Human Rights Watch

Taliban fighters stand near the closed Torkham border with Pakistan, where Pakistani and Afghan forces exchanged fire overnight, in Torkham, Afghanistan, Monday, March 3, 2025.(AP Photo/Shafiullah Kakar, file)

Rights group says Pakistan steps up pressure on Afghans to return home where they risk persecution

A leading rights group says that Pakistan’s authorities have intensified pressure on Afghan refugees to go back to neighboring Afghanistan where they risk persecution by the Taliban and face dire economic conditions.

Burkina Faso junta leader Ibrahim Traore participates in a ceremony in Ouagadougou, Oct. 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Kilaye Bationo, File)

Video of Burkina Faso massacre appears to implicate government-allied militia, watchdog says

This undated photograph released in April 2022 by France's military shows Russian mercenaries boarding a helicopter in northern Mali. (French Army via AP, File)

Rights group accuses Russian mercenaries of abuses against civilians in Mali

FILE - A general views shows the King Abdullah sports city stadium, in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, Saturday, Jan. 11, 2020, on the eve of the Spanish Super Cup Final soccer match between Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File)

FIFA urged not to give 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia in report alleging abuses of migrant labor

FILE - A mural reading "Stay vigilant and mobilised" is seen in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Wednesday March 1, 2023. (AP Photo, File)

Burkina Faso put civilians at ‘unnecessary risk’ during militant attack, rights group says

Trump’s remarks on Gaza ‘very concerning,’ Human Rights Watch says

President Donald Trump’s proposal that most of Gaza’s population be “permanently” resettled elsewhere while the United States rebuilds the territory could “signal an intent to potentially ethnically cleanse Gaza,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Thursday.

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Human Rights Watch says Israel’s restriction of water supply in Gaza amounts to acts of genocide

FILE - Palestinians transport a captured Israeli civilian, Noa Argamani, on a motorcycle from southern Israel, in the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, 2023. Human Rights Watch released a report Wednesday, July 17, 2024, saying Hamas-led armed groups committed numerous war crimes during the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel that precipitated the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip. (AP Photo, File)

Global rights group finds Hamas-led militants committed war crimes on Oct. 7

FILE - A shell that appears to be white phosphorus from Israeli artillery explodes over a house in al-Bustan, a Lebanese village along the border with Israel, on Oct. 15, 2023. A global human rights group claimed in a report published Wednesday, June 5, 204, that Israel has used white phosphorus incendiary shells on residential buildings in at least five towns and villages in conflict-hit southern Lebanon, possibly harming civilians and violating international law. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)

Rights group accuses Israel of hitting residential buildings with white phosphorous in Lebanon

FILE - Yaks graze around tents set up for herders to live in the during the summer grazing season on grasslands near Lhasa in western China's Tibet Autonomous Region, as seen during a rare government-led tour of the region for foreign journalists, Wednesday, June 2, 2021. An extensive report by Human Rights Watch says China is accelerating the forced urbanization of Tibetan villagers and herders, adding to state government and independent reports of efforts to assimilate them through control over their language and traditional Buddhist culture. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)

China is accelerating the forced urbanization of rural Tibetans, rights group says

FILE - Thai rescuers cover a body on the shore of the Mekong River in Nakhon Phanom province northeast of Bangkok, Thailand, Thursday Dec. 27, 2018. DNA tests show that two bodies found washed up on the shore of Thailand's Mekong River are the corpses of anti-government activists, police said Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2019, in what are feared to be political killings. A leading international human rights organization on Thursday, May 16, 2024, criticized the Thai government for helping its authoritarian neighbors by expelling political dissidents who fled to Thailand for safety and forcing them to return to their home countries. (AP Photo, File)

Rights group urges Thailand to stop forcing dissidents to return to countries they fled for safety

This is a locator map for Sudan with its capital, Khartoum. (AP Photo)

Sudanese paramilitary forces have carried out ethnic cleansing in Darfur, rights group says

An extremist group and ethnic militias committed atrocities in Mali, Human Rights Watch says

FILE - A soldier applauds the presidential inauguration of Junta leader Lt. Col. Paul Henri Sandaogo Damiba during his swearing-in ceremony broadcast on national television on Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso suspended the BBC and Voice of America radio stations for their coverage of a report by Human Rights Watch on the mass killing of civilians carried out by the country's armed forces. According to the report published by Human Rights Watch on Thursday, April 25, 2024, the army killed some 223 civilians, including 56 children, in villages accused of cooperating with militants. (AP Photo/Sophie Garcia, File)

Burkina Faso suspends BBC and Voice of America after they covered a report on mass killings

FILE - A mural is seen, March 1, 2023, in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Military forces in Burkina Faso killed 223 civilians, including babies and many children, in attacks on two villages accused of cooperating with militants, Human Rights Watch said in a report published Thursday, April 24, 2024. (AP Photo, File)

Burkina Faso’s army massacred over 200 civilians in a village raid, Human Rights Watch says

This is a locator map for Syria with its capital, Damascus. (AP Photo)

Turkey bears responsibility for possible war crimes in Syria, Human Rights Watch says

FILE - Taliban fighters patrol in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 19, 2021. Human Rights Watch said Monday, Feb. 12, 2024 that Afghanistan’s public health system has been hit hard following a sharp reduction in foreign assistance, coupled with serious Taliban abuses against women and girls, jeopardizing the right to healthcare of millions of Afghans. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File)

Foreign aid drops sharply as Taliban abuses jeopardize the Afghan health system, group says

FILE - A mural is seen in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, on March 1, 2023. A new report by Human Rights Watch says Burkina Faso’s security forces killed at least 60 civilians in three different drone strikes which the West African nation’s military government claimed were targeting extremists. (AP Photo, File)

At least 60 civilians were killed in Burkina Faso last year in military drone strikes, watchdog says

Palestinians mourn their relatives, including kids killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, outside a morgue in Rafah, southern Gaza, Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)

People’s rights are threatened everywhere, from wars to silence about abuses, rights group says

FILE - Saga Saganla, 30, from Diawely, lies on his bed at Somine Dolo hospital in Mopti, Mali, Friday June 24, 2022. Saganla survived an attack by nearly 100 jihadis on motorbikes. Top human rights groups have released new reports in which they documented cases of “war crimes” against civilians in the violent conflict in Africa’s Sahel region where rebels are increasingly fighting in communities under siege. The reports focusing on Burkina Faso and Mali were separately released this week by the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. (AP Photo/ Hamidou Saye, File)

Rights groups report widespread war crimes across Africa’s Sahel region with communities under siege

This is a locator map for Yemen with its capital, Sanaa. (AP Photo)

Rights group says Saudi Arabian border guards fired on and killed hundreds of Ethiopian migrants

FILE - Women chant slogans protesting violence against women and demanding the release of all detainees before the U.N. rights office in Khartoum, Sudan, Feb. 2, 2022. Sudan's powerful paramilitary has been singled out by a leading rights group and 30 United Nations experts with accusations of rape and sexual violence against women in separate statements, as the country enters its fourth month of conflict. The New York-based Human Rights Watch said Thursday, AUg. 17, 2023, the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary apparently targeted women and girls in the western Darfur region of non-Arab ethnicity as well as activists recording human rights abuses during its fighting with the country's armed forces. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali, File)

Rights group and UN experts single out Sudanese paramilitary with accusations of sexual violence

Rights group denounces Tanzanian government for detaining critics and urges freedom of expression

This is a locator map for Sudan with its capital, Khartoum. (AP Photo)

US and UN should impose more sanctions on Sudanese leaders for alleged atrocities, rights group says

FILE - This undated photograph provided by the French military shows three Russian mercenaries, in northern Mali. On July 27-28, 2023 Russian President Vladimir Putin is hosting delegations from almost all of Africa's 54 countries at the second Russia-Africa Summit. (French Army via AP, File)

Mali’s army and suspected Russia-linked mercenaries committed ‘new atrocities,’ rights group says

Activists condemn violence against LGBTQ community in St. Vincent, where gay sex is illegal

FILE - Khin Maung Zaw, center, a lawyer assigned by the National League for Democracy party to represent deposed Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, speaks to journalists outside the Zabuthiri Township Court in Naypyitaw, on March 1, 2021. A leading human rights organizations has charged that lawyers representing opponents and critics of Myanmar’s military government face harassment and attacks, ranging from threats and arrests to unfair trials and even torture. Human Rights Watch says such actions reflected a broader attack on the country’s justice system. (AP Photo)

Rights group says Myanmar’s military rulers have cracked down on lawyers, abused legal system

FILE - This photo provided by the Kyunhla Activists Group shows aftermath of an airstrike in Pazigyi village in Sagaing Region's Kanbalu Township, Myanmar, Tuesday, April 11, 2023. Human Rights Watch has on Tuesday, May 9 accused Myanmar’s military of using an “enhanced-blast” munition known as a fuel-air explosive in an airstrike that killed more than 160 people, including many children, at a ceremony held last month by opponents of army rule. It accused the military of dropping the weapon, also known as a thermobaric or vacuum bomb, on a crowd at the opening of a local office of the country’s resistance movement in central Sagaing Region on the morning of April 11. (Kyunhla Activists Group via AP, file)

Rights group accuses Myanmar of using fuel-air explosive

FILE - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas speaks during a conference to support Jerusalem at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, on Feb. 12, 2023. The Palestinian Authority has blocked the registration of a legal advocacy group representing critics and opponents detained in Palestinian prisons, the group said Friday, April 14, 2023, a move condemned as the authority's latest effort to stifle civil society in the occupied West Bank. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)

Palestinian Authority blocks registration of legal aid group

FILE - Mamdouh al-Amari refuels privately-owned diesel generators that provide power to homes and businesses, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, July 16, 2018. Since the collapse of Lebanon's state electricity system, the country's poorest families spend nearly 90 percent of their income on private generators yet still go without power for nearly half the day, a rights group said Thursday, March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein, File)

Rights group says Lebanon electricity crisis deepens poverty

Activists call on Trinidad to repatriate citizens in Syria

FILE - A person looks at the Grindr app on her mobile phone in Beirut, Lebanon, May 29, 2019. Security agencies and government officials across several countries in the Middle East and North Africa have been using social media platforms and mobile dating apps to track and crack down on LGBTQ people, international rights group Human Rights Watch said Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File)

Rights group: Mideast governments target LGBTQ people online

FILE - Protesters hold banners outside the World Court in The Hague, Netherlands, on Sept. 3, 2018, where judges listen to arguments in a case on whether Britain illegally maintains sovereignty over the Chagos Islands. Britain and the United States committed crimes against humanity when they forced the people of the Chagos Islands to leave their homes five decades ago to make way for a U.S. Navy base, a human rights group said Wednesday Feb. 15, 2023 as it called on the two governments to allow the Chagossians to return. (AP Photo/Mike Corder, File)

Human Rights Watch condemns UK, US actions on Chagos Islands

Calls for independent probe into Rwandan journalist’s death

FILE - Men who were detained under a state of emergency arrive at a detention center, transported there by National Police in a cargo truck, in Soyapango, El Salvador, Oct. 7, 2022. The international organization Human Rights Watch says it has official data on violations of due process, extreme overcrowding in prisons and deaths of people in the custody of the authorities during the country's state of emergency. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo, File)

Rights group: leaked El Salvador data confirm abuses

FILE - Human Rights Watch's executive director Kenneth Roth speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Beirut, Lebanon, on Jan. 29, 2015. Harvard University announced Thursday, Jan. 19, 2022, it plans to offer a fellowship to Roth, a leading human rights activist after its initial denial sparked widespread criticism. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein, File)

Harvard changes course, offers fellowship to rights activist