Category: Human Rights

(Berlin) – A new governmental decree undermines the independence of lawyers in Vietnam and will impede efforts to hold officials accountable, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities should repeal the decree. Decree 109/2026, which takes effect May 18, 2026, empowers the police and government officials at the local (commune) level to revoke lawyers’ licenses and […]

(The Hague) – The International Criminal Court (ICC)’s confirmation on April 23, 2026, of all crimes against humanity charges against former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is a major step toward justice for the victims of the country’s “war on drugs,” Human Rights Watch said today. Three pretrial judges unanimously found substantial grounds to believe that Duterte committed the […]

Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow visited Naypyidaw, the capital of Myanmar, on Wednesday. Thailand has been acutely affected by the situation in neighboring Myanmar, and is seeking solutions to the influx of refugees, mushrooming transnational crime, and worsening pollution. But it is hard to know what the visit accomplished. Sihasak, a veteran diplomat, has been […]

Authorities and security forces in Ethiopia’s contested Western Tigray Zone are arbitrarily detaining ethnic Tigrayans and severely restricting their movements, employment, and access to services. The Ethiopian government and their international partners seem determined to ignore the treatment of Tigrayans as effectively second-class citizens. The Ethiopian government should end the discriminatory system in Western Tigray […]

This Earth Day arrives at a sobering moment as the EPA continues to erase the safeguards it was created to uphold. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established in 1970, following the first Earth Day, expressly to protect human health and the environment. But, since President Donald Trump’s second term began, rapid-fire policy shifts have […]

(Budapest) – The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruling on April 21, 2026, against Hungary’s 2021 anti-LGBT law is an important rejection of efforts to stigmatize lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, Human Rights Watch said today. The court found that the 2021 law, which attempts to stigmatize LGBT people under the guise of […]

People living near a coal plant in Dimitrovgrad, Bulgaria breathe air so toxic they describe themselves as prisoners in their own homes. In Louisiana, communities along the petrochemical corridor known as Cancer Alley face some of the highest cancer rates in the United States. In Uganda and Tanzania, activists opposing the East African Crude Oil Pipeline have […]

European Union Partnership Commissioner Jozef Sikela announced on April 21 the resumption of EU’s direct budget support to the Ethiopian government: the final step towards normalizing relations with the country. The move comes as Ethiopia’s dire human rights situation has deteriorated ahead of June 1 national elections. The EU initially suspended its direct budget support to Ethiopia […]

(Beirut) – Israeli and Iranian attacks in mid-March 2026 on vital energy infrastructure were unlawfully indiscriminate and could trigger profound economic consequences for millions of people in the region and globally, Human Rights Watch said today. The attacks on the facilities in Iran and Qatar may amount to war crimes. On March 18, Israeli forces attacked Iran’s South Pars […]

(London) – The arrest of at least four people in Bangladesh for posting social media content supposedly critical of the new government is an alarming continuation of the previous government’s repressive practices, Human Rights Watch said today. Tarique Rahman’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government should live up to its promises on freedom of expression, end […]