Category: Human Rights

This week, prosecutors filed criminal charges against Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony for organizing the city’s 2025 Pride march. They are seeking a criminal fine and proposing the case be decided without a trial. The mayor’s prosecution is another example of the erosion of the rule of law, human rights and fundamental freedoms in Hungary. The charges […]

High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, Commissioner for Preparedness and Crisis Management, Hadja Lahbib, and Commissioner for the Mediterranean, Dubravka Šuica, issued the following statement:   The humanitarian situation in Gaza continues to worsen. As winter sets in, Palestinians are left exposed to heavy rain and falling temperatures, without safe shelter. […]

Tuesday’s solemn commemoration marks the day 81 years ago that the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp – where over a million people were murdered – was liberated by Allied forces towards the end of World War Two.  Commenting on the disturbing rise of antisemitism in recent years – including the “heinous attacks” targeting Jewish communities […]

She sits among a multilingual team of 40 colleagues, speakers of Pashto, Dari, Persian, Arabic, Urdu and English, in a room filled with monitors and headsets.   Each colleague is connected to a different life, a new fear, a unique story. Many callers are women, mothers with young children, widows, single women who have built […]

(Nairobi) – Ugandan authorities have intensified attacks on the country’s main opposition party since presidential elections took place on January 15, 2026, Human Rights Watch said today. Authorities have conducted mass arrests of National Unity Platform supporters and forcibly disappeared two senior leaders, who remain missing. Since January 15, the military has laid siege to the home […]

Commissioner for Crisis Management Hadja Lahbib is participating in the official national commemoration honouring the victims of the Crans Montana fire and expressing solidarity with the injured, their families and the communities affected. The ceremony, held in Martigny on the national day of mourning, will bring together the Swiss federal and cantonal authorities, international partners […]

Speaking in the General Assembly Hall alongside one of her great grandchildren, Mrs Lazan described her family’s journey from a ‘comfortable’ life in Hoya, northwest Germany, to a detention camp in the Netherlands – and in January 1944, internment in Bergen Belsen concentration camp. Mrs Lazan’s indomitable spirit in the face of the most inhumane […]

That’s according to UN human rights chief Volker Türk, who had discussions with over 40 leaders of Sudanese civil society in Northern State’s capital, Dongola, this week.  “But these representatives have also found the solution,” Mr. Türk said in a video on X. “There needs to be an all-out effort, both within Sudan and by the […]

The Greek government has introduced an immigration bill with measures that explicitly link nongovernmental groups and humanitarian workers with criminal conduct, when in reality they are helping people in distress trying to reach Greece. The bill would amend the migration code to make membership in a nongovernmental group an aggravating factor for several existing offenses, with draconian […]

I condemn the Israeli decision to forcibly enter and demolish the United Nations Sheikh Jarrah compound held by United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) located in East Jerusalem. I urge the Israeli authorities to halt such action, which is in violation of Israel’s obligations resulting from the […]