Category: Human Rights

Prospects and Obstacles of Strategic Human Rights Litigation Globally: A Spotlight on Egypt At a recent discussion hosted by the Program on law and Society in the Muslim World and the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School, Nader Andrawos, Egyptian legal historian and Residential Fellow at the HLS Institute for Global Law and Policy, […]

(Geneva) – The United Nations Human Rights Council should renew the mission of the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Iran and the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission, 43 Iranian and International organizations including Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to member countries. The letter was issued after the Fact-Finding Mission presented […]

Focusing on developments in 2023, the report builds on previous findings in the aftermath of large public protests which erupted in 2020 following a disputed presidential poll.  Despite a lack of cooperation from Belarusian authorities, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) said evidence gathered shows that the scale and pattern of violations has continued. “The […]

Eight Tamil Hindu worshippers arrested by Sri Lankan police while engaging in festival rituals last week were detained for more than 10 days and allegedly abused. A magistrate released them on March 19.  In recent years, Sri Lankan government authorities and nationalist Sinhala Buddhist monks have been targeting Hindu as well as Muslim religious sites […]

(Austin, March 19, 2024) – The US Supreme Court ruling on March 19, 2024, that allows Texas state police to arrest and deport people Texas officials claim have entered the US illegally while federal courts consider the constitutionality of these powers puts people fearing persecution into immediate danger, Human Rights Watch said today. It also […]

In February 2021 the military overthrew the elected Government in Myanmar arresting hundreds of officials, political leaders and activists, including President Win Myint and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. The takeover triggered an intensification of armed conflicts with separatists and opposition forces across the country, including indiscriminate air strikes which have killed numerous civilians. There have […]

A group of Japanese ruling party and opposition lawmakers are calling on the government to investigate links between carmakers and forced labor in the aluminum industry in Xinjiang, a region in northwestern China. Human Rights Watch published a report earlier this year exposing global carmakers’ failure to minimize the risk of Uyghur forced labor being […]

The third edition of the European Humanitarian Forum concluded today in Brussels, co-organised by the European Commission and the Belgian Presidency of the EU. At the Forum, EU Member States together with the European Commission announced the planned humanitarian funding of more than €7.7 billion for 2024, as a concrete expression of global solidarity and […]

“It is alarming that such consequential legislation was rushed through the legislature through an accelerated process, in spite of serious concerns raised about the incompatibility of many of its provisions with international human rights law,” Volker Türk said in a statement deploring the move in the former British colony which has been a Special Administrative […]

Last week, the Australian state of Queensland released a report on the deaths of two boys who had spent extensive time in solitary confinement in youth detention. Both were First Nations children with disabilities. Solitary confinement is harmful for all prisoners, but it is particularly damaging for children and for people with disabilities. The Child […]