As you deliberate upon the health care reform bill, we write to urge you to reject provisions that would effectively obstruct access to insurance coverage for abortion and interfere with the ability of women in the United States to make decisions about their own health care.

We write to urge your new government to take a more active and leadership role on human rights issues concerning the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) than previous governments.

We write to urge you to take a more proactive role in addressing human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the situation of North Korean refugees.

Boris Dittrich writes on behalf of Human Rights Watch to the President of the Republic of Serbia to express concern that the persistent homophobia in Serbian society has given rise to incidents of violence, and prevents lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Serbians from exercising to the full enjoyment their human rights.

We, the undersigned independent human rights and civil society organizations from diverse regions and societies around the world, respectfully urge your support for a United Nations General Assembly Resolution condemning the serious human rights violations in the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and advising the IRI of steps it should take to respect the rights of the Iranian people in accordance with international law.

We write to you on the occasion of your first official visit to the People's Republic of China. We urge that you make the protection and promotion of human rights in China a central purpose of your visit.

Human Rights Watch was recently criticized by Robert Bernstein, its founding Board Chair, for its reporting on “open” democratic countries, as well as “closed” countries ruled by repressive regimes. As organizations that work alongside Human Rights Watch to combat human rights abuse worldwide, we believe that human rights should be applied universally, and that impartial, credible work on human rights violations cannot be politically circumscribed as Bernstein suggests.