Category: Human Rights

Today, Christa Pike remains unconscious on a ventilator, and in critical condition after the Tennessee government’s failed execution attempt.   Doctors had warned that her medical condition could make the state’s execution method, lethal injection, exceptionally painful and cruel. In fact, it was barbaric. Authorities tried to insert an IV line for an hour on September 30, using […]

In a decision on Monday, judges unsealed warrants for Taliban Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani, whose existence was announced in July 2025, and for two further suspects, Habibullah Agha and Neda Mohammad Nadim.  The four warrants were issued between July and September 2025. The court said there are reasonable grounds […]

The mass arrest of attendees at a small left-wing party’s meeting in Dhaka on September 26 is the latest incident in the Bangladesh authorities’ ongoing assault on civil and political rights. Police took around 290 supporters of the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal into custody after members of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s youth wing – the Jubo […]

WARSAW — The 2026 Warsaw Human Dimension Conference (WHDC), Europe’s largest annual human rights forum, officially opened today in Poland’s capital, convening over 1,800 participants from across the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) region. Organized by the 2026 Swiss OSCE Chairpersonship with support from the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human […]

Nearly 5,700 men and boys held as alleged Islamic State (ISIS) members and transferred to Iraq in early 2026 are at risk of abuse including imminent prosecution for adults in unfair trials, followed by execution. Dozens of countries are stalling on repatriating and providing aid to their nationals detained in Iraq amid allegations of torture, […]

(Washington, DC) – The United States and coalition countries have yet to provide genuine justice or redress for war crimes and other grave abuses in Afghanistan in the 25 years since the war began on October 7, 2001, Human Rights Watch said today, issuing a timeline of its reporting of the conflict.  After Al-Qaeda’s September […]

(Athens, October 3, 2026) – The ongoing prosecution of two prominent human rights defenders in Greece is a politically-motivated attempt to silence their efforts to expose abuses against migrants, Human Rights Watch said today. The trial of the two activists, Panayote Dimitras and Tommy Olsen, is set to begin on the Greek island of Rhodes on October 6, […]

Laying flowers, speaking out, reporting the news – once ordinary acts in Hong Kong— can now lead to prison under the city’s sweeping national security laws. National Security Police said on October 1 that they had arrested eight people in September for alleged “sedition.” Police accused them of “spreading false information” and “inciting hatred” against the […]

(Beirut) – Egyptian security forces arrested six journalists working for the independent investigative journalism platform Matsda2sh on September 28 and 29, 2026, and appear to have forcibly disappeared them, Human Rights Watch said today. The journalists’ whereabouts are unknown and their families and lawyers have not been permitted contact with them. Security forces arrested the journalists in […]

What is happening in Oleshky, Ukraine, is appalling. Civilians are trapped under siege by Russian forces without access to food, medicine, clean water and basic care. This is unacceptable. Humanitarian aid must reach people in need, and civilians must be allowed to leave. The EU is engaging with relevant partners and using every available avenue […]