Author: Human Rights Watch

The UK has been rocked by far-right riots this week. Racist mobs have targeted mosques and asylum seeker accommodation, Muslims and people of color have been attacked, and police have been injured. In Rotherham, South Yorkshire, asylum seekers were trapped in their accommodation as rioters smashed windows and set the building on fire.

The riots are being fueled by racist and Islamophobic misinformation shared online, which should focus policymakers’ minds on how easily social media platforms can be harnessed to promote hate. The misguided and ignorant interventions of X, formerly known as Twitter, owner Elon Musk should also raise serious questions about how these platforms are managed, with parliamentarians suggesting Musk be called in to answer questions.

It is understandable many people in the UK are angry and frustrated that their living standards continue to decline and that they feel neglected or forgotten as local facilities close, benefits are cut, and funding to services is slashed. This disillusionment is being exploited by often racist extremists, who pretend there are simple “answers” to complex problems. Migrants, Muslims, and ethnic minorities have become scapegoats for all manner of policy failures, from the decline of the NHS to the availability of housing or jobs. In almost every instance, these claims are demonstrably false.

Politicians like Suella Braverman and Nigel Farage, and their dangerous anti-migrant and Islamophobic rhetoric, undoubtedly share some responsibility for laying the groundwork for the violence currently unfolding on Britain’s streets, and indeed Farage is accused of stoking the conspiracy theories that fueled this outbreak of violence. Even in the midst of this situation, Conservative leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick made Islamophobic comments that risk fanning the flames. By adopting the rhetoric of the far right, politicians have sanitized and mainstreamed Islamophobia and xenophobia, emboldening extremists. The willingness, indeed eagerness, of some media to vilify and demonize certain communities and groups has also made this possible. When the government conducts a postmortem of the riots, it should not ignore the role politicians and media played in stoking fear, mistrust, and hostility towards these groups.

The new Labour government inherits a country divided, in which the far right is a real and present danger. But to focus solely on the violent disorder is to treat the symptom of a much broader problem. To tackle the threat posed by the far right, the government needs not only to hold to account those spewing dehumanizing rhetoric and address ongoing structural racism and Islamophobia, but also begin to address the many and varied structural issues, including rising inequality and poverty, that are ripe for cynical exploitation to push a xenophobic agenda

(Beirut) – Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are failing to protect outdoor migrant workers experiencing dangerous, heat-related health risks as global warming-fueled heatwaves envelope the region, Human Rights Watch said today. 

Migrant workers in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) interviewed by Human Rights Watch described symptoms of heat-related illness, including fainting and vomiting, and described feeling suffocated by the heat. Despite deadly temperatures, interviewees often lacked access to shaded rest breaks and cold water to hydrate and cool off.

“Gulf states like to be seen as world leaders on a range of issues, but on the critical global issue of heat protection, their record is lackluster at best,” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “As a result, migrant workers in countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar who are trying to provide for their families back home are unnecessarily suffering every day, enduring long-term chronic illnesses, and even dying due to the suffocating heat.”

Several of the hottest days on record since 1940 were recorded in the region in the third week of July 2024, according to one scientific dataset, and the heat index in some Gulf cities exceeded 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit). Dubai and Doha were recently ranked as the top two cities with the most dangerous summer heat globally. Media outlets reported that Dubai’s temperatures on July 17, when factoring in humidity, felt like 62 degrees Celsius (143.6 degrees Fahrenheit). 

Yet Gulf states apply inadequate midday work bans that only prohibit outdoor work during pre-defined hours in the summer months instead of using the wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) index, a widely used index that measures occupational heat stress based on air temperature and relative humidity. Only Qatar uses the index as a threshold to stop outdoor work, but the work stoppage threshold is set too high to effectively protect workers.

In May 2023, Human Rights Watch interviewed 90 migrant workers to investigate the heat risks outdoor workers faced in Gulf states, in addition to 15 workers in the UAE and Saudi Arabia in September 2023, after the midday work ban ended. In July 2024, during the peak summer heat, Human Rights Watch followed up on this research and interviewed eight workers in the UAE and Qatar.

“It is not sufficient to describe in words the heat we are experiencing,” said a Qatar-based worker who builds scaffolding. “You have to experience it yourself. Our bodies are drenched in sweat. From head to feet. Not a single organ is spared.” 

A UAE-based worker said: “This job is not good for our health … headaches and fever are common. Continuously sweating makes your body weak. But our [economic] circumstances and necessity are the biggest drivers of strength that make us adjust even in the heat.”

Peer-reviewed research studies have shown the inadequacies of the Gulf states’ midday heat bans in effectively protecting workers as extreme heat conditions also occur outside the ban months or hours. “Resting for three hours does not take away the heat,” a UAE-based worker said. After 3 p.m., too, it gets very hot. … When it gets too hot, you start feeling dizzy. Your body becomes weak. You lose your motor cognitive skills. Your muscles become extremely weak.” 

Another UAE-based worker said: “If the wind blows, the heat feels more tolerable but when it does not, even breathing becomes very difficult.”

Not all supervisors are empathetic. One road construction worker said: “The foreman does not care; the engineer only looks for work. In the heat, people faint. The rest of us are expected to continue working as usual.”

A Saudi-based worker said: “Every day, one or two workers faint, including during mornings and evenings. Sometimes on the way to work. Sometimes while working.”

Nosebleeds, fever, headaches, nausea, and fainting are common among workers. Heat also has lasting health impacts such as end-stage kidney failure and even death. Human Rights Watch has documented that in such instances, migrant workers and their families are left without any support from the Gulf state governments or employers. 

Gulf authorities should immediately adopt risk-based heat protection measures such as the WBGT with appropriate thresholds based on work intensity to impose evidence-based work-rest schedules, Human Rights Watch said.

Employers should also provide access to shaded rest areas and drinking water. “Things are better because work stops from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. now, and not at noon like in the past,” a Qatar-based worker said. “However, the downside is we don’t have access to rest areas at work. We go back to our camps, which is one hour away.” Whenever he has to rest on site, he does so in the bus which is not air-conditioned. 

Four workers Human Rights Watch spoke to this summer said water is not always available at the worksite. One worker said: “We have to stay hydrated. If we lose too much sweat or don’t drink water every half-an-hour or so, we start feeling weak.” 

These heatwaves, already being fueled by the climate crisis, are expected to escalate rapidly if governments fail to take action to phase out fossil fuels. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s leading authority on climate science, has said that the Gulf states “are expected to approach, and possibly exceed, the physiological threshold for human adaptability by the end of the century.”

Existing fossil fuel projects are already more than the climate can withstand to limit global warming to the increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius required to prevent a global climate collapse, according to the IPCC. Burning fossil fuels is the primary driver of the climate crisis, accounting for over 80 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions.

Some countries, including the US, are developing heat protections for outdoor workers. While these protections also likely have serious gaps and significant hurdles remain for these policies to go into effect, they reference a rapidly growing body of research that links extreme heat exposure to serious health harm and are a significant step in the right direction. 

Migrant workers also continue to face other abuses under the employer-based kafala (sponsorship) system in Gulf countries. Difficulty changing jobs and outstanding recruitment loans, for example, trap workers in abusive conditions. “If we slow down [at work because of the heat], the foreman threatens us with three days’ wage deduction,” one worker said.

Furthermore, trade unions are banned or restricted in Gulf states, especially for migrant workers. Gulf states also restrict free expression, which results in the persistence of inadequate protections like midday work bans. 

Gulf states’ experience dealing with a hot climate, managing large construction projects, and more recently hosting mega-events, like concerts and sports that entail outdoor exposure, should further incentivize these states to become leaders in heat protection, Human Rights Watch said.

Gulf states should aim to not repeat the recent tragedies involving extreme heat, including the over 1,300 deaths during Saudi Arabia’s hosting of the annual Muslim pilgrimage known as the Hajj or Qatar’s hosting of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, in which extreme heat has been linked to the deaths of scores of migrant workers who made the tournament possible. 

“As temperatures reach unprecedented levels globally, Gulf states should be leaders in implementing strong heat protections to safeguard outdoor workers, not passive bystanders who are failing to protect scores of migrant workers from the known health risks to extreme heat,” Page said.

• Chad’s military is responsible for the deaths in custody of several detainees en route to and at Koro Toro prison following the October 2022 protests over the extension of the transition government.
• Chadian military officials oversee a prison in which abuse runs rampant and are responsible for the deaths of protesters detained in the wake of the October 20, 2022 protests.
• The Chadian government should close one Koro Toro building and repair the other. Anyone held there without charge should be freed immediately. International partners should evaluate their support.

(Nairobi) – Chad’s military is responsible for the deaths in custody of several detainees en route to and at Koro Toro prison in October 2022, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The prisoners were unlawfully detained, mistreated, and denied basic supplies during the two to three days transit from the capital city to the prison.

The 77-page report, “‘Worse Than Hell’: Death and Torture at Chad’s Koro Toro Prison,” documents in detail the detention of 72 people, several of whom were tortured or ill-treated at Koro Toro following the October 20 protests in the Chadian capital, N’Djamena, and in several other towns, to protest the two years extension of the transitional government. Security forces fired live ammunition at protesters. Hundreds were then taken to Koro Toro, a high security prison about 600 kilometers away. The transition ended in May 2024 with the election of Gen. Mahamat Idriss Déby.

“Chadian military officials oversee a prison in which abuse runs rampant and are responsible for deaths of protesters detained in the wake of the October 20, 2022 protests,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should act to address the impunity for these abuses that has led many victims to give up all hope for justice.”

The remains of those who died should be returned to their families for burial, and one of the main buildings at Koro Toro should be closed as it is unfit to be used as a detention center, Human Rights Watch said. Chadian authorities, the African Union, and United Nations bodies should immediately investigate unlawful detention and ill-treatment at Koro Toro and all deaths in custody.

Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 150 people during 2023 and 2024, including 72 former detainees, family members of detainees who died en route to or at Koro Toro, government officials, and members of civil society. Human Rights Watch matched geographic features seen and verified from images obtained from former detainees with satellite imagery to locate the prison site. It used this material, along with sketches provided by victims, to construct diagrammatic models of the prison.

Koro Toro is comprised principally of two prisons, known as Koro Toro 1, or Koro Toro Habré, and Koro Toro 2, or Koro Toro Déby, located about one kilometer apart. Koro Toro 1 is older than Koro Toro 2 and is in decrepit condition. Human Rights Watch found that it lacks even the most basic standards of care. Both compounds house suspects who have yet to be charged with a crime, pretrial detainees, and convicted prisoners.

The prison, which was designed to house “violent extremists,” is hundreds of kilometers from major urban centers and cut off from the outside world with no cell phone reception, making it practically impossible for family members and lawyers to visit.

En route to Koro Toro, most detainees were denied food and – more important – water, over two to three days. One former detainee said that when it was clear the trucks would not stop for water, he and other detainees started to drink their own urine. “We had a few small bottles, and we passed them around to share urine to drink,” he said.

Some detainees died in transit, presumably from delirium and hunger. Former detainees said the guards told them to throw the bodies out of the trucks. Human Rights Watch documented the deaths of at least four people en route to the prison, six others at the prison, and of one man whose death occurred in either of those places, although the real number of dead is most likely much higher. Relatives were not officially informed of the deaths, although some were told informally. Almost two years on, none of the remains have been released to their families.

Former detainees said that, while soldiers from the national army guarded the prison, day-to-day administration was managed by prisoners suspected of having links to the Islamist armed group Boko Haram. They punished and beat other detainees, oversaw food distribution, and ran a small market. Former detainees said that the soldiers gave these prisoners de facto authority to ill-treat and beat others.

At least hundreds of people detained at Koro Toro in connection with the October 20 protests were “chained up” with iron rods around their ankles and attached to another iron rod for up to several weeks. Some were subjected to prolonged solitary confinement, a form of torture, and forced labor.

Judicial proceedings for the detainees were held in the prison by the Tribunal of N’Djamena. Based on interviews with former detainees, the interrogations and judicial proceedings were hurried and fell far short of fair trial standards. Most of the accused were convicted and then pardoned.

The Chadian government maintains that the October 20, 2022 protests amounted to an insurrection and that, given the seriousness of this crime, detention at Koro Toro was not extreme. In a July 2023 letter to Human Rights Watch, Chad’s justice minister stated that there was “no evidence relating to the violation of human rights related to [the] transfer or detention in Koro-Toro prison.”

The Chadian government should immediately close Koro Toro 1 and ensure urgent repairs at Koro Toro 2 to make it adequate for holding prisoners, including installing a means for detainees to communicate with their families and lawyers. No one should be detained at Koro Toro prison without charges, and anyone currently so held should be released immediately, Human Rights Watch said.

Failing a serious effort by the Chadian government to confront ill-treatment and torture at Koro Toro, Chad’s international partners should evaluate financial and other support, including training and capacity-building to institutions directly involved in these violations.

“Mahamat Idriss Déby’s government should demonstrate its respect for the rule of law by closing down Koro Toro 1 and bringing conditions at Koro Toro 2 up to human rights standards,” Mudge said. “The authorities should immediately investigate detainee deaths both en route to and at Koro Toro and prosecute those responsible for this and other abuses in detention.”

(London) – Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned on August 5, 2024, and fled the country after weeks of student protests, Human Rights Watch said today. An estimated 300 people have been killed, thousands injured, and more than 10,000 arrested.

The army chief general, Waker-Uz-Zaman, said, “I promise you all, we will bring justice” while announcing the prime minister’s resignation and confirming that an interim government would be formed. The authorities should prioritize implementing a transparent and independent justice mechanism and immediately release all political prisoners, including those being held in incommunicado detention. The interim government should accept the United Nations’ support to open an independent inquiry into grave abuses both during the recent student protests and earlier, during the years of Sheikh Hasina’s government.

“Sheikh Hasina’s resignation after nearly 15 years of increasing authoritarianism brings new hope for accountability and democratic reform to Bangladesh,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The interim government should seize this opportunity to reorient the country toward the rule of law with independent institutions to assure justice for the victims.”

The prime minister’s resignation was the culmination of student protests that began in early July. The protesters initially were responding to the reinstatement of a 30 percent job quota for descendants of 1971 independence war veterans, which they described as a form of political patronage for ruling party supporters. Though the protests began peacefully, violence broke out on July 15, when security forces and members of the Chhatra League, the governing Awami League’s student group, attacked the protesters.

In response, students took to the streets. They had widespread support from Bangladeshis, who said they were not only appalled by the attack on students but also expressed anger over corruption, unfair elections, and rampant abuses by security forces. The government deployed the army and shut down internet access, during which activists reported extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances. The authorities carried out a cordon and search operation, arresting more than 10,000 suspected protesters and lodging cases against tens of thousands more.

After the government lifted the curfew and partially restored the internet, the students called for civil disobedience to protest human rights violations, including killings, arbitrary arrests, and torture by Bangladeshi security forces. On August 4, tens of thousands joined the protests, calling on Sheikh Hasina and her ministers to resign.

Sheikh Hasina responded by reportedly calling on her supporters “to curb anarchists with iron hands.” There were deadly clashes between ruling party supporters and protesters across the country. The military took over on August 5, with the army chief announcing Sheikh Hasina’s resignation.

On August 5, Maayer Daak, an advocacy group of families of victims of enforced disappearance, held a demonstration outside of the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence headquarters, Bangladesh’s military intelligence agency. The agency allegedly ran a secret prison there, where victims of enforced disappearance were held and tortured. The authorities should offer the families of enforced disappearance some relief by releasing all those currently held in incommunicado detention, independently investigating every case in which victims’ whereabouts remain unknown, and holding those responsible to account.

In a positive move, Mir Ahmad Bin Quasem and Abdullahil Amaan Azmi, both victims of enforced disappearance, were released by the authorities on August 5. Bin Quasem was arrested at his house late on August 9, 2016, in the presence of his wife and sister. Security forces denied his arrest and repeatedly threatened and harassed his family. Azmi, a retired army officer, was detained on August 22, 2016, by men in civilian clothes who said they were from the police Detective Branch, but the authorities later denied his arrest. Both men are sons of party leaders of the opposition Jamaat-e-Islami, who were convicted of committing war crimes during Bangladesh’s struggle for independence.

Enforced disappearances skyrocketed under Sheikh Hasina’s rule and became a hallmark of her repression. In her first year in office this term in 2009, there were three reported enforced disappearances. By the next election in 2014, there had been 131. According to Bangladesh human rights groups, over 600 people have been forcibly disappeared by security forces since Sheikh Hasina took office.

The former prime minister’s rule was characterized by a culture of impunity alongside grave security force abuses, including extrajudicial killings, torture, and enforced disappearances. Those who dared to speak out risked their lives. Sheikh Hasina’s government further stifled free expression through a series of vague and overly broad laws used to harass and indefinitely detain activists, journalists, and others critical of the government.

The military has previously taken over, most recently in 2007 as a caretaker government. Though the military-led interim government was initially broadly welcomed, this soon gave way to widespread security force abuses. Under the declared state of emergency, the military tortured critics, limited political participation, and clamped down on freedom of expression and association.

The UN has called for calm and a peaceful transition. Soon after Sheikh Hasina resigned, some Bangladeshis engaged in vandalism, attacking religious minorities as well as Awami League members and their properties. Student leaders and opposition leaders called for calm, and activists gathered to protect minority Hindu religious sites. Bangladeshi authorities should be vigilant and prevent violent retaliation against Sheikh Hasina’s supporters or any other lawlessness, Human Rights Watch said.

“Bangladeshis have protested, and many have died, to protect human rights and democracy,” Ganguly said. “It is crucial for influential governments to help ensure that the country’s future is not sacrificed by repeating the past.”

• Houthis are obstructing aid work and access to information, exacerbating a deadly cholera outbreak spreading across the country.
• The cholera outbreak will continue to take lives so long as Yemeni authorities obstruct aid and authorities and the international community fail to adequately invest in prevention and mitigation measures.
• Yemeni authorities should remove obstacles to aid delivery, including to public health information. Houthis should halt arbitrary detentions and release UN and civil society staff and aid workers.

(Beirut) – Yemen’s authorities are obstructing aid work and exacerbating a deadly cholera outbreak that is spreading across the country, Human Rights Watch said today. Parties to the conflict, including the Houthis, the Yemeni government, and the Southern Transitional Council (STC), have obstructed aid and access to information and have failed to take adequate preventative measures to mitigate the spread of cholera. Houthi security forces also have detained and threatened civil society staff, including humanitarian aid workers, in their recent arrest campaign. 

Data collected by aid agencies indicate that between January 1 and July 19 there have been about 95,000 suspected cholera cases, resulting in at least 258 deaths, according to an individual working with the Yemen Health Cluster, a group of aid organizations, authorities, and donors led by the World Health Organization (WHO). All parties to the conflict should end their violations and abuses of Yemenis’ right to health, and the Houthis should end their arbitrary detentions of civil society and humanitarian aid workers. 

“The obstructions to aid work by Yemen’s authorities, in particular the Houthis, are contributing to the spread of cholera,” said Niku Jafarnia, Yemen and Bahrain researcher at Human Rights Watch. “More than 200 people have already died from this preventable disease, and the Houthis’ detention of aid workers poses a serious threat to further limit the presence of lifesaving aid.” 

Human Rights Watch spoke to seven doctors working in hospitals across Yemen on the cholera response, as well as several other health care professionals. Human Rights Watch also spoke to 20 aid agency officials, including doctors and epidemiologists, working to respond to the cholera outbreak and to a government health official. On July 24, Human Rights Watch wrote to the Yemeni government, the Houthis, and the STC with requests for further information. The Yemeni government met with Human Rights Watch and explained that many of their constraints in addressing the cholera outbreak were linked with a lack of funding. They also provided information demonstrating the actions they had taken to inform the Yemeni public about the outbreak. The STC responded stating that Human Rights Watch should direct their questions to the Yemeni government, though the STC comprises part of the Yemeni government’s eight-member presidential leadership council that replaced former President Abdo Rabbu Mansour Hadi in 2022. STC members also lead the Yemeni Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation (MoPIC) and the Yemeni Ministry of Social Affairs, both of which deal with humanitarian aid and have been involved in aid obstruction. The Houthis did not respond.

Yemen has been in conflict for nearly a decade. Beginning in March 2015, a Saudi and UAE-led coalition linked with the government conducted numerous indiscriminate and disproportionate airstrikes killing thousands of civilians in Houthi-held areas and hitting civilian structures, including hospitals, in violation of the laws of war. Warring parties have damaged and destroyed at least 120 medical facilities, as well as water and sanitation facilities. 

Though the coalition has not conducted airstrikes since April 2022, when warring parties agreed to a ceasefire that has largely held, neither the coalition nor other warring parties have been held accountable or provided adequate reparations for the harm and damage to civilians. These attacks have debilitated an already underinvested health and sanitation infrastructure and contributed to the immense humanitarian crisis facing Yemen today. 

Currently, over 18 million of Yemen’s 30 million people need humanitarian assistance, and aid agency funding has been cut each year, at least in part due to the aid restrictions by governing parties. Yemen’s severely damaged healthcare infrastructure, the lack of safe drinking water, high malnutrition rates, and growing levels of vaccine denial and hesitancy from Houthi vaccine falsehoods, according to several sources, have facilitated the spread and impact of cholera in Yemen. 

According to a doctor working with a humanitarian aid organization in Houthi-controlled territory, though patients began showing signs of cholera starting in November 2023, Houthi authorities refused to acknowledge the crisis to humanitarian agencies until March 18, 2024, when there were already thousands of cases. In March, the Houthis finally began providing information about cholera cases in Houthi-controlled territory, but they still have not announced the outbreak publicly. 

Houthi authorities have also detained at least a dozen United Nations and civil society staff since May 31, with informed sources telling Human Rights Watch that the number of those detained continues to grow. The arrests have left many agencies questioning whether or how to continue safely providing humanitarian aid in Houthi-controlled territories, which has the potential to further exacerbate the current cholera outbreak.

In the south, the Yemeni government, which includes the STC, quickly responded to the news of the outbreak in October 2023 by working with humanitarian agencies to set up clinics and procure necessary medicines. Though they have continued to share information with humanitarian agencies since the start of the outbreak, an informed source told Human Rights Watch that they have instructed aid groups not to use the word “cholera” in public statements, particularly in Arabic. This hinders people’s ability to take measures to prevent further spread of the disease. 

Furthermore, aid agency sources said that the Yemeni government initially blamed migrants from the Horn of Africa for the outbreak, placing migrants in an even more precarious situation in Yemen. Most migrants in Yemen do not have legal documentation, with limited job opportunities and severe difficulties in accessing basic public services.

While the source of the outbreak is not clear, cholera is endemic to Yemen. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), during the last cholera outbreak in Yemen from 2016 to 2022, Yemen had 2.5 million suspected cases, constituting “the largest ever reported cholera outbreak in recent history,” with over 4,000 deaths. 

Despite that immense toll, the authorities failed to take measures to prevent future outbreaks. Cholera spreads in large part via water and produce, such as fruits and vegetables, yet authorities and donors have not taken sufficient measures to invest in adequate water, sanitation, and hygiene infrastructure, which aid agencies call “WASH,” across Yemen, nor spread awareness in communities on effective, preventative hygiene and agricultural practices.

Many individuals working at humanitarian agencies also discussed the lack of funding for Yemen and the impact it has had on the cholera response.

The Houthis and the Yemeni government are obligated to protect everyone’s human rights in territory they control, including the rights to life, to health, and to an adequate standard of living, including food and water. Their aid obstructions violate these obligations. Although limited resources and capacity may mean that economic and social rights can only be fully realized over time, the authorities are still obliged to ensure minimum essential levels of health care, including essential primary health care. 

Yemeni authorities should remove obstacles to aid delivery, including public health information. Houthis should also halt arbitrary detention and disappearances of UN and civil society staff and aid workers and release anyone held arbitrarily.

“The cholera outbreak will continue to spread and take lives so long as Yemeni authorities obstruct aid and authorities and the international community fail to adequately invest in prevention and mitigation measures,” Jafarnia said. “This can only happen in a space where civil society and humanitarian aid agencies are able to work without fearing for their safety.” 

Restrictions on Publicizing Critical Health Information

Humanitarian agency sources said that authorities, particularly the Houthis, have pressured UN agencies and humanitarian organizations to stop publicly releasing data on cholera cases or deaths. Since April 30, the WHO has not reported any new data on the number of recorded cholera cases. However, sources told Human Rights Watch that case numbers have rapidly increased since April, when the WHO last reported them. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on May 12 that there were about 500 to 1,000 new cases each day, and that “health partners anticipate that the total number of cases could range from 133,000 to 255,000 by September 2024.” 

One person working in the Yemen Health Cluster said that in a meeting with the government’s health minister, people were given “clear instructions not to say the word ‘cholera’ and to use ‘acute watery diarrhea’ [instead].” Two sources also said that the director of al-Sadaqa hospital in Aden had been fired after going on television and talking about the cholera outbreak. The Yemeni government’s minister of public health told Human Rights Watch that there is ongoing investigation into the incident, but said that the director was fired for reasons unrelated to her public comments on cholera.

“In the south they’re very cautious about [using] the figures very openly … but the reality is that we have a cholera outbreak, and they haven’t announced it as an emergency and it’s spreading very fast,” said a humanitarian worker.

One local aid agency worker said that the government, while communicating openly with humanitarian aid organizations about the outbreak, was not communicating with the public. “They don’t want to publish any of the data because they don’t want to be blamed for it,” he said. He added that local media were not reporting on the outbreak because it was “sensitive” and may cause the journalists “problems” if they spoke out. Representatives of the Yemeni government told Human Rights Watch that they had publicized the cholera outbreak in several instances, which Human Rights Watch confirmed.

Engaging the public is essential to combating disease spread. A doctor working in Houthi-controlled territories said that cholera patients often did not come to hospitals until they had developed life-threatening symptoms, including impaired kidney function, due to their lack of awareness that they might have cholera and not just diarrhea. “The problem is that people don’t go to hospitals immediately once they get sick,” the doctor said. “And that’s because of the economic situation of the people and their lack of awareness of the cholera outbreak.” 

The government also initially blamed African migrants for bringing the disease, risking the stigmatization of, and compounding a lack of adequate care to, the migrant population in Yemen. Migrants in Yemen already suffer from limited access to health services and their lack of legal status leaves them vulnerable to arbitrary arrest, detention, exploitation, and abuse. As several disease experts pointed out, cholera is endemic to Yemen and need not be carried over from another country for an outbreak to occur. 

“There was an element of [the government] stating it was a problem in migrants and [it] won’t spread to the Yemeni population … They said they’ll just kick out the migrants and problem solved. But of course that’s not how it works, and the disease will spread to the rest of the population,” one disease expert said. 

A doctor working with an aid agency said: “Cholera is a life-threatening disease if you don’t treat it well from the beginning. And when it spreads, we need to all be working together to deal with it.” 

In Houthi-controlled areas, the authorities have been far less transparent than other authorities in Yemen regarding the outbreak. All those interviewed who work for aid agencies in Houthi areas said that Houthi authorities did not provide any data or information about the cholera outbreak to the Health Cluster until March. Several doctors said that the Houthis actively denied the existence of cholera in the territories they controlled, despite doctors sounding the alarm. 

When asked about the impact of cholera on migrants in Houthi-controlled territories, the disease expert said: “I can’t even tell you because I don’t even know. The sensitivity and lack of sharing data means that they’ve never given us any information [about this] so I don’t even know exactly what happens [there].” 

Starting on March 18, the Houthis began providing information to humanitarian agencies about the outbreak of cholera, including case numbers. But unlike the Yemeni government, which was providing humanitarian agencies with “raw data,” Houthi authorities were only providing the number of cases in each governorate. Another disease expert said that this was hindering humanitarian agencies’ ability to provide a targeted response, as they needed raw data to “analyze and pinpoint to the areas where cholera is coming from.” 

Another aid worker said: “Cholera is not something you can just isolate between south and north. You need to have full data from [both sides], or you can’t respond properly because people move back and forth.”

Houthi Authorities Obstructing Aid 

The Houthi authorities’ aid obstruction in the form of onerous bureaucratic aid requirements without justification have exacerbated the spread of cholera. Despite calling on humanitarian agencies to provide aid and funding after case numbers exploded in the spring, the authorities continued to impose cumbersome requirements on agencies to carry out activities, and many programs have been halted because they are waiting for authorizations. 

Several people working in aid agencies said they had struggled to get permission to begin their cholera programs in Houthi-controlled territories, in some cases waiting for several months. One doctor working with a humanitarian agency said: “You need to get a specific permission for every single activity in the north; [if] you even want to do a field visit, you need to get permission. You want to conduct a training, you need to get permission.”

Another person said that the Houthis “create lots of administrative requirements and random compliance requirements, they cause complications for visa applications, and have delayed exit visa applications.”

Several people described problems in collecting data under Houthi authorities and the negative impact this had on their ability to respond effectively to the outbreak. Organizations “need permissions for [data collection], need permits, need to submit the tools [they plan to use] … and [the Houthis] may reject specific questions or may reject the questionnaire all together,” said one woman working at an aid agency. 

The Houthis’ recent spate of arrests and accusations of spying included people who collected data for humanitarian agencies, demonstrating the significant risks staff face doing this work in Houthi-controlled territories. “It’s becoming more and more impossible to work in the north,” said an aid agency doctor. “All of our red flags have already been overpassed. Do we want to keep continuing like this?” 

In November 2023, after several years of failed negotiations, the World Food Programme (WFP) decided to “pause” humanitarian aid to Houthi-controlled areas. Many other aid organizations say that they have struggled to maintain their operations in Houthi-controlled territories because of the extensive restrictions and attempts by Houthi authorities to control their programs.

The Houthis’ requirements that women, including those working for humanitarian agencies, who travel in territory under their control must be accompanied by an immediate male relative have also had critical impacts on aid delivery. In a letter to the Houthis regarding the requirement, several UN special rapporteurs said that “[i]nability to travel means critical work tasks cannot be performed, which leads to loss of work experience, and there are many reports of female aid workers leaving employment and therefore losing much needed income for their families.”

Authorities’ Fragmentation Hindering Response 

While the Yemeni government, which includes the STC, has taken steps in the last several years to ease onerous bureaucratic requirements on aid agencies, some sources still felt that they continued to hinder some aid responses through “interference and bureaucratic red tape.” However, the larger issue, several people said, was the infighting between various authorities in the south, particularly between different agencies and between the Yemeni government and the STC, which controls Aden and several other governorates. 

One aid worker said that various government ministries—particularly the Yemeni Ministry of Social Affairs and MoPIC, both controlled by STC members—fought over which group was responsible for managing nongovernmental organizations, including who should authorize activities. “This is a problem with the government of Yemen, not about us, but it ends up affecting our work,” he said.

In addition to this lack of clarity, divisions between authorities in different areas posed further problems: “The issue in the south is the fragmentation,” said another person working at an aid agency. “Suddenly MoPIC in [one governorate] and MoPIC in [another governorate] will tell us that no we need to get approval from them when we thought it was just between us and MoPIC Aden.”

Even within individual ministries, there are often no clear lines of authority. “You ask a person to approve a list of imported medicines and each individual within the ministry wants to have that control and/or power over things,” said one of the humanitarian agency staff. 

Lack of Prevention and Investment in Long-Term Solutions

Perhaps the most critical factor contributing to Yemen’s cholera outbreaks has been the authorities’ lack of investment in long-term solutions and measures to prevent cholera. People interviewed described a lack of community health promotion, including safe agricultural practices, and a lack of investment in water, sanitation, and hygiene infrastructure, which is a root cause of the spread of cholera in the country. 

While the conflict has damaged an already-fragile healthcare system and infrastructure, the lack of awareness campaigns and community engagement are clear areas in which authorities are failing to prevent the further spread of cholera.

A doctor working at an aid agency said that authorities had done “no health promotion” in communities. “It’s all about prevention,” she said. “There’s no health community worker going out and doing the messages. Nothing is implemented, despite whatever [authorities] have on paper.”

A person working at a local aid agency said: “We don’t see any community engagement, we don’t see a strategy for engaging communities … Most interventions focus on the treatment side and ignore the root factors, which is why we keep seeing a resurgence.”

Houthi authorities have also actively campaigned against vaccines, which can be used to prevent cholera and many other diseases, including measles. “Yemen’s vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks are the direct consequence of increasingly low immunity levels in children,” the WHO said.

There are significant logistical challenges in providing and distributing the vaccines across Yemen, including managing the “cold chain” requirements for the storage and transportation of vaccines in a temperature-controlled environment, as well as a global shortage. However, aid obstruction, arrests of aid workers and pharmaceutical company staff, and anti-vaccine campaigns exponentially exacerbate these difficulties.

“The children in the north haven’t had vaccines for the last three years so they’re much more susceptible to dying because of [vaccine-preventable diseases],” said a doctor working at a humanitarian aid agency. “It’s not about availability,” he said. He described a “huge social media campaign,” which the WHO previously described as “calling into question established scientific fact and sowing fear and doubt in parents’ minds.”

Many people interviewed described the impact of poor water and waste management, including the use of sewage water for agricultural purposes, on the spread of disease. The disease expert said that cholera “can be controlled, but realistically, when 70 percent of the country doesn’t have access to clean water or disposal of waste, there’s a major problem with environmental contamination.”

An official at the government health office in Taizz, in government-controlled territory, said that he and others tested vegetables entering Taizz from northern governorates and found cholera in them. “Those vegetables were watered with sewage water,” he said. He said that people in Taizz needed more support from government authorities to purify water tanks in rural areas of the governorate as well as support in water and hygiene more broadly.

Authorities’ failures to invest in long-term solutions are compounded by the lack of international funding for humanitarian aid agencies. “People aren’t putting money anymore in Yemen,” said one doctor working with a humanitarian agency. Only 22.6 percent of the funding needed for humanitarian aid was received for 2024, according to OCHA. 

Two aid workers said that at least part of the reason for funding shortfalls is Yemeni governance actors’ aid obstruction. One aid worker, citing Houthi restrictions, said that compared to other contexts in which their organization works, donors often did not want to fund cholera activities in Yemen because of how long the approval processes might take.

“From the bottom up, it’s a broken system,” an aid worker said. “The health system isn’t fully functional, [neither is] the transport system, [nor] the water system. Neither [the Yemeni government nor the Houthis] can afford to do anything because they don’t have the funding. With the declining donor situation, it’s becoming more and more difficult for [Yemeni authorities] to deal with the root cause of the problems.” 

Several doctors and individuals working in humanitarian agencies said that aid agencies need to work with the authorities on a long-term plan. “First of all, create a strategic plan and ensure it’s a long-term plan,” an aid worker said. “If you improve cholera, you improve the WASH sector. If you improve the WASH sector, you improve malnutrition.” 

He added that if you respond to cholera only in emergency situations, rather than as a long-term plan for prevention, “every two years we’ll have the same exact outbreaks, and they’ll just give treatment but not address the root causes.”

“Cholera is not a new disease,” said a disease expert working for a humanitarian agency. “It’s a disease that shouldn’t exist. We should have gotten rid of it centuries ago … If you have chlorinated water, control over wastewater, and control over how you’re irrigating your crops, you’ll stop it. The reality is it’s a disease and you can definitely do something about [it].”

• The Russian government’s dismantling of civic freedoms since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 is a dramatic escalation of its sustained assault on fundamental rights spanning more than a decade.
• Hundreds of people have been jailed or imprisoned under new, repressive laws. Discussion about a vast range of issues cannot take place openly, and many dissenters, journalists, and activists have gone into exile.
• Russia’s government should repeal its draconian provisions, bring laws into line with its international obligations, and foster an environment in which civil society can thrive.

(New York, August 7, 2024) – The Russian government’s dismantling of civic freedoms since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 is a dramatic escalation of its sustained assault on fundamental rights spanning more than a decade, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 205-page report, “Russia’s Legislative Minefield: Tripwires for Civil Society since 2020,” focuses on the wave of repressive legislation and policies that the Russian government of President Vladimir Putin has adopted since 2020 and how the Kremlin has used them to suppress internal dissent and incapacitate civil society. These laws severely restrict the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly, and impose state-enforced historical, social, and political narratives in public life.

All of the Russian activists freed from prison as part of the August 1, 2024, prisoner swap were charged under laws described in the report. But hundreds more remain jailed or imprisoned under these laws. Critical discussion about a vast range of issues cannot take place openly, and many dissenters, journalists, and activists have gone into exile.

“The Russian government is forcing civic activists and journalists to tread dangerously on a legislative minefield, and their resilience is being tested like never before,” said Rachel Denber, deputy Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Yet independent groups and media are persisting, and they provide hope for the eventual transformation of Russia into a country committed to protecting and promoting fundamental rights.”

Human Rights Watch examined this repressive legislation in eight broad areas: “foreign agents,” public assembly, electoral rights, freedom of expression, sexual orientation and gender identity, treason and similar concepts, historical truth, and education.

The signature legislation in the government’s legislative crackdown is the “foreign agents” law, which seeks to smear any person or entity that is independently critical of the government as “foreign,” and therefore suspicious or even traitorous. Russian authorities first enacted “foreign agent” provisions in 2012 and since then have repeatedly made them harsher and used them as a pretext for shutting down some of the country’s leading human rights groups. The report traces how provisions first targeted nongovernmental organizations, then unregistered groups, media outlets, journalists, and other categories of individuals and, by 2022, anyone the state deemed to be “under foreign influence.”

Penalties have stiffened over time and now include fines, imprisonment, and revocation of citizenship for naturalized citizens. By 2022-2023, amendments also excluded alleged “foreign agents” from many aspects of public life, including civil service and teaching, as the authorities sought to create, in the words of one activist, “a caste of untouchables.”

A series of amendments shredded what had remained of freedom of peaceful assembly, effectively making legitimate protest illegal, Human Rights Watch said. The authorities introduced a stringent licensing system that requires protest organizers to request and receive explicit authorization for a public assembly. They equated public strolls and a series of single-person pickets with mass protests, closing the few loopholes that people had used to hold protests and avoid Russia’s repressive public assembly provisions. They introduced extremely unrealistic requirements for verifying the origins of funds and donations for public events and for reporting on their management.

War censorship laws, hastily adopted after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, ban spreading information or views about the conduct of Russian armed forces that deviates from official information. Penalties include long prison sentences, stripping naturalized Russians of their citizenship, and confiscating property. More than 480 people have faced criminal prosecution on war censorship charges.

Other amendments make it a criminal offense to criticize the work of the security services under the vaguely defined concept of “public calls against state security” and introduce harsher criminal defamation charges and penalties.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people have long faced discrimination, harassment, and violence, particularly in the context of the 2013 anti-gay “propaganda” law. Legislative amendments adopted since 2022 mark a full-on attack, as the Kremlin has positioned itself as a global defender of “traditional values,” Human Rights Watch said.

The amendments expanded the propaganda law to effectively ban public discussions about sexual orientation and gender identity and ban any depiction of so-called “non-traditional relationships” directed toward people under 18. Even images showing a same-sex couple holding hands can be shown only subject to new restrictions or if marked as restricted, paid content. Bookshops have started covering books that could potentially trigger a violation under the new laws or have pulled them from the shelves.

A 2023 Supreme Court ruling designated the “International LGBT Movement” an “extremist organization,” opening the floodgates to arbitrary prosecution and imprisonment of LGBT people and of anyone who defends their rights or expresses solidarity with them.

New laws expand the definitions of treason to cover people without access to state secrets and of espionage to cover transferring information to a widened definition of “hostile agents” that includes foreign and international organizations. The treason laws’ authors openly acknowledged that the law seeks to target civil society groups. Other laws criminalize cooperation with international bodies “to which Russia is not a party,” such as the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and involvement with foreign actors in “confidential cooperation” against Russia’s national security. New provisions also ban involvement with unregistered foreign organizations and widen the ban on involvement with organizations designated by the authorities as “undesirable.”

In 2023, authorities sent to Russian courts 101 cases for treason, espionage, and confidential cooperation, five times as many as they had in 2022, according to a media report based on Russian court data. Criminal prosecutions for involvement in “undesirable” organizations have been on the rise.

The 2020 constitutional amendments enshrined in law the notion of “historical truth” that Russia undertakes to “protect.” In 2021, parliament adopted laws that ban comparisons between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany and criminalize insulting the memory of World War II veterans.

The broader context involves the authorities imposing an official historical narrative, glorifying Soviet-era achievements while downplaying, justifying, or in some cases contesting the facts of Joseph Stalin’s Great Terror and other Soviet-era atrocities, Human Rights Watch said.

Laws adopted in 2021 imposed stricter oversight over education, further limiting Russians’ access to information; eliminating alternatives to the historical, social, and political narratives that the government is promoting; and controlling interactions with foreigners.

Russia’s government should end its long-running repression and instead foster an environment in which civil society can thrive, Human Rights Watch said. It should repeal the draconian legal provisions and follow recommendations set out by the United Nations and other intergovernmental organizations to bring legislation and practices in line with Russia’s international human rights obligations.

“The Kremlin keeps turning the clock back toward past tyranny,” Denber said. “Russia’s laws should be expanding respect for rights, not destroying them.”

(Bangkok) – Thailand’s Constitutional Court dissolved the opposition Move Forward Party on August 7, 2024, based on politically motivated allegations, seriously damaging the country’s return to genuine democratic rule, Human Rights Watch said today.

The nine-judge Constitutional Court unanimously ruled that the Move Forward Party committed treason by advocating reform of Penal Code section 112 on lèse-majesté (insulting the monarchy) and imposed 10-year political bans on all of its executive members, who were in office from April 2021 to January 2024. The case had been brought by the national Election Commission. 

“The Thai Election Commission’s case against the Move Forward Party was a sham right from the start,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The Constitutional Court’s ruling to dissolve the Move Forward Party is a severe blow to Thailand’s teetering efforts to restore democratic rule after years of military dictatorship.” 

The Election Commission accused the Move Forward Party, which won the largest number of seats in the May 2023 general elections, of high treason and petitioned the Constitutional Court to dissolve the party and impose the maximum 10-year ban from politics on its executives under section 92 of the Act on Political Parties. The Election Commission filed its petition in April without allowing the party to counter the allegations.

The Election Commission’s case is based on the Constitutional Court’s ruling on January 31 that the Move Forward Party’s campaign to amend the lèse-majesté law amounted to an attempt to abolish Thailand’s constitutional democracy with the king as head of state, contravening the constitution. Article 49 of Thailand’s constitution prohibits people from using their rights and freedoms to overthrow the monarchy.

The Constitutional Court referred to its January ruling, saying there was evidence that the Move Forward Party tried to either change or revoke section 112 on March 25, 2021, when its 44 members of parliament submitted a bill to amend the section. The court also ruled that party members in parliament gave tacit support to monarchy reform movements by joining civil society activities and providing bail guarantees to detained activists. The Constitutional Court held that such actions showed an intent to subvert the monarchy, which is “significantly dangerous to the security of the state.”

Disbanding the Move Forward Party violates the rights of its members to freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly, and democratic participation guaranteed under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Thailand ratified in 1996, Human Rights Watch said.

Article 25 of the ICCPR ensures the right of citizens to participate in public affairs, to vote, and to run for public office in free elections. The United Nations Human Rights Committee, the body of independent experts who review state compliance with the covenant, has stated that article 25 protects the right to “join organizations and associations concerned with political and public affairs,” and that “political parties and membership in parties play a significant role in the conduct of public affairs.”

In February 2020, the Constitutional Court dissolved the Future Forward Party—predecessor of the Move Forward Party—on politically motivated allegations that the party took an illegal loan from its leader. The current case was the culmination of a lengthy process that essentially reversed the votes of over 14 million party supporters, more votes than for any other party in the 2023 election. 

“Thailand’s constitutional system has shredded the democratic will of the Thai people by preventing the Move Forward Party from forming a government and then disbanding it,” Pearson said. “The Move Forward Party’s dissolution weakens checks and balances by the political opposition and derails Thailand’s effort to restore democratic rule.” 

The court dismissed concerns from Thailand’s allies and UN agencies, stating that “each country has its own constitution, laws, and regulations in accordance with national context; foreign politicians and diplomats should be mindful of diplomatic manners when expressing their opinions.” 

Thailand’s major allies—including the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, Australia, Japan, and South Korea—should publicly convey to the Thai government that this decision is inconsistent with Thailand’s bid for membership of the UN Human Rights Council for 2025-2027.

“The UN and concerned governments should denounce the Move Forward Party’s dissolution as a jarring setback for political pluralism in Thailand,” Pearson said.