Category: Human Rights

(Bangkok) – The Thai government should conduct effective investigations into how a group of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar were found dead and injured on Thai soil on October 17, 2024, Human Rights Watch said today. The Thai authorities should urgently provide protection to survivors and prosecute those responsible for abuses. Monks outside a monastery in […]

As government officials gather in Washington DC next week for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Annual Meetings, social security systems around the world are at risk. Faced with a looming debt crisis, governments, often encouraged by international financial institutions, are cutting social spending, leaving millions of people without their right to adequate […]

In an appeal for help, the World Food Programme, WFP, said that more than 27 million people’s lives from Lesotho to Zimbabwe have been devastated, leaving 21 million children malnourished. A record five countries have declared a national disaster because of the drought and requested international assistance: Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe – but […]

(New York) –The Chinese authorities should immediately release the Uyghur filmmaker and director Ikram Nurmehmet, who was sentenced to six and a half years in prison after being convicted on politically motivated charges, Human Rights Watch said today. Xinjiang’s Urumqi Intermediate People’s Court convicted Nurmehmet, 33, in January 2024 for “actively participating in terrorist activities” while […]

This week, in a move that will further limit reproductive freedoms, infringe on women’s rights, and stifle free expression, Russia’s State Duma passed its first vote on draft legislation purporting to ban “propaganda” about so-called child-free lifestyles. The ban would extend to mass media, advertisement, publishing, film, and the internet. The ruling United Russia party proposed the bill, saying […]

The new report expands on findings presented in September to the Human Rights Council in Geneva. It documents a pattern of escalated human rights violations committed by Venezuelan security forces, government officials, and pro-government armed civilian groups, known as “colectivos,” in the wake of Venezuela’s contested July 2024 presidential election.   Coordinated repression  The Mission’s findings reveal a coordinated effort to […]

“Never in modern history have so many people faced starvation and famine as in Sudan today,” the UN Human Rights Council-appointed experts said. Zamzam camp in North Darfur, home to half a million IDPs, faces some of the direst conditions. Other IDP camps in El Fasher are also at risk of famine. “In order for […]

In a win for media freedom in Greece, last week an Athens court dismissed a retaliatory defamation lawsuit against journalists. The case was brought by Grigoris Dimitriadis, the nephew of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, against reporters who published allegations of his involvement in a major surveillance scandal. The court ruling comes amid a growing trend in Greece of strategic lawsuits against public participation (known as “SLAPPs”) aimed at silencing […]

Oumar Sylla, known as Foniké Mengué, and Mamadou Billo Bah, two members of the Guinean opposition coalition National Front for the Defense of the Constitution (Front National pour la Défense de la Constitution, FNDC), knew they were at risk for their political activism. “If arrest is the price to pay, I am ready for that,” Sylla […]

Recent fighting between Ethiopian government forces and militias in the northwestern Amhara region has put Sudanese refugees at grave risk. For more than a year, unidentified gunmen subjected the refugees to killings, beatings, abductions, and forced labor. The Ethiopian government should take adequate measures to protect the Sudanese refugees, prohibit forced returns, and ensure, with […]