Category: Human Rights

The United Nations Security Council should build on its December 2022 resolution on Myanmar by adopting tangible measures to hold the junta accountable for ongoing abuses, Human Rights Watch said. The council will hold a session on Myanmar on March 13, 2023, and hear reports from Noeleen Heyzer, the UN secretary-general’s special envoy on Myanmar, […]

(Tunis) – President Kais Saied’s recent attempt to mitigate the serious harm that a speech he made on February 21, 2023, caused Black African migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees in Tunisia does not go far enough, Human Rights Watch said today. Measures announced on March 5 fall far short of the steps needed to end […]

Hundreds of demonstrators marched through Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, on International Women’s Day, demanding police and courts stop closing their eyes to violence against women and girls. The March 8 protest highlighted several cases that have stirred public outrage over gender-based violence in the country in recent years. Weak law enforcement means domestic abuse […]

Authorities in Belarus have designated the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) and staff an “extremist formation,” part of the ongoing, relentless crackdown on rights defenders and media in the country. BAJ is a leading independent organization working to promote and protect freedom of expression and the rights of journalists in Belarus since 1995. In 2021, […]

Today, Russian authorities reported that Maxym Butkevych, an officer with Ukraine’s armed forces, confessed to having deliberately targeted and wounded civilians and was sentenced to 13 years’ imprisonment. The ruling was made by the so-called Supreme Court of the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR), an area of Ukraine currently occupied by Russia. Butkevych was captured by […]

(Johannesburg) – Zimbabwe police on March 4, 2023 stormed the stage and shut down the show of a popular musician known for his critical commentary, Human Rights Watch said today. Wallace Chirumiko, 40, known as “Winky D,” is a celebrated reggae-dancehall artist who recently released an album that contains lyrics against social and political injustice, […]

In the last minutes of Navalny, the documentary about Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny that’s been nominated for an Academy Award, viewers learn he is facing up to 20 years in prison. This is hardly a spoiler; Navalny’s been behind bars since he returned to Russia in 2021 following a 2020 assassination attempt. The film […]

(Beirut) – Bahraini authorities on March 8, 2023, revoked the entry visas it had issued on January 30, 2023, to two Human Rights Watch staff members to attend the 146th Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Assembly, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch holds permanent observer status with the IPU, granting Human Rights Watch access to […]

In July 2011, Audace Vianney Habonarugira made his way to our office in Bujumbura, then the capital of Burundi, to talk. He was a hunted man and had taken precautions to meet us discreetly. Habonarugira, 28, married with a two-year-old child, had joined a rebel movement as a boy and reached the rank of colonel, […]

(Lusaka) – The Zambian government’s statement that it intends to make Kabwe a “green city” could offer an important opportunity to address the toxic lead that has been harming residents for decades, the Alliance for a Lead-Free Kabwe, a group of Zambian and international organizations, said today. Zambia’s acting minister of green economy and environment, Elijah […]