Category: Human Rights

A court in Azerbaijan on September 7 sentenced the prominent human rights defender and election monitor Anar Mammadli to 13 years in prison following a trial marred by serious due process violations. His co-defendant, civic activist Anar Abdullayev, received a 12-year sentence. Mammadli, 48, spent more than two years in pretrial detention before the Baku […]

The UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan warned that renewed violence, political tensions, shrinking civic space, entrenched corruption and persistent impunity continue to put the population and the planned transition to democracy at risk.  During the four-day visit, the Commission met a wide range of representatives from the Government, the political and security […]

Within a span of only five months, between March 18 and the end of August 2026, Iran’s authorities announced the executions of 29 people in connection with recent protests. These executions were unlawful and in violation of international human rights law. Several protesters executed were teenagers aged 18 and 19. Scores more remain at imminent […]

Without warning, Pakistan has directed all medical and dental institutions to expel Afghan students and arrange to send them back to Afghanistan. It is the latest move by Pakistani authorities to summarily deport Afghans from the country. Especially for Afghan women students, being returned to Afghanistan ends their chances of ever becoming doctors or dentists, as […]

(Sydney) – The Australian government has caused thousands of people seeking asylum to suffer grave abuses under its offshore detention system, which began in September 2001, Human Rights Watch said today. Over the past 25 years, Australia has forcibly transferred more than 5,000 asylum seekers to Naoero (formerly called Nauru) and Manus Island, Papua New […]

A military court in Jakarta reduced the prison sentences and overturned the dishonorable discharge of two of the four military personnel convicted for the March 2026 acid attack against human rights activist Andrie Yunus.  The appellate decision, dated August 20, reduced the sentences of 2nd Sgt. Edi Sudarko and 1st Lt. Budhi Hariyanto Widhi Cahyono of […]

Chinese lawyer Ruth Wang fled to Taiwan on September 2 after authorities threatened to shut down her law firm. Her offense? Representing members of China’s Zion Church, a prominent underground Protestant congregation. While founding pastor Ezra Jin was freed from custody in July following high-level US intervention, eight other church members have remained wrongfully detained since their October […]

“Today, the plight of many in Afghanistan is going from bad to worse,” stressed the UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk.  “Yet, it seems the world has forgotten and abandoned the people of Afghanistan to a plight deepening by the day,” he told journalists in Geneva. “The silence is deafening.” Scaling up the oppression  Mr. […]

The global push to make free education accessible for every child gained momentum, as 81 states met at the United Nations in Geneva on August 31 to September 2 to discuss a proposed treaty that could strengthen children’s right to education and remove financial barriers that keep many out of school. The new optional protocol […]

Justice Refused: Lebedeva and Others v. Russia and the 879 Cases the Court Would Not Decide  On September 3, 2026, the European Court of Human Rights struck out 879 separate applications against Russia, brought by at least 1,534 applicants, in a single document. In six of those applications, the Court had already found a violation […]