Author: Human Rights Watch

(Geneva) – Nepal’s long-awaited transitional justice law, adopted by the lower house of parliament on August 14, 2024, incorporates many positive provisions that could help in advancing justice, accountability, and redress for the widespread human rights violations and abuses committed during the 1996-2006 conflict, but still has elements that could undermine a successful outcome, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Commission of Jurists said today.

To ensure the integrity of the process and bring the law into compliance with Nepali and international legal standards, serious accountability gaps need to be addressed by lawmakers. In addition, all institutions involved in the administration of justice – including the courts, the transitional justice commissions, and the Attorney General – should make sure to construe the bill in accordance with international law and Nepal’s Constitution.

“Transitional justice in Nepal is long overdue, and the new law can be an opportunity to finally deliver justice for victims, strengthen the rule of law, and create a positive precedent for the region,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “This should not turn into yet another exercise in which victims are encouraged to accept compensation without truth and justice.”

A previous attempt at a transitional justice law, which provided the possibility of amnesties for serious crimes, was found by the Supreme Court in 2015 to be unconstitutional and in violation of Nepal’s international human rights obligations. While the new law includes several significant improvements and positive provisions, parts again appear designed to shield those responsible for wartime crimes from prosecution.

In Nepal, many survivors and families of those subjected to violations and abuses have lived in hardship for years, often suffering lasting mental and physical injuries, in desperate need of reparations, while struggling to learn the truth about their loved ones, to receive official recognition, and to see the perpetrators brought to justice. The lack of accountability for serious crimes under international law has contributed to ongoing rights violations and a wider crisis of impunity.

“Victims have been waiting for full acknowledgement of the harms they have suffered and reparations for almost 20 years. For a transitional justice process to accomplish its aims, all of the five essential pillars of this process – truth, justice, reparation, memorialization, and guarantees of non-recurrence – must be pursued,” said Mandira Sharma, senior international legal adviser at the International Commission of Jurists. “Current gaps in this law could serve to threaten the outcome of the process and defeat the purpose of providing effective remedies to victims.”

The transitional justice bill envisages a major role for donor funding to implement the process. Once it is finally adopted as the law, donors and the Nepali authorities should develop and implement a system for oversight of the management of funds to support transitional justice. This will facilitate access to expertise and safeguard against political and other unwarranted interference, particularly in the handling of justice and reparation processes. The vagueness of the law on some points, and lack of detail in many areas, mean that interpretation and implementation of the mandates of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons will be critical. The appointments of highly qualified and independent commissioners, and of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission secretary, will be especially important early decisions.

It is critical that the transitional justice process be implemented in a robust and independent fashion, and that safeguards are established to achieve credible and durable outcomes. Past Nepali governments have repeatedly failed to deliver truth, justice, and reparations for conflict-era atrocity crimes. Transitional justice is a major outstanding commitment of the 2006 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which ended a decade-long armed conflict between the then royal government and Maoist rebels, and inaugurated a peace process that included constitutional reform.

“In the past, the commissions have failed to win trust from victims due to repeated political interference in the appointment of the commissioners,” said Smriti Singh, South Asia director at Amnesty International. “The commissioners must be trusted by victims’ groups for their work to be effective and credible. This requires victims’ rights and views to be at the center of a fully transparent nomination and appointment procedure. Commissioners must be competent, impartial, and fully independent from any political party.”

Shortcomings in the law

The new law, officially titled A Bill to Amend the Disappeared Persons’ Enquiry, Truth and Reconciliation Commission Act, 2071, widely referred to as the transitional justice bill, was introduced in parliament in March 2023, and finally passed in the lower house with the support of Nepal’s three largest political parties following protracted negotiations. However, there has been little formal consultation with civil society and victims or their families, who hold a range of views on the legislation. While all agree that progress towards addressing their rights and needs has been unacceptably protracted, many also continue to voice concerns that the law as presently drafted might not deliver justice, calling for reform of the bill.

Under the current bill, crimes committed during the conflict are either classified as “violations of human rights” or “serious violations of human rights.” While offences defined as human rights violations could be granted amnesty, “serious violations of human rights” could be referred to and prosecuted in a special court. The definition of “serious violations” is limited to “rape or serious sexual violence;” “intentional or arbitrary killing;” enforced disappearance, provided that the victim’s whereabouts remains unknown; and “inhuman or cruel torture.” However, these definitions are not consistent with international law and exclude other serious crimes. For instance, the prohibition of torture and the requirement that it be criminalized is absolute and there can be no qualification for “inhuman or cruel” torture, since torture by its nature is inhuman or cruel.

The law defines “violations of human rights” as “any act except serious human rights violations committed in contravention of Nepali laws, international human rights or humanitarian law” (emphasis added). In previous iterations of the law, this category of crimes was completely excluded from prosecution. In the current version, it appears that the special court can adjudicate violations of human rights (not defined as “serious”) that are not granted amnesty, which the Truth and Reconciliation Commission can provide if the alleged perpetrator fulfills certain conditions (such as disclosing the truth, making an apology to victims, or paying compensation), and with the consent of the victims. However, the language of the law is imprecise, and while an expansion of the mandate of the special court is an improvement, any amnesty for serious crimes is contrary to Nepali and international law and standards and violates victims’ right to effective remedy and reparation.

The law also requires that both categories of violations (defined as “serious” and not) – except for rape and “serious sexual violence” – are committed “in a targeted or planned manner against an unarmed individual or community.” This could exclude many cases not only from any criminal accountability but also other measures under the bill, such as civil and administrative remedies and reparations.

These provisions create a large accountability gap for many crimes under international law, including possible crimes against humanity and war crimes, contrary to Nepal’s Constitution and its international legal obligations.

A provision which was added to the law during the final phase of negotiations would allow for the attorney general, excluding in cases of rape or “serious sexual violence,” to make a binding request for a 75 percent reduction in the sentencing for those convicted of serious violations. This provision, amounting to a disguised amnesty, contradicts the principle that criminal sanctions must be proportionate to the gravity of the crime, and also undermines the fundamental role and competency of the judiciary. The court should decide what reduction may be appropriate, if any, based on its own consideration of the facts and submissions by the parties to the proceedings.

The law now permits the special court to adjudicate disputes related to reparations, an important expansion of its role. However, it still provides for the appointment of only three judges to the special court, which was envisioned when the court’s jurisdiction was more limited. With the expansion of the jurisdiction of the court, the number of judges should be increased to fulfill its expanded mandate. 

On August 16, Cambodian authorities forcibly disappeared 28-year-old Vannith Hay. He was detained after Cambodia’s former Prime Minister and current Senate President Hun Sen threatened his brother Vanna Hay, an activist leading the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Movement in Japan, in a speech earlier this month. None of Vannith Hay’s family members have been able to contact him or have been told his whereabouts since his arrest and remain concerned for his safety.

Vanna Hay is a critic of the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Triangle Development Area (CLV), an economic development plan involving the border provinces of the three countries. In July, Hun Sen urged the Cambodian government to “search and find out all the groups” in opposition to the CLV in Cambodia and “compile all the cases of individuals outside the country, and study their family history, where their family are if they are outside the country.”

A crackdown followed: Cambodian authorities detained 60 people between August 14 to 19 who were protesting the development plan. Vannith Hay is a civil servant working for the Cambodian Health Ministry and had not been critical of the CLV.

“My brother has nothing to do with my political advocacy,” Vanna Hay told Human Rights Watch. “He’s a scholar, public servant, and a professor at National Institute of Public Health. I call for his immediate release.”

This isn’t the first time critics of the Cambodian government like Vanna Hay have been targeted for their activism in Japan. In May, Sun Chanthy, the head of the opposition National Power Party, was arrested after returning from Japan, where he gave a speech to supporters urging the Cambodian government to allow opposition parties to operate freely. Two months later, a Cambodian court found Teav Vannol, who leads the opposition Candlelight Party, guilty of defamation and fined him US$1.5 million after he criticized Prime Minister Hun Manet and Hun Sen in a media interview in Tokyo.

The Cambodian government doesn’t like critics airing their views in Japan. On August 15, Hun Manet said, “Does Japan support the use of its territory as a base for leading protests and overthrowing [the government]?”

As Cambodia’s major aid donor, the Japanese government should publicly call on Cambodian authorities to immediately stop intimidating critics both at home and abroad, and release those wrongfully detained for exercising their basic rights, or simply being related to human rights advocates in Japan like Vannith Hay.

• Air pollution and stress from wildfires is on the rise with specific harms for maternal health, but experiences from Oregon indicate that public health officials are not doing enough to reach pregnant people with vital health hazard information.
• It’s crucial for state and federal governments to address the environmental harms to pregnancy that intersect with racism and unfairness in income, quality housing, and safe work.
• Federal, state, and local governments should prioritize disproportionately affected communities and include these groups in planning how to reach the people who can most benefit from the information.

(Washington, DC) – Air pollution from wildfires is on the rise, but experiences from Oregon indicate that public health officials are not doing enough to provide education and resources to pregnant people, Human Rights Watch, an international human rights advocacy organization, and Nurturely, an organization that promotes equity in perinatal wellness, said today. Officials are not listening to the needs and experiences of pregnant people most at risk of exposure and enabling trusted community health workers to provide localized, actionable advice. 

The 78-page report, “Reproductive Rights in the US Wildfire Crisis: Insights from Health Workers in Oregon State,” finds that the US government needs to do more to address the growing threat wildfires pose to maternal and newborn health, particularly in marginalized communities. The organizations documented the impacts of recent wildfires on maternal and newborn health in the state of Oregon, drawing on the experiences of community health workers and maternal health providers, among others.

“Pregnancy health and wellbeing is at risk in the US, with deep and painful unjust inequities between communities,” said Aver Yakubu, program director at Nurturely. “We’re living in the climate crisis now and it’s crucial for state and federal governments to address the effects of environmental harms on pregnancy that intersect with systemic racism factors, such as economic inequities that dictate whether someone can temporarily leave a smokey area or not, quality housing, and safe work environments.” 

Wildfires, including increasingly common megafires, hazardous smoke, and extreme heat, have been on the rise in part because of drier, hotter conditions due to climate change. The recent trend of increasingly damaging fires in closer proximity to inhabited areas is predicted to continue: Oregon state health officials said in July that, in Oregon, levels of harmful “particulate matter, or PM2.5, from wildfire smoke are expected to double or triple by the end of the century.” PM2.5 is associated with worse maternal and newborn health in many studies. 

Human Rights Watch and Nurturely interviewed more than 50 maternal health providers including doctors, doulas, midwives, and community health workers in Oregon – a state greatly affected by wildfires – as well as public health officials and scientists. 

Findings showed that trusted community-based health workers, including doulas and midwives, are important but under-supported in providing information and protective strategies. They found that some communities struggle to find and use public health information, like advice on when and how to use air filters on high-risk, low-air-quality wildfire smoke days. Pregnant people and other at-risk groups should be included in planning how to reach the groups who can most benefit from the information.

Wildfire exposure is associated with adverse birth outcomes such as preterm birth, a major cause of infant death in the US, that can also cause lifelong physical and mental health harm. Preterm birth rates have increased in recent years in the US and, like low birth weight and infant mortality rates, are twice as high for Black mothers, for example, than white mothers. Maternal and newborn health are threatened by the climate crisis in other ways too. For example, studies on exposure to extreme heat have found associations not only with preterm birth, but also still birthand maternal health complications. A recent study found wildfire exposure and extreme heat together could have a bigger harmful impact on pregnancy. Toxic chemicals in wildfire smoke have also been found, in other studies, to be associated with maternal health problems such as hypertension.

The groups said state and federal authorities should adopt a reproductive justice approach to providing support services. Pregnant people, including those on public health insurance like Medicaid, should have access to air filters and air conditioning units, and receive assistance leaving areas with low air quality as needed. Additionally, workplace safety rules for periods of high heat and smoke should be improved. 

“Online advice about hazardous air pollution is more accessible and actionable to a middle-class person who speaks English or Spanish, is already concerned and knows where to look, and who can afford air filters and to stay at home on the worst days,” said Skye Wheeler, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The situation is very different for a pregnant person whose rental home leaks smoke, or who lives in a tent, or who must work in smoke and heat.” 

The groups also found that maternal mental health was at risk in wildfire events, and that healthcare providers were also adversely impacted as they were left to figure out how to protect themselves and family as well as their patients. Wildfires also meant that pregnant people missed out on pre- or postnatal care and were sometimes not able to give birth where they wanted. 

Community-based doula care can provide global majority communities with culturally appropriate support and allyship for pregnant people, and is also associated with improved birth outcomes. Research by a group of maternal health organizations found that doulas are concerned about climate impacts, are already providing some information and advice to their clients, and want to be better resourced to be able to do more. US states are increasingly providing Medicaid coverage for doula care to improve the affordability of their services, but most still do not. 

The US also needs to do more to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, including by beginning a fair and equitable phase-out of the fossil fuel industry, the groups said. The US is the world’s biggest oil and gas producer and accounts for the greatest share – more than one third – of all planned global oil and gas expansion through 2050.

“There is no way to adapt our way out from the health harm of wildfires without transitioning from the fossil fuel and petrochemical industry,” Yakubu said. “But pregnant people should be able to equitably access information about hazards from wildfire smoke, and what protections are available for them and the next generation.” 

(Nairobi) – Burkina Faso‘s military authorities are misusing an emergency law to unlawfully conscript magistrates – prosecutors and judges – who have opened legal proceedings against junta supporters, Human Rights Watch said today. These recent conscriptions come amid the Burkinabè junta’s growing repression of dissidents, journalists, human rights defenders, and political opponents.

Between August 9 and 12, 2024, the Burkinabè security forces notified by telephone at least seven magistrates, including four prosecutors, two deputy prosecutors, and an investigative judge, that they had been conscripted to participate in government security operations against Islamist armed groups in Kaya, Sanmatenga province, from August 14 to November 13. On August 14, six reported to a military base in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso’s capital, to respond to their notifications, and have not been heard from since, two judicial sources said.

“The Burkina Faso junta isn’t fooling anyone by forcing prosecutors who are bringing legal proceedings against junta supporters into military service,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities should immediately revoke these bogus conscription notices.”

The military authorities assert that the conscription orders are authorized under the April 13, 2023 “general mobilization,” part of a plan to recapture territory lost to Islamist armed groups, which control large swaths of Burkina Faso. The plan seeks to create a “legal framework for all actions” against insurgents and gives the president extensive powers to combat the insurgency, including requisitioning people and goods and restraining civil liberties.

On August 13, a court in Bobo-Dioulasso, in western Burkina Faso, ruled that the requisition orders of the two of the seven magistrates from this city were “manifestly illegal” and violated “the fundamental freedoms of the persons concerned,” and ordered the government not to carry them out.

In an August 15 statement, a coalition of three Burkinabè magistrates’ unions said that the authorities had targeted the seven magistrates because they dealt with cases involving people “claiming to be staunch supporters of the current government.” The union also said that “these requisitions are acts of humiliation and intimidation of magistrates” and that they are being carried out “despite judicial decisions declaring them null and void.”

The judicial sources said that among those targeted by the conscription orders is the prosecutor of the high court in Ouagadougou, who had instructed the police to investigate claims by residents regarding the enforced disappearances of their loved ones.

The magistrates’ union statement said that one of those conscripted is the judge of the high court in Ziniaré, Oubritenga province, handling the case of a junta supporter implicated in illegal mining activities that led to a landslide that killed about 60 people. It said that another is the prosecutor of the high court in Boromo, Balé province, who had instructed the police to investigate the alleged theft of livestock by a junta ally and civilian auxiliaries of the Burkinabè armed forces.

Human Rights Watch has extensively documented the use of unlawful conscription to silence dissent, as well as the abductions and enforced disappearances of dozens of government critics and dissidents since late 2023.

On June 28, Adama Bayala, a commentator on the private television channel BF1’s show Presse Échos, was reported missing after he left his office in Ouagadougou. Days before, a message posted on the pro-junta Facebook page Anonymous Élite Alpha referred to previous abductions of dissidents and journalists and warned that he “will be next.”

On June 24, gunmen claiming to be working for the intelligence services abducted Serge Oulon, director of the bimonthly publication L’Événement (The Event), from his home in Ouagadougou. In December 2022, Oulon wrote an article denouncing the alleged embezzlement by an army captain of some 400 million CFA (US$660,000) that were part of a budget allocated to support the civilian auxiliaries.

On June 18, Kalifara Séré, commentator on BFI’s TV show 7Infos, was reported missing after leaving a meeting with the Superior Council for Communication, Burkina Faso’s media regulator, to return to his office in Ouagadougou. People close to Séré told Human Rights Watch that the council questioned him about his June 16 TV commentary, in which he had expressed doubts about the authenticity of some photographs showing the head of state. The three men remain missing, and authorities have not disclosed any information on their whereabouts.

In February, Human Rights Watch reported six other cases of possible unlawful conscriptions of activists and opposition party members. They are Rasmané Zinaba and Bassirou Badjo, both members of the civil society group Balai Citoyen; Guy Hervé Kam, a prominent lawyer and coordinator of the political group Serve and Not be Served (Servir Et Non Se Servir); Ablassé Ouédraogo, chair of the opposition party Le Faso Autrement (The Alternative Faso); Daouda Diallo, a prominent human rights activist and secretary general of the Collective against Impunity and Stigmatization of Communities (Collectif contre l’Impunité et la Stigmatisation des Communautés); and Lamine Ouattara, a member of the Burkinabè Movement for Human and Peoples’ Rights (Mouvement Burkinabè des Droits de l’Homme et des Peuples). At least four of them appear to have been unlawfully conscripted.

On December 6, 2023, a court in Ouagadougou had ruled that the conscription orders concerning Zinaba and Badjo were illegal and ordered the authorities to suspend them, but they were still forced to go.

While governments have the authority to conscript members of the civilian population age 18 and over for national defense, conscription should be authorized and in accordance with domestic law. The conscription law needs to be carried out in a manner that gives the potential conscript notice of the duration of the military service and an adequate opportunity to contest being required to serve at that time. Conscription also needs to be carried out according to standards consistent with nondiscrimination and equal protection under law. The use of conscription for politically motivated purposes violates international human rights protection standards.

“The Burkina Faso junta seems to have few qualms about interfering with the justice process to protect its supporters from prosecution,” Allegrozzi said. “The junta should immediately stop using conscriptions to silence dissent and respect the independence of the justice system.”

(Sydney) – Australian leaders should discuss human rights issues with Indonesian President-elect Prabowo Subianto Djojohadikusumo during meetings in Canberra on August 20, 2024, Human Rights Watch said today. Australia should seek commitments from Prabowo to uphold religious freedom, protect Indigenous and religious minorities, and revise government policies that discriminate against women and girls, people living with disabilities, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. 

Prabowo, presently Indonesia’s defense minister, won the presidential election on February 14, along with outgoing President Joko Widodo’s son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, as his vice presidential running mate. He is in Canberra in advance of his inauguration on October 20 to discuss a defense pact between Indonesia and Australia, which will be signed later in Jakarta. But he will also meet with the Australian prime minister and foreign minister. 

“Australian government leaders should urge Prabowo to fulfill the human rights-related commitments that previous Indonesian administrations had made but failed to meet,” said Daniela Gavshon, Australia director at Human Rights Watch. “These include some difficult issues such as the mandatory hijab rules, the crackdown on LGBT people, and the government’s unwillingness to allow foreign journalists and United Nations officials to visit West Papua.” 

Prabowo, 72, is a former son-in-law of Soeharto, Indonesia’s authoritarian president from 1965 to 1998. Prabowo, a former special forces commander, was dismissed from the Indonesian army in 1998 for kidnapping student activists. Earlier, he had been indicted for the Kraras massacre in East Timor in 1983 but failed to answer a summons from the UN Special Prosecutor’s Office in Dili. A UN-sponsored report on East Timor accused him of commanding massacres that resulted in the deaths of as many as 200 Timorese men, accusations that Prabowo denied.

In their meetings with Prabowo, Australian leaders should set out key human rights expectations, Human Rights Watch said. These should include delivering on human rights commitments made by previous Indonesian governments, including those made to the UN Human Rights Council during Indonesia’s Universal Periodic Review, and implementing the recommendations of UN human rights bodies. Indonesia should also issue a standing invitation to UN experts to visit Indonesia. 

Australian leaders should also raise concerns about the deteriorating human rights situation in the Indonesian provinces of West Papua. Ongoingabuses against Indigenous Papuans include killings, enforced disappearances, torture, and mass displacement of people. The UN estimated that since the escalation of violence in December 2018 between Indonesian security forces and West Papuan militants, some 60,000 to 100,000 Papuans have been displaced. The authorities arrested nearly 250 people for joining protests against racism and discrimination against Papuans across over 30 cities in West Papua in 2019. At least 100 were jailed for “treason” between 2019 and 2022. 

Australia’s leadership should urge Prabowo to renew the Indonesian government’s 2018 invitation to the UN human rights office to visit West Papua to investigate the human rights situation. A previous meeting was delayed because of disagreements over timing and personnel. 

“Australian leaders should not let Prabowo’s egregious rights record deter them from forcefully raising current human rights concerns,” Gavshon said. “They should emphasize that the new president has an important opportunity to restore Indonesia’s standing on West Papua and other human rights issues.”

(Beirut) – The Israeli airstrikes on Yemen’s Hodeidah port on the evening of July 20, 2024, were an apparently unlawful indiscriminate or disproportionate attack on civilians that could have a long-term impact on millions of Yemenis who rely on the port for food and humanitarian aid, Human Rights Watch said today.

The Israeli strikes came a day after a Houthi drone strike, which may amount to a war crime, on a Tel Aviv residential neighborhood that killed one civilian and wounded four others. The Israeli airstrikes, which killed at least six civilians and reportedly injured at least 80 others, hit more than two dozen oil storage tanks and two shipping cranes in Hodeidah port in northwest Yemen, as well as a power plant in Hodeidah’s Salif district. The attacks appeared to cause disproportionate harm to civilians and civilian objects. Serious violations of the laws of war committed willfully, that is deliberately or recklessly, are war crimes.

“The Israeli attacks on Hodeidah in response to the Houthis’ strike on Tel Aviv could have a lasting impact on millions of Yemenis in Houthi-controlled territories,” said Niku Jafarnia, Yemen and Bahrain researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Yemenis are already enduring widespread hunger after a decade-long conflict. These attacks will only exacerbate their suffering.” 

Human Rights Watch interviewed 11 people about the Hodeidah attack, including a Houthi official in Yemen’s oil industry and four United Nations agency staff with knowledge of the port. Human Rights Watch also analyzed satellite imagery of the targeted locations and photographs of potential weapons remnants collected by the nongovernmental organization Mwatana for Human Rights. Human Rights Watch sent its preliminary findings to Israeli authorities on July 31 and to the Houthis on August 7. Neither has replied.

The Israeli attacks killed Ahmed Abdullah Musa Jilan, Salah Abdullah Muqbil al-Sarari, Abdul Bari Muhammad Yusuf Ezzi, Nabil Nasher Abdo Abdullah, Abu Bakr Hussein Abdullah Faqih, and Idris Dawood Hassan Ahmed, all Yemen Petroleum Company employees. The Houthi drone strike on Tel Aviv killed 50-year-old Yevgeny Ferder in an apartment building. 

An Israel Defense Forces spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, said that the Houthi drone was an “Iranian-made Samad-3” unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The Samad-3’s guidance and targeting capabilities are unclear, and the Houthi’s target was uncertain, making it difficult to determine whether the strike hit its intended target. The Houthis did not indicate that it was attacking a military objective, but stated that they had struck an “important target,” possibly a reference to the US Embassy branch office in the vicinity.

The Houthi attack, which deliberately or indiscriminately harmed civilians and civilian objects, may amount to a war crime. In recent months, the Houthis have indiscriminately launched numerous missiles at the Israeli port towns of Eilat and Haifa. 

Human Rights Watch found that Israeli forces damaged or destroyed at least 29 of the 41 oil storage tanks at Hodeidah port, as well as the only two cranes used for loading and unloading supplies from ships. The airstrikes also destroyed oil tanks connected to the Hodeidah power plant, causing the power plant to stop operating for 12 hours.  

A remnant that Mwatana for Human Rights collected at the site bore the markings of Woodward, a US manufacturing company, and matches remnants collected in other contexts of the GBU-39 series bomb made by the US company Boeing. The GBU-39, known as the “small diameter bomb,” is a guided, airdropped munition. 

Human Rights Watch also wrote to Woodward and Boeing on August 14 but did not receive a response

The Hodeidah port is critical for delivering food and other necessities to the Yemeni population, who depend on imports. About 70 percent of Yemen’s commercial imports and 80 percent of its humanitarian assistance passes through Hodeidah port, which UN Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative Auke Lootsma said was “absolutely crucial to commercial and humanitarian activities.” Rosemary DiCarlo, under-secretary-general for the UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, described the port as a “lifeline for millions of people” that should be “open and operating.” 

A UN agency official said that about 3,400 people, all civilians, work at the port. The official said on July 30 that he had not “seen a single new vessel entering the port since the attack, which is an alarming indication” for humanitarian aid provision. Other Yemeni ports lack the same capacity to manage imports, and the damage and destruction of the oil tanks, loading cranes, and broader damage to the port’s facilities would take significant funding and time to rebuild. 

The Houthi oil industry official said that the early evening strikes were carried out “while dozens of civilians were there, including staff who run these tanks, and truck drivers who were there to take oil to transport to other governorates.” 

Human Rights Watch analysis of satellite imagery found that the oil tanks burned for at least three days, posing environmental concerns. Musaed Aklan, an environmental expert at the Sana’a Center, a Yemeni research group, said that “the toxic fumes resulting from the burning of thousands of tons of fuel … undoubtedly pose a serious risk to public health.” He said that oil leaks from the tanks into surrounding areas “risk contaminating nearby water sources, soil, beaches, and marine habitats.”

Hagari, the Israeli military spokesperson, described the target of attack as “Al Hudaydah Port, used by the Houthis as the main supply route for the transfer of Iranian weapons from Iran to Yemen.” He said the Israeli air force “struck dual-use infrastructure used for terrorist activities, including energy infrastructure. Israel’s necessary and proportionate strikes were carried out in order to stop the Houthi’s terror attacks.” The Israeli government has not provided information to substantiate these claims.

Under UN Security Council Resolution 2534 (2020), the UN Mission to Support the Hodeidah Agreement is mandated to oversee Hodeidah city and port to ensure that no military personnel or material are present. An official for a UN agency that monitors the port said that the agency had never found evidence of a Houthi military presence in the port. He said that another UN agency that inspects vessels before they enter the port had not found any weapons. Two UN officials who operate in Hodeidah noted that Houthi authorities provide prior approval for UN access and accompany UN officials on inspections.

The oil industry official said that the oil tanks at the port are not owned by the Houthis but “by Yemeni businessmen who import the oil and resell it to fuel stations and other institutions.” Aid organizations also own some of the oil and use it for their operations. A WFP official said that the organization lost 780,000 liters of fuel in the attack, which it was using to “support hospital generators” and water and sanitation infrastructure across Yemen. The remaining oil is used for various other public purposes, said the oil industry official and Mwatana. Two UN agency officials said that the oil at the port was imported from the United Arab Emirates.

The Israeli airstrikes also struck the main power plant in Hodeidah. Two people knowledgeable about Hodeidah said that the power plant was the city’s main source of electricity, providing electricity to hospitals, schools, businesses, and homes. The climate in Hodeidah governorate is among the hottest in Yemen, making electricity critical for fans, air conditioning, and refrigeration.

The applicable laws of war prohibit deliberate, indiscriminate, or disproportionate attacks on civilians and civilian objects. An attack not directed at a specific military objective is indiscriminate. An attack is disproportionate if the expected civilian loss is excessive compared to the anticipated military gain of the attack. When used by an armed force or non-state armed group, port facilities, oil storage tanks, and electrical power plants can be valid military objectives. 

No information has been made public indicating that weapons or military supplies were being stored at or delivered to the port, or that the oil and electricity, monitored under Resolution 2534, were being diverted to the Houthi military, which would make the Israeli attack unlawfully indiscriminate. However, even if the attack were against valid military objectives, the harm to the civilian population likely made the attack disproportionate. In addition to the reported civilian casualties, the damage to the port facilities would appear to inflict excessive immediate and longer-term harm for large swaths of the Yemeni population who rely on the Hodeidah port for survival.

Israel’s allies, including the United States and the United Kingdom, should suspend military assistance and arms sales to Israel so long as its forces commit systematic and widespread laws-of-war violations, including in Gaza and in Lebanon, with impunity. Governments that continue to provide arms to the Israeli government risk complicity in war crimes. 

The UN Panel of Experts on Yemen has also previously found that Iran is likely supplying weapons to the Houthis. Iran should not provide missiles to the Houthis so long as the Houthis continue to use them in unlawful attacks.

“The Israeli airstrikes on critical infrastructure in Hodeidah could have a profoundly devastating impact on many Yemeni lives over the longer term,” Jafarnia said. “Both the Israelis and the Houthis should immediately halt all unlawful attacks affecting civilians and their lives.”

“It is unthinkable for me to go out. I could get a heatstroke,” Esther Laforge, 35, messaged me earlier this month. Esther, who lives outside of the Spanish city of Seville where temperature is expected to hit 40 degrees Celsius this week, has a physical disability that affects her body temperature regulation.

As Spain experiences another devastatingly hot summer, with more than eight consecutive days of heatwaves in July alone, many people with disabilities are exposed to heat-related risks.

In 2023, Human Rights Watch documented extreme heat’s impacts on people with disabilities living in Andalusia, a region in southern Spain particularly susceptible to heatwaves.  In addition to findings about the serious physical and mental health consequences heat has for people with disabilities, we also found gaps in public responses to protect them. These included a lack of outreach services and heat-related information in different formats such as easy-to-read, lack of participation of people with disabilities in shaping responses, and lack of data, including on heat-related deaths for people with disabilities.

With the summer of 2024 long underway, deaths related to extreme heat are climbing fast. The Momo Index—run by the Carlos III Health Institute, Spain’s primary health statistics agency—indicates that between July and mid-August, more than 1,200 deaths were associated with extreme temperatures, more than 95% aged 65 and older.

Exactly how many people with disabilities died due to extreme heat across Spain is unclear, but more than half of people with disabilities registered are 65 and older. And despite calls for better data, a Carlos III Health Institute official told us the agency still doesn’t have information on disability and heat-related deaths and that designing a study would be too difficult. The lack of data, and of concrete data collection plans, is concerning because if people remain uncounted, they stay invisible in monitoring, reporting, and protection systems.

Numerous studies have shown that people with disabilities are disproportionately represented in deaths during heat events. For example, in Canada, 91 percent of those who died in a 2021 heat dome in British Columbia had a disability or a chronic health condition.

Extreme heat is projected to become more frequent and intense due to climate change. The rights to health and life of people with disabilities, like Esther, must be protected. Spain should investigate and monitor the relationship between disability, heat, and heat-related deaths to better protect this group and provide effective, evidence-based targeted services.

Summer is here and it’s the season of wedding parties throughout Türkiye. But for some Kurdish men, women, and children, joyful dancing and singing of Kurdish political folk songs at wedding parties or elsewhere has ended in arrest and charges of “spreading terrorist propaganda.” This crime is punishable with up to five years in prison. The actions of the authorities in detaining and criminalizing people for such lawful activities constitutes a clear abuse of arrest powers.

A TikTok video of women dancing a halay — a line dance common in Türkiye — at a wedding party to a song mentioning guerilla fighters became the pretext for police to detain six people in the town of Kurtalan in the Siirt province in southeast Türkiye on July 26. The Siirt governor issued a statement on social media announcing the detentions and pledging that the “struggle against terrorist organizations will continue with perseverance and determination.” Two women and three girls were remanded by the court to pretrial detention. A day before, in the southern city of Mersin, police detained eight men and one boy on the basis of a TikTok video showing people dancing a halay to Kurdish songs weeks earlier. A court ruled that the nine be placed in pretrial detention. Arrests in other cities and towns including Istanbul and most recently Osmaniye have followed, and at least 34 people have spent weeks in pretrial detention before appearing in court. 

The case of those arrested in Mersin is yet to reach trial, but the three women and two girls in the Kurtalan case face their first trial hearing in Siirt on August 16. The prosecutor should request the immediate release and acquittal of all five.

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that singing popular folk songs or poems, shouting generic slogans, including at public gatherings, or referencing the 40-year insurgency of the armed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) against the Turkish military, is protected speech. The content of the songs and slogans from the wedding parties and elsewhere neither incites violence nor creates an imminent danger to individuals that could warrant criminal charges.

Turning Kurdish wedding parties into crime scenes by arresting and prosecuting guests and musicians is only the latest example of how for decades the Turkish authorities have perverted the criminal justice system to target legitimate activities and political expression by Kurds.

(Beirut) – Iraq’s parliament is moving forward an amendment to the country’s Personal Status Law that would allow Iraqi religious authorities, rather than state law, to govern marriage and inheritance matters at the expense of fundamental rights, Human Rights Watch said today. The Iraqi parliament, which completed its first reading of the bill on August 4, 2023, will have two more readings of the bill and a debate before deciding whether to vote it into law.

If passed, the amendment would have disastrous effects on women’s and girls’ rights guaranteed under international law by allowing marriage for girls as young as 9, undermining the principle of equality under Iraqi law, and removing protections for women regarding divorce and inheritance. Child marriage puts girls at increased risk of sexual and physical violence, adverse physical and mental health consequences, and being denied access to education and employment.

“The Iraqi parliament’s passage of this bill would be a devastating step backward for Iraqi women and girls and the rights they have fought hard to enshrine in law,” said Sarah Sanbar, Iraq researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Formally legalizing child marriage would rob countless girls of their futures and well-being. Girls belong in school and on the playground, not in a wedding dress.”

The draft amendment would legalize, rather than try to reverse, Iraq’s significant and growing child marriage problem, Human Rights Watch said. 

Iraqi rights groups and activists have taken to the streets to protest the amendment, and a group of more than 15 women parliament members from diverse parties have come together to oppose its passage. Parliament proposed similar amendments to the Personal Status Law in 2014 and again in 2017, both of which failed to pass.

Under the draft amendment, couples concluding a marriage contract could choose whether the provisions of the Personal Status Law or the provisions of specific Islamic schools of jurisprudence would apply. If couples are from different sects, the school followed by the husband’s sect would apply. 

This arrangement would effectively establish separate legal regimes with different rights accorded to different sects. It would further enshrine sectarianism in Iraq, undermining the right to legal equality for all Iraqis found in article 14 of the constitution and international human rights law.

For instance, the Jaafari school of law, which many Shia Muslims in Iraq follow, allows for girls as young as 9 and boys as young as 15 to be married. The Personal Status Law sets the legal age for marriage at 18, or 15 with a judge’s permission and depending on the child’s “maturity and physical capacity,” which already contravenes international legal standards and best practices.

The draft amendment would also authenticate unregistered marriages, which are conducted by religious leaders but not registered with personal status courts and are illegal under the current Personal Status Law. The amendment would also remove criminal punishments for men entering into these marriages and allow religious leaders, rather than the courts, to finalize marriages.

Unregistered marriages are already a loophole enabling child marriage in Iraq, where child marriage rates have been rising over the last 20 years, a March 2024 report by Human Rights Watch found. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that 28 percent of girls in Iraq are married before age 18. According to the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq, 22 percent of unregistered marriages involved girls under age 14.

Unregistered marriages also have extremely harmful effects on women and girls’ ability to obtain government services, register their children’s birth, and claim their rights, Human Rights Watch said. Without a civil marriage certificate, women and girls are unable to give birth in hospitals, itself an unjust obstruction to health care, and are forced to give birth at home with limited access to emergency obstetric services. This increases the risk of medical complications that threaten the life of both the mother and her baby. Children and young women are especially vulnerable to some pregnancy complications. 

The amendment would also remove and undermine protections for divorced women. Under the existing Personal Status Law, if a husband requests a divorce, the wife has the right to remain in their marital home for three years at the husband’s expense and to receive two years of spousal maintenance and the current value of her dowry. If a wife requests a divorce, a judge can award her some of these benefits depending on the circumstances.

If religious law were applied, women would lose many of these protections. For example, under the Jaafari school of law, a woman who gets divorced has no right to the marital home, maintenance, or her dowry, and children would continue living with her for only two years, regardless of their age, contingent on her not remarrying. 

Women would also lose some inheritance rights. Even under existing law, daughters inherit a lower proportion of a parent’s wealth than sons. But under some religious laws, daughters would inherit even less, and if a family has no son to inherit the agricultural land, it would revert to the state.

Finally, the amendment stipulates that the Scholar Council of the Shia Endowment Office and the Fatwa Council of the Sunni Endowment Office will develop a “code of Sharia [Islamic law] rulings on personal status matters” and submit it to the house of representatives within six months from the date of entry into force of the law. 

This would mean lawmakers and the general public would not have a chance to review or vote on the code before it becomes law, removing democratic oversight and granting disproportionate power to religious authorities in setting the law, Human Rights Watch said. 

The proposed amendment was introduced by Raad al-Maliki, an independent member of parliament who also introduced the amendment to Iraq’s Law on Combatting Prostitution that criminalized same-sex relations, gender-affirming medical interventions, and “promoting homosexuality,” which passed in April 2024.The law violates fundamental human rights, including the rights to freedom of expression, association, privacy, equality, and nondiscrimination of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Iraq.

The proposed amendment would violate the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which Iraq ratified in 1986, by depriving women and girls of their rights on the basis of their gender. The amendment also violates the Convention on Rights of the Child, which Iraq ratified in 1994, by legalizing child marriage, putting girls at risk of forced and early marriage, leaving them susceptible to sexual abuse, and not requiring decisions about children in divorce cases to be made in the best interests of the child.

The draft amendment appears to violate the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights by depriving certain people of their rights on the basis of their religion.

“Iraqi parliamentarians should reject efforts to strip women and girls of their legal protections and refuse to undo decades of hard-won rights,” Sanbar said. “Failure to do so means current and future generations of Iraqi women will remain strangled by an oppressive patriarchal legal system.” 

On August 13, Eswatini’s Supreme Court overturned a 2016 High Court decision that declared several repressive provisions of the 1938 Suppression of Terrorism Act (STA) and 2008 Sedition and Subversive Activities Act (SSA) invalid.

The 2016 High Court decision had declared that several sections of SSA and STA violated the rights to freedom of association, expression, and assembly, guaranteed in Eswatini’s Constitution and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, to which Eswatini is party.

The 2016 decision combined four separate applications to the High Court brought by six activists.

The activists, who included the late human rights lawyer Thulani Maseko, Mario Masuku, leader of the banned People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), and Maxwell Dlamini, leader of PUDEMO’s youth wing, had been separately charged under the SSA for allegedly making subversive statements and sedition. They had also been charged under the STA for allegedly “chanting slogans of a terrorism nature,” “wearing t-shirts which bore terrorist demands at the back,” and participating in a demonstration calling for a boycott of elections.

The activists argued that the STA, which criminalizes support for a proscribed entity and prevented individuals from challenging that label, infringed on their right to due process and administrative justice.

Political parties have been banned in Eswatini since 1973.

The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the High Court’s ruling will embolden the government to ramp up its ongoing crackdown on opposition, human rights, and pro-democracy activists and weaponize the criminal justice system. This ruling is the latest in a worrying trend of authorities employing vague and overly broad provisions of terrorism laws to suppress freedom of association, expression, and assembly. In July, two former members of parliament, Mduduzi Bacede Mabuza and Mthandeni Dube, were sentenced to prison terms of 25 and 18 years respectively for participating in and supporting pro-democracy protests in 2021.

This week, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), of which Eswatini is a member, will hold its 44th Ordinary Summit of Heads of State in Harare, Zimbabwe. The SADC should prioritize the deteriorating human rights crisis in Eswatini and take decisive action. It’s imperative the Eswatini government repeal these repressive laws and ensure full respect for fundamental freedoms and human rights.