Category: Human Rights

Led by Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders Mary Lawlor, five United Nations experts have issued a damning critique of Greece’s latest attempt to criminalize human rights defenders working to support migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. In a letter to the Greek government, made public on February 24, the experts warn that a new migration law adopted on […]

Last February, Thai authorities in Bangkok loaded 40 Uyghur men into blacked-out trucks and forcibly returned them to China. Their fates remain unknown. The men had spent over a decade in Thai immigration detention after having fled repression in Xinjiang in northwest China. Because the men faced grave risks of torture and other abuses in China, Thailand’s […]

(Beirut) – The Lebanese government should take immediate, concrete steps to help secure access to justice, truth, and reparations for thousands of civilian victims of abuses stemming from the armed conflict with Israel, five Lebanese and international human rights organizations said today in a letter to Lebanon’s justice minister and deputy prime minister, who heads Lebanon’s National […]

(Johannesburg) – A bill passed by Angola’s parliament on January 22, 2026, to regulate nongovernmental organizations would significantly expand government control over civil society and undermine fundamental freedoms, Human Rights Watch said today. President João Lourenço should not sign the bill into law but return it to parliament for revisions that ensure compliance with Angola’s international human […]

(New York) – Israeli authorities plan to bar 37 international nongovernmental organizations from operating in Gaza and the West Bank on March 1, 2026 for refusing to provide the government with lists of their staff and their biodata as part of new registration requirements, Human Rights Watch said today. The organizations say that these requirements violate the […]

Amicus Brief Challenging Executive Order No. 14,160 HRP Director Professor Gerald L. Neuman, together with Professors Kristin Collins and Rachel Rosenbloom, submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court of the United States in a case challenging the legality of President Trump’s Executive Order No. 14,160. In the brief, they argue that the Executive Order, […]

(Beirut) – The wellbeing of about 8,500 people held in camps housing families of men suspected of Islamic State (ISIS) affiliation in northeast Syria remains uncertain, Human Rights Watch said today. On January 30, 2026, the Syrian government announced that the camps, called al-Hol and Roj, would be imminently closed. After control of al-Hol was transferred […]

(New York) – North Korea’s ninth Party Congress started on February 20, 2026, amid escalating repression of young people, strict control of information, and widespread forced labor, Human Rights Watch said today. The Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea is the country’s most important political meeting. Party Congresses have historically occurred irregularly: the last three […]

In the early morning hours of February 26, 2023, the Summer Love shipwrecked off the coast of Calabria, Italy. At least 94 people, including 35 children, died in what is known as the Cutro shipwreck. According to survivors, the boat was carrying up to 250 people, most from Afghanistan, Syria, and Pakistan. The anniversary comes […]

US President Donald Trump’s administration today rolled back another air-pollution protection, this time for one of the most toxic substances on earth: mercury. The action reverses then-President Joe Biden’s decision in 2024 to reduce the levels of allowable mercury air emissions for coal-fired power plants, restoring them to their previous levels. Trump had already given dozens […]