Author: Human Rights Watch

(Jerusalem) – Israeli forces have arbitrarily detained Palestinian healthcare workers in Gaza since hostilities began in October 2023, deported them to detention facilities in Israel, and allegedly tortured and ill-treated them, Human Rights Watch said today. The detention of healthcare workers in the context of the Israeli military’s repeated attacks on hospitals in Gaza has contributed to the catastrophic degradation of the besieged territory’s healthcare system.

Released doctors, nurses and paramedics described to Human Rights Watch their mistreatment in Israeli custody, including humiliation, beatings, forced stress positions, prolonged cuffing and blindfolding, and denial of medical care. They also reported torture, including rape and sexual abuse by Israeli forces, denial of medical care, and poor detention conditions for the general detainee population. 

“The Israeli government’s mistreatment of Palestinian healthcare workers has continued in the shadows and needs to immediately stop,” said Balkees Jarrah, acting Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The torture and other ill-treatment of doctors, nurses, and paramedics should be thoroughly investigated and appropriately punished, including by the International Criminal Court (ICC).”

From March to June 2024, Human Rights Watch interviewed eight Palestinian healthcare workers who were taken by the Israeli military from Gaza between November and December 2023 and detained without charge for between seven days and five months. Six were detained at work following Israeli sieges of hospitals or during hospital evacuations that they said had been coordinated with the Israeli military. None of the healthcare workers said they were ever informed of the reason for their detention or charged with an offense. Human Rights Watch also spoke with seven people who witnessed Israeli soldiers detaining healthcare workers carrying out their duties. 

Human Rights Watch sent a letter to the Israeli military and Israeli Prison Services with the preliminary findings on August 13 but has not received a response.

All the healthcare workers interviewed provided similar accounts of mistreatment in Israeli custody. After being in Gaza, they were deported to detention facilities in Israel, including the Sde Teiman military base in the Negev desert and Ashkelon prison, or, forcibly transferred to the Anatot military base near East Jerusalem and the Ofer detention facility, in the occupied West Bank. All said that they were stripped, beaten, and blindfolded and handcuffed, for many weeks on end, and pressured to confess to being members of the Hamas movement with various threats of indefinite detention, rape, and killing their families in Gaza. 

A surgeon said he was “wearing scrubs and Crocs” when Israeli forces detained him during their siege of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, Gaza, in December. “We were 50 healthcare workers, including nurses and doctors,” he said. “The soldier on the microphone ordered men and boys over 15 years old to evacuate the hospital…. When they took us out of the hospital, they told us to undress and stay in our underwear.” 

One paramedic said that at the Sde Teiman detention facility he was suspended from a chain attached to handcuffs, electroshocked, denied medical care for broken ribs caused by beatings, and administered what he believed was a psychoactive drug before interrogations. “It was so degrading, it was unbelievable,” he said. “I was helping people as a paramedic, I never expected something like this.” 

Healthcare workers also reported being punished in detention for moving or speaking, and collectively punished if other detainees spoke. “Sometimes if one spoke, they [soldiers] punished the whole warehouse [at Naqab prison], collectively,” one healthcare worker said.

The Gaza Health Ministry reported that Israeli forces have detained at least 310 Palestinian healthcare workers since October 7. Healthcare Workers Watch-Palestine, a nongovernmental organization, documented 259 detentions of healthcare workers and collected 31 accounts describing torture and other abuses by Israeli authorities, including the use of stress positions, deprivation of adequate food and water, threats of sexual violence and rape, and degrading treatment. Healthcare Workers Watch-Palestine helped Human Rights Watch interview released healthcare workers. 

The prolonged arbitrary detention and mistreatment of healthcare workers has exacerbated the health crisis in Gaza, Human Rights Watch said. Since October, over 92,000 people in Gaza have been wounded, functional hospitals have fewer than 1,500 inpatient beds, and yet the Israeli authorities have allowed only 35 percent of nearly 14,000 people who requested medical evacuations to leave Gaza, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported on August 5. 

The healthcare workers’ accounts are consistent with independent reports, including by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Israeli news media, and rights groups, documenting dozens of detainee accounts of incommunicado detention, beatings, sexual violence, forced confessions, electrocution, and other torture and abuses of Palestinians in Israeli detention.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on June 3 that the Israeli military was conducting criminal investigations into the deaths of 48 Palestinians in Israeli detention facilities since October 7. These include Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, a surgeon and head of orthopedics at al-Shifa Hospital, and Dr. Eyad al-Rantisi, the director of a women’s health center at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia.  

Common article 3 to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, applicable to hostilities between Israel and the Palestinian armed groups, provides that “[p]ersons taking no active part in the hostilities … shall in all circumstances be treated humanely.” “Cruel treatment and torture” and “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment” are prohibited at all times. Those wounded and sick “shall be … cared for.” 

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, applicable to occupied territories, prohibits individual forcible transfers within the occupied territory as well as deportations of civilians from occupied territory to the occupying power’s territory, regardless of the motive. Serious violations of Common article 3 and article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention committed with criminal intent are war crimes. 

Human Rights Watch has found that Israeli authorities for decades have failed to provide credible accountability for torture and other abuses against Palestinian detainees. According to official Israeli statistics, between 2019 and 2022, 1,830 complaints of abuse were opened against Israeli Prison Services officers, with none resulting in a criminal conviction. Israeli authorities have not allowed independent humanitarian agencies access to Palestinian detainees since the start of hostilities. 

Governments should support international justice efforts to address Israeli abuses against Palestinian detainees and hold those responsible to account. The United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and other countries should press Israel to end its abusive detention practices, which form one aspect of systematic oppression underlying Israeli authorities’ crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution against Palestinians.

The ICC is considering arrest warrant applications against senior Israeli officials for grave international crimes and should ensure that its investigation addresses abuses against Palestinian detainees. Israel’s allies should press the government to urgently allow independent monitoring of detention facilities.

“The torture of Palestinian healthcare workers is a window into the much larger issue of the Israeli government’s treatment of detainees generally,” Jarrah said. “Governments should publicly call on the Israeli authorities to release unlawfully detained healthcare workers and end the cruel mistreatment and nightmarish conditions for all detained Palestinians.”

Humiliation, Ill-treatment, and Torture

The healthcare workers interviewed all reported humiliation, ill-treatment, and torture, including being stripped and beaten, with prolonged painful stress positions, near-constant cuffing, and blindfolding. Some said they were threatened with sexual violence and by attack dogs. 

Abuses During Deportation, Detention

All eight men reported being forced to strip publicly immediately after being taken into custody and remain kneeling for extended periods, exposed to the cold, and at various times throughout their detention. Photographs and videos that Israeli soldiers shared online and that Reuters verified show Palestinian detainees unclothed or in underwear. Publishing such images online is an outrage on personal dignity and posted sexualized images are a form of sexual violence, which are war crimes.

“We were forced to strip in the street and remain in our boxers, one by one,” said Osama Tashtash, 28, a doctor at the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia who was arrested in early December at his home nearby. “For an hour and a half, we were on our knees.” He said that during that period, he and other detainees were exposed to danger from Israeli military operations in the area. He said shrapnel fell on them as Israeli soldiers threw grenades at nearby houses and set them on fire.

Dr. Khalid Hamoudeh, 34, was arrested on the morning of December 12 at Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia. A photograph circulated late that evening by the Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 shows Dr. Hamoudeh shirtless alongside four other men he identified as fellow healthcare workers. The photograph shows the men standing in a row in front of an Israeli soldier holding a light panel, illuminating the detainees. 

Dr. Hamoudeh said they were photographed, then designated for release or detention. Behind them the photograph shows hundreds of men sitting in a large pit with at least 18 Israeli soldiers guarding them. A detailed analysis by the investigative TechJournalist identified several detainees with their hands tied behind their back, including Dr. Hamoudeh.

The image, whose site was identified first by the open-source researcher FDov on X, formerly known as Twitter, and later confirmed by Human Rights Watch, was taken approximately half a kilometer northeast of the hospital. Dr. Hamoudeh said that about 50 healthcare workers sitting together separately from internally displaced people. He said he was told to undress and stay in his underwear and was then blindfolded. 

The healthcare workers described beatings and physical abuse after being detained, including being punched, kicked with steel-toed boots, slapped, and beaten with assault-rifle butts by Israeli soldiers. 

Eyad Abed, 50, a surgeon at the Indonesian Hospital who was detained during a coordinated evacuation of the hospital in November, said:

Every minute we were beaten. I mean all over the body, on sensitive areas between the legs, the chest, the back. We were kicked all over the body and the face. They used the front of their boots which had a metal tip, then their weapons. They had lighters: one soldier tried to burn me but burned the person next to me. I told them I’m a doctor, but they didn’t care.

Abed said that he had broken ribs and a broken tailbone as a result of the physical assault by Israeli soldiers during his arrest and detention, which two months later still had not healed. 

An ambulance driver who asked not to be named said while he was being held with dozens of other men in large a metal “cage” near the Israel-Gaza border fence, he saw guards beat to death two men, one of whom he recognized, with metal bars.

The healthcare workers all described ill-treatment during their deportation from Gaza to detention facilities in Israel, including beatings, sitting in prolonged painful stress positions while blindfolded and cuffed by the hands and feet, being “stacked above each other like sheep,”  pepper sprayed, and denied water. 

Abuses in Detention Facilities

The healthcare workers said that Israeli authorities abused detainees at detention facilities inside Israel. Four said that when they arrived at detention facilities, the authorities forced them to wear adult diapers and denied them access to toilets.

The ambulance driver, who was detained for five months, was first transferred to a prison in Ashkelon, where guards interrogated him daily for a week, during which time they bound him in his underwear to a chair for between 10 and 15 hours a day in a room with a blasting air conditioner. He said he had been badly beaten and that sitting caused extreme pain in his spine. He said the authorities denied him access to a toilet, forcing him to urinate on himself, and refused to provide him any food or water. He was then transferred to the Ofer military detention facility in the Occupied West Bank, where at night, the guards threw cold water on him and on his mattress. 

A paramedic, Walid Khalili, 36, said that when soldiers removed his blindfold at the Sde Teiman facility, he saw he was in a large building “like a warehouse,” with chains hanging from the ceiling. Dozens of detainees in diapers were suspended from the ceiling, with the chains attached to their square metal handcuffs. He said that personnel at the facility then suspended him from a chain, so his feet were not touching the ground, dressed him in a garment and a headband that were attached to wires, and shocked him with electricity. 

Two doctors held at Sde Teiman said that other detainees came to them to seek care for wounds inflicted by Israeli authorities. When detainees “lifted their shirts, I saw signs of abuse and physical beatings,” one doctor said. The other said, “I saw [men] who had cigarette burns on their arms, it was very clear. One had a dog bite on his stomach.” 

As punishment for moving or speaking, detainees would be forced to stand, sometimes for hours, with their cuffed hands held above their head or fixed to a fence, detainees said. Detainees could hear the screams of other detainees being beaten nearby. One said that after he asked a question, an Israeli officer forced his fingers through a chain-link fence, he “told me to shut up and not say a word,” and pressed downward on the detainee’s fingers for several minutes, causing severe pain until the detainee could no longer feel his fingers. 

Three healthcare workers reported soldiers using military dogs to intimidate detainees. “They would threaten to shoot us and start loading their weapons,” one doctor said. “This felt like horror. They brought in military dogs. I screamed, that was the worst moment in my life, because I was still cuffed and blindfolded, not seeing where the dogs are coming from.” Another doctor said dogs were brought in late at night to wake and terrify detainees. 

Threats and Acts of Sexual Abuse

Three healthcare workers said that Israeli authorities threatened them with sexual assault. Khader Abu Nada, 30, a nurse at Beit Hanoun hospital in northern Gaza, said that when he denied any Hamas affiliation during his first interrogation at a military base in Gaza, the commander threatened to rape him with an “electric stick.” When Abu Nada continued to deny any Hamas affiliation, soldiers beat him until he was bleeding from his nose, hands, and mouth. 

Abu Nada said the commander then asked him where his mother was and threatened to bring her from the checkpoint where he was arrested and strip her in front of everyone. “When I heard this, I was psychologically broken. I felt humiliated,” he said. He said he was threatened with rape again prior to his release.

A detained paramedic who was transferred to al-Naqab prison after 20 days in Sde Teiman, said that a man who was visibly “bleeding from his bottom” was brought in and placed next to him. The man told the paramedic that before he was placed in detention, “three soldiers took turns raping him with an M16 [assault rifle]. No one else knew, but he told me as a paramedic. He was terrified.” In addition, a doctor said while he was detained in a military base, a detainee, “in his late 30s, crying hard … told me he was sexually assaulted during the strip search.”

Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Conditions

All the healthcare workers described horrific conditions in detention. Abed, the surgeon, said the food was “horrible” and inadequate, and that he lost 22 kilograms during a month and a half in detention. The bathrooms were “not even fit for animals.” The mattresses and blankets were thin, and the cold nights were “unbearable.” In the cells, water for toilets and for drinking was only available for one hour a day, with a “disgusting” stench emanating from the non-flushable toilets. “They gave us a bag for the garbage.  We used to fill it with water and drink from it later. It smelled horrible but we had no choice,” Abed said.

For detainees’ meals at Sde Teiman, soldiers “emptied tuna cans into a garbage bag and gave it to me,” said Dr. Khalid Hamoudeh, whom soldiers ordered to distribute food to detainees. “One time I saw a soldier spit in the bag. Many [detainees] were starving and telling me they were hungry.” A nurse detained at Anatot said, “We got two meals [a day]. It was terrible food. I would just drink water, there were no fruits, not even apples. They gave us food just to survive the day.”

Khalili, the paramedic, said that at one point when he was detained in Sde Teiman, an Israeli news crew arrived, and a detainee who understood Hebrew told him that a prison official told the journalists, falsely, that the detainees were members of a unit of Hamas’s armed wing responsible for the October 7 attacks. The next day, the paramedic said, soldiers brought food and set it in front of the detainees, ordered them not to eat it, took photographs, then took the food away.

Prolonged Cuffing and Blindfolding

The healthcare workers said that they were cuffed almost constantly throughout their detention. They said Israeli authorities often ignored detainees who complained about the tightness of their cuffs or tightened their cuffs as punishment for complaining. In a public letter, an Israeli doctor working in the military field hospital at Sde Teiman wrote that in a single week, “two prisoners had their legs amputated due to handcuff injuries, which unfortunately is a routine event.” 

Abu Nada, the nurse, said he was arrested at the Kuwaiti Roundabout in Gaza on November 22 while evacuating from the north with his family. Soldiers ordered him to strip, cuffed and blindfolded him, then took him for questioning. He said his first interrogation ended with an Israeli military commander punching him in the face and kicking him all over his body, then ordering another soldier to tighten his cuffs and drag him to an open field, where he waited on his knees for an hour.

“My wrists hurt so much, they felt paralyzed and numb. I cried so much, I couldn’t take the pain,” Abu Nada said. When he asked a soldier to loosen his cuffs, he said the soldier repeatedly kicked his head instead. “I told him, ‘Kill me I can’t take it anymore, kill me already.’” Israeli soldiers ignored or beat him in response to his multiple requests to loosen his handcuffs.

Abu Nada said his wrists later turned black, and he feared his mistreatment may have caused permanent damage: “I still feel pain in my hands. My hands are weak, and I have no strength to hold or carry anything. Also, there’s still pain from my shoulders all the way to my fingertips. I have severe neck pain from the pressure on my head when they kept pushing our heads down.”

As Physicians for Human Rights Israel has reported, prolonged physical restraint causes intense pain and can result in permanent nerve damage that interferes with using the hands and in extreme cases can lead to death. 

The healthcare workers also all reported prolonged, near-constant blindfolding. According to Physicians for Human Rights Israel, “blindfolding can, even with short-term use, induce visual hallucinations in healthy individuals. Over extended periods, prolonged use of blindfolds can contribute to the onset of anxiety disorders, depression, substance abuse, and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) in the medium to long term.”

Medical Neglect

The healthcare workers described medical neglect despite the detainees’ numerous requests and clear, urgent need for treatment for preexisting health conditions, or for injuries sustained during the hostilities in Gaza or from abuses in custody. 

A nurse at Awda hospital in northern Gaza, who asked not to be named, said that on November 21 he was injured when an Israeli airstrike hit his hospital. He had emergency surgery at Awda hospital to stabilize broken fingers and a torn tendon in his right hand, which was then placed in a cast, and an open wound on his left hand was wrapped in gauze. 

The next day, the nurse left the hospital in an ambulance along with 15 other people, including patients, their companions, and hospital staff, in an evacuation arranged by the Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontieres (MSF or Doctors Without Borders). “The hospital shared our car license plate number, IDs, and names [with the Israeli military], and everything was approved,” he said.

Shortly after their departure, Israeli soldiers at the Kuwaiti Roundabout stopped the ambulance and ordered all passengers to exit. The nurse and another doctor were taken aside and ordered to strip. “My right hand had a cast and titanium [implants]; I couldn’t use it. I couldn’t even pee alone. The doctor detained with me helped me take off my clothes, even my shoes,” the nurse said.

Cuffed and blindfolded, the nurse was taken to Anatot military base. He said that on intake, soldiers introduced a man as a doctor who examined his wounds but did nothing else. He said despite repeated requests, the dressing was only changed for the first time on the third or fourth day of his detention and rarely after that. “They only changed the gauze on the injuries – no scans, no proper medication, nothing. My injury, the skin was open, [but I was given] nothing to treat possible bacteria,” he said. The nurse also said that after a week of detention he was released and needed surgery to treat hemorrhoids due to constant sitting and being kicked in detention. 

Dr. Hamoudeh said that during his detention at Sde Teiman in late December, he saw another detainee with apparent “trauma from beatings, and I was terrified he would die.” He alerted authorities who said they were paramedics – he never saw an Israeli doctor at the facility – and “they took pictures [of the injuries] and sent it to someone. The soldier then told them enough, and not to do any more medical care.” He said when he told soldiers about people in need of medical care, they would reply to him saying they did not care if they died. 

Dr. Hamoudeh said that one day in December, soldiers brought in five detained doctors, including Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, head of orthopedics at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, who was declared dead by Israeli Prison authorities in Ofer prison in April. “Dr. Adnan was in pain from the beatings. He was also punished. He had visible blunt trauma, and he had trouble breathing,” Dr. Hamoudeh said. “What happened to him, happened to many. There’s clear medical neglect.”

Dr. Osama Tushtash, 28, fell ill with a severe fever after a week in detention at what he believed was al-Naqab prison, but Israeli authorities refused to let him see a doctor or even to give him a painkiller. “They just told me to drink water,” he said.

Khalili, the paramedic, said he suffered broken ribs and a lung injury as a result of beatings, but received no medical treatment at Sde Teiman. He said he saw a detainee die from what he believes was cardiac arrest. When a soldier brought in a doctor, who confirmed the detainee was dead, the detainees shouted “Allahu akbar,” prompting a violent raid by an Israeli special unit tasked with prison raids.

Autopsies of Palestinians who died in Israeli detention facilities indicated medical neglect and signs of physical abuse, including bruising and broken bones, Haaretz reported in March. A report released by Physicians for Human Rights Israel documented treatment without consent, surgery performed without an anesthesiologist, and political interference in medical decisions in detention facilities. 

In a letter to senior Israeli officials, an Israeli doctor at Sde Teiman field hospital described practices that endangered detainees’ health, including the lack of trained medical staff, and transferring patients back to the detention facility after only an hour of observation following “major [surgical] operations,” Haaretz reported. 

Article 91 of the Fourth Geneva Convention requires facilities detaining civilians to “have an adequate infirmary, under the direction of a qualified doctor,” where those detained may receive “the attention they require, as well as an appropriate diet.” Under international human rights law, medical care for detainees should be at least equivalent to that available to the general population. Current conditions of detention violate the Israeli Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law, which provides for detainees’ right to medical treatment, hygienic conditions, healthy and dignified sleeping arrangements, and daily outside exercise. 

Use of Prisoner Functionaries 

Two healthcare workers detained in different facilities said Israeli military commanders tasked them to act as prisoner functionaries or Shawish (an Arabic slang term for “servant” or “subordinate”). The men said that shawish, who act as intermediaries between the guards and detainees, are the only detainees not constantly blindfolded, though their hands remain cuffed. The men prepared and distributed food, assisted detainees with eating or using the toilet, cleaned rooms, transferred detainees to interrogation, and provided basic medical care.

Whistleblowers who spoke to CNN alleged that Israeli authorities appointed detainees as shawish only after they were cleared of suspected links to Hamas, and thus had no reason to detain them. In a statement to CNN, the Israeli military denied holding detainees unnecessarily.

Dr. Hamoudeh said that soldiers at Sde Teiman told him to act as a shawish because he spoke English, warning, “If you do anything, you’ll be punished worse than the rest.” He was interrogated only once, for about 10 minutes, on the tenth day of his detention, and was released without charge after 22 days. 

Abu Nada, the nurse, said authorities at the Anatot military base told him to work as a shawish. On the fifth day of his detention, a soldier speaking in Arabic told him that if he wanted a lawyer, he had to provide the lawyer’s phone number, which he could not. He said the soldier told him, “We didn’t find anything on you. But we will continue investigating.” He was released without charge after about eight days, on December 1. 

With his blindfold removed, Dr. Hamoudeh saw 10 to 20 detainees with medical conditions at Sde Teiman, some of whom needed immediate medical care. “They [the soldiers] threw this responsibility at me, but [left me] without proper medical equipment and facilities,” Hamoudeh said. “I was terrified some would die. […] The shawish before me told me [before being released] that three detainees died during his time.” 

Abu Nada accompanied cuffed, blindfolded detainees from the “warehouse” to the interrogation room. “All the way to interrogation, soldiers would be kicking and assaulting [the detainees],” he said. “I used to cry when transferring them, because I’m the one bringing them to this torture. Soldiers told me to turn my face not to look as they continued to kick and beat the detainees.”

(New York) – Israeli military attacks on healthcare infrastructure and water supplies and ongoing aid obstruction are contributing to a potentially catastrophic polio outbreak in Gaza, Human Rights Watch said today. Polio, which is entirely preventable but spreads fast, particularly among children under 5, can cause disabilities, including paralysis, and death among unvaccinated children.

On August 16, 2024, the Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed the first case of polio in an unvaccinated 10-month old child in Gaza. On the same date, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that three children were showing symptoms of acute flaccid paralysis, raising concern that the virus could be spreading among children in Gaza. On August 23, WHO confirmed that the 10-month old child is now paralyzed. The cases are emerging one month after WHO raised the alarm that vaccine-derived poliovirus had been found in Gaza’s wastewater.

“If the Israeli government continues to block urgent aid and destroy water and waste management infrastructure, it will facilitate the spread of a disease that has been nearly eradicated globally,” said Julia Bleckner, senior health and human rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Israel’s partners should press the government to lift the blockade immediately and ensure unfettered humanitarian access in Gaza to enable the timely distribution of vaccines to contain the unfolding polio outbreak.”

Before the case was confirmed on August 16, Palestine had been polio-free for more than 25 years, thanks to a successful childhood vaccination program. However, Israel’s ongoing decimation of healthcare, water, and sanitation facilities in Gaza and its obstruction of aid and humanitarian access have created “the perfect environment for diseases like polio to spread,” according to WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The spread of the polio virus poses significant risk for the hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza who may have missed routine vaccinations since the escalation of hostilities in October 2023, Human Rights Watch said. In 2022, polio vaccination rates in Gaza were “optimal,” at around 99 percent. By early 2024, those rates had dropped to below 90 percent. 

When vaccine-derived polio had previously been detected in wastewater, authorities intervened with targeted vaccine campaigns to protect children. But Dr. Hamid Jafari, WHO’s polio eradication director for the eastern Mediterranean region, told Human Rights Watch on July 27 that “[t]he impact on [the] health system, insecurity, inaccessibility, population displacement, and shortages of medical supplies have contributed to reduced routine immunization rates.” 

WHO is planning to initiate two rounds of a polio vaccination campaign in Gaza, starting at the end of August. Humanitarian actors are raising the alarm that it will be impossible to reach the more than 640,000 children who need polio vaccines if Israel continues its ongoing bombardments on civilians and civilian infrastructure and obstruction of humanitarian access.

In addition to security risks, Gaza’s severely weakened public health system makes it difficult for humanitarian workers to ensure that these vaccines reach the children who need them, a problem exacerbated by the Israeli military’s repeated displacement of virtually the entire population. The Israeli military has obstructed humanitarian missions inside Gaza and attacked medical and other aid workers who shared their precise coordinates. 

Furthermore, the Israeli military has obstructed aid entering Gaza, first by banning it outright and later by imposing onerous restrictions. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, humanitarian aid entering Gaza has dropped by over 50 percent since April and about a third of humanitarian aid missions were denied access to Gaza by Israeli authorities since August 1. 

International humanitarian law requires Israel, as the occupying power in Gaza, to ensure that the basic needs of the civilian population are provided for. In addition, all parties to the conflict are obligated to “allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief for civilians in need.” This is a positive obligation that requires Israel to ensure that the civilian population can access medical supplies, including vaccines. 

Preventable diseases tend to emerge alongside systemic rights abuses. Violations of the right to clean drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene and obstruction of access to vaccines and health care services create the conditions for otherwise preventable disease to spread through vulnerable populations, Human Rights Watch said.

Israeli military strikes have destroyed key civilian infrastructure in Gaza required to prevent and respond to disease outbreak, including hospitals, drinking water sources, and waste management infrastructure. Israeli forces have also destroyed the main water quality testing laboratories in Gaza, making epidemiological surveillance of the poliovirus and other waterborne diseases extremely difficult. 

The Israeli military has used starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza, blocking access to food and water-related supplies, which is a war crime. People in Gaza have only had an average of 1.5 to 9 liters of water per day since November, less than the 15 liters per day that is the minimum needed for survival, according to WHO. Intentionally depriving civilians of clean water is a war crime. 

An Oxfam report published in July found that Israeli forces have destroyed 70 percent of sewage pumps and all wastewater treatment plants in Gaza, leading to the accumulation of 340,000 tons of solid waste near populated areas. According to the Health Ministry in Gaza, the poliovirus was found in sewage that runs between overcrowded tents of people displaced by Israeli air strikes. 

Waterborne diseases are already spiking in Gaza. More than a quarter of the population is sick with preventable water and sanitation-related diseases, such as acute diarrhea, skin diseases, and hepatitis A. Human Rights Watch has documented the Israeli military’s repeated, apparently unlawful, attacks on medical facilities, which should be investigated as war crimes, severely hindering capacity to respond to outbreaks of disease. Only 16 of the 36 hospitals in Gaza are even partially functional, and even fewer are accessible. 

The International Criminal Court is considering issuing arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials for depriving the civilian population in Gaza of “objects indispensable to human survival,” including “clean water.” Israel is contravening the International Court of Justice’s legally binding orders by obstructing the entry of lifesaving aid and services into Gaza, Human Rights Watch said. Since January, the court has three times ordered provisional measures requiring Israel to ensure the provision of basic services and humanitarian assistance as part of South Africa’s case alleging that Israel is violating the Genocide Convention of 1948.

The Israeli government should immediately end its blockade of Gaza and ensure full and unfettered humanitarian access, including access to vaccines and medicines, Human Rights Watch said. Countries should use leverage such as targeted sanctions and embargoes to press the Israeli government to comply with the court’s binding orders. 

“Children in Gaza are already suffering from starvation and rampant infectious disease as a result of Israel’s blockade and attacks on civilian infrastructure and are now facing an unprecedented polio outbreak without vaccines to protect them,” Bleckner said. “Israel’s allies should unequivocally press for an end to the siege of Gaza.”

(New York, August 26, 2024) – Governments should heed United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres’ call to open negotiations on a new international treaty on lethal autonomous weapons systems Human Rights Watch said today. These “killer robots” select and attack targets based on sensor processing rather than human inputs, a dangerous development for humanity.

In a report released on August 6, 2024, the secretary-general reiterated his call for states to conclude by 2026 a new international treaty “to prohibit weapons systems that function without human control or oversight and that cannot be used in compliance with international humanitarian law.” This treaty should regulate all other types of autonomous weapons systems, the secretary-general said.

“The UN secretary-general emphasizes the enormous detrimental effects removing human control over weapons systems would have on humanity,” said Mary Wareham, deputy crisis, conflict and arms director at Human Rights Watch. “The already broad international support for tackling this concern should spur governments to start negotiations without delay.”

Autonomy has been incorporated into weapons systems for years, but the duration of operation, geographical scope, and environment in which autonomous weapons systems operate have been limited. Technological advances are driving the development of weapons systems that operate without meaningful human control, delegating life-and-death decisions to machines. The machine rather than the human operator would determine where, when, or against what force is applied.

The UN report was mandated by a December 2023 UN resolution that asked the secretary-general to seek the views of countries and other stakeholders on ways to address the challenges and concerns raised by autonomous weapons systems “from humanitarian, legal, security, technological and ethical perspectives,” and reflect those views in a report. General Assembly Resolution 78/241 also added an agenda item on lethal autonomous weapons systems to the provisional agenda of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, which opens on September 10.

The new UN report reflects 58 submissions from more than 73 countries, and another 33 submissions from the International Committee of the Red Cross and civil society groups including Human Rights Watch. A review by the Automated Decision Research project of the Stop Killer Robots campaign found that 47 of the 58 submissions expressed support for some form of prohibitions or regulations on autonomous weapons systems. 

Many submissions for the UN report express concern and regret at the inability of talks at the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) held since 2014 to make progress and adopt new international law on this issue. States should move their discussions to another international forum to begin negotiations. In his report, the secretary-general called the UN General Assembly “a venue for inclusive discussions” on autonomous weapons systems given its “near universal membership and wide substantive scope,” as well as its ability to consider “international peace and security” concerns. 

Tackling the killer robots challenge under the auspices of the General Assembly would allow greater consideration of concerns that have been overlooked in previous discussions, Human Rights Watch said. These include ethical perspectives, international human rights law, proliferation, and impacts on global security and regional and international stability.

In the report, the secretary-general reiterates that “time is running out for the international community to take preventative action on this issue,” and reaffirms “the need to act urgently to preserve human control over the use of force.”

Interest in negotiating an international treaty on autonomous weapons systems continues to grow. In April, more than 1,000 representatives from 144 countries attended a high-level international conference in Vienna on the problems raised by autonomous weapons systems. The conference followed a series of regional meetings on autonomous weapons systems concerns held over 14 months in Costa Rica, Luxembourg, Trinidad and Tobago, Philippines, and Sierra Leone. Most issued regional communiques calling for the urgent negotiation of a legally binding instrument containing prohibitions and restrictions on autonomous weapons systems.

At the secretary-general’s initiative, world leaders will convene at UN headquarters on September 22-23 for a Summit of the Future. They are expected to endorse a “Pact for the Future” covering a wide array of initiatives, including killer robots. The current draft of the Pact recommends that countries act “with urgency” to develop an instrument to address the risks posed by autonomous weapons systems.

“The Summit of the Future provides an important opportunity for states to express high-level support for opening negotiations to ban and restrict autonomous weapons systems,” Wareham said. “Without explicit legal rules, the world faces a grim future of automated killing that will place civilians everywhere in grave danger.” 

Human Rights Watch is a cofounder of Stop Killer Robots, the coalition of more than 260 nongovernmental organizations across 70 countries that is working for new international law on autonomy in weapons systems.

On August 14, following the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention’s (Africa CDC) declaration of mpox as a public health emergency of continental security, the World Health Organization (WHO) recognized it as a public health emergency of international concern.

Mpox, a highly contagious disease transmitted primarily through close contact with infected individuals, has seen a significant rise in cases this year, with more than 17,000 reported cases and more than 500 deaths, predominantly in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Symptoms include a blistering rash, swollen lymph nodes, fever, and muscle aches. Experts told Human Rights Watch the current variant of the virus seems to differ from previous outbreaks, with increased transmission occurring heterosexually and spreading to children through close interactions within families.

The Africa CDC has emphasized the need for global solidarity in combating this outbreak. Dr. Jean Kaseya, the Africa CDC’s director-general, has called on the international community to avoid punitive measures such as travel bans against African countries. There is a critical need for support, particularly access to vaccines, from countries with substantial stockpiles that are not experiencing any active outbreaks. “Don’t punish Africa,” Kaseya urged, pointing to the unfair treatment the continent endured during the Covid-19 pandemic and stressing the importance of a fair and equitable global response.

Global health experts have warned that the African continent is “always last in line for access to lifesaving tools.” The continent’s delayed access to HIV/AIDS treatments, Ebola response resources, Covid-19 vaccines, and now mpox interventions, underscores the persistent inequities in global health access. The response to the 2022 mpox outbreak, which primarily affected men who have sex with men, highlighted the risks of stigmatizing gay men. Human Rights Watch has previously warned that some actors exploit public health crises to marginalize vulnerable groups and stressed the need to place human rights at the center of any response.

As the current mpox outbreak continues, it is essential that human rights principles are applied to this public health challenge. Ensuring all people, regardless of geographic location or socioeconomic status, have access to necessary healthcare resources is not only a legal and moral imperative, but a critical component in controlling the spread of this and future infectious diseases.

 

(Bangkok) – Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar are facing the gravest threats since 2017, when the Myanmar military carried out a sweeping campaign of massacres, rape, and arson in northern Rakhine State, Human Rights Watch said today. August 25, 2024, marks the seventh anniversary since the start of the military’s crimes against humanity and acts of genocide that forced more than 750,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh.

In recent months, the Myanmar military and the ethnic Arakan Army have committed mass killings, arson, and unlawful recruitment against Rohingya communities in Rakhine State. On August 5, nearly 200 people were reportedly killed following drone strikes and shelling on civilians fleeing fighting in Maungdaw town near the Bangladesh border, according to Rohingya witnesses. About 630,000 Rohingya remain in Myanmar under a system of apartheid that leaves them exceptionally vulnerable to renewed fighting.

“Rohingya in Rakhine State are enduring abuses tragically reminiscent of the military’s atrocities in 2017,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Once again, armed forces are driving thousands of Rohingya from their homes with killings and arson, leaving them nowhere safe to turn.”

Rohingya have been caught in the middle of the fighting since hostilities resumed in November 2023, ending a year-long unofficial ceasefire. As the Arakan Army has rapidly expanded its control across Rakhine State, the military has responded with indiscriminate attacks on civilians using helicopter gunships, artillery, and ground assaults. In late April, Arakan Army forces began attacking Rohingya villages in Buthidaung, culminating in their May 17 capture of the town, during which they shelled, looted, and burned Rohingya neighborhoods.

Armed clashes have since moved west to Maungdaw, spurring further abuses and displacement, including arson and looting. Four videos from the August 5 attacks shared on X, formerly Twitter, on August 6 show dozens of bodies of men, women, and children. Geoconfirmed identified the location, which Human Rights Watch corroborated, at the western edge of Maungdaw town. Rohingya witnesses told Human Rights Watch they believed the Arakan Army was responsible. The junta and Arakan Army have blamed each other for the attacks.

“Over the last two months, there was serious fighting between the Arakan Army and Myanmar military, with artillery shells and drones,” said a 24-year-old Rohingya man from Myo Ma Ka Nyin Tan, Maungdaw, in August. “Many Rohingya villagers were killed and injured every day. I went to several funerals.” He fled on August 5 when fighting descended on his neighborhood. “We made our way to the riverbank to cross, where thousands of people were making the journey. Suddenly, drones appeared and started dropping bombs on the crowd. In our group of 70 to 80, close to 20 were killed, and 10 others, including myself, were injured.”

“The Naf River was full of dead Rohingya bodies as we fled,” said another villager, 18, who told Human Rights Watch that his father was killed in a drone attack. “I saw many dead bodies in the paddy fields and on the riverbank.” His boat capsized in the river while crossing into Bangladesh, drowning two dozen people. He and his brother found a plastic barrel which they floated on to the shore. The Border Guard Bangladesh arrested his mother while she attempted to cross the border and have detained her since, he said. Border guards have increased pushbacks of asylum seekers along the Rakhine border since January.

The conflict has displaced more than 320,000 people in Rakhine State and southern Chin State since November 2023. Meanwhile, the junta has ramped up its deadly blockages of humanitarian aid as a form of collective punishment, which is in violation of international humanitarian law and contrary to the 2022 United Nations Security Council resolution and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) five-point consensus.

Rohingya are being pressured from all sides in Myanmar and Bangladesh, Human Rights Watch said. In recent months, the junta has unlawfully recruited thousands of Rohingya men and boys from Rakhine State and the refugee camps in Bangladesh, with support from Rohingya armed groups, inflaming tensions between the Rohingya Muslim and Rakhine Buddhist communities.

In Bangladesh, about one million Rohingya refugees are facing increasingly dire conditions in the Cox’s Bazar camps amid surging violence by armed groups and criminal gangs. In August alone, there have been reports of members of the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation and Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army carrying out killings, abductions, forced recruitment, extortion, and robbery. Bangladesh authorities have failed to ensure refugees access to protection, education, livelihoods, and movement.

“My heart aches for the safety of our Rohingya students and the entire community in the area,” a Rohingya teacher in the camps wrote in a note to Human Rights Watch. His students have been increasingly absent from classes, he said, either abducted for ransom, unlawfully recruited, or kept home by their parents out of fear. “Brutal gang activity has created a climate of terror. The fear is palpable, a suffocating weight.”

Bangladesh’s interim prime minister, Muhammad Yunus, said he will “continue to support the million-plus Rohingya people sheltered in Bangladesh,” although his foreign adviser told Reuters that they are not in a position to accept more refugees. Bangladesh is bound by the customary international law prohibition on refoulement, not to forcibly return anyone to a place where they would face a threat to life or a real risk of persecution, torture, or other ill-treatment.

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh have consistently said they want to go home but only when their safety, access to land and livelihoods, freedom of movement, and citizenship rights can be ensured. Since January 2023, more than 5,000 Rohingya have attempted dangerous boat journeys to Indonesia and Malaysia in the hope of a better life. An estimated 520 of them have died or gone missing.

While the international response to the 2017 violence was meager and no one has yet been held to account for the crimes against the Rohingya, there have been some important steps toward justice, Human Rights Watch said. In June, an Argentine prosecutor requested arrest warrants for 25 individuals within the Myanmar political and military authorities. The case was filed under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows national authorities to prosecute suspects of grave crimes regardless of nationality or where the crimes were committed.

In July, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accepted the interventions of seven governments in Gambia’s case against Myanmar under the Genocide Convention. Hearings on the merits of the case will most likely take place in 2025. At the same time, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has an ongoing investigation into the situation, although its jurisdiction is limited to alleged crimes committed at least in part in Bangladesh, an ICC member country.

The UN Security Council should expand the ICC’s jurisdiction in the case by referring the situation in Myanmar to the court, Human Rights Watch said. Council members have so far not followed up on the December 2022 resolution with tangible measures, fearing vetoes by China and Russia.

Security Council members should support holding an open meeting to address the deteriorating situation in Rakhine State and build momentum for a follow-up resolution under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. The council should also play a role in enforcing the binding provisional measures ordered by the ICJ in the genocide case, which the military has blatantly disregarded.

“Over the past seven years, UN bodies and governments haven’t done enough to end the system of apartheid and persecution that has exposed Rohingya to further suffering,” Pearson said. “Ending the ongoing cycles of abuses, destruction, and displacement requires international efforts to hold those responsible to account.”

(Geneva) – The renowned Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei has partnered with Human Rights Watch and the Swiss art publisher JRP|Editions on three series of limited edition lithographs that will be available in September 2024, and can be previewed on jrp-editions.com.

A portion of the proceeds will benefit Human Rights Watch.

The artworks consist of three series of 99 lithographs released in three colors: “Malibu,” “Sunshine,” and “Peach.” They resemble a geometric tile consisting of surveillance cameras, Twitter birds, and handcuffs to symbolize the struggle for freedom of speech. The “Grass Mud Horse” lithographs are all numbered and signed by Ai Weiwei. The title in Chinese is a homophone for either a mythical animal or a vulgar profanity used to insult a person’s mother. The animal, which resembles a llama, has become a Chinese internet meme as a tongue-in-cheek icon of resistance to censorship by China’s online communities. 

“Ai Weiwei is an inspiration to people fighting oppression the world over,” said Tirana Hassan, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “We are absolutely thrilled to be working with him again and to partner with JRP|Editions to release his very first lithographic editions.” The lithographs will be released at 12 p.m. ET/6 p.m. CEST on Tuesday, September 10 and can be preordered for CHF 1,500 (roughly US$1,750) each.

Ai Weiwei is the son of a poet who fell out of favor with the Chinese Communist party and was sent to a labor camp. A conceptual artist who fuses traditional craftsmanship and his Chinese heritage, Ai Weiwei’s work often revolves around human rights and democracy themes. The Chinese government held him in a secret police detention center in 2011 without any formal charges and confiscated his passport. In 2015, he left China when his passport was returned. 

He previously partnered with Human Rights Watch during the Covid-19 pandemic, printing his artwork on masks in a mass activism project. The project focused on the simple face mask, a ubiquitous form of protection during the pandemic but one that is banned in Hong Kong, where pro-democracy protesters used masks before the emergence of Covid-19 to evade police tear gas and facial recognition technology. 

His works of art were printed on the masks, including symbols of free speech, surveillance, persecution, mass obedience, and defiance. This project of mass activism raised $1.4 million for Human Rights Watch’s work on human rights in the pandemic and also benefited two colleague organizations, Refugees International and Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders).

This new partnership was created under the initiative of Deborah Najar, a cultural strategist, and Helena Bjäringer, Human Rights Watch’s Geneva Committee member, who has been involved in the organization’s Art+Activism initiative, which engages artists, curators, and galleries in the human rights movement.

About JRP|Editions

Since it was founded in 1997, JRP|Editions (formerly JRP|Ringier, 2004–2018) has established itself as an independent international publisher of contemporary art. Partnering with artists, museums, galleries, and private institutions worldwide, it has built up a catalogue of more than 550 titles currently in active distribution. 

In 2019, JRP|Editions opened a new department dedicated to fine art multiples. Since then, it has released over 70 limited editions, including lithographs, screen prints, monotypes, sculptures, neon lights, mirrors and textiles, in collaboration with artists of all generations and nationalities.

(Nairobi) – Two human rights defenders who held a news conference to criticize the Democratic Republic of Congo’s “state of siege” in eastern provinces have been held without charge since August 1, 2024, Human Rights Watch said today.

Jack Sinzahera, 35, one of those held, a member of the citizens’ movement Amka Congo (Wake up Congo), is a longtime activist and campaigner who advocates lifting the “state of siege” imposed in the North Kivu and Ituri provinces. Gloire Saasita, 27, also held, is a member of the Génération Positive citizens’ movement, which fights for the defense of human rights in Congo. Neither has been taken before a judge, which Congolese law requires within 48 hours of an arrest. The government should immediately release them.

“Human Rights Watch is deeply concerned for the safety of activists Jack Sinzahera and Gloire Saasita,” said Carine Kaneza Nantulya, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Congolese authorities should release them and stop using the ‘state of siege’ to crack down on the rights to free expression and association.”

These arrests occurred at a time when armed conflict in eastern Congo has intensified as Rwandan-backed M23 continue to seize territory around the eastern city of Goma. In May 2021, President Félix Tshisekedi, who was re-elected in December 2023, declared martial law – a “state of siege” – in the North Kivu and Ituri provinces. The military has taken over civilian authority in both provinces since then, and martial law has remained in effect. Armed groups continue to attack civilians with little protection from the Congolese army despite the “state of siege.”

Activists who were at the August 1 news conference told Human Rights Watch that at about 10:45 a.m., Sinzahera and Saasita were in the basketball stadium of Goma’s Institut Supérieur de Commerce (Higher Institute of Commerce) giving interviews to journalists when men in civilian clothes approached them. The activists interviewed said they recognized the men as being from the Goma intelligence police, known as P2.

They said one of the men told Sinzahera that they had come to arrest him and another told Saasita: “As you’re covering yourself with the country’s flag and you’re a patriot, you too can come and explain yourself afterwards.” The men put the two activists into a private car and drove away.

A family member and a human rights defender based in Kinshasa, the Congolese capital, told Human Rights Watch that on August 10, the two activists were transferred to the General Directorate of Intelligence (Direction Générale des Renseignements) in Kinshasa. The families said the authorities have not told them the reason for the arrests.

An activist from Goma said he was able to visit once the two activists in custody after paying a bribe. He said that Sinzahera and Saasita told friends when they visited them that they were arrested for criticizing the “state of siege.”

Human Rights Watch previously reported that the military and police have used martial law to curtail freedom of expression, put down peaceful demonstrations with lethal force, and arbitrarily detain and prosecute activists, journalists, and political opposition members.

On April 2, 2022, Mwamisiyo Ndungo, an activist with Lucha, an organization which fights for the protection of rights and freedoms in Congo, was arrested and later convicted and sentenced to five years in prison for criticizing the “state of siege” on his X, formerly Twitter, account. These latest arrests further highlight the government’s growing intolerance toward voices critical of the “state of siege” in North Kivu, Human Rights Watch said.

Under martial law orders, military authorities are able to ban meetings deemed against public order and arrest anyone for disrupting public order. Civilians are prosecuted before military courts, which violates Congo’s obligations under international human rights law to ensure due process and fair trial rights.

Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Congo is a party, certain rights may be suspended under a state of emergency but must be tailored to the “exigencies of the situation” and be lawful, necessary, and proportionate, including when martial law is in effect. The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which Congo has ratified, does not allow for suspending any of its provisions under any circumstances.

“The arrests of Jack Sinzahera and Gloire Saasita appear to be aimed at their criticism of the ‘state of siege,’” Kaneza Nantulya said. “The Congolese government should ensure that martial rule is not used as a pretext to curtail people’s fundamental rights and find effective measures to address security issues in North Kivu.”

On Tuesday, Australia’s National Children’s Commissioner released a report, “Help way earlier!”, that finds that Australia is failing to protect children’s rights in its criminal justice system.

Commissioner Anne Hollands based her findings on interviews with 150 children and young people who have experienced the system firsthand. The report makes 24 recommendations, including banning solitary confinement for children throughout Australia and raising the age of criminal responsibility to 14. In most parts of Australia today, children as young as 10 can be detained.

The report finds that First Nations children with intergenerational trauma and children with disabilities were too often being criminally prosecuted. Many of these children were experiencing poverty, marginalization, and systemic racism, but their basic needs, such as safe housing, were not being met. Instead, they faced incarceration.

The report also highlighted that that many of the children detained are living with disabilities and mental health conditions, which can be exacerbated by harsh conditions, including solitary confinement.

Previous reports, including the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability, have also made recommendations to ban solitary confinement and raise the age of criminal responsibility. However, most Australian state and territory governments have not acted on these recommendations.

Last week, Victoria’s government announced it had abandoned its plans to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14 and said it would only raise it from 10 to 12.

No jurisdiction in Australia currently prohibits the use of solitary confinement with children. Solitary confinement is damaging for all prisoners but it is particularly harmful for children and people with disabilities. The stress of a closed and heavily monitored environment, absence of meaningful social contact, and lack of activity can exacerbate trauma and cause long-term, serious, and irreparable harm to children and people with disabilities. In 2018, Human Rights Watch found that people with disabilities in Australian prisons were disproportionately placed in solitary confinement.

The Commissioner’s report concluded that while criminal justice was largely the responsibility of states and territories in Australia, national leadership is needed. It calls on the federal government to introduce a National Children’s Act alongside a Human Rights Act.

Mistreatment at the hands of the criminal justice system can have devastating and even deadly impacts on children. All Australian jurisdictions should respond swiftly and decisively to the Commissioner’s recommendations.

(Beirut) – Tunisian authorities have prosecuted, convicted, or imprisoned at least eight prospective candidates for the October 6, 2024, presidential election, Human Rights Watch said today. The electoral commission has approved only three candidates, including incumbent President Kais Saied. Tunisian authorities should urgently end politically motivated prosecutions and allow for free and fair elections.

Tunisia is gearing up for a presidential election amid increased repression of dissent and free speech, without crucial checks and balances on President Saied’s power. President Saied has compromised the judiciary’s independence and overhauled a number of key institutions following a 2021 power grab, including the electoral commission, the Independent High Authority for Elections (Instance Supérieure Indépendante pour les Élections, ISIE), which he restructured to place under the control of the president in 2022. 

“After jailing dozens of prominent opponents and activists, Tunisian authorities have removed almost all serious contenders from the presidential race, reducing this vote to a mere formality,” said Bassam Khawaja, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should immediately end its political interference in the electoral process, reverse repressive measures, and allow opposition candidates to take part in the ballot.” 

On August 10, the electoral commission announced it had preliminarily approved the three presidential candidates, including two former parliament members, Zouhair Maghzaoui and Ayachi Zammel. The head of the commission, whose seven members are nominated by the president, said it rejected 14 candidacies for lack of required endorsement signatures or financial guarantees, or for not meeting nationality criteria. Several candidates have filed appeals before the administrative court. By comparison, in the 2019 election, the electoral commission approved 26 candidates of various political affiliations. 

At least eight prospective candidates have been convicted and sentenced to prison terms or lifetime bans on running for election since the start of the electoral period on July 14, with others experiencing harassment and intimidation. 

On August 14, the Jendouba First Instance Court sentenced a rapper and businessman, Karim Gharbi, to four years in prison and imposed a lifetime ban on running for office, finding him guilty of charges of buying endorsement signatures. Gharbi had stated his intention to run for the presidency on July 26. Four people volunteering for Gharbi’s campaign were sentenced to between two and four years in prison on August 2.

On August 5, a Tunis Court of First Instance sentenced five prospective presidential candidates to eight months in prison and a lifetime ban on running for office, on the charge of “making donations to influence voters” under article 161 of the electoral law, Mokhtar Jemai, one of the lawyers, told Human Rights Watch. They are Abdellatif Mekki, a politician; Nizar Chaari, a TV host; Mourad Messaoudi, a former judge; Mohamed Adel Dou, a retired military colonel; and Leila Hammami, an academic. 

The candidates have appealed the decision, but Chaari and Messaoudi had announced their withdrawal as presidential candidates the day after their conviction. Three others were sentenced to eight months in prison on the same charge, including a member of Mekki’s campaign and Chaari’s campaign director, and another individual was sentenced to four years in prison.

That same day, a Tunis Court of First Instance also sentenced Abir Moussi, president of the Free Destourian Party (Parti Destourien Libre, PDL) and prominent opponent of Saied, to two years in prison, one of her lawyers, Nafaa Laribi, told Human Rights Watch. She was convicted of “spreading fake news and rumors” about the electoral commission, under article 24 of the repressive Decree-Law 54 on cybercrime, following a complaint from the electoral commission. 

Moussi, who has been arbitrarily detained since October 2023, submitted her candidacy to the electoral commission just two days before the court convicted her. She faces several other prosecutions, including three based on complaints from the commission in connection with political statements or activities.

On July 18, a Tunis court sentenced Lotfi Mraihi, leader of the Republican People’s Union and prospective presidential candidate, to eight months in prison and imposed a fine of 2000 Tunisian dinars (approximately US$650), as well as a lifetime ban on running for office for allegedly “making donations in cash or in kind in order to influence voters.” His party’s executive director and three other members were also convicted and sentenced. 

Mraihi was previously arrested on July 3 allegedly on suspicion of money laundering, according to a Tunis court spokesperson. In January, a Tunis court had imposed a six-month suspended prison term under Decree-Law 54 for a comment he made on the radio that was deemed to criticize the president. 

Other potential candidates remain in arbitrary detention such as Ghazi Chaouachi, former leader of the Attayar (Democratic Current) party, who announced his intention to run for election on July 15, and Issam Chebbi, leader of Al Jomhouri (The Republican Party), whose party eventually withdrew. Both have been detained since February 2023 and are awaiting trial on politically motivated charges of conspiracy against state security and terrorism. Over a dozen of members of Ennahda (The Renaissance Party), the former ruling party, including its president and two party vice presidents, are also arbitrarily detained. 

Ten potential candidates on July 31 denounced “security harassment” and restrictions targeting members of their campaigns, including arrests and security force confiscation of endorsements. At least eight prospective candidates said that the Interior Ministry had failed to provide their criminal records, which are required to run for election, although the electoral commission president said that no candidate was rejected for lack of this document. 

On August 5, President Saied said: “No pressure has been exerted on anyone…. Those who speak of obstacles and difficulties … seek to spread chaos, discord, rumors, and lies.”

Under new regulations, presidential contenders are required to present a list of endorsement signatures from 10 members of parliament, 40 elected presidents of local governments, or 10,000 registered voters from at least 10 constituencies, with at least 500 voter signatures per constituency. The 2022 constitution also tightened nationality criteria, allowing only a Tunisian national, with Tunisian parents and paternal and maternal grandparents and no dual citizenship, to run for office.

Tunisia is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and as such is required to ensure that every citizen, without discrimination on the basis of political opinion, has the opportunity to take part and vote in genuinely free elections. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has found that “freedom of expression, assembly and association are essential conditions for the effective exercise of the right to vote and must be fully protected.”

“By blocking prospective challengers, President Saied is burying what remains of Tunisia’s democracy with this election,” Khawaja said. “The international community should no longer remain silent and should urge the government to rectify an already tainted electoral process.”

(Berlin) – Georgian authorities have yet to demonstrate that they are conducting effective investigations into a spate of violent attacks on civic and political activists over recent months, Human Rights Watch said today. Impunity for these attacks risks encouraging further political violence and instability in the run-up to the country’s parliamentary elections in October 2024.

From late April through June, unidentified assailants violently attacked over a dozen activists, leading in many cases to head and other injuries requiring hospitalization. Most attacks were committed by small groups of assailants in public places with witnesses and CCTV cameras nearby. While the police have formally opened investigations in most cases, they have not identified or arrested any suspects, and there are concerning signs that they are not taking the necessary investigative steps to hold those responsible to account.

Many of the survivors had spoken out against the “foreign agent” law, which the ruling Georgian Dream party introduced in parliament in April 2024 and adopted six weeks later. President Salome Zurabishvili vetoed the law, but the ruling party overrode the veto on May 28.

“A pattern of harassment and intimidation of activists, independent media, and government critics, if left unpunished, risks emboldening malicious actors to escalate violence in the months before Georgia’s upcoming elections,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Accountability for these brutal attacks and threats of violence is urgently needed.”

Human Rights Watch has documented six of these attacks in the capital, Tbilisi, against five people: a university student, a professor, the founder of a youth protest group, a protest participant, and a leading member of Georgia’s largest opposition party. Human Rights Watch interviewed the survivors and their lawyers and reviewed legal filings, medical reports documenting their injuries, and several CCTV videos and other video footage of the attacks that are in the public domain. Human Rights Watch also wrote to the interior minister and the prosecutor general, requesting information about the investigations. The prosecutor’s office replied on August 19 stating that the Interior Ministry is investigating the attacks and that no criminal prosecutions have been initiated thus far.

Georgian human rights groups and media have documented and reported on over a dozen other cases of physical attacks against activists since mid-April. Investigations into those attacks appear to have been slow and largely ineffective.

In the cases Human Rights Watch documented, survivors’ lawyers regularly reached out to investigators, but did not receive any indication that the authorities had identified a suspect in any of the cases. No survivors were asked to come to the station to identify suspects in a line-up or to participate in a face-to-face confrontation with a suspect.

The introduction of the law On Transparency of Foreign Influence led to some of the largest peaceful protests in Georgia in recent decades. There were multiple, credible reports of unjustified police use of violence to disperse them.

The law seeks to marginalize and discredit nongovernmental groups and broadcast media that are critical of the government, requiring those that receive 20 percent or more of their income from foreign sources to register as “organizations serving the interest of a foreign power.”

Georgian Dream party leaders made clear in public statements that they intend the law to be used against groups and media that criticize the government, advocate for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights, or engage in other work that irritates the authorities.

Before the law’s final adoption, civic and political activists, including survivors of physical attacks, were targets of an apparently coordinated campaign of harassment and intimidation. They and their family members received repeated threatening and insulting phone calls from unidentified individuals. Smear campaigns of posters featured the images of leaders of nongovernmental groups and critical journalists, calling them traitors and enemies of the state and the church.

Leaders of Georgian Dream, which has led the country since 2012, also implied they would use the foreign influence law against critics in the lead-up to October’s parliamentary vote. The election will be the first in which all seats will be decided by proportional representation, a system in which all seats are allocated based on the percentage of votes each party receives, rather than a mix of individual and party-based mandates.

In an urgent analysis published in May 2024, the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe’s advisory body on constitutional matters, concluded that the restrictions imposed by the law on the rights to freedom of expression, freedom of association, and privacy fail to meet the “requirements of legality, legitimacy, and necessity in a democratic society,” and violate the principles of proportionality and nondiscrimination.

The commission urged the Georgian authorities to repeal the law, “as its fundamental flaws will involve significant negative consequences for the freedoms of association and expression, the right to privacy, the right to participate in public affairs as well as the prohibition of discrimination.”

Georgian authorities should swiftly, thoroughly, and effectively investigate the violent attacks, hold those responsible to account, and publicly and unequivocally denounce politically motivated violence, Human Rights Watch said.

“Impunity for attacks against government critics sends an unmistakable signal that the authorities condone politically motivated violence when it serves their interests,” Williamson said. “The authorities can avoid sending this signal by conducting prompt, thorough, and effective investigations, capable of identifying individual assailants.”

For details about the attacks and the “foreign agents” law, please see below.

Attacks on Activists

Nikoloz Managadze

Nikoloz Managadze, a 21-year-old Tbilisi State University student who founded a student protest group, For Freedom, was attacked in April and again in June.

Around noon on April 20, Managadze tried to approach Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, who teaches at Tbilisi State University, and who was leaving his class accompanied by his security detail, to ask him to meet with student protesters. 

“The security guards pushed me away from the [prime minister] and toward a group of thugs, where about 10 to 15 people started to kick me,” Managadze told Human Rights Watch. “I fell on the ground, and they kept kicking me. I lost consciousness for a bit. I could not open my left eye, it was red and swollen.” Journalists and others witnessed the violence, Managadze said.

Managadze said he felt lightheaded and went to a hospital, where medical personnel diagnosed him with a mild concussion, recommended several days of bed rest, and discharged him.

A few days later, Managadze and his lawyer filed a complaint with the prosecutor’s office and the Interior Ministry. The authorities did not recognize Managadze as a victim or otherwise respond to this complaint, he said.

For weeks following the incident, unidentified people repeatedly made phone calls to Managadze and his family members, including his 14-year-old sister, threatening violence against him and warning him to stop his activism or suffer the consequences. Dozens of calls came at all hours, including at 2 and 3 a.m., from local and international numbers. Managadze and his lawyer filed a complaint with the Interior Ministry on June 6 requesting an investigation into this campaign of intimidation, but they have not received a response.

On June 7, around 7 p.m. as classes ended, several men attacked Managadze as he waited in front of the university for a traffic light to turn green. He said he felt a sudden blow to his head from behind, and then several assailants began beating him. Managadze fell to the ground and started to bleed as passers-by tried to intervene and help, causing the assailants to flee. 

“I tried to get up, but could not balance myself, I was bleeding from my left ear, which was cut and required stitches,” he said. “I felt pain all over my body, back, head, my left shoulder was dislocated, and as it turned out, I had a concussion.” An ambulance transferred him to a hospital, where he spent the night and was diagnosed with a concussion and received several stitches to his left ear.

A video posted to Facebook on June 7, and verified by Human Rights Watch, shows two men running away from Managadze as he falls to the ground at a traffic light just outside the university. Managadze identified these two men as part of the group who attacked him. The police opened an investigation, interviewed Managadze, and recognized him as the victim of a crime. However, they have yet to identify or arrest a suspect.

Dimitri Chikovani

At about 11 p.m. on May 8, a group of about five men wearing hooded sweatshirts, with the hoods over their heads, severely beat Dimitri Chikovani, 37, a leading member of the opposition United National Movement party, near the entrance to his apartment building in Tbilisi. Chikovani sustained multiple head traumas, a broken nose, and numerous lacerations and bruising all over his face. The prosecutor’s office described these injuries in a document it issued designating Chikovani as a crime victim.

A neighbor found Chikovani lying near the entrance and called an ambulance. Chikovani underwent surgery to his nose and was hospitalized for several days. A local television station aired footage from CCTV cameras at the site that captured the beating.

Police opened an investigation into the crime of “intentional infliction of minor harm to health committed by a group of people,” with Chikovani as the victim, but have yet to identify or arrest any suspects. Chikovani’s lawyer said that law enforcement did not secure the video footage from the nearby CCTV cameras in a timely manner, and also delayed initiating other critical investigative steps.

Gia (Gaioz) Japaridze

Also on May 8, close to midnight, unidentified assailants ambushed Gia (Gaioz) Japaridze, a 50-year-old university professor, former diplomat, and researcher with a Georgian research organization near his apartment in Tbilisi. The assailants beat him with wooden implements, possibly baseball bats. The attack was preceded by days of threatening phone calls from unidentified people, telling him to stop his criticism of the “foreign agent” bill.

“They kicked me to the ground and continued to kick me and beat me with sticks,” Japaridze said. After the attackers left, Japaridze called emergency services and was hospitalized for two days, followed by eight days of bed rest. Japaridze said that he received a concussion, a traumatic brain injury, a wound to his head, multiple bruises on his head and face, as well as bruising all over his body.

Police visited Japaridze in the hospital and told him to come to the station after he was discharged. Police have opened an investigation and recognized him as a victim of a crime but have not identified or arrested any suspects. The authorities obtained the surveillance camera server from the nearby CCTV 10 days after the attack, but have not shared the footage itself or the expert analysis of it with Japaridze or his lawyer. The authorities ordered a forensic medical examination of Japaridze, which was carried out, but three months later, the conclusions have still not been made available to him.

Zurab (Zuka) Berdzenishvili

On June 11 at about 11 a.m., three unidentified assailants attacked Zurab (Zuka) Berdzenishvili, 33, an activist and founder of the Shame Movement, a youth protest group. Berdzenishvili said that the men attacked him as he left his house and headed toward his scooter.

“They kicked me from behind and I fell on the ground as they started to viciously beat me, particularly aiming at my head,” he said. “I tried to get up, but I could not as they continued to kick me. One of them threatened to … shoot me in the head next time.”

According to hospital documents that Human Rights Watch reviewed, Berdzenishvili had a broken nose and broken bones under his right eye. He also had cuts to his lips and one eyebrow, and multiple bruises all over his body. He underwent surgery to his nose, spent two days in a hospital, and required seven days of bed rest.

The police interviewed Berdzenishvili following his discharge, opened a criminal investigation into violence committed by a group of people, and a death threat, and the prosecutor’s office recognized him as a crime victim. However, Berdzenishvili said, the authorities took weeks to obtain video footage from private surveillance cameras at the crime scene, and he said in August that the police had still not identified or arrested any suspects.

Despite numerous requests by Berdzenishvili and his lawyer, the authorities have not shared an updated investigation case file with them, although Georgia’s criminal procedure code gives victims the right of access to the file. Authorities showed him the file only once, three days after the incident, when he was recognized as a victim and at a time when his testimony was the only information in the file.

Nikoloz Butkhuzi

On May 2, about a dozen assailants attacked protesters blocking Heroes’ Square, a central intersection in Tbilisi. The lawyer for one of the victims told Human Rights Watch that her client, Nikoloz Butkhuzi, 30, briefly lost consciousness as a result of the violence, and received a concussion and multiple cuts and bruises to his face and body, and that he spent two days in a hospital, followed by 10 days of bed rest at home. On May 20, the lawyer filed a complaint with the Prosecutor General’s Office, which responded that the case had been forwarded to the Tbilisi Central Criminal Police for investigation.

Police interviewed Butkhuzi in early June, a month after the incident, but the authorities have not recognized him as a victim, denying Butkhuzi and his lawyer the right to request access to the investigation files. No further information about the investigation has been made available. The attackers wore no masks and local media reported the license plate numbers of the cars the attackers drove. However, no one has yet been identified or arrested in relation to the attack.

The “Foreign Agent” Law

The “foreign agent” law, officially called the Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence, is nearly identical to a draft law the Georgian parliament tried to adopt in 2023 but withdrew following mass protests. In the new version, the ruling party, Georgian Dream, substituted the term “agents of foreign influence” with “organizations serving the interests of a foreign power.”

The law requires nongovernmental groups and print, online, and broadcast media that receive 20 percent or more of their annual revenue – either financial support or in-kind contributions – from a “foreign power” to register with the Justice Ministry as “organizations serving the interest of a foreign power.”

The law imposes onerous, intrusive, and duplicative reporting requirements on nongovernmental groups and media that receive foreign funding, authorizes inspections, and sets out administrative liability for noncompliance, including punitive fines of up to 25,000 GEL (US$9,300). The law also allows the authorities to demand sensitive personal data from organizations and individuals, and imposes crippling fines for noncompliance.

On August 1 the Justice Ministry published regulations for financial reporting under the law, and on July 29 issued a decree creating a special department to oversee its implementation. Starting in August, affected organizations and media were required to register as groups “serving foreign power interests” or be subject to “forced registration” and a fine. Following registration, they must file financial declarations retroactively from 2023, reporting on all material benefits (financial and in-kind), and on donors, including their personal identification numbers and bank details.

They must also list all expenses, including for trips taken, and provide the personal identification information of individuals paid with such funds. The information is to be entered in a spreadsheet form with 12 worksheets. The authorities can impose fines of up to 10,000 GEL (US$3,700) for any mistakes in reporting.

Georgia’s bilateral and international partners, including the European Union and the United States, as well as experts with the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE) also spoke out against the law and urged the authorities to scrap it as incompatible with democratic standards and human rights law.