030 will have a devastating impact on people’s rights.

The bill proposes freezing, until 2030, the amount of additional health-related support for people with qualifying health conditions or disabilities as part of their Universal Credit payments, the UK’s main social security program. New claimants will only receive half the health-related amount (although the standard component of Universal Credit payments, that all recipients get, will go up). The bill also seeks to freeze rates of an older benefit that supports people who have limited capability for work because of qualifying health conditions or disability.

The bill would also raise eligibility barriers for the daily care component of the Personal Independence Payment (PIP), a key disability-linked benefit. The current qualifying test for PIP—already considered inhumane and degrading because of how it quantifies people’s ability to perform daily tasks like dressing, using the toilet, bathing, and preparing food—will be further tightened if this bill becomes law. 

The government’s own analysis shows that up to 800,000 people will no longer be eligible to receive PIP and that the changes could lead to 200,000 more people (50,000 of them children) in poverty by 2030. Organizations working on social security and disability rights, including Citizens Advice, the Disability Charities Consortium, and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, have warned of the poverty the cuts will create.

Last month, the chair of the UK Parliament’s Work and Pensions Committee wrote to the government asking it to delay these plans, given the risk of poverty. Earlier this week, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Poverty and Inequality published a report recommending the government abandon the proposals. The government is proceeding anyway. 

The government says it will protect those it considers to have the highest support needs, or nearing the end of their life, ensuring they do not lose their PIP eligibility and continue to receive the full health-related element of Universal Credit. But that is cold comfort to hundreds of thousands people with disabilities anxious about the impact of losing thousands of pounds a year.

Parliamentarians should reject the planned legislation, and be clear that budget savings, however desirable, should not come at the cost of the rights—in particular the right to social security—of people with disabilities. Human dignity must come first.

(Brussels) – The European Union should immediately suspend its trade agreement with Israel as long as Israel’s atrocity crimes persist, Human Rights Watch and over 110 organizations and trade unions said in a joint statement on June 19, 2025. This would be the first measure taken by the EU in the last two years to ensure some accountability for Israeli authorities’ egregious abuses of Palestinians.

EU foreign ministers are expected to discuss the EU-Israel Association Agreement on June 23, when they will receive an assessment of Israel’s compliance with article 2 of the agreement, which qualifies “respect for human rights and democratic principles” in “internal and international policy” as an “essential element” of the agreement. The review was initiated on May 20, when 17 out of 27 EU foreign ministers supported a proposal by the Dutch government. The EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner and suspending the trade pillar of the agreement would reinstate tariffs on bilateral trade.

“As parties to the Genocide Convention, all EU states are bound to ‘employ all reasonable means’ to stop Israeli atrocities, but, instead, many EU states have stood by, quiet and at risk of complicity,” said Claudio Francavilla, acting EU director at Human Rights Watch. “EU foreign ministers shouldn’t let the escalating hostilities between Israel and Iran take focus away from the ongoing extermination and apartheid against the Palestinians; they should suspend the trade pillar of the EU-Israel Association Agreement without further delay.”

Review of the EU-Israel agreement is taking place as Israeli authorities continue their military operations in Gaza, during which they have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide. Israeli authorities have also flouted three binding orders by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in a case brought by South Africa alleging that Israel is violating the Genocide Convention. The court’s measures included requiring Israel to prevent genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, enable the provision of basic services and humanitarian assistance, and prevent and punish incitement to commit genocide.

Human Rights Watch has long called on states to use their leverage to press Israel to halt its abuses and comply with the ICJ’s orders. As parties to the UN Genocide Convention, all EU member states have an obligation to “employ all means reasonably available to them, so as to prevent genocide so far as possible.” That obligation arises as soon as a state learns, or should normally have learned, of a serious risk that genocide may be committed. A definitive determination that genocide is already underway is not required, as Human Rights Watch set out in an April 2025 intervention challenging the UK government’s continued licensing of military equipment used by Israeli forces in Gaza.

The capacity of a state to influence the actors at risk of committing genocide weigh substantially on how courts assess their international responsibility for failing to prevent genocide. This includes factors such as geographic proximity, political and other links, and the means available to the state to exert influence. When considering this responsibility, the ICJ has held that states that have “means likely to have a deterrent effect on those suspected of preparing genocide, or reasonably suspected of harboring specific intent” are “under a duty to make such use of these means.”

Israeli authorities have also failed to comply with the obligations from a landmark July 2024 ICJ advisory opinion, and in a September 2024 UN General Assembly resolution largely endorsing its content. The ICJ found Israel’s occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory to be illegal and marred by serious abuses – including apartheid and racial segregation – and said that it should be dismantled, along with Israel’s illegal settlements. A March 2025 report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights documented a significant expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, where Israeli forces have ratcheted up repression, displacing tens of thousands of Palestinians at a scale not seen there since 1967 and killing over 930 since October 2023.

In its advisory opinion, the ICJ also referenced the obligation of all states parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention – including all EU member states – “to ensure compliance by Israel with international humanitarian law as embodied in that Convention.” The advisory opinion also said that states should take steps to prevent trade relations that “assist in the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel” in the occupied territories, including with relation to “economic or trade dealings.”

Yet, amid sharp divisions, the EU has not adopted any measure to pressure Israeli authorities to comply with the laws of war and prevent genocide.

Unlike measures that require unanimity – such as targeted sanctions, an EU-wide arms embargo, or the suspension of the whole EU-Israel Association Agreement – the suspension of the agreement’s trade pillar would require the support of a qualified majority of EU member states. The suspension, first requested by Spain and Ireland in February 2024, would not result in a complete trade ban but would reinstate tariffs on bilateral trade.

In November, EU foreign ministers received a (recently leaked) report by the then-EU special representative for human rights, Olof Skoog, compiling findings by independent UN bodies and international courts on Israel’s abuses throughout the occupied territory. Shortly afterward, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants against Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, as well as a Hamas leader who has since been killed.

At that time, EU foreign ministers could have taken concrete measures, such as a review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. Instead, they reconvened an official meeting of the EU-Israel Association Council with their Israeli counterpart, Gideon Sa’ar.

During that meeting, held in February amid a fragile ceasefire in Gaza, the EU said the Israeli government should take a number of actions, including implementing the ICJ binding orders to allow unhindered provision of humanitarian aid at scale throughout Gaza and ending Israel’s illegal settlement policy in the West Bank. Israeli authorities defied those calls, and instead imposed a total siege on Gaza and approved new West Bank settlements.

A UN conference on a two-state solution and Middle East peace, set to be held from June 17–20, was postponed due to the ongoing hostilities between Israel and Iran. In a June 5 letter, Human Rights Watch urged EU member states to use the conference as an opportunity to move beyond repeated affirmations of support for human rights and international law, and toward concrete, time-bound measures – such as suspending arms transfers and bilateral deals and banning trade with settlements – to ensure their enforcement.

In fact, with the exception of notable initiatives by individual member states and targeted sanctions against some violent Israeli settlers, EU action has largely been paralyzed by the European Commission’s reluctance and opposition by a core group of governments – chiefly Hungary, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, and Austria, but also Greece, Cyprus, Croatia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, and Romania – creating a sense of impunity among Israeli authorities.

The ongoing review of the Association Agreement is the closest the EU has come to holding Israeli authorities to account; however, the review will have little practical effect if not followed by the suspension of the trade pillar, Human Rights Watch said.

“For nearly 21 months now, the EU has watched escalating atrocities against Palestinians without taking any real measure to uphold international law,” Francavilla said. “Reviewing and suspending the agreement is a chance for the bloc to salvage what’s left of the credibility of its commitment to human rights and international law, and to finally take action to respond to Israeli authorities ongoing acts of genocide.”

In Nepal’s latest attempt to silence online speech, police are trying to arrest a well-known journalist who published on his YouTube channel claims about the business interests of a leading political family.

Dil Bhushan Pathak reported three weeks ago about the alleged investments of a member of a political family. Kathmandu’s district court issued an arrest warrant for him on June 11 following a complaint by the family to the Cyber Bureau of Nepal Police.

On June 16, the Patan high court issued a temporary order that Pathak should not be arrested, but on June 17 police issued a fresh summons to Pathak in apparent disregard of the court order. At the time of writing this dispatch, police had not been able to locate Pathak.

Pathak is being sought under Nepal’s Electronic Transactions Act, a law which is purportedly designed to regulate online transactions, but which has previously been used to arrest people in relation to online speech. On the same day that the district court issued the arrest warrant it also used the same law to order two news sites to remove stories referring to the Securities and Exchange Board of Nepal.

Last week, a government minister reportedly telephoned the director of a separate media company and threatened that to “take action to bring [the company] down” if it did not remove reporting of Pathak’s case from its website. The minister has denied the allegation

While Nepali authorities have sometimes sought to silence traditional newspapers and broadcasters, most recent cases relate to social media and online news portals. Last year, police used cybercrimes charges to arrest at least two people who had posted photos or videos critical of political leaders. “Whenever someone raises questions about a public figure in Nepal, there is a tendency to file a cybercrime case without any investigation,” former Supreme Court Justice Balram KC told the Nepali Times.

Earlier this year, Nepal’s parliament adopted a controversial new Media Council Act, which empowers the government to appoint the head of a new media regulator. Press freedom advocates have also expressed concern at a proposed new law that would create vague, new criminal offences related to social media, punishable with jail terms of up to five years and fines up to NRs1.5 million (US$10,800).

The Nepal Police should withdraw the arrest warrant against Dil Bhushan Pathak and the government should stop trying to silence journalists and other Nepalis.