Category: Human Rights

Preliminary criminal proceedings opened last May in Sicily against 21 people charged with aiding and abetting illegal immigration in connection with several search-and-rescue missions conducted between 2016 and 2017.  Those accused include four crew members of the Iuventa, a former fishing trawler credited with saving some 14,000 migrant lives in the Mediterranean Sea, and human […]

(Nairobi) – The Eritrean government has in recent months punished relatives of thousands of alleged draft evaders as part of an intensive forced conscription campaign, Human Rights Watch said today. Eritrean security forces have been heavily involved in operations in support of the Ethiopian government since the outbreak of conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region in […]

This week, the European Union handed over in Italy a search and rescue vessel to Libyan authorities intended for abusive Libyan Coast Guard forces and promised four more, without any apparent attempt to vet the human rights practices of the coast guard, thus making the EU more complicit in human rights abuses in the Mediterranean. […]

Shortly after I started my first human rights job in 1986, Amnesty International issued an alert about a group of Algerians sentenced to up to three years in prison for creating the country’s first independent human rights league. But things changed after popular protests rocked Algeria in 1988, forcing the one-party state to undertake reforms […]

(Toronto, February 8, 2023) – The Annual Human Rights Watch Canada Film Festival (HRWFF) in partnership with Hot Docs Cinema will be held from March 8 to 19, 2023; March 8-12 in-person at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, and March 13-19 on Hot Docs’ digital platform. Following the tradition of past festivals, all tickets […]

In the early hours of Monday, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck near the city of Gaziantep in Türkiye. The quake has taken the lives of thousands, while many people are still stuck under the rubble. After the activation of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism by Türkiye, 20 EU countries, plus Albania and Montenegro, have offered teams […]

(Beirut) – Algerian authorities should reverse the decision to dissolve the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights (LADDH), an independent, 38-year-old group, over politically motivated allegations and allow it to operate freely and legally, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said today. Authorities should also end their general crackdown on independent civil society […]

Air pollution in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s cities remains some of the worst in the world. In January in Sarajevo, daily readings of the deadliest pollutant (known as particulate matter 2.5) were above 50µg/m³ over 16 days, several times what the World Health Organization (WHO) deems safe. Five days in January saw readings soar over 100 […]

Artisanal small-scale mining (ASM) is integral to the cobalt supply chain. Over 10% of the world’s cobalt is produced in artisanal mines and EV manufacturers and electronics companies need to support the formalization of ASM. Research director Dorothée Baumann-Pauly published a white paper in collaboration with the Geneva Center for Business and Human Rights which […]

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law extending compulsory DNA data collection to millions of people yesterday. Anyone suspected of any crime will have their DNA collected, and those convicted or sentenced to administrative detention for a misdemeanor will have their DNA profile stored in a state database for life. This new legislation boosts Russia’s […]