Category: Human Rights

Earlier this month, Meta’s Oversight Board found that three Facebook posts containing the phrase “From the River to the Sea” did not violate Meta’s content rules and should remain online. The majority of the Oversight Board members concluded that the phrase, widely used at protests to show solidarity with Palestinians, is not inherently a violation of […]

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva, said the country’s de facto rulers who have imposed their own interpretation of strict Islamic law have “delivered a period of stability not seen in decades” in Afghanistan, yet the population is at risk of a worsened humanitarian and development crisis as international funding declines. […]

The Indonesian government’s suppression of widespread protests after a 2019 attack on Papuan university students highlighted longstanding racial discrimination against Indigenous Papuans.   Indonesian security forces have committed arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, extrajudicial killings, and mass forced displacement, but are seldom held to account for these abuses. Indonesia’s new government should urgently review existing policies […]

The alert from the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine follows significant destruction to power plants and the worsening energy crisis that has affected access to electricity, clean water and heating, while also pushing up prices for consumers. The strikes on the national grid included one coordinated attack on 26 August which the Mission […]

Last Friday, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a law making, among other provisions, one year of pre-primary education compulsory, further strengthening the right to education for South Africa’s children. From a human rights perspective, compulsory education is primarily an obligation on governments to ensure quality education is free, accessible, and inclusive. The law also […]

(Berlin) – Uzbek authorities should immediately quash the convictions and release two wrongfully imprisoned activists, Human Rights Watch and Uzbek Forum for Human Rights said today. An appeals court in Qarshi is scheduled to resume hearings in the case of Nargiz Keldiyorova and Dildora Khakimova on September 18, 2024. A court in Kashkadarya on July […]

September 17 marks three years since the Taliban banned secondary education for girls in Afghanistan, shortly after their return to power in August 2021. While the issue of Afghan girls’ secondary education has generated much discussion globally, governments and international institutions have yet to take meaningful action to reverse the Taliban’s ban. The Taliban are […]

Far from the front lines where bulldozers tear down tropical forests, European Union officials are preparing to implement a crucial law that will require EU-based companies to ensure their imports and exports are “deforestation-free” and not driving human rights abuses. With 10 football field-sized tracts of climate-critical forest razed per minute globally in 2023, the […]

(Brussels) – The explosion on the oil tanker MT Suvarna Swarajya on September 7, 2024, in Bangladesh underscores the lack of adequate international and national regulations, oversight, and labor rights protections in the shipbreaking industry, Human Rights Watch and the NGO Shipbreaking Platform said today. Six workers have died and four remain in critical condition. Shipowners frequently use […]

Alice Edwards, the UN Human Rights Council-appointed Special Rapporteur on Torture, also condemned the killing of six Israeli hostages earlier this month and called for an immediate end to hostilities on all fronts. Approximately 250 Israelis and foreign nationals were taken hostage during the 7 October 2023 terror attack by Hamas and other Palestinian armed […]