Many governments’ policies toward migrants worldwide expose them to human rights abuses including labor exploitation, inadequate access to health care, and prolonged detention in poor, overcrowded conditions.

Normalization of U.S. relations with Cuba was widely seen as exactly the kind of high-value, low-hanging fruit that would be ideal for a president elected under the banner of "change." But a scathing new Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, "New Castro, Same Cuba," will make lifting sanctions against the Castro regime-on travel, remittances, trade-more difficult for President Obama.

Raúl Castro's government has locked up scores of people for exercising their fundamental freedoms and allowed scores more political prisoners arrested during Fidel Castro's rule to languish in detention. Rather than dismantle Cuba's repressive machinery, Raúl Castro has kept it firmly in place and fully active.

On November 6, Cuba’s most prominent blogger, Yoani Sánchez, together with blogger Orlando Luís Pardo Lazo, were abducted by three men. Sánchez and Pardo were forced into an unmarked vehicle, beaten, and threatened by their captors before being released onto the street.

In a crucial vote this week, the Organization of American States could decide whether to lift Cuba's almost 50-year suspension from the key regional body. Such a move would be bad for civil society in Cuba and bad for the OAS.

The Organization of American States should not lift the suspension of Cuba as a participating full member until it ends its systematic denial of fundamental freedoms for Cubans.

Serious human rights violations in Azerbaijan, China, Cuba, Russia, and Saudi Arabia undermine their candidacies for the May 12, 2009 election to the United Nations Human Rights Council, a global coalition of international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) said in a letter released today.