Category: Human Rights

(London) – Indian authorities are forcibly expelling ethnic Bengali residents, mostly Muslims from West Bengal state, to Bangladesh without basic due process, Human Rights Watch said today. Indian Border Security Force (BSF) actions, combined with Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) efforts to block those expelled from entering, has left dozens of families stranded at the “zero line” between […]

At least 58 States and territories remain contaminated with these weapons, which are designed to detonate when a person comes into contact with them.   Some have even been around since the two World Wars along with other unexploded ordnance, and millions more remain in national stockpiles. “It is deeply troubling that almost 30 years since the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty was adopted, these explosive weapons continue to kill […]

The recent arrest of a prominent political analyst on Myanmar visiting China demonstrates Beijing’s intensifying intolerance of any independent voices or viewpoints not to their liking. On June 3, Chinese authorities reportedly detained Min Zin, a US citizen from Myanmar and the executive director of the Institute for Strategy and Policy-Myanmar, as he flew into Yunnan province […]

Buried in the US$1.15 trillion National Defense Authorization Act is a provision that would deepen US military cooperation with Israel while walling that cooperation off from further congressional oversight. Section 219 creates the role of an “executive agent” focused on folding Israeli technology into US weapons programs, and vice versa, including in missile and air […]

According to UNHCR’s latest Projected Global Resettlement Needs report, an estimated 2.4 million refugees worldwide will require resettlement in 2027 because they remain at risk in the countries where they currently live and cannot safely return home.  Although this represents a six per cent decline from projections for 2026, UNHCR stressed that the reduction reflects mixed realities on the ground rather than broad […]

(Washington, DC) – A prosecutor in the Ecuadorian coastal city of Manta was shot and killed on June 14, 2026, the most recent in a series of killings of judicial officials in Ecuador, Human Rights Watch said today. Gloria Alexandra Bravo Cedeño is the third prosecutor to be killed in Manta since 2022. Ecuadorian authorities should […]

Syria’s 14-year conflict destroyed vast swathes of the country and killed hundreds of thousands, but it also left behind over 1.5 million Syrians with war-caused disabilities. Syria’s minister of social affairs, Hind Kabawat, acknowledged this dire situation on June 9 at a UN meeting on the rights of persons with disabilities in New York, calling on international partners […]

US President Donald Trump signed the Secure America Act into law on June 10, including roughly $70 billion for immigration enforcement. The legislation funds several agencies through September 2029, including approximately $38 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and $26 billion for US Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Congressional approval for this legislation comes after months […]

A Baku court’s June 12 decision to convict prominent human rights defender Rufat Safarov on bogus criminal charges and sentence him to eight years in prison is the latest blow to Azerbaijan’s already severely restricted civic space. Safarov, executive director of the human rights organization Defense Line (Müdafiə Xətti), was convicted by the Baku Court […]

The European Parliament in Strasbourg adopted on June 16 its second motion in a year pressing European Union institutions and governments to address transnational repression. Transnational repression encompasses violations used by states to target, silence, or intimidate critics, particularly nationals and former nationals, who are outside their borders and beyond their territorial jurisdictions. In its […]