Author: Human Rights Watch

(Kinshasa) – Democratic Republic of Congo authorities should expand their investigation into security force personnel responsible for killing scores of people in eastern Congo one year ago, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should also provide prompt and adequate compensation to victims or their families.

On August 30, 2023, Congolese security forces killed at least 57 people in Goma, the capital of the North Kivu province. Most were members of a mystic religious group, the Natural Judaic and Messianic Faith Towards the Nations (Foi Naturelle Judaique et Messianique vers les Nations), who were preparing a protest against the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO). A United Nations panel of experts and Human Rights Watch found that the actual death toll was most likely significantly higher. A military court in October found four soldiers, including a commanding officer, guilty of murder, but no further investigations appear to be ongoing and no victims have received compensation.

“One year on, Congolese authorities have successfully prosecuted several people for the 2023 Goma massacre, but the investigations have been severely limited, and no compensation has been paid to victims,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Establishing command responsibility and appropriately punishing all those responsible is crucial to preventing similar abuses in the future.”

On July 30, 2023, Ephraim Bisimwa, the leader of the mystic religious movement, announced a protest against MONUSCO to be held on August 30 to demand the UN mission’s departure by the end of the year due to its inability to stem protracted fighting in the east.

On August 23, the mayor of Goma issued a communiqué banning the protest. Bisimwa called off the demonstration and asked his members to meet at his church on the morning of August 30. The UN panel reported that the military and police chain of command sent down reports that the group’s protests were connected to rumored plans by the M23 rebel group and its Rwandan backers to destabilize the city. Since late 2022, Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have committed unlawful killings, rape, and numerous other grave abuses in eastern Congo.

On August 30, between 3 and 4 a.m., Congolese soldiers raided a radio station affiliated with the movement in Goma’s Ndosho neighborhood. Bisimwa was at the station and used a WhatsApp message to inform his members of the raid. When soldiers took Bisimwa and eight others out of the station, his members arrived. Soldiers opened fire on them, killing six members outside the radio station, and then departed with Bisimwa and a colleague. Bisimwa later told Human Rights Watch: “They took us to the [Republican Guard]’s base where they tied us up, made us lie on the floor, then they threw water on us and beat us with sticks.”

Following the deadly raid, members of the group captured a police officer, bound his hands, and took him back to the group’s headquarters, commonly referred to as its temple.

In the confusion that followed, the police shot some members of the group, killing Bisimwa’s son. Some members then returned to the temple and killed the abducted police officer. Footage verified by Human Rights Watch shows the officer lying on the floor, hands tied, and curled up into a ball, while people beat him with sticks and threw rocks at him, killing him.

Soldiers arrived at the temple around 7 a.m. and Republican Guards followed. Col. Mike Mikombe, the Republican Guard commander in Goma, took over negotiations with a growing crowd. An officer who was there later told Human Rights Watch that once Mikombe arrived, tensions quickly arose.

Human Rights Watch verified a video filmed at the scene around 7 a.m. which shows Mikombe and Maj. Peter, commander of a Republican Guard special forces unit, addressing the members in an alley adjacent to the temple, flanked by special forces personnel. In the footage the soldiers are wearing full combat gear and carrying weapons. Witnesses said at least four drones were flying overhead.

Minutes after the arrival of the Republican Guard commanders, shooting began. “I don’t know what the colonel from the Republican Guard saw to give the order to shoot at us,” a group member said. Several witnesses reported that Mikombe lifted his handgun in the air and ordered Republican Guard soldiers to open fire. One man said Mikombe shouted, “Bofungola nzela!” (“Open the path!” in Lingala). Human Rights Watch research, including interviews with national army officials, indicated that the movement members were unarmed.

The soldiers fired with military assault rifles on the demonstrators and bystanders, killing and wounding dozens while others ran for cover. Many took refuge in neighboring houses or inside the temple around the corner. The gunfire was continuous for several minutes. Human Rights Watch verified a video filmed at the scene showing clouds of dust filling the alley as automatic gunfire is heard. Walls of surrounding houses and the temple were struck, killing and wounding people who were taking cover inside both. Human Rights Watch examined bullet holes in the walls of many houses at the scene.

A woman who took cover in her house with her younger brother said a woman and a boy were killed inside her compound, where they had sought safety. “I didn’t know them, and they didn’t seem to know each other either,” she said. “They had come to hide when the shooting began.”

Some people taking cover in houses filmed the immediate aftermath of the shooting on their cell phones. Several videos show numerous bodies on the streets. A man who witnessed the killings from a house near the temple said the soldiers walked among the bodies to check if anyone was still alive. “They would shoot at the wounded to kill them once and for all,” he said.

Immediately after the shooting stopped, soldiers loaded bodies onto at least one military truck. Video footage verified by Human Rights Watch shows soldiers dragging bodies along the street, pulling them by the legs or arms in a degrading manner. Additional footage shows them throwing bodies onto the trucks, piled onto one another. Several wounded people were also forced onto the same truck.

The soldiers rounded up dozens of people, including children, in the temple courtyard. Many were later arrested. Footage verified by Human Rights Watch shows members of the Republican Guards walking away with looted goods, furniture, and livestock on a street near the temple. Between 9:30 and 10 a.m., Republican Guards and other soldiers set the temple on fire. Human Rights Watch verified a video that shows the temple on fire.

In September and October, a military court tried Mikombe and five other soldiers. Three were sentenced to ten years in prison, while two others, including Mikombe’s deputy, were acquitted. On October 2, Mikombe was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.

The case against Mikombe did not address the role played by higher-ranking officers who might have ordered or otherwise be criminally liable for the crimes committed. The authorities did not establish an exhaustive count of the dead. They did not investigate allegations that soldiers executed wounded people or burned the temple. In its final report, the UN panel of experts raised doubts about the investigation.

Further investigations should be conducted to establish whether officers senior to Mikombe were liable for these crimes, Human Rights Watch said.

Because the North Kivu province is under military rule, a military court tried Bisimwa and 63 other movement members for killing the police officer. All were sentenced to 10 or more years in prison or to death. The UN panel of experts said no evidence was presented at the trial to link the defendants with direct participation in killing the officer. Bisimwa had been in military custody for several hours prior to the killing.

The government commuted all death sentences to life in prison.

Victims or their families should receive prompt and adequate compensation for their loss, Human Rights Watch said. A movement member whose wife was killed said: “I would like us to be compensated for the damage that has been done to us. Looking after seven children without their mother is something that is very difficult for me. We need assistance.”

In addition to expanding their investigation of those responsible for the government killings and providing compensation to victims, the Congolese authorities should address its crowd control measures. The military generally should not be used for law enforcement, a function for which the police are better trained. Any security forces used for crowd control should receive proper training, equipment, and oversight. The Congolese government should seek international support to ensure that its security forces abide by regional and international standards on the use of force.

“The victims of the Goma massacre still await accountability,” Mudge said. “All those responsible, regardless of rank or standing, should be prosecuted, and those harmed promptly and fairly compensated.”

(Washington, DC) – Mexican legislators who will take office on August 31, 2024, should reject a series of proposed constitutional changes that would undermine judicial independence, government accountability, and the right to privacy, Human Rights Watch said today. The proposals could also lead to an increase in military abuses and arbitrary detentions.

The proposals are contained in five bills that legislators are expected to discuss when Congress returns to session on September 1. The bills would expand automatic pretrial detention, replace the current judicial appointment process with popular elections, eliminate constitutional restrictions barring the military from carrying out civilian law enforcement, overhaul the electoral system, and abolish the country’s independent privacy and government transparency watchdog.

“These dangerous proposals would undermine judicial independence, give unprecedented power over civilians to the military, and eliminate safeguards intended to protect human rights,” said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “Given Mexico’s long history of serious human rights violations and official cover ups, legislators should be taking steps to strengthen human rights protections, not weaken them.”

The five bills are part of a series of 18 proposed constitutional reforms that outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador sent to Congress in February. President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, whose party controls Congress, has endorsed many of the proposals and urged legislators to approve them before she takes office on October 1.

One of the bills, which legislators said will be among the first to be put to a vote, would significantly change the way federal judges are chosen and supervised. Currently, federal judges are selected based on their scores in an open, competitive evaluation process run by the Federal Judicial Training School and are eligible to apply for lifetime tenure after six years in office.

Under the proposed changes, judicial tenure would be eliminated and judges would be elected every nine years, in local elections in each judicial district, from lists of candidates selected by the president, Congress, and the Supreme Court. The approximately 1,650 currently serving federal judges would be forced to resign and would be replaced in elections in 2025 and 2027. The bill would require all state legislatures to make similar changes to the judicial appointment processes of their state court systems within 180 days, which would affect about 5,000 state judges and magistrates.

The proposal would also reduce the size of the Supreme Court, shorten the terms of its members, and replace the current members in a special election in 2025. It would also allow for judges to hear alleged organized crime cases anonymously, without defendants knowing the identity of the judge who will decide their case. 

These proposals would seriously undermine judicial independence and contravene international human rights standards intended to ensure everyone receives a fair hearing before the courts, Human Rights Watch said. 

Under international standards, judges should have guaranteed tenure and be protected from political influence to ensure that they can make decisions based solely on the facts of the case and in accordance with the law. The UN special rapporteur for the independence of judges and lawyers has highlighted the importance of adopting “non-political appointment processes, linked strictly to the quality and professional merit” of judicial candidates. 

In July, the special rapporteur expressed concern, in a letter to President López Obrador, that the proposed changes could “increase the risk that judicial candidates try to please voters or their campaign sponsors to increase their chances of re-election, instead of taking decisions based exclusively on judicial norms and standards.”

The UN Human Rights Committee and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights have said that trials carried out with “faceless judges” are contrary to the right to a fair trial since defendants are unable to evaluate whether the judge hearing their case may have a conflict of interest.

Another bill under consideration would eliminate the National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information, and Data Protection, the independent agency that enforces transparency and data protection rules in Mexico. The agency has the authority to require the government to comply with freedom of information requests and to require any organization, public or private, to allow people to access their personal data, such as medical records. It can issue fines to enforce its rulings and take legal action against the government.

Under the proposal, each branch of the government would be responsible for ensuring its own compliance with freedom of information laws. Between October 2022 and September 2023, the agency received and reviewed nearly 20,000 complaints from people who said government agencies had refused to comply with access to information rules.

Eliminating the independent transparency agency and allowing the government to enforce its own compliance with freedom of information laws would undermine Mexicans’ rights to privacy and access to public information, Human Rights Watch said. 

The proposed constitutional changes would also further expand automatic pretrial detention, requiring judges to order the detention of anyone accused of extortion, drug dealing, tax fraud, smuggling, or crimes related to fentanyl production and trafficking without reviewing the circumstances of the case to determine whether the detention is justified. Mexico’s Constitution already requires judges to order pretrial detention for over a dozen categories of crimes. 

Requiring judges to order pretrial detention without reviewing the circumstances of each case contravenes international human rights law and is not an effective way of addressing crime, Human Rights Watch said. 

Under international law, pretrial detention should only be used in exceptional cases, based on an individualized determination that it is necessary for purposes such as preventing flight, interference with evidence, or the recurrence of crime. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has ruled that Mexico’s use of mandatory pretrial detention violates human rights standards and ordered it to reform its laws and Constitution to eliminate the practice. About 88,000 people were being held in pretrial detention at the close of 2022, approximately 40 percent of the total prison population.

Additionally, a proposed bill would eliminate the constitutional prohibition preventing the military from exercising non-military functions outside wartime, permanently transfer control of the National Guard, the main federal law enforcement agency, to the defense ministry, and officially give the president the authority to indefinitely deploy the military domestically at their discretion.

The military has been informally deployed for law enforcement since 2006 with almost no civilian oversight, during which time it has committed widespread human rights violations, including executions, enforced disappearances, and torture, that are rarely investigated, with neither the violators held to account nor the victims granted justice. President López Obrador has vastly expanded the role of the military, giving the Army and Navy control over hundreds of traditionally civilian government tasks, without any corresponding expansion of civilian oversight and accountability. 

“Mexico urgently needs more effective security and justice institutions,” Goebertus said. “Sadly, these proposed bills are likely to do the exact opposite.”

(New York)– The Dominican Republic’s Constitutional Court will hear a challenge on August 30, 2024, to laws that criminalize consensual same-sex conduct by officers in the police and armed forces, Human Rights Watch said today. In an amicus curiae brief, Human Rights Watch said that these discriminatory laws violate the rights under international law of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) officers to equality, privacy, and the ability to work without fear, among others. 

Article 210 of the Code of Justice of the National Police and article 260 of the Code of Justice of the Armed Forcespunish same-sex “sodomy” by officers with up to two years and one year in prison, respectively. No such criminal penalties exist for heterosexual sexual acts. 

“These draconian laws are a stain on the Dominican Republic’s human rights record and contribute to an unchecked discriminatory environment in the police and armed forces,” said Cristian González Cabrera, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. “State-sanctioned bigotry has no place in a democratic society governed by the rule of law and in a region that has mostly disavowed the criminalization of private sexual acts between people of the same sex.”

The Dominican Republic does not ban same-sex conduct by private individuals. Yet, it lags behind on LGBT rights, lacking comprehensive civil anti-discrimination legislation, same-sex marriage or civil union rights, and gender identity recognition for transgender individuals, Human Rights Watch said. In recent months, LGBT activists have criticized a proposed criminal code for not providing protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity, including hate crimes provisions. 

In 2019, a viral video exposed a Dominican army sergeant in a same-sex encounter, leading to his dismissal. The army cited a “duly proven serious fault that tarnishes the morals and ethics of the institution.” The sergeant filed an appeal. An administrative court dismissed his case in 2021 on procedural grounds, but the sergeant filed a new appeal and is awaiting a final decision. 

In 2014, the then-director of the National Police told a congressional committee that existing legislation “does not allow people who are homosexual” to be part of the force. In response to questions about what would happen to homosexual officers already in the police force, the then-director asked for them to be identified, news reports said. 

Anderson Javiel Dirocie de León, one of the lawyers leading the constitutional challenge, told Human Rights Watch: “The discriminatory provisions mean that LGBTI officers serve in constant fear of being discovered, sanctioned, and losing everything, including their livelihood. The provisions convey a message from the state that LGBTI people are inherently unfit to perform public functions and can be considered criminals for being who we are.”

In 2004, the Dominican Republic’s congress passed a broad criminal procedure reform that limited the ability of the police and the armed forces to criminally sanction officers, but made clear that those institutions retain their administrative “disciplinary powers.” In 2019, the Constitutional Court clarified that criminal cases against officers should be heard by ordinary criminal courts, but it did not strike down the provisions on sodomy in the security forces’ codes of justice.  

In recent years, countries in the region, including Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, and the United States, have scrapped laws that criminalize same-sex conduct by officers. 

In its amicus curiae brief, Human Rights Watch said that the criminalization of same-sex conduct violates international standards, including the rights to be protected against arbitrary and unlawful interference with one’s private and family life and to one’s reputation or dignity, as emphasized by the United Nations independent expert on sexual orientation and gender identity. 

While the provisions under constitutional challenge prohibit same-sex conduct only in the military and police context, they make the Dominican Republic one of the few remaining countries in the Americas to criminalize same-sex conduct.

Five Anglophone countries in the Caribbean – Jamaica, Grenada, Guyana, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines – still have such laws on the books, a relic of British colonialism. Consensual same-sex conduct remains criminalized in 63 countries, including in places like Iran, Myanmar, and Sudan.  

“President Luis Abinader and Congress should not wait for the Constitutional Court ruling and should promptly introduce legislation to repeal these outdated and discriminatory laws that meddle in officers’ private lives,” González said. “Repealing these laws would send a strong signal to LGBT people and the world that the principles of equality and nondiscrimination are of the utmost importance in the Dominican Republic.”

A few meters from the public door of Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Food Supply (MAPA), is a separate private door. To better understand who has access to one of Brazil’s most powerful ministries, the investigative group, Reporter Brasil, obtained a private log of those who entered through this second door between January and November 2023. Human Rights Watch helped digitize and turn the handwritten 381-page list of names into a searchable database.

Reporter Brasil identified the ministry’s top 10 visitors. Among them is João Henrique Hummel Vieira, instrumental in founding the Agriculture Parliamentary Front (FPA), the largest group representing interests of industrial agriculture, and Pensar Agro (Agriculture Thought Institute), a powerful think tank known for lobbying. The logs show Vieira made 12 visits. What precisely was on the agenda each time he and others met with officials at MAPA remains unknown.

Similarly, investigative group O Joio e O Trigo recently reviewed 752 meetings between federal government representatives and agribusiness and chemical lobbyists from October 2022 through July 2024 and found that the descriptions of these meeting were often blank or generic.

These new investigations underscore the opaqueness around lobbying in Brazil and the urgent need for robust regulations requiring transparency about what is discussed and with whom, made available to the public through searchable registries. 

The lack of transparency is especially concerning since the agriculture ministry’s powers over pesticides dramatically increased in May with the adoption of the “poison package,” overruling President Lula da Silva’s vetoes. Notably, O Joio e O Trigo’s investigation found that agribusiness, chemical lobbyists, and companies increasingly visited the federal offices, during April and May 2024, as Congress was deciding whether to overrule President Lula’s vetoes in the “poison package.”

Widely criticized by local organizations, the “poison package” granted MAPA primary authority over pesticide regulation and opened the floodgates for regulatory approval of harmful pesticides in Brazil, which is already one of the world’s largest users of “highly hazardous” pesticides.

Mandatory lobbying disclosures and searchable public registries are central to good governance. While insufficient alone to curb corporate influence over public offices, they introduce transparency. The European Union, Canada, and US, have publicly searchable registries.

Global conglomerates manufacturing, importing, or exporting pesticides, and companies sourcing from Brazil’s farms should be aware of the heightened human rights risks of operating in environments where stringent pesticide approvals are downgraded, and corporate lobbying is carried out behind closed doors.

(Nairobi) – The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and affiliated fighters have summarily executed, tortured, and ill-treated people in their custody, and mutilated dead bodies, Human Rights Watch said today.

Leaders of both forces should privately and publicly order an immediate halt to these abuses and carry out effective investigations. They should cooperate fully with international investigators, notably from the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan, who should include these abuses, which constitute war crimes, within the scope of their investigations.

“Forces from Sudan’s warring parties feel so immune to punishment that they have repeatedly filmed themselves executing, torturing, and dehumanizing detainees, and mutilating bodies,” said Mohamed Osman, Sudan researcher at Human Rights Watch. “These crimes should be investigated as war crimes and those responsible, including commanders of these forces, should be held to account.”

Human Rights Watch analyzed 20 videos and 1 photograph of 10 incidents uploaded to social media platforms between August 24, 2023, and July 11, 2024. Eight videos and 1 photograph depict 4 incidents of summary executions, including mass executions, of at least 40 people. Four videos show torture and ill-treatment of a total of 18 detainees, including some who appear wounded; and 9 show mutilation of at least 8 dead bodies.

Many of the abusers and victims appear to be wearing military uniforms, suggesting they may be fighters, although some victims are wearing civilian clothes. In all the incidents detainees appear to be unarmed, posing no threat to their captors, and in several they are restrained.

Human Rights Watch has recorded another 20 cases appearing to show similar violations by both parties, but has not investigated these cases.

Four cases of executions appear to have been filmed by the perpetrators themselves, 3 by the RSF, including the execution of at least 21 men in El Fula, West Kordofan, in June 2024; the execution of at least 14 men in the aftermath of RSF attacks on Belila Airport, 60 kilometers southeast of El Fula, in West Kordofan in October 2023; and the execution of 2 men 12 kilometers south of El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan. The fourth is of the SAF’s execution of three detainees, possibly children under the age 18, in October 2023 in Omdurman, northwest of the capital city, Khartoum.

Human Rights Watch analyzed another four instances in which SAF and RSF personnel filmed themselves torturing and ill-treating detainees, including by whipping, beating, and forcing detainees to walk on their knees on gravel roads. Analysis by Human Rights Watch suggests that these incidents occurred in Khartoum, Gezira, and North and West Kordofan states.

Three cases show SAF soldiers committing outrages against the bodies of apparent RSF fighters or civilians, including one in which they brandish two heads.

Since the conflict broke out in Khartoum on April 15, 2023, the leadership of both the SAF and RSF have failed to halt or address abuses. In July 2023, SAF-affiliated authorities announced national investigations into RSF abuses, headed by the attorney general, but made no mention of investigating crimes committed by their own forces.

The RSF, in a July 23, 2024 letter responding to a previous report by Human Rights Watch, provided a code of conduct that in vague terms bans mistreatment of detainees, and wrote that it had established a committee to investigate violations or abuses and to prosecute those responsible. But it has not provided any public evidence of its investigations or prosecutions.

On August 19, Human Rights Watch sent a detailed email summary of its findings with specific questions to Lieutenant Colonel Al-Fateh Qurashi, the RSF spokesperson, and to Brigadier-General Nabil Abdallah, the SAF military spokesperson. Neither has responded.

In February, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported that hundreds of fighters had been detained by both parties and that the condition and whereabouts of most remain unknown. Human Rights Watch has previously documented widespread torture and execution of unarmed people by RSF forces in El Geneina and its suburb Ardamata, West Darfur, in 2023. Other monitoring groups and nongovernmental groups have also reported on abuse, torture, and execution of detainees by both sides in various parts of the country.

The UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan, established by the UN Human Rights Council in October 2023, is the only independent investigative body with the mandate to probe conflict-related violations across Sudan. Given the scale of abuses and the dearth of credible investigations by the parties themselves, council members should renew the mission’s mandate at the council’s September session, Human Rights Watch said.

Regional and international bodies, including the European Union and African Union, and individual countries should work together to hold those responsible for these abuses accountable, including by imposing individual targeted sanctions, Human Rights Watch said. Countries leading ceasefire and humanitarian access talks should also address the warring parties’ abuses and ensure that there is provision for robust monitoring of violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, in any agreement reached.

“Sudan’s warring parties have shown a shocking disregard for human life and dignity,” Osman said. “The commanders need to be held to account for failing to prevent or punish these crimes.”

Methodology

Human Rights Watch did not find the videos it analyzed online before the suspected incident dates. Researchers analyzed the videos frame by frame to identify the abuses, determine as best as they could the affiliations of perpetrators and victims, and verify the locations of the incidents to determine how they corresponded to areas of territorial control at the time the videos were made. To assist in identifying the perpetrators and victims, Human Rights Watch analyzed comments made by those filming themselves that identified them or the detainees, and information shared alongside the videos on online platforms.

The videos were posted to various social media channels, including Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter), and Telegram. A large majority of the videos were uploaded to pro-SAF or pro-RSF channels. Human Rights Watch has not included links to the online videos due to their graphic nature, but has preserved the visual evidence. In the report, audio or captions from the videos originally in Arabic were translated into English.

Summary Executions

Human Rights Watch investigated four cases of executions.

Mass Executions by the RSF

Human Rights Watch analyzed 3 videos capturing the RSF’s execution of at least 21 men–possibly 23–on the outskirts of El Fula, the capital of West Kordofan state. The RSF reportedly took control of the city on June 20, 2024.

A video uploaded to X on June 28, and analyzed by Human Rights Watch, shows 21 detained and unarmed men, many in SAF camouflage and some in civilian clothes, sitting on the ground near a communication tower, 1.5 kilometers west of El Fula. RSF fighters surround the detainees, lift their guns in the air, and intimidate the detainees, pushing one of them over. An RSF fighter comes into view, walks over to the detainees, and shoots at least four, one by one. As more shots ring out, other fighters move in front of the camera, obscuring the scene.

Another video uploaded to Telegram on June 20, captures the same scene shortly afterward as dozens of RSF fighters stand over the bodies. The person filming says, “Look at these rotten ones,” showing the motionless bodies. Then he says, “He is still alive … take him,” and a single shot is heard and one of the men in SAF uniform is hit while a second shot is fired off camera. The person on the ground stops moving. The camera pans and shows two additional people motionless on the ground, some distance from the main group. Blood surrounds one of the men, whose hands are tied.

Human Rights Watch also analyzed three videos and one photograph with RSF fighters executing, or in the immediate aftermath of the execution of detainees, during offensive operations in West Kordofan. On October 30, 2023, the RSF posted a statement on X, stating it had begun an operation to liberate Belila Airport and nearby oil fields, 60 kilometers southeast of El Fula.

One of the videos, uploaded to a pro-RSF Telegram channel on October 31, captures the moments after RSF fighters execute 14 unarmed detainees, some in SAF camouflage and others in civilian clothes, in a parking lot by the airport.

The video shows at least nine people, some in RSF camouflage and most of them armed, surrounding the bodies. As the person recording the video approaches, another person points a rifle toward the bodies, followed by the sound of gunfire and a dust cloud that quickly dissipates. As the person filming approaches the bodies, a pool of blood is seen surrounding most of the victims.

The photograph uploaded to a pro-RSF Telegram channel on October 30 shows the same scene, based on the position of the bodies lying on the concrete and the victims’ clothes, and shows some of the wounds. It was uploaded with the caption: “The end of anyone playing with readiness.” Readiness is a motto often used on social media by the RSF and its supporters to refer to the force.

Another recorded execution of 2 detainees by RSF fighters took place 12 kilometers southeast of El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state. A video uploaded to X on May 8, 2024, was initially analyzed by Mustafa, an open source researcher with OSINT Sudan, and later analyzed by Human Rights Watch. It shows a group of armed men in a mix of civilian and military clothing surrounding two men in typical SAF camouflage.

The fighters instruct the detainees several times to say “readiness.” The man filming grabs a fighter’s assault rifle and says, “Don’t shoot,” then steps back and turns away. He then pans to show the 2 SAF soldiers, as assailants fire 25 shots, executing the 2 detainees. The man filming points to a third body a few meters away, near an ambulance surrounded by fighters, apparently already dead. A fourth body wrapped in fabric lies inside a nearby abandoned structure.

Executions by the SAF and Affiliated Forces

Human Rights Watch also analyzed a video uploaded to social media on October 5, 2023, showing the execution of three detainees by the SAF in Omdurman, which was reportedly partially under SAF control at the time. Five armed men, one of whom appears to be in full uniform of the Central Reserve Police, a paramilitary force affiliated with the SAF, and another who wears CRP trousers, are moving three detainees in civilian clothes in a courtyard between buildings.

The three detainees are possibly children under 18 and are blindfolded and shirtless. One has a bandaged foot. The soldiers force them into a pit, and one says, “These are mercenaries … snipers….” At least 3 soldiers fire 31 times over the next 44 seconds at the people in the pit. The location was initially established by Mustafa and confirmed by Human Rights Watch.

Torture and Ill-Treatment

Human Rights Watch analyzed four incidents that show SAF and RSF fighters repeatedly torturing and ill-treating detainees.

Torture and Ill-Treatment by the SAF

A video reviewed but not geolocated by Human Rights Watch, which was uploaded to Telegram on November 7, 2023, shows several armed men – some in SAF uniforms, one in Central Reserve Police camouflage trousers, some carrying assault rifles, and some in civilian clothing – torturing six blindfolded detainees with their hands tied behind their backs by whipping and beating them with sticks.

Torture and Ill-Treatment by the RSF

A video uploaded to a pro-RSF Telegram channel on November 5, 2023, captures an incident of torture and humiliation by RSF fighters at Belila Airport in West Kordofan. Human Rights Watch was unable to determine if this event took place around the same time as the execution of the 14 unarmed detainees.

At least four armed people, three in full or partial RSF camouflage, are seen forcing a man to undress on the airport runway. As the man takes off his pants, leaving him in a white undershirt and blue boxer shorts, an RSF soldier kicks him in the back. As the camera moves, it shows a man in RSF uniform placing his boot on the neck of the same man lying on the tarmac. A second victim, a man in a red T-shirt, is lying still on his side on the tarmac with a pool of blood surrounding his lower back. He opens his eyes as the person filming approaches.

The person filming asks the first detainee, “Who are you affiliated with?” Then another fighter kicks the first detainee in the back. The person filming says: “Don’t hit him!” and orders the detainee to get up and for someone to take him to a vehicle. Human Rights Watch was unable to determine what happened to them after that.

A video uploaded to X on August 24, 2023, depicts a third incident. The video was initially analyzed by Mustafa, who found that it was recorded in Al-Ozozab, Khartoum. It shows six armed men, one in RSF camouflage, forcing nine detainees, including at least one older man, to crawl or walk on their knees on a gravel street. All nine are in civilian attire and have their hands tied behind their backs.

More armed men, at least one in uniform with an RSF arm patch, are visible behind the group. A tenth detainee with a possible blood stain on his chest is being pushed along. The RSF fighter filming repeatedly calls the detained men “dogs.” A man in civilian clothes and with an assault rifle hits the detainees on the back with a stick.

A fourth incident, that according to the commentary accompanying the video says took place in Gezira state, was uploaded to Telegram on March 30, 2024, and shared widely by pro-SAF channels and accounts. The video shows two men in civilian clothes, one with his hands tied behind his back, in the back of a pickup truck, surrounded by three men with assault rifles and some fighters in partial or full RSF uniform.

RSF fighters gather around the detainees, force them out of the truck, and repeatedly ask, “Where are your guns?” A person in civilian clothes whips the detainees for about 20 seconds. The RSF fighters then force the detainees into a building. Once inside, the RSF fighters and a man in civilian attire begin hitting and kicking the detainees. Human Rights Watch was unable to determine what happened to them after the video clip ends.

Mutilation of Bodies by the SAF

Human Rights Watch has documented three cases of SAF soldiers mutilating bodies of apparent RSF fighters since January, including one case in which they are mocking severed heads.

Four videos of one incident show the SAF soldiers setting alight bodies after possibly executing them. Human Rights Watch could not independently verify the location.

The first video posted to X on June 5, 2024, shows several SAF soldiers in three pickup trucks surrounding a fourth pickup truck in an undetermined location. Seven armed soldiers, some in typical SAF camouflage, approach the fourth vehicle, in which a body hangs out from the driver’s seat. One soldier drags a body dressed in dark pants from the back of the pickup and throws it onto the ground. Three more bodies are visible on the other side of the truck wearing RSF camouflage. A fighter can be heard saying, “One [of them] is alive!” Another fighter says, “Shoot him,” and shots are fired.

One of the SAF soldiers is later seen firing four rounds, apparently into the back of the truck, the gun just out of view of the camera. The video shows what appears to be a cartridge casing ejecting from the gun and landing next to the person filming. A third soldier appears to be searching the front of the car. The person filming makes their way back toward the other side of the truck.

A soldier takes aim towards what looks like the direction of the person with the dark pants and fires two shots. There are sounds of cheering. This raises concerns about a potential execution, though it remains unclear whether the person in dark pants was still alive, as the camera pans away when the gunshots are heard.

A second video, uploaded to the same post, appears to show the soldier who fired the two bullets igniting something and throwing it beneath the car. The SAF soldiers run away, while shouting in apparent celebration. The camera pans back toward the vehicle, from which large flames and dark plumes of smoke emerge.

Two videos uploaded to a Telegram channel on June 4 and 5 show the same vehicle burned and at least three scorched bodies lying next to it. The video uploaded on June 4 shows 18 men standing in a semicircle around the vehicle, with one of the bodies still aflame. Nearly everyone is wearing SAF military fatigues. One officer stands inside the semicircle, pointing to the burned bodies and saying, “This is not a human fire … this is a god’s fire … burning these people….”

Human Rights Watch also analyzed three videos of SAF fighters holding the severed heads of two victims.

Two of the videos of this incident were uploaded to Telegram on February 15, and the third on July 3. In all three, men in SAF camouflage are seen in the same location, as one soldier is holding a decapitated head referring to the person killed as “habeshi,” a term used in Sudan to refer to people from Ethiopia and Eritrea that can sometimes be used as a racial slur to describe a foreigner. The same person points at the camera while parading the decapitated heads of two victims. A senior SAF officer is seen addressing the soldiers, pointing to the two decapitated heads while saying: “this is the fate every [RSF] will get.”

OHCHR said it has credible video evidence, also posted online on February 15, to show that several students travelling by road to the capital of North Kordofan, El Obeid, “may have been beheaded by men in SAF uniform in Obeid City,” because the “victims [were seen] as being RSF supporters based on their perceived ethnicity.” The SAF issued a statement on February 18, pledging to investigate the incident, but is yet to share publicly any evidence of an investigation or any findings.

Another case of mutilation by SAF forces took place in Omdurman in March, when two videos analyzed by Human Rights Watch were shared widely on pro-SAF Telegram channels on March 21, 2024, and in the following days. The videos were initially identified by Mustafa, as having been filmed on al Arda street in Omdurman, and later confirmed by Human Rights Watch researchers.

In one video, a person in SAF camouflage holding an assault rifle is showing four apparently dead and unarmed men lying close together in the middle of the street. A pool of blood surrounds two of them. The person filming shoots one of them in the head at point blank range, and then they do the same to two of the others.

In another video, filmed after the incident based on the dried pools of blood, six men in SAF uniform stand over the bodies. One appears to be a commanding officer, based on the epaulettes on his uniform, which includes the emblem of the Corps of Engineers, a SAF division known to be battling in Omdurman.

Relevant Legal Standards

While detainees in a non-international armed conflict, as is the case in Sudan, are not accorded the status of prisoners of war under the laws of war, international humanitarian law prohibits arbitrary deprivation of liberty and guarantees due process rights regardless of whether a detainee is a civilian or a fighter.

Summary executions, as well as ill-treatment and torture of detainees, are illegal under any circumstances under both international humanitarian law and international human rights law. Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions applies to situations of non-international conflict, and explicitly forbids, among other acts, summary executions, committing outrages upon personal dignity, and torture, mutilation, and inhuman and degrading treatment of all detainees. Serious violations of common article 3 are deemed war crimes for the purposes of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

International humanitarian law applicable to the conflict in Sudan prohibits the “mutilation of dead bodies.” Mutilating bodies in non-international armed conflicts is the war crime of “committing outrages upon personal dignity” under the Rome Statute.

Under international human rights law, the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the body of independent experts that monitors implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by its states parties, has indicated that the disrespectful treatment of human remains may amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of the family of the dead. 

(Beirut) – The Egyptian authorities have in recent weeks arbitrarily detained and referred for prosecution at least four critics of the government on charges stemming solely from their legitimate exercise of freedom of expression, as part of their work, in a fresh assault on freedom of expression, eight organizations, including Human Rights Watch, said today. Those prosecuted include two detained journalists and a researcher living in exile.

The authorities have employed incommunicado detention, abusive pretrial detention, and unsubstantiated terrorism-related charges against the critics. The family of one detainee alleged that he was tortured. Harsh repression has stymied freedom of expression and independent media in recent years, despite the government’s claims that it is pursuing reforms.

“Egypt cannot turn a new page without respecting freedom of expression, which is part and parcel of promoting other political and economic rights,” said Bassam Khawaja, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Egypt should urgently cease targeting critics and immediately release those unjustly detained.”

Authorities detained Ashraf Omar, a political satire artist, on July 22, 2024. Al-Manassa, an independent news site where Omar publishes cartoons, and his family said that security forces belonging to the Interior Ministry’s National Security Agency (NSA) arrested him during a late-night home raid. Omar’s wife, Nada Moogheeth, said in public statements that CCTV video showed a group of people in civilian clothes and others in police uniforms arriving in two minibuses, raiding the house, and leaving with Omar blindfolded 40 minutes later. They then took him to an undisclosed location where he was held for more than 48 hours. Omar’s wife later declared that NSA officers had tortured him, including by threatening to subject him to electric shocks.

On July 24, security officials brought Omar to the Supreme State Security Prosecutors Office in Cairo, a branch of Egypt’s public prosecution known for its abuses and responsible for keeping thousands of peaceful activists and journalists in pretrial detention for months or years without evidence of wrongdoing. Omar’s lawyer and prominent human rights defender Khaled Ali said that prosecutors ordered Omar detained on charges of “joining a terrorist group,” “misusing social media,” and “spreading false news,” charges that the prosecution frequently uses to lock up actual or perceived critics.

On July 16, security forces raided the home of journalist Khaled Mamdouh in Cairo and arrested him late at night. The Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression, an independent organization, said members of the security forces searched Mamdouh’s apartment and seized his electronic devices without revealing their identity or presenting a judicial warrant.

Mamdouh’s lawyer, Fatma Serag, said authorities kept Mamdouh in secret detention for five days and then presented him to the prosecutors on July 20, recording the official date of his arrest on that same day. She said in an August 8 news conference that the home raid was “terrifying” and that security forces surrounded Mamdouh’s apartment for six hours and briefly detained his son.

The prosecution has kept Mamdouh in pretrial detention since July 20. His lawyer said prosecutors have not presented any evidence of criminal wrongdoing but charged Mamdouh with belonging to an unnamed “terrorist group” and “spreading false news.”

Serag said Mamdouh is being held in Abu Za’abal prison, where prosecutorial hearings for pretrial detention renewal are conducted through a video conference system. Human Rights Watch documented that this abusive method of renewing pretrial detention – without bringing the detainee before a judge – severely undermines due process. It prevents a judge from assessing the legality and conditions of detention as well as the detainees’ wellbeing, and violates several fair trial guarantees, including the right to legal counsel.

Human Rights Watch spoke to a third journalist, who previously worked with Mamdouh for the Arabic Post, who said he fled the country in the last week of July for fear of arrest after Omar and Mamdouh were detained. He said security forces were looking for him and raided his home after he fled. The journalist had already been arbitrarily detained in 2018 for over two years in a case stemming from his legitimate work as a journalist.

In early July, the prosecution referred Abdelrahman Mahmoud Abdou, a researcher and journalist also known as Abdelrahman Ayyash, to trial. The indictment states that Ayyash was charged, alongside four others, with “leadership of a terrorist group,” while 41 others were charged with joining or financing the unnamed group.

Ayyash, who is living in exile, said human rights lawyers obtained the case file and notified him, but that he has not received formal notice of the charges. The indictment describes Ayyash as a “supervisor” at the Arabic Post even though he said he quit his job there in 2018. Ayyash was employed as a senior research assistant at Human Rights Watch between August 2018 and September 2021. After leaving Human Rights Watch, Ayyash joined the Washington, D.C.-based Freedom Initiative, and he currently serves as an independent consultant for the Middle East Democracy Center. Ayyash has also contributed to publications at several organizations, including the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Century International, and the Arab Reform Initiative. 

Security forces previously raided Ayyash’s family home in July 2022 and detained his father, after questioning him about Ayyash’s human rights and political activism. His father was referred to trial on unsubstantiated charges of possessing printed materials and information undermining the constitution, and was detained for several months. A court acquitted him in November 2022.

On July 16, the Interior Ministry stated it had detained a man it claimed was responsible for displaying criticism of President al-Sisi on a billboard screen in Giza, which went viral on social media. Such criticism is protected peaceful free expression that should not be penalized, the organizations said.

Under the government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, freedom of expression, including media freedom, has faced relentless attacks for years. Egypt regularly ranks among the countries with the most journalists in detention, with the International Committee to Protect Journalists finding it accounted for more than 13 percent of the world’s detained journalists as of 2023. Mainstream media are severely curtailed in Egypt, and the few remaining media websites face government restrictions and harassment. Egyptian authorities have previously abused terrorism laws to prosecute journalists, activists, and critics.

Egypt is a state party to international instruments guaranteeing the right to freedom of expression, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (article 19) and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (article 9).

“Attacks on freedom of expression in Egypt must end,” said Said Benarbia, Middle East and North Africa director at the International Commission of Jurists. “Instead of muzzling independent, critical, and dissenting voices through arbitrary detentions and prosecutions, the Egyptian authorities must ensure that all individuals are able to participate in public debate and openly express their opinions and criticism of State institutions and officials without intimidation or reprisal.”

Signatories:

1. Human Rights Watch
2. International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
3. DAWN
4. EuroMed Rights
5. International Commission of Jurists
6. FairSquare
7. IFEX
8. Middle East Democracy Center (MEDC)

(New York) – Bangladesh’s interim government should seek expertise and technical assistance from the United Nations for its new commission of inquiry investigating all cases of enforced disappearances during the 15-year rule of Sheikh Hasina, Human Rights Watch said today. The interim administration, led by the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, has announced a five-member team headed by a retired judge, which includes another former judge, a university teacher, and two human rights activists.

The government has also made a commitment to sign the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances, a landmark move after years of refusals by the previous government to recognize enforced disappearances. It has also agreed to support a UN fact-finding team in investigating abuses during recent protests, which earlier in August 2024 led Sheikh Hasina to resign as prime minister and flee the country.

“With this commission of inquiry, Bangladesh has an opportunity to pursue justice for the victims of enforced disappearances and their families, many of whom have desperately sought answers, only to be dismissed, threatened, and humiliated by officials,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should seize the opportunity to create a robust process with international expertise, including forensics, to investigate these abuses and identify avenues for reparations in collaboration with victims and their families.”

Odhikar, a prominent Bangladeshi human rights organization, estimates that 708 people were forcibly disappeared under Hasina’s rule. While some people were later released, produced in court, or said to have died during an armed exchange with security forces, nearly 100 people remain missing.

The commission of inquiry should investigate every case, regardless of whether the person was returned, killed, or remains missing. It should be additionally mandated with identifying all clandestine detention centers, and the interim government should immediately shut them down and release anyone still being held in incommunicado custody. The commission should have the authority to make recommendations regarding the prosecution of suspects, reparations to victims and their families, the enactment of specific legislation, and institutional and other reforms that would prevent repetition of past violations.

The newly formed commission has said it would submit a report within 45 days. To effectively carry out its mandate, the commission should be adequately resourced and authorized to obtain all information necessary, including to compel the attendance and cooperation of state officials and law enforcement as witnesses and to order the government, police, and other officials to produce records. The commission should establish a variety of means through which to submit evidence so that the process is accessible and all interested parties have an opportunity to participate.

Given the entrenched impunity for security force abuses in Bangladesh, the interim government should request the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and other UN human rights experts to provide technical support and monitoring of the investigation. The investigators should also work closely with Maayer Daak (“Mothers’Call”) and other organizations representing victims and their families.

Throughout the inquiry, the commission should collect views from victims about what forms of reparation would serve to meaningfully recognize the harm suffered, in addition to bringing those responsible to justice. The commission should recommend the full range of reparations required by international standards, including restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction, and guarantees of non-repetition.

The interim government should make a commitment to ensuring effective reparations, including carrying out Maayer Daak’s call for the creation of a memorial to commemorate victims of enforced disappearances and the suffering of their families, and to stand against the commission of disappearances in the future.

The report’s conclusions and recommendations should be made public and accessible and should require periodic updates on implementation. Evidence collected by the commission should be preserved and made available for judicial and other official investigations in Bangladesh and elsewhere, and the commission should identify an independent entity to safely hold the records following the completion of investigations.

Three victims of enforced disappearances – Michael Chakma, Mir Ahmad Bin Quasem, and Abdullahil Amaan Azmi – were released shortly after Hasina fled the country. In all three cases, authorities had for years denied having them in custody.

Speaking to the media, Chakma described severe torture while he was detained underground in a secret detention site called Aynaghar (house of mirrors) run by the military intelligence agency. Since he was released, he has had difficulties walking and reading and suffers from nightmares. Both Quasem and Chakma said they were confined alone in near-constant darkness but could hear others being tortured, indicating that others may still be held in the secret detention center.

“The only sounds were the incessant whirring of fans and the muffled cries of fellow detainees from nearby cells. I couldn’t see how many of us there were, but the sounds of weeping and despair gave me a sense of the numbers,” Chakma said.

“I could hear people crying, I could hear people being tortured, I could hear people screaming,” Quasem told Agence France-Presse.

The commission’s mandate should include investigations into the torture and other ill-treatment that victims experienced, Human Rights Watch said. The government should ensure that individuals found in the commisssion’s investigation as having participated in violations are investigated and brought to justice. Yunus should facilitate a visit by the UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances and the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and seek their recommendations and input.

On August 16, the UN high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, called on the government to open a “comprehensive, impartial and transparent investigation into all human rights violations and abuses that have occurred” and to release all victims of enforced disappearances. The commissioner also identified the need for an independent investigation into abuses, including enforced disappearances, in a report it released following the recent protests.

Under Hasina, the government consistently denied that security forces had committed enforced disappearances, insisting that those missing had gone into hiding of their own volition. Relatives of victims of enforced disappearance have suffered harassment and reprisals at the hands of the authorities, with some forced to sign false statements that they had been intentionally misleading the police and the public.

Bangladesh has no witness protection law or system. The interim government should move forward with the proposed legislation drafted by the law commission nearly 15 years ago and donor governments should financially support the implementation of a witness protection program. In the meantime, the commission of inquiry should take special precaution to ensure all witnesses are protected from harassment, threats, intimidation, and retaliation.

As part of efforts to ensure abuses are not repeated, the interim government should reform institutions to enable civilian oversight over security forces and immediately disband the Rapid Action Battalion, a notoriously abusive paramilitary unit that was sanctioned by the United States government in 2021 for human right abuses, particularly enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.

“Pursuing accountability for enforced disappearances in Bangladesh and informing the families of victims of what happened to their loved ones is an important first step in building toward a rights-respecting future,” Ganguly said. “Yunus should call on the UN to ensure that Bangladesh’s new commission is well-resourced and has the power to gather all the information required to bring answers and justice to victims of enforced disappearances, their families, and their communities.”

As government leaders gather in Tonga this week for the Pacific Islands Forum, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is sounding the alarm on rising sea levels as not just an environmental issue but a serious threat to human rights.

The latest report from the World Meteorological Organization shows that sea levels in the Pacific are rising faster than the global average, putting communities in this region at disproportionate risk of climate crisis-related harms. For communities whose homes, sources of livelihoods, and cultural heritage are being eroded, adaptation is an urgent necessity. Among the strategies being discussed is the planned relocation of entire communities to safer land.

Around the world, over 400 communities have already completed or are undertaking planned relocation because of natural hazards, including those intensified by climate change. But planned relocations are far from straightforward; many communities face serious threats to their rights during and after such moves.

Past experience shows that planned relocation should be approached with a steadfast commitment to human rights protection, and considered a “measure of last resort” after all efforts to adapt in place are exhausted. Planned relocation, if done without respecting the rights of those affected, risks compounding trauma. Communities should not be forced into relocation without their informed consent, but instead supported to lead these processes on their own terms. Relocation plans should ensure that relocated communities have access to the same or improved sources of livelihood, housing, education, and healthcare, and should not infringe on communities’ cultural heritage.

Some Pacific Island nations, including Fiji and Solomon Islands, already have national guidelines that, on paper, underscore the importance of rights-respecting approaches. How these instruments are implemented and funded remains to be seen.

As Pacific leaders gather in pursuit of a bold vision of moving “beyond policy deliberation to implementation – to achieve transformation by building better now,” it is imperative that all conversations on planned relocation adopt rights-respecting approaches. The global community should respond to the Pacific SOS, including by ensuring all planned relocation policies and funds center communities’ rights and leadership.

South Korea faces an epidemic of digital sex crimes, hundreds of women and girls targeted through deepfake sexual images being shared online. One group sharing these images reportedly has 220,000 members. The number of reported deepfake cases alone has soared from 156 in 2021 to 297 as of July this year.

While South Korea’s president spoke out this week about this issue, over the years the country’s leaders seem to have had difficulty understanding the extraordinary and often lifelong harm these crimes cause.

In 2020, I interviewed women in South Korea who were survivors of digital sex crimes, some of whom were targeted using faked images. I also spoke to the father of a woman who was not a survivor, she died by suicide in 2019 after having been covertly filmed by a male colleague in the changing room of the hospital where she worked.

We also heard from protesters. In 2018, the South Korean government jailed a woman who posted a nude photo of a man. The case sparked a series of six protests; tens of thousands of women and girls marched through the streets of Seoul chanting slogans, including “My life is not your porn” and “Are we not human?”  Men usually go free in such cases.

The government responded to these protests with legislation to expand the range of acts punishable as digital sex crimes and toughen penalties. It also established a center to assist survivors of digital sex crimes.

These responses were positive signs but nowhere near enough. Online gender-based violence is an increasing problem globally but is especially widespread in South Korea. Judges, prosecutors, police, and lawmakers in South Korea, the vast majority of them men, do not take these crimes seriously enough. Women seeking police help are often dismissed, retraumatized, and even ridiculed. There is very little sexuality education in South Korea’s schools to help young people understand how wrong this conduct is. These crimes happen against a backdrop of extreme gender inequality, where there is a 31 percent gender pay gap and less than 13 percent of board members are women.

The South Korean government has known for years that digital sex crimes were rampant and deadly. It’s time for them to take this crisis more seriously. The government should hold perpetrators accountable, provide comprehensive sexuality education to children and adults, and take meaningful steps to promote gender equality.

(Beirut) – The Lebanese government’s continued mismanagement of the electricity sector and its failure to carry out key reforms is diminishing the public’s already-limited access to electricity, Human Rights Watch said today.

On August 17, 2024, Lebanon’s only operational power plant shut down after the state-run electricity company, Electricité du Liban (EDL) ran out of fuel, resulting in a complete nationwide power outage. The outage left residents and key state institutions, such as the airport, water pump stations, sewage systems, and prisons, without state-provided electricity for more than 24 hours, and reliant on costly and highly polluting private diesel generators.

“The government’s continued willful mismanagement has plunged the country into complete darkness as residents are left to pay the price,” said Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Failing to implement key reforms that would enable access to continuous, accessible, and clean electricity means that Lebanon will lurch from one acute power outage to the next with no end in sight.”

A 2023 Human Rights Watch report documented that Lebanon’s electricity crisis is preventing people in Lebanon from realizing their right to electricity, as well as other rights, including to education, health, water, sanitation, and a healthy environment.

The South Lebanon Water Establishment, the public utility responsible for supplying water and treating wastewater across southern Lebanon, published a statement on August 18 calling on people to ration water use “to the maximum extent possible” in light of the current power outage. It said that the utility’s reliance on private diesel generators will “not be enough to provide the sufficient quantities of water to supply all the cities and towns within the jurisdiction of the establishment.”

The August 17 power outage resulted from the government’s failure to make overdue payments to the Iraqi government for supplying Lebanon with heavy fuel oil that the Lebanese government can then swap for fossil fuels compatible with Lebanon’s power plants. The last operational plant shut down after the plant’s fossil fuel reserves were depleted, EDL said, leading “to a total blackout across all Lebanese territories.”

Media reported that the Lebanese government had asked Iraq to forgive part of Lebanon’s unpaid debt for previous fuel shipments, which caused Iraq to delay further shipments. On August 18, Algerian authorities stated that they will supply Lebanon with fuel to operate its electricity power plants in wake of the power outage, and sent several thousand tons on August 22, but no further details on the arrangement are publicly available. On August 19, Prime Minister Najib Mikati asked Lebanon’s Central Inspection, the government agency responsible for overseeing public agencies, to investigate the power outage.

On August 21, Human Rights Watch sent a letter to the Energy and Water Minister with questions about the blackout, the status of promised reforms, and government steps to resolve the problem, but has not received written responses to the questions.

For almost 30 years, Lebanese authorities have failed to properly manage the state-run electricity company, resulting in widespread blackouts. Between 2005 and 2020, the Lebanese government purchased billions of dollars’ worth of tainted, faulty fuel from a subsidiary of the Algerian state oil company, Sonatrach. The decades of unsustainable policies and fundamental neglect, the result of elite capture of state resources, alleged corruption, and vested interests caused a complete collapse in 2021 amid the ongoing economic crisis, leaving the country without power through most of the day.

The government, including the Energy and Water Ministry, which is responsible for the overall strategic planning and policy development for electricity, has failed to implement key reforms that would unlock donor funds, enable greater access to continuous, accessible, and clean electricity from renewable sources, and rapidly phase out the use of fossil fuels.

In December 2023, Lebanon’s parliament passed the Distributed Renewable Energy Law, which seeks to organize the renewable energy sector and increase the number of hours of electricity provided by integrating renewable energy sources into the country’s electricity grid and to allow private renewable energy sources to sell electricity. However, the law has yet to go into effect because the government has failed to activate and appoint the members of the Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERA), the independent regulatory body mandated with overseeing the electricity sector since 2002.

“The ERA has not been appointed because of politics,” Diana Kaissy, former executive director of the Lebanese Oil and Gas Initiative, told Human Rights Watch. “The political parties are behind forbidding the relinquishing of powers of the ministry to the ERA.” In the absence of the ERA, the Council of Ministers, particularly the Energy and Water Minister, exerts almost complete control with little transparency and accountability.

In 2023, the World Bank conditionally agreed to finance agreements for Lebanon to import electricity and methane gas from Jordan and Egypt if Lebanese authorities carried out reforms, media reported. These included activating the ERA, auditing EDL, and improving collection of electricity bills. But the government, in addition to not appointing the ERA, has not published the required audit.

The World Bank should refrain from funding any new energy projects that rely on fossil fuels and instead provide technical and financial support to expand renewable energy infrastructure, Human Rights Watch said. The two main measures that the World Bank lists rely primarily on fossil fuels as the primary source of electricity, with renewable sources remaining relatively limited and largely seen as a last resort.

Human Rights Watch found in a 2023 report that Lebanon has almost unlimited renewable energy potential, particularly from solar and wind, with some experts saying that Lebanon could transition to 100 percent renewable energy utilizing wind, solar, and hydropower by 2035 using existing technologies.

In 2024, the main electricity company provided about four hours of electricity a day, media reported, while people who can afford it use highly polluting private diesel generators to supplement that supply. An informal and largely unregulated private diesel generator industry valued at around US$3 billion has mushroomed across the country.

The reliance on heavy fuel oil-powered plants and diesel generators generates significant air pollution that has taken a huge toll on the environment and had significant impacts on people’s health, possibly killing thousands each year in Lebanon, according to a Greenpeace estimate in 2020.

The Energy Minister has promised to increase the state-provided electricity supply up to eight hours a day, but energy experts told Human Rights Watch that this plan is unrealistic.

“All the current plans are not realistic,” said Christina Abi Haidar, a lawyer and independent energy consultant. “They do not address the current status quo, in light of the economic collapse. If we have fuel coming in for generators there will be no reform to the sector because the private generator profiteers are mostly politically affiliated cartels, and their business is going well. Who closes a business that brings them money?”

Since the beginning of cross-border hostilities with Israel on October 8, 2023, Israeli strikes in south Lebanon have also resulted in severe damage to electricity, water, and telecommunications infrastructure there, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said. On August 4, an Israeli strike destroyed an electricity substation in al-Taybeh. Israeli artillery shelling also damaged a power distribution station in Marjeyoun on July 13, exacerbating the electricity supply disruptions in the area.

The Lebanese government should, in the current fiscal and electricity crisis, immediately ramp up local and utility-scale renewable energy generation projects to decrease its reliance on expensive, and heavily polluting fossil fuels, Human Rights Watch said.

Everyone has the right to an adequate standard of living, as set out in treaties like the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), that are binding in Lebanon. Human Rights Watch has found that this right should also include, explicitly, a right to adequate, accessible, clean and sustainable electricity. Lebanon should recognize the right to electricity and enact a strong strategy to implement it as rapidly as possible.

Lebanon’s government should take immediate steps to ensure that all residents have a continuous, accessible, clean and sustainable supply of electricity from renewable energy sources. It should implement the 2023 Distributed Renewable Energy Law and ensure accountability and transparency in the electricity sector by activating the ERA and conducting an audit of the state-run electricity company.

“The time for excuses and dithering is over,” Kaiss said. “The government should no longer delay the needed electricity sector reforms to transition to a model of, clean and sustainable electricity from renewable energy sources.