Click to expand Image Iranian women, defying the mandatory hijab rule, take to the streets during nationwide protests that started after 22-year-old Mahsa (Jina) Amini died on September 16, 2022 in the custody of Tehran’s “Morality Police,” October 1, 2022. © 2022 Anonymous/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images (Beirut) – An Iranian court has issued a death sentence to the imprisoned popular rapper Toumaj Salehi on speech-related charges, Human Rights Watch said today. The legal proceedings and sentence against Salehi, 33, are a cruel and outrageous assault on fundamental freedoms and the ri ..read more

Click to expand Image Human rights lawyer and former senator Rene Saguisag holds a copy of a book about the martial law period in the Philippines while describing his ordeal in detention, Manila, September 26, 2018.  © 2018 Bullit Marquez/AP Photo The Philippines on April 23 lost a human rights stalwart. Rene Saguisag, a human rights lawyer and former senator, defended victims of abuses during the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship and was an ardent human rights advocate in the ensuing years. He died of undisclosed causes at the age of 84. Saguisag, along with Jose Diokno, Lorenzo Tañada, and ..read more

Click to expand Image The headquarters of EU border agency Frontex in Warsaw, Poland September 8, 2021. © 2021 Kacper Pempel/Reuters Nearly three years ago, on July 30, 2021, a Libyan Coast Guard patrol boat intercepted a small vessel carrying around 20 people. The interception by Libyan officials happened despite the vessel being within Malta’s search-and-rescue area. Our investigations suggest the European Union border agency Frontex played a role in enabling the interception, but the agency has refused to share any information about it. Today, the General Court of the EU ruled that Frontex ..read more

Click to expand Image Journalists protest against authorities’ growing restrictions on media, outside the Press Club of India, New Delhi, India, February 18, 2021.  © 2021 Pradeep Gaur/SOPA Images/Sipa USA (Sipa via AP Images) Australian journalist Avani Dias left India on April 19 after the government did not extend her journalist visa until moments before it was due to expire – the latest example of foreign writers, journalists, academics, and activists being denied access to India for seemingly political reasons. Dias, who works for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and had been ..read more

Click to expand Image Participants at the Tokyo Trans March in Shibuya district of Tokyo, March 31, 2023.  © 2023 Yuichi Yamazaki/AFP via Getty Images Members of Japan’s Diet are revising the law, declared unconstitutional, that allows transgender people to change their legal gender. Last October, Japan’s Supreme Court ruled the country’s sterilization surgery requirement for transgender people is unconstitutional, and now lawmakers are debating how to amend the legal gender recognition law. Debates have featured some troubling proposals, such as a lengthy waiting period and compulsory ho ..read more

Click to expand Image Demonstrators march on behalf of refugees and asylum seekers in Melbourne, Australia, April 19, 2021. © 2021 Diego Fedele/Getty Images (Sydney) – The Australian government should withdraw a proposed law that would allow the authorities to seek prison terms for asylum seekers for exercising their right not to be sent to a country where they fear being persecuted, Human Rights Watch said in a submission to the Australian parliament. The Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee is currently considering the Migration Amendment (Removal and Other Measures) Bill 2024 f ..read more

Click to expand Image Activists and supporters of Together with Refugees stage a protest in Parliament Square in London, January 25, 2023. © 2023 NEIL HALL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock It is a dark day in the United Kingdom as the Safety of Rwanda Bill will soon become law after passing its final stages in parliament yesterday. This will have a devastating impact on human rights and the rule of law, risking the lives of people who came to the UK seeking safety and setting a dangerous global precedent. The government’s new law tries to legislate away the facts and declare Rwanda safe to send asylum see ..read more

Click to expand Image Adama Dieng, then-UN special adviser on the prevention of genocide, New York, June 2019. © 2019 Luiz Rampelotto/EuropaNewswire/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images Adama Dieng has been appointed as the first African Union (AU) special envoy for the prevention of the crime of genocide and other mass atrocities. Dieng will drive the organization’s agenda to “combat the ideology of hate and genocide on the continent,” said AU Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat. The April 6 appointment could not be more symbolic, marking 30 years since the Rwandan genocide and harkening to ..read more

Click to expand Image President of Rwanda Paul Kagame and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in London, UK, May 4, 2023. © 2023 Press Association via AP Photo In an interview on the BBC’s Today Program this week, Deputy Foreign Secretary Andrew Mitchell sang the praises of Rwanda’s “remarkable regime.” But as the debate over the government’s Safety of Rwanda bill came to a close, he left out some important facts about Rwanda’s human rights record. When asked about an incident in which Rwandan security forces shot and killed 12 Congolese refugees during a 2018 protest over cuts in food rations in the K ..read more

Click to expand Image Activists hold a rally to support women's rights on International Women's Day in Almaty, Kazakhstan, March 8, 2023. © 2023 Pavel Mikheyev/Reuters (Berlin, April 23, 2024) – Kazakhstan’s President Kasym-Jomart Tokayev signed a new law on April,15, 2024, to strengthen protections from violence for women and children, including domestic violence survivors, but it falls short in key areas, Human Rights Watch said today. The law aims to advance women’s rights and enhance their safety, but among other concerns, it fails to explicitly make domestic violence a stand-alone offense ..read more