Category: Human Rights

The closure of the office in Kampala follows the recent closure of sub-offices in Gulu and Moroto sub-offices. In February, the Government decided to terminate the mandate of the High Commissioner’s Office, OHCHR, in Uganda. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and human rights defenders denounced the move and had called for its reversal, according to media reports. […]

(São Paulo) – Latin American countries meeting at the Amazon Summit in Brazil on August 8 and 9, 2023, should commit to ratify and carry out the Escazú Agreement, Human Rights Watch said today as it released a video explaining the importance of this treaty. The regional agreement would help shore up protection of the […]

(Nairobi) – Satellite data shows massive fire destruction in the town of Sirba in Sudan’s West Darfur state, in late July 2023, Human Rights Watch said today. It is the seventh village or town that has been nearly destroyed or burned completely to the ground in West Darfur since April. As the United States takes […]

(Kyiv, August 4, 2023) – Nine civilians were killed and more than a dozen injured in an apparent Russian cluster munition attack on July 8, 2023, in a residential district of the Ukrainian town of Lyman, Human Rights Watch said today. Russia’s repeated use of cluster munitions since the start of its full-scale invasion of […]

(Beirut) – An Egyptian doctor is serving a 10-year prison sentence in Saudi Arabia for links with the banned Muslim Brotherhood following what appears to have been an unfair trial, Human Rights Watch said today. The court imprisoned Sabri Shalabi, 66, despite allegations that Saudi prosecutors based the charges largely on forced confessions and apparently […]

(Johannesburg) – Zimbabwe authorities have failed to take necessary steps to ensure that the general election slated for August 23, 2023, meets international standards for free and fair elections, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The 44-page report, “‘Crush Them Like Lice’: Repression of Civil and Political Rights Ahead of Zimbabwe’s August […]

(Beirut) – Member states of the United Nations Human Rights Council should support the establishment of an international, independent, and impartial fact-finding mission into the 2020 Beirut Port explosion, more than 300 organizations and individuals, including Human Rights Watch, survivors, and families of victims said today. They sent a joint letter with the request to […]

Bands of angry Hindu and Muslim young men in the streets, violent attacks, looting, arson. This is a chilling vision of the breakdown in rule of law in India. This is what happened in Haryana state when Hindu groups planned a parade. The violence that broke out on July 31 was apparently triggered after a […]

(New York) – Bangladesh police indiscriminately fired rubber bullets, tear gas, and water cannons, and beat opposition party supporters with batons during protests in late July 2023, Human Rights Watch said today. In the days leading up to a major demonstration on July 29, the authorities arrested over 800 leaders and activists of the main […]

(Brussels) – Starkly divergent accounts from survivors and Greek authorities around the circumstances of the deadly Pylos shipwreck underscore the urgent need for an effective, independent, and impartial investigation, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said today.  The fishing vessel, Adriana, was carrying an estimated 750 people when it sank on June 14, 2023, off […]