Category: Human Rights

(Washington, DC) – US President Joe Biden should oppose threats and calls for punitive actions against the International Criminal Court (ICC), 121 human rights and civil society groups said today in a letter to President Biden.   On May 20, 2024, the court’s prosecutor announced that he was seeking arrest warrants for three leaders of Hamas and two senior Israeli […]

Top EU diplomat Josep Borrell showed what a principled commitment to justice looks like, on May 7, when he pushed back against threats aimed at undermining the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) Palestine investigation. “If we respect the ICC, it has to be in any case, on any occasion, with respect to anyone,” he said.  On May […]

The Chinese government is using extreme forms of pressure to coerce Tibetans to relocate their long-established villages. Chinese officials misleadingly claim that relocation will lead to improved employment and higher incomes. The Chinese government should suspend relocations in Tibet and conform with Chinese laws and standards and international law concerning relocations and forced evictions. (Taipei) […]

People in the United States are more reliant than ever on using the internet for all aspects of their lives. But one in six US households may lose internet access by June when current federal funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) ends. This puts millions of underserved people in the US, including people of color, older people, and […]

Despite Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s pledge last February to “appropriately handle” the flow of government aid to Myanmar’s abusive military, a Japanese Foreign Ministry official told the Diet this week that Japan’s construction giant, Yokogawa Bridge Corp., will make further payments to the military-owned Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC) for an aid project. In March […]

(Washington, DC) – The decision by Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa to announce that the country is in an “internal armed conflict” has contributed to serious human rights violations by security forces, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to President Noboa. The violations include at least one apparent extrajudicial killing and multiple cases of arbitrary […]

Iranians woke up on Monday to the news that President Ebrahim Raeesi, Foreign Minister Amir Abdollahian, and several other government officials were killed in a helicopter crash in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. How Raeesi’s death will affect human rights in the country is already the subject of much commentary. Since the early years after the […]

High Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell and Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarčič, have issued the following statement: “Since the start of the conflict in Gaza, following the brutal terrorist attacks by Hamas on 7 October, 31 out of 36 hospitals have been damaged or destroyed. Among the destroyed is the Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical complex in Gaza, which […]

“Our team on the ground is deeply alarmed by the latest reports of further escalating violence and destruction taking place in Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships,” said UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric, briefing reporters at UN Headquarters on Monday. Renewed violence and the destruction of property in Buthidaung has resulted in the displacement of potentially tens of thousands […]

(Beirut) – The Iraqi government should immediately reverse the recently passed law that punishes same-sex conduct and transgender expression with imprisonment, Human Rights Watch said today. The law violates fundamental human rights, including the rights to freedom of expression, association, privacy, equality, and nondiscrimination of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Iraq.  On April […]