Author: Human Rights Watch

Azerbaijani authorities have used politically motivated, bogus criminal charges to prosecute and imprison civic activists, journalists, and human rights defenders just months before Azerbaijan is to host COP29, the United Nations Climate Change Conference. The government arbitrarily enforces highly restrictive laws regulating nongovernmental organizations to limit their ability to register, access funding, or operate legally. […]

Russia’s human rights situation has been deteriorating for years, but in the two years since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the authorities’ campaign of repression has accelerated alarmingly. Reporting to the UN Human Rights Council last month, the UN special rapporteur on Russia captured this pointedly, stating: “systematic human rights violations are part of […]

Cambodian authorities have reportedly collaborated with the Malaysian government to arrest and deport Nuon Thoeun, a Cambodian worker, after she posted criticisms of Cambodia’s former long-time prime minister and current Senate president, Hun Sen, on her Facebook page. This is just the latest incident of the Cambodian government restricting freedom of expression beyond its borders. Cambodian […]

Yesterday the European Commission proposed a substantial delay in the implementation of its landmark anti-deforestation law. This is bad news for the climate-critical forests around the world as well as the human rights of Indigenous peoples and other forest-dependent communities.  The European Union’s Deforestation-Free Products Regulation (EUDR) is a piece of legislation that required considerable […]

(Manila) – Philippine authorities should fully investigate and appropriately prosecute new revelations of extrajudicial killings involving former and current officials during the previous administration of Rodrigo Duterte, Human Rights Watch said today. Since August 2024, the Philippine House of Representatives have held joint hearings that have examined extrajudicial killings in the “war on drugs” and whether […]

(Nairobi) – Police in Chad forced the cancelation of a conference in the capital, N’Djamena, on October 2, 2024, that was planned to discuss justice for the victims of abuse by Hissène Habré, Human Rights Watch said today. The police also detained a former Human Rights Watch counsel who was to be a keynote speaker at the […]

This week, Indian authorities detained Sonam Wangchuk, a prominent climate activist and educator from the Himalayan territory of Ladakh, and others participating in a nearly 1,000-kilometer march from Leh, the provincial capital, to the national capital, Delhi. Wangchuk and approximately 120 activists were demanding a greater say in local governance and stronger environmental safeguards. The police […]

Alaa Abdel Fattah, the British-Egyptian writer and activist, should have been released on September 29 after serving an unjust five-year prison sentence. Instead, Egyptian authorities have kept him imprisoned, refusing to count over two years he spent in pretrial detention toward his time served. After spending most of the last decade behind bars, authorities told his […]

(New York) – United Nations member countries should reject Saudi Arabia’s bid for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council because of the government’s widespread human rights violations, including possible crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch said. On October 9, 2024, the UN General Assembly will select 18 new members for three-year terms on the Human Rights […]

(Beirut) – Tunisian authorities have undermined the integrity of the October 6, 2024 presidential election by amending the electoral law just days beforehand, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities excluded or arrested opposition candidates, and took arbitrary measures against political opponents, independent media, and civil society. On September 27, Tunisia’s Assembly of the Representatives of […]