Author: Human Rights Watch

“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 […]

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, […]