Author: Human Rights Watch

(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 […]

(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 […]

(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 […]

“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 […]

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. […]

(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, […]

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 […]

On August 3, Houthi forces raided the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, and “seiz[ed] documents and property by force,” according to High Commissioner Volker Türk. The office has remained under Houthi occupation, despite calls by OHCHR and others for the Houthis to vacate the premises and return all […]

(Nyon) – The disqualification of the Olympic breaking athlete Manizha Talash for promoting gender equality should be overturned and remedied, the Sport & Rights Alliance said today. Talash, an Afghan refugee breaker known as “b-girl Talash,” was disqualified from the Paris 2024 Olympics’ breaking competition on August 9 after she competed wearing a cape that said “Free Afghan Women.” The […]

Thousands of Indians have taken to the streets to protest the rape and murder of a doctor in a government hospital in Kolkata city last week. They are demanding justice and better security and facilities at medical campuses and hospitals. The attack has cast a spotlight on how millions of Indian women remain exposed to abuse in the […]