Author: Human Rights Watch

Bad actors are flooding the information landscape with false and misleading information ahead of US elections in November, disproportionately targeting communities of color. The torrent of misinformation is sparking concerns it could alter voting patterns and even affect the outcomes of the presidential and other elections. Misinformation is the inadvertent spread of false information with no […]

Over the past week, Tanzanian police have arbitrarily arrested 375 members and supporters of the country’s main opposition party, the Party for Democracy and Progress (Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo, or Chadema). Among them are former presidential candidate Tundu Lissu, party chairman Freeman Mbowe, party youth wing leader John Pambalu, and several journalists. The arrests took place ahead […]

(Bangkok) – The Vietnamese authorities should immediately drop all charges and release the prominent rights activist Nguyen Chi Tuyen, Human Rights Watch said today. Hanoi police arrested Nguyen Chi Tuyen on February 29, 2024, for criticizing the government on social media. He was charged under article 117 of the penal code, which criminalizes “making, storing, disseminating, […]

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2024 electoral campaign frequently used hate speech against Muslims and other minorities, inciting discrimination, hostility, and violence. Inflammatory speeches, amid a decade of attacks and discrimination against minorities under the Modi administration, have normalized abuses against Muslims, Christians, and others. The new Modi government needs to reverse its discriminatory policies, […]

Play Video Los Angeles systematically criminalizes unhoused people through arrests and citations for violations arising out of their unhoused status and by destroying their property through sanitation sweeps. Criminalization drives unhoused people out of public spaces but does nothing to solve their lack of housing. City government should stop its practice of criminalization and destructive […]

Survivors and relatives of victims of a 2004 attack on the Gatumba refugee camp in Burundi have filed criminal cases against alleged perpetrators in their home countries of Burundi, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The complaints, which allege genocide and crimes against humanity, are an effort to secure justice two decades later. The lawyer involved […]

(Bangkok) – Myanmar junta forces and the opposition Arakan Army have committed extrajudicial killings and widespread arson against Rohingya, Rakhine, and other civilians in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State in recent months, Human Rights Watch said today. The military’s unlawful recruitment of Rohingya men and boys has stoked communal tensions between the Rohingya Muslim and Rakhine Buddhist […]

(Beirut) – The bodies of hundreds of thousands of victims of unlawful killings remain buried in mass graves across Iraq, Human Rights Watch said today. The graves contain the bodies of victims of successive conflicts, including Saddam Hussein’s genocide against the Kurds in 1988 and mass killings by the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) […]

Authorities and healthcare providers in the state of Mexico, the nation’s most populous state, are failing to guarantee access to abortion care, even in cases in which it is legal. Barriers to legal abortion care make it more difficult for people to get services they are entitled to, especially people living in poverty, adolescents, and […]

In a video circulated on social media on July 21, Steve Akam, alias Ramon Cotta, a Cameroonian social media activist, stands before a barrier in an outdoor space, handcuffed and surrounded by members of the Cameroonian police. It was the last time he was seen. Human Rights Watch contacted sources in Cameroon, and geolocated and analyzed […]