Click to expand Image Destruction in a market area in El Fasher, the capital of Sudan's North Darfur state, September 1, 2023.  © 2023 AFP via Getty Images After a months-long, uneasy détente between Sudan’s two warring parties, hundreds of thousands of civilians sheltering in the city of El Fasher in Darfur are in the crosshairs.    In the past few days, several villages near El Fasher appear to have been burned to the ground. People in one camp for internally displaced people have reportedly been killed by shelling and in clashes. Alarming reports of mass mobilization of fight ..read more

Click to expand Image The Metalurgia Business Peru metallurgical complex in the city of La Oroya, in the department of Junín, east of Lima, November 9, 2022.  © Last month, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found the Peruvian government responsible for violating the right to a healthy environment, among other rights, of residents of La Oroya, a town exposed to toxic pollution from a mine and smelter complex, the first ruling of its kind before the Court. The town is so polluted that one study by Peru’s Ministry of Health in 2005 found that 99.9 percent of children under six years o ..read more

Click to expand Image Taguhi shows scars on her neck and shoulder. In 2016, her former husband attacked her and her mother with an axe, killing her mother.  © 2016 Nazik Armenakyan (Daphne.am) Armenia’s parliament adopted amendments strengthening the country’s domestic violence law. The legislation was adopted last week as postwar Armenia both struggles to secure its border with neighboring Azerbaijan and deepen its relations with the European Union. Armenia’s 2017 domestic violence law was an important first step, but its accountability provisions were inadequate and protective measures ..read more

Click to expand Image A boy sits on a bicycle in front of a plastic recycling facility in Adana, Turkey. © 2021 Human Rights Watch Next week in Ottawa, countries will reconvene to continue negotiations on an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution. A revised draft of the treaty published by the United Nations Environment Programme on December 28, 2023, contains certain positive measures to reduce plastic production. However, it lacks the necessary provisions to protect human rights and health from the impacts of plastic pollution, especially for frontline communities and ..read more

Click to expand Image German Chancellor Olaf Scholz sits opposite of Chinese President Xi Jinping during talks at the State Guest House in Beijing, China, April 16, 2024. © 2024 Michael Kappeler/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Photo Germany's economy is very dependent on China, so expectations were low that Chancellor Olaf Scholz would place human rights concerns prominently on the agenda of his April 13-16 trip to China. But his apparent unwillingness to publicly say the words “human rights” was deeply disappointing. The Chinese government’s long-egregious human rights record has become dramatically ..read more

Click to expand Image A statue of 18th-century Ukrainian philosopher and poet Hryhorii Skovoroda stands amidst the ruins of a museum and memorial dedicated to him in Skovorodynivka in the Kharkivska region of Ukraine. The building was destroyed when a munition fired by Russian forces hit the roof on May 6, 2022, sparking a major fire. © 2022 Sergey Kozlov/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock (Oslo, April 18, 2024) – The bombing and shelling of cities and towns during armed conflict has devastating consequences for cultural heritage and civilians, Human Rights Watch and Harvard Law School’s International Human ..read more

Click to expand Image Groups protest against the visit of Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon and other Central Asian leaders to Berlin, Germany, September 29, 2023. © 2023 snapshot-photography/FBoillot/Shutterstock (Berlin, April 16, 2024) – Several people based in Lithuania, Poland, and Türkiye, linked to a banned Tajik opposition movement, Group 24, have in recent months disappeared or have been arrested and threatened with extradition to Tajikistan, Human Rights Watch and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee said today.    Group 24 is a political movement promoting democratic reforms ..read more

Click to expand Image A family packs up their belongings in Khirbet Zanuta, in the southern West Bank, on October 30, 2023. Attacks by settlers, in some cases accompanied by soldiers, forced all the residents to leave. © 2023 Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images (Jerusalem) – The Israeli military either took part in or did not protect Palestinians from violent settler attacks in the West Bank that have displaced people from 20 communities and have entirely uprooted at least 7 communities since October 7, 2023, Human Rights Watch said today. Israeli settlers have assaulted, tortured, a ..read more

Click to expand Image Groups protest against the visit of Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon and other Central Asian leaders to Berlin, Germany, September 29, 2023. © 2023 snapshot-photography/FBoillot/Shutterstock (Berlin, April 16, 2024) – Several people based in Lithuania, Poland, and Turkey, linked to a banned Tajik opposition movement, Group 24, have in recent months disappeared or have been arrested and threatened with extradition to Tajikistan, Human Rights Watch and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee said today.    Group 24 is a political movement promoting democratic reforms ..read more

Click to expand Image Groups protest against the visit of Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon and other Central Asian leaders to Berlin, Germany, September 29, 2023. © 2023 snapshot-photography/FBoillot/Shutterstock (Berlin, April 16, 2024) – Several people based in Lithuania, Poland, and Turkey, linked to a banned Tajik opposition movement, Group 24, have in recent months disappeared or have been arrested and threatened with extradition to Tajikistan, Human Rights Watch and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee said today.    Group 24 is a political movement promoting democratic reforms ..read more