Category: Human Rights

(Paris, April 17, 2026) – France has refused to grant an entry visa to Shawan Jabarin, the director of Al-Haq, one of the leading and oldest Palestinian human rights organizations, based in the occupied West Bank. Jabarin was due to travel to France to appear before the European Parliament’s Human Rights Committee in Strasbourg, alongside […]

(New York) – The Indian government should immediately withdraw rules that would allow greater executive control over online content and further undermine privacy in the country, Human Rights Watch said today. The Draft Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Second Amendment Rules, 2026, would allow the government to treat ordinary social media […]

The overall total includes at least 22,000 women and 16,000 girls and amounts to an average of at least 47 women and girls killed every day, the agency’s Sofia Calltorp, Chief of Humanitarian Action, told journalists in Geneva. “Those killed were mothers, they were daughters, sisters, and friends, deeply loved by those around them,” she noted, […]

(Beirut, April 17, 2026) – The Israeli military’s destruction of the Qasmieh bridge on April 16, 2026, which took place hours before a ceasefire was announced, threatens to cut off Lebanese territory south of the Litani River from the rest of the country, Human Rights Watch said today. As the deliberate attack destroyed the last […]

(London) – The Maldives government should withdraw plans to introduce a bill to end the longstanding moratorium on the death penalty in the country, 10 Maldivian and international human rights organizations said today. The authorities should also seek to repeal recent amendments to the Drugs Act of 2011 that allow capital punishment for drug-related offenses, maintain the […]

The Human Rights Council-appointed experts also issued a general warning over the “continuing violence of patriarchal power systems” revealed in the files, which the US Department of Justice began releasing late last year.  The massive collection of documents, photos, flight logs and other items related to investigations into the activities of deceased New York-based financier […]

The European Commission has facilitated the safe transfer of over 5,000 from Ukraine patients to hospitals in 22 countries across Europe for specialised medical care under the EU Civil Protection Mechanism. This figure was reached last week, while the latest flights happened yesterday, bringing patients to Finland, Germany, the Netherlands and Norway. Commissioner for Equality, […]

Today, as Sudanese citizens continue to suffer the world’s most severe humanitarian emergency, the European Union, together with Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the United States and the African Union, co-hosted the 3th International Sudan Conference in Berlin.  As the Sudan war enters its 4th year, the conference aims to mobilise global action in support of Sudan at […]

(Johannesburg) – Zambia should provide accountability for its failure to clean up a contaminated mine site that is responsible for the ongoing lead poisoning of children, Human Rights Watch said today in supporting a request for African Union action to require the government and others involved to clean up the site. The Institute for Human […]

A decade into President Xi Jinping’s “Sinicization” of religion campaign, Catholic communities across China face tightened ideological control, strict surveillance, and travel restrictions.  The 2018 Holy See-China agreement on bishops has helped the Chinese government to pressure underground Catholic communities to join the official church. The Holy See and other governments should press Beijing to […]