Category: Human Rights

(Bishkek, January 26, 2023) – The Kyrgyz Ministry of Culture has filed a lawsuit to try to terminate the operation of “Azattyk Media,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Kyrgyz service, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should immediately withdraw the lawsuit and cease its harassment of independent media outlets. The ministry filed the lawsuit before […]

(New York) – Philippine authorities are using “red-tagging” and other forms of threats and violence to intimidate Indigenous leaders and activists opposed to government-backed projects in the Philippines, Human Rights Watch said today. The longtime practice of “red-tagging,” in which those resisting projects are accused of being fighters or supporters of the communist insurgency, makes […]

Following Saudi Arabia’s decision to cut oil production in October, United States President Joe Biden announced there would be consequences for the Saudi government and a need to reevaluate the US-Saudi relationship. But three months later, that relationship seems unchanged. Biden’s unwillingness to genuinely reassess the relationship applies to US human rights policy toward Saudi […]

Yesterday, Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office designated the Andrei Sakharov Foundation as “undesirable.” The foundation was created in 1989 by Sakharov’s widow, Elena Bonner, and his American supporters to safeguard and promote the legacy of the genius physicist. Sakharov created the first Soviet hydrogen bomb and then fought for disarmament, received the 1975 Noble Prize for […]

“Banning women from humanitarian work has immediate life-threatening consequences for all Afghans,” they insisted. Some aid programmes have already had to stop temporarily, owing to a lack of female staff, at a time when more than 28 million people in Afghanistan need “assistance to survive” the brutal winter, economic collapse and the risk of famine, […]

Globally, the number of victims detected fell by 11 per cent in 2020 from the previous year, driven by fewer detections in low and medium-income countries. The number of convictions for trafficking offences also fell by 27 per cent over the same period, accelerating a longer-term trend registered by UNODC since 2017. Sharper decreases were registered […]

(Washington, DC) – International scrutiny is essential to ensure Guatemalans’ rights to free and fair elections, Human Rights Watch and the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), said today in releasing a joint question and answer document exploring the main challenges to human rights to the country’s electoral process. On January 20, 2023, the Supreme […]

Expressing deep sadness that more than 200 Rohingya – who fled military persecution in Myanmar in 2017 – have died trying to cross the Andaman Sea from Bangladesh this year, Mr. Türk said that the boats used to make the crossings are not only “overcrowded and unsafe” but also “left to drift for days on […]

Secretary-General António Guterres said he had learned of his passing, “with great sadness”, describing him as a “humble man of prayer and study.” Defender of human rights “Principled in his faith, tireless in his pursuit of peace, and determined in his defence of human rights, he was a spiritual guide to millions across the world and […]

They warned of the dire consequences of not renewing Resolution 2642, which is set to expire on 10 January.  “If the cross-border resolution is not renewed, the already desperate humanitarian situation in northwest Syria will be further aggravated at a time when people in the country need the international community’s support to survive,” they said […]