Category: Human Rights

(Sydney) – Myanmar’s new political parties law will prevent key members of the political opposition from running in upcoming elections, Human Rights Watch said today. The law, announced on January 26, 2023, adds to concerns that the vote now slated for August will lack all credibility and be used merely to try to legitimize further […]

The American Bar Association (ABA), a membership organization for attorneys in the United States that develops professional ethics codes, has issued a resolution supporting the rights of children with intersex traits to consent to surgeries. The ABA’s resolution follows years of legal and policy progress recognizing that “normalizing” surgeries on people with variations in their […]

The Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong ruled this week that the government’s requirement that transgender men undergo “full sex reassignment surgery” to change their legal gender is unconstitutional under the Bill of Rights. The ruling applies to two transgender men seeking to change their legal gender markers on their identification cards without undergoing […]

(Manila) – A three-judge panel of the International Criminal Court (ICC) decided on January 26, 2023 to authorize the court’s prosecutor to resume his investigation in the Philippines, advancing accountability for extrajudicial killings in the country, Human Rights Watch said after releasing a question-and-answer document on the decision today. The Philippine government appealed the decision […]

(Washington) – United States and Libyan authorities should clarify the legal basis for the abusive arrest and subsequent extradition to the US of a Libyan suspect in the 1988 deadly airplane bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, Human Rights Watch said today. US authorities on December 12, 2022, announced that they had custody of and intended to […]

A number where anyone anywhere can reach emergency services at all times of day and night seems evident since Europe adopted 112 as its emergency number in 1991. But that’s not the case everywhere. In Yemen, a country on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, such a service was needed but lacking until the […]

“The findings of this report are horrifying,” said Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, during a visit to Haiti this week. “It paints a picture of how people are being harassed and terrorized by criminal gangs for months without the State being able to stop it. It can only be described as […]

The development would represent a key measure to tackle past injustices and create a more inclusive society, said UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, José Francisco Cali Tzay, in a statement at the end of a 10-day visit to the two countries.  Inuit people comprise nearly 90 per cent of the population […]

US President Joe Biden and members of the House of Representatives repeatedly scapegoated migrants during both this week’s presidential State of the Union address and during a hearing on the US-Mexico border held by the House of Representative’s Committee on Oversight and Accountability. At both events, politicians wrongly conflated the opioid crisis and border insecurity […]

In a noteworthy decision, last week, Denmark’s Refugee Appeals Board announced in a statement that it will grant asylum to all women and girls from Afghanistan “solely based on their gender.” The appeals board cited “worsening conditions for women and girls in Afghanistan” as the basis for its decision. Likewise, Sweden had announced in December […]