Articles by Human Rights Watch
We found 48 results.
The UN Security Council’s Astonishing Silence on Myanmar Atrocities
Akshaya Kumar | Human Rights Watch - TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Sep 2024
5 Sep 2024 – The United Nations Security Council should mobilize to prevent further atrocities in Myanmar. The Council’s inaction over the last few months starkly contrasts with the clear warnings from senior UN officials who are urgently ringing alarm bells.
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Human Rights World Report 2024: Israel and Palestine
Human Rights Watch - TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Aug 2024
In 2023, civilians were targeted, attacked, and killed at a unprecedented scale in the recent history of Israel and Palestine.
→ read full articleWorld Court to Review 57-Year Israeli Occupation
Human Rights Watch - TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Feb 2024
16 Feb 2024 – 52 Countries to Take Part in Hearings on Occupied Palestinian Territory
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While Fire Rages in Gaza, the West Bank Smolders
Omar Shakir | Human Rights Watch - TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Dec 2023
22 Nov 2023 – While global attention is focused on Gaza, Israeli authorities are tightening their repression in the West Bank and settler attacks on Palestinians are surging. That repression was already at a peak before the 7 Oct Hamas-led attack, but it has gotten much worse since.
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West Bank: Spike in Israeli Killings of Palestinian Children
Human Rights Watch - TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Sep 2023
28 Aug 2023 – The Israeli military and border police forces are killing Palestinian children with virtually no recourse for accountability. End Systematic Impunity for Unlawful Lethal Force
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A Devastating Burning Season for the Brazilian Amazon
Luciana Téllez Chávez | Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Sep 2022
18 Sep 2022 – Illegal Deforestation Linked to Violence, Loss of Livelihoods for Communities – There were more fires in the Brazilian Amazon during the first week of Sep this year than in all of Sep 2021. Last month, fires were the worst in a decade.
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Philippine Activist Walden Bello Arrested for Cyber-libel
Carlos H. Conde | Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Aug 2022
9 Aug 2022 – Philippine police yesterday arrested Walden Bello, a 76-year-old social activist, academic, and former congressman on charges of cyber-libel. Charges Spotlight Criminal Defamation Laws
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Brazil: Bolsonaro Sabotages Anti-Covid-19 Efforts
Human Rights Watch | Human Wrongs Watch - TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Apr 2020
10 Apr 2020 – President Jair Bolsonaro is putting Brazilians in grave danger by urging them not to comply with social distancing and other measures to slow the spread of COVID-19 from state governments and his own Health Ministry, Human Rights Watch said today. He has also acted recklessly by disseminating misleading information about the pandemic.
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Qatar: End of Abusive Exit Permits for Migrant Workers
Human Rights Watch | Human Wrongs Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jan 2020
20 Jan 2020 — Qatar announced on Jan 16 that most migrant workers previously prevented from leaving the country without their employer’s permission will no longer need an exit permit, Human Rights Watch said today. But domestic workers will have to notify employers before leaving.
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Libya: Nightmarish Detention for Migrants, Asylum Seekers
Human Rights Watch | Human Wrongs Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Jan 2019
25 Jan 2019 – European Union policies contribute to a cycle of extreme abuse against migrants in Libya, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today [21 January 2019]. The EU and Italy’s support for the Libyan Coast Guard contributes significantly to the interception of migrants and asylum seekers and their subsequent detention in arbitrary, abusive detention in Libya.
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Brazil: Pesticide Poisonings in Rural Areas
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Jul 2018
20 Jul 2018 –The Failing Response to Pesticide Drift in Brazil’s Rural Communities – Ordinary Brazilians Suffer Health Effects, Retaliation for Speaking Out
→ read full articleIsrael: Gaza Killings Unlawful, Calculated
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Apr 2018
3 Apr 2018 – Senior Israeli officials who unlawfully called for use of live ammunition against Palestinian demonstrations who posed no imminent threat to life bear responsibility for the killings of 14 demonstrators in Gaza and the injuring of hundreds on March 30, 2018, Human Rights Watch said today.
→ read full articleUS State Department’s Lie about Child Soldiers
Jo Becker | Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Jul 2017
27 Jun 2017 – Dozens of children were part of Burma’s armed forces as recently as last week. In Iraq, children have died fighting the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) with Iraqi government military units. But United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson ignored these facts and took Burma and Iraq off the annual list, issued today, that identifies countries that use child soldiers or support militias that do.
→ read full articleIsrael: 50 Years of Occupation Abuses
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jun 2017
4 Jun 2017 – Fifty years after Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip, it controls these areas through repression, institutionalized discrimination, and systematic abuses of the Palestinian population’s rights. Human Rights Watch has made available online publications dating back to the 1980s and early 1990s.
→ read full articleBurma Loses a Key Voice for Tolerance
Linda Lakhdhir | Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Feb 2017
Murder of U Ko Ni Undermines Fight for an Inclusive Country
→ read full articleBurma: Rohingya Recount Killings, Rape, and Arson
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Dec 2016
Video Testimony Matches Satellite Images of Attacks
→ read full articleThe Horrors of a Hurricane, Doubled by Statelessness
Skye Wheeler | Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Oct 2016
3 Oct 2016 – My thoughts tonight are with Haitians, but also with the perhaps thousands of stateless people—including children—along Haiti’s border with the Dominican Republic. They live in make-shift camps constructed from sticks, cardboard and clothes tied or sewn together into tent-like structures. I can’t imagine many worse places to be when a hurricane dumps 40 inches of rain.
→ read full articleAustralia: Appalling Abuse, Neglect of Refugees on Nauru
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Aug 2016
Investigation on Remote Pacific Island Finds Deliberate Abuse Hidden Behind Wall of Secrecy – “Few other countries go to such lengths to deliberately inflict suffering on people seeking safety and freedom. Driving adult and even child refugees to the breaking point with sustained abuse appears to be one of Australia’s aims on Nauru.”
→ read full articleDispatches: Torture of Australia’s Children
Elaine Pearson | Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Aug 2016
26 Jul 2016 | Abuse of Detained Teenagers Caught on Camera by ABC’s Four Corners Program – Teargassing, hooding, shackling, stripping. Twenty-three hours a day solitary confinement in a hot dark cell. When a 17-year-old threatens to hurt himself, guards hood him, strap him to a chair and leave him alone for two hours.
→ read full articleCentral African Republic: Murder by Peacekeepers
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jun 2016
7 Jun 2016 – Soldiers from the Republic of Congo killed at least 18 people, including women and children, while serving as peacekeepers in the Central African Republic. Discovery of Mass Grave Provides New Evidence
→ read full article(Français) République centrafricaine : Des meurtres commis par des soldats de maintien de la paix
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jun 2016
7 juin 2016 – Des militaires de la République du Congo ont tué au moins 18 personnes, y compris des femmes et des enfants, entre décembre 2013 et juin 2015, alors qu’ils servaient dans les forces de maintien de la paix en République centrafricaine. La découverte d’une fosse commune fournit de nouvelles preuves.
→ read full articleTunisia: UN Panel Condemns Forced Anal Exams
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 May 2016
23 May 2016 – The UN Committee Against Torture condemned the use of forced anal examinations as an attempt to find “proof” against people accused of homosexual conduct in Tunisia, Human Rights Watch said today.
→ read full articleIndonesia: Child Tobacco Workers Suffer as Firms Profit
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 May 2016
Thousands of children in Indonesia, some as young as 8 years old, are at the bottom of the supply chain for many multinational and Indonesian tobacco companies. These children are getting exposed to nicotine and toxic pesticides. Child tobacco workers can absorb nicotine through their skin, and many suffer nausea, vomiting, headaches, and dizziness – all symptoms of acute nicotine poisoning.
→ read full articleKenya: Court to Hear Forced Anal Testing Case
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 May 2016
A Kenyan court will hear a constitutional petition challenging the use of forced anal examinations of men accused of homosexuality on May 4, 2016. Under international law, forced anal examinations are a form of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment that may amount to torture.
→ read full articleNigeria: A Year On, No Word on 300 Abducted Children
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Apr 2016
29 Mar 2016 – The Nigerian government should take urgent steps to secure the release of about 400 women and children, including at least 300 elementary school students, abducted by Boko Haram from the town of Damasak a year ago. It is unclear whether the Nigerian government has made any serious effort to secure their release.
→ read full articleIsrael: Businesses Should End Settlement Activity
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Jan 2016
19 Jan 2016 – Businesses should stop operating in, financing, servicing, or trading with Israeli settlements in order to comply with their human rights responsibilities, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Those activities contribute to and benefit from an inherently unlawful and abusive system that violates the rights of Palestinians.
→ read full articleRussia: Homophobic, Abusive Bill
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Nov 2015
Proposes Fines, Jail Time for “Coming Out”
→ read full articleTobacco’s Children: Brazil Sets an Example for the U.S.
Margaret Wurth, The Progressive – Human Rights Watch,
9 Nov 2015
Brazil and the United States are among the top five global tobacco producers. The US has no restrictions on children working in tobacco farming, despite many known dangers. But Brazil has banned children under 18 from working on the farms. How do the two countries compare now?
→ read full articleSaudi Arabia’s Troubling Death Sentence
Adam Coogle, Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Oct 2015
On September 14, Saudi Arabia’s Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of Ali al-Nimr for participating in protests four years ago, when he was 16. The sentence stipulates that he should be beheaded and that his headless body should be crucified for public display.
→ read full articleFilipino Children Diving, Dying for Gold
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Oct 2015
Boys lowered 75 feet into mine pits, and small children, even 8, 9, or 10-years-old, handling poisonous mercury to separate the gold from the ore. Juliane Kippenberg, associate director of the children’s rights division, talks to Amy Braunschweiger about being at an underwater mine, the vertigo-inducing narrowness of some mine shafts, and the toll this takes on the Philippine children who work in gold mining.
→ read full articleThe Refugee Crisis That Isn’t
Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Sep 2015
European leaders may differ about how to respond to the asylum-seekers and migrants surging their way, but they seem to agree they face a crisis of enormous proportions. But before we get carried away by such apocalyptic rhetoric, we should recognize that if there is a crisis, it is one of politics, not capacity.
→ read full articleProtecting Schools 80 Years after Roerich
Bede Sheppard, Human Rights Watch – Culture of Peace News Network,
3 Aug 2015
The Declaration is a political commitment to do more to protect students, teachers, schools and universities from attack and from military use during times of armed conflict. It calls upon armed forces to refrain from converting schools or universities into military bases, barracks, defensive positions, detention centers, and weapons caches, as well as from harassment, rape, and forced recruitment by the soldiers inside the school.
→ read full articleWorld Bank Group: Project Critics Threatened, Harassed, Jailed
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jun 2015
The 144-page report, “At Your Own Risk: Reprisals against Critics of World Bank Group Projects,” details how governments and powerful companies have threatened, intimidated and misused criminal laws against community members who stand to be displaced or harmed by projects financed by the WB and its private sector lending arm, the International Finance Corporation.
→ read full articleAfter the Earthquake – What Nepal Needs
Meenakshi Ganguly – Human Rights Watch,
4 May 2015
The world should step up its help for those affected the Nepal earthquake and ensure its aid protects the rights of the most vulnerable.
→ read full articleGambia: Life Sentence for ‘Aggravated Homosexuality’
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Dec 2014
New Law Threatens LGBTI Community – “Arresting and torturing people based on their sexual orientation is shameful, and inventing new crimes with even harsher sentences is scandalous. Gambia’s new law not only flouts African human rights obligations, it violates its own constitution, which says that all people must be equal and free from discrimination before the law.”
→ read full articleGreece – No Excuse for Caging Children
Eva Cossé – Human Rights Watch,
24 Nov 2014
Is it acceptable for children with disabilities to be kept in caged beds? As shocking as it may sound, for the government of Greece the answer appears to be yes. Last Friday [14 Nov 2014], the BBC reported on the horrific plight of children with disabilities living in the Children Care Center of Lechaina, in Southern Greece.
→ read full articleIndia: Stop Harassing Anti-Nuclear Protesters
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Sep 2014
Udayakumar, convener of the People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy [and of the TRANSCEND Network], was on his way to Nepal on September 16 [2014] to participate in a United Nations consultation on human rights, but was detained and interrogated at the New Delhi airport for over five hours.
→ read full articleBurma: End ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ of Rohingya Muslims
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Apr 2013
The 153-page Human Rights Watch report, “‘All You Can Do is Pray’: Crimes Against Humanity and Ethnic Cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Burma’s Arakan State,” describes the role of the Burmese government and local authorities in the forcible displacement of more than 125,000 Rohingya and other Muslims and the ongoing humanitarian crisis.
→ read full articleCameroon: Rights Abuses in ‘Homosexuality’ Prosecutions
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Mar 2013
No one should be sentenced to prison time because they blurt out a confession to stop torture, or because a judge doesn’t like what they drink, how they dress, or what kind of text messages they send.
→ read full article(Français) Cameroun: Violations de Droits Humains Commises dans le Cadre des Poursuites Judiciaires pour «Homosexualité»
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Mar 2013
Personne ne devrait être condamné à une peine de prison pour avoir laissé échapper des aveux afin de faire arrêter la torture, ou parce qu’un juge n’aime pas ce qu’ils boivent, la façon dont ils s’habillent ou le type de textos qu’ils envoient. La façon dont la loi est appliquée au Cameroun semble suggérer que si vous êtes soupçonné d’être gay ou lesbienne, les droits humains, par exemple le droit à un procès équitable et le droit à ne pas être torturé, n’ont plus cours.
→ read full articleHuman Rights Watch London Film Festival
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Mar 2013
19 Films Bear Witness, Challenge Viewers to Seek Justice – The 17th edition of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival will be presented in London from March 13 to 22, 2013.
→ read full articleHuman Rights – World Report 2013
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Feb 2013
This 23rd annual World Report summarizes human rights conditions in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide in 2012. It reflects extensive investigative work that Human Rights Watch staff has undertaken during the year, often in close partnership with domestic human rights activists.
→ read full articleEritrea: Hear No Evil
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Jan 2013
Eritrea is a pariah state that crushes repression. It even sends its many people into a forced labor system, often for years. The government attracted international investors with its mineral reserves and its first mine, a joint venture with the Canadian firm Nevsun Resources, has produced hundreds of millions of dollars’ in gold since 2011. Other companies from Canada, Australia, and China are also developing projects in Eritrea. We uncovered evidence that some mine construction workers – supplied by Segun, a government-owned company – were forced laborers.
→ read full articleBan ‘Killer Robots’ Before It’s Too Late
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Nov 2012
Fully Autonomous Weapons Would Increase Danger to Civilians – These future weapons, sometimes called “killer robots,” would be able to choose and fire on targets without human intervention.
→ read full articleUS: Torture and Rendition to Gaddafi’s Libya
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Sep 2012
New Accounts of Waterboarding, Other Water Torture, Abuses in Secret Prisons – The United States government during the Bush administration tortured opponents of Muammar Gaddafi, then transferred them to mistreatment in Libya, according to accounts by former detainees and recently uncovered CIA and UK Secret Service documents, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today [6 Sep 2012].
→ read full articleIndia: End Intimidation of Peaceful Protesters at Nuclear Site
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 May 2012
Indian authorities should drop sedition cases against peaceful protesters opposed to the construction of a nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu state. At least 3,500 people are facing police investigations into allegations of sedition and “waging war” against the state for protesting against the plant in Kudankulam. Human Rights Watch urged the Indian parliament to repeal the colonial-era sedition law, which has frequently been used by authorities around the country to silence dissent.
→ read full articleSri Lanka: UN Experts Submit Report
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Apr 2011
The report by a panel of experts to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on April 12, 2011, about laws-of-war violations in Sri Lanka should be used to pave the way for justice, Human Rights Watch said today. Ban commissioned the report in May 2010 after the Sri Lankan government failed to investigate violations committed in the final months of its decades-long conflict with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
→ read full articleSri Lanka: Groups Decline to Testify Before Flawed Commission
Human Rights Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Oct 2010
Three leading international organizations will not accept an invitation to testify before a Sri Lankan government commission because it lacks the ability to advance accountability for war crimes, Human Rights Watch, the International Crisis Group, and Amnesty International said in a joint letter to Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission that was released today [14 Oct 2010].
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