Gaza: 26 killed over Eid holiday, UN rights investigators report

The information was provided by its monitors in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) who condemned the increase in Israeli attacks as families prepared to observe Eid al-Adha.  They said 12 Palestinians were killed in three airstrikes on 26 May, while a teenage girl died of injuries sustained in a strike the previous day that also killed a woman and a young girl, initial […]

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Banning children from social media is not enough, UN warns – platforms must be made safe by design

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said the harms children face in digital spaces – from addictive design features to privacy violations – were not inevitable, but the result of deliberate commercial choices. ‘Addictive features’ “Online harms to kids’ safety, privacy and wellbeing result from design choices and business practices that undermine safety, […]

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EU and WHO scale up action to respond to the Ebola outbreak in DRC and Uganda

The European Union and the World Health Organization (WHO) are reinforcing their cooperation to support national authorities in responding to the ongoing Ebola outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda, with the aim of rapidly containing transmission, protecting communities and strengthening preparedness in the region, ultimately saving lives.  Through the European […]

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Global Failure to Protect Right to Health in Conflict

(New York) – Ten years after United Nations Security Council Resolution 2286 was adopted to protect health care in armed conflict, attacks on hospitals and healthcare workers continue, Human Rights Watch said today. Resolution 2286, unanimously adopted on May 3, 2016, obligates countries to “prevent and address” attacks on health. A decade later, a new report […]

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South Korean Same-Sex Couple Seeks Marriage Benefit

The National Human Rights Commission of Korea has been reviewing a discrimination petition filed last October by a man in a same-sex relationship who was denied marriage leave by his employer. The employer’s policy offered marriage leave without defining marriage or providing criteria for employees to satisfy to claim the benefit. When the employee provided a […]

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Russia: LGBT Rights Groups Further Criminalized

(Berlin, May 28, 2026) – Russian authorities have banned nine groups that provide support to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people as “extremist,” Human Rights Watch said today. The apparent aim is to further suppress, stigmatize, and criminalize those who document abuses, share information, and provide legal, medical, and other assistance to Russia’s LGBT […]

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Kazakhstan: Psychiatric Detention of Activist Priest

(Berlin, May 28, 2026) – Kazakhstan authorities on May 25, 2026, forcibly transferred a defrocked Russian Orthodox priest, Yakov Vorontsov, to a psychiatric facility outside Almaty, Human Rights Watch said today. A Kazakhstan court on May 18 had ordered his transfer there from pretrial detention, where he had been held since February on dubious drug-related […]

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What Rights Observers Are Watching in Armenia’s Elections

Armenia will hold parliamentary elections on June 7 that will determine the country’s next government. Whichever party or parties prevail, what happens after the vote may prove whether Armenia has built foundations strong enough since independence to protect human rights and the rule of law in a contested political moment. The stakes on June 7 […]

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US Court Rules to Protect Immigrant Domestic Violence Survivors

On May 20, a court in California temporarily suspended a Trump administration policy that stripped key protections from immigrant survivors of domestic violence. The 2025 directive at issue had made many immigrant survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking much more vulnerable to arrest, detention or deportation by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). Congress […]

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Burkina Faso’s Largest Student Union Suspended for Criticizing Junta

The Burkina Faso junta’s suspension of the country’s largest student union is the latest in a series of government crackdowns on freedoms of association and expression. On May 26, the minister of territorial administration signed a decree suspending the activities of the General Union for Burkina Students (L’union générale des étudiants burkinabè, UGEB) for a renewable period […]

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