Category: Human Rights

Government officials in Sri Lanka are withholding exam results from 70 Muslim women and girls because their head coverings allegedly covered their ears while they took their exams. The decision violates the students’ right to freedom of religion and further entrenches discrimination widely experienced by Muslims in Sri Lanka. The students, many from relatively low-income […]

Last week, an Iranian court imposed a new bogus sentence on imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights defender Narges Mohammadi. Branch 29 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court sentenced Mohammadi to another year in Iran’s Evin prison on charges of “propaganda against the state.” In January 2022, the same court, Branch 26 of the […]

(Bangkok) – Unidentified gunmen shot and killed a prominent human rights defender in Pattani province in southern Thailand on June 25, 2024, Human Rights Watch said today. Thai authorities should urgently conduct a transparent and impartial investigation into the killing of Roning Dolah, 45, and bring those responsible to justice. On June 25 at about […]

(Beirut) – Iraqi authorities in Baghdad and Erbil have arbitrarily detained and deported Syrians to Damascus and to parts of northeast Syria under the control of Kurdish-led forces, Human Rights Watch said today. Iraqi authorities have deported some Syrians even though they possessed official Iraqi documents, enabling them to stay and work in the country or were registered as […]

(Nairobi) – Kenyan security forces shot directly into crowds of protesters on June 25, 2024, including protesters who were fleeing, Human Rights Watch said today.  Protests began in cities and towns across Kenya and online after the Finance Bill 2024 was introduced in parliament on June 18. The protests have been organized largely by Kenyans […]

During his opening statement to the all-day panel dedicated to women and human rights, Mr. Türk said there had been “extraordinary progress” thanks to the worldwide women’s movement. But the very fact that a separate panel needed to be convened on gender-based violence shows that progress has been “hard-won and fragile”, he added. The meeting’s […]

More than six million people across the country – about a third of the population – need humanitarian support and protection, UN Spokesperson Stephané Dujarric said on Friday. “The UN and its humanitarian partners are supporting the Government’s efforts to meet people’s immediate needs,” he told correspondents in New York. “Working through the Humanitarian Response […]

The good news is that during 2022 and 2023, attacks on schools in Mozambique significantly decreased, according to a report released last week. The bad news is that Mozambique has seen a jump in the use of schools for military purposes during that period. The Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA), a partner organization of […]

(Washington, DC, June 27, 2024) – The United States is out of step with the rest of the world in disenfranchising large numbers of citizens based on criminal convictions, the Sentencing Project, Human Rights Watch, and the American Civil Liberties Union said in a report released today. In this US election year, and going forward, US states […]

Peru’s Ministry of Health has clarified that trans identities are not mental health conditions, walking back a heavily criticized presidential decree in May that portrayed trans identities as diagnosable in in the Essential Health Insurance Plan (Plan Esencial de Aseguramiento en Salud, PEAS). The health ministry justified the decree as necessary to facilitate healthcare access […]