A Heavy Price: Lead Poisoning and Gold Mining in Zamfara State
Uprising: The Arab Spring
Acting Up: Russia's Civil Society
Uzbekistan: Detainees Tortured, Lawyers Silenced

Recent Features

  • A Heavy Price: Lead Poisoning and Gold Mining in Nigeria's Zamfara State
    January 31, 2012
    Thousands of children in northern Nigeria need immediate medical treatment and dozens of villages remain contaminated two years into the worst lead poisoning epidemic in modern history, Human Rights Watch said today while releasing a video on the issue. Four hundred children have died, according to official estimates, yet environmental cleanup efforts have not even begun in numerous affected villages.
  • UPRISING: THE ARAB SPRING
    January 19, 2012
    On December 17, 2010, a 26-year-old Tunisian man set himself on fire after abusive police confiscated his unlicensed vegetable cart, his only source of income. This desperate act of protest inspired a movement that swept the country and ignited calls for reform throughout the region. Thousands of Tunisians took to the streets to denounce their tyrannical government and, within weeks, successfully ousted President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali from power. On January 25, 2011, Egyptians came together by the thousands to launch a massive pro-democratic movement that would, in 18 days, end President Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year reign. Emboldened antigovernment protests quickly erupted in Jordan, Yemen, Algeria, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Oman and Libya as well.
  • Syria - "Shoot to Kill" Orders
    December 15, 2011
    Researcher Anna Neistat and an army defector talk about the Syrian military's attacks on civilians, which HRW believes constitute crimes against humanity.
  • Acting up: Russia's Civil Society
    December 15, 2011
  • No One Left to Witness: Torture and Silencing of Human Rights Defenders in Uzbekistan
    December 8, 2011
  • Egypt: Protests, Violence in Tahrir
    November 22, 2011

    Hear Human Rights Watch's Heba Morayef report from Tahrir Square, where violence has erupted as protesters oppose Egypt's military rule.

  • Homs, Syria - Update
    November 10, 2011
    Human Rights Watch's Nadim Houry says Homs, Syria, has emerged as a center of opposition to the government of President Bashar al-Assad. A new report from Human Rights Watch focuses on violations by Syrian security forces, including the deaths of at least 587 civilians, the highest number of casualties for any single governorate in Syria.
  • WAITING FOR JUSTICE
    October 24, 2011
    Approximately 300 Kenyans were forcibly disappeared in Kenya’s Mt. Elgon region between 2006 and 2008 after being either arrested by Kenyan security forces or abducted by the militia group SLDF. Three years after a military operation that aimed to flush out the militia – an operation that was accompanied by serious human rights abuses, including summary executions, enforced disappearances, and torture – the government has taken no action to shed light on the plight of the disappeared or to provide their families with access to justice.
  • Rights Groups Urge Rejection of Indefinite Detention Legislation
    October 21, 2011
    The US Congress should reject provisions in a defense spending bill that would permit long-term indefinite detention without trial of terrorism suspects. Human Rights Watch, along with the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First, released this video today showing that such legislation would repeat broadly recognized mistakes of the past.
  • Laos: Inside a Drug Detention Center
    October 10, 2011
    The Somsanga Treatment and Rehabilitation Center in Laos has received a decade of international support from the United States, the United Nations, and other donors. But inside the center, detainees are held without due process, and many are locked in cells inside barbed wire compounds. Joseph Amon, director of health and human rights at Human Rights Watch, reports.