• Uganda: War Crimes Trials Face Challenges
    Jan 15, 2012
    Press release

    Legal and organizational issues that have emerged during Uganda’s first war crimes prosecution pose challenges for Uganda in seeking to ensure justice for victims of the most serious crimes. Uganda’s early experience may provide relevant information to other countries seeking to hold domestic trials for serious crimes committed in violation of international law – genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

     

  • Regional Anti-terror Campaigns Gone Awry?
    Sep 26, 2011
    Commentary
    Before he was arrested last year in Uganda on terrorism charges, Al Amin Kimathi was hailed as an outspoken activist who challenged East African governments to conduct lawful counterterrorism operations.
  • Uganda: End Trials of Civilians in Military Courts
    Jul 27, 2011
    Press release

    The Ugandan government should stop prosecuting civilians in unfair military courts, effective immediately, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Military and civilian prosecutors should work together to resolve pending cases through release or appropriate retrial in civilian courts, and police should stop sending civilians to military custody.

  • Update on the trial of Thomas Kwoyelo, former LRA combatant
    Jul 12, 2011
    Press release

    Human Rights Watch attended the opening of the trial of Thomas Kwoyelo, a former combatant of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), in Gulu, northern Uganda, on July 11, 2011, before the International Crimes Division (ICD) of the Ugandan High Court.

  • Uganda: Q&A on the trial of Thomas Kwoyelo
    Jul 7, 2011
    Q & A
    Thomas Kwoyelo is a former combatant in the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), who is from Pabbo in the Amuru district of northern Uganda. The LRA is a Ugandan armed group that has engaged in a two-decade-long conflict with Ugandan government forces, mostly in northern Uganda beginning in the late 1980s.
  • US/Central Africa: Protect Civilians From LRA Abuses
    May 23, 2011
    Press release
    The United States government should step up efforts to protect civilians in central Africa from abuses by the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a coalition of 39 human rights and humanitarian organizations said today. The organizations urged the Obama administration to appoint a special envoy for the African Great Lakes region with a mandate extending to LRA-affected areas, to support stronger United Nations peacekeeping and to intensify efforts to arrest three LRA leaders being sought by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
  • Letter to African Union Commission Chairperson Jean Ping on the 16th AU Summit
    Jan 24, 2011
    Letter
  • A Plan B for President Obama: Get Tough on Human Rights
    Oct 12, 2010
    Commentary
    President Obama needs to put this principle into practice, and there is no better case for the humanitarian use of force than the urgent need to arrest Joseph Kony, the ruthless leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), and protect the civilians who are his prey.
  • CAR/DR Congo: LRA Conducts Massive Abduction Campaign
    Aug 11, 2010
    Press release
    The Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has abducted more than 697 adults and children in a largely unreported campaign in the Central African Republic and the neighboring Bas Uele district of northern Democratic Republic of Congo over the past 18 months.
  • ICC: Challenging Dictators
    Jul 27, 2010
    Commentary
    The success of the ICC's June conference itself should not be assessed solely on the negotiations on whether to add the crime of aggression to the court's docket. If the promise of Kampala to put a priority back on bringing to justice those responsible for the world’s worst crimes is realized, it will be a legacy well worth having.